City Council - Special Meeting

Thank you.

We can get rolling. I know we're live streaming. Hello to the virtual world. So I've met all of everyone here around the table. So it's good to see everybody. And try to get everybody's name here. Donnie and Grayson and Andrew and Tim, Don, Cole, David. And we're waiting on less. So it's good to see you all. You know what, though? But you know what? You see these things right here? I can't see beyond about Don's face without my glasses, not in any kind of detail. All good. Yeah, we get rolling. Okay, so y'all have gotten to know me a little bit, but I'm going to include the group today as well. I want to say hello to everyone. I understand that most of you are paid to be here, correct? No, you two aren't? Okay, you pay to be here, right, with your taxes. Yeah, but it's the lowest taxes, right? Don't y'all have some of the lowest taxes? Huh? Oh, okay. So, but everyone else is paid to be here? Okay, good. I'm just kind of joking around with you guys. Today's going to be an informal day. This is, on one hand, it's serious because it's a city and it's our livelihoods. On another hand, we're not doing open heart surgery today, right? No one's on the operating room table and their life hangs in the balance. On one hand, there's gravity because it's real life. On the other hand, we're just talking through things. So I like to joke around. I'm an informal person. So this is an informal workshop. It's very interactive. We're going to think through things. And that's the goal today. Or that's the plan. My background... is I have a lot of various things in my background. I guess the main thing is this is what I do for a living. I work with executive teams, I work with boards, I work with councils, and there are three things that drive the work that I do, is to help organizations, whether it's a team of two or a team of 2,000, how do we operate and function on purpose, on and with purpose, in a healthy way and achieve results. So those are three components that I'm always trying to move clients toward. Are you working on and with purpose? Are you functioning in a healthy way? And are you achieving results? So that's why I'm here. And everyone's on a spectrum when it comes to purpose, health, and results on a spectrum. We're somewhere on that spectrum. And we all would like to move a little bit further along on that spectrum, right? So that's why I'm here is to help just move the needle a tad. At the end of today, we're going to be successful if we gain clarity. That's my number one objective today with the group is can we gain a little bit of clarity? How much clarity? That's to be determined. We'll figure that out over the next six hours. But that is the number one priority for me today is for us to get clarity. Why is clarity so important?

Because if we don't know where we're going, how are we even going to get started walking in the right direction?

OK.

I mean, clear direction.

OK. Absolutely. What else can we add to that that's 100% true?

Clarity helps create some unity. Okay. So it helps make sure that all parties, council, staff, citizens are clear on the objectives. We're on the same page. And we're moving in an understood, agreed direction.

Yeah, clarity helps with alignment. Hello, Les. Kevin Johnson, you're good. We're just getting going. Yeah, clarity helps with alignment. Okay. What other value does clarity bring to a group?

You want to make sure that you're acting as a team, and so that clarity. I always like to look at the negative first. If you're unclear, things are muddled, and you're just kind of going through some motions as opposed to the direction you would like to move.

Yep. What do we think about, I don't know if this would cause a high-pitched squeal, is there a possibility for everyone to unmute themselves? I'm thinking about the flow because we want to be able to just talk. What's that?

OK. Let's try that and see if it starts picking.

Les, you got yours on? Yes. There we go. OK. Prescott, how does it work if you're talking? Hello. I'm picking it up. Yeah. It should pick you up.

Yeah. You put it in between two of you.

Yeah. Hello.

Good.

Hello. Slide yours over.

Again, I get my own.

Yeah, that would be good. There we go. All right. Yeah. All right. Other clarity. Let's start popping out some ideas here. What value does clarity bring? It lets us know where we're going.

Why are we here? I mean, what's the goal? What's the mission? What's the purpose of why the heck we're here? What are we doing? What are we trying to do for the citizens? What is the resources we have? And what can we accomplish? I mean, what is the goal and why? Is that a question? Are you asking a question?

You're not putting towards clarity. You're asking, Kevin, what is the purpose?

No, that is the definition of clarity so we know what the heck we're supposed to be doing up here and what we're receiving as information from everybody in the city, every stakeholder, how, what, and why that is the mission of what we're doing here. And so let's be clear on the mission and establish that clarity.

Yeah. and and yes and the benefit from that is that's good that's good and so and what's the benefit of that if we do that well what's the benefit from doing that well

We get results.

It puts us in a better position to get results, for sure. We're in a better position to get results.

I think it also helps set your target for your investments of that budget. That's only once a year. Make sure you're staying on path with that clarity. Otherwise, you may pivot to something that's not to priority or funding's not in place for it. So if you know your clarity up front, your citizens can understand, yeah, this is our focus. Maybe this will have to wait until further down the line.

And it aligns resources. I mean, towards, if we have, like you said, if we have a target, it's going to align resources to achieving that target if we have clarity. If we don't, it's not focused. We can go different directions, but we can get all of our resources aligned toward in a direction.

Yeah, so it helps us with decision making. You know, they say, I'm not a very detail-oriented person. So I am very much, my natural style is to shoot from the hip. But there are times in life where kind of the adage is you need to measure three times before you cut, right? Clarity is that measuring three times. Because how many blades do you have and how many opportunities do you have to cut? Not very many, right? And so it's one thing if it's a team of two. Can you be pretty agile and flexible if you cut wrong? Yeah. But how many employees are in the city?

Around $2,400.

$2,400, a half a million dollars upward budget, 200 something thousand citizens. There's not a lot of flexibility and agility that exists when you're dealing with that complex of a machine. So measuring multiple times and saying, is this where we want to cut? Is this where we want to make a cut? It helps with decision making. And once we start cutting, the board over here or the piece of the board over here, I'm not talking about the board, I'm talking about the actual wood to go with the metaphor. It might say, cut, cut right here. No, cut right here. No, cut right here. And it's like, no, it took a lot to decide to cut right here. We can't just lift the saw blade up and cut over here, right? Getting clarity brings unity, helps us know where we're going. It helps us with our decision making. Another benefit when we do well with clarifying things is it sets expectations. It provides a sense of predictability. What do you think one of the most fundamental, have y'all ever heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? What's down there at the base? Some fundamental needs. Food, shelter. We put that in what? It starts with an S. People want to feel safe. You know, you read all the research about how our brain functions. The brain's primary subconscious job is keep you safe. Keep you safe, right? In one way, people feel safe is when the environment is predictable. Why is that? Why does predictability give a person a feeling of safety?

Because you can plan. Yes.

OK, you can plan. What else?

Well, change creates insecurity. Okay. So if it's predictable, you know what's coming, it provides that safety, provides that, it's just, it's easy.

What do we feel when we know what's coming? We, and that was hard to know, like, what's the teacher saying? We feel in control, right? Change does create an insecurity, mainly because we feel out of control. Humans want to feel that they're in control. They're in control. Predictability gives that feeling, right? Now, change is inevitable. We're going to talk about change. We have to navigate change. But when we provide clarity, we are offering the environment a level of predictability, which does help people feel a little more secure. People might not like the clarity. We decided to cut right here, but they wanted us to cut right there. That's okay. That's okay. Not everyone's going to agree about where we're going to cut, but at least they know where we're going to cut. To get the blood flowing a little bit more, I told you this is going to be informal, and it's going to be painstaking for you today because... You'll have to be super involved today. This is y'all's meeting, not my meeting. So to help with that, I want to play a little game to introduce a concept. So I need two of the council members to come volunteer for our game. Let's go, David. And Tim. Okay, I want to make sure we're getting this on camera. Okay. Hey, y'all are the two blue guys. All right, Tim, you're right there facing the camera. Come here, David. Come here, David.

Move that way a little bit. All right, David, you're right there.

Step right up here. And a little space, a little space, a little space. All right, so I'm gonna ask the group here to help me with determining who raises their hand first. I call this game, I call this game, answer the call. This is an answer the call game, okay? So I'm gonna say a word and this is very important. Don't blurt out your answer. You've got to raise your hand, almost like a buzzer, but I don't have a buzzer. You've got to raise your hand first. Then I will say, okay. So if I said up, down, okay. So I'm going to call out a word, and you'll have an intuitive response about what corresponds with that. No, it's not.

And he's a blurter, too.

He won't raise his hand. All right, here we go.

You got this. All right. Y'all, actually, this side of the room, y'all are cheering for Tim. Let's hear a little noise for Tim. That was mid. That was mid. I have teenage daughters, so I'm kind of up to speed on the lingo. All right, this group, you're for David. Let's hear it. All right. And actually, I'm just going to designate Stephanie as my helper on who raised their hands first. All right, here we go. Ready? We're live. We're live. We're dead. No, that's not the statement. But I like the eagerness. Here we go. Hands by your side like you're about to draw. All right. Peanut butter. Go ahead, Tim. Jelly. It's jelly. All right, y'all keep up with the score. Here we go. Ready? Batman.

David.

Robin.

Yes. One point. Salt.

Pepper.

That's right. Pepper. Mac.

Carpet.

No. I said Mac.

Truck.

No.

Big.

No. Cheese. Mac and cheese.

I like it. I like it. I like it.

But we're going on my answer key here. All right. Ready? Romeo.

Juliet.

Yep. Bread.

Butter.

Yes. Tom.

Jerry.

Yep. Bonnie.

So, Clyde.

Yes, Clyde. That's right. All right, here we go. Hey, Tim, you got time? Tim, you got time? You got time? Cookies. Yes. Ketchup.

Mustard.

Yes. Thunder.

Lightning.

Yes. Beavis. All right. Bert. Bert. Yes. All right, last one. Rock.

Scissors.

Paper. No, but good guess is rock and roll. All right, what was the final count? Six six? Are you serious? Okay, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, I got more. I got more. We're in the bonus round here. It's for all the marbles. Ready? It's not easy. It's not an easy one. Funky.

No.

No.

No.

No. All right, let's go to another one. It was funky chicken. All right, here we go. Here we go. Ready? Ready? Fish.

Chips. Gold.

Nope.

Book.

No.

Chips.

Chips. Yes. David takes the championship. Hey, your guy won. All right. Thanks, David. Thank you. Thanks, Tim.

Thank you.

Yes.

Hey, David, talk to the city staff. They've got a prize for you. We lined it up ahead of time.

All right, what's the purpose of that game?

One purpose is just to loosen us up a little bit. But the main purpose is we're answering a call. We're answering a call. This group right here is, we could say as a whole, is a leadership group. Would y'all agree with that? There's governing authority and there's administrative or executive authority. But this group as a whole is a leadership group. Here's how I define leadership. A leader takes for creating the, all right, what word do you think goes right there? A leader is someone who takes responsibility. So someone on their phone, look up the Latin root for response or responsibility. to promise or to pledge good anybody else have anything oh ai said to respond or to answer to answer yeah to respond to answer all that is all that all that has the same kind of meaning to pledge to promise to respond to answer To promise, to pledge, to answer requires some type of outside stimulus. Would you agree? Something out there brings some type of stimulus to you and you have to respond to it. And that's what responsibility is, it's answering a call. Hence the name of that game, answer the call. I called out, you answered. You know, I told you I have teenage daughters, and the goal is for them not to live in my house, ultimately. Right? We want to send them on. And so one of the things we want to do as parents is teach our children responsibility. So let's say my daughters come in after volleyball practice, and they throw their knee pads and shoes and socks down in the kitchen floor, and they go off and do their thing. And later they walk back through the kitchen and those socks are laying in there in the kitchen floor. It's as if those socks are calling out. And we'll pick on my oldest daughter, Lauren. And those socks are calling out to Lauren saying, what are those socks saying to Lauren? Pick me up. I don't belong here. I want to go to my home in the dirty clothes hamper is where I belong. So when my daughter walks past those socks... and those socks start to call, what does responsibility look like? Answering the call. And picking them up. But what are our options, right? So my daughter walks through the kitchen. The socks are calling. There are three categories that can actually take place. What are they? Ignore. Okay. I can ignore the call. That's number two.

I can pick them up.

I can pick them up. Number three. I can kick them aside. Well, which is not picking them up. But number three is I don't even hear the call. Oblivious. Deaf. As a leader, when we show up to lead, I don't know where that's coming from. When we show up to lead, things are calling all the time. Things are calling out. And as a leader, One, we have to have the discipline and the focus to learn how to pay attention to what's calling and hear correctly what's calling. And then we've got to decide, do we answer it? Do we ignore it? Do we answer it? Do we ignore it? So that's what a leader is. A leader is someone who takes responsibility. They answer the call. And ultimately, they answer the call for creating the future. That's right. So moving things around this desk is management. Leadership brings a new world about. However incremental, but leadership brings a new world about. And so today, as we think about strategic planning, What we're doing as a leadership group is we're functioning as leaders. The future is calling. Tomorrow is calling to the city of Amarillo, right? Whether you want it to or not. Whether you want it to or not. You don't get to vote on whether tomorrow is calling for you to answer it. It is calling. The question is, How will you answer that? Or will you answer it? Will you answer it and how will you answer it? So tomorrow, next year, it's saying, hey, Amarillo leadership, what will you make of me? That's what the future is saying. And it's our job to purposefully shape that, purposefully shape the future. That's what leadership is. To not do that is to neglect our duty. It's to stagnate growth. It's to stagnate our maturity. If my daughter has a habit of walking through the kitchen and not answering that call to those socks, what's my assessment? She's maturing. No. If she's 11, that's one thing. But at 14, at 17, there should be maturity. You know, they say a good leader doesn't solve the same problem twice. Do y'all agree with that? Or would y'all push back on that? Do you feel as a leadership group you're addressing the same problems? Sometimes you're coming back to the same problem?

So you want to dig in.

Yeah, some of those problems are far-reaching problems.

I don't want to know what they are right now.

Some of them take time to solve if they're those big, audacious problems.

And sometimes you can have a problem solved, but It comes up again, but you're ready to solve it again because you've been there. With what we do for a living, the person who had the problem the first time, you solve it, but then another person who had no idea you solved it brings the issue back up, but you're ready to solve it. You've already got it laid out and ready to go.

You can't control what problems pop up. I'm not talking about obstacles and barriers that pop up. But areas where we keep stubbing our own toe, do we keep stubbing our toe in that same way? When we have the resources and the wherewithal, we could prevent that, right? So my question is, I don't want to know any specifics, but do you have a sense that, you know what, there are some ways we stub our toe that we shouldn't be stubbing our toe anymore. It's time for us to get past that. Is that true or you feel like, nope, the problems were, the things we're dealing with are the appropriate things at our level of maturity we should be dealing with? Y'all tell me your thoughts on that.

Yeah, I think it's helpful to categorize. So I think if you'll compartmentalize and drop a few things into some buckets, it'd be helpful. So, you know, you have chronic or systemic problems in organizations that are aged, and those are inherent things that sometimes you can't get out of, right? the poor function of government versus the high performance function of business. So you're just saddled with problems that you can't get out of because you have legal restraints, statutes. The Open Meetings Act is a great example of taking a leadership team, bringing them all together, but immediately when you walk out of here, breaking them all back apart and saying, whatever you gained in this meeting, you're not able to talk freely on outside of here, right? You need to go through a whole slew of heavy lifting and laborious activities just to get yourself back together again, right? So that's a problem we can't solve. So let's say you have problems that are solvable and that you need to deal with, and then you have conditions or circumstances, right? In leadership, I think when you don't separate those and you're not able to focus and bring clarity to that, you're going to get confused i like that easily that's a good distinction right there are inherent things that we can huff and puff but we'll never blow it down you're just and and then you have outside forces that force inward um and then you have internal forces that are that are you know constant strife so um i think in good healthy conversation you've gotta you've gotta allow for a tolerance in there um and not be so um overly optimistic that that you don't realize what you're here to accomplish, right? Sure. In knowing that, right, what is a problem and what is a condition, then you still have, in that slew of problems, you have prioritization. That's right. Urgent. Not urgent. Not my problem. Somebody's. Delegation. You know, all of that.

Yeah, and so going with that helpful distinction within the problem world, not the condition world, as you reflect just generally speaking are there things in that problem world that you keep bumping your your head against that you're like you know what we should move past that we should not keep bumping our head in this same spot yeah so take the easiest one like communication right so like the easiest thing is to just communicate maybe with the customer right and yet it is the hardest thing to do

The easiest thing is to just follow up like that is not a condition that that we cannot figure out. What would solve this problem? Well, we could have followed up with the customer, right? The guy that took the problem said that's mine. I have ownership of that. Could and so we come together and we put in policies and procedures and we do all sorts of stuff at management level, but ultimately you have. you know just follow up as as a you know an issue and that's a very solvable problem in any business yet it's one of the hardest things businesses try to try to tackle and and so comes down to a condition on the other side of just you know humanity we're all people and we forget easily we get tired um you know We have different conditions, and so things don't get followed up on, and that would be a chronic issue that every one of those department heads struggles to solve. And if you solved it last week, you're going to have to solve it again this week, right? So it's easy to point out, but like not to get hung up in the minutia of those things, like what's the leadership aspect of that? Others? Other thoughts?

I think sometimes we have trouble with unified clarity of defining what the actual problem is.

OK. That's nice. That's right. Right? One or a group of people could say, this is a problem. One or a group of people could say, actually, that's not a problem. look that's fine it's part of the thing right absolutely yeah that's good and it's not easy it's not easy to define it and it takes time it takes work everyone has their perspective and it takes a lot of healthy discussion to get unified on seeing something the same way to have a shared view of the thing, right? All right. Here's what I want us to do. We're going to assess the environment you're moving into, OK? So let me kind of go through the agenda. We've kind of had an introduction here to get us thinking about leadership, to get us thinking about what is the task that's been handed to you as a group. And that's this right here. is to create the future, is to answer the call of creating the future. And that's why you're here. That's why you're here. Everyone here wants a better tomorrow for Amarillo, right? Except for Stephanie. Stephanie said she wants it to go downhill. But other than Stephanie, everyone else wants a better tomorrow for Amarillo. So we have this task of leadership. So let me kind of lay out where we're going to go over the next several hours. One, we're going to assess the environment. If that's the wild, wild west out there and we're trying to chart our course, we want to do a flyover of the wild, wild west and say, is it a desert land? Is it a swamp land? What's the environment we're about to enter into? Does that make sense? OK. Number two, we're gonna define the destination. Where is it we're trying to go? Where is it we're trying to go? That'll get us to lunch, probably. And then we've gotta ask ourselves, what capacity do we need to get there? What kind of capacity do we need to get to this destination? Once we have an idea of what the capacity requirement is, then we want to assess ourselves and say, do we have that capacity? Do we have the capacity to get there? Inevitably, there are going to be gaps between the capacity required and what your current capacity is. I think by the time we go through those steps, some things will have emerged that are clear for us. All right, so first we're going to assess the environment. And the way we're going to do that is this is a two-page handout, two-page handout. I only want you right now to just work on this first page, numbers one, two, and three. I'm going to give you five, six, seven minutes to individually think through maybe jot down a bullet point we don't need any master's theses okay a couple of bullet points i want your individual thoughts and then i'll tell you what to do from there if we have any jeopardy music or anything for the background that'd be great that was also a joke thank you sir Yeah, don't be cheating, Grayson. We want your own thoughts. Don't AI this.

Thank you.

I need somebody to help me spell those words. I'm sorry. I need somebody to help me spell those words. I just need a pen. Sorry.

It is not me. It is not me. You can chew it on this one.

Wow.

Tim and Andrew?

pair up there and look at your lists together and try to get a consolidated document. Just maybe two, at most three points per question. Grayson and Don, you all pair up, compare your notes and try to get two or three key points per question. Cole, and Donny, y'all pair up. And then David, Les, and Stephanie, y'all team up and consolidate your lists. So it'll require some chit-chat or whatever, but I'll give you, again, six, seven, eight minutes to consolidate your list.

Thank you very much.

This group that was sitting over here, what's y'all's group name? Did y'all come up with a name? That wasn't on our assignment. Oh, okay. I'll call you the sods. Sods.

Sod poodles.

Oh, I thought we were the A team.

Okay, what's y'all's team name?

A team.

God?

Then we're the killers, yeah. It's Andrew, so it's got to be the A team, right? Yeah, we're the A team.

All right. So my group sitting here, who's going to kind of be the spokesperson, which everyone can chime in? David? I saw him clamoring for that spokesman role.

Clamoring.

Politician.

And then over here, they said Andrew?

I think we nominated Andrew.

All right. So Andrew, start with growth and development. What are the key... environmental realities in the future for that?

So really it is continued and sustained growth. So over the next five, 10 years, we're going to continue to add more population, more people, which is going to bring more opportunities because we're going to have increased revenue, whether it's sales tax, new property tax, all those things. But on the other side, it's just going to add more expectations of where we're spending those dollars for the services that we're going to have to provide, with the caveat that a lot of what we see here, it's not interior growth. It's we're continuing to sprawl outward, just more and more square miles. It's just going to extend our lines. Going to have to add more officers, more fire stations. It just spreads us pretty thin. So it's how do we continue to fund those things. And then the one... addition we add to this as far as kind of challenges, it's just how things have changed socially as far as how neighbors react, how things are posted online, just the demands have changed as far as expectations, culture, how people treat each other driving down the road. Some of those things are one of those challenges that we have to face as a community of how we work together to keep moving

And you put that in growth and development.

Because you add more people and you continue to mix the culture, the social dynamic, the expectations, and how people work together has just changed a lot in the last 15, 20 years is probably when it's happened the most.

Yeah, we also added the part about the council changing every two years and how that affects us as well.

Yeah. That's our next one, though. That's number three. Sorry. Yeah. That's why he's the spokesperson.

That could be in any of them.

Yeah, that was kind of number one. That was growth and development. Yeah, take Donny's mic, guys. Donny, we gave you a chance, man. We gave you a chance. 100%. I'll figure out a way. All right. From that group, does anyone from that group, would you like to chime in on any of those points? The population growth? Anybody else from that group want to chime in on those points?

We talked a little bit about being fortunate we are still growing community. Because some of us have worked in towns that were stagnant or declining. So just with that becomes expectations and how do you use that growth to provide for the whole community.

The population growth is a certain type of call to the leadership, right? And there's a responsibility to answer it. To choose not to answer it is a choice. All right? David, population growth and development.

Population growth and development. I think one of the resounding themes that our group came up with was housing and homes to be able to house the extreme growth that we're getting ready to see. I think we're getting ready to see a growth in the top 26 counties. Second to maybe just a World War II type environment with the increase in data centers and the projects that are coming. Things that are gonna be a problem for growth and development, loss of institutional knowledge. I think that we're gonna see a lot of shuffling of individuals. I think that as more folks come in and raises and wages increase, we're going to see a lot of pressure. And we're going to have to be ready to handle that because I don't think it's unrealistic to see a 20% increase across the board in wages. And that's going to be in all positions for the city. I think we need to be prepared for a lot of pressure. You know, the... I think that one thing that is challenging our growth and development is increased anger and discord from the public.

Say that again.

Increased anger and discord from the public. And I think that is driving individuals out of leadership positions. It's causing individuals not to want to run for office.

Tie that. Tie that. Tell me the link. I know there is one. I just want to make sure it's clear in my mind. So with the population growth you're saying?

Right. No, I think that the population growth, it says what is precluding growth and development.

Oh, okay, yeah, okay.

And so without strong leadership, you don't have vision. You don't have all of the things that you're talking about. I think things that are going to... The next three to five years, what changes in growth or development do you expect and what opportunity or challenges? I think that's a challenge is what I'm trying to clarify on that. More control from Austin. We're seeing more control, more mandates coming out of Austin. And I think one thing that is going to help with the growth of the city is using technology to the strongest amount we can. That'll help with institutional knowledge. How do we run, do we need 3,200 employees in the city? Where are we gonna find them? We've got 2,400 today. What if we lose 20% of those because we can't keep up with wages? How are we going to run this city and this entity effectively with all of those external pressures? And we have to be coming up with solutions. How do we get more homes? How do we get more inspectors? How do we get more concrete guys, more builders, more framers, more electricians? MORE ROOFERS. WHERE ARE THEY GOING TO LIVE AND HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET THESE INDIVIDUALS INTO OUR CITY?

CAN I, LET'S TALK ABOUT ON THAT LAST PIECE ABOUT ROOFERS, CONCRETE. Are we saying, how are we going to attract entrepreneurs and small business owners? Can I put that in that category? Or is there a different flavor to what you're saying there?

I think you're going to have a human capital problem. I think the entrepreneurs are going to come. They're going to see opportunity. Individuals are going to branch out. But where are they going to get the individuals to do the actual labor?

Right, just a population.

And then as we spoke about, where are they going to live? Right, right. Okay.

Anybody want to add anything from that group? Anything else?

Anything else?

I think an idea that Councilor Titts brought up was as we grow, growth is exciting, but you have to also keep up with your current as well. And so we may see parts of town growing, other parts of town not growing. And so as we are looking at growth, it's make sure we don't lose sight of existing, lose sight of our current, lose sight of those things as we're focused on growth as well. Is that fair, Councilor? Oh, yeah, yeah.

And then, Grayson brought up the population growth in our city is becoming a lot more diverse, which poses, you know, it's very unique in embracing different cultures, different, you know, things like that. So we're becoming much more diverse than we used to be.

Anybody else from David's group? From the Gladiators of Doom? Anybody else want to chime in from that group?

Let's go gladiators of opportunity. Goo.

Goo. So let me summarize here. I'm great. As we think about the future, the horizon, the wild, wild west that we're entering into, We're looking at increased population in the community, which means most likely increased revenue from property tax and sales tax, but how do we manage that? And what services, how does that impact the service structure? We're looking at the city continuing to be spread out geographically, number three, With population growth and a diverse population growth, that brings various social dynamics. We talked about labor shortages in general. We talked about not just focusing on managing the growth, but we've got Decades and decades of existing things that we've been building that we've got to continue to maintain. We can't neglect that. Housing for this population growth. With wage opportunities in the private sector, it puts wage pressure on the organization here, the city organization to keep up. And if not, you can expect turnover, you can expect a lack of or a loss of institutional knowledge. State legislation, the necessity for technology and how to leverage that in the future. The employee count as the city grows. where to get that staff. And then the environment we're in as a whole disincentivizes people from volunteering to leave the city, right? Okay, so that's the environment that we've gotta navigate.

The only thing I would add to that, the challenge that we may face is Where is this growth and development going to occur? And where do we want it as a city to occur?

Okay. Like at what quadrants of the city?

Well, no, in the city versus outside the city.

Okay.

I'll give you two examples of two communities in Texas that are seeing divergent paths on where they're going and it's affecting their municipalities. And that's Dallas and Fort Worth. I mean, if you look at what Fort Worth did decades ago on, you know, preventing a donut hole in the middle and where Dallas is right now, Dallas has seen a mass exodus to other places from business, you know, to professional sports have now moved out into other areas. Where in Fort Worth, you're not seeing that. In fact, you know, that development that happened in the core then helped neighbors adjacent to it. And so you're seeing a divergence of two different cities, I think, that one had the development and attracted people to live there, the others didn't. And Dallas is facing tremendous financial strife. You know, they've got a city hall that they're trying to build. So I think the question is, I mean, do we want this development inside of our city limits? Well, I think we do. And how do we help facilitate that? I mean, if you look at the Fort Worth blueprint and other places, because what you've seen is an exodus out of the centers of the city. And we don't necessarily have the suburbs here yet to be able to do that, but that's happening between here and Canyon and other places. And growth in all these areas are gonna do nothing more than put a lot of pressure on us for whatever reasons that these people are working here using our services, but they're not contributing part. So I think making that where, yeah, we want the region to develop, but if we don't see that development here, it's gonna have a tremendous negative impact on the community, on our schools and other things as well.

That's good. That's good. That's that measure, measure multiple times before you cut. Question. Okay. Number two, community expectations. So we'll start, we'll start with Gu first. Let me read this out loud, just we're on the same page. What will residents, businesses, and other community stakeholders expect from the city tomorrow, you know, in the future?

I think it's very clear. More improvements, a continued increase in the quality of life in the City of Amarillo. I mean, we know that we need parks, roads, we need services. Everyone's going to want less taxes, less fees, less cost, but everything, I mean, the compression with Just input cost that we were we spoke just a moment ago. What if what is a four tires? What did they cost in in 2020? What did four tires cost in 2024? And what do four tires cost today and multiply that across 2500 vehicles that the city currently? Has is rolling stock. All things are increasing drastically. And so how do we how do we keep up with the typical maintenance? Which individuals want, they want the pools and they want everything which is needed. But how do we find the funds and yet have the lowest taxes? How do we do that with a 20 to 40% increase in all things? Infrastructure, the community is going to expect the necessities, safe water, operating wastewater treatment plants, good roads. They're going to expect public safety. You know, community expectations. We hear over and over and over again, well, Amarillo is not the same as it used to be. Nothing stays the same. Either you're getting better or you're getting worse every moment of every day. It is not going to be the same Amarillo if we add 100,000 people in the next 15 to 20 years. When the state of Texas is going to double in size, FROM 33 MILLION TO 50 MILLION, YOU KNOW, BY 2060, NOTHING IS GOING TO STAY THE SAME.

AS A GROUP HERE, DAVID, YOU CAN ANSWER THIS, BUT I'M THROWING THIS TO THE WHOLE GROUP. IT'S COMMON FOR CITIZENS THAT ARE IN A GROWING CITY TO Not every citizen to a person, but there can be a certain population that says what you just said. It's not the same Amarillo. It's not the same XYZ. Does this group have a sense of where the population is in their view on growth? Do they want the city to grow, or do they want the city to function like it did in 1992?

Can you clarify that? Are you asking this group to operate like 1992 or what the city is?

How the everyday citizen experiences life? Do they say, yeah, we want Amarillo to grow and become more with the times and keep up with

the the earth spinning or do they want no we want to pause and we want things to be like they've always been i think you've got sectors and i would i would venture guess that that's that way in every community a lot of it would probably be age But so I would say here in Amarillo, we do have that sector that says, I don't want Amarillo to grow. I don't want to keep it where it is. I like it. I hate the traffic. I hate the stuff. Not worth it, the growth. Then you've got that sector that is all about embracing it, whether it's bringing uh whatever industry you know medical AI you know whatever like we want Emerald to grow we want these things so I think it depends and I think you have a sector there that really is just kind of here and they don't really pay attention it's like it is what it is but I would guess it's that way in every community yeah you have and and I would guess age has a lot to do with it uh and then then you look at the voters and like who votes we have 20 turnout roughly you know for municipal votes uh and a lot of times those people dictate what's you know do we know the demographic of that 20 percent

What's like the average age?

Stephanie? 55 to 65 is a small portion, but 65 and older is the majority.

Of that 20%. Yeah. Okay. Andrew, for y'all's group, for community expectations tomorrow, what's the community expecting tomorrow?

A lot of similar comments, but basically more and better services all around.

But no money, right? We're not going to pay you anymore.

Yeah. High priority being public safety, lower crime, but the balance being the quality of life aspects. Some of those are out of our control, but we can maybe help recruit different quality of life businesses, whether it's an indoor water park type facility or everybody wants the next big box store that we don't have, which is going to come with that population growth. But yeah, it's the expectation of... wanting it faster and wanting it now and then quality improved but is the revenue keeping up with it and is that revenue just covering what we haven't been covering in the past and we haven't really added to the the service levels i think a big part of the conversation is the quality of service is it a cadillac plane you're paying for is it a corolla i've done that exercise in other cities like you really got to rank it do you want the corolla of parks or do you want the cadillac of parks and what are you willing to pay for it same with public safety We haven't increased our sworn numbers because we've been trying to just build up staff in the past where we're getting to that point. You've got to add more. We probably need 15 to 20 more just on the streets patrolling based on our growth patterns. So even if we're going to continue to grow, it's really getting absorbed with what we haven't been able to cover in the past. So that's the balancing act.

All right, good job. All right, next, infrastructure and service demands. We've kind of touched on that, but we'll start with you, Andrew, this time. Any other points the group came up with there?

But before on that one, I just wanted to add on the last one. One of the things I think that the citizens are expecting more of their communities is, at least what I'm seeing more of is, how is a community going to function in a disengaged environment full of social media? So how do we communicate? How do we get the right message out? How do we keep people informed correctly and accurately and timely? And so when more and more people are getting desensitized and disengaged and pursuing sensational messages and everything, I think that's struggling. I think cities are all struggling with that. And that's one of the things I worry about is how do we as a governing body, council, staff, the team, I think citizens are also looking to us for answers about how mean they are disengaging but yet there's still a need for accurate information cutting through the noise i don't know i haven't been able to quite figure out how to how to how to say this yet because it's it's still ambiguous it's still nebulous and so so but i'm getting people just more telling me about i'm seeing a message coming more from citizens to me yeah i think you're you're articulating it well let me ask a few clarifying questions maybe help

define what you're seeing. So one statement of fact is the citizenry is more disengaged from the realities of the city than it was in the past. Are we establishing that? that they're more they're more disengaged today than they were yesterday i would say so as a whole yes okay nevertheless though they're disengaged they still want communication tell me what you're seeing on that part so i see the disengagement tell me what you're feeling or sensing that yet some at least are still saying no we want communication from the city

It's the right message at the right time, in the right form, on the right matter. It's just more of a guessing what I want, when I want it, when I need it kind of thing.

But if you don't meet that expectation, I'm going to let you know. Total failure. I'm not going to let you know what the expectation is. I'll just let you know when you don't meet it.

It's more of a reading mind situation. And that target moves all the time. Yes.

Okay. Community Schizophrenia. Okay. Got that.

That was a joke. Did y'all hear that? No? Oh, okay.

All right. Last, infrastructure and service demands. All right, Andrew.

Yeah, I think it all kind of ties together with one, too, from the physical infrastructure perspective of taking care of the old. How do you support the new? Can new growth pay for itself? Or is there still going to be a component of the city has to participate and Is there support from council and citizens to incentivize and invest in those things, whether it's streets and the underground infrastructure? Is it the wastewater plant that has to support the long-term growth? All those things and then also the parks expectation of in the past, we put a park everywhere and we've got a lot of it, but can we still support that level and meet those expectations? Then also just as you add staff, Yeah, you think about the personnel, but you don't realize the fleet, the equipment, everything that's needed to provide that service. And then the last one we add in there, not an infrastructure demand, but a service demand. And the expectation is it is a continuous challenge of the two-year cycle of council. And you get a new council or some new members, You've got to reset or reestablish priorities. You're getting right into your budget. And then a year later, you're going through an election cycle. But you're expected to meet all these demands. But you've only got two years to do it because you may not be there in year three. And is that really realistic to have that short amount of time to really influence the change that it's going to take when you've got decades of... HISTORY AND RESOURCES THAT ARE CHALLENGED, IT'S NOT REALLY POSSIBLE IN A TWO-YEAR TIME FRAME. SO THAT'S BEEN A CHALLENGE AND THAT'S THE COMMUNITY EXPECTATION AND INPUT BECAUSE IT'S GONE TO THE VOTERS I THINK THREE TIMES NOW. IT GETS VOTED DOWN EVERY SINGLE TIME BECAUSE IT'S ALSO THE CONTROL ASPECT. YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT THEY'RE DOING, THEY'RE GONE IN TWO YEARS. versus three or versus staggered or five versus seven. And that's a service demand issue that continues to come up every few years.

Okay. That's a unique way to think about that as far as the service demand. That's good. Okay. David.

Of course, wastewater treatment, well-filled development.

What's that development?

Well-filled, discontinued freshwater. I mean, that's a huge demand that we're going to see as we see the growth. I think that the city needs to be very aware of that. public service and continued salary increase as those wages increase across the board in all services. I think you're gonna see a lot of migration of individuals from one career to another, because the opportunity is going to be great. The strong employment pool, as we continue to lower the unemployment rate in this city, is going to be a great challenge for us. Input costs are only going to continue to rise. And, you know, as Don said, and we identified what is the What is the generational request going to be in generational expectation as we move through generations and. Some generations are seeing another are coming on board and there's a whole skill set that the youth. Expect and those expectations being met. And I cannot echo enough or support what Andrew said. How does a $600 million a year entity have a complete change every two years at the Board of Directors? It takes a year, year and a half to get up to speed, as we all know. At least the citizens need to have a staggered term just so we have some continuity of an operational system just to be leveled up.

Yep. OK. Let's do this. Let's take a bathroom break. And then we'll reconvene, let's say, 10 minutes. All right, we'll get rolling.

Well, I won't wait on Don.

They had some budget stuff they had to do. They'll be back. Also, we got a Don and a Donnie.

We got a Don and a who?

The who?

Okay. Is Don Don or is it Donald?

He's out. Seriously? Don D? Don D?

What is that like?

That's what my girls call my dad, Poppy.

No, I'm sorry. They don't call him that. They call him Peppy. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

I like it.

Don Day.

I can't get it out of my mind. Sorry. The last time I saw that it was in the prison cell. We did, we did.

You're right. All right, Donde. Donde, you ready? You ready?

All right.

All right, so I know that we're high octane. We're high octane. We'll go a little faster on this second page, but why is this process, it's important that we walk through this process So that this leadership group operates from a shared understanding. We can think we're aligned, but until we've articulated it out loud and defined some things, we don't know if we're aligned. What does tomorrow require? Does everyone around these tables agree on what tomorrow requires? I don't know, right? But us saying these things out loud gives us a baseline from which to operate. Number two, one of the deficits when it comes to the council with the two-year changeover, how... What kind of opportunity or setup for success was this council given from the previous council on a scale of one to 10? Can they set the ball up on a tee to help you all thrive on a scale of one to 10? yeah i'd just like a little more can you ask a question yeah yeah the previous council that handed the reins to this council whether willingly or by vote to what degree did they set this council up for success 10 is they couldn't there couldn't have been a better baton hand off in the world one is no no set up for success

And what was the 1 to 10, 1 to 10, 1 to 10.

Wow. Well, I'm going to tell you is extremely contentious, ended with a lawsuit and that kind of thing. So citizens were upset. It was a huge deal. Yeah. So it was really skewed. I think the focus was on that. And I think everything else was just. Nobody was looking at anything else.

Everything else got put into the periphery.

Yeah, so I'm going to tell you, I don't know if you've done the research or looked, but when you're talking about councils, you're talking about two different terms here. You're talking about three of us that have been here, we're serving in our second term, these two guys that are in their first term. So these two guys, you may have a different answer than what we have. Okay. So because if you're saying previous council, well, we three were previous council. Okay. These two guys, not. So... It's not giving you an answer, but... No, no, no. Well, I'll tell you this. I asked Grayson when we were in this, and I said, hey, what have you seen in your career, because this is the way I feel, is so many things were... The can was kicked down the road. And in the last two terms, we've had to... We've taken on... I mean, we could go through the list. I mean, these guys can attest to it of like, you know, one, the big one, the wastewater treatment plant, just nothing's been done with it, right? And now we're faced with a billion dollar problem that we gotta figure out how to fund. Our fleets, our vehicles were just in terrible shape. We didn't have the ability to replace them, fire apparatuses, all this kind of thing. So we've had to be creative and come up with you know, ways to fund these things through leases and be very creative with, you know, staff has helped out tremendously. But there are so many cans kicked down the road. And that's not just, I'm not going to say from just the one previous council. I'm talking, it's probably been 10, 20 years. Oh, 20 years worth of uh you know things are great everything's new and that's what grace said you know we get in the mindset of like gosh we're in a great position and then that everything starts aging and getting worse and getting worse and just nothing's being done we don't have enough money um and i feel like and i don't know any better right my perspective is only my perspective i only know what i know about serving these last three years i don't know anything you know i don't know what it's like so my perspective is that I don't think we were set up very well at all. Now, I would say I think we had a great team in that aspect. I think we had a great team. We had to make a major move with the city manager. We've had some other attrition, and that kind of thing happened. would say in in that aspect of uh team we were set up pretty well uh otherwise i feel like we weren't set up at all we had to tackle a bunch of issues and we took on some big issues but uh my opinion is i don't think we were set up and i don't mean that you know we've got ginger nelson sitting out here the previous mayor i don't mean that bad towards anyone because this isn't this is a weird spot i mean when you're sitting in council or your mayor, you get what you get and you move on. So to say, to ask that question, I only know what I know. I don't know what other councils have, but I do feel like that we've, and I would love staff to chime in here and say, well, there was some heavy lifting. Roads were not in good shape. You know, we got very creative with roads and I mean, you know, these guys have done a phenomenal job with what we've had to get on a normal repair replacement schedule. We didn't have that before. So, so many things. But again, my ignorance, maybe I don't know that, but I feel like there's been a lot of heavy lifting the last three years.

So I don't think we are set up very well at all. other council members? Just a second, Andrew. I want to hear from the other council members. If you have something to say. If you don't, we'll move on.

Well, I do have something to say. Being here a year, you sign up to run. You live in a community for 35 years. You serve, and you do, and you're called to run. When you survive the campaign and the nastiness and the grossness and the pitting and just all the crap that goes on.

The junior high behavior.

It's awful. And you don't know. We're all aligned in certain aspects. And you win just by 49 votes. And you realize how divided this city is. You realize when you get there, and you have some real honest conversations, you realize that we're all pretty similar. But you go through this political process, and you have all these outside forces influencing and trying to disrupt the mission. On a 1 to 10, man, I think this is a 3 or a 4. It took me a year to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing.

Like just how to turn the computer on.

Yeah. I think that goes back to what Andrew said. It's so important. This is complex stuff. This is hard stuff. mean i still haven't even had the opportunity to go and and visit all the groups or i mean there's so many things that i still don't know right you're required to make these decisions and now all of a sudden we're looking down the barrel of in six months we're gonna we're gonna be in this slug fest again i mean this this group needs i mean are we unified Yeah, I'd say we're pretty unified. We care about this city. There's a reason we set up here every two weeks and take the beating that we take. These guys, oh my gosh, they take the beating every day. And they don't get the option to choose to stay or go in six months. And so was there a baton pass? I don't think it was a baton pass. I think it was when the group left before, they throw it in the weeds, and we're still over there looking for the damn baton in the weeds sometimes, you know? I mean, what are we doing here? And we're five individuals that are trying to figure it out. We're aligned, but is the mission clear?

Right. Any others?

I would echo that to a point. I think by design, because of the two-year term, there's never going to be a good handoff.

Well, I would push back on that, but go ahead. I understand that the handoff is going to be challenging. Oh, yeah. But I wouldn't say it can't be good.

But go ahead. It's going to be challenging. No, I would agree with you. There's a possibility of it being good. I think the good part for us is three of the members are sustained, right? And so that helps. I think it's just that's a difficult thing to rate that, you know, was it a good handoff? Did they be able to prepare you for what you were going to take? I don't think, I don't know if that's really a good question.

Oh, I think it's a phenomenal question. I know it is. Yeah, you know it is.

It's a good question.

Yeah, I know it's a good question. And that's one of the things that this council is going to have to do is What did you experience? What have you experienced? And you know the pressures, the challenges, and the shortcomings. And we have to say, what are we going to do differently when we pass the baton? So it's one of the most important questions this council needs to ask itself. What were we handed? And we're not here to blame people. It's not about finger pointing. It's about observing reality. is what were we handed and what was the quality of that handoff? What did we like about it? What did we not like about it? And what are we going to do to pass it off a little better? That's a responsibility this council has. So it's a good question to ask, was it a good handoff? It's not to make anything personal. It's just reality. It's real reality. All right, Andrew, you were going to comment?

I was just going to provide some context on kind of the history and all the handoffs.

Well, for time, we don't...

Well, it was really the how you pay for stuff conversation. 2016 was kind of our last major bond, and it was this council, last council, previous that actually started having good debt conversations. Because part of our problem is, yeah, we had a lot of new stuff in the past, but it was cash pays, you could go. No one could do that anymore. You don't have enough cash. You'd have to save for years to pull that off. But as far as the good handoff, I've worked here nine years. I've had nine years in three other cities, lots of strategic plans. They all are a little similar. You have budget constraints, infrastructure, growth, All of these councils, if you go back and look at goals and objectives, they're all very similar. The only change is what do you prioritize, how you communicate it, and how you move forward. But we've always had budget challenges. We've always had infrastructure, public safety. I mean, you could kind of read them off each council. So the handoff, we're working the same issue. It's just how do we tweak it with each one. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, so to respond to what Don said and our thoughts, I think what I see, the cans that are kicked down the road become the priority of the new people who are coming into office. That's the ones they want to address. And when they address those, then the previous cans become cans again and get kicked down the road again. And another group comes in to address those cans. And it's a cyclical thing that is hard to get out of. And we spoke about that in our group a little bit, that why do you run? Why do you want to make a difference? It's because we see the things that are not being addressed and we want to address them. So every time that happens, there are other things that are not addressed and all of a sudden they become a priority and we have to address them again. That's something that I think is a part of that handoff that is important. Or what are we addressing? What has been important? Why has it been important to the public?

So on and so forth. All right. As we go through this, I'm taking these notes. We're going to do a lot more than this. But at a minimum, we're going to have a document. This group will have a document that says, this is our future environment. What you do with that document, how you utilize that document, how you set the next council up with that document, the council could come in and rip it up, but they're not ripping up your opinion. They're not ripping up your pet project. They can rip it up and choose to close their eyes and plug their ears, but what we've just defined is reality. It's the reality of the future, right? And so... I wanted to make sure that we are aligned on what reality is tomorrow that we've got to navigate. And it's going to be documented. For citizens, it's in the minutes or it's for the next council, it's whatever. It's a documented, this is the world we have to operate in. And honestly, you want to make it awkward for people who want to deny that. You want to make it awkward. It's public now. No, this is the reality we have to navigate. Tell us which part of this reality isn't true. But now we have a common understanding of that. So that's why this exercise is important. and why it's a practical benefit and tool to help this whole apparatus function at a higher level. I'm not talking about at a next galaxy, but remember, we're saying we just want to take one step further in functioning with purpose, health, and results. All right, so let's look at page two. To keep it moving, we'll just do it as a group. Financial pressures. We've touched on this. How can we crystallize tomorrow's financial pressures slash opportunities?

What's that? It's too high level, so let's define that. opportunities compounded by financial pressures right so are you are you asking how are you guys gonna deal with not having enough money and needs that continue to grow is that what that question is exactly no it's not how you're gonna do we're not we're not solving problems right now we're defining it right and I think we've defined it in the earlier my question is are we trying to understand the complexities in how difficult that is or are we trying to metric like what are our expectations how much are we going to see financial pressure increase like are we what are we what are you wanting to see here um

No, we're not going to quantify it. We can't, we couldn't do that right now. I think we've answered this question, but what is the financial, well, what financial opportunities do you have in the future?

Let me jump in here real quick and just go back to, you asked a really good question and you kind of wanted to know about a handoff, right? So let me tell you the one, well, not one thing, but one of the major things that staff was speaking to, but it's really difficult to get councils to understand because there is financial pressure. And so borrowing money gets looked at in a way where like, whoa, you don't borrow money like against your taxpayer. Well, no, I mean, in business, if if you said I'm going to own the vehicles for all of my trucks and trailers and business, And I'm going to pay cash for them, and then I'm going to drive them until the wheels fall off. And then I'm going to hire a mechanic, and I'm going to keep him there full time. And we just wear equipment out around here to the point until it's dangerous. Somebody's going to get hurt, right? That is a business strategy that some people have. Another business strategy is, well, For the amount of money that I'm spending and having to save cash and then pay the mechanic, and then I have a loss of business production because every time the truck breaks down, we can't get to the job, right? I could just lease all the vehicles every five years, get a brand new one pulled up into my parking lot. And if I structure it over five years, I replace 20% at a time. Well, now I actually have a built in support system that I can overhead where I've eliminated a huge variable. Right. And so that's that's what our community gets to hear now from this current council and the one that was previous. What future councils will see with a handoff is we built you a ten year plan and in ten years all of that debt rolls off and you've built in that amount of revenue to re up. and to renew. We've built you in a seven year plan. We've put in good debt right now. We've had to defend it every time we say, well, we're going to vote for against the CEO. We have to look at it. scrutiny and see like is that good debt or bad debt and none of them have gone to pet projects everything's gone to what the staff had been saying they needed so there's a really good handoff like an excellent handoff right there well that is an opportunity that was a huge challenge it's a big challenge to get over a community that's always paid cash for everything and boast in well we we don't borrow money we take it to the voter and then once ever however many years a decade we pass one And it's a huge bond. And that's what we go and do. And we just spend that amount of money. And so you ignore 29 departments to take care of the one if you choose to do business that way. So the opportunity was... complex challenges on a large scale. The financial pressure that comes from that put a group of people together that utilize some really good business savvy and have worked with staff to understand how do we grow? How do we pay for that? and saying like, what are the other things we can do? I just say we've got a good foundation in that perspective. And so itemizing those and understanding those and continue to grow into that is what I hope the future mayor and council do to kind of build on what we've done. Otherwise, we've spent a lot of time, energy and effort laying a foundation that they're never gonna stand a two by four up on. And that would be a leadership mistake.

So summarize that for me. What's the opportunity then tomorrow?

So the opportunity is you're going to see an increase in challenge to get to the growth rate. So you're growing at a faster rate than you can project on revenues, right? Your expenditures are going to outpace

your revenues all right so let's capture that so i would say that's a pressure that's a pressure okay the pressure is our costs are going to outpace our revenues.

And that's not a unique problem. That's every municipality. Correct. Now let's complicate that with state legislatures communicated that they will restrict revenues even further. Right. So they'll restrict local abilities to increase revenues and they possibly will restructure the way revenues come in. So you need to be now, you need to be two years in advance. So you're forced to forecast, right? So that's an opportunity to say, well, the call is is not what tomorrow's calling. Well, actually, two years is calling right now because the 90th legislature meets in 27. So we've got to think proactively further and be way more nimble. So. Where the opportunity is, is, well, we could be pretty myopic and just kind of worry about ourselves and today and worry about what someone would say or what things would look like. Or we could go ahead and have robust discussions. We can put things on the table. We can analyze and we could come up with many plans. So we need a primary objective and then a couple secondaries. Well, if this happens, this is where we pivot. If we see this, then we'll have this. Let's prepare for like, well, what if we don't get this? Okay, let's prepare. But if we do, then we won't have to implement. And that's what you see these gentlemen doing. They've got a wastewater treatment plan that, I mean, there's multi, multi approaches at it and lots of, GOOD COST ANALYSIS, AND WE'RE GOING TO BE PRETTY NIMBLE JUST WITH THAT ONE ITEM. AND SO DEPENDING ON THE DEPARTMENT YOU WANT TO GO TO, WE COULD DIG IN, BUT FOR THIS DISCUSSION, I THINK WE'RE PRETTY HEALTHY THE WAY WE'RE APPROACHING IT.

SO I'M HEARING TWO CHALLENGES, AND THEN I WANT TO HEAR FROM OTHERS. TWO CHALLENGES, OUR COSTS ARE GOING TO OUTPACE OUR REVENUES. ANOTHER CHALLENGE IS LEGISLATIVE RESTRICTION ON REVENUE GROWTH. It's forcing us to think way ahead two years out. And the opportunity is we've got to be creative with our financial management.

Yeah, I was going to say that opportunity is that clarity of how you're managing those resources. What is your focus area? And you're not going to derail and spread too thin, basically. So the opportunity is... Yeah, you've got to focus on your priorities.

I would call that an opportunity and a pressure. Yeah, it is.

It's a push and pull.

You've got to make decisions. This, not that.

And then you have to communicate that and know, yeah, it's not a priority of this year's budget, but we'll see if we can get in next year without... trying to rob from Peter to pay Paul because it becomes a new priority. The other glaring opportunity is we've got mostly new leadership at the EDC, a new president. We've got to take a harder look on how we incentivize and do economic development. Does it focus more on infrastructure, less on tax abatements, more on cash incentives? Because they have a dedicated revenue source that we can't touch, but it all has to support each other and have some synergy there to make sure it's going in the right direction. Because in the past, it's been in this council and previous council focused on step-down tax abatements, get some of that tax base growing sooner. Instead of 10 years, we don't see a penny of it except for employment growth.

What's the nature of the collaborative relationship between the city and the EDC?

I mean, maybe more of a council answer. It's gotten better. It has challenges the last couple of years.

Ten? It's top notch. One's horrible.

Well, it's got to be in the seven or eight range now as far as just relationship. Now it's how do you collaborate to get to the ten on priorities is what I would say.

Okay, so maybe just the health of the humans acting with one another is improved.

Now it's how do we recruit, how do we incentivize and have those conversations.

So there's work to be done on a strategic front.

We're heading in a good direction right now, I believe, right now.

Good. It's amazing the things you can do when humans treat one another with respect and you communicate well. We can actually work on strategic items, right? So I'm glad to hear that there's health there.

I think there's a real financial opportunity at this exact moment to turn the air conditioner up. Whoever's responsible for the air conditioner in this room, it's set on Arctic. So if we could lift it up just a little bit.

Do we have a blanket back there? I'd ask for one.

Do we need to increase the temperature in here, or is it just me?

We're trying to control cost.

We're not controlling it at this point. Can Preston get a blanket?

Yeah, I need one, please. Go ahead, Don. Were you going to say something? Oh, Grayson, Grayson, go ahead.

Two things as I look at your questions here about financial pressures become more significant and emerging opportunities. I think one thing that we're doing now this year with this council and the opportunities going forward is as a city, we provide lots of services. Some of those come at revenues. And so making sure that those services that produce revenue are more paying for themselves and not being subsidized by taxes. And so we put a lot of effort. This council is giving good direction on more cost recovery opportunities. And also that comes with some concern from those who are paying those fees. So when you raise that cost, the user of that cost has to pay more, and there's a concern with that. So trying to balance those fee increases so that the taxes are not subsidized, but at the same time you're still not – outpacing the user's ability to pay for that service. Another thing I'll say too is, as we've been seeing recently, emerging opportunities that require discipline and foresight is our selling of water. We are in a business of selling water. But at the same time, we're also trying to be good stewards of this limited resource. And so we want to sell water, but there's always concern about who we're selling it to, for what purpose, is it a good purpose, is there a good return on investment? And so that's a challenging, I know this council, this city is dealing with right now, with data centers and so forth. And so our decisions to sell water to those entities, do we, do we not? Is it a business decision, is it not? And so those are things, And given water is almost our largest revenue stream, it subsidizes our general fund, do we make those decisions for business purposes or supply purposes? How do we balance that?

All right, let's go to the next one. Workforce needs.

Can I add just one thing to the financial pressures and opportunities? A couple of things. I do look at it a little bit differently because I don't know if it's correct to call it, well, revenue pressures, more appropriately expense pressures. Because if I go back and look, and I don't know if this is exactly right, so I don't want to be quoted on that, but I mean, when we look at general fund budget, sales tax budget, property tax revenue, I mean, most businesses would kill for the types of increases that we've had over the last five or six years. So, I mean, it's not like, you know, now if you've ever managed a business in decline in revenue, then you got a problem. And when you have that problem, you do realize, wow, There's a whole lot of things that we said we could never do in a million years that when we had the financial pressures to put on that. And I think one of the challenges is just to challenge ourselves to realize, yeah, we're going to continue to get pressure, but the expense side of it I think is going to have to be something that we look at as well as we lay the expectations on what our citizens want and what we're able to provide. So I just think when you're looking at the revenue that's been generated, it's like I say, we've not had a quote unquote revenue problem. We're seeing good revenues coming through. The expenses go up, the types of expectations then. So I think just looking at that and I got to tell you, I feel the pain of providing relief to taxpayers. I feel it as well. And I know we all say in our governing entity, well, it's the counties that are taxing them, it's the school boards, but we're all contributing to that. And I just think it's, I mean, if you look at, you know, the amount of money that people are having to pay on property taxes, you know, I know we say that every, but I do think we owe it to the taxpayers to see where, and the governor and the state's going to order us to do this, but where can we tighten our belts and still maintain the maximum level of services that we can for that?

Yeah, so it's all, it could be semantics. It could be the way we look at it. Do you have a revenue problem? Do you have an expense problem? Well, I think it just depends on the way you look at it. Hey, we got plenty of revenue. Well, we got plenty of revenue to do. We got this much revenue. If we shrink the services we provide to this, we don't have a revenue problem, right? So yeah, it's, you have plenty of revenue if we drastically cut expenses. And so which ones are we going to cut, right? That's the challenge.

And the only other thing, the other opportunity I think we've had, and we've executed on this opportunity, and I think it is something that I hope it is something that overarching we look at across the city. But I think we're at the point of what are the things that only the city can provide? What are things that no one else is going to be able to provide? I see that as public safety. Nobody's going to come in and start their own police department or fire department or those types of things. And what things can others do or have they done? I mean, and we've made some, I mean, the zoo is a primary example of that. It's not a whole lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but the principle, I think, is one is true. And and I think what I hope we get out of this is some overarching goal long term as to what are the things that we because what happens is when we don't have an overarching goal to me on the financial pressures or the opportunities or the expenses. that every single decision is like encapsulated into itself. It's gotta come to council to determine, are we gonna do this? Are we gonna not do that? But I think we need some type of, and I hope we get this out of this, some type of overarching guideline that gives us direction on these types of things going forward. So every decision doesn't have to be a major conflict that we say, here's why we're doing this and it's the reason. I know politics are going to come into play, but I hope we get something that gives us some guidelines because I think what we're going to continue to do and not do longer term and what overarching goals can provide are the most important thing I think we can provide in the future.

All right. Thank you, Les. Workforce needs. Can we summarize that by saying what? David, you hit on some key points on this earlier. So if you want to summarize those, I think it could fit here. Increase wages in the private sector. I was just thinking through the question.

I mean, the workforce needs. I mean, we're going to leverage technology. We're going to have to increase wages. We're going to have to have more respect because from all levels, because this isn't the only job. This isn't the only city that individuals will come to. And if we continue to have conflict, strife, and things like that, we're not going to get qualified applicants. It will continue to erode the long-term mission of the city.

So culture, morale?

culture, morale. Also, you're gonna have to, it's not gonna be certain groups that get the raises. It's gonna require lifting everyone because we're 20 to 40% increase in different areas of wage compensation. You just won't get anybody to come to work. And leveraging technology and telling the story about the positive things that we're doing, just like the mayor said. I mean, if you built a foundation, which which this council and the previous councils are doing and have done, Tell that story. Let's be part of a winning team. Let's get out of the weeds and listen to all the crap, and let's be part of a winning team and recognize the wins. Nobody wants to go to work for a company that is antiquated or not on the – we want to be part of the winning team. We don't want to be part of the losing team.

Anybody else add to the workforce needs of tomorrow?

I touch on it's kind of like at the council when it comes to revenue and expenses and the priorities and how you focus things. That's the same as an organizational capacity of. We've got departments that have the same number of staff they've had for 20 years, but they're expected to take on more prioritize this, but. You've got to stay focused on the mission and the highest priorities instead of taking detours as things pop up. So having that grace and expectation of this is our focus. Yeah, we want to work on this too, but this is our main focus. So balancing that expectation.

Departmental capacity. Other workforce needs?

I think we need to be looking at individuals who have experienced 30% growth, 40% growth. Who on our team knows how to manage that? Who on our team has been in Midland during an oil boom or Austin during a tech surge? And then how do we leverage that? Again, going back to the demographics of what this – the population and demographics of what the state is going to see in the next 25 to 30 years. Who are the individuals or the groups that are going to give us the guidance? We only know what we know in the experiences that we've experienced.

All right. Last but not least, tomorrow's political and community dynamics. What political or community dynamics are going to shape the city's ability to move forward tomorrow?

When I ask individuals that are capable to lead in this city, when they're going to sign up to run for city council or leadership positions, the common answer is why in the hell would I do that? Right. It is nasty. It is wrought with lies. And there's groups that pit us against one another. When we get together and we finally have an opportunity to talk, we're not the devils and demons that people make us out to be. And it is, I think that scares me the most for the city of Amarillo. When I ask individuals that are more than capable, have the time, and the resources and the heart to serve and they sit there and they go there is no way i'm putting my family and my kids through this and that's a real problem yeah that doesn't stop though i know this is political you know like kind of concept but really

It is a team and you're trying to build the strongest team you have. And so you're looking for fellow leaders that are operational. Yes, we can be policy and we can be ceremonial and all sorts of community dynamics. But then the operational functions when when those individuals are personalized and it's no longer just a job performance, right? I mean, it can be hard if you have a job and your boss calls you in for a performance eval and he just tells you in a closed room, you know, you're not really getting it done. You know, your performance is lacking. We've got these issues with you, you know, so like that, that can hit anybody in a hard way. Right. And then they just look internally of like, OK, I still have a family to feed. I still need to go home, tell my wife, like, I don't know, I got two weeks here. You know, they're telling me I might not be or whatever. So you just take that and then you compound it into, well, one, the performance isn't even the measure anymore. It's opinion, right? And so the staff side of things for them to continue to aspire to public service right to be a to be a servant leader. There's a great difficulty there. So let me and here's where it really all comes down. There's one word in there called trust. And so I would ask does does anybody feel like in a in a being a very realistic objective way? Do we still have public trust at large?

in the city of Amarillo?

Well, I'm asking you. You do this for a living. You go to different municipalities. You're in this. Do you feel like public trust is still offered at large?

It's more challenging. But there are communities that do have public trust. Yes.

OK. So my opinion has been is we can't operate under the assumption that we have public trust because like I've tried to pull on things together and it's been eroded at a great level. So there's a guy, you know, former congressman, former chancellor, you know, he gave a speech the other day and he'd worked for years in the political realm of service and he said, man, if you ask somebody today, who do you hate? You better pull up a chair like it's going to take a minute because they're going to tell you so many things. He's like, it wasn't like that 30, 40 years ago. It wasn't like that. It wasn't that hard. You could cross the aisle. You could work together. You know, we we did. We differed red and blue, but we still came together as kind of Americans. Right.

No, I'm saying, yeah, we are definitely more divisive times.

So you're in far more divisive times. Social media has changed things. And that dynamic in and of itself creates an element of, like, I personally don't try to operate in a public trust atmosphere. I am trying to serve with, like, asking for confidence. You know, like, I don't expect you to trust me. I just want you to have confidence and give me one opportunity to at least perform to a certain measure. And then if it's not good enough, like so be it. But at least give us an opportunity. Right. And so for staff, you know, I mean, you have to work internally in the same aspect of like. It's not trust that I'm offering. I'm offering confidence, right? Or I'm requiring this in order to gain confidence. And so there's a big dynamic there internally here. And so this is a very healthy question to ask if we actually address it. But if we assume that we still operate on trust and that we have the public's trust, then I think we're setting ourselves up for failure because that's like assuming you're going to get elected and it's going to be a good time and You're going to enjoy it for two years, and people are going to like you. So expectations are important. I do like you. I don't want you to think that.

I think it's how you define what the public is. It's mathematical. If you look at the voices of concern, just like with an election and the amount of people that show up to vote, it's a small percentage of the group that is actually our public, right? And usually that's the loudest of that group. So really in a mathematical equation, if you look at the full picture of it, how many of them are actually a part of the, you know what I'm saying? We've had this discussion several times. I don't know that it's as easy to define now what the public is because the loudest in the room are the ones that are going to have the biggest say. That make sense? Oh, yeah.

Can we ask the participants how they feel about trust?

Well, it's all staff. They all trust us, I'm sure.

Well, I think you... I would add this.

I mean, you know, there's a couple of interesting things in here, I think, and two kind of jumped to the top for me. And I've been watching politics for a long time. And if you go ask 10 voters why they voted the way they did, you're going to get 11 different opinions. And unfortunately, we think, and what happens is people get elected, and they think they know why they got elected. But I'm telling you, there's no concern. I don't care what people say. And they get up and they say, well, the citizens want this and the citizens want that. You're never going to know what the citizens want. You know why I think they vote for us? Hopefully, as they figure you guys seem to be the one with the most common sense, you're going to spend some time in it and give it some thought. But the problem comes into play. To me, the loud voices, I want to say, never represent the majority. OK, maybe. And why do you think they're so loud? But the problem is they now have platforms to be able to be loud, and it amplifies the voice, which is nowhere near representing what the majority of people are really wanting because they're sitting around. The majority of people, they don't care. I would say the majority of people, they're fine with the job we're doing because it had negatively affect them. And don't quote me on this because I didn't say it, but somebody smarter than me says social media has enabled people to assemble that should never be assembling. And that's the problem that we face. And it's give them a louder voice. And what is their ultimate goal? Is their ultimate goal for what's in the city? And those people have their opinions. And I'm not saying they don't. But the question is, are they going to influence our policy?

And the challenge of social media is, how many of those are your actual residents?

That's part of that conversation. All right. So David, I'll let you lead the question to the group.

Well, can I say one other thing?

I'm docking your minutes, but it's going to impact your afternoon minutes, but go ahead.

Yeah, that's fine. I'll yield after this one. You know, rhetorically, if you had to ask on a scale of 1 to 10 what the relationship is from the council and staff, I would not want to know the answer to that. Okay. I do not feel like we're on the same page. I feel like it's more adversarial than working together. We don't have to solve that problem today, but I just wanted to go on the record that I don't think our community is going to achieve any things unless we're all pulling in the same direction. And there are a lot of days that, unfortunately, I don't think we're that. I don't think it has to be adversarial. We have a role. They have a role. But anyway, I just think... Well, I appreciate it, Les. We'll get to that. Thank you.

I think it's very important that we remember that famous Abraham Lincoln quote, trust everything you read on Facebook.

Yes. I remember reading that in my history textbook. All right. So maybe the question is just from y'all's perspective, from the community, what level of trust does the community have in the city? And when I say city, I mean city staff, city leaders, council as a whole apparatus. Where's that level of trust? okay so let me let me wrap my head around that i'm asking does this citizenry what level of trust do they have in the city and you're saying maybe as a group we don't even feel comfortable answering about what we say and what we what we think whether it's as a staff member or as a member of the public

I think we have to be especially careful of those things because we are staff members, because we are a part of the organization that's trying to do the very best that we can within the system that we work in. This is very unique. Government is very unique, and it's We have to figure out a way to walk that plank, that tightrope on how to continue doing our job despite all the noise, despite all the whatever's happening on social media, whatever's happening at council, whatever. We have to figure out a way to do that. We've all been through a lot of really tough times with changing of leadership, different councils, different directives that we need to be handled. And so it's a challenge for us. but i'll tell you because i know these folks well and i know the hearts of most of our staff is that they care about the city of amarillo they care about giving uh all their all to their jobs and doing what they can knowing that they're not going to be the highest paid people they're not going to be lauded for their work at council meetings, we're gonna do it despite the noise. And so I wanted to speak up first because I feel protective of others putting themselves out there and saying, hey, yeah, I trust everything and us thinking, yeah, okay, right. Or no, I don't trust anything and this is why. I think that could potentially put targets on them. So I just think we've got to be careful about how we answer for things. And I'm trying to be a little bit protective of them.

I appreciate that. And let me clarify my question. I hear all that, track with all that. And this is not to get you to change that answer or anything. Maybe I want to ask it a way that maybe gives some safety to everyone. Let's say we're a big team here. We're leading the city. We're operating the city. And we just want to self-assess and say, hey, on the whole, do we feel like our community trusts the city or not so much? Is that still a publicly suicidal question to answer? i agree and i agree i agree i agree and so that's why i'm asking it is i don't want uh grayson to just answer because he's got a certain sliver of the pie that he hears from you all interact with a diverse group throughout the city and that's why i am asking to kind of get a broader swath of what do you what's the impulse out there

Answering for myself, most of the phone calls you get are complaints. That's just human nature. Most people are complaining. But when I go out and do civic speaking and I talk to different groups, it's very supportive. When we talk about and we give them information about the things that we're doing, it's very supportive and appreciated because they don't know all of those things all the time. They hear the noise. And so they think everything is broken and there's some kind of a problem all the time. Well, I heard at council that this happened. And so I personally think that the majority are very happy and very pleased with where we're going.

Okay. That's a good perspective. Any other perspectives, just as you're out there in the grassroots doing life, doing city work? Huh? Huh?

um so just to kind of piggyback on what he said so generally um same thing the complaints is everything that council and everybody hears but when we're out there in the community doing our events and things like that the community is very supportive and happy of the things that we are providing them nice nice

My situation is a little bit different from some of the other departments because I'm the library director. And generally speaking, when people come in my buildings, they want to be there. They're excited to be there. So I would just add that when we go out, we also get the same kind of feedback that's been described here. But we also have a lot of people coming in for services that they would not get otherwise. And so there's an amount of gratitude that is communicated about that. Exactly.

That's awesome. It's awesome.

So I think part of it has to do with the actual role that we play in the community. So for me, dealing with code enforcement is one of our biggest factors. There is a lot of complaints that we receive. Conversely, we talk to a lot of people that are grateful for the job that we do. So I think as a whole, or maybe not a whole, but the primary majority is appreciative of what we do. There is a large number of people, as was mentioned earlier, that are very vocal. And if you listen to that, you start thinking that we're not making a difference. Right. But the majority, as Jason mentioned earlier, once you start talking to people and they understand a little bit of the background, how we got here, and the why, they're very appreciative.

Nice.

Sure. All right. As it's been mentioned, everybody, we're working from the roles, within the roles that we serve. I will say, and I've always felt that even in the public safety sector, we're spoiled. We're spoiled even within that. You know, a good cop can do everything right and still receive criticism when he writes a ticket. Most of the time, if fire shows up, people are glad to see us regardless of whatever the outcome is. I think it's all about where you're getting your news. If it's Facebook, the city can't post anything. It doesn't matter what, as it seems, and that's an overgeneralization, I should have qualified it with that, but if I'm dictating job satisfaction by the comments that will come out on Facebook. I don't know how anybody does the jobs. I don't know how any of y'all sit behind that wall, sit in front of the guys that sit in front of it by the dais up there, and deal with what you deal with. Because I know this, as spoiled as we are, we can have a staff meeting, we can have anything going on, and there could be 99 good comments, but my focus will be on the person with the frown. And so it's just, for me, it's a common personal battle I have all the time is just, focusing on who's there, focusing, looking for the helpers who are trying to make things better. But evidently, as social media and technology have increased, that background noise, good and bad sometimes, it has a way of sabotaging everything that those that started out with the best of intentions only to have it kind of beat down. And so I'll use this before I hand it off to all of you that are doing this for very little pay. And you know, whether your public safety uniform or not, sometimes I don't know how we, I don't know how y'all do what you do, but yeah it's yeah you better pick your where your social media has become a thermostat and instead of a thermometer and it gets to dictate a lot of and it overshadows so much positive and nobody you know if we're not very intentional we're not going to accidentally have the best attitude or the right outreach or the right outlook so anyway i'm going to ramble on if you don't take that from me hey thanks i think everybody loves amarillo that's why we do it exactly okay um

Thank you all. Thank you all for your comments. We're going to push through here for another 20, 25 minutes, and then we'll break for lunch. You all got that in you? Yes, sir. All right. All right. Let's put Andrew and Tim and Don and Cole in a group. And then the other four will be in a group. And we're gonna start defining the destination. Okay, we're defining the destination. We've assessed our environment. We're going to define the destination. And here are a couple questions I want you to answer in your groups. All right, let's divide up and start on those three questions. So get in your groups. And so we're saying in three to five years, okay, so more than tomorrow, but not too far out, next three to five years in the city of Amarillo, what are residents experiencing? Okay, and I'm keeping that kind of broad. Not today, not today. But in three to five years... If this group could have its way, what are residents experiencing? In three to five years, what are employees saying about working for the city? If I were to go grab 13 random employees, what would they say about working for the city? And in three to five years, what does the relationship look like between council and staff? council and city leadership and city staff?

What's that relationship look like three to five years from now?

Correct. This is what do we, what does it look like? We're dreaming here. We're dreaming. Okay. What's the desired state here? All right, let's see. Just on the break, you can go outside down in the back of the building.

Thank you.

You ought to get a raise. You need a raise, Cole.

All right.

I guess if Grayson doesn't know, I'm waiting on him. Okay. We'll start with the FAR group over there. What are residents saying?

Experiencing?

Yeah, what are residents experiencing?

We put growth along with the growing pains that come with it in that three to five year time period. A safer city with reduced response times and lower crime rates and improved higher quality core services and customer service. Improved. Higher quality core services along with customer service.

What did you say about safe city?

A safer city with reduced response times and lower crime rates.

All right. Let me ask this just a yes or no. For this moment, it's just a yes or no question. Is this group aligned on what core services are?

No.

Good job.

That's a great goal for this meeting.

Well, that would be the only thing we do. Well, that would be the only thing we do.

um okay this group here donnie are you the yeah i took notes i don't know if they want me to speak or not but i will we had a lot of the same safe community affordable community better quality of life People that take pride in their community by being able to brag to others and say, you need to live here. This is the place to live. Housing situation is better. And we talked about being the kind of community that would receive awards and be recognized for what we've done over the past three years and be the model city for fast growth in difficult times so that other communities will call us and say, how did you do that? So that others that want to find a place to live work and play will say we want to be there Nice, okay What are employees saying we'll start with you this time Donnie So what we put there was that the employees are saying that they feel respected, that they feel heard, and they feel appreciated for what they're doing at all levels, and that they're given the benefit of the doubt and the ability to explain why they do what they do before they're accused of what they're doing wrong.

Okay. All right. Other group?

That they're proud to work for the city. That they feel valued while understanding constraints of the budget and the realization of what we have to work with. But probably more importantly is knowing what their mission and goals are that align from top to bottom basically.

Can I add one thing to that list? You know, historically, and this used to be the case, but, you know, if you rank things of what motivates employees the most, believe it or not, a raise is not very high up on the list. What is usually number one on the list is that people feel like they have, somebody's talking to them about their future, that they have opportunities, they have to do things. So if I had to add one thing, and I think we do a pretty good job with this, but I would want there that, you know, that We as a city are interested in your future and your career to provide opportunities if you want to. You don't have to, but to be able to do that, because I think if you look at the healthy working environment, one of the top things that usually rises to the top is that the company's interested in helping you achieve your goals, either here or somewhere else. And usually that can be a pretty good motivator.

Okay. All right, next question. What's council-staff relationship look like?

I'll go first on that one. Less contentious by working through the problems. Defined roles and responsibilities.

Hold on just a second, just a second. Less contentious, so that means there's, with that, there's an assumption that it's contentious today.

Yeah, I think that is the...

Okay. Yeah. All right. So less contentious. All right. Yeah.

And basically known to work through the problems and not have that kind of hanging over them. Defined roles and responsibilities between governing body and administration. Pulling in the same direction through open and respectful conversation. And then more stabilized and consistent, including staff retention in that conversation.

Okay.

All right, next group.

Yes, a lot of the same, the council and staff are all in the same boat rowing in the same direction toward the same goal. respect and trust both ways so that again staff respects the council council respects the staff and the council doesn't figure out or council has the ability to figure out what to do and the why behind it and that staff has the ability to figure out the how to get it done yeah so those distinctive roles

Donnie, will you give the example that you said where you feel that we are right now?

Yeah, so the story that I told them was that, to me, the perfect council city manager relationship or city management relationship, staff relationship, whatever you want to call it, is I just visualize a big boat. And I see the council and the city manager on the bow of that boat. handing binoculars back and forth to each other. Everybody sees the future differently, but seeing the obstacles that are ahead of us, seeing the challenges, seeing the opportunities, and that visual is handed back and forth. Do you see this? Do you see this? And every now and then, the city manager turning back to us and saying, row to the right. And we're all in unison, and we're rowing to the right, or we're rowing to the left, whatever that body decides that we need to be doing. But we have an understanding of where we're going, and why we're going there. And sometimes it doesn't feel that way. I told them, I was asked the question, well, what does it feel like now? And this is not just me. This is stuff we hear from staff as well, that we're out in the boat, floating in the ocean with no oars, and we're being shot at. So in three years, that would be the perfect picture to me. Pardon me? Water skis would be cool. Yeah. Yeah.

That would be good.

Let's get motorized. Let's get away from the oars. We could have motors. Yeah.

All right. Good. What's noticeably better about infrastructure? We'll start with you this time, Donnie.

So that we talked about our communication being better so that people understand why we're doing what we're doing, the benefits of that, and seeing the results of the infrastructure work that we've been doing and how it benefits them so they're not just seeing just a big number or a big cost up there. They actually see the fruition of the work in the end and say, hey, we want more of that. This is a better quality of life. So just basically seeing the results behind all the work that we've done.

OK. Yeah, kind of echoing that, it's seeing the results of all the plan put into place. You're seeing the streets in the best condition they've been. They're on a cycle and there's the expectation that we're doing it at the same time each year and trying to touch all areas over time. At this point, we'd have the wastewater treatment plant or construction. People are seeing that. and just taking care of older infrastructure and seeing that whether it's the pools or restrooms and parks, it's like if it's old and needs to be taken out, take it out, replace it, just seeing that progress that we continue to make. So you'd see actively investments in the community.

All right, next one.

On how's the growth being managed seeing results of how we define like our mud policy. We've gotten 1 developer to take advantage of that where we're only extending water and sewer, but we're seeing the benefit of people shopping in town without having to provide the services until they come into the city. So we've not had that here. So. EVALUATING AND SEEING THOSE NEW TOOLS BEING USED TO SPUR GROWTH IS ONE. SEEING PRIMARY JOB GROWTH IN KEY AREAS UNDER CONSTRUCTION IN THAT THREE TO FIVE YEAR TIME PERIOD AS WELL AS A STRONG NUMBER IN THE PIPELINE. SO WE KNOW WE'VE GOT SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT, NEW TAX BASE, NEW EMPLOYEES, NEW PEOPLE BUYING HOMES, ALL THOSE THINGS. SEEING THAT COME TO FRUITION. And then I add in, of course, this is a current goal now, just refining and being more efficient with our development process and customer service to support that growth. Because that's a growing pain in any community. Permit times are too slow, non-oven inspectors, all those conversations. I think we've seen that improve over the last few years, but it's got to be a continuous goal.

TELL ME YOUR FIRST POINT AGAIN.

JUST TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THOSE GROWTH POLICIES LIKE MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT POLICY TO ENCOURAGE, JUST FIND WAYS FOR THAT INFRASTRUCTURE TO BE PAID FOR THAT ISN'T JUST UTILITY RATES AND EXTENDING LINES LIKE THE DEVELOPERS CAN PAY FOR IT, THEY CAN GET PAID BACK AND JUST GIVES ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY WHETHER IT'S A MUD, PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT, JUST ENCOURAGING ALL THE DIFFERENT TOOLS THAT DON'T JUST RELY ON CITY TAX DOLLARS AND CURRENT RATE PAYERS TO PAY FOR IT.

It's not fair because they have a planner on their team, so ours is a little more generic than theirs were. There's a lot of the same things, though. Our processes are much better. Our relationships with our developers are great. And the developers see us as someone that's wanting to help them grow, not only in their developments or their businesses, but that Amarillo is a place where others can come and we are here as a helping resource to them to help them be successful in their business and to grow it. Better P&Z processes are in place, better building permit timelines, things like that. He talked about our processes are so much better that we're just a lot more fluid in what we're doing and being helpful to that community.

Okay. And then finally, what are you known for? Known for in the region?

Ours was that we're a city of opportunity and that we're a model city for others and just we're the best at what we do in our region now. Why not be the best in what we do all over the state of Texas and that we're problem solvers.

When we say the best at what we do, what is it? What is that the best at? What are we the best at?

Prescott, you're the one that said it. What are we best at?

What we're best at is, you know, do others ask us how we went through a period of extreme growth? Are we the case study in municipal courses? This is how Amarillo did it. This is how Amarillo mean it was challenging it was tough this is how they came together as a leadership group this is how they they came together and were forward thinking and we we were looking out the windshield you know as as we move forward so the best of what we do is managing this growth yeah that's okay yeah i mean as a case study other other cities will say do you remember when when amarillo went through all of this these are the standards and these are the processes that got them there. Got you. And it becomes best in class.

Okay.

I think it's going to be being more known for what we already know locally is like being the hub of the panhandle, the capital of the panhandle as far as resource. So talking about like the data center industry hub, maybe the data centers aren't locating here, but we're serving the whole panel for medical, shopping, living, because people will drive two hours to go work in these places. So we want to be known as that hub to take on that growth and be a good location, grow on our transportation, just continue to be known for that. Right now, I think we're more known, but continuing to be known in the state of Texas and the nation when someone thinks of where they want to relocate. And then from an organization standpoint, I put just being recognized as high performing with strong customer service across all departments. to try and do an internal, external look at it.

One of the coolest things I've experienced in my career is when another town's mayor or manager or someone calls to say, can you tell us how you solved that or how you did that? That is one of the coolest things I've had in my career to do is when other cities, even other states say, they call and say, how did you solve that? How did you get it done? I want to be known for that. I may not be able to be known for everything we do, but I want some things that we accomplish as a team

that that people think i want to call emerald to find out how they did that okay we're going to pick this back up but it's 12 30 let's break for lunch here's how we're going to do lunch take 10 it's 12 31 so we're going to take 10 no more than 15 to stretch your legs get your lunch come back because we're going to keep rolling while we're eating okay Ready, break. Sorry, I didn't give you a heads up. Okay. Let's talk about infrastructure in the next three to five years. What are the priorities for infrastructure? in three to five years. What infrastructure is of priority? Okay. All right, I know that's a big one. So streets?

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DIFFERENT IN THE NEXT THREE YEARS ABOUT THE WAY YOU APPROACH STREETS THAN... YEAH, YOU NEED A CONTINUED SUPPORT FOR THE PLAN.

IT'S A CYCLE OF DEBT ISSUANCES TO SUPPORT THE PLAN.

SO CONTINUED SUPPORT FOR STREET PLAN?

YEAH, THE STREET FINANCE PLAN, BASICALLY.

In five years, we'll be looking more closer to CRMWA II as well. What's that? It's CRMWA. It's an acronym. The Canadian River and Missile Water Authority. Well, water supply.

Yeah. I would say, yeah, well-filled water supply. Well-filled water supply.

Water supply? Yes. Yeah, let's do that.

Right. Okay.

Well, you can also have aging water.

aging infrastructure right right but okay so are we going to add this as a separate line than water supply or is this a sub point it's different so we need so it's not the supply it's how do we get there and how do we take the weight yeah so water main rehab

I would just say water and sewer infrastructure improvements.

What's WNS?

Water and sewer.

Not aware of that one. There? I mean, we have them every week. Oh.

That's why I just said WNS.

Okay. WNS. All right. What other infrastructure in the next three to five years, if nothing else gets done, what needs to get done? We've said these things.

Our IT infrastructure has to be heavily monitored and improved.

I think there's got to be some kind of plan on parks and pools.

Does there?

Yeah, amenities, yeah. Okay. Parks and recreation amenities.

And drainage infrastructure.

Drainage? David, we're talking about infrastructure, and we're saying if nothing else gets done in the next three to five years, what infrastructural needs have to get done?

Those would be traffic signals that go along with growth, traffic-related infrastructure, I guess you could call that.

There's a deficit right now?

It is, and it's also related to growth, so we're talking about three to five years, right? Right. We're going to see a need to continue expanding infrastructure. traffic control systems.

Infrastructure-wise. Yeah, we got it here. Wastewater treatment plant, water treatment plant.

existing fire station replacement and potential new fire stations. should probably include infrastructure for economic development business parks because that's a it's AEDC but it comes through the council for where they make those investments and we've got two existing business parks that over the next three or five years will hopefully be committed so it's planning for that next phase whether it's around the airport or new land okay

A lot of dollars right there, isn't it?

All right. Oh, you've actually increased your number. That's good. Yeah.

Okay. So, obviously it's way more complex than this, but to put it simply, unless, you know, there's a, A hurricane that blows through here, or a tornado, I guess. You don't get hurricane, really.

A tornado blows through here.

All things being equal, this is the list, right? Why would this change?

So you can have infrastructure needs, you can have priorities and you can see. Okay, we've got all of these issues that are going to need to be addressed 5 years from now, but they're. Hundreds of millions of dollars and so what council is susceptible to is getting hung up in. Smaller projects that are prioritized in the community that are shiny things. They're not. They're not core service. They're a want, not a need. And then they can eat up all of your time. They can chew up your political capital. They tax your staff with lots of additional work and then Consequently you communicate to the rest of the organization that you're not getting to those things. So you see a dilapidation More so well, we just didn't think is important to replace that or to do this or whatever. So that's the number one Distraction I'd say is just that no shiny object big shiny object that that's tempting, but it's so let me ask the ball I'm tracking and that's common.

So let me ask this In one strategic planning session, there is no way to define all these things, right? And I was clear about that, that there's just no way. And this is just one category. We've got other categories we're about to look at. at a 10,000 foot view, if we're saying these are the priorities, let's just say over the next three years, okay, it doesn't mean we accomplish these A to Z in three years, right? But it's where our mental, emotional, creative, financial energies go regarding infrastructure. Can the council Does it have the wherewithal to stay disciplined with these? Well, I want to get to that in a second.

So council has the wherewithal to stay focused on these?

the budget is the other component okay okay so financial fortitude yep okay that's fair all right so ideally or theoretically we could wrap up today if we stopped right now we're not if we stopped right now We would have a few things defined already, right? What the future environment looks like that we have to navigate. What this group wants the future to look like, that desired destination. We could wordsmith what y'all said and come up with a way to say this is what we want. To give a little more particularity to it with respect to infrastructure, we could say, here's a list of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Here are 11 top infrastructure priorities. And now we've got this document. We've got to figure out how to do it in the money and all that. But theoretically, we could have this list. And if another shiny object comes up, the whole council would have to say, we are conscientiously, as a group, deciding to pause two or three of these in order to say yes to this different thing. Is that correct? Is that what would have to happen? What has happened in the past?

In theory, right? Historically, it's the creep. So everything you've got up there is 10 years, I mean, by the time you get through engineering and you get this and then you have, what's the likelihood over the next four or five years that we don't have some sort of emergency thrust upon us that we didn't know was coming?

Well, OK, I want to distinguish.

It's not likely.

Well, I said unless a tornado comes through. So emergency and shiny object. So we know we've got to respond to emergencies.

Okay, so if you exclude the reality of circumstantial change and you're saying, like, in an optimistic world, can we stay focused on that if we put it in writing and give a commitment, I think we're focused and committed for the next 10 months. I got you.

And then you have a political alteration. Right.

So let's exclude that over there with emergency. Let's just say we don't have to factor that in either.

Right, because that's out of your control.

Can you stay focused on these items based on needs assessments and the glaring reality of how important those items are when you're growing a community? Absolutely.

Okay. How would the council grade itself? Okay, so this is self-reflection for the council. How would the council grade itself And some of you only have a year of sample size. Some of you have a longer sample size. So whatever your relevant sample size is, use that as the sample size. How would you rate the council as a whole on its ability to stay focused on what it said is a priority versus getting distracted? Not by emergencies, but getting distracted. 10 is, man, we're super disciplined. One is, man, if the wind blows a little differently, we can get easily off track. So I want to hear a number. You don't have to give commentary, just a number.

OK.

Huh? I said, whoa. I think. Well, just a number. No commentary.

I'm about to give you a number. I said, I think. I was about to give you a number. Oh, I thought you were going to cut me off, Kevin.

All right. I'm trying to keep us focused. Well, think. Think in your head and then say it out so you've got it.

Six and a half. No, that's too low.

All right.

Our focus on these things.

no no no let me let me clarify let me clarify who cares about these for now looking backwards you only have a year sample size as a whole how well has the council been disciplined to focus on pro whatever it has said priorities are or does it get blown around by the wind 10 is we're super disciplined one is if there's a slight change in the wind we're off sideways Less than Cole?

I hate to give you a five, but it's going to be a five.

That's all right.

That's all right. I would say... That's a legit number. I think it may be over a three-year period.

That's what I'm... Yeah.

Over a three-year period, it's definitely a five. Okay.

a five okay okay okay trending in the right direction yeah this council and previous councils because i have the longest tenure so i'm heading into year six here right so over that um And definitely the last three years, like seven. And public safety is a really good one.

You're saying seven?

Seven. OK. Public safety is massively prioritized. And you all have followed through on that. And stayed disciplined on it to accomplish what we've done.

Good. OK. So we're moving in the right direction, right? We're moving in the right direction. Thank you, Stephanie. It was picking up right there. All right. OK. Let's talk about core services. What are core services of the city? We can start rattling them off.

Public safety. Yeah. Water. Streets.

Solid waste. Sewer. Streets. Solid waste, is that with sewer?

I don't know. Huh? No, trash. It's trash.

Public health. Okay.

What are the core services?

You said animal management?

Municipal courts? Would that be public safety or no?

We'll just put it here. Any other core services?

Parks and maintenance. Depends on what's going on. Oh, back to the other questions, is that what you're saying? Ratchet us down a little bit.

Development services.

Development services, planning, engineering, building safety. About back office administrative services? That supports all those departments? Your HR, finance, city manager's office, legal?

Community. I'm going to leave that one to the side. Community development. Or housing and...

I mean, we're saying these are the core services, but how do you define core services?

That's for this group to decide.

I mean, I'm just saying, I'm not saying individually this is it. I'm just saying if you said, okay, if we're trying to pick out what core services are.

I agree. How would we define that? How would this group define that?

How would we define that?

Well, you go back to Maslow's hierarchy.

Well, I think it's like essential functions that taxpayers feel like they should get without paying any extra. Like that's what their tax dollars are paying for.

Say that again.

No, I'm just, that's this. I think that these are essential to what taxpayers feel that their tax dollars pay for without them having to pay any extra. Like all these things should happen or they should be afforded to them with their tax dollars being paid?

I think if I were to define it, I would say I kind of think along the lines of a service that if we were not doing it, there would be no one else would do that service.

what we picked up about private sector, right?

Well, I don't know who would pick it up, but I'm just saying, I mean, if we were not, if we were not doing it.

So can we be a little more structured like in trying to define this? So, cause right now we're a little more abstract in talking about it as kind of like any community and whatnot, but like we have a corporation. And so at one point there was a post office here right and then a railroad. And so through that it it became where we want to set our corporate limits and inside of this corporation. We have to have these are the have to haves in order. To function, you know, safely in this corporate city limits so. In that. Right now, a core function is health, right? So we cannot have a community that allows, you know, waste and garbage to just accumulate or we're all gonna suffer health consequences. And so when we become like way more finite about it, these are core services that are essential for the function of the corporation right and so what are you calling the corporate corporation is the incorporated city limits of of the city of amarillo and so included inside of our city limits is private property and residents and streets and public buildings and all of that and so If we just look at if it's essential for function to happen within the city. Like, you can't function in the city without streets. Right you can't function in the city without environmental health these days. you know you can't function in the city so it just and i'm just being brutally honest right like what are the things that we can function in the city without okay so you can start pulling things out like what well you could say and this is a this is a hard one to to point to but like i mean i would go to Internal versus external functions. So there are certain internal functions that we can't function without like admin and IT and things like that.

Right.

But just looking external function. Right. You cannot privatize police. Right. You can't privatize fire. You can't privatize 911. Right. You then have a state that's over that that feeds dollars to you that creates essential functions as well. So. Could the zoo be privatized? I think we've shown that it could be, right? Could certain other amenities be privatized?

That's what I want us to... That's what I'm trying to help us unpack. I feel like all the definitions that we're given are coherent, like together. I don't see any odds with these definitions. But I think that's a good one, Cole. What are the... When we look at the incorporated city, what's required for it to function? Is anything on here, could we put an asterisk by any of these things?

For what? Not required. Not required or required?

Not required. This for sure. Yeah, not required. You don't have to have a park to function as a city, correct?

Yeah, no.

It doesn't mean we're getting rid of parks, but we are wrapping our head around what's required and not required. What else? Is public transit necessary for this city to function?

Anything else? So you are going to have certain, like in development services, you have certain obligations from the state. So that is a requirement. Now, to the extent that you require different departments within that, it could definitely be minimized. And you could push that to community development as well.

So I'm going to put those with an orange.

But those are not totally voluntary. Let's say it that way. Okay.

What else could we, what else?

Well, about the only department missing from the org chart up there is Civic Center.

Okay.

Which is quality of life, amenity.

But is it essential?

Right, but I'm just saying that's the only one you can mark with an asterisk most likely, but it's not listed, so it's being left out of the conversation. It was determined to be essential probably in the 50s and 60s.

Well, let's look at one that's not up there, which is drainage. Libraries. Libraries, you too. But drainage, I mean, you don't have to protect people's property from flooding. It's their property. We've taken that on for a fee. But you could stop charging that fee and stop functioning in that. Now, there may be some state consequence to that.

I thought the original list was related to infrastructure.

Yeah. Core. Core functions. No, that was the earlier list. We were saying what are... Now we're talking about core services.

I would say, not that I would want to do without one, but many cities do not have an airport, and they still exist. The airport, it's a different animal, but I would say airport this isn't necessarily a core service that uh you know our that if we did not have it that our city would go away correct that's correct i agree sorry go ahead i i would say you know animal management comes into play just a little bit okay i mean i i don't see I don't see animal man, I think parts of what it does provides core services. Other parts, there are parts of the community that attempt to provide those services. We can judge whether they do it. But I'm just saying, you know, I don't think it could be something that could be debated.

And just in the context, I mean, power is definitely core. This city doesn't function without Excel, right? You've got to have power. However, we don't obligate ourselves as that utility, right? So all of these that we're saying, like if we're saying transit wouldn't be core function within the city, doesn't mean transit wouldn't be functional as a service outside of the city body. But Excel is a good example. IT is core to us, but data service, internet services core to any community right now. You can't run a business in town without it. But we rely on other private entities to perform those or PUCs.

OK. We want to improve all these, right? That's the goal, right? To make these as good as possible. I did want to just spend a couple of minutes, because I asked, would we all agree on what core services are, and the answer was no. A quick, unequivocal no. But it sounds like y'all are pretty in line. Where's the misalignment in this group?

Andrew was wrong.

No, I think you're, I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, no, go ahead. All I was going to say, just real quick, was I think sometimes things become more important to us during certain times of conflict that become a core service that maybe weren't a core service six months ago or weren't recognized as that. Does that make sense? Yeah, they become. Something controversial happens and all of a sudden now that's the most important thing when it wasn't the most important thing the previous year during budget.

Well, I think it's also the community sets the core service expectations. So once you turn something off and they realize it, oh, wait, I want to remind you 60 years ago we invested in this and you were supposed to take care of it. Yeah, exactly. And you decided not to, so now we're upset.

Yeah. We basically listed almost all the departments of the city. Everything is core apparently. So now obviously some are less core. But they're all core. There's core and less core, I guess.

What are the non-negotiables that you have to have?

Yeah, and I think we kind of listed those. The ones without asterisks are the non-negotiables. But when it comes to degrees of importance, all right, definitely we're going to mix opinions. It seems everyone's in alignment on these. What are we going to say to that, Cole? Anything?

I think Donnie said it very well. I think we're being – we have the luxury right now of just putting them on two Post-it notes. We're not trying to prioritize those and then put values through a budget to them. And that's where the struggle is. I don't think staff is struggling to identify, like – services or even what we would say core services, where the struggle comes in is now prioritize those and value them. Right. So this is a great exercise, but I think that's more in line with where staff is communicating to council right now where we lack clarity and where there isn't consistency. Because last year we weren't worried about funding that. This year we better figure out how to fund it.

Right.

Their struggle is like, well, I thought that wasn't even top 10, and now it's number three. Not necessarily like core versus not core.

All right. So let's say in the next three years, what are of highest priority?

Among all these? I mean, I think the one without asterisks I don't think they change.

OK. And so nevertheless, we cannot give equal improvement attention to all of these, correct?

I don't know. I mean, some of them demand it. Like one of your papers says to not be reactionary, but there are some things, like the wastewater treatment plant, that is going to demand to be moved up the list. I mean, there are some of those things that demand it. But when you look at water, streets, solid waste, I mean, those things are those things. We have to empty the trash. We have to provide street maintenance.

We have to do those things. You don't have to do street maintenance, right? Like you could you could know. So I'm saying theoretically you could do a C minus job on your street maintenance. I'm not saying it'll be pretty or people will like you, but I'm saying that is a possibility.

Well, in that case, we don't have to do any of this. I agree.

I have to do one thing. I agree. And so I agree with that. And so the question is, from where the council sits, what what gravitational pull Where does gravity pull you? You just said water, right?

Well, if you're trying to put it, like if you're starting a city today of 200,000 people, what do you got to start? You can only pick three. Like what are they going to be and why? Is that kind of where you're going with this?

Let's start there. We can start there. Water?

Water, sewer, and solid waste.

Water and, okay.

I don't know.

what about public safety well i mean what i mean it's going to kill you first exactly well yeah what's public safety i mean what's going to keep somebody from being an outlaw and doing you know running all this stuff if you don't have any order yeah but if you don't have your waste being i mean those those are the you dig a hole on a

Let me ask this to the council. Rather than saying what's right now, let me take it a different approach. Thinking today, today's reality for these areas. I'm just framing our time frame. Looking at these areas today, I want to be very clear because I know we've got the departments represented in here. This is not about, this question is not about how well or not well individual humans are doing in these departments. This isn't a departmental evaluation from a human performance standpoint. That's not what I'm about to ask. What I am asking is, as it functions today, what grade would you give it? And what I mean by that is, how effective is it? Does it have the right talent? Does it have the right resources to function at an A level? And if it's at an F, it doesn't mean that that department director is failing. It means maybe it was underfunded. There's a lot of reasons why we're not at an A. It has nothing to do with an individual human. So I want you to grade these. Where's public safety today?

I'd say it's an A.

It's an A?

B minus to an A.

A B minus to an A? Anybody else? Council?

You mean B plus to an A? I mean B plus to an A, sorry. Make sure you were listening.

B plus to an A. I agree. All right. Water. Is this the amount of water, the cleanliness of the water, both? Delivery of the water. Delivery, okay. How would we grade it today?

We just grade it as old. Like, that's the problem. So, like, you have to recognize what, it's old. So, like, I mean.

Yeah, supply is an A, and then infrastructure underground is a C minus.

The water itself, yeah, an A. So, water treatment? A. Water delivery, consistency, A. You know. Infrastructure. You've got infrastructure that's old.

What did we give that?

D. Like, it's not their fault. Like, it keeps breaking. But then, you know, you've got customer service in there that's probably a B. So sewer, separate from drainage, like, Sewer's old. What's that? It's old.

So what is it?

All right. What's drainage? It's funded and still not there. If we could lay the blame where it needs to go. It's flat here. Whoever thought this daisy chain uphill got a D back then.

So it's like still a D. I would just say this. I mean, what people don't realize is our drainage system is the streets. I mean, and it's been designed that way for years and years. It gets the water out. The problem is, as opposed to people at once knowing, maybe I should wait a little while before I get out on the streets. But to the point of drainage and flooding issues for permanent problems, I would say we're in about a C. Streets? B, B-minus.

I mean, they're really good.

B-plus? Solid waste, B-plus?

Oh.

You know what? It's picked up really well. It's picked up well. We've got a little issue. But yeah, it's a B, solid B.

Public health? I think public health's an A. A.

We're alive.

Well, you take very few emails. animal management facilities old i mean it really functions within public safety as an overall so you know i say b plus honestly for what they've got yeah i think it depends on what people's goals and uh description of it that's fair municipal courts for what we've tested it does great uh courts a a yeah

library a parks i'd give it an a like massive improvement like because i kind of heard in my interviews parks are a little wanting that's the sense i got let's say i would say overall i mean i mean compared to what they could be in other places i mean i would say our parks may be to other communities again not i mean Maybe a little bit above average. Okay. Compared to what other communities. But what's average? C? C plus.

Yeah, I was going to say B, but yeah. Because I think they can stand to be improved without a lot of effort, like we've talked about, but...

But to be blunt, I'm not talking about a restroom that we don't own that sits in an ISD park. I'm talking about one of the top-rated municipal golf courses in the nation that sits in the parks. Realistically, it's an A.

Yes. Yeah, I think B.

You have to look at it. What's the standard, too?

I think B. Overall, if you look at the parks and the improvements that we could make.

I'd probably go with a B. I'm hearing B. I'm hearing B.

Transit?