City Council - Regular Meeting

WE HAVE HAD TWO COMPLAINTS FROM CITIZENS ON THAT PARTICULAR RECORD SERVICE. THERE WAS ONE IN 24 AND THERE WAS ONE IN 25. BOTH TIMES IT WAS ADDRESSED. AND YOU HAD BROUGHT UP THE SIMPLE FACT IT WAS ABOUT FEES. I'D LIKE EVERYBODY TO UNDERSTAND THAT IN THE ORIGINAL, I'M GOING TO SAY CONTRACT, BUT I'M REFERRING TO THE RFP BECAUSE WE'VE NEVER HAD AN ACTUAL CONTRACT THAT I'VE BEEN ABLE TO PUT MY HANDS ON, OKAY? BUT IN THE FIRST ITERATION, BACK FROM 2018, The city basically said you can charge specific fees, period. The towing company is regulated by TDLR. TDLR allows for additional fees that are statutorily allowed. Ours did not allow that. He was simply applying the fees that he's allowed by state law to apply, but we were penalizing him because we didn't have it in our contract because nobody did any research on TDLR and actually included it. So we were handicapping them. Other companies in the city and the surrounding areas can charge those fees, but he was told he could not.

Thank you. Yeah, they worked that out. I met them. Honestly, I worked that out. I worked that out.

Are they going to do it?

I now call to order the City Council of the City of Baytown meeting and Joint Municipal Development District meeting on Thursday, July 9th, 6.30 p.m. in the Council Chamber City Hall and announcement of quorum at 6.38 p.m. And we will have the pledge and invocation taken care of by a brand new council member. Thank you.

Clean shaven District 6 Mike Lester. Take it away. Mayor, if you indulge me, we have. Obviously we have the Baytown Little League represented well here. We have two young gentlemen that are going to give us our pledges today. One is Drake shimming and the other is Anthony Puente. They need to come up and I told him it would be on the screen and help him out a little bit. There they come.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

honor the sexes black, the ablutions to the sexes, one state under God, one in the invisible.

Good job, gentlemen. Good job. All right. If you would join me in a quick prayer. Heavenly Father, we stand before you tonight, and again, we ask for your wisdom and guidance as we begin this meeting. Fill us with your grace as we make decisions to promote the needs of our community, balanced by the needs of our individuals. Continue to remind us that all that we do here today, all that we accomplish, is in pursuit of the truth for your greater glory. We ask these things in your name, amen.

START OFF WITH CITIZEN COMMENT. DO WE HAVE ANYONE SIGNED UP TO SPEAK? GOOD DEAL. WELL, I'M GOING TO TAKE A POINT OF PRIVILEGE. AND BEFORE WE GET INTO MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT ITEMS, WE'RE GOING TO MOVE 4A UP. AND BEFORE WE DO THAT, WE HAVE SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE, FORMER JUDGE DON COFFEE HERE. WOULD YOU WAVE AND LET THE AUDIENCE SEE YOU? OR YOU CAN STAND. YES, SIR. A DISTRICT FOUR RESIDENT?

OKAY, GOOD DEAL.

OH, YEAH, AND WE ALSO HAVE A LEE COLLEGE BOARD OF REGENTS HERE. WOULD YOU PLEASE STAND? THERE YOU HAVE IT.

THANK YOU.

AND A FORMER MAYOR OUT IN THE FOUR-YEAR, MAYOR MUTTINGER. WOULD YOU WAVE? HE'S HEAD AND SHOULDERS ABOVE EVERYONE OUT THERE. Good deal. Thank you all for showing up to support us. I know that you all showed up to support the other governing body here in Baytown, right? So let's move up. Recognitions and citizen communications. Recognize the Baytown Little League for its outstanding season and achievements. And I'm going to pass that over to Mr. James Franco.

Mr. Dunham.

All right.

Well, I'd like to thank all the Little League for coming out here. And I understand all y'all's sacrifices, being a former league vice president and a former player agent, so it's a lot of work and it's a lot of dedication y'all put into these fields. City Parks and staff, I'd like to thank y'all for all that y'all do to allow these kids to have these fields to practice on and play on. And it's a fun thing. My kids grew up on these fields. I know y'all started a little league t-ball and you're going to go all the way to 12. We'll hope to see y'all at the Jenkins fields and then seeing y'all boys play here at Starling Preferably Sterling, because that's the better school. No Rangers. That other one, GCM. But, no, we hope to see y'all continue y'all's career and continue to see y'all's. Just as we see a little leaguer right now that just made, we saw the Baytown Sun just made an all-star team, the first professional all-star team in the Canadian League, and Derek Cherry, who came through these little leagues also, and through GCM. So, as a former parent for the little league and a former – Board member, I really appreciate all y'all coming out here, all y'all's accomplishments. I know how hard it is to win a league championship and also get to where you're at. So with that being said, I'm going to call President Sean Schimming in his final year here and thank him for everything he's done for this little league and where he's taken this little league.

So, Sean, please let us know about your decision.

Thank you all for having us out tonight. For more than 70 years, Baytown Little League has been around, has been proud to serve the youth of our community, providing a place for kids to learn, compete, and create lifelong memories. This past season was one of the most successful All-Star seasons in many years. Our 7U, 10U majors, and senior teams all captured district championships. Our majors advanced all the way to the sectional championship game, while our non-U team battled all the way to the district championship game, falling just short. These accomplishments are a testament to the hard work of our players, coaches, families, volunteers, and the incredible support of our community. Baytown Little League would like to give a heartfelt thank you to the Baytown City Council, Parks and Recs for investing in our youth and providing quality facilities where our kids can play the game they love. Your continued support gives these young athletes the opportunity to represent Baytown with pride, build character and strength in our community. Here's to continuing the tradition of excellence for the next generation of Baytown Little Leaguers.

Thank you. If we could, we'd like to bring up the teams individually. We'll start with the seven of you. You call them out, Sean. Don't forget the managers who put their time in. The managers really do. That's a lot of time to put in with these kids. Rushing home from shift work to get there and be like, all right, guys.

He's going to tell you where to go. No, no, you're good.

I like those sunglasses. It's about the swag. You feel good, play good. That's right.

Take them off. Take the glasses off.

Mom got on the end.

Let's go this way. Let's go this way. Let's go this way. Let's go this way. Everybody should be seeing you.

She had me reaching for mine. I know. Hang on.

Hang on. We've got to swipe.

We've got Team Mama too. Team Mom's important also. There you go. Right there. Make sure you get a swipe.

You've got to see the camera. You've got to see the camera.

Are you all ready? All right. Here we go.

One, two, three. We'll give one more. Oh, parents are taking photos.

This is our 10U district champs. That was our 7U district champs. The 7U was undefeated in district play.

And the 10 U was undefeated as well.

And now our 12 U district champs that was also undefeated. As the manager?

As the manager, yeah. Those are my babies right here.

Good job, guys. Good job. Pitcher, pitcher, you're batting third? Oh, man, you bat third. Let's clean up right here.

All right, y'all done this. You're going to be able to see your eyes with that. Here we go. You got a mean mug, though.

Thanks.

Thanks for everything you did for the kids.

Thank you. Thank you.

A white person.

Now moving on to 2A, Municipal Development District. This public hearing today is being held for the purpose of giving all interested persons the right to express their views regarding the subject of this public hearing. Everyone desiring to be a part of today's hearing should have either signed the... Appropriate listener for your email the city clerk prior to the posted time of this meeting each Participant shall give his or her name and address in order to provide a proper record of this hearing the rules allow each person three minutes to speak However, I encourage everyone to be as brief and to the point as possible If you are a group of persons wishing to address the board on the same subject Please select a spokesperson to present the information and if anyone has any questions, please direct them to me. I

CONDUCT A PUBLIC HEARING CONCERNING THE BAYTOWN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT'S FISCAL YEAR 2026-2027 PROPOSED BUDGET. IT IS NOW 6.50 PM AND I WILL CALL THIS

CALL TO ORDER THIS PUBLIC HEARING CONCERNING THE BAYTOWN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT FISCAL YEAR 2026-2027 PROPOSED BUDGET. I WOULD LIKE TO ASK STAFF TO SUMMARIZE THE SUBJECT OF THIS PUBLIC HEARING. MS. MCKENZIE.

EVENING, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. THE BUDGET YOU HAVE BEFORE YOU REMAINS THE SAME AS WHAT WAS PRESENTED ON JUNE 25TH. IT REFLECTS 9.9 MILLION IN REVENUE. $9.1 million in expenditures with an ending working capital balance of $3.8 million. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Questions or comments? None? Good deal. Is there anyone signed up to speak? Excellent. There being no one speaking, we're on to 4B. Oh, we've got to close it. There being no one else's hour to speak, I close this meeting at 6.51 p.m. concerning the Baytown Municipal Development District's fiscal year 2026-2027 proposed budget to be. BEFORE WE CONSIDER ITEM 2B, I'D LIKE TO MAKE A CORRECTION TO THE AGENDA. THE REFERENCE TO THE CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION WAS INCLUDED IN ERROR. THE ITEM SHOULD READ, CONSIDER APPROVING THE MINUTES OF THE JOINT CITY COUNCIL AND MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT MEETING HELD ON JULY 11, 2026. I NEED A MOTION.

MOTION TO APPROVE ITEM 2B. SECOND.

ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. ANY OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES. WE WILL NOW MOVE ON TO CITY COUNCIL ITEMS 3A, CONSIDER APPROVING THE MINUTES OF THE CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION AND THE JOINT CITY COUNCIL AND MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT MEETINGS HELD ON JULY 11, 2026. I NEED A MOTION.

MOTION TO APPROVE ITEM 3A.

SECOND. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. ANY OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES. 5A, ANOTHER PUBLIC HEARING. WE'RE CONDUCTING THIS PUBLIC HEARING TODAY. FOR THE PURPOSE OF GIVING ALL INTERESTED PERSONS THE RIGHT TO EXPRESS THEIR VIEWS REGARDING THE SUBJECT OF THE PUBLIC HEARING. EVERYONE DESIRING TO BE A PART OF TODAY'S HEARING SHOULD HAVE EITHER SIGNED THE APPROPRIATE LIST OF THE FOYER OR EMAILED THE CITY CLERK PRIOR TO THE POSTED TIME OF THIS MEETING. EACH PARTICIPANT SHALL GIVE HIS OR HER NAME AND ADDRESS IN ORDER TO PROVIDE PROPER RECORD OF THESE HEARINGS. The rules allow each person three minutes to present information. However, I encourage everyone to be as brief and to the point as possible. If you're a group of persons wishing to address council, please select one person to be the spokesperson to present the information. If anyone has any questions, please direct them to me. Conduct a public hearing regarding the proposed voluntary annexation of approximately 0.998 acres at 8220 North State Highway 146. It is now 6.53 p.m. and I call to order the public hearing regarding the proposed voluntary annexation of approximately 0.998 acres at 8220 North State Highway 146. I'd like now to ask staff to summarize the reason for this public hearing.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. For the record, Martin Scribner, Planning and Development Services. We saw the application for this last month. Again, this is for annexation of just under an acre at 8220 North State Highway 146. You can see that on your map here. It is just south of Old Needlepoint Road on the east side of 146. Tonight, we're just – this is the public hearing for this. There will be a rezone that will happen to go along with this. As you know, this comes in as a default zoning district of open space recreation. You can see the city map here. It's kind of a little gap along 146, along that side. Everything else that's in that kind of light blue color is within the city. Anything white is outside of the city. AND THAT IS ILLUSTRATED HERE AS WELL. SO WHEN THEY DO COME IN WITH THE ZONING REQUEST, THEY WILL BE REQUESTING FOR GENERAL COMMERCIAL TO HAVE A SMALL AUTOMOTIVE SHOP. THAT FUTURE LAND USE MAP DOES SHOW IT AS COMING IN AS COMMERCIAL. AND AGAIN, WE'LL KIND OF HIT THAT WITH A LOT MORE DETAIL WHEN WE COME BACK IN WITH THE REZONE REQUEST. TO GIVE YOU A LITTLE BIT OF THE TIMELINE HERE, AGAIN, LAST MONTH WE – AND THIS IS THE ONE THAT WAS MISMATCHED. SO TONIGHT IS THE ACTUAL PUBLIC HEARING. WE WILL DO FIRST READING PROBABLY IN SEPTEMBER. WE'LL HAVE THE PLANNING ZONING COMMISSION HEARING IN AUGUST. AND THAT CONCLUDES MY PRESENTATION. I'M HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS.

ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? There being no one else, does anyone sign up? Good deal. There being no one else desiring to speak in our closest public hearing at 6.56 p.m. REGARDING THE VOLUNTARY PROPOSED ANNEXATION OF APPROXIMATELY 0.998 ACRES AT 8220 NORTH STATE HIGHWAY 146. 6A PROPOSED LIMITED PURPOSE ANNEXATION OF APPROXIMATELY 356.99 ACRES LOCATED GENERALLY NORTH OF EAST WALLACEVILLE ROAD, EAST OF GARTH ROAD AND WEST OF HAYDEN ROAD. CONDUCT THE FIRST PUBLIC HEARING REGARDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT RELATED TO A LIMITED PURPOSE ANNEXATION WITH HARRIS COUNTY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT NUMBER 213-A. IT IS NOW 6.56 P.M. AND I CALL TO ORDER THE FIRST PUBLIC HEARING REGARDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT RELATED TO A LIMITED PURPOSE ANNEXATION WITH HARRIS COUNTY MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT NUMBER 213-A. I would like now to ask staff to summarize the subject of this public hearing. Mr. Scribner and the Czar herself.

THANK YOU, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. I'M JUST GOING TO KIND OF TEE THIS UP. THERE ARE FOUR ITEMS ON YOUR AGENDA. THE FOUR ITEMS UNDER ITEM 6 THAT ALL REFER TO THE SAME PROPERTY. SO WE'RE GOING TO KIND OF, I THINK, PRESENT THESE ALL AT ONCE BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL SORT OF, THEY'RE ALL TIED. SO THAT SAID, THIS IS REGARDING THE LIMITED THE LIMITED PURPOSE ANNEXATION, AGAIN, 357 ACRES NORTH OF EAST WALLACEVILLE ROAD, EAST OF GARTH ROAD, WEST OF HADDEN ROAD. AND WITH THAT, I'M GOING TO ASK KRISTEN TO GO AHEAD AND GIVE YOU THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT ITEMS AND THEN I CAN ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS REGARDING THE ANNEXATION ITSELF.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. So items 6A and 6B, excuse me, are related to the first and second public hearings with regard to the strategic partnership agreement. And so the city of Baytown and Harris County Municipal Development District MUD 213A entered into a strategic partnership agreement in 2019. And so that strategic partnership agreement covered certain land that is in MUD 213A. Since the time that the strategic partnership was executed in 2019, additional land has been added to the MUD. This proposed amendment to the strategic partnership agreement would just simply amend the definition of property as it's used in the strategic partnership agreement to include all land that is currently in the MUD, both now and in the future.

Good deal. Anyone sign up to speak? Okay. No questions or comments?

Did we open the public hearing?

Yes, ma'am. At 6.56, I think. Okay. There being no one desiring to speak, I now close this public hearing at 6.59 p.m. regarding the first amendment to the strategic partnership agreement related to a limited purpose annexation with Harris County Municipal Utility District number 213-A. 6B, CONDUCT THE SECOND PUBLIC HEARING REGARDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT RELATED TO A LIMITED PURPOSE ANNEXATION WITH THE HARRIS COUNTY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT NUMBER 213-A. IT IS NOW 6.59 P.M. AND I CALL TO ORDER THE SECOND PUBLIC HEARING REGARDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT RELATED TO A LIMITED PURPOSE ANNEXATION WITH HARRIS COUNTY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT NUMBER 213-A.

I have nothing additional to add. Mayor, everything that I said in the first public hearing applies here in the second.

I don't know if I remember it.

Uh-oh. Is this a test?

Got you. DO WE HAVE ANYONE SIGNED UP TO SPEAK? OKAY. THERE BEING NO ONE DESIRING TO SPEAK, I NOW CLOSE THE SECOND PUBLIC HEARING AT 7. THESE ARE THE FASTEST PUBLIC HEARINGS EVER AT 7 P.M. REGARDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT RELATED TO A LIMITED PURPOSE ANNEXATION WITH HARRIS COUNTY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT NUMBER 213-A. WE WILL NOW TAKE 6C AND 6D TOGETHER. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT WITH HARRIS COUNTY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT 213-A AND CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE FOR THE FIRST READING OF THE PROPOSED LIMITED PURPOSE ANNEXATION OF APPROXIMATELY 356.99 ACRES LOCATED GENERALLY NORTH OF EAST WALLACEVILLE ROAD, EAST OF GARTH ROAD, AND WEST OF HAYDEN ROAD. MR. SCRIBNER? Anything else?

Only to make sure that as we kind of skip through this, that is the area that we've been discussing in the last two items. Again, this was originally added to the MUD and added to the SPA back in late 2022. And so this is just kind of making sure that all of the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed.

GOOD DEAL. QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS? NOTHING AT ALL. I NEED A MOTION.

MOTION TO APPROVE ITEM 6A, 3D.

6C AND D. SECOND. 6C AND D. THANK YOU. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. ANY OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES. THANK YOU. 7A, RECEIVE THE BAYTOWN CRIME CONTROL AND PREVENTION DISTRICT FISCAL YEAR 2026-2027 ADOPTED BUDGET, MRS. MCKENZIE.

Mayor and Council, before you use the 27 budget for CCPD, our proposed budget, it was approved by the board on July 7th. The revenue is $2.8 million, expenditures $2.8, and so it's a balanced budget, and it will have an ending working capital balance of $463,938, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Questions or comments? I THINK WE ALL LIKE HEARING THE WORD BALANCED. WE'LL CONSIDER THIS BUDGET RECEIVED. THANK YOU. 7B, RECEIVE THE BAYTOWN FIRE CONTROL PREVENTION AND EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES DISTRICT FISCAL YEAR 2026-2027 ADOPTED BUDGET, MS. MACKENZIE.

THIS PROPOSED BUDGET FOR THE FIRE CONTROL IS THE REVENUE IS 3.2 MILLION, EXPENDITURE IS 4.1. THIS IS NOT BALANCED. WE ARE SPENDING DOWN THE FUND BALANCE BY 992,000, LEAVING AN ENDING WORKING CAPITAL OF 939,327. AND IT WAS APPROVED BY THE BOARD ON JULY 7TH. QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS?

NOTHING AT ALL. GOOD DEAL. THANK YOU. WE CONSIDER THAT RECEIVED ON TO 8A, PROPOSED ORDINANCES. CONSIDERING ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING THE CHAPTER 380 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF BAYTOWN, TEXAS ROADHOUSE OF BAYTOWN, TEXAS LLC AND STRATEGIC RESTAURANT ENTERPRISES, INC., MR. BRIAN MORAN.

YES, MR. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS, BRIAN MORAN WITH ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, AND I WILL BE PRESENTING THE ITEM ON THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT AMONG THE CITY OF BAYTOWN, ROADHOUSE OF BAYTOWN, AND THEN STRATEGIC RESTAURANT ENTERPRISES. SO THIS IS A PERFORMANCE-BASED AGREEMENT THAT SECURES TWO RESTAURANTS FOR OUR COMMUNITY. UNDER THE TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT, THE COMPANIES HAVE TO CONSTRUCT TWO RESTAURANTS THAT WILL BE SIDE BY SIDE, AND 8700 SQUARE FOOT Texas Roadhouse and a 6,600 square foot Bubba's 33. Before I dive into any further details, I do want to note that we have Alex Scott and Aaron Hamilton here who are representing Texas Roadhouse and Bubba's 33 along with Austin Arnold who's from RIND LLC that's been serving as their consultant on this project. TO QUALIFY FOR ANY INCENTIVES, THE COMPANY DOES HAVE TO MEET THREE MAJOR PERFORMANCE MILESTONES. AND SO THE FIRST IS PROVIDING A MINIMUM CAPITAL INVESTMENT OF $10 MILLION DIRECTLY INTO THE REAL PROPERTY EQUIPMENT AND BUILDINGS. SECOND, THEY HAVE TO CREATE AND MAINTAIN A TOTAL WORKFORCE OF 160 EMPLOYEES, WHICH IS APPROXIMATELY 80 FULL-TIME EQUIVALENT POSITIONS. They do have a strict timeline that they have to abide by, which is they do have to begin construction on the project by December 31st of this year, with both restaurants opening and then commencing operations by the end or December 31st of 2027. So to support this $10 million investment and the job creation, the city is looking to provide a post-performance sales tax rebate, which is equal to 50% of the city's collected sales tax solely generated from Texas Roadhouse's operations. And so we do have some fiscal guardrails that are in place within the agreement. We do have a hard cap where the rebate cannot exceed $300,000. There is a 10-year term limit where either Roadhouse has to meet $300,000 or 10 years has lapsed. And then last, there is no upfront city cash for this or any cash expenditures. Every dollar that's dispersed or rebated back to the company is strictly paid out of the actual sales that are collected and is verified through an annual compliance report, as well as reports through the comptroller's office. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have regarding the specifics of the agreement. And as I mentioned, we do have the team from Roadhouse that is here that is available to answer any questions you may have about their operations or their project.

Any questions or comments? None? Okay.

You go first.

Let's let the youngest guy go first. Jay's smiling at me because he and I have already had this conversation. While I am tickled and pleased that Roadhouse is investing and increasing its size in the city of Baytown, it's part of the Fidelis marketplace. And we stressed at the very beginning when we were talking to Fidelis ten years ago, eight years ago, whatever, I'm too young to remember, we said any migration would not receive benefits, wouldn't receive tax incentives, nothing. So to me, the issue of, well, it's part of the Fidelis, but it's not Fidelis, and it's just Texas Roadhouse, so now we're going to give them abatements. We said we weren't going to do that, because what would be the difference if Ross, who's also migrating, came back and said, well, I'm not going to get the benefits from Fidelis, and I want. So again, I'm pleased to see the expansion. I'm pleased to see the commitment to the city. My wife and I eat there pretty regularly. It's good food. But I'm just going to stick to our guns, or my guns, that we said we weren't going to allow migration, and if a business migrated, we weren't going to give incentives. And here we are. We're giving them incentives. And again, I understand they're bringing another restaurant, but they're going to make money. They're going to make money by the truckload because people are dying for nicer, larger restaurants. They're dying for different venues and opportunities. So, unfortunately, I'll be voting nay on this one, and it's going to be a six to one, and that's fine with me. But we've got to start holding our ground when we say we're not going to do something, that we don't do it. And when we say we're going to do something, then we do it. And that's what we've promised the citizens, and that's where I'll stand tonight. Yes, ma'am. I got you.

Thank you, Mr. Lester. Just a quick question. So the abatements that we said we were not going to do, that was to Fidelis. Right? Was that too Fidelis? So that wouldn't really count here because this is the store itself that's moving. They're making it bigger. They're adding more personnel. If it was Fidelis moving them and saying, hey, we're going to give you this bigger, better, then we would not even be doing abatements. Am I correct in that? So this is different.

It's different but the same.

Okay. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

Mr. Franco.

Yeah. But they're moving to Fidelis' property. So basically Bubba's 33 is eligible for the abatements from Fidelis. The roadhouse is not. So this is what we're doing here. and you're moving it 500 feet to have a store that looks just like the one you're going to be building, you're going to have an empty building. We're already seeing that in District 4. I've already said this before, and I'll say it again, but Dallas is not doing what we wanted. The citizens do not want it. They're bringing the same bargain basement stores. They're bringing the same stores we have here. We know what they are. This is not what our citizens asked for. This is not what our citizens want. Trust me, my family's from Corpus. There's a mall right across the street from a mall. We're going to have a roadhouse with a roadhouse empty building in front of it. Whoever decides, if they ever decide to buy that building or somebody leases a building, they've got to redo the whole building because it looks like a roadhouse. I get it, and this is, we said we were not going to give agreements for people to move on this thing, and we're giving an agreement. I agree with what you, why isn't Burlington and Ross asking for one? They're moving. They're going into Fidelis' property. I mean, it's no different. This is going into Fidelis' property. Fidelis is not putting up the seed money to get the people that we wanted here. They're being cheap with what we're giving them. We gave them tax abatements to bring us stores. We gave them agreements, and they're being cheap. It is what it is. THAT'S JUST THE HONEST TRUTH. I APPRECIATE ROADHOUSES IN THEIR FACILITY. THAT'S GREAT BUSINESS. I WOULD DO THE SAME IF I WAS IN YOUR POSITION. I GET IT. AND I'M GLAD YOU'RE BRINGING ABOVE US 33 AND I'M GLAD YOU'RE EXPANDING ROADHOUSE. BUT THIS IS MORE OF A STATEMENT TO FIDELIS. IT'S A NO FROM ME.

I would like some clarification after Councilman Franco. You said that they're moving the exact same thing 500 feet away, but then said it was being expanded. It is being made larger, correct? You said 87,000 square feet for the new roadhouse? 8,700. Oh, 8,700. Okay. And then 8,700. And do we know what the one before that is?

I think we do have roadhouse folks on.

Can I just bring them up?

Hi, Alex Westcott here from the Roadhouse team. Can you guys hear me all right?

Yes.

First off, I appreciate y'all's time tonight and giving us this opportunity. THE EXISTING ROADHOUSE, THERE TYPICALLY WOULD BE ABOUT CLOSER TO 7,000 SQUARE FEET. WE NEED TO CHECK ON THE EXACT SIZE OF THIS ONE. BUT IT WILL BE SUBSTANTIALLY BIGGER. BUT JUST KIND OF WANT TO TOUCH ON THAT WITH FIDELIS. AND WE, OUR PARKING AT OUR EXISTING LOCATION WAS LIMITED QUITE A LOT BY THE FIDELIS INVESTMENT. AND THAT IS KIND OF THE MAIN REASON, YOU KNOW, FROM OUR PERSPECTIVE, WE DID NOT NECESSARILY We're not probably going to move it until we kind of saw the parking situation and it kind of forced us to have to do that. And we're happy to do it. It's a bigger building. It will be a good investment for us. But it was kind of a force, not force, but we had very little choice. I'm sure you guys probably, if you did go, dealt with that parking issue when Fidelis started putting the fences up. And so it was a pretty tough situation for us. So Didn't really want to have another vacant building. Our lease in that building does expire in 2027 at the existing location for just so I would assume that I don't know what the existing landlord will do there. But so just kind of wanted to touch on that.

Yes, sir.

So from what I remember when the roadhouse first came in, it's already been expanded once. So they could have expanded again to 8,700 square foot. And I get the parking issue. Once Fidelis is done, there's going to be plenty of parking for people to walk around. When you go to shopping centers, you walk everywhere. So, I mean, I get it. But for me, again, it's moving to Fidelis' property. Fidelis should give them the incentive, not us.

Anyone else?

I'll just jump in there, Mayor. I mean, I understand y'all's frustration with it. To me, it's a little different because we're getting a package of two restaurants. I don't think this is out of line with agreements we've approved recently with other restaurants. We had the one going into the Old Red Lobster. I don't recall what that one was. And we did the Marisco's. We did the Tijuana Eaters out on Highway 146. And so that was one of my questions when we were discussing this is kind of how is it, how does it align with what we've done with other restaurants? And it's very similar structure. And so I think, you know, we're staying consistent with the attracting new restaurants. And so I don't have any issues with this.

Okay. Anyone else? ALL RIGHT. LET'S VOTE ON IT. I NEED A MOTION.

MOTION APPROVED. SECOND.

ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. ANY OPPOSED? NAY. MOTION CARRIES. THANK YOU. MR. MORAN. ON TO 8B, CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REGARDING PROPOSED TEXT AMENDMENTS TO THE UNIFIED LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE OR ULDC TO CHANGE SECTION 2.31 CONSOLIDATED USE TABLE TO CHANGE SECTION 2.33, USE SPECIFIC STANDARDS, AND TO CHANGE ARTICLE 10, WORD USAGE REGARDING SHORT-TERM RENTALS. MR. SCRIBNER.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. WE'VE SEEN THIS BEFORE, SO YOU'RE FAMILIAR WITH THE SITUATION WITH THE ISSUES. REAL QUICK BACKGROUND, REMEMBER THE OLD ULDC WAS SILENT ON SHORT-TERM RENTALS. DOESN'T MEAN WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY. IT MEANT THAT THE CODE JUST DIDN'T ADDRESS IT. In 2025, the new ULDC did allow short-term rentals, but included that special use permit. Back in November, December of last year, we did have one special use permit application, and that was because we had a complaint and code enforcement followed up on it, which was approved. THEN WE ALL KIND OF SAW HOW THAT PROCESS WENT. IT WASN'T THE MOST EFFICIENT USE OF YOUR TIME OR OUR TIME OR THE APPLICANT'S TIME, BUT IT WAS APPROVED. STAFF WAS AT THAT TIME BACK IN DECEMBER DIRECTED TO GO AHEAD AND TAKE A WHACK AT MAKING THE REGULATIONS MORE STRINGENT. So staff has done that and that has come from a lot of conversations with neighboring communities. We've actually used and borrowed a lot of the language from the neighboring communities regulations. Back in March, Planning and Zoning Commission heard this item and the proposed regulations and they actually recommended denial to this body because they felt that we as a city were overreaching, that this was too much. And that still included removing the SUP and all the other items that this body saw back in May. AND SO IN APRIL WE CAME TO YOU WITH A PROPOSED CHANGE TO THE CODE AND THE ANSWER WAS I THINK WE WANT SOME CHANGES TO THIS SO WE CAME BACK IN MAY WITH A WORK SESSION AND MORE DIRECTION TO STAFF. SO NOW WE'RE BACK WITH WHAT is in just one slide, it includes the removal of the special use permit, again, because we felt that that didn't work very well. There is an annual permit required. There will be a fee required. An annual inspection will be required. There will be a minimum for off-street parking. There will be a maximum number of occupants allowed in any one of these rentals. And then certain information has to be posted, including the permit itself, a local contact, and the rules of the property. Now, that last one, a lot of times the companies that kind of run these, if it's the big ones, if it's Airbnb or Vrbo, those require that sort of thing anyway. But remember, too, There's probably literally 10,000 other companies or other ways to get these types of short-term rentals out there. So we're trying to account for all of them, not just the ones that are under the big names that everybody knows. WHAT I WANT TO DO IS TALK, THERE'S BEEN A LOT OF TALK ABOUT KIND OF WHAT DOES, WHAT DO THESE PROPOSED REGULATIONS MEAN. SO I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE MISCONCEPTIONS THAT WE'VE BEEN HEARING AS STAFF REGARDING THE PROPOSED REGULATIONS. FIRST OFF, THERE'S BEEN SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT ELIMINATING THE SPECIAL USE PERMIT AND THAT THAT WILL MAKE IT EASIER FOR ANYBODY TO ESTABLISH A SHORT-TERM RENTAL IN BAYTOWN. along with the elimination of the short-term, or excuse me, the special use permit. We have proposed making the regulations themselves more stringent. So the existing regulations, and remember, I'm going to point this out a couple of times, if these regulations, if the proposed regulations do not get adopted, we still have regulations in place. But those regulations themselves, the standards themselves, are not as stringent as the ones that we are proposing. However, it would still include the special use permit. One of the reasons that removing the special use permit makes sense is that that decision-making process really is pretty unsuitable for this type of application. And it took a test run to figure that out. But hopefully everybody remembers how not only was P&Z in a tough spot, but you as a decision-making body were really put in a tough spot. There was no way to make everybody happy with the decision that came out of that. The special use permit process is, we believe, right now, deterring applicants from coming in and applying for that for any kind of short-term rental type of approval. Now, that sounds like a good thing if people don't want those in their neighborhoods. However, just because they don't come in and apply for the special use permit doesn't mean they're not still there. THE SPECIAL USE PERMIT PROCESS IS A VERY TIME INTENSIVE ONE. IT'S A VERY BURDENSOME ONE FOR STAFF AND FOR THIS BODY AS WELL. AGAIN, WE KNOW THAT THERE ARE PROBABLY 100 PLUS OF THESE ALREADY OUT THERE IN THE COMMUNITY. THAT SPECIAL USE PERMIT DOING WHAT WE DID BACK IN NOVEMBER, DECEMBER 100 TIMES IS GOING TO GET VERY WEARSOME ON I THINK EVERYBODY INVOLVED AND LIKELY ISN'T GOING TO HAVE THE EFFECT THAT WE HAD HOPED IN THE ORIGINALLY. We do believe that requiring a permit instead will ensure that enforcement right when they come in and start out. It's going to provide that contact information so when we have a code enforcement issue, we know who to get a hold of. And it will also allow the city to collect the hotel occupancy tax revenues. The second item that there's a misconception is that we can prohibit short-term rentals in Baytown. I think I'm saying this more for the public because I think the council has already kind of had gotten some of this information. But leasing property is a fundamental right in Texas. And legal has advised that prohibiting this type of use across the city would probably be unconstitutional. Other states have also regulated these types of uses at a state level. We believe that has been discussed by the state of Texas in the past. We believe that that will come back again in the future. We don't know that anything will happen, but again, there is a trend that says most of these are being regulated at a state level. There has been a misconception regarding city staff encouraging short-term rentals in Baytown. These short-term rentals have existed in Baytown for years. This is part of our community. It is part of the market that is out there. Likely many of you have used short-term rentals in other cities. These regulations themselves would actually improve oversight and management. I don't know that it would encourage more of them, but it would help us to manage the ones that are there now. Another misconception is, and this is maybe not a misconception as much as it is there is some real impact to doing something like this, that we could restrict short-term rentals to non-residential areas only. That would effectively prohibit short-term rentals across the city because all of the current existing short-term rentals that we know of are all in residential areas. The enforcement of that would be costly and definitely would cause some pretty big problems for the city. Not that it can't be done, but originally as we started to talk through this amendment, as we said, okay, there's going to be permits, we're going to pay a third party to administer the permits, to administer the enforcement up to a certain point. code enforcement and that service was going to be covered by the fees that were submitted for the permits themselves. If we don't have anybody in the areas where we are requiring the permits, we will not receive any revenues from permits. I hope that made sense. If any, because there just won't be any permits to issue at that point, so no fees. This is going to result in more cost, in more staff time, possibly a request of more of additional full-time employees to cover this type of effort to enforce. And then one of the things that we can't miss out on speaking about is the additional burden that this causes downstream. Yes, we have an enforcement staff and we will do what we can to make sure that this is handled. But that also creates an additional burden on our legal staff and on our city court. Because when you get to a point where you're issuing citations for a use that's not allowed, that has to go through several different steps. I know we've talked about that before. but it creates a really large burden on the city court especially. Keep in mind that any kind of enforcement that could start tomorrow is going to be a prolonged effort. It is going to take quite a while to see any results at all. Issuing letters and issuing citations is much like we were talking about the apartment issues earlier. That is a time-consuming and very It just takes a while to make an effect with those efforts. Again, you have the proposal in front of you that was what we talked about back in May or April, and then it includes the changes that we discussed at the work session in May. So I'm happy to answer any questions about the specifics of those. Obviously, I kind of left that out, but if you have questions, I can answer those. So what are your options tonight? There's basically three options. You can adopt the proposed regulations as they're written, if you believe that these are what you wanted and what's best for the community. You can deny those proposed regulations. Remember, that would keep the existing regulations in place. That wouldn't just take them all out. It would keep the existing SUP and it would keep the existing regulations, which there's not a lot of meat to those other than through the SUP. You could also make amendments to the proposed regulations. And I listed out a few that I thought were things that you might look at. You could make the standards themselves more restrictive or less restrictive, depending on how you feel about them. You could restrict these to certain zoning districts, keeping in mind that there are real impacts to a decision like that. You could amend the permit duration, make them shorter or longer. You could amend the inspection requirements or even the timing of those inspections. And you could also amend the revocation and suspension standards that are listed in the new regulations. THERE'S PROBABLY A DOZEN OTHER THINGS THAT YOU COULD CHANGE OR ALTER FROM THAT PROPOSAL. BUT THESE WERE THE MAIN ONES THAT I THINK THAT STAFF EITHER THOUGHT OF OR WE HEARD KIND OF FROM THE PUBLIC OR ONLINE OR FROM OUR CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS. WITH THAT, I BELIEVE THAT'S MY LAST SLIDE. THAT IS MY LAST SLIDE SO I'M HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS.

So I know you said that if you go to like a banning or anything like that, that would be more costly because of the enforcement and everything like that, right? Are you planning to enforce the regulations? Wouldn't that cause problems? Because if someone is not doing what the regulations that we want to put in place, they're going to operate it no matter what. We go say, hey, stop. Hey, stop. So we really, what's the point of the regulation at that point? Because you're going to have to take them to court, which would be the same thing that if they're not actually able to operate and we stop them from operating, would be the same additional thing. So that's kind of a little bit of a, I don't know about that one. And I know you did say that there's nothing we can do because of the rights, but we do have some recent cases that said we can kind of ban them in certain areas if we zone it that way. So there is a fifth option.

I would like to address – I won't address that last one. I would leave that to legal. In terms of enforcement, what we're talking about is scale of enforcement, because if all of a sudden all of the 100-plus short-term rentals that now exist now need to have somebody hammering on them, to make sure that they're doing something, that is a completely different level of enforcement than if we were to add these regulations. Many of the short-term rentals right now are already meeting nine-tenths of the regulations that we're proposing. Again, if you've got an Airbnb or a Vrbo, those regulations are already being met, and we feel pretty confident in that.

So what about someone who decides to open one tomorrow and is not a part of that hundred? You would have to enforce them. You'd have to go do something with them, right? Correct. So we're talking about the same type of thing here. I don't think we're going to go through a legal system somehow to get that enforced.

Sure. And you're not wrong. I don't think we're anticipating a great influx of short-term rentals into the city just because we changed the regulations. I don't see that as a realistic expectation.

Yes, ma'am.

Hi, Mr. Scribner. I have a question. If we were to ban short-term rentals and or zone them out of residential areas and starting tomorrow, I looked online and saw one in a residential area and wanted to rent it, as a city, what would we do? If I called you up and I said there's a short-term rental, but I know there's an ordinance that bans it, what would we do?

We would look into it and go through a normal code enforcement process.

Will you explain to me what that is for the public?

Sure. Sure. We would investigate. So we'd go out and we would check the ads online. We would go look at it in person and inspect from the right of way. We don't have permission to go into the house at that point. We would then send a letter. We would either say, yes, this is happening or no, this isn't happening. If the answer is yes, then we would send a violation letter to the owner and to the property itself to the address. at which time we would hope that they would call us and say, what do I do? If they don't, which a lot of times happens with code enforcement efforts, we would wait probably a week, two weeks, whatever the time is that we set in place, and then send another letter. then we would wait, and then we would probably send a third letter. At that point, we would issue a citation. The citation would then, if we can find the owner, which is sometimes, again, a challenge, not impossible, but can be challenging, then we would send that citation to them, and then that would have to go through the court system, which can take Depending on their workload, depending on their docket load, could take up to three months before that goes to a hearing. By then, we may have issued more citations, and those could go as a package to the court. And then it's up to the judge what happens after that.

Is it safe to say while they're waiting for their day in court that they could still continue to operate their business?

That's correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Quick question. So what happens if we deal with the regulations and someone decides to open this up and you find that they're operating? What's the process? It's the same process. So it's the same process. Either way, you're still talking about the same identical process if you ban it or if you regulate it. There's no difference. There's no different cost to the court case. You're still going to have to go issue them a letter, a citation. They've still got to go to their day in court. They've still got to go through the whole process again. It's still the same.

If it is operating illegally, yes. If we have a permitting process, again, it's a matter of scale. We would cut way down on the number. So you'd have, say, 15 that we've got to take through the court system rather than 115. It's an enormous difference in scale.

If you just said ban them, then it's a lot different because once you find it, you're actually taking away the $100,000 that you're having to regulate.

But if we regulate them, won't we then be able to obtain the hot tax from them and other things that come along with that?

You can, but it's not that much.

You're not talking how much hot tax we're talking about.

But it still benefits the citizenry.

Our best estimate was somewhere in the neighborhood of $70,000 to $80,000 a year.

Okay. That's a good estimate.

ANYONE ELSE? I GOT A QUESTION. YES, SIR. ONE OF THE THINGS WE'VE TALKED ABOUT IN THE PAST IS WHEN WE CHANGE ZONING, SO YOU HAVE AN EXISTING SHORT-TERM RENTAL, WHETHER OR NOT THEY GOT AN SUP OR NOT, THEY'RE AN EXISTING SHORT-TERM RENTAL, SO YOU CHANGE THE ZONING would they be grandfathered? Because they existed before the zoning change. We've had that discussion.

Yes, they would not. And the reason is, there's two things going on here. Number one, they were never legally zoned. So in order to be considered a non-conforming use or something that would be grandfathered, it has to be a legally existing business before the law was changed in 2025. We had zero of those.

So we have the special use permit now, so it's It's in the code that they're allowed, they just have to have a special use permit, but that would not apply to a grandfather status.

The special use permit under state law is considered a discretionary zoning decision by this body. Say if somebody had applied for one today and said, well, I'm going to make sure I'm in under the law change. you as a body could still apply all those new regulations to that special use permit, making it kind of null and void anyway.

I got that part. If we just change the zoning to zone them out, would they be grandfathered? You said no.

They would not.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

I really want to mainly wait to hear everybody speak, but TO YOUR KNOWLEDGE, AND I KNOW I ASKED CHIEF THIS QUESTION, BUT BEFORE WE WENT ON THIS WHOLE VENTURE, HOW MANY COMPLAINTS DID WE HAVE ON THESE TYPES OF PROPERTIES?

I DON'T HAVE THAT NUMBER IN FRONT OF ME NOW, BUT IT WASN'T SOMETHING THAT CAME UP ON THE REGULAR.

THANK YOU.

IT DID COME UP OCCASIONALLY, BUT NOT THAT OFTEN. OKAY.

THANK YOU. Anyone else?

Yeah, so we're talking about 22,000 households, kind of what we have utility bills. We have 100 of them. It's 0.45% of the city. That's it. It's 0.45. So you're not going to get a lot of complaints at 0.45. But you're going to get a lot of complaints from the resident beside it and those that are around there. And that's the thing is how much are we – Where is the gray area where one's property rights are in charge of overreaching somebody else's property rights? There's always ordinance. I mean, I've had two in the past couple of weeks where in Country Club Cove where they're having a party and they come out there and there's guns and there's people parking everywhere and you tell them disperse because they're renting the house to party on there. That house is not listed. It's on Lone Oak in Country Club Cove, 4900 block. It's not listed anywhere. But every week, they're having people there for parties. And it's being rented out.

I mean, that could be a rental property that they're running out for one, two years.

But if we don't have proof of that, I mean, those are good examples for noise ordinance issues.

But to me, that's not relevant because if we don't even know that's Airbnb, we're operating under a lot of assumptions with that.

If you ban it, it prevents it. It gives officers a bite. It gives them something to bite on. It gives them an ordinance to bite against. Hey, what happened? Hey, we're renting this for a party. Oh, you cannot do that.

I don't, I don't, can, okay, I'm sorry, do, well, if we have an ordinance, if we have an ordinance that bans or restricts short-term rentals, and there's a noise ordinance complaint and the police are called out, are you going to shut down the short-term rental if you find out that's what it is?

No. The short answer is no. Okay. We would try to mitigate the problem at that point in time. Our ability to shut down the short-term rental side of it, that's a whole different thing. So you would handle like a noise complaint like you do any noise complaint?

Okay. I want clarity on that.

You have something to say?

Yeah, I had a question. There was a question I asked legal regarding the ruling for the appellate court up in Fort Worth. OR IN OUR COURTS OUTSIDE OF HARRIS COUNTY IS WHAT KIND OF GUIDANCE CAN WE GET FROM THOSE COURTS FOR BAYTOWN IN THAT SITUATION?

SO, COUNCIL, YOU DID RECEIVE SOME INFORMATION FROM ME BEFORE THE MEETING. I DON'T WANT TO. Get into the specifics of that. I want to preserve the attorney-client privilege however, what I will say is that the only state appellate courts that are Precedential in the Houston Galveston district are the first the 14th and the 15th any appellate court cases outside of those three appellate courts, we can look to for guidance, but they are not precedential. The only precedential cases would be the first, 14th, and 15th, and the Texas Supreme Court.

So I wasn't asking about precedent, but more like guidance. Can we get guidance from those outside courts?

We can look to them for guidance, but they are not precedential here in this district. We cannot rely on them, but we can glean from them what we can.

I believe Grapevines went to the Texas Supreme Court, correct?

It was denied certiorari by the Texas Supreme Court. It went back down to the trial court and back up to the appellate court. There was no Texas Supreme Court opinion. It is now recently decided by the appellate court in that I believe it's the second district. We don't know what's going to happen with the Supreme Court at this point. My assumption is that we will see another appeal.

Good deal. WELL, WE HAVE SOME PEOPLE THAT HAVE SIGNED UP TO SPEAK. WE'RE GOING TO GO AHEAD AND ALLOW THEM THE OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK. THANK YOU, MR. SCRIBNER. WE'RE GOING TO START WITH SCOTT TAYLOR.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL.

MY NAME IS SCOTT TAYLOR. I MOVED HERE APPROXIMATELY THREE YEARS AGO FROM THE D.C. AREA. I WANTED TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY. MY WIFE WANTED TO LIVE ON THE WATER. WE'RE CURRENTLY ON THE WATER. I want to discuss... get the nerves out. I want to discuss the problems I've had with short-term rentals. I'm not going to pretend to be an attorney and say what's legal or what's not. I'm just going to tell you what I've been through. In December, there was a party. The house was sold last year. It became an Airbnb or VRBO. They started short-term rentals. There was a party thrown approximately December last year. 50 residents showed up. In my line of work, we go by clues. They were patting young men down before they came into the house and giving them armbands. So knowing there was going to be a problem, loud music, Baytown PD responded professionally. They were direct and they were in control. It was a pleasure to have them there. But to come out on my deck at 10 o'clock at night, I'm elevated, and to have a K-9 unit in my backyard, to smell what appeared to be marijuana, and to have kids running everywhere trying to get away from this, cars up and down the street. The police handled it well, they got them out of there. This was in December of last year, I believe. Approximately two weeks later, the city of Houston had a shooting at an Airbnb. Two weeks after that, January 1st, there was another shooting at an Airbnb in Houston. So I'll fast forward to my problem, my real problem, is June 28th, I'm preparing for church, and I come outside, And there's a gentleman arguing back and forth with another male on the top deck. They'd had a party all night, approximately 40 or 50 people in this house, where Airbnb specifically states on the web page, eight is the maximum limit. So there were cars up and down the road. Other neighbors had been verbal with them. I've been down that road, didn't want to get involved with it. I came outside early the next morning. There was a verbal argument between two males. I asked one of them, I told one of them to leave. He started yelling at me. I've been in federal law enforcement for 32 years. I told him if he didn't leave, he was going to jail one way or another. He went across the street, got in a car. I go back inside and make myself a cup of coffee to get ready for church. I come back out, and this man's laying on the pavement getting curb stomped. In 32 years, God bless, I've never had to use force, deadly force, on an individual. But I armed myself and went outside to protect this man from being killed. They got off of him. Baytown showed up. Another clue that he didn't want to go to jail was the things he was saying as four police officers were wrestling him to the ground. And this happened all up and down my street. And the thing is, I don't want to get into what somebody does with their assets, how they make money. But when their assets become my liability, it's a problem. I shouldn't have to be subjected to protecting someone's life because of a short-term rental. I hate to come to you with a problem and no solutions. I know there might not be an outright ban. However, I believe so.

I WANT TO GIVE THIS, GET A MOTION.

I'M MOVED TO GIVE THEM ONE MORE MINUTE TO FINISH THE SPEECH.

I DON'T WANT TO COME TO YOU WITHOUT A PARTNER. I GOT TO VOTE. I'M SORRY. YES, SIR. IF I DON'T, MR. LAMON IS NOT GOING TO BE HAPPY WITH ME. I need a motion. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? You have one minute.

Yes, sir. I don't want to come to you and present a problem without a partial solution. I don't pretend to be an attorney. I do know a little bit about the Constitution. An outright ban, I'm not so sure, but I think how they define short-term rentals is a problem. You know, a week rental is going to Fort Lauderdale. A week rental is going to Destin or something like that. You're going to cut out a lot of the problem, in my opinion, by limiting that to above a week. Because someone's coming in for a party, they're coming in for a holiday, and it's going to be problematic, I think, in the long run, down the stretch. So... I don't want to say it's an outright ban, what the city can and can't do. I disagree with some of the previous statements the previous speaker made. I don't want to get into that or the disagreement. I've got 15 seconds left, but there's a lot I could say about it, about the restrictions. But just know my experience was not pleasant. God willing, I didn't have to shoot that man.

Good deal. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Thank you for your service, sir. Next, we will have... Mr. Weibra, Ms. Weibra Holland, who's passing her time to Mr. Budinger. So we're going to go on over to Steve White. Wait.

Good evening. My name is Steve White. I live in Baytown.

I need your address for record.

I live in Baytown at 2439 Bay Hill Drive in Evergreen Fairway subdivision. Prior to moving to Baytown, I lived in Houston for previous 40 years. One of the many things that I love about Baytown is the neighborhoods. They're smaller, friendlier, and quieter than Houston's neighborhoods where they have no zoning. Think about this. If you want to change the nature of Baytown's neighborhoods quickly, allow there to be short-term rentals in all residential areas. If you want the value of your largest investment to decrease, but to allow short-term rentals in residential areas. Nothing will change the nature of a neighborhood faster than multiple B&Bs being on your street filled with strangers from somewhere else that have no vested interest in the appearance or quality of the neighborhood. All they care about is that they could be up to 10 people staying in a highly modified three-bedroom apartment, house rather, and they're saving a few bucks compared to a hotel, which there are many of here in Baytown. Plus, there's no pesky manager on site to make sure that they're not being too noisy or drunken disorderly. There is no immediate oversight at this quaint, bread and breakfast with matching curtains and fresh paint. Do we really want short-term rentals allowed in every residential neighborhood? I don't think so. The city says they will be regulated. Has anyone stopped to calculate the cost of enforcing these regulations? So I want to see the cost of enforcement. What I would like to see is Baytown to adopt a complete ban on STRs in all residential neighborhoods. This is a common sense proposal that many cities in Texas have already adopted and the bans have been upheld by several courts. Please listen to the voices of your constituents and consider this ban. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you. Next we will have Mr. Margo, Ms. Margo Matthews, who's giving her time to Ms. Marie Drosnowski. So now, the one and only Mr. Calvin Munger, you have your time given to you from Mr. Jerry and Ms. Weibra, which is going to give you a total of nine minutes.

Weibra Holland is going to donate her time to me, and I think Mr. Ohtahall?

Yes, yes, yes, sir.

Okay, you mentioned that. I'VE HEARD A FEW THINGS HERE, AND I HAD A LOT THAT I WANTED TO SAY.

I NEED YOUR ADDRESS. I'M SORRY. I'M SORRY. I'M OFF MY GAME TODAY. ANYONE COMING TO SPEAK, I'M GOING TO NEED YOUR ADDRESS FOR PROOF.

NO PROBLEM. NO PROBLEM, MAYOR. I GET IT. 411 NORTH BURNETT DRIVE, BAYTOWN, TEXAS, IN THE LAKEWOOD SUBDIVISION. OUR LAST NAME IS MUNDINGER. FOUR GENERATIONS OF MUNDINGERS HAVE LIVED IN THE LAKEWOOD SUBDIVISION, OKAY? I think we have a failure to communicate. I'm convinced that this reduction of scrutiny and the simplification of this process will result in more STRs in Baytown. It could double them. It could triple them. I don't know, but I'm convinced it's going to. So any claims that, and you don't even have the personnel to regulate any of these things are what you're going to do. But what you need to understand is whether it's an SUP, ABC, an Elemental P, we don't want short-term rentals in any residential subdivision in the city of Baytown. Period. Okay? That's what we want. Arlington, New Braunfels, LaPorte, Dallas, Fort Worth, and soon-to-be Deer Park have all pushed back. They've done the bans. They've banned them in residential subdivisions, Mr. City Attorney. That has been upheld by the Texas Supreme Court and another court which upheld the city of New Braunfels, okay? I'm also hearing... From you, Mr. City Attorney, that there's going to be a potential action in the coming Texas legislature? Okay? Have you said that?

No, sir, I've not.

Council members, have you heard people say that? That in the next legislature, they're going to ban municipalities from being able to ban short-term rentals? Have you all heard that? Even if that's the case, if there is legislation that bans short-term rentals, bans cities from short-term rentals, TML is going to fight it. And if the city of Baytown has already adopted a ban on short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods that would be constitutionally upheld, regardless of what happens in the Texas legislature, the city of Baytown will be grandfathered. Okay? Those bans will be grandfathered in place. It doesn't matter what the legislature does. And FYI, I've talked to Tom Butler, who's going to be the next state representative for our district. And Tom Butler supports long-term bans everywhere, as long as it's in a residential subdivision. I've talked to TML. They're going to fight vigorously any effort that's going to diminish home rule municipalities that ANY LEGISLATION THAT COULD DIMINISH THE AUTHORITY OF HOME RULE CITIES IN THAT LEGISLATURE. SO DON'T LOOK FOR THE LEGISLATURE TO BE EFFECTIVE IN ANY WAY THAT'S GOING TO DIMINISH WHAT WE DO. WAYNE SMITH ALSO SUPPORTS SHORT-TERM RENTALS, FORMER STATE REPRESENTATIVE. The message is clear. The reason all these other municipalities have done this, because of the negative impact of short-term rentals. And this has the potential to have negative impact in every neighborhood in this city. And we want a ban on short-term rentals in the city of Baytown. Thank y'all.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. Now we will have Ms. Carla Percy. Please state your address.

Okay, I live at 5002 Ashwood Drive in Country Club Oaks in Baytown.

Thank you.

I have low blood pressure. That's why I'm in the chair. I can't stand up for very long, although my blood pressure is pretty high right now. I would like to see a ban, a total ban on all short-term rentals in Baytown in the residential areas. There is a home right around the corner from me on Goose Creek Drive that has two, four, six, eight pickups parked in the double-wide driveway and probably three or four on the street, too, all the time. So these, I call these flop houses. These are contract workers coming in for the week, they show up Monday night, they leave Friday night, but they're parked all over the place and the yards aren't taken care of well, trash cans don't get put up, you can't get through the street because the guy across the street parks his three pickups along there too. I don't know how a school bus ever gets through there if they had to. There's one on Interlock, and I can give you addresses of all of them in my neighborhood. And I tell you, you can find out the name of the owner. I found out the names of all the owners. All you have to do is go to the Harris County tax rules. This house used to be Doc Christensen's house. He's probably rolling in his grave right now. Somebody bought it and they put like five air conditioners cut into the brick on the front of the house. There may be more along the sides and the back where you can tell they've split the rooms up. Bedroom, bedroom, bedroom. The dining room's now a bedroom. It's ridiculous. And there's cars all over the place. There's other house down the street from me, 5104 Ashwood. I don't know who, I mean, I know who owns it, but I don't know if it's a single family home, but it's kind of odd that they have two, four, six, eight, 10 cars in the driveway and three across the front. There's crap all over the yard. They don't mow the yard. It looks like hell. It brings down all our property values. It's terrible. I vote to ban everything. Thank you, Mr. Franco. We're your constituents. We're the reason you're here. So you need to take care of us. Forget those short-term people that want to rent their house out. Screw them. They're not here. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we will have Ms. Nora Smith.

I'm Nora Smith, 5007 Ashwood. And since you gave that special use permit to the other one, that place at, oh, okay. So you gave a special use permit to the house 5111 Ashwood. As she said, those are two properties that popped up since that happened. And that one was 5104 Ashwood. And then that other one, 5002 Interlochen. And then there's another one that said, I've counted at least eight on just our side of the creek. And there's probably more. But that's the ones that are just so obvious. And the problem I have with the things is that you guys are talking about making things easier for the special use, these short-term rental places to pop up. They're doing it anyway. You have... There just seems to be a lack of enforcement of anything. You talk about making these things easier. I read the proposals you had on the changes and stuff. And there's the things, comments saying that, oh, we're not going to go against HOA. You already went against it when you granted that SUP. That was violating the deed restrictions and going against the HOA right there. I have a big concern about, you're talking about, oh, well, we can have the hotel tax. That's just minuscule compared to what, why not look into better enforcement of the banning of these short-term rentals? You have a $2,000 a day. fine for violating zoning these all those in that neighborhood that Country Club Oaks at old Country Club Oaks are all violating the zoning this is a neighborhood for specifically single-family houses and this is this is not it I said I do like that one idea if you're not going to do anything else and don't make it to where they just come in for a weekend or a party weekend To me, that's just ridiculous. As I said, the big problem, I'm just, I kept hearing when I came to another meeting, I kept hearing repeatedly the phrase of, we don't want to get into enforcement. Well, that is a big problem. How are you going to enforce anything? What you have is not being enforced. So I think that needs to be addressed, not changing the regulations at all, but how are we going to enforce this? How are we going to make the neighborhood stay nicer? Thank you.

Next, we will have Kenan Schultz. Please state your address.

I want to thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. My name is Kenan Schultz. I live at 5008 Ashwood. Actually, a little bit of my thunder's been taken away because I live down the street from some of these other people, and some of the things that I notice, they've also noticed too. We're seeing, like I said, these houses here with the air conditioners or the cars in front and stuff. I find it very interesting that we moved into the Country Club Oaks, and one of the first things, we've been there 11 years now, that we found out there was some regulations just on having a garage sale. And at that time, only two garage sales a year, and you had to have a permit for it. I understand that's been kind of turned over or whatever. But the purpose of that was so that we're not setting up a little flea market in people's neighborhoods and in their yards. And we're seeing these things that have been put in place so that it protects the community and protects the people in the residential, and yet we are allowing something like these short-term rentals going into our residential neighborhoods. A number of years ago, the city of Houston banned the one-hour rentals at hotels for a reason. Okay? And my question is, is that, you know, we live right here off of I-10. And I-10 is a notorious corridor of human trafficking as well as drug running. Who is to say that these one week, two week rentals, whatever the case may be, that they're not housing some of these people that they're trafficking and maybe even running brothels through them. We do not know who they are. This poor man over here that had to pull out a gun, take a gun out with, my gosh. That is horrendous. That's like my worst nightmare. I couldn't even imagine having to go through something like that. So I would just ask that you all listen to constituents. Ban them in residential neighborhoods, please. It's bad enough that we have some hotels up and down Spur 330 anyhow that are close to the residential neighborhoods. Unfortunately, there's no truck stops, but But they seem to be doing okay, but we just don't need to have that opened up to the residential neighborhoods because we don't know the house down the streets where they have the eight cars in there or the Airbnb on one side of Ashwood and then the other one that's over there right there where Goose Creek comes out to Ashwood. I mean, almost dead ends right into it. There's another one there. We don't know who these people are. And so, please, I see it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. And now we have Steve Wavro. Please state your address.

4716 St. Andrews Drive. Good evening. My name is Steve Wavro. I came to Baytown in 1980 when I was hired by Exxon as an environmental engineer. My first year here, I leased an apartment. During that time, I, like most people, did a considerable amount of research before making the biggest purchase of my life, which was my home. I looked at taxes, school district reputations, utility reliabilities, commuting times, but most importantly, I looked at the character of the neighborhood that I wanted to move into. In the early 1980s, there was no such thing as short-term rental properties in residential neighborhoods. Now I believe we have 1 to 200 in Baytown. But why? There are plenty of hotels in Baytown with an average occupancy rate of only about 50%. Therefore, STRs are not necessary to enjoy a visit to Baytown. Some people rent these places in order to cram 10 to 20 of their friends or relatives into a single 2,000 square foot residential home instead of renting multiple hotel rooms. Others simply want an inexpensive venue to throw a party. And unfortunately, all too often, it's the neighbors that have to put up with all of the noise, the traffic, the parking problems, the trash. and the inherent unease associated with not knowing who's living next to you, your spouse, or your children. I cannot for the life of me understand why some council members appear to be more interested in protecting the financial interests of STR owners that do not even live here over the quality of life, safety, and property values of Baytown citizens. Tonight you have the opportunity to stand up and do the right thing for the Baytown citizens, which is to ban STRs from our residential neighborhoods. We've already mentioned all the cities that have already done this in Texas. Arlington, Fort Worth, Fredericksburg, New Braunfels, Pearland, Plano, Woodway. And they have already taken this step to ban these SDRs. So this is obviously not an unreasonable or impossible request. Thank you. Thank you.

Next, we will have Gian Hives. Himes.

I'M JEAN HINES. I LIVE AT 1209 TWINNEL STREET, PLUMWOOD SECTION 2. I'VE LIVED IN MY HOUSE 45 YEARS. WE'VE HAD CHANGES OVER THE 45 YEARS, OBVIOUSLY. OLDER PEOPLE MOVE OUT, YOUNGER PEOPLE MOVE IN. BUT THIS HAVING, I GUESS I'M LUCKY. WE ONLY HAD EIGHT CARS IN THE DRIVEWAY AND ON THE STREET. But they're there in and out, sometimes two or three days, sometimes four days, out and in and out. I don't know what they do. I've had box trucks moved in things. Last week we had a U-Haul truck in the driveway. I did manage to find out who owned the house or if it's a corporation or who it is. But I'm tired of not feeling safe in my own house. with all these people running in and out, all hours of the day.

That Dallas, Arlington, Fort Worth, and other Texas cities took a deliberate approach to prohibit short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods. Why is it these cities can do that, and you tell us we cannot do that, prohibit short-term rentals in residential areas? I spoke with the people in these cities. I didn't look them up on the internet and pull things off of it. Do you know why it took these communities two to three years to develop their plans? They held public meetings. They listened to their residents. They carefully evaluated the issues and mapped out where short-term rentals could appropriately operate to keep them out of residential neighborhoods. Why did they invest so much time and effort? Because they wanted to get it right. not rush through a policy in a few weeks. They understood the importance to preserve neighborhood character, maintain the stability of permanent owner-occupied residents, and avoid the revolving door of strangers that can create safety, security, and quality of life concerns. Residents deserve to know who their neighbors are, not wonder who will be staying next door from one day to the next. There could be hundreds of people a year rotating through just one short-term rental house. These are real concerns for the people of Baytown. Now, let's look at what happened here in Baytown. the council directed Planning and Development to prepare a short-term rental ordinance. The proposal they returned allows short-term rentals in residential and mixed-use zoning districts, which effectively means that nearly every house in Baytown could become a short-term rental. Yes, even next door to each one of you. Every member of this council voted to move forward with that proposal except Mr. Franco who voted against it. Why was the commercial zoning district omitted and not made the primary location for short-term rentals? Commercial areas are where these businesses are most appropriate, and Baytown already has successful short-term rentals operating in commercial zones. Instead, you are being presented with a rushed and poorly planned proposal. IT REFLECTS A LACK OF THOUGHTFUL ANALYSIS AND APPEARS TO BORROW PIECES OF OTHER CITIES' ORDINANCES WHILE LEAVING OUT THE MONTHS OF RESEARCH, PUBLIC INPUT AND PLANNING THAT MADE THOSE OTHER CITIES' POLICIES SUCCESSFUL. THIS IS NOT RESPONSIBLE PLANNING. It also raises concern about leadership within planning and development. The proposed ordinance suggests a lack of commitment to protecting Baytown's neighborhoods. Decisions of these magnitudes should be made with long-term interests of Baytown residents, not for the convenience of planning and development and not to benefit outsiders. Meanwhile, New Braunfels has very recently won their court case to prohibit short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods. And I believe that there is no Supreme Court ruling in Texas that says that you cannot ban short-term rentals. Another community near Baytown has begun the same process to prohibit short-term rentals in residential areas. While other cities in Texas and around the country are working to protect their neighborhoods, Baytown is moving in the opposite direction by signaling that short-term rentals are welcome almost anywhere in Baytown. This is not the direction our residents have asked for, and it is not the direction Baytown should take. You have the opportunity to learn from the other cities and towns that are reversing their wrong decisions. You can stop it now. and do it right and that is to vote no short-term rentals in residential communities i would like to take at this time at this time i would like to ask all the residents in the audience who oppose short-term rentals and have come to this meeting short-term rentals in the residential neighborhood to please stand okay i believe now let me Make sure I get everybody. We have Country Club Oaks that is here. We have Lakewood here. We have Whispering Pines that are here. We have Evergreen that is here. Pinehurst, Country Club Estates, Country Club Manor, Allenbrook. Did I leave anybody out? Where? La Reforma. La Reforma. Plumwood. Plumwood. Any others?

Tanglewild.

Where? Tanglewild. Tanglewild. Tierra del Oro. Tierra del Oro.

Tierra del Oro. WHERE ELSE? PRETTY MUCH ALL OF THEM.

THAT'S A LOT. THAT IS A LOT IN A VERY SHORT TIME THAT WE WERE ABLE TO GET OUT THE INFORMATION AND YOU SEE WHAT YOUR RESULTS ARE. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. NEXT WE HAVE, I DON'T KNOW, I THINK THIS IS JOSE MCMASTER. Before you get started, I'm going to ask that you address us and not address the crowd.

Excuse me?

I'm saying I'm reminding everyone to address council and not address the crowd.

I have no reason to address the crowd.

I didn't say that you did. I said I'm reminding everyone.

No worries, Mayor.

Thank you.

All right. My name is Hope McMaster. I live at 4910 Goose Creek Drive. I have had a lot of people using my driveway. my area trespassing on my property doing damage to my property all from an airbnb that literally is right next door to me i have a very large area that i park okay we have a double driveway and it goes up into a platform but it's two separate lots I have asked them myself to please quit driving over onto my side to park. But that is considered trespassing. I have tried to deal with all this myself. I have spent probably well over $300 trying to prevent damage and destruction to my property done by this STR, the short-term rental. And it's ridiculous. I should not have to spend my own money Fix my property because of strangers. Because people are coming in, running the place, and destroying my stuff. Using my trash can. Leaving glass at the end of my driveway that I have to clean up. Trash in my yard because they can't, I don't know, close a trash can lid or not overflow it. Or I don't know, use a recycle bin for a trash can. It's getting ridiculous. And something needs to be done. It needs to be stopped. I have tried to call and contact the owners. I got, we're not responsible, is the answer I got. We're not responsible for what they do. We're not responsible for the damage they do to your property. Who is? Who's responsible? Apparently me. Because it's my money that's coming out of my pocket to fix what they're doing to us. And it's just got to stop. And I'm asking for it to stop. Y'all need to ban these from inside our residential areas. I don't have a problem with them being a commercial, but they need to come out of the residential area because the money's coming out of the resident's pocket, not yours. Thank you. Thank you.

Next, we will have Ms. Randy King.

Good evening. I'm Randy King. I live at 128 North Burnett Drive in Baytown, Texas. I've lived in Lakewood for 38 years. I'm on the board of the Lakewood Civic Association and also Lakewood Neighborhood Watch. And most of all, I love my neighborhood. Lakewood is a quiet neighborhood, a place where people know their neighbors, a place where the kids play safely in the street, where you can count on peace on Tuesday night. Then short-term rentals come in, and the block turns into a revolving door of strangers. That's what short-term rentals have done to residential communities across this country, and it's time we put a stop to it. Some say the answer is regulation, like is being considered here tonight. Instead, I propose that we ban short-term rentals. A permit with annual fees versus a special use permit will make it easier for short-term rentals to operate in residential areas, and basic occupancy standards will be difficult to enforce. By the time a complaint may be addressed, the renter has already left for somewhere else. And regulations haven't stopped the uptick that other cities have seen of increased emergency calls for drunk and disorderly conduct, loud music, and disturbances. The very problems regulations were supposed to solve. Take Galveston, which has spent nearly a year crafting a detailed ordinance with a residential community, occupancy taxes, emergency contact requirements. That sounds great, right? But look closer, and that same pattern shows up. Those efforts demand constant enforcement staffing most cities can't sustain. I don't think Baytown has it. And they never eliminate the core conflict, a stranger occupied home operating next to a family home. A permit doesn't stop that party at 2 a.m. A 24-hour contact number doesn't answer. We need to change what's going on. Lakewood's the largest subdivision inside the city limits, and it's also one of the safest, but we had a gunshot fatality on the front lawn of a short-term rental. Trash cans stay overflowing out by the street, and the owners live in Nevada and are less than responsive to concerns. If regulations haven't actually worked in other cities, then why do we think it's going to work here? Banning short-term rentals from residential neighborhoods isn't extreme. It's the only fix that actually works. Thank you.

Mr. Chet Peace. Is Chet out there?

My name is Chet Thies. I live at 211 Post Oak Drive. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm here tonight to ask a simple question. Why are we even discussing the possibility of allowing short-term rentals in our neighborhoods that are specifically zoned for single-family residential use living? Where is the outcry from these investors that are out of town. There are very few of them here. I don't even know of any here. I'm sure there are. Where's that outcry? Somebody has to be saying, oh, we need short-term rentals. I don't think there is one. These neighborhoods were created to provide stable, safe, family-oriented communities. People invest their life savings into homes with the expectations that their neighborhoods will be home buyers or long-term residences who share a commitment to the neighborhood. Short-term rentals fundamentally change that expectation. A revolving door of weekend visitors is not the same as having neighbors. With short-term rentals, come an increased traffic, parking, congestion, late-night noises, parties, litter, and a lack of ability, excuse me, accountability. When guests leave after a few days, they have little incentive to respect the community or maintain the standards that permanent residents work so hard to uphold. There are also legitimate health and safety concerns. Emergency responders often don't know who is staying in these homes. Occupancy limits may and probably get exceeded current fire hazards. Visitors are unfamiliar with evacuation routes, neighborhood safety and procedures, and local regulations. Security can also become an issue when access codes are shared with numerous guests outside the year, increasing opportunities for theft and unauthorized entry. Beyond these concerns, short-term rentals negatively affect property values and the character of the established neighborhoods they reduce the supply of homes available for families and long-term residents to determine residents properties into commercial enterprises a business operating in the middle of a residential neighborhood still a business regardless of where whether it's advertised through and half or not our zoning laws exist for a reason. They separate commercial activities from residential neighborhoods to protect the homeowners, the quality of life and preserve the integrity of our communities. If we begin making exceptions, we undermine the very purpose of single family zoning and the trust that residents place in it. Mayor, can I ask for one more minute?

Okay. I need a motion. I'll motion to yield. Mr. Theist, one minute. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you. I'll wrap it up. I urge you, Mr. Mayor and Council, to protect the neighborhoods that you are elected to serve. Preserve the intent of our residential zoning. Put homeowners, families, and long-term residences ahead of special interest groups. seeking to profit from our residential properties. The question should not be how to regulate short-term rentals in single-family neighborhoods. The question should be why would we consider allowing them here in the first place? And I want to thank you for your considerations. But I do have one more quick point in reference to something that was said earlier in reference to the history of our ULDC zoning. It was said that we did not address short-term rentals, and that's true. We did not address them by name, but it is true that short-term rentals is commercial use. It's income-producing, and so to say that we didn't address it is not true. It's not accurate.

Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Lisa Hunsinger.

Tough night, guys. This is rough in here tonight. I work in a refinery. I need your address. 4511 Alamance.

Thank you.

I work in a polymer refinery on Decker, and when I'm processing people's paperwork, I had a gentleman that was on Glenhaven, and I said, oh, is that where you and your family live? And he said, no, there's six other men that live in the house, and They just pay for the week. I get everybody that owns property that are landlords. Everybody wants to own another property, make money. I get that. I don't know how you guys are going to fix all this. I don't know what the answer is. But hiring people that I know that are living in Country Club Oaks, where I used to live on Homewood, and knowing that there's six or seven men living in that house. They're paying rent. How many cars fit in that driveway? Three or four? And where are the other three or four? I'm a grandmother and I have 13 grandchildren. And I like to rent places and all of us go. So I'm all about Airbnbs. I'm all about renting a place to go. But where the places that I go are not in the middle of somebody's neighborhood. I don't think anybody in Country Club Oaks or anywhere in Baytown should have to worry at night about who's over there and what are they doing. When I get off work, I want to go home and be at my home. I don't want to have to worry who's doing what in the house next door to me or across the street from me or anywhere else. I just don't think it's fair. And any of you that are familiar with Country Club Oaks know that it's taken a big nosedive. And the people that live there have put everything they have into their homes, their biggest purchase in life. And I feel like they should all be able to get their money back if they chose to sell it. But the way it looks right now, what are the property values? Who's going to buy your house knowing that that's what's going on in front of you or beside you? I don't know what the answer is, but I know what we're doing is not the answer.

Thank you.

Do we have any more comments from Council? Questions or comments? If not, that's everyone. So that's why I'm asking. Do we have any more questions or comments? Because if not, we're going to go ahead and take a vote. Probably have some comments.

Yeah, I appreciate all of y'all that came out to speak. There's not an easy answer on this one, right? No, there's not. There's not for me because what's important to me is staying consistent through all the different votes that have come before us. And I look back at, I mean, we've had rezones that we've approved that the majority of close by residents didn't want. We've approved them. We had the first SUP that came to us that was still approved. So for me, I believe in staying consistent. And one of the reasons that I have voted typically to approve those things is because of the rights of property owners.

Hold on, Mayor. Now, we've already had citizen comment portion. AND HE'S NOT ADDRESSING ANYONE SPECIFICALLY. SO PLEASE LET'S LET COUNCIL MEMBERS FINISH SPEAKING AND THEN SO WE CAN GET A VOTE. I'M ASKING THAT WE HAVE SOME DECORUM. NOW, YOU ALL WERE CLAPPING WHEN EVERYONE WAS GIVING THEIR SPEECHES, BUT WE'RE NOT GOING TO BE INTERRUPTING COUNCIL MEMBERS WHENEVER THEY SPEAK. SO I ASK THAT WE ALL GIVE US THE SAME RESPECT THAT WE ALL GAVE YOU. THANK YOU.

Thank you, Mayor. As I was saying, I do believe in the rights of property owners to lease their property if that's what they want to do. I had a rental next to me for a couple years. It wasn't a short-term rental. I wish it was shorter. I did not enjoy the folks that lived next to me. They enjoyed throwing parties. They were loud. But I never thought that was an issue that I needed the city to fix. I believe that the person that owned that house had a right to rent it out. He had bought it shortly before, or shortly after Harvey and then a job change had him move quickly thereafter and he just couldn't sell it quickly enough, was gonna take a bath on it, so he made it a rental. And I didn't like it. When it went up for sale, I sent it to everybody I knew and hoped it would sell very quickly. But again, I didn't think that was, I never thought that was an issue the city needed to address. It was just, that's what he chose to do with his property. Now, there were multiple times that they got loud and rambunctious. They were broken beer bottles in the street and the police department responded. And so I do believe, you know, there could be things that happen at these properties that are breaking the law and we have a process already in place to respond to those things. God forbid. Like I said, I don't want to live near those things, but I understand that my neighbor can do as they wish. For a lot of the concerns that were brought up, zoning, running a business in a neighborhood I looked across a lot of our neighborhoods just on Google Maps the things that showed up I'm sure there's more if you do some kind of business search but we have a lot of businesses that run in our our neighborhoods Just a few of them, I saw pre-K, electrical services, two clothing stores, t-shirt design, assisted living, insurance agent, real estate appraiser, tanning salon. These are all, like go to Google Maps, you can find all these businesses operating in our neighborhoods. And again, to me, every time I vote on something, I wanna try to be consistent as possible. And so if I'm going to ban STRs and call them a business and say I'm just going to ban all businesses, then we've got a lot of other things we need to visit, revisit, individuals that are running businesses out of their homes. And so, yeah, I mean, all those to say I completely understand the concerns. I would have the same concerns living close to a rental, as I did. But at the end of the day, I still have to balance that with the rights of a property owner. I think putting these regulations in place is a good first step. Right now we have no clue how many are out there. We've heard of the issues that some have caused. Some probably haven't caused any issues at all. I mean, we're not making it easier for them to exist, I don't think. I believe we're adding regulations. They have to come get a permit. At least then we're aware of where they are. There's parking requirements. There's maximum occupancy requirements. So there's other regulations we're putting in place. I think part of that part of this is there's been, I guess, a misunderstanding that we're like opening the door, you know, calling on short term rentals to come into town. I mean, I just don't see it that way. I believe that we're we're adding regulation, at least to help us get a handle. on what we have. And just like we do on so many other ordinances, we see how it goes for a while and we come back and revisit it. And I suspect we can do the same thing. We've changed code before, right Martin? And so I think this is a good first step And I think we can see, you know, how it goes from this point, and we can always adjust it in the future if we need to. So I do want to thank you, Martin, you and your team, for your leadership on this item. I know it's been a process. It's come to us multiple times. And so I appreciate your work on it. Thank you.

Anyone else? Yes, sir.

My mic's not working. There it is. I heard a lot from both sides on this. I know there's a lot of people here on one single side. And the conclusion I'm coming to is I don't know if the regulations necessarily benefit either side. I'VE HEARD THOSE WHO ACTUALLY OWN STRs, AND MANY OF THEM LIVE IN BAYTOWN. NOT EVERYBODY WHO OWNS STR DOES NOT LIVE HERE. MANY OF THEM DO. THEY SAY THE REGULATIONS ARE TOO STRICT. ON THIS SIDE, MANY OF YOU SAY THAT YOU WANT TO BAN. SO WHERE'S THE IN-GROUND? For me, you know, I'm comfortable with denying the regulations and just going with the SEP we have. However, if we're going to make amendments with the third option, then I think there needs to be further discussion to Mr. Arnowski's point to have a deeper and longer discussion involved with both sides of the conversation to where... EVERYONE'S VOICES ARE HEARD AND UNDERSTOOD. SO UNLESS WE'RE NOT GOING TO ADOPT THESE REGULATIONS, I WOULD LIKE TO TABLE THIS AND REALLY TAKE MORE TIME TO REALLY THINK ABOUT WHAT WE'RE DOING HERE AND TO MAKE SURE THAT ALL PERSPECTIVES ARE HEARD. I HEARD THINGS ABOUT DEED RESTRICTIONS. We don't impose your deed restriction. Just like you don't want your neighbors to force what they're doing and their residentials on you, there are people who bought their homes in certain parts of town knowing that there were no deed restrictions, knowing that their deed restrictions won't be imposed on on them, and that's why they moved there, because they didn't want to deal with deed restrictions. So there's that to consider as well. Bottom line, if bottom line is I don't feel comfortable approving these regulations, and if we're not going to opt back to the SUP, we need to take a little bit more time on the third option in making amendments to proposing regulations. A lot more time.

Anyone else? Yes, ma'am.

thank you all for coming and you know I think from what I heard from y'all and what I've heard within my community I feel like you that we've heard from both sides the other side may not be here but they have voiced their opinion and you know I'm having to agree with council member Powell as well but You know, when you look at it, a rental home is also a business. I mean, you could rent it for a year. Some people move out in six months. You just don't know the life of an individual, the life of a family. They think they're going to be there for the long run, and they're going to end up having to leave after six months. So people make it a business, and they have bought multiple homes. I have some of those in my district where... There's one landowner or one landlord, and he has three, four, five properties throughout the city, and that is his business. And so for me, I don't want to delay the vote. I want to move forward with it today. We have had public input through planning and zoning, the number of meetings that we've had. So I think that we've had sufficient. People have written us. People have emailed us. And I think that we've probably spent more on this than some of the other issues that have come up. That may not seem like it, but it has. If there are any amendments, perhaps what we could do is ensure that the owner, and I don't remember if this is one of the items that we had, is that there are cameras on location to ensure that there are the number of people that are in that home. My family has rented beach houses and they have cameras and they do watch those cameras. One time my brother invited his friend and my other brother who rented the house got a phone call from the owner. You have an extra person there. They need to go. So whether it's cameras, whether if, you know, I know that we have... something a regulation on there is that if they violate something then you know they can't rent for a certain number of times but if they have violated and if they have been suspended for whatever two three times then could we then outright say you can no longer be an STR rental So there are options. I'm at least trying to meet in the middle. If that's something that y'all would want to consider, then we can do that or we can move forward with the policy set forward to have a third party regulate our STRs.

Anyone else? Yes, the youngest.

I'll round it up. Wow. I've heard loud and clear, I have several of my constituents in the crowd tonight, and I heard loud and clear that there's legitimate concerns. I agree with my colleagues that the proposed regulations do not make it simpler or easier to have short-term rentals. And I appreciated Ms. Jankowski's comments as far as the other cities that passed bans. They spent a lot of time reviewing, looking at data, getting statistics, and really researching it. And we haven't done that. But I don't want to spend the next two years with the process as it is now because I've heard loud and clear that the current process is out of hand. So the current regulations do add more restrictions. I heard one of the comments was, you know, well, some of these houses have been modified inside so they have, you know, that was originally a three-bedroom house, now it's an eight-bedroom house. One of the requirements is an inspection from building inspections and the fire marshal's office. That's not going to pass. So they'll have to go back to a three-bedroom house. So they would be limited to the number of people there. It also has restrictions on parking. I've heard that. That's something we discussed in significant detail, the parking issue. And I hear loud and clear, well, there could be six, eight, 10 cars, and I'll pick on one of my neighbors. My newest neighbor just moved in, and she's got three adult kids, and one of them has two adult kids, and all of a sudden it went from a three-car home to there's like six or seven cars there every day. But that's their family. But we have parking restrictions in this. Enforcement process, yes. It would be the ones or twos out there that we would have to go into enforcement. And there's punitive actions. If they're noncompliant and they get cited several times in a given 12-month period, they lose the ability to have their short-term rental for I think it's a year. They lose their permit. So they wouldn't be able to operate. So the bad characters can be weeded out. And then I had initial questions, well, how many do we really have in town? Nobody has yet to give me a number. Where are they located? Are they concentrated areas? Are they scattered? I don't know. And then the actual number of complaints on short-term rentals. We have the anecdotals that we have some that, yeah, I live next door to one. I complain all the time. but we don't have complaints. This proposal would allow us to gather that data and have some restrictions for the next year or so. I think this council has made it clear that they're willing to look at, okay, well, let's try this, and if it's not working, let's say eight months from now we get it back that we have, and I'm just picking numbers, folks, we have 100 SDRs in town, we get 10 complaints a week, scattered across town, and it's taken 300 hours or two people to enforce it, this council would probably go, okay, that's enough. Let's look at a ban. But when you ban something, that's a big leap from just enforcing regulations to banning. And I had an individual talk to me today that they were very clear that they don't like the idea of short-term rentals, but you better not tell me what to do with my property. So property rights are important. And before we go to a band and step on somebody else's property rights, right, you know, it's kind of like, if I look next door to this, I want you to step on his property rights. But before we do that, as a council, before we take action, we better know it's a real problem and not a perceived problem. And I understand there's several instances out here that it's a real issue for those individuals, but not for 100 or 150 individuals. I don't know. That's the point. This proposed ordinance would allow us to start collecting that data. And if we see that there's a real issue out there, I have no doubt this council will take action. But to just ban something, folks, that's a slippery slope that we're getting on real quick because what's next? We're going to ban long-term rentals? Let's ban apartment complexes. Let's ban purple cars. So again, everybody goes, that's ridiculous. It is ridiculous, but we have to be cautious. So that would be my issues, like party weekends and stuff like that. PD responds to it, whether it's a short-term rental, long-term rental, or whether it's a lifelong resident, they respond to those. So I would support the, and again, I agree, I don't think we need to delay. We need to get this so we get some numbers and data in front of us. I don't want to sit the next year discussing it. I want to take some action. If we need to come back in six months, we start seeing a negative trend, Believe me, we get phone calls from both sides of every issue. We'll be visiting with the city manager to bring this back and either tighten it up or look at taking definitive action at that point in time. But I would support the current proposal as it is just so that we can move forward and let's get it resolved. Mr. Brinkley.

I appreciate everybody coming out, and I appreciate all my colleagues, and I appreciate where you're standing. I appreciate that the data is very important. It is very important. And looking at it, I understand how we talked about that. That's something I thought about afterwards. There's the hot tax thing, right? You're losing $80,000 in hot tax. No, we're not. It's actually they're going to go rent a hotel, so we're still getting hot tax. That's kind of a wash on that one. But I think everybody knows kind of where I stand and how I feel about this. It is a very difficult decision. It's very difficult to look at people's rights, and I kind of go, hey, You know, in the 90s we banned people from smoking in restaurants, right? Where's your rights going and where's the rights of others? And it's very difficult. And it's very difficult for all of us up here on council, for everybody here to make this decision. And I do give credit that we're trying to go as strong as we can on these regulations and being as strict as we can. And I appreciate Mr. Taylor's comment from Burnett that, hey, maybe go to a week. Just something to stop these things. But I think everybody knows how I feel, which way I want to lean. But I feel for all the homeowners. I understand it. And for me, like I said, I looked up in my district. There's seven that I found that are renting. Five of them were owned by LLCs. Two of them are private. So for me, I understand that's a business. And it's very... For me, I'm looking at the ones that we said that have window units in their things. They didn't get permits for that, I'm telling you right now, right? That's not allowed. So we can also attack those and go, hey, you know what? You're going to have to reapply for permits for all this stuff. So there's things that they're going to go through. But for me, I don't think we need to be having short terminals at this time until we can definitively decide how this is going to be maintained, how this will be regulated, because we're in it for, right? IF YOU PUT REGULATIONS, YOU'RE GOING TO GO THROUGH THE CORE PROCESS. IF YOU BAN THEM, YOU'RE GOING THROUGH THE CORE PROCESS. IT'S THE SAME THING. IT'S NO DIFFERENCE. WE CAN SAY WHICHEVER WAY IT IS. BUT I APPRECIATE EVERYBODY TRYING TO PUT IN STRICTER REGULATIONS AND I APPRECIATE EVERYBODY'S STANCE ON THIS AND I UNDERSTAND IT. AND I APPRECIATE YOU ALL COMING OUT AND SPEAKING ON THIS. IT IS VERY DIFFICULT FOR THIS COUNCIL. IT IS VERY DIFFICULT. AND KNOW THAT WHICHEVER WAY IT GOES, It's difficult. But I'm not in favor of it. Everybody knows how I stand. I don't think we should have short terminals in Baytown. I think we should ban them.

I apologize, ma'am.

I can't. I APOLOGIZE, MA'AM. I CAN'T MAKE COMMENTS AT THIS RIGHT NOW. WE CAN TALK AFTERWARDS. BUT THERE IS A QUORUM. I REALLY DO APOLOGIZE ABOUT THAT, MA'AM. BUT PLEASE TRY TO BE RESPECTFUL OF EVERYBODY UP HERE AND ALL THOSE WHO ARE COMMENTING. SO THAT'S ALL I CAN SAY RIGHT NOW. EVERYBODY KNOWS WHERE I STAND AND WHAT I'M IN FAVOR OF.

SO WE'RE GOING TO GO AHEAD AND GET READY TO VOTE. I DO APPRECIATE EVERYONE COMING OUT TODAY. This is probably the most people we've seen in council chambers this year. And we always say we want people to be active. We want people to show up and let us know what they think. We want people to text, call, email us. And we've received all forms of communication. So thank you for that. After listening to my colleagues and everyone here, I'm going to say that Property owners' rights are very important. If we start that slippery slope of stepping on them, then where do we stop? On the flip side of that, we don't like being inconvenienced by our neighbors. When you start doing things that affect me in my home, outside of my home, I'm going to have some concern. That's why we have our fire department, our police officers, our paramedics for when those things happen. We are not here to vote on banning short-term rentals tonight. Am I correct?

The draft ordinance is not a ban on short-term rentals.

Okay, so the draft ordinance is either making amendments or to the SUP and moving forward with it. Am I correct on that?

I don't want to step on Mr. Scribner's toes, but the draft amendment... places regulations on short-term rentals. It does not ban them, and it does take the place of the SUP process. But I think Mr. Scribner can probably say a little bit more eloquently.

But that's what I want to clarify, because people were thinking we were voting on whether we were going to ban them or not. That's not what this was about tonight. That's not what this agenda item is about. It is not about banning.

STRs ultimately mayor I think that staff has tried to craft an ordinance that met the needs of Council and met the needs of those that we heard from during those Half a dozen meetings or so that we've held over the last few months. Yeah ultimately we can craft I mean, if it needs changes in your eyes, you can make certain minor changes to it tonight. But if it gets any more, I think, any more detailed or complicated, then we would want to take it back and rework it. But staff stands behind what's in front of you. I want to make sure, too, that if anybody took from my previous comments that enforcement was not an option, I didn't mean to give that impression. IT WILL BE MORE COMPLICATED AND IT WILL TAKE STAFF TIME, BUT IT CAN BE DONE IN EITHER CASE. BUT ULTIMATELY, AGAIN, WE'RE HERE TO PUT TOGETHER WHATEVER CITY COUNCIL IS LOOKING FOR.

GOT YOU. I THINK THERE ARE SOME MORE THINGS THAT WE COULD DO. MAKING SURE THAT IT'S A LONGER-TERM RENTAL. instead of one day. I've heard many times the suggestion of making it a week or more to lessen the opportunity for someone to come in and rent it just to have a party. There's no telling how many more we have in this city because I think you told a story of something not being listed, right? Yeah, there's some that are not listed. Yeah, so we're not going to corral all of those, but we can... TRY TO REGULATE LIKE WE'RE TRYING TO DO, THE ONES THAT WE KNOW ABOUT, AND HOPEFULLY IT WILL DISCOURAGE THOSE WANTING TO COME IN WHO ARE WANTING TO WORK UNDERCOVER. BECAUSE IF THEY'RE FOUND OUT, THEY'RE GOING TO BE CITED FOR IT. SO I THINK WE'RE READY TO VOTE. DO YOU ALL WANT TO MAKE ANY AMENDMENTS TO THIS? NO, THANK YOU.

NO MORE?

OKAY.

I'D LIKE TO INCREASE THE FEES.

SO I NEED A MOTION. MAKE A MOTION, WE APPROVE ITEM 8B.

SECOND.

ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. ANY OPPOSED? NAY.

THE VOTE WAS TO... THAT WAS STAFF'S RECOMMENDATION.

YEAH, THAT WAS... WHAT WE VOTED ON WAS ON STAFF... WHAT YOU SEE UPON THE BOARD IS STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS.

WHICH ONE? Yeah, that right there is what we voted on. Now, we are on to 8C. Consider an ordinance to adopt a fee for residential short-term rentals. Mr. Scribner.

THANK YOU, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. SO AGAIN, THE IDEA OF HOW THIS IS GOING TO WORK MOVING FORWARD IS THAT A THIRD PARTY CONSULTANT WILL LIKELY BE CONTRACTED IN ORDER TO HELP GET THIS UNDERWAY, HELP ADMINISTER THE PROGRAM, HELP ENFORCE THE PROGRAM. With, we believe, so we have not put in an RFP yet for that. That'll be our next step.

I cannot hear him over other people talking. It is very difficult for me to hear with all the other talking going on.

Can we keep all talking down while Mr. Scribner is talking, please? Thank you.

SO AS WE'VE LOOKED INTO CONTRACTING WITH A THIRD PARTY TO GO AHEAD AND DO THE ADMINISTRATION AND THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE NEW REGULATIONS, THAT IS GOING TO COME AT A COST. THAT COST IS PLANNED TO BE COVERED BY THE PERMIT FEE ITSELF. AND SO IN DOING SOME QUICK MATH WITH THE PROPOSALS THAT WE'VE HAD IN FRONT OF US, AGAIN, WE HAVEN'T PUT OUT AN OFFICIAL RFP YET, SO THESE NUMBERS COULD CHANGE A LITTLE BIT, GIVE OR TAKE. BUT GIVEN THE NUMBERS THAT WE'VE SEEN SO FAR, WE BELIEVE AN AVERAGE OF $350 PER YEAR PER SHORT-TERM RENTAL SHOULD COVER THE COST OF THAT WITH A PRETTY DECENT BUFFER TO THAT. SO THAT'S WHAT'S IN FRONT OF YOU TONIGHT, AND I'M HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS.

Comments or questions?

I say we add a zero to that, make it $3,500.

Yeah, go ahead.

Mr. Scribner, what is, I mean, we have permit fees to run other businesses in town, right? So like what would be, for reference, like put that in context, like what are some of our other, Do you know that off the top of your head? I'm sorry to put you on the spot.

It depends. It varies widely. It's a very long list of permit fees. It's kind of hard to make. We don't have anything else that's like this. There's no... I don't know of any other that are like per business. This is a special... kind of case. And so again, what we look at when we determine fees is recuperating our cost of administering the code. So in this case, that's exactly what we're doing. If it comes to a point where we're no longer using a third party to administer the code, we may adjust the fee up or down depending on what the internal cost is. As you know, we did increase our fees earlier this year based on a cost. A COST RECOVERY MODEL, AND SO THIS FOLLOWS THAT AS WELL.

OKAY. THANK YOU.

YES, SIR. I WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THIS IS AN ESTIMATE COST, 350. IF WE GO OUT IN RFP AND WE GET PROPOSALS IN AND THIS IS SHORT, YOU'RE GOING TO BRING IT BACK TO US TO BRING IT BACK INTO, OKAY.

YES, SIR.

I'M GOOD WITH THAT. YES, MA'AM.

But we can start off with this is what we would be willing to pay. I mean, we do that when we have other bids that they have to meet a certain amount. Right.

WHAT WE WOULD DO IS PUT OUT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS AND WE WOULD OPEN THOSE BIDS AND SEE, YOU KNOW, WHAT THE SERVICE IS, YOU KNOW, WHAT THE SCOPE OF THEIR SERVICE IS PROPOSED AND WHAT THAT COST IS. UNTIL WE HAVE THAT OFFICIALLY, I DON'T HAVE ANY REAL WAY TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION.

Yes, sir. Couldn't we just make it in 400?

We'll see. So, I mean, the 350 is to cover, of course, all of y'all's costs, right? But we also are going to have some costs like we've already kind of come up with. There's going to be some costs to enforce this. Police, fire, civil courts, all those other things. So, how much do we charge for a hotel permit?

For a hotel permit? I couldn't answer. I don't think we have a...

hotel permit per se. But for the inspections and everything, how much would you charge for all that to operate a hotel? I don't have that. Annually. How much are you doing apartments annually? I don't know off the top of my head. We kind of just discussed that in the work session before. I thought you might have it. Okay. Because for me, that's what I'm saying. We've got to cover not only the cost of the company that's going to regulate this and watch it, we've got to cover the cost of the court fees regulating it when we find the people that are not operating the STR doing all that other process. So for me... $3,500 is a good amount.

Well, the third party is the one regulating.

I get that, but the third party is not enforcing it. We are going to have to enforce it when they're not. The third party is not going to go through our civil court system. But court fees are going to come when it comes to the files for the court.

But what about the personnel fees?

The paperwork, all that. That's what he's talking about. The police that are going to have to go out there with these people. Are we subsidizing the enforcement?

WE'RE NOT HERE TO BREAK EVEN. WE'RE HERE TO MAKE SURE WE COVER IT IN ALL DEPARTMENTS.

OKAY, SO PROPOSED WOULD BE, IS 350?

THAT'S CORRECT.

OKAY, I NEED A MOTION.

MOTION TO APPROVE.

I NEED A SECOND. SECOND. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. ANY OPPOSED? NO. MOTION CARRIES. We are on to Ksenia Jenna. I need items A through J. Item 9C has been pushed. Does anyone want to pull any of these items for discussion? OK, SO I NEED A MOTION. 9C HAS BEEN PUSHED.

IT'S BEEN PULLED? MOTION TO APPROVE ITEMS 9A THROUGH J WITHOUT C. SECOND.

ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. ANY OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES. NOW WE ARE ON TO THE MANAGER'S REPORT. MR. REYNOLDS.

Yes. Oh, wow.

We can wait.

I mean...

I only have 20% hearing in my left ear, and I didn't want to have to share that with the entire community, but when they have been asking every time, my right ear hones into everything that's going in on this side. And so if we don't keep the quorum, I can't hear what y'all are discussing at all. And I'm trying to look at the audience and then look over here, and it is very frustrating for me.

Right now, I just see a white spot. So between your ears and my eyes and your ears, we're going to be jacked up right now. I'm about to be blinded.

Yeah, but I really would like to hold. I mean, you know, there's a lot of frustration on many sides up here, but at the very least, I would like the quorum held.

Okay, so how we can talk about that.

We can talk about that after. Yes, sir. Thank you all for the patience. I didn't want to highlight the employees with all the noise. I wanted to respect the employees and wait for them to exit. I also know that you couldn't hear. So thank you for the patience while they exited. I'd like to begin by recognizing a few team members with our fire department. Firefighter Dondreon St. Julian recently completed his associate's degree in fire science from Houston City College. Congrats on this accomplishment and keep up the great work. Firefighters Claudio Rojas and Jason Cochran were recognized by one of the charge nurses at the Houston Methodist Emergency Department for their above and beyond efforts in assisting with multiple critical patients while hospital staff was short-handed. So great work by those firefighters, and we appreciate all that you do. I don't know if we have any firefighters here tonight. Baytown's park, rec, nature, and tourism team is launching a new bird-friendly initiative as part of the Parks and Trails Open Space Master Plan. Those efforts, or these efforts, focus on protecting habitats, expanding education, and engaging the community to strengthen conservation across the city. By investing in these initiatives, Baytown is supporting wildlife while strengthening the connection between people, place, and the natural environment that defines our community. And look at Brent Doolittle with that photo in there.

A white ibis. I can't see. What is it? A white ibis.

Lastly, I want to give a special thank you to our Parks, Rec and Tourism Department, as well as all city departments that helped make the 4th of July celebration a success. I would also like to recognize the following team members. Jason Calder, James Moss, J.G. Giles, Dallas Bish, Blanca Rubio, Jose Barbosa, Mark Guzman, and David Alamia. Their work is often behind the scenes, but absolutely critical to an event like this. With America's 250th anniversary, thousands of residents and visitors enjoyed a celebration featured throughout the Houston region and promoted as one of the area's premier 4th of July events. It was wonderful to see our community come together to celebrate. I do appreciate all of you all showing up as well. Hope you all had a good time. There were a lot of employees out there making that come to life. And there were a ton of residents that showed up. And that was fantastic to see as well. Mayor and Council, I will also take this time just to say thank you. I know meetings like these aren't always easy. I appreciate y'all's patience and actually spending a lot of time with me before this to have in-depth conversations to make this somewhat easier to discuss because we knew that there would be a lot of back and forth and just want to say thank you for spending a lot of time beforehand so that I don't think people realize I'm just trying to highlight that now there's a lot of work by y'all on the back end before it even gets here. So that's all I have, Mayor and Council.

Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. Jason, I'd like to thank you for everything. I mean, I know there's you've been amazing on this. You've been you've been right down the middle. You're like, hey, You've tried to look at every angle to look for everybody involved in the community, and I appreciate all that, what you did for the community on that part. And also you too, Scott. I know you're getting a little backlash, but you did everything that you could, and I appreciate that.

Now we are on to Councilmember District Report.

Okay, I'll make this short and sweet. We had a couple little activities going on. Those going up and down 146 there at the Bayou. You probably noticed the CMEX construction materials area. They're adding about a 1,200 square foot shop. That's in the process. Cedar Bayou Junior High has got a remodel project going on. Youth Judo and Jiu-Jitsu. I'm sure the chief is probably playing with that. Classes began this month at the Roseland Clubhouse in District 6. volunteers from the Girl Scouts. I wish we'd had the crowd here tonight. Volunteers from the Girl Scouts are going to help clean up Roseland Park. I believe this Saturday, July 9th or 11th, excuse me, July 11th as part of the Baytown zone going efforts to keep the parks clean and welcoming. ExxonMobil engineering interns also participated with the city to assemble monofilament fishing line collection bins. And a lot of people think, why do you need that? If you've ever been fishing along the bayou or anything that's got rocks, at least when I go fishing and it's that way, The line gets tangled up, and I'm stripping out 40, 50, 60 yards of monofilament line, and it lays out there, the birds get in it, the fish get in it, so it's good that they've got designated trash bins or whatever for that now. Pipe flushing along Pagan Drive to ensure the stormwater... drains sorry about that i guess that's my cue i need to open that water bottle for you yeah drainage gets me yeah it's i feel the flood coming uh pipe flushing operations on pecan drive to keep the storm waters flowing that's always good capital improvements east district plant phase one is finished Phase 2 is on schedule. And the James Street lift station, again, they're moving all the electrical up to the same height as the generator and everything to make it more storm-worthy. And that's the end of the report, Mayor. Good deal.

Well, I'm going to go through my library through the end of the month. That's what everyone out there stayed for. I see Jeff smiling. Yes, so today's the 9th. We're going to start with tomorrow, 10 a.m., Friday morning, book club, 11.30 a.m., adult coloring. On the 13th, 10.30 a.m., baby time, 2 p.m., tween Lego play. 10.30 a.m., pre-K story time. 6 p.m., teen art night, dinosaur egg resin molds. On the 15th, 10.30 and 11.30 a.m., Bilingual Storytime, 2 p.m., Explore the Wetlands, 6 p.m., Adults 3D Printing Class. On the 16th, 10.30 and 11.30 a.m., Toddler Time. On the 17th, 1030 a.m., Tech Morning, 3D Printing, Virtual Reality, and Robotics. On the 20th, 1030 a.m., Baby Time, 2 p.m., Tween Story Explorers. 1030 a.m., Pre-K Story Time, 6 p.m., Teen Game Night, Mario Kart. That's always fun. The 22nd, 10.30 and 11.30 a.m. Bilingual Story Time, 2 p.m. Outdoor Play Day, 5 p.m. Tech Night 3D Printing and Virtual Reality, 10.30 and 11.30 a.m. Toddler Time, 5.30 p.m. Jewel Sun Catchers. On the 27th, 10.30 a.m. Baby Time, 2 p.m. Tween Beaded Pen Craft. pencraft 10 30 a.m on the 28th pre-k story time on the 29th 10 30 a.m end of summer foam party on the 30th 10 30 and 11 30 a.m toddler time and on the 31st summer reading ends 5 p.m to 8 p.m team takeover survivor edition that sounds like a lot of fun uh maybe a little violent Team Takeover. It is?

The videos that the library put together to promote these different programs are hilarious.

Really? We have to go check them out then. So stop by our library. Vote at the second best library in the nation. We say it's the best library in Texas, in Baytown, in Harris County. Do I have any objections to that? Not at all.

Because of your reminders, I took my grandson today to toddler time.

That was awesome. I told him the mayor sent us.

Did he get his library card?

Not yet.

Okay. Well, we're waiting on him to get his library card. I don't think there's an age on that. There you go. There you go. Having adjourned everything on his meeting, having taken care of everything on his meeting, we now adjourn it at 9, 10 p.m.

Thank you.