City Council - Regular Meeting

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I pledge allegiance to the flag

Let's pray. Father God, just thank you, Father, for all you do for us, Father. Father, we just praise your name, Father, for just being with us, Father, and just give us the knowledge and the wisdom and the discernment, Father, to know what we need to do for this city, Father. And I just pay great blessings, Father, over the leadership, Father, over the leadership employees, Father, in all departments, Father, that they would just be blessed, Father, for their service. And, Father, just be with the city. Father, put a hedge of protection around the city, Father, and just provide it, Father, with all good things. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. And at this time we will have any questions or comments from citizens. And I see none. So we will move on to the city manager's monthly report. Mr. Spradlin.

So I went ahead and updated the financial report just a little bit from what's in your package just because we're getting close to the end of the fiscal year finally. So there's One and a half payrolls left in the fiscal year, and most of our expenses are coming down, so we've got a pretty good idea. Right now, overall revenues trending, it looks like we're going to be about a million dollars less than what we budgeted. Keep in mind, overall, that's about 4%. Now, on the positive side of that, we've managed that and our expenditures are trending a little lower than even that. So right now, with one and a half payrolls and two weeks left in the fiscal year, we're currently sitting $778,000 to the positive with another $289,000 of encumbrances. So with the planned expenditures coming, that's $589,000 for one and a half more payrolls. So I think we're going to end up pretty

Pretty close.

I still think we're trending to probably end with just a slight surplus. You know, we've kind of been talking about that for a couple of months now, but I think we're going to end up a little bit on the positive side of that on the general fund. If we are on the negative side, it'll be, you know, minor, like probably less than $100,000. So we're really pretty good. So out of a $21 million budget, You know, we've done pretty well. Most of those that are off are solid waste. You know, as we have lower customers, we've talked about that. Sales tax was a little bit off, and delinquent sales tax was a little off, too. We have corrected most of those in the upcoming budget, so our revenue is a little more closer to some of the trends. So I don't expect that same issue going into next year. Of course, sales tax is always a little flexible, but we were within 1.5% of our sales tax revenue. No, we definitely don't want to come in under, but 98.5% is pretty accurate. On the water sewer side, so we're trending a little lower on revenue. We talked about that earlier because both two plants were shut down for the turnaround at the first of the year. They have caught up a pretty good chunk on that, but we're still a little under. But right now, water sewer is sitting at... think that page got out order but they're sitting still positive right now so they're there they're with about the one and a half left weeks to go they're about three hundred thousand dollars for the positive so they're there was and they will still book out some revenue there's still one more billing cycle left so there's still a little more revenue coming in so I expect them to be pretty close to balanced as well so overall not too bad the general in the Hotel occupancy fund, we're doing pretty well too. So revenues are still trending over what we had originally budgeted. So we've amended that now. And so we're actually trending about $24,000 less than what the budget had prepped. That should be taken care of before the end of the year. We've got a lot of those sponsorships for Runtoper Fest still outstanding. So those payments haven't come in, but we've got the commitments for it. So Deidre and Nicole have been working hard on that. So that's pretty good. The Economic Development Fund right now, they're $198,000 to the good for the fiscal year with just that left. So I do expect them to probably in the year in the positive as well. That was compared to them budgeting a $400,000 negative balance. Uh, they, you know, I plan to spend some of that, but they're going to add more to their, looks like they're probably going to add more to their, uh, fund balance as well. So that is after the building purchases have been factored in. So they're turning pretty well on the venue project side. Uh, we talked a little bit about that cause we had a lot of, uh, Air conditioning replacements, we had some pretty major repairs at the beginning of the year, so they were training a little negative right now. For the fiscal year, they're $40,000 to the negative with a few months left, so I think they're going to be less. We had originally figured that was going to be $100,000 to the negative, so they've made up with that. The hotel occupancy has been strong, so that's made up for some of that. That's kind of where we are.

Include the one you said or no? No.

The venue is just the dome.

Just the dome.

So overall, that's training pretty good. So I think overall, you know, we're going to end the year probably in a pretty good position. I mean, might not be much better off, but we're not going to be worse. So with some of the changes come up, I think that's pretty good. Some of our project updates. So we are circulating the contract for the Third Street stormwater project. So once we get those contracts executed and signed, we'll have a notice to proceed date. I had mentioned, I think, in one of the council updates, weekly update emails, that we might drag our feet just a little bit on that. The bid for the cloverleaf boar is opening up next week for approval at the October meeting. That contractor is likely to bid for that, so we might, depending, you know, for scheduling, see how those bids come in before we set a notice to proceed date so that if he is selected for the next project, we can coordinate those. I know we've got some questions and probably one of the dying things on everybody's mind is the parade Thursday in this Main Street intersection. So right now the contractor does believe that it will be open by Thursday. So they've poured around the star. So that's all that's left today as of right now is just the star in the center. So they do plan on doing that tomorrow. They have been using the quick dry additive for the concrete. So as long as they get it poured tomorrow, I do think we're probably going to be ready to open the street for the parade. I don't think it will open before the parade. We will likely open it just in time for the parade. So overall, you know, we had given them that date from the very beginning. We did have a little bit of rain delay earlier in the project. Luckily now with the compacted base, the rain doesn't delay it that much. I will put that one word of caution. You know, there is still rain in the forecast for today and into tonight. You know, take that into consideration. And as dry as it's been, I would hope that everybody would be okay if it's delayed because of rain. But the contractor has been working really hard to make sure. The contractor's from Pampa, so he understands the importance of this week's game. So he's feeling the pressure too. So he's, you know, they're definitely trying to do everything they can to get it open. It is looking really nice, I think, and with the striping that went down today, you know, we'll have everything open and looking pretty good for the parade.

Striping down the street, it looks really good.

Yeah, we did get the angled parking added in the 700 block that we talked about, and also in the 500 block would be the 100 block of West 5th, where the business that's going in there had asked for us to extend the angled parking from in front of Thomas Green House.

Oh, yeah.

Did we... Okay. Well, I'm just going to remind you to repaint the stripes in front of Thomas Greenhouse at the same time.

I was pretty sure I had passed that along, but as I started mentioning that, I might have forgot.

But that will be coming up pretty soon. But to do that, since we've got that good sidewalk in there, we're going to put the no parking sign so that it's clear that when we do that, you still have two lanes of traffic, but you won't be able to park on both sides. Okay. That makes sense. So we're going to add that there.

Just be able to park on one side. It'll be angled.

Right. So instead of parallel parking on both sides, you'll get angled parking on one side.

Yeah. The police department is really there good, so they don't want to be in violation. Yeah.

So as we go through the departments, we did put this out in the weekly update. So we lost well number one in the Stinnett well field. This is a 1969 well. So we kind of sanded in like well number 13 had done that we recently re-drilled. So we'll be working through the process on that. The difference is, is well 13 had, we plugged and moved that one three different times in like the last 10 years. Well one, i.e. well one, has been pretty good. So 1969 to 2026 is a pretty good run. So, but we'll be working through that. So we do have the money in the, and the Capital Construction Fund for Water Sewer for that, especially if we get the grant, the Texas Water Development Board money for Well 24, which is a new well in the Northwest well field. So we're working through that. We also have what we think is a failure in the grease pump for the new lift screw pump in the wastewater treatment plant. So the engine's been overheating. We think that's because the grease pump isn't auto-greasing it like it's supposed to, which is giving some more. So Bo Simon will be out doing some warranty work on that. Like I said, that should be under warranty work, but we're working through all of that.

Public Works.

So they, if you notice, we had a couple of calls. So they went out and we ran the street broom on the sidewalk around the middle school and in that area and got all the state's loose rock swept back into the street and used the sweet sweeper to pick it up. The issue we had with the sidewalks, the buckled sidewalks. So those are on our list right now. We're planning on pushing those a little bit to when it starts getting colder, we can do concrete. The new state's maintenance agreement did push that on to us. So I had kind of lied the last time we talked about that, but we had only at that point, we'd signed that new maintenance agreement like three weeks before that. So the state did change that. And it's not like we could have argued with the state. They pretty much say, here's the maintenance agreement. Either we maintain what we'll maintain, or you're going to be stuck maintaining all of the state highways. And of course, we can't afford to maintain all the state highways. So we get the sidewalks. So we do have that, our street crew will handle those this winter. Right now we're still trying to prioritize the temperature sensitive road repairs that we need to do while the temperature is still warm. So most of those areas have been buckled for a couple of years. So we didn't figure a couple of months would impact it that much while we've still got some other things that need to get done first. But that is coming. Of course, you've also seen that they've done striping now, and they're continuing to finish up on striping projects around the city. So we got the parking striped on Main Street and the new parking in the 700 block angled parking that we talked about. They also helped with the cook off at the United Way. Parks Department did a lot of work out there. They also came and got rid of our generator that we had to move from dispatch when we put the new one in. Talk about that in a little bit. And of course, everybody's been pretty busy there with trash and parks and mowing and community events and all that stuff. So lots of work in public works. Plane development, they have made an offer to the new P&D clerk is open. Steven got an offer for his job with United Airlines.

Oh, really?

So I don't blame him for that. You know, they only hire like once a year, and I think they've been in. And, you know, that's especially for a younger single person.

And he loves to travel.

Yeah, that's a really good opportunity for him. So we said as we already see him leave, you know, we're excited for, you know, what that's going to bring him. But we did make a new offer today. So we actually had quite a few good candidates. They interviewed the incoming clerk as a Spanish speaker as well. So that definitely helps them out on planning and development. So. I know that they had already missed that a little bit with Steven being gone. We've issued the permit for another house at Yucca Estates that is actually already under construction. They've started footing work. And we've got one other plan in review for Yucca Estates. So they're working on two others in addition to that. So got a little bit of movement going back on out there, our 712s. getting things caught up.

Of course, they... Those are in the tiers, aren't they? Or no? No, yes, yes. Yeah, they are, aren't they?

That revenue will come into the tiers, yeah.

Okay.

I've also been working with the blow marts down on Jim's bearing expansion. If you've seen the new metal building going in down on South Main. So that's to expand some of their warehouse spacing for Jim's bearings. Of course, code enforcement still been busy with weeds and maintenance. They did get out to the border shopping plaza and we got that at least somewhat locked up and cleaned up a little bit as much as we can. When we get down to the other section, we are still working on a something i think that's probably going to happen down there which which will be good for that we'll talk about that in just a minute they've also been working with school district on the bonfire for the uh luckily for the school district the rain yesterday has helped our concern about that we are still in a burn band but i think with the rain and they've relocated to it to up to the high school parking lot uh so it's hard surface which is the first

Not in many, many years.

And I don't know that it's not... A bonfire might be a bad name for it. I mean, everybody's been calling that, but they've got the metal BB logo cut out, and they're going to wrap that with a flammable fabric.

Oh, that's cool.

And so what they're going to light on fire is the outline of the BB. So it's probably more appropriate to call it a pyrotechnic display. but it's not necessarily pyrotechnics. It's fire, but it's not like we're stacking pallets and lots of wood and making a big giant, yeah, yeah. So it's definitely not that. So that's part of the reason why we somewhat feel okay with, because if it was true pyrotechnics, we don't have, the burn ban doesn't apply to true pyrotechnics.

And which might be as dangerous or more dangerous than flammable fabric, but they're working through that.

And then there is, we've been working with a, There's a little circus coming into the grassy area down off of Bulldog. So, see how that goes. In the court and the city secretary's office, of course, the clerks are, both Evalie and Michelle, are getting ready to go back to school, and they're going to work on their Court Clerk II certification test, so they're working on education there, which will be good. And I know Evalee's been really busy getting ready for the software upgrade over there. The court is the last part of our ERP software that's being upgraded. We did payroll and finances, and then we did utility bill, and now we've been working on the court. We'll put it out there. There is maybe a small chance during that conversion that we might close the court for a week, depending on if we have any issues or how that goes. The nice thing with them is if that's the case, you know, all the deadlines will get extended. No, but there won't be any downside to that. I've been trying to calm Emily down with that. I was like, don't worry about it. Be okay. Because you can, I don't think anybody's going to be upset if you tell them they can't pay their fine today. They'll have to wait. Or that you're not going to issue the warrant. You get another week before the warrant issues. Unlike when we converted finance, I couldn't go tell all the employees, well, don't worry about your paycheck this week. We'll get you in another week. So we wanted to keep services going, so that'll be pretty easy. But we'll put that out on social media if that happens. We're hoping that it'll be pretty limited. There might be one day in the transition. So with that, it's going up pretty well. Finance, of course, the auditors are on site today for this week for our interim audit. So this is when they come and do the kind of testing, you know, pull the invoices, make sure that we're following the law, make sure that everything's been signed off and approved and all of those type of things. Council got their annual questionnaire. And so they're here this week. So that'll keep finance pretty busy, you know, getting everything that they need to see and working through that. Also been working through some scanning updates in our scanning software using LaserFish a little more effective. So we're working on a workflow for our credit card receipts to kind of streamline that, which will take care of both their approval and then their filing and all that stuff. So we're really trying to take more use of the LaserFish software as we're going through that. So there's some pretty cool things we can do there that are going to come up. Terry also, using a little bit of initiative, got us signed up for ACE rewards on our account at ACE. So we can actually earn rewards for all of the citywide expenditures. So good job for some forward thinking there that's going to get us some rebates and some extra money. I think they gave the Parks Department a $150 ACE cash card that we've already gotten. Nice. So that's pretty good. And we also, Walmart is now has a billing bill by invoice business option. So she got to switch it over to that. That will streamline, reduce some of our credit card needs at Walmart for some of the smaller purchases too. So that gets us a little more control. So we're excited for that. HR is getting ready for open enrollment. Our open enrollment date will be November 3rd, so that's when we call in all the employees to go over the options. As we talked about last month, it should be a little easier because we're not changing anything this year since we got that renewal quote down a little bit. So all the benefits, all the costs are going up a little bit, but we're reimbursing the same percentages. We're not changing the benefit levels or anything like that. So overall, I think we turned out Pretty well with that. We do have five openings right now, too, still in water distribution and dispatch and the clerk and a few things like that. But not too bad considering. In the fire department, Brock Diamond has been working on building us a drying rack for equipment. So that's saving us about $15,000 for buying one. They've got to think about $1,000 of material versus buying one complete. Good job on that. We've also had... What is it called? A drying rack?

Yeah, because they can hang their coats and the bunker gear and the helmets.

Because the way the NFPA is after every fire, you've got to wash all of that now. And so you don't... They've got a big commercial washer, but you can't throw that stuff in a dryer. So normally a drying rack is hooked up to like an air circulator to kind of circulate the natural air so that it doesn't... the one they've had was needing replacing, and so instead of buying one, they kind of used their welding skills and some of their ingenuity.

That's very good.

I also had three firemen get additional TCFP certifications as they continued their...

They talked from the city manager to watch expenses.

Well, you know, we'll see. The year's not over yet, but it's still trending pretty good, so they did get another reminder at the director's meeting yesterday. Of course, then they also help with the back-to-school fair and all the events going around for there. Archie was at the Natural Resource Committee hearing on August 11th down at the state capitol talking about mitigation. I've actually started getting some feedback from that, and so we're working with some of the senators on that along with TxDOT's been reaching out a little bit more as some of that's been going on. Our ambulance is still scheduled to be here Thursday.

Oh, we're going to have a party. We're going to take it to the meeting.

It might be a little bit after that.

It does still have to. Once we get it, we've got to send it to Amarillo to get the radio installed in it.

But it's at least progress. It's progress and about to be in our position. We also, the county did approve their side of the HB 3000 funding. So we've got the additional EMS equipment on order now as of yesterday using the HB 3000 funding. So that'll be a good asset. In the Police Department of Animal Control, they continue to work through some online training as they have an opportunity. They participated in the Snack Pack for Kids again this month. And they've also started working through their trap, neuter, and release that they got some grant funding for. So they've started working through some of that. And then if you'll recall, we did put a little bit of money in this upcoming budget for a trap, neuter, and release services too in our budget. So they got $5,000 from us, and I think they got $15,000 in that donation that we put in there for them. So they're getting a pretty good start for that. PD meeting, we hosted the Panhandle Peace Officer Association meeting at the Dome. They went and supported the West Texas Early Learning Center. They helped at Snack Packs for Kids too, and of course the PREP conference was here, had a lot of people attending that. We're also out at the 9-11 celebration and the Stinnett celebration, and they'll be all ready for the parade come tomorrow. Main Street, Nicole's been pretty busy too. Got one of those things on the agenda. We had another tiers meeting, got some more of those grant agreements approved. She'll be talking about that here in just a little minute. We have continued to be working with Science Q on the Borger Shopping Plaza. So it's looking pretty good that they're still definitely interested in most likely purchasing that to use the old Kmart as a warehouse, relocate their Dallas warehouse they've been using in the warehouse on Florida. So we're working with the tax lien company on that, but pretty much what we've told them is we'll forgive, we'll forego the back taxes as long as they secure all of it. So they'll be doing a little more than securing on the Kmart, but the rest of it, we just need secured. We've also thrown a few other options at them. We've had some interest TDEMs looking for a place in the panhandle to put a regional emergency preparedness warehouse. So that might give them an opportunity to make some additional money on some of the others. So I do think we're going to have some pretty good opportunities on the more industrial side of that shopping center versus the commercial side. So I do think we'll have maybe the biggest problems of that behind us in the next six months or so. So they did go take a sight sore. Sight sore. Sight tore. And overall, they felt the camera was in pretty good shape and didn't think it was outside of their scope. They've got a quote for the roof repairs and replacement that are needed. So feeling pretty good about that. She's also been working a lot with Cynthia Licious.

That's hard to say.

It's almost as bad as Paw-Tee. but they're trying to get her maybe into a space downtown. She's got a pretty high rent with where she's at. And so they're trying to give her some opportunities downtown and an opportunity to expand and, and working with, uh, Spencer over at the EDC and with the downtime program to finally replace. So that's going pretty good. The business bootcamp is about to final finish up. So they've already got people that are interested in the next round. And so those five main participants, they start with five, they're actually getting $5,000. And then they've added about another five to 10 other people that have been coming just for the information without the financial incentive. So that's been doing pretty good. Of course, they've been really busy with Boomtoberfest. We're continuing to do our behind the doors, scenes i can't announce the council knows some other good things about that but we'll announce that next month uh the tears grant and then of course they had also helped and finding eden had her uh ribbon cutting over in the incubator space of the edc so uh definitely some progress going on downtown with some new businesses and some new opportunities so excited to see some of that Then public engagement. We've also been working with Phillips 66. They've agreed to fund two community entrance signages, signs. So we're working through exactly what that's going to look like and coordinating with them on where they want to put it. There's some areas where they'd like to put it that we maybe think there's a better place. So we're going to try to be tactful and work through some of that. But so we will be probably getting two of those signs have been part of our plan now for a couple of years. We've also been working on finalizing the contracts for all the bands for boomtoberfest so that's coming up you know i know we if you haven't if you do have social media i know you started to see some of the advertising on that because we've started pushing that out a little bit so but that should be really good this year philip 66 is sponsoring a drone show to end it with so we're going to have a centennial drone show at the end of boomtoberfest this year so be on the lookout for that uh Working on the other, the rest of the, so we do have that facade fix it grant that Deidre put in for that was part of the Amarillo Area Foundation that came into the tiers. So that's what they use to help repair some of Too Fit to Quit. Got two, three other awnings coming as part of that stuff and a little, about $7,000 left in that. So any businesses downtown, if you got a facade improvement that you'd like, you know, the way that grant is they can buy material. It just can't pay for labor. So we have to come up with the volunteers to work through that, but that's definitely got some money and you're going to start seeing a little more improvement downtown with some of that money too. So lots of things going on with their recreations, also getting ready to kind of rebrand and repush out the youth advisory council. So Manny and Isaac have some good ideas for that. Also the history book, our centennial book is now out and available. You know, Deidre spent,

It's very nice.

Like 18 months and probably we probably don't want to know how many... I was going to say gallons of blood or gallons of sweat. It's a lot. I know that she was driving her crazy that, you know, for every story you heard, there's probably three different versions of that story and trying to figure out which one is actual fact. And on some of them, I don't know that we actually have proof to know which version of the story is fact. So...

It's a great book, though.

We are a boom town. So those are available at the Chamber or at the Youth Center, at the Johnson Park Youth Center. They're $50 a piece. Most of that's just our cost. So we're not making a whole lot of money. We are working on an online order page for those out of town. It's going to take us just a little bit longer to get that set up. But once that's available, we will. But for now, they are at the Youth Center or at the Chamber for anybody that wants one. It really is, I think, it's got a whole lot of cool things, interesting things in there.

How do they work? Quality work.

So be sure to go buy that up. We're also working with the museum to have some sort of pop-up museum set up during the Boomtoberfest events downtown to kind of coordinate with that and we will have those books available at all of our upcoming community events. So I know that Katie sold a few at the prep conference but you know most of those people probably don't care that much about Borgers so

I was surprised at how many people from out of town wanted.

I mean, they must have probably been here at one time. Really, to be honest, personally, I think there's probably going to be a bigger draw from people outside of town because generally they look back on their time in Borger and have fond memories. So they're looking for a way to be connected with their hometown or whatever that is now that they're not here. Those of us that are here, while we might find it interesting, we also live in this community every single day. So I... I had warned Deidre that they might have to ship a whole lot because I kind of had thought that that'd be the case. Because a lot of times, a lot of our supporters, even on social media, are those that used to be here or had memories here and commented on all the things we're doing. They're glad of seeing that. So that doesn't surprise me, but I do think that is good. But we've got some of that stuff coming up.

My son-in-law's in Panhandle. He came and saw mine, and he wants one. In fact, he wants to move back to Borger.

It's in progress. We could have made three more books, probably. Hopefully people enjoy it, but also we begged for people to give us stories and include their families and stuff, so maybe we'll do a part two later on, but we really didn't have a ton of participation from like outside stories.

Like who did we, who did we pick to go in there and who did it? Most of it was if you sent us a story, you ended up in the book.

Yeah. We got here as fast as we could.

But if somebody, you know, complains or says something, why weren't they in there? I mean, you know, we can't put everybody in there in A, but, you know, we can't go make up everybody's stories. Now, you know, there are definitely some important people that we overrode and wanted to make sure we're included. But generally, if you gave us a story, it's in there.

Yeah.

Pete didn't have a choice, I don't think.

He's a historical part of this.

It's his own fault because I remember when. I remember when.

I'm not old enough to remember when. We've also had a little more conversation with 712 after, you know, now that they've been back in town working all those other homes about some other projects with them. So we're going to meet with them and talk. kind of give them a list of the tax properties and some of the other property locations in town for either rehabilitation or some other projects. They're interested in possibly doing some garden homes or something like that. So we might, we're probably going to pitch that 10 acres that the city has behind the Univista or the Fairlands Baptist Church. They're off of Pecan back behind. So I think that'd be pretty good. So they're, they're interested in doing some things. They've, uh, You know, they've been working a few other communities in the last six months or so, you know, trying to expand. And they've realized that not everybody's as easy to work with as we are. And so they've kind of decided that maybe they'd be better off focusing on Borger. So I know that sometimes we get the bad rap, but a lot of times most people from out of town find us easier to deal with than everybody else. It's kind of the local people that sometimes... Don't have that basis to compare us to, but we do try to work through all of that. Our North Hughes cleanup this last month was 5,700 pounds of bulk waste disposal. That's the most so far in our neighborhood cleanups. A lot taken out there. We're getting ready also for the Tall Tale Tours, which is sold out already, but that one's coming up again here pretty soon. And there is a jot form out there for the Halloween Carnival for anybody who'd like to participate or have a booth or a trunk out at the Halloween Carnival at Johnson Park that we've been doing now for the last couple years. So that's always a pretty big turnout from what that year one when I think they expected 50 kids and had like 900 kids. So sometimes that's the only problem. When your ideas work, you have to keep doing them. Like a party. So that's what's going on. So that's everything that's happened last month. I'll entertain any questions if anybody has any.

nothing if not then uh we will move on to the consent agenda item six through twelve if anyone has any questions or would like to speak on any of them or would like to do i have a question on the property that we're talking about um unfortunately i can't read here uh number nine uh-huh why are we splitting what looks like planted property

Right down, not quite right down the middle, but we're not splitting it.

That's the part that was, that's how it came back on back taxes.

Let me open it up here and let me, I don't want to print it.

Well, it looks like we're taking 12 feet of one lot and 18 feet of another lot.

Yeah, and so it had previously been split. And so over in that area, it's not uncommon based, especially on corner lots, depending on how the lots ran for them to split down the middle. And now you're right. In theory, when you divide property, it should be replatted. The city in the past has not enforced that requirement because like people will go up and sell part of their property and file it with the county. And then we don't find out about it until it's actually filed. And so at some point that property owner sold them the back half of their property. Now we've been trying to be better about that in the future now, especially since we've got the plat map. But this split dates back like well before me. So we see that a lot in Rock Creek. We see that a lot in like Isom. especially on Grand where they, and on corner lots where, you know, the back half where they're longer, maybe somebody wants a house to face the side street and not the front street. And so they sell the back half. And so that's what that is. So somebody did that before we approved it. And then that half is what went back on back taxes. And so the people, in this particular case, the people that are offering it are the people that have the other half.

Okay, so they can put it back together.

Right. And so this agreement, because in this particular case, there's still improvements on the lot. We didn't put it up for auction because it's on the demolition list. So since they're adjacent, they have agreed to tear down and haul off the substandard structure in exchange for us giving them the land. And so since they are the adjacent property owners, that makes pretty good sense. So we've done that a couple of times. This is just the first time where the lots have been screwed up like that. And down here too, because the original lots in downtown are 25 by 120. So in a modern construction, in the original town site, most people can't do anything with a 25 foot wide lot. So it's not uncommon for people at some point to have split it. And inside plan development, we sometimes too have a, what we've been trying to do is find a better way of us just denoting when it splits like that. Because if we make them replat, they've got to go pay an architect or a surveyor to draw it, which can be a lot of money. And then sometimes we get blamed or yelled at for making them do something that they don't think they need to do. So we have been trying to do that. But like I said, most of these date back for a long, long time. And so we do have an agreement with the county clerk that they're supposed to notify of us on any changes in the city. And our ordinance does say you can't subdivide land without it being platted. But anyway, that's a really long convoluted answer to your question. Did I answer the question? Yeah, you did.

And anyone else have anything or any other questions on any of the other items?

I'm good.

If not, then I'll entertain a motion on 6 through 12.

I'll make a motion to accept as written. Consent agenda items 6 through 12.

Seconded. And all in favor? And they pass. And then moving on to item 13, receive a presentation, conduct a public hearing, and then consider and take appropriate action to approve on final reading ordinance O-004-25, adopting a combined tax rate of 0.64659 per $100 valuation for fiscal year 2027. Mr. Spradlin.

So we did talk a little bit about this during our public, public, budget public hearing at our last meeting, but I did kind of want to go through this again. So on the tax rate, you know, our thought process behind all of this is, you know, we're definitely mindful and the council's been mindful of the tax impacts on all of our citizens. So we've reduced the tax significantly over the last several years, including enacting and retaining a 20% homestead exemption. So this year we are proposing to go up just a little bit, but this increase is for community investment and not for operating costs. So the proposed rate of 0.6465 is broken up as 482 cents for maintenance and operations and 0.1645 for INS. The council has adopted a debt policy, which has a target rate for INS of 0.19. You know, the basis of that is we know that we're going to have to continually invest in our community, in our facilities, you know, that it's not financial or fiscally responsible not to put off investment. So we're still under that. So we're still being mindful of that and trying to be mindful in how we do that. So the no new revenue rate for this year was .601693. So we are proposing a rate above that slightly by .606807. That means 646,500. The voter approval rate is 0.953526. So the council could adopt a rate up to 0.95 before having to go to a vote of the public. So that little graph there kind of shows you the range of the tax rates that the council could have chosen to adopt. And you can see how little bit of that range this increase is taking. So we're definitely trying to be mindful and limit that impact a lot. So we're less than 20% of what we could do. But I do want to kind of keep in mind that what this tax rate has done over the last eight years. So in 2020, our combined tax rate was 0.86349. So the lowest was last year at 0.606, 0.807. This year going back up to 0.6465 is still the second lowest rate in the last eight years. And it is still 25% lower than it was in 2020. And so while we're asking for a little bit of it back, it is just a little bit. In fact, we can measure what we've forgone. So in 2023, if the council adopted the voter approval rate, that was worth $300,000. In 2024, $337,000. In 2025, $511,000. So this council has adopted a tax rate that has given up 1.15 and possible revenue. I know that that's not necessarily intangible. It's a bunch of possible, you know, it is possible, but we've, you know, been mindful in what we've done. So we've, we have not, you know, generally increased rates and we've adopted a rate at or below the no new revenue rate for every year of the last seven years out of the last eight other than this year. So we've definitely been very mindful of that. Plus the homestead tax exemptions. Our current tax rate projected in fiscal 27, the one that you're taking action on today, while it is higher than last year, we are still generating $390,000 less in tax revenue than we were in 2020. So it is an increase, but we're still collecting less than we were. So we generally have returned savings to our taxpayers. I've got a couple of different numbers on here because we talked about this, I think, a little bit during the budget public hearing. The state makes us use two numbers. In the budget book, we have to use the impact on the average homeowner. And the tax rate notices, they use the median home value. And so those aren't the two numbers. And so if you're really nitpicking and you're looking at things, you're seeing two different numbers, but that's the way that the law kind of requires that the tax rate uses average. The budget laws require median. If you remember when we met with Caroline Fairley, that was the last thing I said. I don't know that it went anywhere, but as much as they are about transparency, the state laws are kind of confusing with that. I wish they would just pick one number so that we could be consistent across all of our public communication with that. So the median home value in our community this year is $122,240. That's down from $122,920 the year before. And so the median city tax on that, so the value is 790, your total tax bill would be 790.28. That's up $44 a year. So the tax increase is worth $44 more a year or $3.70 a month on the median home value. The average home value is 91,529. that value is actually up by $5,772 over last year. So the tax on an average home will be 591.73 for the city. That's an increase of $71 per year or $5.95 a month. So your impact depends on where you're at. And so then of course you get, and that is the average homestead. So that's after we take off the 20% homestead tax value. So without the homestead on there that we did three years ago now, two years ago, two fiscal years, but this is next year, so three years, that would have added another 20% onto there, which would have been about another 100 bucks. So we're taking back about, taking back 40 to 60 more dollars, but we gave you $100 three years ago. And then we've given you even more than that over the last couple of years. So overall, you know, I think we're trying to be mindful in that. Of course, we talk about this too. Our general fund revenue is only about 13% from property taxes. So we're definitely not super reliant on that. It is an important part of our revenue stream. It is the most stable part of our revenue stream. But I did also kind of want to reiterate again, we talked about this last time, but this tax increase is not funding operations. So we're not using this to offset increased health costs. We're not using this to offset the COLAs that we're giving employees. We reduced expenditures to cover those costs. This money is going to two things this year is one, we have a surplus in our general fund because our required reserve has dropped because we've added all of those EMS and all those extra services, which has driven our reserve requirement up. So we're budgeting a slight surplus to try to work on building that reserve back up. And then the rest of it is going into the INS fund to plan for our debt issuance that we've got coming up later this year. So we are not, this is not paying for new personnel, no new programs, no major recurring services. It is going towards planned capital and community investment, you know, things that will help serve our community in years to come. And so we've talked about this a little bit last week too, but I'll reiterate it. And what we've talked about with our strategic planning earlier this year is our planned projects for that upcoming debt issuance or a new fire substation. We've talked about that with adding EMS. We're kind of, A, got a bigger service area and we're running out of room for things. And we've added 19 new employees for a facility that isn't designed and built for that. A new animal shelter. Those animal lovers in our community, I think we know pretty well that while we've invested and tried to do what we can with that animal shelter at its current location for many years, it's definitely an operational challenge and not the best. At the same time, the wastewater plant needs a new office. So where the animal shelter is makes more sense to be the wastewater plant's office right there at the entrance of the wastewater plant. Then the animal shelter, so we are looking to get that relocated. We are going to dedicate money to our youth sports fields and do some of those improvements that everybody's wanting for that. That will also likely be in conjunction, we talked about, with the general obligation of voter approved set of projects. So we've got some projects that we know we need to do that we're just going to take on the cost with this debt issuance to do. And then some projects we'll put in front of the voters for them to decide if we want to increase our taxes to handle those projects. We're also looking at a fire training tower in conjunction with that fire substation. That training tower will be mostly reimbursed by the fire training fund, so that part of the debt will get some revenue from the fire training fund. The third street stormwater project that we awarded last week as part of this debt issuance, actually the next item, we'll talk a little bit more about that reimbursement on that, but if anybody's tried to go to the animal shelter or the wastewater plant, you know that that needs to be done. And so that is on there. The council also previously authorized the purchase of a new fire engine a couple of years ago that is finally about to be delivered. I'd say about to, but like 18 months away. But we're still about eight months away from issuing debt. So we're trying to stay ahead of that. If you remember, that fire engine had a 1300 day lead time from the date we signed engineer