San Angelo City Council 10-20-15

[0:00:00] started. Erin Milan, come forward, my friend, and lead us in a prayer. Stand as you are able, please come up here, buddy, and use your microphone. Good morning, sir. May we bow our heads. Our heavenly father, thank you so much for this many blessings, Lord Jesus. Thank you so much for allowing us to be here together, Lord, gathered, Lord. Um asking that you please give us wisdom, Lord, and give us um uh an opportunity and giving us an opportunity to do some good work for you, Lord. We bring to you, Lord, this uh a simple counsel, Lord, and ask you please uh be with them, Lord. Give them uh wisdom, Lord, that they uh um bring to the table. What they bring to the table will be u helpful to the needs of the community. We ask that you please bless them as um they uh gather here, Lord, and that we can all um be able to uh participate. We ask all this, Lord, in your son's precious name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Eric. Miss Aubrey Chavez, would you please come forward? Aubrey is the daughter of the HR generalist, uh Christina Chavez in our HR department. Did you talk Sister into helping you? You want me to see if I could get her up here, sister? or a sister. Sister's not moving. It's just me and you, Aubrey. Come on, let's get it. Let's come around here now. The American flag. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. flag. Honor the Texas flag. I aliance to thee, Texas. One state under God. One and indivisible. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you.

[0:02:07] [Laughter] She's dead. She did an excellent job. She didn't speak real loud, but she said every word of both pledges. Thank you, Aubrey. Oh, boy. Oh, okay. I heard something. Oh, excuse me. And we have no proclamations and no recognation. recognitions today. That's kind of unusual. I guess we have none one time and then 10 the next. Yeah, it's the way it works. It is now time that we move to the public comment section of our agenda. And this is where we invite anyone from the public to come forward. If it's not on the if it's on the agenda, you have to wait. But if it's not on the agenda, this is a time when we accept public comment. Let me read the legalities here so we can open it up. Issues or items that are not on the agenda may be raised by the public at this time. Citizens should speak from the podium began by stating their name and limit remarks to less than five minutes. Council members may request that a discussed item be placed on a future agenda. The council takes public comment on all regular agenda items during the discussion of those items. So, form a line at the front and anyone that wishes to approach and address the council, this is your opportunity. Good morning, ma'am. Morning. I guess I'll kick things off. Go ahead. All right. My name is Ladine Harton, and I have three topics, some that have been addressed by previous council meetings. The first is the siren test uh testing. I cannot hear this siren in my neighborhood. In past months, I've been at school or had the TV on, but this month, I was ready. I had the TV off, the AC off. There was no noise in my house. I waited in time for the time and

[0:04:13] the test came and I still could not hear anything. So, I went to my backyard and barely heard the siren. So, if the siren is supposed to be uh a warning me of a tornado or bad weather, I'm going to have to guess and then stick my head out the door to see if we if I can hear the siren. I'm just wondering if others have the same problem. My second is about the trash problem. I called twice about this and the next one I want to speak about to get a copy of the ordinance on this and I'm still waiting for it. Uh there's a lot of confusion with this ordinance about putting away the cans. uh because one person I talked to from one of the city offices uh said that the ordinance was in effect and so they sent me to the code officers and then the code officer said it was not in effect. So anyway, one hand's not knowing what the other hand is doing. Uh, I hope that the cans are supposed to be moved in the alleyways because it makes it hard to go through and those of us who have to have driveways in the back. Also, if our day for trash pickup, it's a coin toss on my recycling. if my recycling will be picked up. The trash has been fine, but the recycling and yes, I have called uh Republic and have talked to Fernando and others on several occasions and it's still a problem. Okay, I'm saving the best for last and my most passionate one, the new pet ordinance. I have always had my pets spayed or neutered as soon as they were old enough, unless they they were breeding, unless I was breeding them. So, I have no problem with this part except I resent the fact that I'm being told that I have to do so. As for the microchipping, this part makes me angry. Why am I angry? My anger hinges on two things. the fact that we are being

[0:06:17] forced to do this and the cost of this ridiculous procedure. The majority of animals that this is supposed to take care of are animals without an owner or they have an owner who just doesn't care. And though and the laws or ordinances are not going to help that. If you take away their pet, so what? They don't care anyway. The cost. A couple of years ago, I considered chipping my pets, but it was too expensive. As for the free chipping events, like this past weekend, I believe went on, I'm not having my pet chipped by someone I don't know, and who doesn't know my pets. I have heard that the pets don't even feel it. That isn't concern of mine. And another concern is having something go wrong during that procedure. After all, it is a foreign object being forced into my pet, and I don't want to take the chance with someone I don't know. Since a symbolic gun is being held to my head to force me to inject my pets with an unnecessary procedure or possibly pay face a fine, then I don't have much of a choice. this those of us on fixed incomes cannot afford to waste our money in this way. What we don't what you don't seem to understand is those of us who are responsible pet owners take care of our pets and so it should be left up to us. Some of us don't let them run around. I feel we are being railroaded and this is part of the ordinance that is ridiculous to me. This will not solve the problem and it won't even scratch the surface. It's a slippery slope today our pets and it won't be long before it's us that is chipped. Thank you. Thank you, Mordon. Uh speaking to the trash ordinance, it

[0:08:19] is in effect. The ordinance has been ra is it has had two readings. It has been voted on twice. It is in effect. However, we're trying to be the con ordinance. People don't know that. Yeah, they do know it. We're trying to we're trying to be judicious on this and not start forcing something but to give people an opportunity do an educational period but it is in effect. Thank you. Thank you ma'am. Next also uh there is also some some work being done on the pickup. Uh we have Republic. We have contacted Republic. Okay. There is Shane is Shane's back there. He is he is right in the middle of this. So it's it's not something we're ignoring. We realize that there are some problems in some parts of town. We are addressing those. Thank you, Mr. C. Well, good morning. Identify yourself and you got five minutes, my friend. My name is Jerry C and uh I go to St. Paul Baptist Church and uh I'm a member of WTOS, but I haven't been participating lately because of problems. But I came here today, oh, excuse me, mayor, city manager, ladies and gentlemen, the council, and staff. Uh I came today because I'm kind of proud of our mayor. I uh remember in fact both campaign promises and uh this one campaign promise that you made about completing the jobs that had been started that hadn't been taken into completion and uh you said that you were going to do that and you did do that but and uh by doing that you have helped our community greatly. uh our concern and my concern and uh our our group is concerned about the the the citizens on 19th Street. You know, uh the elderly and the young. The sidewalk

[0:10:25] is put in. It's beautiful. It's been it's some beautiful workmanship. And uh I appreciate all of you for doing that. And thank you, mayor. Y'all have a great day. We're kind of proud of our sidewalks, aren't we, Jerry? Yes, sir. And I'll tell you, you uh you provided the spark to get that done, and I I applaud you for that. Thank you for what you did for for our city, for your community, and it's it does look nice. Thank you, Jerry. Next. Thank you. Good morning, Miss Morgan. Good morning, mayor and council members. Morgan Chegwin, your budget manager. I just wanted to uh formally invite uh you all and uh the listeners at home uh to our City Fit 5K and one mile race. Uh we are having terrific response in that and we just want to encourage folks to continue to get involved. Of course, both races start this Thursday, the 22nd at 6:00 p.m. The cost is $20 uh for either race and uh we are going to uh have a have a rainy day plan, but uh we're never going to complain about the rain and we're hoping to still forge ahead and have a terrific event. Uh we're just really proud of the city fit volunteers uh to for this continued investment in our community's wellness overall and the beautifification of our park system. This of course is the inaugural event for the Red Royal Trail and that's what your $20 is benefiting. So we're just really proud of it and looking forward to a good turnout. Thank you. Thank you Margie. Thanks. Where are they meeting at Morgan? Where does it start? Thank you. It's at Unidad Park. So it'll start at Unidad Park at Vista Del Royo in College Hills. Thank you. And we're proud of our red royal trails as well. Next. Good morning, Turner. Good morning. My name is Jim Turner. I've got two issues to bring before council today. One of the people I've worked with and worked for on their systems off and on for years brought an issue to me that they're having in their neighborhood with a lot of single family homes being uh used for basically many

[0:12:33] dorms for college students. And that in itself is not the problem. The problem is in his neighborhood, there's a lot of activities there that are disruptive to the neighborhood. And it might be well if we looked at what tools are on the books right now to handle that better than it is today because it's hurting uh the neighborhood according to him. It's happening every weekend. and it's happening late at night and the officers in code enforcement he's talked to seem to feel that their hands are tied and I think that a an effort by this council and staff to address that problem needs to be done. It can be a problem. I don't think we need a new ordinance to address it. I just think we need some clarity on what we actually already have on the books and how to use that effectively to make sure that the college students are living in a residential area in a way acceptable for a residential area. Second issue is I'm very pleased that the city has got funds for training. I think one of the issues that they really need to look at training is a lot of these departments are not very well up on open meetings, open government and public information. We had a joint meeting scheduled today between the ZBA and city council that had to be cancelled because of lack of understanding of the open meetings act meant that the agenda for the ZBA didn't get posted correctly. Therefore, you couldn't have the meeting. This is not a one-time problem. I've seen this happen a lot lately within planning and other departments. That needs to be addressed at a very high level. That's supposed to happen. That training is supposed to happen

[0:14:34] within 90 days of somebody coming on board as either an elected or appointed official. And there's supposed to be a record of it. Everybody that's in a senior position should be at least familiar with the basics of open meetings. What a quorum is, when you have to put an agenda up, how you have to do it, things like that. It's not happening. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Next. Good morning. Well, good morning. Um, I just wanted to address a couple of issues again. This I didn't fight. I'm sorry. I'm Ted Logan. U anyway, this cat issue or our pet issue with the uh microchipping. Uh, basically, I live at the lake. I've got four or five outside cats only. Uh, and these cats are pretty wild. Now I can I trap them in a in a trap. Uh bring them into the vet, have them spaited or neutered and take care of them and and they'll get close to me uh when I'm feeding them basically. But that's it. Well, it's going to be tough to microchip them because I've got to catch them again. And also, how how's anybody going to catch them? What are they going to do? Come out and shoot them? uh how are you going to identify these animals and and verify that they're they're not just a fereral cat or they're actually owned by somebody and they've been taken care of now they their ears are notched uh which is done by most of the vets in some form or fashion but you know I just I don't know what we're going to do and then we've got feral colonies all over town well how is this addressing that where we've got behind me Horatada we've got probably a hundred cats over there and there's ladies feeding them on a

[0:16:37] weekly basis. Well, why why are we going to allow that which is probably the biggest breeding ground or these feral colonies? How are we taking care of that? We're going to have to go in and trap them and, you know, thin them out. Uh but microchipping them, uh that's an impossibility on on that kind of situation. And I just don't see how this ordinance is actually going to change the population of the feral cats in St. Angelo. I mean, what what are we addressing to take care of the feral cat colonies? Anything to speak of? Mayor, we have an ordinance which governs uh cat colonies, right? and we're working on a procedure to uh assist uh colony managers in uh complying with that ordinance. Okay. Well, that helps. Um also on another issue, uh we've had a lot of problems at the lake with vacation rentals, weekly rentals, weekend rentals. All these properties are zoned RS1. Well, that's not allowed under an RS1. It's a minimum of 30-day rental. Uh, and this is not being enforced at all. Now, I know that it was brought up that these would be changed to bed and breakfast. Well, that's not going to solve the issue either because basically what they're doing is renting these houses out, which are two and threebedroom houses, uh, to 12 to 15 people. Kind of like what Jim was saying about these, uh, college parties. And it's a three-day party out there. 12 to 15 people. They're parking in the streets. uh and partying 24/7 for 2 or 3 days at 500 a night. And uh we don't, you know, that's that's very disturbing to the neighborhoods at the lake. And uh you know, when an occasional party happens out there and it's a neighbor, you know, we can understand that. But this is this went on nearly all summer at several

[0:18:39] locations, six or seven locations uh around the lake. And we definitely don't want this to grow to 50 or 60 uh because I think it would be a huge problem. Thank you, Dad. All right. I have a question. Yes, ma'am. Who's rule is it that's 30-day occupancy? This isn't a discussion item though. No, you can't. We can't talk about it. Curious. We'll talk about that. Next. Former line at the front. This is your opportunity to address us. Pro or con, we're ready. All right. If there be no more further comment, uh public comment, I will close this section of our of our discussion and I will go to the council. Uh if there is anything on this agenda that anyone on the council would like to pull from consent and put in the regular agenda, this is your opportunity. If there are any comments or any remarks that need to be made, this is your opportunity. Start with you, Miss Grind Staff. I don't have anything, mayor, to pull from the consent agenda, but I just want to thank again everyone that attended my neighborhood chat last night. We had about 35 attendees at Archer Flooring. Uh Babby and Tim Archer hosted us and uh officers Zack Upton and Rick Tinsley did a presentation on crime in the community and kind of what's going on in District 5. Uh Daniel Valenuela was there as well. It was a a a very good exchange. As I said, without talking trash, water, and streets, we had a we had a pretty amicable discussion. And uh anyway, it was well attended, and I appreciate everybody coming. And um we're going to try to have another one prior to the charter election, which was requested, but time is running out, so we'll see. We'll see what we can do. But again, uh thanks to the Archers for hosting that nice event. Liz, I did plenty of talking about trash, water, and streets last night, so I don't know. Yeah, it's funny when you walk in and you see someone's talking to you and they look over your shoulder and they realize that the city manager's there and all of a sudden, you know, I'm I'm chopped liver and they're heading

[0:20:41] for him. But that's that's what happens when he shows up. He becomes the most popular guy in the room. So anyway, thank thank you, Miss Lucy. I don't have anything. I just want to remind everyone to go vote. Early voting started yesterday. You did? I've already voted. Miss Farmer. Marty, are you sitting down? Yeah, he is. I have nothing to pull from the consent. I'll accept a motion to adjourn. But I do I do There are miracles. You watch the video, right? Um I do have one comment. I did attend the annual board meeting for the porch to plains group in Willist as was announced this reason. I wasn't here last meeting. And I have to thank uh our contingency of of folks that went, you know, Phil Neighbors, Daniel Valenuela, Bob uh Sneeman, who did I leave out? Roland Roland Pena, I'm sorry. It was a great group. Uh it was absolutely fabulous meeting. Uh we got to visit with folks about um the problems they are having in their various cities and all of the different states. I traveled nine states while I was gone and witnessed a lot of things with the roads and rails and transportation to the rails to get product that you and I eat or wear on a daily basis to get it to the factories so that it can be produced. It was a very informative meeting. It's the largest attendant and the largest fundraiser that Portaines has ever had. there was sponsorship of just over $160,000 for this meeting and they had uh 300 and some odd enrolled to attend. So very informative, got some good information. I was very tickled that our city manager was there and we have a lot of projects will be held in St. Angelo next year and uh Phil's assuring me that we're going to have a fishing trip for all those attendees and I mentioned it

[0:22:44] by the way we we announced and and had a good time and doing that and it was well represented by St. Angel and I forgot to wear my button. Phil got you see me wearing it around town. Hashtag me in St. Angelo, Texas. Huge. And I even wore it while I was in Seattle and went to the state fair and people asked me where's St. Angelo, Texas. Now hashtag me in St. Angelo and you'll you'll find it. It was a great meeting. I wished all of us could have been there. Everyone said hello mayor. They did. They did. Good. That's it. Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Johnny, I don't have anything. Mr. Marty, I don't have anything. Mr. Rodney, nothing at this time. Man, I can't believe we're going to get through the consent agenda without pulling anything. I don't think that's ever happened before. Actually, Dwayne, can we going back to the regular agenda? Can we move item H to to right behind item number eight? Okay, now you're talking on the regular agenda. on the regular agenda. You want to move item H to number two spot? Yes. Would you like a vote on the consent agenda? Yeah, let's go ahead and vote on the consent and then we'll take that out. Motion to approve. Second. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve, Elizabeth? I have a second from Marty. Do I have any comment from the council? Do I have public comment? Then we're going to vote on the consent agenda. Consent agenda to accept as presented. All in favor, please say I. I. Oppose. A and now on the regular agenda, we have our number one thing which is the ordinance at Rattlesnake Island. There's a lot of people here that's that is here for that. We will take that one first. Number eight is a discussion of the handheld mobile. That's the texting ordinance that is being considered. There's also people here that would like to speak to that. And I think most of the other items on this are probably more city oriented with not so much personal orientation. So, I have no problem with moving number

[0:24:47] H to the number two spot for discussion. Elizabeth, do you have a problem? No, sir. Lucy? No, sir. Charlotte? No, sir. Johnny, no. Marty, no. I have no problem either. So, we'll move number H into the number two hole right behind the discussion on Rattlesnake Island, which is number A. That's first. First public hearing and consideration for case SU15-02, an ordinance approving a request from Carl Word to authorize a special use to allow for accessory structures on approximately 1.53 acres out of 155.78 acres located at 2602 Red Bluff Road on property more commonly referred to as Lassiesta Isle or Rattlesnake Island, which is actually a peninsula. You are on, Miss Rebecca. Good morning, Mr. Mayor, city council Rebecca Gara, planning manager. First item before you is in fact SU502 in the name of car ward. It is 1.53 acres out of an overall 155.78 acres that is owned by the city. So again, we're only talking about a very specific portion of this overall acreage, which is one approximately 1.53 acres. As you can see in the depiction before you and in your staff reports, it is known as Rattlesnake Island. It is a peninsula but it's also known on the lease as Lassiesta Isle. It is in single member district number one and it is located in the Nazworthy neighborhood and is as it is adjacent to Lake Nazworthy. The future lane use of uh designation of this site is open space. The site however is surrounded by um properties with the future lane use designation of neighborhood which correlates to generally single family residential. The zoning for this site is RS1. So let me take a moment to explain to you why the RS1 zoning was assigned. There is no particular park designation in the city yet. So properties in fact every single almost every single park that we have in the city is is designated RS1 zoning district which is residential zoning district. In this case um the properties as you can see before you almost entirely are zoned RS1 single family residential district. So,

[0:26:52] in fact, this site, which we lease out, as is the overall 153 acres, which this is part of, 155 acres, is zoned RS1 zoning district. Staff's recommendation is denial of a special use to allow for residential accessory structures without a principal structure. And that's in fact what the applicant is asking for on this peninsula, Rattlesnake Island, which is being leased from the city. they wish to put on some residential structures um maybe a carport, a shed um accessory structures without having an actual house or uh dwelling unit um correlated or related to um these accessory structures. So that's the request that's before you today. So what was staff's rationale? This is based entirely from the zoning ordinance and these are the criteria that have to be met for any special use that's being requested before this city council. Um it's located on a peninsula um or or an island. Um so no buffering is being proposed by the applicant. The applicant is proposing to do any fencing um around these structures as they go up. And there will be no principal structure to buffer these. So the only thing that you will see um from the lake um or if you're adjacent to the property is these residential structures without a house um accessorizing it or principal to it. Um the accessory structure um according to zoning ordinance any accessory structure shall be quote incidental and subordinate to a principal structure. In fact that's the whole point when you're an RS1 zoning district. Accessory structures should be accessory to a principal structure. They should not be the standalone use on any piece of property. Um, if this were permitted, staff believes it's a means to circumvent those very restrictions that were placed within the zoning ordinance for a reason. The area surrounded, as I said previously, by other RS1 zoning districts. No other sites, no other residential sites in the immediate area would allow for this to happen without a special use being granted. Um, and in fact, no other special uses have been

[0:28:55] granted for this site. to have that. We believe that more vehicular traffic could occur if the um special use were granted recreational vehicles come out. It could be used more extensively by the leases. Um and the road w which would be affected which is in fact red bluff road is built at 32 ft versus the 40 ft that is required in the major thorougher plan for any local road. And this is the case for many of the roads in the lake Nazwsworthy area. They were built um not according to the standards which were passed within the major threr plan for for a local road. Um the effects of putting these structures these permanent structures on the site. You could have more noise. You could have a lighting impact. Um and it's unlikely to have a review of any kind of drainage or storm water issues simply because of the small scale of the development. staff isn't likely to go out there and see what this additional um impacts may or may not have on the site or on adjacent properties. There doesn't appear to be a community need. Um there are nearby park facilities, boat vehicle stoages. Um and the applicant already enjoys some recreational uses on the site. You can go out to that. There's a boat dock. Um there are um there's a concrete pad. There's a picnic table. There's some barbecue benches. um temporary um temporary canopies or temporary shade um can be brought out there so that the applicants can enjoy it and can take it down when they're done. Um we believe that there are alternative means other than a permanent structure being erected onto the site um for the applicant to be able to enjoy the use of the property that he's leasing from the city. And finally, um the development planners patterns. The adjacent areas developed are developed as single family residential. If it's granted, this may open up the door for other properties which are vacant um to go ahead and have exclusive recreational uses of the site. No houses, no no one there to really look at what's being done on a 24-hour basis. These properties along the lake

[0:30:58] could be utilized solely as recreational or solely to store their RVs, their boats to have picnics on the weekends without actual residential use happening on the sites. Two, actually three notifications were done. Um, two formal notifications were done for the planning commission meeting and the subsequent city council meetings. The first 155 notifications were mailed out within an expanded radius well outside of 200 ft. We didn't feel that enough people were being notified because it's next to a water body. So, we expanded the range out. This original notification matched the legal description that we had for the overall 155 acres. Well, this caused some confusion and so staff took it upon ourselves to handel the very next day 74 notifications. So, I went out even further and handd delivered myself in my own personal vehicle um well outside of the 200 feet um a more detailed, more specific um explanation of the request which fully delineated the 1.53 acres that was being requested um as part of the special use. In addition to that, on a Saturday, we came in and we did 125 mailing um to the not to the residents within this neighborhood and in an expanded range to let them know about these very same meetings that are being held before you both today and what will happen in November so that the residents would be um fully aware that there was an ongoing process regarding this site and exactly what was being requested. Um, since those mailings, um, we've received one response in favor and 20 responses in opposition. All 20 of those, uh, responses have been included in your staff reports and are available online. On September the 21st, the planning commission recommended approval of this request subject to six conditions of approval that are in this PowerPoint and also in your staff reports. The action requested by staff, however, is to deny special use case SU1502 to allow for accessory structures as defined in section 402 of the zoning ordinance without a single family residence in the single family

[0:33:00] residential zoning district. Now, if city council wishes to approve this special use request, um we suggest considering the six conditions of approval recommended by the planning commission, which as I said are in your staff reports and which we presented to planning commission itself. I'm not going to read through each one of them, but I'm going to put them up briefly. And here's exhibit B, which I didn't finish. Yes, sir. And then this is exhibit B which is attached to those conditions which would limit development to a very particular a less than halfacre parcel um where any of these permanent structures should you wish to approve them would be located. So this concludes staff's presentation. We're available for any questions you may have. Thank you. Rodney, did you want to this is in your area? Do you want to take this? Did you want to have public comment first or did you want to get Well, a couple questions of of her first. Uh what was the vote in planning in uh the vote was actually 6 to1. Um the chair voted against it. Okay. Or if uh yes against it. So everyone voted for it. She voted against it. But you guys denied it. We recommended denial, sir. Yes, sir. But the vote was 5 to one or six to approve it. To approve it. Yes, sir. Okay. That was the first thing. Um when you said more traffic, I'm not understanding where you're getting more traffic from. So, we believe that by having permanent structures, that means there's going to be more use of the site because more people can enjoy it in a more permanent fashion. So, if you have to go out and put up a canopy, bring in your things constantly and take them out, you're likely to probably use it less. So, if you put in permanent structures, you bring in an RV, you store it there, you have a boat, you store it there, more people going to come out and enjoy it because there's more facilities to enjoy. So, we feel that that permanency would equate to more traffic. That's that's a lame excuse right there. First of all, driving down there to that. Have you driven it? Have you driven in a vehicle out to the Do you know how many vehicles can go at a time? Given the width of the

[0:35:05] road, probably two at a time in either direction. They can't pass each other. So, I mean, it's very very limited on how many vehicles you can actually even get out there to the to the island. And when we're talking about, you said a halfacre spot out there on the end of the island, it's truly not even a half acre because the setbacks from the the water cause it to be right in the middle. The only thing that can happen is basically right in the middle of the top of the island. Correct. Yes, sir. Yeah. So, it's not a half acre out there. It's a very very small area that he that they could possibly even do anything on out there. We're talking about one thing I a question I would like to ask and I'm not sure if you know the answer on this is the structures that were there and we made him take down two a year and a half ago I think. Uh how long were those structures there? I believe the applicant can answer that more fully. Can Can you answer that? How long were those structures there? It was a storage building I believe and it was a covering over a picnic table. Yes, sir. My name is Cory Word. My father's asked me to speak for him. Um, the blue awning, which I have pictures of and I included in the email that I sent to all of you, uh, was there for about a year, year, maybe two. The, uh, awning over the picnic table in the small the small storage building that we're not, uh, we're not all we're after is the awning over the picnic table and the and the blue awning that we have. Anyway, um, the awning over the picnic table and the storage building were there since maybe 2000. Yeah. 2001. I mean, we started leasing it in 2000. So, those were there for a long time. I knew I knew that they they were there for a long time and I some residents across the way from you told me that they were there for a long time. Everything it started about two three years three years ago now uh when the blue awning went up, right? Uh that's which leads us to where we are today. That's all I have questions I have from you. I'd like to actually hear your presentation then hear the opposition to this. Okay. Sure. Uh, okay. Let me get all of my stuff. I hope to be very brief. Realize you'll have more important things to take care

[0:37:08] of. As I said, my name is Corey Word. Uh, my father's asked me to speak for him. Cory, pick your microphone up just a little bit. You You more toler than that. Sorry about that. Like I said before, um, we've had ownership or lease the property since 2000. Um, and I'd like to point out at this time, no other violations um, have been cited on my father or our family u besides the building without a permit or having accessory structures without a residence. Um, there was in the staff report that we received from planning, uh, there was an open code compliance violation for a lighting issue. We have since contacted code compliance and found out there was no issue or there was no, uh, there was a complaint, but there was actually no violation. Uh, in so in the staff report, it states that. Anyway, um uh I just want to stress that anything that we do or that you guys allow us to do, if approved, would apply to the main body, which is the section that she's talking about, maybe the head of the rattlesnake, if you will. Um we uh we enjoy this place. Um we um all we really are looking for is just the shade over the picnic table and the uh and the awning to be placed back on our property. Um, you know, that's that's really basically all we're really looking for. As you can see, uh, different views from like Gun Club Road. Um, more views from Gun Club Road. Uh, we were instructed by municipal court uh, to take these down about a year ago. Uh, we have been compliant at this time for over a year. Um, and we had a meeting with u, planning and legal. Mr. Fleming was there as well. Um, and it was decided at that meeting that our best course of action was to apply for a special use permit. And that leads us to where we are today. Um, I would like to answer any questions that y'all might have at this time if there are any. So, the problem really arose when y'all put up the blue covering. The picnic covering had been there for 15 years or so. Well, at that time it had been there

[0:39:09] 13 or 14 years. Yeah. Pretty much. Yes, sir. Um, when you if if this were to go through and you were to put that back, are y'all going was there something in there about against doing the blue covering? There was never a color put on the one of the rep one of the rec recommendations, excuse me. Um, they didn't at the planning commission meeting. There was no there was no stipulation placed on that. So, at this time, no, I I don't think so that there is any stipulation to that. The other thing that I'll bring up is that uh multiple parks when I was driving out there this weekend, multiple parks have covering over picnic tables. We have that throughout the lake area out there. So, there's a lot of covering out there. So, when you talk about t putting up a temporary and taking down a temporary, first of all, we all know how windy it gets out there and and temporary structures do not do well out by the lake. So, that I can see why that would be a problem somewhat with you guys. Also, just the fact of having it covered permanently is nice. And it was covered permanently for at least 13 or 14 years without any problems whatsoever. Correct. So, really, I think we're going back to And but they made you got made you take that down. And you didn't put that up. That was up before y'all bought it. No, we actually did put that up after we after we purchased the excuse me, leased the property, but it was right after, you know, we started leasing in 2000. And I want to say in 2001, 2002, that's when the cover went up and the uh and the storage facility. But like I say, we're not even after the enclosed storage facility. All we're looking for is some shade. Uh so that's really basically what we're looking for. And if you read our lease, you know, by definition, we can't build within 75 ft of the water line. I mean, we could request a variance or ask for a variance, but I mean, it would have to be a pretty big variance. We're not talking 5 feet or 10 feet. I mean, the island, as you can see in the uh like uh see on the back page, you know, at its widest point, we're talking 134 feet across, you know, it's so I mean, we would have to be we would have to ask

[0:41:10] for a very large variance to be able to build a residential structure on it. Um so, by definition, per the lease agreement, we're restricted to recreational use only. And uh that's all we're really looking for is just to have some shade over the awning or over the picnic table and over that slab there. That's all the questions I have for now. Any any other count questions for Mr. Word? Sure. I have one comment. I did have u two people from the homeowners association did call me and wanted me to know that they objected at the planning commission meeting but after they left they got information to show that their objection did not apply and they're all for it and in favor now. So that's my only comment. That was one thing I was going to point out. The numbers that I have were 20 people responded, not 21, but there was one in favor and 19 in opposition. Of the 19 that were in opposition, only 15 actually or I'm sorry, of the 19 in opposition, 15 of those respondents referred to something about not wanting to change zoning, want not wanting us to do something with 155 acres, which were not I mean, we don't lease the 155 acres, and that there was too little information and too little time given to them to make an informed decision. So, uh, really there were only four people that were that turned in a response that were against what we were specifically trying to do. Mayor, I do have a Corey, let me ask you real quick. I'm looking at this photo. Are are you considering putting putting this up again the way it is? We still own this. Yeah, it's at a it's at another property that my father owns. And uh something similar to that, you know, if we if there was a stipulation put in that the side couldn't come down that far. Uh would you would you consider going with a forest green color? Maybe that could blend in with the with it. places there and also put it pink if you want. Is the Is the reason this is longer here? Is it because of the sun? Because of the sun. Yeah. Would you consider maybe some kind of a I don't know a blind looking thing

[0:43:14] that slides down and back up? I don't know. We're here to please. I think the blue stands out like a sore thumb. I think if you went like a forest green it may appease some people. I don't know. But I just wanted to throw that in. And also somebody mentioned that when somebody put it up. We're not going to point anything. I'm the lease holder, Carl Ward. And uh I apologize that I'm in everybody's view. Um but you got to look at what I look at. I look at 280 degrees of everybody else on the lake. And I'm not complaining at what they've got because it's a lake and there are structures out there. Uh, I don't complain on the color of their house. I don't complain how they paint their structures. And I think I'm being held to a little tighter restriction than everybody else. I know it's a unique piece of property, but I'm u a lease holder just like everybody else. Yes. I'm Lake. I kind of like that blue color. Any other questions? Anybody else? Then we'll open it up for public comment at this time and we'll have anybody and everybody wants to talk to this issue then step to the front. Going to give you about ask you to limit it to about 3 to 5 minutes. Uh good morning U council. My name is Jim Warrior. I am a member of the Lake Nazworthy Homeowners Association board of directors. There's two more board members here that will speak, one of them being the president of the association. I'm in the opposition here. I'm with the owners. Uh all of our CCRs uh are not perfect. They can't cover every situation. In some instances, we

[0:45:18] say that if you put up a boat house, it must be an opensighted boat house to not block views, etc. Now, uh, Mr. Ward is going to put up an opensided cover over his picnic table, and I personally see no reason why it should be rejected. There's all sorts of things about building a house and then having to have an accessory, but that rattlesnake island is not that big. Uh they occasionally have parked a motor home in the past. There is a whole uh wreck area with motor homes on that lake. There is a city picnic grounds where people put up temporary structures and camp overnight and do all that sort of stuff. Uh I happen to have a permanent house out there, but uh as many other people do, but I see no reason why his request should be rejected. Now, my other two partners, board members, will talk to you about a different light of it. But as an opposing board member, I'm all for approving Mr. Ward's proposal. Thank you, sir. Trinidad, I know you can't tell me your name in three minutes, but you're going to have to try. Trinidad Giri, I am the opposing, I guess, is what I was labeled as the um I am the HOA president for the Lake Nazworthy board. Um, one of the things I'd like to do, mayor, is keep the emotions out of it. I know that there's a lot of things that they would like to do, as a lot of us would. Uh but we have two documents that I'm you know requesting that we adhere to. One of them is our CCRs. Uh the request that he is proposing to us very clearly states that it is illegal to do this. We also

[0:47:23] have another document that we just paid 300,000 that you guys approved in 2013. That is the master plan document. That document also comes back out and highlights the fact that that area is going to be utilized or or wishes to be utilized for a bike and a walking trail. Uh by moving forward with this, our concern is we're going to be in violation of both of those. Uh the other thing we looked at it was from two points. One of them this is a blanket request. Uh as all of the questions from you came about, you have no idea what you're approving today. He can do whatever he wants. All he has to do is go get a permit. Once you say yes, then he can go do whatever he wants to do within that land. You do not have an architectural drawing. You do not even have a pencil sketch. You don't have anything. And so our concern is what does he really want to do? And why would we approve such a blanket document? Uh this sets the presidents for other uh opportunities. I for one have a lease in front of my house and I would love to get a special use to do the same thing that he's requesting. And why not? I've got a lot of other folks out there that are requesting the same. So, let's not set a pres president. And Darlene was the same. She came back out, you know, at the planning commission and said variances are bad. And I don't like them because it goes against the grain. Um most of the majority of the uh you know, you mentioned the votes. We did have an annual meeting. The majority of the individuals voted against it. Those attendees, they did not want this there. They all can't be represented here, but they wanted to be sure that we represented them. I sent you a picture uh that shows the uh where Rattlesnake Island is in adjacent to the Red Slow area. If you take a look at that and you take a look at the housing around that, it's not just about a blue covering, that is an area that every morning you wake up, you go to your backyard and that's what you see. Uh that would be a perfect area for, you know, some artistic kind of uh item to be placed out there. But when you take a look at

[0:49:25] it, uh, you know, the blue awnings and if you look at the subsequent picture, you can see what everybody saw. That is a prime location for all of our visitors, for the neighbors to take a look at. And again, um, uh, we're very concerned that we're going to be putting up this kind of documentation. This was Santaita, if it was Southland, if it was Lake View, I would not want this in my backyard. I would not want this kind of neighbor to be sitting next to me. And I promise you that if you took it to those areas, there would be a room full of people trying to u oppose it. Uh I also uh showed you in the master plan and implementation strategy uh that highlights it's on page 48 uh 4748 and 50 where it highlights what the proposed use of this area is and again it's in violation. So from from the legal standpoint uh we have you nothing against what they want to do but as planning recommended there are alternative options. Uh we need to protect the wildlife. We need to protect the area. This is a vital area to the lake and by having special exemptions I think goes against the grain of everything we've spent money on from the documentation to the CCRs and everything that you've asked us to do. So our request is that you vote denial. It's not the time. It's not the place and this is not an emotional decision. Let's stay with the facts. It is against the rules. Thank you. And if you have anything else to say, I'm not holding you to time. No, that's it. Uh unless you have any questions of me. Yes, ma'am. You say it's against the rules. The homeowners association rules, the CCRs. Um yes, ma'am. In two in 2000, the city approved our our covenants, conditions, and restrictions. And in section 402, it stipulates that it may that a uh uh an auxiliary unit may not be placed without a home. And that's what the planning department was saying. Since it cannot be since there is not a home, it very clearly stipulates you not cannot put up a carport, a garage, and in this case, we have no idea what's going up. I mean, again, you have

[0:51:27] nothing before you that outlines what's going up. It's a promise. I promise not to, but who knows what's going to happen. Thank you. Yeah. With the conditions though uh that uh she brought forward that would that would limit what they're going to be able to do out there. No. U it would not. What it would do is it would tell them that they can put up a structure, but it doesn't say that if it if it has to be one, two, three structures. All it says that Well, there setbacks though all the way around there. So, you can only do it right on the tip of the top. And I've been there. I've been to the property. I've been to the access road, walked the area. So from that or you know seen it from the um uh from the boats but so I did my homework on it and you know it's a it's a while it's not a large area it's big enough to accommodate multiple things. Uh and that's why the homeowners I mean when you look at the pictures it was ugly before. It was a very ugly and it was done illegally. Uh we you know the residents got together went through a court decision and had it removed for cause. We don't want to go back in time and do this again. you know, there'll be other things coming forward and we just don't want to go there. Uh my concern is what's going in there and that's well I think we could make even a condition on there that he can only do two things that cover those two covers. one over the picnic table. But but again, we don't want to do that. My concern is that do we do this then? Do we if we allow this for this res, do we come back tomorrow and the next day and the next day and do it for everybody? You know, let's stick to the law. Let's not have variances. The variance says no. And I've got multiple people out there waiting in line that say let's see what the council says and then we we'll come in with ours. But do they have a peninsula that sticks out when they can't build something? It's they have pro they have property they'd like to utilize for their benefit. It's a very unique property and I think it's really the only one out there that that this would fall under. And I think you know if you start talking about opening

[0:53:30] Pandora's box I think Pandora's box can be opened the other way around. There are these structures that are all over the lake out there that are not permitted. Yes. Uh I've met with um we're meeting right now with code compliance. I'm meeting with John James and we are addressing each one of them. We're going after the docks first. Yeah. And then we're going up to the substructures. So, we are now having a very uniform process to look after the lake and we'll be coming to you in various ways to help uh mitigate this. So, we are working very closely with your planning department now and we want to make sure that everything gets done as it should be. So, we are we are aware of those and we are addressing them and this is something else we'd have to address. But talking about artistic or whether something is visually appealing to you, um, as far as my taste goes, I'm sure it's very different than your taste is or even than Marty's taste is. Uh, when I go out there and I look at properties out at the lake, I see a ton of properties. I'm going, man, that is terrible. They painted it terrible colors. They they did terrible things. I see it on a daily basis. But when you said we should put something that's visually appealing out there, that's his property. I mean he he that this is visually appealing to him. It is not his property. He is leasing. It's his lease. I have a lease too. I have the same lease he does except mine. And what it says is the city may uh elect to do you know if they recall it for some reason for instance, let's say that the master plan comes back and requests some other use. The city always has the right to take the action required because it is leased property. And right now we're working through that process. We're waiting for Gateway to respond. And once they respond, we'll have a better feel of what's going to happen to that area. Well, I hope that you're not saying that we're going to start taking property away from people. I mean, that sounds really bad. That I cannot do that. That is beyond my preview. That is planning. That is Daniel. And only they can make the the recommendation. I hope Daniel won't make that decision either. I can't

[0:55:31] make that decision. That's beyond him. That's beyond us. Yeah. So, that's that's off the table. I have nothing to do with that. That's above our pay grade. Yes, there you go. It's above my pay grade. Anyone else? Uh, any other questions for Trend Dad before we move on to the next? Thank you. Come ahead, Ted. I'm back as the uh head of the architectural committee. I'm Tad Logan again. As I said before, um, we have nothing against the words. I mean, I want to make that very clear. Uh, it it is a Pandora's box is the way we're looking at this. Uh, it's a situation where we've got half a million-doll homes or or more, 300 ft away from this island. Okay. Well, this is what they see every morning. I live over on hillside. I'm a thousand feet away, but it's what I see every morning, also. Um, I'm just afraid I'm not worried about possibly covering a picnic table. I am worried about putting up that blue cover and parking an RV under it again and leaving it for a period of time, which is in violation of the ordinances, too. But it's hard to enforce these kind of issues. I mean, he knew when he bought this lot, it was for recreational use only. Uh, and it's, you know, we've got, is it, is it fair for him to lease a lot for 600 a year? Okay. And then he's got people paying some of the highest taxes in town living 300 ft away and they, you know, they have all the building restrictions and requirements and the space and setbacks to take care of it. He doesn't. But, uh, how this lease ever got to be an RS1 is, of course, I guess it's because it was designated as a park possibly or whatever, like, uh, Rebecca said, but

[0:57:37] to me, uh, it it's strictly for recreational use. Should have always been left there. And that also puts a limit of a 5-year lease on it. I mean, uh, at some point in time, the city wants to get out of the lease business. Well, this isn't going to help it when we've got things being renewed and going on another 20 or 30 years out here. But, uh, anyway, we probably got 50 properties around the lake. Uh, I mean, we've got circles at Shady Point. We've got circles over there on uh, Red Bluff Road. Uh, I'm sure these residents wouldn't want a storage unit put out there in the middle of these circles, but I I'm afraid when we start opening up the special use, it's such a broad spectrum that uh we're going to have a lot of issues and we just don't we've got we've got a lot of uh very expensive homes and like Rodney said, yes, we've had some things built that shouldn't have been built, but you most of them were were not permitted properly. they didn't come from for us as an HOA and uh we've tried to contain things yet uh be a helpful entity at the lake at the same time. But going going going forward, um we just feel like when we when we look at these special permit uses, this is going to open up so many negative situations that could jeopardize the value of residential property in the proximity of them uh and could change the overall environment of the lake. And that's uh we're we're wanting to see what uh Gateway is going to do. Uh apparently they've addressed this vacation uh rentals also, but that's another thing that's once it starts we're going to have a big problem. So basically at this time what we're we want uh we feel that this permit should be denied and that no permanent structures be allowed.

[0:59:41] Thanks Ted. just to as a matter of record for correction purposes. Um you stated that he paid $600 a year and that's not accurate. Well, I I thought it was $598 a year. I'm looking at his contract here in the computer and he's currently paying $1,140. Okay. Well, let's say $1,200 a year. 11.86. Okay. Well, that's I I just looked it up on the tax roles. Uh, and apparently that hadn't updated or something, but even so, that's a very small amount when you've got people paying $6 to $10,000 taxes 300 ft away from him. I'm sorry. Now, correct me. I'm talking about his lease. Yes. Right. His taxes, his lease, right? But that's what I'm saying. I mean, he's virtually in a neighborhood, but he's not. I mean, he's so close to these residential lots that are paying the taxes. uh is it fair to allow him to come in and pay such a such a nominal amount uh when these folks are having to you are being taxed at some big numbers? I you know I don't feel it's virtually like building something in a neighborhood uh around a bunch of million dollar half million dollar houses and saying it's okay and this guy doesn't need to pay but $100 a month. Well, that's that's really not fair looking at the overall picture of the lake to me. Thank you, Ted. Any other questions? Okay. Next. Morning, Mr. Scotty. I'm Jean Scotty and uh I represent uh the property that joins this which is Lakeside Ranch Company and it's right on dead man's curve that properties is mine and we're bringing as we build extending very expensive homes and they would look

[1:01:47] right straight down upon this and we'd like to see nothing but single family residents in this area. And that's it. Thank you, sir. Further public comment. Good morning, ma'am. Good morning, mayor, council members. My name is Vicki Jwitt. I've known Carl for 25 years or so. Been out to Rattlesnake Island many times. Um, it's always been wellmaintained. As far as uh looking down in the trash and the traffic, I like I said, I've been out there several times for gettogethers. We've it's always been orderly. We've we've parked on the side of his um road to get into the onto the island and everybody works together getting off and on and trash is always carried out. The island is always trimmed, mowed, clean. Um, as far as the color of the awning, I don't know really if a forest green would be any different. Um, you look around the lake and boat houses are all different colors. The the awnings over those are all different colors. So, I uh I vote that you should go ahead and let him put his shade up and enjoy his space. Thank you, ma'am. It's 10:09 and I've had one request for a break. Do y'all want to continue with this or do you want to take about 10 or 15 minutes for a break and then come back and get in it again? Let's continue. Finish it and then stop, please. While we're on a road, I wanted to ask some questions. Elizabeth, you want to take a break? You want to continue? I'm happy to continue. Lucy. Johnny. Sure. Marty. Yeah. Take take five, Johnny. Let's continue. Next. Good morning. My name is Dean Harvey and I've lived at the lake for 20 years and I have no I don't know why there there's even a discussion here really. It's just a open

[1:03:50] awning. Everybody can see through it and it's a I don't see why you just don't let him build what he wants as far as that goes. Just the awning and I thank you. Thank you Dean. Good morning sir. Morning. My name is Steve Walls. I got a place on Red Bluff Circle, not far from Carl's Island, what I call it. And I'm very familiar with it. It's it keeps it, you know, manicured. Everything's everything's in place and there's no reason not to have some shade where it can be used. And that's really all he's looking for, some shade. And I can see it from from my place there on Red Bluff. Not a problem. Thank you, sir. Next. Good morning, sir. Good morning, council. You, too, mayor. Uh, my name is Little Bill Cahoot. I live out at uh uh on Redbluff Circle over there. Uh we've uh been fortunate to own a piece of property out there for almost about 50 years. My parents have had a place out there. Uh back during the youth we used to paddle kayaks past the rattlesnake island going back to the hot water slooh back when it was operational. Uh we've been by that island for many many many times and seen it grow up completely out of hand and we've seen it like Carl has it now. Very manicured uh taken care of. Uh really a nice place as far as that the road going there. I think Rodney was saying it's uh got a big old pickup and you can't even turn the pickup around there unless you go to the end do a backup. But anyway, the uh place is immaculate. Uh they do have some growth on the side of the island there. You got your reads and you got different types of uh brush growing up there that covers up a lot of the building, but it's a natural growth. So, I mean, you it's just not a

[1:05:54] uh awning that he wants to put up there. That's just real plain. It takes a little bit to look at it. So, I'm all for it, you know. Uh let him have his cover out there. Nobody likes to to really have their uh camper or something sitting in the sun all time. You know, it's going to be a little bit cooler on them. Let them go out there on the weekends, take the grandkids out, enjoy it, have a good time. He can hook on to it, take it back to his farm out there, and park it until they get ready to go back. So, I see no no problem with it. It's good. Thank you, little Bill. How big is Big Bill? Pretty good size. more comment. Good morning, sir. Good morning, council. I'm Paul Pascal. I do not envy your task. I know all y'all came into this at a service and want to do things in a fair and equitable manner. Um, the only thing I've heard today is is rules in staff and uh, you know, problems are result of decisions by they and and they well, they could be you. They could be staff. Staff are bureaucrats. They're a self-s serving entity. They don't have they don't have a dog in the hunt because they're going to get paid twice a month no matter what. And uh we've seen this lake out here go from little uh fishing cabins to these wonderful homes. I've been privy to building one out there that I couldn't live in cuz I couldn't pay the taxes. And uh you know y'all make this decision and you uh you inherited a broken system. Your rules are the charter. Well, the charter is just a wrote document that y'all put your name on. You didn't even generate

[1:07:56] it. And if you go go back and look at this charter, a lot of the things in it really don't apply well to St. Angelo. St. Angelo's a very unique and gentle dynamic. And to bring in these things like Round Rock or Plano and expect St. Angelo to behave like that, it's not going to work. So, make the right decision. You can make the decision. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next, I would just like to point out Cory word again. I just like to point out that uh anything between the homeowners association and the owner of a of a the actual owner of a lake lot is a private agreement. If you're a lease holder, you don't have to abide by the CCRs that are set forth by the homeowners association. That's right. So that you know, I understand Mr. Gary coming up here and presenting that information to you, but we're not required to abide by those restrictions. Uh just just to let you guys know that um um like we stated before, this is a very unique piece of property. Um we just hope that you um like Mr. Gary said, don't make a emotional decision based on information that doesn't exactly apply to our specific situation. And as far as opening Pandora's box, you know, like I like Mr. Fleming said, there's not another piece of property on Lake Nazery that is dimensionally challenged maybe, if you will, uh, as this piece of property. Um, thank you. Thank you, Ky. If there's any more public comments, you need to get to the front now cuz about to close it down. If anybody else wants to speak to this, this is your last opportunity. All right. This is uh this is yours, Rodney. Most of the properties that they were talking about, like he just said, um where there's little circles out there,

[1:09:59] those properties actually aren't even on the water side. They're on the back side. So, I don't I don't I don't see them as being the same type of property. And when we gave him this lease, this is a recreational lease that he has gotten out there and they do own. Well, there's some question on the wording on how it was working. Sir, it's actually a special lease. So, it's a recreational and a single family lease. It's a special lease, right? Yes, sir. And but I can see when I when I think recreation, recreational use, I'm thinking sitting out fishing, camping, uh being under an awning out there. I I really that's why and everybody already knows how I'm going to vote on this, but I I think that this is not something that can be comparable to the other properties. What I would like I would I would I I move that we approve this as presented with the six conditions Rebecca stipulated plus in order to help out a little bit. I'd like to add one other condition that only two buildings can be put on there. The the two buildings that were the same size, not not buildings, the two coverings that were the same size that were there before. So that we cover the stip the anybody saying that there can be any kind of building any size building or multiple buildings out there. That would be what I would ask for. So the six conditions plus that I move that we approve those. You're moving to approve for denial. No, not not for denial. That's the way it was presented. You said I move to approve as presented and it was presented. I move to approve the special lease permit with the six conditions plus adding well with seven conditions. The two buildings that were there the same size same the same same the same coverings. I'll second that. Okay. Do have a motion to approve as presented with the with the stipulations words. Will that work for you? Good. I do have a second on it, but just to get clarification hearing and now you're taking council comment and you haven't asked for any more comments.

[1:12:02] Sorry. Word. That's right. Yes. I've already closed comment. Marty, Rebecca, you said something earlier. I I think I must have misunderstood you. You said something about if it was allowed, it would increase usage or or traffic. Traffic. The correlation was a permanent structure um would mean that more people could visit because it's easier to come out to the site. It's easier to use the site. It's easier to enjoy the site. And so if it's easier to use a site, you're going to visit it more. Well, generally because it's so isolated, because it's on Lake Nazworthy, you generally have to drive there. So that would mean more vehicles on a road which is built at 32 feet wide. Um so we believe that there would be more traffic generated as a result of permanent structures on the site. Okay. So so it's really a a safety issue as far as the road because I would think you would want increased usage of the lake. Um we we could post no vehicles that they have to get out and you know walk like the lady said they park their car elsewhere and then they walk to the island. I mean you can post it or pipe it off or what? No vehicle use if I think she's talking about general traffic. You're talking about discussion on traffic. We don't want to go there. I mean if he built a house there would be even more traffic than what he's talking about here. So I don't see you got an argument there. I think what they're talking about in tra in traffic use is what you heard earlier today during public comment. You heard the the comment about uses of houses or facilities at the lake and if those are being leased out or generating a party or whatever in this case it may not be used but that's what they're talking about when they're talking about traffic. The the same issues we're talking about with other complaints you heard earlier today and how this property might fall into that same okay line. I'm good. Johnny, did you have a comment? No, I I just wonder what happens out there. I guess picnics,

[1:14:05] parties, family gatherings. Is that what happens or or Yes. I'm asking a question. Yes. Barbecue. I do have I do have friends. I I have a lot of family. We do gather there for the weekends. We gather just like everybody else does on Fourth of July, Memorial Weekend, Labor Day weekend. And uh we try to afford to get there every weekend that we can. Um as far as the traffic, that's not an argument. Uh it's going to be used the same with with these structures or without. Yeah. What we're asking for is shade. Okay. I don't think they have an argument. That's you. You've answered my question. Yeah. Now I know what happens out there and that's what I wanted. Thank you, sir. Charlotte, do you have comments? And Ben pays for lease. The city previously had approved it. Single family and uh recreation is a combination. Um I don't have a problem with with the motion. Miss Lucy. No, Elizabeth. Oh, sure. I have some comments. Um, I'm a little congested, which makes me a little less tolerant, so I apologize, mayor, but um, I think there's a couple of things that come to mind here. I think for my comments and for the word family, this this is not personal at all. When we're looking at a zoning issue, it has to be something that can be replicated for anybody and everybody, regardless of your character, regardless of your integrity or your ability to keep that that little peninsula cleaned of of of overgrowth. But in the end, can we replicate this? And I think one problem for this is this is a this is a a site which probably never should have been leased with the idea that it be residential. if you can't build a home on it because of the setback requirements. It's like a lot of

[1:16:08] little triangles around town. I've lived in other cities where the city owns the triangle and maintains it. And in St. Angelo, this city has avoided these little traffic triangles all over the place because we don't want to be responsible for the maintenance, but they're not big enough to build anything on. So to me, this is one of those little funny pieces of land that's just problematic as long as there's any private control of it. I think they should be in the control of the of the city. Um, we're not talking here about a variance. A variance goes through a ZBA process. But what we are talking about, I think, is a deviation from the planning uh from the zoning ordinance. And I don't believe that a special use is any way to circumvent the zoning ordinance. And the question like Mr. Agari brought up, would this be allowed in Sanorita? I hope not. Would this be allowed in College Hills or um Bryant Park or on the north side or anywhere else? No. I don't think in general that um a single family residential lot should be used for any other purpose than the primary function be single family residential. So regardless of what any covenant says, that's what the zoning ordinance says. Correct. It is correct. So how did we help them get to a special use permit as staffed? Can you tell me that? So the zoning ordinance through its use chart allows for a very special and very unique process called the special use called the special use process. Um this special use process allows for transitional uses to occur if they can meet the criteria for in fact a transitional use. So in this case it would be a transition between a vacant open space and a single family residential. And so the argument being that a special use can apply in every use category in every zoning designation. And so if they can meet that criteria for a transition and the criteria spelled out for a special use, a special use may be requested and considered by council.

[1:18:11] I think that we call this a park, but I realize we don't have a designation for a park, but to me a park is something that the public has as access to. Um, I think this is just kind of one of those that it's just a problem and I I don't think I don't think anything about this is perfectly clear. But as long as we're going to continue calling it single family residential, um, and as long as we're not willing to change the zoning on it to something else, uh, I think this is just a roundabout way of doing just that. And I don't think that's being very transparent. And so I'll vote against it. My few comments are this is an ex and I went out there and I had to back out and this is an extremely difficult location for a house. For one thing, the sewer is a/4 mile away or half a mile away and it's all uphill. It's it's a terrible location for a house. Uh we also talked about the road being 32t wide. Well, we just built, the city just built as a developer a road at Howard College that's 24 foot wide that carries a lot more traffic than this road will ever carry and it carries on a daily basis. So, your road argument is completely completely out of the water. I can't agree with that at all. I would also like to say that not every house out there is a half a million dollar house. There's a lot of houses out there that are far less than a half a million. And I also don't like your 200 foot notification because anytime a zoning change is asked for in this city, you send letters to a 200 foot notification. That's the rule. And you've extended this for thousands of feet to pick up. And that is wrong on your part. That's wrong on the city's part. Probably there should have been no notifications on this because I don't think anybody lives within 200t of him. So I've got a problem with that. And I also feel if we made him tear his carport and his shade down over his picnic table, I do see a precedence there because I think everybody at the

[1:20:13] lake that's got the same thing, they may be forced to tear something down, too. So, I I I don't like any of this p any of this process. I don't think it's fair to Mr. Word and I don't think Mr. Word's done anything wrong. I will support him on this. Do I have any further comments before I call for the vote? One last thing, just again, I want to point out that the zoning board voted 6 to1. Yes. for approval. The planning board voted six to one for approval on this. So, um, and they looked at it and they look at the special use permits that that are presented to them. So, they were in favor overwhelmingly in favor of this with the conditions. With the conditions and I want the conditions plus the last conditions. No, I know he did. I I just said I don't I don't want to be misunderstood. I think that the basic problem here is that it's single family residential and I don't think it should be and I think I'd rather go at it straighter in in that respect in the way we're doing it. But I agree, the site itself is not it's never going to be developed as a true residential lot. I also don't think the issue of who spends how much on their house is relevant at all here or the color of the shade, but we've been pretty tangential all over the place this morning. So, yeah, I'll stop. Sir, if you would like me to read into the record a proposed condition number seven, which may may or may not meet with the requirement. Um, number seven would be read as accessory structures shall be limited to the two previous structures constructed on the site limited at a square footage. So I will find out what that square footage is or 600 ft² whichever is less. 600 ft² because that's what the zoning ordinance caps it at anyways. So if they had less on the site, that's what they'll be limited to. If it is was over 600 ft, they'll have to reduce it down so that it meets the zoning ordinance requirements. Well, we want the want the same two structures there. If in order to be erected at more than 600 square feet, they would need a variance. The zoning ordinance is very specific on accessory structures. It's either a percentage of the principal structure, that is the house, or 600 ft, whichever is greater.

[1:22:17] Because there's no house, they're limited to 600 square ft. I agree with that. So, it's either what they had there before, or 600 ft, whichever is less. I'm sorry, guys, but that she I think I have to go with her on that because we don't want to start doing that's just one more thing we're going to start doing where it's too big for the lot. Okay. Yes. I like how you worded it. I I would I would accept that. And I will give that to the city clerk. Uh who seconded this, Charlie? You accept? Y'all accept it? You accept? Sure. Okay. All right. Motion has been made that we allow him to put the two structures back. minimum uh maximum 600 foot any color you wanted. Uh purple contingent upon the six requirements of the planning seven. Yeah, six plus the one Rodney just added. All in favor of allowing this, please say I. I. Any oppose? Nay. Nay. Put a six one on that one. It is 10:29. I'm going to call about a 15minute break. All right. Well, let's go on to item number H, which is a discussion of proposing an ordinance regulating the use of handheld mobile communications devices while driving and providing direction to staff. Mr. Fleming, this is yours, so you take the take the reign, sir. First of all, I'm bringing this back up again. We talked about this last January, I believe, and we we pushed this to the side because we assumed that the uh Texas legislature was going to pass a law statewide. Just some background information, 39 states in the District of Columbia already have texting bans in place. Texas is definitely the one of the minority states that does not have that in place. Um, I feel very strongly for this uh this case in getting this done. Um, we have uh laws on the book in Texas already for minors that cannot text and drive if you're under the age of 18 in Texas. And I feel like that

[1:24:20] texting and driving is one of the mo number one distracted things that they're that you can do while you're driving. I'm going to read to you uh from an article that I printed off last night. Says, "Texting is number one distracted driving activity by a long shot. With technology at drivers fingertips, drivers are becoming more and more tempted to send and read quick text messages that by and by large assumed to be harmless. The truth is texting while driving takes a driver's eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds. 4.6 seconds and increases the chances of a crash by 23%. To put that in perspective, if a vehicle is traveling at 55 mph, the driver doesn't look at the road for about the length of an entire football field. So, can you imagine driving down the road going 55 mph and not look up at the road for the whole length of a football field? How many people can you hit or objects can you hit during that time? We just got news that there was an accident this morning involving some young people here in town and we don't know what the circumstances are on that, but looking at the way the odds are, it was probably some kind of distracted driver. It may not have been texting, but it was probably some kind of distraction. And distracted driving has become a huge issue in this country right now. Midland and 39 other cities in the state of Texas have already passed a no texting and driving ordinance. So that has the most cities or not most cities, but a lot of cities throughout the whole state are already taking this into account. What I'm proposing to move forward is a ordinance that would resemble the city of Midland. The only thing I I can't remember and I this was brought to my attention whether Midland had crafted theirs to uh also include amateur radio operators. I don't remember if that was in there, but I would like to include that as well as police officers because stormchasers and and people of that nature uh need to be using those things while they're driving or possibly while they're driving. Um,

[1:26:23] I I I think that this is something that uh it I know that a couple of things that people are going to bring up is this is not an enforceable item. Well, it is enforceable, but it's hard. It's very hard to enforce. And I realize that it's very hard to enforce, but when you're looking at doing this or not doing this, I think that it's better to have the law on the book and be able to get people. I watched a video just last night of uh a Midland reporter riding around with the police officer and sitting police officer and sitting in a stoplight and watching and counting the amount of people that were texting at the at the stoplight. And it was very easy for the police officer to pick out which people were texting because it's it's the same uh actions and reactions that people are doing while they're stopped at that those lights. So, I think that putting this on the books and getting this to go through would be a a plus to telling our kids and our families, you know, we know this is against the law and we shouldn't be doing it and try to move forward to that point of not doing those things. Did you make a motion? Is there I I think we want to discuss it for a while. Discussion discussion on proposing posted for direction. no action and we would have to add that uh exception for the amateur radios for the which and I I definitely think that we need to have that in place for them that is not included in the Midland uh ordinance but it's something that we could you know but if we crafted this and I would like I would like to have direction on moving forward on this item with the same rules that are in place as Midland just move just put in place and Midland crafted theirs after most of the other cities that have done it throughout the the state. So, it makes it a lot easier for us to put something in place and not have to do as much background. I agree. I I felt like we should have done it back in January and I had tried to do it a couple of years before that. You know, I have to ask me, can I text and drive? And the answer is no. I would not be safe texting and driving and

[1:28:27] hands-free phone is about the only thing I can do safely. I guess it's my age. But I will tell you that I just went through and traveled nine states and numerous cities have their little signs up. No texting and driving uh against you know it's city ordinance. No texting and driving. And I agree it's it's just not safe. Marty, you had a you had a question that had some merit. Whoa. And that question was what he tal I have a bunch of questions about this but only one with Mary we we talked about uh if you're sitting at a stoplight and you are stopped and you get a text and you're not moving you are not driving you are not distracted you are sitting stopped what is the problem with reading a text and I'll answer that question because I saw that just this this morning and I I was telling people was I was next to a lady that was in a car behind a pickup truck and they we were all stopped at a red light and she was texting looking down and the light turned and she looked up and looked down and she accelerated started to move forward. The guy didn't move forward in front of her. He she didn't hit him but she moved forward and had to kind of jerk jerk on the brakes. She wasn't going fast at all. She was just barely moving. But that's what the problem is is you just do not you assume you assume that person is going to move because the light did change but they didn't. Not everybody moves or not everybody reacts at the same reaction speed. And I think that even the police police officers will say this comes back to like drunk driving. If you're if you're stopped at a red light, that's not driving, but you are in a mo in a motorized moving vehicle and it considered driving while drunk. Um, so it's the same kind of thing as that you're in the vehicle, you're operating the vehicle. I think that that and it and it is a distraction. And and my my question wasn't text. It wasn't replying. It my

[1:30:32] question was receiving. You know, I'm it it definitely is violation if you text back, but can you re can you read that text to know whether or not you need to pull over to call someone? Would that be a violation of texting? I think the way the rules have written in most of these other cities, yes, it is. if you're if you're looking at it. Um, and AT&T has just come out with a new app that for most of their people that you can put on your phone if your vehicle is moving, it actually sends a message to the people that are sending you a message saying the owner of this phone basically is is driving now and will text you back when they stop driving, which is I I thought was a very nice thing and and something that, you know, definitely I would like to look into for my kids. But um I I think this is it is a very hard to enforce law. All the cities that have passed that that was been the number one thing that the residents have come up and argued that you're just not going to be able to enforce this or you're just trying to collect more money. I don't even really care about the fine as much as just getting the law on the books and trying to tell people people that that do obey the law and the by and far the majority of us do do obey the law when the laws are put before us. And this is something I believe strongly in. Johnny and my question was along those lines and it was really to Teresa. If it's texting and driving, does am I okay talking on the phone and driving or I'm okay reading the text? Is that is that totally is it totally separate? Well, the way the Midland ordinance is written, it it makes it a violation of you send or compose an electronic message or engage in application software while operating motor vehicles. So, the calling would be fine under their ordinance. reading would be prohibited as well as sending or composing would be prohibited. Okay. Because we all well know and like you described when you're at light, if that vehicle in front of you doesn't move, either they're texting or they had a heart attack and I I don't know, but they don't move. Well, they do also have

[1:32:34] the exception that if you are completely stopped at a location other than a traffic lane on a public roadway. So, if you pull over, you're fine. But at a stop at traffic light, it's still And then also you we've all seen the the folks in front of us who who are weaving. They're either drunk or they're texting, you know, and that's that's just that's just the way it is. But uh now there is a difference then there's I can talk on my phone just for clarification, right? Or I but you said I could not or could read a text. I could not cannot. Okay. That's why I let you ask that question, Marty. Well, that same situation that uh Rodney was talking about, my son was driving me somewhere in another city, stopped at a stoplight. We were behind a lady. The light was red. Visibly she could see she picked up the phone, was talking, the light turned green. We sat and we sat. The line was behind us. So, my son honked his horn and the lady got mad and got out of her car. Oh my goodness. and came in and said, "Can't you see I am busy?" He said, "Ma'am, the light's green." She Oh, it you know that kind of anger and that kind of rage. You know, it just sitting if you're on the phone then you're not paying attention to what is going on around you. But we're not asking for for that. I understand yet. And I don't I don't I think that I would just like the texting ban to go in place. I I I truly believe that the Texas lawmakers would have passed this if it wasn't for some partisan politics that were involved in the situation and it will it should be coming here in the next several years. Um like I said 39 states in the District of Columbia have already passed this law. Lucy, I have a question. So, we're not talking about the Google map when we're traveling that we need to get directions to place that it's on the thing. And no, in the Midland Ordinance, that is exempted. If you've got directional, you

[1:34:36] can use it for directional. Okay. GPS. Yes. GPS. And you know, we're just using the Midland ordinance, I'm sorry, as an exception or as an example. We can create whatever other exceptions we would want in our ordinance. Miss, can you tell me why? go back to the stormchaser issue. You were saying have them I would like them just like in the Midland ordinance. It it exempts police officers and emergency personnel from uh from this ordinance because they could be using texting or or typing on the computers or something like that which they do right now. Um, I think that the stormchaser should be also be that that's what you guys would like because they're also texting information when they're following a storm or something like that uh about public safety and trying to help out public safety. Well, I I personally think that if we think this is so dangerous, which I agree that it is, that the fewer exemptions the better. And I would probably only reserve those for law enforcement. That would be my recommendation. I think it's way past time. We need to move forward with it. So I I think direct the direction is at least look further into it or you know just slice and dice it. Can we get a consensus on whether or not that would be an exception or not? Well, I would like it to be in there. My question is why are police officers exempt? I mean, it's still distraction. Whether it's a police officer driving or whether it's me or Charlotte in her nine states, it's still a distraction. Can well can maybe Yeah. speak to how they work actually in their vehicle. You didn't think you were just here for lunch, did you? I was hoping that y'all would discuss this without including me. U Chief Foscus, first of all, Chief Ocus wanted to express his regret at not being able to be here. um we had an emergency circumstance come up that uh we needed to take some um some time with. Um so he wanted me to express

[1:36:39] that. Um he also wanted me to let you guys know that you know he is he is in support of the texting while driving ban simply for the if if nothing else simply for the awareness that it brings to the issue because there are a number of of uh traffic accidents. Um we we got this and I'm going to add this in there for you guys. It really doesn't make any difference. So, we got this this morning from one of our uh um analysts this morning. And in 2014, um cell phone distraction in the vehicle was attributed to 26 accidents. Um 107 accidents were attributed to driver in attention and another um another 400 or distraction in the vehicle and another 420 for driver in attention. of those 420 and that 107, there's no distinction as to what caused that distraction, but I would assume that that distraction could have been cell phone use or something like that. So, it it is an issue. It is a problem. It does contribute to a large number of accidents and while while enforcement may be difficult in a lot of circumstances, it is something that could be done. Um, and but the but the awareness that it called draws to the to the issue is is probably equally important. It's it's an education factor and people should be aware of that. Um, as far as addressing the mayor's concerns here, um, we receive all of our calls via wireless communications. So, and we respond to those calls. Um, so if you were to not exclude the police officers, we would essentially have to stop for each and every call that we get. And that's about 100,000 a year. Um, it it would cut down on the response times and it would cut down on the ability for an officer to to to do his job because in any major call there may be 20 or 30 messages come across the computer. Now, it's primarily computers. I I don't really see I I I see an officer as if they're going to be using their cell phone to try to do send text messages or whatever, they need to be pulling off. They need to be getting in a parking lot because they don't need to be doing it either. and we can address that through policy as opposed to um um

[1:38:45] the law or the ordinance. So that that's how we'd normally control most of our our actions and things like that, but simply the fact that we get all all of our calls through a wireless device of some sort. And we're looking at new wireless devices as well, but um I didn't want to ask for any more money today. So um so so anyway, you have a pretty expensive radio system that we keep upgrading for you, don't you? Right. We do. Um and and a lot of that uh you know there there again you know that that does cause a distraction in the vehicle and that contributes to accidents as well occasionally. Um you know the officer is answering the calls and and stuff but they all work together. Uh unfortunately we can't do one without the other. So we kind of need both of them in today's world and I agree with you that is the right answer and that also points to the storm tracers. I think that by using that same logic I think they should they should be exempt as well. So, and that's really what I was trying to get to. Thank you, Jeff. Hey, Jeff, I have a quick question. Yes, sir. Out of all those numbers that you read out from 2014, 2015, how many were those how many of those were uh police officer related accidents? Police that I can't answer that question, but just based on memory, I would say probably maybe one, maybe two, something like that. Um um the vast majority of those our accidents that our officers are involved in, you know, they're usually in some sort of uh an emergency type driving. Um and our officers can't back up a car without running over something. So, um that that's another cause for our accidents is usually they're minor. Can I ask a question? Do you think that stormchasers should be exempt? No. Thank you. I that that's just my that's strictly my opinion because in an in a storm situation there's not any reason why they can't pull over to the side of the road and relay that information and then start on their way. There's not any typically there's not any life or death emergency at that point in time. And if there is a life or death emergency, they would be exempt by most of the other exceptions to the ordinances. Do we have any further comment from council before I open it up to public

[1:40:46] comment? Let's have public comment on this. If anyone cares to speak to this, I ask you to form a line. Oh my goodness. And a line we now have. State your name. You got three. My name is Jim Turner still. Uh and I just one point right off the bat. I think what should happen with the storm casers and these other volunteer groups like react and so on is the exception should not be made for the group but for the fact that it is emergency or public safety related communications that should weigh what exempts it not just the fact that they have because even with a lot of the amateur radio stuff a lot of their communication is just what's for dinner what's going on things that they don't need that so the exemption should be if this group is engaged in public safety or emergency service at that time or the individual even then that should be exempt. If that's what we're talking about on this other thing is we probably need to take and look at our ordinance in comparison to what was actually put before the Texas legislature. So when that does happen, which eventually I'm sure it will, uh that we track what the consensus has been and look at the committee reports on that and have that merged and that looked at and we need to be sure that uh some of the other technology exemptions need to be or up and coming technology needs to be looked at. Distracted driving is an issue, but we don't need to be passing a new ordinance every time something new comes on that causes that. And I think we need to have something that can be flexible enough that if it's causing a problem, we don't have to pass a new ordinance

[1:42:50] that's just focusing on that as well. There's a lot that distracts drivers and having it peacemeal, it's confusing and we do need to make sure that we are doing it the same way as most of the rest of cities in Texas to where when somebody comes to San Angelo, they're not having to learn the rules of the road all over again. That's why we have a uniform traffic code that covers pretty much the entire country. Texas needs to get with the rest of the country on some of these rules and we need to make sure that we are as uniform as we can be also. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Hey, can I answer one question for Jim? Yes. The guy the guy that put it before the Texas legislature, he's from Midland and I think Midland copied it almost verbatim on on on what the what went before the state. And so I think that um what and since we're gonna pretty much use what they did um I think that we would be in line with you know when this does go in the future and with the state there's been a lot of committee reports and discussion of stuff. I think it's worthwhile for us just to take and make sure that there's not something we're overlooking. Yeah. That came up that was important. It doesn't mean we can't use midland as a baseline. We do that on ordinances all the time, but we do need to also take a broader look than just what Midland has, right? Even though it may be good. It's probably worth our time. I'm not talking doing a complete rewrite. I'm talking about making sure that what we're having is the direction at the end of, you know, at the end of the day. We don't want to have to be reinventing this, right, in two years or four years when the Texas nature legislature finally does say this is how we're going to handle it, right? And that's why I like I like looking at what they're doing.

[1:44:53] Morning, David. Morning, mayor, council, city manager, staff. One of the things about You're David Eaton. Yeah, I'm David Eaton. Sorry. Um, want to reiterate one thing on Mr. Fleming. There's a difference between storm spotters and stormchasers. We have chasers that come in all that's fine. Uh we have uh chasers that come all over the world, all over the country to our area to do video, pictures, research, whatever else. But they're going everywhere. They're also doing it for money. Storm spotters, amateur radio. We do it as a community service with the National Weather Service to help them get ground truth to be able to provide better warnings to what their radar is seeing. So that means we're moving. We're ab absolutely communicating with radio operator at the National Weather Service while we are moving. Sometimes we're in harm's way, but we need to stay out of harm's way. So, we're communicating while we're moving. And so, that is the one time. I do not disagree with the the whole ordinance at all. I believe that, you know, those are the things that we do and things that happen. Can we be exempted during those portions? Absolutely. Uh so are we uh working with disasters? We're working with floodings. We're working with, you know, the severe weather. There's other times when we're out communicating and participating with community service through different emergency situations and that is why we would look at putting that in our ordinance as an exemption during that. And again, it's a fair time that any officer stopping. We have a federal license that says we can operate that radio at any given time. That supersedes federal over any ordinance, right? And so that is something to look at. And so with that in mind, I have two other um of our members here and one that has an ordinance written for the city of Austin, Texas that did exempt amateur radio as in the ordinance

[1:46:55] itself. Whether there I believe there's 41 counties that has invoked the texting driving issue as of right now. So with that in mind, I'll hand it over to our next individual. David, did they exempt it though during the emergency situation though? Right. Correct. as well as other times which uh when we have trainings, exercises, you know, there's like regional communicational exercises and all that we do. So again, during those times, uh we just had one a few weeks ago where TDM, Texas Department of Public Safety, uh other area counties and all were in St. Angelo and we did a an exercise and that include moving vehicles while communicating. So, but we could ride it like like Jim said, we don't want because a lot of amateur radio people are just doing day-to-day life. That is correct. And we don't want that. Correct. I mean, we want it to be in emergency situations or training for emergency situations. Absolutely. And and I have no, you know, qualms about that whatsoever. Um I actually uh in mine, we have a couple of them in town and we have others that come in from our surrounding areas. I have a full laptop and full internet in my vehicle that allows me to actually have full radar capability in the vehicle. So, we've had radar go down here. We have other situations and I've even had multiple officers at different times both in the county, in the state, in the city stop me and say, "What's going on? Where is the weather?" Before they can get it through their system, we've already got it. We have a faster communication to the National Weather Service and through other type situations through our EOC. In fact, this council, except for exception of one individual here, wasn't on council at the time, just helped us through a grant getting an enormous amount of amateur radio equipment into our EOC, which we now have fully operational. And the state has seen it, and they are going to start gearing some of their training from what we've done here. And so that's to y'all's accomplishments of helping us. So that's

[1:48:58] something that we look forward to. Also, David, let me add this real quick. If if I'm a police officer and I see you texting and driving to going towards an F5 tornado, the last thing I'm going to want to do is pull you over for texting and driving. But again, that's a judgment call versus it is if it's on the ordinance, they're following the rule. Are we following that rule? Because if it's in there, Sure. That just covers that. Yes. Thank you, David. Matt. Good morning. My name is Matt Healey. Um, Mr. Mayor, city manager. Ladies and gentlemen of the city council and city staff. Thank you for being here. Uh, I'm also an amateur radio operator. Um, there are about 350 radio operators in Tom Green County. Anytime there's inclement weather, uh there are radio operators that operate from Ozona all the way up north of Abalene, which is all covered by the St. Angelo uh National Weather Service. Anytime there's inclement weather, even if it's not in St. Angelo in the area. Um, we dispatch operators to the National Weather Service. So, the meteorologists actually have uh a true knowledge of what's going on on the ground in any given area because the radar we have here, although it's the latest technology, they haven't figured out how to bend the radar signal over the horizon, just doesn't happen. It just keeps going up. So, what the weather service meteorologists there need is ground truth. And that is something that uh our organization actually supplies uh virtually in every storm. Um Austin has done a very good job at crafting their ordinance. So I would encourage the city to look at that carefully. Uh I don't know that there's been a whole lot of accidents. I've not heard of any accidents uh involving uh radio amateur operators while they're operating the radio. Just not familiar with that. Thank you so much for your

[1:51:01] time. Thank you, ma'am. Thanks, Kim. Sir. Uh, good. Uh, yes. Okay. It's still morning. Good morning, Mayor, Mr. Fenuela, city manager, staff, city council. Uh, first of all, I rise to speak in support of the uh, ban on texting. Identify yourself. My name is Ken Grim. My name is Ken Grim. All right. Uh, I am a member of the St. Angelo Amateur Radio Club. Uh, I'm also a member of the Tom Green County Amateur Radio Emergency Services Organization or we'll just call it Aries. Okay. And I practice this in front of a mirror, so I'm going to go by my script. All right. Uh, we're the local guys of the national volunteer organization with a very proud history of public service. We have a specific mission to enhance the public safety by providing communication services to official governmental organizations. In St. Angelo, we specifically work with the National Weather Service and we also work with the office of emergency management for the city of St. Angelo. So in a way, Dr. Lions and Steve Mild uh we work with them very closely on helping fulfill their missions uh to the citizens of St. Angelo. We have permanent communication uh station installations at the National Weather Service and the Emergency Operations Center uh the EOC at Matisfield. Uh, communication in the field during emergency events is what we do. The National Weather Service directs us. Okay. We are the boots on the ground and we cover 24 counties. Communication. Uh, I'm sorry. Uh, our operators are highly trained storm spotters, not stormchasers. As David mentioned, there is a huge difference there. Uh we are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission. Many of us have received NIMS training which is a FEMA requirement uh for the emergency

[1:53:04] operations. This is my identification tag. Those are my NIM certifications that we've done. We go through regular training exercises. We go through exercises in protocol, safety, storm spotting, messaging, and a lot more. Again, we support this ordinance before you in principle and in purpose. The city of Austin enacted a similar ordinance that went into effect January 1 of of this year. And that ordinance contains a single paragraph, a single sentence that our organization puts forward to you as we see as imperative to continue our services without the possibility of running a foul of the law. We encourage the authors of this ordinance to include this verbiage contained in the Austin ordinance that exempts FCC licensed operators from the provisions of this law in the performance of our public safety mission in support of other public activities that we engage in. It's part one paragraph 7 of the Austin ordinance and it's very simple and if you don't mind I would like to read that specific ordinance. It's a single sentence. This section does not apply to an operator who is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission while operating a radio frequency device other than a portable electronic device or an operator using a two-way radio communication device in a commercial vehicle. The way this is interpreted is that it only applies when we're using our FCC licensed equipment. This does not exempt us from being a fool. Okay? If you're driving down the road and one of our guys is sitting there and acting the fool, then I hope that you get involved and you pull them over and uh then the full force of this law comes into effect. This is only during our missions and in performing the duties that uh that we do for the the in our safety mission. It does not exempt our operators from any other part of this ordinance. Just because you're a

[1:55:06] radio operator doesn't mean you can still act the fool and text and drive at will. We hope, we advocate, we encourage you to do the prudent action and that you'll include the verbiage found in the Austin ordinance in our ordinance so that we can continue to do our public service mission and not have to worry about running a foul of the law in doing so. Thank you. Thank you, Ken. Thank you. Art, you're next. Yes, sir. Art Elkins here. Uh I only have one one comment and then I have a question. Uh first is for Mr. Fleming. Uh I'm glad you brought this up. It should have been done years ago. Uh my my question is we have several test tire testing companies in town. Will they be exempt from using their CBS? And they do come through town when they're going south and north. I don't think it applied to CBS. I don't know. That Midland ordinance did not mention CBS. It specifically speaks to uh electronic message, textbased, symbol based, photograph based communication that's composed on, transmitted by or received by a wireless communication device. That also speaks to uh Mr. Turner's uh thought about the you know future devices. Nobody can see the future, but it it does leave that language pretty, you know, open to future devices as well. Thank you. Thank you, Art. Yes. Already getting hungry. That's seeing the future. Do I have further public comment on this? Behind you, J. Oh, come ahead, sir. I'm Bill Wear and I I don't believe in texting while driving, but I have a problem with ordinances

[1:57:09] that ban things. It turning into a slippery slope. We're banning any and everything that people want. And I just wonder where it's going to stop. you know, uh the distracted driving, is this going to prevent in the future people from drinking a Coke? Or as I've seen several times, something much more dangerous than texting is a young mother draped over the seat driving down the street 40 miles an hour to retrieve a pacifier for her child. Uh there's lots of distracted driving and I don't think the city can ban each and every one of them. And I think there needs to be more research. All these cities that have these ordinances and have had them for a while. How much has this reduced their traffic accidents, if any? I'm sure there are traffic accidents caused by texting, but the numbers we heard here today don't show a percentage of what those accidents are from texting. And I'd just like to have more research and more thought put into an ordinance before it's put before the city. Good points. Thank you. Next, I just want to kind of clarify what and I would have to actually agree with Mr. Grim. You know, it appears that basically what he read there was almost strictly and verbatim out of the the the proposed state law. So to allow it during emergency circumstance by the FCC licensing or whatever, you know, I'm thinking whenever you're telling me stormchasers, I'm thinking these guys that are driving around here looking and they're texting up there, there's, you know, from a from a law enforcement

[1:59:11] perspective, I prefer that they get off to the side of the road so that they don't cause additional issues. But but I I would have to actually support that u exception in there and and it does mimic state law. And I would assume that if the state does pass a similar legislation, they're going to have similar similar wording in the in the future. So like Mr. Turner said, you know, if we're going to look to the future, we might as well try to mimic what the state has. So that's that's the only thing I wanted to add. Thank you, Jeff. Come forward, ma'am. Good morning, La Mleen. And I would just like to voice some my thoughts on this issue as well. I've got an idea. Since all of these u distractions seem to be related to cell phones, well, let's just say we can't have cell phones in the car. And then, you know, we can say, let's not have Cokes in the car to drink. And goodness knows, you know, let's not have the kids in the car because they're distracting. We all know that. What I'm saying is we're all to make things safer and to, you know, address distracted driving. But you've already alluded to the problems in trying to write such an all-encompassing ordinance and then having it enforced. So we all want the same thing. But I say, you know, before you try to to put together an ordinance, let's try education that was brought up. You know, this is an issue that we all need to be educated on. And you So I suggest what about a city-wide campaign? You know, let's really you have city-wide campaigns on other things. you know, fire prevention, um, stranger danger, those sort of things. So, why don't we try that to really emphasize to our citizens and and have our families emphasize that to their children that are of driving age and to to the adults, you know, to remind them that this is not this is something that we need to be aware of and that's that's dangerous. This distracted driving, which includes texting, it includes these other behaviors that could result in accidents and injuries. So it it I would just rather see the issue, you know, rather than piling on another ordinance, which

[2:01:13] comes with its own complications that let's try to achieve this or work for this in that angle. And to the the statement that was said about the legislature because of partisan politics, I think that it was much bigger than that. It was because they saw that something like this could open up the door for much abuse and and much confusion. So that's why it was not set in statewide action. So thank you for your time. Thank you ma'am. Further comment. You get one more shot. David David eaten again. How many of y'all get a nixel? You get a nixel on your phone. And do you ever look at it while you're driving? That's part of it. So, our weather situations and everything else and our nixels are to avoid an accident or avoid an area uh that all of us are receiving. I'll pull over to read mine. There you go. It's real simple. Get out. No, I don't. Consensus. Are we going to close the hearing? I'm We keep public comment. Is there any further public comment? Public comment is now closed. Okay. What is consensus on this? Do y'all want to go ahead and and move this thing forward? I think there's I am in favor of exempting emergency situations. U but I think that's what you're looking for, isn't it? Is to move this thing forward. This is not something that would just change right now. This is a I think it's a three meeting process, is it? Two, right? There would be two additional meetings. One for the first reading and then any possible changes toward a second hearing. I'm in favor of moving it forward with the recommendations that you've heard here today. I am also, Lucy. Yes, sir. Elizabeth, I have some questions, but yes, sir. Okay, Johnny. You know, I am also and and it amazes me because a while back I saw a seven car pile up right there on the access road by Central High School in the middle of the

[2:03:15] road. I'm thinking, what? How did that happen? And I know how that happened. So, I'm in favor. Marty, what's your feelings? I I have some questions. Can we Can we talk about this? Of course. Okay. I was just looking I know what your consensus is. Okay. Start with your questions. Well, I'm going to go back and I I don't mean to beat this to death, but on the issue of the storm spotter, if you're using a radio, that's not what we're talking about here. Correct. Correct. That's correct. Okay. So to me, that's not even necessary that we talk about a special exemption if we're talking about radio systems because the radio system doesn't really work any different than my my wireless phone in my vehicle, right? What we're talking about, what Brian read was something that was very specific that I had to have a visual in order to operate. You got to get to the microphone, sir. um some of the use of the uh amateur radio does include textbased operations. So it would fall under this. Well, I'm still going to have a problem with if we're saying this is so dangerous and I believe that it is that we exempt anyone regardless of what they're doing. I think uh Chief Fant would agree that police do not need to be doing their jobs by text. That's why we have radio systems in place and that's what they're supposed to be using. So again, I'm I'm committed to taking as much distraction out of driving. I don't think when uh well, it's not Detroit anymore, but when we're building 2,000 to 5,000lb vehicles, we did it with the idea that we were going to be reading while we were operating these vehicles. So, I'm I'm happy to to look at a ban, but I don't think that the idea of exemption is I think I don't think it's consistent, but even during an emergency situation where I think that can be as dangerous

[2:05:17] as any other time if if I I No, I totally agree. I think that it's very very dangerous that they're doing that, but they're going, you know, they're trying to help the public just like a police officer or a paramedic or someone like that nature would be doing. I I know what they I know what they mean to do, but I don't think texting is the way to to do that. I think radio systems exist for that purpose and for exactly that purpose. Marty, well, to some extent, I agree with Liz. I I if if we're going to if we're going to stop texting, I say we stop it totally. U chasers, spotters, spotters, police officers to everybody. They're just there's no texting. If we're going to stop texting, we stop texting. If it if it's as dangerous thing and and we do not allow it at our in our business, uh it it's a it's punishable by dismissal of our company because you're not supposed to be doing it. Uh it it's dangerous and and I I I support stopping it totally all the way across the board. That's my consensus. Okay, let's give him some let's give them some direction. I'm going to start with you, Rodney. Where do you where do you stand? What do we need to tell them as far as bringing us an ordinance? My opinion on this is that we we mo mold it after the Midland law which in which actually was molded after the Austin law. Most all of that wording was the same. Uh and that we add in I I would like to have the in emergency situation that they are cap that they have the capability of doing that. That's just me. Would you like to add the the sentence from the Austin that was read into the Yes. Okay. Marty, I know your stand. What do you think, Johnny? I think the same as Rodney as Rodney as Rodney because you know I'm looking at some numbers here

[2:07:21] the National Safety Council is at 1,600,000 accidents per year 300 and and we we know everything we read on the internet is true. Okay. 300 330,000 injuries per year, 11 10 deaths every day and something's got to be done, you know, and on the reporting going back to this and a lot of the reports that I read on this and Jeff will know this. People don't admit to texting when they have those accidents, right? They don't because they know it's wrong. I mean, they they simply know it's wrong. And a police officer comes up and what are you doing? Oh, well, I just, you know, I've got distracted for a second. I put my head down or something. But they're not gonna admit to to being on the phone and texting someone. Charlotte, what are your thoughts? Agree. Rodney, Lucy, okay, Liz, you uh I agree with Marty. Okay. Well, I think we either ought to do it one way or the other. I mean, if we're going to if we're going to if we're going to allow the police to text, then I think we ought to give those that are FCC license the ability to text. If we're not going to allow them to text, then I don't think the police ought to be texted. So, it's either it's either one way or the other. And I do not think that taking away from the police is the way to go. So, I would go with Rodney. I have a question. Yes, ma'am. Glad you came today. Uh, Chief. Yes, ma'am. I heard Marty say that there were restrictions in their job that the employees had those restrictions and it was subject to dismissal. Do we have anything like that police department when it comes to texting and phones? No, not at this point in time. Not at this point in time. Not at this point in time. But that would be certainly something that obviously if we pass an ordinance related to texting and driving that in in their work in their job um what would be the instance that they needed to text while driving? I don't think it's necessarily meant for texting while driving. I don't think that was the intent to to exempt them. It's however the way the ordinance Midland's

[2:09:24] ordinance is written, it includes a computer in your car. So they have to exempt the computer in your car because that's how we receive our call information. You know, you may be able to reward that slightly or something like that to allow that, but not simply texting. Um I personally, as a police officer, I would really shudder to think that I'm trying to go to a call while I'm trying to read a text because the print is so small, especially whenever I can't see and I have to put readers on. That's really not a good thing at attorney could when it comes back to us, she could have something in there that um would address that situation. You know, the Couldn't you? We could propose language. I mean, I don't want them not be to be able to do their job and do it quickly, right? But I don't want them to endanger someone else, but in in the line of duty once that they've stopped or at the scene they need to text, I I don't have a problem with that. Normally, just just from my experience, most of the officers, if they're in route to a we call it a hot call, something you know, a critical incident type call, they're going to request that any information be verbally sent to them over the radio as opposed to trying to read it over the computer simply because you can't read and drive at the same time. Um, it's it's it's it's impossible to to divide your attention in that manner. So, we we request that it comes over radio as opposed to over the computer or a text. And most of the officers never receive a text. It's simply because the printed information comes over the How do you feel about preventing the officers from texting? Period. Across the board while they're driving while they're driving. If they're if they're going to be using a handheld device such as a cell phone, um I think we should clarify that that's what it would be. But I would absolutely support that. My my personal thing is is is I think it's a danger. I don't think it needs to be done by an officer while driving. and and especially in an emergency circumstance, I think the information that they get on their computers could be useful, but and we also receive normal call information

[2:11:27] because it would it would alert us that there's a call, we'd have to pull over and get that call and it would be cumbersome for us to do that. But as far as receiving text messages and things like that over a cell phone, I'd say absolutely there's no reason for them to do that. That's my personal opinion. Thank you. Well, that's what I was asking for. Thank you. I think we have appropriate direction to put something together and then of course those exceptions can be debated at the first hearing as well. We'll talk about it two more times before there's a decision made. So you have what you need. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank everyone for your comments. This is a this is a tough one. It's controvers and it's going to be controversial with regardless of the direction we take. But I think Rodney's right. I think the time has come that we address it. Let's move on now to B in our regular agenda, which is the first public hearing and consideration for case Z1507, an ordinance approving a request from the Bentwood Land Company to resone approximately 8.5.85 acres of unressed property located at the intersection of North Bentwood Drive and Lake Trail Court from the ranch and estate R& multifamily residential RM1 zoning districts to the single family residential RS1 zoning district. Miss Garrett, you are on, ma'am. Thank you, sir. Rebecca Gara, planning manager. This is case Z1507 in the name of Bentwood Land Company. I'll just give one minute for everybody to exit. All right. So, this is about uh 12.61 acres. Um you'll remember this site. It was the subject site of an annexation which y'all approved very recently for that southern piece which was zoned when it was annexed into the city as R& Ranch and Estate. So it's about 850 ft southeast of North Bentwood Drive in Lake Trail Court. It's in Single Member District 6 in the Bonham neighborhood. Um but when the lines are reconfigured um because now we've added the property in there, it will be part of the Bentwood neighborhood. The future lane use of this site as well as the other sites around these two

[2:13:29] particular parals is neighborhood. So the zoning for the southern piece as I stated previously is ranch and estate and the northern portion is RM1 or low-rise multif family estates and the proposed request I know it's it it was just it just happened to have been zoned RM1. So in this case because they want to build single family residential detached the appropriate zoning designation is RS1 and in fact that is what they're requesting today. Staff's recommendation is approval. We believe it's consistent with the future land use designation of neighborhood. As I said previously, the southern paral was recently annexed, so they have to reszone in order to be able to build that single family residential on smaller lots that aren't 1acre. RS1 is compatible, we believe, with the existing Bentwood Community Club subdivision. And in fact, this will be an extension of that subdivision. And we believe that the resoning will result in logical and orderly development pattern consistent with what's out there today. Two notifications were mowed out within an within a 200 foot radius. We've received zero responses in favor in opposition. Planning commission on September 21st unanimously recommended approval. And in fact, the action requested today is to approve a resoning from the ranch and estate and low-rise multif family residential RM1 zoning district to the single family residential zoning district. This concludes staff presentation. We're available for any questions you may have. Okay. Is this first p is this simply a first public hearing or do you need a motion to accept moving forward? What do you need? So sir, this is a resoning. So you're going to be um looking at the first reading of the ordinance. And so this is just to approve um the resoning and the first reading of the ordinance. Okay. Motion to approve. Second. Do I have a motion to approve? I do have a second. Do I have further comment? There is a public hearing on the notice that there will be a public hearing with Then I will call for public comment. Okay. I do have a motion to approve as presented. I do have a second. Charlotte, I read in the your notes that this was in my district and I don't it's not it's my district. It's not mine. It's Rodney Flemings because it's been brought into um it was recently annexed and the lines haven't

[2:15:30] changed. We have indicated that it will depending on how it gets put in. It could be in district 1 or it could be in district 6. Technically technically it's in no one's district because the lines haven't been moved yet. We because it was adjacent to yours, we put it in six. It could be in one. It could be. It's not adjacent to hers though. It's adjacent to mine. It's irrelevant really is it? It is when it's a zoning case. That's just historically we do that. We will fix it when the lines are moved. We are re the last three annexations. We're fixing the maps as we speak. I wanted to be in my district. Any public comment? Public comment on this. This is a this is a hearing. So if there is any comment, this is your your opportunity to to speak. Not I'll call for the call for the vote. All in favor of the motion has been made. Please say I. I. Oppose. Nay. Put a 70 on that one. It is 11:46. I know we've got Phil and we've got man to. We've got them all out here. That's move them up. What are they dealing with? That's it. Number E and number F. Would y'all like to move since this D is simply primarily the city would would anybody be opposed to moving E forward so that they've been here and let them get through with this before we go to lunch enough and there be two of them I have a problem down here have a problem down here let's go on then to E which is presentation from St. Angel Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau Visitors Center regarding marketing efforts and budget requests. Pres presentation by the immediate past president Rick Manto and Vice President St. Angelo Convention and Visitors Bureau Pamela Miller. Can you help me find Mike? Great. Good almost afternoon everybody. I'm

[2:17:36] here today to present our hopefully 2016 budget to you. We have not had an increase in our budget in three years. Uh for three years we have been at $795,000. Today, I'm asking you to approve a budget of $865,000 for 2016, which is an additional $70,000. I have two pages of budget in here, but the uh just to go over what the four really big major changes are, we need to have more money obviously for advertising. We are growing. We have more hotels every day. Our occupancy tax is going down. We need to do all we can do marketing wise to bring that up and to bring our occupancy tax dollars back up. Secondly, we need to have money for our sports fund. You know, we have an allocation program that is an incentive to sports groups so that they will bring their sports event here to San Angelo and not to Midland or Abalene or a competing city. Our third area is postage. You've seen in my quarterly reports how we have created a monster by the advertising we've been doing. We've had a lot of requests for further information and have had a huge change in our postage line item. Our fourth item is a staffing issue and we last April had a strong need to put somebody in our visitor center full-time. As we continued to grow, we got busier. somebody need to be dedicated to that position. So, we put somebody in that position and that meant it took away our administrative assistant. We were also looking at the possibility of getting a communications spot. So, what we did was create a spot that is a combination of administrative assistant and communications. So, those are the four major areas that you will see in

[2:19:41] our budget that we're asking for funding for. Some of the others are smaller issues that have to do with staffing like social security etc. I have a chart here to show you and and you've been hearing this at all our quarterly reports but here's a graph of our occupancy once we started going down from August of 2013 till August of 2015. And as you can see, we have been going like a roller coaster downhill. Um, those high points that you're seeing are either summer vacations, so late May through really the first part of August or the uh livestock show and rodeo stock show of course is the biggest part of one of our biggest events in the city. The second uh slide is demand. And the difference in occupancy and demand is this is showing you the actual amount of rooms that were sold and um how many rooms last year versus how many rooms this year. And it really pretty much mirrors the occupancy. The biggest difference is if you look at the second peak for demand, it stays up there a little bit longer and doesn't go to one strong peak and back down. And then here's our average daily rate. And that's why the occupancy tax is going down. Average daily rate of 11867 to 8330. And you think, wow, that looks low. Remember that is every hotel room in town. Okay, that's in that average daily rate. What you're seeing here is our budgets from 2011 through 2015. 2011 at 778,000. 212 we were over a million and then uh we for 13,4 and 15 were at 795,000. What happened at the end of 13 is we

[2:21:43] used to be on a budgeted amount of occupancy tax and we got 47%. And we had that great year and we loved that year because we had more funds available. And then we went to a set budget that is approved by you all here at city council. This is St. Angelo occupancy tax growth from 2012 through 2015. And uh you can see that 2014 was our banner year and 2015 that is projected. I came up with that figure by how far we were down as of our last check. So, it's looking like we're going to come in somewhere around where we did in 2013. What did we do with that money we had? This is a sampling of what we uh what we brought in economic value in 13,4 and 15 for the sales and servicing that we did. We also spend a lot of times doing media visits and media assists. And this is a lot of a list of a lot of those print advertisers normally, but great stories that we got from these folks that we didn't pay any money for. It doesn't mention at all TV and uh we had numerous visits by Texas Country Reporter and in fact right now by day tripper he's back yesterday through today doing another story on us. So, we spend a lot of time hosting these folks and um getting out our story. Here's the hotel growth in St. Angelo. Uh the top part opened in 2014 or 2015. That's an additional 875 rooms. Those two that start with W at the end of the list, Wood Springs and Windgate, open up this month. That puts us in an additional 875 rooms. We have two more to open in 2016 and that will put us at 1,047 additional rooms in the city and we our

[2:23:49] job is heads in beds. We need to fill those rooms. We need to do additional marketing to do that. If we do our jobs and we fill those rooms, the occupancy tax is going to grow back up and we'll have really good figures again in the near future. Rick Manto is going to help me with the last two presentation or two slides today. And the reason I asked Rick to do that is because Rick is uh the past chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, but he also served numerous times on the Convention of Visitors Bureau board and also on our finance committee that he was one that would always help scrutinize our budget. So, I wanted to have him speak today. Good morning, Rick. Good morning. Glad to be here. Um, I'm going to ask Pamela to stay and and do the I'm a good worder, but I'm not a real good computerer. And so I'm going to ask you to forward the slides for me. Um, and I'm also not going to read to you. You guys have not needed to be read to since you were in the third grade. So I'll let you read for yourself what you're seeing here. But the sports fund recipients that you have have on the slide there are um are just a few of the examples. These are not all of the examples, but a few of the examples of the way that the CVB has brought people into our community, the ways that they have uh encouraged, and everybody knows about uh those kind of encouragement dollars, but the ways they have encouraged people to use our facilities in our city as a home for their sporting events. And I think this is a a great way to bring people into our community. um $2,214,000 plus of economic impact just because we hosted the uh the association, the tennis association and and a few of those others. It's pretty pretty obvious that we need to continue to use those funds for that type of of uh encouragement. The next slide will show you how other communities are using

[2:25:54] those dollars that are budgeted by their their cities. You'll notice throughout there that that St. Angelo is lowest on the totem pole with the number of employees who do this effort and the number of dollars that they do it with. Just keep reading down through there and you'll see that there are no visitor centers uh in some of those areas. We have a visitor center that we staff and that we support as well as uh more staff members doing what our convention visitors bureau has done with a slim staff for a lot of years. All of this boils down for me to one thing. We're not asking you to go back to 47% but we are asking you for a little more help to do this. You're asking our Convention and Visitors Bureau, this department to run a Cadillac engine on a Gremlin fuel tank. If you continue to put less fuel and uh less good fuel into that tank, you're not going to get as far and eventually you'll break down. So, I'm asking you using that analogy to give us a little more gas to run this engine. You're going to find that St. Angelo will continue to grow its tax base because of it. And let me also remind you that the halfsent sales tax monies that come into our community are funded to a great extent by people who do not live here. So let's continue to invite them here and let's raise budgets in a lot of areas. Thank you very much. Thank you, Rick. We would like to take any questions. Council Charlie, on your uh budget, I was looking at all of the different classifications. Could you just detail or explain to me what the visitors event incentive is? The the big difference between the sports fund and the visitor event incentive is really the type of group. Our visitor and event incentive is generally a conference or convention group that we also have to entice to

[2:28:00] come here. Generally in our situation because we do not have a conference uh center and hotel allin one we have traditionally had to pay transportation expenses as an incentive. A lot of times it's an opening reception. A lot of times it's a closing lunch um after we are awarded the conference. Sometimes we will give them an allowed amount of money in their conference bid that they can put towards whatever they want to as far as their conference. So it's really like a sports fund only it's for everything else. the sports fund um has been separated so that we can take money back from those that want to donate back to the fund. Does that make sense? Yes. I just didn't wasn't real sure what the category meant and you know for spending $30,000 a year to make 2 million and something a year. I wanted to be able to compare that to it. for instance, at uh when you were at ports to Plains, if part of the bid incentive would have been that we'd had to do a reception on the opening day, that's where that that fund would come from. Thank you. Question. Yes, ma'am. I have a question. Likewise on the sports incentive, I was asking staff and maybe council members individually or that one Charlotte about the activities at the at the um Rio Koncho. And I understand that it's full all the time. I mean, if it's full all the time, why do we need to spend 18,500 to incentivize that? It's definitely not full all of the time with out oftowners. You know, we don't give any sports incentive funds for any local sports organizations. These are for the larger

[2:30:04] tournaments that are from out of town that bring in teams from across the state. How would you respond to that? I would say that we do always need to continue trying to attract tournaments that we've got our recreation staff right now that go to those events. You you have to keep your name out there and usually you have to offer some type of incentive. We were having a discussion just recently with uh the typical the girls fast pitch one that that comes up. So it's our turn and you constantly have to be competitive to keep those. So I don't think we're full all the time with tournaments. Do we have a lot of activity out there? Yeah. But our goal is to always grow our tournaments. And are we working together to make sure that happens with the CVB? Yes, we we as you know, they don't have a specific group that just markets our sports complex. They market overall. We have staff that work on the sports complex. So, as we get u tournaments or those things that might need incentivizing and if we don't have that capability, we're going to go to them. Whether they do it or not, that's up to their group to to decide, but we will approach them when we get those leads. I want to add to that, too, that uh we do have a city park and wreck position on our sports committee. So, they are one of the one of the group that makes a decision on whether something is going to be funded or not. I also want to add on the sports fund that they do have to uh they have to prove their numbers to us. They don't get that money until it's done and and they've done what they say they're going to do. Well, I think that's a I think it's good that you're putting the sports incentive so it's not having to compete with other other line items in the budget. I just think that it's interesting that we built a regional sports complex to bring in out of town teams and then we didn't properly fund it to work that way or didn't incentivize it as we should have. Yeah. And that's one of those things

[2:32:05] we've even struggled internally. If you notice, we've put uh tried to put some dollars in the budget that gave the recreation staff a little more incentive to be able it's simple things. It's not super duper expensive, but we've tried to build that into giving our staff a little more flexibility within their own uh sports complex budget. But it's the amount we put in there is very minimal. Right. And I don't want her doing the same thing. That's I don't want anybody duplicating effort. I want it the amount we put in is so minimal that it it's going to take both to actually fill the the need. And I want to clarify that on the form that they fill out. One of the very first questions is are you getting any other assistance from the city because we do not double dip and then my next step is always to call if it's at a city facility to verify that they are not getting anything else. Thank you. I just wanted to add that I'm I'm tickled to death that that we're using our hometown residents are using our facilities to the uh to the extent that they are. And I think that that's our first duty is to make sure that we have the facilities available for those who live here and work here and play here. However, I think there is a big difference in the economic impact of those who come from out of town and those who live here. And so that ought to be considered as well. Do I have any com and then we'll get back to Char. Tamel, I just had a quick question on the bottom line is you're asking for a $70,000 increase. Is that right? Yeah. And that would be our f first increase in over three years. Okay. Uh I have a question on the CBB sales and servicing slide. Okay. The 18 million, 14 million, 15 million media assist. It how is that? Well, the media the media assist is in addition. the the economic impact that you're seeing there is the economic impact of a conference, a reunion, a meeting, uh a sports event, anything that we assisted or serviced. Okay, the media is here's extra stuff that we do that how do you put a value on it? For

[2:34:08] instance, you saw in that list uh Texas Hill Country that we've just got a copy of. They did a 9page article on us for free. All we had to do was show them around town for a couple days. The one that you saw for Triple A. They came in and actually we only had to spend almost two days with them. We got a story already on the fort. We got another story in California and Texas. And the Texas version of that just hit is going to households this week to all AAA members. 1.1 million people. That didn't cost us anything but that media visit, some of our time, putting them in a hotel, taking care of them. What is next on our plate other than I think the police associate? What is that that's coming? The police Olympics are going to be huge and you saw them on the sports side, right? But what what is on the plate after that? Uh, do we have anything come coming up or We do actually 2016 is better. You know, as as I've been warning you all, 2015 was rough because when our prices were high, we couldn't get good prices to bid. They laughed at us. We couldn't get enough rooms to bid. So, our 15 is is really bad. But 16 is filling in. We've had meetat science coming. We've had uh we just went and bid on again the firefighter Olympics. uh we don't have a decision on that yet but we're getting you know a lot of things police Olympics has happens to be one of the huge ones that's a week long um you know going back to that economic impact remember like I tell you every time I report that is only their hotel their food and their gas I'm not talking about their shopping you know that's that's getting into our sales tax that's we're not talking about that today we're talking about occupancy

[2:36:09] tax. That's not even in there. But if we multiplied that out, we know 2016 is going to be better. It's already better on the books. Pamel Pamela, I do know that as far as associations, y'all have been recruiting really hard. I know the mayor and I have been signing off on quite a few of letters, inviting those groups here. So, uh I know those efforts have definitely been there. So, we do appreciate that. And and we've got some good things going for us. Our prices are good. Again, we've got a lot of variety. We now have just about every franchise hotel you can think of here in San Angelo. So I think with the right tools, we're going to be able to bring that budget back up. But we need those tools. Marty, did you have anything, sir? No. Rodney? No. Charlie, I do understand the the incentive part, but I want to question Well, let me explain why I understand it. I've worked both sides. I chaired an ASA girls fast pitch uh the midnight madness one year and in order to have money to do it I had to come to city council at that time and I brought an economic impact statement where I had broken down everything including uh sales tax from a previous tournament with the rodeo the dollar amount as to what it brought in and the figures the net amount it was 2.6 six million just just for those three days with the girls fast pitch that came in. But sometimes you need a little incentive to kick in there like a ticket for every team member for breakfast at IHOP or somewhere to put in that package. You need a little incentive to make it just right. That's what they're looking for because a lot of those kids, they pay their tournament fee, someone pays it, but they don't have pocket money for to go have breakfast or to go to have a burger, Burger King or somewhere like that. So, that's what you use that incentive for is to something in there and if they need bus transportation from their hotel or some sort of transportation to a restaurant

[2:38:10] somewhere to feed them to get them there to local restaurants. So, and you do work with the restaurants to get them, you know, to maybe not charge as much and stuff like that. So, I understand it. I just uh I'm cringing at a $70,000 increase. However, um I have to support it because I've seen what it can do. Uh I've seen what just wearing that big badge in different states that little bit of expense to bring attention to St. Angelo. So my only question is this wasn't brought to us when we were doing budget preparation. Why? Why is that? We we presented our budget back in July as we were requested to do. So I can't answer to why it didn't get to you. This wasn't in that request at that time. So, where do we get the money? Morgan, can I speak to that? Um, I know that when we started doing projections, Morgan, you may want to address this as well as far as the budget. Uh, when we're doing projections, we're looking at occupancy tax monies and what we expect to come in for the coming year. So in allocations a lot of times depending if we see that number going down as a matter of fact which you presented a little while ago we try to work within the numbers we previously had because we do have allocations for different groups as well but uh on this one a couple years back when we took a look at this and the 47% that they were receiving uh the city council had talked about coming up with a dollar value a dollar amount to make sure that it wasn't based on a percentage that we were actually setting it at a certain uh amount I think initially the council thought that the numbers way too high. But uh in looking at the numbers this year, uh it was just an allocation issue knowing that those numbers were going to go down. We're cut we're stuck between a rock and a hard place but because we definitely do need to promote to bring more people in here, but we know those monies are down as well as revenues. So where do those monies come from is a

[2:40:11] question that uh again we'd have to work with finance to address. I see Tina back there nodding as well, but that's something that we'd have to come together and look at where perhaps we could pull this money. some information. Microphone and during this blackout period, I'll sing a song. Hi. Oh man, you cut me off. Finance director. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, and Mr. Venuela. Um, while we're looking for those slides that I opened up at the beginning of the meeting, I'll just let you know that um, for the current year, we have revenue over expenditures of about $220,000 in the civic events fund. For next year, we are projecting a much lower amount for revenue. I believe it was $2.5 million that we budgeted this year. Next year, we're going to budget $2.3 million in revenue in that fund. And we would project revenue over expenses then for next year of about $186,000 if that helps at all. That's not it either. Um but we are seeing you know those numbers trend down quite a bit and so that would be our only concern is to make sure that we're able to make that budget as projected. You have something to add. So you can you can Sure. So for fiscal year 15 I'm sorry. Yeah. Let me clarify. Fiscal year 15, unodudited numbers show $220,000 of revenue over expenditure right now. Okay. Um and for fiscal year 16, we're budgeting for revenue over expenditures of 186,000. And so this would be it would come out of that fiscal year 16 budget of 186,000 that we expect to have. Okay. Did that clarify? So we could afford it. We could um of course you know we have other

[2:42:14] initiatives out there as well. So that would be for you to decide. priorities. So, this was for discussion. I think item F is where we actually make a decision on what we've just discussed. So, if there's uh is there any public comment on item E before we move on to F? Is there anything else from council that needs to be said before we move on? I personally have seen more this last year out of out of this bureau than I've ever seen before. So you guys are doing what you're supposed to do and I'm proud of what you've done and I've seen the accomplishments of it. So, you know, you can't you can't argue with success. Harry, do you have a comment, sir? Yes, sir. Harry Thomas, uh, actually am the vice chair for the Convention Visitors Bureau, but uh, uh, I've worked with that organization off and on for the probably the last 15 years. One of the things I want to point out is we always talk about bringing new businesses to St. Angelo and what's that economic impact? uh when Costa DC uh used those funds to do that. You know, bringing visitors to this particular uh community regardless of of how they get here has a bigger economic impact than any one major business that you could probably bring to St. Angelo uh during a year year's time. But you talk about $18 million uh economic impact. We need to continue to support getting people into these new hotels and we need to continue to do that. That's the only way we're going to control continue to grow the hot money and we need that hot money to do some of these other things that we do in the community. So, I have to say that from my perspective really the $70,000 is a drop in the bucket. I think it's kind of uh convoluted that somehow or other we didn't get to do to have that conversation with the budget group until July uh because this is we knew that this uh this new uh contract needed to be uh needed to be handled very soon. So, we really need to work on this and I

[2:44:19] and I and I appreciate all the input that's coming both from the staff and from the council standpoint, but that $70,000 could end up relating to a couple more million dollars in uh in economic impact in the community and result in uh that much more hot money. Thank you, Harry. Any further comment before I close this? Michaela. Michaela Brownfield. Okay, I come at this from many different angles. Um, hotel association, civic events board, CVB, chamber. Um, as far as where to get the 70,000, I'm going to bring it up. What do we have in the reserve? Because when we were all out there charging those high rates, which is the reason 2015 has been tough, the the sale was, let's save it while it's feast so we can use it while it's famine. Well, it's famine. rooms. We're not selling them. Occupancy is way down yet. Now we have all the supply, which is why occupancy is also way down. We've we fought to get more rooms here so we could fill them up and get the bigger tournaments in. Now we got to get those bigger tournaments to fill those hotel rooms because it's all it's not fun. But so we do have that reserve out there. Uh last figure I can remember is around a million. I could be totally wrong on that. on the reserve, the occupancy reserve. So, but um and the one thing we cannot do is take away from advertising. And y'all know I'll I'm one of the first ones to complain if I don't think they're doing it right that um if I don't think they're using their money wisely. I I'm pretty vocal about it along with a few others. And but we cannot they are the marketing arm of St. Angelo. I've been doing hotels a long time and the one thing that is has been consistent for the last 30 years is if they they either don't know St. Angelo's here and if they do finally get here they are amazed and shocked at what St. Angelo has to offer

[2:46:23] and the big tournaments that have come in that is a consistent. We're so glad you brought us here because we want to come back. What it's just getting people here keeping them is usually not the problem. It's getting them here to start with. So the 70,000 if it means increase in advertising is definitely worth it and 5 years down the road if you don't think it's working then things can be changed again. So just wanted to throw it out there. Michaela, I have a quick question. I noticed on the list uh your your hotel uh you have 159 rooms. Yes. How many were filled last night? Oh gosh, I don't want to put that public but let's say it's No, you don't have to, but it's not good. Not good. And also keep in mind CVB is really good about promoting the the big conventions, the groups, whatever. But again, you get people here for their kids soccer tournament or whatever it is. The big hotel, the the dollars are really made in the corporate business. My hotel right now, not so much, but historically. And that's how people find out. I mean, they come here. I've had multiple business folks that have come and stayed with us over the years. and um they found out about St. Angelo because of a group or something they came here for and then possibly they bring their their company here or they start visiting that it's a whole new market to them. There are so many people that just don't know St. Angelo is here or what we have to offer. So the more advertising the better. So well that just goes to show if if she if if your occupancy is not good, you're just one hotel. I can imagine everybody. So we are in a famine. Well, the hotels are not it's not good. I mean, you know, I was over at the other hotel for close to 16 17 years and occupancy was never below 80 something% over there in the time I was there from what I understand now. Even that one who is its own little market, um it's down. It's way down. So, and all these new hotels, if you want to

[2:48:27] continue getting them here, not that we need more new hotels, but we got to fill them. We fought to get them here. Let's do what we can to fill them. Thank you. Thank you, Caleb. Good points. Anybody else before we close this down? All right, let's close number D down and let's go to F, which is consider adoption of a resolution allowing the city manager or his designate to negotiate and execute a contract with the Chamber of Commerce Convention and Visitors Bureau allocating hotel occupancy tax funds. Miss Morgan, you are on. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. What's before you today is uh we had a three-year agreement. We generally have a multi-year agreement to fund the CVB. Um so the last agreement just expired September 30th, 2015. And so we are still available to to continue these good discussions we're having with the CVB. Still working through the details of any changes that may occur. However, what's before you today is just to get a contract in place for beginning October 1st at the amount of $795,000. uh we did change the term to just be 12 months so that we could continue to um continue these discussions, build things into uh the relationship with the CVB to ensure that we're still investing in the community as as necessary. And so, um it's just an immediate I don't I'm not sure council's aware of the discussions you're talking about. We received a directive from Daniel to uh update the contract to build in some benchmarks and some performance measures and that those are the discussions she's talking about. uh trying to establish a more concrete uh connection between cause and effect and uh the ability to measure activity levels and the outcomes associated with those. That's that's a negotiation we're talking about. That that is the discussion she's talking about. The discussions we're having outside of of of this agenda item. This agenda item would be simply to put the terms in place at the 795,000 effective October 1st of 2015. However, we're talking about an additional

[2:50:28] $70,000 right now. That's what the council is hearing at this point. As far as a director moving forward and negotiating this contract, it'll be with the understanding that the city council is in agreement with upping that amount to the $70,000 can be wr written into this resolution as well and uh allow for the other points to be negotiated. And our biggest concern just related to that is related to that revenue is budgeted at $2.3 million. And we have of course the famine that we've talked about that we have a severe um unknown in the projection of what's going to happen with that. And so while this is projecting that revenue over expenditure would be $186,000 as Tina discussed earlier that could change very quickly and we would not be able to fully fund our annual obligations. And so that's something we're very mindful of as we continue these discussions. Um and and and as we've discussed that that amount for 795,000 was frozen for about three years to kind of manage those expenses that we knew when this hotel boom happened that it was going to be short-term. We knew that at some point it would stop. And by Pamela's numbers and my numbers, we've seen that it is stopping. The hotel boom is is virtually uh over. And so we wanted to be able to manage those contracts, manage these um these these these subgroups that get these fundings that we didn't artificially grow with the boom that we grew at a level that was on a more normal trend. And so at fiscal year 15 we achieved I think a little less than what Pamela had presented earlier about 2 4 million and I think she was reported about 2.7 million. And so we're down and we're down six figures. It can change very quickly. So, there's just that uncertainty with that being able to achieve a revenue amount which would fund it. Another thing to keep in mind is that we've not had an opportunity to review their financial statements. Um, we've requested them, but I don't think they had been ready yet for uh September 30th. There may be some room within their current budget. You know, if they have revenue over expenditure that we could just let them keep it rather than giving the surplus back to the city. So, that might be an option to keep in mind as well.

[2:52:30] But again, I do again want to stress that um to make money, you have to spend a little bit of money as well. So, we do understand that uh in this aspect as far as additional $70,000 uh we are seeing 186,000. We tend to be very conservative as far as we need to be. Um but also we have to be careful not to shoot ourselves in the foot either and say, "Well, we'll leave it at 795." I understand where the chamber's coming from. I think that if we are going to go out there and market and bring more into our community, uh this will be something that we definitely want to take a look at uh for this year and not so much wait till the following year. So, uh that's what I'm hearing from the chamber at this point and um that's something that we want to get direction from the council. Is this for a motion? I guess the question is do we stay at 795? Do we up it to 865 or do we define a figure somewhere in between? Mayor, I'd be happy to make a motion to approve the request for this year and this year only. And as much as I like allowing the nonprofits to have a multi-year budget, which they can budget for, I think we're in a very tenuous time and I think they understand that. So, I think the 12 month that staff has recommended is good. I do think I would also want to make it a part of my motion though if they have any remaining funds from the current budget year that they return those to the city so that all we're increasing their budget right now are the funds that they've requested and no more. So you're you're saying 865,000 instead of the 795 and any money that they do have left over in their budget comes back to the city. I'll second one year. And can I get clarification on the motion that your motion uh your motion is to adopt the resolution with that change? Yeah. Adopt the resolution with that. Yes. With that change. Okay. All right. Do I have any further council discussion on this before we move? That sounds like a very reasonable way to handle this and I think it would help the chamber. I think it'll help our city and we are. It does take a village. Mayor, I do want to point out that part

[2:54:31] of the uh what's in here as well is just discussions and the negotiations to make sure we work with the chamber to establish those goals and make sure that we have those performance measurements in place as well. So, we'll be working very closely with Bill and everybody else. Yes, ma'am. I'd like to volunteer. I, you know, just came back from a pretty large event, Williston, and uh that was right on top of a real large event, TML San Antonio. Phil Neighbors was there all the way through both of them. And uh that promotes St. Angelo. He supports council's work. Council supports him and going through these cities. It promotes St. Angelo and I want to thank Phil personally for all of the help because it helps me. I appreciate it and I hope that I'm doing the same for the chamber as well as the city of St. Angelo, but you're out there. Thank you. Do I have any other comment from council? Do I have public comment on this item? It has been moved that we accept a 1year contract raising it from 795,000 to 865,000 with the caveat in the motion that if there is any money left over in the budget that it come back to the city. Am I right? Yes, sir. On the second, am I right? Yes, sir. All in favor of that motion that included last year. Yeah. Exit the current year. Last year's How do we know how much is left over? Well, that's what the audit's for. Okay. We have a process. Yeah. Okay. All in favor, please say I. I. And oppose. Nay. Let's put a 70 on that one. It's 12:25 and we've got about an hour and a half in executive. I think I will take us into executive and read the legalities here. Executive session under the provision of government code title 5 open government ethics subtitle A open government chapter 551 open meeting. Subchapter D exceptions to requirement that meetings be open under the following section. A section 5510711A

[2:56:33] consult with attorney with the governmental body seeks the advice of its attorney about pinning or complicated litigation regarding number one 213 seal coding program contract number two code compliance rel relating to the development of the city's groundwater resources number three for Hurstfield Energy Systems L C and number four Templeton Construction Incorporated number B section 5510712 consult with attorney on a matter in The duty of the attorney to the governmental body under the Texas disciplated rules professional conduct of the state bar of Texas clearly conflicts with this chapter regarding an existing architectural services agreement with Wigington Hooker Jeffrey architects for a future police station. Number C section 551072 to liberate the purchase exchange lease or value of real property located at number one St. Angelo Regional Airport and number two 650 Old Nicarbaka Road and adjacent properties and D section 551074A1 to deliberate the evaluation and duties of city manager Daniel Valenzoa. It is 12:27. This is going to take a minimum of an hour and a half. So don't look for us back before two. Do you agree, Daniel? I fully agree. We are now in executive. It is 2:26 and we are back in business at this San San Angelo City Council meeting. Uh C on our regular agenda is presentation on the Fugrow Street Condition Study Shane Kelton and Fugo Roadware Incorporated senior project manager Ruben Williams. You're on sir. All right. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Um, as it states, we're going to uh we're we're starting to wrap up the street study and and get it in its final form. And so, we're bringing uh to you today uh the data that Fugrow has uh collected and and everything they've put together. And we have have been working

[2:58:37] with our our finance staff and and looking at at funding and different things that we can do in the different scenarios. and we have brought brought to y'all also along with all of the data that we've collected to kind of go over some of that with you. Uh what we believe to be a a pretty good plan moving forward with the available dollars. And so we've got a couple of different options. We're going to let you look at. We're going to go through a lot of we're going to throw out a lot of information today. Uh or Ruben is I'm not Ruben's going to throw out a lot of information at you and then we're going to we're going to look at it. uh let y'all u as we're going through it digest it and then I'm sure after we get through y'all going to have a lot of questions and and uh and then get some direction from y'all as we move forward uh to finalize everything not only from a from a project standpoint uh major project standpoint but also um we're moving forward still with the um with the maintenance portion of it as well too. So but with that I will turn it over to Ruben and let him uh start uh handing y'all a lot of data. So, well, my name's uh Ruben Williams. Uh, say hello to um Thank you for Mr. Mayor and Councilman. This is my first council presentation actually. So, it's a little bit nervous and you have to excuse my voice. Um, the allergies, you can't time when they hit you and they hit me this weekend. So, do apologize for that. If you need me to speak up any louder, let me know. This will be an overview of the uh the condition assessment as well as some of the uh budget analyses that we've run for the uh the street maintenance and rehabilitation. Uh the network uh about 660 lane miles of slightly less center line. We did some multiple passes on certain roadways primarily your wider arterials to to get the variation of condition on them and just some of the standards that we used. I think we did some of the collection back in February. There's a little rain, maybe a little bit of snow, but um uh finished the collection uh by March of this year. Did the processing of the raw data primarily over the summer and been working on the

[3:00:39] uh the budget analyses late summer and the last couple months. This is a map of the overall conditions of of the network at this time or a snapshot of when we did the collection. This does not take into account any of the the work that's been performed this summer. This was the conditions as of when the the survey was completed. And uh this is based on the PCI survey uh score which is a 0 to 100 scale. Uh just like your school grading uh basically you know knowing that this puts uh the city really not with the best road condition. And this really is not something that happens overnight. you know something with this um it's from decades of deferred maintenance and um it's you know it's in you know we know what the issue is now and the plan is now to what can we do to address this is you know you've heard the old the adage you know how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time it's the exact same uh situation with this and just to put this kind of in perspective um not this is one of the lower scores I have seen with the uh analyses I've done Um but we know what it is and the idea is to what can we do about it. So here's a breakdown based on the the functional classes uh local roads your major and minor arterials and collectors and we do see that with your major roads they are generally in better condition than the road the roads that are local. And this is typical of of of most networks. you see that the the major roads with the higher traffic usually get more attention, get taken care of better, higher travel speeds, more safety concerns on those. Yes, they are going to get addressed than maybe a local street that's lower volume, maybe uh less complaints on those type roadways. And another uh item that we quantified was the IRI or international roughness index. And what this uh quantifies is how bumpy the road is when you drive

[3:02:41] down it. And these are generally, you know, the ones that going to draw complaints. You know, when a road is too rough and someone spills their coffee and gets burned, that's kind of what what this quantifies. And within these ranges, zero is perfect. That's like sliding on ice. And as you go higher and higher and higher, that indicates a road that is a rougher ride. And you will see on some of the the local roads, uh, we couldn't hit minimum collection speeds. That's why there's some values that were excluded. But like with the the other distribution, we are seeing that um the major and minor arterial collector roads, especially the major roads are smoother in general than the the overall network as it's performing. So with the analyses that were performed, um we first started with just with the current maintenance funding using a target budget of 3.5 million. Where does that get us? you how does that um help the network score? We put this in a analysis software did a 5-year analysis and primarily focus this money on maintenance your your preventative items and in the later years some mill and overlay once the maintenance uh triggered roads uh were used up and this was primarily based on the condition scores. You can see here in your 85 range, you know, your crack sealing, maybe minor patching that would be required. Um, the next group down, which is slightly more expensive, as you slide down the scale, the cost increases. um maybe a thin surface uh preservation, either microsurface or seal coat, something that can be done to mitigate some of the cracking as well as a seal and give it a nice new uh riding surface. As it drops more and more, you know, get into this rehabilitation area, you know, milling and overlay, grinding up the surface and putting back a new surface. And then for roads that are completely deteriorated, you know, you're not left with much options but to do some kind of reconstruction. So that was considered with the analyses run. So with the network today, I have two

[3:04:43] maps up here and you all should probably have some handouts with these as well. Um again, I'm showing the the network condition map here on the on the right and on the left is just a map of where we identify preventive maintenance activities. Now, this does not include any that were performed over the summer. Now, what we're seeing with within this this map is that many of the roads within the network need more than just your preventative maintenance. They have deteriorated to a point where you're looking at, in all honesty, a more major repair. And you see the roads in here, your lighter colors, your blues and your greens, that's realistically where you can apply some of the less expensive treatments. But the other areas of town, your darker colors, your your reds, your oranges, and your blacks, that's where you're dealing with maybe a reconstruction or milan overlay type projects. So, it does show that the overall network does need some work on it. And we ran some scenarios that show a way to start chipping away at the needs. just looking first one we ran was we ran a major rehabilitation plan um looking at was assuming $16 million per year of bond funding and what could this do to the network and we considered bond funding would fund milan overlay projects or reconstruction projects did this for 5 years and did prioritization our major roads first on the plan that was uh selected so graphically which roads were selected you'll See on the uh the map, the greens are your recons uh dark delight years 1 through 5 and blues being mil and overlay projects. Same dark delight years one through five. And this is based on a five-year plan targeting roadways for these uh major uh major rehabilitation or reconstruction type projects. You see some are are combinations of two where some of the roads change, other of them are primarily the same treatment and also

[3:06:44] phased approaches if um there's not funding to complete a full stretch of road within one calendar year. We also looked at well what if there was half the bond funding assuming $8 million that may be used for the overlays and rehabilitation. And this was pretty much identical to the the other philosophy except just having the budget. And that's the uh what was spent each year. You see the first year focused on reconstruction combination in years two and three. And then years four and five uh back to focusing more on the the mill and overlay. So you can see this map has much of the same roadways, but there are some roadways omitted and that's merely because of the the uh reduction in funding and some of them were actually switched around on the calendar years. Now to develop the two list with the $8 million as well as the the $16 million, there were many candidate roadways that were evaluated. We basically went through and evaluated costing for all roadways that the majority of roadways that require this treatment and then went through and did a prioritization based on basically the functional class as well as talking with uh the folks um Shane and Patrick getting feedback on them for some projects that needed to be planned as well. So considering only the the current funding the $3.5 million budget this is what the network is the projected conditions over the next 5 years. Um what we see here towards with just doing the mil the uh sorry the the preventative maintenance and some a few millon overlay projects we are increasing the number of roadways that are in the very good condition. You see that blue band across the top increase. So that shows yes, you are getting roads up into that that better uh condition score. However, seeing some of the stuff grow with the orange shows that projects and roads are slipping into that major overlay reconstruction range. So there is some catch-up that needs to be done on roadways in that 55 to 70 range

[3:08:47] before they drop to where your only option is going to be reconstruction. And that's kind of what the bond funding is meant to address yearbyear. So looking at what are the effects on the condition should there be an influx of the the bond funding we do see um that that that blue area on top does increase about 5% or sorry 6% over the uh the current budget and that's because you you're you're doing all these capital projects. You're taking road base failed you know your zeros 20s 30s up to a 100 a perfect score with a new road. Then we also have the projections along for the $8 million budget. And these also did quite a bit. You see about a 1% difference on that. Um and that's uh just a difference between the two, the the eight and the 16. However, you still see the same trend where there is a lot of catchup to do within this range. And this kind of can be scary at first. um looking at the the cost of the deferred maintenance and this is for your major um well actually your all your uh your treatments. And what we're seeing here is that this number based on the the current deterioration model does increase to about $470 million within 5 years. Um to put things in perspective, I've done cities that are you about four or five times the size of this and their backlogs are in the billions. I mean, so the the numbers are, I would say, proportional based on the condition of the network. And then dealing with the $8 million bond, you do see that the uh the overall backlog increases by about 10 million from the uh the previous one to about $480 uh million. And you see the the main thing to notice here is that most of the the backlog is seen in the reconstruction and we kind of have a steady flow of projects that could be maintained flowing into the the overlay rehabilitation range but the same amount

[3:10:49] flowing out. That's why you see that constant uh within that band. Otherwise you would see the the the overall reconstruction uh dominating the the trends that we see here. This graph here shows uh assuming the $16 million bond several budget scenarios. You'll see two series that start on the left. The top series is is with the influx of the bond funding and this is only the um I'm sorry, the top series, I'm sorry, shows the uh the major roads and then the bottom series shows the the full network. So at the current funding level, well with both scenarios, we assumed a few things. one, what's the impact with the bond funding? What's the deterioration look like if no funding is applied to the roads? You know, that would be basically the bottom lines on each series. And then the impact of having the funding. We see with the the major roadways that with the current $3.5 million funding, it more or less stays, it goes up a little. That would be this uh this dark blue line. So the maintenance on the major roads is is effective and basically keeping the network more or less where it is. It is the impact of having the the influx of the bond funding is is obvious on there. We're actually seeing an improvement on those major roadways. The lower graph shows the the overall overall performance of the network. You do see the biggest gap there on the bottom where the the no funds or the basically let's just let it deteriorate to see where it would go. And then the the other fundings stay pretty close and grouped. And that's just that you're considering all roads in the network. Those are dominating the overall trend. That's why you don't see as much gap with the $16 million applied to the full network as the effect on just the major roadways primarily because the work was performed on the major roadways. So looking at this graph, this shows basically the same scenarios but for the $8 million uh treatment. trends. Um, and you see that this does not increase

[3:12:54] quite as much as it did before. And that's expected because you're not adding as much funding. And if you recall that with the $8 million bond, there wasn't any uh there was less done on the second year. That's why we're seeing pretty much a very uh small difference or almost those graphs are almost stacked up on each other. But then again, the other scenarios on the bottom uh this pretty much the same trends. you just see a little more bit more gap where you have the the major funding on the uh large projects. Uh some just some of the conclusions and observations regarding this and then we'll go to some of the details on the actual projects selected. Uh there is a broad range of condition. Um, most of them are kind of we're in the middle, you know, that uh 55 to or less range or around 55, meaning there's going to have to be a focus on basically trying to stretch dollars as as much as can be done. Certain things that can be done um keep up with crack sealing, keep up with patching so that those don't deteriorate. You can slow the deterioration on those until funds become available for doing some kind of major overlay or rehabilitation program. We've grouped some bond program projects based on uh the condition grouping similar condition and really um feasible based on what funding may be available. I think I've already mentioned the preventative maintenance. Um I I can't stress enough the importance of keeping the road seal. Um it it it it can really give buy time on that. Prevents further deterioration, keeps the water out, keeps the rocks out, and buys you a little bit more time for repair. At one point you are going to have to come back and do some repairs on those and that's kind of looking, you know, beyond a five-year plan. You know, something like this, you know, we we've been chatting about it should require and will require a little bit more more planning. With that, um, I wanted to go over some what projects were selected specifically and then we can go to any specific questions regarding the the, uh, analyses. So with the maps that you were given with the

[3:14:59] condition plans um basically this is just showing which projects were selected and the the approximate project costs. Now this reconstruct cost included everything. It was uh rightway to rightway. So utilities sidewalks uh all of that included in the reconstruction project for the mill and overlays. It would still be curb um rightway to rideway. Still have to do sidewalks and there may be some utilities and some of those but not to the extent of a full reconstruction. So this one's approximately $8 million on the MLK. Uh it's $8 million plan. Uh keep that in mind. um following year looking at Bell Street in Chadburn uh approximately just under 8 million and then starting the planning on the uh the next year streets and then working on Bell Street and College Hills in year three and then going into year four uh looking at just Chadurn and then looking at Glenn and Sunset in year five. That's for the the $8 million plan. Looking at the $16 million plan, it's very easy to see that you're kind of moving everything up at least a couple years at a time. So, pretty much the same projects prioritize. And then any that were added that were not on the list would be uh primarily from year three and a half on more or less. You see, you'll see many of the uh the same roadway. Sorry, I went through that last one a little quick. And that's kind of uh the results of the the analysis as we have it today. And Shane, make some comments. The maps that y'all have that we handed out earlier, you can see um there those the roadways of the two plans are depicted in the uh in these maps that that we handed you. Um uh the first map that should have been up front should

[3:17:00] have been the $16 million plan and you can kind of see it based on year. Second map would give you kind of the $8 million plan. uh these uh and the reason some people may be asking when we looked at this MLK was one of the ones that stood up that that came up front and the reason that staff has uh and along with Fugrow has proposed this is one of the first ones we tackle is because we also have some grant funds that are available to help leverage our uh city dollars uh to help with that roadway uh through the through the pedestrian path plan. We do have some dollars to leverage with that. So, we felt while those dollars were there, uh, grant dollars were there to leverage, it would be best to go ahead and and try to, uh, bring this together because MLK as a minor collector, uh, is in the reconstruct list. It it would just, but normally without this, it would be further down the list. But with these dollars that we can use to leverage, we thought it would was important to get this to get this one up on the list. Uh we have and and the reason we brought this this plan these two plans together in in the way we did was we've been talking eight 8 to 10 million um bonding proposals over the next you know 8 to 10 years you know however it falls out within that when you look at it unfortunately 8 to 10 million you know 8 to 10 million doesn't get us very far in any one year um and so we we we visited with our finance department uh visited patina and she's been visiting with uh Vince and some of those guys uh that we used with our bonding companies and and and they've you know we've looked at different scenarios and so something that we thought that that would give us also give us a little more leverage uh when we're bidding these projects out if we if we go out in a little bigger bigger package a $16 million package but do that you know do it every other year still looking at that $80 million far out 60 to80 million far out range over that 8 to 10 year period doing it

[3:19:02] 16 million every other year. Uh that would give us a little more bang for our buck up front. Uh 10 years would allow us to leverage those dollars out uh when we're going out for bids uh getting contractors in. You know, a $16 million project is a little more attractive than looking at an $8 million project. So looking at those different functions, we wanted to bring both of these plans to y'all and to see how aggressive y'all really wanted to be. Uh again, these are the recommendations on the roads that food grows come up with based on available funding, based on conditions, based on arterial uh or road size and and use. And so this is where we are. And I guess at this point, it's basically y'all y'all ask questions. I know we've I know we've thrown a lot at you really quick, but uh we didn't want to Shane, I do want to point out that in speaking with Tina and Morgan as well, um as far as our capacity for debt service, we're looking at probably the 10-year plan with the 8 million per year, 16 million every two years. Uh which is something that we felt at this point is doable. Uh again, uh we are meeting with bond council to make sure that uh we don't put ourselves in a predicament as far as our our our credit rating and making sure that we're doing what we need to do. Again, really what we're looking at right now, council members, is that 10year uh 16 million every two years. I agree. I've just come back from visiting with a city that uh has uh an extreme boom growth and um their mayor's recommendation to the city's uh leaders that were there was to be very aggressive in your plan to move forward streets infrastructure all together and listening to the reasons and seeing the film and seeing the figures be brave and it it is brave to step forward, but we have been so cautious for so long that I think we we must be aggressive, especially with our streets

[3:21:05] and and to get it done. That's just my feeling in in looking forward as long as we can pay for it. Yeah. Wait, Ronnie. Well, I don't think I'd call it cautious. I would I would say more like kicking the can down the road. And I think it's finally come to to the point where we actually have to pay in order to get this stuff done. Uh my looking at these two plans, I'm definitely in favor of the $16 million one because um for one thing, it'll move that Bell Street project up to the first year, I believe, if I'm if I'm understanding that correct on the reconstruction of that. It it move it does it moves our util it moves our utility up one year is what it does. Start the utility work one year and so it actually does bring that road construction up a lot faster. and and I think and I think that uh if we're going to do this and we're gonna and we're going to go out there, I think we need to go all in and get it done. Um again, I might not be here as this is being done. So, I'm not sure what someone in the future would want, but this is what I would want for for sure now. And I I I think if we can figure out a way to pay for it, which it sounds like that we we're we're on track for figuring that out, u we need to go ahead and pay for it while we can pay for it. Yes. Uh, one thing I wanted to add, uh, just looking at the current funding, the 3.5 million, um, that funding level is probably would be sufficient on a network where the conditions you were cruising, you were in your 80s perhaps. Um, now that your your overall score is dropped, you know, you could almost plan, you know, and these are numbers based on, you know, what I've done on previous projects probably, you know, for maintenance as a minimum about probably about 11 $11,500 per per center line mile and you're all around six. So, you're about half of what I would just recommend as a minimum, right? Um then with the uh focus on as much preventive as you can and any excess I would I would recommend doing uh as many additional milan

[3:23:07] overlay projects as possible. Right. And I forgot to mention that on one of the slides but that's kind of where you're at on funding. Um the other part is choosing projects wisely. Um there's I know projects that cities that are twice your budget about your size and they're completely reactive in their maintenance and they don't they don't know why their roads are deteriorating when they have you know more than ample funding to address things. So you there's two things is one find finding the adequate funding level and then making the best decisions on it. Um, and that's, you know, kind of what we're intending this information to help the city do. Well, and you'd said, and I want this to be want you to say this again, our scores were one of some of the lowest scores you've ever seen, right? That's correct. And that that's pretty sad. I mean, that means that we've we've really gone we're stretching that band as far as it can possibly stretch and now it's breaking. And so now we have to do something. We have to do one of these two. And I'm in favor of the $16 million one. that Shane, you did take in, if I understood y'all right, you took into consideration the uh utilities that have to be replaced. That's correct. In in the in the numbers that you've looked at on that we showed up here, it was uh utilities for the rec were in the reconstruction um as far and sewer sewer lines and then of course areas where we need curb and gutter and things like that. All of that was included within those costs as well too. Okay. Chain, did I hear you say that the utility cost is in these numbers or that's a separate? No, util utility costs are in the reconstruction numbers, not milling overlay numbers, but in the reconstruction numbers that we showed here, uh utility cost estimates are in these numbers. Okay. So, if we chose to pay for those from those utility funds, that could stretch the street dollars further. That is correct. that that could definitely if you chose if you chose to use utility dollars to fund the utility portions that would definitely stretch our 16 million bond dollars uh on on the

[3:25:11] street projects itself. That is that is true or or accelerate it would definitely just because what you know we're showing you on the map kind of what we think our dollars were on the 16 million what our dollars will handle the list keeps going. We we we have a long list and so the list keeps going. So if we can stretch these dollars doing that that way it it just means that we get to add more blue and green lines on here. Shane helped me on a presentation I don't know a couple of months ago and it was the cost the life of a street and the cost of maintenance versus non-maintenance. The cost of doing nothing. The cost of doing nothing. Thank you Daniel. I didn't want to sound too specific, but the cost of of neglecting a street and then having to, you know, reconstruct it was, you know, twice as expensive as the life of the street with proper maintenance, getting the most of most out of that as you possibly could. So, in my mind, for us to do anything else would be um very u disrespectful of public funds. um uh for us to be, you know, truly frugal, uh we need to make the most of what we have. And and I think that the 16 million is the way to go. And I don't I'm like Rodney. I don't think we can wait any longer to do this. And who knows what a future council will think, but I don't care. I think right now we know what we need to do and we need to be as aggressive with this as we possibly can. So, I also think that this is a long time coming. Um, I feel that people, the citizens of St. Angelo would be really are going to be glad to see that we're actually doing something because they have been waiting for a very long time. I also agree the 16 million is the way to go. So, I think it's like, you know, we've we're all saying it's, you know, next couple years it may be somebody else, but right now we're doing what we feel is right for the city. What are we looking at? increasing property taxes to go with the 16 million on the 10-year

[3:27:14] bond. This is currently within uh Tina, this is currently within your uh capacity right now. So, there should not be an addition property taxes. Wait a minute. Let's make sure that we're clear on this. We're talking about 16. We're talking about $16 million a year. Every other year 16 million every other year. Every other year. And we can absolutely do that within our current capacity. um you know keeping in mind that of course that you don't have that's all you can do really you know so any other issues that come up we would have to look at other ways either revenue streams or however else we want to fund that but um we can do this within existing capacity and still have some capacity left for smaller projects. So now with with the 16 million every two years would we still be able to do our uh seal coat and our crack seal if we've been doing it. So, we'd still be able to work on our 8year cycle to do our seal coat and still put the money toward reconstruction and mill and overlay. That That's correct. This does not touch the three and a half million that that's currently budgeted for the for the crack seal programs and the and the other maintenance items that we have. And of course, you know, and I was either or no, it's not. It's both. And so, and that been as we move forward, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to be up here every every budget season trying to beat you up to give me more money for maintenance because the more the more you can give me for maintenance long term will allow us to start addressing the all these uh local roads, the the residential roads that these funds aren't going to ever be able to, you know, there there's just not enough bond funding out there to touch all of them. So, I'm going to continue to ask for more maintenance funds as we go so I can start uh with in-house crews start addressing some of our local uh residential roads as well too. So, basically maintenance will be our pay pay as you go. Uh that's something we'll be budgeted on a year-by-year basis. When can we start? So, can can Yeah, that's my question. So, can engineering catch up? As you remember, um a couple weeks ago, we No, he's he's freaking out. Yeah, he's freaking out over here. Uh what if

[3:29:17] you remember we brought the RFQ proposals uh last time. Uh we actually have uh the contracts I believe ready to go out and be signed. So uh as soon as the we get all the signatures on those documents, we can actually start uh forming out some of the engineering um for these projects and we can get started. Uh we we Russell the grant for the grant funding for MLK. We need to let bids by August August 2016. Yeah. So, this next August, we need to be working on it doing it. Yeah. We we need to have let bids by then or sooner. So, uh we are we're we're ready to push forward from staff's perspective. We're ready to go. So, so but but do do we need to bring do do we need to bring an agenda item to to to release engineering for those streets? No, you you that in the last you you have you have you have approved uh engineers not for and for me and for and for staff to uh pick the project. Yeah. Negotiate. Well, actually we can actually we've ne able to negotiate contracts and to uh you have approved up to a million dollars for design design work thus far. So from from staff's perspective, we're ready to go to work. Now you will from time. Yeah. As far as um timing on the bond fund, that can take anywhere up to 90 days. And so if that is something that we want to look at doing and get started with immediately, we'll need some direction on on starting that process. Yes. Also, if we want to stretch these street dollars as far as we can, then we want to get uh Bill Riley involved in the conversation and talk about uh Bill has already been working on strategies to pay for largecale utility work and uh we need to I I think we need to stretch these street dollars as far as we can and that's going to mean moving the utility rate discussion along also. So,

[3:31:19] there there are several moving parts here if we want a coordinated effort. uh that we probably want to I guess we develop a timeline that includes all of those moving parts and then bring it back to council next meeting. I think push to the next meeting. Absolutely. Okay. I got I have one question also and I think Tina or Michael may have to answer this. How will this re how will this uh reflect on our bond rating if we do get to the point of getting bond money for the police department? How will this affect us on It's a good question and I have spoken with Vince about that. Um he says of course it will have an impact. He doesn't think that this plan as it stands without any other, you know, variables in place would uh negatively affect our rating. It would have an impact, but that it probably would not be negative at this point. That we wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't be moved down. We wouldn't decrease our rate. Well, the rating wouldn't be moved down, but what about capacity? Of course. Yes. Yes. It it absorbs capacity and uh we're not at a limit or anything like that. We've got we got capacity. The question is political capacity to pay for that kind of debt service. And of course, we're talking about some work on the utility side also both for lines and for a plant possibly, right? Uh so we are talking about the possibility of a lot of debt. Tina's already started those discussions with Vince and uh it's just like at home when you borrow more you you you become your risk runs a little higher, right? And you've got to be careful about reserves, right? Uh trying to make sure those reserves stay stay solid and achieve their goals and uh and you got to be able to withstand a little bit of criticism. Okay. You know. Okay, Shane, one other question. Uh, I know we authorized a truck and a crew so that we could start doing a little bit

[3:33:22] of this work inhouse. Does this include any other equipment or any other crews that we could add to our in-house capacities? Not not currently under this plan. This this is strictly all uh this will all be outside um um contractors that that come in to actually do this work as reconstruction work. Our in-house crew is is more of a maintenance function. we we brought them in for the crack seal functions and uh and the pothole patching things like that and and actual street patching. And so we're concentrating our efforts from in-house in the maintenance side of things and really trying to push our maintenance um portion of it harder uh and let this come in from a uh from a contractor standpoint. Mayor, there's discussion as far as uh perhaps next year funding a little bit more on the pay as a go the three and a half million may moving that up and perhaps uh actually having equipment to do the small mill and overlay type projects especially the residential areas that going to require that. So that's coming though. Yes. So that's something that we are planning for and looking for in this coming year as well because if we had in-house equipment at in-house crews it would be a lot cheaper than this. I Well, it it's one of those things as you go along and you know a year and a half ago um um Councilman Vman was sitting up there and asked me um could we do it in house cheaper and uh it was the at that point in time it was I you know if if we own the equipment and I could probably buy the materials. Yeah. So I could probably do it a little bit cheaper but I have no way to get the labor to do it. So, you know, it's one of those things that it's a there's always a catch in there somewhere. But yes, there there's we are looking at multiple avenues to try to help push this along as the pay as you go and from the maintenance side of things as well too. Consensus is put us a plan together and bring it back to us so we can get this started. We will we will put all the uh I will work with Tina and Bill and we'll start putting all the financing and the and from the utility side of it as well too to try to

[3:35:24] bring y'all a finalized plan uh next time. And uh from there uh if y'all are if y'all are feeling pretty solid on this and then you know there's a consensus we'll go ahead and start working with the with the engineering firms to start okay to start the design. every one of us that promised this when we were campaigning because this is the number one thing that comes up. Water and streets, those are the things. Well, we will we will start the insurance. Okay. And I really would like to see Bell Street right there at the front, too. Yes, sir. It's it's it's number two on reconstruction. So, but I don't want to see Bell Street on the front unless Bell Street is more likely to fail sooner than any other street. Uh well bail has failed but I want you to use the science behind it rather than just the squeaky wheel. It's just that we do have monies to kind of leverage that Liz at this point. Well the ML MLK we're leveraging Bell Street out front though it is based on volume and it's in its uh class where's class at it is at the top of the list. So I trust your maps. Okay. Thank you Ruben. Good presentation. All right, let's move on to D, which is consider approving an amendment to the contract with Raffles Financial Consultants in the amount of $19,171 and changing the completion date to December 3215 for additional services provided in the conduct of the water and recl water reclamation cost of service and rate design study. Mr. Riley, you have the floor, sir. Thank you, Mayor, Council. Good afternoon. Good to see you again. Um, speaking of the rate study, the original contract was uh not to exceed $90,000 and there was a obviously a specific scope of services associated with that. But like a lot these projects, a lot of the time as you go through it, begin the analysis, begin to develop the project, the scope changes a little bit. One of the things that was not uh considered at the time that we developed the scope was the additional meetings and analysis that the uh advisory board would want. And so that's

[3:37:26] kind of uh uh changed the scope a little bit and added a little bit more work to it. Plus, we've had uh a couple of extra meetings u that uh with the council that was not initially anticipated. So uh we need to finish the project. We have as far as a schedule moving forward. We have a meeting scheduled next week with the water advisory board. So we're have them doing some additional analysis for that currently. uh and then anticipate uh following that at the uh next council meeting uh to bring the uh final results of that uh to you for uh for your action. And so we hope to do that and that would that would complete the project at that time and then they would uh finalize it and issue a final report. We're not being asked to pay $19,000 for two extra meetings, are we? No, ma'am. There's additional uh quite a bit additional analysis in that as well. There's also an additional meeting in here for 3500 that we've added. There would be an additional meeting to the council if you so desired. We don't anticipate needing that, but that we did want to get that in the budget. Can we use conference calls instead of having meetings? I hate I hate to do this, man. We have already taken some serious hits on these studies and now we come up and add another 20,000 to the 90. Well, uh they have we we can conference them in. We certainly can. uh they have done a tremendous amount of work and I think their uh presence is is in this process has been very valuable uh and we still have some work to do I think to complete this uh we can conference them in but there has been a lot of uh different scenarios and analysis that they've been asked to do mayor one of the things I ran into this last week was a a phone call I know that you're you wanted an active water advisory board and you got it because I I had Bill and a and a board member talking to me about options, financial options. And so I know that it has been a high energy board experience uh with that advisory board. It has and and the uh consultants have been very uh good to

[3:39:31] work with and in helping us look through all of those different scenarios and try to uh find a way to to meet our needs here, but ob obviously have the least impact on our citizens. And I think we have a pretty good plan for moving forward. Um, and and mayor, I appreciate the the uh concern of studies, but you know, this is to me it's it's similar to what an engineer would provide for you. It's not they're not just studying something. They're developing a plan for us uh to move forward and and uh how to meet our needs in the future. Additionally, as we we were just talking about the impact of uh significantly increasing our debt load, the study will help us when we go to talk with uh the rating agencies. When we talk to them about we've got a plan for streets, we've also got a plan for uh utilities and the rates that go to fund those utility improvements. It will help the rating agency's confidence in us to know we have a study backing up our plan for the next five to six years. But I think the background memo made it sound like it was additional meetings for 20,000 19,000 something. Yeah. Well, we'll take it to a vote. But $90,000 that we approved first I thought was a tremendous amount of money. And I had to choke on that one. And now you come back asking for 20% more. Another $20,000. I'm I'm not going to support you, but you know, pick four up here maybe. Well, well, I I'm agreeing with you, except we're already in for 90,000. In for a penny, in for a pound. I I don't like it. I I don't know how we could have missed an additional $20,000, you know, first go around. This was just seems like it was just last month. But, um I don't think I voted for it to begin with, but um if we vote it down, what happened? I call the consultant and they issue the final report. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve, but

[3:41:34] I don't think a board should be spending money that they don't have. So, I I I would have looked to council, I mean, to the staff to make sure that didn't happen. But here we are. So, I'm like Charlotte. I want to get the report done and I want it to be I want it to cover everything that that this um that the that our our board wanted, but I think we got a little ahead there. I'll second it and with the same sentiments, you know, I mean I if I may I don't think that the No, we're running out of time. You're about to lose one of your votes. About to lose. You're going to have to vote. We have a We have a motion in a sec. We have a motion and a second that we accept this uh public comment. Further council comment. All in favor of spending an additional $20,000 on top of the already 90. Please say I. I. Oppose. Nay. Nay. Nay. So eyes. One, two, three, four eyes. Two nays. It passed. Okay. Y'all have to You gone? I'm gone. Are you and you gone too, Elizabeth? Yes, sir. Well, then we're through. Let Let us adjourn then. Yes. Somebody we need to hold on. We have We have to have the discussion at least on the November meetings regarding the election. Based on the canvasing requirements, that is 7B. Yes, sir. Have you got a minute, Elizabeth? Yes, sir. Uh, consider November city council meeting dates related to election canvasing requirements. based on the canvasing requirements, uh, we're going to have to meet from between the 11th and the 16th of November. The 11th is Veterans Day, so that's probably not an option. And, uh, I spoke with Johnny and Rodney, and, uh, they both, uh, Johnny said he'd go with however you vote. Uh, Rodney said he'd prefer to just have one meeting. When would that be? Um, we'd have to

[3:43:36] have it between the 11th and the 16th. So my preference or I think based on on you know what's available either that Thursday or the following Monday which is the 16th. Anybody have a I'm out I'm here for the 12th. I'm out 13th through the 16th. So the 12th but but what day is the 12th? It's a Thursday. Thursday. It's good for me. So we would have one meeting in November. How does this affect plannings? issues probably huge, but I I can't answer that off top of my head. Well, can we can we maybe agree on two dates and let's see what has We can do the third and 12th on their notification process. You want to do the third and the 12th? Will you be here for the third? I'll be here for the third. Why don't we do the 3rd and the 12th and then Do we want to? Unless the Unless the third doesn't affect them, but it probably does. It probably will unless there's no cases, but we'll see. Why don't we go the 3rd and the 12th in tentatively? Absolutely. The 12th and tentatively on the third unless something comes up that it just can't be that we don't have to. Yeah. If we have things that we don't have to take on the 3rd and they can wait till the 12th, then we'll do that. Okay. If not, we'll Is that agreeable? Yes. I'll contact John. Okay. Somebody give me a motion to adjurnn. Move to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? Ah ah I

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=vgRoiXIrG1s