City Council - Regular Meeting

It was 109 or not, but the grass seemed to agree with me. It was all brown, so everything's dying. Before we get started with our regular agenda, we are going to first say that Councilmember Stephanie O'Banion is joining us remotely. You can see her on the screen from Santa Fe, New Mexico. I just want to make sure that she can hear us and we can hear her. Can you hear us?

I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Yes. Yep. We can hear you. All right. Also just going to ask you for your permission that if you were to drop off or lose connection, that we would be able to continue the meeting without you.

I can.

All right. Official arm twisting done. She will let us proceed if she has to drop off or if the connection is severed. Also, we're going to do a couple of things first. First is a Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilmember Daniel Booker. That's to the U.S. flag. We will then have the Texas Pledge led by City Clerk Amy Casey. And then John Holmes will give our invocation. So if you would please stand. 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.

Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we just come to you today for guidance, wisdom, help us to serve our community, help us to lead, keep the citizens of this community in mind as we deliberate tonight's events. Please be with those who are fighting fires or serving on EMS or police, those serving abroad and domestically. Help us honor you in all we do. In your name we pray. Amen.

All right. With that, we will call our meeting of August 25th to order at 5.32 p.m. The first item on our agenda is public comments. note on public comments as well as public hearing, which will also have public comments, but on agenda items, this is for non-agenda items. Again, the note is that we have a three minute time limit. Council member Dave Covington is the timekeeper and he will just raise his hand when you have 20 seconds, not 20 minutes, 20 seconds to land the plane. If you don't land the plane, someone will shoot you down. And so anyway, just giving you a warning. on that. So I have two people that signed up for public comments. One is for an agenda item. So Taryn, I will, we will call you on the strategic plan item number 19. And then I also have Woody Durbin who signed up on the budget. We are discussing a budget, but do we have public comments in it? Okay. So we'll allow for Woody to make his comments at this time. Okay. Again, we all know who Woody is, but name and address for the record.

Grumpy, 308 East 20th Avenue, Belton, Texas. I'm here basically because I get my three minutes. I went and kind of argued the value of my home again this year. It's been several years, but it goes up and up and up and up and up, and that trend has not stopped. The 26 years I've lived in that house and eight months, I'm sure it's gone up again. But you can't fight this. I want to know when somebody will step up and start a reversal. I only know maybe two times we actually did a rollback in those 26 years, maybe. I could be lying because you news people do all the time. No. That's a joke. Anyway, I educated my kids debt-free. They're both in their master's and they're both working their fields. A memory yesterday in Facebook was 17 years ago. I moved them both back to A&M, my son's third year, my daughter's first year. Anyway, I did those things rather than redo my house. So this year they told me I could devalue my home if I prove some things, which not updating it to me is, but I'd have to prove it. And why would I do such a thing? It's sad. we're going the wrong way with taxes. You keep saying no new rate, and the no new rate is a lie because the value's gone up every year. And I've got 26 sheets that say that. I know you don't have much to do with that, but at one point, somebody has to take the bull by the horns, quit reaching for whatever stars we're grabbing for. We're a little town. We don't have to keep up with temples. I hate to even say that. That's not true. But at some point, when do we go backwards a little bit? All right.

Thank you, Woody.

Thank you.

Thanks for the three minutes you paid for. Yeah, and just for educational purposes, if you go to protest your taxes, you can do that. As Woody said, you're welcome to. We encourage you to make sure you get the right value on your home because that's what's used for the rate that we set. We set the rate, not the appraised value. It's the combined both that sets your bill. And I would also encourage everyone to educate themselves on what we can control in this body is our tax rate and what it has done over the last two decades compared to our neighbors. Once you educate yourself on that, we would encourage any public comments on that. So just FYI. And by the way, we have gone down and stuff. All right. Any other public comments? All right, there being no other public comments, we are now back to school. Kids started session here in the last week or two, depending on which school you go to. I have got a proclamation that I will read. Dan Kirkley and some of his volunteers are here, the back to school prayer. I'm going to, because there's a mic here, I'm going to read it from here and then I'll meet you down there, Dan or whoever your representative is. So from the Office of Mayor, a proclamation, whereas the beginning of a new school year is an important time for students, teachers, administrators, parents, family, throughout our community, and whereas education plays a vital role in strengthening our community, and whereas the annual back to school prayer event will be held on Sunday, August 30th, 2026, from 6 p.m. to 6.30 p.m., bringing members of the community together in prayer for students, teachers, administrators, and everyone who supports the schools. And whereas during this time of prayer, we will ask God to surround our students, teachers, and administrators with safety, protection, wisdom, strength, and guidance. And as they begin the new year, and whereas the city of Belton recognizes the importance of coming together as a community to support our schools and to encourage those who dedicate themselves to educating, guiding and caring for children. Now, therefore, I, David Lee, mayor of the city of Belton, do hereby proclaim August 30th, 2026 as back to school prayer day in the city of Belton, encourage our community to join together in this noble effort. Thank you, Dan.

Does somebody want to say something about that? Yeah. We're doing something entirely different this year. We're meeting at every school, Temple, Felton, Troy, Academy, and Clayton got a couple of from six to 630. And I would just say, if you have a school, you live nearby, a relative that's in the school, but you would like to join us, come, be there at six. We'll be there until 630. We're not gonna do a long time, but pray. We bless our children, our families. Thank you. Yeah, take care, Mike. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

Bless you.

Right next on the list is our consent agenda items 4 through 10 can be enacted by a single motion. I believe we will be. probably removing one or more of these for separate consideration. I will read them all into the record. And if a council member wishes to remove one, they may do so at the end of reading these. So for the record, item four is adopting the minutes of the July 28th council workshop and the July 28th council meeting. Item five is adopting a resolution canceling the November 10th city council meeting because we are going to the Texas Municipal League meeting. Item 6 is adopting an ordinance reducing the speed limit from 60 to 45 miles per hour on South Loop 121 in Belton city limits between I-14 and I-35 during construction of the South Loop 121 widening project. If you want to wait around for some more construction, there's another place to go stand in line. item seven is authorizing an allocation from the municipal hotel occupancy tax for the belle county museum restoration project for historical restoration and preservation projects to encourage visitation of preserved historic sites or museums item eight is authorizing the belton economic development corporation to enter into an economic development performance agreement with wild miller's llc and miller's smokehouse for a building life safety grant and item item nine is a adopting a preliminary plat and a final prep plat for phase one of the tyler ridge subdivision comprising approximately 75 acres located on west fm 436 And item 10 is authorizing the city manager to execute an interlocal agreement with Bell County regarding platting authority within Belton's extraterritorial jurisdiction, the ETJ. I would like to pull item number seven for the hotel occupancy and the museum. Anyone else wish to pull an item?

David, I was going to pull that same item.

Okay. Yes, Stephanie, same item. Thank you.

Move we approve items 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10.

A motion and a second to adopt a consent agenda items 4 through 10 without 7 or sans 7. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed. All right. So, Sam, you want to?

Thank you, Council. I'm really excited to bring an item to you.

We have a number of representatives from the Bell County Museum and Ms. Coleman is here as well, the executive director. We've received a request from Bell County Museum to provide for some funding for the maintenance and preservation of the museum. We're very fortunate to have the museum in our community. Just a handful of those structures remained. and you can see kind of the status of those, only four operating libraries and nine other uses, one of those is the museum here. The museum was built in 1905 and needs some structural and facade improvements to address the preservation. The request originally submitted included a total of $85,000 for the items identified. First some analysis of the building, totaling $40,000, and then some specific repairs, remediation, and beautification of the structure. totaling $85,000. We do have, as you well know in our budget, the hot tax, hotel occupancy tax, and those funds are exclusively provided for a number of different uses, one of those being historic restoration and preservation for tourists to visit the museum. There is a state limitation on those dollars, a maximum of 15% of annual revenues coming to the fund. So I've discussed this with Judge Blackburn and recommended that we split this into two-year funding cycle, $40,000 in this fiscal year and then $45,000 in next year. Certainly a great use of those funds. Museum is a tremendous asset for tourism and for visitation in the communities. You can see the numbers. They're over 75,000 just the last few years. So we strongly support this use of the hot tax funds, a perfect resource for that operation and for the benefit of not only of Belton, but Bell County and the entire region. So I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have at this time.

All right. Thank you. Any questions for Sam? Any comments?

I have several comments, but Dave, can y'all hear me?

Yep, we can hear you, Kim.

I don't know if anybody else is starting to speak or not, but I'm really excited about the project. Love the museum. They've been a tremendous partner and stakeholder in our tourism efforts for many, many years. As displayed by our ongoing support of their activities and helping market them as well. So my concern is not with the museum or the project itself or Bell County or anything. In fact, I think that the project should be funded. My concern continues to be with just our overall process for using hot funds. I mean, here is another large expense on the consent agenda, no less, funding decision without an adopted tourism plan. And I think everyone has heard me ask over and over for a tourism strategic plan. And we still don't have one that can help us guide our decisions with our hot packs. And if that's not a desire of our city and our council, then I think that's something worthy of a discussion as well. But I have concerns with, I mean, this will be the second largest or a second very large funding decision we've had in the last year $100,000 for a logo that I expressed then as part of an overall marketing strategy which is technically part of a tourism strategic plan which we don't have and so I'm again supportive of the project and certainly supportive of the museum it's unfortunate that that we don't have a strategic plan in place that actually highlights our strategy and our vision for incorporating the museum in our future efforts. So again, I guess I'm asking for a tourism plan. I'm asking for us to spend some time on vision on the hot taxes and how those should be spent. This is well within a legal use of those funds. There's no question about that. It's about, is it the right use right now without a plan? So again, I just take this opportunity to say we desperately need a tourism strategic plan. I've been asking for it for nearly two years now. And so I'm just a little disappointed we're spending such a large amount of money out of that fund again without a plan in place. Visiting our historic sites and maintaining our treasures like the Carnegie Library and The service that they provide our visitors is something worthy and I support 100%, but I'm concerned about our overall process, how we're moving forward with these funding decisions without a plan in place.

Stephanie. Any other comments?

Yes.

Questions?

A little question I have. I didn't see, this isn't 100% funded by us. This project's not just $85,000 or it is 100% funded by, well, us, our hotel motel tax.

I read it as 100% and that's a good question.

The total request is $85,000 and the request to us is $85,000. And so we're proposing to split that over two years. And so the

The total cost of the project is $85,000. Correct. And so they'll fund the full project, and then we will reimburse those fundings over the next two years. Or they'll wait until the two years and then fund the project.

I mean, our thought was after this funding allocation is made, we would make that... Contribution to them at this point in time to 40,000. Yeah.

And then as we move in the next year, we'll provide the two sides of the equation. There's the cost of doing the renovations and then there's the payment that we're making. I think that's the question.

I'm not saying. This is the total project costs like. We're not asking for. Whoever's at the county is asking for $85,000, but then after they do the study and all these assessments, there's going to be another ask for more project money?

The total request was the analysis totaling $40,000, and study and structural assessment. And then the repairs that they had identified in the background information that was provided by the county judge totaled another $45,000. So this is the total request as we're aware of it at this point in time. Certainly something else may emerge, but that's not part of the request.

I wasn't wondering if this was just a specific ask for us. Bell County's got... $300,000 they're putting in. So it's a $385,000 project or really haven't seen a total project budget.

Coleman may be able to speak to that or some someone else. But this is the total funding allocation and requests that we've seen. And to the best of our knowledge, the budget itself.

I think that's part of my question. You know, I have several questions around around this. And I mean, I'm just a little concerned that it was on consent without any knowledge ahead of time at all, without any kind of opportunity to discuss and have any kind of conversation about this so that we could be in unison, you know, have our questions answered. You know, I know the county's collecting hot packs now too. You know, I have no idea how we're tracking hotel nights anymore. I just don't know. I guess I have some questions and some discussion I'd love to have further as we hopefully are moving forward a strategic plan.

A strategic plan, which is another item on the agenda tonight, does have a particular focus on tourism as we discussed.

And we've discussed that. That's a whole separate plan. We've had them before. We just haven't had them in the last, I don't know, 10 years or so. So and if that's something that's, again, not on the radar of our council and city, then that needs to be discussed as well. And and I'll move on.

Thank you. Okay. Any other comments or questions?

No, I will. Yes and no. Refresh me. When somebody pays a hotel motel tax, we get a portion, county gets a portion, state gets a large portion. Right? Correct.

Yes.

I guess when I read this packet, I guess I just assumed we were a piece of a funding mechanism, not the full mechanism. Am I off base on that? Like it's all just our photo, multiple tax. And the county is a great partner with us. We do a lot of things.

I just, in terms of the project that's been identified, the total project cost is $85,000. The request to us is $85,000. There certainly could be more components to the project that have not been identified or priced. Certainly other things that may emerge in the analysis that comes forward, but the request to us is $85,000.

And I also think this could be considered with CURS. There's some other discussions, or at least historical funding decisions was made for items similar that have come from other funding sources. Because again, this is not about the project itself. I think it's worthy and needed, and I'm incredibly proud of our museum. I've just demonstrated that over the years. So it's not that. But this funding can certainly be coming all from Hot Shots. with no plan in place. And then I don't know if discussions have taken place about some other potential funding sources like CURB.

Sam, was there any discussion about why we would fund 100% of the project for the Bell County Museum?

I mean, initially, it seemed like a reasonable request. We currently carry about a $1.2 million in fund balance in the Hotel Motel that that Funding was really not available. Obviously, this is available to spend dollars out of the hot tax for these types of uses. The maximum allowance is the 15%. And so, Again, it felt like a reasonable request for a project that we're very committed to and certainly in line with our tourism focus to continue the opportunity and the resource that is the Bell County Museum to continue to bring folks here. And so, again, $85,000 seems like a reasonable request with a great partner that we have. The $75,000 that...

people through those doors with no fee their lecture series is amazing it's a great resource for us but it's also a little bit of a partnership um especially if there's some collection of hotel motel tax on the other side as well well yeah i

And again, I want to reiterate Stephanie's point to this. This is not a museum issue. This is not what the museum does or is. When I read this thing, it says Bell County is requesting $85,000 to support assessment. To me, that reads there's an overall bigger scope here. Belton, we're asking for a small chunk. And we just had a public comment talk about taxes. And again, this is not property taxes, but I mean, everybody's in a crunch and I get that. And I just, I don't know. I feel we don't own the building. We don't charge admission to the museum. We don't get any of that. I don't, that's where I stand.

I don't think they're going to know what needs to be done until the envelope study and structural assessment is done. And frankly, the other 45,000 I'm not sure that's even enough to put a coat of paint on the whole thing, inside and out. So I'm certain it will turn out to be a much bigger project than this. We've got an excellent relationship with the county commissioners, the commissioners' court, and I'm confident there's going to be more needed to complete it all and that this will turn out to be a a good seed corn contribution to get that process going. I do agree with Stephanie that we definitely need a tourism strategic plan in the near term. And that said, I would move that we approve item seven as presented with the caveat that we prioritize putting together a tourism strategic plan in the near term. We have a motion?

That's a motion. Yeah. Just looking for a second.

I'll go ahead and second the motion with that same caveat. Because I also want to say that there is no doubt in my mind that 100% a tourism plan will include the museum. And this, again, is certainly a legal expense. I don't want to kick a dead horse here, but two years been asking for a tourism strategic plan, and I don't know why we don't have one. So I will second this because I believe in our museum. I don't believe we should be funding it at 100%. But again, the county is collecting hot tax as well. I would have liked the opportunity to have more discussion, to discuss maybe other funding sources that we could have accomplished the same goals. But I also don't want to prolong what they're doing. And again, I believe that they'll be a huge part of our tourism plan. And if we can get that commitment to get that going and on the books, I would really be grateful.

I did just have one more question. In my mind, I thought it was a nonprofit that was running the museum. Is this purely... Run and funded by the Bell County, by just the county? Yes, it's the county operation.

This lies within the TERS boundaries, right?

It does, yes.

That seems like it might be a good funding source because you've got city-county partnership funds going into the TERS.

If I'm not mistaken, the TERS recently funded another historical renovation project

partnership project.

Post office windows. One consideration for the council, obviously the only thing that is available for expenditure this year is obviously the $40,000 because that's the budget that is in effect right now. If you wanted to just the question is whether you want to approve the whole 85 or whether you want to approve the 40 and get the study done and then allow it.

The current motion is to approve the full 85 and Yeah, so I've held my comment. So we've got several things flowing together. And when multiple rivers, bodies of water flow together, there's typically a little turbulence. So that's why you're hearing a little turbulence. I think the number one that I'll start with is there's still a group, I think it's the Belton Women's Club. That's a book club. And they hearken back to the day when they wrote letters to the Carnegie Foundation to allow for us to have a small public library in this small little town. and so we got one of the Carnegie Libraries and people are still meeting on a weekly basis that was the nidus for that and so I think that's number one and we support that. Belton, the post office and the library were Belton. We went through some funding challenges in the past and a lot of Belton buildings either became private buildings were abandoned or were given to the county to take over and so this is originally a city building and so we have a stronger partnership i believe in those buildings that were that at least originated here and so i think we and also because people so that's the first thing is is the the origin of the carnegie library i think is an important part of the city of belton many communities that got those libraries those libraries are no longer standing So it's becoming pretty rare to see a Carnegie Library in small communities. And so I think we all agree that that's a good thing. The second thing is when it comes to tourism, 75,000 that come to visit this, and those are officials' numbers. I don't know what the unofficial numbers are, but it's a steady drumbeat of tourism. And I think we're all in favor of tourism. The third one is we have a partnership with the in the terms. That's both inside and outside. We also have a partnership with the county with Bell County Expo Center and the hotel motel tax. So we, we have a good partner with the county and sometimes they come to ask us for some funding. Sometimes we say, yes, sometimes we say no. I will say the more times we say no, the more times they're going to say no when we ask them to help for funding. And so I think it's been a good partnership that's not just a give-take, it's a give-give from both sides. So I think that that's been good. So I think everything that we're talking about is good. Stephanie brings up a really good point, and it's part of the motion, I might add, to not only approve this, but with the caveat that we go forward and start looking at a tourism strategic plan. is I've heard it said that direction, not intention, develops or determines destination. So if you want to get somewhere, it's the direction you're moving, not where you want to go. And I think the concern is these are at least two points in direction on tourism that don't necessarily have a plan. Are we going in the right direction? Are we going in the wrong direction? And I don't think Stephanie's saying we're going in the wrong direction. It's just we continue to do tactical things without looking at the bigger picture. And we're going to also discuss another thing along those lines this evening. So I think she's got a good point that we do need to have a strategic mindset around limited funds. And so it's just it's the it's the turbulence of all these things coming together that to kind of raise this up. But I think at least what I'm getting since I think we all support the county. Also, I agree. I don't think eighty five thousand is going to be the total project. I think that's just enough to get it going. And then the county will have to start looking at other funding sources, whether it's grants, fundraising, tourist funds, county funds. County hotel funds our hotel. I mean, there's going to be a lot of pots of money, but everybody's going to have their hands and all those pots as Woody said. And so we just, I think we need to be strategic. Um, but all that to say, I, I think it's the right thing to go. I think it's the right discussion. Um, yeah, probably shouldn't have been on consent, but that's okay. It's on consent. We can pull it. Um, it's easy. So.

I, I intend to vote no on the motion. Um, if the motion fails, I would intend to make another motion to fund the 40,000. Uh, in hopes of maybe going to the territory to look for the other 45,000. I think that could be a good way to to slice the pie here. And if we find the 40,000 tonight. That gets them started on the study and assessment.

So, was that a mail in ballot? Like, are we cheating already?

Are you saying I'm telling you what my intentions are here? uh and it's again it's not that i think the as everybody has said i think the museum is fantastic and i think that uh we can find a way to fund this um but i think uh invoking the partnership from teres would would be probably more meaningful so all right so that's where i'm at everybody loves a good motion to amend the motion just saying can we amend the motion you can all right here we go I make a motion to amend the motion to fund $40,000 in fiscal year 26 only.

Do we have a second? We have a motion to amend the motion to just fund the initial year's portion from Hotel Motel. Any comments or questions on that amendment?

That does not take away what Stephanie said about the caveat of must have a strategic plan.

Yeah, all this does is just change the funding amount from 85 to 40 for this year. Okay. All right. All in favor of the amendment, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? All right. Now we will go back into the amended motion. The amended motion is to... To partially fund the request from the county for 40,000 dollars to allow for the envelope study structural assessment, and that the other funds would come at a later date. Um, and with the caveat that we need to start looking at a tourism strategic plan, any comments or questions about the amended motion.

I have 1 question is there a timeframe on there for. high strategic plan? Does it need to be done by X?

No, I think, honestly, Stephanie, the bully pulpit, the pressure of the council with staff is going to be the time frame. How much pressure do we put? And so I think the fact that it's coming to a council and not a... I think that's probably a decent amount of pressure. So I think that that would be...

I think we're not... The item that we're discussing is not a tourism strategic plan. I think that... The suggestion is about as, uh, about as deep as we can get on. Yeah, that's correct because it's not an agenda timeline. I think we're getting out of that. That's correct.

Yeah, it would have to be published. So it's just a recommendation. Yeah. Okay. All right. Any other comments or questions on our amended motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed. Right passes unanimously bridge over troubled waters. There we go.

Thank you. Yeah. So, everybody's here for the museum.

Yeah. So, yeah, y'all get to do some parliamentary procedure with us. You got an amended motion like that. You the bingo parliamentary procedure. You don't get that every day. All right. Items 11 through 500 are going to take a minute. And so we're going to start with 11. We can only do one at a time. 11 is hold a public hearing and consider a zoning change from commercial highway. Thank you guys for coming. We really appreciate it. Zoning change from commercial highway to planned development commercial highway PDCH on approximately one acres located at 217 May Street south of Spring Street on Northeast Avenue B. There's more.

And thank you, Mr. Mayor. To be respectful of your time, I will go through these really fast. I won't take up forever. As you stated, for this item, staff has been working with the applicant for quite some time on the textile improvement plans. So they're aware of all of the improvements that's coming in. And again, it took us a couple of months to go through this to make sure that they were aware of it. For the proposed zoning change, the applicant is proposing six duplexes. That would be 12 units off of Main Street. This property is on Commercial Highway. There are some allowances for a multifamily. However, this PD is to clarify that duplexes are allowed and also to set some boundary requirements. So one of the boundary requirements are the loss are 50 foot wide instead of 65 as required for a single family too. Clarifying setback is 25 instead of 60 as required in a commercial highway area. Here's a rendering of what the applicant is looking at. No doors sent out to property owners. We received no letters of opposition or support for the project. The Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the project subject to the conditions on the screen. Again, commercial highway duplexes are allowed a 50 foot wide lot with this for minutes. I will be happy to answer any questions you have. And also the applicant is here. Should you have any questions for him?

All right. Thank you, Tina. Before we start jumping into our questions and comments, this is a public hearing, so I would like to close our deliberation and open the floor. If anyone wishes to speak in favor or against this item, now is your chance to use your three minutes that somebody's taxes paid for and discuss this item. If there's no one who wishes to speak. Okay, here we go. Name and address for the record.

Bailey Eichenloff, 510 Creekside Drive, Belden, Texas. I'm the applicant. Instead of, we're not going to be doing six duplexes, we're just going to be doing five. The sixth lot will be taken away from TxDOT or by TxDOT whenever the expansion happens. So I just want to clarify that.

Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak in favor or in opposition to this item? All right. There being none, we will close the floor and reopen deliberations.

The only thing I notice here, when we look at new traffic circulation and probably traffic count at that point, this plan that's in here is accomplished. Maybe a right turn in, right turn out. I don't know when to do that. If it's now, if you just let TxDOT handle it later, I don't know what the best move there is. But I feel like with that exit and the amount of truck cars coming from under the underpass, wherever it's going to be, with no stoplight now, going to that roundabout to kind of get on. I don't see a left turn out of there being, well, still feasible, but it's not a lot of traffic. It's five duplexes. So that was really my only kind of...

This is just zoning, right? Not flat.

Yeah, but it's a PD. I mean, this would be the time if you want to, but again, I don't know where it fits.

I guess before we get that far, has TxDOT finalized their plan? And we know exactly that the layout is going to be for the, we just found out about the jug handle and the back way into central, um,

This is the most current plan that we have, but certainly there is at least some potential for modification as they do final design. They have not done final design, environmental, all those other issues. This is best information that we have at the moment, basically. And so the applicant has been patient. He submitted the application some time ago, and so he's waited for the plan. I don't know if he's had any discussion with TechSod about it at this point in time, but this is the best information we have right now, and the zoning request is before you.

That's a question I would ask is.

Yeah, I think that I think honestly, the biggest concern, at least for me, is a lot of times people say about council or political action. It's like, why did they do that? And right now we have a proposal that is not a final design that's taking Popeye's. Asko and Taco Bell, those are underneath the highway. If I look at the jug handle, it's really you can't get two way traffic into the jug handle is only one way traffic that loop that's around. So inside the jug handle, that little teardrop looking thing, I don't think there's going to be much development. I think if you look at the numbers, 2787, 2786, 2788, and this hashed out area, I think are probably going to go more retail. I think that the drive will be to make a replacement for those type of things along this frontage and not family and multifamily. So if we were to approve this without knowing the design, I think somebody would have a legitimate question. Why did they do that? And so again, there's a tension between property owners' rights and states' rights. We do not own the highway. We don't really have a whole lot of input on what they do and why. And so I would hate to approve something that ultimately we would have to renege on because of some change in design of, oh, we didn't realize because of these standards, you can't have an entrance or a house or whatever within so many feet of something. And so I just think it's premature. I don't think it's no, never for me. I think it's a no, not now. Cause we don't, it's still in flux. This is not design. Just.

One comment, something the council needs to be aware of, the commercial highway district as it exists right now allows multifamily.

We understand. But those are also residences that then they start complaining about all the things. And so typically what you want is multifamily. Like you've got a gas station. I don't know. Let's say along 14, you've got a gas station who wants to put some kind of restaurant or maybe sell alcohol in it. And then you have residences behind them. And even then, you get some people that are upset, even with the buffer. And so I'm just saying, there would be no buffer.

If I may, there are residential properties that's already existing by there. Most of the properties are single.

They're pre-existing in Shirttail Bend prior to. There's also an existing Popeyes and an existing Taco Bell that will not be. Sure. Any other comments or questions on the zoning requests?

I just, I share similar concern, not so much about it being duplexes, but throughout this whole process, looking at I 35 and I 14, the only thing that's been consistent is that nothing's been consistent and we still have never gotten a final design. And so I hate for the owner of this property. to go through this and all of a sudden he's got that jug handle going through the middle of the property. Cause we don't know everything tech stock has told us pretty much a month or two later, it changes. And so, um, I'm just concerned as the word you, you know, I feel like it's preliminary. You know, I just, I hate to make a ruling on this when we have no idea what's going to happen with 35.

I think I understand the concerns. I guess I lean toward that liability of what might happen and the necessary due diligence for figuring out what might happen. I feel like that burden lies on the property owner more than it does us. I'm inclined to allow the zoning change with a proceed at your own risk cautionary word there. I don't think that something like this is inconsistent with what's down there and with what's likely coming, but we don't know.

I think ahead of the unknown amount of construction, the unknown final plan, we also allow the Popeyes to go in, the traffic backed up into the access road and blocked for thoroughfare at times. I just think there are too many unknowns for me to approve this now. Start building duplexes at the bottom of a jug handle where it's right next to the road. I mean, you have no idea about flow. How in the world will they get in and out during that process? It's just too early for me.

Yeah, the ingress-egress for everyone in this neighborhood is going to be difficult during construction because every road will be touched. And that's a 10-year plan.

Yeah.

Right Thomas questions or chair would entertain motion.

i'm i'm going to make a motion to approve agenda item 11 with the clarification that it is. 10 five duplex lots 10 total dwelling units.

Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the zoning change with the amendment of five units, ten, or five structures, ten dwelling units. Any comments or questions on the motion? All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Aye. All right. Passes, I believe, five to two. She voted aye. Stephanie, did you vote aye? Yeah. She voted aye.

That was lip reading.

Bye.

All right item 12, hold a public hearing and consider zoning change from plan development, commercial highway to plan development, commercial highway with specific user use permit for a package store on approximately point. 039 acres. That's not very approximate. That seemed pretty exact. 039 acres located at 7379 West us highway 190 suite. 1 0, 1 is Tina.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is the recently constructed Freshville Market convenience store and the Chevron station that's located off of Simmons and I-35. The request is just to, again, operate a liquor store at the vacant suite that's next to the Freshville Market. That space is 1,742 square feet, hence why the square footage is so small. This property is developed with shared parking, exterior lighting, and screening for the adjacent property owners. There are no churches within the 300 feet that we require. Seems appropriate to staff. Notices were sent out to property owners and you received one detailed notice this morning and that yellow location is where that property owner resides and has made the comments. With that, planning and zoning heard this at their meeting and recommend approval of the requested zoning change. Subject to the ordinance that was previously passed for the convenience store and to permit a package store in Suite 101.

All right, again, this is a public hearing, so we will close our deliberations and open the floor. If anyone wishes to speak in favor or against this zoning change for this specific use permit for package store.

You now have 3 minutes per individual for or against.

Thank you name and address for the record.

Catherine Klingler, 1110 West Avenue O, Belton. I'm against this. Historically speaking, Belton has had issues with alcoholism after the war, after the Civil War, prohibition, all of that. So there was women's...

Suffering.

There was women that went and kept other women from being abused due to alcoholism. Therefore, that is an area that I have grown up in, and I don't think it would be feasible to have alcohol as accessible as it is to that community. I think it'll be detrimental.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? All right, there being no other comments on this item, we will close. Mr. Mayor? Oh, I'm sorry.

May I speak quickly? Sorry about that. I was a little slow jumping up.

Yes.

Tommy with Shaw Properties, PO Box 1333, Belton, Texas. Here to represent the owners. I think Tina's already explained it pretty good, but they would like to bring more tax dollars to the Belton area. And so that's why they're asking for you to go ahead and prove this. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. All right. Any others for or against?

All right. Going once, going twice. All right.

Now we will close the floor and reopen deliberations for this item. Council's turn.

I just had a question. Is this a totally separate unit or is there when you go into the gas station access to walk over to it?

It's a completely separate unit, but I do want to verify. I have seen the remodeling plans, but it's been a moment. It is a completely from the original construction is a completely different suite. So does I have access to the front door? Front door.

But I'll verify the floor plans. Whenever they are connected, it has to be able to be closed off because there's restricted operating hours. um there was some concern from the from the resident next door about um events and car shows and that kind of stuff have have we received any police calls or anything like that with stuff going on we've shared the information with deputy chief for gary and he's here chief would you address that situation

So, our department is aware of the concern historically, we have not responded to a high volume of calls for service to this location. Whenever we do receive a call, of course, we send an officer to assess the situation and take any action they deem necessary. But as of now, yeah, it's not really a high crime area or anything like that. Okay. Thank you.

That was my concern after the, the note we received it. car show meetings or groups hang out or whatnot. That would still happen with a liquor store on premises. I would hope it couldn't happen.

Well, but it couldn't be consumed. Would it be considered on premises, like if there was a car show and they purchased from that liquor store, would it be considered to be consumption on premises if it was out amongst the cars at the car show?

Open consumption is illegal. You can't. Yeah, they can't.

I think parking lots included in those places, you can't consume alcoholic beverages in parking lots.

Even if it's solar, it's prohibited from being consumed there. Okay. And you've had no need to take any actions at that location, even with the car shows.

We only have one minute call.

Okay. Thank you, Chief. And there's no requirement if that owner of that property is going to sponsor a car show there, there's no requirement for a permit or anything like that, is there? I mean, he's perfectly within his rights to have a car show there.

Just timing. I think the complaint was about the loud after hours. I think the concern was when it goes to 1 a.m. in the morning, not with it. And that was the complaint, I think, that came forward, is that they were in violation of our ordinances.

And that's what we would monitor in the future. Any violation of existing ordinance noise and just the gathering for a car show was not a violation, but just other violations potentially could be.

Any other comments, questions, or the chair would entertain a motion.

Move to approve that in 12. 2nd.

We have a motion a 2nd to approve item 12. Any other comments before we vote? I will, I will make a comment. I think. Times change. Some of us are old enough to remember. Belton was dry until I was a senior in high school, and so no alcohol. We allowed for alcohol purchase at one point where we allowed for restaurants to do it. We actually had the former pastor from the Church of Christ who actually voted for it. He said, I'd be a hypocrite if I voted against it because I go to Chili's and they serve alcohol there. So anyway, so we've seen a change in the demographic. I think the challenge with alcoholism and the easy access to alcohol in certain communities can be detrimental. And I think that's something that we do consider. The reality is this facility already serves alcohol. It's just a different type of alcohol. And so I think that, anyway, it's a hard moral question that's really more of a community question. The community did vote for this, and this is a newer area that the community voted for. So it's hard to vote against something the community voted for shortly after they voted for it. And so I think one of the things that we've done is we've tried to use reasonable Judiciousness in approaching these and so, um, anyway, that's just my 2 cents because I, I tend to agree that we don't want to create problems with our. All right, we have a motion a 2nd, any other comments before we vote. All right all in favor say aye aye aye those opposed. All right. I think that passed unanimously. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

I've played that game and it's always delayed and it's hard and it is hard. Sorry, Stephanie. I'm sorry.

Yeah.

It's all good. All right. Item 13. Lucky 13. Another public hearing. Hold a public hearing and consider zoning change from Commercial Highway 2 to Office 2 with a specific use permit for a bail bonding agents and services on approximately 0.6 acres located at 3805 South I-35. Ms. Tina.

And thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to point out the property owners are here and family is here. So Cecil and Peggy Smith are here and their daughter, Vicki, is also here. And the applicant, Ms. Christina Bennett, is also here. Should you have any question after the presentation? Again, this is changing from commercial to office to because our ordinance requires that for a bail bonds office based on amendment that was done back in 2007. And it also requires that all of the activity be conducted indoors. Notices were sent out to property owners. We did receive one letter of support from the property owner, actually. And Planning and Zoning recommended approval of the zoning request. I'll be happy to answer questions you have.

Again, this being a public hearing, we will close our deliberations. Open the floor if anyone wishes to speak in favor or in opposition to this zoning change. Now is your time. There being no public comments, we will close the floor and reopen deliberations on item.

Try not to make this one hard. I make a motion to approve agenda item as presented.

Okay, we have a motion a 2nd to approve agenda item. 13 has presented any comments or questions. All in favor say, aye, aye, aye. I will slow down.

I'm sorry.

All right. Passes unanimously. All right. Item 14. Hold a public hearing and consider zoning change from Plan Development Expo PD11 Plan Development Commercial Highway to Plan Development Commercial Highway on approximately 101 acres located at 301 and 551 West Loop 121 and properties on South IH 35 service road. Ms. Tina.

And thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is a proposal to provide consistent zoning requirements for Bell County Expo areas. They have different plan development requirements. PD 11 doesn't have a base zoning, so it's hard to regulate when there isn't a requirement. So again, this is for consistency. County also purchased property along the highway. We also want to recognize that in the zoning change to allow for County type activities occur there. This was started with the application to add RV parking station. This is not for overnight accommodation. This is to support activities that's actually happening at the Expo Center. Whether it's a rodeo and they need to have tractors come in to what the animals is what this proposal is for. Notices were sent out to adjacent property owners, we did receive one letter of opposition, hopefully you receive that. And she is off of Mesquite Road and that little Star is very small, but that is the location of that property. A planning zoning commission recommended approval of this zoning request at their meeting. Properties must comply with the commercial highway regulation and all Bell County owned facility and uses are permitted within this planning development district. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you, Tina. All right, I think put the page. Sorry. It is a public hearing. We will close our deliberations open the floor. If does anyone wish to speak in favor or against this item. There are no comments we will close the floor and we will reopen deliberations in the chair. Entertain a motion or comments or questions since we'll clean up for. I move we provide 14 second motion a 2nd to approve item 14 any other comments or questions before we vote. All in favor say aye. Aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Passes unanimously. All right, item 15, hold a public hearing and consider a zoning change from light industrial to planned development light industrial on approximately 21 acres located at 702 West Avenue O. Ms. Tina.

And thank you again, Mr. Mayor. This is, again, a submittal from the Bell County office. This is for a new office for the Bell County engineers who are relocated from outside of the downtown area to this location off of West Avenue D. This proposal consists of the setback. Light industry requires a 25-foot setback. They're asking for 18 due to electric easement at the back of the property. This is a little over administrative allowance, 15%. Hence why this is coming forward. As another reminder, the right-of-way width off of West Avenue O is 120 feet, which is really large. Our requirement is only for 80 at that area. So that setback reduction will probably not be noticed because of that large right-of-way. Property owner notices were sent out. There were two letters. It wasn't really objections. They just have questions on how it will impact their property. It won't be noticeable to them. The Planning and Zoning Commission recommend an approval of this item. And again, it must meet all of the light industrial requirements and an 18-foot front yard setback as required from Avenue O. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

All right. Again, this being a public hearing, we will close our deliberations and open the floor. We know this routine now, so anyone who wishes to speak in favor or opposition? It records you so we can transcribe it. So again, name and address.

Catherine Klingler, 1110 West Avenue O. West Avenue O is that large because it used to be a highway. And for expansion purposes, we probably need to consider that becoming a four-lane road eventually. So that setback might interfere in the expansion of that road. That's all I have. Thank you.

Any other comments or questions? All right. We will close the floor and reopen council deliberations.

I think this is one where I like to point out former mayor Wayne Carpenter for his, uh, Robust ideas on partnering with the county. And this is one of those partnerships to talk about and trying to get some more downtown retail and and cool spots. And this is one of those cool spots and also like to point out to the comment public comment. Definitely get with our staff and take a peek at text dots plans for the other end of Avenue. Oh, and I think you'll see the pinch point start to occur. And I don't know that the four lane. Could be wrong down the line, but That'd be really hard with what TxDOT's planning there. So again, I think this is a great partnership with the county.

Well, with 120 feet of existing right-of-way, there's plenty of room to do that if it has to be done.

Yeah, just in the nicest way possible, I want to thank the county for getting out of our downtown.

I move to approve this item as presented. We have a motion and a second to approve this item as presented. For those who don't know, the Bell County Engineering Office is in the old bus depot that looks like a little diner downtown Belton. So that will open that up for future retail development. At least that is the hope and the plan. All right. Any other comments or questions? All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Passes unanimously. All right. Item 16, consider a final plat for ASCO addition subdivision comprising approximately 19 and a half acres located at 5353 South IH 35. Ms. Tina.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm excited to bring you this one. This is ASCO. They found a home in Belton due to the impacts from the widening project on 35 that we previously discussed. So I'm happy that they've chosen to, again, stay in Belton with us. The property was recently zoned Commercial 2. It's meet all the requirements for Commercial 2. For water lines to the property, here's our current map. It shows water line on the east side of Toll Bridge and also on the property southern boundary and also along the western floor portion. Our requirements for subdivision plat is to send that water line to and through. The Belton Economic Development Corporation have set some money aside to help businesses that's been impacted by the widening project. I do believe this project is eligible for that, but it will be coming to you guys at a different meeting to discuss that funding source. For right-of-way, the right-of-way that's required is 20 from our subdivision requirements. However, we need a little bit more, 40 foot of right-of-way to accommodate for the current alignment and design for Toebridge Road. Perimeter street improvements would normally be required, but because of the additional right-of-way, we're asking that that be waived. This item was also taken to the Planning and Zoning Commission last week, and they recommended approval of the item. Applicants are here, and I will be happy to answer. I see you now. I will be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Any comments or questions from council?

I just, when you hear us say partnership a lot, and I think this is one of those that ASCO, you guys are a great partner for what Belton does. And when anybody asks why we develop partnerships and why they're so important to us, you have to look probably no further than what ASCO does. whether it's storms and needing last minute equipment or them supporting nonprofits in our community through their Spartacus Dash and things like that. You guys have been, and I'll be the first one to say, welcome back to Belton, I guess. Even though you've been here, still here.

Thanks for staying. move and approve item 16 as we're saying.

Second. We have a motion and a second to approve this item. Tina, could you show us the map really quick? You mentioned about the water and funding and to and through. The blue line is the water line that is existing. Correct. You say to and through. Could you show us the area that would be, you know, Correct. You referred to.

Yes, sir. It will need to be extended along the boundary line of 35 to provide services to the future property. So when they're ready to develop, they can also connect to the water from the north.

So is that the red line?

Yeah, the red line.

Yes, sir.

Yeah. Okay. So again, I think that this is one of those things that we discuss again in the partnership category. I think regardless of who would move in here, developing that whole piece of property and taking that water line, it doesn't necessarily help them. They have access, but it does help the property to the north. And so it's a good economic development tool. And I will say all the work that's been done with economic development and with the engineers that we've had and staff, multiple staff members go through these projects to put utilities down this area allows for us to take action. If we wait for needing to take action, we're too late. And so I'm really glad that we did this. And I'm also glad the council has kind of held their... had their powder dry and not just approve the first thing that comes along this highway. We've always thought it's highest and best use and partners are great. ASCO is great. It's a great location for it. I'm glad to see it to stay. So I just wanted to make sure that we understood because that funding for that water line will be at a future meeting. Any other comments or questions before we vote? All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed?

Aye.

That passes unanimously. Item 17. Consider a final plat and variance request for the DBI Capital Way Warehouse Development Subdivision comprising 15.3326 acres located at Capital Way and Elm Grove Spur. Ms. Tina.

Thank you again, Mr. Mayor. I promise this is my last one. This is another exciting one to bring you. The developer has previously done work in the city right off of inside the Belton Business Park, right off of Wheat Road and Digby Drive. So we're glad to see them coming back with another project to span industrial warehouse space in Belton. The new proposal will include 186 hundred square footage into the light industrial uses. Here is a proposed site plan that they have. This property is zoned planned development light industrial. It does allow them to go up to 40 instead of the 35 foot height requirements. They're meeting the area requirements for that regulation. Right-of-way, they planned on dedicating right-of-way off of Capitol Way, 10 foot on Capitol Way and five foot off of Elm Grove Spur. From this illustration, you can see that access to the site is gonna be from an access road that they've been working with Amazon to construct while constructing that project. So there are three access proposed and they're labeled on the site plan. There is no access off of Elm Grove Road. Traffic study shows that there is no benefit to them from Elm Grove Road. They're asking for a variance and staff is supportive of that variance. Again, they're donating, dedicating five feet of right away on the property for Elm Grove. This area is in the Armstrong Water District. So the applicant is currently evaluating the site with Armstrong to see whether or not they're able to handle the demand that they need. Should that not work out, we do have water lines right in front of the property for them to connect to once the development agreement is made with Armstrong. Sewer line is across the street. Another benefit of working with Amazon is that that sewer line has already been extended for them to connect to. With that, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the zoning of the plat. I apologize. And I will be happy to answer any questions that you have. And the applicants are here.

All right. Thank you, Tina. Um, comments or questions from council.

I'm excited 168,000 square foot of. To all flex space access to have 35 access to have 14 perfect, uh, area for that. Uh, I hope we get more. Uh, really, really am excited about this. I think it's great. Great for community, great, uh, potential employees, uh, and, uh, uh, good, good looking project.

I agree. 186. I'm going to stop the first time.

186,000. You got more, John. Yeah. More jobs. And if you wouldn't call Woody, they're going to appraise this.

Call Woody. We're adding to our capital. Thank you for coming to the Belkin. Thank you for doing this project. We are truly excited about it. I know there was some concern about runoff in the area. I know that will be handled. We're going to treat the people right in that area. And I really would like to approve this or recommend approval of this item.

Second. We have a motion and a second to approve this item as presented. Again, on the concept of partnerships, you guys have been great partners. It's really nice to see that you guys took a risk in Belton on initial developments and that it filled up pretty quick and now it's time for new opportunities. This is a really good complimentary space. It's really nice to see Belton grow organically to fill all the different areas within our tax base to allow for businesses to have easy access to 35 to the things that they need in a community that supports them. And so we appreciate those partnerships. So we have a motion to second. Any other comments before we vote? All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed right passes unanimously. All right under the miscellaneous agenda item. Mr. miscellaneous himself, Mr. bates will be given. Thank you guys. We're giving us a presentation and we will be considered selecting a new logo. for Visit Belton as part of the ongoing tourism rebranding marketing initiative. This is in the category of if you stay through all the credits at the end of a Marvel movie, there's going to be some really cool stuff. So for those who have stayed this long enough, this is really cool. For those that are leaving, you might want to sit down before the credits are done. So go ahead, Mr. Miscellaneous.

That's going to stay. Okay. I'm going to stop working my way through that today. From an exciting point, some of the logo issues that we had for our tourism. I know we spent some time and certainly some decisions in the future, some action moving forward, being strategic with everything else. But in terms of the marketing side, this is something that we're excited about. We have a good story to tell and share with you. As I start with the messaging on logo, I fully sympathize. This is a very difficult task. to cold throw some logos at you all. I may remind you of the infamous Forest Tower in 2021. And for those who were really around, I think Dan Kirk was on the crowd for this one. 2017, this was a top six logos. So anyway, I think we've got what we'll see today. A lot better.

That's the best logo right there. No, no, the next one. That one that's on the whiteboard. That's a good logo.

I'll take you back real quick to September 17, 2025. This is when we engaged at Found Texas for a roadmap. So essentially, what do we want to see ourselves becoming when it specifically comes to the branding, the marketing side? And this was us doing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. for our community. And one of the things that was resounding from that September was really a bit of a rebrand and really to work on our messaging from the marketing side. So where you'll see today, guys, we are developing these elements right here. We do have a great professional library of photographs and videos now. But hopefully, here in the near future, we will be starting to a lot of this, which has got some work in the background. Let me first introduce you to the work that went on behind the scenes to kind of get us to where we are tonight. We have a kind of ad hoc with an awesome tourism committee team. Three of you served on it, Stephanie, David, and Dave. We also had a former mayor, Marion Dawn, who I saw in the crowd earlier. Appreciate you. Jordan, Stacey, and Ashley, some business of folks who are invested, who care about tourism in our community. And then these are all the meetings that we had, March 24th, 13th, 22nd, July 22nd, and August 4th. So I share that, that we did not reach today like this was a combined effort to really figure out who we are and what do we look like. I'm going to share, there's a lot of this presentation that's in your packet. I'm going to go slide by slide. But I want to kind of pick out some of the clear elements that you want to understand going in before you see anything. These are the brand pillars that we really got behind as a group, that we were easygoing, that we're a hospitable community, that we have incredible nature in terms of the two lakes, River and Creek, all the trails that we have, the discovery, all the amazing small businesses, restaurants, our downtown, and of course, our historic charm. And so those were kind of what we started to really build a bit of who we are. are we? Belton is, Belton is not. And so, again, I think that you guys would agree that a lot of what we see over here is, again, just very, what we understand Belton to be kind of a good representation. We're not overstimulating. So, this was the direction. This was the direction when we started looking at what's the type of artwork you want to start to work around? As you start to develop your pillars, who you are, and then we start to kind of get to, again, earthy, comfortable, and lived in, as our ranch had. And I do have Letitia on the call here. I'm going to ask you to start exciting him. Just to be aware, this is what we have right now, okay? We have a Seabeltin, which is our website. That was one of the things, again, came out of that September 17th, was to... We've revamped that, rebranded that seat belt into what we're going to present to you today, which is a visit belt. And obviously, again, this transition from the CBB, the logo you see there, this keeps similar to our friends there in the background, and Dawn there. And so here's the logo concepts and i'm the politician here at the end and i'm going to kind of walk you through what each one looks like. You will kind of stop have a chance to talk, I would like her to share some of the reasons as to why. We put together the logos and the packet we did and fashion that we did, and then I will turn it over matter, I think, best to you and Stephanie they. to share your experience on that committee and kind of walk us forward on what we think is looking best. This is the first concept that was come up with. So again, we had several iterations of this concept that we worked on, ultimately settling on kind of star approach. Here's some, I'm just gonna kind of work through it, because again, I think it's just good to kind of see on the screen kind of how it's coming through. And then this is the logo compared to maybe some other visits. I probably should have started maybe just as much for those in the room, but this is a, it's not a city logo. This is a logo for people who are looking to come to our community. This will be something that we maybe see on billboards in the future, Texas Highway magazines, that kind of stuff. Work through some of the advertising. So that was option one. I'm going to come back to all of this. This was option two. As we kind of start to work through, I will share that you start to see the patches. The wording, style of wording, is really probably the more important aspect of the logo in terms of we can tweak the patches to, you'll see a standpipe one, you may want to see something else. But again, that kind of style of the logo, the font that we're using there. So here's some different patches, different color patterns that we have done. Just, yeah, this was the one I think I mentioned with standby. Just trying to show some different ways that you can use a patch more for print materials or ball caps, hats, that kind of stuff. And here it is in use. And here it is against your I'm going to move right here to this comparison. At this point, Letitia, I'd like to bring you in, but again, just maybe for her to share a couple of what she took, worked with the designer on bringing these two concepts together, and then turn it over to you guys to hopefully have the discussion. No, we can hear you. Yes. Hi. Okay.

You can hear me. Okay. Hi. Yes, we can hear you. Great. Hi, everyone. Yeah, so when I changed over to a panelist, I didn't catch the last thing you said, Matt, but these are our two options. Like you were saying, we've gone through a lot of iterations and a lot of workshopping to get us to this point. We have a little bit more of a masculine, active, red and black look on the left with the star and the movement. One of the ideas that we had with this logo was that it could stand alone pretty easily, but we wanted to bring in some other elements about Belton. We couldn't all settle on one exact item or icon that would make sense. So instead we had some ideas about wanting to have multiple different rough drawings of like a horse or a cat, some cattle, different items that represent the city itself to be used alongside the logo. So that's where you could start to imagine where that left logo could go or how it could be used in the future if it was expanded upon. The right side, these are two very different looks, so I know that With the committee. We've got some split opinions between staff and everything. So I know we wanted to bring this to everybody here to to vote to see what really makes the most sense for your town and the right side is I'd say a little more easygoing, a little more, it's a little softer. I think it's a little bit more amenable to putting on merch. We want to think about where will these logos live and what's going to be the most effective for all of those use cases. you know, which one looks better on a hat, which one exactly thinking about, um, which one's going to be something that you want to wear more. Um, what can you see people buying and wearing again and again, maybe they come to visit Belton and then they buy a shirt, they buy a hat or water bottle. Um, and then other people see it and want to go there. So yeah, Did I give you enough info, Matt, for those two directions?

And again, I kept going back and forth. I think just sometimes your eyes need to kind of catch us as she was talking about there. I will also mention you guys saw her over the weekend and then this morning again. We had the committee members, non-council members that were on the committee that I mentioned. They have sent you guys their comments on both, their recommendations. That's on page 95 of your packet there. And so, again, yes, definitely varying opinions and not to at all just punt this one in the lack of counsel, but this is probably a visionary decision to make. on what we look like, and so best appropriate to bring you guys both options, explain pros, cons, let everyone have their say, and kind of show it to y'all. Mayor, I'll turn it over to you.

Yeah, so I had the pleasure of serving on the committee. I thought it was really very productive. This is probably the most productive. I mean, we and Stephanie can share with this too, because when her time also on Chamber of Commerce, we've gotten really close a lot of times to unifying a brand around the chamber, around BEDC, around the city belt, and it's just never gone anywhere. This is... this is one that actually landed. So I think I'll just say this about my personality. I don't have an opinion until you ask me. And once I have an opinion, I'm not changing it. And so it's sometimes it's good to not have an opinion and walk in and just objectively look at it. I think anyone who's gone through the journey from March till today, if they have an opinion, they're not changing it. That's what they think because you kind of walk through that process yourself and there's a reason why you came to that conclusion. And part of it is collaborative and part of it is just your own personal preference. I will say this, one of the things that I asked staff to do is to present us the two options. don't present us the option and argue for or against what the others. We're not looking at the 50 options, we're looking at two. And so I think one of the things that I would like to just say just, on a strength perspective. If you can go back to the slide where you showed the visit Belton, and then there was a watermark behind it with a guitar, another watermark, I think with, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So what, one of the things she was saying is, is when we originally looked at this, it was instead of having a star, I think we had like a, a bucking bronco or running horse or yeah something like this and that just didn't resonate it just seemed a little too that's not quite who we are but if you go back to the one that shows the watermark i think this is one where this this is a strength of this logo it's modern like she said it's masculine but it complements all the different things we can do it places very well in complementary width and so it's i think this is a strong this plus The star is also nice. It's not unique to Texas. Pretty much every Texas city is going to try to put a star in there. And so it's, I think, sitting by itself. Again, like these banner and this merch, when you look at it, when you can add complimentary images to it, I think it plays really well. That's a real strength of this one. I'll talk to the strength of the other one. So if we go to the, you had one, we had several of the badges with different shapes and sizes of it. I think one was broader. Yeah, that's an example of what you, this one is a little more iconic. It's less complimentary. It's more standalone. So this really kind of shows unique. It kind of has that national park feel. It could be a patch. It stands alone. And if we pick the right badge or patch shape, we're not the only ones who use badges and patches, but you will see them on a lot of merch, a lot of water bottles, a lot of shirts, a lot of hats. I think this one is really strong in the standalone category, but it's not as complimentary as the other. So you show this and you want to show a bacon blues and brews. It doesn't feel like bacon blues and brews where the other one does. And so I think one of the things I just wanted to share to be fair to both, they both have their own strengths in different ways. Like my, my, one of my sons was like, it's, it's only dessert if it's chocolate. And so I think we're all going to have our opinion on which one. But the thing that I thought they did such a good job of doing with our consultant and our staff and the committee, is we went from blank sheet of paper to these two. And I don't think you can go wrong with either one of them, unless you're like me. I didn't have an opinion until I did. And I will always remember what that opinion was, regardless of what y'all vote for. And I've also not said which one I'm for. But I think they're both strong. And I think it's going to be... It's one of those Admiral McRaven says in one of his points was you need to be learned to follow, not follow orders, but get with the program. Is when we make a decision, we need to be a team player. And so we may disagree on things, but whichever one we choose, that's the one. And so now's the time to share your opinions and agreements and disagreements. When we vote, then everybody's on board. And I will be leading the charge, whether it was the one I liked or didn't like, because honestly, I didn't like them both. But for the other two that were on the committee, I'll give you some time to also share. Hopefully I was as neutral as possible in that statement.

I'll go first, if that's okay, Stephanie. I will contradict you, David. I started with an opinion, and every time we met, I changed my opinion. And I just waffled back and forth between both of them, honestly. Every time they would show a different image, you know, this one with this image or this one with that image. Oh, yeah, I like that. Oh, yeah, I like that. So... I've gone back and forth a lot. Just want to give a sincere thank you to the folks that served on the committee. We had several meetings and lots of time spent together doing this. And like you said, I think we came up with two good options. I'll leave it at that for now. Stephanie.

Yeah, I don't know that I can add a ton to all of that. I feel like a lot of work came together to present two that it sounds like, and I can echo what both Dave and David have said, in that I can see strengths and weaknesses in both. And so I certainly have my opinion as well. But I'm excited that it could be narrowed down to two really strong choices. And I'm excited to see what one everyone can land on. And to David's point, we'll all be on the same team when the decision's made, for sure.

Well, I'm sure I'm excited about this. I think I've been pushing for something like this for a couple of years now and a specific marketing plan for our community. And I would love to see either one of those in Texas Highways. It's seven o'clock. Bucket list. Any of those, Texas Country Reporter, any of that stuff. I'm just excited. Really appreciate the committee's work on this. I know there was a lot to it. It took a lot of time. hard to pick. And after seeing the committee's recommendation or go to that may be a little tougher, but so excited to have something to be able to use and really promote and both feet forward.

i'll add as somebody who did and not did not get to see any of these until the packet was published to us thursday or whatever day that was logos are hard as somebody who generally doesn't really like logos because you always see something like oh man i wish mine was like that or oh man you know we've all done it to ourselves in case of point john put your coke up on the on the thing and I'll say we can spend millions of dollars like both of these brands have, but millions more probably went to this logo and I don't like it. And that one probably hasn't changed since four hours around. And so, I mean, I think when you're creating a logo for something, I don't know that there's ever going to be a winner and a loser. I think, David, to your point, or maybe to your point, the utilization, I think, is what's key here. I don't necessarily see the right one on merch. I mean, I picture like a polo or had like they had in the in this glide and look yeah it is pictured there are pictures of it but when i see something like that like for example the one with the guitar and the in the bull um i could really see like for example the one with the bull we would that we'd push that a lot during rodeo time um You push the other one for anything, concert, music, city, whatever the governor's office, music, I forget what it's called. And so, I mean, I think there's Yes, there's pros and cons to both. They're both, I think, great. But I think utilization is where my direction would go. What can be utilized more? I don't know if I could put a half-art logo on a square banner down central, like where we have all the banners. I don't know. How does that geometry? It's things like that.

We can make it work.

Yeah.

You mind putting both of them back up? Yes, sir. So my thoughts when I saw this one, my initial thought when I saw the, I'm going to call it number one and number two, number one on the left, number two on the right. When I saw the first one, it automatically reminded me of the Temple logo because they have a star like that on theirs. And whenever I think of Temple, I don't want Belt and Bullock anything like it. but that's what came to my mind first. I also, you know, when you see the five words you put up there, one of them was nature. I think that's one of the biggest strengths of Belton, and I didn't really see it in number one. Number two, I love that I can, I feel like I see Belton. I see the Main Street Bridge. I see the creek. It captures, you know, the downtown, our nature, and so I actually really like the number two more than I did the number one. I just felt like I achieved those five words better than the number one.

I'll add to Luke's point real quick. With the badges, whatever we're calling those, If we go that route, I think you could have multiple badges. Same thing, multiple landscapes, the stamp pipe. And I think that would probably flow very well with what we do with the library mural, with the different badges about what building is. I think you're probably a little more easily customizable. But again, it's that stamp versus the utilization.

Yeah, I think it's approaching marketing in the two different ways. Like the Apple brand, it's Apple. Like it's just the Apple. It's an icon. That's it. There are others that are more complimentary where that one's kind of iconic.

I got to go back. The one you had single that's longer, the Visivell and the number two. I really liked that one a lot.

And that's what you asked me. Uh, there'll be refinements done and the logos we keep refining and adding things. So that's why I was kind of maybe just, when I was talking about that font almost as kind of like the style, which one you want to go with, but it is like, Hey, I'd love to see some variations of, of what's on the top of the air or a patch, you know, actually, uh, like petition work with the standby, that stuff that we can work with them, uh, all day long.

And I don't want to complicate it, but I'll complicate it a little bit. You mentioned this is a Visit Belton effort. This is not the Belton logo. That being said, something like the one on the right, if you go back to the patches.

Yes.

This, no, yeah, this could be the Belton logo. And the other could be the Visit Belton logo. Or vice versa. Or vice versa. No, I'm just, not to complicate, but... the thing is we we have probably four or five different brands within the city i think ultimately we would probably want to navigate to one and not to have this is the visit belton logo and this is not the visit level yeah i think eventually i think we want to go towards a direction a brand uh family um so i do really like how you're saying do different same you look at the one on the right you know say visit belton and have different scenes from belton i mean

it's neat that you can do different variations well and i'll say if if if if staff is asking for a direction direction one versus direction two here i will but they can be fine-tuned after this i i think you've hit the cap on direction one i really don't know that there's much fine-tuning to that Whereas to the points we've made about the multiple badges and other things, I think there's a lot more you can develop off of direction, too.

Yeah, I think the visit one is the stamp that you then work the canvas around. So you're going to have a canvas of a thing, and this will be the stamp on it. So it'll be whatever the scene is. You know, kids playing, or if it's Buck and Bronk, or guitar, barbecue, whatever. This could go where the other ones stand. Well, I think, you know, ultimately designed by committee never works. And so this is not designed by committee. This is a, a, and it actually, it says receive a presentation and consider selecting. It says, consider. I would recommend that we just kind of, if we don't, if you don't mind, we're just going to go and just, just, just tell us one or two and then we'll go through one or two and feel like we're

read the room so i will start with stephanie ladies first um sometimes the first vote okay plays everybody else they've shown that so uh one uh would you prefer one or two that's a really hard hard decision to make um i will say when we start to talk about our marketing strategy as part of our overall tourism strategic plan we have done a lot of leg work on the logo piece So I think that that's part of where I struggle is thinking about the vision and the plan and some of the struggle from the questions that I think Daniel was just asking is we don't really have that bigger picture in mind. But I think if I had to go, I would go with two today. Um, I love, I've loved it since the beginning. I love one, but I really struggle with the star every, I've been in the tourism business a long time, by the way, it's what I did for the first 20 years of my career. So I struggle with the star a little bit, even though I love it and I love it over the can. I love, I mean, I love the look I do. So if that's what we do, it's, it's going to be yay. Great. I think I would go with two. I, I find it a little more unique to Belton, whereas the star, it's just a struggle to not see every other state or city in the state of Texas. For me.

All right. So we'll just go down this row and just all the way and I'll go last.

I'm a number two.

Number two. Oh, man.

I may surprise those of you who were in the room with me during the committee stuff. I feel like I was pushing pretty hard for option one during the... Especially the last committee meeting. And I really... What was... What I loved about option one was really like the red background that we were talking about with the guitar behind it, with the long horn behind it. I think that would look great on a billboard, on a banner downtown. But the more I thought about this, option two is, I think, more useful on more things. It can be dropped into a blank space and carry more meaning than option one does. So that's a very long vote for number two for me.

Not voting, it's just options.

I hate to discard either one of those. But if we've got to say, I like the versatility of one. To me, option two, the bridge sort of captures as soon as I look at it. The bridge bothers me. I know what it means, but it... Show the other one. The other badges.

It's also this.

It could be all of those.

Yeah.

Are we in all of these? Can we use them all? Are we paying for all of them, or how does that work? It's in the refinements.

This would be a part of the concept, too. Sorry.

I love your work. Thank you.

Who's next?

You are.

Two. Two. Against every fiber of my being for clean and distinct, which I think is option one. I specifically met with Matt about this at Genitum, and I think when I tell him two, he's not going to have a shocked look, but he's shocked inside based on what I said earlier. I like the idea of being able to do a lot with the I don't know. It looks like a door hanger right now. The door hanger is what I'll call it. You know, that could be a few bowls in there. That could be a guitar. That could be the expo. That could be the courthouse. That could be all the things that are really signature to what Belton is and could be. There could be new things that pop up that I'm so too.

Yeah. With 2, you could go like in a video where it goes through different and then stops on one of the badges. So I think there's a lot of things we could do with 1 and 2. And like I said before, I think 2 stands alone. It's a stronger standalone icon that can capture Belton in a single visual. where number one is very good for our events and street banners and pamphlets. So I think to their point, I don't think we should throw any of this away. I think it's always good to put it in our back pocket. But I also agree. I think two is the direction that I think would allow us to stand out. I will say, and it's brought up, and I'd also bypassed 317 and went through Morgan's Point to get away from the big traffic jam. But their Morgans Point Resort icon for them is very similar. It's a nature scene with an arch with the lake. I think it's Lake Belton.

Much antiquated.

Nobody sees it.

It's very antiquated. Nobody sees it or identifies it.

But those that are...

descendants of morgan's point yeah but anyway but no i i agree and we have consensus i don't know if we need to vote i think that there was a consensus that we think that number two is the way to go but we also really like elements of one so maybe we can use it for special events or i don't know we don't want to uh yeah do we need to vote all right so okay i'll make a motion for option two as presented with further refinement down the line Second. We have a motion and a second to approve logo concept to any other comments before we put this to bed and we're all team players and we get behind.

Appreciative of the committee. Very appreciative.

Absolutely. Awesome.

All right.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Right. Passes unanimously. Thank you, guys. That went very well. Thank you, guys. This is, you know, we've talked about 100-year decisions. This is one of those kind of 100-year decisions. I mean, if we get behind it and we go forward and it's strong, I think this will be a 100-year decision. So thank you, guys. All right. Strategic plan. Item 19. Mr. Listie, we were receiving a presentation to invite public input on the strategic plan for this evening.

I'll just run through the . I like one or two items . the week road analysis was something that came out of the strategic plan session this summer where the council asked for a feasibility study on that project to assess the need whether it is needed or not and to come up with some concepts on pulling that project in here working closely with them a different approach than what has been discussed in the past, but again, more of a feasibility analysis. Under the economic and business development, again, the I-35 project downlays that period of initiatives as well as we . Quality of life, people living in the parks . As we go forward, and those that have recently adopted under infrastructure,

The strategic plan led to an evaluation of street maintenance fee, and so that's an effort that's underway at this particular point in time as well. In terms of engagement initiatives, the customer service effort continues to be a major emphasis, and we'll be continuing to work on that going forward. What you just spoke about the marketing plan and logo with a significant tourism focus are reflected in the strategic plan and and we will reflect that going forward. In the plan as it exists right now, there is a reference item initiative 2.51 which. recognizes the need for tourism goals to be developed and benchmarks established based on our assets. So that is a major focus in the plan. It certainly could be enhanced perhaps going forward to specifically state the objective of the council discussed earlier tonight in terms of a strategic plan for tourism. And if the council chooses to do that, I can certainly make that modification to emphasize that a little bit stronger. Public safety initiatives. Obviously, we're working to get the public safety center at Miller Heights up and running, and certainly it is operational now, but continuing an emphasis on that is the significant public safety initiative going forward. So The years two through five of the plan, again, this is a five-year plan, reflects what we see at this particular point in time as a snapshot of our priorities going forward. And again, with the strong emphasis of I-35 and I-14, which five years from now, hopefully should be, hopefully, I don't know, will be under construction, whether it's hopeful or not. The plan has been on the website since August 4th and tonight is the opportunity for public input for the plan and we will bring forward the final version of the plan as we adopt the budget on September 15th. So I'm here to answer any questions you might have or comments. We refine this plan going forward for the next five year time period.

All right, thank you, Sam. Since we've had lots of questions and comments through the season of this, we'll hold those question comments and allow for public input first. So this also is a public hearing or a public input. Hearing if anyone wishes to speak on any item on the strategic plan, or in general, they may do so at this time again, 3 minutes. Mr Covington will keep the time. I have one person who signed up, but that doesn't mean that we have to limit it to one person. So the person I've signed up is Taryn Burnett. Is it Burnett or Burnett? Okay. Thank you. I know you've written it, but just a name and address for the record for our minutes.

Not a problem. Taryn Burnett, 2935 Mystic Mountain Lane, Belton, Texas. Here to speak specifically to pillar one, connectivity, goal 1.3, local street projects. Initiative 1.3.3, analyze the need and if justified, develop design concept for Wheat Road extension. Specifically here to speak to what I believe you referenced is the North Wheat Road extension. It's the section from Sparta to Red Rock. I know I spoke several times on this in the last year. And I appreciated seeing what I would say was a shift in feedback from your strategic planning meeting this summer. It does seem that there is some growing consensus that this extension specifically in the north part is not being good stewards of our city funds to explore. It specifically benefits one neighborhood and one neighborhood only. It's based on arguments, it's spending $70,000 to explore design just to do it. There's no strong argument that adding this North Road extension would be beneficial. There's no strong argument to add this North Road. Sorry, lots of notes tonight during today's meeting. Um, if there's not support for building the road, spending 70,000 on a design with no intention to build a road does not make sense. Designs help with shelf life. This is wasting money if there's not a strong argument to move forward. There are two projects that impact this topic that are not underway. One is the I-1435 expansion, and the other is the BRA pipeline that will go through the back of this neighborhood where you're proposing to put this road. Based on those two and the lack of strong support, I propose that the North Wheat Road expansion specifically be removed from strategic planning for the next 10 years to allow for the completion of the BRA pipeline and the I-1435 expansion. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wish to address the council on the strategic plan? There being no other public comments, we will close the floor and reopen. We've received the presentation. We've received some public input. Any comments or questions? There are no action items for us to take this evening. We're just taking comments.

This is just comments. There is no action at all. Not yet. Nor can I. When stated plainly, it makes sense. If there is a growing consensus to not do it, why spend the money?

You're talking about the strategic plan? No, the term point, just to throw that at staff. I would just say, we all have definitions of words. When you say design... Design to some people means you're designing where you're going to put the asphalt to put the five lane road or four lane with the turn lane. But design in this concept is it's multimodal. People use bicycles, people use feet, people use golf carts. We may want to see a design and a concept for a nature area that can be transversed on a gravel path. That's design. Design is not... Proving what I want to build is determining what might need to be. I will say this because I've been through the whole process. We had developers grant this land to put in a thoroughfare. for us to not consider putting in a thoroughfare, whether it's multimodal or road, would be disingenuous because all of the people who bought those lots ended up paying the developer for the land they donated to the city. And so I don't think we can do nothing with land that was donating it to us for a purpose. So I think it's important to understand we had a concept of what we thought it might be, And as the public comment was saying, and to your point, I think we've seen a shift in maybe the need for what we originally thought. But it doesn't mean there's not a need to use public space with good stewardship. And design is a concept design. It's not a final design. So it may be a winding trail with scooters and benches, dog park. I don't know. Or homespots. Or it could be nothing. It could be just a nature green space.

That's what we took from the summer session. We talked about evaluating what's needed. Maybe moving away from the idea of an arterial street, obviously, is not going to be that. And evaluating what's needed, be it some kind of a road, pedestrian path, or nothing. But that's the analysis that is important.

Sometimes it's nothing now, and maybe it's something later. To her point, it might be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years. It may change. Any other comments?

I just commented about that back when we were talking about it. When we spoke about it, we basically said we need to get to a point where we actually can make a decision so that your neighborhood either gets a yes or no. And with not having any kind of design, any kind of studies, We really can't sit there and say yes or no. So what we moved forward on was, hey, let's look at the design, see if it's even needed. It might not be, but y'all deserve an answer yes or no. And so that's really what we're trying to get.

Yeah, and part of design is traffic counts and studies, and that's just part of the scope. And again, I think we all have different definitions of the word design, and I think it's a hard word to express.

I do think that part of this, what will happen over the next year with the strategic plan on this specific item is that we will narrow the focus. We will figure out what's... do we think the need is for the space and i think that this time next year you and your neighbors will will feel like there's some clear direction set um so i think that we've got to go through the process and get the data so that we can make an informed decision but yeah and actually timing is good with the pipeline absolutely

which we were able to, with a good stewardship, able to allow us to generate some revenue that we can now use for some of that design that came from external sources. All right. We good right? Thank you. That's item 19 again. No action item required item 20 receive a presentation and discuss how we can take money from our I'm sorry how the proposed amendments for the fiscal year 27 city of Belton fee and rate schedule.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. As you are aware, each year during the budget time period, we review our fees that we charge for different services throughout the city. We compare those to our neighboring cities and cities of similar size, as well as trying to determine our actual cost and recouping that actual cost. So we're presenting to you today some proposed changes for fiscal year 27. Is that a first? The first, there we go. The first will come in the building permits and fees. And I've asked each department head to be prepared to discuss these with you. So I'll go through them briefly. But we're looking at a penny increase in the new residential construction and new construction. commercial construction costs, as well as adding three new fees for building plan review, civil engineering review, and a traffic impact review, which we've already been providing these services, but we've never charged for those services. So there are costs to the city that we would like to, at least in the terms of the outside consultants, pass that cost on to the developer. And then for your basic building permit fee area plumbing, most of the items would increase 25 to 50 cents each. And then swimming pool permits, you can see the increases there from 50 to 5150 for above ground $85 to $90 for in ground and 110 to 115 for commercial. Contractor registration, we've charged $50 a year for years and years. Parker Heights is charging 80, Killeen is charging 80, Temple is charging 75, so we're recommending that we charge 80 as well. For your electrical and mechanical basic building permit fees, there's an increase of 50 cents to a dollar on several of the items. Irrigation sprinkler heads would go from 1 dollar each to a dollar and a quarter. We're also proposing to add a fee for a zoning verification letter. This differs from an open records request because. It is actually asking for specific information on a property that the development department has to actually write out all the answers to the questions. And so we're recommending a fee of $50 for those. Commercial site plan review, we're currently charging $150, which comes nowhere close to capturing our costs. So we're recommending to increase that fee to $1,000. The sidewalk in lieu of fee, we're currently charging $120 per square yard, and we're recommending to increase that to $130 per square yard. Parkland dedication fee has not been changed since 2006, so we're recommending an increase to $250 per unit. Temple charges $225, and other cities in the area charge significantly more than $250. fire charges for service uh there had been a request to add a fee for use of the blocker truck so we're recommending that to be at three hundred dollars an hour for one hour minimum um there are several different charges for services that were listed in the existing fee schedule and The fire department has simplified that to say that for permits that are issued by the fire marshal, we would just like to simplify it down to the two for construction permits for $100 a permit and operational permits would be $100 per operation.

Is that for the CO? When you say operational permit?

I think that's for operating. Give me one minute.

Is it an operation of a sprinkler system?

It's operations like for a boarding house or the different types of operations where they would go out and do an inspection. Occupants.

So it is for a certificate of occupancy.

No. I'll get that answered. Okay. I'll get that.

Yeah, this is to you. Okay. Right now it's just a presentation and discuss. So yeah, put a pin. Yeah. Asterisk.

Let's see. Where were we? Fire sprinkler side inspection and testing instead of separating the fees into without a fire pump or with a fire pump. We want to simplify those and make them both $100 plus $1 per head. The fire alarm system site inspection and test, we would also change that to $100 per panel plus $1 per device. And installation of the fire sprinklers or fire alarms without a permit is $500 per item.

So question on your with or without fire pump. I'm assuming that if you got just city water that has pressure, we can just use a pressure meter. But if they have a fire pump, we actually, somebody has to pump, kick that on and run it to make sure it gets the pressure that they need. Yes, sir. My only concern is what's our cost to do that? because what it'll be is it'll be, and again, it's, it's $50 versus 150. Anyway, I just, I think we need probably some more info on that one because it is a different, it's not a tomato, tomato. It's totally, it's, you know, tomato and apple.

Okay. Um, we'll get more information. Um, Okay, now the wrecker fees are under the police station and these are the fees that the wreckers are allowed to charge clients. So the non-consent tow changing from $150 to $200, an incident management fee from $150 to $200, and then there had been a request to add fees for the use of a medium duty wrecker and fees for the use of a heavy duty wrecker. And we're recommending $400 to $800 on those. Okay, moving on to credit card fees. The fees that are in the fee schedule now, we needed to clarify that those fees are for utility payments. With the implementation of our public records request system, we take payments through the portal. The existing credit card fees were grandfathered in. So our fee structure is 2% plus $1.25 platform fee. So we needed to add that into the fee schedule.

What's our cost for operating credit cards? What do we pay? If somebody pays with American Express, what do we have to pay?

Our merchant fee is about 2%, 2% to 2.5%.

So we're setting a rate that's lower than our cost. It's essentially about we're about losing money, about about losing money. We're not about making money. We're about losing. Yeah, I think. Yeah, let's break. I think we need to. Yeah, whatever. I think it needs to break. Whatever the highest rate is. We said it assuming everybody will use whatever that. And I think it's more what's the cost, not what do we want to charge? We're just passing that on. That's a great comment there. Thank you.

For me, I agree with the assumption they can still come in and pay for a records request in person.

They can.

Okay. Without a, not credit card in person, but other form of payment without a fee. Or the convenience fee.

And I sure would like us to be clear on the utility and use of a credit card. I think it says a dollar fee or maybe just the 2%. I don't know that both of those are included when we make notice about using a credit card for utility reasons.

Okay, we'll check on that.

Yes, sir. So the extra $1.50 is one of those charges that is charged by the software company that we use, the platform fee, if you will. We don't get that dollar, but we have to have it in our fee schedule because it is a fee that's charged to the customers. um i think the dollar is listed with the two percent yeah well that's one thing it's it's a separate the two percent comes to us the one dollar goes to the other people eventually we'd like to do away with that whole charging for those credit card fees but we haven't gotten there yet

Tell me how that works. I've got a couple of businesses I'd like to get rid of having to pay those credit card fees as well.

But you don't want to just absorb it to get rid of paying for it.

Ask old Jody over there in Temple.

I'm actually against having a credit card fee. I mean, no business is allowed to do it. You build that into the cost. Only governments can actually add a credit card fee.

No, businesses do too. No, they do.

All the time.

When I pay invoices, it says if you wish to pay with a credit card, it's going to be 3% more. It's a 3% fee. But people can say it's a cheaper rate to use.

cash but you're not allowed as a business to just say if you're paying with a credit card you pay two percent so you do yeah you can it's gone i know it happens but no it's totally legal anyway but this is just comment anyway so yeah some are for some are against but i'm just i don't think we should do everyone uses credit card now and the majority of people pay in the portal and i just think we need to build in the cost you shouldn't have a separate credit card fee

I have a, I have a, I have utilities, so I don't have to pay the fee. So I save money.

But anybody can do an as well.

Anyway, on the record, before we approve this, I'd like to understand who defines the size of the record. Because if you just call for record and you get a medium, you're paying 400. You may have just needed a light wrecker of 200. If a heavy duty wrecker happens to be driving by and stops, you're paying 400.

So you're not concerned about them sending heavier than what you need to pull that car off the road?

It's the wrecker company that makes that decision, basically.

So that's another safeguard that we have in place. Yeah, they'll think of termination. Typically, they'll send whatever record, a common record. And then if we say, yeah, they're not going to get it out of the way, they'll radio back to their company. They'll send it to our record.

They'll get it out of the way.

I know there's been some discussion on open records. I wanted to give you a few statistics. We implemented the Just FOIA system back in April. You can see No, you can't right here. Beginning in April, the police department started with 70 can see how many they've had. This is just through last Friday, I believe. As of yesterday. Okay. So they've had a total of 680 requests. When it says city, that's every other department that comes through the city clerk's office. So we've had 218. We are charging fees that are established by the state. We don't set those fees. And every opportunity we have to charge for a record, we are charging. We are required, if it's over $40, to give them The information that it's over $40 and they can choose to pay or not pay. If it's over 100, we can require a 50% deposit. This is before we do the work. Of course, we have to do a little bit of work in order to know what records we have. But if there's redactions or those types of things that have to take place, we're not doing that work until they've agreed to pay. So we have billed for PD records $5,575. We've received $1,700. This much is pending because we're not sure what they're going to do. And we've had right at $2,500 of requests withdrawn. In other words, they didn't want to pay the fee. We're not going to do the work. The majority of the money comes from the request for videos, especially body-worn. But the state establishes that we can charge $10 for each video and $1 per minute, the length of the video, to redact anything that must be redacted from that video before we can release it.

That doesn't get anywhere near our cost, does it?

The pending is we've done the work. It's ready to be picked up. They just haven't paid it. So we haven't provided it.

No, the pending is we've built it. Um, and we don't know if they're going to pay it or not.

Got it.

So we're waiting on them. We, we are allowed to pause the request and they have a time limit that they have to let us know one way or the other. And if they don't need that time limit, it's considered withdrawn. Um,

And we haven't done the work yet.

We haven't.

No.

There are some smaller requests that we can't charge for, but they're nominal. They really are nominal. Let's see.

So before we leave open records, you mentioned we're mandated by the state of $10 per video and $1 per minute.

For body-worn cameras.

Okay, that's what I wanted to go to because open records is not just body cameras. If somebody wants to know all the water bills, then that's not body camera.

No. We are allowed to charge a labor fee and an overhead charge. But the labor fee is set by the state at $15 an hour. It doesn't matter if you have an $85 an hour employee working on it, you can still just charge $15 an hour.

So, and we can charge a labor fee and a what fee?

An overhead.

An overhead. 20%. What?

20%.

20% of what?

Of the labor charge. 20% of our labor costs or 20% of the labor charge?

20%. Our labor. So if somebody is $80 an hour and 20% of $80 an hour is.

It's 16, 20% of $15.

So that's what I'm asking. Is it the cost or is it the charge?

The charge.

It's 18 an hour, basically. It's max. Well, as we start thinking about unfunded mandates, they're all, this is in the category of an unfunded mandate. We need to, we need to. please put a pin in this so we can address our legislature to allow us to charge a this or actual cost. Like we're not asking for anything other than just cost. It's not a, it's reimbursement. Right. Yes. So, so, okay. So for open records, so there's nothing we can do. So let me ask you this. If we can't change our fee and rate schedule on open records requests, why is it here?

Because that is the fees that are being charged.

We don't. It's the state. Yeah, we're doing, they're levying it, but it's not, it doesn't require council action. Right?

We do.

It has to be published.

We do have one fee that is on our fee and rate schedule that is required to be on there if we want to charge it. And this is through the transportation code and not where you normally find open records requests. And that's your accident reports. Those are established at $6 and it has to show up on your fee and rate schedule to charge $6. Otherwise, it's 10 cents. Or free because it's less than 20 pages.

We don't have to charge for body-worn camera. We don't have to charge. We're allowed to. Therefore, we have to put this in there. That's why it's in there.

They established the maximums.

We just have to show it if we're going to charge it. Their maximum charge.

I'm not 100. Let me get back.

It would be really good because I will say every game that's played... The person who figures out the real rules, not what the person, like I play games with people and they read the rules the way they interpret them. But if you really read the rules, you find out you can beat them because they're not telling you the whole rules. It would be really nice to know the whole rules because here's where I'm going. The average on that is a worthless number. It's a trend. If you put that in a trend on a spreadsheet and see what's next year going to be based on the current trend from August to or anyway, if you look at these trends, what's happening is all of this, because we're public information, people are finding out that you can train large language model. for bidding municipal projects so you're getting bots you're basically getting non-humans going out and finding ways to use this data and anything that they can scarf for free it goes into that and then they can take the aggregate of that data and go sell it and they're really making a profit over public information the other one is on body cameras the more we had i drove by 14 flock cameras. I never noticed a flock camera until Waze started going, boo, police ahead. It's like, there's not a police officer. Oh, there's a pole with a camera on it. Well, the thing is, is when are we going to start having people asking about flock cameras and about this camera and about, I mean, everything's gone digital. And so we're going to get inundated. Like there are more bots and digital tools to ask you a question that we will never be able to answer. So I really think on this, when it comes to digital data, we're no longer in the normal public information request. We are in data mining. And we can choose to not have body cameras and to not have flock cameras and to not have any digital data. We're just going paperless. I mean, we're not going paperless. We're going back to paper. And we will eliminate like every request, but it doesn't make our citizens safer. So I think we just need to, as a staff, this will become 60% of our police budget will just be looking at body cam data And defending body cam data. And I don't want us to be in a position of having to choose a bad choice versus a worse choice. We need to have a good choice. This one really concerns me because of just the data mining that is just rampant.

I feel for you. Most body camera ends up on a YouTube video that ends up making money.

Yeah. Yeah, they go, yeah, they get the, yeah, they put it on Facebook and get trends. Yeah. Well, we need to think about, like, if, you know, and this legislature may not be saying it, we will charge 10% plus a 50% royalty if it's used publicly. Does anybody say you can't have a royalty? Well, let's slap a royalty on there. I'm just saying, whatever, we need to think about where the rules are, and we need to put a disincentive for people to abuse the system that's outside of just a flat rate. It's just, yeah, anyway. My rant's over. We'll see.

Now we get into water rates. We're going to We're gonna add a fee for replacing the AMI antennas that have been damaged by customers at actual cost plus 10%. I believe those are around 35, $36. The new meter set base fee, we're going to increase from 1,000 to 2,000 to capture costs. City install water taps changing from base fee plus cost of meter plus $500 to just materials plus 10% plus equipment and labor. The cut and tease on an existing line for an irrigation meter changing to a base fee plus the cost of the meter plus $500.

So how can you go back to that? Yeah, I don't understand what that would come out to be like what's What do you change when it comes to the overall cost by doing it that way?

Can you come to the, yeah, sorry.

Base fee would increase from $1,000 to $2,000.

The equipment and labor equipment is quantified at $100 per piece of equipment an hour, and the labor's at $25 per hour. And that's per employee, depending on how many it has to be on site. Did that answer that question?

Um, kind of, but I guess what I'm getting at is you're, you're looking at what it was versus what you're saying. You want to go to the materials plus 10% plus equipment. If you take your average job, which I don't even know how you find that, but your average job, how much are you increasing the price of?

You'd probably be going reality probably around from the $500 that you see right there, probably around to $800 to $1,000 in reality. And to capture those fees, a lot of times a standard meter set right now for a one-inch going out and doing a tap is around... Right now, we charge the $500, no street cut, and you go out there, it'd be about $700. If you do a street cut, it takes up even more. That fee also encompasses a two-inch. If you get a two-inch meter, that costs you probably about $1,100 that you're not capturing for those fees.

What about folks in the area, Scott? What do they do? I think we can see some large increases, but I'll spoil this for them, but we still have Very low rates comparatively to folks around us, but Scott's done a lot of research on that.

Yeah, even talking, reached out to Temple. Their fees were extremely low, and I question that. And right now, they do not even do the taps. They have, even if it's a lot in town or such, they have a contractor. They have to call a contractor. The fees that we would charge, even looking at it in this manner, would be relatively low compared to even a contractor. And at this moment, the only thing we're trying to do citywide is just capture that cost, not break even. That's it. No profit here. We would always be pro-customer. So, I mean, always do what's best. Thank you.

Well, Tubal has somebody go put their meters in form.

Yeah, the contractor.

The developer pays the contractor? Yes. So while they're not asset meters, they're published after doing other things, public works. Okay. Yeah.

They have one of their contractors on Lake Road today installing a meter. Too soon, sorry.

Moving along. Contractor installed fire line taps increasing from $200 to $300. And then adding the contractor installed water or fire line tap inspection. That's a new fee at $300. Increasing fire hydrant meter rental from $100 to $350 per month. Bulk water costs charging currently $4 per 1,000 gallons to $5 per 1,000 gallons. And relocating the meter would now be proposed at $100. And I would like to turn this over to Mike Rogers right now.

Mayor and Council, on the water rates that you see there, the red option one is what you saw at the budget workshop. Since that meeting, Councilwoman O'Banion asked about addressing the lower earners in our community and what can we do for those that have difficulty with an increase of even a dollar. And she'll speak after. But what I'm proposing for you is an option two, which is in green. and in that option um the five-eighths inch base rate does not change um it would remain and that's 90 of our customers um and then by increasing the other rates as you see there in green compared to the red um it's revenue neutral to the uh water and sewer revenues um

So you're going to move on to the next one then?

Same here. Once we looked at base rate, I decided to look also at the volumetric rate. Could we make it to where even that lower tier to 5,000 gallons We could leave that at 35 instead of increasing to 394 by increasing the commercial or non-residential rates that you see there at the bottom 10 cents higher than what we're proposing, and that would generate the same amount of revenue in that scenario. So again, this is really a red versus green and how you feel about either one of those options. For the water and sewer budget, it's revenue neutral. Each of these raises about the same amount of revenue for the fund. So no changes to that one from what we proposed initially.

So back to the non-residential rate, as 430, it's capped. It looks like we have citizens that are over 10,000 gallons that are paying more than non-residential commercial users. Are they typically high users of water? Or are these like... I don't know who a non-residential... No, that's all your commercial.

Yeah, but I don't know.

But I don't know. Are these high users of water or low users of water?

Generally high users. Not... It depends on what it is. Your average commercial will not use much water. Apartments also fall under that category, and they will use a lot of water.

The reason I say that is it's probably unfair to our citizens that are paying 50% to 70% higher than commercial for using the same amount of water. I see a disparity in the above 2,000 and not having the tiers because... But I don't know the data on how many users. It just seems, it just intuitively feels unfair.

Have we had that discussion? Yeah.

I agree. I mean, you need to, if there's a rock quarry that's, you know, tearing through water, they should be paying a higher rate than someone using 2000 or a car wash or a golf court, whatever, whatever, you know, what you want to say. But I think there should definitely be more tiers in the non-residential.

um yes so when we did the rate study back three years ago um we kind of had the discussion on this structure um the reason why you those commercials are ha um are the way they are is um essentially you whereas a residential can control their consumptions to a lot of to some extent um the commercial entities say like a restaurant um can't. And so they've got to have sanitation there with washing dishes and stuff like that. So anyway, I'm revisiting a utility rate.

Well, I will say We'll say that the rate study that was done was probably not the best rate study we've ever done. And because it's not the best rate study, every year that goes on past that study, it becomes more obvious it wasn't very good. And so we did not have a good rate study. And we're seeing right now a compensation of those of us who are trying to keep our grass alive that are now finding ourselves over 10,000 gallons. And a car wash...

Yeah.

It's paying for 30. And it's just, it's wrong. And I think that if we're going to go through rate study, that's good. But we still every year have to approve the rate, whether it was in the rate study or not. Rate study was a good idea or a bad idea. This year's got to be this year's idea.

Keep them watering us over.

I just think, and I like Council Member Albanian's leadership and say, hey, we can't continue to pile up on our lowest socioeconomic group with dollars and $10 and $40. We just can't. And I think this is a good thing. Honestly, I think our businesses get revenue for every gallon that they sell in a car wash. They get corresponding revenue for that. They can pay for it.

Can you go back to the meter size? Yeah. I'd be interested to know what increasing the commercial volumetric rate would do to this slide as far as revenue goes.

I can play with any scenarios you want. What I tried to do with the base rates is make changes within the base rates themselves that was, again, revenue neutral, the revenue that comes from the base rates. The reason you want to do that is because our debt service, 60 to 65%, I think, of our debt service payments come out of those base rates. And so because you know you're going to recover that revenue because it's a base rate, that's stable income to pay stable debt service. If I completely... said, okay, no changes to this, and then push it all to volumetrics, I can certainly play that math and hope that everybody uses the same amount of water that I expected them to for that service reason. But yes, we can play with any scenarios that you might want to look at.

So base rates fund the infrastructure and volumetric more or less is the amount of gallons we told CID we'd need to we're gonna buy or in theory, right?

So base rates pay for a lot of your fixed costs. So you have your debt service, obviously. You've got some sunken employee personnel type costs that go into that base rate that's captured from the base rate. And then you have on your volumetric side, you have a lot of your variable costs that go along with that. Like you're paying for your water purchases through the volumetric rate. So obviously then if you don't, if you're not expecting a lot of volume, you don't have to increase the rate, volumetric rate, that sort of stuff to pay for. because you have that cost on the other side um you know option b or option three that i didn't have here um if you if you if you want to simply say let's just not change it for fy26 um that's certainly we can also do that if you want um the the change there to our revenue and our budget is about four hundred thousand dollars If you just wanted to not have any rate increases at all for 2026, and then we revisit all of this rate study structure altogether, let's go back to flat rates because that's just easier. We can do all that decision late if you want. I mean, that's option three.

I don't like option three. Yeah, I like option three. No.

May not be the best plan, but it's a plan.

I also seem to recall that we got a rate study done and then the seven of us rewrote all the results from the rate study that we had. So I do feel like we've sort of set ourselves up for continuing to sing the second verse here.

I think option two is the best option presented. We can try to get to the perfect. We're never going to get to the perfect. Just, I think, on the fairness, you know, it talks about... Everything that is fair is not always right, and everything that is right is not always fair. And so we're getting into that here with water rates, and it depends on how much I pay per month, if I think it's fair or not. And if it's not fair, then obviously it's not right. So that makes sense. I think option two is a really good option to address the fairness from Stephanie's perspective. I think keeping... shaving money off of that and revenue off of that is the right thing to do i also think that keeping commercial capped at our lowest residential rate is the wrong thing to do i don't know what the answer is but i think keeping it at 4 30 when residences are paying six is just not the right thing to do because they are for profit and a residence is a cost

and somebody paying six that's all probably all a sprinkler system as well not the domain house line yeah so they've set that up to try to save some money and then they're really getting gabs if they use it yeah the only other thing i'd say is um

Back on the base rate, well, and this, if we go with proposed option two on the volumetric rate, we've tried year after year to keep the lowest user, their costs as low as possible to the point that I think it's been flat for several years now. just going forward, I don't know that it's realistic to expect that to be flat forever. I think at some point, we're going to have to be okay with going up a dollar at a time or whatever it is on that. So, while I think it looks like we can do it this year, I don't think it would be reasonable for the seven of us to expect that that's going to be that way in perpetuity.

And if you really want to help folks who need it, those individuals are probably using 2,000 gallons a month. You know, we would own them ourselves and not using a ton of water. So I think going up on the 2,000 to 5,000, instead of trying to lock it in 375, you might have some more flexibility there.

Yeah, I, I'll add a couple of comments just because I have had a lot of conversation around this. Um, It's so difficult and challenging. And I agree with you, Dave, 100%. We can't probably, you know, think that this could go on flat forever. But, you know, just looking at the data and I've shared data with you all about just data that I work with for my paying job that, you know, there's 43% of our families in Belton cannot make their ends meet and they're working. And so, and when you look at our 211 calls, which is the 24-7 help hotline, calls to Belton, a large portion of those utility calls are for help with their water bill. And then Mike had shared with me too that, according to the records, as of June, there had been as many shutoffs for non-payments in the city of Belton as there have been for the entire years. the year before. So you see, I think we all recognize there's a struggle. And my point, and I appreciate David's comments too, is that just if there's a way for us to have any, there's so many other things that we have no influence over. If we can influence helping those families not have to find a dollar they're not going to have, then I just would like us to be aware of that. And I understand that it can't be flat forever.

Now we'll move into sewer rates. A city installed sewer tap, we're going to the materials plus 10% plus equipment and labor. The cut-in tees for an existing line on the irrigation meter, base fee plus cost of meter plus 500. And then there's no changes proposed in the sewer rates from option one to option two. So there's no action other than the discussion that we just had. We were seeking consensus. I think that we've been given that. We'll have a public hearing on September 8th and adoption of the fee schedule is scheduled for September 15th.

Well, we kind of popcorn that all the way through. Are there any other, now that we've gotten to the end, other comments about the general or specifics?

I just had a couple I was taking notes on. The blocker truck fee, can you, I just don't, is that saying if there's anyone, say they have a flat tire on the side of I-35 and a blocker truck comes, they're paying $300? Okay, what is the blocker truck fee? Insurance. When do people get charged that?

They get charged if they're not citizens of Belton.

It's for on the interstate, and they'll get charged that fee, and it'll be processed through their insurance. We turn it over to a company, I believe, to recover that through their insurance. But it's not for Belton citizens. Okay.

Even better. Same thing, like there's a ladder truck fee, there's an engine fee fee.

We've contracted with a company called Fire Recovery USA, and we provide the information to them for an accident. That group then charges the insurance to the persons who had the wreck or who's responsible, and then they collect and remit the feedback to us. So that's purely, I've passed through insurance. It's insurance.

Well, but I'm glad to hear it's not citizens because I would have an issue with that.

Were you done?

I had a couple others.

Go for it. Sorry.

The commercial site plan fee that you had, can you go? Yeah. The $150,000 to $1,000, that's a really large increase. What's driving that?

councilmember we found that uh we were under charging significantly for that and this is for uh for commercial development so we surveyed around that area we found that the fees are anywhere from a thousand to like seven thousand dollars for our site plan review and so we're suggesting that we jump into a thousand in an effort which uh all our fees are designed to incrementally try and recover the costs of our operations that's with that's with a thousand dollars

And so this has nothing to do with the size of the project or anything. This is just flat. Anyone that comes for a site plan review, they're getting charged this.

That's correct.

I'm just not a big fan of increasing that.

I mean, I'm not a big fan of commercial. It's a commercial site plan.

I don't know. I don't like increasing fees on businesses.

So HEB's commercial site review is the same as a taco shop review.

That's correct. Yes, it is.

And then could you go to the new commercial versus new residential per square foot? What is the reasoning for having those two different? Why is commercial getting charged more?

Are you asking about the construction permit fees on the top? Yeah, on top. Yeah, the 19 cents. It's typically more involved as far as the inspection is concerned. It's not as simple as a residential inspection. We put more time into that. Just a larger facility typically and more complicated.

ADA requirement, there's lots more requirements commercial and yeah, there's more inspections and more man hours.

The civil engineering review, how, I mean, is there I mean, it just says actual cost, but can you give us an idea of what that is?

Yes, sir. We, for both the civil engineering and traffic impact review, it's about $200 an hour, something like that, $220 an hour. And so to give you an idea of what the cost might be, you know, a typical project may incur about six hours worth of review on both sides, the traffic as well as engineering. So it's about $1,300, something like that.

Okay.

Of course, for larger projects, it would be more. For smaller projects, it would be less.

So for just one commercial project, you're paying the new commercial construction fee, you're paying a building plan review, a civil engineering review, a traffic impact review, basic building permit fee. You're paying all that on just one project.

And Luke, certainly we, from manager's chair, we also had some similar questions when we saw a lot of new fees come along. I will say that we haven't been charging for any of these fees and that's what's unusual. rather than implementing the brand new fees that you're seeing. We're trying to, again, capture those costs. So when we send something, the Bearden Group that's going to build the light industrial, we talked about the drainage, right? That's going to take incredible amount of analysis that we'll take to make sure that the neighbors aren't affected. And the engineer puts in recommendations, their team will include them in plans. And so there's a lot of back and forth right now. The city's eaten all of that cost. to date the city's not eating it the taxpayers sorry sorry dave you're right yes correct and so this again in the in the era again i think maybe scott will just steal his phrase but we're not trying to get rich off this stuff i think we're just trying to recoup and that's what we've when we when bob and tina were able to walk through and explain obviously a smaller commercial building won't be six hours it'll be a couple hours here for you know some review uh maybe a beard and track that's going to be a larger industrial and amazon that was a lot you know amazon goes back and forth a lot on those sizes so and when we say actual costs we're not doing the review somebody else is but also our staff are doing the other reviews on the other square footages that you're seeing but it also goes to a third party engineer So when Tyler Rich comes in, there's a traffic impact review that goes forward.

And it also depends on where your street is. If you're downtown Belton and you're not really impacting anything on drainage and you're not impacting roads, you don't need to pay those fees because it's not needed. But if you're at the jug handle, it's going to be. Yeah.

It's hard to do things without there being a few examples of on your average, on X, on Y, your fees are going to go up by X percent of what you're paying now. It's hard for me to make a judgment.

We can absolutely get examples. We got them on the labor. Cost for public works, we can easily get them on this. So we'll make sure you have them before the next.

I'll be in work. We'll bring back some of them. All right. Thank you.

You good? Yeah. One of the items that I saw in there was the parkland dedication fee or the fee in lieu of parkland dedication. We've been at $200 per lot for 20 years. There's a recommendation to go to, was it 250 or 250? Georgetown, I think, is at almost $800 on single family one lot. Killeen's at $1,200 on a single family one lot. I think we're I think we're substantially low on that personally. You know we just adopted a parks master plan that talks about all the all the great parks that we have and ways to improve them. And I don't think that I don't think that the that the goal of increasing that fee is to make the developers pay for the parks master plan but i don't think that they're when they write the 200 check i don't think that they're um contributing enough to to um account for the impact that their new development is going to have so i personally i would like to see that quite a bit higher than 250 i don't know if anybody else has an appetite for that

I agree. I think it needs to be in some of the discussions that some of us have had. I think one of the challenges, if you go to $10,000, well, then they're just going to dedicate this little quarter of an acre and say, there's your park. And then we have 500 parks that are not useful where And so I think what we need to do, and I'll just use some of the developments that we're seeing down around Miller Heights. We acquired a new school. We're looking at new park there. We've got a lot of the safe routes to school sidewalks that are already going to there. And so I think kind of forcing... their money to go into regional parks instead of having 500 individual parks. So I think we need to go up on it, but we also need to probably modify our regulation so we don't end up having to manage 500 small parks, but they go to regional parks. Or you can do an 8-way park where they're managing it. Yeah, exactly. That's right. So I think that there's some things that we could do, but I agree. I think, yeah, I agree. We should go up on that fee.

I'm going to throw just one real quick. This is going to be super petty when I say it. But the contractor registration, that is just a paper they fill out to be able to pull a permit. And the only reason I heard for it is because everybody else was at 80. I don't know. It seems there was good evidence for the rest of them, but I don't know. That one just.

We also review insurances and those.

Okay. There you go. That's what I was looking for. All I heard during the press was everybody's at 80.

There was that we had looked at other cities. I didn't say that very well.

No, you're good. Well, there's so many. I know. Good work. Thank you. It's a lot of work and I know it's not done. So, appreciate it.

Yeah, there's a fine line between recouping and Charging them to where, you know, Costco, let's say they come to us in another neighboring city and I really hope it's not our fees. Like, we're the same. So I'm over here. So there's. Sure, there's leeway in there from a management side to you guys know what's best. I never would want to run somebody off just because we have a.

All right, so staff will take these comments. I would suggest anyone who wants to go talk about a particular one that you were interested in, talk through staff about that so they can understand what they're working on. And then you guys will present this back to us at some future date.

The September 8th meeting, we have a public hearing. So it will be locked in.

So the next time you see it, it will be locked in. So now's the time to discuss with the staff. All right. There being no other comments, Stephanie, anything else? Any parting shots or parting words? I'm sorry.

Oh, no, just great discussion. And it's a lot of hard work. And I just commend the staff and all the time that's put into all of it.

All right. That's item 20. I don't have an item 21, so we stay in adjourn. 818. Thanks, everyone, who showed up.

We have a new logo. Good to see you, Larry.

Good to see you, Larry. Good to see you, Larry.

Thanks for coming.

You just here to observe? This was a fun meeting. That was a doozy. We'll see you next time. We have fun meetings. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.