City Council - Regular Meeting

BOOM! Thank you.

and indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Would you bow with me at this time? Our most gracious Father, we come before your presence today thanking you for the blessing that you have put upon our city. We thank you for the opportunity to serve our citizens here, and we pray, dear Father, that you will help us to make the right decision that will help keep our city moving forward. We want to thank each one of the council members for their service and all the city employees for the efforts that they are putting in to help make our city a better place to live. And we want to thank you again. In Christ Jesus' name we pray. Amen. At this time, do we have any citizen comment? If not, we'll move on. The city manager's report.

So finances, if you look at your charts, we're still trending pretty well. Of course, general fund, you know, we talk every time this time of the year that, you know, we start going a little bit of a negative until the industrial district contracts come in in June. But other than that, we're watching everything. Revenue is trending a little lower on a few things, but we're within about half a percent of everything. So I think we can still manage pretty well with that. Water's still trending pretty well, as you can see with that, so we're doing definitely well there. We should start seeing an impact with that, or an increase with that, as it's been so dry in summer. We'll see how much people want to water their yards. And the heat generally also impacts industrial use, as they need more water in their cooling process. A sales tax is still slightly higher than we budgeted, but pretty much flat. We did budget a flat sales tax, so we're trending pretty well with there. Hotel occupancy tax is still trending higher. Of course, we got that big jump on the first of the year with the turnarounds at the beginning of the year, but it's still tracking high. We budget about $450,000 of revenue, and it looks like we're gonna probably end up just a little over 500,000. So that will give us a little extra in there as we plan our Centennial events and help paying for the mobile stage that's coming through. As far as projects go, so we're still waiting on the TCQ approval of our well 13 replacement. You know, we've had that well drilled and ready to go for a little while. We have two wells down in the, two other wells down. So, you know, it'd be nice if we could get that well going up, but we are able to hold a little bit. We're pulling a little extra from Cremwell while we're working on getting those other two wells up and running. It should be about a couple more days on those. We do have the 6, the main intersection project out for quotes. So, depending on how those quotes come back, we'll decide if we're gonna have to bid it out or if we can just award the quote, we're hoping to get it under 100,000 dollars so that we can just bid it out if we do have to excuse me. So we can just award the quote, not the bid. We do have to bid it out. That'll add a little bit of time sending your weekly update email. So 3rd street. Going out toward the animal shelter started to degrade a little bit. We've got some more rain in the forecast. It's still somewhat passable, but that's not going to wait until when we plan. So we'll talk in our next work session about some. I've got some funding strategies for that. But that is going to go out. I'm going to go ahead and I've already talked to Park Hill about going ahead and putting that project out to bid so that we can get it coming. You know, the project's been designed now for two years. Originally, the OPC was $500,000, and we budgeted $500,000 for it, and that bid came back in at $1.2 million. And so then we put it in for two hazard mitigation grants. The first one didn't get awarded. The second one we thought we were shooing for because we were the only primary affected jurisdiction in the state on that one, decided not to award it to anybody, but to divert it back to the state pool. So we had talked about planning on that in our next debt issuance. What we're going to likely talk about is we can pass a refunding resolution, use our reserves to go ahead and pay for it now, and then when we do issue the debt next year, we can just refund our reserves with the debt issuance. And that's what we'll talk about during the next work session with that. But don't be surprised if in August you see that coming up. I am going to bring you, we have another little project coming that's part of that. We had a little bit of money left over with the city hall project, and we budgeted some for the police department. So the next... Next meeting, we'll have the bid for some covered parking. We're going to do one row covered parking back here, and we're going to do a row of covered parking at the police department to get all the parked city vehicles under. This is going to be like what the car lots use, kind of like what's out in Country Chevrolet with the vinyl covering just to kind of give us some protection on our assets. So that will be at the next council meeting. Other than that, we're – Of course, you've got a proposal for the Texas Water Development Board, which we're going to try to push Well 24, which is our new well in the Northwest Wellfield. We're going to try to delay that just a little bit to get the Texas Water Development Board funding. We'll talk more about that when we get to that item. And we are about to bid out the Cloverleaf Borer, which will place the sewer line from Bulldog Motor to back behind Dollar General. So we've been having issues with that. So that's kind of, we also did get, we have our work session for the chip seal project this year. The contractor has tentatively set that for June 30th through July 1st, when they'll be doing the chip seal in town. We also met with TxDOT last week, and I do want to warn you, I think I've warned y'all at some point before, but they're getting really close to finally doing the bridge decks on the cloverleaf. So that will require moving traffic to one side while they completely tear off the bridge decks and then move it back. And so they were smart enough to wait till after school got out, but that merging will be happening in front of McDonald's and pack a sack. And so it's going to be pretty good. And for better or worse, the contractor that was awarded that bid is the same one that's been working on the Canadian river bridge. So I will leave that judgment up to you, but fair warning, if you get calls or everybody knows that that's about to start happening, that is a TechStop project, it is not us. If you've also noticed, they've started stacking CHIP there at Wilson and Roosevelt. Wilson is scheduled for CHIP sealed by the state. this year. So between what we're doing and what the state's doing, there's going to be definitely some road work. They are also planning on finishing resurfacing a good chunk of Cedar Street with their excess maintenance funds at the end of this year as those get released. So the goal is to try to pick up on North Cedar where they kind of stop there on the outside lane and then to do a little more going south of the Cloverleaf as well. So they are planning on working through those. So those are kind of some of the summer projects. Once the chip seal gets done, our chip seal gets done, then we will schedule our microsurfacing project for those projects, because some of those were microsurfacing on top of the chip seal, so we might get that done a little earlier than September this year. I will say right now that is just tentative. This contractor, they're from farther south, so they're starting the southern cities and working their way north, so we're one of the last cities, so there's a lot of things that could happen with that, but We will try to give everybody as much notice as we can both, you know, the street department walk in the blocks when the time's right or us out on social media. So that's that stuff is coming and, you know, we did award a significant amount of chip sales. So it's. Going to be a lot so, but that's coming as we go through our departments finance. They're doing a lot of catch-up work after getting our audit done. Of course, I always give them a lot of work during the budget season because as I go through the budget, I find all the little weird things that maybe have been miscoded or a little off-kilter, you know, so they're getting a bunch of little sticky notes from me on a daily basis now as I find the little things in the budget process, but we're working through all of that. In plan development, Uh, Naomi Martinez last day was last week. She's moved on to other personal endeavors. So she's after working in dispatch and, uh, plan development said to see her go, but we know hope her well and all that. And we already have a new employee hired. They'll start June 1st for that position in planning development. Uh, we have hired our four summer crews for weeds and alleys. So we should start seeing some more of that picking up. Luckily, that's the one good thing about not so much rain. Yeah. You know, this time last year we were inundated by weeds after about, what, six inches of rain by this time. But hopefully, maybe if it is a little dry, we can catch up on some of the stuff that we got over. I know this, you know, we did do some of the spraying on the state sidewalks. We continue to try to do some of that. It looks like it's done pretty good, but there are definitely some places where That's starting to come up again. Of course, we are starting to send weed letters. The code enforcement update inserts going in the water bill starting with this cycle, so that'll come out in the next water bill cycle. So I know that that came up with a citizen question last year, but we do send that out. This will be the fourth year we've sent it out in the water bills. So we can't make everybody read them, but it is English on one side, Spanish on the other, so that notice will be going out. They've also issued a permit for an 8,800-square-foot building that Mike Blomar's putting up to expand Jim's bearings right there next to his if you go down on South Main, kind of where the old greenhouse was that they had when they were kind of running that out of there. And they have been working with 712. The EDC's got an item on that, but they're working through some preliminary plans on what it looks like. It's probably going to end up being four new homes. So they did have one guy from Minnesota that asked about pier and beam construction. And, of course, it is part of the code. I'm not 100% sure why we think that's a good idea down here, but I'm not for sure it's a good idea in Minnesota. But they are working through that. So in Police Department and Animal Services, they had their Tri-City event, their Tri-City kind of vaccine and microchipping event that did pretty well. I won't use the branded name that they always want me to use. We'll just leave it at their little Tri-City. Bark and wreck is much better than potty. But they had a pretty good turnout for that, so we're proud to see them stepping out of that. Candace also helped at Snack Pack for Kids and the Stop the Bleed training and CPR at the Safety Fair. The ammo control was also out with their new vehicle, one of their new vehicles at the Touch a Truck event. And Daryl completed a class on cruelty and negligent investigations. So the police department, of course, they were at the safety fair. They had the motorist demonstration. If you stepped out there, you could watch them go through their little course. They also did snack pack for kids. They helped at Stinnett graduation last week. And then, of course, Borders graduation will be this week. So they'll be busy with that. They also assisted Fridge PD with their DWI, or distracted driving awareness. They did a program similar to what we did with the high school with the ripple effect. I was trying not to use the copyrighted name of what it normally is and then we did have a Chief Davis went down and helped with Wise County and Parker County and right now I believe Chief Davis and Lieutenant Guzman are deployed in Amarillo they were using the drone I think today doing some damage assessments for the fires actually overall we have quite a few people over there Stroop's been activated to assist with public information activities Whistler's over there in the regional EOC Archie's activated, but I think down south somewhere, and so is Galloway. So we definitely got some people out helping with all that stuff that's going around. We also did the police night at Citizens Academy last week with Animal Services and the police department. They were helped with that, and of course they did our Donnie help with the reality check event, I believe. Every kid learned to try to run away from him. So I told him actually we might have to give him a little segue with some flashing lights or something on it so he could...

I understand it ruined a lot of tickets.

I believe, you know, in true Texas Tech fan fashion, he gave some kid a ticket for wearing a UT shirt. So, you know, a little bit of fun with that in there. But that, I don't think he'd admit it, but I think he enjoyed it. So in fire department, they actually did a fire prevention class for the homeschool group. So got to do some of that. They did snack pack for kid, touch a truck, and baby animal day. Tanner Hickmont and Jonathan Marr have been promoted to driver operator. And we also hosted an international ag group that came through town with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. They got a little discussion and some information on our prescribed burning programs and how to reduce wildfire and kind of the range while protecting the cattle and all that stuff. Pretty good group. I think it was somebody from New Zealand, another person from Australia, somebody from Switzerland. So I'm sure it was a unique event. I was out of town, but we made sure to give them some... A little bit of bling and some Windy Deuce challenge coins we still had left. So I'm sure they were happy with that. EMS did some CPR training. They hosted the CPR training at the safety fair, so they got quite a few people, I think, through that. We did get our TSAPP. That's the Supplemental Indigent Care Funding Application approved. That's going to be, I think, about probably $10,000 to $20,000 this year. It might go up just a little bit, so a little bit of extra money. We also did get our TWC, the Texas Workforce Commission, grant for our paramedic training. So Sarah Hamilton and Charlotte Winkler are going to be going through paramedic training, and the state's going to cover all that cost. Never a bad thing for that. We also hosted the SPAMs training. That's the medical control director. So we hosted regional protocol director for all the services that use SPAMs for their protocols. We are staffing two full trucks in Stinnett on A shift and B shift. So we're just one employee short of getting that last employee started for C shift. But we pretty much started covering all of them on April 11th. So we didn't guarantee it until the end of July. So we're definitely ahead of schedule there. So two out of three days, we have a truck that's stationed up there. We also got our new knockbox narcotic safes in each of the trucks, and so that's helped streamline tracking of all the narcotic usage and stuff like that. So that brings us to ambulances. So, you know, we're supposed to get one in May, right? Well, they say that they'll give us 30 days' notice before it's delivered. We still have not got 30 days' notice. So I'm assuming that now that's not May. And the second truck was supposed to be June. But if now the first truck's in June, I'm not for sure that the second truck will be in June. But we'll see. Like I said, luckily, we do have the rental on the Stinnett unit, and we still have R3. The maintenance has been a little better here lately. So just... Monday, I will say on the positive side of vehicles, we do have all of our light duty vehicles that we ordered this year. Actually, we got the last one, I think, last month. That's the first time in like six years now that we've gotten them all in the same year we ordered them. So we are making some progress in some areas. And OEM IT has been working to put in our We've got our little card readers now for all of our computers to access our computers, so we do have that two-factor authentication. So that's, you know, securing some of those networks may be trying to make it a little harder for any inappropriate actor. So we have seen, if you've been noticing in your email, there's been a whole lot more phishing and spam attempts. Of course, everybody went through their fun cyber training last meeting, so hopefully you're being aware of that, but we are seeing a little uptick on that. I've got some random emails from random people wanting me to change their direct deposit information and why the hell they think that I'm the one that changes direct deposit information, I don't know, but that's generally a pretty good indication for them. Dustin's also been working with Potter County on a GIS implementation of our evacuation plan and model. So this is kind of nice, because if we can get that replicated with us, it'll make some of that data entry a little easier. Fire Marshal Pender also just got back from the Association of Arts Investors Gators Conference in St. Louis. We are training two new dispatchers in dispatch right now. And so we've also gotten a delay in our city hall and dispatch generators that were in this budget. So I think they're still coming. We'll get them done this year, but we're still waiting for them to get in. And of course, in addition to Whistler being gone in Amarillo right now, he also deployed to Weatherford for state assistance. That tornado ended up being short-lived. Our people came back a little quick. Luckily, there wasn't just a whole lot of widespread damage from that. It was kind of contained right there, but they did help with that. So they've learned new ways to increase efficiency and damage assessments, which will help as we go through our GIS implementations with that. So in public works, the parks is... We helped grind 32 stumps for a fridge with our stump grinder that we got a couple years ago, so we're always trying to help out those neighbors. Our new trash truck is still scheduled to be here next month, so hopefully, you know, that's not like an ambulance. We are getting our summer hands hired in the parks department. We do still have one opening in solid waste that we're working through. Splash pads are turned on now for the summer season. I did notice, it's amazing, sometimes on social media, somebody commented, well, they don't want splash pads, they want a swimming pool. I'm like, well, We do have a swimming pool. Swimming pool will open on May 27th. So we had our little city employee party last Friday. It was really good. And luckily the clouds turned. I was a little concerned when I saw the high temperature of 100 knowing that I was going to have to cook hamburgers and hot dogs for like 150 in front of a charcoal grill. But luckily the clouds made it a little more, it wasn't too bad. And so then we already talked about the tech stock projects and the six and main projects. Already talked about utilities, about our wells and way down TCQ. TCQ should be just any day. We're also, we have been supplying tri-city water for quite a while, but we've got to update that agreement. So they have to have an agreement, water supply agreement on file with TCQ. So that's likely gonna be on our next council agenda. It's some of that we inherited when we took over the system and some of those other things. So just don't don't be surprised. We see that on there. It's just gonna, it's gonna be like all of our other water supply agreements and just kind of. Codify that, so they've got to have that to give to. Our downtown program, we have distributed our tiers applications for the momentum grant to all of the tiers businesses downtown. So we'll see what we get out of that. Again, y'all just got your physical invites. We'll be talking about this for a while. First Lady Cecilia Abbott will be here next Wednesday at 3 p.m. to officially induct us into the Texas Main Street program. So we're excited about that. So there'll be some stuff out on Main Street at 3 for anybody that would like to attend that. We've also been working on with code enforcement and to kind of create an adopt a spot program in conjunction with Phillips 66 so that we can have some volunteers kind of pick up some of our more highly visible areas. So they're working through that. We also had the second seat at the table event, you know, where we bring everybody kind of together so people with business ideas or issues can come. So I think that was pretty good. We talked about it. They met with a Hispanic bakery and a possible pool hall looking at downtown for like a family type event. and then somebody with some business questions, so we're seeing some pretty good engagement with that. We're also working with some information on two other downtown possible businesses. We keep doing our Behind the Doors series on Facebook. If you haven't seen those because you're not on social media, you can swing by their office and look at them, but that's been, I think, pretty good. Engagement on Facebook's got a lot of people interested in thinking about what they may or may not be able to do with some of the buildings downtown. We are officially now an affiliate of the Main Street program, the National Main Street program too, so that's kind of the last step in our Main Street affiliation. So now if we keep doing that, the next step is accredited, which takes three years. Before they give you the full accreditation, they want to make sure that you can maintain your affiliate status.

Does that go back to when we applied or were first approved?

When we earned the accredited status. Because we don't have to report a bunch of the statistics until we are accredited. But that's really just, I mean, we get all the same benefits whether you're accredited or affiliated. It's just kind of a milestone recognition.

I'm just trying to shorten the time of approval and so on.

They also have been working on putting some packets together and doing a little bit of engagement in some interest on maybe the Borger Hotel. So we've got a little bit of movement there. So we're kind of excited about what might happen with that. And they've also been working with the Chamber on regional engagement, trying to get like a Chamber kind of regional summit together so that everybody can kind of talk about what they're doing and what events they have. And so there can be some coordination there. In public engagement, we got a $17,000 grant from the Amarillo Area Foundation that we'll take into the tiers, which will help us fund some facade grants downtown, too. So we're excited to have that money. You might have seen that they've been working with Nathan Franks on a Morley documentary. We pushed that out. Is that the end of his bachelor project?

I'm not sure.

We've been meeting with him.

He's kind of engaged up with Brian, the manager there, and got him on board to keep that story going.

So we're also trying to get him maybe to do something on the hotel to kind of help us maybe market that for some sort of solution. With some of the things going, of course, we'd like to see something done with OTEL because sooner or later it's going to be our responsibility to do something with it, and it'd sure be better to get it back in use in some form than to have to spend what it's going to cost to tear it down, which I'm kind of afraid on that. So we have started also getting ready to do their fourth session of the business boot camp. So that's in partnership with the BEDC and the Chamber of Commerce. They actually have four attendees. They've got five that are getting the subsidy from the BEDC, and they've got four that are still attending just because they want the information with no financial benefit. So we're happy for that. Deidre's doing marketing this session this month, and then next month is something, and then they've got me doing something in July. I'll have a good program together before July. So it'll be more than just something. We are started marketing all of our summer events. Don't forget, Saturdays of summer starts in June. We've got the fourth on May at the end of June. The fourth hits kind of weird this year. Should be more music downtown this year because part of our Boomtoberfest requirements, if you're an 806 area code band that wants to participate, you have to come play at one of the downtown events before Boomtoberfest. So that's trying to get a little more music down there. So we're excited about that. Are continuing to finalize just a few things from our Centennial Boomtoberfest. They've also started doing a little bit of reach out with BISD and the Code Enforcement Department, too. What we're working on is trying to partner on, like, the construction program to where we can maybe turn over some of the tax properties to the high school, whose the high school can then use the construction program to rehab and renovate it and then sell it and then put that money back into the program. So we've talked a little bit about that through different organizations over the last couple years. So we're... Especially now that we've, since we've been part of that Texas communities group, you know, some of the homes we're getting back on back taxes aren't just horrible. You know, they used to kind of come to the city and then we'd forget about them. And by the time anybody remembered, they'd been vacant for 10 years. So there are some good things there. And of course that would help some of our neighborhood security, you know, neighborhood keep some of those going, kind of gives the students some life skills too in that program. And so we're excited to see where maybe that will go. Deidre is also doing a session on emergency communication at the TDEM conference here somewhat soon. And we did complete the reality check. Scott is also starting on our digital friendly. You know, we're tourism friendly and music friendly and film friendly. Excuse me. So now we're working on digital friendly. Also getting ready and helping the chamber with the women's conference, which is coming up. Also part of Boomtoberfest, we were reached out by a group called Big Texas Little Films. So we're going to have like a little film festival kind of tied with Boomtoberfest. So we put them in contact with the Morley, some of the places where they might be able to show some of their little films. It's kind of like South by Southwest on the road is what they're kind of working to add it on. So that's kind of interesting. They did find us off of the music friendly or the film friendly website and some of the things there. So we're seeing a little bit of feedback from all of those efforts and doing those things. That's what we did last month. Entertaining questions if you have any. Any questions?

Okay. All right. We'll move on to our consent items 6, 7, and 8. Does anybody have any questions on the consent items? If not, I'll entertain a motion.

I make a motion to accept the consent agenda items 6 through 8 as written.

Seconded.

All right. Second approval. Okay. Y'all can put up your hand. I'm a lefty now. I'm so used to putting up my left. Everybody else going right. All right. Item two be considered. Number nine, consider and take appropriate action on resolution R-010-26, approving an advanced funding agreement between the City of Borga, and the Texas Department of Transportation for the Bulldog Boulevard sidewalk and bike trail transportation alternatives set-aside project utilizing state transportation development credits. City Manager?

Yeah, so as everybody's aware, we were awarded that TA grant that's going to do the Bulldog Loop trail system around Bulldog, which includes sidewalks. Because of our demographics, we did qualify for federal development credits for our portion of the match. So instead of us having to come up with 25% of the funding, they're going to use the federal credits to do that. Because we're using the federal credits, that brings in a lot of federal regulations. And so TxDOT pretty much said that to make sure that everything is compliant, appropriate with, it'd be better if we just let them do it. And so that's what this AFA, there's no money involved with this. What this sets out is that while we will procure and provide the initial engineering of the project, then we will give the plans to TxDOT. They will approve the plans and then they will handle the bidding. the letting and the construction management of the project so that the bidding and all of that complies with federal requirements for the transportation so of course TxDOT you know uses federal dollars for a whole lot of different things throughout the state so they've got specialists for that so that's what this AFA does that's all it does there's no no additional money or anything else set aside of this this is just setting out the responsibilities and TxDOT agreeing to handle the bidding the letting and the construction management so basically we can just sit back and watch we give them the plan so that they do it how we want it okay now you know keep in mind that that it is it is a tech stop project so this will be low bid and it will have to be low bid so sometimes where we rank contractors this will all be on the dollar side which is good and bad depending on who applies but it should not be an overly complicated project so i'm not overly concerned but i did want to just throw that out but they would handle the ward they'd let the ward and textile handles all of that but they won't necessarily be doing the construction themselves they they'll be overseeing it but there will be a third party contractor okay anybody have any other questions okay well entertain a motion

I move to approve Resolution R010-26, approving an advance funding agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation for the Bulldog Boulevard sidewalk and bike trail transportation alternative set-aside project and authorizing the city manager to execute the agreement.

I second. Okay. We have a second. The motion passed. All in favor? Okay, item number 10, consider and take appropriate action on resolution R-016-26, approving an option agreement for the sale of lots 1 and 2, block 1, and lots 4 through 8, block 2, Borga EDC Industrial Park, unit number 1 between Borga, Inc., and 12 Benefit Corporation. Ms. Fassinger.

Good afternoon council, so I'm going to introduce this project and then I'm going to kind of let them give a presentation. Um, and of course, we know with some of these projects, it's been a couple of years in the making. So this project is really exciting because it's 1 of 2 projects and, um. The 1 that we're going to really talk about today is the 1 that we. Is listed here is twelve and so this project we're still in the early phases. We're still the due diligence phase, but it comes with a billion dollar investment and sixty upper quartile jobs. And so the impact of that in a region like this has, you know, it's going to impact our schools, our hospitals, our cities and everything. So. I'm going to let Alana, the senior manager of project development for twelve and Jason Harris head of development for Novo hydrogen. Like I said, these are conversations we've had for a couple of years and it's got great synergy with our existing industries and it also expands on our industrial diversification, which we know is a big pillar for our city. And one of these projects has that kind of impact, and both of them will have a similar impact. And so with 12 especially, it will be in the city limits. And so do we know if we have them connected currently? No, you're great. They're on my side of the... Because really, they can explain it far better than I can. And there's Alana. Hi, Alana, can you hear me?

yes are you able to hear me okay we can and then we also have jason so i can see him as well hi jason how's it going great okay great um so it looks like you have the presentation on your screen if So let's see one can see that we're going to let you have it.

I might let y'all try to share it because when I share it, I can't see you.

Okay, let me 1 2nd, let me.

Not that the council needs to see you, but they probably want to.

Okay, let me know if you can see my screen now. We can see it.

Okay, great. Yeah, so my name is Alana Macia. I am here representing 12 along with Jason from our partner, Novo Hydrogen. Really appreciate you letting us take the time to present today. And I will kind of quickly run through an overview of our company and our technology, our first operating air plant in Washington State, and what Jason and I are working on here in Berger. So 12 is what we call a next generation industrial company working to electrify fuel and chemical production. Our company was founded in 2015 and we use our proprietary technology to turn carbon dioxide emissions, water and renewable electricity into the fuels and chemicals that we use every day without the need for oil. Our flagship product, which is called our E-Jet, is a power-to-liquid drop-in jet fuel made, again, from carbon dioxide emissions and renewable electricity. And it works in today's aircraft engines without needing any modifications. And we also produce what's called E-NAFTA, which is a feedstock used in everyday consumer products. And like I mentioned, all of our products are drop-in ready, so meaning they can be used today and integrated seamlessly into existing supply chains and engines. One of our main goals is to both increase the amount of American-made fuel and to decarbonize challenging industries like aviation. And our EJET product has up to 90% lower lifecycle emissions than conventional jet fuel. And it also requires less water and less land than biofuels. But we're also very complementary to biofuel production as one of our priority sources for the carbon dioxide that feeds our process is from ethanol plants. So we look to partner with ethanol plants and utilize their carbon dioxide emissions that otherwise would just be going into the atmosphere or buried underground.

This is a high-level overview of what our air plants look like.

So again, our inputs are carbon dioxide emissions, water, and electricity. We then use our technology to combine carbon dioxide electrolysis with water electrolysis. And then this gets further refined using the Fischer-Tropsch gas-to-liquid process. And ultimately, we are producing our EJET jet fuel and ENAFTA. Our first large scale production facility is in the final commissioning and startup stage in Moses Lake, Washington. So this is an actual picture of our plant in Washington, and we are on track to be producing fuel here in June. So an exciting. Milestone coming up for our company in just a couple weeks and the fuel produced here will be going to Alaska Airlines at the Seattle airport. So right now we are exploring the feasibility for a future production facility in the Borger area. Again, in partnership with Novo Hydrogen, that would be developing a wind and solar project to help power our facility with renewables. And this facility would go towards fulfilling our executed contracts with International Airlines Group, as well as customers that are purchasing our ENAP, the product, Again, that goes into producing chemicals and plastics that can be used to make everyday household products. And we would be targeting operations right now in the early to mid 2030s timeline. So we've been working closely with Amy and the Economic Development Corporation over the last year or so. And right now, again, we're looking to advance on a purchase option agreement, which would enable us to complete some detailed development due diligence over the next 6 to 12 months. And again, with the ultimate goal of figuring out if a production facility would be feasible here. And so some things that we would prioritize digging into include any environmental issues. So we would like to do some high level environmental surveys, like a habitat assessment, a phase one environmental site assessment, and then working with a third party consultant, as well as coordinating with any agencies like the US Fish and Wildlife Service. We would do any other surveys that they would recommend for this specific area. We would kick off some pretty early design work in high-level engineering. So that would mostly be right now things like geotech and some soil testing. We're working with Xcel on feasibility of connecting to the grid here and what electrical capacity looks like in this area. So again, a portion if not all of our electricity would be coming from wind and solar, but we also do want to understand grid capacity in this area without straining the local grid. And then finally, kind of any other logistics that would be required for our facility. So we've been having some discussions and looking at local options to source carbon dioxide from some of the nearby industries. We would look for some access to rail and then digging more into water and wastewater solutions. And we've had a great experience working with the city so far. We're really excited to advance on the potential partnership here. And our ultimate goal would be to build a facility that's a good partner and a good addition to the community here. Ultimately, we would be contributing to increased property tax revenue. As Amy mentioned, depending on our final facility size, there could be up to 60 permanent and long-term jobs and hundreds of construction jobs during about a three-year construction period. And we would continue looking at ways to partner on local workforce development programs and educational opportunities to help kind of build pipelines for the skills that our facility requires. And yeah, obviously this community has a strong track record of industrial workforce training. So definitely excited to look more into partnerships there. I think that's all from my side and I'll pass it to Jason and then happy to answer any questions.

Okay, thanks. Can you all hear me?

Okay. We can.

Yeah.

Okay, great. I'm just going to give the a little overview of the other side of the projects that we're partnering with 12. so my company is called no hydrogen and. Our project area is outside of the city limits, but unincorporated Hutchinson County, just the east of the city. Yeah, really thanks to Amy and Borger UDC, though, for facilitating a lot of great relationships with landowners and county commissioners. I think I first came to Hutchinson County in Borger in June 2023 and started discussing with landowners leases for landowners. wind and solar around that time. And I think first signed our first lease in early 2024, and then most recent leases early 2025. So I've been visiting the area for a long time, a few years, and apologies, not there in person today. But this scope of the project is the wind and solar powering an electrolyzer facility. So we've leased about 23,000 acres. And it'd be about these rough numbers because we're in the preliminary design phases. Things need to get a little bit more refined as we continue to progress. But about 400 megawatts of wind and about 200 megawatts of solar. which would power about 180 megawatt electrolyzer and then produce about 60 tons a day of hydrogen. So if you see the kind of flow chart in the top right, we've got green power all behind the meter power. It will not draw any power from ERCOT or SPP XL. And all that will be powering the electrolyzers, which then compresses that gas and stores it. And then we'll be feeding that into the 12 plan via pipe and to their utilization. Water, we all know, is a very sensitive topic. I heard you all talking about it earlier today. It's very important, very scarce. We've actually had a feasibility study done for groundwater. We do have leases for groundwater for some of the ranches that we have partnership leases on. We looked at, I think, about 384 existing wells, and I think I've also had preliminary conversations with Mr. Spaulding about a year or so ago. Conservatively, our project would need less than 500,000, I think,

gallons a day.

Yeah, always gallons or liters because some of these things are dynamic, kilograms. And we would look to have the project start construction maybe in about 2028 time frame and be up and running by 2030.

So I'll leave it there, but also happy to answer any questions.

Do you have any questions for them?

They were talking about the wastewater, what some of the wastewater, what's going to be contaminated with, and how do they clean it up before they recycle it, or do they pass it on down?

Jason and Alana, do you have numbers on wastewater that you will produce, or were you talking about reusing wastewater? Go ahead, Jason.

For our process about One third of the water that I was mentioning is reactive, and two thirds is effluent discharge. And it's more concentrated minerals in that water. It's harder water. We can recycle it and reuse it. But eventually, you do need new water to make it less dense, I guess, or less concentrated with all those minerals. We would have to go through TCEQ and get a water discharge permit, for sure. We've also talked about, I should mention, using effluent from some of the industrials in the area that, I won't mention names right now, but they have non-potable but clean effluent that would be usable for our reaction process, and that's You know, maybe another source of groundwater, but to answer your question on the. On the discharge, that's that's what that would look like.

And then how clean is it once you discharge it? Are there any concerns with your wastewater?

It's just harder water. There's no added material whatsoever. It's just more concentrated minerals and things like that. We would do all the environmental studies to make sure that there would be no adverse effects on the groundwater, the environment, but there's no added materials to it.

It's kind of what happens if water just evaporates. And so, because what they're doing is they're splitting it and using some of the water, both processes are somewhat the same. So you're not inducing chemicals into it, like some of the other plants are using the water as a feedstock. So it's not, these will be some of, I need to be careful about how I say this, because I don't think our industries are necessarily dirty as such, but compared to our existing industries, this is, both of these are way, way cleaner. than a lot of what we're dealing with now. And the Novo plant is located within, it's somewhat located, we've had initial conversations about trying to use lake water, because depending on what their salinity needs are, we have a million gallons a day of lake water allocation that we can't use. And so there might be some partnership opportunities, even if we need to put in a smaller somewhat treatment facility or whatever that might look like to make sure that they can use

So I want to, and that's what the city, I mean, it's what our industry is held to. So I want to make sure they're held to at least that minimum.

Correct.

When we talk about this discharge, will it be in a hole in pond or are we just going, like, you know, we got all these ravines and things like that?

And those are some of the design things that I think they're still working through, you know, that we'll kind of get to as the process moves forward. Correct me if I'm wrong, like holding ponds and all of those things as far as where a discharge will go to, that'll still be further in feasibility and design process, correct? Or do you already know that?

No, we have to still figure that out. There's a couple of different options, and we've done this scope study in different projects. There's recycling and reuse. There's potential for some irrigation. And then there's holding ponds. There might be one or two other options that we'll look at. Yeah, it's undecided at this point.

would the waste accumulate so fast that it could become solid, be transported someplace else as the evaporation or whatever?

At 500,000 gallons a day, I would not, because you think about that in quantities of our existing industries, that's pretty minimal.

Because even like nutrient, if you look at like right now, nutrient discharges to Weatherly Creek and they serve a supply. So like all those sprinklers they put in out in that kind of ravine area, that's their wastewater that they're applying. They're spraying it out. Phillips does eventually discharge all of their treated water to the north. If we were doing an RO, depending on that, you can also then get a permit for injection wells to inject it. There are other disposal wells in close proximity for oil-filled brackish water injection and stuff like that. Like I said, their byproduct would be cleaner than anything else. It's really, it's really, it's, you're just concentrating the salt and the minerals.

I know the whole generic here seems to be, you know, green, green, green, green, green, so. I don't want any of the red, red, red, red, red.

No. And, you know, some of this will I think you'll get a clearer picture as their due diligence and their feasibility and everything comes through. But there's nothing that's going to be like caustic or heavy or anything like that. I mean, you're really talking about taking cleaner water and moving it. I mean, the best comparison would be to move it from soft to hard. Now, it may be extremely hard, but that's kind of the gradient that you're working on.

water?

Most likely. I mean, they've got other groundwater rights and stuff like that. I think that's the next step. They've got to look at what the cost is in transporting it from what groundwater rights they have versus what cost it is for us to get it there. What is that water quality? Our discussion will be different whether they need well water or they need lake water. Our ability to provide lake water is significantly higher than our ability to provide potable well water, but those all look differently. So we have enough to provide them what they would need. The next question is just what are the costs and how much treatment do they have? And I do think it's kind of important to remember at this point, this is still pretty, we've done all, everybody's done the high level review. And so now we got to start making some commitments to get into the next level. And that's kind of where we're at. And like I said, for us, this would be a use similar in water to maybe what the carbon black plants use. And so this would be, you know, right now Nutrient's using three to four million gallons a day, and Phillips is taking four to six, depending on what they're mixing with their water, and we're only providing about half of theirs, so that's 12 million gallons a day. So I know that just when we talk about data centers and a lot of other development in the area, everybody's, like, super worried about water, and that's definitely something we need to be, you know, meaningful with. But what we're talking about here is not really – In the panhandle, 10% of water use is municipal and industrial, and that equates to about, I think, 250 million gallons a day. That means that 3 billion gallons a day is used for ag. And I'm not saying that ag is good. I'm not saying that ag is bad. I'm not saying any of this is good. I'm just saying that's what the usage is. So when you're looking at 3 billion gallons of water a day being used in the Texas Panhandle right now, another 500,000 is a very small amount.

And we've got to think about environmentally, it's very clean. And even with this project, there's things that we don't have time to hit on, but there's carbon offsets that can be offered to our other industries that creates cleaner environments and those kind of things for our community. So the benefits of this project as we move along, and if the time comes and it potentially completely lands in Borger, You know, there's just so many things that you can't talk about it all in one sitting. And so the water usage is really fractional. There's benefits to the type of water that discussions Garrett and I've had. You know, if we can pull the salinity off of Lake Meredith, that has great benefits to us even as a community. And so currently, just to be able to move on to the next phase is fantastic. It would be a great benefit to all of us. And even like, we've talked about, like, incentives for the purchase for us. You know, we want to be able to, like, we have some plans to assist them in this because it's because we see such a future benefit. We want to roll, like, a lot of the purchase price back into an EDA grant. For infrastructure and stuff to try to assist this process along.

Also with this, Amy, if everything was, every milestone was hit just bing, bang, bong, what's the production time estimated? 20, 30 something?

Expected 20, 30.

Early 20, 30 or just?

You know, it's so hard because you've got. I understand. That's what I'm saying, if everything. Yeah, if everything hit great, I mean, 20, 30, and you're talking about a potential of up to 60 employees, great benefits package, and that's just for 12. That's not novo hydrogen side. That's just for 12. So if you take that and then double it, you know, it's kind of, you know, I'm not going to say it's going to be exactly double, but if you take that and double, that's the impact on our.

As long as we get stuff done faster than we get our ambulances, that's good.

I'm telling you, I think they could beat your ambulance timeline.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you. I have a question. What we're looking at here is a resolution for the property at the industrial park, right?

Yes, sir.

And so how many acres are we talking?

We're talking about 100. It's like 99 point whatever, whatever, whatever.

Okay. And I understand 12 and Novo are two different organizations that are in a joint venture. And so the ones that want the industrial park, is that where the structure that produces the hydrogen will be created?

That's the jet fuel company. That's 12.

Yes. And so they'll actually have a small plant there.

Yes, 12th's plant will be there, and then the hydrogen plant will be in the county. They won't be exactly on the same piece of property.

Okay.

And that's kind of what I was wondering is if the industrial park, what I see out there mostly is land, you know, and we've got a building. And so I'm trying to see if the city's vision of that is buildings, various kind of like industrial boulevard, or if we're going to have now – structures like carbon black and refinery and chemical plant. And so that's kind of what I'm curious as to what's it going to look like. Is this going to be all inside of a building or is this more moving towards piping and structure?

It's like the picture that she showed in the presentation. That was that was there.

So there are. Inclosed buildings that would look like this that has electrolyzer, the carbon dioxide electrolyzer and then it does. Resemble sorry, I'm trying to go back a slide or it kind of looks like a refinery. This is again our, our plan in Washington state. So it would be something similar to this.

Okay.

Yes. Okay. And is that our thinking? And I have no problem with this. I'm trying to figure out what we have versus what we're doing and are we changing?

Originally, the industrial park was platted heavy industry. And, you know, we then moved it to light industry when we had some needs, some of the other needs hit. This would likely – well, this will require a rezoning back to heavy industry, but that was a little bit in line with the original thinking. You know, it is on the other side of the street, but there's still some pretty good distance between the residential housing back to the west. This is – you know, it is a cleaner production process than – any other production process that we have in or around the community it's i would not compare it to carbon black at all just because you know when they put metal in or something it's going to stay metal it's not going to be coated in any of that so you know that's that's kind of what it is you know the council's decision you know but the original idea was that it would probably be heavy industry it's in close proximity to nutrients so it's not like you're going to be able to

Right, right. And like I said, I don't have a problem with it. I was trying to figure out, because apparently some point in the future before I joined the council, he had a vision for that. And are we stepping outside of our vision for this? The vision has kind of changed. Yeah.

over time but like i said i will say that you know as far as as hazards this their processes are less hazardous than any other process uh you know nutrient just and i'm not worried about it and you know i think nutrients are really good partner but they also just put in like the country's largest ammonia tank right across the street and you know they've got plenty of things in place to be released but ammonia is highly toxic to where anything on either one of these sites is not toxic and so I would think that you know when we talk about noise it generally there'll be some noise and start up or shut down if that happens like any of the other plants but it should be significantly quieter than what nutrient already does when it shut down that reformer furnace they can supply the hydrogen to it we can get rid of that noise

Okay, I'm done. Thanks.

No, you're great.

Okay. Any more comments? Okay, entertain a motion.

I move to approve Resolution R-016-26, approving an option to purchase agreement for the sale of Lots 1 and 2, Block 1, and Lots 4 through 8, Block 2, Borger EDC Industrial Park Unit Number 1 between Borger Economic Development Corporation doing business as Borger, Inc., and 12 Benefit Corporation. Second.

Okay. We have a second. All in favor? Motion carried. We thank y'all for the information that you gave us today and looking forward to working with you.

Likewise. Thanks so much for all your time. Thank you. Thanks, Jason and Alana.

Okay. Item number 11. Consider and take appropriate action on resolution R-017-26. Approving the loan agreement between Borga Inc. and 712 General Contractor LLC. Amy?

Yes, it's a we're asking the city council to approve this agreement. Um, seven twelve has been a great partner with the city in the to get our housing moving. And, you know, there's been things that always come up during these projects. Um, utilities was a big one that delayed this project. And so they have actually completed the infrastructure. So we were able to transfer a lot. So we're kind of in the process of transferring all the lights. But we had a discussion about there just needing to be a little bit of gap. There was a gap in some of the funding to get some of the projects rolling. And they were talking about potentially going out and getting a loan, you know, to just keep everything moving at the pace we have now. And so as we were in those discussions, we kind of discussed about what amount would help them out and keep this going. And the amount that we came up with was $200,000. and so there are a lot of edc's that give loans and especially with such a solid partner so we the edc decided um that we would like to extend this loan to them to try to keep you know like i said our housing moving because it is it's more than just you know one incentive for the city it is a workforce development project it's a population increasing project it adds to our tears fund that's going to add to our downtown development capabilities. And also, it's an interest income generator for the EDC that allows us to put that money back into incentive programs for whatever our community may need. So we are asking the city council to approve this on behalf of 712 and the EDC. And if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them.

Considered a short term loan or long term.

So it's a five year loan, but they want to pay it off every time they sell a lot and sell a house. And so they have the option to make additional payments. I mean, if they made no additional payments over the five years, the interest generated that the EDC would make is about $36,201.53. It is at a market rate of 7.25%. Yes.

Okay. All right. Any questions? All right. I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve Resolution R-017-26, approving the loan agreement between Borger, Inc., and DBA Borger, Inc., and 712 General Contractors, LLC. Okay.

I have a second.

We have a second. All right. I'm going to show hands on approval. And it passes. Item 12, consider and take appropriate action on resolution R-01826, approving an amendment to the quarter revitalization agreement between Borger, Inc., MJZA, Holden, LLC, and Refinishing Systems, LLC. Amen.

I know we're just going to be here together for a while. I'm not sure if any of you have driven by refinishing systems and seen the new stucco and stuff on the Quonsen hut. So when we originally did the incentive agreement, The estimates, and actually I think there was just a little bit that kind of got left off the estimates, the stucco for that facade so that we could get that nice mural that's coming for the centennial celebration wasn't really accounted for. And so conversations with Matt, and he's been phenomenal to work with, he asked that we could go ahead and increase that from $110,000 to $140,000 to cover that. And instead of our normal 50 to get the math to work right, instead of our normal 50% reimbursement, we were going to do 52% so we could cover it at the right amounts. And so that's what we're asking you to consider is just an amendment to that agreement. And it does look fantastic and the mural is going to look even better.

Let's make that whole area look better.

There will be a mural easement on your next agenda meeting, too, just since we're putting our mural up, we'll formalize a mural easement with that. But we went ahead and let the artist go ahead and get started. We were trying to maybe get it done before the First Lady of Texas gets here next week. So we'll see.

All right. Anybody have any questions? Okay. Entertain the motion.

I move to approve Resolution R-018-26, approving an amendment to the Corridor Revitalization Agreement between Borger Economic Development Corporation, DBA, Borger, Inc., and JZA Holdings, LLC, and Refinishing Systems, LLC.

Okay. We have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. We have a second. All in favor? Okay. Well, you thought you were going to get to sit down.

I did.

Last one, I promise. Item 13, consider and take appropriate action to approve Borg, Inc., fiscal year 2025 annual report. Amy?

Okay, and so I hope you had a chance to review it. We just, of course, got our audited financials back, so it's annual report time. And kind of took a little bit different approach this year and did a page to try to educate the public a little bit more on what we do and how we do it. And so... Of course, we went through all of our projects and the growth, and even the Bureau of Economic and Labor Statistics decided not to publish our GDP until December 2026 this year. So we kind of had to do some projections on that as you read through. But of course, Borger remains strong, and it's because of our manufacturing base. And and so there's a lot of those explanations in here and we have a lot of information in there about a yucca park estates workforce housing project business retention and expansion with nutrient or agrium however you refer to it since it's changed names a few times our corridor revitalization programs and our main street building project that we refer to as at the ranch what businesses and the breakdown for leading edge And so all of that is in here if you have taken time, had time to look at it. You know, definitely, and of course, the project with Customs by Steve that really changed the facade and everything that he did, and then our budget as well. And so we're just asking you to approve that for us. And then, of course, leading edge is a big one because Spencer met with 29 startup clients, six consulting appointments, three expansion appointments, and five that either were trying to sell or purchase a building or land or something like that. So we just want to make sure that everybody stays up to date with what we're doing and how we're doing it.

And I will get you printed copies. The big printer is waiting on parts right now. Which is why you don't have it right now because I'll make it in that nice fancy pretty book that I normally give you everything with but there is a reason you don't have it in front of you right now other than the digital copy. Yes.

They're coming with their ambulances.

No, we've all had printer issues the last two weeks.

Okay.

Yeah, shouldn't this have been presented in a workshop for us instead of reading it online?

We can definitely do that next year. We have never done that which is why We did it like this, but if you'd prefer it in a work session, we can definitely do that next year.

I think we should. Yeah. Because I went through it, and it's a nice sales production. It looks real good, but I had a little trouble finding everything in it, and I don't know enough about how they run their business. And so... I don't mind giving it a pass, but I think we should look at it a little more in the future.

And you might jot those questions down. If you remember at our next work session, we'll have the joint budget work session with the EDC for their upcoming budget.

So that might give you some... Yeah, if I know where it's coming from, I'll see. Yeah.

Okay.

Which is kind of why we were... Are we approving the budget ahead of time, or is this approving what was already spent? This is what was already spent. Okay.

Yeah, so this is just everything. This is a report of what they did last year.

Okay. This is very similar to what we do at the city. Right. Pretty much every month.

Okay. Okay. Any more questions? Okay. I will entertain a motion.

I move to approve the Borger Inc. fiscal year 2025 annual report as submitted.

Second. Motion passes. All in favor?

Thank you. Okay.

Item 14, consider and take appropriate action on Resolution R, that's 01926, requesting financial assistance from the Texas Water Development Board and authorizing the application for the water supply and infrastructure grant. Mr. Spradlin.

So this is part of Senate Bill 500 that came out of the last legislative session. If you recall, they allocated, I think, about $2 billion to water projects in a one-time 100% matching grant. So our population category is authorized for projects up to $10 million. However, they have only allocated $70 million for our population category. So they are trying to focus on shovel-ready projects because this money has to be 100% allocated by the end of this current biennium, and it has to be spent by 2031. So lucky for us, we've been engineering Water Well 24 now for three years. So we have Water Well 24 that we were getting ready to go to bid. I thought it would be worthwhile to hold that back a little bit and apply for it towards this grant to see if we can get this grant to fund it. At the same time, we had earmarked in the coming years an additional pump number three up at the Northwest Wellfield and new variable drives on those pumps. So we're going to try to throw those in on this grant real quick to see if we can't go ahead and get them while the state's giving some money, 100%. Based on the water supply up there, I don't know that we would ever need the third pump, but it's never bad to have an extra one.

Yeah.

Right. And so the... The well itself is about $2.2 million. We think probably another million, million and a half for the other stuff, but this resolution will approve up to $5 million to allow us a little bit of leeway. I don't want to ask for the maximum, because like I said, they are scoring these by household income, your average household income, which generally is beneficial for us. But this is probably going to be fairly competitive. If you've noticed, there was a story today that the new state water plan is out. And between now and 2050, I think they said to avoid a water crisis, the state needs 138 billion invested in water projects. And this is just 2 billion. And like I said, in reality, we are competing against 70 million. So I want to right-size it to where we've got a better chance of getting it. I think if we ask for too much, it's going to be harder to get. Because if everybody asks for $10 million in our population category, that means they're only going to award seven.

Right.

And so they are... prioritizing the shovel ready. So most of our engineering is done. It will not take much engineering to add a pump and the variable drives on the pump. So this has to be submitted by the end of July. And so that's kind of the plan with that. I'm thinking that if we get this funded by the grant, then we can use that money we've been saving up and do other, you know, double up on what we can do. I don't know what our chances will be, but I think we'll know by the end of this summer, early fall. And it is, like I said, it's a little weird if you read through some of that stuff because they've never done a grant like this. And it can't be any other grant. It's like in their general fund. This is one of those things that the state legislator pushed through probably without thinking through it. So it's part of their general appropriations, which is why they've got to spend it or have it allocated by the next biennium. And so they're kind of rushing to do that. And it is probably a little bit good or bad, but I do think we want at least our name in the hat. That'll work. So as I recall, most of y'all have said try to get as much money from other sources as possible.

Amen.

Yes.

Okay. Any questions on that? Anybody? I've got one question here. You said... I think I might have heard two different things here. One is it's 100%. Then I thought I heard you say something about matching.

They call it a matching grant, but there is no match.

Okay. That's, yeah. Okay. I'm good then. Okay. Okay. I'll entertain a motion.

Go ahead. I move to approve Resolution R-019-26, authorizing the filling of an application with the Texas Water Development Board for water supply and infrastructure grant funding for the Northwest Wellfield Expansion Project in an amount not to exceed $5 million.

Second?

Second.

Okay. Motion passes. All in favor? Opposed? Good. Motion passed. All right. Last but not least, number 15. Consider and take a motion. Approach a motion to adjourn.

Make a motion. We adjourn.

Second.

All right. We're adjourned. What time is it? I'm in favor of it.

We get to vote on it. I'm in favor of it.