City Council 12-3-24

[0:00:00] Yes, December the 3rd, 2024, if you are intending to make public comment, you need to have signed up in order to be able to speak, so are we good? All right, this meeting is officially called to order. As usual, we will start with our chaplain prayer and pledges, and we have Gary Jenkins and Marcella Jenkins here to lead us in both please stand. Good morning, everyone. will you join with us in a word of prayer. Father, in heaven, in the name of Jesus, we bow before you to say thank you for this day. We thank you for your grace, your mercy, your long-suffering, and patience. We thank you for your blessings upon the city of San Angelo. We honor our mayor, the honorable Brenda Gunner, and the members of the city council, and all of the city staff, and all of our first responders and we just pray God that you will anoint this council meeting today with wisdom to do the job that you require them to do with excellence. We pray that you bless the citizens of this city and all the inhabitants and the business representatives that are here. We pray, God, that you will, Lord, just come in and sup with us. And Lord, let's the city of San Angelo, the city of angels, let it be a place where God your will is done. And if you do this, we'll ever be mindful to give you and you alone the praise, the thanks giving and the glory. And it is so. Amen.

[0:02:42] We have one proclamation today. So if Lee Flugger and Monica Ramos would please come forward to accept this proclamation. How are you today? 2024 marks the 31st annual Conch Hill Christmas celebrations annual tour of lights. The celebration with over three million lights is one of the largest Christmas lighting events in the state of Texas. The event offers a two and one half mile walking or driving tour beginning behind the main post office on the corner of Abe Street and 1st Street and ending at El Paso de Santa Angela. Those involved consists of approximately 400 community volunteers who greet tour guests and mates from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Daniel Webster Wallace unit who assist with installation of Christmas scenes and members of the San Angel restaurant association who supply meals to the inmates. The community Christmas tree lighting ceremony will be held Saturday, December the 7th, 2024 at 5.15 p.m. at the corner of South Chabern and West Conchill Avenue. Activities will include the St. Angel Community Band conducted by Dr. Constance Kelly, Evangelist State University and the Twin Mountain Tonesman directed by Mark Clark. The community tree lighting will be followed by the 22nd annual Lights of Christmas Parade at 6pm, which may be viewed on Chadburn between 4th Street and Conchow Avenue on Conchow Avenue between Chadburn and Oak Street on Oak back to 2nd Street. The tour of Lights can be seen Sunday through Thursday from 6th to 10 p.m. and each Friday and Saturday from 6 p.m. to midnight, December the 7th through December 31st, 2024. Therefore, I, Brenda Gunter, Mayor of the City of St. Angel, Texas on behalf of the City Council to hereby proclaim December the 7th, 2024 as Conchill Christmas Celebration Day and encourage citizens to join the activities and view the magnificent holiday lights that

[0:04:43] have become a community treasure. Good morning, Monica Ramos, executive director of downtown San Angelo. Downtown San Angelo is really excited to be a part of Concho Christmas celebration this year. And we hope that we can continue this family tradition. We acknowledge the value that it brings to the table and that it brings to San Angelo. And we're very thankful that Mr. Flugger and his team of the Concho Committee and the community host, all of the volunteers, everyone that assists with bringing this event to St. Angelo year after year, 31 years, in fact, this year, 31 years of bringing the Country Christmas tour of lights to families to continue this tradition with their loved ones and their friends and to have it for future generations as well so that the children and grandchildren can then share it with their families as they grow older. We are just so happy to be able to bring some new energy to the event and we hope that we can have some new activities in the future as well. This year Chick-fil-A is a signature sponsor of the event. So guess who tour? The Concho Christmas tour of Lights will receive two Chick-fil-A gift cards complimentary from the sponsored Chick-fil-A, so we're really happy to be able to provide that to families who come through the tour and experience the beauty. What would San Angelo be during the holidays without the tour of lights and without the parade? Again, we're just very happy to be able to provide this support and continue this tradition and the value that it brings to San Angelo. You'll all have a very Merry Christmas. It'd be an opportunity. I think that's best. Well, I will say it's been a great pleasure to work with downtown San Angelo

[0:06:44] in making a transition for country Christmas. And these young ladies are, have such wonderful technical skills and energy beyond compare. So we look forward to the best, most spectacular 31st annual country Christmas light tour that we've ever had. And for it to last for years and years and years come. Thank you all for your support. Thank you, Mary. We will now move into the consent agenda portion of the agenda. No, we are not. We're gonna go back to public comment. Sorry, we skipped over that. So here we go, Heather. We have no public comment at this time. So we are gonna move into the consent agenda. Issues are concerns not on the regular agenda may be raised by the public. Citizens should speak from the podium, address all comments to the DS, begin by speaking, starting their name in single and address or single member district and limit their remarks for less than three minutes. Is there, Larry, do you want to pull anything from the consent agenda? Karen? Lucy?

[0:08:44] No, ma'am? Carrie? No, ma'am. Tommy? Tommy, with that may I have a motion for approval of the consent agenda as presented? So moved. So moved by Harry, seconded by Larry, public comment on the consent agenda items? None. Seeing none, we will now take a vote. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda say aye. Aye. Motion passes, consent agenda passes seven to zero. We will now move into the regular agenda, comments regarding items on the regular agenda may be made by the public when each item is discussed as outlined above. Applicants, proponents, and opponents are exempt from the time limit above and instead must limit their remarks to less than five minutes. Item A is discussion and possible action of animal services dog intake policies. And today we have Morgan, Chegwin, and here to present. Good morning. Good morning. Morgan Chegwin, Assistant Director of Neighborhood and Family Services. What we have before you today is just a discussion about our dog intake practices. And some of what we're going to talk about today is all of our intake practices simply because our policies haven't, have been historically speaking to all species. So we did just want to take it to the beginning to talk about all the things, because some folks are still surprised by the number of services that this division offers. And so we just wanted to clarify that we do impound cats, dogs, wildlife, those that are high risk for rabies and other livestock and any foul. domestic foul. Generally, animals arrive by three methods. The first, of course, is any animal services officer intake. These are folks that are responding to calls

[0:10:49] for service or out patrolling. And so any dog's livestock are foul that can be caught. So if they are loose in the right of way, if they are running, then animal services officers are picking them up. In the event a dog is running loose but cannot be caught just by our staff using their methods. We do try to find a willing participant in the neighborhood to set a live trap, which proves successful probably 80 to 90 percent of the time. And we set that each day to try to catch any animals that are being like nuisance to the neighborhood and impound those animals as well. Animal services officers also intake any debilitatingly injured or sick. If it's a minor illness, for example, in wildlife, they're going to let them continue. But if it's something that they cannot, that they're a danger to themselves, we are going to go ahead and impound those as well. And that would be for all species I mentioned, cats, dogs, livestock, foul, and wildlife. We do respond as well to trapped wildlife. A female apply if it's not a top risk for rabies, meaning we pick up raccoons and skunks at no charge because of the risk that they pose to the health. If you trap any other wildlife, we pick that up at a $25 charge, such as possums. We also pick up deceased animals, any animals in the right of way, of course are picked up at no charge to anybody, any wildlife that are deceased we pick up at no charge, any private property domestic animal we do pick up for $25. The second primary method that animals arrive at the shelter by is found stray. So any finders who have a sick or injured animal

[0:12:50] of any age or species, those animals are impounded. We believe that financial animal services is funded to serve the most vulnerable populations in San Angelo. And so we're going to take in any sicker or injured animal and then work closely with our contracted vendor, our rescue partner, to pursue any treatment that could be available within current resources. Citizens may also bring in any trapped cats or low risk wildlife, meaning if you've caught a possum, you could bring it to the shelter. Any of the high-risk for rabies, we ask citizens not to handle just because of the concern to the public safety, but if a citizen walks in with a cat in a trap, a low-risk wildlife in a trap, that is absolutely accepted. Kittens over eight weeks of age, we encourage folks that if it's a kitten that's healthy, fluffy, under eight weeks of age, they're allowed to free roam, put them back. But certainly if we know that that mom is, they say, you know, I know the cats in my neighborhood, and mom was unfortunately hit by a car, these kittens are in need. Of course, we trust that and go ahead and just impound, we just have that conversation at the front counter to vet what's most appropriate. And then healthy, nice dogs are impounded unless we're at capacity. In December 2022, we adopted a policy, first as a pilot, and then ultimately as policy that if we were approaching capacity defined as housing 107 D dogs over four weeks of age, that we would refer citizens to our Good Sam program, which we will spend some more time talking about in just a moment, but as far as the second method for animals coming into the shelter, this is, in general, what they can expect on arrival of the shelter. The third primary method that animals arrive at the shelter is by owner surrender.

[0:14:50] So in general, folks calling or coming by or interacting with animal services officers in the field are referred to re-homing services through contra-valley pause. And so we start with that process because if there's a way to maintain pet ownership, we want to support that if they need referral to neuter services because their dog escapes all the time. Or if they need referral to behavior services or if they need access to the pet food pantry, We want to offer those things first. We also want to offer, you know, where did you originally get the pet, the original breeder you bought it from, will they take it back? The original agency you adopted from, will they take it back? We just want to have that conversation first, again, to just reserve the shelter resources for animals and families in the most need. We, of course, prioritize owner surrenders for anybody experiencing an eviction, domestic violence, or a natural disaster. That was something that was important to include in the policy when we initially adopted this. But it just anecdotally, when we offer, and when we're supporting folks that are going through some kind of crisis, they in general want to maintain pet ownership, they just would like some resources. So if they need some short-term boarding, if they need a crate to keep their dog in they go to their brother-in-law's while they get their house safe to handle that that's in general what folks in this population are asking for when you've already been through so much you would love to be able to keep your pet but we do prioritize that if that's something that they're needing. So all others working through re-homing services we will offer all those services we add them to the waitlist for a shelter intake as space comes available. We also prioritize any owner surrenders that are returned adoptions. So folks that have adopted a pet from our facility through our contracted vendor, we

[0:16:50] don't want to create an issue for other communities or other organizations. And so we're committed to that pet and assessing that pet and supporting it, even if it's coming back to the shelter. One thing that is not technically an owner surrender, but is a service that we offer. If somebody reaches out and wants to rehome their pet because it's aggressive, it's reactive, it's unsafe in the home, we do recommend that they have it privately euthanized at their expense through a veterinarian of their choice. There are a number of veterinarians that offer affordable euthanasia for folks that are needing to seek that, and in the event they truly feel unsafe, we do offer transport services. So the owner schedules the appointment. We meet them at their residence, load up the dog, meet them at the veterinarian, work with veterinary staff to safely take the animal into the clinic under sedation or whatever the veterinarian feels like they need to do to be safe. And so we do still offer that service, even though it's not technically an impound at the shelter, we don't wanna leave any households in an unsafe situation. And unfortunately, that would be the referral that the pet in your home is reactive to your family members, then that would be the recommendation is that you have your pet euthanized. So a bit historically we've adopted a number of these policies to help coordinate intake just to maximize the limited resources that animal services and any municipality division does have and to put responsibility back where we believe it should be. And so, historically, before 2015, animal services was taking in 8,000 animals a year. I believe in 2013, we actually took in 8,800 animals, and there was a need to decrease that volume. That was extremely high for a community of our size.

[0:18:50] So in 2015, we adopted a couple of policies to try to mitigate that. The first we did was we limited intake to Tom Green County residents only. we stopped accepting from any residents outside Tom Green County. So before 2015, you could drive in from any jurisdiction, anywhere with any number of animals, and surrender them to the shelter with a simple form. So in 2015, we thought it was important to limit that to our specific service area to Tom Green County only. We also closed our after hours kennels. As you've visited the shelter, there's that mural on the outside, And that's actually covering what used to be like a night drop for lack of a better term, where citizens could come any time, any day, open the door, put a pet in, lock and close the door, and shelter staff would come in in the morning and receive it on the other side. And so we thought it was important to have that conversation, one, to confirm residency, that we're serving the citizens and taxpayers that support us, and two, to have that conversation about, well, why is it your pet that you're getting rid of, or is it a found stray if so, where did you find it? We wanted to be able to have those conversations with the team to appropriately support families and pets. Then in 2016, and forgive me in your background, it says in 2015, but I got updated information that it was in early 2016, that the city adopted an owner surrender fee. So it is $10 to surrender your pet. And if you're coming in and surrendering one cat or three dogs, it's $110 fee, and that was adopted in 2016 as some kind of stop gap to get some responsibility from owners as the city taking on the expense of caring for this animal that did have defined owners. So those three policies decreased intake from about 8,800 to 6,000 animals.

[0:20:52] So a pretty good decrease there, But not, let's see, we still feel like that was appropriately placing responsibility on the necessary jurisdictions and individuals. In 2017, we added the component to require owner surrender counseling, and then be put on a wait list, which is the process I just described, but we adopted that as a formal policy in 2017, And that reduced our annual intake from 6,000 to 4,800 annual animal intake. Then in 2020, we further defined jurisdiction and revoked intake for outside city limits. We still were struggling to maintain appropriate capacity, meet standards of care, and allow for all our programming. And so in 2020, we reached out to county officials and ultimately was decided that we revoked intake for outside city limits. So right now today, animal services accepts animals from residents of San Angelo only. Then in 2022, just about two years ago in December of 2022, we adopted a capacity policy with a component that we would close intake when approaching capacity. And we ran that again as a pilot program for 30 days, then 90 days, and then ultimately implemented it as our normal course of business in early 2023. And we do recognize that that's the biggest sticking point for most of our interactions across the front counter, that we folks think they're doing the right thing, they're picking up an animal, they're driving to the outskirts of town, they're attempting to get it impounded. And we are referring them to our good SAM program. And in our good SAM program, we're offering food, collars, leashes, crates, vaccines,

[0:22:55] microship scan, photographs, posting on our lost and found platforms, and a landlord's letter if needed. Hey, this is not their pet. They're holding onto it for a few days. Thanks for joining San Angelo Animal Services efforts. And they are prioritized for the wait list to come in as the shelter does open up for space. So the only folks that would trump or be prioritized over good salmon take would be the individuals I mentioned that are experiencing some kind of crisis, some kind of disaster, that their first priority, very close second and primary intake is from good salmon. So we, this policy was based on pet savvy citizens taking time out of their day. They're seeing a dog that they don't know. They're assessing that it's nice enough that they can catch it. They do catch it. They, again, travel. The animal shelter's not close to many neighborhoods. So they took time out of their day to travel. And so we assume that's admittedly a time investment from someone who cares about the well-being of the animal. And so we offer information and education and say, 70% of dogs are found within a mile of their home. Where did you find this dog? If it's in your home neighborhood, can I send you home with a yard sign that says, I found a dog called San Angel Animal Services to see if it's yours or just come knock on my door. And we hand right in, a black shepherd, a brown dachshund, like it's clearly communicated. So we encourage folks to take that extra step of securing the dog for a few days with donated resources as it's as the next step. And that decreased intake from about 40, 800, 4,500 to 2,900 animals taken in in the school year 24. And there was no magic number that we were trying to get down to as we implemented each of these policies. It was simply how do we match the resources at animal services

[0:24:59] to how much service we can offer. And so we recognize that folks are saying, look, I can't hold onto this dog. I thought I did the right thing by catching it myself. I did the work for you by bringing it out to the shelter, what do I do? And we would say, well, we would never just want to deputize citizens to just go catch all the dogs. We want you to call us. We want you to dispatch animal services officers so that we can do the canvassing, the door knocking, identifying where this dog came from. Because unfortunately, we've had instances where friendly finders have taken dogs off private property. They have brought it in from, or they're not disclosing where they got it from. And they actually got it from Amarillo. where any number of places. And so we recognize that most folks are doing this out of the goodness of their heart because they thought they were doing the right thing. And it's tough when we can't match that with an exact service that we have. So we recognize that that's probably the main sticking point of why we're here today, is that that final policy is what creates the most, I guess, friction with Petlover's in St. Angelo. Morgan, Mayor Vamey. For clarification, when it comes to the Finders and a good Sam program and even owner surrenders, is there a time whatsoever when our staff tells them, take them back where you found them, just let them loose, let them roam? Is that even something that our staff or that you would tell a citizen to do when they came in and said, well, we're at capacity, but just take them and let them loose, let them roam? I think some language along those lines have been said, but it's mostly, it's the conversation about 70% of dogs are found within their home neighborhood. You were passing through the neighborhood, You don't know your neighbors. If you couldn't participate in Good Sam or didn't have a plan for what's happening with this pet, it can always go back. And we'll follow with an ASO and we'll do the things and knocking the doors. I mean, that's absolutely a service that we've offered. And that's tough. And it's not something we're happy to offer and it's not something we're proud of,

[0:27:01] but it's within our limited resources. So you're saying that we do not have a policy of letter Meram? No, no, no, the city of San Angelo has no such policy. I'll also want to clarify that participating in Good Sam, the city, and we'll talk about this bit in a bit because I do think there are certain policies that could definitely use some review, but current city ordinance states that if you harbor, feed, care for a pet for three days, you're defined as the owner. And so when you come in to participate in Good Sam, you're immediately clocked as, Okay, you found this dog a couple of days ago, you found it over the weekend, it freezes the clock on defining as owner, you've entered our programming at that point, and so if you hold onto that pet and good Sam for a couple of weeks, you're not defined as owner at that point, you're still just on the wait list for a shelter intake, you're still under shelter services, you're a documented member of our programming, and you're not penalized in the same way that owners are when we place responsibility on owners. Do you believe three days is the appropriate time? We have discussed an edit to that, that certainly other jurisdictions say five days. Some jurisdictions say a calendar week. We would just be supportive of any kind of common sense definition. A lot of the folks that have the most reaction across the front counter when we're saying, these are our services, this is what we can offer. They say, oh, I found this dog, I need to bring it in. OK, when did you find it four months ago, two years ago, when it was a puppy? And so those are the folks that are like, well, I'm done caring for this pet, and I did a good thing, and I took it in. And I said, well, just using a common sense definition, even if your average financial loan's not well-versed in every component of the ordinances, the code of ordinances, we would just say you have to admit this is your pet now.

[0:29:03] You've named it. You've taken it in. You've had it all this time. And so that is also an interaction that escalates at the front counter. So we're open to changing it to something else. It's not going to stop the found straight complaints because any definition of owner is going to be allergic to some people. Because it should be the just the question mark is three days versus a different time, right? Seven days, yeah, absolutely. OK. So I'm sorry, any other questions? Yes, at least, Tommy. question more than zoom out for me to the 50,000 foot why do we even have animal services in San Angelo or any community that offers what is is it required by state law the community given community thinks it's why do we even have it? It's not required by state law to have an animal control. There are certainly communities across West Texas, across the nation that don't have any kind of animal control. They may just run it under their law enforcement with their own sworn personnel. But by and large, animal control is created in the 50s to fight rabies, to fight zoonotic diseases that can spread from animals to people. And so the initial creation of animal services was the public health, the public safety. And so I think we can all agree that we're supportive of more enforcement, we're supportive of more patrol, more response, faster responses, and we just we have limited staff for that component of it. And so nationwide animal control was created across America to fight rabies and it successfully has. There's nobody dying in America anymore from contracting rabies virus. So the very basic reason any community

[0:31:04] that has animal control, and I'm putting words in your mouth, but is for public safety and public health. Absolutely. And not necessarily some of these other things that we have gotten into, am I accurate in saying that? Right, it's just the evolution over 70 years of animal services, what is the next thing to do, right? And so as we try to offer these detailed programs, these efforts, these progressive ideas, it's over decades of, we've solved the rabies problem, let's move on to the next. Thank you. Has pet ownership dramatically increased in that 70 years? I don't have that data. Because my gut instinct would tell me that policies created in the 1950s is perhaps not relevant to 2024 in terms of numbers of people who own pets. Sure. And so the other issue is, and I'm gonna let Daniel speak in a minute to describe the difference between animal control because of public safety versus animal services. And I think we have to decide whether we're in the animal services business or in the animal control business. Or whether we're in the animal control and animal services business. because they're totally two separate things, and they compound when you're trying to be a service versus an agent for public health and safety. Daniel, you wanna talk about that? Mayor, I think that there's a lot that's already, actually, Tommy just asked that question, and I absolutely, Morgan, you answered it the way that I understand it as well. Animal control really is for public health and safety, and our primary concern as a community is to ensure the safety of our citizens. And when we start getting reports of dogs running free,

[0:33:05] that's a dangerous situation. There's certain neighborhoods you surely wouldn't take your family for a walk. You have to be really cautious in those areas because you do have some loose dogs that are running around. So public health and safety is primarily a number one for our community. And when you look at animal shelters, pretty much everything that Morgan described earlier is everything you do for the well-being of that animal. What can you do actually to, at a lot of times, save it. when it comes to this kind of avoid the euthanization, but how do we do that? Well, we have animal rescue groups working together with the animal shelter to ensure that those animals can be adopted out, fostered out, whatever, you know. Our concern, though, and the reason I did ask about have we ever done the, just let them roam? My concern with that is we're at capacity and you get to a point where that is really the only thing The only thing you can do at that point, aside from the Good Samaritan program, some people, even the Good Samaritan program, once they show up, I fear that once they leave, and even the owners surrender, once they leave, and even if they take dog food to take it home with them, and maybe do everything they can to maybe keep the dogs as long as they can, I think ultimately, some of those individuals let them roam, let them go. And that's my big concern. Whether you announce it at the front door, or whether the public individually decides to make that policy themselves. It is a let him roam policy, whether it's initiated by a citizen or by an organization. And that becomes the other issue. It's not let him roam, it's not 100% controlled by animal services. People also make those decisions. So a lot of times, Mary, yes, it is a capacity issue. Again, I know that we'll have citizens that are come up here and we have a lot animal of this year. I love animals to have pets. But the thing is, we want to do the responsible thing, develop a plan that we can all say, hey, it's not perfect. We're not all going

[0:35:05] to agree with this. But we feel that this is something that needs to be implemented in order to really address the public health and safety of our community. And hopefully to do everything we can as well as far as the animals. But again, on our end, as far as the city, it is our primary The concern is the public health and safety of our citizens. Are there other cities that you could use as an example of the city not running and overseeing the animal shelter and they've left it in the private hands of citizens to run that organization and that service? Is there a city that you would say look at this city? Sure. It's a common practice. I think that one major shift in San Angelo was in 2015 when we moved animal services out from under the health department to be under the neighborhood and family services department that we recognize that it's a neighborhood, it's a family problem and solution that we needed to do case management and work with people because the old fashioned in the 50s and kill was not working, meaning the number of loose animals in certain target neighborhoods did not change or decrease greatly as a result of decades of catch and kill, that you've got to meet families where they are, you've got to offer resources where you can, and you've got to stay with that household because there's a statistic that if I impound a dog and they don't come to claim their dog, the original owners, for whatever reason, a general distrust of government, transportation issues, whatever it may be a fear of the fees, the fines. Within 30 days they're gonna have a new dog and we're still gonna have their dog. So we would rat and and the same issue that caused their first dog to escape, be lose, bite whatever happened is just gonna happen with the next dog, right? They still have a poor fence, they still don't have money for spay-neuter. 70% of bites in America are perpetrated by unaltered male dogs.

[0:37:07] And so, Spanewter is certainly a component of it, that we stepped up our Spanewter enforcement in 2022, but we're still not seeing more animals coming into the shelter that are altered. There needs to be resources thrown at that before it becomes a problem in a crisis, where folks are just letting their unaltered pets run loose in the community, and ultimately coming into the shelter. Must be spayed and neutered. Correct, and I think we can all agree that more enforcement is necessary, and we've maxed out what we can do with current staffing. And so we had mentioned during the budget cycle in previous conversations about additional animal services officers, and that's where that would happen is by having the staff dedicated to do that. So we just went, yes, just a minute, Lucy. So we're saying, or do we have a policy that says the following, we will allow you to take the dog out of our possession, and even if it's not spayed and neutered, because that's like trusting what is it, the coyote in the hand house. So I'm terrible at cliche, so I don't know if that would work. Both are high-risk for rabies, so thanks for offering that. So adoptions leave spayed neutered. Owned pets and prohibited from withholding property from an owner without some kind of court order. And so every home. Anyone stop there, so I need an attorney's opinion on this. So is Pat ownership considered personal property by the state? Absolutely. And so what are the consequences the state puts around that? Well, it's a taking if you take someone's property even a dog, unless you have a lawful ability to do so, which as Morgan alluded to, would

[0:39:07] be some sort of court order, such as when we have to get like a warrant if there is a vicious or dangerous dog before we can actually go seize that dog. There's a process where animal control officer will submit an affidavit to the court and the court actually signs off on that and reviews it to make sure all the legal requirements or met before we'd actually go out and get that dog. Lucy, you had a yes, Mayor, but it was the same thing that you covered just now. And Morgan, all I wanted to ask was what the Mayor asked was once you have the pet and come and pick him up, you cannot keep him until it's spayed or neutered. The city cannot. So but everybody leaves with a ticket. So for example, if you, if we caught your dog at large And you don't, you also don't have a microchip or proof of a rabies vaccine or an altered. You're taking your pet home that day with one citation for failure to spay neuter. If I see you again within the next couple weeks, you're getting a ticket for everything. But just we wanted to, we have been instructed in our prior conversation over the last couple of years that enforce spay neuter first. That is the first thing. And then they get into the court system of you know, Can they prove indigency and can't pay the ticket? Or do they plead no contest, and we just rely on them again, because their pet is still unaltered. Or do they provide proof of compliance? Hey, I scheduled the vet appointment. There's a big backlog at all the vets in town. I can't get until January. But here's my appointment. And the court will say, OK, we're going to reset you for that date, come and improve that you did it. And so I don't want to promise what the court can offer to any single citizen. but it gets them in the queue for that continued enforcement. Also in the field, I may not have impounded your pet, but I'm speaking to you on another matter, right? Like for any number of calls, maybe you have chickens without distance.

[0:41:07] Maybe you have, I'm gonna go ahead and do enforcement on the rest of the household. And I'm gonna say, well, it looks like you have three unaltered dogs. We're gonna go ahead and give you a warning on the chickens and a deadline to figure that out, but I'm citing you today for three unaltered dogs. So it gets them in the queue for continued follow-up and enforcement through the court system, but I can't take their pets, hold them for weeks to get into the veterinarian. I can't withhold their pets from them. The only court orders that I'm familiar with that we can make application to through municipal court to impound a pet without the owner's permission is cruelly treated animal, vicious animal, some other evidence of a bigger crime. that those are all things under state law or penal code. I'm not aware of anything in local ordinance that has been implemented or could be implemented where I can withhold somebody's property from them and permanently alter that. There are exceptions to the spay-neuter ordinance, but there are few and far between. The pet is medically fragile. If the pet's a registered show dog. If the pet's a registered breeder. If the pet's a working canine, like the San Angelo police officer canine units, they are not required to be spain neutered. But by and larger, average family pet is required to be, but that is the responsibility of the owner to do that. Yes, Tom. Yes, Harry. So do we know how many repeat offenders that we have in the system? In other words, we've cited somebody for an all-altered dog or several on-altered dogs. And they go and pay their fine. Are those, do we know how many of those people are back in the system in a few weeks or a few months? So the number of pets that are like re-impounded or come back through my facility is low.

[0:43:09] Less than 15% are repeat visitors. But the number that are still that have maybe put out through the court that still own an unaltered pet, I just haven't interacted with them again. I could get that for you. I don't have it today. I guess the question I have is if it's significant, if we've got certain households, certain citizens that seem to be the major offenders in this, maybe the ordinance is not strong enough. And I just posed that question. Not everybody, a good number of the people in this town are responsible enough to do what they need to do with their pets. But we do know, also know that we have a certain number of households that are repeat offenders. And those particular individuals, we need to find a way that they will come in compliance like the rest of the citizens do. And I think it's referring to resources. The residents we're describing, the residents that are struggling with this are residents in target neighborhoods. These are residents that are on, that are marginalized people, that are on the fringes, that their pets are driving, most of the shelter intake, their pets are driving most of our calls for service, and they do not have the means to spay neuter their pet, but if I just impound their pet and take it from them, they're just gonna get a new pet. It's so easy to just get a new dog. So by referring to resources, by funding spay neuter, I think is the way to tackle that. That most folks want to own a spay-newter pet. They just don't have the resources to do so. They don't have the resources to spay and neuter. Do they have the resources to have a pet? By and large, the pets are otherwise healthy.

[0:45:09] And to stop the hemorrhage of animals coming into the shelter or running the streets, we would want to just stay with that household until they have a spay-newter pet, a fully inspected fence, microchip, vaccines to stop them from getting pets that are out of compliance. It's wonderful that we're having a conversation or extended conversation about the value of Spain, Newter. But I have a question for you. The City of San Angelo Animal Services Department is listed on Best Friends Animal Society's website as a partner organization. And per that website, the statement is made and I quote, best friends does not support any form of spay and neuter law regulation or policy. So if they also support other ideas like the let them roam philosophy, we don't need to talk about that in this moment. But if we are not any longer a partner with that organization, can you ask to have your name, our name removed from that website? Yeah, we've never signed in a partner agreement with them. We have been to trainings with them, but we have not ever signed up to be a partner organization. We've never signed an agreement. So we shouldn't be listed. I'll be happy to follow up with that. That would be great. Pause is also listed as a partner organization. And I couldn't speak to their status, but the City of St. Angelo has never signed such an agreement, okay? is receding a ticket, an opportunity to attend a conference that pets a live or best friends, sponsors. Is that a sign of a contract? I think a contract is a clearly defined document signed by the governing officials of any body. So if we travel to one of their conventions on their nickel and dime, not ours, the expectation is what?

[0:47:15] They want to support communities to save as many animals as quickly as possible. What's a reputation? I think, well, one thing that's important to San Angelo is that we don't want to implement policies that don't make sense for our community. And there are a number of policies that I've just listed that aren't recommended by American Petzalai, that aren't recommended by best friends, but it makes sense for our community to implement and nobody's talking about changing or removing the spay-neuter ordinance. So we take from all of those groups and ASPCA and human animal support services and any of the professionals and experts in the field to say what pieces of each of their menus make sense for San Angelo. So that's why we don't align ourselves with any one individual group because it's important to serve the unique community that that we serve. Thank you. Yes, Tommy. Listening to the conversation up to this point, it may be that we need to decide as a community, or really, I guess, as a council, what are our expectations for, are we going to go down the animal animal control path are we going to go down the animal services path which is a larger as I understand everything that's been set up to now a larger undertaking that we have attempted to do since 2015-2017 to be I guess more helpful to the community but now it would a peer that it may, I don't know how else to say it may be back firing on us just because of the numbers. I know too that this is not a unique situation to San Angelo, Texas. This

[0:49:16] is, I would assume more than a statewide problem, if not a nationwide problem that pets, they're having the very same issues in other communities that we're having here. Is that an accurate a statement across North America and across developed nations across the world, quite frankly. So it's a worldwide problem you're saying. There are countries across the world experiencing the same thing that Angelo is experiencing. So maybe we need to decide what our expectations are as a community, as a council, and I don't know that that is going to come today. It might, but it seems to me we're not sure what our expectations are. After listening to this point, I'm beginning to formulate in my mind what my expectations might be, but each council member would have to express that for themselves, because I'm assuming then the resources that you need that you don't have either to do an adequate job of public safety and health only or more extensive services that would require a different set of resources. Is that accurate as well? Yes, sir. I guess. So, can you just give us an idea, if you were to do only public safety and public health, and then the shelter services, what in terms of the difference to provide an adequate service on either one of those areas, what additions would you need rather than listing the items that you need I guess I'm looking right now for just a dollar figure in the big picture. I think it'd be hard for her to come up with that number right now but Tommy I think you're on to the right conversation.

[0:51:16] The city itself created the problem we're in today when we moved it from into a neighborhood services organization. In 2015 when that decision was made to go from animal control to animal neighborhood services to help support pet ownership. And so the city made that decision in 2015, fast forward, look at what it's created. And it didn't help when the COVID scenario came upon us and more pet ownership increased. But let me also say that on an ongoing basis, the number of people having pets has dramatically increased, pet ownership, family dog is part of the family now, that didn't exist necessarily in 2015. So historically you look at what we, the decisions that were made that have created the scenario we're in today and whether we can continue existing in the same scenario we are today because the problem just continually compounds itself. Well, that's not fair to Morgan either to do that because she takes a lot of heat probably unnecessarily For trying to do the right thing and It may be more on us as as a city council than on Morgan, so Ma'am yes I Might be a few moments premature in suggesting this but I don't think much I think Morgan's only got a couple of pages as for the presentation left I feel like we need to build the big picture as a community and discern who brings what to the table and I think it's probably too big of a job for this particular council meeting. Maybe it's a strategic planning issue. Maybe we need a task force that is populated by folks from the community that have expertise.

[0:53:22] It can be attended, of course, by yourself and by other leaders in the animal rescue, animal services community because we need to hear from those voices as well. I don't know if we are at the moment where we might want to ask for a town hall. Town halls are historically poorly attended, but I think at the very least the consideration of a task force like we did with the police chief situation where we had a lot of information to sift through and we asked a group to study it exclusively and report to us, I personally like to recommend that we consider an option like that. Karen, let me ask you've spent a year accumulating lots of information, thousands of pieces of paperwork and studying and looking at other cities, other organizations, other policies at different organizations. If you were to say the three top things we need to do based off of all those conversations, zoom meetings, telephone phone calls, et cetera, What would be the top three things? We need end-to-end enforcement in all of the categories where we have already identified issues. We have ordinances that spell them out. We need to enforce those ordinances. For Morgan, that probably means more folks on the street that report to her, more money attributed to staffing to accomplish those things. That would include answering Harry's question where he said, how many repeat offenders are there? We should know. If someone is cited for an unaltered animal, you should know you should have a way to get that information reported to you after the person works through the court system. The court should be reporting to you. It seems logical to me. Or a veterinarian should be reporting to you that animal is now altered. So enforcement, span, aggressive span, new initiatives and probably very accelerated adoption programs and accelerated don't misunderstand

[0:55:27] my use of the word. By accelerated I mean we need an army of people working on that particular angle so that we have faster throughput through the city facility and pause. We need volunteers. We need people working for you so that that can happen. We need better social media presence. So those are the three things, end-to-end enforcement enhanced spay and neuter policies. And so it's your question to say that if you take a look at the population of dogs that we have today, what are the two types of breeds that we have an overabundance of today? coming into the shelter which is a cross section of the community right there could be people that own a ton of doxons in town they never get out their home but just of the of the shelter environment it is by and large dogs over 50 pounds it is huskies shepherds and blocky-headed dogs so pits bull dogs anything in that family so there's no one breed that you say is the least adopted and is the most, we have more of those than any other dog. I mean, those three are consistently the top breed coming in, and that's just our guess, right? I don't, I'm looking at a dog that, one thing that Spay-Newter did do for this community was drastically decrease the number of dogs under 20 pounds. I used to volunteer in this shelter and walk through and pull 20 dogs a week that were under that weight limit. And we don't have that anymore. We have small breed dogs that have read with large breed dogs. So I have a ton of really unique mixes. So my looking at a dog that has a blocky head,

[0:57:27] has some kind of pit bull in it, maybe, likely. But I have a lot of dogs that are so mixed breed. I couldn't begin, we have a ton, ton, ton of dogs that are in that 40 to 50 pound range that I don't know what I'm looking at. It's a mixed breed dog. We also, as we look at our length of stay, as we consider pets for euthanasia, it's rarely a complete list of pit bulls. It's our top 10 longest day dogs, maybe two are pit bulls, and the rest are shepherds, puppies that have grown up at the shelter, and so it's, we do have a lot of pit bulls, but I don't know that it's more than your average southern community and it's certainly not our biggest, I don't know, it's a large part of the population but it's no one single breed that's feeding that. The lack of pet-friendly housing, San Angelo is really just discriminating and the dog's over 50 pounds. So it could be a perfectly nice doberman but it's over 50 pounds, you can't take it to your next rental. So the question mark is, What most of the public sees is a falling, oh my gosh, we're at capacity, we're going to have to euthanize. Please help adopt. And that happens every time we're at capacity. The question mark is, what is the day in and day out policy? And what is the day in and day out adoption right that we focus on so we don't get to the oh my gosh point? Because that's what the public sees, oh my gosh, We're gonna use the knives because we're at capacity. But what's day one of every month? Where's day two? Where's the daily challenge? Where's the daily goal of adopting a dog or a cat on a daily basis instead of waiting

[0:59:27] till the big red flag goes out? I think it's foot traffic to the facility. In many ways you have to see a pet to fall in love with a pet and want it. And we used to have a line out the door. We've had events where there was no standing room left. And that's just not the case at post-COVID. People are shopping online. They're getting a quick response on Facebook from someone giving away puppies. And that's the immediate satisfaction in the Amazon prime world we live in. And we are keeping appropriate practices in place that we want to pet to go to a safe home and appropriate home. The homework won't come back into the shelter on a fast turnaround. So that's a bit of the psychology behind it of what's driving the shelter capacity. So the other question I have is how often on a monthly basis are we doing adoption events outside the shelter and outside of Pause organization? Are we going out to the public and having these events to encourage people to come take a look at these dogs that we have available for adoption? We do host them, I can defer to our rescue partner to speak to their schedule and their calendar, but when they are open there on their site, they can market over 200 dogs for adoption, whereas when they go to an event, they can only market the 15, 20, 40 dogs that they brought to the event. So there's pros and cons both ways. I'm just interested in the outcome of those, the frequency of them, how often do people walk out, go drive out to pause or to the animal shelter and say I'm looking to adopt today, taking the problem to the people would seem to be a good policy, just a comment, Lucy. Morgan, do we remind me, do we have a number of dogs, a limit for a donor to have any, we do, what is it?

[1:01:27] Yes, if you have more than seven dogs you have to hold a multi-pet permit and that permit It requires that everybody spade neutered, microchipped, rabies vaccinated, it has to be renewed annually. So if I respond, I have seven or more dogs who have to have a permit. You can have six, up to six dogs without a permit, over four weeks of age. So several of us seated here and in the room have had the privilege of hearing from animal services professionals from across the country, because we recognize that we have problems that need solutions, we, I think most of us would agree with the mayor that we need an individualized solution that suits our community. So not taking away from that, what we have heard repeatedly from communities that have overcome similar problems, like lots of animals loose on the street, risks to our human population because of that, they have told us uniformly that they recommend and have deployed the notion of multiple service partners. They have made the idea of collaboration broader. And so no, I'm not calling anybody out, but if you've got a big problem, we have experts. I think we should use the resources that they offer. Are you saying other animal rescue groups? We did have a group coming to us sort of late, I think, in the budget cycle with a proposal for a mash style spay and neuter program that was very appealing, but because of its position

[1:03:34] in the calendar, it was really too late for funds to be allotted for that, but that's just one example. In that particular group, they are experts at that, so that would be an option for us, I think. You know, I think any time when we develop a policy, just throw a bunch of money at the the problem, the problem will be solved as the wrong strategy. I think we've got to figure out a strategy first and then figure out what it's going to cost, but there's just, put more people on the, just keep throwing money at it. We need a much better task force oriented scenario before we start throwing money at the issue. And I think we have to acknowledge the fact that we as a city went from an animal control mentality to animal services, and that's created the problems that we're looking at today. And the only way to change that is to change the philosophy of what we choose to do as a city. And then what we ask all of our non-profits to help in supporting the problem that we have, we cannot solve the problem ourselves. The city cannot and will not be able to solve this problem ourselves. It's not gonna happen. And so you gotta look at every resource, every nonprofit that's in the business of saving animals and sheltering animals as part of the solution. And that means all of those organizations are gonna have to get along and support each other. And we do contract with Contra Valley Paws to be our primary and they work with easily a dozen rescue groups who further support San Angeles pets. Other questions or comments from Council? So how many of those groups they work with or local? Pause I'd defer to pause, but a handful. I mean, okay, I mean, as somebody sitting up here, I have been through every facet of what

[1:05:37] we've discussed today. All right, I've gone back through notes the past couple weeks, I can find no less than 20 times people have texted me or sent me pictures of roaming dogs. And nobody suppose we know what it's got a phone call, I call and get a hold a year or somebody there we've already dispatched three times. I find there's a lot of emotion and subjectivity to how things should be handled and expectations put upon an animal control facility, animal services, that people expect any dog that they see roaming should be instantly picked up. Whether we know what it is, whether we don't, what I like to point out to people that that is personal property. I mean you can get sued for taking personal property. I I have picked up dogs on my street that were in my guard. I have driven around. We have found their homes. I have a highly vocal constituent within my house. It has been bit twice. Okay, it was handled, and we know where those pets are. And it's one of those things that has happened, but I've experienced every facet of what we discussed here. I take a lot of the suggestions that Karen Brockford, Grubba, we already provide a bunch of those things. It's, there's a lot of animosity towards this and somebody differs between kill and no kill. There's somebody that, you know, everybody differs between being able to utilize all the things that you have available to you, whether you're a no kill or not, but you don't have to do that. Nobody runs around here going, we wanna put pets to sleep, all right? We wanna euthanize pets. We wanna handle this fine, but I think what we have to do is sit back can look at what belongs to the city and what are we responsible for and we've got roughly each one of us has roughly 15, 16,000 people on our district of that I can narrow it down to four within my district that are the ones that call me. I have people that can't walk down the street without a stick on the north side of town because some people have too

[1:07:39] many bets. How do we monitor that? We really don't. We just go by if somebody calls in and does that. and it's extremely hard to do what you do. I think we need to sit back and all agree that in it was a discussion the past week about putting together a group that would sit down and look at this with a very objective point of view. And I think that would have to go to Daniel and Red, but to put in a group that doesn't have as much emotion in this group as what we have. I sometimes look at this group of non-profits as not meshing as well as probably they should because of personality conflicts. See it all the time. Four things get forward to me. One of the most rude things I ever saw was when ASO Floyd was sent to Lubbock, there was a call to council people and a few others about the situation of one of the city's employees. The next day, prior to a press conference, I called to make sure that somebody was going to be there for the press conference, because sometimes media agencies don't know that. That confidential information had already been leaked to those media agencies, and they were trying to use it for political agenda. And that was the worst thing. It infuriates me to this day, and we know where it came from. But somebody tried to take the injury of one of our employees and politicize it, probably ahead of this meeting, and use this meeting as a catalyst to go there. It just, the way some of those things unfold, I have sympathy for everyone that has to deal with it, but I think we're at a point where we put together a group, we let that group decide, and I will say, I'm so emotionally involved in this, I wouldn't want any council person to be on this board. I think it needs to be an independent group, much like what we did for the police chief situation, to go and look at that.

[1:09:39] No outside influence. I mean, we need to find somebody that's going to call balls and strikes. Are we in the animal service division? I mean, animal services, are we in animal control? I think there's a lot of cities that don't do this, and they privatize that out, give it to a nonprofit. But with that comes the fee, and with that comes a loss of, or with that comes a very big loss of control. And so if we do go that path, and we decide that the people that we contract with, who, you know, put emails out, sometimes or with us and a lot of times they're against us. Some of that needs to be reviewed or we all on the same page or we not. With that, I'll kind of wrap up my summary, but it's a hard spot we're in. We've all come to this place where we're tired of getting phone calls, we're tired of getting accusations that are true, aren't true. You know, there's a dead dog in my alley. There's a dead cat in my alley and said he won't pick it up. I call you, but you know what? You can drive out there and pick it up. I went by and picked one up been through it in the trap. I mean, those are things just a good person does for their city. They just don't point their finger. And I find a lot of that's going on, but I'll go back to Brenda and Karen, and I think whatever, I think Harry's got some words here, too. We're at a point where we need to either get in the game or get out of the gang and look at going somewhere else with it. Harry? Well, I think I agree with everything that's been said. We'll put this task force together. The issue will be how quickly can they make some decisions and bring some information to the council so we can do that. What does Morgan need today to continue with what she's doing every day? Does she need more boots on the ground? Is there something else this council can do in a short period of time? Because it may take four to six months before we ever get that task force to recommend something for this council. So I just say, does Morgan need something today that we can take care of to continue doing what

[1:11:39] we need to do as we are outlined with the services today? I'm going to strongly recommend that any task force we put together be given the deadline. This going on and on and on for four to six months can't happen. The problems in front of us today, it's got to be discussed today, it's not today. But this task force is not going to be something that they're going to be able to spend six months talking to everybody and every organization to figure out a problem. We know what the problems are right now. We know what the issues are right now. This is not newsworthy. We know what they are. Now what we need is what is the non-emotional approach to solving the problem. And there are going to be a lot of people who don't like those solutions. But tough choices come with the situation that we're going to have to deal with. And it's not going to be make everybody happy. What it is going to be is to try to get back into control of the animal's shelter, what it stands for, what it needs to be, what it shouldn't be, what help we need from outside organizations, what we need to do to control the scenario that's out there. it's got to be people who are willing to sign up and make these tough decisions because they're not going to be easy decisions and you're going to have a lot of angry people. But we got a lot of angry people today and we don't have any solutions. All we have are issues and the issue has to be addressed on a timely basis and that means in a month and a half. Yes, go ahead. It can happen if we force the issues. We know what they are right now. We We've got to bring those issues, put them on a sheet of paper, and then decide what the next step is, and then the next step might take another four weeks, and the next step might be four weeks. But we've got to have some information in front of us on a very short window.

[1:13:44] That means we're going to finalize it. I think the ad hoc group needs to take a look from top to bottom of everything that we think we do for animal control, animal services, and make some recommendations and that, to your point mayor, they may say you don't need a contract with anybody. You know, I'm thinking, if we're going to give them a deadline to have a report, I've got one date in my mind, but it won't comport and agree with what you said, mayor. I think it would take a minimum, a minimum of 90 days to come up with something. And I think that may be forcing it. And if we're going to have people angry, let's let them be angry at this guy right here. Let's let Daniel put this group together and take the responsibility of working through this because you can communicate with all of us, you can communicate with the group, we can communicate with you, and see if we can't get something done with an ad hoc group. Tommy, I know that, and I'll accept that, I don't have an issue with that whatsoever, but Tommy mentioned objectivity, it has to be an objective group, you know, and that's what, if anything, if you do assign that to me, that's what I'd be looking for, a very objective group group that can come together and come up with those solutions as well, but absolutely I'm moving to take that on it. That's what you, if that's the direction. That's what I want. I just want to make a statement. I'm a little confused because these paths are private property.

[1:15:44] I feel that the people that it's their property, they're not taking care of it the way they need to be. But yet something happens and it's our responsibility, all of a sudden, and our hands are tied that we can't do anything because it's their property. So when you get this task force together, maybe they can come up with something that, Okay, these people are not taking care of their property. Something needs to happen to where you are responsible if this continues to escalate to more times that they go out. But I see it as y'all go out there and you take the dog and you take him back to the person that owns them. That's just us being babysitters. We're just gonna go, let me go look for your dog and I'll bring it back and don't worry about it. There's no lessons being learned here. So I don't understand why people get mad whenever we're going, it's your responsibility. And I know that there's a lot of people that are very responsible with their pets. They treat them so good that you're like, wow, this is really... And that's the majority of people. It is, but then we have the people that create this big problem that are the ones that are not helping for a solution. And that's what I'm saying is when we, if and when we get this task force, I think that that needs to be somebody that can be open minded and go, this is the way it's gonna be. And then follow up on it, not just say it and then let it go. Because a lot of the times, if there is no consequence to our actions, we will continue to do those over and over again. I never come up with a solution.

[1:17:44] Tommy, I mean, Tom. Do you want? It's Tom and then Larry and then I'll be happy. Right, right. I agree with you. We need to have some information. We need to put some benchmarks in here. And Daniel, I think you're going to be the one that's going to have to lead, but we're going to need a benchmark. Like Tamara says, within 40 to 45 days, here is our major items. Then you're going to have to have some time like Tommy says to work down through the detail and build it to a 60 or I think a 30-day benchmark as those things are all down but then again that's also going to depend on who we put on the ad hoc committee and what their schedules are at their time but I'm with Brenda we need to have some answers and assessments of what our primary problems are and then work our way down but I do think it's going to take 90 days maybe to get there but Brenda I do agree we need to see some things up front very first and Daniel will do that but I'll I'll default this back to you Morgan in the interim where there are a couple things you needed going forward that would help out this situation if the council wanted to explore additional staffing now before the the committee a one additional animal services officer would be $60,000 for a year. Of course, we're mid-year, so it would be pro-rated. And we could add one person and figure out a truck and gear later. So I think, and I can onboard with somebody within 30 days. So I think we're all hungry for more enforcement. I can't imagine anything coming out of the task force that isn't more enforcement. And so if we wanted to put that one cart before the horse, that would be an opportunity. You know, I'm going to remind everybody that there was not too long ago, and then Larry, I'll let you speak, sorry, I was going to, where we had people who came forward who said, we have all these loose dogs in this neighborhood, on this street, that's whatever, and we financed

[1:19:48] additional staff to go out to those areas and follow the lead of the complaint and in ninety nine percent of those cases we found nothing. Remember that? Yeah, the directed patrol after hours. Yes, Larry. I was struck by a comment that Tom and Ian made early on, and that's a fact that we lack expectations, and that's something I think could be a middle ground between the longer time that he's talking about and you're short, is we need to determine what we want to do, which is a whole lot easier than solving all the problems below it. But if we don't have that, then we're adrift. We don't know where we're headed. So we have to develop quickly some expectations of what the city should be doing and not doing it. That's my point. That's got to come quickly. We know what the issues are. We're not here to put together a task force to decide what the issues are. We know what the issues are. The task force has got to identify those five key issues and then figure out how we attack them, but we know what the issues are, Harry. Yeah, I just want to make a statement. I think Tom said it the best. we get those issues out in 45 days, and then we continue to work with that. That would remind people that, and Tommy said it earlier, that had a task force that looked at the issue of the police chief, whether elected or appointed, and they took six months, and they interviewed a lot of citizens. I think this is as important of a mission that it was with the police chief. honestly we're talking about the safety of the citizens so we get this group together this task force I say 45 days to get the information out but do not

[1:21:52] disband that task force let them continue to look at interviews citizens look at other cities do what they need to do we may be into this thing before we finalize it another four to six months but we've got to do something Yes, Tom if we want if we want to go down the dias here and state expectations I'm willing to start that off right here and and say after this conversation for An hour and a half now. I'm willing to say I am willing to state what my expectations are My expectation is for the public safety and the public health only Tom Harry I guess I have a little bit different feeling I don't want to go back to the 1950s you know I'm old enough that I can remember that even though I wasn't in San Angelo in 1950 but the bottom line is is that I think we've progressed enough down this line that it's got to be a combination of both animal control and Now we'll service this. Larry. I agree with Harry. I don't think we can define ourselves as simply doing public safety, public health. We've got an ability to do something else. And that's the major portion of what Morgan is doing out there. But at what point do we say we've done enough? That's the question. I'm voting with Harry and Larry. You can't stay on the fence. name it. You say it out loud. I believe this statement made was that I don't believe that we can divorce from from our care of animals from the portion of the conversation that concerns sheltering. So I am absolutely in favor of health and

[1:23:53] human safety and the next item on the list is sheltering animals appropriately and having programs to resolve the issues related to that. Lucy I would like to say that as far as the shelter, the animal shelter that we have currently going, I believe if we can give it a chance and see what this task force can come up with, I think after we find out that information, then maybe we can make the decision on which way we want to go. But I would like to see what kind of information they gather, what are they willing to do, how can we do both? I'm going to say I want to focus on the health and human public safety issues as a primary focus, primary focus. And I think we need to put citizens on notice that we are going to be aggressive about enforcing our ordinances. We're going to be aggressive about loose dogs. If your fence needs repaired, get it repaired. Because that won't be a great excuse for your dogs escaping. Ownership of a pet is a privilege. We need to make sure people understand it's a privilege to have a pet, and there's responsibilities to come with that. Are you willing to take on that responsibility? It's not the city's responsibility. May I ask a different question before we move the podium? Yes, you may. I think we would all benefit from an update on the status of the temporary shelter and the permanent shelter, renovations and relocation. those things would probably make your life better if you could realize those opportunities that were offered to you going back a couple of years, right? Where do we stand on that? Yeah, and I hate to put Bob on the spot, but I don't think I have the latest on it. But we've been talking about this thing for two years now.

[1:25:54] Where is the nail in the hammer on the problem? How much longer are we gonna talk about it? Good morning, Al Torres, construction management. So, first of all, I wanna remind you that in light of the conversation that we've had here in the last hour and a half, this program is not going to alleviate her intake issues. We're not increasing the number of canals. This project is just to make the existing shelter a better place. We're going to improve sanitation, ventilation, and noise so that primary issues we're dealing with out there. So to bring up the data where we are, we're essentially talking about two different projects that the existing shelter remodel and the temporary shelter. So the existing shelter remodel, we were pretty much done with the design when a couple of questions came up regarding the fire alarm system and the electrical transformer system. Do you think somebody's going to want to come in there and take some of the animals home with them? Do you worry about an alarm system? Well, after a lot of back and forth with the fire marshal and the inner tail and the engineers, we decided to leave the fire alarm system alone, so we've got that resolved. The electrical transformer that we don't have a choice, the candle that moved in next door took over some of that transformer that's existing, so now we don't have enough power for the changes that we're going to do. So the engineers are needing a change order to complete their design for a new transformer, for a new electrical service. So Morgan has been working on that change order. She's got it done. There were some questions about the task order, but I've got that answer from Jeremy. So we'll have that at the 17th Council meeting and the design can be completed. They're saying four weeks for that design. So I'm thinking we can have this completed in about middle of January and have it bid and hopefully under construction start of February or by the end of February. So if you're gonna start construction the end of February, when am I gonna see it completed?

[1:27:55] That's a good question, probably six to nine months, but it's not going to shut down the shelter. The only part of the shelter is going to shut down is the main kennel area. And that's where the other project comes in, which is the other holdup that we've had is we decided, originally Morgan was talking about finding places to keep the dogs and working with organizations, but we decided it would be better to have a temporary shelter somewhere that we could move the animals. So neighborhood and family services located at the spot, the old fire training center. We did construction drawings on how to create a temporary shelter there that when we're done it could easily be dismantled and used for something else. So those drawings are done. I'm working with a contractor, Steve Diaz with neighborhood and family services, worked with some local contractors to get some bids to do that work, but he was unsuccessful, the local people were too high. So I'm working with a contractor to work under the tips program to come in and do that work for us. He's supposed to meet with me sometime this week to go look at it and give us a price. So hopefully we can get that done. That project shouldn't take more than four to six weeks. So it'll be done by the time the other project starts, so it gives us time to move the dogs into this place. So, like I said, the only place that will be shut down over there will be the big candle area, but we'll have this place, you know, to house the dogs, and they can temporarily bring people over there to look at the dogs while that work is being done. The rest of it is replacing ceiling tiles, HBAC work, so the shelter can continue to operate even during construction. We're drawing very impatient on this project, I assure you, so we need to see some progress. Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right. Now, Morgan, you didn't have an opportunity to finish your presentation, so I want you to come back up and finish your presentation, please.

[1:29:55] Quite frankly, Mayor, I think we covered it. I did speak briefly about the lack of pet-friendly housing. That is a problem nationwide, but it is absolutely contributing to people in a tough position. Hey, animal shelter, I'm moving tomorrow, and they either leave their pets behind or let them loose and leave them behind in their home neighborhood, and it's because they can't find somewhere to take their whole family with them. And one thing that's common nationwide, but one thing that's unique to San Angelo that I'm not really seeing in other communities is neighbors, free-feeding dogs without securing them, without calling animal services, without connecting with our good Sam program, that we We just have repeat households in our target neighborhoods that are leaving food out, leaving water out. And we've tried to come alongside those folks and say, well, you've taken this first step. I don't want you to get penalized for being the owner, but so can we get you in good Sam? Can we get these dogs vaccinated in the queue for shelter and take? And they say, no, I'm just happy to do this. Well, then there does a come up point that that is a violation and that is a problem. And so we want to work with folks who have the ability to provide that resource, but it's definitely a contributing problem in the growing groups of dogs roaming in certain target neighborhoods. These were some things that I thought we could consider. I think we defer all of this to the task force and more, so I really think that through all the conversation and dialogue we've really covered everything on the slides. Any further questions for Morgan before we go into, here's your chance, Tom you want to say something. My question with ASO Floyd down, how many ASOs do you have?

[1:31:55] Three. Right. Three ASOs and our longest tenured one has 18 months with the organization and our two new hires just got certified the week before Thanksgiving. So a very green crew, but very energetic and willing to jump in, but certainly growing into the expertise and institutional knowledge. Is one more going to help bridge that gap or is it just a band-aid? I mean, if one more is what you need and we're mid-year, then I think Brenda, we sit down and try to find a way to bridge that gap financially if that's 30,000 or whatever. But what Floyd down, he was key into a lot of the things that he handled specific calls. But anyway, I hate to go and make expectations and do greater things that are going to cost more money than public safety and public health if we go down that path. And I think when you judge those, that's not a fair judge. When you throw more money at it and give somebody more tools versus what you had before and people judge you on what you had before. So I will say if we're going to combine all of the things that we've talked about here, going forward, that's going to cost more money. Public safety and public health are a key thing. But where I'm going with that is, do you need something to bridge the gap with ASO Floyd? It's absence. City Manager has already signed off on double filling Floyd's job. So we're actually recruiting for an ASO right now for a temporary solution. So that's happening just inside our current budget and FTEs. OK, so let me thank you. All right, any further comments or questions from Morgan? All right, Heather. Are there public comments to be heard? Heather Hagwood.

[1:34:00] A lot of what I was going to talk about. Your name and your address, please. Oh, I'm sorry. Heather Hagwood and single member district, too. OK, go ahead. A lot of what I was going to talk about. a lot of what I was going to speak about has already been addressed, um, primarily it was the importance of an animal shelter. Um, and when we look at issues, euthanasia, I'm not a proponent of killing all the animals because I was a vet tech for an emergency wildlife fit center. Sometimes you have to make a decision on which is best for the animal. And it may come to the point where that is something we have to look at as euthanizing those animals and certainly is better than let them roam. And I have been told that, let them roam. Our rescue dogs all the time, right now I have three rescues, two of them are 10-week old puppies And one is a year and a half old dog that we're all dumped. But I have been told, let them roam, by animal control officers. I also had a situation with I witnessed a puppy being dumped last August and I was told by the police and animal control, SAPD, that there would be something done. Because I chased the guy down who dumped the puppy pictures, got his license plate, filed a police report, nothing was ever done. So I pushed the issue and filed this as animal cruelty because the guy dumped this puppy rather than just an animal at large.

[1:36:00] And so finally, I believe something is being done with it by a detective, and law enforcement has to participate in this as well. It can't just be the animal shelter or animal control officers, or those of us rescuing, law enforcement has to participate too, and I believe the ordinances do have to be enforced for spay-neuter and for illegal dumping of animals, because it is a under Texas penal code 42.09 and 42.092, that is considered animal cruelty, which is subject to a $4,000 fine and jail term. So those issues need to be pressed for people who see animals being dumped. And then finding the, finding the people who have, or repeat offenders, if the fines get bigger with each time, and I know there was one dog last year that had puppies at the shelter and she'd been there four times. Thank you for your comments, yes ma'am, enforcement, I heard your statement, enforcement. Christopher McGuffin. Good morning, Council and Mayor. My name is Christopher Beguffin. I live at 3509 Dominion Ridge. I'm in District 6. I am the Director of Cassie's Place Rescue. I spoke to you all about two years ago when the shelter had issues with population, met with some city people, and some changes were made, but not everything that should have been, I think. The policies used to dictate that you cannot turn away an animal from your municipal shelter. I've known people that worked at the shelter

[1:38:00] and that was the policy that they were municipal shelter and they had to accept animals. That is changed. It used to be that if you had an animal that was taken into the shelter for being a stray, lost, or out of its fenced yard, you were required to have that animal spayed or neutered pay the fines for it before that animal would be released to you. These policies have been abandoned and it's caused the public to feel abandoned. We are responsible for spaying neuro pets and it doesn't matter though how many ordinances we pass. The people that are gonna do it, they're not gonna do it. The people that say they can't afford it, they can afford other things, they're just not prioritizing it. They're all legitimate people that can't, and that's why you have programs for Critter Shack Cassies, Paul's vouchers, everybody's trying to do the part, and they're getting thousands of animals paid new day of the year, and we still have an escalating problem. This community sheltering and deferred intake has led to a city employee being involved, and I'm not trying to politicize that, It's a fact. There were other people that happened to be four. I don't want to see a child, a kid's kingdom, or you did at park, all of a sudden beyond the news, or something bad happened. And if you think it won't happen, it will. Because I've had people call me. I get five to 10 messages and calls a day about dogs. In college hills, in Southland. You go to all the neighborhood groups everywhere. It's not just bad neighborhoods or low income. It used to be about seven, eight years ago. And then we passed these ordinances and went into a no-kill policy, because emotionally it feels good. It's a PR nightmare for y'all. Either you're gonna have people upset that we're not in-taking animals, and that they're running around getting hurt, or you're gonna have people upset because you have a euthanasia list. But all we've seen is an escalation, years and years. 5,000 plus dogs a year, 5,000 plus dogs were being euthanized a year back in 2015. We're taking in like half that amount and take I believe now per year.

[1:40:01] So those dogs didn't go away. We didn't make that much of a dent but it's not existed anymore. You know, the city needs to decide if they do want to do public health or public safety. I vote on public safety. I don't advocate for dogs being abused, killed or hurt. But I would rather a dog get picked up, taken to the shelter. It's owner tried to find it, have a chance to redeem it. And if not, it either gets adopted or the next animal has that opportunity for life as well. Please please consider what y'all do and don't be emotionally driven. Do it's best for the community. Thank you, Chris. Jennifer Durgit. My name is Jennifer Durgit. I live in single member district six. A couple of weeks ago, I started a petition online. I have amassed 504 signatures as of today. I handed her 10 copies that have 495 printed signatures because I printed those on Friday. These 495 signatures represent animal advocates that have been affected by the current operating procedures of the San Angelo animal shelter and Concho Valley Pause. It's a known fact that while these entities may not have signed a contract with best friends or American pets alive, they have in fact consulted with leaders of these two organizations who received monetary aid from them and have aligned practices and procedures in San Angelo to mirror those of these two organizations other shelters across America who have adopted them as well. There are cities across the US that have filed suit to end these practices because it's proven that they don't work. Animal advocates would like to see the city of St. Angelo abandon current operating procedures in favor of common sense practices. No kill is not working. Keeping a shelter full of long stay dogs is not ideal for the dogs living in the kennels nor is it ideal for dogs being forced to remain on the streets. It's not fair to the individuals being attacked and bitten.

[1:42:01] not fair to owners who have tried to surrender their animals but couldn't because the shelter is full. It's not fair to the taxpayers who pay for the services of these entities and do not receive the services that they pay for. We'd like to see the contract between Concho Valley Pause and COSA Animal Shelter dissolved. Any money provided to that contract should be redirected to a city-funded spay-neuter program instead. We demand to see a change of leadership over the COSA Animal Shelter. The current director has been in charge more than long enough to figure out what works and what doesn't and clearly the public has seen nothing but a decline in the state of the animal shelter. Now due to failures to enforce city ordinance while also trying to live by the practices and advice of best friends and American pets alive there is an ACO whose life was on the line last month and mirroring Chris I'm not trying to politicize that. We demand that animal ordinances be enforced after all it's the point and a whole chapter of city ordinances dedicated to animal control if they're not being and forest. Taxpayers put the bill for this and we're tired of not being heard. Thank you. Juliana Evans. Hi, my name is Juliana Evans, single-member district 4. I was going to do a PowerPoint presentation of pictures of the dogs that we, the public, see on the streets all day, all day every day. Unfortunately, that wasn't able to be accommodated. So, I just you want picture, I'm not going to speak to most of what I actually wrote. This is a picture of a dog that I find, I find numerous dogs, I care for numerous dogs, I am tired of picking up numerous dogs. There is nothing wrong with policies designed to get dogs out of the shelter or to keep them out of the shelter in the first place but you cannot rely on those. There are not enough people left in

[1:44:03] in San Angelo to take in the overwhelming amount of stray unwanted dogs. You've already had many times put before you, the maths one female dog and her offspring over six years equals 67,000 dogs. Mr. Salas presented that to you in 2015, 2016. Show me the one person because humans over the same period of time result in one human. Show me one human that can foster, adopt, send out of town, 67,000 dogs over six years. That is not possible. We have to address the problem. The only way you can address the problem that is going to satisfy your public is by spay, neuter and compliance with ordinances. Nobody wants dogs, euthanized, none of us, that is not what we're calling for. But when it comes down to this dog, I've called this dog toast, not as a joke, but in the hope that this image remains in your mind. This dog was taken out, it was abused, it was beaten, it had its shoulder dislocated, it had a rope around its neck, it was laid on its back, its belly was slashed, it was filled with accelerants and it was satellite and it burnt to death. That is what you are driving people to. It is not your fault, per se, because people are cruel and wicked. But if you continue to push the public to do something that they perceive they have no option, I can't perceive how anyone would think this was a great solution. But this is what we go out and see. I have volumes of photos of dead dogs, mistreated dogs, dogs that have no care, dogs that are pregnant. It is cheaper for you to pay for spay and neuter. Private rescues in San Angelo, they can spay, neuter, vaccinate and give pain relief

[1:46:06] to a medium-sized female dog for $100 a pop, okay? It's not that expensive. If you wanna get people to buy in, nothing has worked so far, okay? You've got an ordinance and people, I'm gonna run over. If you can do it for $100 and you bribe people to bring their dogs in for $35. That is the same cost or less than it costs you to keep those dogs in the shelter. It's cheaper. You need to do better. Jim Black. Black and I live at $65.51 Navajo. A few years ago, I was in here, and I was a nervous wreck talking to you, and I'm back there now. But you've covered about everything that I wanted to say. But there are a couple of things that I think would be helpful. I fund my rescue with non-profit money, but Social Security, a pension check, and I work at 3 o'clock in the morning part-time job. That's where I just came from. I spend two-thirds of my income. I live one mile outside the city limits, and I have always carried around 40 rescue dogs horses at any given time and that's what I have right now. Driving around town with delivering the mail I don't see this what I believe is an over exaggeration of this problem. I do see a lot of hate online I see some name calling and I don't appreciate that and I've gotten myself in trouble in the media because I defend the the shelter and pause. Now I have over probably in the last 10 years pulled over a hundred dogs out of that shelter and I find them

[1:48:08] homes and I take care of their medical issues. My medical bills in the last four months have been over $10,000 and I take care of that amount. That's what I've dedicated my life to. I'm 75 years old and so I take this very very serious I put money where my mouth is. I go out to the pause and I look at their programs and they're extremely helpful to me. They've always went that extra mile when I said can we do this? How do we solve this problem? The shelter's been the same way. I met one of the new officers of the day at the Betz office. He was a caring, loving individual. He cared for that dog that he carried in there that got it ran over. I think that this I don't know that you can solve this aminocity between some of what you've heard in these groups. I don't know how you do it. I can't do it. I have talked to them and said you don't set down and argue and call people names like they've done some of y'all. They have posted your phone numbers, your email addresses, all of this stuff on there trying to bring this pressure. That's not how you fix these issues. You got to get this all out there and sit down and talk about it. But I do know that when I go to these various places and I see the spay-nuter discount programs going, people are lined up and they sell out. Maybe that's part of the issue. But I also believe that San Angelo, being the wonderful place that it is, we always step up. And I think one of the things that could be very important here would be to bring this issue in some kind of program, make it a media event. Where people understand the Sineaslo, let's get together, this is a problem. We could set an example in Sineaslo for the rest of the country that can't solve the problem.

[1:50:13] Henry Fitchett. Good morning. Well, my name is Henry Fitchett. And I'm here, as you can see with multiple pictures, citations, assaulted, I'm on disability, ma'am. I took in a people that was abandoned. During this time, I've got multiple times to speak to Ms. Morgan, which has refused to speak to me. I have a younger brother that has an investigation, here in San Angelo that has helped me in this situation. This young man here, we have became a queen, is on this issue. I try to do what's right for the animals. We live off here on the precinct of precinct two, where there's animals of of all types, goats, cheap chickens, horses, and by me doing what I thought was a respectful thing for the dog, I have a kind under scrutiny, I have 17 citations from animal control, knowing the situation. Right now I'm still going through courts because of this issue. There's a dog that their animal control has been chasing for six years, which is the neighbor's dog, which has been abused, neglected, and chased off. For six years he's been tranquilized, been driving trapped,

[1:52:18] every situation that they could think of. Like I said right now I'm going through the courts. One of my own dogs that I adopted through Paul's was also picked up and taken in. This is became a big issue, bad issue in our area. Just as that puppy came around she disappeared. Apparently the owner took it or we have a neighbor that likes to shoot dogs because his fins is not maintained and his goats get out. I've taken these goats back four times. It's recently on my phone I have three more that got out that I took back in. But like I said right now I'm being charged 18 citations which have been dropped by the city manager. Thank God, but I still have an issue with it, because I have to appear before Judge Daniels. I have an 82 year old mother, has seven stencils in her heart, lower back pains, which recently just retired, have been dragged into this issue by placing a name of Anne Fidget on a warrant to seize nine dogs. The female that was abandoned had 11 puppies, two were rehomed, two passed away, and six of them were tranquilized and taken in after the fact. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ben. Jerry, walls. Good morning.

[1:54:28] Good morning. I had asked her where my district number is. I vote for everybody and do everything, but And I know where I live, but that's about it. Mayor, council members, I appreciate you letting me come talk to you briefly. I didn't know all the issues that we're going to be talked about. There's some that I'm going to have to go home and digest and figure out where I stand with a lot of things. But one thing is clear, the shelter, I have adopted two animals out there. I had for 10 years, and when I have present right now, and the thing that I have really admired about the situation is that, luckily for me, I had two great animals. I have one now, his name is Mr. Odie. He was at a foster home for a while, because his shelter is full, and he was there about seven months. My wife kept bugging me, saying, you need another dog and I'm thinking no I don't well you know how your women are so anyway what happened I eventually went with her to the shelter and we brought Odie home he is a great dog and 2020 was when we got him 2020 we got him 21 January 2nd my wife died and so therefore I was alone but guess what I wouldn't I had a companion and I just ask y'all when you make your decisions on all these things that you remember that you remember about people like me that are maybe you know kind of out there and I have a lot of friends a lot of friends some of you people on the council I know very well but I want you to know that and just keep that in mind when you make your decisions, please. Thank you. Kim Spooner. I'm in District 1. I've been doing lesson

[1:56:47] found pets in San Angelo for many, many, many years. I have exhausted a lot of my own personal time scanning dogs and helping families find their dogs and I take great pleasure in doing that and I think twice now about doing that. I have a friend in San Antonio who was bit by And she incurred a $70,000 bet bill from getting bit and has permanent damage on her arm. So she was a volunteer doing the right thing. So with all these stray dogs, I just hesitate to be quite as active as I once was. I know my time is limited. I know my time is limited. So when someone finds a dog and the Good Samaritan exhausts all efforts to find the owner, including keeping the dog safe for a short period, they are often met with the response from animals services that intakes were closed. They are told release the dog where it was found and take the responsibility or take the responsibility of keeping it yourself. This has been the repeated response from animal service for several years to people who find dogs. I hear it all the time leading many individuals to keep more dogs and they anticipated creating a burden with pets they cannot afford and some dogs have been released back into the streets due to the lack of options as finders are doing exactly what animal services has told them to do. The reality is people do not want another dog nor do they wish to return the dog loose. There must be a place for them to go. And good Samaritans are no longer helping, they're just driving by dogs, they're letting them roam because that's what they're told. The number one dog killed on the street is an unaltered male dog. dogs roam means an altered dogs are roaming. Forming packs, they are reproducing, the problem exacerbates with more dogs and puppies roaming and more dogs biting people as we all know. They're getting hit by cars, they're dying, they're being found dead on the loop all the time and they're trying to survive and they are suffering and a no kill at a shelter is

[1:58:51] a slow kill for these abandoned dogs on the street and a loose dog can be extremely dangerous for people, and animal control won't pick up a dog if it's secured. They only will pick up a dog if it's roaming. Maintaining open intakes is the responsible community commitment to keep citizens safe in enforcement to spay, neuter microtub ordinances, and to the wandering dog ordinance as well. I'm afraid to walk in my own neighborhood. I've recently walked a couple of times in the royal trail only to be approached twice by a pit bull who growled at us. I have my little kid, my little toddlers, my grandkids, they're under three and it growled at us and I called animal control many times on those dogs and I was assured somebody would come. Nobody came. Another time I saw my voice went to voicemail. I'm in favor of keeping citizens safe and that needs to be the first priority because somebody's going to get hurt bad as we all know. Thank you. Thank you. Melanie Simantilly. Hi. I'm Melanie Simantilly, I'm in 227 Chestnut Street, I believe that is District 4. I did some research on your website and on your organizational chart, the highest member of staff is that the citizens of San Angelo. Yet you have not listened to any of the needs of what we are asking for. I looked at your current budget for this year and it's about $196 million and that's with an 11 percent increase as you did raise property taxes. Yet only 1.3 million is going to the animal services. You sat here for over an hour talking amongst yourselves and you guys couldn't even figure out what your issues were until you sat here and had somebody come up and speak to you. You haven't listened to your public,

[2:00:52] you haven't invested in your public, as this is less than 1% of your budget, and yet half of you have already voted to go back to 1950 standards. The issue isn't what house this is under, the issue isn't what breed the dog is, the issue isn't are there a couple of members of society that aren't hearing too, what needs to be done. The issue is the narrow mindedness of council and obviously the mayor. You guys need to understand that this is truly an issue. And taking away services that actually can potentially help these dogs and also citizens is not the way to go. Neither is going back to the 1950 standards. What needs to be done is some thorough investigations. What needs to be done is this, is listening to public's input and actually taking that into account. Spending less than 1% on your budget on a large issue is not going to do anything. And neither is going back to the 1950s. Pat Hines? Hi, I'm Pat Hines. Talk into the microphone. Hi, I'm Pat Hines, Single District 4. I'm here today as a resident of San Angelo. I would like to say that in listening to what you all have said today, that I find that the support is necessary for a plan, a strategic plan. And I would like you to know that I've been a participant in the rescue community for over 15 years. And I can tell you that we have made marked progress. We have solved, have we solved all the issues? No, I too do not want to see stray animals suffering in the streets.

[2:02:53] I believe there are solutions, but to find a solution that is humane and effective, you must do the work. I implore you to organize an ad hoc committee consisting of well-informed professionals from the animal services, as well as animal welfare advocates, law enforcement, law makers, and attorneys to devise a plan to improve and enforce laws regarding animals. animals. Ordinances are in place to address breeding, providing safe enclosure, tethering rabies vaccinations, registration and spay and neuter requirements. Yet some of them are difficult if not impossible to enforce. Before making a decision that will result in destroying the progress we have made over the years and returning to a system that does not work and does not value life. Please, facts, not opinions, and examine real viable humane options. It's also important to recognize that the shelter did not create the overpopulation problem alone. Removing these programs will simply shift the burden back onto an already strained system. It's not a pet problem. And as Mayor Gunter has said, it's a people problem. But by working together, we can do better for the animals in our town and the people who care for them. Thank you. Jaton Gesey? Jaton Gesey District 5. And these are some pretty scrambled thoughts, but I'm

[2:04:55] I'm just going to read them. Were the pets that are in the Good Samaritan Program, is there a place that they get posted? There should be all of these listed in the public informed where they can really go and look at these. Y'all talked about doing a poster. I've never even heard of that. If a task force is formed, knowledgeable people should be faster than y'all were talking about six months. But last, letting it continue, I think, is a good idea also. I think that somebody objective shouldn't be confused with somebody that's already knowledgeable of what's going on. So it shouldn't be comprised of a composed of some people that already know. Can we talk about another? Can you just talk a little more to the microphone? You have a soft voice. OK, we talk about another ACO officer. Is another code enforcement officer, that something different or is that more likely what needs to be done, somebody that can dedicate their time to writing the tickets, going to court and processing and even looking at the laws to change it to where we can expedite these a little faster because I've been told that the courts is part of the problem is the hang up, the time that's required. Regards to the people that are feeding freely and they don't sign up for the SAMs, I don't thing being held accountable for the numbers. Starving the dogs does not help with the problem unless you want to count as dying on the streets, reducing the numbers on the streets. And then the daily adoptions, what y'all talked about having more programs, everybody's adoptions are down. People, the citizens are maxed out with how many dogs they can have, and having more adoptions, I don't know if that's going to help. I think reducing the number of the intake by enforcing Spay

[2:06:58] Nuter is the only thing that's going to help that. Y'all remember? You talked about it. I think y'all were talking about it at the price of less than $19 average per animal. Y'all have been offered a program that you can offer vouchers and as a split program with Cassie's and critter shack. Less than $19 those animals can be spayed or neutered. And I don't know how much money is being put into spayed neutered, but that would go a long ways at less than $19 per animal. The resources that I said that is the resources that you talked about, just throwing resources at it. We know the price already, less than $19 per animal. And And in animal services, I don't believe can be privatized or farmed out. They are still tax dollars that you're going to be paying these services. And you need to still listen to the citizens instead of just exclusively dealing with just one rescue or putting in a hierarchy of having one rescue over other rescues. That doesn't work. Thank you for that recap. That's good recap. Thank you. And I also want to just speak for the council very often when we ask questions or comments up here. It's not about our personal opinion. It's because many citizens have contacted us, emailed us, left text messages about the issues. We're here to also be a voice for those messages, those individuals who aren't here today. So when we ask a question, when we make a statement, when we ask for further information, it's to represent all citizens, not just a personal opinion. go ahead. Mary Wilson. I'm Mary Wilson. I reside at 1641 part view drive. I am a member of the board of directors of concha valley pause and have been for 20 years.

[2:09:09] You the duly elected or appointed stewards of the city of San Angelo are task with and complex and emotional matter. The animals that pause in the City of San Angelo deal with are living, breathing, feeling beings. And we owe them the opportunity to have and find joy, kindness, and love. I support the formation of an ad hoc committee, but I stress strongly that we also need to include lawmakers and law enforcement in that committee, as well as animal welfare advocates, veterinarians, and other related personnel. The spay neuter is the only thing that's going to change the overpopulation of pets in this city. We have to mandate that residents have their pets paid or neutered. Those ordinances on the books must be enforced and non-compliant pet owners must comply or face consequences. And the consequences that they face now are minimal. In my opinion, those consequences need to be escalated. And pause is willing to help any pet owner get their pet into compliance. We work, we want to do everything to make that pet's life better and spraying and neutering is better for

[2:11:12] the animals themselves. I urge you strongly to not revert back to the policies that San Angelo has currently done in the past. The killing of adoptable companion animals is not the answer. And they deserve better. And working together, we can do better. I love San Angelo. I want to be proud of this city. And taking care of our animals is part of living here. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Evelyn Smith. Everyone, One head morning, Evelyn Smith, SMD-5. Everybody's already said everything. You guys got a lot on your hands to do. And I'm glad I came because I didn't know a lot of this stuff that was going on that the animal shelter is doing. And I do take my head off to the animal shelter because that's a hard job to do. I volunteered, I've donated, I've adopted a pet myself. But I think where the rubber meets the road is, is that when you want to euthanize the animals, and Ms. Gunther did make a big point about, it gets to the point, when is the time you know, you pass capacity, and that something should be done at that time where before you get to capacity, and then now you're in a position where you have to euthanize a dog because you don't have the capacity of space there. And I've had dogs in my yard digging next door coming over.

[2:13:15] I mean, it just, I vote that we have control and service. Do keep those two together. Animal control and animal service. Because I have three cats now that's in the neighborhood. Nobody wants the cats in the neighborhood. But I feed them. and I didn't know you had the good Samaritan, whatever the name was. So I would be calling and bound that, but I'm gonna ask my neighbors, maybe you could have a neighborhood dog watch or cat watch, was the neighborhood get together? If you got animals running in your neighborhood, let's get together. I'm gonna ask them, if you don't want the cats in the area, help me find a home for them, because I can't do it all by myself. I'm feeding them, you know, because I didn't want them to get euthanized. So that's what I was doing. But somebody mentioned that this is emotional. And it is emotional to know if I have an animal, I'm going to turn over to an animal search, and it's going to get euthanized. That's painful to me. And it's also painful that I've hit a dog before, and then I was in the car with somebody to hit a dog and kill the dog. That's emotional to me. And because of some owner is not responsible enough to take care of their own dog. Now, their responsibility become my, in my head, the rest of my life that I've injured a dog or killed a dog. So, I think the animal control and animal services together is needed and then the community needs to get together in their own community, whatever problem they have in that community, they need to get together like a neighborhood watch and do something themselves also in that neighborhood. Thank you for the opportunity. Well said, thank you. You know, I wanna also clarify, I'm sure Council would support that no one wants to go back to the 1950s. It's not anybody wants to revert back to the 1950s. But we do know that a primary responsibility

[2:15:17] of city council and the city is public health and safety. That's primary. That does not mean that there aren't other issues that have to be attacked and owned by the city, but our first responsibilities of public health and safety of our citizens. Next. Gil Bienes. Good morning, Council. Good morning. Gil Bienes here from Dove Creek. I was here months ago. I told you this would probably happen. I kind of warned you guys and said, hey, we gotta do something or somebody's gonna get hurt. I don't know if you remember that or not. You remember that? told you all this is going to happen what's happened so and I told you back then we need a task force to establish something I said a best practice this group I told you all we need a best practices group so I applaud you all that you're agreed with that I'm a little unhappy with all because you've done it months later I felt like I was just not listened to because months later now it's mentioned after I've mentioned this months ago so hope I thank you for listening, but you know bottom mind is I do applaud you all are serious about it now finally it's taking a while but we've got to do something it's it's really bad and I we got to balance it I had a dog the other day I rescued my hand right there you see I rescued a pit pole you know what he did he bent my hand off just about but you know what I did on my own I made that decision that When I was a dog, I talked to the prickly parabao, and I told them, what do we do? She said, if it's that young as a pit bull doing that to me, wait until it gets a hold of a child. So I paid on my own dime and had that dog put down.

[2:17:19] So I don't want to do that. I want to find, we need to all find solutions, but we can't have this kind of stuff happening, not just to me, but to our other citizens in San Angelo. So thank you for all listening and thank you for making this serious step. We got to get serious now guys. This is a game changer. It's like while I was in the military being in the rock in Afghanistan, there were things that if we didn't make the right decisions, we didn't come back home. And luckily I was in a position to make the right decisions. Not all my people came home, but I feel still bad about that, you know, I have a lot of issues where I get counseling for it because I take guilt for that, but I learned to try to come back from that. And this is just as important that we do everything right for our citizens and that we also take care of the animals and the dogs and cats and everybody. I mean, do what's good that it's a win-win for all of us, okay? So, thanks again for considering that. And I hope we can come with a good solution and get this done. We need to wrap this up and take care of it right the right way. Thank you. Thank you very much. Sharon Hoffman. Good morning. My name is Sharon Hoffman, I live at Wall. I'm the Director of Critter Shack Rescue and Spanewter Clinic and I've been involved in animal rescue education in Spanewter for over 20 years. I would like to address the current situation of the shelter and the overpopulation issues in San Angelo. In my opinion, the no-kill initiative adopted by the shelter and the subsequent best friends policies enacted by the shelter have been an abysmal fire. As cities across the United

[2:19:25] States are finding policies of let them roam, which is definitely what people are told when they call here. Let them roam, turn them loose into the port of town. That's what they're told. And making I mean, excuse me, the care of rescues and strays up to this community, it doesn't work. In reality, many people do try to do the right thing. They pick up animals, they try to shelter them, they try to become willing to try to find their owners, but they're not able to. The owners themselves are to blame, they're over the breeders, the dumpers, the people who abandon their animals are to blame, but they are not the ones who pay the price. They're not going to change. Many of these dogs are dumped or abandoned, they're left to breed, they farm packs, they reproduce, they spread disease, they starve, they attack other dogs, cats, people, and they're maimed and killed by vehicles. In the last several years, an unprecedented number of dogs have been roaming the streets of St. Angelou. Dogs that were turned away from the shelter, whose owners were trying to surrender them, dogs that were found by good Samaritans, who were trying to find owners and had no place to go with the dogs. The limited anti-policy directly leads to this increased number of strays. Instead of being accepted by the shelter, kept in a safe place, cared for, given a chance for adoption. And then perhaps he may be euthanized if that doesn't happen, they're left on the streets. where we know an example where a female shepherd mix was turned away from the shelter. She got dumped in a neighborhood in San Angelo. She became semi-feral. She got pregnant. She had puppies. She was killed by a car. Her puppies starved to death. Is that more humane than euthanizing that dog as a shelter? Except for small breed dogs and some puppies,

[2:21:28] adoptions are at a low. I've been in adoption business for 20 years. I've never seen adoptions this low, and I see no uptake. I see no future uptake. So we have to deal with the reality that adoptions are low, transport is less every year. We have inundated the North. Focusing on the root of pet overpopulation was a long-term plan that includes offering education without care and sterilization to pet owners, low cost or freeze by new to vouchers or programs, Effectively enforcing ordinances and they being a shelter director who has the proper education training and knowledge to run the shelter. Thank you very much Justin's going forward. Jeanne Wilson. Good morning. I must tell you that I am happy to be able to speak to you again today. I'm in your address. Oh, I'm sorry. the Concho Valley Pause. I'm happy to be able to speak with you again today, and I'm so relieved that you have taken the path to form a committee to look at this, because this is such a complex issue. I admire all of you for what you do, but at the same time, it is not a job that I would want, nor is Morgan's job. It's very difficult. There's lots of factors that play into all of what we do. At Concho Valley Pause, we're lucky we get to do the adoptions. We do spay neuter. We are not involved with animal control, and that is very difficult. We do support diversion intake programs for owned pets. No one wants to see a stray suffer on the street. But the intake diversion programs that you were looking at today, some of what that is, is counseling owners and trying to help them find better options and taking that responsibility off

[2:23:28] of an already overburdened system. So the fact that you're putting a committee together or ad hoc committee together to look at this is amazing, much of what I was going to say today was encouraging to do that, because I know that we have ordinances, we have lots of ordinances. But I think getting some people on that committee that can say how we can, as Ms. Hesse Smith said, get end to end enforcement, where the outcome is actually getting that pet fix, not just paying a fine. Last thing I just want to leave you with is, as you look at these things with what your ad hoc committee comes to you with. Just remember that from 1961 to 2015, San Angelo was basically capturing kill, completely open intake. You wake up, you don't like your dog anymore, surrender your dog, and then that same person, and I've seen it myself over the years, would go back into this shelter and adopt another dog to repeat the cycle. So as Mayor Gunter has said before, it's a people problem, not a pet problem, and we've got to get them to modify their behaviors. We have to find a way to enforce responsibility. Otherwise, it's just a cycle that's going to continue. I fully support Spann-Newter. We want to work with the city however we can to help with these problems. And I appreciate all that y'all do. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Okay. With that, I think that completes the discussion and presentation and open comment. There's no motion on the floor and no action taken at this point in time. certainly direction given and we would expect that direction that was given today be followed up with a strategic here's what we're going to do with that I think it is time that we take a break everybody stand up take a break and we'll be back in 15 minutes close session we have an item that requires some outside council

[2:25:32] they're on hold waiting force so don't sit down just go up to executive session Thank you for having patience with us today, it is 1243 with this meeting being called back to order and we will move into item B of the regular agenda which is consider ratifying. Do I wait before I move on? You folks have been here for a while today. What item are they here for? Okay, just making sure we got it up so you don't have to wait a lot longer. to ratify NACOSA DC resolution authorizing the board president to negotiate and execute an economic development incentive agreement with Skyline Aviation in an amount not to exceed $1 million. A project authorized under chapters 501 and 505 of the Texas Development Corporation Act necessary to promote economic development and expand business enterprises which create or retain primary jobs. Michael, Assistant Manager Michael Dane is on. Good afternoon, Michael Dane interim economic development director for this item Here to talk to you about a Proposal for a skyline aviation mechanic school if you will picture in your minds the relationship between skyline and ASU for the pilot training This very much is an image of that except with Howard College and it's for mechanics rather than pilots So, as we step through, that's kind of the vision for this item. Joint effort between Skyline and Howard, a cooperative effort similar to ASU, Howard, is ready to take this on. They've got for their part of it, they've got the space, they've got the capacity, they've

[2:27:36] got all of it. It is Howard's ready to go. The heavy lifting is on the Skyline side. They have two, they have a vision for two ways a student can go, a two-year associate's degree through Howard and a one-year Skyline certificate program. The Skyline program allows a student to expedite, to move quickly through the program in one year. The Howard College benefit is that if you go through Howard College, it takes two years but you could be eligible for financial aid. So they're depending on the students' needs, they think they've got good options. They would use the same facility and instructors, and the initial investment for the first year would be $1.5 million, a portion of that's related to capital for the program, and then there's a small piece of capital related to tools that students receive as part of participation in the program. anticipates up to 30 instructors at approximately $45,000 per year, initial phase student capacity at approximately 105 students at the current facility. Howard College anticipates about 20 of the students will be theirs, which they see as a big benefit. And again, same facility and instructors for each. They have a similar thing. you can take flight training at Skyline and not be part of the ASU program. So that is a mirror image of that also. Requires, again, approximately $1.5 million initial investment. With that overview, let's talk about Skyline as a proponent or as a partner in this and what has their performance been on the existing activity.

[2:29:37] Their target for 2025 was 25 aircraft. They have 30 on hand and 10 more which are arriving or they anticipate arrival in 2025. Target of 40 instructors and they have 47. Target of 200 students. They currently have 180 and anticipate 230 in 2025. In those number of those targets are contained in the ASU performance agreement. that we have an agreement with ASU for classrooms and Skyline for the FBO facility. This to show that we have in Skyline a partner which is outperforming the benchmark set in the existing agreements. That's important. Because, to a certain extent, this will serve not just mechanics, it will also help to facilitate growth on the pilot training side. And so they helped us look out six years. They think they could hit 350 flight school students and 200 mechanic school students in that time frame. Again Skyline staff will be instructor pilots and mechanic school instructors. They anticipate the need for a new hanger. think that be at the airport for approximately 3.5 million, but that's obviously subject to the whims of inflation. And that's out a little bit. And one of the things they point out is that graduates of the mechanic school will have sufficient mechanical training to be able to work in other industries. The two that specifically they brought up were the oil industry and elevator repair. And of course anybody that's tried to get elevator service or repair done is is not in their head this is yeah that's a challenge. The incentive

[2:31:42] we've discussed and is proposed $1 million at that level and at the anticipated growth is a 9.1 year break even or return on investment and one of the reasons we wanted to talk about the success we've had with Skyline well let point out we've also had success with Howard College. Some years ago we had a workforce training initiative for nurses, a partnership between Howard College and Shannon and Co-City C in the city and we put a little money in and helped that go and I think that's been a benefit and the demand continues to increase for nurses. So both with Skyline and with Howard we have a history of success, very recent success with Skyline. They are exceeding their benchmarks on the existing agreements we have. The reason we think that's important is because we, they would like to get over that obstacle. What can we front load in the incentive to help them get through that startup obstacle? And so the initial thoughts were about a 50-50, about 500,000 upfront and 500 to be earned later on. We think that they have been a solid performer and that that's not a concern, that they continue to be a good economic development risk for us. And so while that's not a specific proposal I wanted you to be aware that that's a little different than the hire and keep the jobs and then we'll reimburse you for them. In this case we want to help them get over those entry barriers to this activity and we'll probably negotiate an agreement accordingly. From a staff perspective it's not a question of if it's a question of when they meet these marks. And we see waiting lists at other schools to participate, I think they're competitive.

[2:33:50] Oh, additional mechanics available in the local market will help them with the growth on the pilot side because they're getting so many planes in. There's a significant mechanical maintenance responsibility associated with the operation of aircraft. They're struggling like others in the area to hire the qualified technicians to act on the, to fulfill the FAA requirements for service and maintenance and so this is a little bit of an assist to feed the pilot training demand which they don't see abating at this point. So they're going to take advantage of some of their graduates and they'll probably recycle them like they do flight trainers to become instructors also. So they'll probably use them as instructors and use them to keep that fleet of planes, growing fleet of planes maintained. That's all for now. Just to have any questions? I know some were probably out there for the grand opening. I was unable to make that, But I was invited out there by one of the folks at Skyline in that facility. If y'all get an invitation to go, or I would say call somebody and ask for a tour out there. That place is amazing. But to tag on to what Michael said, there are some other possibilities totally outside of this with local things that already exist that we may be able to help them grow as well. as do this here. I am fully supportive of this. Mayor, I would say I would move approval as presented by Michael. Yes, ma'am. I'm curious. You mentioned other

[2:35:51] schools. How competitive is this relative to other type schools in Texas and the southwest? I guess I'm wondering are they well-placed at this moment? Well, educationally. We looked at the tuition costs compared to other schools and there are elements there's airframe there's air mechanics and what was was it general mechanics was the third and some schools develop that you you can buy that piece meal these guys are doing all three and on if you look at a an element per element cost they are very competitive and they're actually giving price breaks to Howard College to help Howard College also. But also remember as it relates to ASU depending on how they enroll or what they're doing their car scholarships to depending on how they're enrolling. We haven't found a downside yet the difficulty is they've got the difficulty is the timing there is right there's some things that they want to get it rolling and if you've worked with them before now is not soon enough from the Howard College perspective they have to make some submissions at the beginning of the next calendar year in order to have the program approved for the fall and so in this case the challenges are calendar based to help Howard College be able to fulfill their side. Other questions? Other comments? There's a motion on the floor. Is there a second? Second. Second by Karen. Public comment please. Seeing none. Hearing none. Hearing none. Thank you Heather. We'll take a vote.

[2:37:52] All those in favor say aye. All right. Motion passes 7-0. We will move on to item C. First reading and public hearing of an ordinance amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2024 and ending September 30, 2025 for incomplete projects and capital items from fiscal year 2024 to consider carrying over into fiscal year 2025 for continuation of those items and winter storm year refunds. Tina, you're on. Thank you, Mayor. This first budget amendment is for carryovers. As you're aware, these are items that are requested by departments to carry over funds or budgets from the previous fiscal year for projects that were either in progress or planned at year end. So this first one is for human resources, they're requesting $22,000 to carry over for employee engagement funds. The second one is straight and bridge, vehicle uplift and trailer purchase, that $21,000 that vehicle was purchased before year end but was not up fitted before year end. Straight and bridge is also requesting the carry over straight maintenance and program sealcoat project monies of just over a million dollars. If that is a period we will carry that over into the street infrastructure funds so that it is restricted for street infrastructure improvements. Recreation has a one-time pool repair funding of $3,000, animal shelter, spay and neuter program return of cats program in the amount of $5,000. Fire prevention is requesting to carry over just a little less than $25,000 for the dangerous buildings program. And then the sewer treatment is asking to carry over $38,000 for a structure of housing equipment. And all of those are expenses that were in the previous year. They're not completed. They're just moving forward into the new year. That's right. Yes, ma'am. Questions for Tina on these items? Then is there a motion for approval? Motion to approve is presented. made a motion a second by Larry and now it's time for public comment and there

[2:39:56] is none so we'll take a vote all those in favor say aye oh there's a second budget amendment I'm sorry well we're just going to take this vote and then we'll go back to that I'm sorry about that mayor I thought I was done floor so all those in favor say aye now are there additions yes I'm so sorry that was my last slide because it was just one line. Okay, so I guess it's because it's a different fund. It's on the next slide. Fairmount Cemetery had Water Valve one time funding of $37,000, standard times. We're requesting to pull $20,000 from the general capital projects funds to fund the utilities there at the standard times building. Great in Bridge. We already talked about Winter Fund. Okay, this is a new budget amendment here. That was all of the carryovers. This one is for monies that we received from FEMA finally, from Winter Storm Yuri several years ago. They did finally approve the funding of $280,000 for employees that were working overtime during that timeframe. 208 or 20,000. So we received about 280,000 but the department is requesting to fund about $20,000 in employee pay for that time period going back to that time period. And the remainder will remain in the fund and in the fund balance for a future council declared disaster in case we need to add a future date. Questions for Tina on this item? Motion for approval on the last two items, which would be pheromod in this one. Motion is by Harry, a second by Larry I think. All those in no public comment, right? All those in favor say aye. You know, I still have to get used to Looking at you for public comment versus I'm so used to looking out the audience for public comment So I'm like I have to teach myself. Thank you Okay

[2:41:58] We will now move on to item D first reading the public hearing of an ordinance extending the temporary changes to chapter 12 Planning development article 12.04 quote signs and the city code of ordinances to allow additional time for for preparation of permanent amendments to the sign ordinance, Erin, you are on. Thank you, Mayor, City Council, Mr. Valenzuela. This is an item to ask for basically a postponal. We're expiring at the end of December on a moratorium that we have on basically offsite and onsite signs because of the verbiage in our ordinance. There were a couple of court cases, those court cases have actually been resolved. And so it's time for us to start moving forward with our sign ordinance, but we cannot get it done by the end of this calendar year, so we're asking for an extension. Most of it is a cleanup of code references within that ordinance. It is actually going to give us some definitions, which really creates a definition for billboards, and that's one of the definitions that is missing from our sign ordinance, and that's why you've seen some billboards erected in some areas that we probably, if we had more control, would not have wanted those there. and then again sign types designated in our design districts like our historic downtown like our cultural district and our river corridor and then also signs by street classification if it's a big wide street based on our thoroughfare plan that probably allows for a larger sign if it's a smaller street and you need a smaller sign so we are requesting a 12 month extension to have the public discussion bring this forward to our planning commission and then of course before you guys before the, before the 20, December 2025. I respect the request for a year's extension. I think that's way too long and think it needs to be resolved before a 12 month extension. So I'm not saying we're gonna do that, but I think we've had a year, another year's a lot.

[2:44:00] Yes, ma'am. And I'm not sure we should take 12 more months to figure this out. Yes, ma'am. We do have the ordinance written. We do just want to make sure we get it out to the public and move that forward and we'll take direction from our leadership as needed and bring that when it's when we're ready. So can we get it done in six months? I think we have the ability from staff to get this done within six months. That would just be a child's decision if that is how soon y'all would like to hear it. Well I'm open to comments from council but I'd. I think six months is fine. Everybody in agreement so then would someone make a motion to allow to prove on a six month deadline for the initial showing. Thank you. Public comment Heather. With that may we take a vote all those in favor for six months say I motion passes seven zero. Brandon I tried for 12. Item E consider resolution authorizing the City of San Angel to apply for the resilient communities program through the Texas General Land Office's Department of Community Development and Revitalization and Pursuit of beginning the process of updating San Angel's comprehensive plan you're on. Thank you again mayor. There is a grant opportunity called the resilient communities through the Texas General Land Office. They've had it for about two years now that goes all the way until I believe 2028. They will give up to $300,000 for comprehensive plan updates, primarily for hazard mitigation, which we see, particularly in our community, we know we've been designated for two interstates. Our current comprehensive plan does not take that into account. We think that's an area that this certainly qualifies for. Also, what are we doing to protect maybe our infrastructure?

[2:46:02] And when I say infrastructure, that also talks about drainage too. I know you all heard lots of things about drainage and flooding and wildfires and things, but that's important to what happens in our community, as well as the public safety, not sure what fire and floor are, but fire and other risks that are out there that could impact the edges of our community. I don't know that we can possibly talk about this if we don't know what floor is. I'm not sure where floor came from. That's an interesting word. trying to think back. Rick, you got any ideas? Just a typo. We'll just call it a typo. Yes. I think he's right. Fire and flood. A flood makes much more sense there. Maybe the R should be indeed. Maybe. This is why you don't type up your slides on the Friday after Thanksgiving. So we're gonna say for clarification that that is flood, not fire. Yes, ma'am, so just FYI correct that. Yes, ma'am, that is correct. That is that is flood and other risks as if you all have seen throughout the the history of San Angelo. So why now again that grand opportunity expires. I think we have a desire about fiscal stewardship that's part of our mission here with the city of San Angelo is what do things cost today and what are they going to cost in 30 years and are we going to be able to afford them? I know that we have a housing study that's being addressed and updated and we need to address that in our comp plan as well as integrating those two. We do need to get some community input and one of the biggest things that I hear again and again from folks that visit St. Angelo is placemaking. St. Angelo is on the map because of our rivers, our water, our resources. St. Angelo is a people-friendly town and we need to

[2:48:02] and our visual art. Yes our visual arts we need to continue with our place-making and makes and Angelo continue to be special to the region and to the state and even in the nation. I only comment on that would be the following if you go back and you tell me go back to that previous slide. Yes ma'am. You specifically says for hazard mitigation. Yes ma'am. And I get all of that including the flood not the floor but then you go to the second page and that none of those things have anything to do with hazard mitigation. So what are we talking here? Well I believe strongly that fiscal stewardship does. If we don't start taking care of mitigating hazards, how big does that bill become in 20-30 years? We have to identify those things that are coming. Now part of that's our CIP program and how we address those and with different drainage and fire areas. Housing trends, if If we don't have the housing to continue to infill and expand our community with people, we are not able to mitigate our housing study. That is part of that, yes, ma'am. But it has to be put into our comprehensive plan which affects our ordinances and our policies that we make to continue to be very positive. But that's a large leap on hazard mitigation. That's a huge big old jump. Based on our information and writing of the grant and seeing how others have awarded this grant that fits in pretty well but I think as long as it doesn't let me from getting the grant. Correct. We certainly need to get to high might not get the grant correct your focus. Community input we believe is very critical for hazard mitigation because they may be hazards that we're not aware of in certain areas. Now I agree place making may not be a hazard mitigation but you kind of see this bottom area here we We know that we can do hazard mitigation with around 300,000. What we need is more than that in the future, not in today's request, not in this budget

[2:50:03] year's request, but we feel like if we get the grant, and that's if we get the grant, we would come back with a budget request in the 2026 budget cycle that we would start preparing for after the first of the year. We would know soon probably February to March if we received the grant, and we would look to ask for an additional 200,000 that would help us with our place making, which would help us with our economic development teams of what do we need to do, particularly with the interstate coming in. We don't want to have displacement from part of our town to the interstate. We want to be able to grow sustainably over to our interstate and utilize that as whether it's industry and warehousing, is it more housing, those types of things. Well, what's going to complicate this? Yes, ma'am. is number one, we do not have the routes, the southern route for the reliever route laid out. Correct. Let's go with that being said, how are you going to do that? Well, I think we have a very good idea that it's going to happen between the east side of Loop 306 and 277. It's somewhere in that, I'm going to say probably three mile corridor. We do feel very confident in the north and the east route and where they're coming. But I do think those are things that we need to, in 10 years, if we still don't know that, we need to go back and do an update at that point to make sure that we're accommodating that. But I think now is the time to go and look at those areas and say, this is what we believe based on the data that we have. And I think that comes back to this fiscal stewardship is looking at the data. We have to look at our data to make data-driven decisions. What makes sense here based on the data? And I think going back and putting that into our comp plan that we're not making decisions based on other factors, we're looking at the data. What is the data telling us that we're growing here or we're not growing in this area? And what is our projected path forward for our entire community?

[2:52:03] And it really is a comp plan is for even when we talked about the animal services today, it covers those things. It covers everything that a city does. That is what a comprehensive plan does. It incorporates everything together. puts it into a plan and says all right here's your path forward if you want to get to position a here's your best path to agree but this is a hazard mitigation grant opportunities that correct that is the bulk of it yes man okay yeah and at the end of the day this is just a start to what you overall need to do so we're hoping to get some funds that can help us then push on to the further goal which is why Aaron's telling you I mean this we've been talking about this for several years this is an opportunity we think I can't guarantee you would get it you're right and we've got to put the best foot forward in how it's crafted but at this point you know the hazard mitigation those are the things we're coming up with that others have used that have been success so we can't guarantee but we'll try and then we'll come back to y'all because we'd really like to push this forward I think as you all have talked about in getting the whole plan done at the end of the day no agreed I just caution you you get too broad you're not gonna put the holes that this grant specifically says you must fit and are you saying that we would know in March or April whether we got the grant or not or what's the expert and it says expires in 2028 but when are they gonna announce grant winners they usually 60 days after the submission they will let you know whether you've been approved or denied for the grant or if you need to resubmit This is one of those that goes until the funding runs out, right and so we want to get our name in So that we have a chance to get something before it runs out Okay, do I need a motion on this one? What does it say consider resolution? So that is part of the application package of the resolution to them from the City Council saying they are supportive of the grant application So we need to create a resolution supporting this grant application correct. Yes, ma'am

[2:54:05] do I need to take a vote or we just I believe we do I might have a motion to approve the resolution is presented second by Lucy no public comment all in favor say aye motion passes the last item on the agenda's consider authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute a right-of-way license use agreement was full circle properties LC to allow for a new parking area to encroach into the public right-of-way located at 36 West 24th Street. Thank you mayor. This is just another step in the development process for this project here which you probably saw maybe last time or the time before. This is a church building that they're looking at creating housing. If you can see here on the left side of the image, you can see where they're parking is. You see the white light line there and there. Everything in between is right away and of course you see the actual street there. What they're asking to do is utilize the right of way on their side to continue to have some parking there for the housing units. So the total private property is .42 acres. The encroachment is just over 2,100 square feet. This request is to allow the city through Mr. Valenzuela to enter into an agreement for use of that right of way. It's an SMD number four, Ms. Lucy Gonzalez and in the Reagan neighborhood. We ever allow for encroachment on the right of way? Yes, we do. We do that quite often for signage, particularly in downtown. We do that for other parking areas. This one was just a little odd and a little unique and a large area. So it is required to actually come before City Council instead of being a staff decision or planning commission decision. So this comes directly to you guys. This overhead helps a lot, but I do think this one really speaks volumes because if If you look, they actually have the curbing already. They have driveways already. This has been a parking lot for that church probably for many, many years. It is not something that is going to damage the edge of the asphalt, because they do have

[2:56:09] the curbing gutter that is concrete there. We feel like that this part of Irving is a- It's not a heavily trafficked portion. The street right there is actually 36 feet wide, so it is a wider local street. And since they have the channelized driveways, they're not all backing out onto the street. They will have to maneuver and back out slowly. And so we think it makes a lot of sense to enter into this agreement to allow that use. I move to approve as presented. Is there a second? Second by Tommy. Public comment? None. I'll take a vote. All in favor say aye. Motion passes 7-0. We've already done our closed session. No announcements have come out of the closed session. So we'll follow up on, consider approving various board nominations. Parks and Rec Advisory Board, Heather Hedgewood's SMD3 to the first term ending this excuse me ending December 2026 may I have a motion for approval I need to prove is there a second I hear a second there should be there's Lorenz Alasseter to not on my sheet oh not on your sheet I apologize for that let me get you I've seen two on mine it's updated since I met with Daniel. The second one would be economic development corporation Lorenzo Lasseter SMD one to the first term ending February 2026. May I have approval for both of those? Maybe to approve second by Harry. All those in favor say aye. Motion passes seven zero. May I have a motion for a German please. So moved second. All in favor.

[2:58:10] We are formally at 1.15 adjourned.

Transcribed 2026-07-26 with faster-whisper (base.en) · source: youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Fy4HoQ3w8