City Council - Regular Meeting

We are slowly getting dispatch rehired. So they've got two openings, we've got two training and two more openings. So we're getting a little better back there hopefully in the future. You know, we've talked about that a little bit. That's just a really hard job to build a skill before you put them in there. And so definitely, but we're working through that. We're also getting ready for our November open enrollment in HR, so we'll have a meeting later this week with our final and best health insurance renewal offer. So we've got 10% in the budget to help process some of the costs. We do anticipate that cost being higher, so we are looking at things. I think we've talked about that in the last monthly report, and we've talked about that a little bit. We will try to limit the impact on current employees as much as possible we will be changing benefit eligibility dates so instead of right now you're eligible for benefits on day one of employment we're going to push that to 30 days the first of the month 30 days after you're hired which gives us a little cushion that is estimated to say between fifteen and thirty thousand dollars depending on how many how much turnover we have it's not uncommon I think almost every other employer has a wait period We were one of the few with that. In some of those positions, like dispatch and water distribution, some of those, they're leaving in the same month. They're finding out that that hole is deeper or it's more work than what they thought, and so... of months for an employee that's worked six weeks. And so I do think that's a good way of saving. That doesn't impact our existing employees. It impacts any future employee. And from most, like I said, a dual company, we had a 90-day wait period. So I don't think that's going to do things. We will likely cut back a little bit on our HRA or HSA contribution, especially if you're insuring dependents, since we have a part of dependents.

This is the way that saves the money without impacting the actual benefits.

So we are working through that and doing the best we have there. In OEM.

And that is, that's from December to December, isn't it? January to December. Or January to December.

Yeah, so everything will be the same up until January. And we'll talk more about this in the budget presentations in future meetings, but you don't need a 5% COLA. So, I mean, I don't want all the employees' 5% COLA to be eaten up. health insurance now i will say with the if we get around the 24 to 25 increase that we're probably expecting i will say that with the 32 savings we saved three years ago when we switched we're now just six percent higher than we were back then so while a lot of cities have been having this discussion from year to year to year for the last three years this is kind of the first year that it's kind of catching back up so i i don't want to be too

they don't eventually may go out and look again.

And we did last year, you know, which is why last year we saved some of that by we brought over our dental and health into United Health to get some reduction. So last year they initially quoted a 14% increase by moving some of those. We got it down to an eight. And so like I said, we're still definitely keeping an eye on that and monitoring that. So I don't want to, you know, as big as this increase, this is still over the years. It's been pretty good. And I do kind of, you know, I am trying to remind employees that, you know, when we did save all that money, you know, there were two years we passed that on to the employees with a lump sum bonus. So we try to be mindful of that as much as we can. So in emergency management, of course, Whistler and Pender and Keith went down on the Uvalde flooding deployment. Whistler actually ended up being the head of all volunteers in the Uvalde district, so he got a crash course of managing lots of people that, so between all of them they got some experience in volunteer management, volunteer center and citizen center interactions. He also contributed, or helped coordinate through Nicole, our co-ad meeting locally, that's kind of the community organizations for assistance in disasters, so we're trying to make sure we've got a better list of all the different non-profits and organizations that can help during disasters, what they can do, what they need, and what those limitations are, what contacts are, so we're working through some of that. We've had some more engagement with TxDOT on our right-of-way burning program. I'll talk a little bit more about that in the fire section when we get down to that.

We also participated in an AgriLife webinar and the Great Plains Fire Summit, so we're still getting our name out there.

You're probably going to see a resolution pretty soon as we're going through emergency operation plan updates, so you're going to start seeing some resolutions just to update some of those plans. Of course, in the fire marshal's office, we did have one fatality house fire last month so they're still working through the uh investigation on that but it does appear to be accidental so he was really it was just a small burn on his on his on his hand so he's no actual long term uh that he's off lost time there uh dustin also went to the esri conference in the last month and then of course we are getting ready to host the prep conference So that's normally in Amarillo, so getting pretty good.

No, I gave dog do's and don'ts coloring book to kids and then glow-in-the-dark bracelets and stickers.

So I was in charge of the magazine user chip for animal services. Of course, the PD, we have the books and badges at the library, which was hard work. We also had the blood drive last month. So I support all of our services. So contrary to what somebody in this room is going to want me to say, I'm not going to talk about the winter because, you know, Our members have also gone back to school along with the schools, and they've been busy dealing with that. We also helped them, they also had to go back to school there, out of college before that.

And then we did have some of our officers model purses for them.

I'm sure that was already good, so. In the fire department, our ambulance is in Burleson getting graphics.

Hey.

Thank you. So.

Progress.

It's closer. It did somehow get ordered white instead of red, so it's getting a full wrap, kind of like the other two ambulances.

I was given high part time with that. Apparently, it takes 140 hours with those wraps on. I was like, come on. Wow. That should at least be here soon. Last month, the fire department responded to a record number of calls between all the fire EMS and all the miscellaneous calls, and that's the most the fire department has been able to respond to in this little while. Is this for, is anything working? This is. So we're trying that.

Firefighter Rivera has completed her instructor one. Of course, the fire trucks have also been out in the school zones, reminding everybody that the school zones are back in session. They complete some CPR training. They were also at the Unity Baptist block party. And we do have a crew down, a TIFMS crew down at Weatherford on fire severity watch. ready to switch out. I will say the Forest Service put up two maps that was kind of interesting this morning about the fire activity in Texas during the high El Nino years. Generally, it's a little less for us, which is good, but the rest of the state is bad. So I probably wouldn't be surprised if we don't see a lot more TIFMS deployments throughout the state next year. So just kind of a thought on that. In mitigation, they completed the thinning project for Phillips 66. We've built for that, and that shows in your financial report. uh they also took care of some trees that had uh kind of broken in west coronado park and they've been taking care of uh they cleared out all the trees back in the back cleaned up this border shopping plaza as we've started to take care of that we have started to secure that property and do things as we can now that it is in our name we have gotten some interest in some possible long-term solutions to that that we're working so we're hopeful that maybe we'll have a better idea of where that's going in the next couple of weeks And just a little bit, Archie did go down and testify before the Senate Committee on Natural Resources on wildfire mitigation efforts, actually did a really good job, generated some of the emails. One of the members of that committee is also the chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, which has gotten some more contact and emails going back between TxDOT on the right-of-way burning. So we might see some more out of that. I will just say, as a record of that, two years ago, we did do the 207 right-of-way burn. And the two years after that, there wasn't a single wildfire ignition in that stretch. So there could be a lot of reasons for that. I like to think that that's a big part of it. So I do think there is some benefit to that. So lots of things going on there. Of course, public works. Streets have been busy prepping for all of this work and everything that's going on. We did get the chip seal project done last month and now we've got the microsurfacing going on today. You know, we sweep all the streets before that and going through that. They're also starting to prep the streets for next year's sill coating. We'll talk about that more when we do the budget presentation in two weeks. I do have some maps coming up just to make it easier to see what the plan is. I know there's been some. The streets have always been out there in the CIP plan and everything, but we've cleaned them up. We're going to do a little bit more to try to get that out there so that maybe that's clearer. In the Main Street organization, of course, Mackenzie Kemp has left at the Dome. She took a job with the school district. So Katie Wallace, who has been our part-time employee down there for a little bit, is our new full-time employee. She's excited. Nicole's excited. So that should be somewhat fairly seamless. Nicole and Deidre have also been selected to speak at the Texas Downtown Conference that's going to be in Amarillo this year in November. So we can talk about vacancies and how to address some of the things and talk about some of the projects we've got going on. on Main Street as well. She did host the COAD meeting. So we're kind of using Main Street as our organizational, our community organization kind of linchpins. And she works with some of those. So she did a lot of work with that. Our Main Street project board also had training with the Texas Historical Commission this last month for design training. So that was, I think some of y'all probably sat through that. It was some pretty interesting training. I know the Historical Commission normally does a pretty good job on that. We are getting ready for our downtown Texas website launch, you know, where our properties will be on their website and all that stuff. So they've had some training for that. So that's getting pretty close. They also did an Expedition Texas film tour at the Old Borger Hotel. So that's kind of a YouTube channel mainly, but they do some things. So they were in town doing it, that. We had our second seat at the table. Actually got some good feedback there and a couple projects working. One of that, I think, is the – So, Double Rainbow Treats and the gigs on Main. I was going to say jives on Main.

It's going to be a jive in place.

That's right. So, we do have – We have some movement there and they're working on a couple other projects for some probably, at least probably two other businesses that could be downtown pretty soon. So we're starting to get a little bit of traction with some of that stuff. We have just under $60,000 of sponsorships committed for Boomtoberfest this year. So getting in a pretty good way there. And then we do continue to meet with all the businesses and possible prospects down there. So I know we've been getting some good feedback from them, some good feedback from the business boot camp as well through the chamber. And we did award, of course, at the last council meeting, the first two momentum grant, downtown momentum grants through the tiers.

We've got five more, four or five more applications.

So we'll be probably doing that September 9th, I think, for those of you that are on the tiers. That'll be our next tiers meeting. At that point, we're going to go ahead and set quarterly meetings for the next year. So we're going to go ahead and put them in place and just meet once a quarter. And then everybody, as they put in grants, they'll know when the meetings are going to be and the tiers will be able to schedule around them. So working through that. So public engagement, our neighborhood cleanup had 2,000 pounds collected last month. North Hughes, again, at North Hughes Park will be set up this month. They also had a workday for our facade fix-it grant that Deidre put in for through the Amarillo Area Foundation. So that was at 250 Quit. They've also got some coming with the dilly-billy and the double rainbow slash gigs. I was about to say jive again. uh, on main. So you're going to see some of those. So I think those are pretty quick, easy, easy, uh, clear, clear wins, even like with, uh, two fit to two fit to quit. I mean that black, I mean, it makes a big difference on just cleaning up some stuff. So we do have some of that coming. You can start seeing some of those changes, of course, with the intersection that we've got going and the microsurfacing that's going to happen downtown. That'll be, I think pretty good there. So our interns, both in finance and in public engagement, their last day was last Friday. Once again, Deidre Nicole didn't scare her off. Apparently she wants to come back again next year if she gets the opportunity. So we'll see what she's waiting, you know, if she really wants that. Our Centennial book is off getting printed. So Deidre's finally finished that. When you see that, I think there's going to be a lot of pats on the back with that. I know this is a big project to be against her or off her plate. So we'll have a sample coming in. So our plan is to sell some of those. We'll have some to give. I'll give the council can have one. But we're going to limit it. They're kind of expensive. They're about $32 a bound book when we ordered 500 of them. So we're going to start with 500, sell them for just 40 bucks, you know, just make a little bit to fund some events and stuff like that. So as that gets around, you know, and you see it, if you know, I know some people are going to probably want it. Ended up being a little over 400 pages of stories that were submitted in history. So it ought to be a really nice book to go through. And we'll, of course, have some stands to sell those at the community events and stuff, and we've got them coming too. But we started with 500. If we have to order more, we'll order more. That 500 was over $18,000. So, but that's, like I said, per book, it's not a whole lot. There's 10,000 people. And I mean, when you look at all the people that I know, quite a few people that don't live here anymore, they probably would want one of those. So I'm not super concerned about the financial part of that. We did pay for it out of the tourism fund. So we got a little cushion there, worst case scenario anyway. But we'll do those in $500 increments. The shipping on those is what's so expensive. And it's so much cheaper to, you know, because they're going to ship a pallet one way or the other. If we ordered 250, the cost was $42 a book, and we'd have to charge $50. If we ordered 500, the cost was like $32 a book, and we can do 50. So I thought it'd be better to go ahead and get 500. But we do have those coming, so they'll be here definitely in time for Bimtoberfest and then our big Centennial marquee on October 26th downtown. They're also working with the Friends of the Museum on maybe some pop-up museum displays at some of our community events coming up, the special Boomtoberfest in downtown as we go through things. We also last month debuted our new video city, which is a video series, which is On Patrol with Scott. So he's been kind of focusing on all the code enforcement. He talked about the right-of-way crew and the alley crew, and we did spraying this last week. So we're going to keep going around and highlighting all the little different services and what all the city employees do that really go unseen. And we talk about that a lot, that if we do our job right, most of it does go unseen. It's the mistakes that get seen. So we definitely want to make sure that we're highlighting all the good work that the staff does on a regular basis that maybe isn't quite as seen as some of the less desirable that is seen. Been, I think, going pretty well, you know, along with the Behind the Doors series and some of the other videos. So we've had a lot of good feedback from our increased digital presence. I will remind everybody that those are on social media. Like if you go to our YouTube, you know, we've got a really fancy YouTube page now, you know, or YouTube channel, excuse me, and everything's divided so you can go back and watch all those videos, whether it be a council meeting or something like that or anything like that. So that's always pretty good. I already talked a little bit about the Borger Shopping Plaza. We are working through that. It's cleaned up. We've secured what we can. We've locked all the doors and closed everything and cleaned it up as we can. And we'll continue boarding up as we have time and a little bit of money. There's quite a bit of window space that, you know, that plywood isn't exactly cheap. So we're trying to work through that. We're also about to announce our band lineup for Boomtoberfest. So they've been going through a lot of those. We had a lot of really good applications this year. I think over 80, 90 bands applied this year. So that word of mouth from the band experiences from the past is really going around. So we're going to have a really good day with that. Deidre also helped put a packet together for Archie for the senators for his testimony. So there was a lot of good information, a lot of good feedback from all of that. I mean, like I said, he did do a really good job for there. And we have finished our last second Saturday of the summer. This summer was a little hot, so, you know. But overall, it was, well, even more attended than last year, even with it being so hot. And we're down to... How many sessions left with business boot camp? Two or three? Three.

The last one's in October. We have one this week.

So August, September, and October. So three more left. Like I said, we've had lots of really good feedback on that, so I'm looking forward to seeing that continue. But that's what we've done for the last month. If you have any other questions, I will contain any that you might have.

Do you want to add anything? If not, then we'll move on to the consent agenda, items 6, 7, 8, and 9. And if there's no discussion or questions, then I'll leave it to you.

I'll make a motion to approve consent item 6, 7, 8, and 9. Second?

And all in favor? Okay give me just a second here.

there in but if our microphones aren't working let's see this

Can y'all on Zoom hear me yet?

Okay, so they've got us. Let me see if I can get the... We've been dealing with a little bit of back end. Of course, since we need to do this, we've been dealing with a little bit of technical issue.

Let me look over here. Yes, we can.

We can.

Do what? Yeah, I've got to look and see if I might have it. I might make sure it's on my computer. Okay, so we've got that. Okay, so I think we should be good to go. Can somebody on the team's meeting just say something and see if we got you now? Okay, can somebody on the team's meeting say something? See if I've got audio on our end now. Yeah, let me. I can. Let me get our content over here. I can... We've got this big fancy system and you know that always, you know...

Yeah, and that's I'm going to go ahead and go through this just a little bit and see if the council has any questions. I don't expect just a whole lot. It's a pretty straightforward, but we've got at least a little bit where we can hear you if they do have any questions.

So I can.

So, anyway, I'm going to go ahead and talk about this just a little bit. So we, we previously have nominated Phillips 66 for this program through the governor's office before they mainly for their new office complex and some other support and improvement things they've done. So they've proposed another project. The last project has expired. Since they are in our, we. We are able to. do this. To me, it's pretty straightforward. What they're proposing this year is $450 million in non-routine capital. That includes some improvements to support the Western Gateway project. That's the pipeline going out to the West, which will open up the Western markets there. Continuing their improvement in the digital control system and safety infrastructure, electrical upgrades, pump safeguards, equipment upgrades, new tanks and tank upgrades, energy conservation projects, and cooling tower upgrades. Uh, like I said, we host the enterprise program. We adopted it several years ago through ordinance. We've this will be the 2nd month. We've also done 1 with. And so the benefit comes from the state of Texas. There's no, like, instead of coming from us, or it doesn't impact any of the revenue into the city of border. It is a good project for them. It's a good project for us. It does get direct investment. And of course, any investment in this refinery supports its longevity and retention. Uh, so we can kind of hear them, um, you know, the, the power outage we had, I guess, over the weekend or the, we had a power outage down here yesterday or recently Sunday, which probably screwed some stuff up that we're messing with. But, uh, like I said, to me, it's pretty straightforward and simple. If you have any questions for them, we can go through the zoom meeting or otherwise we just need to approve the resolution.

We're not out of it. The city's not out of it.

Anyone have anything? If not, then entertain a motion.

I move to approve Resolution R02726, nominating a $450 million investment by Phillips 66 Company as a qualified enterprise project for job retention to the Texas Enterprise Zone Program of the Governor's Office of Economic Development. I second.

And all in favor? And it passes.

Nope, I think we're good there.

And then we'll move on to item 11, consider appropriate action on an interlocal agreement between the City of Morgan and the City of Synan for water operation interlocal agreement for temporary public work, public water system operator services.

So that's kind of why I stumbled just a little bit in the City Manager's Report, because this one's just a little different. So Stinnett has lost their Class C operator on their maintenance side. So in order to operate and run the distribution and the water system, you have to have a Class C operator. Now, you can either have that by an employee, by an outside vendor or contractor, or an interlocal agreement with a regional city. So they've asked if we could help provide that cover. It's basically a paperwork process. thing and being able to send somebody up there on more complicated repairs. I did ask Chris if we were good with this. So we, you know, between Chris, Mark, and the water distribution crew, we have five people that are C or higher. So on that side of things, we're really good. So this would just be helping stem it out. The terms of it are $500 a month, just flat fee, assuming that we don't have to do anything extra. If it requires overtime or any extra costs, then we will bill them for the time that it comes over. I did tell Chris my plan with this, with the $500, is depending on which employee is going to be stuck with that duty, we'll probably... Split that or give that as an extra temporary skill pay to the employee that's going to be working with Stenet. So I don't expect the city to take any money, but it's a good way to give a little bit back to that employee as well. So otherwise, it's pretty straightforward. It's mainly signing off on the repairs, you know, making sure that it's done according to code. They do have two Class D operators. It takes two years to get your Class C. So they are in the process of trying to obtain that Class C operator. So this is a temporary assistance.

And they'll be driving there?

When they need to.

Well, and keep in mind that we're up there quite a bit because the well fields are all outside of Stinnett, so it's not out of our way for a lot of that stuff. There are at least Harry and a lot of times Derek, Mark, and Chris are up somewhere either in the Stinnett well field or the Wet Northwest well filled up there pretty regularly. So it shouldn't add too much with that. Like I said, the mechanism is in the agreement to reimburse for any expendables, but I expect us to be. Up there, it's a little easier in that. They won't be doing the work. They'll either be overseeing the work, depending on if it gets complicated or what it is, and then signing off on some paperwork. That that it, you know, the repair was done appropriately and pushing some things back and forth. This is kind of similar to what we did with the school district out at Spring Creek. Because Spring Creek was technically a public water system because they chlorinate their water and supply more than 10 people. And so we were already kind of doing this for Spring Creek. Of course, that one's easy. It's a one well and one little pump with a chlorinator. This one's a little more complicated, but they've still got their other staff. So I don't expect us to be doing a lot of labor with it. So. If that if something like that happens it it would require a different agreement.

I move to approve the interlocking agreement with the city of standard for temporary public water system operator service. Authorize the mayor to execute the agreement.

And it passes. And item 12, receive the fiscal year 2027 proposed operating budget. Schedule a public hearing for September 1st, 2026 at 6.30 p.m. And then consider and take appropriate action to introduce on final reading ordinance O-003-26, adopting the fiscal year 2027 operating budget.

So this is the first step in our budget tax rate approval process. All we're doing today is receiving the budget. We will have a presentation preceding the public hearing at the next meeting like we normally do. We'll go over it a little more in detail. I do want to say, of course, the council's now got a bound copy of the full budget with all the nice descriptions and things like that, other than just the numbers. All of this is on our website, www.BorgerTX.gov for the public to view. It is there on the agenda, too, where all of that stuff is. So that's why we introduce it first. That gives everybody time to go look it up, review it, come with any questions, and we'll do the presentation next week. It's not on the website yet. It will be shortly. The other thing you've got now is a new budget and brief that we're kind of doing. This is an easier budget summary. The main budget book is 300 and some pages. I mean, there is a lot of really good information in this, but I know that most of the public is probably – Not going to read it, but I mean, this talks about long-term financial trends, how we're analyzing things, what we're looking at. I mean, if you read it, there's a lot of good information in it, but I know most people aren't. So this summarizes 310 pages down into three and a half. So this will be on the website soon. We will have plenty of these to hand out during the public hearing at the 6.30 p.m. meeting. And then we will have another presentation again when we talk about the tax rate the week after that. So we'll have a detailed budget tax rate presentation in two weeks at the 630 meeting. We'll do it again at the 130 on the 15th, September 15th, I think. Yeah, because it's the 1st and the 15th. So lots of information coming before we take final action. So other than that, that's all there is today, unless you have any other questions on that.

There is no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

And I will say just in the coming, there's going to be, you know, there are, we already talked a little bit about the voting procedures last week, but there are some changes. Since we are proposing a small tax increase, there will be a second resolution. So next week, not only will you approve the ordinance adopting the budget, you have to approve a resolution ratifying the budget with a tax increase. Plus the hearing for the tax rate and all of that stuff. So that's going to be a second step that we're not used to because we haven't done that in a long, long time. And we'll talk more about that in the presentation next week. But I wanted to make sure that this process is super redundant now. And so just for those that have been on the council for a long time, there's going to be a few things that you're not used to seeing coming up for our newer members. Well, lucky you.

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

I second. Thank you all for attending.