City Council - Regular Meeting

For City of Belton, we're going to be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by Councilmember Stephanie O'Banion. Then the Pledge to the Texas Flag by our HR Megan. And finally, an invocation led by Councilmember Pearson. Please stand.

Please join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag, 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 Texas flag.

I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.

Pray with me. Father God, we come to you in Jesus' holy precious name. So thankful for another day on your earth and in this place. And Father, we pray for all of our first responders and all of our service members who are downrange. And Lord, we ask that we'll be done and that peace be restored as much as it can be before your second coming. We ask, Father, for your wisdom to be with us this night and that all that we think and say and do will be pleasing to you in process and in product. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. With that, we'll call the meeting to order at 531. The first item on our agenda after call to order is public comments. If anyone wishes to address the council on any item in which we have a purview to be able to input that or to help with that, we welcome you to come and speak. Three minutes per person. I have one person who signed up, but you don't have to sign up in order to speak. The first person I have is Marshall Cabrera. And if you could come and name an address for the record.

402 Poison Oak Road, Temple, Texas. And my name is Marshall Cabrera. I'm here to give you a complaint over the unlawful.

Thank you. Thank you.

Here to bring a complaint to you guys' attention for the unlawful enforcement of Texas Transportation Code 551. In Texas Transportation Code 551, it states the codes and where they are enforceable for bicycle operators. Belton has been enforcing these codes where they don't apply, like residential streets. And Texas Transportation Code 551.001 states that they apply only on a highway or a path set aside for the exclusive operations of bicycles. The term highway or street located in Texas Transportation Code 541.302 is an invalid term. The valid term would be public highway and has a meaning assigned by Section 2.001 of the Texas Transportation Code. It states this in Subsection E of Texas Transportation Code 551. And 551.451 gives you the term and 551.457 states that if there is conflict in law that subject or G is to control. This includes vocabulary terms making the term highway or street invalid. In Texas Transportation Code 551.202, it uses the term public highway and makes reference to Texas Transportation Code 551.001. The term highway alone does not mean public highway. If you say it does, I'm going to say no, it does not mean, it does not, it means limited access or controlled access highway or private highway, but it doesn't. The term highway by itself means a state, federal, or U.S. highway, and that term does not include farm-to-market roads, city-county roads, municipal or residential streets. I have been harassed and jailed multiple times in the year 2023 and over this and sat in Bell County Jail for two years as well, and was given a directed verdict in trial from charges in 2023. I had a motion to suppress hearing, and the last thing the arresting officer said was that he was enforcing Texas Transportation Code 551, and the motion was denied. I was not on a highway or a bike path. Judge Liepak did not acknowledge this, then went to trial and was still acquitted. The officers at that time that were enforcing this were aware of the code. And professionally, Lieutenant Hamilton referred to the active community as meth heads and the women I was walking with as Bigfoot. The officer Carolyn Yarborough, who is now a detective, denied all accountability of his actions before and during trial. Selective unprofessional conduct and enforcing codes unlawfully is not an honest mistake. It is racketeering, and it's still a problem today, and they need to be held accountable for it, all of them. By hearing this complaint, I'm requesting an investigation of the facts. The case tracking ORI is TX0140200. The trial tracking number is BPD23002094. And the docket number is 23DCR88737. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Just for your information, this is a public hearing, and we heard your comments, but it is not legal action, so there's no legal action that we'll take. If there are any formal complaints or judgments you seek, you're going to have to go a different route, and I assume you'll have to go to the city. Who's the contact at the city?

The police department has an investigation procedure? Yes.

Okay. All right. All right. All right. We've got to staff. So thank you very much. Anyone else wish to make a comment before we move on? All right, the next item on the agenda is our consent agenda items. 3 through 6 may be enacted by a single motion. If any council member wishes to remove any of these items for separate deliberation or consideration, they may do so. I will read these items into the record. The 1st, 1 is adopting the minutes of the June 9, 2026 council meeting. item four is approving ordinances on second reading granting franchises to the following companies to operate maintain non-emergency ambulance services within the public streets and highways of the city belton acadian ems and baylor scott white ems Item 5 is authorizing this signature to execute a street use license agreement with Dominica Garza to allow for a food truck to be located at 108 North Pearl street on intermittent basis. And item 6 is adopting a resolution authorizing the award of a contract to quality construction for the construction of 1 house as part of the home program grant awarded by Texas Department of housing and community affairs. If anyone wishes to remove 1 or the council, or the chair would entertain a motion.

I move we approve items 3 through 6.

A motion to approve items 3 through 6 any other comments or discussion. All in favor say, aye. All right. All right. Those opposed. Passes 60. Item seven, receive a present consider resolution in the belt in 2026 to 2036, parks, recreation, trails, and open space master plan. Mr. Grant.

Most of this is what you're seeing.

You've seen it many times. So if it's okay with you, I'll go through it rather quickly. And if you have any questions, just okay.

All right.

The vision that MHS Planning and Design, who are with us tonight, by the way, put together for us is... It gives us an outline of where we're at, what our community thinks we should be in the next 10 years. But what it doesn't do is this plan does not commit us to anything financially. That will come through our normal budgeting process. So as you go through this plan, we're not committing ourselves to anything financial tonight. Process started image just planning design started this back in October. See staff started this back in May of 2025. so it's been over a year working on this. So, like I said, I'm glad to get to this point tonight through this entire process. We're at the adoption phase here in June. Following this, um. If it's adopted, it will then go on to the implementation stage. Parking inventory. This map right here is what I want to talk a little bit about. Part of the plan gave us an idea of where we're at as a community. The green is telling us where we're meeting or where we're exceeding trends. And so as you can see, the council has done a great job of investing in our park system where we are already exceeding trends. The white is telling us where we're currently meeting trends. And the red is where we're lacking and where we need attention. As you can see, the tennis courts and swimming pools is where we're lacking. The public engagement, we took a very aggressive approach with MHS and ourselves as city staff in trying to get as much public input as we possibly could. As you can see, we had more than over 2,000 people reached out. We even stooped so low as to bribing people to take the survey. And it worked out really well. We gave them a yo-yo, which was a huge hit. I was hoping to get around 600 or so surveys. And we, of course, surpassed that with almost 900 surveys through that process. So I think that was very successful. Well, the results of the survey here are a couple of options. We'll go through them really quickly. One of the questions was where do you reside? As you can see, the majority of the people that took the survey We're residents of the city of Belton and in the Northwest quadrant, that green section, that's where the majority of them were from. Other things that we asked in the survey was how often do you visit? Over 60% of our community visits our parks on a month or more. And then what parts of your primary visit, no surprise that the most visited park is Heritage Park. And this one is an interesting question is what is it that prohibits or prevents you from coming to the park? And shade was the number one on that one. It's just too hot sometimes. And so shade is a big one on it. But two of the other things I want to point out on this one is 92% of, I believe, parks are well worth taxpayer money, and 84% would support a bond if we were to acquire more parkland and things. So that's interesting as we look to try to figure out how we're going to fund this. I'm not sure that that will ring true when it comes to the voters, but that is what we're seeing right now. The next thing you ask us to do as part of the master plan is an indoor feasibility study for orexin. It was ranking pretty high on the survey, so we did that. MHS Plan Design put together a feasibility study. You'll see that's the Appendix A in the master plan. What I want to point out here is... what MHS is recommending we do. And it's over the next several years, they want us to, I think we should, continue to look at ways of incorporating indoor recreation in facilities that we already have. The Hare Center and, of course, now we have the Belton Public Safety Center. We'll continue to address that. But they're recommending that within the next five years that we actually look at the feasibility study. By the time we get to the end of the plan, we'll be behind the eight ball on whether we have a rec center or not. So it's feasible that we might want to look into that sometime around 2030 or so, if not sooner. And then if we do decide to go after that, they ask us, we should go out for a grant for that. The plan gave us a number of recommendations as it all shook out playgrounds, trails, and shade. As you can see the list, that's the priority list of what the plans tell us we need to work on over the next 10 years. Um, it's curious on this particular one, if you go back to where playgrounds ended up being number one, if you look at this one, you can see up here that we are exceeding playgrounds by 13, 13 playgrounds. So we're doing really well in that area. So that brings us to, um, did I go right here? What we're seeing here is an emphasis on updating our aging play equipment, not necessarily adding new playgrounds, but making sure what we have is being maintained well. You can see in that one that the updating aging equipment is a recommendation. Ensure the park systems are well maintained and enhance the sustainability of parks. All that's speaking towards making sure that we're taking care of what we already have. And of course, you can see the other option in here or the other recommendation in here is shade and getting more recreation to the indoors. That has come up high in this. Part of the plan puts together a recommendation implementation schedule, and it went through a lot of Every one of our parks. And it went into great detail in telling us, here's a schedule that you can use. If funding becomes available, here's what you can do with it. So they went through every one of our parks, said these are areas that you could add equipment or increase, improve what you already have, and then they broke it down in the cost. So they went through a lot of detail on getting us through that, which takes us all the way through the entire 10 years through this plan. So if funding becomes available, we know exactly what we need to do. The next steps, what we have before us now is during the month of May, we spent all of that doing review through the parks plan. In June, I took the plan to the parks board and presented it to them, and it was recommended that we send it on to city council for adoption, and it was a unanimous decision from our parks board. So we're here today presenting it to you for adoption, and then once, if it's approved, it'll go on to MBC. submitted to Texas Parks and Wildlife, which is what we have to have if we expect to get grants. They have to have this on file. So we'll do that. And then in June, we'll start implementing it, which is what I'm really excited about. But like I said earlier, MHS Planning and Design is here tonight. And I'd like to pause right now if you'd give me a chance and let them come up to the mic and just say a couple words before we move on. Is that all right? Yeah. I'll turn it over to you guys. This is Hunter and Zach from MHS Planning and Design. This is their handiwork.

Certainly. Can everybody hear me? Mayor, council, staff, thanks for having us tonight. It has really been a pleasure. As James has said, my name is Hunter Rush with MHS. senior planner with the firm and project. And well, he's a project manager. I used to be in that position, I guess, and really enjoyed being a part of your community. You know, you really welcomed us in to your parks and to your community. And so we're thankful for that. We're thankful for you for trusting in us. You know, we went through an RFQ process and through that process, you know, we've worked with your staff closely. So I really want to thank all the staff because it was been a joy really working with them. There's been, Over a year, there's a lot of emails and a lot of phone calls and a lot of meetings that go through. And so same with the Parks Board, working with them, it was great. And overall, we do think great plan. And, you know, if it's followed within reason, I think a lot of great things can happen. And I look forward to any other future opportunities to work with you all again. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. It's great to see you all again. My name is Zach, and like Connor said, I was the lead planner working on the development of this Parks and Recreation Master Plan. As James mentioned, we've been working on this plan for the past 10, 11 months, but I know it's been working longer than that. And so I'm just really excited to share our finalized Parks and Recreation Master Plan with you all today. I also wanted to just thank City Council, Parks Board, City Staff, and the overall community for assisting in the development of this Parks and Recreation Master Plan. We received a lot of community feedback during the development of this plan and that really helps us ensure that the plan is developed around the community's vision. It's a 10-year plan and so we want to make sure that what we're hearing today is stuff that we can still continue to implement over this next 10-year period. Um, and then I did also want to know just from our time working in the community, it became very clear that your community is very passionate about your park system. They're really appreciative of what you guys have and, um, the parks are well utilized. And so we were really just excited to see the park system continue to be improved over this next decade. Um, so once again, I just wanted to thank you all for letting us have this opportunity to work with you guys. So thank you. Thank you.

With that, uh, it is our recommendation that, uh, We'll send it on to you to adopt the resolution for the 2026-2036 Parks and Recreation Trails and Open Space Master Plan. And if you have any questions for me or MHS, we're happy to answer those questions.

Thank you, James. Any comments or questions?

I'm proud of our park system, our expansion. Heritage Park has just been amazing. I'm also really proud of our neighborhood parks. We have a lot of little bitty small parks that are so well maintained, have good equipment, and are used quite a bit. And to see that the lack of shade was the top issue for keeping people from attending a park at 27%, maybe we can get some umbrellas or something like that. help out with that, but not too bad. And it would be pretty easy or in a few years to go to the community and say how interested are you in a rec center, and put that to a vote and fund a bond and do it that way, which would be pretty sensible and probably the right way to do it. So thank you for your work, Lover Park. I've forgotten, but the amphitheater at Heritage Park has kind of been a little dream of mine. And nothing big other than just terraced seating with dirt and grass and power down there where somebody could play some music or have an event or something would be absolutely amazing. So excited. Huge commitment a few years ago to expand Harrisburg Park. Texas Parks and Wildlife has been a huge... the supporter of our community and parks, and I hope that continues. And just thanks for all the work. And the parks board as well. Amen.

All right.

Chair would entertain a motion. We have a motion and a second to approve the resolution adopting the City of Belton's 2026 to 2036 Parks, Recreation, Trails, and Open Space Master Plan. And I'll echo what John stated about our parks. It's really been amazing because it's, you know, again, I'm getting older every time I look in the mirror. But really, since the 80s, we really didn't have much of a park system. We had Leon Golf Course. You really couldn't get to Yeti Park. It was really grown up around Nolan Creek. And so there's really limited things. Beale Park is like the only thing I could think of that was out there. But ever since the 80s, When we did that, when we partnered with the school district with Chisholm Trail, as we started working on the hike and bike trail along Nolan Creek, we've really become a magnet for BISD, which is West Temple and the unincorporated areas along with Belton, for people to come to congregate. And it's really been great to see us be kind of the focal point of parks. Even though there's some larger parks, I think Belton is probably known more for Our parks just being community. So again, I thank you for everyone who is involved. Thank you for your input. I think it's something that's exciting to continue to take us to the next level. Any more comments before we vote? All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Passes 6-0. Thank you. Item 8. Consider an appeal to the 500-foot separation for a short-term rental at 816 North Beale Street. Ms. Tina.

And thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilmembers, good evening. All right. So you guys know we acquired a new system, Granicus, to help us identify some non-compliant STRs that we're working to get into compliance. So this is one of the ones that was identified in the system. This was established shortly after we adopted our STR codes in March of 2023. So it does not currently meet the 500 foot separation. There are two other STRs that are nearby. The closest is off of North Wall Street at 445 North Wall Street. And you can see faces of different orientations on the street, different roadways, adjacency. The next one that is closest by is off of 919 North Wall Street. I'm sorry, the first one was not 919 Wall Street. Maybe it was. Maybe it was. I apologize. The next one that's nearby is within 490 feet at 919 North Wall Street. The other property, as you can see, is quite a distance. It's almost meeting that 500-foot separation requirement for it. Since there has been three years of history on this, staff contacted the police department to see if there was any complaints during that time. They had for the last two years, and there's been no service call to this location within that last two years for this property. this is what the str looks like at the moment and because of the orientation for the streetway and also the almost 500 foot separation for the other properties staff is recommending approval for this str variance um that concludes my presentation i'll be happy to answer any questions that you guys have i believe there is a representative paul crane here as well if you have any questions for him as well okay

This is not a public hearing, but if council has any questions, they may ask it. Any comments or questions from the council or the chair would entertain a motion.

Given the dispersion and the fact that they are on two completely separate streets, which mitigates the traffic issue and the fact that there have been no complaints, I would recommend that we approve this request.

Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve the appeal for the five foot setback on the 816 North Beale Street. Any other comments or questions before we vote?

I have more of a question or comment. How many of these do you think we should see before we revisit the policy? Lots.

We have two more in the works that's coming up in another council meeting. And I do have some data for you. What started this back in February 3rd, there were 34 that were identified as noncompliant. Since then, we worked, we have 21 that have registered and are compliant. We're still working on a couple that is going to the municipal court for failure to register. So it's an ongoing process. And we're getting new applications as they come in too.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, I think the two mitigating factors for me. One is it's the railroad. I assume that's the railroad track. Yes, sir. Yeah. So and then it's on a different street. So it doesn't feel like it's the same same specific neighborhood. So I don't have a concern. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed. All right. Passes six to zero. Item nine. Hold a public hearing and consider a zoning change from commercial highway to planned development commercial highway to commercial two. on approximately 20 acres located at 5353 South Highway 35.

And thank you, Mr. Mayor. This property in question is located on Interstate 35. It's on the east side of the roadway. It's south of Shanklin Road and north of the Limpasas River. This zoning change is for ASCO equipment to relocate from their current location to this subsection due to the impacts of the I-3514 widening project. With that, ASCO is proposing, similar to what they do right now, they sell, rent, and provide parts and services for heavy equipment rentals. So they're proposing to do that for this property. This area was annexed back in 99. And it was later zoned in 2012 to commercial highway. A portion, again, was later rezoned to planned development commercial highway for an RV park that never came into fruition. ASCO is looking for a commercial two zoning to allow for, by right, what they're currently using it for, would be using it for equipment rentals and sales. The future land use map has this as commercial and retail. Belt and water and sewer is available at the site. Property owner notices were sent out to property owners within 200 feet. We did receive one letter of objection, and that was in protest because of the additional traffic on Toll Bridge Road. There would be a nearby elementary school, and it would bring large trucks and added traffic on Toll Bridge and change the setting of the neighborhood that they currently enjoy. additional complaint about lighting. Lighted parking lot was also expressed. Planning and Zoning Commission heard this at their meeting on the 16th and recommended approval of the requested zoning change and subject to the following development must comply with the commercial to zoning district development of each of the property shall also conform to our design standards. That includes a site development, landscaping, and tree medication. A final subdivision plot, which is currently under review, also must meet all of the city standards. With that, I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have. Also, representatives are here. Should you have any questions for them as well?

All right. Thank you, Tina. This being a public hearing, we will close deliberations and open the floor. So if anyone wishes to speak in favor or against this item, now is your opportunity to do so. Please limit your comments to three minutes. The floor is open. There being no public comments, we will close the public hearing and reconvene for deliberation on item nine. Council.

excited they found a place and uh down the highway and remain in our community what a great community partner business and we are glad you're staying absolutely i would echo that asco does a lot for the city and that is noticed by us and by the community members and so i'm very excited that y'all are staying in belton

I'm glad that spot stayed open. We were looking for highest and best use. This is the highest and best use. This is exactly, I think, what council and staff probably couldn't wish for more.

Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve the zoning change on 5353 South Interstate 35. Any other comments before we vote? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? All right. Passes six to zero. Item 10, public hearing and consider a zoning change from agricultural to planned development light industrial on approximately four acres located at 8632 Amity School Road at the southwest corner of South Interstate 35 and Amity School Road. Ms. Moore.

And thank you again, Mr. Mayor. This property is on the other side of the highway, on the west side. It is south of Dillard's Road and north of Amity Road, just south of the Amity School intersection of 35. The applicant is looking to subdivide the property. A portion of it, the eastern portion, will be sold to Wolf Construction for expansion of their facility that's currently there. An existing resident is on lot one that the applicant resides at. The PD would allow for the existing residents to remain and also allow for a future possibility of construction using that for light industrial use in the future. the applicant is also considering selling that portion to wolf construction so also the reason why for the light industrial zoning district over there i just want to show the aerial as you can see north of this property wolf construction already has a facility over there again this is to expand their operation on the southern side and this area was annexed into the city back in 2000 and was zone agriculture at that time So this is near other light industrial zoning, including the property that was recently purchased by the Belton Economic Development Corporation for Future LI. Also, the Salado Business Park is south of here. The Future Land Use has this as a commercial retail area. Staff is recommending an amendment to the flume to see this as a light industrial area as well. So here is the flume that currently is. As you can see, that's the only red area. Part of it's the only red area. Everything else around there is purple for light industrial. Notices were sent out to property owners within 200 feet. We did not receive any letters of opposition or support for this. This isn't a Belton CCN for water and wastewater. However, we currently do not have service down that location. This was heard by the Planning and Zoning Commission on the 16th, and they also recommend an approval of this zoning change as well with the following condition. Development must comply with the LI district. The existing residence is permitted. Amendment to the future land use map to designate this as industrial recommended. A final subdivision plat is required for approval. And civil plans and building plans in compliance with our adopted standards required for any future development. With that staff will be happy to answer any questions that you guys have. And the Washburns are also here. Should you have any questions for them as well?

All right. This being a public hearing, we will close deliberations and open the floor for anyone who wishes to speak for or against this zoning change. There being no comments, we will close the floor and reopen deliberations. The council.

I feel like it. Oh, go ahead.

The platen is administrative.

Yes, sir. It will be amended. Okay.

I'm just going to say it seems like another great use for available property, and I would like to propose approving agenda item number 10 as presented. Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve zoning change from agricultural to light industrial or planned development light industrial on the 4.3 acres on I-35 school road. Any other comments? All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed? All right. Passes 6-0. Item 11, hold a public hearing and consider a residential replat for the Anderson Belt addition comprising one acres located at 911 West Avenue B. Ms. Tina.

Thank you again, Mr. Mayor. As you can see, this property is south of FM 93 or 2nd Avenue. The applicant is proposing a replat divide this into lots. The lot number two, as you can see, is a flag lot. Per our zoning requirements, The flag lot, the panhandle, the flag area must be 25 feet wide and has a depth of 110. The lot that's proposed exceeds that currently. Actually, it's only 20 feet wide and 199 feet deep. The applicant is subdividing this so they could give lot two to their daughter, and she will be installing a home over there. This property zone single-family two with a CR overlay, so it does allow for the installation of a manufactured home to be allowed in that area. Water and sewer are provided by the city. The applicant has two options when it comes to sewer. The distance from the public street, they have an option to either put in a septic or they can do the sewer with a grinder pump to help extend that service line to the street. The reason why that the flag lot is being requested, why there's a reduce of 20 feet instead of 25 is the applicant currently have a wooden deck that would encroach into that 25 foot area. So to avoid the deck being encroached into the access area, 20 foot was recommended. Drainage meets our requirements. Because this is only two lots, parkland dedication fees are waived for administrative approval. Fire access, fire department has some requirements for the access. The type of materials has to be all weather surface material. As you can see from this picture, there are some trees that might get in the way. So there's some clearance requirement for that. 12 feet of it must be accessible and height of 13. And again, the improved surface must be able to handle the weight of the fire. truck. With this, planning and zoning heard this replant on their meeting on the 16th and recommended approval for the following condition. It permits the proposed dimensions of the access strip for the flag lot and also waives the $200 for parkland dedication and the proposed driveway must comply with the fire department standards. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you guys have. An applicant is here as well as their representative is also here. Should you have any questions for them as well?

All right, this being a, we will close our deliberations and open the floor. If anyone wishes to speak, speak in favor or in opposition to this item, this is the time to do so. Does the applicant wish to speak. Okay.

Good evening, Ace Renaud with Mitchell & Associates, located at 102 North College Street. Staff has covered this project very well, and I want to commend them and thank them on behalf of us and the owner for working through this process with us and trying to come up with a viable solution for this family. Any questions beyond that, I'd be more than happy to answer for you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Anyone else wish to speak in favor or in opposition? All right, we will close the floor and reopen deliberations for the council.

I'll just say I'm generally not a fan of flag lights, but I think that with this location down on Avenue B where it's a dead end down there, and just kind of limited on what you could do with it if you weren't going to do it, I think that it's probably fine for the situation. I'll move to approve as presented. Second.

motion a second to approve uh item 11 i'll echo uh what what dave said i i'm not a big fan and i understand the concerns you know with family it's it's really nice to be able to do that with a family but what happens is a generation or two removed you now have someone who has a house behind a house and based on that look um i don't think we would be able to get an um If our ladder truck was responding, I don't think we would be able to serve them fire. Because of the roads, because of the width of the driveway, that fire will be a complete loss. And so I don't think it's the safest thing, especially it's tucked in there behind a lot of trees and woods. And again, I think fire protection is an important part of being in the city. So I'm personally concerned about this particular flag lot, just for the same reasons. The topography and the roads don't really lend themselves to good protection.

Did I miss or understand that the road needs to meet requirements of the fire department? Okay. That's what I thought.

Correct. The access road will need to meet the requirements of the fire department. So all weather surface is required for that. And also the width is 12 feet wide and the clearance, the height is 13 feet.

Okay. So.

It's the height of the utility wires.

I was looking at the utility wires. It looks like it's shorter than that.

Oh, they do. That should be the utilities. Well, I don't know.

Well, that anyway, that anyway, I'm just, I'm just thinking turning radius more. Yeah. You can have a T that has the width, but if you don't, I don't know.

They are planning on doing a little, um, like cul-de-sac bulb for turning radius, um, at that location.

So is that part of the, cause this is just a replat there is. Could you show us the plat again to show that radius?

It is not on the plat, but it is. I've seen it because we've been looking at the installation of the home with the contract.

I've understood, but on the plat, when we include that plat, that's what's applied. There is no radius on that plat. And so I do not believe that that radius will be sufficient for a fire engine to get to lot two. But what do I know?

I apologize. There is a caveat in there that says approved turnaround area suitable for a large emergency vehicle. That is in the staff report as well. That has that requirement for a turnaround.

So that'll be part of the...

The review process for the...

So that'll be before the certificate of occupancy that will have to be reviewed? Yes. Okay.

You could have them put those notes on the plan if you want to do that. I'm not saying... Yeah, yeah, that is... That's a requirement that you want added to the replat. You can do that tonight. They are on the plat.

They're on the plat.

All right.

Conditions on the plan indicate support 75,000 pound fire apparatus, surface of asphalt, create or other approved driving surface, minimum width of 12 feet, vertical clearance of 13 and a half feet. Okay. Within 150 feet of all portions of the structure, turnaround suitable for large vehicles. So all those are conditions on the subdivision plan.

Okay. Those are on the plan. Okay. All right.

Any other comments or questions before the vote?

Right. All in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, aye. Passes five to one. Item 12 is conduct a work session on fiscal year 2027 budget considerations, including but not limited to the following budgets or funds. Hotel Occupancy Tax Fund, TERS Fund, Information Technology Fund, Building Maintenance Fund, BEDC Fund. Mr. Fund himself. Roger.

The fund guy. Okay. Okay, so as you mentioned, Mayor, this is the last discussion for the preliminary budget. The next one would be bringing to you the proposed budget, and I'll have some news on that here in a bit. These are our internal service funds, as well as our special revenue funds and the Economic Development Corporation. So the first one of those that we can talk about is our hotel occupancy tax fund. As I always do, I like to show you kind of where I'm looking to end FY26. And for fiscal 26, we budgeted $596,000 of revenue, and it looks like we're going to come in about $100,000 less than that. I think the budget was just a little bit high. Expenses are running a little bit lower than we expected, but that's okay. Generally, $32,000 increase to reserves to get you to $1.2 million at the end of 26. So then looking forward to FY27, revenues are expected to go down about in total revenues, about $41,000. On an estimate to a budget basis, it looks like revenues should increase 14%, and that's taxes. But what that is is I'm increasing 7% over this FY26 estimate, plus then a flat $30,000 for additional revenue that might come in from short-term rentals. That's what gets me to the 14% increase. Event sponsorship is a little bit down. Interest is pretty much the same number. So on a budget-to-budget basis, there's a decline of $41,000 for FY27. On the expenditures, expenditures are expected to increase $21,000 over the FY26 budget. We're planning on moving about $50,000 from marketing to events, putting on events. So expenditures increased by about $60,000. If all of that happens as we planned, you would have revenues of $555,000, expenses of $545,000, slight increase to your debts of $1.2 at the end of FY27. Moving on then to our tax increment reinvestment zone, TERS fund. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yep.

I've got some questions. We do this. Yes. Yes, absolutely. So I have a few questions. Can you go to the expense side? It's a lot of expense in some vague categories called services and other. Can you kind of go over that? And then on the revenue side and some of the events? Yes. it's important that we're tracking that those events are drawing people to our community to stay in our hotels. So hopefully we're still able to track that so that we can tie that legitimacy to those expenses. Agreed. And so I'm just curious what all is in other and where do we dedicate funds to provide sponsorships to events that are bringing people

group big groups in to stay in the hotels where does that fall in other all of that is other expenses so essentially uh i call it other because i have another category The actual account title is sponsorships, I believe, or something like that. And so essentially all of the events that we put on and that we help bring in are at other expense category. The services that you see there is primarily marketing. There's a $100,000 marketing contract there that makes up the bulk of what you see there in services.

So can I come meet with you at some point and get a more detailed look at the other?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

I'd add real quick as well, because I think it's important for the event sponsorship side. We've actually reduced the expenditures for the city hotel motel funded events. So your B4, Crystal and Chittentrail, we've kind of gone and looked at that. You may remember the ice was pretty expensive. And so we're looking at some different options. But also for those that have been in their tourism roundtable group, We have put extra money in there to help with the expo ag-related events. And so we put in- That's what I wanted to hear. And we can show you that. Okay. That was very focused because we're trying to, we remember the shavings that the animals need, and we were trying to help bring some of those ag-related events. So that's in there, but we can certainly pull it out and kind of show exactly what- Well, I can get with you on that.

And then I think the drop in revenue is a sign of, But also the events from the Expo Center as well, and so not only has that been a hit to our sales tax that's been a hit to our hot tax as well, so just wanting to ensure that it may be in the other there was a focus on drawing. you know, really a focused, intentional recruitment of events back to our community or new events to the community, whether it's the expo or UMHB or wherever that's staying in our hotels. And we're actually able to track that.

Absolutely. And we do have the ability now with software to track folks coming in. And that's good.

To echo Stephanie's comments, I agree. I think one is the whole reason for that is heads and beds. I mean, that's the reason we're using that. We need to have an accounting of that. It shouldn't be other. It should be more specific to those areas because we are held responsible for use of those funds. And so I think having transparency there. And also echoing back to past, we had the Expo Center made a presentation during this budget item back in the day. And there was a level of accountability because part of our taxes go to the Expo Center. Part of our funds go to the Expo Center. I think we need an accounting from the Expo Center for this council. So whether this budget cycle, I think this budget cycle would be really good because we are significantly impacted by the lack of performance of the Expo Center. We yield a lot of property taxes to our non-taxable entities, including property. the county. And so there is a partnership there. And with that partnership, there is an ability. I guarantee you they would be visiting us or having us come to them if we changed our policies significantly that would impact their budgets. And so I think that we do need an accounting of the Expo Center and what their plans are going forward to mitigate the losses that we're seeing to our community.

Certainly. We can certainly put that together.

Thank you very much. Thanks. Yes, sir.

I believe. I totally agree with that. I'd love to see, as Stephanie mentioned, the actual events and how much is going to each event because of, you know, to see that if we're only spending $10,000 on this event and it's bringing in more people than the one we're spending $200,000 on.

Yeah.

It'd be great to see that.

We're going to put that together.

Not that tracking software work in mind. I don't see anything from that. Are we doing it? Turn that off for the 4th of July. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. We do an event report internally every time. So we have all of that data. I mean, that's been really helpful. Kind of almost to Luke's point about monies that we put into, you know, we put our largest events are the July 4th sponsorship that we give back through the chamber, but also Chris Luncheon Trail before those major events. And we have all those tallies going back. 2019, I think, as they can go back to, so.

That's attendance, or is that tracking hotel night stays as well?

It doesn't. Kind of. It's probably, yeah, there's a report they'll generate and they'll send us a tourism report each month that gives us, hey, estimated stays. And so it doesn't quite tie back to physically, you know, 20 beds. But it does kind of give us where people were visiting from. And obviously, if they're applying it over two days, we try to. hope that that was either through a hotel primarily or even now with an Airbnb or VRBO in our community.

I'd love to see some data on the 4th for the kickoff, the parade, rodeo, the party at the park or whatever that is.

We'll put that together. I'll tell you what, post 4th, we'll let it take a couple days after it for that. We'll send you a full report, all the events, all the attendance. It's pretty fascinating. Yeah.

And there's always been a big guess about the attendance at the parade. It'd be really neat to see another. Yeah.

Thanks. Thank you very much. Moving on then to our tours. Again, ending at 2026, a little better than we anticipated. Revenues are slightly down, but expenditures are under primarily facade grants are driving that. So we could end the year with just about $2.7 million of reserves in this fund going forward into 27. So what does 2027 look like? Again, I don't have certified values, but the preliminary values are about $478 million of captured value, which is almost an 8% increase over last year. So then when I apply a city tax rate, it's not going to be that. That's why that question mark exists. And then I use a county tax rate, which is the same as the current tax rate for the county. we end up with a $4.4 million of revenue coming into the TERS for FY20.

Do you have any idea what that increased value is? It's only 7.9%.

Yeah, that's actually half of what it typically runs.

Yeah, it's been 13 plus.

Yeah, it's been, but as you know, the entire tax, all the tax values, our total is going down 2.8. And so that's certainly going to be part of that as well. Yeah.

I've heard from some decent sources that the new software that the tax appraisal district is using is less than stellar and that these numbers may not be all that accurate.

Okay.

Temple's found some pretty significant holes where they missed some pretty significant things. So I think as we get closer, I think we'll be better.

I don't remember seeing Thurs put it down less than 13% since we've been doing it.

You're correct. So now looking at expenditures for the TERS, a few things are here that I want to point out. So you see here in services, there's this $250,000. The TERS board asked us to put $250,000 in its budget to do kind of an assessment of the utilities that are downtown and kind of just the feasibility of what would it take to start burying those kind of block at a time or street at a time, that sort of analysis. So we put that in the budget for FY27. Other expenses you see here, these are our facade grants all go under that other category. And the reason that's growing is I carry over that increases due to grants that have been awarded that have not yet been paid. So what I'm doing is maintaining an annual amount. I'm thinking 450 or some number like that. And then on top of that, I'm adding that obligation that we've awarded the grants. We're just waiting for them to do it and submit for reimbursement. So that keeps us from going short on our annual contribution or annual funding. So that's why that's growing. And then the big number in this budget is this transfer of $5.4 million that's going towards several capital projects, including Heritage Park, $1.9 million for Connell's 20% grant match. Toll Bridge Road right-of-way acquisition is another $1 million. And then there's 510,000 sidewalks along Strip 6th. That's also a grant match. So really good projects that are happening in the TERS in FY27. You'll see that more when we talk about our capital improvements program. So what happens then in TERS is fund balance would fall in FY27 from 2.7 to $822,000 at the end of 27, 13% of budgeted reserves. That's not all the money. Again, this money that I'm transferring goes into this capital project fund. I'd just like to show you the other money that's there for the TERS. There's $5.7 million, but it's all going towards these projects that you see here. Most of those are ongoing or near completion, or at least the sidewalk problem is complete. In fact, this fund is over-allocated, just out of the full disclosure. So I'm waiting on the money to put into 2027 to cover that allocation. But these are the projects that are ongoing in the TERS. Any questions on TERS before I move forward? Okay. Next, we get into our information technology fund. I'll have our IT director come up here. Picture mess there.

We got a spider's nest underneath this.

Oh, no. So for IT is doing a kind of in line with budget. We should end the year 26 at around $110,000 of fund balance. On the revenue side, revenues are expected to decline by almost $100,000 from $1.538 to $1439 million. And that is all based upon our cost allocation schedule, which covers then the project. So there's also a decline in the expenditure budget for IT by $124,000 from one budget year to the next. And that's really in this capital outlay category that you see there. You'll recall that we spent about $230,000. to upgrade our data center, all the software servers, et cetera, in 2026. That expense does not occur in 2027, so that's why those costs go down so significantly. At the end of the year, we might end up with a fund balance of 148,111 in this fund, about 10% of budgeted expenditures. Moving then on to our building maintenance fund, This one is in line with budget, around $215,000. We're going to use reserves in 2026 to get us to that $215,000 at the end of 26. But costs are going up in 2027, and I'll show you why, by $126,000. So revenues are, I'm sorry, and costs are doing the same. And that's because we plan on spending $97,000 on HVAC units in 2027. That's the way this fund is. It'll draw down reserves, build up reserves to use them for those kind of large capital items. That then takes us to where we might end up in 2027. We start with 215,000 in fund balance using about 68 to get us to 148 at the end of 2027, or around 24% of budgeted expenditures in this building maintenance fund. Any questions regarding our internal service funds before I move forward? Okay. Next, we go to our economic development corporation budget. Its board has approved the budget submission for you for 2027, where it looks like we might end 2028, starting the year at $5,776,000 in net assets, revenues of $3.7 million, right in line with budget, and expenditures slightly lower due to some projects that we didn't commence fruition. Essentially we would end up then ending FY26 at $8.6 million. Looking then at 2027, revenues increased 312,000 for a couple of reasons. One is again, I am estimating a 5% increase to sales tax revenue from 3.4 million to 3.6 almost. Charges for services increases considerably, about $120,000. That's for a rental income for our lease that EDC currently has with TH Belton Industrial for land at the business park. Interest income, I have increasing a little bit. That's primarily because our principal balance is increasing in 2026. On the expenditure side, Expenditures actually fall by $108,000. Primarily, this decline here from that $300,000, and that was the Economic Development Corporation increasing its match, increasing the match, contributing their money towards that on the Rockwell project. So initially, we did $500,000 to that project, and we increased it to $800,000 during FY26. There's also in this budget, this services account goes up by $150,000, $170,000. EDC is going to contribute $150,000, reimbursing the city for the study for the I-35 expansion that we're doing. EDC is going to reimburse the city $150,000 for that in 2027.

So we see picking up some legally or the consulting expense with half as well.

Yeah, that's that's what that is. I'm putting it in the engineering category, but that's that's what that is. So where EDC might end FY27, starting the year at $8.6 million. Again, that's unless something big happens between now and September 30. Revenues for 27, $4,062,000. Expenditures $1,139,000 for an increase of almost $3 million, $2.9 to $11.5 million at the end of 2027. So in addition to that, they do have also a capital project fund. And the cash balance when I prepared this was about $1.8 million. Most of that is allocated. I mean, most of that is unallocated, meaning it's not applied to a specific project at this time. But there are some very big projects going on. Rockwool is ongoing, and then this Capital Way Extension is another project that has money allocated to it. That's the last slide that I have for this preliminary budget. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Do you mind the first slide you had where it said the net assets, unrestricted net excess, or 5.7 million? For what? EDC. For EDC?

This one here?

Yes. What all is included in that?

That is, well, the easiest thing to look at in general is let's call it cash on hand. That doesn't include any, any assets. That's a different category of fund balance. That's not total fund balance. It's unrestricted fund balance. And so essentially that's the easiest way to look at that is cash on hand. Well, that's whatever little liabilities there may be.

So where, you know, When it comes to the property they currently own, where is that number?

That's just in its balance sheet. It doesn't show up in a budget because that is stuff that we spent in prior years. So it's just accumulating in the balance sheet.

But if they sell a piece of that, that money will then?

Correct. It would show up. We'd flow it through the income statement. So you would see the revenue come in and then at the end of the year, we'd reclass it and call it an asset or reduce the assets for that.

Okay.

but you would see the activity here.

Okay. I just, whenever I think of net assets, I think of all the property they own.

Yeah. One component. There is an inventory capital assets. It's not here.

Okay.

Anything else?

Any other questions?

Any other questions?

Again, I thank you for putting these together. I think it's really important that we realize that like the Information Technology Fund and the Building Maintenance Fund were things that we didn't have. We've added those so we can do kind of pay as usual. and not having to do bond elections and those types of things for these projects. So again, thank you for allowing us to work on budgeting that. On the BDC, I remember at one point, I think one of our biggest funds was just contract mowing for a business park that had mostly grass and not buildings. And so I'm glad that we now have buildings with people that are paying property taxes and employees that are here. So any other comments or questions before we end our work session on budget?

The one thing I forgot to mention is typically the first meeting of July is when I bring to you a proposed budget because of our budget. all of the balls that are up in the air with our declining values, preliminary declining values and all that sort of stuff. I'm going to push that back to the first meeting in August. So we'll get our certified tax roll at the end of July, by July 25 is the date. and then I'll be able to play with that and then bring back a proposal that has some realistic numbers in it as far as the attack rate to propose and things like that.

Do we have anybody on staff that's double-checking their work on items that are decreasing?

Items that are decreasing?

Yeah, I don't know. If they're saying that we're seeing decreasing values, are we spot-checking to say, show me a few? And they show, I don't know, each goes from $5 billion to $100. It's like, I don't think that's right. It shouldn't go from $5 billion to $100. What is this? I mean, just I'm talking about sanity check. I know some of our neighbors have started to spot check some big items, and it's being missed. So I wouldn't just assume that. Especially if there's some areas that they can tell you, here's the areas we're decreasing, it may be worthwhile to just look into it and not just assume. And I don't think that's a normal thing. I just think that they've had some software changes. They have. That has impacted the quality of the data that we're getting.

We gave a sniff test to our top taxpayers, top 20, I believe, or top 10, just to kind of look at that, to kind of get a feel for where we might be. We'll do some of that again. State law does limit me to get a little bit too far into their business.

Yeah.

But we can certainly look at those big guys and they kind of... We'll just call it a quality check.

We're not talking micromanagement. Because we have to... We have a fiduciary responsibility to set a budget based on accurate data. We just need to make sure we have... Any other comments?

I'll just mention that Mike is very accessible and helpful and has helped me a tremendous amount in the past. And so... Don't feel like it's out of line to give him a call. Spend some time with him.

He always answers the phone.

His desk phone, not his cell phone.

I'm here for you.

I'm here for you. They can't even do software. It makes me a little nervous, too. Yes.

If I could just add one comment about the schedule change that Mike's put together. We'll go through all the levers that are in the air, basically, that we've been talking about at the strategic plan session and the opportunities for some adjustments there, all the different challenges that we have. That will require a special meeting of the council. And so we're looking at September 15th for a special council meeting to bring back all the final elements for adoption. So just wanted to call that to your attention as well.

The original calendar had September the 8th as a regular meeting, but because I'm pushing it back a month before I bring you the proposed budget, we have to push that back. So September 15 would be our preliminary adoption date of budget, tax rate, et cetera.

Okay. And we'll send you out a revised schedule tomorrow. Okay.

All right. Lucky 13, receive a fiscal year 2027 to 2031 capital improvement program and provide input on projects and scheduling for inclusion in the 2027 budget.

Mr. Rogers.

Thank you, Mary. Now let's talk about our five-year CIP. So budgeting for operations where we've looked at just one year, but Our capital improvements program for these larger items, we have to look further than that. And so what is a CIP? And that's basically a framework for our capital needs. So what we'll do is we'll all gather together with directors and find out What do we see on our radar coming? Put some kind of preliminary cost estimates on that. We don't get an OPC for every single update, every single number. But we get a good feel for that because that helps me in planning for the future. And that's kind of why we do that. It makes sure that we implement the capital components of our strategic plan. And having a CIP is also a best practice for the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States. So again, how do we do it? we get together and just kind of survey the land. You'll see how this works in a minute with department heads, but much of your CIP is developer driven. So this is not set in stone for never to change. We'll add projects, look for funding sources for those things. But then every year we revisit that. And sometimes those projects have to be pushed back or sometimes they have to be moved forward depending upon development that's coming in the city. So big picture, for the next five years, we have identified over $100 million worth of projects that we need to get done in the next five. $40 million of that would come from bond issuance, most likely public voter-approved bonds, probably. I'm just kind of thinking that now. Very large amount from grants, maybe 26 million from grants. TERS is contributing 27 million over this five years for projects. And then there's 11 million from other sources. Other sources for me is primarily developer contributions. It's also money that I might have set aside already exists. I don't have to set it aside in the future, which is what that is. So let's get a look at it. So this is the general government side. We have public safety projects, parks projects, streets projects, $7 million. of projects, general government projects, took five years. 4.1 of that is public safety, the Miller Heights Public Safety Facility. This is rapidly reaching us in 2028. And kind of the preliminary plan here is to basically make Miller Heights Public Safety Facility into an operational facility of some sort. But in addition to that, We've got $9.6 million of parks projects. So we all celebrated James coming up and talking about our plan. And now we have to implement that. And this is all of the new stuff. So $2 million in 2028. Fairway Park is the park near Miller Heights Public Safety Center. So if we're going to issue bonds for the public safety facility, we might as well issue bonds for that and improve the park that's right there next to it as well. That's why I have that lined up in that fashion. We also have $64 million worth of streets and sidewalks projects. in the five-year plan. A lot of this that you're seeing here, you know about in 2027. It's your Connell, the $10 million Connell project. That's federal funding for that. Tollbridge Road, the $5 million you see in 2027 for Tollbridge Road is the developer contribution for that work that the developer has to do. We have some Wheat Road stuff in there, and we've got $2.8 million for We're calling it Mobility Improvements Along 6th. Again, that's sidewalks and things like that. Most of that project is grant funded. Some bigger things out here that you haven't seen before is this $8.5 million for Capital Way Extension from Grove to Shanklin. So on our southern side, as well as Southwest Parkway, Loop 121 to Mesquite. These would all be TERS-funded projects. So I have $78 million of projects. How do I pay for those things? So what I do then is start kind of putting things together and how might we fund things. Certainly this can change as we go along. We could get more grants than we anticipated or less grants than we anticipated. But what you see here is that top line there is essentially four bond issuances And it wouldn't that would not necessarily be for bond issuance as individual one a year but twenty point six million dollars worth of bonds For that seventy eight million dollars worth of projects again because most he's a lot are our parks type projects It might be best to go Voter approved bond geo bonds for that. I've got 27 million almost in grant fingers crossed for some things This is the federal $10 million is that federal grant that we have for Con-El. TERS funding is a huge number in this CIP, $25.2 million. And again, five is developer contributions that I have. While not the accurate numbers, What we also try to do is put in some operation and maintenance. Like if you build something, you have to put people in it, for example, or you might have other costs and that can go up or down. If I improve a road that I've always been maintaining, my O&M costs might go down in the future, not up. But so in each year you see 19,000, that's the amount, of additional O&M that might come from those projects. Again, not entirely scientific here. It's just to kind of get a feel for that.

Why would BDC be zero every year? Because they can do infrastructure projects.

This is the general government side. We just haven't allocated any funding to them. Doesn't mean we can't ask. I haven't allocated any funding there because it's known to me at this particular time, if that makes any sense. If I had a commitment of something X number of what, then I would have it there, but I don't have that. On top of that large number of general government projects, I've got another $26 million of utility projects to do in the next five years. You see some big things here.

Question before you dive into that. Is this supported by our current rates? Is this part of the rate study or would this necessitate a new rate study?

The utility projects? Yes. Unless it's something new that we've added, which is way out here in 2030, these projects we've kind of worked into the rate study. So it should sort of capture that to some extent. Either the debt service, additional debt service that might be required or pay go. So what we're out here is that wheat road stuff. So we're going to spend about $13 million to start mudder to the south side of the city, which is desperately needed. Here in the out years, let's see, let's see drainage projects. We have almost $3 million worth of drainage improvements to make it on the Turtle Creek and Shine Street drainage system. Big improvements to be had there in 2030. Looking then again, how do we pay for these things? So, bond issuances here, almost $20 million. Again, three bond issuances there. Here, EDC funding is a million in 2030 for their projects. TIRS funding, two. And again, 2.7 is that other stuff. That's probably some grant funding in that other column. So, what does that look like? I wanted to show you kind of projections of our annual debt service payments for this using just my plan of issuing bonds when we issue bonds and that sort of stuff. So what you see is the red is our existing debt service from 2027 to 2031. And you see that it falls from four and a half million down here to about 3.7. The black that you see here is the additional debt service that would go on top of that for those bond issuances in the next- Can you say all obligations, you're including, you're mixing the funds, general fund and utility funds? Yes, for this chart, yes. Because I just wanted to show you the total and debt service. It's about equally split between the two. General fund debt services shaped a little differently. But I just kind of wanted for the sake of one slide, I was showing that that's the total debt service.

It would be nice to see them separately so we could look at the revenue because as our tax base grows, the debt service rate can stay the same and have an increase in debt proportional to the tax days, right? So it'd be good to see kind of like, what is it? Somebody at 212 East 22nd Street, right? What does it do to them? Well, we can actually increase debt and don't have to increase any rates. Or go to- I understand.

We can certainly do that. I will say- and I'm not jumping ahead, not trying to simplify that. I'll get you that information. That's a great idea. I thought you might want that. I just didn't get to do it. With the amount of debt that I'm talking about here, it's not possible for us to stay at a level debt service for either one of these categories. It won't be named for each individually, governmental and utility. But I don't have that much debt maturing in this timeframe to not go up into total debt payments.

Yeah, there are two options. Don't go into debt is the other option.

Correct.

So where's the community input into this?

This is entirely...

My experience is when we get a CIP committee and we give them a list of the things we would like, we don't give them the things we're going to do. And we help, they work with us to help massage this. It seems pretty mature to not have citizen input to this point.

I'm sure we had that discussion in-house. And again, this is a... ongoing list that's been modified and adjusted as as times have gone on but we certainly recognize especially with the inclusion of the parks master plan and all the projects that are identified there the street projects that we've talked about that you plan session and other items you'll you will need community support for them so a cip committee is highly recommended for us to try to build community support for the projects that are identified here.

The challenge in any organization is you get focused on the day-to-day operations and you know what's needed to do the task at hand. But sometimes you lose, you get blinders on and you don't see the big picture. And the good news is we've got TERS with some funds. We've driven our debt down. I mean, we've done a lot of things. So we're paying as we go. So often we don't look up from the desk and ask. Should we do this? We just, we should do this and convince ourselves we should do this. And I think, you know, we could, I mean, the council could have policies to drive the rate down so low that we always have to go to the public to ask, which makes it really hard for staff to do the job, but it also makes sure we have the check and balance. I think we've kind of gone the other way. I fear that we've, we're using words like well i'm gonna we're gonna have to go into debt to do these things well you don't do those things um yeah i don't know this is just david's very conservative opinion selfie selfie um please yes um well i'll just echo into what david just said i think in the past we have had cip so if i'm hearing what you're saying that is some

intended, but you're also To your point, I think saying we're also kind of handing them what we want.

Here, could you stamp this for us? Because we already have a plan for it.

Yeah, I think it's valuable to have a working CIP just to try to have an idea of the projects that have been identified as needed. But clearly, we will need community support to proceed with these projects. And so putting a CIP committee together and identifying a task, a charge to them about what are seen by the council as the highest priority projects not spoon feeding but identifying categories of projects and identifying needs and then allowing that cip process to identify other things that might emerge as you say there certainly are maybe other things out there that are not in this list that might have a higher priority some of these might have a lower priority that we've talked about at the at the strategic plan session perhaps And so going through that process will be very valuable to build community support for the potential tax increase if it's bond funded and we need that, or to do more out of fund balance or whatever the mechanism is, BDC funding for some of the projects, TERS funding, multiple funding sources, but certainly a broad range of community interests that we hope to tap by meeting the capital improvement needs of the community.

Yeah, I think a lot of, again, I'm part of the group think. I mean, I've been able to see these, and I've been looking at some of these projects for years, and so it's like, well, it's just apparent this is what we need to do, but sometimes that's not the right thing. So again, for me, to think that we need to go do this and start looking at bonds as early as next year, I think that the graph here is probably a little aggressive, that some of these things that were already here in 27 and 28, but we probably need a I mean, I don't feel comfortable going forward to let's go borrow more money when we're looking at potentially a decline, property tax revenue, flattening of sales tax revenue. I'd like to have two data points to see is that a new trend or is that a bump before we go off and now – And so I think that we can probably have a higher interest rates. Yeah. Higher interest rates, which are, you know, it just, I, again, these things like Connell street, we've been working on that one. But I don't know the, the, the Miller Heights public safety. There's some things we could possibly do and just shifted here. Right. That park that goes with it, maybe shifts two years. Right. And maybe it's not at the extent that we currently. Right. So I think that we need to probably. be flexible in what's on the list and when it hits.

Right. Agreed. When we will see whatever the impact will be from the I-35.

That's right. That's unknown currently.

Correct.

And that may accelerate, depending on the impact, that may accelerate doing something at Miller Heights because we have to have public service on that side of I-35 during construction. And so those kinds of things may impact it, again, left or right on that schedule. Yep.

That's very true. Again, this is not a set in stone with all these things at these times. These are projects that we've identified, and they will certainly, yes, before I go and decide I need to issue $20 million of debt, we'll have some further discussions on is this the right project in the right time.

That's including some of the subcommittee folks or commission folks in that group because they're already kind of spun up enough.

Yeah, I think that's a good point with our current boards and commissions. And I mean, we've already had really good impact input from our parks master plan and the parks board and public input on the parks portion. I think rolling it into some of our other subcommittees as we start looking at it and create a new CIP committee, probably to be in the 27, 20, 27 timeframe. 26 may be too early to look at doing that this fall, but probably next year we're going to have the CIP committee. So that way, when we start looking at the next year's budget, we can then start saying, okay, going forward, let's start. And hopefully those interest rates and what's happening with the Strait of Hormuz and all the things and data centers and, oh my goodness, I-35, hopefully we know in a year.

Certainly.

I agree. Seems like a timely opportunity to remind everybody that James Grant has promised us an 84% success rate on anything that's on most of the voters.

84%.

I agree.

Anything else? All right. Thank you for that report. That ends our council meeting. We will adjourn into executive session. We will take no action after the executive session. So please pause for the cause. And as you guys take a break, I will read items 14 and 15.