City Council - Regular Meeting

got uh a few things that we're going to work through. We've got some proclamations and some procedures, but I do want to advise everyone, we have a significant um show here from our tow truck agency. So, if anybody is parked illegally downstairs, please go move your vehicle or else they're going to start towing them. Right. We already towed uh David Prescott's vehicle. Um but that was upon request, right, Mr. Cantou? Um, if you guys would, being called to order, we always love to start with an invocation and a prayer. Would you please rise for the invocation by Joe Dwire and then remain standing for the pledges.

Please bow your heads with me. Heavenly Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus and by the blood of Christ. And Lord, we come boldly your throne of grace, favor, and mercy this afternoon. Lord, we come collectively and Lord, we come in one accord first of all to magnify your name, to glorify your name, to show you honor and reverence in every discussion and decision that is made here in this place today. Lord, I thank you for our uh mayor and each and every council member. Lord, let your angels be encamped around each and every one of them day and night. Lord, I thank you that the fruit of your spirit permeates this room as discussions go on and decisions are made. And Lord, I just thank you that the discussions that are had today, the decisions that are made, Lord, I thank you that it just continues to highlight Amarillo. Lord, I thank you that Amarillo is a light on the hill and let us be an example for each and every other city in this state to follow. Lord, I thank you for our great mayor, our great council members, and Lord, I just thank you that they continue to be led by your great and wonderful Holy Spirit. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Joe. If you guys will join me in the pledgece to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. And the Texas flag as well. Honor the Texas flag. I aliance to thee Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible.

Thank you so much. Please be seated. Okay. Uh council, we have several u proclamations and recognitions that we're going to do. Um if you guys will meet me downstairs, we're going to go in this order. We have National Adoption Day. Miss Kelsey Ninast, you're up first. St. Francis Ministries, phenomenal people over there doing great work. We'll then do National Caregiver Month and then we're going to do a uh Chief Burns is here for the APD and then we'll do Donnie Hooper last on the safety recognitions. as we uh make this proclamation on National Adoption Day. It's a it's a little bit more meaningful for me because I did grow up in foster care and was adopted at a at a later age. And so uh it's a it's a day that uh I celebrate every year um as well as the month as we look at it. Whereas National Adoption Day is observed each year across the United States to raise awareness of the critical need for adoptive families and to celebrate the lives forever changed by the gift of adoption. And whereas more than 100,000 children in foster care nationwide are awaiting adoption with many of these children having spent years in foster care waiting for a permanent loving family. And whereas today in Amarillo, we joyfully celebrate the adoption of 13 children into their forever families. An occasion that reflects hope, healing, and the start of new beginnings. And whereas we honor all adopted families, kinship families, and foster families who selflessly open

their homes and hearts to children in need, offering stability, compassion, and love. And whereas we also recognize the dedicated professionals, case workers, attorneys, judges, advocates, and volunteers who work tirelessly to guide children and families through the adoption process, ensuring every child's best interest is protected. And whereas National Adoption Day serves as an opportunity for the Admirillo community to celebrate families who grow through adoption and to renew our commitment to ensuring that every child has the chance to belong to a permanent, supportive family. Now therefore, we mayor and city council members of the city of Amarillo, Texas, do hereby proclaim November 22nd, 2025 as National Adoption Day, and encourage residents, community organizations, faith partners, and local agencies to join in celebrating adoptive families, supporting children awaiting permanency, and promoting awareness of the life-changing gift of adoption. They didn't tell me that.

Hi everyone. Um, first of all, thank you to Amarillo City for doing this proclamation. National Adoption Day is one of my favorite days of the year. And yeah, this year we have 13 kids being adopted. Um, and this year is extra special to me because we even have a 16-year-old being adopted. So, um, and if anyone is interested in adoption, please look us up because there's always kids who need a forever home. Okay. Thank you. One, two, three. Okay. A proclamation from the city of Ammer, Texas. Whereas during National Family Caregivers Month, we honor and recognize the millions of family caregivers across the country who selflessly dedicate their time, energy, and resources to care for loved ones who are aging, chronically ill, or living with disabilities. And whereas more than 53 million Americans provide unpaid care to loved ones living with illness, disability or age related needs, delivering over 90% of long-term care in the United States and saving billions in health care costs. And whereas family caregivers in the Emerila community exemplify compassion, commitment, and resiliency as they support parents, spouses, children's children, veterans,

friends, and neighbors, often while balancing emotional, physical, and financial challenges. And whereas caregivers face immense challenges, often balancing their caregiving duties with work, family responsibilities and personal needs and deserve greater recognition, respect, and access to support services to help them thrive in their roles. And whereas National Family Caregivers Month, observed each November since 1994 and recognized by presidential proclamation since 1997, serves as a time to honor the vital contributions of caregivers and to raise awareness of the support they need and deserve. Now therefore, the mayor and city council members of the city of Amarilla do hereby proclaim the month of November 2025 as National Family Caregivers Month in Amarillo and urge all residents to recognize these dedicated caregivers and connect them with a connect them with local support networks, programs, and community resources that strengthen and sustain them in their essential roles. It's kind of hard to back that up. I think you pretty much covered the majority of that. Um, at last estimation, there is approximately 50,000 family caregivers in the panhandle of Texas. Um so on Thursday we're having um our 19th annual caregiver um appreciation seminar um where we're bringing in a um a lady from uh Fort Worth and she's going to talk with our caregivers to give them that support and let them know that they are not alone. So many of our caregivers have to step out of that role and feel that or step out of the the limelight or step out of their uh careers to take care of loved ones and

often feel that they're totally alone in that in that capacity. And so we're going to try to flip that script this week and let them know that they have care partners and introduce them to new resources and new networks so that they don't have to feel that they're in this fight alone. Um and allow them to at least have a little break here and there. So, um, we appreciate Amarello, we appreciate all of you, and, um, we hope that, um, this will be just a a nice little way to give them a a reprieve from their daily duties. So, thank you. One, two, three.

Thank you. Emerald Police Department reacreditation. Mayor, council members, and citizens of Amarillo. Good afternoon. My name is Sean Burns. I currently serve as a region 2 director for the Texas Police Chiefs Association. Today, I have the honor of representing the Texas Police Chiefs Association as well as the Texas Law Enforcement Accreditation Agency. Texas Police Chiefs Association is comprised of hundreds of police chiefs and command staff across our gate state leaders committed to advancing professionalism in law enforcement. It is my privilege to be here this afternoon to present the Emeralda Police Department with a certificate of reacredititation from the TPCA. Years ago, the association created the accreditation program to provide a framework for professional excellence in Texas law enforcement. You may be familiar with accreditation programs, schools at hospitals and universities. each requiring proof of adherence to rigorous standards. Our program is no different. The Texas Law Enforcement Accreditation Program is entirely voluntary, yet it demands a high level of accountability. Agencies must demonstrate compliance with 173 standards rooted in Texas law, court rulings, and modern best practices. These standards cover the full scope of police operations, including use of force, protection of individual rights, vehicle pursuits, property and evidence management, patrol and investigative procedures, and proper training, among other things. This program has become the gold standard for professional policing in Texas. Agencies across the state are working tirelessly to meet and

maintain these standards. The Amarella Police Department first received accredited status in 2009, 16 years ago. becoming the 14th agency in the state to do so. Tonight, we proudly announce the department has achieved reacredititation, an accomplishment that is far from easy. To earn this distinction, Emerald PD initially dedicated more than a year to auditing and revising their policies, procedures, and practices. Since then, they have submitted annual compliance reports and maintained ongoing comp adherence to the standards. Every four years, the department underos a rigorous on-site assessment conducted by trained law enforcement assessors from outside the agency. These assessors inspect the facilities, review procedures, write along with officers, and conduct staff interviews, all to verify compliance. The assessment findings are then reviewed by the TPCA accreditation committee, a panel of nine chiefs and sheriffs from across the state. Following their review, the committee voted unanimously to reacredit the Amarillo Police Department. To put this achievement into perspective, of the approximately 2,800 law enforcement agencies in the state of Texas, only 224 have successfully achieved accreditation. These agencies range from departments with just four officers to major metropolitan departments with over 1,900 officers. Regardless of size, professionalism is essential. Our communities expect it and they deserve it. Today, we proudly recognize interim chief Jimmy Johnson and the Emerald Police Department for their exemplary performance and continued commitment to professionalism. What this what does this mean for the city? It means your police department is not only meeting but exceeding the current best practices in Texas law enforcement. It assures city leadership and every resident that your department operates with transparency, accountability, and excellence. It confirms that the Amarila Police Department is among the very best in Texas. The certificate I present today

is symbolic. While it represents professional excellence excellence, its true value lies in the process. The dedication, the discipline, and the commitment required to achieve it. And the work doesn't stop here. The department will continue to submit annual reports and in four years undergo another comprehensive on-site evaluation to maintain the distinguished status. Amarila Police Department is truly a leader in Texas law enforcement and your community should be incredibly proud. Chief Johnson, will you and your team join me? Congratulations On behalf of the men and women of the Emerald Police Department, I want to express our sincere gratitude for this recognition. Reacreditation is more than just a certificate in a frame. It reflects our ongoing commitment to excellence, accountability, and service to the people of Amarillo. This accomplishment belongs to every member of our department. Each of them work tirelessly to uphold the highest standards of professionalism and integrity. And this recognition is a direct result of their dedication. I want to personally thank everyone within our agency, sworn and professional staff, some of which are here with me today, for your role in helping the department achieve reacredititation through the Texas Police Chiefs Association. Accreditation is not a one-time milestone. It's a continuous process that requires discipline, teamwork, and a relentless focus on doing things the right way. You have all contributed to making this possible. I want to give a special recognition to Jack Hildebrandt. Jack served as our compliance coordinator for many years, including

throughout this cycle. Jack's attention to detail, expertise, and commitment were vital in guiding us through a demanding process. Since his retirement, it's actually his second retirement from the police department. We pulled him back for this accreditation process. So since his retirement, uh Haley McGee, you step forward, has stepped into the role with energy and precision, and I am confident she will continue to uphold the high standards that Jack has helped build. I want to thank our mayor, our city council, and our city leadership for their continued support of public safety. Their commitment is ensure in to ensuring we have the resources, training and trust needed to do our jobs effectively have been essential to our success. And finally, I want to recognize that this accreditation is not just ours. It belongs to our community as well because everything we do is rooted in a responsibility to protect and serve with honor. We are grateful for the trust, support, and partnership we receive from this community, and it means more to us than we can ever fully express. The Emerald Police Department is proud to be among the select departments in Texas to hold this distinction, and we remain dedicated to earning your trust every single day. This renewal of our accreditation reaffirms what I have already known that the Emerald Police Department is among the very best in the state of Texas and we will continue to lead with integrity, serve with pride and honor the responsibility we carry with the community. Thank you all.

Yeah. Can we get two? Lord, Mr. Hooper, we got one more. So, I'd like to invite those up from utilities that are going to be recognized today to come up here to the front. All right, mayor council. What we're talking about today is we're recognizing this department, the utilities. I say this is just a portion of the utilities department. These 16 that are here today represent about 250 that are in the utilities department that reached a

major milestone as far as safety is concerned. We also have someone from risk management as well that worked alongside them to reach their goals this year. But over the last fiscal year, proud to announce that utilities uh closed with a 31.7% decrease in total claims and a 25% or 25.7% decrease in total incidents in their department. to tell you how significant that is. In my entire career, I've never seen anything in any year decrease by that much related to safety. That's a significant uh event. And if you think about what they work around, high pressure systems, confined spaces, heavy equipment, unpredictable conditions. They work around chlorine gas, high voltage systems, infectious materials, extreme weather. And it becomes really clear that it's one of the most demanding and probably one of the most critical jobs when it comes to safety that we are departments when it comes to safety across the city of Amarillo. Beyond the outstanding safety record, that accomplishment also has significant financial impact for us here and for the citizens of Amarillo because depending on the cost of each claim, and we know that they all vary depending on the seriousness of those claims, we can say with confidence that there's a significant savings uh in our budget thanks to what you and your departments have done. So the results are really a reflection of a cultural shift that's occurred and and this is part of that culture is the leadership of this department is not up here with you today and that's because they chose to. They said no we want to set back here because this is really their recognition not ours. All we did was give the uh direction and the expectations and they fully implemented and carried it out. So the crews embraced near mississ reporting, tailgate talks, peer checks, supervisors model safety of work, and then the leadership backed it up with training and accountability. So I think it's an outstanding uh task to you, the team, and to those that are watching online because we know that a bunch of them are today. Thank you for protecting one another, and thank you for protecting our community, and thank you

for setting clear goals, measuring what matters, and staying relentless in your pursuit for improvement. A very big accomplishment. I would ask for someone to come up and speak, but I would bet that I'm going to get a bunch of these when I ask for that. So, I would just instead say uh if we would just give them all a giant round of applause for what they've accomplished. I can get you guys a little closer. One more time. Hey, thank you guys for everybody allowing us to do that. I would like to say as those men and women exit, um, you know, the city runs, but not not by

itself. And so those boots on the ground back there are the ones that are running your city. And so we get to talk about our local heroes quite a bit. We think about police and fire. We think about nurses, first responders, but you also need to think about who's running your city. And it's not these five gentlemen sitting up here behind this uh dis in a comfortable seat. It's those ladies and gentlemen that are out there that are doing the hard work day in and day out. So, I hope you guys see that and I thank you, Mr. Hooper, for um the recognition and and how well those departments work and they look out for each other. Um we've got some announcements here this morning. I want to ask as we move along in our working agenda, Mr. City Manager, do you have anything? Okay. Um, we uh we opted as a council to rotate our mayor pro Tim uh every six months. So, we had uh Councilman Simpson as our mayor proim for the first leg. We're now moving over to uh Councilman Prescott. He will be our new mayor proim for the the remainder of this year and then we'll move from there going that way. Not this year, but I'd say this half term. Let's say it that way. Six months. So, um, Mayor Pro Tim, you have anything you'd like to say?

I don't, but thank you.

Okay. Well, we we appreciate you serving in that role and look forward to working alongside of you. Um, we really have a strong council that works hard for you guys and uh there's a lot that's going to be accomplished over these next months. So, stay tuned. One of our favorite uh parts of the meeting is public comment. So um I do want to just kind of give some reiteration. So public comment once again if you don't mind uh it shows a great deal of respect when you limit yourself to your three minutes. Everybody else has limited their yourself as well. So we'd ask you to to maintain your comments to three minutes. Um if you have something that you need specific, we do answer phone calls, text messages, and emails of course. Feel free to reach out to any of us. If we can direct you after your public comment to the staff, they can step off to the side with you. We would ask that this is your opportunity to speak to this council. If you'll face front, not necessarily addressing your constituents in the audience. Um, and then if you have any paperwork or anything you'd like to give to us, we have uh Officer Jenkins right over here. You'll you'll hand that paperwork to him. He'll hand it out. So, Miss City Secretary, do you mind reading us into public comment? Yes. Thank you, mayor. Thank you for participating in today's city council meeting. Your input and your opinions are important to us, and we're glad that you're here to share them today. At each posted meeting, we invite our fellow community members to address city council regarding posted agenda items or topics related to city policy. During public comment today, each speaker will have three minutes to address the council. At the end of two and a half minutes, a warning beep will sound to alert you that you have 30 seconds left to wrap up your thoughts. When you come to the microphone today, please state your name and whether or not you live in Amarillo city limits. If you are addressing council on an agenda item today, please state your position

so we may reflect it properly in the minutes. If you are speaking to an item not on today's agenda, the Texas Open Meetings Act limits how elected officials may respond. Council may respond with statements of fact. They may ask that the topic be added to a future agenda or they may refer the matter to the city manager who can have staff step out and visit with you regarding your topic. We will be use utilizing both podiums for public comment today. When you are called as next to speak, please make your way to the unused podium to wait your turn. All excuse me, once all registered speakers have addressed city council, the mayor may at his discretion call for speakers that did not sign up. At that time, anyone wishing to speak should form a single line in the middle aisle and take the next available podium as one becomes available. As a reminder, you are here today to address the Amarillo City Council, not the audience. As such, we ask that you please ensure your focus of all comments to your elected officials. Again, thank you for being here today. Our first public commenter will be Bob G. Yalamanchi. And after Bob G, Jaden Gitchel may move to the other podium. Uh my name is Bob Galami. I came to this country 55 years back and I have seen you know all these years you know how much trash and build up you know over the years you know uh people used to give like brown bags you know when we first came here now we have so many plastic bags and it's flying everywhere like balloons and you know it takes a lot of uh cleanup in the city you know to maintain very

I need a lot of uh leaders in this town. I want every one of you lead to set up a group and start cleaning up the city. You cannot have with few people running around and then cleaning up. This is not going to work. We have so much trash everywhere and wind is not helping at all. That's a major problem here. This the windiest city in Amarillah and we have trashiest city in Amalo. I mean I I see everywhere you know there are some some good neighborhoods, some bad neighborhoods. Not bad. I mean you know it needs some help. So you know I want everybody to participate in cleanups not just me alone. In last 40 days I have been out there cleaning up every day two and a half hours every day. and he's a gentleman you know he helped me a lot you know we started you know he will talk about the creek so I need a lot of help you know everybody you know set up a group and start leading you know this people will like that you know I just want to post on the Facebook and just my alone I want to post your cleanups efforts you know that's what I want to Because everybody everybody has to participate in the city. If you see something, you know, you stop and go and then pick up something. Don't wait until next day. You know, every day is a cleanup day. It has to be like that. Then, you know, you can solve that problem. Otherwise, you know, the the wind is going to take someplace else before you before you see it, you know. So this is very important also you know

um I'm uh concentrating on the Texas panhandle I have done it before I you know communicate with all the 61 school districts in panhandle and also that many mayors you know I used to send the flyers and then you know tell them hey you take care of your own neighborhoods I you know that's what I used to do you know okay uh so I need help you know I want to do some fundraising in the future I I I need your help, you know, to do that because we need a lot of help. Okay. Thank you very much. If we could get Alli Videna to come up to the other podium and Jaden, you may begin your comments.

Um, greetings council. Um, I'm here with Bob G to represent. Sorry, I am. Um, uh, yeah. Uh, we've been down at Plum Creek, which is just right there. you know, you've got Walmart and then Tuscosa Road. Um, and we've been spending, you know, at least three hours a day just going out there and moving as much trash as we can. And we need as much help as we can just across the city to both get the word out and try to get volunteers in to help us because it it really is just me, him, and somebody else. And, you know, it's we we can't just do it ourselves. It's we need to coordinate with you know schools, churches here to try to get the word out and communicate that you know we are trying to take care of this problem that we have and you know it's it's to protect life to protect everybody and everything. I've I personally, you know, I met him just on November 1st and, you know, I I really wish I met him sooner, but um I personally I've I've spent a lot of time just down at Medi Park and John Wart uh removing as much trash as I can from there. And um I I I noticed a serious problem uh with uncovered trash, I would say, across uh city parks here. Um I see that you know they constantly overfill and if there's any way to you know try to get into the budget just anything that we can to handle uh any kind of undercover trash that we have because of how windy it is here. Um I noticed that that is a major contributor to the destruction of our environment. Um I think that about covers it. Thank you very much

Jaden. We appreciate your comments, Mr. City Manager. Would we be able to get someone with Bob G and his group to identify maybe the large items that uh we visited earlier and so if we could handle large solid waste for them while they're picking up the trash? Yes, I can have Donnie Hooper and his team get with Bob G and them to discuss that. I think that'd be a great help. Thank you. Next will be Daniel Martinez. And while Daniel makes his comments, Ricky Cantu, if you'll come to the other podium.

Good afternoon. My name is Daniel Martinez and I'm a resident of Amarillo. Each mayor and city commission, each of you should have received a contract book such as this. We're in favor of opening the contract so that all licensed operators in the city of Amarillo have an equal chance to operate and make it much safer for all of our citizens. want to call to your attention that T- Miller Incorporated, local tolling company, currently holds the city contract for vehicle tolling services. It's come to our attention that T- Miller, Inc. is operated in violation of the state law in raising significant concerns regarding the integrity of city contract and the protection of the citizens rights. The specific violations reportedly included with the vehicle storage facility license, failure to comply and maintain insurance requirements. This is the second time the city of Emerald has in been informed of these allegations and specifically during the bid process that was accomplished recently and given awarded to T- Miller Incorporated. These actions not only undermine the public trust but also put the city of at the risk of legal and reputational consequences. Given that T- Miller Inc. is entrusted with the city contract. We respectively request that the mayor's office, city commission properly investigate these concerns and I urge the city to take appropriate correction actions may include re-evaluation and termination of the contract to ensure that future agreements and awards of the companies are strictly adhered to by the applicable law and regulations. Thank you for your time today. I appreciate the opportunity to make a comment. I know that your work is very important. I've been in your position and the agenda never ends in terms of the need and want. Nothing is more paramount than the safety of our citizens. You know, recently in a closing comment, I want to

say that in a local football team, Emerald High was made to apply the rules of this season's uh season where they gave up eight of their games, no six of their games recently. They were held to a higher standard because of that and all we ask is that T. Miller with the city of the Amarillo contract be held to the same standard and that they follow the rules of law. Thank you gentlemen. We would invite Robert Runquist up to the empty podium and Ricky you may begin your comments.

Gentlemen, thank you Ricky Kantu. If I could take y'all to page uh to tab one on this tow contract book. Um if y'all could turn to page two, it shows the u the renewal times of of your current contractor with T- Miller when the renewal date was and when it was renewed. Um and also that's very important is the uh on the second tab of insurance the H&I form the effective date and that it has no expiration. Um, so since 2019, we believe that they they didn't file the H&I form and the E form, which put them out of compliance as well. Um, in in uh in 22, I in when when the contract was given to T. Miller. I informed the city uh mayor chief wrote an email letting them know that the contract was in violation because it wasn't they didn't have their their storage facility license in place. Sent an email got an email back from Mr. Sour uh who said um why don't you notify him and let him know? Um and so we did uh but still waited on a response back from this city. Um their contract came uh due again for renewal. Uh we got a we got an email on on Thursday last week that the city was going to continue the contract with team Miller for one more year. Um which we think the contract should have been null and void from the beginning due to not proper uh licensing. uh under the specific contract, it says you have to be um you have to be in compliance to be on the contract and and

they weren't at the time of the RFP. And so that's our argument and that's our presentation to you guys is hey, if you're not in compliance, you can't bid on it. And and if you bid on it and you were awarded on it, somebody needs to hold them into compliance, right? And so if you'll look at that page, page two, um it shows you every year that they were out of compliance, which has been every year that they've had the contract, they've been out of compliance, either didn't renew their storage license or didn't renew their their their tow license to operate the tow truck. Um which are pretty big penalties uh through the occup occupations code. Um, so I know you guys, this is not what you do for a living is towing. That's what I do. And that's why I'm here to make you aware of it, right? And so I I'd like to I'd like for the city to have staff look into it and and give us a response of, hey, this is what we found. This is what they could or could not prove. All we want is transparency. Thank you. We invite Robbie Carter up to the empty podium. And Robert, you may begin your comments.

Yes, I'm here to speak about the record contract also. I'm the longest serving record operator in Amarella. 41 years I've been in this business in Amarella. I've seen this contract and this towing be done several different ways. At one time it was one week, one record service does it for a week, then it rotates to another. I've seen one contract that that record service pays the city so much money to do it and they have it for two or three years and they pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it. the way you've got it now. You've got one record service doing it and you've you're putting people's lives at danger out there because I don't know if you looked at statistics, but wrecks don't kill people as far as police, fire, and EMS, people driving by. And every minute that that intersection's blocked or that interstate blocked, you're putting those those uh first responders in danger. Secondary accidents are what causes accidents. There's more there's more people killed in secondary accidents than the accident that actually stopped the traffic on I40. When there's one accident, it causes a 4m minutee backup. You used to not notice that on I40, but you do notice it now. If you're out there, there's a wreck, you're backed up. And it doesn't matter how severe it is. And you've got right now you've got 12 13 wreckers at your disposal. You could have a hundred if you rotated it. One if you have one big accident with 50 cars in a snowstorm. Do y'all really think one record service is going to go out there and clear that in an hour? It's not going to happen. It's just not just it's not feasible. But if you have a hundred records at your disposal, you're going to get it

cleared a lot faster. going to make the roads a lot safer and you're also taking money out of record drivers pockets by giving it to one service. You've got a 100 record drivers out there getting paid commission. That's how they get paid. They don't get paid hourly. They get paid commission. So when you give it to one record services, you're cutting everybody else out of it. And we don't think it's fair for the citizens Amarella to have to give up money because you all want to go to one record service. It just I've done it 41 years. I don't I just don't see it happening like that. The fair way to do it is to give it to the top three record services that actually can make a difference out there. You look at Vega, Texas. Vega, Texas has 2,000 people in it. When there's a snowstorm over there, they don't wait on a record. There's two record services over there. They can get 50 records in Vegas, Texas in 30 minutes. Y'all can't do that in Amarella. You just can't do it with one record service. But Vega, Texas can. So I thank you.

We invite Stephen Hamilton up to the empty podium. And Robbie, you may begin.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. My name is Robbie Carter. I'm the operations manager for Sierra Towing and Crushing, which is in the city of Amarillo. I personally live just southwest of Amarila. I'd like to talk about a little bit about the towing contract. I'd like to start with talking about a little bit about accountability on both the city and T- Milliller. As far as I have been able to see, there is none. Nobody monitors anything that's in the contract. For example, we had a meeting not too long ago and we're asked about for a report on some weight times and nobody could give us that information without having to call T. Miller and have them pull the reports themselves. How does that work for accountability? Sierra Towing along with all the other tow companies in this area all use the same software. It's called toebooks in which you can go in and you can adjust anything if you choose to wait times or what have you. Uh so if you're late, nobody's mon and nobody's monitoring it, there is no accountability. Same thing with not having insurance, storage facility license, so on and so forth. Now let's talk a little bit about right and wrong. All of y'all were voted in to represent everyone, not just someone. We at Sierra and to Sierra Towing employee around 40 people that would also benefit from this contract, most of which are also voters. So, all we ask is that you think about what's right and what's wrong here and at least put this contract buck up for discussion before we just hand it back over to one company with everything that shows that the city would benefit more by having a rotation, for example, 15 to 20 records versus a 100 records. Kind of a no-brainer. I do firmly believe that this single rotation was decided before all the

facts were present and understood. Thank you for your time and we all look forward to your response. Have a good evening. Hey Robbie, I'll tell you this because of you guys. We've had a I've talked to Andrew and it looks like we will be getting toebooks because I agree with you on the accountability and we're going to try to get that software so that we can look at that. So I don't disagree with you on the accountability. I think that's good. So appreciate y'all bring that to our attention. Absolutely. Thank you. I'm Stephen Hamilton, operations. One second, Stephen. Let me invite up Zachary Tudtor to the empty podium and you can go ahead.

Okay. Stephen Hamilton. I'm the operations manager at K3 Towing and Recovery here in Amarillo. I personally reside in Vega. Um I'm here more on the safety part of it. I deal with it. I'm volunteer fire out there. You know, been in the record business almost 20 years now. I've seen a few different rotations. Um, I personally have family who is on AFD, family who is AMR, and they constantly ask, "Why does it take so long? Why do they only have one? Can they call y'all?" And I go through the spill with them all the time, you know. But I got a few facts here for you. Last year alone, I tried to find this year, they ain't got the number yet. Last year alone, 46 first responders and record drivers were killed on the roadways. So there's you to back up what Robert was saying on the secondary wrecks. Secondary wrecks, the number on that's pretty crazy. For every minute that you're sitting on scene, it increases you the likelihood of 2.8% of a secondary wreck. And the secondary wreck is where us, the first responders are the ones who die. You know, the first wreck could happen, it's over, it's done with, we're dealing with it. We're cleaning it up. It's the rubbernecking. It's the people with their video cameras, distracted drivers. We've all seen it on the news. You know, somebody wants to video, not paying attention, run somebody over. Potter County just had a one of their firet trucks hit a few days ago. Same thing, you know, and they only use one record service as well. So, it just just the safety part of it. I mean, it's not fair to your guys. It's not fair to my family who are in these departments that have to sit there and wait. You know, if it's your family standing there waiting on the record, you know, it's not fair to them at all that they have

to wait so long for a tow truck to get there when I mean, I can have a record there in 15 minutes. Any of these guys can have one there in 15, 20 minutes because, you know, we have plenty to do. But we'll make one available. We don't want to race nobody or do anything like that. We just want to get the roads cleared and make them safe because we see it every day. You guys don't. You're lucky. But every single day, we see this. We see the crashes. We see everything that happens when one is wrecked. And I do a lot on I40. I don't do a lot in Amarillo. We do work wrecks in Amarillo. But a lot of the stuff we see on I40, I don't know how many times I've almost been hit by somebody in the secondary crash. I've ran for my life on I40 from a secondary crash. I've ran to save somebody secondary crashes. It's it's all about time on scene. And if we don't get them get the roads cleared, then nobody's safe. You just increase your time by a lot. And it's and I do mean a lot. That's all I got. Thank y'all. Hey, let me clarify something again. Y'all have educated me quite a bit. I've had discussions with you guys. Um, in the contract, does it not read that if the the current I guess the the T Miller at this point if they can't get there in 20 minutes that it's advised to call someone goes to somebody else? Is that correct,

Ricky? They have 25 minutes to get to 11 p.m. 11 p.m. 659. Okay. Is that correct, Andrew? Yes. If they can't meet the required times per contract, they're supposed to get another tow company to help. Okay. So, the contract trying to tries to speak to what you're saying. Try to keep that time to a minimum. Yes, sir. So, just wanted to verify that. But with that toebooks, we should be able to see that. Correct. You can see it as long as they didn't adjust it. There's not nothing. I can adjust every time in toebook. So toebooks is good or no? It is good. Is it? It is.

So I can adjust whatever time I show up and make the data read whatever I want to read. You sure can. Well, that's no good. Nope. But I have GPS on all my trucks that'll tell you the same thing. Well, actually show you the times. I cannot adjust those. But it's not in tow books. You could put I'm not saying you anybody could put whatever they want. Even though they GPS their trucks and they could back it up. That data is only at given if asked for. It's not part of toebooks. Okay. Okay. Well, that's good information. I didn't know that. So, okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to ask a question, Mr. Freeman. What is T- Miller not providing the the timing? Can I ask that question?

I can't ask a question. Can I ask a question? I mean, Mr. Tips got to ask a question.

I would like to ask question. Um, continue with the question and then I think we can solve our problem here accordingly. Mr. Freeman, is is there a problem with the current provider in being there on time as far as meeting their required time frames? Yes. No, not based on the reports we've gotten. Um, there are of course exceptions, but on averages 80 to 90% 85 to 90% are meeting the required time frames. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you for allowing me to ask my question.

I appreciate that and I I I know the intent is to make sure that everybody that wants to be involved in a conversation is we achieve that through our open meetings act and through public notice. The appropriate thing would be to put this on a future agenda item for discussion. Um, so I I appreciate the questions from council and I do know that there's a little latitude in running the meeting and and so I want to be considerate of that, not try to stifle anything, but at the same time, um, I want to make sure that I keep us in good standing with all things legal. Um, council, are you interested in having a future discussion item on the towing contract? Looks like we are. I'd like to see.

Okay, we'll give direction as a body and ask for that to come back. You're up, sir. Would you state your name for the record, please? Daryl Ry up to the other podium, please. And then you can go ahead, Zachary.

My name is Zachary Tudtor. I'm the uh driver and equipment supervisor as well as heavy operator for Ricky's Towing. Um, excuse me. I didn't I didn't intend to speak. I was just kind of decided to. Um, to kind of answer some questions that you had, Mr. Tips, as far as the toebook software. Um, I'll go ahead and answer that real quick. If you have any questions regarding that, Mrs. Katrina Cantu is an excellent person to reach out to. She's done countless hours um u getting to know the software, their programs. There are ways for the city to actually access that um through dispatch and everything else that the roadside providers also use. They direct dispatch us through towbooks. So that way y'all have a little more control um to where whatever company is you're dealing with doesn't have the ability to go in and change all that. Um so I just kind of wanted to cover that. Um but also I've been I've been with Ricky for going on five years now. I don't have the you know obviously I don't I haven't been doing it as long as some of these other guys have, but I have been here long enough to have been with the company when we were on a rotation as well as now with the contract. And to kind of reiterate the fact of commission drivers, we uh when they went to that contract, we definitely we heard from it. We saw a huge difference. You know, I'm a I'm a citizen of Amarillo. I'm a taxpayer. Um but you know, that that's how I make my living. That's how I feed my family. And so to see it go to just one company instead of spreading the wealth amongst, you know, your three or four biggest companies that have the equipment to be able to do that. But also as well as the fact of safety, you know, I kind of thought of something as the uh as the chief was up here receiving his award and and the safety of of the first responders. Uh, you know, I don't have statistics and

numbers, but obviously like they said, the longer we're out there on the side of the road trying to clean things up or the longer you're sitting there waiting on a on a tow truck, um, the more danger you're in. Not only that, you're also tying up resources and because every minute you're sitting there waiting, an officer has to stay on scene and wait for a record to arrive. So there there's resources tied up in that as well that can have a a lasting effect as far as response times and and and other things going on not just strictly at that scene of that accident. And that's about all I've got.

If we could get Tim Benson up to the empty podium and Daryl, you may begin.

Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Uh, my name is Daryl Kerry. I'm a I'm an attorney. Some know that, some know me. Um, I do not live in the city of Amarillo. I live in Canyon. I practice in Potter and Randall counties pretty extensively. Um, I just like to note I I appreciated the awards that y'all handed out and the accolades that y'all gave folks a good exercise of governmental authority and appreciation. What they talk about though, proof of adherence to rigorous standards, right? Uh policies, procedures, and practices followed. Professionalism is expected and deserved. Those were the things that your police department was awarded for. um accountability, transparency, excellence, those things they were rewarded for. Your utility department praised for reducing accidents in the 30% range. All great things. And what have we heard here today? The opposite of those things in your towing contract. 2.8% increase in accidents per minute on scene. You know, that contract when it went out for RFPs was 20 minutes, ended up being 25. Uh 5* 2.8 tells you a 14% increase. Uh 35% at night, a 40% increase in danger. You know, those things are all foreseeable result in accidents. Foreseeability, accidents equals liability. Um, obviously I'm here to say that this this contract also uh as you review it

uh has challenges to the bidding process. It could be I think granted by courts contract may well be void or voidable. Uh you can't extend a void contract. You're acting outside your authority. Um the certainty of future liability for safety on the roadside and for liability for the award of this contract is almost guaranteed. U I would urge you to consider these things that have been offered by the experts in the field the towing companies and reook at how this is done. I would not extend this contract. I think it would be a big mistake. It would be contrary to the things you've honored here today to to do that. Um 85% on time tells you one thing, 15% out of time could be resolved, solved, and helped by adding all qualified towing companies. And you know, for them to say that they have times when they've been out of compliance is certainly unacceptable. Thank you.

We'd invite Al Patel up to the empty podium. And Tim, you may begin.

Mayor, council, I'm here to talk about item 10. Mayor and council, I'm asking you to pause before reappointing Gary Jennings to this center city tears board number one. Mr. Jennings is currently receiving tax incentives from the same tiers and his wife is is an investor of a project that is expected to come before the board. These are clear financial interests that the public has to not has not been disclosed under the Texas local government code chapter 171. A public official with a substantial interest in property or business businesses affected by the board action must file an affidavit and abstain from part from participation. Failure to do so can constitute a violation of 171.004. At a minimum that the the appearance of selfbenefit significant before reappointing the council should re require full public disclosure of these interest and ensure that any related votes would be would require recusal. If these conflicts cannot be managed, I urge you to consider an alternative appointee. Thanks for your time. We would invite Alan Fineold up to the empty podium and Al you may begin. Thank you council members for your time. My name is Al Patel and I reside in the city limits of Amarillo. Before you consider any appointment to this center city tiers board I'm speaking on 10N. I want to address a very serious concern. The conflict of interest that arises when a board member stands to receive or is already receiving receiving financial incentives approved by the same tiers. What we are talking about is simple. You cannot be a referee and a player. You

cannot sit on a tears board whose whose core job is allocating financial incentives, reimbursements, and taxpayer funded benefits while personally standing to gain from those same approvals. Even if the individual claims they will recuse themselves, the conflict does not magically disappear. Influences influence does not begin and end at the vote. Board members participate in discussions, set priorities, signal approval, and help shape the discussions and decisions along before anything comes to a formal vote. The informal power is still a financial advantage. So when this agenda item says, I want you to consider center uh city tax increment reinvestment zone board members, you the council are not just filling a vacancy. You are determining what whether these seats will be used for public benefit or private gain. The taxpayer deserves absolute confidence that the decisions inside the tiers one are being made for the zone the community not for one not for one's individual personal financial interest. If any nominee has current or future financial incentives tied to the tiers one the ethical choice is clear. They should not sit on the board. appoint appointment appoint some appoint someone who represents the public interest not someone who stands to profit from their own decisions. Also, last council you awarded 17.7 million in incentives to a developer of the Herring Hotel. I want to make it very clear that these large incentives hurt the local economy economy and does not and does burden the citizens of citizens of Amarillo. You are shifting that burden onto the residents, the infrastructure, the funds of tourism, the police, the fire department, the streets, and everyday services that other taxpayers pay, everybody else pays. Every dollar going to the developer is a dollar not going to fix aging water lines, repair streets, improve public safety, or keep taxes stable. The idea that this is

somehow removes the burden from citizens ignores the fact that citizens are the ones losing from these dollars. This puts a big burden on the citizens.

If Alli Videna is here, you can take the empty podium. And Alan, you may begin your comments. I would like to ask permission for asking questions to your director of public utilities and having him answer the question without the time being subtracted from my three minutes. Would you permit me to do that if the questions are strictly factual? Mr. Fineold, let's see if we can address this this way because last time we had the same request. Can't facilitate that here in front of everyone else. If you want to write these questions down,

feel free to hand them to our uh let's go to our city manager and and we would be happy to to do a sidebar and and answer those directly for you. Very good. Uh I will not ask the questions. I will simply make a few comments. Very good, sir.

In the last community investment program, there was $4 million that was allotted for project number 523198. This was with the water transmission department to rehabilitate or replace what they called phases that is sections of the water pipeline from Carson County as it ran along Fritz Highway and entered the city of Amarillo. That project so far as I know was not done. I don't think it's even on the plan as it presently exists. We should consider the whole matter of the water field in Carson County and the pipeline from it as it goes to Amarillo. I do not know when the last time, if ever, the city of Amarillo did a complete check on the entire length of that pipeline, but we need to do that soon and find out just how much will be required to repair that pipeline both in terms of time, effort, and money. I would also like the city of Amarillo to inform us what the annual cost will be, which your staff estimated would be required for operations and maintenance of the infrastructure that's to be built in order to obtain the water that will be purchased from the city of Amarillo by the Fairmy project. The quote on that so far has been that the Fairmy project will pay 11 to12 million for installation of some sort of infrastructure. But we have not heard from the city of Amarillo the actual amount in terms of operation and maintenance which the city will have to expend to maintain that infrastructure.

We also need to get the difference between the revenues that you will obtain and the expenditures that you will have to make in order to obtain those revenues. There should be a separate account for all revenues from that project so that we know just how much is obtained from it and where it will go. And I suggest that it goes only for the maintenance of the water distribution pipeline from Carson County to Amarillo and that you permanently have that as the financing mechanism for that pipeline. Mr. Fineold, don't step away. What is that project number again on the pipeline?

523198. 523198. That's correct. Let me go to work for you on this. Uh Mr. city manager, if you could get a report on that particular project and confirm that that is the pipeline project that he is um addressing that was the $4 million and then if you'll email me on that, I'll be glad to engage with you directly and try to get you an answer on that project. Okay. Water transmission department is the category. Glad to get you an update on it. Thank you, sir. Thank you, mayor. That concludes everybody that signed up for public comment today.

Okay. I would wager that we got a few in the audience that would like to speak. We always allow that. Um I'm going to ask by a show of hands how many people would like to offer public comment that are here today. Not not terrible. Let's just start right here with Mr. Skank if you come forward. Sir James Skank Amarillo. Um, you know, I'm always concerned about the consent items and today in particular, it's just because I want to hear more about these particular things. And this one in particular here in 8 W and X and Z and double F are ones that we're actually dealing with some of this Carson County uh involvement putting in a 42 in actuating valve. Never heard that discussed anywhere in here uh about what that actually is. Um, and then the HVAC repairs to a Potter County and Carson County pump station. The operative word in there to me is county, not city, you know, and I just wonder who's paying for that. And I know it's comparatively it's a small amount of money, but it's the money. Um, and Z is the pressure transducers, whatever that means. How Floyd. Anyway, um, that's going to be used in Carson County. Carson Countyy's become a part of our agenda item pretty pretty quickly. Uh, and then double F. Uh that's the contract to engage with the water rights on some of that area over there. If we could pull those from the agenda and just have a brief discussion about those because we're

concerned about transparency and stuff in all these matters of you know firmy and water and uh nuclear reactors and and you know making things happen. So I'd appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Skank. And yes, we we can gladly pull those off and address that those are part of our wellfield. Um, so Mr. Fischer, I saw your hand up. Is that right, sir?

I'd like to ask a statement of fact before my time starts and it's already started over here. We can pause your time for it's about an agenda item and I think it's important uh for something I'm working on. Um and I'd like to ask the two gentlemen here on my left. How many MGDs does the sewer plant the current sewer plants uh process per day? Okay. So, let me see if I can get you that answer. If you want to continue forward with your three minutes and then um we will do our best to get you the total MGD produced from both wastewater treatment plants. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh I don't know if it helps you, Mr. Chief, uh Jimmy Johnson, but uh I'm put I'll put my uh two cents in for him. It might hurt him, but um hopefully I think you guys should consider u highly consider him. Um on this agenda, my name is Mike Fischer, live in the city of Laro. Uh on this agenda, you guys are going to consider placing the ADC interim president Doug Nelson on a PID PID. Do you think he would go against anything that the city wants to do as as a PID uh board member? What does PID mean? PI some say it's public improvement district. More like pay it dummy. We know what a PID is. Don Tip said it's a tax. Cole, you said many times Amarillo won't become big brother. Yet every time an agenda item comes up to purchase surveillance equipment or software, you vote yes. I'm pretty sure you could correct me if I'm wrong on that. Today it's pin link software to do more of that big brother stuff. I think it's about 100 grand. Um, how is it possible to spend $7.3 million on one park lighting? Yet, today we're going to add another $40,000 to that. Um, you're going to pay somebody $70,000 a year to vote to to mow the well fields. I mean, come on, guys. You guys are business guys. You got to be able to lease that property and put some cows out there and you could make money off this instead of spending money. I mean, you guys are business guys. I' I'd like for you to pull that off the agenda and talk about it. Um, got a minute left, so I'll skip down. Um, Cole, you campaigned as a country

boy, old truck, country roads, humble beginnings, but somewhere between the ballot box and that country club neighborhood you now call home. You forgot where you came from. You didn't run on the country club boy, but that's exactly what you become. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fischer. Always happy to continue to engage and go to work for you. What is the item that you were referring on the mowing contract, sir? Somebody else might be able to help me out on this, but I think I've got it marked here, but I'm not sure. Do we have it? Anybody in the room? Great.

8 V. Say again. V. Victor. V is in Victor. Okay. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Mr. Warren, I see you back there. If you come forward.

Yeah. Tom Warren. Uh, Amarillo. So, this one is going to be probably a little bit different, but John 6:44 says, "No man comes to the Lord unless he's drawn by." Last Friday, I attended a meeting that was really uncomfortable for me. I knew that I had a meeting to go to, and I knew what waited, and I didn't really want to go, but I knew I had no choice. Like John 6:44 says, I was drawn by him. You see, I made a promise to from my friend Jesus, and I kept my promise. I arrived. I watched the meeting start and I followed the Holy Spirit. When it became evident that no one else would stand up, I did. What does that mean? Does that make me exceptional? No. The truth is that standing up was way beyond my comfort zone. It would have been so much easier to sit and just watch things play out. But that's not what I was called there to do. God has a plan for each of us in our lives. But will we answer him when he calls? Today I stand before each of you to give you a message that is far beyond my comfort zone. Just like Friday was delivering this message to you is in fact me being obedient. It has nothing to do with politics whatsoever. It has everything to do with you guys eternity. Jesus has been calling out to each of you to see if you will answer. I know this for a fact many times in the midnight hour when he wakes me and draws me to prayer. Often times he leads me to you guys. I have given several of you words at different times that have been from the Holy Spirit. And several of you guys know what I'm talking about. He has said that it's important that you really examine yourselves and identify

and remove all the things in your life that keep you and the father at arms length. Before you can hear from and be led by Jesus, you need to make a line item change in your lives and move him to the top of the list. You cannot hear him if anything, but most especially yourself stands in the way. He needs real leaders right now. He needs people that will stand when he calls them out and they have a backbone of steel. So in this time he is raising up new Davids and he wants you to know these raising up new Davids. So I have delivered the message to you guys. So what you do from there that's up to you. That's your responsibility. He wants me to express to you that it's important that you turn to him and hear his call soon. You are all running out of time. Thanks. Well, thank you, Mr. Warren, for your obedience. I I definitely understand the need to be obedient to what you feel the Holy Spirit leading you to. And I want to give a statement of fact. I know I personally appreciate every person that prays for me. And it means a great deal when people say, you know, we pray for you and and we understand, you know, that things aren't what they look like and that we're praying not just for the city, but for you individually. So I also appreciate any brother that can help me keep my priorities straight. And so I have no greater priority than to hear well done, good and faithful servant from my Lord and Savior when all this is over with. So that teaching in Matthew is pretty good to keep us focused on what we need to be doing, right? And so there can be fellowship in the field. We can be about our father's b business and it's work in

the field. And so the word says the harvest is plentiful. The laborers are few. I appreciate Mr. Warren uh not only for his obedience and coming in here, but he does serve. And so we're your servants. Um, I I also stay stand up here and say with confidence like I I don't have a subjective line item that's out of order. He's number one and I'm proud to tell you that and stand on that. I think that's why you elect people that have core values. Now, my voting record is my voting record and I stand on that as well. But I I don't take anything in the wrong sense, Tom, in in you continuing to promote and continuing to call your brothers to seek out like that prioritization. Um, you know, what what does it gain a man to profit the whole world and yet lose his soul, right? So, here here's what I'd say. True freedom comes from caring very little what other people think about you. As an old cowboy once said, "It's none of my business what you think of me, but I do care what you think about my Lord and Savior as a representative of him first and foremost." And so my job is to try to represent him well, regardless of what it looks like. And for those of you that can receive it, I think that's great. I continue to encourage your prayer. For those of you who can't receive it, I think that's fine. It's none of my business. You ready to move on, sir? Would you like to offer public comment? Give us your name, please.

Yes, sir. JC Blackburn. I am the uh law enforcement and emergency services liaison with K3 Towing. And u I've listened to obviously a lot of our uh partner tow companies up here talk about this contract and and something to bring up with tow books because I'm familiar with both. I come with from a law enforcement background. I'm still current law enforcement. Uh, something I would I would suggest you do is go talk to your law enforcement people and your fire and your EMS about those response times. Again, toebooks can be manipulated to whatever times you want because I've I've got the system myself. Uh, I know that most of our CAD systems don't actually track those times because we have other things we need to track that are more important and that we have to track and that's not really on their their priority list. us as record services, we don't want to add work to them by making them track something like that. But it's as simple as going and talking to your staff about those response times. What what causes those scene times to go longer and and create the dangers that all these others have talked about normally is the cleanup. It's not the extrication. It's not the others. It is the cleanup of the crash. Uh, and I think that if you would go to a rotation that can definitely service the citizens better and make it safer for the community, safer for uh, our operators out there, and safer for all your first responders uh, just by simply trying to speed up that time because you have more resources at your disposal. Uh, again, and it also gives the opportunity to not just one company. It doesn't lock you in. U, the only time I would suggest at one company is if that one company has 200 trucks. And I don't think there's any one company in Amarillo that could service Amarillo by itself the way it sits at the moment. Uh with as many crashes and as many other toes that they get. Uh you know if there was a company out there, you know, obviously I'd advise you to look at that. I just don't think any of us as one person could do that. And that's

kind of been my job with K3 is to kind of go around and talk to uh those emergency agencies and make sure our things are running smoothly and that we are uh you know servicing them the best we can and that our response times are where they should be in the areas that we serve. Uh I appreciate your time and uh if there's any questions on you know looking into the CAD systems and relating that back over to the toebooks obviously I'm very familiar with that. Thank you, sir. Mr. Blackburn, can you tell me if you're a resident of Emerald or not for our minutes? No, I'm not. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Do I have anyone else here who would like to offer public comment today? Mr. Ford, I see you in the back. If you come forward, please. Mayor, council, Mike Ford, Emerald, Texas. Um, I was going to wait until they have it. I'll just get the introduction out of the way. Did you, Mr. Reed, did you get one? Oh, sorry. So, these are just questions. um looking for answers and to the extent that we can get answers that's great. If we can't that's fine. Uh number one, did the city council meet in close session today at 12 pm?

Yes. No.

Okay. Thank you. Uh number two, what part of the city of Ammeral charter or municipal code authorizes the mayor or any city council for that matter in their sole capacity and absent a public act of the city council to ask to task the city manager and city staff with the six months project culminating in an agreement reached with the a majority city council without the majority city council knowledge or approval that was relied upon by Fermy to sell $700 million in stock in an IPO. Is there any uh any uh factbased answers that I can get on that and what authorities exist on the municipal code or the city charter that allow that because I've looked at the charter uh nothing exists there I've also looked at the municipal code nothing exists there so any thoughts nope okay thank you very much what part of the city of emerald charter municipal code authorizes the city manager to enter into a water saleou with fermy for up to 5.5 mgd and relied upon by Fermy in its most recent stockholder communications without the public consent of the city council. Anything thisou just appeared and there's no city there's no public act by the city council that that authorized that that authorizes city manager to enter into it and yet the firm is relying upon it and their investor communications. Nothing. Huh. Weird. Um, so finally on the uh I'm I'm just going to conclude the little cutesy thing here. Which one was your favorite projects? These are the four these are four uh AEDC notices totaling $82 million in projects. And if you know which one is your favorite project, feel free to call it out, but I don't think you have a clue what those projects are. Uh finally, um please remove AP from consent agenda um on Tangles. Also, um

Mr. Prescott, it is purely your right and if you write this down 55142 under the open meetings act to request and make factbased questions during uh public comment. That's your right. It specifically addresses 551042 specifically addresses members of the public and it addresses members of the government body. So, it's if you have a question as an elected official, it is your right by all means, and I defy anybody over here to to stop you from doing that, to ask a fast fact-based question. And just as Mr. Tips did, he was asking plenty of fact-based questions. He was giving feedback that nobody is going to walk up here and put you in cuffs for asking questions or engaging the public. I promise you that's not going to happen. But there's this there's this desire to shut down public comment. And Mr. Simpson, you think that public comment is not the time for conf conversation. That's the only time for it. That's the only time the public gets. Thank you.

I do have a I have a question, Mr. Ford. Yes, sir. Sorry, a little surprise. Yeah, thank you for that clarification. You have described multiple times since I've been on the dis actions of the Emerilus City Council as unlawful. Uh, these are serious allegations. Yes. So, for the benefit of the public, I have two very straightforward questions. Okay. Are you a licensed attorney in the state of Texas or in any other jurisdiction? That's an appeal to authority. That doesn't mean that I cannot opine on something. I'm actually an experienced practitioner in the Texas Open Meetings Act for a decade and a half.

Are you attorney? Are you a licensed attorney? I don't have to be a licensed attorney to interpret uh what a straightforward meaning of the of the regulation of the Texas Open Meetings Act. There's no requirement for that. As a matter of fact, the Texas Citizens Participation Act specifically allows citizens. Okay. So, you're not illegal illegal acts by their city by their city. You're not an attorney. No, I'm not an attorney.

Thank you. If you're not an attorney, which we've just qualified, what qualified legal authority, specific statutes, case law, or written opinion from licensed counsel are you relying on for your conclusion to these actions which are unlawful? Uh I would talk about the Solder decision in the tax notes case and the appeals court decision in the tax notes case which gave the template for uh how the city of of Amarillo was supposed to uh write uh public notices, legal public notices, especially in matters of significant public concern. Now, those are straightforward decisions by two courts that found that this gentleman over here was and a couple of others over here engaged basically in a conspiracy to defraud the public of $265 million in tax notes. So, I use those specifically because they are gerine to the city of Amarillo, which the city of Amarillo has never dealt with. But there's a whole almost a chapter in the open meetings uh handbook which I used as a state official for a decade and a half to tell me how to comport myself in an open meeting and I actually read the thing and I actually followed the thing and it was amazing because I didn't have people tell me I was running unlawful meetings.

So the community in my opinion deserves to know that you are not a licensed attorney and you're not using legally grounded conclusions from counsel yet. What council are you talking about? Interpretation. This guy. Are you talking about this guy? No, I'm asking where you're getting information from.

His calculus is whether or not we're going we're likely to be sued. That's that's the city attorney's that's his litmus test on anything. I've been told by that by the mayor. So that that's that's the litmus test for this guy. you had uh uh Alex Fairley stand up here as the as the chair of the AEDC who said that our our our our uh criteria for anything that we do should be here's the line of the state law and then we should be so far back that it should never be even questioned as to whether or not we're doing something and everybody oh yeah that's great but you don't you none of you guys are concerned about that the issue on public comment is so patently clear it doesn't take a lawyer here to interpret something. How you you're telling me that only a lawyer can stand up here and question you, Mr. Prescott, as to whether you're doing something illegal? That is BS. And I and I oppose you and anything you say on that. That is that is an appeal to authority and it is a complete uh smear of anybody in the public who comes up here who has a brain and can read the and and can read the state law and knows exactly what it is. I did this for 15 years. I have a public record. I I I compare it to yours any freaking day of the week. Any day of the week, Mr. Prescott, I will compare my public record to your public record, Mr. I I am opposed to backroom dealings. You just participated in one of the largest backroom deals in probably the history of the Amarelli. $700 million of an IPO sale that never saw the light of day. and you're going to question me on my on my whatever

my beliefs or my my authority or whatever. I just ask if you were illegal uh if you were licensed. We've already established that I'm an attorney. Mr. Tips has asked that many times. I would like Bravo. Thank you, sir. Bravo.

I would like to make a statement of fact. I did oppose the tax notes that you're basing most of your uh conclusions on and I was detained or or deposed as an antagonistic witness. Had to hire my own attorney when we walked through that case and the right side won in that. Those were illegally procured tax notes and we didn't move forward with the project. So I understand your side of it, sir, as somebody who's tried to work alongside of you. I also understand the side up here that is constantly being bombarded with uh allegations of criminality saying you know here the council is is acting again criminally. So I know the room wants to move forward but let me ask you a quick question. You do remember that we used to meet at 1:00 we had executive. We would adjourn to exec like a typical meeting at the end of the day. What we did was we said hey we're hearing you guys. We want to more or less reinstall public comment. We want you to be able to speak on any item, not just items on the agenda, and we care what you have to say. That's walked us forward with a previous council that we also said, you know, we could hear more of you if we started the meeting at 3 p.m. instead of 1 p.m. So, we moved the time. We were pushing ourselves late evening, 8:00 at night to get into an exec. Not the best time to make pertinent decisions. So, we said we could put the executive meeting at 1, get our executive meeting out of the way, and then run an efficient business meeting, which we've done in a marathon capacity for a long time. So, if we're here for any reason, it's because we are talking to you and we are listening to you. It's hard for us to be um assaulted as the criminals up here. when the the closed MA the closed meeting that we had earlier, your request was is that you got public comment before we go into closed meeting. If that's the case, then we move the meeting back to one:00 and we do exec at the end because that's all we

were accomplishing. And so it's the intention of the law and and I'm not saying that you can't point to every uh jot and tit in the law, but the intention is, you know, let's hear the public. You're here today having a uh pretty vivacious public comment period. I would say we're probably waxing a little cold here with some people's patience, but we're trying to hear you. And then we're also allowing conversation. Mr. Ford,

Mr. Mayor, the law does not allow you to pick and choose when you're going to allow public comment and when you're not going to allow public comment. If you'd let me finish, it says at any open meeting, the public shall have the right to address their government at any open meeting. And so, you have two open meetings today. You only allow that at one at this one. So,

it's not my it's not my it's your choice. You've allowed this construct with uh with the city attorney. Let me fix that then because now what we've done is we've gone the intention of moving exec early so that we could allow for public comment and more people to participate at 3 in the afternoon. We either need to open one meeting and just have one meeting that starts with an adjournment to exec and then we rejourn or we reenter back into here rather than noticing it separately or we need to go back to our one:00 meeting so that we can get people on an airplane and out of here in time. So Mr. Mayor, I spoke with one of the council members yesterday about this and and what's what's the net effect? You put a public comment item two on your work session. Mhm.

What's the what's the net effect? How many people are going to show up to that? Two, one. I don't know, sir. I've had twohour long public comments comment periods over this this last You signed up for this job. I'm just saying I I can't have the same people giving public comment twice on the same topics that we're discussing. So you don't have any choice. If you have two meetings, they have the right to have those those. Well, then let me fix it. We'll engage with council and we'll see how we go back to making sure you guys understand this is one meeting. If it's being noticed as two separate meetings, we don't need it that way. And so we want to fully adhere to the law. That's our intention. We have no reason not to hear you and not to discuss with you. Thank you for engaging with us here today.

If it's a work session, you intentionally do have done that because it's not broadcast on TV. Glad to correct it then. Yeah. And then then and then it's very super simple to fix. I mean, there's no reason just to to even be messing with this. I would say this is completely within your control. You can fix it. It's your it's your interpretation, but it's our intention. And so, let's see if we can rightly align. Let's put up the Let's put up the law and see what the rest of the people say. 5517 uh C. Let's put up the law on the screen and see what the rest of the folks say. Thank you, Mr. Ford. Is it just my interpretation or does it read exactly that? We'll we'll work in it. Do I have anyone else here today who would like to offer public comment? Yes, sir. Mr. Adair.

All right, that's going to be a real hard one to follow. Um, after last meeting, I believe the take it in the gas page put you in a oversized pair of boots and a nice looking jacket. And today I showed up to the council meeting and was greeted with these stickers that you had made up. And I just want to say that, you know, at the end of all of this, I know a lot of us get serious about a lot of this, but at the end of all this, it's still nice to see that we can have some humor in this and find some fun at the end of all of it. Um, the second thing I would like to say is I agree with a lot of the tow truck guys. Um, and I think I've addressed this council before on it's not y'all's jobs to pick winners. Um, and the way I've seen it in a lot of other cities, you know, one call goes to one company, one call goes to the next, and they have a sheet and it just goes and I think that's the way that um, that should be handled. Um, on the third t third thing, um, I see that we're spending a lot of money on flock cams, real-time crime cams. Uh, there's some more money being spent today on some other software stuff. And I would like um some address when it comes to these flock cams and all like that. Where do they fall into Freedom of um information act request? Are we going to be able to request that footage, get that footage, or like an article I read the other day, is there going to be a workaround saying no, the public is not allowed to those because it's being stored by a private company? I would just kind of like to hear some address from y'all on that if I could. Thank y'all.

Thank you, sir. Do I have anyone else here who would like to offer public comment? Okay. Thank you, public, for engaging once again with us. I appreciate the discussions and I would also say thank you for the patience. I know I know it can be laborous but like we still are making progress. Um we are going to go ahead and take our time today. We are going to work through our consent agenda um by pulling several items off. Council, do I have anything that any of you guys would like to pull off for further discussion? Yes, I'd like to pull eight in. As in Nancy? Yes, sir.

Okay. Any others? Council? No. Okay. Um, go ahead. I was going to say, are you pulling the ones that were requested? Yeah. Okay.

Right now I have 8 P is in Paul for clarification. V is in Victor. Um, FF as in Frank. Frank, Z is in Zebra. X is in X-ray. W as in Wayne. And then uh 8R um we can discuss 8R last. We can take them up in the uh the order that they exist in alphabetical order. If we could go ahead and entertain a motion first for the remaining consent agenda. So moved. Have a motion to accept the remaining consent agenda as amended.

Second. And a second from place two. All in favor, please say I. I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Okay, let me see here. In the order. I'm going to go with in as in Nancy first. Let's look that one up. Thank you, mayor. And I don't know who may be able to answer answer questions about this, but I just want to go over exactly what this the the money is being spent for uh for the for the Amir Globe News. Laura Stephanie, I know you worked on that one.

Um, yes. So, the city of Amarillo has several items that they um purchase through the Amarillo Globe News on an annual basis and a lot of those are um required by state law. We did pull the amounts um that were spent in this last fiscal year and it was just shy of about $48,000. Um about 3500 was truly for subscriptions. Um, and legal notices were $32,000 of it. I think the rest was maybe related to employment. And so on especially the legal notices, those are requirements by state law. And those can vary from year to year. And so I believe on this item um the amount is stating for um I mean we will we will spend it as it as needed, but the amounts for 70,000. So, um, this would allow us capacity to ensure that we, um, purchase all of those legal notices, employment matters, those type things as needed. That's where the bulk of those costs are going. Does that get you the information you need?

Yeah. I just wondered, so so the the contract includes the employment and the which is at our discretion, which you said, how much was that in the last year? So, on the subscriptions, it was it was about 3,500. So it was a it was a small amount and then I would say um maybe about 10,000 or so was related to employment. Okay. Yes. And then although the contract says 70 so we we spend a total of about 45 47 something like that. Yes sir. Yeah. This past year. Do we do we get a better rate when we spend more or are the rates on the legal ads are they are they based on how much we buy or is that just a standard rate that they apply?

I think we have a set rate with them through this contract. And so what the amount that we've put in here, and I'm looking around to see if Mike's around, but um I think that's just kind of an upper end that we don't anticipate exceeding on that, but that gives us a little bit of breathing room just knowing that depending on what's going on in the year, those public notices especially, um those can fluctuate. I mean we have annual ones we know we have to do you know related to budget property tax those things but as we do things like uh public hearings and the volume of those can change from year to year and so that would give us some capacity to make sure we have enough um set aside for the contract um to meet those requirements as they come up

and this is all do I mean this is all state dictated on what we have to publish that is correct the state also requires us that we have to spend 32 $2,000 with a local ent. We just can't publish them ourselves. That is correct. Yes. And most of those we have to publish ourselves on our website, but we are legally required by state law to put those in um a newspaper of circular. So, we have no choice on this. It's money that we spend. Yeah. The bulk the vast majority of our our um costs are related to state law requirements. Yes, sir. And then I guess they have a legal organ and the state decides who that is. And I mean I guess it's the we don't have no other choice of anybody else to do it a lower price or anything. No good.

That's correct. Um and and I can't remember how state law is worded but it's Stephanie Mike could weigh in on that. They call it a newspaper of general circulation. Thank you. And so for us that is the Amber Globe News and I would I would look to Brian. I don't know what steps we would have to take to see if there was anything else in this area that would fit that description. I don't believe that there is at this time. I'd have to review it. Okay. Well, thanks. I just want people to know that's money. We have no choice to spend that money with whoever and the state really is deciding all that for us and we've got to spend it. And I guess they're just assuming that's the best way to get the message out. So anyway, thank you. Thanks, Councilman. Would you like to make a motion on that one?

I move that we approve Adan as presented. Second motion and a second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Um, uh, item 8P is in Paul. Andrew, Jimmy.

Yes. Interim Chief Johnson, we got Lieutenant Chadwick available to discuss this one. So Chief, I think this is an important one because uh it leads us down the road of technology and um we've discussed some of this in in the previous and so as much as you can cover in how we handle data, where this data comes from, what it's associated with, not associated with, even our uh real crime center. Um and any anything else you'd like to lead us to? Well, since since you asked those specific things, I'm going to defer to Shane Chadwick, Lieutenant Chadwick. He's the coordinator of our regional crime center. He'll have those specific answers for you.

Yeah, I you know, there's a couple things that I heard today. So, I I think I'll start with Flock if that's okay. Uh, you know, they they talk a lot about the Freedom of Information Act, something you'd have been very familiar with. Texas is actually governed. We're not Texas Municipal Law Enforcement doesn't have to do it for you. That's for federal things. we have to go through the Texas uh public information act. So just just so everybody knows flock safety is something that we only restore that data for 30 days. Treat it like intelligence as we would even our intersection cameras. So we have somebody from the public wants to come in and get that data. The only time that they're allowed to have it is is if we have put it into a case. So if once it becomes part of a case or criminal case then yes it is then it's open to a public record act then they can and they can receive it. We only save that data for 30 days and then it's purged. Uh any other request would have to go to the Texas DPS. Texas DPS also uh receives that data and so that'd have to be a question directed at those guys. Uh but they're the they're the reason as far as the the Freedom of Information Act on the state and municipal level. Now, as far as the uh technology that we're bringing for um pin link, which is called Tangles, we've been looking for this particular piece for a long time. Something that happens with you guys, we we we get threats to sometimes you guys, sometimes to the city, sometimes the public infrastructure. We manually look through uh social media to see if there's any such thing. This is just automating that idea. It only looks at open source and even in the dark web or deep web it's still open source data stuff that that anybody in this room if they want to they can type in coast and anybody make a comment about you they can see it even if it's your favorite recipe from Milo if they want to find it they can find it. Uh for us it automates some of those processes. So if we're constantly looking for things like great

example, human trafficking, drug trafficking, danger to infrastructure, things that would be uh of of relevance to us is constantly looking for that, sending us alerts. So I mean, you can imagine the trillions of social media messages that that hit all whether it's the worldwide web, dark web, deep web, uh we you guys would not allow me to hire enough people to monitor that. So, uh, Pin Link is actually something that's being used by the state attorney general, being used by Texas DPS, being used in Dallas, being used in Fort Worth, being used in Houston. Um, so it's it's a it's a fairly wellused product, which is why it's one of the last ones because uh some of the other ones that we saw, they just they just were not uh very robust for what we want it to be. Yeah, it's a little pricey. Um, but again, I mean, for us to be able to truly provide security and safety for this city and it as it gets bigger, we have to have the ability to consume tons of data. I promise we're not looking for mom's meatloaf recipe. We're only looking for things that are criminal or have a a direct thing to do with public safety. Um, as far as transparency, that is why we view the surveillance cameras and those things as intelligence rather than as uh investigative leads because we don't want everybody to be able to come in and ask for every video, every LPR piece of data that we have for whatever nefarious reason. And that that's not just for the public safety or because we're hiding something from we don't want Google to come ask for it or Meta to come ask for it. we just simply deny it. They they have the same capability. If it is if one of our LPR leads leads to an arrest, we recover a stolen auto, then yes, they have access to it just like anybody else. But the state of Texas and Greg Abbott were smart and that they went down the same road as Florida. And they protected that data from this very thing so that people

can't just come in willy-nilly and ask for everything that comes across the desk. So, let let's jump into that just a little bit. How many flock cameras currently up around the city that you have underneath your Yeah, currently 79 operational. So, we have 79 cameras over 110 square miles. Um, tell me where the majority of those are located. Well, the vast majority of them came through grant funding. So, they're part of a PSN zone. It was a federal program called Project Safe Neighborhood. Mhm. So if you want to see the the vast majority of them, yeah, they're going to be in the San Center area, the north side of town, some of our more violent sections of town.

And are these areas are these intersections I mean LPR stands for license plate reader, right? And then you've got your flock cameras. And so are the are any of these cameras directed into anyone's private property? No. Okay. So these

in fact the limitations of them uh typically two lanes of traffic is all they're able to actually read. So, these cameras, uh, 79 of them right now, um, produce data that goes into your regional crime center that can be real time. So, when I steal a car and and I'm gone and evading whatever, then you're finding me by that evening and arresting me and you know where the car ended up on the south side of town is is kind of historically what we've seen, right? Sure.

We've seen an increase in our crime fighting department from being able to utilize these. Now, we we do want to be vigilant. It's not that we want to be casual in this. There there is an appropriate balance when we say big brother like I I agree with you. I think that if if our system is affording things and placing cameras around in places that you are not normally giving your public consent, then then I think that is big brother. So, you know, with our cell phones, everything that I'm posting voluntarily, everything that is that is being said about me involuntarily right now by somebody else, um, those are all open source and things. That's what pin link does. It goes through and it AI datas that and pulls together a profile.

It's like Google search literally. Yeah. I think I think that's an important point to focus on though Mary because that sometimes that gets missed is this is open source material. So, correct. If everybody will just imagine an investigator, an analyst perusing through page after page, web page after web page, anywhere they can find and things they don't know about, they're not going to be able to get to. This assists them in doing that. This is all open source. Nothing we would need to get a warrant for or anything like that,

which is another good point, though. There there are still requirements on us, uh, constitutional requirements to obtain warrants when we're doing some of this stuff with our technology. This is it's not just a free-for-all. I I appreciate that and I know that gets missed. It's open source. I also appreciate the delineation here from kind of Flock and some of the other, you know, data software uh tools that you're working through. I I think for me in the last time that this came up, you know, we were trying to get a reference point. So, I researched um a local business. I won't give their name. They're they're a goodiz company. They've got um a few floors. They they they house in around 30,000 square feet, which sounds large. Um they had over uh 200 cameras in and on that property. Um you know, and and so for us to have 79 cameras that are pointed in public areas where where I know that that I'm being seen by my public and you know, now I know that Flock is looking um and that data is going back to you. I I can see some balance there in in making sure that you have every tool at your disposal to protect our community, but I also don't want you to have a tool that that can be easily misused and and I don't feel that way because I don't feel that way when I when I patron a local business establishment that has a private camera system that I voluntarily, you know, go in and out of that building and I know I'm being surveiled, so to speak. But I think the big brother aspect's really important, right? And so, um, last comment and then then I'll let anybody else ask you questions. But, uh, I want to know is there is there anybody else that has this data? Like, does Flock keep it? Can they come in and get it? How does that work?

Flock Flock doesn't store our data. The the data stores in our own protected and it's in it's on a government server. So, you have two main government servers AWS and uh, Azure. That's the two major. we have complete access to it that purges with us. Um, and to their point and and I will say this, mayor, I agree in the idea of transparency. I mean, we've all taken oath to protect the constitution. So, we I get it. We don't even mind. It never hurts our feelings when people ask about the boundaries because we I mean, for a city, we're we're pushing the boundaries only because we never had the tech. You know, most people don't realize LPR has been around almost 50 years. It's not new. New new to us, but it's I mean it's not new, but which is why we chose for a lot of reason. We chose purge that data after 30 days. Mainly because it's just too expensive to keep. Um

Okay. So, uh but yeah, I mean, as far and I'll be honest with you, we've allowed anybody that wants to see it, come see it. Come see how we use it. I mean, because we we at the end of the day, we will only do what the citizens of this of this city want us to do and allow us to do. Outside of that, we can go back to the 80s if we need to. Yeah, I think we forget sometimes that you guys police at the will of the people and that that is what we want. Other questions for these gentlemen. We don't forget that, mayor. I know you don't. Um, when the LPRs first hit the the market, I think it was LA that actually kind of tested them. Yeah, it was actually UK where it started

and uh they were used to gather intelligence and they they actually worked. They were able to help law enforcement pick uh criminal activity uh from a certain part of town. All of a sudden it moved to another portion and we need to move resources there. Yes, sir. Right. And so uh we know in in law enforcement we know this works. Right. But on the public end, they're concerned that we're not capturing data when they're not doing anything. I mean, we obviously are because as people go through those intersections, we're capturing that data and we're only we're only storing it on our servers, right?

It's on our cloud servers. Yes. And we're using the cloud, right? Um and so but we own that. At least we lease that that end of it. So there's there's really less of a concern uh to where that data is going because we're the ones that control it and how we use it. That's the that would be the scary thing to the public, how that data is used. Do you use that for predictive modeling? Not really. And I'll tell you the reason why in in a given month and and this probably will come as a little bit of a shock. We we on a given month 15 million to 20 million play reads. It's truly a haystack. That's right.

And we have to have a needle, an idea of the needle to look for to even look in that haystack. So predictive modeling, I can tell you how many license plates come through a I mean it might be handy to traffic. They want to know how many cars are coming through a road, but but not really. I mean, to some extent, yes, we can say that is our project safe neighborhood. Is that really a legit zone based on some of our other LPRs? Yeah, sure. we can say that this camera on this day had this many uh hits on criminal activity as opposed to one maybe out south of town that had very few. And uh that's where we do a data driven or an evidence-based approach to where we put these in the first place. If we have a camera that's that's not picking anything up, well, we'll move it somewhere else to see if it does.

Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. We appreciate the explanation. Do you mind if I add one more thing?

Yes, sir. Anything you need? So, and and I know we got a late night, but th this at the end of the day, this is not about the technology. This is about trust in the police department, in the government. And that that is hardwired into the American DNA because of our where we came from to distrust the government. And that's that to somewhat that's a that's a healthy healthy thing. Um, but I I would just like to say that we have not struggled this is not the first time we've struggled with technology and police policing. Uh if you if you read the history of policing, when we went from horses and foot patrol and put the first officers in cars, that caused a lot of of outrage from the a lot of concern from the public. All of a sudden, now an officer who only had access to about a a block wide area now has access to the whole city. You know, they're going to be everywhere all the time. Now, when we went from revolvers to semi-automatic pistols, another piece of technology that that was another one that caused controversy. This is not new. It boils down to trust and and it's it's in how your department how your government is going to use the technology. It's not the technology and it's about the person using the technology and that that the only way you're going to uh keep that the way it should be working is a proper vetting process with who you're hiring, strict policies and manuals, strict training, and a strict accountability. Because the truth is that that uh I took an oath to to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. I was at IACP this year, International Association of Chiefs of Police and 17,000 chiefs and and police officers from around the world stood up in that conference and took their oath like we do every year to remind us of the oath we took. We were called to serve people, to serve and protect people. And we're doing that calling. The fact of the matter is if I if I took this piece of technology out right now and start firing rounds off in this room because I violated my calling because I

violated my oath, there's absolutely nothing that's going to stop me from doing that except Officer Patron over here and Officer Jenkins over here who in about a quarter of a second would put me down. That's about how long it takes to pull a trigger. A quarter of a second. These are my friends. I love these guys and they love me. I would do anything for them. They would put me down in a heartbeat if I tried to violate my oath in that way. So, this comes down to trust and we want our public to trust us. We think our public does trust us based on the support we've got. And I will extend if if anybody, Mr. Dare, if you or Mr. Ford or anybody else wants more clarification on the technology we're using, please contact me and we'll set something up. We'll get with you on that. Okay.

Yeah. Open invitation for real. Yeah. Well said. I appreciate that. Thank you, Chief. Yes, sir. council motion. I would make a motion that we accept. Second. Motion on item 8P to accept as presented. Motion and a second. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Item 8 V. I'm going skip R for a minute.

Okay. Well, field mowing contract. Um, can we just talk about how how big is that field and and should we mow it or or can we put cattle on it? Doesn't somebody else already own probably something out there?

So, a little miss, you know, if you you see the word well field, we all think of a field, but this is actually where we have all of our wells. We have wells in Carson County. We have them in Potter County. We have them in Randall County. Total of 129 of those well sites that have to be mowed. They're fenced in areas to protect the wellhead. Uh this is an existing contract. This is just a renewal of that. Uh one of the things that happens in a non- rainy season, if we're in a little bit of a drought, we probably don't pay out this entire contract. This last year, we paid out the entire amount of that uh due to the mowing that's required at those uh areas. We did have a conversation, a question was asked to us uh if if we would just be able to use a herbicide or something like that to go in there and just kill all that instead. There's actually uh the law says you cannot use a herbicide within 100 feet of those wellheads because it's municipal water. So uh yeah, this is just routine maintenance for us.

Great. Thank you. Can I stay with you on U WX Z? Maybe these are all well fields. So Carson County. Yes, sir. Full I've got double F or W. You going to get to double F in a minute. Yeah, we're W now. Uh sorry, not double F. So the W letter on this just just it says Carson County. Are we paying for things for or on behalf of Carson County or is this our wellfield? This is our wellfield in Carson County. Located inside of Carson County. That's correct. These are our water rights. That's correct. So these are assets that we own.

Correct. Yes. And this So going to W um this is an actuating that's the name of the wellfield. Carson County Whfield. Potter County Whalefield. That's the name of them just by title. Thank you, sir. Yep. Right.

It's pretty It's pretty common that that's what they're called anywhere you're at. Um, so this is a 42-in actuating valve. What this is, this is a valve that is going to be installed on the 45-in main. Uh, it's the actual main that was talked about earlier in public comment as well. Uh we have many valves that are in our systems, especially on the transmission lines, whether that's in the distribution system in town or whether it's in our wellfield where we're bringing water into town. And there those valves serve a purpose and they're to shut off the water if we have a leak is the main reason we have those. Now, this is a a line that was installed back in the 1960s originally. Um it was upgraded in the 1980s, so it's a very old line, and we do have failures on some of the existing valves that are there. So, this is a new valve that we're going to be installing. So, in case we have a leak, this is the one artery that comes into town from that Carson County wellfield that brings the water in. We need to be able to have a way to isolate that if we have a leak uh so we can get it repaired and get it back into service. So, this is pretty much a routine planned on and m item for this budget year.

Yeah. So, I appreciate that. So, item WX and Z all real pertinent because of the naming and their Carson County. These are all items that we need and and we we look at you guys to make sure that you are maintaining things so that future councils aren't looking back wondering why we have a $10 million problem. You're fixing this $70,000 at a time. Yeah. All of these items uh WX and Z are all planned routine on&m items uh to keep the uh system running and keep it moving. These are things that we we get ready for the budget year to kick off so that we can start implementing some of these projects. that that's why you see them landing on the agenda as they are.

Thank you, sir. Council, can I get a motion to accept 8 WX and Z? So moved. Second. I got a motion and a second for 8 WX and Z as presented. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Uh we'll move over. Floyd, I know you wanted to comment on 8F. And mayor, real quick, we haven't voted on 8V as yet either. V is in Victor. We haven't voted. I thought we had a motion on V. We did not. We skipped it. No, we we talked about it, but then then we went right to W. Okay. V. Thank you. I thought we did. Victor, I apologize. Let me come back and ask

um did I have any further discussion or questions on um V for the the the mowing contract. Okay. Thank you staff for looking out. Would ask for a motion on uh 8 V is in Victor. I move to approve 8V as presented. Second. Motion and a second. All in favor, please say I. I. Thank you. Thank you, staff. Okay. 8F.

Mayor, council, this is a contract for the exchange of water rights. Uh this is a typical approach when uh there's a need on both sides of a land owner and the city to have a need with exchange of water rights rather than sale. City doesn't sell water rights, but in a in a certain case there's needs. And so this uh individual identified a need that they had for 160 acres of water rights that the city owned. Uh there there's 103 privately owned water rights that are very beneficial to the city such that that will make a block of over three sections. 640 acres is in a section cont uh contiguous with uh a large block the 62,000 acre contiguous block of the city of Emerald already owns. Uh the benefit of that is that we can operate and drill wells on those three sections uh under the large permit rather than have individual well permits. It's much it's much more effective efficient uh way for us to to manage the the water rights. uh the the 160 acres that we're giving up is not necessarily uh uh that important in the scheme of drilling wells. Uh there's a half mile setback has been historically half mile setback for wells and we won't be able to drill an a number of wells on that acreage. So it opens up the planned development of water rights. Uh also uh there's a slight cash adjustment because it's very difficult to get the exact amount of water. It's water for water swap swap, but we get very close as we can with acreage. So there's a few dollars to adjust to make it the exact on acreage. Uh we we didn't want to

split up the 160 acres because that's the typical one quarter section that in agriculture where they of 640 acres. So that's that's that component of it. Uh but staff is recommending this because of how efficient and effective it will make your development of additional resources in the potter in the Carson County wellfield. Thank you sir. Questions on 8F ready for a motion if you all are. Oh go ahead. Moved as presented. Second. I got a motion and a second. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed?

Okay, that's 8F. Hang in there with me for just one more. 8 R. I'll direct your attention back to an item that popped up because in the supporting documents behind uh inside of the packet, it references um a FY2324 funding as well as a FY2526 funding. So, um, item 8R is animal management welfare site improvements. So, this is a $386,000 contract award. I want to start by saying I'm in favor of the award. I'm definitely in favor of the upgrades and the improvements. So, um, I think the way that this can be explained is more like kennel improvements, but here as it reads, it reads um, sidewalk and drainage. And so, typical Yeah. typical understanding is not necessarily is are we working on the kennels. So here's what I would ask Mr. Freeman. I know you and I spoke about this earlier today. Can you tell me why that's being funded out of two separate sources and how much in each?

Yes sir. So it's the main walkway between the kennels uh that has had major deterioration due to the drainage from cleaning the kennels multiple times a day. So that's a major piece of the infrastructure out there for ADA walkability. um using wheelchairs and then also just a drainage to keep the water from doing the same thing as it's done in the past. So that was the reason for the project. Um but as far as a funding source um the 2324 uh CIP we had $267,000 remaining um in a kennel renovation which this relates to the kennels um that was kind of held on didn't have enough funding to do a particular project. So, we're proposing to combine it with this year's CIP, which is 650,000 allocated for ENI. So, just general improvements to the facility. Um, but really you could go you could go either way with the funding source. We were just using the older CIP and we'd still have remainder from the current CIP. So, either way council wants to to fund it.

Yeah. So, the the reason that I I pull it off to discuss it is I just want to make sure council sees what um staff is currently working on with CIP and how we function so that as we've walked through a budget very very painstakingly and we're also digging into old projects that we're aware of like we've got projects that we finished and we're trying to close them out. Staff's doing a good job of working through those. This is how the train continues to move even though we haven't got all that homework in yet. And so, um, council, you understand you're the appropriations committee. Um, by the charter, you appropriate funds on an annual basis. So, you show up and you give your vote for uh the budget as presented. This budget was 570 million maybe. Is that where we're at? Um, and it included 113 million of CIP projects. Some of those projects, about 19 million of them reside in your general fund, and that's that onetime money that's coming out. Well, not all of that 19 million can be spent within that given year. And so, what's very, very difficult is to see that there's not a continuation report that's being filed at the end of each year. They're not giving you an update when you adopt your next budget. that has those line items in it where now you're tracking, oh, out of that 19 million, we still have $18 million to spend. We don't know that, right? So, this is one example of a 23 budget. And so, can we confirm, was this voted for by that council on an appropriations? It was appropriate. It wasn't just a project that was created.

It was approved during the budget within the CIP schedule in the back of the budget. Yes, sir. So this this isn't peculiar to just this one project. We have lots of these. Yes.

And and uh our city manager is working through these and trying to pull these together. What what I had asked was, you know, council doesn't want to get one at a time. You know, well, we got some savings over here or we still hadn't spent this money. identify all of the monies because we may have a large project that would really help the community that we're not going to even discuss or look at unless we know well you have a large amount of money. You know, as we go through the budget, a good example this last last uh session in the work session um you know the question was asked like we don't have a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow somewhere. We don't have money sitting out there and and you know staff answered no you don't. like this is all the money you have on the on the appropriations of your current budget, what you're giving, like this is it. We've neglected over the last several years to identify that there are monies that have been appropriated by previous budgets and previous councils that haven't been closed out in those projects. And so, it's a really good thing. Like, this is a great problem to have if you catch it. It's a really bad thing if we just continue to work forward and we don't know because you you guys you think we know and we need to know, right? We need not only for us to understand how much money is still remaining in any of these projects that have been appropriated, but we need you to know that as well. So, um, Mr. Path, I know you and I had a long discussion earlier today. Do you want to weigh in on kind of where what what direction you're heading and and then where you're going to take us and maybe how long it'll take you to get there?

Oh, yeah. I appreciate you briefing the council on the conversation we had today. The information I relayed to you. So, uh yes, so we are we're working our CIP committee has been working on this for a few months. It's one of our secondary jobs as they're trying to just get things done operationally. But, uh we've been working our way through through all the different uh CIP accounts, all all they're several years old. And so, working to close those out so we can bring them back to you. which ones are still active and which ones are closed and how much money is available in drainage, utilities in general. So, um I'm getting with staff tomorrow as one of our meetings tomorrow to talk about the next presentation to the council. So, the next stop in this process is to bring it to you all as a governing body and that way we can that way we can pres present to you all the work we've done, educate you all on the process and what we've learned, the things we're going to do differently going forward. Um obviously, as the mayor said, um I talked about this morning with him, this has been a long time coming. So, we've been working hard few months to try to figure out how we got here. And so, we've learned a lot, a lot of good things. And so, we'll be looking uh working with our staff and internit uh but working on that next few months to bring it back to you in a presentation. So, uh we want to, as the mayor said, we don't want to bring it to we don't want to just bring you lots of little bits. We're trying trying to group it all together. Uh but we're working on that next uh next three or so months or so.

Yeah. And so, I I I want council to hear a couple things here. one, um, our city manager is working on it and and he is tasked Gerber and Unil's doing a fantastic job in what I can see just in, you know, a few conversations back and forth. We're going to figure all this out. They're going to figure all this out. This is a good problem to have, but I want you guys to hear me say, we do have money. Like, we do have monies that are on the books that have been appropriated that have not been spent, and they're sitting there. Some of those monies need to be spent on exactly what they were appropriated for. We haven't done the project for whatever reason. And there's some legitimate reasons as to why. And there's probably some reasons that, you know, aren't as legitimate. But we need this council to be able to direct all of the monies that we can identify that have been either appropriated or if there's any money sitting there that haven't been appropriated because you can only do this exercise once a year. um unless you amend that document. And so I think for me, even though I've been here for four years now, I did not fully understand that our CIP is a continuation in and of itself. And without monitoring that very very closely, those monies and those projects can easily end up kind of off books, off of your out out of my out of sight, out of mind, right? And so we want to make sure that we're doing a really good job with our fiduciary duties here and that we are putting all this together and bringing it back to you. And then council, I just I want you to get excited. I think we can get more done than we thought we could get done this year and over the next couple years. And so if I'm wrong, I will be the first one to deliver the disappointing news to you guys that sorry, there's no money there. But everything that I've seen tells me that there is. and and I appreciate staff for walking this out with me on it. Um, you have anything else, Mr.

I was just going to say the the money's definitely on the books. They're not off books, but absolutely get your point. Yeah. Choice of words. Well, and and we're uh we're talking about transparency and trust and and rebuilding that public trust. I I would say I need you to trust in in your chief back there and in your police department. And you've heard me say, I don't need you to trust me. I need you to know that I can deliver a work product to you and I can show you that it's been validated, it's been verified, and that it is there. But in the way in which these monies are not being tracked, they can easily fall off of the radar. That's We'll say it that way. Agreed.

Okay. Um, council, I appreciate you considering that and going through that. Any questions on how this one's funded out of a 23 CIP that you guys weren't a part of? Um, and also a 25 I guess my my only concern is how how does that happen? So you I mean it was appropriate those funds were appropriated for this project and for spending and then because we're not talking last year's budget, we're talking the year before that. So it's a whole two years that funds are just sitting there that could have been used.

So one, how does that happen? And two, how many of these do we have that are out there? Well, that's that probably goes back to mayor's mayor's comments. There are a number of projects Victoria's in the room. If you want a little more history of maybe the last couple years, I know just recently, we've bid this out prior to the current year's budget. And you can tell it's almost $400,000. There was just not enough funding to do a full project, I think, was a large part of it. And trying to prioritize what AMW could spend on to get the best value of those dollars. So, just it was just a matter of timing. And now we've got more funding that can uh be added to the pool of money to do a good solid project out there.

Uh from from that one when that project's not done. So the the the uh practice has been to just leave the dollars there. Well, past practice was also to move it to another another project. Okay.

Yes. But that that has changed with this council and now before it gets shifted to another project, it comes back for council approval. And I will also comment that I think this was always planned as a multi-stage project and Jerry Danforth, I know he and his team have worked diligently on this and could probably give a little bit more explanation on it, but I I don't think it was ever planned to do this all as one big project for multiple reasons and Jerry, you might want to weigh in a little bit on that. Yeah, Councilman Reed. Uh, this actually this project actually had multiple issues with it. First of all, um, ADA was a big component of this discussion. It was originally designed, we did an assessment of the needs at at animal management at that time. At that budget process, there was only certain amounts that were available. So, we set it up as a multi-phase project. uh ADA came in and reviewed the walkways and they made a determination that if we were to do this project, we had to bring the entire facility up to ADA standards. Well, at that point in time, we were looking at $2.5 million worth of work. We obviously couldn't do that, but we had clearly identified that that problem existed in the walkways. and the state vet has actually penalized us because that's a place where germs can collect and in and uh crack concrete. So the first the first phase was the one walkway in between the kennels on the south side. So we had to go through review. We sent an appeal to the state of Texas. It took us eight months to get a response from that appeal. uh and we worked with local ADA inspector, we worked with local engineers, submitted that multiple times and like I said it was eight months later we got a response to that. At that point in time looking at the phasing we were already moving

into the next budget process. So that allowed us to address once we got the waiver from the state to allow us to do this work. Now we're looking at the additional funds that you guys were bringing forward to us. Now we can do phase one and phase two. So you see the number grew accordingly. So now we'll be able to do phase one and phase two and look at the additional needs going forward. All of this is part of a comprehensive plan to look at the total needs of that facility. And we look at each structure in that in that light when we look at it. So that was really the the reason for the push back and the and the delay. the response from the state being extremely slow and then the timeline changing and then the next budget process. So you can see how we ended up a year and a half later. Now we're we're ready to move forward with the additional funding that you approved in the CIP this year. we can add it to that and do phase one and phase two and potentially look at additional work on the kennels with the additional balance but that would come back to you as basically a separate project not as a phase one or phase two project does that make more sense

okay thank you sir

and that's a situation time sometimes mo most our projects can get done rather quickly but there are some on occasion that for whatever matters whether it is waiting for waiting for approval from the state or or or just we ended up realizing that we did that there was an issue with design. We had to go back to the drawing board or we had other priorities other things things came up um that that we took our attention away on so on occasion some projects do go to the back burner and so but we tried to get to them eventually. I uh I think as as other priorities come up, this council understanding their need to reappropriate the the money that way and and I appreciate the new financial policy. I love the way that works. This will be one more uh lever, one more mechanism that really keeps us tred up as we walk this out. And so, um, not only like do we have projects we hadn't got to, but we have projects we finished, they just hadn't been closed out and there's monies remaining. And so, rather than leaving those monies sitting out there, being able to pull those back together, even if it's considered a smaller amount of money, this council still has the opportunity to reappropriate those monies moving forward for the good of the community. So, uh, I only say all that just because like I I had a little concern about how does this get presented to a community where you hear it the right way. I don't ever want to tarnish the city of Amarillo or the staff that's working on this. I want us to maintain the perspective that this is a really good thing. Now, I don't agree with the bookkeeping efforts or methods, but um, I definitely agree that this is a good thing. anytime you've got a mayor, council, and staff that can go and find and locate existing funding. Um, man, why, you know, who did you elect and and and are we doing that job? That's exactly what we hope, you know. So, uh, the problems are are immense. There's lots of things out there that we need to

get to. And so, uh, we look forward to getting that report back. Council, I got one item left here before we take a recess. I would just add one thing to that is because but I think one thing we need to keep in mind

these CIPs if there is money to be found and we find it and and we realize that we don't need the previous project that it was approved for. We can obviously but this is this is one-time spending. It's not operational. The pot of gold discussion was kind of on the operational part. So it wasn't that we were looking for a pot of gold on CIP. It was more the operational things that that that we need to continue going is where it continues to get shrink. So, I think it just and I appreciate it if we can if we find things that we can reallocate and projects that a previous council approved we don't need to do anymore uh that'd be great or to make sure that they've got done. But on the other flip side, I don't want people to think we've got all this money in in the operational budget because that's continuing to see pressure because of that put on.

I think that's well said. Right now, it's a unique set of circumstances to struggle to add a position here or there or to cover overtime or whatnot, you know, and as the departments work diligently to make sure they maintain their their balanced budget, you know, we are trying to identify monies that that have projects that are closed that have savings tied to them so that we can go and get to the next set of priorities. And then we'll continue to look for ways to fund that ongoing budget in in a good way, which you've seen this council and previous council do. So, thank you, Council Member Simpson, for that. And um I'm I'm finished on my end. If anybody wants to give a a motion for 8 R or we can do further discussion. I move to approve 8 R as presented.

Second. Motion and a second. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Uh 8 R passes. With that, we'll take a 15 minute recess and be right back for discussion. Thank you.

All right, we're live again. We're going to get everybody heading back up here and get ourselves called back to order. Um, making progress. Moving into our discussion items. See what we got. First is wastewater treatment plant update. Mr. Hooper, thank you so much. I'm gonna see if I can forward through. There we go. Start on this. Um, give want to give you an update. We told you we would come back to you in November, bring an update on where we're at. We've had a lot of things that have occurred uh since the last time we gave you an update on the wastewater treatment plant project. We're still a long way out. I mean, we're looking at 2031, 2032 before we're finished with this entire process. So, it is going to be a a marathon, uh, not a sprint. And uh we're going to continue to update the council and the public as often as we need to uh to uh keep you updated with where we're at. So the first thing I want to update you on, mayor, you had suggested that we create a committee, a subcommittee. We did that. We completed our first meeting uh last week. It was very successful meeting. I felt like uh and I want to go over briefly what we talked about in that meeting. Now, there were a lot more details that we talked about in the meeting. So I'm going to kind of keep it a little bit more brief when we talk about the bios of the people that are working on this project. But I do want to go through and and show you what we talked about in that meeting. First of all, executive committee, we we wanted to come up with a purpose for that. And the purpose really is just to serve as a central forum for information sharing. And I think that's the simplest way to put what the purpose of that committee is that we can get together, share information, make sure that everybody's on the same page so that when we're out in the community and we're up here at these council meetings or we're receiving questions or you as council members are receiving questions, you have a source that you can go to and everyone has the same message and the same uh uh content they're going to be talk talking to you about. So another thing was to ensure that members are well informed, keep them up to date on

the project scope, the progress, the key milestones, provide feedback on our project development, community impacts, the public messaging, and then also 360°ree coordination, understanding among city leaders, consultants, and staff. The last thing we want to do is not equip you as council members with the correct information. So when you're out talking in the public, uh, that you'll have some misinformation that you put out there. So this is a great way to do that. also equip the members of the committee to communicate effectively with community stakeholders, other council members, foster transparency as we always talk about and trust by maintaining an open communication throughout the entire project and all the phases of the project for that matter. then also encourage collaboration, collective ownership, project goals and outcomes, and then act as advocates uh for the project, helping build public awareness and support uh for this project, because as I said, we're going to need this for a long period of time. This is the executive committee that we assembled, and there's a reason why we put it together this way. You'll see that Councilman Prescott is is the one on the top of the list there that you wanted him to be a part of this committee. We're glad to have him and his expertise and knowledge in those meetings. of course the city manager, deputy city manager, myself, uh Rich as well, the other assistant city manager, Laura Stores, the CFO, which will be a part of this group until there's a transition for her retirement and then we'll replace her with Katrina. Stephanie, uh we have her there to keep us organized and also to make sure that we're putting the agendas out. We're sharing all the information that was in those meetings with everyone that is on the committee. Uh Shannon Tolson who's the interim director of utilities, she's one of co-inter directors of utilities for the regulatory side for those conversations. William Johnson who's the other interim director of utilities on the operational side. Then uh Shie Kendall who has been handing handling she's in our planning department but she's been handling a lot of items when it comes to grants and funding opportunities. Then we'll have one Kimley Horn representative as well at

all these meetings. Now, on this very first meeting, we had our entire external team and our entire internal team in that meeting because I wanted Mr. Prescott for one to be able to see the faces, hear the bios of each person that's involved in this project, both internally and externally. And the reason for doing that is because I think that there's a a conception out there that it's me and Jerry. We're have a few conversations with a couple of people and we decided to build a wastewater treatment plant. It's much more complex than that. So I want to show you uh the design and construction project team and talk specifically about what each person uh is doing on this project and also just a brief uh piece about them. Now we shared full bios with the full committee about their education experience and all that and I think we'll just we'll forego that. I have those documents. I'll share that with council if you'd like to see those. So this is the internal project team. I'm the project lead for this uh 29 years of experience. I have rebuilt a wastewater treatment plant before. I've rebuilt a water treatment plant. Many projects in my uh pedigree over the years. All of my career has been pretty much in infrastructure. Jerry Danforth, we all know his history. 36 years of experience for Jerry. Jerry is handing handling the planning and construction lead roles internally for us. Anything when it comes to constructibility, Jerry's the one that's having those conversations both with our external consultants and everything that we're working on internally. Jackson Sahara is over in our capital projects and development engineering department, CPNDE as we call it. He is our design lead. Jackson has 23 years of experience and Jackson is mostly uh all of his projects are mostly all infrastructure related as well including water and wastewater. So, a lot of experience there. William Johnson who is here with us today, operations integration lead. William has 20 years of experience and and William is an operator by trade. uh he understands how water plants operate.

He understands how wastewater treatment plants operate. Shannon Tolison, who's by the way celebrating her 18th anniversary today, so we said go celebrate your anniversary. We got this. Uh she is handling all of our permitting regulatory uh uh issues on this side of that. She's got 15 years of experience, but Shannon also has an operator side to her as well. So she's also operated wastewater treatment plant. She understands it uh to the nth degree. And then also in our audience today, and I wanted them to be here to see the presentation, we have our two operators that operate the Hollywood plant and the River Road plant. And Jacob Smith, who is an operations uh support role on this project for the wastewater treatment plant, but his title is actually the superintendent of the Hollywood waste uh wastewater treatment plant. 10 years of experience for him. And if you ever want to go have a conversation with someone that knows everything about operations of wastewater, he's the guy. He does a fantastic job. and every time I've sat down with him, I've been super impressed. Uh George Vasquez is also here as well. He has 23 years of experience and at the city of Emerald has been here a long time. He runs our River Road wastewater treatment plant and and just does a fantastic job. Both of these guys are our MacGyvers. um they can make things happen in a plant that is two plants that are extremely old and have a lot of uh issues associated with them and they keep them running. So I wanted you to to see them and they're right out here in the audience. Raise your hand out there so everybody can see you.

Donnie, can I just reiterate something real quick on this? Absolutely.

Jacob and and George, can you guys stand up please real quick? During the election, there was a a lot of rhetoric and political nonsense about duct tape and bailing wire. I was I was part of that. And I I want to apologize to you you two men because you keep the city running and as we go through the complexities of these projects and what you guys are doing at 2 am or 4 a.m. when parts break down, keeping antiquated tooling and and things running. I mean, you you are true heroes in this city, and people don't realize that. And and for me, I apologize for those comments about duct tape and bailing wire. And and I I I give you full support, and I'm so excited, Donnie, about the team that we have. But please accept my apology for that callous remark. And and I look forward to the day when we we have more than enough tools and and ample supplies to to make this happen. But I think everybody in this room ought to give you guys a round of applause for what you do. Thank you, Donnie. And and a fantastic team that you've got. The the years of experience in Kimley Horn and I know there's a few more folks. Everyone on here is making this an antiquated system function dayto day and I'm excited about what the future holds for this city.

Thank you. I appreciate you injecting those comments. So, one of the things we mentioned in the room back there amongst us as a group, we made a pack that we were not going to use the words such as neglect, um, bailing wire, all those things because the work that they do, uh, they hear those comments, they hear it, and it's more ingenuity, sweat, uh, I mean, they make things happen out of nothing. And these are plants that are extremely old. The other day I got a call, hey, we have blowers down out at the Hollywood plant. And I just felt good knowing that we were going to have a solution to that. We're going to keep on going. It's a big deal and they do. It just continues to happen. It happens behind the scenes and you never see it going on. So, thank you for inserting that. I think it's very valuable. Uh continue with the list. Laura Stores, uh 20 years, we all know we give Laura a hard time. I told her that at least for the last couple of months here, we're going to get everything we can out of her on this project because she's so knowledgeable on how we can, you know, $557 million budget, $267 million and, you know, and in getting uh bonded projects and things like that. Her value uh to this team is is is great and she's also doing a very good job in preparing Katrina and her role uh on this committee as well. Then we have Shie Kendall. We talked about her funding and grants leads. She's got uh nine years of experience doing that. We gave her a project a couple of weeks ago on Texas Water Development Board uh grants, two of them. We're going to talk about in just a moment. And she hit the ground running with that and she she jumped in the pool without a live preserver and is doing some amazing things. She's assembled a team that takes care of all of the funding and grant leads and and we're just really proud to have her on. Then we got Kristen who of course has nine years in communication and Kristen is going to be handling all of our external communication with the public. I told the group that her role has been pretty silent to this point in time because we're still in the early early planning phases of all this. Uh not in

design yet. Once we get to the point that we get into design, her life is going to get really busy because we want to make sure that the public is understanding everything that's going on. The external team, this is the Kimley Horn team that we work with. Jeff James is the principal in charge. 32 years for him. Kyle is an expert. And and I might mention that most of these people on this list have worked with the city of Amarella to some capacity, whether it's on a water project or a wastewater infrastructure project. They've all done this. Uh Kyle, fantastic, 13 years. He's the project manager for Kimley Horn. Um and then you have Ryan Soa who's the QCQA manager. He's got a lot of experience in in these type of projects. Kenny Frier, I've been working with Kenny Frier for now for almost 20 years. Uh he's 19 years and I think the first year that he was a PE I worked with Kenny on a separate project. Brad Rusk 25 years. He's Jerry's buddy on this project because he's a construction specialist. He understands that. Uh Tanya Miro is a funding specialist. She has 30 years of experience in funding and any question that we have on our end when it comes to Texas Water Development Board grants, um, anything having to do with any type of grant or funding source, she's always got an answer and she is really really teaming up with Shie and they're working together on this as well. Lance Phillips is a a wastewater operator, 30 years of experience for him. He has operated some massive wastewater treatment plants in his career, much bigger than what we have here in Amarillo. Darby Adams, treatment design permitting lead, six years of experience for her and Taylor Towns, wastewater master lead with seven years. Now, those are two of the least experienced as far as years are concerned, but they are brilliant uh people. And this group here, just so you know, our internal team meets with them on a weekly basis uh and sometimes it's twice a week uh strategizing, planning, uh we're working on flows, we're working on whatever it may be. This is the team that we meet with and the the internal team you saw on the previous slide was the team that we meet with here. A quick

history of the project uh go back to the need for upgrading expanding our wastewater treatment facilities was number one capacity challenges. We do have immediate challenges with permitting especially at Hollywood. We have growth related challenges as well and we'll walk through all that here in just a moment. and our aging facilities that talk about 60 years where Hollywood the last major upgrade was done in 1995 and Amarell had a population of about 165,000 river same thing it's over 100 years old the last major upgrade there was in 2002 and the population of Emerald is around 170,000 so we've grown since then we've had a lot of things happen since then technology has changed since then so that's the need the original concept that we brought to you was to build a centralized wastewater treatment plant that would handle all the waste water in Amarill at one central location. The facility would be designed for 25 years of projected growth and then the River Road wastewater treatment plant was going to be converted to a large lift station that would bring everything back to that centralized plant. Construction of an interceptor pipeline will go from River Road to Hollywood to get that waste lifted from River Road back over to Hollywood. And then you all remember the pivot. Um we evaluated that approach and Jerry and I got together and started saying we we don't like this approach. We want to go a different direction on this. So, we evaluated the concept going back to two plants versus a single centralized plant. We evaluated the need or the ability to rehab or repurpose portions of the Hollywood plant. At the same time, in conjunction with constructing a smaller new facility, it would have a capacity of about 10 to 15 years. Instead of that 25-year look, back it up to 10 to 15, more affordable. And again, as we talked about about, you know, taxpayers today paying for today's rates. We evaluated expanding and upgrading the River Road plant instead of converting it to a lift station to see what that would look like. We also evaluated landlock issues at the River Road plant. And we evaluated the flood control flood plane issues that are going on at Hollywood. They're still ongoing. Nothing's changed out there. It's still the same flood plane issues

we've been facing all along. Then we also evaluated the 25-year design versus a 10 to 15 year design to see what that would look like. There was a lot of work that went into that. So the conclusion was that we did have the ability to rehab or repurpose portions of the Hollywood plant in conjunction with constructing a smaller new facility that would provide capacity for 10-15 years instead of 25 years. Today's rate payers paying for today's upgrades. And again, keep in mind that's building a new facility at Hollywood but much smaller than the centralized facility was going to be. River Road plan assessment took place and I'll show you the results of that in just a moment. determined that we can have the same approach there uh for that facility. River Road is not landlocked outside of its existing property lines and we do have some available available acreage on the site itself to do expansion work. So we feel pretty confident that it fit the need to go with this pivot that we've been talking about. Flood control flood plane issues at Hollywood can be resolved. We have other means and methods that we can take care of that rather than moving the plant completely out of the flood zone. So here's the project right now currently at a 50,000 foot look to design and construct two new smaller wastewater treatment plants simultaneously. So they'd both be built at the same time, River Road and Hollywood. Design and construct a new interceptor to collect new industrial loads from the South Basin. And I've got some slides I'll show in a minute about those basins because I don't I wanted we say that word and it's common talk for us. I want you to be able to see what we're talking about with those basins. replace critical infrastructure at both existing plants to ensure functionality during construction. This is going to be a critical piece of the project. In other words, we're going to have to take a look at it and say, what's going to get us in the next five years while we're building? What do we have to do to maintain the plants? Because we can't take them down. They have to continue to accept waste. Design piping for new plants so that both the old and new plants can be utilized. And what that means is when we get finished with this project, we want to be able to use the

capacity of both of those plants, have a diverter where we can use the new while we make new improvements to the old and then we can use them both if that evaluation works. Now, this is the project two would be to evaluate those. We're not so sure that's going to happen after we finish phase one, but we will head into project two and have been immediately upon completion of current current project construction. We're talking about 2032 for project number two here. But we got to start thinking ahead. Some other things, decisions on additional expansions versus rehabilitation of existing facilities that can only be determined at the completion of the current project. And then we will also have an opportunity to look at new growth analysis over the next five years. I mean, we can use these analysis all we want and say we're going to grow to this population and you'll see that in a moment, but we may not. We may exceed it. We don't know. I think it's better in five years that we can re-examine that and see what our true growth is now and recalibrate it if you will. We will we will be issuing permits uh at both existing facilities. We'll renew those. We'll also get new permits started for the uh being applied to address the new plants capacity additional discharge points etc. Also industrial pre-treatment program is a need that we're going to have to enhance that program. We have one now, but it needs to be enhanced so that whenever we're bringing in big industry that has a BOD level that is difficult for us to treat at these facilities that it's in control and they're bringing us a product that we can treat with retention time reduced as much as it can be. So the river road assessment uh was a pretty big project that we did. We completed in August of this year and this was something that this council approved for us to go and do. We had a team from Kimley Horn, a team from the city of Emerald that started that assessment. There were about 24 people that were on the ground out there, all with specialties. Some are specialized in mechanical, some specialized in electrical, some in structural, and

everyone had a role in doing this complete uh inventory uh and assessment at the plant. We identified and evaluated over 660 assets at that facility. Again, as I mentioned, electrical, mechanical, and structural. We went with what's called a we called it a green, yellow, red approach. What we wanted to do is when we get those results back in, we wanted to say, is this green? Is it good? Is it yellow? Might be good for a little while, or is it red? And something's got to happen here. Now, you can go look at the spreadsheets that we have built over this project. And they're massive. I mean, it's massive pages of each of those 660 items and their conditions and all that. So, we wanted all that compiled into a complete report that we could see. Now, I'm not going to show you the whole report, but I'll show you visually what that looks like. U and then capital improvement projects were identified based on that list. Two reasons. One, to keep it moving and alive through that five-year period during the build. And then two, uh you know, what are we going to do when we get past that point? Is this something that we can improve now that will help us later? So, this is what that assessment looks like color-wise. If you look at the electrical, this is just the electrical assessment. You can see a lot of green on there. And of course, you see those basins at the bottom right. Obviously, they're going to be green because there's a lot of concrete and structural on those. Uh, but we do have some issues, but this was actually a lot better uh than what we thought it was going to be on the electrical. The electrical, it it covers so many items. I mean, you're looking at u uh all of the uh incoming power. You're looking at u all the uh uh I mean there's a lot of high voltage out there and a lot of components that are electrical that were assessed during this. Here's a mechanical assessment to look for it. The mechanical includes all the major mechanical systems including the pumping u conveyance aation mixing uh ancillary mechanical items as well out there. A lot that goes into this as well. Bar screens, rakes, clarifiers, headworks,

skimmers, blowers, valves, monails, etc. all of that evaluated as we go through this. Then you look at the structural assessment and the structural deals there's a lot of concrete out there. So it's going to deal with that. It's going to deal with grit chambers. It's going to deal with buildings access ladders, columns, concrete tanks, retaining walls, etc. Uh and that's what that assessment looks like. And you can see those three basins that are all red there. Obviously, those were old, old, old. They've been there for a while and they're going to have some issues in there. We think that most of those can be repaired uh as far as concrete is concerned and in fact one of them was repaired here recently for some cracks that had in that. So that's really what we took and then we took all that data and we compiled it into one master sheet that basically says this is all the data combined into one big map. So we can get an idea of what and again there's an assessment we use more we use more of the data that we have rather than just map but this gives you a good visual of what that looks like. So so we we feel like we're in a really good spot with River Road to continue uh operating through the next 5 years while we get the new plant built and move on to the next project. I want to touch on the TCQ 7590 rule for wastewater treatment plants because this is something that continues to keep coming up and I want to make sure that we're doing a good job of educating the public on what this is and why we're uh involved in this. This is straight out of the 30 TAC rules from TCQ and it says basically whenever the flow measurements for any sewage plant reaches 75% of and the key word is permitted average daily or annual average flow for the three consecutive months. the permittee must initiate engineering and financial planning for expansion. We've reached that at Hollywood and so we're having to do that there and whenever the average daily reaches 90% then we have to start construction. We have to present documents to TCQ to start the

construction. I might mention also that we're in contact with TCQ a lot. In fact, we have a presentation coming up with them. I think it's important that we keep that relationship um uh healthy between us and TCQ. Uh when I rebuilt the wastewater treatment plant in the previous city I was at, uh we kept continual conversations with TCQ and it worked out really well for us because they knew every step of the way where we were at and uh and and I know that they appreciated that relationship as well. So if you look at both of our uh plants, this is how the 7590 rule applies. You have Hollywood that's permitted at 12 MGD. It has So that means your 75% is going to be 9, your 90% is going to be 10.8 8 River Road. You can see it's permitted at 16. Your 75 threshold is 12 MGD and then 144 would be 90. Let's take a look at what that looks like on a graph. This is Hollywood's inflow. This is I I asked the plant just give me your raw data of your inflow all the way back to January of 2023. And we plotted it so that you could see that. I want to point out that high spike in there. That was the floods of 23 that put us up at that high number up close to 10. Uh and and the reason that's important is because TCQ actually has uh some leniency. If you hit that mark and you go over 75 and you do it one time and you can show them that your average flow below that consecutively for a long period of time is below the 75% mark, then they're going to grant you a variance to not have to go through the 75% rule. But as you can see as we've gone through this, that's the trend. And I just stuck on there just showing the growth from 23 to now of how that load has changed. You see that we hit it once there, there's three times in a row. Once there, three times in a row, once there, three times in a row as well. So once you get to that point, there's no going back. I mean, we had to start planning. We have to start doing what we're doing right now for uh that facility out there. And

again, that's Hollywood. River Road is a different story. River Road right now is 56% of its permitted capacity. Now, there's some there's some things you need to understand about River Road that are a little bit different than it is at Hollywood, and that is that most of our effluent there goes to Excel Energy, and we have a contract with them. That contract has specific uh requirements of what what we can send them. The product that we can send out to them has to meet certain criteria, less stringent than what would have to go into the creek if we were just discharging to the creek. So, we're under that contract with them. So if you look at what we can do daily now this is this is a different this is not permitted this is the ability to treat what our facility is capable of treating on a daily basis is right there it's just above nine that's about what we can do on a daily basis and the reason for that is because of the amount of retention time that that water has to set in those basins to get the amount of treatment that needs to be done to send it to that XL contract that we are we're honoring if we were not in that contract with them Our plant right now due to its age and due to the uh you saw in the in the in the slides earlier about its condition we could only do about 13 right now and that came from the river assessment. That that number right there came from the river assessment. So again we're permitted for 16. We're only capable of doing 13 but really what we can do on a daily basis is just around nine. So when we start thinking about growth and what that does to us, if you just added 4 MGD to this based on multiple EDC projects that are already identified, commercial growth, residential growth, and again this is a hypothetical thing, but I just want to show you if you add the 4 MGD hypothetically to what we take in now, not only are we at the 75, but we really can't even do it because it's above the nine. So that's the challenge we have at River Road that's different than it is

at Hollywood is just our ability to treat uh the waste out there. I know that's Can I ask a quick question just to give some good averages before we move on to projections? Safe to say Hollywood Road right now averages nine MGDs. I mean, you can go back and look at the slide and see that uh that's that's your average. That's your I I hadn't run the numbers for an average on there, but I would say it's probably fair. Yeah. And then River Road averages eight. Well, they're close to nine as well. They're close to nine as well. And then um Northeast Interceptor, will that increase the the amount of capacity because of what it moves? No, it won't. Okay.

No. And I and I can talk about that in a moment that a northeast interceptor is a way to get more u uh waste out to the river road plant. It's it's a way to deliver it from areas of growth that we don't have a way to do that. We talked about this earlier. I believe there was a conversation uh somebody I was talking to uh on council about that you know that some of these projects that we have coming into town and EDC can tell you this as well. you know where they're wanting to put those. We have no way to get that waste to a plant without building some infrastructure. So the northeast interceptor is a way to get that from those industrial areas out to our plant. Okay. But it does not increase what we can treat at the plant. In fact, depending on what that industrial load is, it could also hamper us as well.

Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Well, Donnie, can you go back to the um not that one, the uh the River Road graph? And so what I heard and and what what I learned is is that we really at 9 MGD when we have to slow down the treatment that is to meet that that requirement for sale.

So in all essence, we have a nine, not a 16 or a 13 MGD. we really have a nine to meet the com and so that when we I think that that the public gets confused because we're we're we're seeing that hey this is a nine to a 16 that would give a 7 MGD that's not the case because of the treatment specifications going into Excel and that I mean it it just takes longer and it's an old plant to get to that level to get the nitrates down correct

that's a good way to explain it is nitrates that's the issue and we have this conversation a lot especially with our consultants so we always have two conversations that take place what we're talking about and right now that's one of the things we're working on is flows. What flow do we have to have at each of these plants to make this work that's a conversation that has two components to it. One of it is our permitted capacity. I mean we could permit this one right now if we could build a 75 MGD plant out there and it's still nine because that's the functional capacity of the plant is at nine. And that's where it gets a little bit confusing. And so I want to make I'm glad we're having this conversation because it's it is difficult to understand even on our end some of the internal conversations but functionality versus permitted capacity uh creates a lot of conversation in our group. You got the engineer side that they're they're what they're worried about is that functional capacity. I'm worried about permitted capacity and what are we going to be able to do? What do we need to build it to industry growth and all those things. So yeah that's exactly right.

Thank you. So saying on the river road inflow data. So, our contract with Excel uh says they can get up to nine uh nine a day. Uh the contract actually is and I don't have that number with me, Les, but I could go back and look. I wasn't prepared to answer that question. I apologize, but that's what we deliver to them. Um the the number for that is an annual number. So, we also do send stuff from Hollywood as well. I can get that for you. But so uh because I remember when we were looking at history like the last two years prior to this was like six or seven it was averaging y but there was one the the drought year 22 or the year it was like 16

but so really I mean is this the river road inflow uh facil uh facility or is it the XL facility because they're really using the bulk of what we're what we're taking in and generating there. Correct. And what do I mean, what kind of rates do we charge them for that? I'd have to go dig that contract out and get that uh number for you because I just wasn't prepared to talk about that today, but I could get it for you. Well, I just when I look at it, I mean, the vast majority I mean, I know it's it's taking waste from our community, but we could actually process a whole lot more waste from our community if it were not for Excel,

if we had power to produce it. Yeah. So I just again I just look at it as go go goes back to earlier just the value of that. I mean and I mean we need to be good partners with XL but they're kind of you know they're you know they I don't know if they could get it from anywhere else or where that may be but it see we have a good relationship with them but yeah I just think you know they're they're they're using a good chunk of that and also they're diminishing our ability to take more into this facility. I think that's probably accurately said. Yeah. Okay.

And it is and and a lot of it is what it is for us. I mean, we can only treat we're in a contract, so we have to treat it to their specifications to get it to them. So, well, I just I think it goes to show not only does our our regular water have value, but this has value as well. It does. And I want to be good partners with XL, but again, we got a lot to to pay for in this facility of which they're a major, you know, user of and trying to redo this. So, might be something we want to think about in the future. I don't know if if how we sell XL is it if it's regulated or but there's we're going to have to figure out many ways to generate different sources of revenue to to do all this and to me, you know, particularly the high users may be an area to be able to look at that. Sure. Thank you.

I appreciate that. Donnie just a just clarification and this was a while back on the conclusion to pivot said it's going to take this would provide us 10 to 15 years instead of 25 years right um is that after the 5year construction period or is that immediately the 10 to 15 year look is is starting now 10 to 15 years from now how do we get there so if we rehab or repurpose portions of Hollywood plant in conjunction with construction. What you're saying is that that buys us 10 to 15 years. Yes. During the construction of the new plant,

well, we're going to have a fiveyear five to six year construction period, right? We've got a we've got it's actually four and a half years. I'll show you in a timeline kind of where we're at in just a moment. You kind of see the whole thing laid out and I think that would better explain it. Okay. So, that just for my brain for that 10 to 15 years. So, we take five five and a half years off that for construction. Well, let me let me tell you what the 10 to 15 years is versus the 25. What we were looking at is 25 years worth of growth. Okay. And say what are we going to what do we think we're going to have to treat in 25 25 years because we want to build to that because we don't want to do it again. Yeah.

Well, we backed that up to say, okay, well, if we utilize both the existing plants that we have now plus the new components of the new plants, we can build to a 10 to 15year look at growth. Does that make more sense? I mean, we're really looking at growth to to to create a plant that will service the growth for the next 10 to 15 years. Not saying we're going to I mean, we're building to 10 to 15 years worth of projected growth. So, in 15 years, we're looking at doing something else. Yes.

Correct. But you're also looking at doing something else as soon as we finish with this project to continue with that because now you're going to have another four or five year period that you're looking at planning. So you're still, and if you remember back, there was a presentation I did where I said we could take the 25 years and we'll back it up to the 10 or 15, but we still got to do the 25. We're just going to take it in chunks at a time. So I don't think the project is going to stop and we're going to be done and say, "Okay, that's it. We're done for the next, you know, 10 years." No, we'll have to start doing something as soon as we finish. Okay. Uh the project more phasing approach. It's more I mean we could we could we could

charge the current rate payers a 25 or or greater expense or we can charge them the 15 then then when we actually need 25 the rate payers at that point can then take it from there. And so it's it's a it's there's a pretty big delta when it comes to 25 year versus 10 to 15 year and then how much how much can the current rate payers sustain now versus over time. Something else we thought of too is that you know if you if you look at technology and how it evolves I mean especially now what's going to be available to us in 10 years that's not available to us now that maybe is more efficient that maybe so if we build that 25 year look we may miss that window to do something that we could have seen some efficiency on 10 to 15 years.

Okay. Thank you. You know I just I just like to say we can't continue to repeat the sins of the past. We need to continually operate and continually grow these these plants and we can't ever have a recess. I mean, it's that's what's gotten us to this this position today is taking time off and not investing as we need to. Just a constant catchup. And I really like that. I mean, we're looking at a 10 to 15year payout or for this first project that gets us within compliance, but each generation accepts their their position as a at a citizen of the city and pays for those additional upgrades regardless of what the population is. That's a great plan.

Well, thank you. That's a good point, too, because you think it's been 23 years since we've done something at River Road, right? So, and and that's why we're in the shape we're in. So this was that uh slide just showing you what a hypothetical 4 MGD would do to us due to growth. We know of projects that are coming that are going to have higher usage. We want to be able to utilize the northeast interceptor to get the waste to river road. So we know that we're going to be putting more in there. Uh so that's just kind of showing you um what that would look like if we added 4 MGD. So here's the growth chart for you. This was something the planning department put together for us. Just showing what their projected growth was. uh looking at about 2027 I think it was 208512 and it's based on the comprehensive plan it's based on known incoming developments and proposed target industries that are coming and then if you look back all the way out to 2050 the 253 836 so originally we were looking at okay what do we have to build for that 253 836 we back that up and we start saying okay what do we got got to build the 210 or whatever that number is for for growth um in there so that is That maybe answer your question a little bit better, Councilman Tips, that you had earlier on growth. Okay. Um, I want to want to show you this because this is important. This is this is our basins. You hear us say that word a lot. These are you see everything that's in blue flows to the Hollywood wastewater treatment plant. Everything in pink flows to the River Road wastewater treatment plant. Some of that is done via lift stations. There's 54 lift stations in our system. Some of it is done. You want to utilize gravity as much as you can. So that blue basin gravity feeds for the most part. I mean, you're going to have ups and downs in hills that you're going to have to lift wastewater, but most of that flows to Hollywood. Most of the pink flows to River Road. That's that dividing line that we see that runs through Amarillo. And you can see it in the topography. Just drive down Western from one end to the other and see the hill. You know,

both sides of that. We have to lift some of that up. Some of it we don't. But I wanted you to see that because here's here's why it's important. This is just a a map that I had GIS create because I want to show you the red. That's the northeast interceptor. That is just out north of the airport area there. And then you see the green lines in there. Those green uh are sewer mains. They're big sewer mains and anything they're 18 in and above are shown on this map. We cannot change the direction that those flow. The ones that are green that are going to River Road, that's the way they go. The ones that are green that are going to Hollywood, that's the way they go. And you would have to go in and change everything in our system to make those flow to a different area. So, I know there was a comment made that 50% of it will go to River Road, 50% of it will go to Hollywood. That's really not the case. It's what is existing that's there is going to flow there. and we're going to move some of the new waste to the new uh northeast interceptor to get it to River Road to get it out of the Hollywood basin just above the airport there at Centerport and some of those areas. So, but that's the value of having it that interceptor that you'd asked about earlier. If you zoom in on this, this is what else you'd have to change. You zoom in to where those dividing lines are. These are just the distribution or the collection lines that are in the alleys. They flow a specific way. We can't go and change the flow of that. We can. I mean, it's possible, but you would spend billions and billions and billions of dollar to change the topography of Amarella to move all that. So, I just kind of wanted to clear that up a little bit that the system is already built. What we're building is accepting the stuff that's already coming to it. That makes any sense. Funding update for you. Texas Water Development Board General Revenue Grant. This is one that's sponsored by Caroline Fairley. Uh, this is a fantastic opportunity for us. This is $20 million that doesn't have any strings attached to it. This is money for us to use on design. The first

deadline for that was November the 3. Uh we had a letter of applications filed on October 13th. The next deadline is December 4th. We are in the process right now. We in fact I think we've already submitted all the documentation necessary for this one for that board meeting that Texas Water Development will have in uh December. So we should be finding out uh the final results of that soon. And I think this is pretty much a done deal for us. We just have to wait on board approval uh to get the final word on that. But that will be $20 million that we have coming to us. The next is a clean water state revolving fund uh uh through Texas Water Development Board. This is a $60 million uh low interest loan. First deadline November 3rd. Intent to apply was filed on the 13th. Same thing. Next deadline is December 4th. This is the one we've been working on. The application process for these is massive. Uh Shie has done an amazing job assembling her team to apply for these and to make sure that all of the paperwork is done correctly. If you get a couple of things out of order on there, you're kicked off the list and and you have to wait for the next round. So, we're trying to make sure we get this right and make sure that we have the opportunity to get 60 million that we could put toward design of this project as well. And we have a third funding uh mechanism we're looking at and that's the Army Corps of Engineers for 38 million. I know that recently they were furled. So our conversation stopped with the uh Army Corps of Engineers and now they're probably back to work we hope. So we can resume our conversations with them. Our next steps with this one is to be sure and and and find out the restrictions associated with it. A lot of the core of engineer grants have have restrictions associated with them and we want to make sure that we're not getting ourselves into position where it's going to either restrict us by time or things like that. We do have a project identified that I think is going to be perfect for this and it has to do with flood mitigation at Hollywood and it's something that's right up the uh uh alley of what Army Corps of Engineers does. So I think we have a a very specific purpose that we're going to be talking to them about

and hopefully we'll be able to receive that. We will continue to explore any and every opportunity that we have to get funding for this project. So we're not done. These are just the ones that we're working on right now. next steps. I pre I created this um at the request of uh uh Councilman Prescott and he said, "Hey, when we get to that meeting and you present everything, one thing that we didn't have is a full timeline and I don't have glasses to read up there, so I'm going to pull my sheet out and look at it up close right here so I can get it right. This is a this is a draft. I will say that 10 times. Draft, draft, draft, draft, draft." A lot of these things are still unknown as far as the timeline is concerned. We know that right now where we are at is right there. We are at the preliminary engineering and master study. We're working on that. We should have that completed in the next couple of months. We're also working on funding assistance. The next things that are coming are permitting. We have to start that. That's about an 18-month process. That'll be for the new permits for the for the new plants. Uh hiring our Seymar and then we will begin also Hollywood flood mitigation projects for design and construction because that is something TCQ is requiring us to do. We have to take care of the flooding issue out there and that being next to that playa for a 100red-year flood. Then we'll begin our design phase. And the beauty of a semar you see that during the design phase, we will start construction in the middle of that. Generally, if you don't use a construction manager care contract, you'll have to wait till the complete design is done. Then you have to go out for your bids and there's time associated with that. So, we would be looking at mid 28 before we could even start on this. But with the Seymar, we should be able to start, we believe, construction in some phases of those guaranteed maximum prices, the GMPS as we call them on this project in 27. So that just kind of gives you an overall look at where we're at. And then you see at the very end when we get to that part right after 2031, and again, these numbers are going to change. So don't take this to heart.

This is just I just want to kind of give you a high level look at where we're at. But once we get to the end of 20 mid 2031, we'll immediately begin taking those plants down to start doing an analysis on them to see what is salvageable, see what we're going to have to do to to to make them uh be a part of that more functional, larger two combined plants. Now, there there's a possibility that we may look at that and say it's actually cheaper to add a new train to the new facility, you know, if we want to expand. It may be cheaper to do it the other way. We don't know yet and we won't know until then because you cannot you got to remember you cannot take either one of these plants down until we have something in its place. So with that said, uh just remind you of this. I know that everybody always wants a price and my my resolve now on that is I'm not going to give you one because the last time we even uttered something out there, it became the Bible. It was it was going to cost this much. And we don't we just don't know. And we're not going to know until we get that opinion of probable cost. That's the first time we're going to have anything even close to what this is going to cost. And we're in the middle of the per now and I think we'll have a better idea. But I really think until we get to the OPCC, it's really difficult uh to give you a price on this. I will tell you what our goal is. You know, originally, you know, we were looking at 2 to three billion uh quite a delta uh between those two numbers, but the goal is we're trying to get this thing under a billion if we can. It is going to be what it is, but I think working through the Seymar helps. I think being able to utilize existing facilities as they are is going to help. We're doing everything we can to value engineer this even pre-esign so that when we get in design, we really already ahead of the curve on that. And I think I think the team has done a great job uh on all that. So with that said, I know that was long, but I I I want you to I really want the public I want you to be totally informed of everything we're working on and what we're doing. So then if you have any questions, I'll be glad to try to answer those. Thank you for putting the presentation

together, getting the committee, and I think you have a world-class team. I I I'm so excited the the team that you put together and the direction we're going. Thank you. I appreciate that. I've got one question just I mean although we don't know how much it's going to cost, we know we're going to have to pay for it. Uh where are we kind of on the rate study or do we know when that's going to come back to to take a look at? I haven't spoken with a reg consultant in the last month or so, but I know they we should be getting here soon. And so, Donnie, have you talked Well, in fact, there was an email that came this morning that they were wanting to get a meeting scheduled for next week so we could at least have a discussion about some things. Got that far yet. So, so we'll circle back with them soon.

Okay, good. Well, I think that's a discussion we also need to start having. I mean, it's it's it's not directly related because we don't know how much it costs, but when you start to do the math at a billion dollars, absolutely, it's a lot of money. So, I think the earlier we start working at that, the less we have to, you know, people are going to get sticker shock all at one time. So, well, Councilman Simpson, that's a good point. One thing we worked on during the budget this year was, you know, to go ahead and start, and it was what Laura wanted to make sure that everyone understood that we've got to start those rate increases now. We did this year. Uh, and we'll continue to do that until this happens to ease into that. So, I think that's a pretty good plan moving forward, but you're right, that's going to be a critical uh piece for us to talk about. Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. Well, if we do that, are we earmarking that money in a specific fund that is like a no touch fund that is is going to be for whatever phase of the wastewater treatment plant because we don't need it to go to any other products uh projects necessarily. Let me let me tell you where so this will this will this will be a great segue back into the conversation y'all had before we took the break about CIP projects. Uh so this year we identified I think the rate increase was approved 11 million is that what it was total for CIP.

Yeah the rate increase was 5%. Yeah. And I think the number that we had for CIP projects and utilities right at 11 million. We have identified $200 million worth of CIP projects and utilities not just now. I mean these are projects that are there. We never have enough CIP to create the projects that we've identified. So what I what I have instructed utilities to do with that start working toward these two facilities if you can I know there's other CIPs that we have in making them functional so that we can get through the next five years that's what they're going toward so in essence it is going toward the project if you will that make sense

so we've taken rate rate increase uh to the payers but that's just to stay afloat so we're not taking a rate increase in you know preparation for Yes. Well, those are onetime expenses, right? So, I get it.

And if I can add to that, so the plan would be the essentially 5 million that's created by the 5% rate increase this year will go to fund $5 million of one-time spending towards capital projects. That same 5 million will be in place the next year and the year after that and the year after that. And at some point, we will issue need to issue debt and um we will have ongoing annual debt service. this rate increase that will continue to be in place can be captured to help offset some of that annual debt service that we know is coming in the next few years. And so maybe, and I'm I'm just saying hypothetically, maybe in a couple of years when we have to start issuing debt for these projects, instead of having to do a 10% rate increase all at once, we may only have to do a 5% because we can capture this 5% that we just used onetime spending on in prior years. Does that make sense?

No, I mean I guess I mean I'm just saying okay so we're capturing five million additional dollars a year which I know we could use for debt service but we have $200 million worth of product projects and I mean if we're going CIP versus debt funding I mean that's a different story. So, if we're taking this five million, we're just putting it towards we're going to put the five million towards part of the 200 million, but then in future years, we may not be able to do more of that 200 million. But, but it's the projects what we're trying to focus on, Councilman Tips, is the projects that would be associated with this project. In other words, everything that we need to do. I mean, we're going to do it now. We're going to do it. We're going to do it next year. We're going to do it the year after. We've got to start getting those things in order because this has got to happen. So,

but all the while you have 200 million worth of other projects that need Well, and that's that's nothing new to any of us. I mean, this is the world we live in every year. In fact, I've never had a CIP that funded all the CIPs that we have that we need to do that we've identified, if that makes sense. I mean, I I get it, but I mean, I guess we each budget session we're going to be banging against this door the same way of like, well, we got to prep for this. Hey, this is coming. We got to save for this. And hey, I mean, so we can't really say that this last increase was good. Oh, I I I think we're going to be seeing, you know, we may have to stair step it up to pay this debt off.

I mean, they're I mean, there could be increases every six months. You know, I mean, I think it's a better way to do it than waiting to say, "Okay, how much is it going to cost?" And then raising everybody's rates, but but you're going to get that continue. And I think that's why looking at the funding sooner rather than later and mapping this out and what the roadmap looks like, you know, not not just I just go back I think business rates are something that we really need to, you know, to look at. I I'd like this plan to help, you know, you know, be as soft on residents as possible, but everybody's going to have to pitch in to help pay for I agree 100%. We just have to be careful in the messaging of what of the reason for it. I mean, we've got to step it up. I agree and the sooner the better, but it's what is it for? It's I mean, we're just prepping for this.

Yeah. Well, Jerry brought up a good point and you remember the maps that we had up of the River Road assessment that were up there. So, those are items we're identifying now that we're going to go ahead and move forward with because we know we've got to keep that plant alive. Does that make sense? Y.

So, a future I mean, yeah, we we could have taken the 5% and just set it aside, but the thought process was why set it aside? We've got a lot of expenses we can be doing now with that money. So then a future council could say, "Okay, when it comes time to doing the issuing the debt, you can either you can either keep the 5% we have now to go towards CIPs or you could put it towards the debt." And so that's the decision the future council will make. But we we're starting to stair step our way into that to give the future council some options instead of cliff climbing at that point. So you Yeah, because it's going to be a pretty big increase if we wait till then.

And I want to clarify something too. So the 200 I'm saying 200 that's just a roundabout number but I have a list but that's all utilities that's not just wastewater that's distribution that's everything. Okay thank you we appreciate uh the committee good strong committee got a lot of progress there's a lot being done that mean we're getting an update and it took a minute to get through the update but you guys are making massive strides. Thank you I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Um, so any further questions on this item?

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hooper. Uh, item 9B is our chief here, Chief Maize. If you want to tell us a little bit about these fire engines and what good you're getting done over there at the fire department.

Yes, sir. So, I appreciate y'all's time today, this evening. And uh what we want to do is give an update over the fire department apparatus replacement plan. Uh let me make sure I did this. So essentially this 12 slide presentations. The goal is to present or kind of review outline where we've been, what brought us here today, uh where we are, and where we hope to go to ensure that our firefighters have the trucks they need to to meet our mission. So, this is kind of a review for most of council has has seen this uh discussion and and just this orientation sort of real quick uh down and dirty of the different trucks that we have uh to provide our services. So, essentially how we have this set up is we have trucks that are staffed 247. That's our engines, our ladders, our command vehicles. Uh the only trucks that are showed on on the screen is our grass rigs there in the middle and that's cross staff as as the calls come in for wildland incidents. Uh so our upper left is our workhorse. That's our engine trucks. We have 13 of those strategically uh arranged around the city. We have four ladder trucks which is a upper right which provides everything that the engine has plus a little bit more equipment as well as the aerial component on top. And then lower left is our platform. We expect that around the time that fire station 14 will be built hopefully uh by the end of next year. Latest hopefully January of 2027, but fingers crossed on that. And that platform truck will be ladder 14. So essentially what got us here uh when we brought this plan forward, Chief Koba, my deputy of support was looking at the data and trying to analyze where

our repair costs are really starting to peak and go up and just to give some kind of an option and a plan going forward for for mayor to con and the council to consider and for our city leadership to have an idea of our need in that area. So essentially we had an aging fleet and we were noticing a marked in increase in cost and repairs and downtime. And so we looked at a option that had a 7-year plan replacement plan, a 10-year replacement plan. And I don't recall if it was a 12 or a 15-year replacement plan for each truck. Uh but we ended up going with the with the 10, which is kind of a compromise uh of of that plan of the of the plans that were available. And thanks to mayor, council, and uh city management support, we were able to fund an order eight new fire trucks, which were six engines and two ladder trucks. And that was at a cost of 13.3 million. Our expected arrival of those vehicles will be hopefully February 2028. And I'll explain some of the hopefully in the vague terms that I'm using as we go. So we are in year two of that plan which is to order three engines and we'll cover a little bit more on that a little bit later. So our plan if if we could progress with this and of course we have to lay it out in increments like this so because we can't tie the hands of future council. We have to be very careful how we go about that. But in in 2031 our hope is to remove two of our reserve apparatus from our fleet just so that we're not always ever increasing that number of the trucks that we have in our fleet. By 2039, all of our trucks, all of our engines will be on a 10-year replacement schedule. So, and that again, that's where we hope to go. So, we're with the manufacturer Engine One. And after evaluating where we were,

we we didn't want to just assume that we were getting the best deal or best prices. And uh what we learned is it's expensive anywhere you go to order fire trucks. Uh but we went with engine one after visiting their facility and we noted a sturdier build, sturdier design, you know, a lot of a lot of ways that they've integrated technology and how they've designed our fire trucks. Uh we've noticed from that manufacturer as well as the vendor that I'll discuss a little bit later that they're a lot more responsive anytime that we come to them and say, "Hey, we need to implement these changes as far as how our our equipment's going to be configured on the truck or all the different uh areas like that." They've been very responsive. So, we've been happy with that. customer support from that end. Um, again, the cost is high where with every manufacturer, however, the quality of truck that we're getting plus the service that we're getting to to keep that going, uh, we notice that we're getting more truck for the same price. Safe Industries is our vendor. Uh, we were with the group, the title at that time was uh, Lonear Emergency Group. Uh, they were acquired by Safe Industries. Uh, they've been awesome to work with as well. They've been very respons responsive at at each stage of our of our dealings with the firet trucks from the build to the delivery and to the warranty work. And one of the things that we will be able to work in is a trade-in options for our current fleet, which isn't very much based on the age of our current uh fleet. our oldest six trucks. If we were to turn in our oldest six or actually eight trucks, we've got a price for 77.5,000 just to turn in eight fire trucks. So, you don't have a lot of that value when you're nearing the 20ear mark for the tradeins. So, and I do have a handout if y'all needed to break down of what that estimated snapshot of what that quote would be if we turned in our eight of our oldest trucks right now. And with with us tonight is uh Mr. Keith Gold from Safe Industries. So if there's any technical questions related to

manufacturing or or to the vendor itself, uh he's here to on hand to answer any of your questions or hopefully most of your questions there. So when we put in the order of the of the truck, we have a build time or and wait time and we're waiting in line and when they start the actual build, it's three years, which is terrible, but you know, when you're want you're wanting to order something and pay for it, you want it as quick as you can get it. Uh but we understand ever since COVID that it seems like that's just been the way of everything for some reason. Uh but we're hopeful that they there are forecasted improvements with that as they've ramped up their production and and different processes in how they're building them. Uh and as well as staffing up with more personnel. So we've, you know, we've heard early hopes from 36 months to, you know, two and a half years instead. So again, that's not great. when I got on it was around a year and you thought that was terrible to wait a year for a truck but so at least we're moving in the right direction. Uh we noticed with this year Chief Cob did a great job of projecting where he anticipated the c the price increase to go up. He had it at five in our projection and it did come in at 4.5 uh which is near 40 grand in savings there and we we don't like to see any increase. Nobody likes paying more for anything, but it sure beats the 30 to 40% markups that we were having uh in recent years after COVID. So, just a few of our current fire engine stats and this we've broken down into our frontline engines and again there's 13 of those online and then we have uh a number of reserve trucks. I believe nine reserve trucks that are out there. So, our average age of our frontline engines right now is right at eight years with 95,000 miles with our oldest being at 12 years. Our reserve uh engines clock in at 18 years, 140 average miles,

140,000 average miles in our oldest reserve truck is 22 years old. We've got a couple of slides here with just some graphics to illustrate the current age on that. the dark blue on the left hand columns, you'll notice the dark blue, that's all of our frontline trucks. And again, that's our ages for each of those trucks. And the lighter blue is our reserve engines. Next slide has our current mileage for each of the engines. And again, dark blue on the left, light blue are our reserve engines on the right. our fleet manager, Dustin Dorman, uh has he does an excellent job keeping us rolling and keeping us in service on the streets. He he does he's very careful to monitor the mileage and the the engine hours and he gets with our personnel on the operational side to recommend anytime we need to make some changes as far as swapping reserves with current engines. And for instance, engine five, if you'll notice on there, we do we're kind of peaking in mileage it along with engine 11. And we do have a plan underway to swap engine five with our reserve engine 9 or 49 which is 13 years old. Engine 5 is 11 years old, but the mileage will buy us a little bit more time. And again, I noted on there that engine 11 is it is it is up there as well as matching engine 5 as far as mileage, but it is at a slower station. So, we do try to do our best to make sure that we're monitoring uh the the mileage that's going up and putting those rotating those to some of our slower districts as far as call volume. So, where we're at today and where what will be presented later on in the non-consent item 10G is to request council approval to move forward with the plan of purchasing three more fire engines. that this would

be to a tune of just under 4.7 million or 1.6 million each. And this purchase would include all the equipment minus the SCBA or the backpacks that we wear with our air supply. They would come with a 10-year warranty and in a guaranteed buyback. And Safe Industries offers uh a buyback a floor of 300,000 on any truck. Uh, and with that we can take that offer and and take that money or that value, we can do our own leg work and sell it. And we do have there's various vendors around where if we could work with purchasing and and whoever else we need to to to see if maybe we could get a little bit more in return for that tradein or we can outright buy that. For instance, if for some reason we decided we wanted to acquire a truck and just own it, maybe move it to training just to be a training apparatus. Uh, that would be an option for that. So again, here we're here today to seek your approval for the purchase of three fire engines. And that again, that would be part of our year two of the current replacement plan. Uh December 9th, uh the next council meeting, uh the city would conduct the competitive sale and award the depth financing. And Laura, please let me know if I'm I feel like I'm getting

Nope. It's okay. Actually, if if um if I can jump in here. Um it's our timeline's just slightly different from this, but um on December 9th um well, first of all, we're bringing this for approval today because um we worked with the manufacturer and they do have anticipated price increases coming um in the next month or actually earlier this month, I believe. But they've been willing to lock in the price as is um as long as I think they're putting leaving it in place for us for 60 days. So, how we're going to work through that, and just so you know, the price increase would be just shy of 210,000. So, um, what we're looking is on December 9th, we would actually bring a resolution, um, a reimbursement resolution. And, um, what that would do is allow the city to go ahead and, um, pay the manufacturer, um, for, um, the upfront pre-ordering of these three fire engines., Then we would proceed with um a competitive sale for PPFCO um debt on February 10th and then we would receive the funding from the debt issuance on March 10th and it on as soon as the funding came in we would reimburse ourselves um from the debt issuance. One thing that we've been um uh very pleased with working with this manufacturer is they have agreed that um we can place the order and with the approval of council today, we could go ahead and place the order, but if for some reason the funding doesn't come through, the debt is insurance isn't done, they would be willing um to cancel the order for us. So again, this year it's going to be a multi-step process. So today would be approval of purchasing the vehicles. Um then on December 9th, we would bring back a reimbursement resolution um authorizing us to go ahead and

fulfill the um pre-ordering of those um three engines and then on February 10th, we would bring back the competitive sale for the debt and then we would get the money in the bank on March 10th. Well said. It's a lot better to explain. So, and I apologize. It's just a little bit of a complicated process, but this is how we're hoping to achieve um ordering these trucks before there's another price increase that goes in. Hey Laura, what is the prepaid discount?

Um about to Oh, the prepaid discount. Well, all that it does is it puts your place in line to start um building it and we'll get it in approximately three years. But if we wait and don't put our pre-order in, let's say for a few more months, um we're we calculated it would be about $210,000 more on top of this. Do we uh and we pay the full amount? So we're outside the cash for three years. Um yes, that's correct. Okay. Um and then you said resale of eight units at 775. Who who is is that a trade in with this new this group we're buying or how do we where is the 7 775 come from

the 77 thou and a half thousand 100 uh yeah 77,000 uh that was a quote put to us we we took uh our eight oldest trucks two of those were ladders six of those were engines uh they did a quick evaluation I don't know to what length that they did to assess the value on them but looked at mileage I would imagine uh possibly the engine hours and looked And that's how they they've come up with that quote for us. Who was that? I'm sorry.

That was Safe Industries. Okay. And is it standard? Um and and I mean these are these are large diesel engines and and I'm not getting in in your business because I know I I know nothing about the the fire trucks, but I'm just curious. The mileage seems rather low for the caliber of engines, you know, large diesel engines. Is that a standard in firefighting that we cut them off at 150 or 800 or 80,000?

I'm guessing it a lot of that really depends on the jurisdiction and you know what kind of miles. A lot of it it's it's I'm not going to say 0 to 60 because that would probably get somebody in trouble if they're going too fast. But I mean, you imagine it's a cold start. you're you're rushing out down the road. You know, a lot of the bumps you're trying to accelerate and and get to the emergency as quick as you can, but you know, and right different areas are going to be a little rougher than others. And it's just a lot of hard hours and you're, you know, and then you've got the pump. And I I do have my fleet mechanic here, too. He could definitely answer those.

Yeah. And and do we do we have a lot of maintenance on engines? Are we losing a lot of engines and transfer cases and transmissions? And we have had the I think I don't know if it was engine six was our last truck that we had go down with a with a transmission. Uh they do a fantastic job of keeping us where we're at. I'm not feel this isn't by any means like a call for ma like we're hurting for trucks. We got to figure something out. It's just one of those we we can see where we're headed. We could see where the costs were really peeking around just over that sevenyear mark as far as maintenance cost and when we were running into more of our bigger ticket issues with the trucks. And so this was our way back then to try to get ahead of that. And as far as the means to secure the funding, it was, you know, of course we're at the mercy of our experts to try to figure out a route to make all that happen.

I just noticed there were no moon trucks. Do you know what a moon truck is? No, sir. That's 240,000 miles. That's how far it is to the moon. So I just didn't see any that had that that designation yet. So we we'll have Dustin check. Maybe we have a moon truck. Well, you know, the more moon trucks we have sometimes the better on spin at Talon. We have a lot of moon trucks, which is probably not the best place to be. So, Yes, sir. But thank you. You bet. But the the mileage on those trucks doesn't tell the story, right? Because the run time is a lot more. So that engine is running more than 150,000 miles.

Yeah. You possibly drove four miles to get to the scene, four miles back, but then that truck may be idling for, you know, however long the scene of your incident. Sometimes it's 45 minutes to 12 hours all operation on that that apparatus. Any other questions other than if um Councilman Prescott is on a flat earth model or more of a heliocentric spherical model?

You're not gonna go there. Hey, Chief, as always, we appreciate you and um it's a lot of good hard work and and I know I know it's needed and we're we're building for the future. We're also looking previously with, you know, Mr. Hooper's growth chart. You're talking about going from about 205,000 people to 250,000 people. Amazing. And uh I know that some councils down the road will thank us for putting some good business practices in here that are building for the future growth and putting you in a cyclical um method so so that it'll be funded appropriately as we go forward. So thank you. Thank you. Appreciate everybody supporting this effort. So anything further for the chief?

Appreciate you, sir. Okay, we're going to move into item 9 C. Pirates of the park. Uh Mr. Koshuba,

mayor and council, Michael Kosuba, director of parks and wreck. Uh, just wanted to give you a quick recap of the Pirates of the Park event. Um, so one of the things as a department we've been trying to do is really focus on bigger community events, probably quarterly. The 5th of July was the the first one that we rolled out. Uh, the next one obviously is the the Pirates of the Park. Uh this actually started last year where our staff approached Chris Jones who uh was Pirates of the Canyon and our master our monster park event. We actually had a hot air balloon that we started giving candy out of. This year we expanded the event uh had 21 balloons and I'm going to kind of talk through it fairly quickly. Uh but just wanted to kind of show you some some pictures of what that event actually looked like. Uh so again this was a multi-day event. Part of it was city-led, some of it was done in the canyon. Um, but there was really a two-part event. So, the media the day before and then we were scheduled to do a morning liftoff, but was cancelled due to weather. And then we had the evening event, which really was our trick-or- treat event, uh, where people could actually go up to those balloons, um, get candy from the balloons, but then also stay around for the balloon glow. And again, we had 21 uh, balloons that were uh, there for that event. Attendance. So this is uh for a first-time event, we were very impressed with the results. So we had just over 13,000 people show up for the event. Um again, the average dwell time was about 60 minutes. Uh I know when we had presented the 5th of July, we had some very uh shaky numbers. We didn't have a lot of information. We actually went back and pulled those numbers for comparison. And you can see that the 5th of July, we average just under 28,000 people for that uh with the average dwell time of 128 minutes. So again, for a first time event, very well attended, just under half of what the 5th of July

was. Again, mentioned our partners, uh, Pirates of the Canyon, Chris Jones really did a great job of of bringing all of those balloonists together. Uh, again, when it's a city event, there's a lot of internal departments that work together. You can kind of see the list of that there. Uh and then we also had some vendors and some volunteers to help make this event successful. Uh there were some sponsors for this uh event, but they were really uh more for Pirates of the Canyon. That way they could help fund those balloon crews and pilots to come and be a part of that event. So here's a list of their sponsors. Uh food trucks. Again, we had uh 10 food trucks. Wasn't sure how big this event was uh going to be. Um average sales of 1500 to 3500. again like Fifth of July. This is an area that I think in the future we're going to expand upon um because again there was a lot of people and the lines were were fairly long. So um again we had the the costume contest where we had 37 different participants in that contest. Uh we had the kids zone which included things from uh Nerf gun wars to the kids area bounce houses. Um so you can see some examples of that marketing. So this was actually really surprising to us. The total Facebook impressions for this was 1.2 million people. Um, our Facebook page gained over a thousand people in that six day period. Normally, it takes us six months to gain that thousand people. Um, the Facebook reel had over 700,000 views, which was the largest city post of the year. Uh, and the Instagram reel had over 5,000 views. And again, you can kind of see some of the media that covered the event, the print, the radio, the outdoor advertising that went into this event. So, what did it cost us? Uh, for the department, the the total cost was just under 16,000 and that was just paid out of operations uh between the recreation budget and the park maintenance budget.

Uh, pirate of the pirates of the canyons expenses was again covered by those sponsorships and was just around 17,000. Um as we move look forward obviously uh if we want to grow the event stage concert drone show those are kind of the things that would be kind of the next ad. Um I think because of the large number of participants obviously more portable more portaotties. Um I think another thing is going to be traffic control. Um we're going to probably go to the standard layout that we did for 5th of July where it's kind of a loop in and out. Um there was some traffic congestion uh because primarily the large undeveloped parking lot was un unavailable because of the rain. Um there was a specialty balloon that was uh provided as a part of this event. You kind of see it on the side. It's a jacko'lantern. Um that would be an additional cost in the future. Um again talked about traffic, the need to add shuttles uh kind of like we do for the 5th of July or the 4th of July moving forward and then potentially a can a candy sponsor. So, um, just wanted to provide a very quick recap for the council. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Uh, Becky Dryer, our assistant director, and her team did a phenomenal job with this. Uh, and again, I think this is an event we would continue to grow in the future. So,

it's fantastic the uh increase on Facebook in just that short amount of time. The one other thing I wanted to bring to your attention is uh we are going to be doing a Christmas tree lighting. So again, we talked about four different events a year. Uh so we're looking at the the July 4th probably a fall event which is like the the Pirates of the Park and then we do have the Christmas tree lighting November 29th at 6:30. That will be at the Civic Center. Uh we'll also be showing um Polar Express at 7 o'clock for anybody that wants to show up. So that would be the next event that we're putting on. Great job, Mr. Koshuba. We appreciate all the hard work. Please tell your team um that it definitely doesn't go unnoticed and we love the events and want to continue to support you guys. Thank you.

Thank you, council. That completes discussion items. Do I have any requests for future agenda items? Not at this time. Okay. Les, did you request a future agenda item? Well, there's something that was like eight hours ago. So, yeah. Can you remember what it was? I don't know if any of us can remember it. There was a towing contract. Well, we Well, well, we ask if we I mean, I'm sure that's something that we want to discuss if if the staff thinks it needs to be brought to us at some point. So,

so towing contract for discussion. Okay, great. But nothing else, council. Um, all right. We're going to move into non-consent item 10A. Um, we got our marshall back there, Mr. Diaz. if he wants to come up here and tell us a few things that that we're updating in the code. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh, Council Member Simpson, I'll make this as quick as possible. Take your time.

The purpose of the Connation Appeals Commission is to conduct hearings related to substandard or dangerous structures in accordance with the municipal code. These hearings are typically held monthly, but moving forward, they will be held twice a month to accommodate the new internal demolition program approved in the recent budget. Historically, the CAC members have been directly appointed from the construction advisory and appeals commission. This practice has resulted in limited diversity and has led to the same group of volunteers serving on both boards. The goal of this ordinance is to amend the current selection process for board members specifically to remove the requirement that they be appointed directly from the construction advisory and appeals commission. This change will achieve several uh objectives. It'll expand the selection pool by broadening the cabinet pool. We'll have more options to choose from when selecting board members. Reduce volunteer burnout. Even the most dedicated members can experience fatigue and this change will help prevent overextending individuals. Maintain the current number of members. The overall size of the commission will remain unchanged. Introduce staggered terms. This adjustment will ensure continuity and avoid a scenario where multiple members leave at once. And lastly, preserve service requirements. The qualifications or requirements to serve on this commission will remain the same. This ordinance will allow the CAC to operate more effectively and with greater diversity while also supporting its long-term stability. Thank you for your time and consideration. I'll be glad to answer any questions.

Mr. Marshall, thank you for the presentation and um uh we appreciate the expediency as well. Um this one makes a lot of sense and being able to get good quality individuals that can serve and then not having to do kind of double duty. So, anything that you aren't recommending about this? Anything that you you want to add? Uh no, sir. I' I'd recommend approval. Okay. Council, you have any questions for Mr. Marshall? No. Okay. Would entertain an uh motion on item 10A? I move to adopt ordinance number 8225 as presented. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Any of any opposed? Item 10 A passes. Thank you, sir. Thank you, mayor and council. All right. Item 10B. Uh, Miss Coggin, you gonna run this one for us?

Okay. Mayor and Council, we have before you today ordinance 8226. This is an ordinance to discuss some changes to the code regarding boards and commissions. And so we visited with you before about bringing some changes to update the the code to codify some boards that hadn't been codified. We are looking to remove some obsolete boards and then making just a few changes on attendance and membership. So we'll run through that very quickly on these slides. If you have a question, please stop me. We've had several new boards and they are listed on your screen. These are boards that have been added previously either through resolution or ordinance but not codified. So we recommend bringing these into the code. Um there is a uh disclaimer in the code that it includes boards that are not codified as well. So as we have new boards in future years, we will bring an update in the future to add those. But this adds in there are a total of seven there including three PIDs, two tiers, and then two other boards that we will add in. We are recommending removal of the emergency care advisory board, the comprehensive plan advisory board, and the Redstone PID. The first two are boards that have actually sunset, and then the Redstone PID was dissolved, and so those can come out of the code. Next, we've got in article one, we've added some language that would require an individual to apply to serve on a board. Um, we've kept that very open so we can work with council administratively on what that application looks like and what information we're gathering to help you in deciding your appointments from year to year. We've also added some language. If we have a member who misses three consecutive regular meetings, they may be removed and that appointment brought to council at a future meeting. And then we also have language in there that talks about boards that don't have any business to conduct during the year

would still meet annually. And we've just cleaned that up a little bit just to clarify that they would meet during a fiscal year by October. The code currently requires them to meet in the month of October. For the parks and recreation board, we have one change and on the next slide, we'll talk about beautifification and public arts. This is something council had recommended to us. So, we will change this to be 10 members at large and one member selected from council. So, we'd ask one of you to serve on that board for beautifification and public arts. that one used to require a council member. We'd recommend that we move that to a citizen at large. On the library advisory board, we are recommending that all members shall be Emerald Public Library card holders in good standing to be appointed to that board and continue through their service. We've also recommended that one of the five members be a member of the friends of the Amarila Public Library board as well, just to make sure that those two boards have visibility with each other since they work so well together. And then on our convention and visitors bureau, just a note on this one, we previously had it in its own article due to some changes we had when we had articles of incorporation and it became kind of its own entity. We've removed that article and we've added them under our corporate and statutory boards where AEDC, the firemen's relief and retirement fund and those boards are located. And then on NO, we just made some changes to update our language to match the amended bylaws of NO on membership to make sure that we're current with their bylaws. And that's all I've got. Do you have any questions?

No questions for Miss City Secretary. So on the library advisory board, we're we're four members at large and one member of the friends of the Amarla public library board. Will that friends will we will council still pick the friends person or does the friends uh of Amberla board pick their person or how does that work? Council will still appoint that person. Okay. And any of the members on the friends board that wish to apply would put their application in and then we'd be sure that you have the information to know which applicants fit that criteria. Okay. Thank you. Okay. All good changes on item 10B. Do we have any further discussion?

Would ask for a motion council. So moved. Motion and a second on item 10B. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Mrs. Stores, I believe you're bringing item 10 C, cornfairy tour. Yes, sir. Um I am pleased to introduce um Eric Kohler who is um part of that team that is bringing this um to our area. And so I'll have Eric come up and kind of introduce item, give a little information about it. I think we also have a very short video clip and then I'll go into the information related to this resolution.

Thank you, council members, for uh hearing me out. Uh just wanted to let you all know uh the PGA tour schedule for the 2026 season has officially been announced today and it's official that uh they are bringing the cornfairy tour golf back to Amberllo for the first time in 36 years. The event will be played at the Tascosa Golf Club um on the La Paloma Golf Course. The team at Tuscosa has already made amazing improvements uh working with both the course architect and the PGA Tour. The event will see 156 world-class professional golfers around the world come to Amarillo the week of June 8th to 14th. The event will see spectators and volunteers from all uh all over come come to that event. The AY Classic just re recently announced Amarillo National Bank as the presenting sponsor. So the new name of the event will be Aunet Classic presented by Amarillo National Bank. Moving forward with more than 700 PGA Tour titles, 35 uh major championships, and eight FedEx Cup champions, Cornfair Tour alumni make up 82% of the PGA Tour's current membership. We are excited to be an Amarillo and showcase this great community to the golfing world in 2026. And if you will, you can play that short video. Making it on the corn ferry tour means they can make it on the PGA tour.

His third victory this season. Meet the newest PGA Tour winner, Matt Mccardi. Bath time in Mexico. To learn more and get involved, please visit ocetclass.com. We look forward to seeing you in the corn ferry tour at Discoa Golf Club June 8th through 14th, 2026. Mark your calendars now. There you go. Thank you, sir. On the corn ferry tour means they can make it on the

We uh we appreciate the the update, the presentation. We we're excited, thankful to have the PGA Tour back in the the big city of Earillo. It's going to be a at a great time with all things that are happening within the town and the country, birthdays and such on Route 66. So, thank you for the presentation. We look forward to it. Thank you very much for having me.

All right. So, um this item is consideration of an of a resolution and um what it it does is it authorizes um the city to seek and distribute state funds pursuant um to article 5190.14 section 5C of the Texas um revised civil statute for this event for the 2026 cornfaries um cornfairy tour. Um and so essentially what we do and we we do this for a few other events here um locally. Um one of those being the WRCA event that was just held. And so the what the state of Texas does is they have an event trust fund um that is used to help recruit events that could go to other states across the nation. And so if you have an event that chooses to come here to Texas, if they meet certain qualifications, we can they can work with the local municipality to apply for funds through the state event trust fund. And there's it's a it's a long process, but it starts kind of with this resolution that the city is authorizing us to go start working on this um state application. And essentially what it does is it's it um looks at all of the sales tax um or the estimated sales tax that is generated by an event like this based on the number of participants um and the number of people um coming into our community. And what the state does is then it requires the city of Amarillo to put a our local portion in this event trust fund and then the state once everything's approved will give back the state's piece of the sales tax along with the local piece of the sales tax. And then what the city of Amarillo would do is pass the um states portion of the sales tax on to the event developers. So, it's kind of an incentive um to help

recruit some of these big events into the state of Texas. And um it's worked really, really well. We've done it for years with WRCA. I know they're very appreciative of us. Um we feel that this corn ferry tour will be a really good um applicant into the state fund as well. So, one other item related to this is we do work with a local or we work with an economist that um does all the stats for us and helps us with the application and um the the group with the corn fairy tour has agreed to pay those costs so it won't be coming out of city um taxpayer dollars. Um are there any questions that I can answer for you?

That's great. Um you have any questions, Councilman Simpson? So what how's the determination of how much money they can get? Is it based on

It's based on this. So when you do an application, you kind of do an estimated attendance um for the event and then there's all the economic factors of how much sales tax that would generate. Um then once the event occurs um we collect stats um associated with the attendance and we turn all that over into over to the state and they run it through their economic analysis and then that comes up with what the estimated sales tax was related to the event. The other great thing is is on an event like this I would imagine the city of Amarillo will also be receiving additional hotel occupancy taxes and that doesn't factor into any of that. That would just be staying here with the city. So the tournament organizers get paid that after the event. That is correct. Okay.

Yes, sir. And it usually there's quite a bit of a lag. It takes a little bit of time just because um working through you know government processes. Sure. Yep. Other questions.

So just a couple things here. We won't mention the other state, but there was another state that the PGA only puts on so many of these per year uh on the cornfairy tours of Texas and the city of Amarillo is awarded something instead of uh another city that they could have chosen to go to. So, it says a lot. Um, your sponsors, I believe, have given a five-year commitment. Uh, which also speaks to a a really good local economy and some stakeholders that believe in, you know, family events, golf, um, the community, um, and and the PGA's u, just the the best thing you can have at a local golf course, you know. Um, the city staff is already working really well. Uh, they are putting together transit. There's public safety considerations. There's all sorts of different things that can happen. And they'll play a qualifier tournament, I believe, at Ross Rogers, uh, beforehand. And then, I think 11 players, if you place in the top 11 spots, maybe 10, um, you qualify to then get to go play on this tour, um, with the the professional golfers. So, we love having it here. I think it's great. And thank you for your service and helping to get this through. I guess we just kind of act as the the sponsor or the the not the fiduciary, but but they need us.

Yeah, absolutely. We just we essentially facilitate the paperwork and um and get make sure everything's signed and the applications filled out properly and the money goes through us essentially. That's great. Well, we we look for a great uh turnout. We'll have a lot of local support and then um appreciate the city's um full endorsement and support on this as well. It's a lot of work for us, but it'll be a good deal. So, council, anything further for Mrs. Stores on item 10 C. Would ask for a motion. I move to adopt resolution 11-18-25-1 as presented.

Second. Motion and a second. All in favor, please say I.

I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Um, item 10D, Mrs. Coggins. This is the Potter County Appraisal District. So, this resolution is for council to cast votes for the Potter County Appraisal District. The ballot that we received that's in your packet has two candidates, Chip Hunt and Mity Wade. These happen to be the two candidates that council nominated. You have 322 votes that you can cast for the Potter County ballot. You can cast those equally. You can cast them for one of the candidates. And Jeffrey Dley, the chief appraiser for Pratt, did update us. Both candidates do have votes at this point in time. So, they will both be appointed onto this board. Um council I believe tell me this miss city secretary. Is it typical to just split the votes?

Yeah that's that's what councils historically have done is just split it evenly between the nominations that you made. So and in that case this would be 161 votes for each of these candidates. Gentlemen, I think that's a good practice. And I also think um Mrs. Coggins is letting us know that um it's not necessarily going to weigh whether they get to serve or not with the other votes that they've already received. Correct. For the for this particular ballot, there's only two and there's two positions. So, these two nominees would fill those positions. Really good. Council to you. What language do we use here besides adopting the resolution? We just

you you could just say adopt resolution with the city's votes split between the two candidates evenly. I move we adopt resolution number 11-18-25-3 uh with votes split evenly between Chip Hunt and Mincy Wade for 161 votes for each person. And just small clarification, it's resolution number two. Two uh resolution number two. Perfect. Dash two. Yeah. Second. Got a motion and a second on resolution 11-18-25-2. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Miss Coggins, now we're heading over to Randall County.

Okay, so for Randall County, there were four nominees and as a reminder, there are two positions on this board. Council nominated both Tom Sherlin and Ginger White originally. In your red folders, you have an item marked 10E. This is the current status of votes that Jeffrey Dley provided us as of yesterday. And on this city council has 312 votes. So you could give those to one person or you could split them between up to two people. 10E. Yeah. It's got as of November 17th and red at the top of it. Oh, it's by

And on this one, if you wanted to split them between your two nominees, it would be 156 votes each to Sherlin and Ginger White.

Did you find it? Okay. So, council, you have a total of 2,000 votes that get cast. Haley Holt at 807, Jack Clauss or Klaus 464, um Tom Sherlin 2, Ginger White 175. We have a total of 312 that can go to any of these. Correct. Not just the two that we recommended. Correct. They can go to any. You can only cast them for up to two individuals though. So we cannot split it four ways. We can split it two ways or we could give it all to one. Correct. And then um tell me how many can serve on this board? They're filling two terms.

They're filling two positions. Yes. So there's two. So only two of the four will. And right now Haley Holt and Jack Clauss have the most votes. There are a total of 552 votes left to be cast. 312 of those belonging to us. 178 of those to Emerald College and then a few for a couple smaller entities and so we don't know where the rest of the votes will go. We don't Emeralda College is holding their meeting right now and so don't know what they've uh voted but theirs will be voted on tonight as well.

Council my my recommendation would be to put all of our votes to one candidate depending on who we choose. um it makes it most likely that that candidate would at least have an opportunity to um serve in that position seeing that you already have strong support for two of the four candidates um and we didn't recommend either one of them. So if we feel strongly about any one candidate uh I think it makes sense to put all of our votes behind one candidate in this position. Isn't Isn't it a little unusual to get the counts of who has the votes? It's really not because those votes happen in open meetings just like this one. Okay.

And so, and I did ask Jeffrey that when I talked to him yesterday. I said this question is going to come up when I share this information and he said it's it's perfectly public information. Anybody could ask for it. Can I suggest we do that with the next city election? might make it as long as they're certified and opened here in the middle of the the chamber. I believe that's the big the key point there. The take the

Yeah. um council, any discussion on either of the two or if you happen to know something about one of the other two that we didn't nominate, but if you want to direct the conversation since we're going to be quiet, I I would like to see us I I did nominate Tom Sherland. I think he's got a heart for the community and always willing to serve and work hard. Um I would like to see us give 312 votes to Mr. Shirley,

the just discussion. The only hesitation I have there is with the on the Potter Randle appraisal district board. Um, you know, I nominated Ginger just simply because the real estate, you know, knowledge. Just just throwing that out there. Um, I think that's good discussion. How long has Mrs. White served in this capacity? Do we know? I don't know that for sure. I know it's been at least about four years or so.

I would say four or six, but I I don't know for sure, but let's say four. Um, and I I know she's a a strong candidate and she definitely carries that real estate background. So, driven in a lot of good directives for growth in Emerillo and and you know, affordability and housing and whatnot. Um, Councilman Sherlin also had the privilege of serving on the council. So, um, you know, it's not like he's not getting stuff done in the community, but both are considered and probably need, you know, other comments from council on where you guys want to go.

I I think I would be comfortable splitting the votes and and supporting both of the people that we nominated. All I would say is if we gave them all to Tom or we gave half and half, it's still not going to move the needle. If we gave all of them to Ginger, it would maybe possibly move the needle depending on what Amarilla College does. I don't want to waste the votes if it's not going to move the needle. Le let's dig into that a little bit. Do you know that um how many votes are remaining? I guess that could go to one potential. So assuming Councilman Sherlin or Tom Sherlin has the the lowest and we gave the 312, is is he not a viable participant at this point?

He would require a majority of the rest of the votes. So after city council casts its votes, there's 240 votes left. Emeralda College holds 178 of those. City of Canyon holds 40, Bushland holds 20, and Happy ISD holds two. And while I understand the the typical split, I think it'd be better to keep the votes together if we feel strongly about one of the two nominees that we've made. Well, you've got 173 votes uh separating the two right now.

And I can tell you, I did the math and Kell asked, if you were to give all your votes to Mr. Sherlin, he would have 314 votes with 240 votes left to potentially be cast. If you were to give your votes to Miss White, it would be she'd have 487 votes, which would put her in second place. I'm not getting the math there. There's a total votes of 2,000 and only 1451 have been cast. I'm I'm I I'm taking out the 312 for City of Amarillo. Oh, okay. There's 552 votes left to be cast. 312 of those belong to you.

Fantastically simple process that we have here before us. Exactly. Clear this mud. Yes, council. I I think you know, let's just decide as a body. Do we want to keep our votes together or do we want to split them? Because we've you know, I'm thinking keep them together. Councilman Simpson makes a good point of splitting them or can we at least make one step in a direction before we pick who we want to we want to put them all for? Well, with to Prescott's point, I'm afraid I mean looking at the numbers, you know, if the if these two were in the lead and these two are what who we did, I'd say split them. Like that that makes perfect sense,

but it doesn't move the needle. Um, I'm afraid with Tom, I don't know that that gets him there. Um, with with Ginger that gives her a shot because she's in second place with all those votes. I mean, I'm just working the numbers here, right? Um, again, if we're saying, "Hey, we don't want to waste these to your point, like we don't want to split them because that doesn't make any sense at all." Well, who who's the viable candidate given that we already have the numbers? I mean, so I mean, I'm advocating to keep them together, but not advocating for either person. Um, you know, at this point in the conversation,

I I would agree with keeping them together just by just working the math on it. Okay. Well, since we're all fine with that, um, Tom or Ginger I make a motion that we put all of the votes to Ginger White. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Any further discussion? Okay. Um, you have clarity on that motion. You need anything further in this particular instance? Okay. Motion in a second. With no further discussion, all in favor, please say I. I. I. Any oppose?

No. We uh vote passes with a 4 to one vote. Thank you, Mrs. Coggins. Thank you, ma'am. Is that your last one for now? Okay. You guys good to do a couple more or you need to take a restroom break? Get it done. Okay. Um item 10F. Uh Briana Mills.

I'm going to represent that one. Uh mayor and council. Uh my name is Jim Hillwig. I'm the planner for transit. Um, we're doing consideration for resolution number 11-18-25-4. It's uh the first reading for consider a resolution adopting an updated title 6 compliance program for the city of Emerald. Read you all a little overview. Uh, the purpose of the program is to ensure Emerald City Transit or ACT complies with all applicable title 6 regulations issued by the US Department of Transportation DOT. In accordance with federal requirements, the program must be reviewed, updated, and submitted to the city council for adoption every three years. Last one we had was 2022. Title 6 provides a framework through which ACT delivers public transportation services in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. Through the invitation of this program, ACT affirms its commitment to ensure equitable access to all services and decision-making processes regardless of race, color, or national origin. Additionally, ACT will maintain its procedures to provide individuals with limited English proficiency or LAP meaningful access to transit programs and services and activities. And we're just asking if you guys would uh adopt that resolution.

Jim, we appreciate the presentation. Do we have any questions? Pretty simple. Thank you, sir. Entertain a motion on 10F. I move to adopt resolution number 11-18-25-4 as presented. Second motion and a second from place four. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Thank you, Jen. Thanks, Mayor. Um, all right. We've got uh Chief Mays back up here. If we have any further questions, is there anything else you'd like to add to uh from the presentation earlier, sir, on this side? No, sir. Just echoing that appreciation for the support we've had. Yes, sir. Chief,

just is are are we sure we're getting the best deal on the 775 on the resell? Um, I could dig into exactly what was evaluated in that and just see uh like for instance, I had a mailer of a company today in my inbox about another company that does assess the value of of trucks. I don't I think with the age, the wear and tear of what we've got, I think I don't know that we're going to see a whole lot more than that to be honest because it's we certainly we understand it's a pinch for every every s at times. So, Chief, can correct me if I'm wrong. It's still optional to give it back to them. We could still sell it ourselves or do something else with it. I I believe that what I recall

So, it's not an it's not a require part of this the deal. Yeah. They they offer something as part of their program, but we could still keep the truck. We could sell the truck. I think we still have options. I I would just like to explore options. I know we're not in the selling used equipment, but it seems with the three-year lead time, these are highly soughtafter commodity, and I would hate to be leaving money on the table. So, just because we do have our our expert in the room, I'm going to invite you up and just see if you have anything you'd like to add, sir.

Uh yes, sir. My name is Keith G. I'm with Safe Industries. The evaluation on that was put out to an open market. Basically, we took the mileage, hours, wear and tear on the vehicles, year, model, things like that. Um, also with those being um commercial cab trucks, they bring a lower value than the custom cab trucks that you're currently running. So, we put those out to the open market. That's where that tradein number came in as far as an offered value. But again, we had left that open to where if y'all wanted to put it out like he had mentioned on the open market yourself, put them out um on an auction site, whatever you wanted to do to bring the highest return value to the city, it's it it's definitely open to y'all.

So the 770 I mean I just keep using a 775 number, whatever. Yeah, I know it's close to that,000. Yeah. So that uh will that come off of the sales price or is this sales price exclusive minus not counting what we would get for resell? That's not counting what you would get for this. So at the time you made the decision if you wanted to hand them all to us so we could take take possession of them. We would then in turn pay the city $77,500 for all. Or if you wanted to put them out, you could try and get market value at that time. So what's the number? This was based on an evaluation. 77,000. 75,000 per truck. 75,000. I'm sorry. Per truck. Per truck. 750,000.

Okay. Okay. That's in That's in total. Oh, that's total. That's in total. That's not per truck. 77. What is the number? 77,500. That's for all trucks. But you have vehicles on here that are eight trucks. Um like for instance, you have a 2004 AL on here that's a discontinued truck. That manufacturer is not even in existence. So, so $75,000 for eight trucks, correct? Yes, sir. I think we need to go find Sure. Yeah. I mean,

again, that we just gave it a market assessment and with them being um commercial cab trucks and as many miles as they have on them as well as the age that that's where the market played for. But by all means, yeah. Yeah, we could send it to auction. Yeah, we could. Or you could buy one. I might might buy one. I mean, for 10 for 10 grand, it's not a bad deal.

So, we um I know what we have before us is the the award or the purchase, the intent to um issue debt in the future that'll come back to council. It's really good. I I appreciate the the comprehensive look and you bring in all parts and pieces and and the potential revenue that could come from the sale of the trucks. Um, I think what I'm hearing is that council would like to direct staff to go and pursue other options and see what else needs to be before we part with any of these existing u pieces of equipment. But then tonight or today council, I would say that you know the $4.6 million is only going to go up by another 210,000 if we don't move forward with our intentions. So, any discussion for Chief Mays on on the purchase of these new pieces of equipment? No. Okay. Would ask for a motion on 10G, please.

I move to approve the purchase of the fire apparatus as spelled out in item 10G. Second. Motion in a second. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed, Chief? Once again, thanks for all your hard work. Thank you. All right. Item 10H. We're going to keep going here for a minute. We're going to get Miss Johnny Glick up here. She's going to move us as quickly as possible through some important board placements and appointments. First one being airport advisory board before before we start this process. Yes, sir. Can we have a little discussion?

Yeah. Um I know I'm new to this council. Um, but I found this process of going through all of these appointments as one of the most bizarre things I think we do as a city government. Um, to do all of these appointments on one night or two nights because we're separating them. Um, I I don't understand one what the hurry is other than we have a scheduling for it. um where we could we could actually look at this uh in a more logical way and each month we have appointments to committees um that would give us an opportunity because these committees are important to us as a council. Right? When we when we see that a committee v voted 5 or 41 that kind of gives us a little direction that they've done their homework, they know what's going on and it does help us in making our decision. But um this way I I don't think this is a we are taking it seriously on how we do a committee because there's no possible way in the short time that we had that we can call all these people talk to them and because a lot of them that are in here I don't I've lived here for 40 years there's most of these people I don't know and I don't think that's fair to the process um for committees that are this important for us um to make decisions on. And I I would recommend and I know you're not going to like to hear this, but I think we should table this so that we can come up with some type of process um that is uh a better way of looking at these committees because I think they're very important to us as the work we do as a council.

Council, I would like to add I think that it would to me it makes more sense When these airport advisory boards, you have what, five individuals, four of one are up for reelection, they know what the the strength of the of the board is. They know what they need. It's it's almost impossible for us to make the the choice of what they need, what works, what doesn't work. We're just throwing in another level of bureaucracy that to me doesn't make sense. it would make much more sense that the group come in and say, "Hey, this is the this is the group we want." And then we just say we agree to that unless there's something just glaringly wrong with that.

And we do have that. I mean, staff will make recommendations uh you know, we can ask staff uh if they have recommendations, which they have the best feel for this. uh you know we can go through if like to your point uh Tim if we know these people that's great if we don't we have their resumes that they wrote but more than anything we've got staff that sits here this late and ask them you know who do you recommend they know if they have a functioning board or they don't have a functioning board and they can make recommendations based on you know who has applied who's willing to serve but also the terms end at the end of the So that that's a problem, right? So if we I mean if we table this I mean uh it buys us more time, but I mean we you know we've got to make these decisions to get this done. We have this meeting and we have one more in December. That's it.

So I I think that there's a way that we could extend them out until we came up with the process maintaining the board that's there. Um and then coming up with a a legitimate process. Um looking at those those committees, maybe it's two or three or four a month that we that we do every month and that would change their end time. Everything wouldn't end on December 31st. It would end two years, three years later.

I like that idea. I would, but I would just modify it slightly and say that maybe we do that next year and get the process down, fill the spots this year and then reconstruct the process next year just because we're on such tight fuse.

I mean, I I I I agree in theory of what you're talking about. I really at this late date would try would not like to rush the system and try to change it for this cycle because things don't go well when you try to rush things. The other thing is we do have people who have already indicated that they don't want to serve anymore and that they're ready to roll off and you know I mean they've indicated that they don't want to serve. I think they're thinking that they're about to get you know filled in that position. I mean, tonight when you look at it, I mean, we we've got um we've got I think um 18 positions to fill tonight, but 15 of those uh uh there's the majority of people are people who are on there and want to serve again. I mean, for me, if someone has been there and they've done a good job, I mean, I don't know if anybody wants to replace somebody on the committee. for me unless there's some you know they they've not attended the meetings or something like that and that leaves us with seven VA tonight with seven vacancies or members who don't want to serve again. So it's not like we've got a large number to consider. I I don't know if everybody I think we did a really good job this year of getting a lot more information about the candidates and their resume. I think in many instances you can kind of read through their background and and you know I pay heavy uh I pay you know if somebody and I appreciate the people when they say why you want to serve I want to help my community but really I'm going to give a preference to people who say I want to serve on this board for this specific reason. So I do have a lot of information that comes through the application process. I do call some people but I I don't call all people but I look at ones that I think that I would consider nominating and do it. I don't think there's an obligation for us to to call all of them or or any of them, but you know, we're we're filling half tonight. We're looking at half uh in December. I have no problem looking at this process as a whole, but I I I think

I'd feel more comfortable going through what we have here tonight, get it completed, and then if we want to direct staff to come back with a solution that's got some time to to be thought out and baked, then we can look in at implementing that next year. I think I would be I I just hate to sit here at the 11th hour and rush things and change them for this year. Uh when I I'm ready to go through it, you know, this evening. Well, I I don't I don't think we're rushing it. Um because there is a way to do it um that has order without uh causing a I mean we're just going to throw names out there. That's what everybody's going to do. Well, I'm not going to just throw names out there. I mean we've had these we've had these names since October 14th. I mean we've had all the information for more than a month. I mean

so but how how do you answer to somebody you call one or two people and you have six resumes and you only call two people. How do you answer to those other four? Well, the same way I'm going to answer of why I may nominate someone, you know, uh I mean, I look through the information to see, you know, who who's got the qualifications? But I don't know. I've never had anybody come back and say, "Well, you didn't call me." Uh I mean, we had 70 ADC board members. Did anybody apply back? Did anybody call everybody on there? I mean, you know, I I I figured out ones that I would support. I would say if and this is what I got to the part about you know I've tried to talk with people and and you know what some other guys may have done their homework and there are certain ones that I'm really interested in nominating there's others I would defer to somebody else to you know to nominate so I don't think there's an obligation for us uh to but but again even when we look tonight we've had more than a month to go through just the ones that we're looking at you know tonight to make a determination so I'm I'm comfortable with moving forward but

well and I'm being told too that each board would have to change their bylaws. So, if these expire, those if the expire if the terms expire, they'd have to sit unfilled until the bylaws are rewritten and then it comes back to us and we go through the process. Now, I believe Stephanie, you looked at didn't we have you look at applications to see if uh we had more or less depending on when this happened.

Yes. And I wasn't able to find a whole lot of information before it happened. I did put something together. Um we had back in 2017 about midyear um applications before we made the change in 2019. We had a really big year. We had a lot of applicants and then it's kind of leveled back out. So there hasn't been a big change in number of applicants from um from from doing it monthly to doing it annual. um to speak very quickly to the serving and some of the statutory boards. So, state law type boards may be a little different, but we do say in our code that when someone is on the board, they continue to serve until a successor is appointed and qualified to replace them. And so, if we had people that were willing to continue serving and and you have this sheet that we had emailed to council in your packets, it's it's labeled 10B at the top. um people that are willing to serve could potentially continue their terms into into January, February, etc. Um we'd have to look very closely at some of those statutory boards though to make sure state law doesn't say different because that would prevail on on their terms. Um but but as far as for applicants through the end of the year, we have at least 22 that we would need to look at appointing because either they're vacant or those people are not willing to serve again. And so we wouldn't want to ask them to extend.

I just think it this is going to put an undue amount of extra on the staff. But I agree. My opinion is let's look at changing it maybe next for next year. But I think right now we're just if we're having to look at 22 to fill I mean that's almost I don't know half I think. So and we're stuck having to do most of it anyway. So I mean that'd be my opinion. That way the boards can uh relook at their bylaws to see if we do need to adjust the state regul regulated ones can look to see. It's not a bad idea. I think it's a great idea, but maybe it should have happened in October when we got the book or you know some other time. Just my opinion.

What's the deadline on all these boards? Most of them expire on December 31st. So try to have them appointed before their next meetings which could be rolling in in January. Yeah. Yes, sir. December 9th is our only meeting in December. December. Yes, sir. Um so we more or less took it half, you know, half here, half on December 9th.

Um here's what I could offer. Um, no rule that really that we have to follow on which ones we do tonight and which ones we do December 9th. Um, could give ourselves a little bit more time, you know, to to assist our council member. Um, and for all of us if if we have something here where we really want to move one around, I I don't know that anybody here would would necessarily be opposed. Let's take the AEDC is a good example of one of your most vital boards and one that should be given a lot of consideration and and you know does a lot of activity uh manages uh you know $und00 million for us, right? So if we wanted to push that one because you didn't feel like maybe on that one, let's put it over on December 9th but let's move forward with the the other boards. Um that could be a consideration tonight. Johnny, is there any reason that these have been selected in this order?

Um, they were chosen by the city manager's office. I think

we we chose them based on these boards had applicants. Some of the boards that we pushed to December 9th didn't have as many applicants yet. We also pushed some of the appointments to December 9th that will be impacted by the ordinance that y'all approved on first reading. So like parks and wreck, beautifification, library board, those were purged so that we could get that ordinance in place and you could make appointments based on those new changes. So as far as any of the boards that are on tonight's agenda, you could table any of those you wanted to until the next meeting. The only thing we would not be able to do is bring any considerations up tonight that we had planned for December 9th because those are not currently on your agenda.

Right. So, we wouldn't pull any forward tonight, but we we would just have a little bit longer meeting on December 9th if we push a I think that makes it more confusing. I think we go with what they're prepared uh to do tonight. Okay. I just want to make sure that we had this uh discussion because I think it I really think these commission committees are important to us and uh we need to take a little bit more time in in looking at them and who we appoint. So, a couple of the changes that we have made and and clarify this if you need to. Uh, board applications are open year round now. Yes, sir. We did we didn't used to do that. We opened them for like what 30 days before?

Um, we would open them about a month and a half before we would make the appointments. We would put the the packet together and close the board applications and then give them to city council. Um, they are still open since September. So that is still ongoing. We also um split it up into two business meetings instead of one. We correct I've participated in the ones um you know that were were a little heavier before. Um have we gotten away from asking for staff recommendations? Mr. City Manager?

Yes. The last year or two staff have not come with recommendations. That was that was a request I had and council member. So and but now we are prepared to do recommendations if council were to ask us tonight.

Okay. So that is an additional resource if you wanted to ask for it. If any council member wanted to ask for it. So um I I am giving some consideration to the concerns. I hear what you're saying and I know it it it definitely can can be a lot and you can't call everybody. Um but I think we do have a better path moving forward for this next year. And then I would just say this, anything else that you would propose? Um, we want to hear it maybe as we move into the next year of how we could continue to refine the process, make it better on the next set of councilmen.

If if the council likes I we can we can start the process. We can start working with Councilman Reed, start looking at a a new process to bring back to next year. So we we sounds like I'm I'm hearing from majority of the council there is interest to maybe looking at a possible change. So, if the council is willing, uh, Stephanie Coggins and I can, we happy to work with councelor Reid to look at a proposed change to bring back to sometime in the next, I don't know, several months. Well, I think that'd be great. I think we just need to look at pros and cons of both, you know, of of there is some validity to doing all this, you know, in a in a couple months, but maybe there's, you know, a lot of good come out doing it throughout the year and vice versa,

right? We can also reach out to counterparts at other cities and see what other cities do and see um what works for them and then get some ideas from that as well. I like it. Okay. Thank you, Councilman. Let's move into item 10H.

Okay. Um just to go over the appointment process and qualifications. As you know, we are making appointments this year in November and December. Um, and we open opened applications in early September and they're still open. Um, so far we've received 134 applications from 74 individuals for 21 boards. We did provide binders for those who asked with the applications. Um, everyone else received a PDF of the full application book. Um, we did try to make this as straightforward as possible. And in your agenda backup, you'll find mo motion language prepared for each board with space to fill in your selections. If it's more helpful, we can also summarize the names for you and we can you can just so move on the motion. As a reminder, members of our boards and commissions serve at the pleasure of the council and we appreciate the time that you are putting into this. Um, we did change the application up a little bit this year to include board specific questions to help us make sure applicants are a good fit for the boards that they are applying to. Um, we did ask about availability for each board's typical meeting times to ensure that anyone appointed can reasonably meet the attendance expectations. Um we also asked um applicants to include their qualifiers for each board. Some boards require to be represented by a specific industry or a property owner within a certain area and um they the criteria for this comes directly from the ordinance or the board's governing documents. Um, this also helps ensure that they do meet the requirements to serve on their specific board. We're going to start with the airport advisory board, which is tab number five in your book. Um, we have all terms are

ending on December 31st. Four of them have said they are willing to continue serving. I have included the attendance for each board on the presentation. Um, just to give you a sense of what's going on for the board members p precipitation, that is not the right word, how much they participate during each um term of their service. This does include the um the entire term they've served. So, if they've been reappointed several times, this includes all of their their appointments, not just the most recent. Um, this board has five members and they meet bimonthly with three-year terms and no term limits. Our director of aviation, Mike Connor, is the liaison for this board. Um, we do need to fill all five seats this year, but we have requested to stagger this term schedule going forward. So, our suggestion is to um have one member serve a one-year term, two members serve two-year terms, and two members serve three-year terms, which would get them into the staggered cycle that we typically look for. Um, we have received nine applications for this board. So, if you guys want to take it away, I will go along.

I've got a quick question. It says here, one individual has 64% attendance. We're shooting for 75% attendance. Is that what I saw earlier? That's what is in the current ordinance. Yes, sir. Okay. So, we have actually two individuals that didn't meet the 75%. Correct. That's Yes, sir. And council member Prescott, if I may add, council has the authority to replace those individuals. So on this board, everyone's up, but even on a board where someone's not up, if you find someone that has attendance that council um may not be pleased with, then you have the authority to remove that person and replace them with someone else. And so at this point, we just make nominations.

You can throw names out, you guys can discuss it, come to a consensus, and we will work through it. So because we're changing this term, we're doing a a one year, two two years, and two three years. Are these people I mean are they aware of that? I mean I mean if they're used to serving a one-year term and we're like, "Yeah, let's nominate them for three years." They'd be like, "You know what? I'm out."

So all of these guys have served three-year terms in the past. This board just somehow either wasn't staggered whenever the ordinance was changed initially or they their terms got lined back up at due to vacancies. Um, so we're just putting the putting the stagger back into the the terms. Okay. So, we need to nominate an individual and the length of their term, correct? Yes, sir. Now, can I I see Michael's not here, but do we know? No, he's back there. Oh, there he is. Yeah. Do you have a recommendation?

Why you do them like that? Well, because I want to know. giving him a little notice. He's doing us a good job over there. Tim said he didn't call everybody. I just want to make sure. Good evening. Evening, sir.

Um, so I didn't know there were quite that many uh ultimately, but as looking through the ones that I did know, um, and it was not an exhaustive evaluation of everybody, just what was in the packet. But um, our first recommendation out of the ones that I reviewed was Tate Williams. Um, we like his experience with large contracts, which of course the airport has many of. Um, also his background in strategy, his dedication to culture excellence, and his background promoting advanced technologies, which is which are all things that the airport is concerned about. So that'll be our number one recommendation. Then second uh recommendation will be Denita Binham. uh we like her experience with as a strategy planner and also uh with her grant development. Those are

That's great, sir. Thank you. Um well, let me kick it off. Uh I'd like to nominate a gentleman named Brock Thompson to um replace Thomas Hickman, who's no longer willing to serve, and I'd like to nominate him for a two-year term. Any discussion? Or can I get a second? I'll second it. Okay, got a second. Any discussion on that one? Okay, I'm going to call the vote. All in favor of nominating Brock Thompson for a two-year term to the airport advisory board say I. I. Any opposed?

Motion passes. Brock Thompson. And he was one of your late applicants, but um you got his and that's Thomas Hickman. He's replacing Thomas. Yeah. uh replacing Thomas Hickman, who's no longer willing to serve. And that was a two-year term. Two-year term. Yeah. Yes, sir. Well, I'll I'll make a motion to uh nominate Tate Williams and Denita Binham uh to the airport advisory board um for three-year terms. I'll second both those.

Any discussion, council, on those two? All in favor of let's say Tate Williams and Denita Binham serving for two three-year terms, please say I. Any oppose? Okay, motion passes. We have two positions left, one one year and one two-year. I'd make a motion that we uh appoint John Denton for a for the one-year term.

Okay, I'll second. Motion and a second for John Denton. Any discussion on this uh this item. All in favor, please say I. I. Any oppose? I would make a motion for the remaining position to be Mark Gilbreth for a two-year term. I'll second that. Any discussion on Mark Gilbreth taking that last slot? All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Congratulations, gentlemen. You just got through your first board. Hopefully, that's one of the hardest ones. Normally, you don't jump out and you gota got to do all five. Okay. Should be pretty easy. Sorry,

Click. Let's Let's take care of just a couple more and then we'll take a recess. Come back. Um, next up is the Emerald Area Public Health Board, which is tab number seven in your books if you're following along. Um, the city appoints two members to the Emerillo Area Public Health Board. Um and the remaining seats are appointed by other entities in the area. We received seven applications for this board. We only are seeking one appointment. Um this board has eight members total. They meet two to four times per year and they serve three-year terms. Casey Stoton, the director of public health, is the board leaison.

Okay, you see the nominees over here. will ask if anybody has one. I do. Yes, sir. I would make a motion for Darede to the Emerald Area Public Health Board replacing would have to be Miss Jennifer Potter. Okay. Um any discussion on Darede Duke? She has an extensive background in septic systems and all sorts of things um in that nature. Am I correct? The same Duke. And this is the Amarila Area Public Health Board. Um is there anybody here from that group?

Casey's not here, but Anthony Spel can answer questions. And then Kevin Hawkins is is uh Kevin from the Panhandle Restaurant Group. Right. Right. That's correct. Okay. So Casey uh Stoton and myself collaborate on this board. Our collective recommendation would be number one would be Howard Heath. He serves as the operations manager for the Penhandle Regional Advisory Council. Um we have a good working relationship. He has great experience. A secondary recommendation could be Lindseay London. Okay. Thank you. We appreciate that, Anthony. Yes, sir.

So I'm confused here with all these terms ending. They're all over the place. Yes. On the Emerald Area Public Health Board, we only appoint two seats to this board. So, the other entities do have different terms than we do because they're on a different schedule. Gotcha. Thank you. So, right now, I have a uh a motion um for Darede. Do I have a second? I'll second his motion. So, we have a motion and a second for Darede Duke. All in favor, please say I. I.

Any opposed? Motion passes for Darede Duke on the Emerald Area Public Health Board. Moving into item 10J, CVB

and CVB is tab number 19 in your book if you're following along. The convention and visitors bureau board. The city appoints four members and then the CVB appoints the remaining seven seats. Of the city appointed positions, we have one term expiring at the end of this year and Miss Duckworth has indicated that she is willing to continue serving. However, we did receive eight applications for this board. This board meets monthly and serves three three-year terms with no term limits. Cash Smith who is here. It serves as the director executive director of the CDB and she is the liaison.

Hey, what tab did you say it was? What tab? Yeah, you can definitely hear from Cash and she's on here. Okay. What tab? 19. I thought you were saying what time and I'm like I don't Who's this guy that 70 is it 75% that we're Yeah. Do we want to have a discussion on council member tips being below the new requirement? Listen, I'm only aware of what time when they've met and so I missed a couple. You got to set the example, council member. Come on. I'm aware. You can't. It's all about holding people accountable. We heard that earlier. You know, I gave him a hard time. So, huh. Line's on 18.

Cash, you got a recommendation for us. So, I will say Koko is our president and she is we have two-year terms on presidents. Um, so she is halfway through that term. She is eligible for another we have a two-term term limit. To go a little further into that, whenever you stagger, you know, we we were a new organization as of 2020, so that was a new board. We staggered those people who got a one or twoyear term as their first term per our bylaws. That's not a full term. So they actually still if they want to serve two full terms have that option. So we do have a couple of founding members that will end up with a couple extra years. Koko's not one of those. She actually um when Diane Baker passed away, one of our founding members, she filled that role.

Yeah. And I will clarify my attendance. When I was appointed to this, I was out of town. And when I when I was appointed to this, I was also out of town for the first meeting. So there's that. You were here when when council appointed you. I was here. Yes. See, I I keep up with things.

I'll also say as far as our because the way just because we have new members. Um our board has nine voting members, three hotels, two attractions, three citizens open seats um that are not hotel or attraction and then the one council member. For the three members from the community, we are pretty specific in what we look for. So, as an example, Angela um Edgars has worked in nonprofit space as a community development for many, many, many years, more than she'd want me to say out loud. Um Christopher Fitton, Jason Fitton, is a lawyer who has worked in politics and with nonprofits and those kind of things. So, he brings that experience. And Koko is a marketing consultant and team building consultant. So, we are pretty targeted in how we look to fill those three positions.

I'll make a motion that we extend the offer to Coco Duckworth. I'll second. I have a motion and a second for Mrs. Duckworth. Any discussion? All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion. Motion passes. I would like to make a motion to place uh Council Member Tips on probation and see how his attendance does in his next term. I would second that. I have a motion and a second to reprimand council member Tips um and to bring him back for further evaluation at a future meeting. I may have show up tomorrow. Hey, bump your attendance. Thank you, Miss Cashion. Have a good night. Johnny, can we do one more and then take a a quick break?

Sure thing. Up next is the Emerald Economic Development Corporation Board of Directors, which is tab number eight. Um there you go. Currently we well currently it's a five member board that meets monthly. They have three-year terms with um a two-term limit, two consecutive term limit. Um Doug Nelson with the EDC is the liaison for this board. We did receive 13 applications. Um, we do have two members whose terms are expiring and they are both willing to continue serving.

I would I would just step up and recommend that we don't change this. We just got this board set. Uh, they've obviously been through a lot of turmoil with everything that's happened with the range and that type deal. These guys have learned a lot. U, you know, I I would just hate to disrupt what they're already doing with the what they've already gained and they've already gotten, you know, some synergy going. I I that would be my recommendation that we don't change that. I'd like to hear from Doug. Mr. Nelson, do you mind come up and tell us if you echo those sentiments? Oh, okay. Sure. Hey, you don't even show up. Is there anything else you need? I'm happy to to really here. Good evening.

Um, yes, I do echo those sentiments. Uh in and to be fair, this board is different than any other that you appoint. Uh I work for that board. So you are never going to hear me say something that would jeopardize my employment to be fair. Um but yes. Yeah. I mean are they you and I had a talk at break uh and you let me know I mean candidly I'm not going to jeopardize your job. Sure. Uh but said that it's going well and things that I mean it

they've come a long way from the beginning and it's going really well. Yeah. I just wanted to make that clarifying point. Yes. I I'd move to reappoint Brian Brookner uh for a second term. I'll second motion in a second for Mr. Brookner. Any discussion? All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. I'd move to reappoint Randy Briquette for a second term. Second. I have a motion from place four, a second from place one to reappoint Randy Burkett for a second term. Any discussion? All in favor, please say I. I.

Any opposed? Thank you, Mr. Nelson. We appreciate you tonight. Okay. Uh let's take a 10-minute recess. We'll come back in. We'll knock these out. Miss Johnny, thank you.

We're all here. Thank you, Miss Christristen.

All right, Miss Johnny Glick, we now have moved on to item 10L. Yes. Which is the animal management and welfare advisory board. It is tab 11. Um for the animal management and welfare advisory board, it's a five member board that meets bimonthly and serves three-year terms and with no term limits. Is it bimonthly or monthly?

Bim monthly. That's what I thought. Um, we do have one term expiring at the end of the year and that member has indicated that they are willing to continue serving and Victoria Medley is the director of animal management and welfare and she is the board leazison. Can we get just I I can't read who is the name on 83% on it's the one that's above the standard. Okay, thank you. Just barely as an example. Yeah. Um, let me let me ask a question on on uh Mr. Crowder. Um, is there is there a circumstance on his 50%, Miss Medley?

He was only he's only been at two meet. I mean, he's only had two meetings. He he was a replacement.

I don't I don't want to I don't want to jump on that and say, "Well, he's not coming." But it's not like he's made 10 out of 20 meetings. He's made two. Oh, it was because he was a uh replacement that you guys had made at the last minute when we'd had uh Mr. Dawson leave the board unexpectedly. And so the board met the meeting was already set and he had already had a vacation when you guys appointed him. So then it just kind of carried on. But I can tell you that is going to be the staff recommendation is is to continue with Mr. Crowder. He's come out. He's been very involved. He works closely with um realators and people here that we have a lot of um concerns from renters. So, he's done an excellent job and um has said he wanted to continue.

Great. Thank you for that explanation because I know that kind of jumps off the page there. You guys have questions for Mrs. Medley while we got her up here. No. I make a recommendation that Glenn Crowder continues. Recommendation or a motion? A motion. Okay. Sorry. Motion second. I got a motion and a second for Glenn Crowder. Any discussion? All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. All right. Item 10 M

is the board of review for landmarks, historic districts, and downtown design. It is tab number 13. This board has seven regular members and one alternate, meets monthly and serves three-year terms with no term limits. Um, Cody Baldin, our director of planning, is a liazison. We do have three applications for this board. We do have two terms expiring and one member willing to continue serving. Do we have anybody here to talk about this board? Cody. Hey, Cody.

Well, 22%.

Well, it's an alternate. They don't go to all those boards. Yes. So she uh she had been un unresponsive uh in the prior to our last appointment where y'all re last year y'all re reappointed her. So she still has been unresponsive to us as well. But um who is that? The alternate alternate Stephanie Daget. Has that has her lack of attendance caused any problems? Not typically. No. Okay. Do you have any recommendations with the current situation with the two

the two applicants? We have no issues with either of them. I make a motion that we uh place Cindy Bullah on the board of review for landmarks historic districts in downtown design. Second. We have a motion and a second for Miss Bulla to serve on the Landmark Historic District and Downtown Design. And that's a reappoint, right? And yes. Is it all three-year terms? Correct. Okay. Any discussion on Mrs. Bulla? No. All in favor, please say I. I.

I. Any opposed? Motion passes. I make a recommendation that Tommy Knox be placed on the board of review for landmarks, historic districts, and downtown design. Second. Motion and a second from place one from Mr. Knox. Any discussion? All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Center City

is item or is tab number 14 in your book? Center City Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone has 10 members total and the city of Amarillo appoints three of those seats. The remaining positions are appointed by other taxing entities that participate in the tiers. This board does meet monthly and they serve two-year terms with no term limits. The two years is statutory. Um Drew Bass Drew Brassfield our assistant director of planning is the liaison and we have seven applicants for this board of the city appointed seats. One term is expiring at the end of this year and that member is willing to continue serving. We also have one seat that is vacant and will run through 2027. So, we've really got I mean, we've got Gary who's willing to reup. Dean's already serving. So, we've only got Christopher Walker. Am I reading that correct?

Well, we um a supplement. There's a supplement in your book of additional applicants. Okay. We we have Mark Gilbert who put his name in, but he's now already serving on the airport board. Um, we have any recommendations from staff? Uh, our former director of planning, Emily Kler, is one of those supplement names. Um, she would definitely be one that would be easy to onboard. Um, but my recommendation if if that's what you're asking for would be to uh reappoint Gary Jennings and appoint Emily Kohler.

So for the two nominations, you'd reappoint Jennings and then you'd add Emily Kohler to fill the bacon. Okay. All right. Is this the situation we heard from earlier that that Mr. Jennings is receiving uh incentives? Correct. Mr. Jennings uh does have an active rebate agreement with the city. Was was was he on the was he on the board when it was approved? I don't know that. No, it was approved January 2017 and he was appointed 2022. Okay.

But there is a potential he might have another. He's actively involved in downtown development, so there may be another. But there's also an affidavit he would sign and not participate in the vote of his own project, right? Is there any legal reason or conflict of I mean is there any legal reason why he could not serve? No. Um if if you have a conflict you just file the 171 affidavit just like other people would. So

well go ahead. I was going to say I was going to make a motion that we put Emily Kohler and Gary Jennings spot just to keep it clean. I'll second that. Any discussion on Miss Emily Kohler? All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. We need one more, gentlemen. I make a motion that we put uh Gary Jennings in the vacancy position. I have a motion. Do I have any other nominations?

I will mention a couple of background notes. Rebecca Gladney was in our previous audit firm, so she knows all the books of every tier district from her qualifications. And then I did see Miss Musk had previous experience in another city as being a P&Z commissioner for um fairly long time. I make a motion Rebecca Gladney fill the vacancy spot. Second. We have a motion and a second for Miss Gladney. Any further discussion? All in favor, please say I. I.

Any opposed? Motion passes. We'll move on to item 10. 10 O is the community development advisory committee. It is tab number 15. This board is a seven member board that meets a few times per year um four to six members serve three-year terms with no term limits. Jason Riddlesberger, our managing director of community development, is the board liaison. We have four applicants, excuse me, four applicants for this board. We do have one term expiring at the end of the year and that member does not seek reappoint. We also have one seat that's currently vacant that runs through 2028.

Evening, Mr. Riddlesburgger, you have any um Yes. any recommendations? We've worked with uh Cresa. It's actually Katie Paul. She's we worked with her at PRPC. Fantastic. And also would recommend Hector Luna. All of the candidates are great though. So, okay. I'd make a motion for Katie Paul. Second. Got a motion and a second for Katie Paul. Let's have her fill the vacancy. Okay. Is that okay? You still got a second behind that? Yes, sir. Okay. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. I make a motion to appoint Hector Luna. Second.

Have a motion and a second from place four. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, sir. On to 10P. 10P is the council audit committee. This tab number 19. I would like to serve on the council audit committee.

Mr. Tips, it's currently myself and you. I definitely would like to reup and and stay on that committee if that's okay with the council. Um but I I know I mean you've been great. I just don't know if you want to focus elsewhere and put him there or if we can have an easy discussion about it. I just want I just not that you're doing a bad job. I just think we're redundancy and in and giving more depth to the the council to understand the audition. I mean I don't have a problem if you want to serve um I mean I don't have a problem with that. I mean Steph hurt my feelings at all. Thank you.

Yeah. I mean it's good teamwork. I I appreciate you guys allowing me to continue to serve in that capacity. I know it's definitely something that I'm focused on. Um, you know, Councilman Prescott had asked me before the meeting and and um I just figured having a discussion with you' be great. Plus, we keep volunting you to do other things. So, plenty of work to do. This is the best one though. I will tell you that. Is it when it comes to meetings? Yeah. You have 100% attendance. Do you have the attendance on there? I'll make a motion to nominate uh Councilman Prescott um in place of Don Tips on the audit committee. Second. Motion and a second. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed?

Motion passes. I didn't vote. Can I vote? Do I need to step out? Oh, no. I don't know that you have to step out. He didn't vote for himself. He voted. Motion passes with a 40 vote. Okay. I make a motion to appoint Dean Frigo to the council audit committee. Second. Got a motion and a second to put Dean Frigo on the audit committee. Um, we'll call that here in a minute, but for further discussion, I definitely want to make sure that everybody on council knows um how much I'd like to serve again there. Huh? So, we're getting to you. We've got three, sir. Oh, I thought we only had two. Hey, calm down. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought I'm getting kicked off.

I mean, I felt the feels come off. My bad. My bad. I like Dean. I'm not against Dean. Okay. All in favor of Dean Frigo say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. I would make a motion that we appoint Cole Stanley to another term on the audit committee. And here I thought I was off, but I'm back on. Already campaigning. I have a motion. Second and a second. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you'all. Can I get clarification? Who was the second? Second on tips. Yes. Thank you.

On the last vote even though you took my spot. I thought we only had two. My fault. Okay, Miss Johnny.

Next up is the East Gateway Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone number two. It is tab number 21. We have 10 members on this board total. The city of Earllo appoints three. The remaining members are appointed by the other taxing entities that participate in tiers. Board meets monthly and serves two-year terms. Drew Bassfield is the liaison. We did receive two applications for this board. Um, of the city appointed seats, one term is expiring and Mr. Whipple is willing to continue serving. Is anybody discussion?

Who was the other one? Uh the the member that is expiring is willing to continue serving and the other you just put on tiers number one. Yeah. Mark Mark. Mark. Oh, the other applicant. Yeah. I thought it was Oh, that's Rebecca and Mark. Rebecca. Rebecca. I'd like to make a motion to appoint Randy Whipple to serve again on this board. Second. I have a motion in a second. All in favor, please say I. I.

Any opposed? Motion passes. 10R. 10R is the Potter Randall Emergency Communications District Board. Um, this board, the appointments had been handled administratively for a period of time, but the ordinance does specify that city council is the appointing authority. Um, historically, city has appointed staff members with direct experience in public safety and emergency communications. The fire chief has traditionally filled one seat and the chief of police has filled the other. However, the emergency manage coordinator now oversees the emergency communications center and staff feels that it makes more sense for him to serve in the seat previously held by the fire chief. Um, chief of police would continue serving in the second seat and their combined background in 911 operations, dispatch coordination, and regional emergency response ensures that the city is well represented in decisions that impact our emergency communications network.

What tab is it, Miss Johnny? It um I don't know that there is a tab for this one. Okay. So, staff is recommending uh Max Dunlap and Jimmy Johnson. Correct. Okay. And then we don't necessarily have anybody else that has applied for this as it's not an open board. Correct. Okay. Questions, council. I move to appoint Max Dunlop and Jimmy Johnson to the communications district board. Second. Motion and a second. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes.

And can we get just a clarification for council on that? That will be a two-year term per state law, not a three-year term. Okay. Are we down to the last one? Yes, sir. Okay. It is tab number 24 and it is the South Gateway Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone number three. Council, I'd like to nominate Josh Craft to serve on this board. Second. Have a motion and a second for Josh Craft. We'll hold for any discussion. All in favor, please say I.

I. Any opposed? Motion passes. All right, Miss Johnny, you have anything else? That is the end of my presentation. We appreciate you doing a good job and organizing all this. We know it's a quite a bit of work. Um, we'll come back in three weeks almost to do the remaining boards, move it forward. Thank you to everyone that was here tonight. I would ask for u one final motion to adjurnn, please. I make a motion that we adjourn. So moved. You're journed. Thank you.