City Council - Regular Meeting

We got 5:30. We've got two people responding remotely. I'll give them a second to make sure that they're on. Hopefully, they can hear us. Um, almost happy Thanksgiving. Thank you guys for being here and gals for being here on this wonderful week. Got a little rain, a little bit chilly in the morning, so it's nice. Uh so now that we Okay, we've got everybody on on board. So council member um Stephanie Oan will be participating remotely with us via video conference from Crossplains, Texas. And council member Dave Coington is participating us uh live from London, England. So it's a little later in London. So, a lot of dedication there. Uh, just doing a mic check. Uh, assuming you guys I'll start with Stephanie. Um, you can hear us. Let's see if we can hear you.

I can hear you. Can you hear me? Can. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks. Joining us. And Dave, your turn. I'm here live from London. Stephanie, how's the food and the weather in Cross Plains? I was a little offended that I was not asked that earlier, but uh my place is not nearly as exciting. [laughter] All right, Zia, we had a little meeting earlier and uh they got to participate. So, all right, we're going to um go ahead and call this meeting to order for the November 25th um council.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm looking for my uh my notes here. Here we go. And first, what we're going to do is I'm going to lead uh the pledge of allegiance to the US flag. Cynthia Hernandez will lead the pledge to to the Texas flag and then Craig Pearson will lead our invocation. So rise with me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.

Honor the Texas flag pledge allegiance to thee Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. Join me in prayer. Father God, we come to you in Jesus holy name. Father, at this time we we remember that we have so very much to be thankful for for starting with your son and his provision for us. But father, part of what we're thankful for is to be in and of this community. And Lord, it's our desire to represent it well that your will be done in both process and product in our deliberations tonight. May it be so in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. All right. We're now called to order November 25th, 5:30 something p.m. Uh item one or item two on the agenda is public comments. If anyone wishes to address the council on any non-aggenda item that we actually have some level of um input on, you may do so. I know that we've got I think we have two that are signed up for public comments. The first one is Hector uh from McGregor. So Hector, if you don't mind giving us your full name and address um and you got three minutes.

Hey, good evening. My name is Hector Martinez. I'm with Texas&M Forest Service out of the McGregor office, 6521 Blue Bonnet Parkway. uh 6 76657 I believe the uh zip code is. Uh today we're talking about uh Tree City USA and I've got some flyers for y'all. Thank you.

So as far as I'm aware, you guys have applied or trying to work towards Tree City USA. What Tree City USA is, for those of you who don't know, it is a recognition for a city that puts extra effort into the care, maintenance, and protection of their trees. Now, it is a recognition, which is pretty much all it is. Not a whole lot of benefits, but I will say that there are very few benefits that will go a long way, such as grants. So, when you apply for grants, and as you may know, grants at this time are very, very scarce. So, if you are a Tree City USA, that shows that you're willing to put extra effort into your tree care and protection, maintenance, planning, all that. So when you apply for any kind of grant within Texas&M and forest service or with the Arbor Day foundation which is the uh the owner of this uh tree city program they look upon you more favorably. So that puts you on par with cities like Temple, Waco, Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio. So you may not have the numbers but you have Tree City USA which puts you above everybody else who isn't Tree City USA. Puts you on the same footing as the others that are Tree City USA. and then it goes into a matrix which takes you into even more account for those of you who were affected last year with the uh wind storms that affect this area. We have uh within Texan for Service and with the Arbor Day Foundation, what that does is that if you are a Tree City USA, it gives you even more favor when you apply for uh recovery grants or recovery plantings. So I was down in Kurville and Kurville is working towards a Arbor Day a tree city USA status which is going to help them get even more trees replanted post disaster not just from Texas enforcers but for the Arbor Day foundation. There's four simple standards. It's a forestry department or tree board which is pretty much any public works or parks and w anybody who does any kind of tree work is your tree board. Uh public tree care ordinance which is I'm assuming what you guys have been working towards. Uh it pretty much just designates you the city as the caretakers of all public trees. Any kind of detailed work that is going to be done around or with trees also has to be included in that ordinance. Number three is a community

forestry with an annual budget of at least $2 per capita. Note how it's $2 per capita, not per tree. City Colleen has $2 per tree and does not qualify for Tree City USA because the money should not be going towards the trees. It's going towards the betterment of people and trees are what do that for us. And I can go into a longer spiel and I don't have enough time for that. Arbor Day observation and proclamation. This doesn't have to be a specific Texas Arbor Day or a US Arbor Day. It could be any Arbor Day. I know the city Gatesville celebrates theirs whenever they feel like it and they still labeled it as an Arbor Day. So that gives them Tree City USA status. Believe it or not, Gatesville is a Tree City USA as of last year and they were the first in this region to submit their application for this year. So, I wholeheartedly believe that city of Belton along with the city of Woodway is one of the most beautiful cities in my region and you are the only two that are not Tree City USA. And I'm here to urge you to really put effort into that because the deadline is on December the 31st. But that is for Texas&M Force Service to get those applications in since and if you guys and I'm very good contact with Joe Dryer, James Grant, and uh Adam Trillio. If there's effort shown and there's progress made towards this before that deadline, I can get that uh extended to February. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah. We love our trees. Yeah, we do. We do. Yeah. Some of the cities you named, all they have are hackberries. We got We got real trees here. [laughter] I won't I won't name which cities those were, but there are a few. All right. Thank you. All right. The second uh that was that signed up at least verbally to me is uh council member Dave Coington from London.

Uh yes, I had the privilege of meeting yesterday with Lord Michael Bates at Parliament and he just wanted to extend his greetings and well wishes to Belton, Texas. Uh he said that he follows along our council meetings online uh every other week. And he did ask if uh if he could see his son Matt Bates because we c because he can't see it on camera. And so I promised him that I would have Matt just poke his head around the table, wave to his [laughter] dad in the camera. Oh, there we go. All right. So I can uh I can honestly say that I delivered to Lord Bates a view of his son at work. So but anyway, Lord Bates sends his greetings and his well wishes to Bel.

A lot of glare when he posted his dad around there. It would be more effective if you get underneath the little camera and then just raise up in front of it like [laughter] right point blank. Yeah, it's going to be scary.

All right. Again, thanks for both Stephanie and for Dave for being here during this holiday week. Um hopefully this does not ruin their holidays. So, all right. Um any other public comments? All right. There being no more public comments, we will close that and we will go to the consent agenda. Items three through seven on our consent agenda are items that can be enacted by a single motion. If the council uh if any member of the council wishes to remove any of those items, they may do so. I will read all of the items uh into the record and then we can either act on that or we can remove the any of the items. So item three is adopting the minutes of previous meetings, November 10th council workshop and November 10th council meeting. Item four is authorizing the city manager to execute amendment number two to the development agreement with Hunt Communities L Belton LLC to allow for different lot sizes than previously approved. Item five is authorizing the sole source purchase of water meters from CORE and Maine. Item six is authorizing the purchase of vehicles for public works department and parks department as provided for in the capital equipment replacement fund. Item seven is authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement for visitor center support with the Belton area Chamber of Commerce for fiscal year 2026. Those are the items on the consent agenda.

I move we approve items 3 through seven as presented. Second. We have a motion and a second to present item uh to adopt items 3 through 7. Any comments before we vote? All in favor say I. I. I. I. Right. So uh all opposed. Passes unanimously. Item eight is consider authorizing the city manager to execute an interlocal easement agreement between Brazis River Authority and the city of Belton regarding the Bellhouse pipeline project. Mr. Lissy, thank you guys. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving.

Lee and council members, the Brazis River Authority is moving forward with its plan to build the Bell House water pipeline project. Uh this agenda item will address a required waterline easement from the city of Belton. Just a little background on uh the project and the originators of the project. Bar as uh most of you know is an independent Texas state agency responsible for managing regional water resources. Their plan is to build a water transmission pipeline to ensure drought resiliency in the Brazis River Basin. uh they do have u imminent domain authority to secure project easements and they have come to us with a proposal to seek and uh to uh seek an easement from the city and have proposed an interlocal agreement between bar and the city uh for that waterline placement following about three years of negotiation. This is uh a little outline of the project corridor. The blue line that you can see uh beginning here at Lake Belton and extending down across Sparta, cross country, basically crossing I14 and then going down to the lake. That is the pipeline corridor. Uh it would connect the two lakes um and provide for distribution of water uh in that pipeline to to BRA customers. There will be an intake in Lake Belton and a pump station located on the core property uh inside Belton. Pipeline length is six miles. As you can see again that blue line is a six mile corridor. Uh this shorter distance here uh is the area anticipated in the BRA easement. This is a one line one mile area 5500 feet essentially. That is the request for consideration today. BRA is requiring uh u two separate easements. Uh 50- foot permanent

easement for a 48 inch water pipeline. Again, that's a 50 foot easement for a 4ft water uh pipeline in that location. 20 foot temporary construction easement which will go away after the project's completed. Uh again the line is 5,500 feet in length and it extends between the core of engineers Lake View Park uh property and Sparta Road. Uh the pipeline location will be on city property and uh that property varies in length. It's about 200 feet in width at the core uh property and extended south to just south of Witia. And uh south of that location, the U city property uh measures 150 ft in width down to down to Sparta. Our objective in this whole discussion with the VRA has been extensive and uh our objective has been to uh certainly secure favorable terms for the city protecting our interest in exchange for grant of the easement to them. The terms of the agreement that are contained within the ILA are uh as as indicated on the screen. Uh BRA will compensate the city $2.4 million for the permanent and temporary construction easements, staging area, and for tree replacement. The city will then be responsible for tree mitigation uh as after the project is complete. In addition, BRA is granting the city of Belton the first right of of refusal for 100 I'm sorry 1,000 acre feet of future water from the BRA. And just as a point of reference, we have just under 8,600 acre feet of water right now. And this would add uh a substantial amount 12% to our water supply for future needs. So a pretty significant um conveyance to us as well. Uh finally, the city will have site plan approval authority for the pump station. Uh and we will also provide building

inspection for code compliance for the facilities that they build on on the core of engineers park property uh inside the city limits. the schedule uh based on BRA's uh conversations recently as they are beginning just now beginning rightway acquisition uh they would begin construction as early as 2029 and could complete that in 2032. Last Monday on November 17th the BRA board authorized the executive director to sign the ILA and we are recommending approval of the interlocal agreement between the BRA and the city of Belton and I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have.

All right, thank you Sam. Um, this not being a public hearing, we're just, uh, going to authorize this. Uh, any comments or questions from council? I'll start online uh, remotely. If Stephanie's at the top, I I'll I'll not putting you on the on the spot. Just if you wish to say something, you you may do. So, I I don't have any specific questions. I just know the the timing of of that's been spent on on this and I appreciate the work that's gone into it and I'm glad to see we're at this this point here and what's been presented to us. I guess. [laughter]

Thank you. Uh Dave, uh yeah, I'll just say I think um the the results could have been much much worse than this. Uh, and so I think the the the final ILA is um absolutely as beneficial as possible to the city of Belton. Um, and so based on that, I'm I'll support it. Right to the floor. Anyone have any comments or questions?

Tremendous amount of work behind the scenes. Uh, several uh, meetings, reviews, back and forth. I think the city has really worked hard to try to make sure that uh citizens were taken care of, not just from a financial standpoint, but somebody that has imminent domain over that area. Uh we were really able to negotiate and uh uh I feel like uh well, we checked just about every box we could uh for a pipeline that's going in that we didn't really have much say in.

Thank you. Absolutely agree with you, John. And uh want to thank you Sam and John and all who and and Matt all who have participated in that. I I think it's as good as it gets. Uh given that we didn't want it in the first place, but that they've got imminent domain. And so thank you for the hard work that that got it. And uh really appreciate it. I'll second that. And you know they say uh whisy's for drinking, water's for fighting. And the fact we're able to get another thousand acre feet of water uh in these negotiations is is something that's going to be felt for many years and you know that adds another 20 years to our to our water reserve. So um so I just think that's an amazing thing and thanks to the to the city staff for everything y'all were able to do to to help acquire that and get a great deal for Belter.

Mayor, one one last comment. I think it's really neat that the uh uh Texas&M Forestry Service was here this because the amount of work that went into trying to save trees um going out there marking those heritage trees uh being a asking them to move the water line a few feet um was just tremendous. And so we really and staff really really worked hard uh to try to mitigate um tree removal uh but also make sure that the city was covered. Um, and there's just a lot of added benefits in there where somebody could have just done a pipeline. Absolutely. All right. Well, chair would entertain a motion.

Move we authorize agenda item number eight.

Second. We have a motion, a second to um authorize the city manager to execute the interlocal easement agreement with Brazis River Authority. Um, I will just say for the record, so if anyone um from the press uh chooses to either watch this or read this, a little bit of background. Um, the Brazis River Authority is a political subdivision that is not beholdened to the the taxpayers or the um voters in our region. Uh they are independent uh organization that has authority as mentioned before uh to do what they're supposed to do. They've got um lakes that we call uh conservation lakes. Belton Lake is conservation. That means the primary purpose is not for recreation. It's for water and it's for the region and for the whole Brazis region which is from Georgetown up north of Waco. And so this whole region is dependent on the Brazis River Authority from the panhandle all the way down to the Gulf Coast. And so they're they've got very broad authority. Um, and so as we've started to see uh water needs south of us, uh, they've already connected Stillhouse Hollow to Lake Georgetown because Lake Georgetown runs dry and they need water in Georgetown. Now they're connecting, their plan is to connect Belton to Stillhouse. And their their long-term plan is to make sure that there's interconnectivity to all the lakes. So if there's different rain events in different areas, they can move water uh, among their system to make sure that all of their customers get water. So that's the background. So when they did that and they decided to do that, they're going to do that. And so they looked at five or six different um ways that they could go in. Some were very disruptive. Some would go through neighborhoods across businesses down roads. As you can imagine, trying to use a road as a as a possible pipeline. All the disruption. um as as luck would have it, the city of Belton had been planning for some decades uh on uh laketo lake um interconnectivity and so we had secured

right ofway. So they saw that as an opportunity um and so they came and they approached us and they said they they chose this independent of us. They chose that that area and so they then started negotiating with us on this rideway. Obviously trees are very important to us. the neighborhood is very important to us. And so the city went to bat for its citizens and work very hard to make sure that the citizens who helped pay to get that land. And the reason there's a green belt/right ofway for a road is because a city planned to do that. And so we wanted to make sure the citizens were compensated for that work that's been done over decades and also not to destroy the the the beauty of the trees that are there. The city's done a wonderful job and so I just wanted to make sure that that's in the record. So if anybody looks that gives a little bit of history. This is something that was not um worked on by the city with BRA with a desire to do anything. It was BRA informing us of their decision. Uh either work with us and let us acquire the land this way or we can work through imminent domain and we will acquire it anyway. And so that's where we are. Um and while that that's a a legal threat that's there, they never had to use that because they are a good partner to us. That's where we get our water. And so there's other sayings about what you don't do in your water. And so we're not going to do that in our water system. And so anyway, good partners. I'm glad we got this. And especially thousand acre feet. So that was my my comment. I just wanted to make sure uh people knew the history. All right. All in favor say I.

I. I. I. All right. Those opposed. Right. Passes unanimously. All right. That's item eight. Uh the next item, item nine is executive session. Um, and I I will say um we will not be taking action into this executive session.