San Angelo City Council 12-7-21

[0:00:00] december the 7th pearl harbor day to order and with that as usual we will start the meeting with our chaplain prayer and pledges and i think we have marcella and gary jenkins here to lead us in both morning good morning good morning everyone let's pray dear god in the scriptures you have said that the citizens are to obey the governing authorities since you have established those very authorities to promote peace and order and justice therefore i pray for our mayor the honorable brenda gunter the members of the city san angelo city council and the people we serve i'm asking that you will graciously grant them wisdom to govern among the conflicting interests and interest of our times a sense of the wealthier and true needs of our people personal peace in their lives and joy and their task i pray for the agenda set before our council today please give an assurance of what would please you and what will benefit those who live and work and around our beloved city of san angelo i pray lord that you eradicate covet from san angelo and around the entire world please heal those that have contracted the virus bring peace to those that have lost loved ones during this season let's be obedient to the guidelines that have been set by cdc social discipline wearing a face mask and washing our hands it is in your most blessed name of jesus i pray amen amen repeat after me the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with

[0:02:04] liberty and justice for all under god one and indivisible okay our first proclamation today will be the proclamation of december the 7th 2021 is national pearl harbor remembrance day and i know we have several people in the audience today so if you'll please come forward on sunday december the 7th 1941 the imperial japanese navy launched a surprise attack on pearl harbor in an attempt to break the american will and destroy our pacific fleet the attack left over 3 500 americans killed or wounded and marked the united states entrance into world war ii president franklin d roosevelt declared december 7 1941 a date which will live in infamy in his official speech on december 8 1941 he included no matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion the american people and their righteous might will win through to absolute

[0:04:07] victory and with confidence in our armed services with the unbounding determination of our people we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us god our service members violently answer the call by defending their positions fighting back against our attackers and caring for our wounded the sacrifices made by the members of our armed forces and civilians to protect america and its people will never be forgotten on august 23 1994 congress by public law 103-308 designated december the 7th of each year as national pearl harbor remembrance day authorizing and requesting the president to issue annually a proclamation calling on the people the united states to observe the day with appropriate ceremonies and activities and to urge all federal agencies and interested organizations groups and individuals to fly the flag at half staff each december the 7th in honor of the individuals who died as a result of their service at pearl harbor commemoration of the attack on pearl harbor will instill in all people of the united states a greater understanding and appreciation of the selfless sacrifice of the individuals who served in the armed forces of the united states during world war ii now therefore i brenda gunter mayor of the city of san angelo texas do hereby proclaim december the 7th 2021 as national pearl harbor remembrance day in san angelo texas further be it known that the citizens of san angelo remember with eternal respect those who were injured or killed on december the 7th 1941 at pearl harbor including seaman first class walton a irwin a citizen of san angelo whose mortal remains are forever entombed in the uss arizona angelo

[0:06:17] as a veteran myself as we all are we thank the city of san angelo for giving us a chance to be here to accept this proclamation from our good mayor not only for those who died on december the 7th 1941 but all of those who have died since december the 7th 1941. san angelo has always been a military town and the people that have served in the military in san angelo have learned to appreciate it immediately and that's why a lot of people come back to san angelo and our retired community here is roughly 17 000 people so we not just for this day but for every day we appreciate the people of san angelo [Applause] our next proclamation is the recognition of december the 9th 2021 and san angelo reed's day and i know we have many

[0:08:20] people in the audience for this please come forward it's all about fantastic good morning good morning good morning thank you bill hello come on around we can come around this way as well okay glad we have so many people it's a good problem this is a good problem san angelo isd is committed to building the literacy skills of the children of san angelo and to instill a passion for reading in every student as part of this commitment as a isd is partnering with the city of san angelo local businesses and other community groups for community-wide literacy initiative san angelo reads to increase awareness of the importance of literacy saisd administrators principals and educators are focusing on this initiative in schools together with comprehensive literacy programs to inspire a love for reading s-a-i-s-d invites the san angelo community to join in and get to reading therefore i brenda gunter mayor of the city of san angelo texas on behalf of the city council and together with san angelo independent school district administrators principals educators staff and students do hereby recognize december the 9th 2021 as the second annual san angelo reads day and urge all citizens in san angelo texas to acknowledge the occasion of this day in celebration of the importance of literacy and of instilling a passion for reading in our youth

[0:10:24] who's going to come forward whitney come on i'll start well thank you mayor gunter and thank you city council members and before we talk about san angelo reed's day i do want to say on behalf of san angelo isd that we humbly and respectfully honor our pearl harbor men and women and our servicemen and women in the community you mean so much to this community and we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be celebrating this day without those men and women so thank you first about that and then to talk about san angelo reed's day we are so excited and truly appreciative of mayor gunter our city council members and all of our community partners and leaders who i will talk about here in a minute but last december 9th we launched san angelo reads the community-wide literacy initiative and it's all about inspiring a love of reading we know looking at statistics how vitally important it is to really foster a love of reading and to get children on grade level reading by third grade they're four times more likely to drop out of school if they are not on grade level reading by that by third grade so this is just all about championing reading and fostering that love of reading we do a lot in our schools that are so impactful to really teach our students to read and really get them to love it and have choice reading but we want to partner with our community because it's important for them to begin before school to before they're entering our school system and it's important that it goes beyond the school day because that's how they build those vocabulary they build that passion for reading so we invite our community to join with us on san angelo reads day this thursday it can be as simple as reading a book to a loved one or joining in a literacy program we have a lot of great programs in the community or attending one of the events at great places like the tom green county libraries so i do want to thank our community partners that we have here today that are really truly championing literacy with us and recognize the importance of how this impacts

[0:12:27] our youth in san angelo but also our overall community and how vital it is to the success of the community so today we have with us we have shannon medical center dr sandy seifert we have howard college dean pam callan we have our wonderful ladies from the tom greene county libraries we have sally myers and amy dennis we have from our good fellow air force base vice commander colonel james finlayson thank you sir and extra thanks on this important day and of course goodfellow air force base school liaison that we work so closely with teresa goodwin and we have several of our san angelo isd school board members that we can't think enough all the time but we appreciate them joining this as well we've got with us here today president max parker bill dindle amy mizell flint and lanny layman and of course dr deathloff our superintendent and dr janna ritter who is our assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and really helped get us the fire of starting this initiative last year and of course our wonderful friends at whataburger through their feeding success program we have area manager david boney here and miss amanda howell she's a wonderful partner too they are helping us to give all of our third graders district wide a book as part of san angelo reads we get books into children's hands we realize that not every child has their own collection of books at home and how important it is to get books in kids hands to really support this literacy initiative so we cannot do this without the support of our community so we thank these leaders that are here with us today and also ones that weren't able to make it you know angelo state university heb fast signs of san angelo all of those groups and we have even karen kirkendall here with august fluger's office and drew darby has also supported us in the past so we invite all of you all to join us this thursday and again it can be as simple as reading a book to a loved one

[0:14:30] and modeling that reading so thank you so much and we can't wait to celebrate on thursday follow our facebook page you'll see some of the fun things that we'll be doing at 2pm we'll be doing a live read-aloud of the book that our friends at whataburger are providing to our third graders so again we just want to celebrate and inspire a love of reading so thank you just like you are tighten up and let's have a i know here thank you [Applause] yes sir warden is all that otherwise what about all this stuff it was waterproof there's

[0:17:00] our next proclamation will be the proclamation of december the 17th 2021 essential naacp day so i know we also have people in the audience for this so please come forward good morning the san angelo national association for the advancement of colored people naacp was formed in 1946 by community leader mr l.a rayburn and a few dedicated black men and women throughout the years the naacp has helped deliver tremendous leadership from the black community serving as an integral voice for concerns about equality and justice leaders from this organization were involved in the planning committee to integrate public schools in san angelo in 1954 the first black person to serve as the city council representative and the first black woman to serve as a council member the first black person to be elected to a county position as a county constable and several black men and women serving in volunteer positions on various boards and commissions the san angelo naacp has repeatedly guided minority residents to register to vote and vote in all elections serve as election workers and engage in get out the vote programs and activities in 2017 the local chapter hosted the naacp regional conference and in 2019 served as the host chapter of the first ever naacp state conference in san angelo texas the local chapter has continued to fight for voting rights economic equality and educational opportunities and has worked to advance the social political and economic conditions of ethnic people of

[0:19:04] color our city has benefited from the naacp's unwavering dedication to the objective of securing equality of opportunity for all as this organization celebrates 75 years of service to the san angelo community we salute the officers and members who have worked to improve the lives of all residents of san angelo therefore i brenda gunter mayor of the city of san angelo hereby proclaim december 17 2021 as san angelo in double a cp day to recognize and honor this organization for 75 years of service to the san angelo community and ask that all of our citizens continue to work for the principles they have dedicated themselves to uphold we thank you for the recognition of our local naacp unit i am not a native san angelo but i came here as a young airman in 1958 and i had the pleasure extreme pleasure of personally knowing l.a rayburn as the years have transpired i consider it now a pleasure to have known him but when i first came here when i would see him in town and he had the philosophy that every black person should be a member of the naacp and he had a system where he would know when the young black airmen were coming to a town and he'd waited on us he'd tell us what we needed to do that he considered we needed to do to improve our station as american citizens so we would kind of try to

[0:21:06] hide from him you might say even though we understood that what he was saying was true when i think about how he was i would say that he would consider this to be a great great recognition of the efforts of the local unit but he would say job well done so far but you must continue on i've been asked several times do i thank the naacp is still needed and my reaction to that is look around see what's happening see the young black men and women that are being shot by the police department look at what is going on on the political scene think about what is happening now we've got now redistricting going on as a result of the latest census work must be done and work continues to be done but i do say thank you very much for san angelo's recognition of our accomplishments so far thank you [Applause] and that was garland freeze our immediate past president i'm shirley spears the current president and i wanted to make sure that mr freeze had an opportunity to speak on this very special day and joining me we have one of our life members ms sally myers and our vice president of our chapter miss michelle reed it is so important for us to have an opportunity to receive this recognition and honor the legacy of our founder as mr freeze said mr la raven and when i lived here back in the 80s i was fortunate enough to attend church with him and all i can say is that i just viewed him as a no-nonsense type

[0:23:08] man and he just didn't take no for an answer as mr freeze has alluded to and he wanted us all to be our best we are so honored to have served this community for 75 years and we are holding a great celebration next friday to actually mark this time in history so we appreciate the city council and the mayor we especially appreciate councilwoman gonzalez for helping us to get this done and get this written and so to the city of san angelo we ask that you really embrace the last paragraph of this proclamation where it says we ask that all our citizens continue to work for the principles that we have dedicated ourselves to uphold in the national association for the advancement of colored people thank you so much [Applause] you we will now move into the public comment portion of the agenda issues or concerns not on the regular agenda may be raised by the public at this time

[0:25:11] citizens should speak from the podium address all comments to the dias begin by stating their name and address or single member district number and limit their remarks to less than three minutes we announced earlier that during this public comment time period people could come forward and talk about redistricting and so are there any individuals in the audience who would like to come forward and talk about the redistricting it is on the agenda later on but we announced in the paper the public comment would be heard on this item so we're going to start with it now and it will also be a part of the regular agenda meldin allen and what i would like to tell you is that i think there's been some confusion about the maps and i've addressed this thursday night the maps when you try to blow them up on the website become very very blurred and so i have discussed boundary lines that have changed with people that i know that have thought one thing was happening when another was and i have had to say well you need two things you need your computer and you need your cell phone and if you go on your cell phone to the hebb website and hit that that has very clear streets that you can look at and so that would alleviate it in the anytime in the future if something involves a map please make it legible thank you good comment thank you any additional comment at this point all right with none is there a public comment concerning any other issues today i see someone coming forward

[0:27:24] good morning mayor good morning council my name is sylvia martinez i live at 818 san jacinto street and harry is my city council i come today because a while years back they put me because i have extreme tremors that they can pick up the trash by my house for the past year i've been having a lot of trouble because of the fact that it's been missed i have been calling and calling for them to pick it up um i asked this because i wondered then how many people in my district has been missing the been missing the trash the people when i get out there and talk to them they say we don't have a designated driver and i say to myself well why don't we have a designated driver on our side and harry says that they're going to change it i hope it goes to the better because my friend and river she lives on riverside street she gets her trash picked up from the side of her house the man gets off and puts it back where it belongs us over there like y'all say in the barrio they do not want i've even painted a yellow pole so they could stop and it says stop and they cannot pick up my trash i wonder why we're all paying the same amount of this and i hope that when y'all did this separating you know the lines for the voting i hope it was to where it can help everybody because sometimes we don't get no help on that side you all have a blessed day and i hope that y'all keep doing the good work you're doing thank you thank you very much is there additional public comment shane if you would please come forward i would like to have an opportunity

[0:29:28] for us to well i have someone else coming forward and then shane you'll be after him and change us so you know we're going to talk about the frontier people laying fiber and a tremendous number of people very upset about what's happening just to give you a heads up thank you sir i'm jack miller district 2. i wanted to bring up the department policy on complaints it says at the conclusion of an internal investigation the report is sent to through the chain of command to the chief of police and the chief of police steps or rejects the investigation and then he's also the one that decides the consequences if any if any of the allegations are sustained i just feel like there's got to be a better way than to be given all the authority to one person especially the officer's boss there are very few very few people that can be given that kind of authority and still be able to keep their decisions honest and fair and frank carter isn't one of them the number one contributor to the the gap in the gap between the public and law enforcement isn't the police that actually violates citizen civil rights it's their superiors that exonerate them for their wrongdoing that cause the most harm for for example i have a video of a san angelo officer choking out a suspect from behind

[0:31:34] while they go down to the ground while another officer punches and knees him in the head and face and several officers walked up when this was going on and they seen what was happening turn around walked off i mean that's that's a problem but uh i made an appointment with frank carter i talked to him about it and showed him the video he didn't say much tracy fincher the supervisor he he's the one that talked the whole time and at the very end of it the only thing frank carter said was um or well i wanted to identify that that officer and he said oh that's jacob anderson and tracy fincher and internal affairs detective they agreed and they agreed it was jacob anderson but they lied to me and i was very specific on who i was asking about there's only one officer that was punching and kneeing someone in the face but he lied to me i made the complaint on jacob anderson it was unfounded because he didn't do anything wrong but they watched the video of knee and punching in the face so all right you're three minutes is that your three minutes is up in two weeks thank you very much all right shane so what i have been receiving tremendous amount of comment on is that the housing communications folks which have been hired to lay fiber for frontier and the individuals doing it have seemingly no concern about destroying someone's landscaping and or the drip underneath the

[0:33:36] landscaping and have been told that without a doubt that their landscaping would be put back into its appropriate how it was beforehand but i think about how many miles of fibers being laid 49 miles or something like that it seems to me that's going to be a pretty major project to redo everyone's landscape and certainly there's a i'm just there's a lot of concern out there a lot of complaints yes ma'am there is and of course when any of that is done within the in the public right-of-way of course um any citizen that places anything into a public right-of-way is taking their own risk to have it damaged or or even in some cases not even put back into place uh depending on what it is now i have been told at frontier and as well as their subcontractor housley and of course housley has several subcontractors as well that's working for them throughout this project are going to be working to replace as best as they can to bring it back to where it was in its original state and again that will take time as this is a very large project again and frontier is not going to be the only contractor that's going to be in town doing it we have our provider going to be doing this there are two or three other providers that have also approached the city for permits to place fiber optic cable within the within the public right-of-ways and so but and again as we look at this most the majority of the public roadways and of course we do get a lot of people you know worried about what's in their front yard you know people are digging in my front yard in in most cases not every case and so we we have to be very careful with this or the contractors have to be very careful with this but in most instances there's five to ten feet from behind back of curb into the front yard that is you know is generally public right away that has been dedicated when the land was actually planted in its original

[0:35:38] plat so uh and we also they are also going down other city utility easements whether that's a standard utility easement or a drainage easement they they are going down some of those as well too so you will see them in other locations besides just the streets as well but again we we're keeping up with them as best we can we do have a we do have a inspector that's going behind them to make sure that they are putting the city's assets back in place again we we don't have any way to enforce them placing back the private citizens assets but we are ensuring that the city's assets are being put back in place i think what you know if you had property that and city right away and you spent the money and the time to landscape it obviously knowing it was city right away but did we want him to leave it there ugly because it's city right away i mean you know in your residential area i can't imagine that the expectation is leave five to ten feet ugly yes ma'am and then create a landscape program yes ma'am and maybe teresa with some of the right-of-way new right-of-way legislation at the state that's taking some of that authority away from us she may be able to speak to some of that better than i can on on what they actually have to do versus what they do not have to do but again we as the city normally you know when we go into a project even if we are having to take out landscape or trees or or whatever it is you know we try to make sure that we even to some degree sod or grass we try to make sure that we put it back as best as we can like we found it but again not all companies are like us so you know i i have great respect for how we managed and handled some of the chip seal and those programs because we really did a great job of communicating to the citizens about what was going to

[0:37:40] happen put flyers we did and knocking on doors i mean we really did a great job at communicating i think one of the biggest problems now is that there's no flyer no knocking on the door no anything all of a sudden someone shows up with pink paint and starts putting spots on the yard and you know yes there's something on the city web page but i don't know of many citizens that every day go under the city website and go oh there's a new message out there today oh it's about frontier oh i need to i mean i think we need we i think i have expectations that the companies that are going to come in and do this could do a much better job of putting something on a homeowner's doorknob that says be aware we're going to be in your front yard laying fiber over the next week or so i just think there's a mess there and i think going forward we need to make sure that these companies have an obligation to communicate better to the citizens about what's going to happen in their yard in their landscaping even if it's city right away whatever it's i think important yes ma'am and also we do have a number here for their construct frontiers construction coordinator and i'll go ahead and read it out in his name so in case people are watching today they can reach out to this person if they do have any issues or complaints the frontier construction coordinator is steve cortese his email address is s-t-e-v-e dot c-o-r-t-e-s-e at ftr.com and his phone number is area code three two five 325-249-5458 so if anybody has an issue with again with anything that's going on within their yard or within any issues that they have with frontier the with the fiber themselves they can

[0:39:42] contact steve and he will be able to again work with them to to fix their issues okay thank you very much teresa do you have any comment no comment other than what shane indicated that we have very little control of what they're doing in the right-of-way i think that they are we are communicating with them on a very frequent basis and i do think they are trying to accommodate people as much as possible i don't know if we've made any indication of them that some sort of hangers when they're going into the neighborhood might be helpful but i think we could probably reach out to them with that idea but in 2006 i think it was um the state of texas took franchise authority away from the city when it comes to telecommunications companies and so we are extremely limited in this circumstance i still think the the question the ask should be made we appreciate the fact that in 2006 there was a decision made but i still think we have an obligation for communication to citizens about what's going to go what's happening why it's happening and have some sort of doorknob thing that says here's the number you call we will we will reach out to frontier and and their local staff and and visit with them to see if we can't help help them be a little more proactive as we're moving into the into these future neighborhoods that they're going to be working in well also as these these other companies move in and start work as well we'll uh we'll also work with them to make sure that they're they're trying to provide the same the same up front i think it would help a lot thank you can we have that number again please yeah i was going to say do the email address the name and the number one more time quick again shane okay it's frontier it's the frontier construction coordinator his name is steve cortese it's s t e v e dot c o r t e s e at f t r dot com the phone number is area code 325-249-5458 we might ask brian groves to

[0:41:46] on the front page of the city website post something that's easily accessible in terms of getting this information he's coming forward so i think he's going to have some comment anyway so good morning actually it is the front center image right now um we when we sent that out every media organization ran it uh we posted it on our social media we posted that again last week because we started getting more calls because they were in new neighborhoods so we're happy to share that more often we can email all of this information to you guys as well but yes that is front and center on our website right now for people to to look at i forget what the number is but there's a a number that says if you don't repeat the message x amount of times no one gets it so we just need to be very persistent in providing the information knowing that it changes from neighborhood to neighborhood on a weekly basis so only when it hits your neighborhood do you become concerned and look yes ma'am and like i said we we kind of notice when they hit a new neighborhood because our phones start ringing more in our office asking what's going on and so that's usually a clear indication that we need to push it out again because they're obviously in a new area so yes ma'am thank you any other questions or comments concerning this issue from council okay with that we will move into the consent oh is there any further public comment sorry with no further public comment we will close the public comments section of the agenda and we will move into the consent agenda i'm going to start with larry is are there any items larry [Laughter] may i have a motion for approval of the

[0:43:53] consent agenda is there a second second second by lucy any public comment concerning consent agenda items with none we'll take a vote all in favor of approving the consent agenda say aye with none opposed motion passes six zero we will move into the regular agenda portion of today's meeting comments regarding items on the regular agenda may be made by the public when each item is discussed as outlined above applicants proponents and appellants are accepted from the time limit above and must limit their remarks to less than five minutes item a consider consider awarding ap 06-21 terminal ramp reconstruction with hensel phelps construction company in the amount of 2 million 259 334 dollars and 60 cents and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents jeremy welcome thank you good morning mayor city council i'm jeremy valgardson representing the airport on this project busy over thanksgiving weekend very yes yes very busy it's good to see the terminal full again and the asu football charter we were busting it the same so it's been exciting good um this project you've started since 2018 you know the faa is usually on a three-year funding cycle so this has been a nice project that i've been able to see pretty much from the start but the concrete ramp just outside of the terminal where fedex pulls in and where we enter what we call gate one to the terminal all the concrete's breaking up now this is old concrete that was built when the airport was built during world war ii it's good it's strong concrete it's only six inches thick and it was strong for the the fleet mix that was coming in at the time since then we've been bringing in 737s

[0:45:55] we've had 757 67s much bigger much heavier airplanes that are taxiing over this section of concrete and you can see what it's done it's broken up that six inch concrete so this concrete no longer meets faa standards the joint sealer on the terminal ramp itself is is wearing out the paint's faded it's just it's just old infrastructure this is if you're standing at the taxiway looking back towards the terminal you can see the terminal up there on the right this is where the aircraft follow the center line and then they make the turn into the taxi lane all that concrete they're starting to break up um let me go back a slide if you look at the top right we call that fod it's known as foreign object debris if a jet engine was to suck up a pebble or a piece of concrete like that it could destroy the engine it could blow it up so the faa puts a lot of value on these projects to make sure we don't have fun out there and we just ensure that the best safety we can out at the airport the slide on the left just shows the phasing the blue section it's a very small section of concrete that we're going to be replacing the green and the yellow is the joint seal portion of the project i always wonder why faa concrete costs so much money and here's why i thought this is a pretty good image a good section that shows what we're doing we're only replacing about 28 000 square feet of concrete um it's 13 inches thick the old concrete is six inches and this isn't just the concrete you see out on the street it's faa grade so it's it's much stronger then we have five inches of base another six inches of base another 12 inches of base and another 12 inches of base so we actually have a four foot section that we're replacing out there so it'll be strong enough to hold a 737 aircraft there's been a huge shortage of concrete over the past year or so so i guess my question my initial question is okay this is great but have we secured have they secured the concrete because we can't have this torn up for ever i mean it's timing is a huge issue here yes um and the contractors here they can speak to that better than me

[0:47:58] but i do know that we were able to secure the material as part of the bid that was a big challenge and actually this thing this project went out for bid in july we didn't get any bidders because of that exact issue mayor we didn't have material so now they're starting to get material they've reached out and found other suppliers and i think they're able to set up their own plant and make concrete here locally at the airport so they should have access to material and that is why we had to rebid it because we couldn't get it in the past so with this forefoot so we dig down four feet and start the layering that's right and while we're doing this where do planes land and taxi um so the runway is going to be and i have a slide for that i think that's my next slide there you go um so here's the phasing the runway won't be impacted you see taxiway bravo that's the very top portion of this image taxiway bravo we just have to offset the center line about 30 feet so we'll have no impact on any of the runways or taxiways it'll be business as usual the only impact is going to be right at the terminal fortunately we have two gates and two bridges and so we can phase it out where we will never we shouldn't impact any operations especially commercial operations general aviation won't be impacted general aviation won't be impacted fedex is just going to have to taxi an extra 40 feet but they can they can make it around the the construction site okay we had three bidders future vest construction they had a non-responsive bid they didn't provide all the material and they were they were lacking some of the numbers hansel phelps construction and silver creek construction hensell phelps is actually teaming up with three salver to do some of the dirt work enzo was the low bidder at 2 million 259 and 60 334.60 we ran this number by our engineers and the faa um the faa gave us the letter of concurrence they recommend that we award hensel phelps schedule one and two for the full amount of 2 million 259 dollars and 60 cents and what's the time frame that this is

[0:50:02] going to take um we have the grant in hand so we're ready um the contractors think that we could do it hopefully early spring during that time frame try and beat the really busy construction season with the new infrastructure bill that got passed we're really trying to get it done before all these big projects come up because i think we're going to have a challenge getting contractors here in san angelo to do airport work airport work is very challenging i was excited to see hansel phelps put a bid in because they do a lot of airport work in lubbock midland dfw they're a good airport contractor lucy do you have a question yes ma'am i the mayor just asked about the time limit you said we could get started now because the grant had been approved but how long for completion how long how many months would it take for completion i'm cody edwards with henzel phelps project manager so the construction duration and i'm not sure who asked that but it's about a three-month duration and as jeremy kind of walk through the phasing that first component where we're actually demolishing and then bringing up the new subgrade layers and placing the concrete that's the long pull in the tent that's about two and a half months to do that scope before we move into the next phase and it's only a few weeks to you know rework some of the joint sealants and restore some of that existing joint infrastructure and so forth and somebody had a great i maybe it was you miss me the concrete is a big concern however the quantity really isn't that enormous it's sourcing the very specific aggregates necessary for that to be an approved faa mixed design that's really where it became problematic and working with jeremy and and the designer in preparation for this solicitation we were able to kind of plan for that which is why you're seeing this true start time frame being in the spring of 2022

[0:52:05] versus right now so we've got a lot planned in in to make this project a success and and i think it will help tremendously out at the apron we're looking three to four months from beginning to end once we start yes ma'am okay thank you okay go ahead tom what do we do with all the asphalt we're taking out everything we pull out where does that go um the concrete it's just up to the contractor to remove and dispose it sure reese albert will be removing that um they have great plans for that it'll probably land in a recycled content somewhere okay but there is no asphalt it's just concrete just declaration it's just concrete yep and you don't crush it before we pull it's just come out in the chunks again they will likely saw it in the manageable pieces and then pull it out and haul it off and it will likely go to some crushing one of their facilities frankly i'm good any other questions at this point from council members all right continue jeremy okay um here's where it gets challenging the funding because it was split out over so many grants it's going to be over grant 40 which is 100 faa approved that was the one that came out during the coronavirus grant 44 is also 100 percent federally funded we are still a little bit short what the faa has allowed us to do is use some of our entitlements from fy22 this year's entitlements that grant has not been awarded yet um we think it's going to be a 90 10 split so we'll probably have to pay 10 percent of our share on the remaining 195 415 balance i do have a fund in my 220 account where we can cover this amount until the faa grant gets awarded and then we'll reimburse our fund in full there's no concern about getting that entitlement grant no no concern at all the faas agreed to

[0:54:10] to issue that grant we're going to split up between this and the design to convert runway 927 into taxiway hotel okay i believe that's it further questions from council on this item all right with none lucy mood to approve may i have a second second by tommy public comment please is there any with none we'll take a vote all in favor say aye aye none oppose motion passes 6-0 we'll move into item b consider res resolution allowing the adjacent property owner to remove a tree in the public right-of-way adjacent to 17 west beaugard avenue per section 7.02 0.034 the city code of ordinances and john euron thank you john james director of planning development services you've seen this before you may recall you approved the the tree removal but wanted to see back the plans so i'm just going to go through real quickly here and then let the applicant talk to you about their plans more here's a picture of the tree right there that they're proposing to remove and then the the business you can see the tree there right on the side of that picture this was their original graphic that they presented to you basically showing the tree removed with nothing in its place and then this is their revised drawing showing a single tree being planted but to the left of the building as you're facing it again the applicant's request was intended to give more visibility to the front of the building and so by offsetting that tree they believe it will do that that's it for me unless you have any questions i'll turn it over to the applicant to explain okay i have three questions and i'll ask them or two for sure maybe three before the applicant comes forward first of all actually no just let

[0:56:12] michelle and come forward and and then you'll be available to answer questions okay sounds good good morning good morning welcome the first thing i have is i know there's an adjacent property owner who's very concerned about removing the tree and concerned that by removing that tree it's going to impact negatively their foundation and consequently create bigger problems for joining properties yes here's the thing about that no matter what even if we leave the tree once we take that concrete out to replace the sidewalk which we've all agreed has to be done um i've talked to three different people that and we've talked about that the sidewalk pricing what's going to happen roots and all of them said there's a very good chance the tree is going to die no matter what so we're still is that from a tree expert or just property owners and so no two of those retreat experts one's a tree guy i don't know if he is an expert or not um so yes but all of them in agreement just said i mean this is our beginning stages us talking about it hey when we dig down in there just so you know this is what we're going to have to do cut a bunch of roots and stuff there's a very good chance that that tree is going to die anyway i know that they worked around that issue in front of plateau brewing on chadburn when they were doing the streetscape program and they managed to protect the tree and the tree seems to still be surviving so what would be different about that approach versus this approach i mean i don't know i guess even with them only time will tell i don't know how long you know it takes to kill a tree if you cut the roots off like i really don't know that's not my expertise for me as a business owner my number one

[0:58:13] thing is safety mason matthews from the fire department came today because so many people trip outside that building my daughter just saw somebody trip outside the building he just saw a couple people face planted outside that building safety's a concern so i know the tree is a concern i i'm just for me it's just like the tree needs to be removed because of safety reasons you know i don't the thing is is we if we leave the tree in hopes that whatever they do to the sidewalk doesn't kill a tree at this point we still might be back here in another six months a year you know whatever that is with the same thing if the tree's still living i just feel like as a business owner i have to move forward and i want to do the right thing for everybody right now the safety of the community is my biggest concern you know more than anything and so you know we that's why we have agreed to replace the tree so there is growth there is a new tree um and then of course mirroring it like chad burns so it can complement that i just feel like removal of the tree is going to um do a lot of positive things a lot more than removing the tree and if you see the removing the tree is a negative there's a whole lot more positive by taking the tree out and i the other comment i've had is from people is well really the biggest issue and the biggest problem with the sidewalk is the one next door which i think is in front of the fire department's building that they own so even if this one gets improved and problem taken care of the bigger problem is next door and so there has to be and that's not your problem obviously michelle so that you're not in charge of their property but it doesn't alleviate the issue relative to the building next door to you well i think they are very interested in fixing theirs as well again he they're the peop i see somebody trip every time i go there too i mean i'm not i know

[1:00:15] i've never seen somebody face planet and i'm not gonna lie about like people trip i've seen somebody stroller get you know caught on on that um mason can probably talk a little bit to that but we do realize that is an issue that's the only part of beauregard where the sidewalk is really really bad and causing safety concerns and so um you know i just feel like as a city as the downtown area we i'm willing to help solve that problem i believe they are as well um let's solve that problem let's make it nice let's make it a safe place to walk let's make it look nice so people will continue you know down chad burn to concho to beau regard let's just have a continuation of what we've already done and spent so much time you know and resources on is making it beautiful down there and making it a safe place for people to be able to walk on the sidewalk there has been a long-standing philosophy that trees and landscaping in a historic district are a very positive thing for economic development and what i want to make sure we don't do is start an avalanche of everyone deciding that trees need to be taken out because we will not be in the business of agreeing to take out trees without someone agreeing to replant a tree and create landscape because it softens the environment and when it's 110 degrees in july and august no trees are a negative in a historic district and so i want to make sure philosophically that we understand if a tree comes out a tree goes down and we cannot be taking trees out without replanting trees and i appreciate the safety issues we do need to address that obviously that's a great concern and but we also know if you're not taking care of the safety issue to the left or to the right we really didn't solve a safety issue and that's not your problem you're trying to take care of your safety issue so questions from counsel yes harry

[1:02:18] yeah i'm i'm i'm going to piggyback on something what you said mayor and that is we really need to take a look and we're talking about this particular item on borgard but we've got another issue over on two weeks the same same type of thing where tree has caused sidewall if we're going to continue with our south chadburn project screech cape and we want to attract additional people to the downtown area we've got to make sure that their safety is is number one now i agree with you i do not want to see trees taken out without replacement but we've got to find a solution to this particular issue today and i believe the trees got to come out at one point in time or another so why not take it out while we're repairing the concrete and place a new one in there similar similar to what we've got on south chadburn same type of tree same type of landscaping in that particular area so the last comment i'm just going to repeat it again there's obviously a concern for your next door neighbor who says you take your tree out my foundation has there's a negative impact on my building not my building but the building next door so are we sure that by removing this tree we're not going to have a negative impact on the foundation of the building next door well i mean i would say the same my buildings right there as well so i i never had i've never had anyone brought that bring that up to me i've never read anything in my research about that so i'm not super familiar with that um i do know the neighbors concerns i've never seen anything on paper or anything so i'm not i really don't know i would say that that would be a concern for my building as well obviously the roots if they run

[1:04:21] under that when they run under ours i don't know how to address that because again i've never read anything about that so i know they have concerns but in my reading that hasn't come up so you know i don't know i that would i guess be somebody else's concern i mean you know expertise i don't know well i just know when we're our doors when we share common walls and we all are walking the same sidewalk and using the same mode we just need to make sure that we don't do damage to somebody else's property and then if we do what happens from there but obviously you're committed to using this opportunity to improve the sidewalk conditions you're committed to replanting a tree and landscape to continue to beautify the area so those are my comments yes lucy yeah i just wanted to have a comment about i don't see the problem about cutting the roots to fix the sidewalk the tree dies the tree dies you can pull it then replant your trees that you want so i would say i don't see what's wrong with that idea of just leaving the tree and fixing the sidewalk well if the tree starts to die and those roots start weakening it could cause the tree to fall which is all kinds of bigger issues and so and my thing too is i mean i am a small business owner money is an issue so in order to trim it and do all of this stuff and spend all that money and then come back again later in six months whatever and then taking a tree out that large costs a lot of money we're talking thousands and thousands of dollars and so me as a business owner i want to do it one time and i want to do it right the first time i don't want to come back in six months or 12 months and redo it um you know later i i just that to me does not make sense as a business owner larry did you have a comment it seems as though this this problem started about

[1:06:24] 40 years ago when they planted an oak tree there which as most people know get exceptionally large and i'm wondering provided exceptionally good shade yes they do but we should uh and i'm not sure how we do this but we should limit the type of tree that goes and we are and all the new landscaping we're putting down that has been addressed but it doesn't correct where we're not redoing streetscape or well and that moves into the other thing is there's probably other trees down there are going to create same problem depending upon their growth so deal with those as they come forward any other questions comments where do do we have specifics this really goes against my grain but do we have specifics on the size of the tree we're not talking just a little a little bitty do we know what we're going to get when the new tree is planted i think we have to be very specific that we can't uh plant us what is it when they're really tiny i have specs of what they're doing on chad burn the sizes and all of that what types of trees all of that information so again in order to mirror that that's what we'll be doing because we don't want just a little it needs to have the appearance of this sketch is we would expect that when that tree is planted that's what it looks like it's that height and i'm not i'm just in the beginning stages of finding those types of trees and seeing what's available right now and so again i have those specs as my guidelines so i will try to come as close to that as i can we just don't want a little thing we need it to reflect that image got it which is a nice big tree with little roots okay what's these trees actually the roots grow down

[1:08:26] now on purpose because of this obviously like you said this is a reason that they didn't know that 40 years ago however long ago when they planted these trees now we know that and we would never plant this tree in the space you know but we've gained that knowledge over the years because of this reason but um i do want to say you had mentioned you know economic growth and things like that and that's our i mean that's our reasoning for opening business i mean and we want it to be as successful as you know as possibly we want it to be as well it benefits everyone when you're when you have success everyone else has success with you so we appreciate that all right with that do we have any further questions for michelle then may i have a motion for approval and do we without any public comment good morning sidewalk getting corrected yes you know you brought up uh if the neighbors aren't willing to do something we are so uh really interesting we uh we meet there once a month so we're not there we're not open during business hours um in the last month you know we are the former owner of this ad of their address as well um so in the last two months we've been down there quite a bit getting the building ready and i cannot tell you how many people i have seen go all the way to the ground there last week we were meeting about talking about hey what are we prepared to do with our side and while we're talking about it as i as the president and leading the meeting i'm looking out to the street and someone goes to the ground as we're talking about it so we stop the meeting we go outside we help them up uh this past saturday we're having an event in there three people all the way to the ground uh our members had to go outside help i mean it is absolutely an issue and ours is worse uh so we are prepared to do whatever we can um it is it is very bad um and uh safety is obviously uh our only uh concern there um as our business is much different than theirs um i i you know

[1:10:29] we talk about uh money and um you know michelle mentioned as a small business owner money's an issue as a non-profit one is an even bigger issue for us uh so we fix the sidewalk and in two years we're back here again and the sidewalks messed up again we just can't do that so you know you know you talked about removing the tree does that create foundation issues i would second i would go further and say trees staying there could create a foundation issue it is now uh so that's that's obviously safety is our only concern and we are prepared to do uh whatever we need to do as well so thank you thank you thank you could we get your name and affiliate i'm sorry mason matthews um i live at 3825 deerfield road but i'm the president of the firefighters association at 15 west boulevard do we need in that motion anything more specific than the questions that were asked and the answers that came forward as part of the motion it might not hurt to specify the chad burn that it's going to be in the same design in the same kinds of trees that are on the chad burn project would you do that harry yes motion should be amended to say that the tree that we're talking about to be replanted at this property should be the same as the south chadburn project and the size is relative to the depicting the size in this picture that would be the motion and then the second is okay so we're up for public comment i think larry and i both seconded so i agree with that okay good one please offer your comment absolutely yes um mayor i just think that once you do this you're gonna you're all are opening something to every business um i own a a building and for years i have not been able to open it because of all the the red tape if you're going to do something for somebody be uh to all i understand this lady because she's a woman i voted for you because you're a woman and you're a

[1:12:30] businesswoman but as for me i think that you all got to be fair to everybody that comes up here as a business because i'm losing money every single day i have to ask for help sometimes from you all from the city for the fact that i have not been able to open my building so uh my neighbor had a tree there too y'all never let half of it was dead half was it alive y'all never let her tear it down so if you're gonna do this you're gonna have to be fair to everybody and if you're starting this be just be fair to everybody when we need something done as small people that own buildings okay thank you all i ask thank you very much with that we will take a vote all in favor say aye aye with non-opposed motion passes seven i mean six zero we will move on to item c first reading and public hearing of an ordinance extending the temporary changes to chapter 12 article 12.04 signs of the city code of ordinances to allow additional time for preparation of permanent amendments to the sign ordinance john thank you again john james director of planning and development services you may remember a little over a year ago year and a half ago we brought forward some changes to the sign ordinance specifically to remove the distinction between on-site and off-site signs and that was based on a fifth circuit court decision uh on a case out of austin with a billboard company and so we we did a quick fix to basically fix the main parts of our ordinance that were problematic uh based on that court decision you all gave us a deadline of the end of this year to bring back a more permanent change to the ordinance which we've drafted an ordinance and were close to being ready to bring it forward through the adoption process but then the supreme court agreed to hear that case out of austin which they did just earlier this month and so

[1:14:34] given the fact that they just heard the arguments and have not made a decision yet we're asking for an additional year delay uh in that permanent change to the sign ordinance so that we can wait and hear uh what the supreme court has to say because we don't want to bring an ordinance and then in six months have to bring something back because they changed something else and so that's basically all this uh request is doing is extending that time frame to bring back the sign ordinance for an additional year uh by the end of 2022. my first question is a fine um i want to make sure that there's no authority given to your area of responsibility for administrative approval of things like those big billboard signs that unfortunately have shown that have shown up in the cultural district and have now shown up in the historic district they're an eyesore they're terrible they should never have been allowed but because we gave you administrative authority to approve those they got approved i want to know if this changes that if this modifies the ordinance to make sure that doesn't happen again or is this just something totally separate and we need to address the other issue at the same time the short answer is that we'll have to address that at the same time as we bring back an ordinance this does not change anything about our current ordinances however under our current ordinances there are areas where the ordinance says billboards are allowed in these areas and not allowed in those areas and so when com someone comes into our office uh seeking a permit for a billboard we don't have any discretionary review we simply look at the ordinance is it in an area where the ordinance says billboards are allowed if yes then we issue the permit if it's not in one of those areas then we deny the permit so this doesn't change any of that part of the sound ordinance we'll be bringing back is a discussion of where should the where should billboards be allowed and where should they not be allowed and in fact we've talked about bringing that as

[1:16:37] a discussion item to the planning commission and council before we bring back the full ordinance while we need to do that we have to do that because we can't allow those things to keep happening they're they impact negatively they're not well they're an eyesore and they're not things that we want to see happening and it happened not once but twice and once it's done we're it's done and it's really negative i will add one more thing that the downtown district expansion that you just approved on consent on second reading that expanded the area and that downtown district specifically prohibits billboards so now the area within which billboards can't be in the downtown area has been expanded so unfortunately had that been adopted before those billboards came in we could have said no they just happened to basically get their foot in the door before uh that was finalized now what you're putting bringing today will allow that situation as we're referencing as far as a downtown sign from not happening um until something further is done by councils it was just allowed wait a minute say that again that didn't sound right initially the sign that we're talking that is about under the zoning there's nothing staff could have done one way or the other to disapprove that this that john brings today protects that area from that happening is there a problem

[1:18:44] okay like i said we we we can bring back a discussion item for you all where do where do you want to not allow billboards in the future where do you want to what's the process for approving those so we can get that ball rolling even while we're still waiting on the supreme court we just won't be able to or we're recommending not adopting the final version of that ordinance until after the supreme court has decided but we can we can definitely be working on it and bring something to you all uh before uh this is decided so very specifically what does this do this simply extends the current ordinance that we have for another year giving us time to work on that uh ordinance amendment john explain what that current ordinance is because we brought one to you about a year ago yeah we basically changed the ordinance to eliminate the distinction between on-site signs and off-site signs so what the what the fifth circuit court said was you basically can't read a sign and look at the content in order to regulate it so the our our older ordinance said uh signs that were for the business on that property can be so big signs that advertise something not on that property can be so big and only allowed in certain places we can no longer make that distinction if they want to put a sign up on you know if mcdonald's wants to put a sign on their property that advertises for the car dealer down the street they can do that because we can't distinguish based on content and so to prevent a large billboard sign from going in in an area where we didn't want it what did your change do to prohibit that basically just reworded the ordinance to allow the large signs which we're calling billboards now but it again we don't distinguish on content any longer but we still say the larger signs can only be in certain areas and right now those certain areas are the same as they've been for the last 20 years mostly industrial areas and then certain

[1:20:47] designated street corridors and in the downtown corridor you we prohibited those things yes the historic zoned areas the downtown district those are completely prohibited but the cultural district remind us about the cultural district and whether that cultural district has been approved by this council well you approve the concept of a cultural district and i should add that the cultural district and river corridor districts both also prohibit billboards we had come to you all with an expansion of the cultural district and then there was some you know there was some argument for making it smaller or bigger you may recall howard taylor came and talked about wanting it to match his cultural district and so we agreed to bring that back at some point our first step was bringing back the downtown district that you all just approved today on final reading one of our next steps is to bring back that cultural district expansion promise just like the downtown district in this district were slow in getting it to the table so consequently those billboards were approved and once approved they don't go away so the cultural district does not allow the billboards or does it does not allow billboards but right now the cultural district boundary is what was in the old river corridor district which is really just the museum and two or three blocks around it in the fort but it doesn't expand it all the way to match howard taylor's uh district this one billboard is somewhere between the fort and the museum that's right it's in an area that was just you know just outside it wasn't in the downtown district wasn't a river corridor wasn't in the cultural district it's one of those there was a sign company on on both of these that just happened to look at our maps and and find the one spot that a billboard was allowed both on the north end and the south end of chadburn and the other ones on oaks we could bring back that if you want to look at that cultural district overlay as far as being enlarged could we when could we bring that back

[1:22:50] we could take it to the planning commission in the next month or two thank you any other further questions for john on this item with none may i have a motion for approval of um item c second and by harry any public comment with none will take a vote all in favor say i'm with none opposed motion passes 6-0 move on to item d discussion and possible action on the fine redistricting items as a result of the 2020 census one public hearing to receive comments from the public regarding redistricting and the proposed new boundaries for the city of san angelo city council single member districts two discussion on possible action to consider and adjust proposed redistricting plans and three discussion and possible action to approve a resolution approving the final redistricting plan and julia you're on or john your honors i'll start off in julia may tag team and theresa may have some things to add as well this is the item that you heard at your last meeting as you mentioned the city charter does require the districts to be looked at after every census every 10 years what the consultant in this case found was that our population had grown more in the south and so those districts had too many people putting them out of balance and so basically this is a redrawing of those district lines to rebalance the population again with the goal of making all of the districts roughly equal it's you know you can't make it perfectly equal but shooting for a tolerance in the you know five percent or less uh variation between districts we talked last time a little bit about this the

[1:24:51] one of the goals is to ensure that there's balance balance in terms of uh ethnic background in each of the districts uh the two districts three and four that were previously majority minority districts will remain so and so that that won't be changing and you can see there that we had some population in the city decrease among ethnic groups and some increase here's the proposed map and there'll be some zoom in maps you can see this better but this is just to show that there are four different areas where the map boundaries are being changed here's a little bit closer look and so again district six and district one here both basically had too much population and so up here population was shifted from six north and likewise from one up to three and let me go to those individual areas so the first area here is moving population mostly from six to two in that block also from six to two this area is actually an area without any population but it's moving from five to two basically to tie these two areas together so that they're contiguous otherwise this area would be cut off from two so then the new two boundary would would ultimately look something like that adding all of that to two again with the goal of shifting population from six to two to help balance those out the change in the population there you can see each of these uh tables will be on on each change so i'm gonna go through these quickly stop me if you have questions this is another area in this in that same zone from six to five again moving trying to get population out of six and then in this case shifting some of that to five to help balance that out as well and in area two this is just moving a

[1:26:54] small i think it's three or four blocks of property from smd4 to smd5 again that was just a small change to help get that balance that we were looking for the third change here is a small area from smd 6 to smd-1 you might ask you know six had too many and one had too many why are we moving from one that had too many to another one but that was basically to help get population out of six uh we because six is adjacent to to one we already moved some out of six on the north this was to move some more out of six into one on the south which leads to the fourth one we had to move a lot of population from one to three and so that was sort of a shift from from six to one and then more was moved out of one into three this is the biggest change you can see about 2300 people moving out of one into three and again with that goal of getting to roughly balanced population with that i happen to answer any questions larry do you have a question or comment if you would go to that next slide during that meeting there were some folks that suggested that that was a populated area that little filler that you've got in there did you do any uh check on that to see if in fact there were residents living there yes i think some of the confusion was just some of the mapping it was hard to tell where those lines were drawn but yes that entire area here is all either vacant or commercial or industrial property there's there's no population within that area thank you so with that even though there's no population you still change the smd that's assigned to it yeah and again that was to ensure that this area and this area could be touching uh we we couldn't move this population into two without it touching two and so this this

[1:28:58] gets you that little uh boundary where they they touch up against each other okay questions from other council members um this may not be germane right now but as you probably noted a federal court held that texas's redistricting as they saw it was erroneous is that going to have any impact on the state and then the county and then us i don't believe so i might let teresa answer that though my understanding is that was dealing with the state lines and has nothing to do with what we're doing today well the state lines meaning redis i mean redistricting of the state and certain areas where there were population switches right but this area was not one of those areas that there was concern about in terms of redistricting well local offices aren't the offices that they're concerned about it's for the districts related to state and federal offices that they were concerned about but as to when it will be finalized the finalization of of the redistricting does that have a time impact on us in terms of the elections because right now there's a march election plan to primary so if the state hasn't gotten a final approval for theirs does that go down line to the county and then to the city vaughn is in the back and she's shaking her head is no so i'm going to go with her no okay so the answer is what we're doing here today will not be impacted or cannot it will not be impacted by whatever the federal lawsuit is against the state of texas's redistricting plan is that correct that appears to be true yes okay larry any further comments or questions thank you lucy did you say this was due teresa julie on that during the meeting on thursday i believe the consultant said february 7th so we have to get it in by

[1:31:01] february 7th so if something was if something was to go on we'd have from now and we could approve it in the january meeting correct that is correct we were trying to get it approved as quickly as possible to help out the county and the notices that they have to send out but after conversations with vana if we absolutely cannot get it approved today it's going to require a different mailing but it might require that anyway i'm not seeing any objection from anyone on the proposed map right now from council members is that correct all right so with that we will take a motion well after i get a motion i'll ask your public comment yes okay so i need a motion by harry in a second by tommy now we will open it up for additional public comment that's okay i do it all the time it's not unusual [Music] lucy just started [Music] morning mayor shirley spears resident of single member district 5. i was in the meeting on this past thursday and i know there was a lot of discussion i guess for a little over an hour as we work through the questions and concerns we had talked about the consultant being available to look at redrawing some things for i believe it was district three i don't know if the gentleman that was complaining and can have his concern about that i don't know if that actually took place my question is did it take place or was there ever any serious consideration for the redrawing of three based on all the concerns that came out of the meeting on thursday two things one julia you'll answer that if you would and then if that person is in the audience is that person in the audience today all right so

[1:33:04] let's do this let's gentle if you would please come forward sir and let's hear from you directly not indirectly and then we will add comment okay good morning good morning my name is kilo perez i'm a resident of single member district 1. i have a business that's in single member district 3. i actually was raised in singa member district 3. so i've been here in san angelo for over 55 years so i'm a long-term residence in nigel texas i did speak with the gentleman i think his name is mr bass but with the time constraints that we have and i'm not familiar with the tools that his company uses i'm not familiar with the actual data that he has in his system so we weren't able to really finalize anything i don't think there was any really seriousness on his behalf i think his company has already decided on the boundaries of the single member district uh here in san angelo but uh it's my opinion that uh based on the criteria that we have as far as the data that's been given to us by the city of san angelo or by his company you know the total population increase um 97 of the population in the total increase in san angelo is hispanic and we have single members of three which gained in in residence but percentage-wise their voting strength has been diluted by 4.7 percent having that having that knowing that the 97 percent of the increase in population san angelo is hispanic we're diluting the hispanic vote or hispanic strength

[1:35:08] in order to elect our representatives by 4.7 percent that may not seem like a lot to you but the last four or five years we've been having a lot of close elections that have been decided in some cases by one vote as few as 10 votes so it's very important that the strength of the hispanic voting abilities not be diluted by bringing in populations from another district that is a majority anglo now let me ask the city clerk in in district 3 julia were there other increases in other areas if you'll just read the percentages and the numbers that were increased in district 3 the in the voting age population the anglo vote went up by 1.2 the black vote went up by .04 and american indian down by 0.1 asian up by 0.32 and then hispanic down by 3.31 hawaiian pacific islander up by .07 other is up by .15 and then multiracial up by about one and a half percent okay continue sir thank you um like i was saying before the uh the district went down by 4.7 percent as far as the population as far as the hispanic percentage the residents that live there

[1:37:09] now as a whole as a city as a whole the city as a whole is 52 minority now it's the majority is a minority here in san angelo texas so my concern is that i don't believe that legitimately that everything's been done to see other options as far as the district lines is concerned and i think that maybe we should get a second opinion since we still have till february 7th get a different company to come in and look at the data and see if there's other options we got one side maybe we can get another another mind or several other minds to see other options as far as the districting of single member districts here in san angelo julia or tracy you want to make comment on that we're using the consultant that the county is using and it was suggested that we do that because of a cost savings because they're familiar with the data we are pretty far into this already and we have paid a significant portion of the consultant fee but whatever council directs us to do we'd be happy to look into lucy yes did uh mr bass give you any indication that he would be willing to sit down with y'all and actually look at this and see if there was a different way to read this well the thing is is that uh i know you said he made it yes yes yes the thing is is that it was mentioned to us that we should come up with the boundaries when we don't have the staff i don't have the staff i don't have the time i have a business to run that's what i'm asking so we don't we don't have a staff so we need a serious consideration of other options and that serious consideration has not been offered so julia on district 3 you want to go

[1:39:12] back and review those numbers with us and show us the map that would show the shifting of population in or out of district 3. so um so smd one there was uh 2307 folks that moved from district one into smd3 to try to balance the populations and so these are the percentage of people that were moved out of three out of one into three that you can see here and so you added additional 916 people from hispanic out of smd-1 to smd3 that's correct and anglo 1122 so the largest increase is adding anglo into smd3 is that your concern sir yes that is my concern that's my concern now we have an increase we have an increase of hispanic population in all the districts as far as looking at the maps that have been drawn by the consultant so district one the hispanic population increases by four and a quarter percent uh district two increases by 4.4 percent district four increases by two point six percent district five increases by six point six percent district six increases by seven point five percent and then we have the majority in the the biggest district of hispanic population district 3 going down by 4.7 percent so the hispanic representation if approved by this would be a lower percent than it exists today correct that's a big problem but did the hispanic percentage go up in the other six districts yes that's

[1:41:14] what i'm telling you so the percentage went up in all the districts except district 3 which is majority hispanic but we can't help where they live no we can't we can't help where they live of course we know and it's it's not going to make a difference but we know that the hispanic population here in san angelo was not they were not all counted because we can't help that right we can't help that but we got to go by the numbers that are here that's correct but knowing the history of past past sentences and past district redistricting the trust is not there to we don't trust the numbers have been presented by the consultant by city san angelo so we would like to have another opinion from a different consultant i don't believe at this point we'd be hiring another consultant quite honestly and furthermore having some i don't believe and i'm this is my thought process i don't we'll find out from legal but the idea that we would hire another consultant sometime within the next few days and have them look at this and make a final decision and change this up by the february whatever date seventh is probably not realistic i'm not sure that could happen i do have that concern that there are not a lot of firms who do this kind of work in texas and right now all of them are in the heat of the moment of getting all of this finalized so i think it would be really difficult i think we could ask mr bass if he would sit down with you know we there was a conversation that took place at the end of the meeting the other night we could ask for a longer amount of his time to go back through maps if that's what you would like us to do but i don't think it's going to be feasible by february 7th to hire somebody else completely did you not get the answers that you needed from mr bass on thursday so what questions still remain from your perspective i just think that the dilution of

[1:43:18] the voting strength of the hispanic population um is is a concern it's a concern it's always been it went up in the other districts it went up in the other districts it was okay the growth was overall in the hispanic yes it was good so san angelo's growth came from the hispanic community correct and it grew in multiple areas in the city of san antonio so according to the data that's been put according to the information that people filled out called the censuses that's where they said they lived and that's where they were counted would that be correct i don't know i didn't count them i know but okay we didn't either but somebody got a form somebody filled out that form that form was sent in and then the information was collected and that's what we're looking at in terms of numbers right that's the numbers we're looking at yeah so all right so we've got to deal with the numbers as presented and we're certainly seeing growth in the hispanic community but the hispanic community has also chosen not to just live in smd-3 correct i live in i live in singapore district one yeah so so i understand that i understand that right you know my concern is always the representation of the hispanic population in everywhere but also where the majority of the district is hispanic i'm concerned about their voting strength being diluted all right just a minute lucy you have a question you know when matt when bass was talking that night he wanted you and miss spears to get together and submit a plan amid a plan right now is he not willing to work with y'all and come up with a plan together i don't know i don't know you didn't ask him i don't i don't know well i mean there wasn't time there has been yeah but we're not determining the deadlines okay because the government gave us the deadlines my question is the

[1:45:21] following were the questions that they asked for was he willing to address those questions and did he answer those questions presented that night in terms of everyone being satisfied because we can't change the numbers and we can't change the deadlines that are presented to us those things we have he did answer some of my ques he did answer some questions that's good he didn't answer the question okay so the questions you have remaining those questions that you still have remaining are what the the dilution of the population in single member district three that's my problem because you got to remember that that we don't always going to trust the consultants you know there's been a history of manipulating data where the majority of the certain areas are minorities so there's been in the past manipulation of those data's and i still have a concern and many people in my district still have that concern and many people within the city of san angelo have that concern not just because they're not here doesn't mean they don't have a concern but there's a concern for the manipulation of data so we would like to see some other options okay so what would be the potential options mayor yes tommy if i am hearing correctly in order to shift population from one single member district into another they must be contiguous they must be touching so let's go go to uh the one that the big the can you is there any way you can get that bigger on the screen that number four block well we really need number three and number one because that's your complaint no no on number nine look at that number four block can we can we make that anybody i think any bigger but then you have to realign four again all right so the area that we have if i am if i am

[1:47:24] hearing correctly from which to move any of the population from one into three is that area right there is that correct julia so if you if you just look at that is a small geographically that is a small area i don't know that we're going to get there because of if if we can't change the fact that the district that the they have to touch we can't do anything about that that's where they touch right there is the in that in that really narrow area so you've got to then reach down into district one to get just the number of people to pull up into district three just so the population i don't know how we're going to get there i don't care what the consultant comes up with we're just not going gonna get there um you know we we can kilo can get with him and i don't think it's gonna change one thing because we gotta we gotta balance the population in there and he's doing his best i believe to make sure based on the people that live on those streets that there's as much equity in the distribution of ethnicities as possible i don't know how we're going to get where we're where we are making district 3 uh equal to or greater than where it was before i don't know how you get there that's the only place we got to work with geographically right there so to me we're having a discussion that is headed absolutely nowhere so we need i i think we you know if if he didn't have anything the other night kilo is that anything he addressed with you the other night the comment you just made those are the typical comments that we've heard before uh well kelo you're looking at the map where where in fact can it come from

[1:49:28] where can it come from we need to look at the data closer i can't just look at the map i got to look at the data we've got to look at the map because that's where we got that the data is the data we're not going to change the data it is the numbers those are the numbers reported from the census so we can't change the data and we have to live under the fine rules they must be contiguous contiguous correct and that the numbers are the numbers so i think the issue is your challenges and we hear your challenges we understand you're concerned that we are diminishing the impact of a specific ethnicity within a district on the other hand when you get into the reality of trying to accomplish that the challenge seems to be can't get it done because of the issues we just talked about is that correct and you know that it just seems to me that there's no more uh when you look on the on the district three as it comes down there to turner street and warehouse that's commercial district over there so there's very very few residents over there it's got the majority there in xyz san jacinto julian antonio street the the those those are our populated areas and then then you gotta come over into district one and again it goes back to it is what it is with the people that live there and and he's he has grabbed his uh the the the number and the ethnicity is what it is there i don't know how you get there i'm kilo i'd be lo i'd be more than glad and willing to see if we can't get there but i don't know because unless you start you know literally doing one block at a time and i assume he may have looked at that

[1:51:30] i don't know that but you don't have that much area in there that is populated with with residential uh so again i don't i don't see how we get there julie any comment you worked with him and john the two of you are the ones who worked with him most closely with the consultant so mr bass pulled in by the census block that's the level we have to go by so you may see at logan street and you may say oh my goodness that's a hundred percent anglo that doesn't do us any good you don't pull that street in by itself you pull the entire census block and additionally you have to get through maybe a highly anglo section of town to get to a more densely populated minority group of town so it's very complicated the map that i believe he showed mr perez after the meeting indicates by density the population so you can see how far you have to go down into maybe that area to get more of the minority voters so it's very complicated you can't just pull in one little bit of what it is and as you said um it has to be contiguous and further complicated it has to be at the census block area so it's it it really is a block not a street and not a half a street thank you sorry i didn't make you happy today thank you thank you shirley spears district uh cinema district five so i'm going back to the comments um that mr perez has and and when we talked with um bass on thursday and of course he is doing the redistricting the mapping and all of that also for the county now when we were working on this for the

[1:53:32] county there was a concern that the firm the bass firm was not being as responsive as we needed them to be for tom greene county because there were some some outstanding questions that we had that we wanted the consultant to respond to that i know commissioner bacon had addressed to the firm but they never responded this particular firm is working in most of the cities and counties in the state of texas you're right teresa there are very few but i guess where i have a problem with what mr perez asked what mr bass promised they just don't seem to work now he's the consultant that's getting paid to do this he has the data and that is his responsibility to help you all come up with the redrawing of whatever has to be done so we will go back to number four on the map for just a moment i i'd like to point out something and again mr perez nor i are trained on the tools that mr bass and his firm uses all we're asking can we go back to the um map that was map number four area four where it was showing the distribution from one to three the statistical one yes not the map but the chart well the map is there on the side so when you look at what mr perez is saying and and i know we've seen this across the state of texas because pre-clearance is no longer a part of this they gutted that out in 2013 but we still have to be sensitive to the comments that mr perez made so you have 1122 48 of anglo and that you have hispanic 39.7 you have a total of 2

[1:55:33] 307 people that's involved in this recommended change now why can't mr bass sit down and talk with mr perez myself or any other citizens and actually show us as opposed to just saying well the data says this and the data says that and we have to keep up we understand that we know that numbers matter we get that but what we don't get is this seems very clearly that it it's very clear that the the hispanic population is being diluted and wait a minute yeah wait a minute let me clarify that because this is let's make sure we look at the total picture here this is the number added to the existing population what you don't see is the total population and if there's a delusion in the total population by race this is only the addition to that smd so correct and so there are the 1122 more anglos being moved into district three but we don't know what the delusion if there is a delusion in total because you also had growth in hispanic in all areas so the question mark is if you add these numbers to the existing numbers in smd3 what is the breakdown percentage wise in that district and to your statement uh madam mayor when we talked about this on thursday these are the types of things that i think mr perez was asking i wasn't there i understand yeah and so this is the kind of thing that we're asking him to explain he's the consultant he works for the people we realize he works for the city but the constituents are concerned about how this is done we asked him and i remember asking specifically do you have the ability to show us what it would look like give us another example that's all we're asking for is to show us what potentially could change we understand the data is what it is but is there another way so that at least the

[1:57:37] number because everything is moving south all the residential development is moving south and we're just trying to think of the future what is it going to be like in the next 10 years when we do another census right and then we have to redistrict again we're just asking that the consultant be a little bit more sensitive to what the constituents are asking and that you all not just rubber stamp what he has recommended because he has the data well we have access to the data too but what can we do with it without the fancy tool and that's what we're asking for mr bass to do is to sit down take some time with the money that he's being made being paid teresa we're not asking even necessarily for another one but why can't he take the time now that we're dealing with the city because i'm going back to the fact that they did not take the time when we were dealing with the county redistricting so i'm just very concerned that the bass firm is not being as sensitive to the citizens of san angelo and time green county as he needs to be and we're just asking for him to take that time and explain it all right so i say two things one number one i want to know what the smd ethnicity in total is once you add this 2307 to that district so we understand what those breakdowns are and then number two we realize that the hispanic population in tom green city of san angelo grew in all districts so the representation might or might not be as diluted as you think it is in this district but it increased in all districts in the city of san angelo but you got to go by voting blocks also mayor you got to learn no i know but that's the other thing we're talking about the census these census blocks are census blocks which means you can't just move a street within that census block you have to move the whole block and that's where it becomes tricky now that being said i think your your

[1:59:39] questions the comments made the consultant should respond to the questions that's why we pay him is to do the best job possible for the citizens of san angelo and if we don't think he was as responsible as responsive as he should have been challenge exists but the question teresa and julia is do you think he tried did he make any effort to address their issues your first question and in smd3 the 3.1 percent decrease was in the voting age population of smd-3 for hispanics and overall population in smd 3 did decrease by 4.7 percent so there was a decrease in smd-3 there was an increase in the other five smds it's also worth noting that this 2307 folks that were impacted um whenever mr bass did his calculations of what the ideal population size was and smd6 was over by 2000 and smd3 was under so there were a significant number of people that left smd-3 in the last 10 years they moved so so there was a reason that there were so many folks that needed to be balanced and in regards to mr bass whenever he left thursday evening he did feel that he had been responsive to the citizens well he did did we i don't care what he thought did we think he was responsive here if i could yes i was there and staff and the consultant were the last to leave the building the citizens had left they there were some who had spent time with him they left and so i i don't i was not i did not witness the conversations hear

[2:01:44] the substance of the conversations but i did see people spend time with him and they left before he did so i don't know how responsive he was but he was there until the appetite for his time was satisfied on thursday night i knew you had a question or comment julia what is the hispanic population of district three what percentage that's what i ask her to combine the percentage um well the voting age population in district three hispanic is 59.04 and in 2010 it was 62.35 that's the difference of the 3.31 and total population percentage-wise is 62.12 now down from 66.82 in 2010 and that's the 4.7 percent decrease but the hispanic in that district is still nearly 60 percent um over 60 total population 59.04 voting age correct any move we're going to make is not going to move this one percent is it so there's still a predominantly hispanic district there i don't think it dilutes surely i don't think what we're talking about is going to dilute that and plus with the population has ages the hispanic population is even going to grow a percentage there if we go from 59 to 64 total i don't think we're going to solve it with what discussions we have i understand your concern but i understand we're on a timeline we don't have the funds to go hire somebody else but i look at every district here has gotten a growth in hispanic except district 3 but his district 3 is still 60 percent hispanic so i don't feel like it personally dilutes the hispanic influence on the vote i don't know where we sit from there but i just think just looking at the basic numbers i don't know if we move at any if we can change it enough to change them from 58 to 59 to 61 they're still going to have the majority of the representation in that district which i

[2:03:47] don't think dilutes how they go to vote when it goes to the district i mean i'm just making a comment there but i think the majority i don't think we can change it to make any points lucy i was going to say due to the fact that it's 60 still hispanic i think our main problem is that they don't go and vote and that's where we need to get on it and start telling hey look this many people came in to our district or their district and now you have to make it apparently you want things to change you're going to have to get up and go vote because that is the main problem when they do not vote in a local election that means a lot to the city especially for you to be represented so that is my thing is it doesn't i mean it as long as you're still 60 in district 3 get registered and get those votes either get up and go vote and then you can make a difference in that smd 3. okay and i i hear what you're saying and i'm going to take my seat if mr perez is okay with that then i will be okay with that i still think that the uh consultant needs to spend quality time i realize he was standing there and some people were talking to him after the meeting on thursday but that's not the same thing as sitting in a conference room with the tool and drawing and making examples i realize the population is still not going to be that much of a difference but in 10 years as we we already know from an economic development perspective in 10 years it's going to look a lot different than it does today in terms of the residential build and who is moving into those large lots and acres and all that kind of thing so i just want to make sure that and i think the council here is the concern we just still feel that mr bass standing there having conversation and you know we're dealing with numbers is not the same thing as sitting in a conference room looking on a screen together sharing a computer view together to say okay now if we do this and take that and move that up here and

[2:05:50] move that over here that's what we're asking for is for him to provide that level of expertise that he's been compensated for to talk with the citizens and give us other examples thank you very much i think i i know the problem in our district as a senior citizen a lot of us seniors uh we're seniors on that side of town but we have a lot of new houses getting built we're getting all kinds you know blacks whites anything we're getting there the thing is that we hispanics have given up on going to vote because we i'm sorry harry we're not being representative like we should that's i think what they're trying to get across because of the fact is that yes we're getting a lot of things built uh you know uh businesses in the back of you know where i lived in the front you know but the thing is that uh they just quit going to vote like lucy says we quit i still go and vote but a lot of people are have given up on the city because we are not getting representative like we should when they have a problem we do not get answers and that's the problem i think that's what mr perez is trying to tell you on that the hispanic vote is delineating or whatever that word is because really to me that's what i think it is because for the fact is that we have given up on going to vote a lot of elderly people and i guess that we have to go out and vote lucy you're right but we do need to get educated people to uh represent us and that want to represent us the way we hispanics need to be representative because i think

[2:07:53] that we are under representative because of a lot of things that could be built over there and that could help us mayor and we're not getting it done and that's why i think they quit voting thank you again for your comments i'm glad this map is up because it reiterates what i want to talk about and that is i talked to mr bass on thursday night why aren't there no streets names on that map why can't you look at it and know exactly what is being moved i mean that map you can't but they can pull up a map well and i had to go the next day i went on friday morning to the city clerk's office to see a big map to where i could read it and then make reference but it would be so much easier if they had put i asked him i said do you have this section with street names on it and i asked him that night and he did not thank you thank you very much mayor we also addressed that issue with mr bass and the issue is the software when you zoom into this level of detail it doesn't allow streets so our gis department did create the maps that allow that overlaid this map onto a map that has streets so that we would have something available to the public but the software itself doesn't allow that level of detail okay thank you for the public comment seeing no one come forward we will take a vote on this issue all in favor of the redistricting as presented today i'm going to stop real quick because we do have one more comment hello everybody my name is david sedillo a member of single member district three and i also attended the meeting

[2:09:56] happening this last thursday regarding this similar issue and i just wanted to say that i think in a matter of funding and political will the reason that this issue may feel like it's not being adequately addressed in a sense has to do with the regard of the time constraints and the funding restraints and i understand the council's perspective on that and i just wanted to try to make mo try to make a note of the fact that it is three months away from february 7th from when this deadline will be needed and a few months but two months okay so well i think the point is the following is as tom thompson said whatever we the rules and regulations that go into how we move things left right up down in and out we're not going to change than what this does because of the rules about uh smd areas have to be contiguous etc we're trying to make decisions based off of the rules that are presented to us not rules that we make up not rules that we wish were there but the rules that exist those are constraints that put us into a situation but the reality is the number one thing on smd3 is it stays substantially hispanic which is what the challenge is 59 is a very strong support for that ethnic area of town we can't change that yeah i understand that i was just as mr perez was putting forward very eloquently uh trying to push for some more consultants more opinions because it is very important to people who live in this area and i believe that they are worth the time and the money to be able to look at more options thank you very much thank you

[2:12:01] i'm going to count to three if no one else stands up we're going to take a vote one two three all in favor the redistricting map is presented say aye aye with none opposed motion passes 6-0 and we are going to take a 15-minute break together at 11 04 am and we will move into item e which is considered resolution designating the number of votes to be cast for each nominee for the board of directors of the tom greene county appraisal district julia you're on thank you and as you'll recall in august 17th we were asked to propose a list of five board members to serve on the appraisal district all of the current board members agreed to serve again and whenever the ballot came forward from the appraisal district and every taxing entity had supported those same five folks so we do have um the ability to just divide the votes equally and give them each 258 votes if everyone's in support of that or we can talk about other ways but since there are five board spots and four uh five candidates it kind of just makes sense to divide everything equally and just to clarify if anyone was reading the background packet where the original letter had mentioned six we did confirm with the appraisal district that was a typo so the five folks that were presented are the five individuals that are being brought forward for a vote today and just to be clear from a political perspective or um any other perspective dividing the votes equally does not make a difference one way or the other on any single issue whatsoever so correct splitting them in a different manner does not accomplish anything is that correct

[2:14:03] not in this instance since there's five and five all right with that um may i ask for the resolution to designate the number of votes to be cast for each nominee of the board of directors of tom greene county appraisal to be divided equally amongst the five candidates do i have support for that so i moved by tommy seconded by larry any public comment with none we'll take a vote all in favor say aye with none opposed motion passes or resolution passes item f can consider a resolution calling and ordering a special election for january 29 2022 authorizing the city manager to execute a special election election contract with tom greene county and providing for the holding of an election to be administered by the time green county election office you want to explain this julia yes so first i'd like to say that the boundaries that were just approved as part of redistricting do not come into play so the boundaries for this special election will be the same as of whenever councilmember carter was elected the same as december 1st is what the date that we have in the resolution just to be clear and to delineate between what was and what was approved today so that's the first item of note and so as you all know councilmember um carter resigned the afternoon of our last meeting november 16th via his facebook post and that vacancy triggered a 120 days of calling an election in most instances calling means actually ordering the election in this particular instance the secretary of state did confirm that it is conducting the election so that would have given us through march for march 16th to conduct the election however there's another provision in state law that says there are 30

[2:16:05] blackout dates on either side of a primary so that pushed us back to the very last available date for an election to be january 29th which is a saturday so the special conditions that kind of forced to that were the fact that there were more than 12 months remaining on the smd 5 council term and then also and our council terms were extended from two years to four years in the 2015 election so together those trigger the 120 days which was of course shortened by the blackout dates surrounding the primary and so because of that the filing deadlines for a january 29th election will be today through jan uh sorry december 20th and the ballot drawing for the order of the ballot will be the monday following christmas which is december 27th at 10 a.m early voting will be the dates of january 12th through the 25th weekdays only excluding january 17th for the mlk federal holiday and that will take place all at the keys building and election day again saturday january 29th those voting hours will be seven to seven and there will be three locations all within smd 5 and those will be angelo bible mhmr and saint mark presbyterian church those are of course subject to change but those are the ones that we have confirmed as of now and and then anyone wishing to vote in the election would need to be registered by december 30th so a lot of this is happening near the holidays it is a very compressed timeline but again we've been in very close communication with the secretary of state and this is what we have to do according to state law and we would like to give a huge thank you to the tom greene county

[2:18:08] elections office ivana in particular and her staff and they will be holding this election for us while preparing for the primary election and also in the midst of transitioning their equipment and upgrading so we do understand that this is a burden for them and we do thank them greatly for their assistance what was the conflict between the city's charter and the state of texas the city's charter said that we should conduct that we should conduct the election at the next uniform date i believe or and it also had a provision that we could have appointed someone i believe let me look those up there is a case here where our charter the texas constitution and the election code all kind of overlap and contradict in places so that's why we had to get the secretary of state's office involved the state supersedes the city absolutely and so if if the council was going to make a decision about appointing someone would that change the need for this election we were specifically told that we could not do that and that's because of the term is exceeding the 12 months and that the terms of office are the four years okay so once again we are going to i will ask for a motion to consider resolution calling and ordering a special election for january 29 2022 authorizing the city manager to execute a special election contract with tom greene county and providing for the holding of election to be administered by the tom greene county election office do i have that motion so i'll move by harry second by lucy public comment please with none we will take a vote all in

[2:20:12] favor say none opposed motion passes 6-0 we will move on to item g which is consider approving a contract with the san angelo convention and business bureau cbb 965 thousand dollars of hotel occupancy tax hot tax receipts for eligible activities and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents tina dierski director of finance this is the renewal of our contract with the the chamber of commerce convention and visitors bureau pardon me we discussed their budget of course during our regular budget process but that is not a formal agreement until council adopts the actual contract so that's why we're bringing this item today just a quick overview on hotel occupancy tax and how it's performed over the last few years and given you fy 19 actuals at over 2.7 million dollars fy 20 at 2.3 million dollars fi 21 at 2.6 million dollars and then of course our budget for 22 being that we budget conservatively is just over 2.3 million dollars and then a little history on allocations that the council has awarded to the cbb over the past several years they started in fy 13 through 15 with a contract at 765 and fy16 through 19 moved that up to fy 20 one million twelve five fy21 was a little different we they budget the city council authorized 765 000 from hotel occupancy tax dollars and then they allowed the cvb to carry over two hundred thousand dollars in savings for a total of nine sixty five five eighteen and then of course fy twenty two budgeted slash proposed is the million twelve five that they were at before the pandemic occurred and so that's that's the financial information i have for you um any questions on that

[2:22:15] i'm going to is diane still here i know she was yeah come forward thank you for being here today my questions would be the fine all right so what what we had hoped for and you hoped for and everybody worked hard to deliver were lots of events and because of the coven because of other issues in fact these events have not been able to take place the air race cowboy jubilee etc so the question mark that i have is number one um still maintaining the budget of 1 million 12 500 knowing that these things have not will not occur in the 2021 2022 budget area and with knowing that and knowing that there are not going to be conventions or you're not going to be able to not because you're not qualified or not working hard to do it but there really aren't going to be conventions in the next year there actually there will be conventions they're just not coming back as strongly as they have in the past but janna has worked diligently on the association market in the austin area and we have seen progress there susanna also has worked hard in the sports area so we have uh the police games are coming back and so we have several events that are coming back we certainly don't have the 100 normal meetings that we do have normally one of the things we did this year was cover costs for research because we felt that was really important so we actually know the visitor profile so we worked with rudloff solutions and we have we have research from them that shows the hotel market what blue collar white collar sports weddings those types of folks who come into our community for events and we have been able to see that so we know which way we need to progress

[2:24:17] with our marketing and our advertising and the markets we need to to go after for that one of the other things i think that people have made an assumption on is that we are predominantly weekend overnight business and i think people forget and we use the term travel and tourism and not just tourism because tourism connotes visit visitors overnighting for vacation or weekends we have looked at the uh the star weekly report so we've got four or three years of data on that as well and we have seen that our weekend business and weekend occupancy is around on average around 60 to 65 percent our weekday occupancy this is monday through thursday is anywhere from 55 to 58 percent some in some cases 60 percent so that is that corporate traveler that business traveler that that meeting group uh we have so of course saw a a decrease in the meeting group over the past two years but but on average we were averaging over 100 meetings a a year so the discrepancy really in that area is that meeting group that has not come back but we do believe that we will start to see more of that the trends are going that direction it's just taking a couple more years than we thought we didn't see a um a second coveted piece hit we didn't know that was coming no one did we didn't know there was going to be a third maybe a fourth we don't know but we are still diligently working to get that business here it just may be in smaller numbers so i think my my ask is that knowing what we don't know which is the covet and the response and what will happen with it and because we know the air race is being postponed until next year etc that we would take a look at this budget and really

[2:26:19] um re-look at it in terms of what we might not need to spend this year and saving it for the next year for some special event or something specifically that comes to us that we didn't know was going to come to us because and it's absolutely no fault of anybody's covet happened maybe there is somebody at fault but we don't know who that person is or that organization but what we do know is that you have not been able to get near the impact that you worked hard to get because of all the issues that are out there so the question mark is and continuing with the 1 million 12 500 is what are we going to keep in reserves knowing what we're not going to be able to do well one of the things that is in the contract that has been the for the past few years i'm not sure exactly how many i know it came before i got here is we have forty thousand dollars for a visitor event incentive and forty thousand dollars for sports incentive that is in our contract every year it is in a reserve account that is used for that specific thing and until air race one that was not something we we really delved into it too much but we did usually for sports more than anything else but those that 80 000 is always in that contract every year and that was money we were going to use towards air race one and cowboy way jubilee and we fully believe that is sufficient to hit those needs the rest of the the funds the largest number amount of our money goes to pr and marketing and advertising we're going to continue to hit that hard because the trend is people want to get away from the big cities and so we now have our our bottlenecks are better than theirs campaign has been launched it's gotten great reviews we have videos we have advertising and we even have radio that is going on we're looking even at potentially going into the i-35 corridor and possibly doing some bus marketing um to while people are sitting in traffic

[2:28:20] having to look at signs like that because we think it'd be kind of enjoyable for them and give them a hint that they should come to to the west and to san angelo to experience our community so we feel very strongly again that that 80 000 that is set aside already in our accounts can go to that and then in our regular account we also have that same 80 000 for sports and for event marketing so it's a total of 160 000 for potential events in the future the other thing i would ask is that in the past i'm not saying since you've been here because it hasn't happened is that we don't get towards the end of the third quarter and say oh my gosh we got to spend the money else we have to give it back that we make sure that the money that we spent is a very focused start targeted investment in the things that you just said which are hugely important not immediately but also long term so that because we do know that the heads and beds is what we look at in terms of the strength of support for the cbp correct we are fully funded by hotel tax dollars it's a designated tax so it cannot be used for streets it cannot be used for certain other things it has to be used for that the visitor pays it the local person does not it's a seven percent local tax six percent at this state and so we're going to continue to to to look at that we're also looking at the short-term rentals air dna i got that research this year that shows that we have 47 instead of 17 when i first started potential overnight rooms that are coming for homes from homes and so we want to look at that we've shared that data with tina and finance to see how we can start looking at collecting funds from those visitors who stay the ruling on that teresa in terms of how um what they pay or how we track what they pay for hotel motel tax tina's probably a better person to answer that because she gets to see those kinds of reports they're supposed to register and i

[2:30:24] believe they have to request a permit to even operate one of those types of businesses and so if they register and they're approved then we should receive that registration and therefore know that they should be submitting you know hotel tax to us and as you you're aware we did just approve a hotel tax audit a couple council meetings ago we're getting ready to gear up and start that in january and so that's something that we'll be looking through at through that process as well so you're specifically looking at the airbnbs and we don't typically do that we don't typically look at those but we can certainly implement a portion of those into our study if if that's something council would like we should just based off of the numbers that diane just gave us if we were at 17 and we're not 47 or four huge growth for the number that's a huge growth and i think um all people should participate i agree yes yes ma'am we can ask our auditor to incorporate a portion um in their samples for that okay okay thank you yes please dan as a business traveler myself there are some things and we were looking at this the budget and talking it over but you know there's been i've booked six or seven meetings for this oncoming year all of them have been basically on a contingency basis we're watching covered going to see what's happened you know i just want to make sure we're responsible with this one and say you know what we may not have as many advances as we hope to but be able to capitalize and capture if we have a set of little league games that can come here do whatever we need but that i think that's the point there is we need to be safe and this was as big as we've ever done and it's in a time where we may not have half of these but let's cross our fingers and hope we keep it together and our hope is again the trends are people are trying to get away from the big cities and so that is where we are concentrating on that i-35 mostly the texas market some of the shoulder states but mostly the texas market to say we believe we have a product that can be safe for you and give you the meetings

[2:32:27] you want but we're looking at a smaller smaller meetings and not large meetings we've never looked at really large meetings because our hotel product is so scattered and we can't when we do bids we get 20 here 20 or 20 here when they want 100 in one location and that's a that's a bit of a challenge for us so we try to do the best market that works best for our product yeah i want to re re-emphasize the fact that we believe strongly in the work that uh and your leadership in terms of all these programs your thought process understanding what to put out there how to better market san angelo unfortunately because of covid your results were not able to come as big and bold as you wanted them to because of covid so we just want to be conservative this is budgeted money but let's make sure we don't just use it because it's there if we don't need it let's not use it and make sure if we then the following year we can be more aggressive when we think conditions are better but to be very thoughtful and careful about spending the money make sure it's something that is going to produce the results that you want to be able to tout and tell us about sure any other questions or comments all right with that let uh let's see we need to approve so i need a motion to approve the contract so i'll move by tom second by harry um any public comment with no public comment we'll take a vote all in favor say aye aye motion passes 6-0 item could we get a little clarification on that the agenda said 965 000 but this slide yeah i was 47 000 during the budget process council authorized the cbb to carry over forty seven thousand five hundred dollars that should have been in the background but it wasn't in the actual caption it's on the back of the total between those numbers is the million twelve again but we wanna be very conservative that's

[2:34:30] our direction consider approving the 2020 consolidated annual performance and evaluation report caper and bob uran uh good morning council the caper is a annual election uh that's the i'm sorry i say uh requirement by hud it's due at the end of the calendar year it primarily covers the city city bg and home grants but it also allows us to report to leveraged funds uh the report outlines expenditures identifies accomplishments and addresses key interest items such as lead-based paint homelessness and special needs here's a snapshot of the funds we had 651 000 of new cdbg funds 294 965 home funds we started with a balance of 194 894 for cdbg and 81 261 for home and we expended 704 359 and 300 305 813 for home funds we'll show you what what we're spending on uh here's a table of the cdbg accomplishments while it shows that we completed only 11 blitz rehabs we actually leveraged remaining bradford storm recovery funds and we kind of did additional homes there to kind of finish up that neighborhood we had completed 90 emergency repairs which saw a spike after storm yuri in fact we had to transfer a hundred thousand of that balance we saw earlier to cover the extra costs we completed 1650 code compliance cases in our targeted neighborhoods and we paid our annual section 108 loan bill here are the home grant accomplishments

[2:36:34] which includes assistance to uh five first-time homebuyers with down payment closing costs for a total of 22 088 uh tenant-based rental assistance for 13 special needs uh clients for a total of 33 060. and the seven new homes completed by archoto happens to be galilee cdc for a total of 175 000 of home funds with the cares act funding from hud and the state we assisted a total of 281 families with rent and mortgage assistance spending over 568 thousand dollars and lastly uh here are some accomplishments for non-hud grant funds um we weatherized three homes with adverse funds 61.99 we expanded 275 000 in gaap financing through the cosa dc program for seven new homes that we mentioned earlier uh funded 17 cremations of indigent deceased and we expended 181 thousand in infill program and they broke it up with 15 with the 15 with the 5k and 2 opted for the infrastructure program and that's all i have i'm asking for approval of the of the caper we did update it uh you have a copy a new copy of it and it will be published after you approve it with a hud and we'll have it available for our citizens are those actual dollars expended inclusive of administrative costs or are those simply costs expended without administrative costs added to it yeah these are we don't we don't report administration so these are all project costs activities questions comments one just i guess technical question bobby says we're considering approving the 2020 consolidated annual performance yes it's always a year behind uh it's it's always the the program year is 2020. um it's

[2:38:37] kind of goofy but yes that's how they work it that's the year behind yeah other questions or comments from anyone if not then could i please have a motion for approving the 2020 consolidated annual performance and evaluation report seconded by larry any public comment now that we're in public comment i have a public comment to ask sorry the infill incentive i forgot earlier the infield incentive is that the 200 000 that we have approved for infill projects or is that in addition to the infill funds it is strictly the infield the 200 000 you allocate every year for the infield program that you had you know orchestrated and ushered in okay thank you they're very productive by the way it's been very positive with that we'll take a vote i know we're gonna ask for public comment i interrupted okay no public comment we'll take a vote all in favor say aye aye an unopposed motion passes six zero our closed session executive session under the provision of government code title v open government ethics subtitle a open government chapter 551 open meeting sub chapter d exceptions to requirement that meetings be open under the following sections a section 551.072 deliberations about real property regarding one 2.3762 acres fisher and miller survey 0173 abstract 0205 portions of ej wortham survey 0001 abstract 3945 we are moving into closed session we'll be back when we complete the business well there were no action items so we will move to announce so we will move on to item b's consideration of approving approving various board nominations

[2:40:39] civic events advisory board karen abbott smd one to third term and clara freeze smd6 to a second term both ending december 2023 keeps an angel beautiful sam spooner smd 3 to an unexpired term ending september 2022 parks and recreation advisory board c rangel smd 2 and mark davis smd 6 to a first term both ending december 2023 may i have a motion for approval of all the above thank you second any public comment with none we'll take a vote all in favor say aye motion passes five zero with that we'll move on to announcements and consideration of the future agenda items first this is the only city council meeting that we will be holding in the month of december our next city council meeting will be in january and does someone have that date for me january 4th will be our next city council meeting with that said please enjoy the holidays merry christmas to everyone and um we'll see you all soon may i have an announcement for a german may i have a return okay bye larry all in favor motion passes 5-0 we are officially adjourned at 12 17 p.m on december the 7th

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=yjxUfkWdUX0