San Angelo City Council 8-16-16

[0:00:00] It is time to get this meeting underway. It's good to see everyone this morning. It's rain. The temperature is cooled down. How could life be any better than what it is in San Angelo, Texas? Ed Lopez, come forward, my friend. Ed's going to start us off with the word of prayer this morning. I would ask all of you to stand as your able. Good morning, sir. Good morning, buddy. Let us pray. Heavenly Father Lord, we come before you this morning morning to thank you father for just the gift of life and to be able to wake up such a cool morning and just to thank you for the rain that you've sent us. We ask you Lord that if you have more in store for us that you sit at our way. Father this morning we ask you for wisdom and guidance for our council and city staff. You will give us a direction that is needed always for what is best for the citizens of St. Angelou. We ask you now Lord that you continue to guide us throughout this day and that always Lord we ask for the protection upon all of our men and women in blue. Father now we ask you now that you lead us and guide us in this meeting. Thank you again Lord for your love. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's get a picture. And now as a special treat to allow me to assist them this morning with our Pledge of Allegiance, or the Drum Majors from Central High School, the mighty Bobcat Marching Band, Tina Anderson, Gage Bramlett, Kristen Kuhlman, Maggie Turney, and then Stephanie Dearborn is with us today, which is the Associate Band Director. And if y'all would come forward, let's have the Pledge of Allegiance. United States of America, and to the Republic for which he stands, one is for all, and the

[0:02:16] Texas. Honor, the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one stay under God in mind and in divisible. Thank you all so much. We need a picture. Let's get a few of our new pictures. Should I warn my wife to be? I'm just a minute. Mr. Born, I need you just a minute. Let me tell you something about our central high school Bobcat Band. They have been selected to represent the state of Texas in Washington, D.C. this next year on the Memorial Day Parade. This is a very great honor and it wasn't easy to accomplish, but we accomplished it. And our marching by Bobcat Band will represent our state in the National Memorial Day, Memorial they parade in Washington DC and I couldn't be any proud of these kids there's there's absolutely no way they have done a wonderful job I'm extremely proud of them give them a hand y'all let me just thank you for coming just from central and the whole band would like to invite you to the welcome back concert this Saturday it is free starts at 7 30 we'd like to have as many people out there as possible support the band yeah in the in the center of the stadium, thank y'all very much and the Bobcat band is having different fundraisers or trying to raise enough money to get to Washington DC, they need some help, you have a few dollars laying around, send it to the Bobcat band, they would appreciate it

[0:04:19] and they will make us proud in Washington, thank y'all so very much. We have one proclamation that that I want to offer, it's to a whole group of people. The first, Dan Konyk step up here, I want to introduce our new chamber manager. I'm not going to give him the microphone, or I will give it to him, but I'm going to watch him because he can get a little preachy. Dan Konyk has replaced, has replaced his new leadership in our San Diego Chamber of Commerce. He's made it through almost a week now, haven't ya? Still alive, still healthy? But I just wanted everybody to meet Dan Konyk and give him an opportunity to introduce himself. You got the mic for a minute, buddy. Good morning. Thank you very much for the welcome. I was not expecting to say anything today, so here's to a productive meeting. Thank you very much. That probably messed up the television. They always turn my mic down when I speak, and yet someone like Dan speaks, they have to turn it back up. We've got a group here today from Howard College and from the community hospital and from Shannon and from Workforce, the coast of D.C. We went to Austin here. It's been three or four weeks ago. I went and Judge Floyd went. Mike Buck went with Workforce. Roland Pina went with the coast of D.C. We were simply eye candy. That's the only reason they took us with us. Because the women in this group did all of the work. They went before the Texas Board of Nursing. And in record time, we got a unanimous vote to put a nursing program in here at Howard College. This is something that's not only good for Howard. This is good for the community. This is good for San Angelo, and if it's good for San Angelo,

[0:06:20] it's good for the state of Texas. So, I've got a proclamation I would like to read. Jamie, bring your entourage forward. I've got a whole bunch of recognitions I want to pass out. All of y'all come up here. This was a collaborative effort. I've got about six, do I need to read all these, that's the same thing. Now, what should I see to read one? I'll just read one, and then you pass them out, Jamie. Howard College has a well-earned reputation for producing skilled professionals ready to contribute to the workforce. It recently won state approval to do so in nursing, thus fulfilling a critical need in San Angelo and the Consul Valley. On July 21, the Texas State Board of Nursing unanimously approved two new nursing programs at Howard College. The first 20 students in the Associate Degree Nursing program began classes this month. Since 2013, nursing students wishing to earn an ABN had to do so outside of the Consul Valley. The second program approved will allow licensed vocational nurses to become registered nurses on a faster track. The first 30 accelerated LVN to RN students also began classes this month and will graduate next summer. The validation of the need and demand in our community included a commitment from clinical facilities offering rich learning experiences in the field for the students. In fact, Shannon and San Angelo Community Medical Centers are contributing to the funding of this program's first two years as our COSADC, the Workforce Development Board, the Workforce Commission, and the San Angelo Area Foundation. Such is a support our community is showing for Howard College and its effort to produce more highly qualified nurses. Therefore, I, Duane Morrison, the Mayor of the City of San Angelo on behalf of the City Council do hereby applaud and recognize Shannon Medical Center, San Angelo Community Medical Center, Howard College, Howard College Foundation, City

[0:08:21] of San Angelo Development Corporation, and the Consul Valley Workforce Development Board for their achievements and positive determination to make a difference in our community. Let's give these people a hand. Danny? You know, I'm just pleased to be able to be a spokesperson for this group behind me. The group behind me is really the one that did all the work. If we had not had the financial support, really, from our Costa DC board and the city, and our Texas Workforce Commission, we would not be standing before you. Our hospitals came together. They're financially supporting this program. It takes all of us as a team to come together, to put the funding together to make this possible. Because as Howard College, we've long known there's a need. And we wanted to have a program, but it's about funding. And at the end of the day, we need to have funding. And these really creative people came together and made this happen. And so we're really pleased to be able to tell you that we have 50 students that have actually more than 50 have letters out to them right now. They have to have their letters back in by tomorrow for acceptance and we have a few alternates and I'm sure those alternates are hoping somebody in that first original group will turn it down and say I can't do it. But we're totally excited. Again, I can't think enough because of DC, Mike Buck from the workforce board, you know, thinking outside the box for how do you get the funds to come together. Then Mike for talking to both of the hospitals. And both of the CEOs being fantastic, Chief Nursing Officers, awesome backing for us. And we're so pleased that everyone's come together and that we now have a new class starting in less than two weeks. And I trust that they will all be extremely successful and be in our workplace by next summer. So again, thank you all so much for coming together

[0:10:22] to help us. Anybody else have any work? I would really like Marnita to go in to speak because Marnita is our program director and you know we get funding and then it just starts really. You get a person, they have to come on board and then they have to, they're intensely writing this program. So I want Marnita to come forward because we are a huge debt of gratitude for us then getting to this point. So Marnita. Thank you very much Jamie as Jamie was saying this cannot happen without a village. you every person behind me and many more people that are not here maybe even some of you there in the audience today had a part in this this is critical to each and every one of us and our health care in this community not only for me but for my family and for my grandchildren and your grandchildren and to be able to bring this to San Angelo is such a wonderful thing we've had it in in Big Spring for years both an LVN and an RN program but to have it here in San Angelo and to be able to offer it is as wonderful and it was you don't know what it feels like to be at a hearing and being the one testifying and having a cohort like this behind you. It is a wonderful feeling and the thing is this is just the birth of a baby. We still need each and every one of you. This baby is barely three weeks old now. Okay we're in a lot of sleepless nights here and this will continue. This child will grow and it is going to bear fruit in this community. And just thank you to each and every one of you for what you have done. And we will do our best to make you proud. It is now time to portion of our public comment section where we allow

[0:13:44] or public comment and we will allow you to come to the front and address the council and as we've said each and every time you can address us good you can address us bad you can condemn us you can praise us it makes no difference the floor is yours so you've got about three minutes to give us whatever you've got let me read the legalities on this and I'll ask you to make a line here at the front issues or items that are not on the agenda may be raised by the public at this time citizens to speak from the podium began by stating their name and limit the remarks to less than five minutes. Council members may request that a discussed item be placed on a future agenda. The council will take public comment on all regular agenda items during the discussion of those items. You may form a line at the front, come forward, and make your comment. Good morning, Jim Hughes. How are you? Which one of these do I speak to? Be getting that one. All right, is that good? That's good. That is good. Greetings to the council members, mayor, city manager, these staff people. Last council meeting on that, I was setting on that side. I know that it's not always fun. I thought at least you had half of the people loving you and the other half hating you, but sometimes it's not that way. Sometimes it's 60-40 against you. You are 90-10. Anyway, thank you for the service that you do. I want to speak to you about an issue on the lake. I live on the lake and have for more than 20 years. And the lake's one of our greatest assets. We, it's a great tourist traction. We get lots and lots of people from many places. And of course, we have some great events there with the whiteboard competition. And of course, the boat races. It's grown very big and puts a lot of dollars in here. But with that, there's come some problems. There's a new type of sport. It's just gotten caught on here.

[0:15:45] Those large boats that pull the wakeboarders have a deal now that they pull that they go slow, set down deep in the water and pull that person behind the boat for a short time. And they build a wake that is large enough that they can let go and surf, just like they would if they were in the Gulf or in the ocean. And it's gotta be a lot of fun. I haven't tried it, and probably most of you haven't either. But there's an area that they like very well, where the old river bed goes. It goes in front of my house, and then curls on around, and that's deep water. For years, we've always skied and pulled our kids on tubes over in an area that's got a big circle, and then we've got a couple of alleyways, and there's reed beds on both sides, and that's been for more than 20 years that I've been here. They like this deeper water, but with that comes a major problem. They produce a huge wake. These are broad boats. They produce a big wake with a, And that's part of what they want to do. The only thing about it, if you stood in the ocean or the golf or somewhere and gotten out far enough that the wake was three to four feet high, it's powerful. They can knock you down. And they go very close to all of these homes around there. And I had some neighbors that had been mentioning, wow, they're going to tear this thing up. Said that bike is so big that it's causing a lot of damage. Well, I probably have, well, I know that I have the most

[0:17:45] frontage in that area. And from time to time, you'd have a little problem, have to fill in a little cement or something. And recently, I realized that what they were saying was way more than I had thought it's done what happens with those that deep wake it causes that water to come under our seawalls and just wash it out and it's very expensive now the people from code enforcement have done a good job of going around the lake and ask you know having people clean up their docks and and so forth, and I've visited with them and invited them to come and look there, but this is getting to be a major deal. Sunday afternoon, between two and three hours, they were just going round and around in front of that whole area there. And last week we brought in a large dump truck full of rocks and I'm lucky enough to have a dumb waiter that we put those on and hand carried them down there and we put 60 sacks of seamen and then Sunday afternoon finish that up. The neighbors have been really complaining. They've done a lot of work on their docks and this hard slide from the big, big wake is taking its toll and if it's left, But I mean, the Labor Day weekend could be disastrous if we don't pull those people away. They probably don't even know, I'm not accusing them of doing anything intentionally, I doubt that they even know how much damage that that's doing. Now we're going to bring another large truck, load of rocks, to fill another hole that we

[0:19:51] found yesterday or Sunday afternoon. This is expensive. There's no way to get cement down to many. You realize that that area is all high bluff. And there's not any way to get cement trucks and all to redo it. And people should not have to pay thousands of dollars to repair these docks and sea walls. And we for sure want sea walls. When those things are down, thing does look ugly. It's right across from where the crowds can see from the boat races, etc. And it eats it up. I mean, it makes a dangerous situation. Anyway, we need to get some, and ASAP, get some buoys out there that say no wake along that area. And I'm sure that we take an ordinance to correct the problem long-term, but an ordinance that would read to to keep those that type of activity 100 to 150 probably feet away by that time the the waves will flatten out some we've got plenty of good area way over on the other end of the lake there's some area that there's not any homes and I pull my kids around over there numerous times and And when that, when that wake goes into a read bed, you know, it soon dissipates. We have an area that people ski in every day, but right in front of all these nice homes is not the place to do that. And it causes tremendous amount of damage. I would ask that we get some buoys ASAP that say do not, or no wake zone. And another issue that we've got to have some help with is some police need to be out there. We're not seeing the police. I didn't see any all day Saturday or Sunday and I was there all the time.

[0:21:52] We used to, on some of the good holidays we have, but it's going to have to be enforced or we're going to have thousands and, you know, with several homes, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage, this needs to be moved and it needs to be policed. definitely need some police action to help us with this and I appreciate any help that you all might might give us. Thank you Jim. Daniel, did you hear what he said? Ricky, did you hear what he said? Bill, do you hear what he said? And we get something started on this. If we need to put something on the agenda, then I think there's something that needs to be addressed, but I think he's got a problem here and something needs to be done. Excuse me, Trinidad, you're on, sir. Good morning to everyone. I'm Trinidad Aguirre, and I'm the president of the Lake Natsworth, the Homeowners Association. And did some research on the internet, and we know the internet is always 100% correct. So let me give you some statistical data or some numbers to back up what Jim said. And the Homeowners Association is very concerned about the shoreline erosion. And it is a universal problem. I looked at other lakes. I looked at other bodies of water. And this seems to be something that is new because of the size of the waves that the gym was alluding to. So let me give you just some quick facts, a runabout or a water ski boat generates about nine inches, a little bit higher, but that's a norm for a boat. So you're looking about a nine inch wave as you have the skiers. Wakeboarder generates around, starting at around one foot, seven inches or more, which is approximately four times more destructive and skier, so you'll hear about, well, other boats are causing the damage, but these wakeboarders are about four times greater as far as destruction. What's happening is the greater or the larger the wave, it doesn't dissipate before it hits

[0:23:53] the shoreline, and that's the underwater current that Jim was alluding to. The recommendation by most of the water authorities is to limit the wakeboarding and other such activities that generate these large size waves to about 50 yards from the retaining walls. Now, we're not saying from all of the shorelines, but at least 50 yards from those areas that do have a retaining wall. The request that we're asking is kind of what you just did, Mayor, is to assign a water expert to work with us immediately to try to get some buoys in these areas of particularly where Jim lives. I live on the other side of the bridge on the body of water. We don't get the wakeboarders, there's too much traffic. And whenever you get other waves fighting, other waves, they can't ski or a wakeboard as easy as they can in these areas that are a little bit quieter. So that's why they get closer to the shoreline up. What we feel as a board is that we want to be fair to all of the water sports. And we feel that the council and the city of San Angelo experts work with us. We can come into a good solution so that the wake borders can move away from the retaining walls. And we can come into a good place for everyone to enjoy the water out there. I do agree with Jim, though, if there's something we can do immediately to put in some buoys or something to protect, particularly the area where Jim lives, where there is a, what we call a river channel running through there with deep water. I think that would mitigate a lot of the issues that he's talking about. And then just to throw some numbers out, I just redid my retaining wall, and it cost about $25,000. So when he says thousands of dollars, he's talking some serious money. So your support Daniel and your staff to get on this, we the HOA Board are readily available to help you in any way we can. So please work with us and let's see what we can do to resolve this.

[0:25:54] Thank you. Thank you, sir. And I suppose these are probably mainly short-term wake borders, or are they not? Never mind. And we'll definitely schedule a meeting with you. And we'll start working on that. We'll do. Good morning, sir. Morning, Mayor. Happy birthday. Thank you, sir. I'm David Curry. One of the hats I wear in our community President of the Dut Literacy Council of the Concho Valley. And if you look on your screen and up here, we're fixing to have a presentation from two very bright young ladies, Emily Houston and Frankie Coleman, who just, suppose, graduated from Santa Rita Elementary School, and we're going to leave, is that right? What they've done to study is a part of the Caroline Bond Symposium on Literacy. And I'd appreciate you watching this, and then so I don't have to come up here mayor when you finish this I will we're going to request that the mayor appoint a task force on literacy 15 percent of our community can't read and write imagine the economic drain of that the adult literacy council is a nonprofit we operate on a budget less than a hundred thousand dollars with volunteers trying to help people get their citizenship get their GED English is a second language. It's an important, I call it a ministry, but that's who I am. It's an important issue we need to address. These young ladies, I'm just very proud of them and grateful and I ask that you would watch this presentation and then I'm going to request you agree to appoint a task force to study this issue. Thank you, David. Thank you for this time. You bet. I know. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. We still have the consent agenda. They're the first item on the regular agenda at which time at which time at which time we will allow you to come forward and speak and we allowed it David thank you so

[0:28:00] much you did not you got your words in all right is there any other public comment at this time this is your opportunity going once going twice this This is your last chance. Public comment is now closed and we will move on. In our consent agenda, we have one, two, three, four items in our consent agenda. And this is the time that I will open it up to the council. If you have any comments or any statements you need to make, either side, if you would like to pull something off the consent agenda and have it sent to the regular agenda for proper discussion, this is your opportunity. Start with you, Ms. Farmer. I don't have anything to pull off the consent agenda this time, but I would like to make two announcements. One is to remind everyone of the Porched Plains Annual Conference that will be September 13th, 14th, and 15th here in San Angelo, down on the river and down Kallen, and here at the convention center, and the other is to wish my baby girl a happy 52nd birthday to day. Thank you, John. Lane, nothing to pull at this time. Loose think. nothing to pull, but I would like to thank Ms. Tony Pickens for coming to San Angelo last week. She's with the Operation Blue Shield program, and Ms. Pam Robinson will be hosting a meeting on Monday the 22nd at 6 p.m. at the San Angelo Police Department, which is 401 East Burghard concerning these programs and wants to talk about what would be working for San Angelo and And she and where we would begin. So if you can make it to that meeting, she would appreciate it. And like I said, her contact number, if you have any questions, I don't know if I should say this over TV, maybe she'll be calling her. But, okay, they can go to Brian and I'll get Brian Pam's number.

[0:30:01] And y'all can call him and then call her for some questions that you might have. But the meeting is from Monday, August the 22nd at 6 p.m. Thank you, ma'am. Harry, nothing to pull, but I do have a town hall meeting scheduled for August 25th, which is next Thursday at St. Mary's at six o'clock, and the main topic is the Avenue P flooding issues, and we're going to talk to the citizens about that. The engineering department in Daniel will be there with me, so hopefully we'll be able to answer all the questions. Marty? Nothing at this time. Dale? Nothing at this time. Well I have one item I want to pull off consent and that's that monthly landscape volumeric water rates and it's nothing but it's just a principal vote and I know I'm going to get beat but I want to pull it and vote against it anyway so I do want to pull item number D. So I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda items A, B, and C. So move. I do have a motion bill. I do have Harry and I do have Bill. Do I have any comments from to counsel on this. Do I have public comment on this at this time? We'll call for the vote. All in favor of approving the consent agenda items A, D, and C, please say aye. Aye. Opposed nay. Put a 7-0 on it Brian. Item number D is the second reading and consider adopting an ordinance amending appendix A article A8.00 monthly landscape volumetric water rates. So we talked about this at some time last week. It was very well explained to us and what it says is that the City of San Angelo up to the drought rates are the, there's two tiers. Am I right, Bill? There's two tiers. And that we would pay the same rate as our citizens to the first tier. But when we got into the second tier, the city would be exempt from paying that additional amount of money. Did I state that correctly, sir?

[0:32:03] Yes, Mayor, you did, but just one distinction, it's all the public entities, the schools, that anywhere is serving the public would be exempt. And that exemption has been historically in the ordinance, so we were just putting it back. That's the way I thought I understood it. And I've got a problem with that. You know, I see Congress putting us under Social Security, and then they pass their own Social Security laws. They put us under Obamacare and then they create their own health insurance laws. And I think that government all live under the same rules that the citizens live under. And as I say, this is a principal vote. I don't expect to win it. But I'm opposed to letting the government be exempted from anything that our normal citizens are not exempt from. So. I move approved. Second approved. Second. Who said, Charlotte? So we do have a motion to approve. As presented, I do have a second. Do I have any further counsel comments? Public comment? I'm Steve Hampton is my name and I feel very moved by your comments. I think you're on the right course, unfunded or it's an administrative tax on us and after the rain we just got and everything, prices ought to be going down and I mentioned that before but I think you're right, we ought to play on the same field. I think we're back to watering the parks and everything. I noticed that they're really green and lush. And I appreciate that they are well-kept. But they have to be as green and lush as they currently are. I don't necessarily feel that way. But thank you for bringing this up and giving me opportunity. I appreciate it. Thank you. Any other public comment for a call for the vote on this? Motion is that we accept and allow the exemption.

[0:34:04] All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed nay. Nay. What a five, two on that one. All right, let's move on now to the regular agenda. And the number one thing on the agenda is the presentation on the literacy. I don't know what you want to make a mayor's task force out of this. I can't even pronounce the word literacy awareness from students in the gifted and talent program at Santa Rita Elementary. And I would ask for y'all to please come forward and please make your presentation. And may I say how very pleased we are to have y'all here with us this morning. We're very proud of you and I want to hear what you have to say. So y'all have the floor. Okay, I'm Emily Houston, Emily Houston, I'm Frankie Colton. And for our project this year, we decided to research declining literacy rates in the United States. For experts in the field, we talk to Ms. Merrow and go lightly and Ms. Cassie Hammonds. Ms. Hammonds is a retired teacher at Santa Rita Elementary and Ms. Go lightly works with the Adult Literacy Council here in St. Angelo. Process starts with the oral language. Please speak into the microphone. Okay. You're on TV. The learning process starts with the oral language. You have to be able to communicate and talk with other people before you're able to learn to read and write. Talking to a child from only at an early age will help to boost this process. One major reason for this problem may be that some people do not get the education that they need to learn to read and write proficiently. This may be because they didn't understand the material or they didn't have the money to go to school. Another possible contributor to this is that some children are always absorbed in their television shows to learn or to read and learn at home.

[0:36:07] Some shows are educational and teach children things while they are watching them, but the majority of TV shows are not educational. Here's some facts about declining literacy. Low literacy is strongly related to crime. 70% of prisoners fall into the lowest two levels of reading proficiency. You took action to solve this problem by holding a book drive. We had people donate books to us, and we gave them out to the fifth grade students at Santa Rita for them to keep and read. The old games are cool every once in a while, but all of the time can possibly damage your vocabulary and your reading capability. More and more technology has been created so far through down the literacy rates are dropping. Limiting a child to only one type of book can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. A child should be able to expand their vocabulary with a higher level book, but some books are too mature for a child to read at a young age. We surveyed the entire 5th grade at Santa Rita Elementary on how often they read. If they think reading is important, if they read at home, and how often they think people should read in general. Here are the answers we got. We also made a graph of this data. Did you know, 75% of today's jobs require at least tonight's grade reading level. And 15% of fourth graders read no faster than 74 words per minute, with the average reading level being 140 words per minute. We also made a website on this topic. The link is displayed below.

[0:38:08] We aren't totally done with it, but we have done some. In conclusion, we have learned much more about illiterate people. We also have taken action to prevent the kids in fifth grade at Santa Rita from becoming a literate by holding a book drive. We hope this has influenced them to read more often than they had before. Thank you. Thank y'all very much. Very good presentation. Marilyn, did you have comments, ma'am? We've already heard, David. Girls were taking this issue on, and they invited us to see their presentation, and I thought it was so wonderful that I wanted you all to see it as well. And then I'm urging all of us to join hands and hearts and go out and educate more people in our community and form a task force that we include everyone in trying to get rid of the illiteracy and in our community. And it takes each one, teaching one. So I thank you. I'll be glad to do anything I can. Good. Anything you want, you tell me what I need to do and I'll be glad to do it because I think this is a very serious problem and maybe it's time we tackle it. Even even more strongly than we have in the past. So give me direction, Marilyn. I'll be glad to do anything I can. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you so very much. Thank you, Santa Rita. That was a very good presentation. We appreciate it. Next item on a regular agenda is presentation of the by annual report from downtown San Angelo Inc presentation by DTSA executive director Dale Velosquez and DTSA president, Brenda Gunter. Welcome, man and ma'am and sir. Y'all have the mic. Thank you. Thank you, counsel, for all your support. I wanted to let you know that Brian is passing out our newsletter, and in there, you're going

[0:40:14] to see several accomplishments that have occurred this year. One of them is, and I mentioned it to you, I believe the last time, we were selected by the State Historical Commission to support and help develop software that tracks vacant buildings and the economic impact and you'll read more about that. Also in there there is a story that is titled Revitalizing Downtown One Block at a Time. A major project that took place earlier this year actually started late last year when First Baptist Church contacted our office to make us aware that they had a whole block of buildings that many of you may be familiar with, they're between Harris Street and college on the east side of North Chatburn. Those buildings had been occupied by First Baptist Church. They used them primarily for storage and some activities, church-related activities. But predominantly were empty during the day. And they were all colored, one particular color, beige, I think, is my recollection. And anyway, those buildings have been purchased by local entrepreneur and he's going to be developing those buildings. And again, you'll read more about that. And obviously, that's going to have a tremendous turnaround for that particular area of town. And in light of what's going on with the San Diego Performing Arts Center, so we're really excited about what that's going to do for the further development of downtown. We continue to sell more sheep. You'll see more sheep around town. We've had several unveiling this year already, one at the library and one at Shorty Title for that particular project. Probably the highlight of the second quarter report that we submit to the state as far

[0:42:19] as property sole reinvestment in terms of development of rehabbing buildings occurred during the second quarter of this year. Our numbers exceeded over $12 million predominantly because of the first financial bank construction that's taking place on Concho and Bryant. And we're obviously very excited about what that's going to do as far as a gateway going into the downtown district. Also, Shannon continues to build new buildings and their construction costs over well over millions of dollars. So, all of those funds we were able to report, hit the books in the second quarter and again, I stress that is huge for the continuation of downtown development. Again, there's more information in our newsletter. I hope you take some time to take a look at it and read it and if you have any questions please feel free to call me or let me know what you have in mind. Thank you. Thank you. The other part of the newsletter that I think you should spend some time looking at is the area where we show. Brenda Gunter. Oh yes I'm Brenda Gunter president of downtown San Angelo Inc. With the difficult times that the oil industry has brought to our community. It's interesting for us to see in our downtown area how people are still looking at opening new businesses, changing locations of their businesses, combining their businesses with other businesses to make it a more solid business. We were nervous, of course, like all of us about the oil industry and what the negative impact could have had on downtown, and the good news is it hasn't had a negative impact on downtown. We've

[0:44:20] We've had more people buy buildings, redo their businesses in the first six months of this year than we have in all of last year and the year before. So we know that sometimes during these tough times that people look within themselves to find a way to continue to grow and develop and part of that is owning their own businesses. As Dale said, we're very excited about the nine buildings that David Major bought. And he has six of those buildings already under contract, either so closed or in redevelopment. And that will have a very positive impact, not only from the way we physically look, but also into the tax revenue that changes the difference in the downtown area from the property taxes from where they've been to where they're at. When we look at the reinvestment and look at the 10-year window of how many dollars have been spent in the downtown area. It's very impressive to say that there's been close to $200 million reinvested in a downtown in a 10-year window. Some of those businesses that the reinvestment has been made in, you say, well, what difference does it make? For example, in the Palmer feed, which spent, I think, about $2 million on their plant in the downtown area, well, most businesses have an option, improve or decline. And people are making sure that their businesses are kept up to date, improvements are made to to continue the further development in our downtown area. So even though it's not something that you would look at is maybe the model of what we look at in reinvestment in downtown, it has a major positive impact on the downtown area. And those businesses that we've talked about are starting on page four and go through page six, seven. So please look at those. And if you have an opportunity to visit those businesses, congratulate them on their time, effort, money they've spent in helping to make downtown happen. Dale talked about one block at a time,

[0:46:23] and I wanna remind everybody that way back when in 2007, we used to talk about one building at a time. We were so excited that someone would buy a building, redo a building, and increase the positive visibility of our downtown area. Well, truly today, it's more about a block at a time half of a block at a time, multiple projects, stimulating multiple interests and so we're seeing the overall impact to be very positive. When Cooper Furniture which was in our downtown area for many years as you well know and lack of activity there for many years and also perhaps not the best view of what you want a historic district to look like, those buildings have been bought and redone and certainly the face of those buildings looks much better than it has for decades. We have a new business that will be opened up shortly. At the end of that, we had Jesse Rose, which opened up earlier this year. And when you look at that today, you look at it and you go, I don't even remember what Cooper Furniture Building used to look like. The change has been dynamic, the impact has been dynamic, and we're very happy to see progress there. Statistically, if you take a look at your packet and look at these numbers in terms of sales tax, you'll see, of course, the first quarter of the city had a negative 4.47 and second quarter, 9.65%. In our central business district, which is the district we primarily focus on in terms of downtown businesses, is from Harris Street, South to the River, east to Magdalen and west to Randolph and the main street numbers are defined in the first quarter we had a negative 23% and a lot of that is because of the changing of businesses. People closed their doors, moved to new locations, etc. so we had a lot of shutdown and reopening which did not impact us until the second quarter where in fact we had a 22% increase in the local sales tax in the central business district.

[0:48:26] In the main street district, again the numbers are better than the overall city numbers and And some of the negative numbers, there are things like the Exxon Station closing, Jack's opening up, some of those things on the North Bryant Boulevard, which has the biggest impact on our overall Main Street district, which does extend itself to the river on the west side and to Main Street on the east side. If you look at our quarterly mixed beverage tax report, you will see that in the first in second quarter, the net effect in dollars is about equal or the same to last year and the main street district a positive increase if you look at the net dollars. If you combine those, there is one error on the second quarter on the central business district which says 220,000 that's really 243,000 which would mean that we have a net neutral number for the central business district and in the main street district certainly showing down but at the same point in time representing a bigger percent to the total of the city's dollars than it has in the past because our decreases are less than the cities that were all decreases. That concludes our report. Are there questions, comments, ideas, suggestions, yes, Harry? Well since most of this is downtown in my district I'll make two comments. Had some conversation a couple of weeks ago about what we can do about the area around the performing arts area because I think that's going to be an attraction that will bring a lot of not only citizens but also people from outside of the community to come in. Sure would like to see whether or not we can attract some people to come in and look at revamping some of those areas down there close to that particular area. That's why we bring up the whole David Major block area because that is on the corner as

[0:50:27] you turn in to the St. Angel Performing Arts Center and what we have generally found in redevelopment is that when one building gets redone it encourages other people to redo which encourages other people to redo. So the combination of that one block area plus what will be some major work starting on in the Roosevelt Hotel later this year will have a positive impact. Second comment is this. I appreciate seeing things happening in the old Cooper Furniture Building. Part of that is historic for San Angelo. You know that I worked for Goodyear for more than 40 years. Goodyear was in that Cooper Furniture Building for many, many years. That's where we started. We operated out of it. So I'm glad to see that we're revamping it and new businesses are opening up in that thing. Last comment is this. I appreciate what you two do and what the downtown association does to revitalize that whole particular area. And you know that I'll be working with you to make those things happen. Thank you very much. I just wanted to comment on Harry's remark about the performing arts center. There is a beautiful landscape and picture of improvement, some believe in Rick's office somewhere that we've been trying to find a private partnership to go in with this and really develop that out. And I think you might be interested in if you haven't seen it. I'd like to say how amazing job y'all have done. Growing up here in San Angelo, when I was a little, I can remember downtown, San Angelo, almost kind of like a ghost town. It's come a long ways, and that's gonna help out our community greatly, tax base and business coming in. So, thank you. Thank you very much. Lucy. Just wanted to thank you for the good job that y'all are doing also. Artie? Bill? All I can say is that I used to work at Sears when it was downtown

[0:52:27] where Ed B. Keys is, and I remember a vibrant downtown, and then I remember back in the 80s about the one thing you heard in downtown, St. Angelouette, the sun said it was gunfire, so I'm glad to see that we are finally revitalizing and bringing this forward. I appreciate both of you doing Thank you for the presentation. Do I have any public comment on this before these two get away? I don't have any public comment, but I would like to remark. I was concerned a few years ago with a number of liquor businesses opening up in the downtown and the trash and stuff that would accumulate, but downtown Inc has done a tremendous job of making sure that doesn't happen. We've worked pretty diligently to make sure that businesses that we believe would not enhance the downtown area are questioned and certainly we don't want to we believe in personal property rights at the same point in time we have a lot of people who've invested in their businesses and their buildings downtown and we know last year that we had a negative impact from one business which really hurt other businesses downtown we've bounced back from that and we will continue to be very diligent in making sure that the downtown area reflects positively on our city. Thank you so much. Thank you for their point. Let's move on. Item C is discussion and consideration of matters regarding the fiscal year 216-217 budget preparation including but not limited to number one the first public hearing of a proposed property tax levy for the city of San Angelo for the 216 tax year and number two council direction regarding general fund expenditures. Mark and check when you have the floor ma'am. Good morning, y'all. The first item before you is the first public hearing on the tax levy. And so I just wanted to point out that we did have a record vote on August 2nd to maintain the rate at the .776 since we do plan to bring an ordinance before the council on September 6th.

[0:54:27] This is a continuation of state best practices to continue transparency to our constituents. You need to vote on this. No, just a public hearing. This is simply public hearing. that's item one under see this the public hearing on the property tax. Very good. So there is public hearing we do need to ask for public comment. If there is any public comment on this first item which is to retain the present tax rate of 0776 cents per 100 dollars worth of valuation. Do I have any public comment on this? This is the public hearing section. No public comment please move on Thank you. The next I have before you, we of course talked just very recently on the 11th at our budget workshop about where we are on general fund revenues and expenditures. We do have the revenue there unchanged at 69.8 million dollars since our last meeting and of course the expenditures at 69.5 million showing that revenue over expenditures of 322,000 that we've discussed and as we left the last meeting we had pretty clear direction on Council on what to research, and we're going to temporarily, as Michael Dane suggested, temporarily place this in an expense line item until we can finalize that research and bring it back to you. I do know that Ms. Marley is here available to speak, but she is in discussions related to the meeting confer in a meeting scheduled later this month, as well as discussions with our partner, Holmes Murphy, about the increased employer contribution potentially for health insurance so with that there's not a lot of detail to report as we're continuing that research but we do have on schedule to bring you a budget ordinance first reading September 6th. I have questions from Council. I have a comment with I mean I was disappointed at our budget workshop nothing that you had done

[0:56:28] working to work very well and and performance is great as always but I I was disappointed that, especially since I was told, that I could not express my concerns, because he had four votes down there and that's all you needed, but I feel like strong that I have the right to speak on any subject that comes before the council, and also feel that that right goes into my opinions of the budget, even though they may not be, want to be heard by others. But I especially, And I've received lots of phone calls with Reverend Chanel raises for employees and several suggestions. They'd like a little property tax hike, and we could have been a little better at saying that how much a half cent we all know, how much a half cent generates. But we, the public out there doesn't always know that half cent wouldn't take care of what we needed. I would like to see us look at our fund balances where they are today and how much percentage of the budget has been utilized to this date. And look at, see if there's some areas in there that we can continue to cut. I am particularly interested in any other excesses that are in the budget and those fund balances. And you know what projects, you and the city staff know what projects that are still coming that have to be paid out of those fund balances. but I may not readily remember, and I need to be reminded, but also the citizens would like to know also, what else do we have to pay for that's outstanding out there that has to come out of those fund balances. Also, I wanted to look at a discussion or recommendation with reference to our stormwater rage, you know, when we had to start collecting money

[0:58:29] for stormwater, which was mandated to us, and there weren't no funds. And we said we would seriously look at it each year as to what could be done to decrease that rate or if that rate needed to be increased. We've operated what three years now, is that correct? With the stormwater fee at $5, but in visiting with some members of the school board, they found that I wasn't real sympathetic because they have a higher tax rate by far than we do, but I did listen to them and they were hoping that we would look at possibly giving a credit in the service areas of education here in the city on stormwater and on trash rates. If you can look at that and bring it back and say how it would drastically hurt us or what we possibly could do, I would appreciate it. For the comments, Lang? I'd agree on the line item issues. If we can see, given that we have seen a decrease in sales tax revenue, if there's anything that we can put on hold in each department until our economy picks up, that we can pay on or increase that revenue until the means of time. We have been working very diligently, especially this year, to make sure that we knew what we projected in our revenues this past year. fill well short actually. So what we've done is taking a look at our expenditures, met with our directors to make sure that at the end of the end of the year we're breaking even and not going into the hole as well. So we are looking at that and even at next year's numbers to to determine what in fact are the necessities and what is considered excess. So again those are all areas that we've looked at but especially this year we definitely want to make sure that we do come out ahead or at least break even so that we're not known. So we have cut back our expenditures and we'll continue doing that in about the year as well.

[1:00:30] Okay. Further comments? Gary? I just made a comment about fund balances. I had an opportunity to tour this and the Coliseum yesterday afternoon and there are some issues in this particular building with the sewer and with the roof leaking that is costing the city a lot of money. So I would say that when you take a look at those fund balances, if there's opportunities for each department to utilize a portion of those fund balances to take care of some of these serious needs, that it needs to be looked at seriously and brought before the council and let's look at it. Marty? I just want to make sure I understand we are going to put our surplus set it aside and stick it in a special fund, then we'll figure out what we're going to do with it after we adopt the budget. Yes, we're just going to temporarily park it in a payroll account, not necessarily allocated to any one program, but set it aside so that we can have the time to really bring y'all the correct answers on let's work through meeting confer what does that mean financially. Let's work through health insurance, what can we achieve with the financials. So in order to adopt the budget and stay on timeline, but also to provide the appropriate research time, we'll set it aside and go with Council's direction at future meetings. Okay, thank you. Yep. I'd like to see the Council require each department, except for essential service, such as police and fire, to reduce their budget and Council give them a percentage and require them to reduce their budgets by a percentage and let them require accounts to hold them to it. And I kind of have to grieve the bill on that. I think we need to live within our budget, just like every household in this entire city.

[1:02:30] And I know that we've kept our tax rate firm for the last several years at 779, but we did receive as a city, I believe it was 1.2, 1.3 million dollars of additional income this year over property appraisals. And our citizens had to pay that. And they're dealing with the same problems that we're dealing with as a city. So we need to live within our budget. And if we need to make a percentage cut across the board in every department to come up with the money that we need to give a modest raise and to do the things we need to do, then I don't have a problem with a percentage cut across the board to give us the money to balance our budget. But I do think we must, as every household in this city, live within our budget without raising taxes. Any other comments, Harry? I'll make one more comment just so that everybody understands. And you can have this conversation with Morgan or anybody in that particular budget area. Approximately 70% of the budget is personnel cost, whether it's benefits and salary combined. So when you say a flat cut, remember that a number of these departments are not fully staffed as it is. So you're gonna talk about cutting people. Yeah, the comments, Jordan. I just wanted to say that I'm definitely not wanting anyone in the fire department or the police department for those to be cut. Now I received Lisa Marley from you and I appreciated every position in the city that we had if I could get a grand total of what that is. Mine and then give me the difference of the unfilled positions in that. I do want to point out, when you take a look at the budget, especially in front of us, we look at personal and especially operations, you talk about living within our means, we definitely do that. We know that on a year by year basis, we do have the CPI. Actually, we have a municipal index

[1:04:31] that we follow that typically we do have an increase on just supplies items that we purchase go up, at least by 3 and 1.5% to 4% per year. So we take all into consideration. So when you're looking into our operations, living with our means, we're definitely doing that right now. We do understand what you're saying. We wanna make sure we look at our expenditures, cut back what we can. I am kind of leery about looking at percentage cuts across departments, there's certain departments that may be able to do that, others that can't. As Harry just pointed out, we do have the highest cost to the city expenditure wise as their personnel and costs associated with it. So we'd have to be really careful to examine that. But as far as living within our means, we're definitely doing that right now. What we expect. Any other comments? Do I have any public comments on this item before we move on? Yes ma'am. Good morning. My name is Lyla McClelland and I'm a resident of St. Angela, Texas, and have been for a while. And just saying going along with this conversation, I understand what you're saying about keeping the tax rate constant. But because of higher property evaluations, I mean, in essence, you are passing on a tax increase citizens. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Any further comments? Is that all you had, Morgan? Okay. Any other questions on this? We'll move on. What time is it? 938. Item number D is first reading in public hearing for case PD 1602, an ordinance approving a request from Time Green County to authorize a rezoning. The Moranch and the State zoning district to a plan development zoning district for the Time Green County to Attention Facility, generally located off US Highway 277, 880 feet west of the intersection of MH Morgan Trail, and US Highway 67 on 179.174 acres. John James, you have the floor, sir.

[1:06:32] Thank you. John James, Director of Planning and Development Services. As you mentioned, this is rezoning for the Tom Green County Detention Facility that's proposed, just off of Highway 67. you can see the entire area is almost 180 acres, is proposed for a plan development district. Because of the unique aspects of the jail, it doesn't really fit exactly in any of the zoning categories that we have, and so we thought a plan development district helps accommodate exactly what they want to do on the property. You can see the future land use map does show this area as an institutional use. currently zoned ranch in a state. Again, this plant development would rezone this entire tract. This is their proposed layout of the site. You can see the jail facility right in that area. As well as some of the other institutional type uses that are also in the area and would fall within this plant development. This is just a different look at that concept plan. So while I'm on this graphic, I wanted to point out we are recommending one minor change to the wording of the condition, the last condition on this, this firearms range area. One of the requirements of the plan development is the entire area be platted. But we, in discussing this with the applicant, they would prefer to keep that firearms range out of the, that they will be bringing forward and we're okay with that change so when you make the motion we'd like to see you make that change to that final condition. The rationale for approval I won't go through all these this is really just a summary of what's included in your staff report but it is consistent with the

[1:08:34] zoning ordinance and adopted plans and policies and we don't see any negative impact to the area. We did send out our notifications to the surrounding properties did not receive any responses in favor or in opposition. The recommendation to you from the Planning Commission is approval of this plan development district. That was unanimous vote by the Planning Commission and staff also recommends approval. These are those conditions of approval. Again, we would like to see that number six changed that the planning would be required for the entire site, but not the entire site, at the site excluding that firearms range area. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Questions, Council? I saw Rick Bacon walk in, Rick. Commissioner Bacon, did you have anything you needed to add to say about this, sir? Good morning, sir. Well, thank you. No, I really don't have any comment. We just appreciate y'all's support, and that's helping us move forward with that. And we're looking forward to getting this thing completed. So thank you. Thank you, Rick. Charlotte. All right. I automatically think of lead. What do we do now today to prevent from an over lead contamination from spent shells? Is all of it picked up right? I mean, I don't know how it's done today if you could just tell me. Well, I'm sure there's a good answer to that, but I'm probably not the person to provide that answer. Okay. Yes. Thanks. And when that is designed and when that is built, they put a lining on the berm when they do that to help prevent that from soaking into the ground that goes into the design of the firing range. We take in all, 4-H, we'll take into consideration all of those requirements on the environmental

[1:10:35] side of it. I wasn't sure how it worked, I knew there was something they could do for it today, but that's why I wanted to come here and catch all any questions. Thank you. Any other questions for Rick while he's here? That is set aside for 4-H or you can go. Yes, we've sectioned that off for 4-H. Thank you. Will? Does that have a clay bird or shooting or pistol? They will be doing both clay birds and a small rifle, 22 caliber, nothing over 22 caliber. Okay. Thank you. Lucy, this is your area. allow you to make a motion one way or the other and did you want to put with the provision to eliminate the fire range from the plant is that what you needed John that without wording work to approve it as presented with the provision that the fire range is eliminated from the plant is that your motion ma'am do I have a second on me do have a second from Marty do I have any any further counsel discussion on this item? Any further public comment on this item? Thank you very much. Thank you. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed nay? Put a 7-0 on that one, Brian. It's 944. I think this next one's going to take a little time. Does everybody want to take just about a 50? It ain't going to take long because I've got some questions on this one. I think it's going to take some time because I got some questions on it so y'all want to take a little break you want to go ahead and get into that I don't carry it away let's get it done it done item number four is first public I don't number E first public hearing and consideration of an ordinance amending chapter one general provisions of the code of ordinances presentation by city attorney Teresa James and city clerk Brian Kendrick counts I requested but council member Thomas your own sir I think

[1:12:41] everyone knows. During the charter review this the need for this item was identified. There are just some old ordinances that are either out of out of alignment with the city charter or they're out of alignment with state regulations or state statutes and then out of regulation with some of the method of operation that we do. We provided a red line copy and a clean copy as part of your background, we think that though the changes are substantial, they are non-substantive because they just defer to the state regulation or the city charter. So we would accept any, you know, any changes you all want to make and make it part of the second reading, but we recommend approval. Eric, since I made the request, let me just first say that this is the first of many of these to come because there were so many items that didn't align either with state law or with the charter. So as Teresa and Brian and I appreciate all the work that you're doing on it, bring these forward, make the changes, they'll bring them forward to council. Personally, I'd move to approve as presented. Second. Well, the second bill. My problem is one that I've discussed with Daniel and with Teresa in the past and it has to do with section 101.012, which is the enforcement of code. And here's my problem. And it's one of these rules of unintended consequences. About a year, maybe a year and a half ago, we authorized the code department to add $150 administrative fee to all of the things that they had to go do. They said that Boeing was less expensive through the city than it was through the public, and so people were allowing the city to do the mowing, and they wanted a $150 administrative fee added to this.

[1:14:42] And on the surface, it sounded good. But in actuality, it has become a very serious problem for the citizens. And here's my problem. We have a municipal court that works as an uninterested third party. So if someone gets a ticket or a citation, they were able to appeal this ticket or citation to the municipal court, and municipal court will then make the decision as to how it is carried forward. And that's the way it has always worked in the past. It's the way all traffic tickets work. There is always that uninterested person that works as the judge. When we allowed this $150 administrative, we allowed also a change of the way this was done. our code enforcement officers wrote a citation. And that citation allowed from this report to be that uninterested portion between the citizen and the code. Now they send out a letter. And this letter says you've got seven days to do this, or we're going to charge you X amount plus $150 administration. And the code department has become the judge, the jury, and the executioner, there is no middle ground, there is no uninterested judge between the citizen and code. We can fix this and we can fix it very easily in this section 101012. It says authority, any person employed by the city as a code enforcement officer, a peace officer or a person specifically authorized but the city manager or designee shall have authority to issue citations for violation of any regulation enacted by this city. We need to change, shall have authority to issue citations to, shall issue citations. We need to take this level out of allowing them to send these letters on their own and put the municipal court back

[1:16:45] where they belong to be as a buffer between code, between our citizens, so that code does not write citation appeal to code and pay code. We need a municipal court judge in there to allow for any extensuating circumstances and the reason I'm asking for this is because I have had about six to eight calls since this has happened. One of them was code just stapled or attacked or attached a notice on a man's door. He was in the hospital having back surgery and didn't even know what was happening until really got a bill. And we are losing this this this buffer that municipal court is supposed to to to give and we're giving one department the ability. If we just change, have authority to issue type citations to must issue citations, we can solve this entire problem because right down the road here it says anyone that gets a citation has the right to appeal it to the this for court. That I read through every one of these I didn't have any problem with it most of its bookkeeping but I think this is an excellent time to change this and to get rid of this loophole that we established we've got to have a buffer for our people that's my only that's my only request. Well I think if we want to get rid of that loophole we're actually gonna have to do that as we address other sections of the ordinance. I don't see Bob here to I know we had meetings regarding your consent. We had meetings on this six months ago and I hadn't heard anything on it until I saw this. I think we did change some practices and we can look into that and get you some information. But if we want to completely eliminate their ability to give that administrative fee, we are going to have to change other sections of the ordinance and not just. And I'm not talking about the administrative fee. I think the administrative fee ought to be reduced because this is the highest administrative fee in the city. Even municipal court does not have the authority to, I think, $75 is the highest municipal fee that they are able to assess. this fee is extremely excessive. I would like to see it brought down so that it

[1:18:46] equals the municipal court fee. I certainly don't want it more and I certainly want municipal court to be able to stand in as a buffer. I don't like this one department having all of the authority. There must be an uninterested person in between. So if you want to bring something back that specifically addresses that you can do so, but I think just by changing that any officer must write a citation, that's going to take care of this loophole that we have created. I think that'll create a chain reaction is what Teresa is saying for other items in the other ordinances. So that might be something that needs to be brought back as a separate thing to address every one of the sections that it that it impacts that's I think everyone in our city that gets a citation off to have the right to go to a to an uninterested municipal court judge that's part of what we owe our citizens take a look we'll take a look at what other things we might need to change to get us there would you recommend that we hold on this then until you have an opportunity to look at that I wouldn't recommend we hold on this I mean this is more cleanup than that I don't I think that the language that's in here doesn't prohibit us from telling staff you cannot enact this other process that's going on that's not pursuant to this so I would not recommend that we support all this I really do think those changes are going to come in the nuisance ordinance when we get to that provision and we can move that up in our schedule we were kind of going numerical order but we can move that up if you'd like I'd really like to have this brought forth I'd like to solve this problem I've had all of the people that have called me have been elderly people and it has caused a real it's caused some real problems for and at the end of the letter it says if you don't pay us we're going to put a lien on your house and this is this is not something we want in our city so if you will promise me to get this in the next meeting or two our next meeting we were going to it was going to be the second meeting it's for sure so

[1:20:47] mayor we have instituted an appeal process where people who are not repeat offenders. There are some other exceptions that allow me to grant an adjustment to their account based on extenuating circumstances. And so there is, to give you comfort, there is an appeal process that we have instituted, and it allows us to correct if we have billed erroneously that kind of thing. And that's good, but that's a redundancy. Because municipal court is already there. We already have an appeal process. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't take a look at it. I'm telling you that there is a process in place, so it doesn't have to happen in the next meeting or two. If they need more time, you have the assurance that there is a process. And surely. Charlotte? I have a question about procedure. Whenever we, the council, bring forth a change in the ordinances, whether it's fees or feet or inches to whatever it is. Who sees? What is the process once that is approved from council to get it changed in the ordinances? We posted on our website under the code of ordinances until that code of code is updated and it's updated quarterly. Quarterly. But we have all the changes listed in the meantime. And then once the code is updated, we eliminate those and start a new list of the changes. Okay. When we get to new business, I'll ask my question because I can't find something and I could have sworn that, okay, and it had to do with code of ordinances and a change that we made. So I was curious as to what the process would be on this as to how soon, how quick it gets put it. As soon as the second reading of the ordinance is approved, we get it up on the website.

[1:22:47] The code of ordinances is updated quarterly. Currently we have the next, you know, the next meaning we'll have the second reading of this ordinance if it is proofed today and then the following meeting we were going to bring the next set of revisions I guess we'll just take your direction as to whether you want us to continue in numerical order or if you want us to go out of order. I'm gonna vote against this until I get that changed because I think we've created a monster here and I want it fixed so I'm gonna vote against this but I'd like you to bring and I'm not opposed to anything on here except that one issue because the rest of it is primarily housekeeping or it's a duplication of law. But we got to fix this this is a problem and it's affecting our citizens and this we can't do that we can't we are not we are here for the citizens the citizens are not here for us so if you will I don't want this brought back as soon as possible and have this cleared up and cleaned up any other discussion on this yes Bill yes I would on my second on this motion and I'm going to oppose it because I think this is you need to be fixed and temporary to often become permanent. This is I do what I remind everybody this is the first reading so we do have an opportunity to come back in the second reading making adjustments necessary. There's no hurry on this we can adjust it and ride it all at the same time and make it right so I don't have a problem on postponing this thing I do have a motion I do not have a seconds. Anyone else want a second? We've made the motion. Harry. And I'll second. Do I have a motion? I do have a second. Do I have any other comment on this? I'm gonna have to agree with you that the code enforcement on this issue. We do need a middleman because there's too many instances that the the citizen is taking advantage of to where if we are the executioner they need to have that secondary

[1:24:48] step like you're talking to appeal this to the courts. So I'm going to have to agree with y'all. I'm going to vote against it, and I'm voting against it for that one reason, and at least it's clean. I'm not going to vote for it. Do I have public comment on this item? Good morning, Mr. Hurley. Morning, Mayor. I'm glad you know my name. I'm Terry Hurley. This seems big like we do a lot of duplicate work on the city council. It wasn't very long ago. was processing through the state to get funds in case we needed them. When we turned around the next meeting, then we canceled it. Last week, our last city council meeting, you all approved that taxes would stay the same. Now you're talking about a tax increase. No. No, sir. I don't think you could get a vote here to increase the property taxes. Okay, because you've already gotten one with the appraisals back everything that we got taken over that we voted on the homestead exemption you've already given it all back in problem you value which there were oh we still we're off topic okay we're off topping okay thank you there any other public comment want to call for the vote I'm gonna vote for this co-staff said they're gonna bring back and we're gonna to correct that, right? Okay. I just want to, y'all are going to bring it back, correct? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Tell me you're going to do it, I believe. You've got a second reading on this anyway, correct? It will be a second reading if it passes today. And if it fails, we won't be able to address this for six months. So if you need to make a, if you need

[1:26:50] to make a revision, please do so in the motion so that we can continue in the process. Well, We can bring it back to the four council members will say we want to bring it back we can bring it back. Yes, sir. That's true. Will the second reading include the effect if we change this the other items will we go ahead and and have those revisions in there any revisions that are made part of the motion will be in the second. We need some we need some revisions in the motion then that this will be addressed. You want to change your motion, Harry? We'll change the motion to ensure that the concern that a couple of the council members have will be addressed at the next time. And that will be on section 101-012 that puts municipal court back as an intermediary between the citizen and the city. There. Before you make that decision, I think we ought to have some discussion with the code enforcement folks to see what impact this is going to have on their ability to help citizens. They try not to make every case a court case. What you're doing is saying if the weeds are or grass or 12 inches, they're going to municipal court and they try not to do that. Most of those situations are satisfied without an appearance in court and without having to write a citation. That's not what I'm saying at all, sir. I'm saying that they will write a citation, a ticket that says your weeds are too tall. You have the seven or the ten days whatever it is to appeal this to municipal court. If this is not done, then we will be able to knock this down. That step has been completely eliminated with this backdoor way of doing things. I did not say that. I'm saying that just like on the traffic ticket, on the traffic ticket you say I will appear before the municipal court if I want to appeal this or if I have a problem now if

[1:28:53] they don't if they don't stand up and appeal it they pay the ticket and the same thing with this I just want I just want I want them to write a citation period citations are handled by municipal court I think we should also hear what this is going to do to their volume their ability to process this volume of activity their ability to process this is not is important to me as the rights of the citizen and by writing a citation they have to go through municipal court. I don't like this backdoor approach. As long as you understand what you're asking for is more stringent than what happens now. Right now they get a notice of violation that just says you're in violation. They're not cited, they're not anything. But in seven days they are billed. Read the letter happened that quick. Read the letter, Mike. Yes or Bill? Correct. I thought that they had 30 days to comply. They re-inspect after a period and after that period if the condition has not been rectified, then they get a letter that says we're going to mow if you don't mow. I'm just asking him to write a citation just like the police officer does that says do it in this length of time or appeal it to municipal court or we're going to do it. So you can do that process. Every one of those items will have to be disposed of by municipal court. Here. Yes. The way I understand, let me clarify the motion so that our discussion can be related to it. The motion is to approve this as presented with the condition that section 1.012 will be addressed at a future meeting related to your, so this would not change that language immediately. This would give time for a discussion with code and with municipal court. I agree at that point. We can come back with any concerns that are raised and make sure that we address those also mayors. So I think that'll suffice. Is that your motion, Harry?

[1:30:53] It's correct. Is that your second, Charlotte? Do I have any further comments? Do I have public comment on this before we call for the vote? Motion has been made that we accept this as presented. with this one caveat that we will look at this one section. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed nay. Nay. Nay. Nay. Lane was trying to get a question here. I'm sorry, Lane. So the second reading will, just to clarify, will have the provisions. So if we vote aye for this, the second reading will have these provisions for us. No. No. No, but we will be bringing that back because this was in effect, there's a six-month thing on Ordinance is not to be reviewed, part of this ordinance is that we will review that part again. So this is an act of counsel that you want that brought back as a separate change. It will not affect the second reading, but there will be another reading related to that and any other sections that that's going to address. Because addressing Section 1.012 alone is not going alleviate the problem from the other sections. So we're going to need to address that comprehensively with, you know, discussions with municipal court and with code compliance as a separate deal, not part of the ordinance cleanup, but as a council directive. Get your name, Lane. Hey, but a 4-3 on that motion passes. All right, I guess we are too. I guess we could go into executive this time. Let's not even an hour because we just have a few items to consider some board nominations and then Council's action and yeah that's all we have left is some

[1:32:53] board nominations so we can go into executive this time. Executive session under the revision of government code title 5 open governments 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 5 50107118 consult with attorney with the governmental body seeks the advice of its attorney about pending or competent plated litigation regarding number one. The 2013 seal-coding program contract number two, Templeton Construction Incorporated number three, LSA Incorporated. Item B is section 55510712 to consult with attorney. When the governmental body seeks the advice of its attorney on the display matter in which the duty of the attorney to the governmental body under the Texas Disparator Rules Professional Conduct of of the state bar of Texas clearly conflicts with this chapter regarding number one short-term rentals in the city limits number two the Marta for Hirschfield agreement it is 10.06 I take us into executive probably will not be more than an hour and then we will come back and conclude with anything that we decide in executive and to appoint the board members in the last so 10.06 we are now Executive. I'm calling this meeting back to order. Item number eight follow-up and administrative issues. Consider items discussed in executive closed session if needed. Mr. May, may I make a motion due to considerable confusion that for discussion purposes we bring back the STRs and would have to be in October I would think Council meeting. I don't know what the direction looks like but I think September's pre-with-budget stuff that maybe for October if that's acceptable to you.

[1:34:53] Do I have a second on that or second that? I do have a motion and I do have a a second that we bring back the issue of the short-term rentals for discussion and for clarification. We dealt with this last month and I was a little bit hasty. We took a vote. It was a 4-3 vote that we do not allow short-term rentals, but there were a lot of questions that were left unanswered and there's a lot of, we're getting, there's a lot that we need to finish this thing. We need to come up with some conclusions on this so that our citizens know exactly where they stand. Mayor for clarification, it wasn't that we didn't allow short-term rentals. We had a motion that failed basically. Right. The motion failed 3-4 rather than a motion being to deny that it was a motion to approve that failed 3-4. We do have a lot of discussion items on this. There's a lot of questions that have been raised about this. If I cut it off too soon after three hours of listening, then that is my mistake. I accept that. I apologize, but we need some answers. We need some conclusions and we need to discuss this some more. Charlotte has made the motion that we bring this back in the first meeting in October to discuss it. Lane has said that he seconds. I suppose I'll ask for council discussion. I'll ask for public discussion. And I'll call for the vote. And the vote is to bring this back for further discussion in the first October meeting. All in favor of bringing this back for discussion, please say aye. Any opposed nay? Bring it back for discussion by a 6-1 vote of this council for further discussion and clarification. Consideration of approving the following board nominations, Animal Service Advisory Committee, Victor Schulz, Mayor of Veterinarian, to an unexpired term in January 2017 and David Howard, SMD-3, municipal official,

[1:36:55] to a first-term ending January 2018. May I have a motion to approve these board members? Harry? Second. Second from Marty, any discussion from Council? Any public comment? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Announcements and consideration, a future agenda item. Start with you, Charlotte. agenda items. I've had several phone calls. I'll try to put two of these together, speed limits in the bluffs. Most of the speed limits are 30. It's a huge neighborhood. They don't have any real commercial right in the neighborhood except for Melrose and Hunter's Glen and that's the higher speed of 35. They find it confusing. I understand it because it's the main thorough fair versus a feeder street, but I would like to ask if traffic could do warrants for me for the number of people walking and so forth to have discussions, and I'll try to plan a town hall about the majority of what the folks would like to have out there. With that, the traffic at Sherwood way, mainly at one of the eating places that they hire off duty policeman to direct traffic. My phone has just been burning up with phone calls or angry that the city is paying for police to direct traffic for a business. And when they're just trying to get home to have lunch at their home and the bluffs, they have to wait for the policeman to give them traffic. I've assured them that the soft duty police officers that are being hired by the business and the police officers have told them to call their city councilmen if they wanted it changed. So they've called in numbers and I've asked for a public update of the construction that is fixing to start and add to an already bad situation out there for traffic and wanted to make sure that Shane had said that the state engineers can't be here until the 20th of September, is that correct?

[1:38:56] But at least we have that on the agenda on the 20th of September to talk about it. The other item that I'd like to put on the agenda is the mowing of large undeveloped tracks, subdivisions that are not developed, and I definitely recall meeting with some of the builders and agreeing, and Shane recalls it also, but we can find that ordinance change she ever came back to council. And so I need to get it on there as soon as possible. And I would also like city manager to maybe visit with code enforcement about letters or fines of mowing without their doing what we thought we were gonna do a couple of years ago and we didn't get done. Bus routes need to put on the agenda on September 20th, no later than to discuss the new transit bus routes. and I'd like to have our MPOGI give us what they're changing to and the routes and council input before it appears on the transit, the Consular Valley of Governments. It's on their agenda for the 21st. It was postponed the last meeting because council had not had the opportunity to visit about it, so I need the best routes on the agenda. I believe, oh, and a while back we passed an ordinance that with reference to no texting and driving in the city limits, but all of our advertising and all of our signs just say no texting. It doesn't talk about no talking and texting, and I've had people inform me that they can talk on their phone as much as they want to while driving, and I was thinking that that ordinance, it didn't include talking while driving? It was just texting, it was texting now. It was texting? Yes, absolutely. You can talk, you just can't text. You can't talk near a school zone, but you can talk.

[1:40:56] I was at hands-free. It's the only texting only. Mm-hmm. Well, I don't any good. But at least I brought it up and I mentioned it. And you just can't make people do the right thing. That's all I have. Thank you. One thing I like to discuss, certain streets that I've had some phone calls for in relation to speed bumps and speed limits. She almost kind of stole my thunder on that. I received a phone call the other day from a lady that a little boy was hit on Colorado Street by a truck that disregarded a speed, I mean, a stop sign. Coming from Avenue Inn, they pick up a lot of speed, and if they're comfortable with that neighborhood, they're going to disregard that stop sign just to get home. Well, he was out on a scooter, if I recall, and on the side of the road and coming at a high rate of speed, hit him and have not heard of the condition of the little boy. I know that he was scheduled for a full body MRI. That's one instance, along with an example of Oxford Street, from college hills to Sherwood Way. It is a narrower road with a lot of curves, and people take that to their advantage for gaining their speed, coming around corners. So I think there might be some areas of town that we need to look at on instances like that if we need some speed bumps to deter them from gaining that speed in excess of 30 miles an hour. There is a procedure in place for speed bumps, Shane can tell you the procedures, but we've been through this before, and there is a one, two, three. There is a list that, a way to get speed bumps, Shane will be glad to get with you all, Matt, can you explain? Appreciate it. I'll be in touch with them.

[1:42:57] Do you see? I just want to remind everyone of the Operation Blue Shield meeting on Monday, August 22nd. Again, at 6 p.m., at the San Angel Police Department, you can call Brian for Pam's number or call my number, my city number. Anyway, just a reminder of the town hall meeting August 25th, St. Mary's at six o'clock, main topic will be the Avenue P flooding and city engineer and city manager will be there as well as myself, Marty? I have no. Bill? I'd just like to let the people who live in the 2300 block of the south of the south, that I've taken pictures of the flooding there and I've turned them over to the city management, and I have one for Shane also. And I have nothing either, so I will take. I'd like to add one more thing. Shane and I have been talking. We're going to try to do another city-wide trash forum, and I'm also going to be holding one for a neighborhood town hall of my own. Just to get more on the agenda, hold it to the agenda this time, for the neighbors to come out and get their input, try to not to be so redundant and come to a conclusion of what we can do for the trash service. We have not set a date yet, we're still discussing that, but we'll put it out on the city website and I'll be advertising on Facebook and go from there. Did I hear the adjournment, Marty? Harry did I hear a second from Marty? Yes. All in favor say aye. It is 1116 and this meeting is over.

Transcribed 2026-07-27 with faster-whisper (base.en) · source: youtube.com/watch?v=Xs_czynXR1M