City Commission - Regular Meeting

Hey, let's make a show. It's like I did nothing done for the night. Yes.

Well, surprisingly, our office is shut down Thursday and Friday. Oh, wow. It sounds like I have like a really short week.

Social media.

I just had no meetings. It was like.

I haven't got to get the job done.

Why do we have to say negative?

I've just known you for more than two years. When does it become? Yeah. When does it become?

It's just like, I don't know.

On the internet, it's too much.

That's an interesting one, too. I got all the drama. It's all right. He wants to be here. I mean, I don't know. That's second guess. No matter what you do. Yes. Okay. Because I haven't seen them in a while.

Jocs you have coming for us in the city of Roswell.

Yeah.

Where?

What's the latest?

Achievement. I'm sorry. I think they added like three letters.

G-B-E-D-C. G-B-D-C. G-B-D-C. G-Bed.

There's been a lot of drama, though. Is it gross?

Yeah, it looks like it, especially now.

I'll stop the competition again, but they want to stop black compensation again, I guess so.

It ain't like it.

The other group that have the signatures, they I guess things.

But they gotta go to the approval.

It looks like we're going to go in November. Now, since they've got this. We'll say that some of it's illegal, so we can't.

So it's got to go through the vetting process. Okay. Like this you can't, that you can't, you know, by statute. Okay. So to the extent that it's allowed by statute, then yeah.

Okay.

Because I thought, well, if it's just, you know, whatever they want, it's going to like,

Is that so, Benjamin?

No, it can't.

Oh, why not? Giving them anything right. Giving them anything right.

They want mindfulness. Already built. Already worth $2 trillion.

Y'all ready?

Yes, we're ready.

Okay, I'll call the meeting.

Yes. Okay. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Good evening, Madam Chairwoman and committee. And just for a few minutes,

Mayor Bendis is on his way. But essentially, the Trevor New Committee had gone and gave a report to the City Commission on June 16th. And the request was to consider with regards to compensation, to consider linking it to medium household income. And for the commission, and then maybe a multiplier of median household income. Currently right now, the U.S. Census Bureau lists the median household income in Brownsville, Texas at $52,130. And this is for the current 2024-2026 timeframe. We can add to median household income would give the city commissioners an income of $52,130. other than the 40,000. And then we can do a multiplier to get to the 60,000 if you so desire. But that's the discussion point is they wanted to know if y'all would consider recommending using the medium household income rather than a flat number like 60 fully for the project.

So it's done. Okay.

Commissioners and the mayor.

Correct. For commissioners, it would be, you could say it would be, you know, city commissioners would receive a salary in the amount of the median household income for Brownsville residents. The mayor, if you do a multiplier, that's 1.25% times whatever that is. And the reason for this, it would give the flexibility for the commission, of course, assuming that there is room in the budget for it, the ability for them to have income that could increase or decrease depending on the economic viability of the city, right? And so there has been a small growth in Brownsville from the last four years. Trying to see what the numbers were before, but I know it was around 50.

So it had a little bit of a set.

Is that, that number comes out every two years?

I believe it's every four years. The website for the U.S. Census Bureau is down, but I believe it's updated.

You can double check.

It comes out, it's updated annually, and it's based on the latest American Community Survey five-year estimates. Typically published late fall of each year.

And the Census Bureau does it?

Yes, the Census Bureau does it.

But what if the Census Bureau stopped doing it? What if they stopped doing it? Are they always going to do it?

Right. And so owner or let's say they're a successor for the Census Bureau, right? That can be a different name. What we could say is, instead of saying, you know, the U.S. Census Bureau, maybe we could say the medium household income as published by the federal government.

So if it's published every year or updated every year,

would we be looking at an increase every year?

Yes.

Potentially, yes. Now, keep in mind, too, the city commission could, in the budget, keep it the same rather than increase it. So that's always a possibility. And it can also decrease. Depends, you know, depending on how bad. I would assume something like the Great Recession occurred a lot of medium household incomes on death.

And so those were updated for those years.

I mean, we were, that's not a bad idea, considering we were worried about not, I mean, I guess other metrics, not keeping up with raises for the, for staff. And I think if we did do that, the wording should say, like, just no more than you know, rate published by the federal government. I think 1.25 would be a way to make it more for the mayor, right?

The only thing is that the salary for the city commissioners is going to move more quickly than the salary for all city employees. So we still have that problem.

It's just not tied to like inflation if not everyone's getting the cost of living.

Yeah, and also to consider is that the median household income, in my estimation, is going to rapidly increase here with the economic development that we have, right? So that's a good thing.

But the idea being that if the commission helps with the growth of the city, that it's like a motivation to keep it going.

That's the right experience. That's the right way.

Just for historical knowledge, because I just said that during the Great Recession, it may have decreased. That's actually true. During the Great Recession, it did decrease. Average in the U.S., it dropped from 57,306 to 52,195. And so you had about a 5,000 to 6,000 increase during that great depression period or great recession period. And so, you know, if it was tied to something like that, potentially that the city commission salary couldn't be more than the median household income, for example, adopted before 2009.

How do city employee wages compare to the median household income?

Well, that's difficult to

Well, I think, I think it's, that's hard to quantify because you have to pay based on the commensurate market rate for that position. And there's a big disparity between the different positions. So not everybody's going to be tied to that medium household income, right? So you can't compare an Alengard salary to the medium household income, and you can't compare somebody that's, you know, uh, very low to that medium household. It's... I guess what I mean, though... It's more tied to the position itself. Yeah.

But I will say, and maybe this will answer your question... Are they competitive?

Is CityPayne competitive or not?

They are. We'll be towards that. So in the last four years, they have done different compensation studies. One was to address compression. The other one was to address marketplace a lot of the positions were below 50% of the market value. And so they have moved up to 50% of the market value. And there is another increase for employees built on the budget, not late fall, early first quarter of 2017. And that will bring the rest of the employees up to the 50% mark. And so they are becoming competitive. But as with the budget, of course, you're having to justify and balance other needs within the city. But they are slowly becoming more.

Yeah. I think that's a better metric in terms of what the market is paying for specific individual positions as opposed to everybody tying to.

Right. And we're not basing it all on corporate America. We're basing it on other governments or agencies. Yeah.

It's an apples and oranges comparison. That's what I'm saying.

Right, but I mean, if that's what keeps getting brought up, like is this, is it fair or not? If you leave it as no more than, then the commission can decide to set it and look good or look bad based on how they're paying their own employees. I guess you've got to tie back your comment to the... Make your case, sir.

So, I'm... I mean, if you set it at the median household income, it's going to change every year, right, as published by, and it could go up and it could go down. In this case, it's an arbitrary number that's determined by what the U.S. Labor or the Department of Labor Bureau and Labor Statistics, I think that's what they put out. The only thing there is it is an administrative burden for the city circuit to track every year, kind of like how we were doing the cost of living adjustment every year, which it's really, it's not a number, it's a principle. So you got to come back and adjust it every year. That's the only drawback in my opinion. Other than that, it seems like a fair number. And as far as like the mayor's, you know, a quarter percent multiplier to that, that seems okay, I guess.

Weren't we already one of the highest city commission paid in this valley and even maybe in the state?

No, I would say for reasons If you consider what could be part of the valley, or at least the region, Moran would be the highest paid. In the state, I would say Austin. Austin would probably be the highest paid.

Yeah. I think we were number seven on that list that we had been shown at the beginning.

Correct, yeah.

We were seventh highest already at the existing number.

In the state?

Yeah.

Do you have any figures as to what that, a median household income drop was back during the Great Recession?

It was about $5,000, he said, right?

Yeah, so we looked, I can see what it is for Brownsville, but nationwide on average, it was between, it went from $57,357 to a low point of roughly $52,100. About 10%. Wow.

Let me see if there's numbers for browsers.

Between, of course, this is 2007, 2009. It went from

37,000 to an average of 33,000 in that timeframe. Yeah.

So at this point in time, I think the median household income is seems fair. Um, I think that tying to that principle or putting it into the charter, that that's what we're going to pay year over year means that you'd have to adjust it, which in my opinion, takes it away from the voters. So my preference is just set it right now at the median household income plus the multiplier for the mayor, and then adjust it at the next charter review, you know, uh, Yeah, I mean, that's your recommendation, but that's... That way, it's going to have to go back to the orders anyways.

Right, right. I mean, if there's an argument that's said it the way it was, you would have ordered an increase or decrease, sincerely. and your finance department's going to have to do is they get ready for the budget, include that increase or decrease in the budget. Now, it's going to have to be based on the prior year's median household income, because if it comes out in like fall, sending the budget by first, or more, then it'll be based on some prior year's numbers. So they will still be behind that. but it doesn't take away from the voters on this commission. We said, you know, in the future, future commission sensitive voters to kill it or modify it. Or if you get a petition, let's say you had a charter amendment election to repeal it, modify the benefits.

Yeah. That's my position.

I think the median household income is a fair number with the wealth flyer for the mayor and to just leave it fixed until the next charter review committee.

that the voters are able to at least vote on it.

Now, for language on the charter provision, 20,000 for commissioners, 64 mayor. If you do median household income, would you just adopt the 52,000 number versus the same median household income in 2026, right? which is what I would recommend for them.

Other than, say, entitlement to be a muscle income, it's not going to change. You're just plugging a number.

That's correct.

Now, as far as transition, if the vote is in November, when will it go into effect immediately?

It will be decided. So let's say we have the election in November.

It wouldn't be done until October 1st or the following year, which is roughly around the time the budget gets adopted and it's effective.

What if it did not pass? Then what would the default be?

The default will be what it is currently, right? What we have right now. $25,000 and I believe $40,000.

So basically we go to the default. What is this current? $40,000 for the major and $25,000 for each commission.

For another alternative, if you send it to commission, this is what we recommend.

We're not changing the recommendation, which is the 64th.

I missed the beginning discussion. Was it, did the commission come back proposing something else?

Yes, the commission came back. Sorry. The question was, what did the commission request from the presentation? At the presentation from 2016, the commissioners asked the Controversy Committee to consider tying any kind of increasing compensation to the medium household income. So essentially, the line would be each commissioner receives a median household income, and the mayor would be a multiplier of the median household income. And so currently right now, if you're walking in, we're saying that the median household income this year is $2,130. So that would be the commissioner's salary this year. The mayor's would be a little back, so 0.25% would be about $65,000. The problem with that is what we were saying earlier is it can increase or decrease, and it kind of takes it out of the voter's hands.

Right. Yeah, I mean, I understand the reasoning behind wanting to do it for median income. That's one of the reasons that initially we had discussed maybe doing a call-in increase or something like that, right? But you start getting real tricky once you start kind of putting it on other things like that. I prefer a hard number. That's my personal preference. I think it's easier. But if the commission... wants to do it that way, they have the ability to change it. If we recommend something and they don't agree, they can always change it. If they feel better doing it that way, then I guess they can. I personally don't agree with median household income. I think it's better to have a fixed number, but that's just me.

Mayor, with respect to the With respect to tying it to the median household income, do you think it's too high, too low, or about right, or what do you think? If we use that as a hard number.

I don't think it's, I don't have an opinion on whether it's too high or too low. I just think that it can fluctuate a lot.

There will be variability. For sure.

It'll vary, definitely.

I mean, I don't, I don't really have, like I said, I don't have an opinion on whether it's too high or too low. I think the numbers that are being thrown out there aren't that far off from kind of where we recommended initially, but it's just going to fluctuate. And I don't know when you would tabulate that or like, is it at the beginning of the fiscal year? Right.

So just after that, one of the things that we had said was, because these are updated roughly,

we would have to rely on the prior year's numbers setting the budget august september so we wouldn't get the most current active numbers adopting the budget and my only concern is with the actual potential decrease uh obviously the number i think you calculated was like 10 but shouldn't we consider some kind of minimum cap on the decrease because I mean, theoretically, most everybody that sits in the commission has a day job, right? Most, right? What happens during the time that somebody gets elected that that's their only source of income? I mean, it would just excuse the word I'm going to use. It would suck to have your salary decreased due to the fact that, you know, economic activity went down.

If you get people, somebody in the past, I said that there'd be the way compensation for the individuals that could serve for not independent of well-being, providing some income that allows people that want to serve, but normally couldn't.

Free job or whatever.

In this instance, with the, and I'm going to use the household income, you can leave the numbers 60,000, 40,000, or increase it to where it's, you know, 50,000 for the commissioner to maybe add 70,000 for the mayor, or keep it, you know, 60,000. So if we go to 50,

for the commissioners, the mayor would be at 62.5. So it's 50 and 62.5 fixed until the next charter review and then voters can approve it again.

6,500. 6,500.

Is that a motion?

I can make a motion for that effect.

Thank you.

Will you second if I might give a motion?

Yeah, I just, before you do that, I just want to comment. I think we have the same concerns. So like, it's a better idea than the one we had, but I think we have the same concern, which is like too much uncertainty and taking it out of the voters' hands, right? So, I mean, ultimately, you know, I think we can present to the commission that we've had different thoughts, but, you know, these are generally our ideas. I mean, they don't have to go with our numbers either, you know, um, I think I would want like our, and I'm sure you shared that with them, you know, our thoughts on like why, or the city attorney's office did, but like why we are concerned about staff wages, not driving with these. And I mean, ultimately you still need the voters to approve it. So you can't get too crazy either way.

So in all honesty, the day that it was presented, it was a long agenda and Ben was there for something else, I think. But I glossed through it really quickly. And more important than anything, I emphasized the fact that there was going to be a third-party petition asking for the charter amendment, which I think influenced a lot. Because at the end of the day, I told them what we need you to decide is, is it going on the November ballot or next year in the May ballot? But it might be preempted by this third-party petition, which we know is going to happen. And in terms of this, me being in the city commission, I've I feel queasy, but I have a different perspective. You're basically doubling the salary from, I think it was four years. It'll be four years before when they didn't even have a salary. They just got paid $10 a month, $100 per meeting. But again, I was surprised in the public decided that they were in favor of providing everyone with a salary. And so now four years later, you're doubling it. At the end of the day, it's the voters who would decide I don't know if it'll be very palatable for different reasons, right? Just because it'll be a long ballot. And then just giving the feeling right now for, well, the general sentiment in the air. I don't know that it would. So, but I guess it's better to, and in honestly, in my opinion, the city commission work, supposed to set an example for city staff and us paying ourselves more and more quickly. Well, to me, that just leaves a bad taste, right as and I'm not doing this just to cater, like, I just, we're not where we've run for these positions to be involved, but it shouldn't be a full time job. And so we shouldn't rely on this salary as our livelihood. So these are just my disjointed thoughts, but, but at the end of the day, we just present it. And ultimately the voters will be the ones who, who decide I could be completely off base.

So just a couple of comments on those.

I think, I think like the way the mayor works, that's his full-time job.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

And so, um, the fact though, it appears that it, it, you know, it is a full-time job. Um, especially if you don't have anything else. I mean, you may have other businesses and stuff, but if you're spending, you know, the full 40 to 60 hours and travel on the job, then the pay, you kind of look at the payings like, man, for the amount of hours that they spend, they should really be compensated for that at some point, even if you are a commissioner, right? And so a lot of the commissioners, some may not have, you know, the they're spending the hours working it. And so they may, they need to be compensated in my opinion. So that's something that, you know, especially if you get someone that doesn't have a business, right? That got elected and finds himself spending 40 to 60 hours a week doing the work. And it isn't working.

Right.

So with that said, would you, The 60-40? 500. And the 200. 52,000.

Well, before we get there, Commissioner Ganonski, you're a president. Did they feel that going through the median household income could be more palatable to a voter? Or was there a particular reason why they chose that?

One of my fellow city commissioners just mentioned like, hey, I think it's a better idea. That way we don't have to keep going back to the voters to approve it every time we need an increase. And that was the explanation he gave, which I think makes sense. But in a planning perspective, it does make it difficult. As Will mentioned, they had to They did that study to bring up employees to market rate, and they were not able to do it for financial reasons. They couldn't bring them all at one time. They did it in two different sections over multiple years. So it just seems, in my opinion, it would leave a bad taste that the city commission is getting paid more quickly than employees who are actually doing the heavy lifting, in my opinion. And yes, the mayor, I think, has made it a full-time job. As I've mentioned before, at least two of the three past mayors that I've known hired an assistant out of their own pocket because it is that much of a demanding job. But as a city commissioner, I think you make of it what you want. So at least that's been my experience.

So we're back to the number, right?

And I think all this discussion is just making me think that the mayor should be, that there is, you know, good reason for having the mayor's higher. So if we would go up to 50, whatever, you know, I think right now it's a 1.5 multiplier. We're talking 1.25. I don't know. I mean, I think in response to the commissioner's comment that brought it up, I think we still have the same problem of, yes, you don't want to have to come back all the time, but I think we agree here that you should have to go back to the voters regularly, or at least periodically, right? Like every four years, which is what's happening now, rather than deciding the future indefinitely, if it even passes.

Well, if I'm real, I think the commission is the one who really decides when the voters get to decide on it. If it were a downturn in the economy, I don't know that the city commission would say, oh, yeah, let's go. Let's go put out that amendment to lower our salary. So at the end of the day, I think the city commission has the upper hand.

Yeah. And you're setting a floor to sound like it would ever. They would never put up a vote for it to go down.

In the discussion, are we at 60-40 as recommended?

Again, the only concern is going too high is that the voters will reject it and they get nothing right.

What about a recommendation of up to a certain amount, but leave it up to them to decide what they think their voters would approve? You know, I would propose like a 50-75 if it's 1.5%. You know, the mayor is more of a full-time job. They are the face. I know it's good for the city when you have your mayor traveling the country and talking to representatives and going to Washington. And we don't want someone to be held back because they can't afford to do that. You know, so we do want to open it up to more people to be able to be mayor. So, you know, I'm... Okay, with that being more, and if 50 is closer to the median household income, you know, I think if we recommend up to, they can decide.

They're voters. This will be a charter amendment, right? So we approve an amount up to $50,000 for the commission and $62,500 for the mayor, up to, and then let them decide what number they feel comfortable with. On the ballot, yeah. which would be lesser than that, right? It would be the 60-40. It would be anywhere between 25 for the commission up to 50, and the current is 40. I'm sorry, for the... 25-40. Yeah, 40 to 60 to 5, and 25 to 50.

Little expenses are reimbursed, so they shouldn't be paying travel out of pocket.

No, I didn't mean that. I just meant like just giving up your time where you could be doing something else. You know, like not everybody has a business that can make you money while you're not at your work job. You know, like I have to be at my job for the most part.

So it would affect me.

So that's my thought on that. But I think at the end of the day, you can't get away from the fact that it has to be someone that has time to volunteer. And we don't, as we've discussed at our other meetings, we don't want to make this so much money that Number one, none of us think the voters would pass it, but so much that it's like people just want the job for the money, and you also don't want it to be so low that you keep people out of it. So we just want to be fair. I think we're already in the right range, ballpark. And that's why I was just saying that if we give a recommendation, the proposition would not be a recommendation. It would be that the commission decides on numbers to put on the proposition. Yeah, we give them a range. Right, we just say like up to, and then they can pick it.

Would you do that, Will? Give them a range? Yeah, I was going to say, based on prior... If you like it... Because it takes away the decision from their hands, right? Ultimately, like Maynard had just said, yes, they can go with whatever recommendation they feel is best. Yeah. Both of them.

A little sad voice kind of does.

Even to.

Citizen board to basically decide. Yeah.

But yes, if your recommendation is to go up to. It's not there, but they'll decide what that number is. Can't recommend that.

Are there any final thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, the voters are going to be the ultimate check and balance as far as whether they feel that there's overreach or that the number's not fair. I think it up to makes sense, but I just, my only concern was just the legality of it, whether there's any concerns about the commission voting on it, whether there would be any sort of conflicts if the commission votes on their own salary.

Well, no, I'm not too concerned about that because it's not on the voters. Anyways, this would just be what proposition they're actually proving to be on the

All right. But the number and the commission having the ability to set the salary up to a certain amount. I don't know whether there's any issues with that.

No, I think, I think in principle, there's, there's, there's definitely some case out there. There's some city that actually their charter. That city, there's a few cities where. in the charters that allow the commission to set their salary by ordinance. And so that is, of course, I'm voting on it.

So based on precedence, I don't see it's an issue, especially in our case where it would be .

So the last median income was 52,113. Right.

So if I'm understanding the recommendation, Your recommendation would be between $40,000 and $50,000 for City Commission?

Or do you want it to be $52,000?

Well, we need to agree on the up-to portion, right? Are we going to have the fixed amount or the up-to?

First and foremost. What do you guess?

I'm In favor of going, deciding on what would be a fair salary for a mayor and then working backwards. Sorry, I'm always in favor of, okay, where do we want to be and then work backwards. So if we decide on what would be a fair salary for the mayor, and then we can decide what would be fair salary for the city commissioner. So I'm thinking like, 65,000 is fair for the mayor because it allows him or her the opportunity to hire an assistant and maybe cover some additional expenses that they might incur of their own. And then so for the city commission, if we go 65, then either 50,000 or one and a half, right? Either one and a half or 1.25 less. Sorry, right? Does that make? Either we're at 75% or we're at 50%. No, not 50%. 75 or, oh my gosh, I can't do the math in my head.

Sorry. It's either 1.2%. 1.25 or 1.5. Yeah.

And then on the side of the city secretary, I don't know the good point.

Okay. So the budget recommendations moving forward is getting staff for each county commissioner. Right. As well as offices. And so just recently, I think your budget amendment, we did it. So that individual is now a city employee. And we're getting to where each commissioner has an employee system. Like other cities, other cities have commissioners, commission council meetings or commission days. This would be either for them to, for compensation, except hire more staff, don't need it.

They could do it wherever they want for compensation.

What about a range? Like if we say like, because we agree, I mean, the last time we agreed that we thought it should go up to like 40 to 60. So what if we do Like as an example, 40 to 50 for commissioners and 60 to 75 for the mayor is our recommended range. You know what I mean?

I think Will brings up an excellent point in that and so does mayor. And that the commission doesn't want a range. They want the decisions. That's what they put us here for. That's what they got the last.

Yeah, last time they were Essentially, the recommendation was, yes, we need to get paid what we want.

So effectively, when we presented the 4060, really the only comment that came back is, can we use the median household income, which effectively is saying, can you bump it up a little bit? At the end of the day, that's the ultimate.

I think it's more of The way you explained it was sounds like so that it continues. It's like a living thing instead of staying. And you don't have to go back to that.

Yeah, that's I mean, that's taken away from the voters. Right. Which I think this committee had already agreed that that's not the intent of what we want.

Well, and one of the some of the examples I reviewed this time around was how some city said it. As I said earlier, some cities set it, like the charter says the city council shall set it by ordinance. The balancing power there is that the voters can request a referendum, right? So the voters can come in and say, hey, we want this. And that's possible, which would then revert it to the prior salary range. Some cities do it by committee. Right, which is essentially what we're doing right now. That's a particular city, the committee every two years meets, and then sets the recommended salary for that city. City commission votes on it. So it's also doing it by ordinance. The majority of the cities, they do it this way, where they set a number to the city, to the voters and have the voters decide. There is one or two cities that do do it by a multiplier of the median household income. But then again, the tolerance for each voters in that city is different, right? Some of these cities, the median household income is higher. So it might be more palatable and their tax rates might be higher, it depends. I know recently, A lot of citizens, there's a few came forward last budget cycle and requested that not go up. So I can see, especially with inflation that has been experienced, I can see some voters having issues with this versus when this went to them.

I think we've answered our question here.

Which is, if we don't think it should be tied, then are we just going to keep it at 40-60?

Or why are we going to go up? Is that a recommendation to keep it at the 60 point?

I mean, I think we want it to pass.

Yeah, that's, that's the, that's really the only concern that I have is that if we go too high, it won't get passed.

Right. Which is why I suggested the two ranges. And if they go with the bottom end of the range, then that's within our recommendation, you know, but if they think they want to go higher and they think it'll pass, but I think we've already got our numbers from the last time, right? How do we, how and why would we change them? If nobody here appears to be convinced by the median hospital, thank you.

I think we recommend the, the commission can always say no.

Let's go with the 40-60, right? At the end of the day, right? If we recommend the 50 and the 62-5 commission, right? They can always, if they feel that they won't be able to achieve it through the election, then they can always go back to the 40-60, right? Right. So it's up to them what they want to put up at the end of the day, right? We're just making a recommendation.

Right. That's correct. You're just making a recommendation. They can accept it or they can do it.

Or they can not put that particular recommendation. Do you want to go with it? What? 50-60-25. Let them decide whether they want it or not. They can go down if they don't feel they can get it.

And just to recall, I don't know if anybody's online, but just as a reminder. Okay.

Yes. So this just as a reminder, this is a public comment, sorry, public hearing. If there's anyone here who would like to speak on the matter, please feel free to pick up. Okay, well, then I'll take a motion to close the public hearing.

Motion to close public hearing.

So we've got a first for Mr. Pena and a second for Ms. Elizondo. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? motion carries. Is there a motion then to decide how to proceed with this?

I make a motion to set the salary at $50,000 for commission and $62,500 for the mayor.

I got a first from Mr. Pena to set the commissioner's salary to $50,000 and the mayor's salary to $62,500.

Second. Are you saying up to or like how are we going to go? Fix them up. We're recommending a fixed amount. Okay, I second that.

And I've got a second for Ms. Elizondo. All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed?

Motion carries.

that are required to run through the city commission and to complains with us. And see national city, city, each other.

My apologies.

So we're going to do D and C together. And just so that you kind of understand where this came from. After D and C. charter review in the report. You had a, the mayor ran this through AI, National League of Cities model charter, and it pulled certain recommendations, if you will. These, the last recommendation, which we'll go over, so it broke it into three tiers. Tier one, the foundation of governance. So one of the recommendations, which, which we have in ordinance, which was adopting charter mandated ethics and conflict of interest framework. And so, in state law, we do have disclosure requirements and . At one time in the city, the was repealed and then following election cycle when there was new leadership on the city commission, it was reinstated. And so the recommendation here would not to be just like with the campaign finance that allows us to modify it as needed. Would it be to adopt the ethics ordinance its entirety but rather had a provision in the charter that requires that the city commission have an ethics award, as well as the set of ethics that is codified by ordinance. And so that is one of the recommendations that the city attorney's office has to address the AI comparison for the city's charter. The second recommendation was to incorporate initiatives and referendum powers. And so currently right now, the comparison stated that the city only has recall. A lot of cities do have initiatives and referendums. And for those that don't know, So the difference, initiatives essentially is a process that allows citizens to get a proposal on a ballot. We kind of have that already in place in the sense of charter amendments through local government code.

My apologies.

The other referendum would be to have the citizens, it will allow the city commission to send something to the voters for a referendum or it can be used to appeal an ordinance. And so those are some powers that some cities have within their charters. And we have an example of both.

The other...

Recommendation was to establish a defined criteria-based redistricting process. I think this one, the reason why this one came up is because in the charter, and we'll address this in tier three, but in the charter, it addresses a one-time mob drama from 2000. And looking at the way the charter was amended over the years, The districts used to be all at large. They moved to some are at large and some are district. And so it's just some archaic or old language that was left. The federal and state law already clarifies and dictates how the redistricting process is done. And so for number three, you kind of already addressed that. In tier three, some of the recommendations is just removing the archaic language. And so that would remove that particular provision.

So I think number three, we're already good. So you do have a mechanism to update every 10 years after the census, as far as populations in each district? Correct. So we're talking about district lines, not necessarily representation, right?

Well, it's both. So the district lines have to be drawn based on the... SO YOU HAVE TO HAVE EQUAL REPRESENTATION ESSENTIALLY IN DISTRICTS. SO WE RECENTLY WENT THROUGH REDISTRICTING IN 2022, I BELIEVE. WHICH WAS BASED ON THE 2020 CENSUS. SO EVERY YEAR WE DO UPDATE THE

districts. So you do have, hard to quote it right now, the redistrict lines after each census. Right. That's taken care of.

Yeah. The reason why AI, of course, with AI, it's not infallible, but the reason why this is an archaic language, that if you all agree with Street 3's recommendations, it will remove that reference to the one-time block drawing, and we will have that recommendation already.

Yeah, so that's a non-substantive change.

Right, that would be a non-substantive change. One and two, well, two would be substantive, one could be substantive, depending on how you look at it.

We already have something in place.

This would just require the commission to have it in place so that we don't have a repeat of 10 years ago. Number four was to revisit the basic billing rule. And if you all recall, part of the recommendation was to include some language on how offices can be forfeited, whether it's automatic or requiring court action, as well as the vacancy provisions. And so number four, essentially, because that amendment or the proposed amendments weren't included in the AAIS search, In my opinion, number four is addressed with that provision of it's adopted. And to also touch the Texas constitution and state law already has a process in place for us to where if there is more than 180 days left in the term, because we have a four year term and the commission has to call that election for a vote. If it's less than 180 days, then the commission can appoint someone and...

Hold over.

Yes, there will be a hold over. You serve the remainder of the term and the work commission could also call an election either way. So essentially out of tier one, we would recommend if you want to do any of these regulatory changes, is set a recommendation to the city commission to adopt a provision that they require. So to have an ethics board and an ethics ordinance, even at that, very similar to the campaign finance. And then number two, recommend the initiative and referendum powers to be added to the charter.

An example of those would be court work

Fort Worth and other cities, so this is not unique just to Fort Worth, but this is how Fort Worth kind of operates. They have their initiative section where the voters have the right to propose an ordinance that's not in conflict with the charter or the constitution or the state of Texas or the laws. Essentially, an ordinance that was put in place. It talks about the preparation of the petition, so it gives you a process of how you would prepare that petition, as well as the number of registered voters. So currently in our charter, we don't have provisions related to a petition, which we're discovering right now as we go through the current petition that we received from Brown, Texas.

So we would be adopting it for the initiative.

It has the cost of a filing, submission to the city commission, their city council, and the timeframe too, which again, we are suffering from not having a process with ground Texas within our charter, but this will provide it for the initiative. It has the election process, how the ballots are prepared, and then the, what happens after it's passed, and the ability or mission to amend or repeal the outcome of the election. And so it has a really great process in place of when it's able to be used, how it's used, and what's the outcome that fulfills the passes.

So that would be an example of how it's put in place by some cities.

Now, referendums, They also have a good example of referendum and the processes laid out where they submit the petition, talks about the process, how many of the city commissioners are required to approve it, and the requirements for the petition, which essentially mirror the initiative.

There is the

ability under the referendum for the city commission to propose an alternative or an alternative.

And then the process if it passes. And they also have a referendum that relates to

which we don't have to incorporate into ours. But it essentially has to happen.

So going back to recommendations for number two, if this body wants to recommend that we do include initiative and referendum powers, we would essentially take that to city commission and draft some language that may work as best practices based under the National League of City of

And three and four, we believe that it's already addressed in the current revisions, not necessarily.

Recommend, I make a motion to recommend one and two. Conflict, or sorry, the ethics, Independent Board of Ethics and Referendum Powers.

I think we need the public hearing first.

So this is a public hearing and I'll invite anyone who might want to participate or to make a comment on this issue to say their comment now. Are there any people online now? Any chance? Okay. So I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries and the public hearing is closed.

Well, are you looking for a motion to recommend items one through, I think, seven?

Yeah, so one and two, three and four were not looking for a motion. Did you want to go over the next set of recommendations or do you just want to do one and two now? I don't necessarily think you all agree with five through eight.

Okay, so I think we had a motion.

For one and two? For one and two. I'll second the, at least on the motion for one and two.

I've got a motion to adopt the two, one and two proposed changes. First from Ms. Elizondo and a second from Mr. Pena. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Question carries.

Thank you. So tier two is more about transparency and modern practice. The AI indicated that the recommendation is to add campaign finance disclosure requirements. Very similar to number three on the other slide there. That was one of y'all's recommendations. Just, you know, not necessarily adopt the entirety of the campaign finance ordinance, but require that they city commission has something in place. And so that was one of the recommendations. So you've kind of already addressed number five. Number six is adopting a merit principle within the charter that the administration, which is essentially the city manager, this would be outside of civil service, of course, but the city manager would have to hire based on individual merit.

rather than leaving it right now. I believe it's based on personnel policy.

On number six though, I understand that's part of the model charter comparison.

I didn't think recommended based on that comparison, but we have anti-deputism provision in the charter. Don't necessarily know that number six is required.

But I'll defer to you all. What does it say right now?

It's like, do they fit the qualifications of the job?

Right. So in the city's personnel and job descriptions, personal policy job descriptions, It does have language in there that, of course, we're EOC, so that it lists out the job requirements for each individual position. Some instances, mandatory requirements, some are preferred. This would put a requirement that the hiring process would be based on care.

An example, I'm trying to look for the staff. Okay.

is the implication what is the alternative by like um uh who you know or like he said nepotism or um right what is because merit to me right merit merit seems so vague right and i i don't like it but um well like what if you have the merit but like

some other issues. I don't know. I mean, what is your concern? Well, you tell us.

Well, so just kind of give you an example of what the charter provision states. Under the NLC model charter, the merit principle, all appointments and promotions of the city office OEs shall be made solely on the basis of merit and fitness demonstrated by a valid and reliable examination or other evidence of competence. And to me, you know, I guess it's going to be an anti-DEI, but to me, we kind of have that in place already. We have to follow the EEOC appointment law. And I know you always hear about the person who hires somebody because they're from properties or whatever, but I actually haven't seen that myself. currently in our city. Maybe it has happened in the past, and maybe it's happened in other cities, but I don't know necessarily that it's needed. And keep it in mind, most positions require some kind of licensing or certification.

And so not just at the high level, you know, with city manager, or accountants,

even some of the frontline employees, they have to have certain certification, especially in the water, the fuel areas. So don't necessarily, again, I don't have my opinion. I don't want to say something like that, but it was a recommendation that the AI model produced for us.

Don't you think it's a good one? Okay, good. And do we, have merit defined? I mean, what is merit? Or are there any examples of what merit is? Skills, knowledge, and experience?

Right. So merit, essentially, looking at this provision, it basically says merit that's demonstrated by either examination or other evidence of competence or position. So essentially, when you're hired, we'll have to, this actually adds some burden for HR, but like, again, if the person has to have a license certificate to have all the duties, they're already documenting that.

But in other instances, we would have to document that.

And there's a second provision that I should probably show the right of. So that merit principle is a person of merit system, and the model says, consistent with all applicable federal and state laws. The City Council shall provide by ordinance for the establishment, regulation, and maintenance of the merit system, governing personnel policies necessary to effectively administer the administration of the enforcement departments, offices, and agencies, including but not limited to classification and payment plans, examinations, force reduction, removal of working conditions, provision of acceptable appointments, In service training, grievances and relationship. My main concern for this principle is in the city charter right now, it currently states that the city manager, with the exception of the city auditor, to pretend may be on the way to the city secretary, hired and fired employees. And so we always tell commission, you can't get involved in personnel because the charter prohibits it. This would not be something that permission gets involved in, but it would be something that citizens are saying. You have to hire based off merit, which is great. It doesn't dilute the city management's powers at the same time. I think it just, maybe for transparency purposes, it would be a good provision, but again, my personal opinion, which is not legal, it's not necessarily.

Well, this

Is merit system just another word for qualifications? I mean, adequate qualifications for the job, right? Correct. So in case of like, let's say the finance director or the CFO, you'd have certain like a, if they're going to be preparing annual conference financial reports that in accordance with GASB, right? I mean, that's a highly technical and proficient skill set that, ultimately requires a CPA license, right? So you would need that.

Right.

And as would a city attorney, right, be actively licensed with the bar.

Correct.

And so those are, but those have to be identified with the human resource, you know, qualifications for each and every position anyway, right?

Correct. But there's, and that would be documented.

There's some provisions, there's some,

Positions that don't require certifications. It could be like a not city secretary because there are qualifications for that, but like the general administrative assistant or groundskeeper. And so you wouldn't have to have any kind of certification.

Would you hire someone that doesn't know how to

we have a house of a child, and that's my wife. She says I'm not competent to do that, and I try. But, you know, you think the city would either train or hire someone that has that experience. There's some commentary here for the reason for it, and I'm just gonna kind of summarize. It says, the purpose of the provision is not to impose additional constraints, details affecting personal administration, I would strongly encourage to state that there is a commitment to the merit principle. The merit principle or the model falls on the council to provide the ordinance or the organization of procedures in the personnel system. It lists subjects that may be covered by personal policies. It does state that particularly in small jurisdictions, state law might cover some of these adequately. be unnecessary and should just the city should just consider conducting an equity analysis of personnel system for example in terms of recruitment retention i think i don't know that we've done we have done a cultural analysis i don't know necessarily that we've done an equity analysis within our personnel system but

but we do have anti-nepotism provisions in the city.

So, you know, you can try your county method to work under you. And so, and we do have instances of family working with the cities, but we make sure, you know, personal policies have been done in the same department, or at least one being the supervisor of the other family members. So.

Well, if, If we're adding a one sentence merit principle statement directly in the charter, what's the harm?

Right, because all those details goes into the policy, right?

Right.

But what I would do, what I would recommend so that it's not the city commission having to adopt

Well, the city commission already has adopted personnel policy, but maybe a lot of final language to where the city manager makes recommendation to the city commission to have them adopt policy, because that's the policy we follow up on anyways. And so if you're going to have, if you're going to adopt the merit principle of the system, I would recommend, so we don't dilute the city manager power, make it at their recommendation for city commission to adopt.

But you would have anyways, right?

Which you would have anyways, because they adopt the policy.

Right. In this example, it has a city commission adopting or setting the policy. I would say that you are the policymaker, but in the sense of personnel, I would leave it to the city manager with the adoption of the personnel policy being done by a city commissioner.

So is your motion going to be to adopt a mayor principle? A one sentence mayor principle within the charter. Okay.

Can we make it two sentences to include the mayor's principle system, just to say that it's... and it shall be consistent with applicable federal and state laws, which is obvious. Yes. But also, in this instance, or this example, it's a city council shall provide ordinance for the establishment of, and in there, as recommended by the city.

Yep. Okay. That'll work. Is that your motion?

Motion to that effect on number six. Oh, you need public hearing? Oh, yes.

This is a public hearing. If there's anyone here who would like to speak on the matter, please step forward now. Is there anyone online at this moment?

I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing.

I move. Second.

Second. I've got a first for Mayor Mendez and a second for Mr. Peñal. Those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries and the public hearing is closed. Now I'll entertain a motion to address issue number six.

We've got a motion on the floor for adding a merit purpose statement directly as outlined by City Attorney.

Well, the language that you proposed.

Oh, okay, yes, sir.

I've got a first from Mr. Pena. Second, and a second from is it is on the all those in favor. Opposed? Motion carries.

Number seven. Charters, then it wants us to adopt our budget message contents, but the carry notice What happens if you have a deadline, miss the deadline? I would not touch number seven because that's already set by state law. And we already have very, very definitive, definitive deadlines to follow based on what there's already a process in place. Again, the AI model did not meet state law as well. It just basically looked at our provision. And so we're essentially in our budget in the budget principle that we have in the language, essentially just as we go along.

So my recommendation for seven is leave it alone.

Works for me. Works for me too.

Number eight, number eight, essentially consider a city manager removal hearing right. It states that there's a removal on 30 days notice, majority vote, final notes taken and the reasons done, carry right. Model has an approach, which is you have to give written reasons, 15 day response window, optional public hearing, blah, blah, blah. The way the city does the city manager hiring is through contract, but then the contract, we use a modified version, which, for the best practice, Texas City Manager Association's contract. And that contract, it lists the reasons how a city manager would be terminated for cost and what happens if the person is terminated without cost. The policy decision I would defer to you all, but we are, I believe the city is ready to protect it very well. In the instance of the city manager hiring and firing. And there's also provisions of there for the city manager to whoever that candidate is. You know, state law limits the severance to 20 weeks. And so we have in there that if they are cost, they would be entitled to that 20 week severance. And so again, it's a policy decision. I will defer to you all.

I don't like it.

Pass.

Number eight, I don't like it.

Pass. Yeah, I agree. I don't think it's censored. Okay, pass.

Now, number nine through 12, that is essentially clean up and clarity. As I stated earlier, for the very first item, number three, stating some 2002 language for redistricting, because the lines weren't drawn at the time. There's other provisions within the charter that are arcane because they refer to, essentially when the city became a home rule refers to language from 1915. And so what our recommendation would be to address nine through 12 is just have one provision, one proposition on the ballot saying, shall the city remove obsolete language from the charter and or language that says it's contrary to state law. So that one provision would take care of three, nine through 12, and other areas would list like 15 language.

This is a public hearing. If there's anyone here who would like to speak on that issue, please step forward now. Is there anyone on my stage? And there's no one here in person. So I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Got a first from Ms. Elizondo. Second. A second from Mr. Pena. All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries in order. We've closed the public hearing.

Madam Chair, I make a motion to take on items 9 through 12 for cleanup and clarity purposes.

Second. Got a first from Mr. Pena and a second from Ms. Elizondo to take 9 through 12 for clarity purposes. Is all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Motion carries.

I'm going to pass it now. I do want to thank you all for your service. Hopefully this is helpful. But hopefully to see you again when we look at the charter amendments in the next two years. Again, our apologies that we had to bring you back. We should have done the AI analysis ourselves.

learning something new every day at Ulaanbaatar and the United Nations.

Second.

I've got a first for Mr. Pena and a second for Ms. Elizondo. All those in favor? Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries and the minutes of those three meetings are approved.

that came in, but essentially, we still have the same timeline. July 7th, we'll have a commission vote individually on what's the position for one of the voters. And we'll begin education as soon as they decide what proposition for the election on November 3rd. And I'll let Ms. Myra give you just a quick update on the petition.

Thank you, Will, for that. Yes, as you are aware, and if you haven't seen the emails, we kind of keep you appraised as far as what's happening with the petition that we were served on June 24th, 2026. Within the last few days of us receiving the petition, we did a preliminary review of it that afternoon and Thursday. So when we did a preliminary review up until Friday, the information I sent to y'all at that time was 12, which was 1,236 petition sheets that came in that was filed. And at that time we did, when we did our thorough review, but just the preliminary review, we were at 6,671. So since that time at the end of Friday, When the team, we have a small team, I'm calling it like the petition committee, a team of four, which is two members from our staff. And we did pull two other staff members from another department that was able to assist and hands-on to help go through the petition and sort it out and really document what we're doing to help with the process. So at that time we did include the review process of it. So the number of petition sheets was confirmed, which was the 1,236. However, the number of signatures that we did confirm is at 8,195. So since that time, I've been coordinating with the Cameron County Elections Administrator. We did receive the number of the registered voters, which was 106,777 voters. So by and all, 5% of what is required, which is a 100% verification and validation of the process, is that 5,335 signatures that must be obtained. Since that time, we were, so Wednesday, last Wednesday, we received it. Since then, when we were reviewing it, the team was already, so there's 31 weeks. When they first started collecting the signatures, it started on February 15th of 2026. So the earliest they can really start receiving, you know, the signatures is a hundred and eight days back. So when we calculated, they are within the timeframe. Because it was around December, around Christmas time, December 26, I believe, when they could have started earlier by the time they filed. So they're within their time frame. So when the team was reviewing it, they really divided the petition into weeks. So week one was when February 15th they started. So when the team went through the entire process, folders, it was broken down into 31 weeks. So that's how we were able to really divide the weeks by the number of sheets, by the number of lines of signatures. So in two days, I think the team was able to go ahead and dive in deep because we received the voter registration list from the county. So we were starting to review the process, right, and really identify how our method is going to be for the verification process and how to identify. So we did that And in two days it was taken the team, possibly what one week over even to go through to touch everything and get the verification. And that was probably under maybe 300 signatures to really review on the must write, it must have this org. And so it was taking some time, but another permission and the code does allow, and I was connecting with the city of Austin and other of my colleagues and the other provision that allows our office in the city is to proceed with being able to do the random statistics sampling verification process. And that's the route that we're going to, which that allows the 25% of the signatures or 1000 signatures or whichever is greater. So based upon the 8,195 signatures that they collected, the statistical sample that is required is the 2049 signatures. So that's the method that we're going with to help with identifying. So the team is still reviewing the process. Right now, there's not a timeframe, right, for us to have this completed by, since our charter is silent and the state statute is silent, but we are documenting The time and effort that is taking our team that committee our office to review it just because we're trying to get through this as promptly as possible and really to identify the steps of education, so we are taking more. An approach if there is a. um we've seen some that is outside the city limits right so we're not only you know just verified with our office but also connecting with the planning department hey confirm and verify this is what we've received so there's a little more steps that we're taking to ensure that this is a thorough review of the petition sheets um as well as connecting with the county we've had you know came across that was Some of their information wasn't populating from the sheets that we received from the county. So I know it's data rights, but I'm wanting them to confirm this is not a registered voter that's not showing up. Just to confirm our process. So we are doing the best to review, provide, so I'll keep y'all appraised as soon as we complete it. Not expecting it to be done this week because there's still quite a bit. I am connected with the individual that's helping us to do the statistics sampling, which is the third party person to really provide the information. So once we get this complete, we'll send it back to that individual to do their analysis statistics based upon what we need to review on it. So as soon as we get that, then we'll share it with you all and as well as the city commission, you know, in the next.

Question on a statistical sampling, Within that sample, you get errors, meaning they did not qualify or they were not part of the city. So do you aggregate all of them and come up with a projected error and see if they would meet that way? I don't.

That's the third party that will take what we have and will send it to them. And then what they'll do is their analysis on the confidence of the review and what we were able to identify based upon that sample.

Okay. So... If you don't meet the confidence level, then it would not pass.

If it doesn't meet, then that's...

In other words, you have to have many errors in a sample, right? Because you have a sample, you have your population, you have a sample. If you get a high error rate within that sample, then you would extrapolate that error rate into the entire population and come up with a a projected error, right? And so that projected error is within, let's say your projected error is 40%, then if you discount 40% signatures and you're below the threshold of the required signatures, then it would not pass or do you have to take it further and evaluate other signatures?

So if the confidence level comes back low, then that's something that we'll have to evaluate And communicate with the petitioner as well. Hey, this is the route we're going, which we have been. So if that happens, that can be another approach that we will review depending on the address for us to consider.

One of the things that we discussed with Will earlier was using AI to verify the registered voters within the city of Brownsville compared to the addresses that are in the petition. And you can match them up. I mean, address per address, right?

Yeah, we are using AI to our maximum capacity that we can to pull the sheets that we have embedded into the AI component that we purchased the software, which is, you know, the subscription of it. So we are utilizing it to help with the main power to verify. So it is piggyback when it matches. It's given us, you know, But I know they've invented like the color. If it's matching, it's showing up green. If it's not including like the voter registration or some information from the information that we uploaded, it's populating the yellow. And then if it's like some missing information critical, it's popping out red. So it's also us verifying a little bit more into what it's helping. So it is using, you know, the AACs, the capacity we are, which is great. No, it's not a co-pilot. It's a chat GPT on the Excel version. That's a benefit. Yeah, so it has been very beneficial. It has really helped. I know she's been involved with her other committee members.

So what we're doing with this outcome is that each signature is unique. For example, we're doing like with one, page one, page two. So they give us random numbers, and we scan all the forms. We put in those forms, and we are asking of the system which one specifically we want to have on the text sheet. And we compare that with what we have on the calendar with the, like, For example, we only have like 70% in, I think it's 90% that is there, like the, yeah, based on the water registering number. So it matches, and then we have yellow, which is 50%, and then which is like, it doesn't match what we're doing. It just, we go back, we just verify those screens that it has signature, it has stains on the actual, the tissue board, and the ones that are general or are not colored, that those are the ones that we need to do like by hand, changing those things. But it's been really helpful.

It would be interesting to compare both models, the air model versus your statistical sampling, and see how they correlate with each other. But yes.

Will they come here this spring? Can I share just the weeks?

Will they have an opportunity to cure any defects?

No, not in the condition itself. Once it's filed, it's filed. So if they're short, I'm going to say. And the confidence response from the analysis comes back at a higher percent, which the individual is confident because they've done so many for the city of Austin does one at least. Actually, they just completed one when I was speaking to the city clerk. So their confidence percentage is high. So once they filed it, that's it. It can't go back. And at that time, I'll relate it to the petitioner, which I'm keeping the communication. Hey, this is the next steps, you know, keeping them informed that, you know, we're in the process of reviewing it. But when that does come and I'll have to do a certified letter, either it's sufficient or it's insufficient and attach the analysis report and the information, you know, attached to it, you know, with my stamp, my stables. And that's why it's very important for us to document what are steps that we're doing. the efforts that the team has taken. I know we scanned everything in to help on the process because on Saturday, the team did work, you know, virtually, we did connect. So once we provided, what I'm going to show you is just the, it's an Excel, but for you to know the time that, you know, the committee took to really put in what the sampling individual, which is a professor of the you know, that does the sampling for the city of Austin all the time with all of their different kinds of, you know, where we will talk about the initiatives, the referendums, the charter petition. So this is the ongoing petition request that the city of Austin always looks at. So what we have to do to be able to do this method is take the number of seats for the week And then take the number of sheets, which was 1,236. And then identify the number of page by the number of line, which is per signature. So what we do is take this information based upon what we received and we send it over to the third party. And that's what the third party comes back and will tell us you know, told us that we need to pull this information from what we sent out to the random. So it's not us being involved. It kind of helps us being out, not being the third, you know, having a third party to do it. And we're just reviewing what they provide for us to review at that time, which we're already doing it. A random sampling based upon what they, so with the 25% that's required by state and Because, you know, not only with us, but other cities do this because of the petition, you know, as far as the signatures that are received and how much it takes. Because some charters have 20 days, some charters have a 30-day, you know, to provide a response. And when I spoke to the city clerk, she retired from San Antonio, and their charter at that time had 20 days. Leading up to that November or that election, they received three petitions.

Oh, dear.

Three petitions, and it was averaging at least 30,000 signatures each petition. But in that case, you know, they were able to connect with a separate state, you know, shared that there's no way you can't even get through one petition. 20 days. So there was some grace that, hey, just keep the petitioner informed. This is what you're doing. These are the steps that you're taking to validate it back or just to review the process. So our office is doing the best we can to really document and showing the efforts that we're doing just to keep awareness that we did receive your petition. This is the steps we're taking. But this is one of the efforts that's taken us some time to do it. And here it is. Thursday was the first full day. Thursday brought on today. The team did work on Saturday to help get this going.

Well, with respect to the content of the petition, obviously some of that would be in there. You've got to run the traps, whether it's legal or not legal, based on the current statute. So is that something that needs to go through this committee, or are you all going to handle that?

Well, so the people review... is it is the city secretary's ministerial duty to review the petition, the four corners of the page. And so, you know, we have worked closely with Myra on checklists and what to do. She took it a step further, which is really awesome. And I've got an aesthetician to help her. One thing I wanted to say, though, is if the initiative of referendum provisions pass, this will probably be a, could be a frequent thing for us, right? So it's good that they go through this process anyways. Because the other cities that they're experiencing this, it's either through a charter amendment initiative or referendum. And this is normal for them. They're funded before an election. And so, but that's, You know, that's city democracy and assignments. It gives them power to the voters to do a petition and be able to obligate rules of their own or deal with rules outside of the government.

We can be proud of that.

That essentially is all we had to report. If you have any questions, we'll push it to a chair. Is that a chair?

Got a first to a chair. Second. Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? And we stand to chair.

Thank you so much.

We'll see if we have to call you again.

Don't you think they would engage with? No, no, no.