City Council - Regular Meeting

It is 6 o'clock November 18th, 2025 and I call to order the re I call to order the regular city council meeting for the city of Commerce, Texas. Please note we do have a quorum present for our meeting tonight. Joining us for our moment of invocation tonight we have Pastor Ben Kitz of the Heartland Apostolic Apoistic Church in Commerce, Texas on Highway 11. Pastor Kit and his wife Gina will be celebrating 17 years of marriage to this week. So congratulations their daughter Lydia is 11 years old and loves Roblox and basketball. Heartland is described to be a spiritfilled church with wonderful, downto-earth and kind-hearted people from many different walks of life. Services are held on Sunday mornings at 10:30 and Wednesday evenings at 7. Pastor Ben Kratz, please join us at the podium for the hydration tonight. Thank you so much. Well, thank you for having me. Um, good evening everyone. Um, I wanted to read a quick scripture before I uh prayed. Uh 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse one says, "I exhort you therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of our God uh of God and our Savior who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator

between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Uh I appreciate you having us. Um and uh like to say hello to everybody. Uh we appreciate everything you do. We know there's there's a lot to it. Um you don't really know how much there is to something until you're a part of making it work. And so thank you for all the hard work you do and all the many things you deal with. Lord Jesus, we thank you for uh your mercy and your blessings. We ask that you would uh touch this meeting. We pray for your anointing. Um you told us that if we would be faithful in the little things, you would make us ruler over many. And we know that whether they're great things or small matters, they're all important. And we pray for your guidance uh and for your blessing on this city. And we give you glory for it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.

Thank you. Thank you, pastor. We appreciate it very much.

Tonight for our pledge of allegiance, joining us um is Charlie Lidle. Charlie is a sophomore at Commerce High School and is currently in her second year of American Sign Language. She is the daughter of Jared and Kelsey Lidle and the granddaughter of Councilwoman Becky Thompson. Charlie is involved in varsity softball, golf, and volleyball, is a member of the National Honor Society, participates in the 2028 Pride Prep Program through Texas&M University Commerce, East Texas&M University, and ranks in the top 5% of her class. In her spare time, she enjoys volunteering at the Northeast Texas Children's Museum, Commerce Little Angels, and the Rafa Clinic. Charlie,

let's stand and join Charlie in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I aliance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible.

Thank you, Charlie. We appreciate you being here tonight. Good luck in your sports and in your school. Thank you so much. Council, if you'll see, the next item we have is our consent agenda, item number four. Please take a moment and let me know if you have any questions.

There being no questions, may I have a motion? May I make a motion that we accept consent agenda as presented? Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I.

I. Any opposed like sign? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Adam five, presentation of the city council by to the members, excuse me, presentation to the city council by members of the public. I have no cards. Is there anybody that wishes to address the city council? Thank you. There being none, next item is council comments. This is an opportunity for the council to address the audience with opportunities to express our thanks, congratulations, talk about holidays, and other honorary opportunities are going on within our city. Councilman Henry,

I have it. Councilman Thompson, I'm passing it on to my council. That'll be fine. Councilman S. Yeah, thank you. I just want to comment how nice the uh lights in the downtown area look and uh we're excited that we are uh filming a movie here in town and from now on if you ever need to talk to me just have your people call my people and we'll random meeting but uh I'm just pleased that the city is rallying around this. It's going to be a lot of fun and it'll be great for commerce. So good for us.

All right. Thank you very much. Item number seven, discussion of possible action on a resolution approving the sale of two city-owned properties, property ID 7335 and property ID 70332 to Chicago Legacy Group and authorizing the city manager to execute any necessary documentation. Mr. Lisby, city manager.

Mayor, council, thank you for the opportunity to present this tonight. Um, as as we've discussed a couple of times uh over the past, uh the city is currently holding a number of residential lots uh around town, uh some of these lots have been held for an extended period of time. These two lots particularly have been held by the city since 1972. Um and so the state of Texas controls how cities can sell uh or transfer ownership of land. Uh and the way in which we have chosen to do that and comply with state law is through a broker. Uh so the broker that represents us and the lots that we have available is Randy Tarpley. He was approached by members of the Chicago Legacy Group uh specifically asking and offering to purchase uh these two lots uh on Jefferson Street and I believe um Williams Street. Uh and uh each lot they're offering $20,000 for for a total purchase price of $40,000 for the two lots. Uh there are no back taxes on the property, but it has been off the tax roll since 1972. Uh we asked uh the developer uh they are known uh they've done some development in our community before. Uh they do quite a bit of development in Greenville. Uh and we asked if they had any drawn up plans for the development. And what they're looking at is subdividing these two lots into additional lots so that they can get more housing, more affordable housing uh in this neighborhood. And so staff recommends approval of the sub.

Are there any questions for Mr. Lizby? There being none, may I have a motion? I move that we approve the um resolution approving the sale of two city- owned properties to Chicago Legacy Group. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I.

Any oppose? Like sign. Motion carries. Thank you. Next item is the city manager report. Mr. Lisby, city manager. Mayor, council, uh I have taken uh the opportunity for this meeting to invite each of our department directors uh to uh provide an update about uh progress and items that are going on within their departments uh so that the council can hear from uh those. Uh but now that Molly has forwarded through all those slides, I'm going to back up um and start with the finance director and our finance update. I'm getting dizzy. No doubt.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. So, as we start our new fiscal year, all of our slides are going to start over from uh square one. Um, as we're looking at October of 2025 for our fiscal year 26, uh, just a reminder that we do our budget based on a 98% collection. So even though our tax levy, uh, may be 5.5 million, we estimate that we'll get a collection of about 98%. Um, and so our tax budget for this year is $5,43,285. This, of course, is split between our maintenance and operations and our ongoing bond debt. Um, and exciting news, as of October, we've reached 1% collection so far on our property tax. Uh, this is very common. uh we will start seeing more of those uh tax payments come through specifically December and January time period when those tax bills become due. You will notice, sorry, you will notice that on our penalties, not our penalties, our delinquent taxes, that is also started over. We take a report that's given to us by the county um of all of the delinquent taxes um as of October 1st and the delinquent taxes is 392,000. Um you'll see that our collected taxes is actually negative 34,000 and that's because of um refunds that they may have given out on delinquent taxes. It doesn't change the total due, but it kind of pushes us backwards a little bit. Um so we haven't had any refunds on current taxes paid, just on delinquent taxes paid. Uh moving into sales tax, um you'll see

that in October 2025, we received so far uh a little more than 118,000 in sales tax revenue. There was a large drop from October last year to this year. This is due to one large anomaly payment that we got in 24. Um, and so it was something we don't know if maybe there was a sale or or they did some kind of audit, but there was a very large payment. Uh, we never saw it refunded last year. Um, and so that's just kind of why you see that skew. Um, when we look at our overall categories, you'll notice see in utilities that huge line in 24 that is that large anomaly payment. Um and so um utilities kind of backs up to where we would expect it to be back to where it was in 23 and 22. Um when you see manufacturing, manufacturing also decreased slightly compared to 24 and that's because of two of our largest vendors had very healthy October's in 24 and then just kind of backed off went back to normal kind of activity in October 25. Um when we look at retail uh when compared to October of 2024 the split between the categories within retail remain remains relatively the same. Um overall the revenue for retail kind of stayed um well stayed the same as it was for last year. The last couple of years we still see a small growth when it comes to online sales which is great. Um, state of Texas still has not made a decision on who's going to get the sales tax for online sales. Uh, that remains, you

know, we talk about it every year. Um, the distri the distributing cities, so like if there's a large Amazon facility in the past, that city that held Amazon distribution facility would get all the sales tax. It's shifted now to the destination city. So, anytime you have an Amazon package that comes to commerce, we get that sales tax down. And of course, the larger cities that have these large distribution facilities um argue that that's not fair and that they should get all the sales tax and all the little cities say that's not fair. We should get all the sales tax. It is still an ongoing fight. It has been for many years and I expect it will continue to be. So when we look at our accommodation and food service, the largest difference is the breakdown. So last year um the full service restaurants was actually 50% of the breakdown and some of that breakdown actually included um drinking establishments which if you'll notice that is not here for October of 2025 which is an anomaly for us. Um it was at it usually hovers between four and 7%. Uh and there was none in October 2025. Um I don't know. Hopefully we'll see that come back. Something something kind of increase. But overall we've been healthy healthy in this department. That's all I have. I don't have a forecast for you just yet. Um I want to get a couple of months in before I start building out that forecast. Otherwise, it's going to be really skewed. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Molly,

good evening. Mayor, council, community. Uh we have our I believe it's our second annual Tiger Madness that will be hosted by our city of commerce parks and recreation department in partnership with the Boys and Girls Club. This is a great opportunity for all the parents of all of our basketball players like Lydia uh to come out uh meet the coaches, meet the kiddos on the team. Uh we introduce every team by every age division and it's just a really fun time to acknowledge all the kids before the season kicks off. This year we added pictures as well. So all of the basketball season group pictures will take place at Tiger Madness. And we have um some cheerleaders who have agreed from the district to come and perform at this event as well. So, we're looking forward to that. The Commerce High School has agreed to host it in their gym. So, that event will take place the evening of Friday, December 5th, with pictures for the kiddos taking place from 5:30 to 6:30. All the coaches have individual team picture calendars, and then the actual Tiger Madness event will take place at 6:30. So, the community is invited to attend that. The last of our 2425 clean commerce campaign uh section D pickup will take place the week of Thanksgiving. So that Wednesday. So you can put um any of your Clean Commerce campaign items that are listed on the flyer. Uh curbside this coming weekend and they'll be picked up for section D only in Wednesday on Wednesday. And then you can look over the coming weeks, uh, we'll be sharing on social media when we release our new 2025 2026 clean commerce campaign. The Northeast Texas Children's Museum is hosting their annual brunch with Santa. Um, you're about to find out that Saturday, December 6th, is going to be a very busy day in Commerce, Texas. There's a lot going on, but you can start your day at the Children's Museum um, from 9:30 in the morning till 11:30. Tickets are $12 each. You can get them on the Northeast Texas Children's Museum website or stop by their facility to

purchase tickets. Kids under the age of two are free. So that's the morning of Saturday, December 6th. And then as we move through the day, Miracle on Main Street and the Holly Jolly Jog um hosted by the Commerce Downtown Alliance and the city and the chamber and CLI will take place. The um 5K 3M is when the lineup starts and then the 5K begins at 3:30. You can register for the 5K right now. Um there's a QR code. You'll find it uh on doors and buildings all downtown, but if you need help, certainly stop by city hall and we can help get you registered. And then Miracle on Main Street is that evening which includes the city's very historical Christmas parade. As Mr. Ays mentioned, this year there's the addition of a movie being filmed during the Christmas parade. So that's pretty exciting. Um, so the 5K is at 3:30 and then shortly after that, uh, the parade will take place at 5:30, I believe. Line up for the parade begins at 4. Um, and then there's photo booth set up all downtown and the Christmas tree. Um, so certainly come downtown on Saturday, December 6th. So there'll be a lot going on. That's all I have.

Thank you. Uh now we will move into some of the director reports uh talking about various uh updates that are going on within their departments. And we'll start with uh Molly.

So uh city council, I have for you all some department updates from the administrative services department. Um so from a human resource perspective, we've been very busy uh with hiring and posting positions. We have a community engagement specialist. You all know Mason left us about a month or so ago. Uh so we have posted that position. We have a lot of excellent candidates. We've narrowed it down to two semi-finalists and we expect to make a decision uh this week. So hopefully that position will begin in early December. We have a code enforcement officer vacancy. Um that individual starts with us on Monday of next week. We have currently posted the streets supervisor position. That's certainly a key position that you'll hear more from TJ about. That position is currently posted and the city is taking applications. We have a new dispatcher that was vacant um but she started today and then we will be posting animal shelter technician here in the next couple weeks. We have a vacancy at the animal shelter which was a new position in fiscal year 2026. And then uh we have a pending vacancy individual in our uh parks and recreation department who put in his two to three week notice. And so we'll be posting that position to in the next couple weeks. So if you know of anybody looking for a job certainly send them our way. We're always looking for quality candidates. Our human resource department within administrative services hired a total of 24 employees in 2025. Of course, that's in addition to managing short-term disability claims and workers compensation claims and all those day-to-day tasks. Some other key highlights for administrative services department. We partnered with a software developer who created a software platform called Easy Docs. The intent of that is we are digitizing historical city records. Um, when I say that, I mean minutes from forever ago. So, this is certainly not going to be something that we complete

in a month or two months, probably not even a year or two years or three years. Um, and Miss Haley has taken this on square on her shoulders. And so far this year, she has digitized 12 years of historical resolutions and 31 years of ordinances. So, we'll still have to go through all of our agendas, all of our minutes, our planning and zoning commission, board of adjustments. There's lots of boards and commissions and minutes. So, our intent is to um digitize all of those records for easy access by the public so that if you have questions about a lot that was zoned, you don't have to go through the process of a Freedom of Information Act request. You can go look through ordinances and see zoning changes. So, we are taking a bite out of that elephant uh one day at a time. Next request is another software company that we uh implemented in 2024. Uh this is to process uh freedom of information or as some people know it public information act requests. That was a manual process that our staff did. Um so we would receive them and try our best to keep them in order. Um in this day and age um people have lots of questions. There's record requests for personnel files when it comes to hiring um taking out loans. they they want personnel files and then just day-to-day uh accident reports, police reports, lots of community development requests. So, we partnered with Next Request and we started using them in October of 2024 and we've uh done 308 public information act requests. The system tracks the day that they're received. Um it keeps track of the 10-day timeline we try to abide by that the attorney general outlines to make sure that we're turning those requests around in a timely fashion. So next request has been a great step for us from an employee training perspective. Um we are 100% compliant as a city and city council on cyber security training and 96% completion for uh we have seven annual trainings that we have every city employee do every

year. Won't read them to you. Um and then as far as some internal processes, we're currently revisiting city policies and um again taking a bite out of that elephant a little bit at a time. We have lots of city policies um that haven't been revisited since the 90s. And so we're we're revisiting and rewriting those policies one by one. Um and then I'm going to let Jamie talk about the Tyler Encode implementation in her update. And then just some upcoming events. We do a new employee orientation. That's also something that we implemented here in the last few years where we take uh employees on the fifth Wednesday of every month a few times a year and we meet with them and we take police officers to the water plant and we take water plant operators to the fire department and we take all of our employees regardless of what department you work for all around the city so they can be more familiar with the city that they work for and the other departments. So, we're hosting one of those tomorrow. And then we have our employee service award presentation where employees with five, 10, 15, 20, sometimes we have 20, 25, 30 years of service, they get recognized by the council for those milestones. That will take place at our December 16th council meeting. And then our next election, which will be for place one and place three, will take place May 2nd, the first Saturday in May uh of 2026. So, those are my administrative service updates for you. I'm not done yet. I'll move into parks and recreation. Um, so if you haven't been out to city park over there on the left, you have a piece of equipment um that we had some safety concerns uh with that piece of equipment. So, play park structures came out and replaced it for us. Um, this was a several month process of waiting for this piece of equipment and it just went in last week. As a matter of fact, they have one final touch to put a rubber gasket around the bottom. But this is an inclusive

merrygoround um which allows uh individuals who are disabled to use a wheelchair and and use our merrygoround. So that's a new piece of equipment that we're really excited has been installed out at City Park. And then the other big project that I think everybody's pretty familiar with is uh phase two of our anymore sports complex. So we signed off on, if you recall, phase one was fields one, two, and four. And then phase two was field three, which is our 12 and 14 U field. So we signed that contract in August of 2025. Uh the expected completion date of that project is a substantial completion date of December 31st and then they expect final completion of that project within 30 days of that. So by January, we'll have that field completed as well. Um, and then just to kind of highlight some of the scope of the work that took place out there, uh, they removed and disposed of all of the fencing out there. I have pictures that I should be sharing with you here. Uh, they added a retention pond out there. One of the major problems and the reason those fields got into the condition they were in was because of drainage issues. So, that was the reason phase two was one field is it also included this drainage pond. So, uh, I was out there this week or last week and there's some water in the pond. Um, and so they also did, uh, installation, complete installation of new fencing, dugouts, and scorekeeper stands. That has not happened yet, but will. Um, you'll see that we have everything lined up, excuse me, all the framing for our new back stops, the concrete back stops on that field. After that, the netting will go up. Um the dugout pads, the concrete will be poured for those in the coming week as well. The uh pond was dug. It's approximately 3500 cubic yards. And then it'll include um we took the dirt that we dug out of that pond to help bring that field up.

If you are familiar with that field and you go out there, you can feel it when you stand there. Um but it's going to come up and they're going to also import any top soil that's needed to bring it up any further. Um, and then they'll install uh all new Bermuda grass out there, new fencing, new dugouts, new metal roofs. Um, so all of that should be completed by the end of January at the latest. Those are all my updates. Council, do you have any questions of of Molly?

Okay, M. I don't have any pictures for you, but when we're talking about finance, we um it's only two bullet points, but I promise you there's a lot going on. So, uh the first thing is the migration of our new accounting software. Um last year I did a very large RFP, went through tons of demos, um got quotes and everything about talking about our new financial software. Our financial software is not just, you know, um the journal entries and and our financial statements. It goes all the way into our utility billing system and into our court system. Um and so we are setting this off kind of as as small bites, small pieces. So the first series of modules is going to go live um the 8th of December. Um, and I just kind of want to preface that the week before that is what they consider a blackout period, which means I can't do anything in the old software because they're working to make sure everything transitions beautifully to the new software because I'm sure you know, nothing ever goes wrong in a migration. It's perfect. Um, and so, but that's what that blackout is. And so we'll have people that come in to make utility payments and and it will still show outstanding balance and their payment will still show pending for about a week until I'm allowed to update everything and post everything. Um that's really the only thing that I'm I'm expecting uh for the citizens to see. Um but for the finance side, we're hoping to go live December 8th. That

includes payroll. um accounts payable, employee portals, um all the financial side, um and everything that kind of goes into that. So, Molly kind of talked about um an employee access portal. This is something new that we've never had before. Uh we still do a lot of things by paper, by hand. Um and this software will kind of turn it over to the employees. They'll have the ability to look at their um their payubs whenever they want to, their W2s whenever they want to. Um if they need to update their direct deposit information, they can do that. Change their address, change their phone number, those types of things. It'll be whenever they want to. Um the other thing that is happening simultaneously is our FY25 audit. Um, we actually started working on that a few months ago, uh, to start kind of giving the auditors selections. Um, and they're going to be here, um, on site in January, um, to hopefully finalize anything that they need in person. And I'm hoping to have a completed audit in February. Um, last year was very difficult because we had to switch audit firms. And because of that switch, we started so late. And so we were doing new budget while doing the audit for the last year. It was a lot. And so this year before budget kicks off in March, I'm hoping to have audit done and closed and I don't have to worry about it anymore. It's off my plate. When we talk about utility billing, all of the utility all of the utility rates um have been updated in our system. These utility rates were adopted by council um I believe in October. Um and so they go active on the November bills because

that is what is affect your reads that happened in October and so we don't like to do it in October because that's related to your September reads. So we wait till November. They are all updated. Um, we have started a new process internally where, um, my two utility ladies, uh, Rita and Stacy, who do a wonderful job, um, go through line item by line item and doublech checkck every single account. We've been trying to make more of an effort to reach out to customers if we see that their consumption's off, something's not right, their consumption's really high. We've really made it a priority this last year to be more proactive when it comes to the utility accounts um and working with our customers and and letting them know that we're here to help. We're not here to just well that's not my problem, right? We're here to help. And so the girls have made tremendous efforts in that. Um we are also undergoing a utility system audit. This audit is being done by Water Corporation of America and they are looking at everything from our meters in the ground to did we set that account up correctly? Is it pulling the correct rates? So, they're helping us look at everything um and make sure that we are addressing all of our revenue concerns on the utility um billing. And they are also going to help us make sure that the migration when the migration for utilities happens in February March time they're going to they are going to help us double check everything to make sure that everything migrated appropriately. So we have a lot going on in the utility side and on the finance side. But that's all I have for you.

Thank you, Miss K. Miss Bonnie. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm going to start off with some updates on our current employees that we have in our community. Through our industries, we're currently sitting just under 700 employees with our largest being uh down at Legacy Homes at 140 and Benny Keith at 86. But there's good news with um Seller 76 coming to town. They're currently at 75 employees with an additional 39 temps that they have. The temps are working full-time, but they're not on their main payroll. Outback Power was purchased solely by Solar 76 back in the late spring, early June time frame. They bought all the shares. So now solar 76 currently owns Outback Power. They are mainly doing storage in the facility and have about four employees currently. They are leasing space in the facility to Big Battery. So Big Battery is just a leie of the building and they have 43 employees currently. So, the numbers are going up and I took a tour through there today along with the appraisal district. Oh my goodness, you would be shocked at what they've done just since I've been there in the last six weeks. Um, construction is going on and they have they are filling up their space quickly. So, it's pretty impressive. And if any of you would like to ever take a tour out there, just let me know and I'm happy to um arrange it for you.

Um our other industries, Mohawk and Hydro Aluminum are both sitting at 67 employees at theirs. That was kind of odd when I found out they were both at 67 employees. Mohawk joined us in 2001 and Hedro Aluminum joined us in 2002. Business is staying steady. Um the rest of our industries range anywhere from 16 employees up to 33. So and then um I'm going to um working now to arrange an industry alliance roundt discussion and the players at the table will be the industry leaders along with HR representatives the high school. I want to bring in their CTE director um along with Paris Junior College workforce in the university. We need to know what the UN what the industries are needing and now that our schools are bringing in more CTE classes, welding, we currently have 70 welders at our high school. When I get calls from companies and when I go out marketing, first thing they ask, we need welders. Do you have welders in your communities? So, all the schools now are starting those programs where the students are graduating from high school with an associates degree before they even walk across the stage and get their high school diploma. So my goal is to do this in January. Bring these players to the table and let's see what everybody needs and how workforce and the schools PJC and the high school can assist our current industries here. Um business retention and expansion. I continue to have an a very good relationship I feel with our current industries.

they feel comfortable calling me, I can drop in on them. I call them. We're talking constantly with them. So to see how we could help them, whether it's with training um or various other needs that they have. So marketing, I just went on another marketing trip. I do market with the Northeast Texas Economic Alliance Group. I call them NITI. And there are four communities in our north te northeast Texas region. We have Commerce, Sulphur Springs, Jacksonville, and Kilgore. So, two of us are along I30 and two of the communities are along I20. And we're smaller communities like in some ways. And so what one doesn't have, another one may have. And we pull our funds together because we're not large. And then we hire a consultant to do some research for us and help us to locate some of these companies throughout the country that are either looking to re relocate andor expand their footprint possibly into the northeast Texas area. So last week we actually went up um we this is the first of our three marketing trips with this consultant. We hit um Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. in five days. And we had face-toface visits with 10 industries. And then we had we've had three virtual appointments and we've got another one scheduled for January. And then we will do another marketing trip the second week of January and we have one scheduled for the first week of March. So trying to get those companies to see who we are, bring them here, look at our look at our different cities and see what we can do to help them. and bring manufacturers

to our area. I also do some marketing with Encore's economic development team out of Dallas. They market at trade shows and so we can pay to play but we get to go and then all of the leads that come in to that booth as we work the booth every city that participates we get all the leads that come in so that we can then reach out and I can also do this with team Texas. So we have some different marketing angles. Um training and conferences are every two years all of our board of directors go to sales tax training and this is through the Texas Economic Development Council. It's not required that they all go, but it's something that I've kind of instilled in them since I came here because I feel it's important for them to understand what economic development is, how how we can use our funds. There's a difference between types type A's and type B's. So, the board can learn what we can use our funds on and what we can't and how it works. Um, this year there were five board members that are due. They rotate. We rotate different years. And they said, I asked them, I said, because when they realized, we don't have to do this, do we? I said, well, you don't have to, but it's good for you to do it. And I asked them if they learned anything, and they said yes, very much so. It was it was very enlightening for them. So, that's a plus plus on my side. um our TEDC, which is the Texas Economic Development Council, they hold three main conferences a year. Um the main one is in October and then they do a winter conference and a summer conference. And a few weeks ago, I had

two of my board members, the vice president and the secretary treasurer both attended along with me at that one. So, and then some other programs that we have, we have the revolving loan program that we've had in place since 2012. And once the original loan, this was through USDA. Once that original loan was paid back by the industry that we were able to get um the loan for those funds went into, they're in a revolving loan fund now. So, we've had several businesses in downtown that have applied for those over the years and paid back. As they pay the funds back, then we can reissue those funds to somebody else that's in need. So, it's a way for us to help somebody that's not necessarily in industry. And then, uh, we recently started a new program which is a matching facade grant. So, if if there's a business downtown that needs some improvements on the outside of their building, whether it's painting, whether it's adding a um whatever they need, if they want to apply for this, if they were to spend, we'll do up to $10,000. But then again, each application will be reviewed on an individual basis. If somebody spends $25,000, then depending on if we approve the application, we could give them more than the 10,000 back. But they have to present the application beforehand and we look at it. We also ask for financials and then once it's paid for, they show us the receipts and then we would reimburse them 50% of the facade grant. So that's a way that we can try to enhance maybe the beauty of our downtown a little bit. So we have not had any

takers on it, but I have passed out several applications. So, and we do have three current revolving loans outstanding that we have outstand that they're not outstanding in payments, but we do have three revolving loans outside and we have another one we're about to um finish up on and go ahead and award one here in just the coming weeks. So, that's it. Any questions? Thank you, John. Mr. Harper,

good evening. Uh, the board of adjustment uh met last no uh last week for a variance to approve off streetet parking spaces at uh 1.5 instead of the normal standard 2 for an 8 unit multifamily development off of BAR street in the 2400 block. Um the planning and zoning commission will meet uh December 2nd and the board adjustment will also meet December 2nd. Uh PNZ will meet over a plan development district on the north side of town and a conditional use permit in downtown. Board of adjustment will meet for a variance of two family dwelling uh off of Washington Street. Um, just to be clear, this December 2nd is not on the date that everything is scheduled, December 6th. It is on December 2nd. Um, since Molly has, uh, already informed you of the, uh, new code enforcement officer starting next week, we're we're very hopeful on that. Um, uh, new construction has been down this year, building permit wise, slowest since 2020, but as in these meetings that are coming up, hopefully it'll ramp up pretty soon. Um, and here's here's my favorite slide right here. The uh Commerce Airport fuel sales. So, we've had about two months of fuel sales now. We've sold about 1,200 gallons of uh ABG gas and made Now, these are these are my numbers and not Jamie's numbers. Uh, $6,000. Um, so she'll correct that for you at some point in the future. And uh the exciting part is Text kicked off their payment rehab project yesterday. They're removing markers. The airport is closed currently. Um they are projected. We are the first of the five airports in this project. Weather pending they should be done. Now

of course don't I know I know the forecast for tomorrow and the next day but weather pending they should be done with our airport by the first week in December. 30 days of curing and then they'll come back and put the markings on the airport at that time. So hopefully the airport will only be closed for three weeks and then they want to open back up with no markings during Thanksgiving just in case someone's flying in.

Thank you, Mr. TJ. Good evening. So, I'm going to talk about water, waste water, and then everyone's favorite thing, streets. So, we'll uh start with water. Uh the first project I'm going to talk about is the reservoir pumps out the out at the water treatment plant. Uh we've had one pump out there for almost as long as I've been here for 20 years. I'm not sure how it's made it this long without going out and putting us in a bind, but thankfully it has made it. We now currently have three pumps out there. Uh we used to only able to produce about 800 gallons per minute through the water treatment plant to send to the water treatment plant. We now can run two pumps together uh to give us a total of about 1,950 gallons per minute, which turns in about 2.8 million gallons over a 24-hour period. So, our water plant is in much better shape uh than it has been in years past. Uh the next thing I want to talk about is our city whales. We currently have six whales. Four wells have been replaced. Not because we planned it, just because they ran out, broke down, and we've had to replace them. So, we have two more that we're trying to stay ahead of the game. And I am planning to have them two replaced next budget and the year after so we can stay ahead and not have to uh replace them out of necessity versus staying ahead of the game. Uh we also have a Wall Street. It is also currently it's doing well. It's seen its days. It's uh in the design phase also to stay ahead of the game and have it replaced, upgraded from electrical, pumps, the whole nine yards there. Uh we'll move on to Washington Street Clear Whale. It has been rehabbed. Uh that's where all one of our whales runs to it. It has been rehabbed, but we have found out there are some chemical lines, some lines on the ground that are cracked and busted. So, we'll have to address those before

we can uh put that in into line. And I don't have a slide for this, but just give a shout out to my collection distribution crew over here at Cowboy uh mobile home. They have laid 800 ft of 8 in water man this past week and a half. In doing so, that area is a deadend zone and so we're having to flush hydrants over there to keep the residuals up. Sometimes it could be two hours of flushing to just get a good residual. Uh by doing that, we've now made a diluted zone so the water will flow all the time. or residuals ought to be much higher in that area over town. Uh any questions before I move on to wastewater? At the wastewater treatment plant, we have three projects uh currently going. They're all three in the design phase. Our AB and SL or aation basin and sludge project. Pretty much this project will just help us go to move more sludge, get it out quicker, out faster so we can tr treat more waste water. uh it is currently at the 60% design phase right now. We also have a fine screen project going on. We've had conveyors out there, but they have met their day. They've not been working for quite some time. Uh so we're in the process of getting new fine screens put in. Uh this will allow our EQ basins or aation basins to work properly to be able to hold more water instead of holding trash from the fine screens they are right now. We also have a design of an INI pond. As you know, when we get a good amount of rain, our master lift station at the wastewater treatment plant will flood and it causes our whole plant to back up and flood out to this. So, this eye pond will allow us to send the extra water out to it where it'll hold it and then when we are able to get back to normal flows and whatever, we can return this water through the master lift station through the head of the plant. The good thing is we had some soil samples taken on this project and found out that we will not have to put a liner in cuz our soil is compacted enough. So, this will save the city some money on this project. So,

there you go, Jame. All right. Is there any questions on that one before I move to streets? All right. So, we'll head on into streets. As you know, we have an as an an asphalt zipper. Uh the guys are getting more confident with using this. We've done a few projects. We haven't done a lot. We did alley behind chalk tall. Uh we did about 20 foot section on Rosemound. Both those areas we just zipped up and rolled them back down. Uh we did a on over on Third Street. TJ, would you explain what an aspho zipper is?

So the zipper comes along, it'll tear up like 3 in down into the road and then you can do it one or two ways. You can come back with a roller and just roll it all all back out or you can come in and clean up this up the road, redo another layer, set down some lime, some water, stabilize the base, and then come back with some asphalt on top of it.

Thank you, sir. So, uh, we over in North Community on Third Street, there was a road that had a pretty good large hump in it. The guys took the zipper over there and leveled that out and, uh, did a nice job over there. We currently have a layown machine, uh, at the service center. We were going to start training on the layown machine tomorrow. The guys are getting it serviced and everything and it blew a hydra hydraulic cylinder busting. So, we're gonna have to delay that and take the uh cylinders to be rebuilt so that we can put them back in the machine for it to work. How long do you think that will take?

I don't know. They just took it this afternoon. So, they took the sulfur springs, so it shouldn't hopefully it don't take that long, but I have no time on that.

TJ, explain what a layown machine is. So the lay down machine, so technically you hook a dump truck up to the front of it with asphalt and it pours in and it pushes and it just kind of smooths out the asphalt over top of the the hole or whatever versus having to take dump truck and shovels and spread it all around. Any questions on streets? The last thing I have to talk about, we've gone into about a year now of uh having an I and I crew. We have one gentleman who is doing a fabulous job. Uh he's been here for about a year. Uh we were able to smoke test all of the city of commerce. The best time to do that is when it's summertime. So he'll smoke during the summertime. And as you can see there, we found about 75 cleanouts that were broke that he was able to fix and repair. There's been two manholes that we found that when it rained, they just sat underwater and just took on excess of water from rain into our collection system. Uh we've had 10 man holes that's been repaired where they've been cracked lids or whatever. They have been fixed and then four sections of pipe were found underground. Uh this has been actually the last substantial rain we got out the wastewater plant the master station rolls up but it did not uh flood out. Uh so that's good. It's probably been due to some of this stuff being fixed. Uh we plan on each year the same gentleman in summertime we'll go through and smoke the whole town and try to stay on top of INI best we can. won't ever be solved 100% but more we stay on it the better. So that's all I got.

Thank you Mr. Jones.

Good evening Mayor and council. Uh thank you for the opportunity to come give some updates today. So one of the we have several projects going over at the police department. Um, but one of the big ones is the upgrade of our body warn cameras and our dash cams to the Axon program. Um, I'm pleased to say that that has gone live. So, we now have those new cameras that our officers are wearing and also in all of our patrol vehicles. Um, that has been a major upgrade. Um, both in quality, but also decreased failures. Unfortunately, the old system, we were having quite a number of failures and especially the dash cameras not activating as they should, not doing what they should, and not communicating with the body cameras. Um, so that's been quite an improvement for that. Um, additionally, Commerce has been identified by the state of Texas as a high-risk area for serious bodily injury and fatality crashes. So, due to that, we are working on and we're in the final stages of a step grant um, which is essentially the state paying some overtime rates for officers to work, specifically traffic. and for the context of um decreasing traffic accidents, making our roadway safer in our community. That that project also includes intoxicated driver initiatives during that time frame, during targeted times of the year around holidays and things like that. Um, additionally, we went out and we worked on the motor vehicle crime prevention authority grant um which was part of some recent legislation. um we broke that down into three separate kind of projects or initiatives for um ease on the finance side and making that more efficient for us. Um but we have received the mobile trailer which has those uh live cameras that we're able to move around town and use for special events. It was here for the Bod Bash. We've had it over at the library where the uh pumpkin patch has been. We've used it for school district events and

different things and we plan to keep using that in various places that we have issues and or special events. Um currently there are four AOPRs or stationary license plate readers that have been involved that are on that installed on city street rightways. Um the rest of that project will be pending texttop permitting because they those will be installed in areas that require textile permit. So we're still waiting on those. Um, when I got here, I took the opportunity to talk to every staff member one-on-one, and one of the top two things that they wanted to work on, wanted me to work on or us as a group is training. Um, they felt that more training was needed across the board. So, um, we've been working diligently to do that and to plan more into the future. Um, some of the trainings that officers have been sent to in the last few months, um, include crime scene investigations, a week course. So, that one's required for officers um to advance their licensing from basic to intermediate. Um so, that's one of those classes that we sent folks to um of course as um required by the state. As me being a new police chief here, I had to go to new chief school. That was the first week of this month. Um let's see. Alert is a alert is another mandated training by the state, but it's really a good thing for area law enforcement. And this is designed for like an active shooter response where law enforcement is actually going out and getting hands-on training um for an active shooter situation. Um we're required to do so much of that training in various topics um every two-year cycle. Um but we've been sending officers to that and we plan on hosting some of that ourselves here in the near future. Um we sent officers to high-risisk traffic stop training, an eight-hour course that involves high-risisk traffic stops. um that was productive for some of our newer officers and we also plan to be hosting that here in the near future here at Commerce Police Department for regional

um law enforcement to attend. Uh we had some of our leadership staff um attend TML leadership training. Um that was hosted up in Paris and that was a good class for our leadership team. uh C has been attending various courses for their investigations from uh crime scenes to interview techniques and those type of training for them. And then of course the deescalation training uh we've sent some officers to that and we will be sending more. Another big one that um is kind of near and dear to me is the sexual assault family violence investigator course. We call that safe. That's a three-day course. Um, but it is extremely beneficial for our patrol officers when they do need to respond to a sexual assault um, case. I found throughout my career that one of the scariest calls for a peace officer to respond to from a patrol standpoint is in fact a sexual assault because they know there's some technical things that they need to do. They know there's a bunch of requirements, but they're not extremely sure what those may be. So my goal here is to have every officer at Commerce Police Department uh trained for this particular course. Um it is a fairly in-depth course really. We hosted the first one at um that since I've been here at the police department. We brought in a trainer for that through that program which came to us at no cost and we were able to host that training for regional law enforcement and we had quite a good turnout for that. Um, and we're working on scheduling one in the first part of next year as well. Um, I hit on some of these already, but some of the upcoming trainings, of course, Safeic. Um, and then we're currently working with TICSS as well for some additional nocost training to bring to our police department and also their regional partners. um that includes that high-risisk traffic stops that I was talking about earlier, but also photography for patrol to help them when they are responding to calls and

obtaining better evidence in that from that perspective. And then also finger fingerprints from a patrol standpoint. So like how to collect um fingerprints for evidentiary purposes. Um safe we plan on bringing back I plan on bringing additional leadership training uh for the command staff as well as supervisors at the office. We're working on uh LEMIT, which is Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas. That's who provides the police chief training as well as others. And uh we'll be getting command staff into some training there this next year that currently coming up. Um internal affairs investigation is currently scheduled for December uh for some of our officers and then um we will be hosting some alert training this next year as well for solo officer rapid deployment for when that officer arrives as the first one there. What do you do and how do you do it? Um so that's some of the training that we are currently attending and bringing to us. Um, one other project that I wanted to update the council on is when I got here, there was not a jail phone system with inside of our local jail here. Um, so I was able to go out and have a company come in and provide that service to us at no cost um to to the city. And this will number one increase the jail safety and security because we're going to use that as a mechanism to reach a live person at any time that's on duty at the police department if there was an emergency or something going on in the jail. But then also allows inmates the ability to call their loved ones or family members from from our facility. Um, of course those are recorded and it does um potential potentially produce um evidence in cases or investigations that's ongoing. Any questions?

Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh, a real quick update on the fire department. We've got a lot of things going. Uh right now we generate a lot of paper throughout the year, have for 20 years. We're working kind of piggybacking off what Molly said, what her and Haley are doing. We're working to digitize all that data, everything that we collect, whether it's airports, when we have to send stuff to the fire commission or TCOL or anything else. Uh they really don't want paper copies anymore. So we're working through getting everything into digital format, getting it where it can be sent out better, quicker, uh also for us so that we can we find it, we can it's there. Uh, another thing that we're working on, if you remember earlier, uh, last year, earlier in the year, y'all authorized a new radio system for public safety. I believe this week, or was it last week, we finally installed the last radio in a patrol car. I believe that's it. Um, last week, there may be something else that pops up. We have often times have things in the shop and so there could be something that comes up that needs tweaking. Uh, we've also identified a couple of deficiencies. I believe uh when we did those upgrades, uh the ISD had a couple of things come up. So, we're working through some of those. Uh just kind of cleaning up our system, but for the most part, we're fully deployed. All the new radios are in. We like two things, two computers in the dispatch console. Uh those are ZRON specific to our system. Uh we're waiting on get all the specs that we need to upgrade those, but pretty well all that's done and we're up and rolling and so far no issues, just minor stuff. Um, also now that the government's back open, if you remember earlier, we applied and were awarded a regional FEMA wildland grant. That includes, so the bunker gear and the in the wild gear that we wear is

obviously very expensive. Uh, and we have to replace it every 10 years. So, it gets pretty costly. Uh, now that the government is back open, we can accept our award. We've got that done. Uh, it's a little over half a million, about $560,000 worth of gear. Uh it's going to be split between uh Commerce, the city of Silver Springs, Hopkins County, and Cooper. Uh so we're hosting the grant. Jamie's got a lot of extra work she just loves to do and a bunch of reporting, but other than that, it's going pretty good. Uh on staff wise of training, I left that off. Um we have I believe there's three paramedics that are approaching. We got a little while to go that are approaching uh graduation. So, we'll be having three paramedics join. Uh we additionally have one uh firefighter that's currently in the law enforcement academy. He'll be coming on as a fire marshal. So, a few things like that. Uh we've been pigging back off and a lot of corly training. A lot of it's required by us as well and keeping up with that. Moving on to emergency management. Last week we started off the mayor authorized us. We are beginning the process of a regional countywide hazards mitigation plan. So what that plan is, it it identifies potential problems, potential hazards uh within our city, within our county of things that we need to address. Uh some of those the object of it is is to kind of get out in front of something before that happens. I know all of you all have heard uh after the flood down south about the weather sirens and all that kind of stuff and how we can broadcast alerts. That plan will address some of those issues. Make sure that everything is good here. Uh it also is going to address simple things such as right now we currently do not have a tornado shelter or anything for citizens to go to. Uh this plan addresses it looks at those potential hazardous hazards. Is there money out there to help close some of those gaps? And if there is, how can we get a hold

of it? Uh Ashley back here in the back, I don't know if many of y'all know her. She works with me. She's my college intern. She's kind of taking the lead with the county on this uh as far as my eyes and ears and my legs. She's doing a lot of the ground work and involves a lot of stuff as far as far as gathering GIS mapping, uh mapping out different things so that we want to eventually be able to put these plans in there, have access to it. So troops on the ground that can pull this up if something happens. Just as an example, uh when the guys are out on a large fire, they need to be able to pull up a map, look at fire hydrants, water valves, everything like that. So, we're working through identifying those target hazards and getting them out there. Uh, the other thing that we're working on is we're going into right now it's I don't really want to say a downtime, but we're approaching winter. It's not really tornado season. So, we're going through looking at our weather sirens, making sure that they're up and operational. Uh, that they're ready to go. Uh, we've been out today. We had a little bit of problem with one. Uh, getting everything ready, getting everything ready to go before um any bad weather hits. Uh, the other thing we're doing is our annexes in our master plan. they are the state come in and kind of change that process. We're working through getting those converted over to the new to the new system. Uh they call them crosswalks. So basically it identifies how something happens, how we're going to respond each department, how TJ's going to respond if X happens. We're converting, updating, and moving all those into the new system. Um other than that, only thing that we have going on right now, this is our season of events. Uh, it keeps us pretty busy. It really is keeping Ashley busy. The canned food drive, I believe, ends Thursday. Corley and I are still looking for donations. So, if any of y'all would like to come down, our turkeys in the lobby. We'll take anything you've got.

Who's in the lead now? Uh, we don't know. We We kind of feel there might be some collusion, cheating going on, but maybe some stuff has missed out of our turkey. It looked fuller, but we got video. We're going to check.

That's the guy with four pallets of Jiffy cornbread mix. So, moving on to the Saturday, I believe it's my eyes are not getting good, Molly. There the 29th of November, the fire department, police department, and emergency dispatch. We're going to be out in front of Brookers, uh, doing a hot dog sale. Uh, the guys are going to be out there. We'll probably have a patrol car, firet truck set up, and we're going to be selling hot dogs and different items for a dollar. All the money that we raise goes back to Little Angels. Uh, I believe this year is kind of secured. So, the money will probably go for toys next year, but we're getting a jump on that, getting a start while we get people out shopping that weekend. Whatever we raise there is going to go back to them. Uh, we hope it's a good good turnout. So, we hope y'all come out. Come see me and Corley. I might even try to talk you into a hot dog contest. You never know. I think I can take him. Moving on to um after the weekend of December 6th, since Molly's got it so busy, uh the 12th, we're going to be hosting a dual joint event between the fire department and the police department. Every year, y'all know we have the reindeer and hot chocolate out in front of the station. We're going to do that again. I'm not going to be Santa Claus this year. Uh I've tried and tried, but they're not going to let me. Um so, we've got Santa coming in. I believe one of the reindeers, at least one, is going to be there. uh free pictures as long as you have someone there to take your pictures. We're going to offer hot cocoa and cookies. We probably have our normal s'more station set up. Uh while that's going on, uh fire and police staff is going to be in the bay. They're going to be cooking chicken stew and chili. Uh it's going to be a donation meal. We're suggesting a minimum of $5 donation uh because it is a money fundraiser. The money that we have uh come out of this event also goes to Little Angels. Uh our goal is to be able between the two events to hand them a pretty good start for next year. So on that note, if y'all want to come out, we would love to have y'all. Uh if you've got kids, bring them out to see Santa,

bring them out to see the reindeer. Um if if you don't have kids and just want to see Santa, stop on by. We'll be glad to have you. And then when you get through, come on over to the fire station bay uh have some chili and stew uh with both of our staff and just enjoy the night. Chris, on the chili and stew, are you going to have takeout containers? We mentioned talked about that. We We have. So, I can't tell you the ounce, but basically, it's a instead of using bowls, we're using a cup. If any of you been to some of these stew contests around, there's not a lot of tables and chairs, so it's kind of made where you can handle it. Those cups have a lid. They're they're not a quart, but they're about that tall. I don't have the ounce, but yes, you'll be able to take a take it take it

take a couple of dippers and take it home. Uh, additionally, we are looking for uh we're going to approach um somewhere like Waterburger. Uh, usually when we do this, we use their extra-L large cups. That's about a quart. So, we'll have those quarts of stew and if we have any left over, we'll be glad to sell you a quart for a donation and but we will definitely have some different options for you there. Other than that, I don't don't have anything for you. Thank you for all you do for the angels.

Thanks, Chief. Mayor, council, the the the end is near and so uh we're wrapping this up. I just want to touch base on a couple of uh large capital projects uh that we have ongoing. And so we'll start with uh street construction at Sterling Park in Oaklane. This is going to be full reconstruction uh beginning at FM 3218 or Bus Barn Road at the intersection there in front of the elementary school. Uh the section on the map that you see in red uh that goes between the elementary school and Victor Baptist and then along uh Centennial Park. Uh that stretch of road right now you can't even really say it's a two-lane road. Um and to call it a road surface is generous. Uh and so that will be converted to a four full lane concrete uh street surface. Uh it will take storm water underground and then allow for both directions of pass through traffic as well as pickup lines for the elementary school because historically they stage parents along Sterling Hart as they're picking up children. And so this will allow for safely staging uh parents to pick up their children and still allow for traffic uh to flow through. Then uh once you get to the edge of uh Centennial Park there on the eastern edge about that tree line, the four lanes concrete will then narrow down into full two-lane asphalt surface. Uh and then the storm water will go back to an open ditch line on each side of the street. So Sterling Hart will be continued to be re reconstructed down to the dead end in Oaklane. Then we will turn to the north and we will reconstruct Oaklane North and connect to Highway 11. Uh that design project is completed. Uh and we've begun the acquisition of rightway as we widen out the roads we're having

to purchase and acquire some rideway. And in some of the negotiations, uh land owners instead of wanting funding, they wanted us to create driveways or make some improvements to what they do. And so engineer is currently designing some additional work. Uh for example, I think there's one or two uh driveway entrances for Victory Baptist. Uh we're doing some parking lots u alterations for the elementary school to allow for traffic flow. And so there's some work that we're doing for those land owners in lie of buying rightway and it's saving us some money uh on that process. And then we're still working on some uh negotiations and acquisition along Oaklane. Uh and so that project continues to move forward. Additionally, downtown sidewalks as part of our downtown master plan, we're about 60% through the design process uh in which we will be demolishing and replacing all of the sidewalks in our downtown area. So on Washington, if you begin at Cado and stretch all the way north to bottom, uh all of the sidewalks on the frontage of those uh buildings will be taken out, replaced. ADA improvements will be um made and a conversation we're having is many of those buildings their awning uh physically connects to the sidewalk. Uh and when we tear that sidewalk out, it's most likely going to remove some of those awnings. Uh and so some of the owners have expressed interest in the downtown facade grant about possibly replacing the awnings at the time we do uh the sidewalks. Uh then uh on that short section of bottom uh we'll come back on the east side and then we'll go down the north side of Main Street from Washington all the way to Park uh replacing that sidewalk and curb. It'll also replace all of the trees and landscape items. Uh then in the center

of downtown, we'll do the south side of Main Street. Uh we'll do the along the building uh on the parking lot side in Washington. and we'll go back down Alamo Street on the north side, replacing those sidewalks. Uh the area around the central plaza was done a number of years ago and is still in good shape. Uh so we're not going to rip out and replace uh those sections because uh they're in good shape. Uh and then finally on Alamo Street, we'll replace the section that goes in front of these commercial businesses. Uh we get asked frequently um and if you have the opportunity to walk through downtown uh throughout this sidewalk there are stamps that are dated of when that sidewalk was installed. Many of them are from the 1920s. Uh and so a lot of this sidewalk is original sidewalk from the 1920s and the stamps that are placed are historic. Uh, and so working with our engineers and ultimately with the contractors, we will cut out those stamps and then reinstall them in the new sidewalk so that there'll still be historical markers embedded within uh the new sidewalk.

Excellent.

And then finally in the red, uh, that central parking area is not Texot controlled, but it is city controlled. So, we'll be taking out and reconstructing those islands. Um, and if you've noticed, the interior of those islands have the brick and the trees uh that have been used there have very disruptive root systems. And so those bricks are a trip hazard. Uh, and so when we redo that central parking lot, we're actually going to take out all of those trees and we're taking out all the trees in the downtown area and putting back uh a better breed of tree that doesn't have the invasive root system that will damage the sidewalks or the roadways. Uh but those islands will no longer be brick. They'll be concrete so that they're uh less strip hazard for the events we have downtown.

But we'll we'll be retaining the brick to use as we need to repair another location. Yes. Correct.

Um and then as we go from 60% to 90% design, uh there will be some conversations about what landscaping um what vegetation to use in the various planter areas. And so we plan to have some conversations with the Lewis Strick Garden Club uh to get their thoughts and input uh into how we design the landscaping that goes into our downtown area. And that's mainly to recognize the years of service that the garden club provided to our community in maintaining this downtown area. And so we want to uh give them an opportunity to speak into what that looks like as well. We expect construction to begin in calendar 2026. Um, next, uh, the old Inwood Bank or what we're now calling the community center. Uh, we, uh, need to do the demolition on the interior, but we've been on hold because there are events that happen that potentially need space for, as an example, uh, with the movie that's being filmed in downtown, they are looking for space to store things and to have for overflow. Uh and so we didn't want to start demolition and have all that building gutted and unavailable should it be needed. So we'll likely start the demolition of the uh the the building after uh that movie has been completed so that that space is available should it come up. Uh we expect that construction to happen within the calendar year 2026.

And then demolition you're referring to

is interior walls. And so the the building was a bank. Uh and so there's interior walls that structure allowed it to be used as a bank. Most of those walls are not loadbearing. And so when we do demolition, we're going to gut the building and turn it into a large open floor plan community center. Um but uh the architect wants to see what's inside of those walls as it's being taken out in case there are structural elements there. And so we're going to do the demolition first, then we'll complete the design of the community center space, and then we'll move into construction of the new uh new fixtures in site. Uh and finally, as TJ mentioned, uh we've got several projects going on out of the wastewater treatment plant. Uh I just provided a picture of of the content that he covered. Uh red square is the fine screen uh and EQ basin work. Uh the green square is the aeration sludge uh and blowers. And then uh the blue square off to the side is that uh INI storm water retention pond. And so all of that project continues to move forward. We're sitting about 60% design of that work as well. And so a lot of that work will begin to take place in calendar 2026. Finally, uh commerce animal services at the animal shelter. Um there's been a little bit of organizational restructure. Um we have moved the animal shelter out of the police department uh and now uh structurally reports to me and city administration. Uh this is not reflective of any lack of confidence in the police department. But uh animal services over time has shifted from a law enforcement an enforcement program to a public health and animal welfare program. Uh and so some of the issues, conversations, and concerns don't necessarily fit in a police and a law enforcement setting. And so we're trying

to recognize the changing uh times in animal services. We also lost our lead animal control officer u to a career change. Uh and so uh Jamie Niswander was uh on staff and so she has been promoted to the lead animal control officer or acco. Haley Hudson was on staff as a shelter tech. She has been promoted to the assistant animal control officers. So we now have two licensed acco in the past we've only had one to serve our community. And then we will be hiring a new shelter tech to fill the position that was vacated by uh Miss Haley Hudson. Next steps, we're going to have some conversations with the animal shelter advisory board, mainly to just kind of set a course of what kind of shelter uh do we want to provide to our community moving forward so that we can plan staff and build budgets accordingly. Uh and then once I've had an opportunity to visit with the advisory board, we'll conduct a workshop with the city council uh to discuss those recommendations uh and get direction from the city council. in a very high level. Uh there's basically three tiers of of municipal animal shelters. Uh tier one is a kill shelter. The whole role of a tier one shelter is to catch it, kill it, and get it out of the way. We don't operate a tier one shelter, and we have no interest in operating a tier one shelter. Uh but it's that's one way that cities operate. What I call a tier 2 uh is kind of the mid tier. It is designed and intended to be a nokill shelter. Understanding that there are circumstances and situations where animals have to be euthanized, but the goal is as you collect animals, the ones that are eligible and available to be uh adopted and rescued. Uh the shelter puts in the energy to get them ready for adoption. and if they're not adopted locally to then place them with

a rescue agency uh in the region or outside of our region to save as many animals as practically possible. And then tier three is basically a full animal hospital. Every animal that comes in gets full health services. Uh tier three shelters are very expensive. Um and we don't operate a tier three. Uh but we need to figure out our recommendation is stay in that tier 2 range but what services should we offer uh because each service comes at a cost uh and how we recover those costs without tapping the taxpayers u because these services shouldn't be subsidized by taxpayers that actually take care of their animals. Uh the animals we deal with are usually a result of people that didn't take care of their animals and that shouldn't be subsidized by the taxpayers if at all possible. So, we got to evaluate the business model uh to make that work. And so, that'll be an upcoming city council workshop with recommendations from that advisory board. Mayor, that concludes uh the updates from all of our various departments. Uh it's good for you to hear from the departments and see the work that they've got going on. We'll be happy to answer any questions that you have about these presentations and then I have one more discussion point after that.

Okay. We do appreciate all the department heads being here tonight and the update and status. It's good information for not only the council but also the people in the audience and the folks that are online watching our meeting. So, thank you for the time and effort that you put into preparing the status for everybody tonight. Council, is there any questions for any of the directors or Mr. Lissby?

Okay, floors. Last thing I've got is the the bullet intergovernmental events and issues. Uh I want to update the council on a couple of conversations that we've had specifically related uh to the closure of the Commerce Emergency Room uh and moves by the Hunt County uh Hunt Regional uh Hospital District. Uh they have a board meeting tonight. I'm going to assume there were a number of members of the public that went to Greenbull to attend that board meeting. um in working with uh the chamber of commerce. Uh one of the roles of a chamber of commerce is to advocate for the businesses and the members of the community. Uh and there was a lot of angst and animosity uh within the community about the closure of that emergency room and there wasn't a clear opportunity for a unified voice to be heard. Uh and so the chamber worked online and with some local volunteers to begin to collect a petition. Uh that petition reached almost 1,500 signatures uh and that petition was delivered to the hospital board tonight uh at their board meeting. The intent of the petition was not necessarily to convince them or coers them to come reopen the emergency room um because there are some significant financial considerations to that move. But we felt like they needed to hear from a united voice in our community that represents voters that vote for the things that that governmental district does or doesn't do. Uh and when they make decisions and take actions without consulting or considering the input of the communities they serve, they need to hear about it. Uh and so that message is being delivered uh tonight at that uh meeting. And then tomorrow, Chief Bassin and I have been invited back over to the hospital to speak to some of their leadership team uh specifically to talk about uh countywide ambulance services

and the capacity of ambulances to respond to calls for service now that the ER is gone from Commerce and as it's gone uh for the southern end of the county. uh as currently staffed. Um in many cases uh there is a backup ambulance available if the ambulance in commerce uh transports. Um previously they pick up a call they transport about 5 minutes to the ER in commerce. Uh and so that patient gets seen pretty quickly. uh with the closure of the Commerce ER, that patient now gets transported to Greenville, which is an additional 20 25 minutes of transport time uh before they're seen uh by the medical staff. But while that ambulance is gone, there's a backup ambulance that sits around Neandville uh in case there's a call. But if that ambulance then ends up in a call, then there's really not anybody to respond in commerce for a third potential medical call or in a multi-vehicle accident scenario. And so I was able to work with the hospital leadership and get them to admit that in the money they saved by closing these two ERS, they need to take some of that money and they need to increase the number of ambulances that cover Hunt County and specifically Commerce so that we don't have uh a lack of access to emergency medical care when those emergencies happen. And so we'll have that conversation with the hospital tomorrow. Uh hopeful that we can get them to release some funding to add ambulances uh to the network within our county that will improve response times throughout the county, but specifically uh provide uh increased access to citizens uh in our community as well. And so we're hopeful that we'll see some progress in that conversation tomorrow. Uh mayor, that's all we have. Happy to answer any questions. And we do not have a need for executive session tonight. Are there any questions for Mr. Lizzy?

There being none, may I have a motion to adjurnn? Second. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Like sign. Motion carries. Thank you very much. We are journed at 7:26.