City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Welcome to City Hall and Council Chambers. This morning, Pastor Greg Isaacs with Oso Creek Church will lead us in invocation.

Thank you. What an amazing day it is today, yes? Beautiful out there. Thank you for the opportunity. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this wonderful day that you've created, and thank you for this wonderful and beautiful city that we have the privilege to live in, Lord, and Thank you for this time and place that you brought us to. Thank you for your sovereignty and all things that pass before you. Lord, I remember last time I was in these chambers given an invocation, Lord, we were all praying for much needed rain. And so, Lord, with thankful hearts, we do thank you for the recent rains that have been sent our way. And just pray that you'd please continue to heal our land as we look to you, O Lord. God, what a blessing and honor it is to call upon your name for wisdom and guidance in a place of government such as this. knowing that not every place in the world has these freedoms, so let us not take them for granted. So we do ask for your wisdom and peace and graciousness in and through you. Lord, the wisdom that comes from you, let decisions be made from this assembly that will propel the city forward in unity, cooperation, togetherness, and mutual understanding for the betterment of the citizens of this city with the citizens in mind. And help us to remember, Lord, in times of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, In the days of trouble, don't allow our trust in you to fail. Lord, protect and bless all those that are in leadership over this city. Lord, bless us and keep us. Make your face shine upon us. Be gracious to us. Lord, lift up your countenance upon us. Give us your peace in our hearts. Heavenly Father, we ask this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Pastor. Our pledge of allegiance this morning to the flag of the United States and to the Texas state flag will be led by Erin Rae Brownlee. She is a student at the Joseph T. Dawson Elementary School. She's a member of the FFA at Carroll High School and a black belt. She's in the black belt training program. And come on up. And she's joined by her brother Miles this morning. So come on up, Miles.

Please join me 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. Please join me in honoring the Texas flag. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.

Thank you. Very good job. Ms. Huerta, would you please call the roll?

Mayor Paulette Guajardo. Present. Council Members Roland Barrera. Here. Sylvia Campos. Here. Eric Cantu. Here.

Is he?

Okay. Gil Hernandez? Here. Kaylin Paxson? Here. Everett Roy? Here. Mark Scott? Here. Carolyn Vaughn? Here. City Manager Peter Zanoni?

Present.

City Attorney Miles Risley? Here. Mayor and Council, a quorum of the Council and the required charter officers are present to conduct the meeting.

Thank you, Rebecca. Next, we'll have the City Manager's comments and update on city operations. Mr. Zanoni.

Right, thank you, Mayor. Mayor and members of the council and the community, we have one item on the city manager's report, and we're going to update you on the completion of several projects that have been funded through the Defense Economic Adjustment Assistance Grant at NAS Corpus Christi. And so Ryan Skrobacek, our Director of Intergovernmental Relations, will provide the briefing this morning. But I did want to take a moment to recognize some of the representatives who are here with us this morning in the audience. That includes Naval Station Corpus Christi. Representatives are here from that institution or from the base. South Texas Military Task Force members are here as well. We do want to thank our state and federal delegation for caring about our bases, especially in these last couple of years where funding has been even more challenging. And their efforts in advocating the needs of this community of Corpus Christi and the base are very helpful. I did want to point out, I got a moment to speak to Commander Trejo was here. Commander, if you can raise your hand in the back, there he is. So Commander Trejo is the kind of the director of public works on the base. So it's fitting that he's here today to hear these updates. He coincidentally, his grandfather was born and raised here in Corpus Christi. He's coming here from Washington. And I said, did they deploy you here? Did you ask to come here? He said, no, I wanted to come back home to Corpus. We appreciate you being here, Commander. Thank you for what you do on the base, and thanks for being with us this morning. So Ryan, Ryan's gonna give us this update. This is important. It deals with state monies that we use on the base to improve their infrastructure, and oftentimes city crews, like our gas department, are working to conduct the work at the expense of us to match that state money. So Ryan, we'll turn it back to you.

Peter, thank you. Mayor and Council, Ryan Skrabarczyk, Director of Intergovernmental Relations. And it's a privilege to be here today to talk about the completion of two DEAG projects benefiting Naval Air Station Corpus Christi that were recently wrapped up. So to give the Council a bit of a reminder, the DEAG program is a state grant program that exists to help defense communities It originated under the concept of BRAC, but has since transitioned to helping maintain and continue the missions that are present at our military installations throughout the state of Texas. And the city of Corpus Christi, as well as the South Texas Military Task Force, has a long history with the DEAG program, as our previous members of the task force and mayors of Corpus Christi were actually some of the group that helped originate the idea of the state providing grant funding in order to benefit our military installations. So very briefly, to describe the process for the DIAG grant, we work closely with folks like Commander Trejo at NAS Corpus Christi and also his counterparts at the Corpus Christi Army Depot to develop project concepts and put those together. and we do want to recognize obviously the commander is here as well as community planning liaison ben pollock which our staff works closely to identify things projects we feel would be competitive from a state evaluation standpoint and then from there we at the city work with engineering services and sandra who is in that department has managed many of these projects and so i want to thank them for all the time and it's just one of the city departments that participate in putting these projects together and managing them if we end up being successful. The projects are scored by the Texas Military Preparedness Commission, which is an appointed entity by the governor of Texas, and actually our appointee to the TMPC, Commissioner Gary Bradford, is here today, so I'd like to recognize Gary for his work. Thank you, Gary, for being here. Yep, absolutely. Yeah.

Well, Ryan, maybe they can all stand. Yeah. A little group back there. Would you all stand? This is the South Texas Military Task Force. Thank you, gentlemen. They are a great, great help.

And as Commissioner Bradford can attest, these are competitive grants. And so he has to work alongside his commissioners, not only in the scoring and ranking, but obviously advocating for projects that benefit our region. And he has had tremendous success and helping deliver those dollars to the Corpus Christi region. We work with military leadership to accept them, which previously took quite a bit of time with the Navy to go through what's called the formal gifting process. Now, because City Council has an adopted IGSA or Intergovernmental Support Agreement with NAS Corpus Christi, those are going to process much faster, saving us crucial time in delivering that project, getting from award to design. And so obviously we go through the process to manage the construction or procurement of whatever the project may be, execute, deliver that, and turn it over to the military leadership for their use. So just some brief history on the DEAG program specific to Corpus Christi. As I said, we have a long history with this program and have been successful in making multiple projects come to fruition across departments at the city. And obviously what we do is try to leave a legacy of strategic investment at the base to ensure that their missions are a success and that when the Pentagon evaluates the longevity and usefulness of its installations, NES Corpus Christi and CCAT are both competitive. So in regards to the community stakeholders, it is a process where we draft many of the folks in the community to get involved in supporting it. Our community partners are listed there on that page. Many of them are also financial supporters or participants in the South Texas Military Task Force. And it is important to recognize our federal and state delegation as they write letters of support for each grant application. And we feel that those help deliver strength to the competitiveness of our application. But in addition to that, the state has to appropriate this each legislative cycle. And it's been a part of the city's legislative agenda as well as priorities for our state delegation from Corpus Christi to increase the funding available to which they were successful this last session in doing that. And so the more funds that are available, the larger projects can be done, the greater number of projects can be done. And I think we have a couple of representatives from our state delegation here today, some staff members from their offices, and so we thank them for their partnership in pursuing this endeavor. So specifically the projects that we're celebrating completion of, first is Naval Air Station Corpus Christi security fence replacement. So as the slide details, we replaced a significant amount of linear feet as well as a security gate. This is actually the second fence project that we have done out at NAS Corpus Christi. The project was completed by Munoz Engineering, which are represented here today. So we thank the guys from Munoz for getting us back on track with this project. As I said, these will probably be the last two projects with the Navy that will go through the formal gifting process. But Munoz helped us get back on schedule with that and deliver a project on time. And Fencing Unlimited, which was our contractor for this project. And then... Additionally, as you can see from the footage there, the state that the wastewater system was in at NAS Corpus Christi, we completed a pretty extensive investment in replacing the nearly 5,000 linear feet of clay pipes. The firm that did the design, Hanson Professional Services, has a team that's here with us today, and we'd like to recognize them as well for their partnership in completing that. And the contractor, Southern Trenchless Solutions, was able to complete that project. And so this is the first part of what we're considering a strategic investment in the wastewater system out at NAS Corpus Christi. This city council has already approved and accepted and has underway a number of projects that include a lift station replacement, which is now in design. We are we have been awarded from the governor's office a second phase of wastewater line replacement and manhole replacement. And in addition to our work at NAS Corpus Christi, we are also procuring a number of items to help the mission at Corpus Christi Army Depot, particularly around their water use and industrial operations. So we have their condensate return stations, which this council approved, that's in procurement. And then we have been awarded a grant to procure atmospheric water generators for certain parts of the process at CCAD. And so I think we do have a short video just to provide a visual update on these projects. We'll let that play, and then that'll conclude my remarks.

Naval Air Station Corpus Christi plays a critical role in military aviation training and national defense. Supporting long-term success of the installation requires ongoing investment in the infrastructure that keeps operations running safely, efficiently, and securely. Through the Texas Defense Economic Adjustment Assistance Grant Program, or DIAG, the City of Corpus Christi continues to partner with military leadership and state officials to deliver infrastructure improvements that strengthen military readiness and support mission success. Since 2017, more than $12.7 million in DIAG funding has been secured for projects benefiting Naval Air Station Corpus Christi and Corpus Christi Army Depot. These investments have supported critical improvements to water, wastewater, natural gas, and security infrastructure throughout the installations. This year in 2026, two major projects reached completion at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, improving both security and utility infrastructure across the base. Years of exposure to the coastal environment had left sections of the existing fence system corroded and deteriorated. The first project focused on enhancing perimeter security. Gaps, openings, and a non-functional gate created vulnerabilities around protected areas of the installation. Through a $1.2 million project, approximately 13,500 linear feet of perimeter fencing and one access gate were replaced with modern infrastructure designed to meet current Department of Defense standards. The upgraded fencing system strengthens security, improves access control, and helps protect critical military assets that support training operations at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. The second project addressed aging wastewater infrastructure serving the installation. Much of the existing system consisted of deteriorating vitrified clay pipe that required increasing maintenance and repairs. To improve reliability, a $4.9 million project to replace nearly 5,000 linear feet of wastewater lines along with 21 manholes throughout the facility was completed. The new wastewater collection system improves operational performance and helps ensure continued compliance with environmental regulations and water quality standards. The improvements also provide long-term infrastructure resilience for one of the region's most important military installations. These projects reflect the strong partnership between the City of Corpus Christi, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, the Texas Military Preparedness Commission, and state and federal leaders who continue to advocate for military investments in South Texas. By leveraging state grant funding, critical improvements can be delivered while supporting military readiness, protecting public infrastructure, and strengthening an installation that contributes significantly to the coastal bend economy. From enhanced security to modernized utility infrastructure, these completed projects represent another step forward in supporting the missions, personnel, and future of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. Together, these investments help ensure that one of the nation's premier military aviation training facilities remains prepared to serve for years to come.

Okay, that's a great video produced in-house. Real nice. Yeah, thank you, Ryan. So that concludes the briefing, Mayor, on the DI grants and the contribution the city's making to our base.

Thank you. Again, I just want to thank, just take a moment to recognize and thank our South Texas Military Task Force, who, without this partnership, continued commitment, and, of course, the advocacy is bar none. We could not have made this investment. And no matter who is in quote office out there on the base, we work with them and we continue those relationships because as you all know, that's simply what it's about. But at the end of the day, the work that you all do strengthens the the Naval Air Station, our Army Depot, and so that's the region. So thank you, I am so, so proud of the Military Task Force. And there are a whole lot of other Texas cities that are very envious of the South Texas Military Task Force because we're very organized, mission-driven, and accomplish, you know, we accomplish. So thank you all for being here. It's very special, this is a wonderful video. So thank you to our Comms Department for that. Councilman Scott.

Mayor, I'll be quick. I don't think this happens without people. And I think, Mr. Bradford, thank you for your service and thank you for the halls you walk in Austin and your presence at these important meetings. I don't think it happens without you. I don't think it happens without the Military Facilities Task Force and your dedication. I don't think it happens without the city folks. I think Ryan does a great job. And I want to thank our military partners. I remember for years it was like, hey, if you really want to help us, help us replace our infrastructure. If there's ever a BRAC, that's the first place they're going. Like, I don't know, man, you guys got a terrible wastewater program, and we've got it better over here in, say, Pensacola. And so I think this is a profoundly important project. And so I just want to thank you for all that you've done. I want to thank you for what you're doing. And I want to thank you for what you're going to do next. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, and I did leave Ryan out, sorry. Ryan, thank you for everything. Ryan, you work very, very hard, and so does your team, Sarah, so thank you for all the hours that you put in. Okay, thank you, Peter. We're gonna go ahead and move on, and it is 12 o'clock on the dot, so we are going to take a moment to address some items, but we're gonna go ahead and go into public comment. the rules of decorum specifically. This council chambers is a place of public business, a forum for civic discussion, decision-making, and service to the people of Corpus Christi. So we're here to do the people's work, and we'd like to proceed in that spirit. If you'd like to speak on a specific agenda item during its discussion, you do not need to sign up beforehand. I will ask for public comment when the council considers the item. At that time, you may come up to the podium and speak. I'll ask the city attorney, Miles Risley, to review council meeting rules of decorum These rules will also be displayed on the television screens for our audience's reference. Mr. Risley.

All citizens must be courteous, polite, and respectful of one another, including the city council and city staff. The mayor and council members shall be referred to by title and or title surname. All remarks must be addressed to the mayor and city council and not to the council members as individuals. Citizens are only permitted to speak on city-related subject matter. Speaking on any non-city-related matter is prohibited. Loud, boisterous, profane, or obscene language or behavior is not allowed. Citizens must refrain from any disturbing noise, demonstration, or other act disrupting to the City Council business.

Thank you, Mr. Risley. In-person comments are limited to three minutes. For call-in or WebEx video speakers, Corpus Christi residents receive up to three minutes and non-residents up to one minute. A visible timer position near the city secretary's desk will manage that allotted time. And if you have a petition or any relevant information, please present it to the city secretary before speaking. Today we have 29 people signed up, and we will start with Mr. Stephen Klepper.

Steve Klepper, District 2. I'm here to talk in favor, encouraging the vote for item number 20 on the agenda today, which is basically a simple motion asking the city manager to tell the human resources department to comply with the law, specifically to comply with chapter 12 and a half that established the rules for the city audit committee. I'm pretty emotional on this topic, and I'm not going to look at the timer because it always throws me out, but as a former city audit director of Austin, former performance management auditor in Dallas, former certified internal auditor, I've been watching that last audit committee meeting on June 12th. It's clear to me that the current audit chair was obstructing compliance with the intent of the ordinance. Now, the ordinance in the city auditor's office was established by a vote of the voters who wanted to establish an independent office for accountability and transparency, an office that reported to the city council, not to a city manager. Now, the back story on this whole motion is all of the noncompliance and the support by the audit chair of HR refusing to comply, to comply with the material requested for the audit of the human resources onboarding and recruitment process. I encourage all of you to watch the YouTube video starting at about minute 50 for a 40-minute discussion where the audit chair and the HR are wordsmithing and picking words like intent, those sort of things, relevant, and losing perspective of what the ordinance and what the auditor's office is all about. And that's why, and I assume he was not doing that intentionally to be obstructive, that's why I passed out this ICMA report on performance auditing and on city governments. And it shows you, gives you good information, purpose of auditing to improve accountability and transparency, to improve performance. Goes through some audit steps and all of this good background material. And I'm pleased to say there's three cities featured in this. It's exemplary. I was audit director of one of them at the time, City of Austin. One of the issues, there's so many issues, Well, one of the issues what they wanted, the HR and the city, the chair, wanted to restrict to efficiency because that was a literal interpretation of what the scope of the audit. But efficiency by itself is very misleading because it doesn't answer the question of efficient at doing what. And that's why you need performance auditing and effectiveness auditing. Thank you, and I encourage you to vote for public accountability and transparency. Yes on 20.

Thank you, Mr. Klepper. Adam Rios.

That was a lot faster than I thought was going to happen.

I signed up yesterday, so good thing. Didn't really bring a script or anything. I just wanted to talk about a few things that happened in Corpus over the weekend to sort of shine some light on some dear friends of mine. I was at the ribbon-cutting Thursday for the new DMD office, Downtown Management District. It's a beautiful spot. There was a great crowd there. There was a lot of positive momentum happening downtown. The next night, my dear friend Hank Harrison cut the ribbon to the Exchange downtown, which was an incredible collective of folks there, all enjoying the food and the atmosphere. And then, of course, the next night was the opening of the restaurant officially because the soft opening happened. Well, it's done. I also wanted to talk a little bit about the skate park on Billish Park. Yeah, this new skate park at Billish Park on the island. We're getting really close. I think we're about 90% ready in terms of design. We still have a design for the BMX park. We're just trying to hone in on the numbers for that. It was great to see a lot of people in town enjoying downtown and sort of the national attention that we got. And anyway, that's kind of all I got. I literally was down the road, and I just wanted to come spread some positivity for the day. So thank you all very much. Oh, the Lapanpachi powwow is coming up September 18, I believe. It's the third annual veterans powwow, where we celebrate veterans of not just the Lapan culture, But it's open to all veterans. A lot of people think they have to be a Native American veteran to take part in this. You do not. It is open for all veterans. It is free to the public. We are in the midst of fundraising for it. These things can get a bit costly. But we're proud that the Hilliard Center is hosting it again for us. If you'd like to contribute or if you have a company that would like to donate, maybe get a booth, or just donate to our nonprofit. It'll help ease the burden of us having to go door to door as we've been doing to try and raise money for this. So outside of that, y'all enjoy your weekend. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Rios. Susie Luna Saldana.

Susilina Saldana, District 2. I bring a concern before you today that many citizens have here in Corpus Christi about accountability at City Hall. And what I mean by that, if bad things happen, what usually happens is the city manager gets blamed for it. And it happens often. But you know, the truth is that the city manager works at the direction of the council. If you have a majority in control, the city manager works with that majority. If the tide changes and you have another group that comes in control, then the city manager will work with that group because they have a majority. So the bottom line to the scenario is people need to understand that the city manager works at the direction of the council. Whatever policies you implement is what he's going to implement. Whatever direction the majority gives him is what he's going to do. The reason I bring this before you is because I hear it a lot out in the open that this is all the city manager's fault. People need to understand that you as a council make the policy and that he implements it. You are the makers of it. When something good happens, you hurry up and take credit for it. Something bad happens, you let it fall that way. So it's time that people realize where the power lies and where the decisions are being made. And while we're at it, I'm going to bring you another concern. You're going to be discussing paying more money to attorneys. Please stop. Stop spending government money on attorneys. Stop spending it on things that are future, that are not going to go anywhere, and that you're just using to make one person rich. And please don't pay any more attorneys. The citizens can't afford it anymore. We just come before you to tell you. We're tired and we're broke.

Thank you. Dolly Trolley.

Hello, Dolly Trolley. I live in District 2. First, I would like to thank the council members who put agenda item 21 on today. That's the federal grant funding application on the agenda for discussion and possible action. I think this is an important opportunity for the city of Corpus Christi, and discussing it as a council with the time to direct city staff to act on it is a responsible thing to do. As someone who sat in a seat very recently where difficult decisions have had to be made that will affect the whole community, regardless of the popularity of those decisions, I can speak from experience when I urge you to take in all of the information, all of the facts, and all of the staff recommendations, and most importantly, that you keep the citizens and the ratepayers in mind as you deliberate this today. First, the decision is not authorizing building of the desalination plan. It's authorizing staff to move forward to pursue grant funding. That seems to be the financially prudent thing to do regardless of the project. We know that this particular project meets all the criteria for this grant. It has been through the required feasibility study and it's fully permitted. My understanding that it is one of, not the only project in the country that meets the criteria for this grant at this time. If the city does not apply for this grant, it seems like we're looking a way to turn what is essentially free money. Many of you have argued against this project based on cost, and subsequent grant funds that might be available will make this drought-proof project much more affordable for our region. I've heard that there's a price associated with applying for this grant, and I've not heard where that particular price has come from, so I look forward to hearing more about that when this agenda item is discussed today. But I would remind you that you've authorized hundreds of thousands of dollars to be spent on another far-field study, and you've authorized $2.7 million to be spent on the Harbor Island Reservation, so I don't see why there would be hesitation to spend much less on something that would almost guarantee us such a major gain. You were elected to sit in those seats to take in all the information on matters of importance and to make the best decision for the taxpayers of this city, not the most popular decisions, not what will get the most positive comments, but what the right thing is to do for the taxpayers. So I urge you to vote to direct the city staff to pursue the Bureau of Reclamation grant funding today so we do not miss another opportunity to help ourselves. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Rachel Caballero.

Rachel Caballero, D1. I'm not a CCISD school board member that was paid $90,000 to lobby for Gulf Coast Growth Ventures and the Coastal Bend Coalition. I am here to Discuss item number 20, the HR department, the city staff not complying with the audit committee. I have discussed this several times at several different meetings where we are getting misinformation and just straight out lies from city staff. regarding all sorts of scenarios. You have it occurring with Nick Winkleman with CC Water and how they're lying to the general public, especially our groundwater folks. You have Heather Holbert, who is no longer a problem, but we're still paying for her problems when she lied to this council in 23 for bootstrap energy. And now we are in the hole with bootstrap energy, and they've only paid $8,000 out of millions. Thank you, Chisme Collective and Beats Alvarado. Now you have an HR department who's refusing to legally comply with the audit committee. The common denominator here is a city manager who is refusing to manage his departments. He's refusing to hold his staff accountable. He's refusing transparency. He's getting paid half a million dollars a year to lie to our community. I'm asking this council, when you guys go back to executive session to discuss his performance, that this comes out. We are in a world of hurdle in different areas, but with a 4,000 staff, city staff, I think that we would not be hurting to start discussing a major change in the city manager area. Thank you for your time.

Captain David Rousey.

Captain Dave Heasley, District 3.

Oh, it's the other gentleman.

Oh, it was Rousey. You're coming up. It was Rousey. I said Rousey. Oh, two Captain Daves? Yeah, you have two Captain Daves. Yeah, we do. Captain David Rousey, yeah. Sorry about that.

David Rousey, District 4. I'd like to say good afternoon to the mayor and city council, but the truth is that I had to cancel a second-day charter to be able to be here today and speak on behalf of other people like myself that make a living off of a clean, vibrant bay and ecosystem that provides for a $1.5 billion tourism industry. Speaking of tourism, we have one of the better aquariums in the nation as part of that package. Will this mixed brine and water be good? Enough for them. No, in fact, it's an inside joke amongst the staff, some friends of mine that work there, that regularly joke at how fast they'd be out of a job if that were the case. The rushed, limited-in-scope far-field studies come back in a predictable manner, hasn't it? Seriously, what's the point of this study if you're not going to get an impact analysis on what it does to the marine life, long-term water quality, seagrasses, and shorelines? Baffling to me that another $300,000 was spent, but the scope of work didn't include what might happen to the food chain from the smallest crustacean to the largest hotel owner. Speaking of that, thank you, Councilwoman Vaughn, for asking the question on June 2nd that this has been making the rounds on social media, quoting, I just want to know if this is going to harm the bay. That is the kind of common sense question to be asked of PhDs that specialize in coastal water health. Inquiries like that cut straight to the chase in what we expect of our leadership on such divisive issues. So thank you very much. The whole community is so tired of the shell game being played out here. I would be amiss if I didn't mention the follow-up question by Ms. Vaughn to Dr. Pradeep that conducted the Farfield study when she asked if he agrees with the statement provided to the Channel 3 News, quoting, the D-cell plant would not adversely impact the base system. And he stated, quote, no, I don't agree with that. That was alarming, but expected. I've witnessed some mic drop moments in my day, but the neck snapping and wide eyes of Mayor Paulette, Councilman Roy Scott, and Barrera said it all, and by no means am I poking fun as my reaction to his honesty was just as profound. So good on him. So now we have three PhDs of the water sciences, including one that you guys selected and paid for, publicly stating that this is a bad medicine for the bay and everything attached to it. At what point are y'all going to stop pushing this pre-sold industry decel down our taxpayer-funded throats? Obviously, some on the council and four of you in particular, obviously four of you are not, as we are going to vote today on spending another $200,000 on another consultant to apply for another grant on a project that has already been voted down by this council. In case the people had missed it, and this is very important, if we were to receive this grant, and we most likely will, it will only be for the Inner Harbor desal. Locking us into the project alone... I'm sorry. No way. I thought I had that time to two minutes and 30 seconds. Three minutes, yes. Just real quick, two to five, please quit kicking the can down the road, and let's do desal properly for everyone, including industry, the fish, the bays, everybody. Thank you, Captain Rousey. It doesn't have to be one way.

Thank you. Melissa Zamora.

Hello, my name is Melissa Zamora, District 2. I've heard some comments, so many things going on now, finally. And somebody somewhere had mentioned like, oh, these young people or these progressive people, these socialists, communists, and I don't even identify with any of that, are coming up here and they're scripted and just upset. And from my personal experience, I don't like coming up here. I don't think a lot of those people do. But it is one of my civic duties when I'm able to in the summertime when I'm not obligated to work that I come down here and offer what I can because so many people can't. I grew up here in Corpus. I've raised my child here. I have a lot of love for this place and so I know that there's been a lot about the sciences of desalination. And I'm here to say that I am in opposition of the Inner Harbor desalination plant and accepting any funding or money towards that. And I have a scientific background. I'm a science teacher. I've taken environmental sciences. I have a master's degree from A&M. All of that is important and relevant. We've heard a lot about that. And we've heard little sprinkles of environmental racism. And what about the people that live there? And not so much emphasis about the doctors and the social workers or people who work with people for people. And I heard the mayor say, as you were opening up public comment, that you are here to do the people's work. And I'm here to ask a hypothetical of which people? Because looking into the public archives last week with Dr. Araiza at the Ritama Library, I found a document that was titled Shelter Problems, a report to the Planning Commission by the Corpus Christi Housing Authority back in the 1940s. And I just want to read that to you to see if it still resonates today. This recommendation is not simply for protection of present white districts, but it is much more desirable for our Negro population since the present area would offer so much more opportunity for community, business, and social expansion. It is basic that the Negroes, even more than other racial labor groups, be located near the source of their employment. To move a large portion or even the expanding portion of the Negro population away from the port, areas occupied by heavy industries and their downtown service employment would be a serious mistake. This re-planning of the Negro community is the most pressing housing problem facing Corpus Christi today. And there's some other really horrible things in there that our city has been facing for decades. So I'm asking, I'm begging to think about those people who are not and have not been represented. Thank you.

Thank you. Amanda Agueda? Amanda Agueda? Daniel Pena? Daniel Pena? Mona Lytle? Mona Lytle. Oh, yes, ma'am.

Good afternoon, everyone. It's been a while since I have been here. I would like to first address Hillcrest Streets to District 1. We need for you, everyone, or District 1 to come survey our streets. I have made a complaint. We have this bus going through. We cannot even get into our neighborhood, especially go down Martin Luther King and turn on Kennedy. It's flooding. I contacted TxDOT. They did their job. They said the city now needs to come complete their job. So you could go down Hubbard Street to Peabody. It's a mess. I had a front wheel alignment. I need to go get another one. Go to Minton Street. All the streets are in terrible shape. So we need the city to come out, surveil, and we need some repairs. Secondly, I'm asking the city council to vote against number 20. We first need to get the results from the far field modeling before you get money and tie it up where you may not be able to use it. Let's go the proper procedure. Set yourself up for success whatever you want to do. But we must stop jumping, and then we have to go another direction. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lytle. Mark Munster?

Mark Munster, District 4. I'm going to talk about the Enterprise Fund. And as you can see, it kind of makes up the majority of the city budget. So it's a significant thing to talk about. And so the Water Fund is the major item in the Enterprise Fund. And as you see, It brings in $177 million of revenue. And then also in the enterprise fund is the wastewater fund, $100 million. Stormwater fund of $32 million. That's revenue collected by the city. And these are the expenses incurred by the city, $183 million, $113 million, $32 million. So as you see, they're kind of running break-even or a little bit of a loss. And this is just showing... The personnel expense, so 24 million of those expenses are for personnel, for staff. And then debt service, payments on debt, interest payments is 58 million. And this is the water revenue collected. So this is the service fees and the water rates collected by the city. Residential is around 41 million inside city limits. Commercial is around $27 million total outside and inside. Large volume users, the ones driving the water demand for all these projects, it's around close to $40 million. And then wholesale includes different classes. So you can kind of see where the city is getting the revenue from water rates. And so $170 million of revenue, $183 million of expenses. I have the arrows on how many expenses are going towards the debt fund every year, $35 million. There's more than that, too. There's other lines of debt. $35 million is the big one at the end. This is the drought exemption fee, which I want to include. It's another $6 million, of course, but that's tied into specific water projects. This is for the wastewater fund. So $100 million of revenue, $113 of expenses, and you'll see that broken down here. Large volume users, as you see, are not on this page, which I asked the city at the budget input session last night to get confirmation on. As you see, residents are paying $60 million in wastewater fees. Commercial pays $36 million, and there's the total revenue and expenses from the wastewater fund on the bottom. Stormwater fee, here you see what the residents paid, $12.8 million. Non-residents paid $19 million. There's the total revenue expenses on their stormwater fee. So I'm kind of just showing what... breaks down what residents pay. This is the Inner Harbor desal plant, as you know, over the cost over the period of the project is going to be very expensive, very expensive interest, annual rates, maintenance costs. And in the top right corner is the impact on residential water rates. And of course, staff was recommending moving forward this project. And these last slides I pulled from the last budget season just to show like You were saying if there was no rate increase for residents, then you would cut these infrastructure things that impact our current infrastructure and impact residents. And you were saying, if we don't raise water rates, we're going to have to cut all these things. But if it's a project for industry, you're willing to spend billions of dollars. And so I put these slides together just to show that it just does not look equitable to residents. And it just does not look like city staff is working for residents or for regular people. And you're catering to the interests of large corporations and billionaires over regular people just on fixed incomes, regular incomes, paying their water rates.

Thank you, Mr. Munster. Armand Alex.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Armand Alex, Corpus Christi resident, born and raised. A city budget is one of the clearest expressions of a city's values. Long before a project is built, we've answered a more fundamental question. The geographer David Harvey once asked, what kind of city do we want and what kind of people do we want to be? That question belongs in every city budget discussion, in my opinion. City budgets don't simply distribute money, they distribute opportunities. They shape who benefits from our public investment and who needs to be treated as essential. And so every budget reflects a set of priorities, a vision of government, and ultimately a vision of who the city is for. Here in Corpus Christi, some of you all in these seats often celebrate the billions of dollars moving through our port and refineries. But if we take a second to pause, and be a little bit more honest with each other, many residents are making different observations and highlighting the contradictions therein. If these corporations produce so much wealth, why are we still debating whether we can afford libraries, neighborhood parks, affordable housing, or water infrastructure that prioritizes affordable water for the people who already live here? The reality is the people who were elected to serve us have adopted a model where public investment too often means serving private expansion instead of public needs. But imagine if we started somewhere else. Imagine if every city budget discussion began with two simple questions. What do our communities need to flourish and what kind of people do we want to be? The answers aren't mysterious. Neighborhoods prepared for stronger storms and less flooding, parks that lower temperatures during extreme heat, crime prevention that actually prevents crime, libraries that serve as community anchors, reliable transit that connects people to opportunities, affordable housing, safe drinking water, healthy ecosystems, infrastructure that protects residents before it protects industrial growth. Those aren't luxuries. They are the conditions that allow people to live with dignity. Public institutions exist to accomplish together what none of us can accomplish alone. That's why our city budget matters so much. They're one of the few places where our collective values can become concrete. So as this council continues with the budget discussions, I hope we ask ourselves not only what can we afford, but what future we're choosing to build. a future that meets the people's needs and follows a people's budget. Because someday we won't remember every line item in this city's budget. We'll remember whether it helped create a Corpus Christi where working class people weren't simply asked to sacrifice for someone else's prosperity, but had the opportunity to flourish themselves. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Alex. Miriam Ghedda Rashidi. Fatima, if you want to come up, you're next.

Good morning, good afternoon. I hope you're having a great day. Common sense. This seems to be absent in the city of Corpus Christi. Voting on working toward a grant, is it a grant or a loan, to fund the Inner Harbor desalination when the far field study provided insufficient evidence to prove that the project would be beneficial makes no sense. Some people may argue that the bay is polluted anyway, so why not desal? That's like saying to someone whose life is in jeopardy from severe infection or cancer that a doctor may say, well, we could provide innovative ways to save you because we do have the technology. But we need your organs. We need your blood. We need to deplete you of what you have to help you to survive so that we could have it. And we'll just hope for the best. Do doctors do that? No. Our bays, our estuaries, everything is in jeopardy. But everything is for profit, profit over the people, profit over the animals, profit over our ecosystems. The Earth can only sustain itself for so long. We need to do something now to help, and if you're worried about jobs, imagine all the jobs that would come into helping our environment. I drive through Corpus Christi, and let me tell you, there are only certain times that I want to drive through Corpus Christi, especially on the south side. It is so hot during certain times of the day, am I right? because there are no trees, it's all concrete, and more concrete, more empty lots, when those could be trees, those could be little parts for people to rest from the heat. It makes no sense what we're doing. More and more gas stations, more and more, I've said this before, one more quick wax. When we are in a deep crisis, we can provide So many jobs to make our city beautiful and work in harmony With our environment so that we could yet again be the sparkling city by the sea I've said this countless times Have you gone to Austin people who go to Austin they want to stay there and There's a reason they want to stay there, because it is beautiful, and they work in harmony with our environment, our ecosystem. Thank you very much. God bless you and your families.

Thank you. Fatima?

Fatima Shidi, District 1. I'm just going to say yet again that doing desalination in the Bay would be a diabolical and stupid decision. The Farfield studies didn't even have a biologist who would determine whether a desalination plant would be harmful or beneficial to the Bay. That was a whole waste of time, energy, and money on their part, and voting yes would be a senseless decision. Even average citizens have relied on better research than the far-field studies, and scientists with PhDs have come up and said that based on the evidence provided, that desal would have detrimental impacts on Hillcrest and the Bay. With all that being said, it is up to all of you to do what is right. Thank you, and God bless you and your families.

Thank you, Fatima. Jayden Birdwell. Jaden Birdwell. Captain Dave Heasley.

Let's try this again. Captain Dave Heasley, District 3.

Former CCAD contracting officer pleaded guilty to violating the Trade Secrets Act, disclosing sensitive bid information. President of Oklahoma defense vendor pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe a CCAD political official, falsifying safety records. Two former CCAD supervisors were arrested and convicted for aiding in a conspiracy falsified test record for helicopter rotor blades. President of a local defense contractor pleads guilty. Former contracting officer fined for violating. Two former CCAT supervisors arrested. Former CCAT supervisors convicted of falsifying records.

You think it's right for a company to continue using a vendor that's given them that kind of service? More importantly, do you think it's right for members of this council to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars traveling to Washington, D.C. to try to talk them into coming back and using it? Do y'all think that's right? Do you think the federal government's just going to say, oh, we've been getting screwed shitless over this deal for all these years and you want us to come back? And y'all want to spend our money trying to talk them into coming back to bring in the work here when the people that work there are providing that kind of service? Does that make sense? Do you think that you did a good job with all that money, our money, trying to convince a government to use a crappy company that's been giving them shitty service for all these years? Is that good mentality for city government? I don't think so. Are y'all familiar, you four that are interested in this Inner Harbor desal? Are y'all familiar with 2015? The Texas 84th legislation passed a bill, 2031. Look it up. You need to research it. You know what they said? It was a feasibility study of inner harbor, of any desalination for Gulf Coast, Texas Gulf Coast. Okay? It's right there in black and white. Discharge. Effluent discharges off of desalination. Estuaries and bays, zero. None. To be none. Offshore in the Gulf, three miles plus out. There's tons of information in there, and I'm very surprised that the people that, and I call you fraudsters. The fraudsters that picked up this Inner Harbor desal, don't go nowhere, Peter. You're one of the fraudsters. Have a seat. We're paying you a lot of money to listen to this. We're going to put you in prison.

Okay.

And the rest of y'all, too.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Julian Hernandez.

Julian Hernandez, D3. We are again. I actually had chat GTP to write something down for me because I always get sidetracked. But the main thing is the role of a city council and a mayor. Most times it looked down when I brought my kids over here. The thing they took away is that the mayor and some of the city council members were so rude because they never even acknowledged them. As a matter of fact, a person called a gas light at the mayor didn't even have a clue what was going on. And it makes me think, what is our city council here for? What is it here for? Are they here for us? Or are they here for their own interests? You remember my name the other day, which was pretty cool. I appreciate that. But it makes me wonder, why did y'all get elected? What was the reason? What was your political angle we would do for the people? Was that what you used? Or we would do for the industry? What was the angle? Because everybody that comes to this podium, everybody that I've seen other than industry and friends of friends say no to this water thing. Everybody. But some of y'all look down and And don't even hear it. And there's evidence of that because guy gaslighted. Oh yeah, y'all need to hush up because he's trying, because he's against y'all but never picked up that he was making fun of her or the system. So now I got involved in this last part of last year and I'm in deep. And then so I meet people out here like Michael Miller, Miranda, you know, people that they actually talk about good stuff. They actually listen. But for those that, you know, when I go out there and I talk to my family, my friends, and I ask them, what do I tell them? That they advertise on lies? At the end of the day, What is it for? What is that council seat for? What is that mayor position for? What did you tell your grandmother, father, mother, sister, brother, those that were so proud of y'all to get elected? What did you tell them? Did they think y'all were going to make good for the people? And then y'all got corrupted or something. I don't know. I hear a lot of things of Ms. Guajardo that, oh, she was the best. And my uncle that's been in politics for so long. And I say, uncle, maybe she was and not anymore. I don't know.

Thank you, sir.

But what is this? What is the council and the public for for you guys for?

Sierra Bernard.

Sierra Bernard, District 4. I'm here today not to speak on behalf of Corpus Christi residents who claim this project will kill the bay and bankrupt us with debt. Who cares? But rather to speak up and advocate for our very special and fine industrial partners who are the backbone of the largest energy export site in the United States. Our country needs endless support, and that requires water. Without industry and growth, the entire nation suffers. Our entire national GDP is dependent on having a local, and long-term water security. As they say, water is the new gold. Think of what this could mean, not just for the silly and greedy citizens that need the water for their lawn, their shower, their pool, but most importantly, what this could do for shareholder value. The city has repeatedly stated that much of the future increase in water demand is expected to come from continued industrial development associated with the Port of Corpus Christi and surrounding manufacturing to the tune of 180 million gallons per day or more. My grounded question is whether or not a 30 million gallon per day desalinization plant is sized appropriately for that long-term strategy as well as the pipelines that are draining our farmers dry with no known continuity ground where groundwater doesn't live forever, it's a finite source not infinite and the 2026 there was a total of 3,240 billion gallons of water total or 104 million gallons per day. That's the minimum current demand under level 3 water restrictions may 2026 current active supply of the 100 sorry 85 million gallons per day. I understand there are additional pipelines in progress that could add more MGD, but those are currently contested and creating legal friction with our sister cities. If we want to show industry they are welcome to do business here in South Texas, they will want to ensure they have unlimited supply of water for decades to come. If we already know we need an additional desalinization to support long-term industrial growth, why aren't we evaluating the alternative Axe H2O with 150 million gallons per day that's designed for long-term demand at no build-out cost to the taxpayer? before we commit taxpayers with the burden of debt that is much smaller the Inner Harbor project. A lot of guys will ask if size matters. Trust me, size matters. How many additional desal plants would taxpayers ultimately have to build when 30 million gallons a day isn't enough? Right now, if you Google American cities at risk for running out of water, Corpus Christi is at the very top. The other major cities are Phoenix, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Las Vegas. I have lost a lot of business personally due to the scarlet letter we carry. Buyers are backing out, and our real estate values are plummeting. From the national PR perspective, who would want to buy a home where water can run out? A larger facility would put us back on the map. Instead of being labeled the first American city to run out of water, our future label could be Corpus Christi, the American city that will never run out of water. And doesn't that have a nice ring to it?

Thank you, Ms. Bernard. Melinda De Los Santos?

Good afternoon, Melinda De Los Santos, District 2. I am against pursuing federal funding for the proposed Inner Harbor desalination plant. Why are we going to spend another $200,000 to hire a consultant to prepare an application when it has not received final approval? You already know residents were opposed to the Inner Harbor because it impacts the Hillcrest neighbors. The Heart Research Institute concluded it was not a good location for an intake and discharge site. It's limited to 30 MGD, and as she said, size matters. The water is for industry, which comprises only a small fraction of our workforce, yet they use the majority of the water. You agree to a far-field study, but won't wait for the results. Residents are no longer saying you don't care about your constituents or environment or tourism. What they are saying is some of you, excuse the language, but you're in bed with industry. It's becoming very apparent there are nefarious activities occurring. Is it pressure, blackmail, money under the table? Why are you obsessed with Inner Harbor? Our city strains at maintaining the infrastructure of our community, and yet you want to maintain almost a billion dollar plant? Okay, on another aspect, these parking meters. You know, maybe we should start collecting from the proper drought surcharges from industry and stop with the IDAs so we can have free parking uptown and downtown. But lastly, in preparation of the 250th anniversary of our great nation, I want to thank President Donald J. Trump for restoring America's sovereignty. How did he do that? By recapturing the flag, the American flag, June 14, 2025, which celebrated when the American flag was officially adopted on June 14, 1777. Returning our nation to God on April 18th, 2026, in recognition of the original covenant of 1776, the Declaration of Independence. And for rededicating America back to God on May 17th, 2026, in the National Jubilee of Prayer. Happy 250th anniversary, and God bless the USA. Thank you.

Thank you. Reverend Henry Williams.

You know, to the mayor, our city councilmen and women, and our city officials. And first, Mayor, let me commend you for the prayer gathering that you're putting together for July 8th at Cole Park. It is vitally important, so I commend you for bringing that together, Mayor. Prayer is vitally important. that is for our community, for our state, for our nation. We must be a people of faith, vitally important. And whether you're sitting up there or whether you're sitting back here, vitally important. We must learn how to be respectful toward each other. We must understand who we are as a people. And we of Corpus Christi, we should have a vision of who we are based upon our name, the body of Christ. And we must have the vision that we are that people. Item number 21, and I am not going to speak a great deal about desalination. Many have spoken concerning it, and we've spoken with regard to desalination previously. And I am a Hillcrest resident. I grew up in Hillcrest. I live in the Hillcrest neighborhood. It's an historic neighborhood. The Corpus Christi Bay is an iconic historic symbol of who we are as a city. We do not want to damage it in any way. We would be damaging, indeed, the identity of who we are. And what we must do is build that which God has given us, this beautiful piece of land that is called Corpus Christi, our bay, the historic Hillcrest neighborhood. What we must do is build and not be destructive, but to build. Therefore, let us get about the business of building. And scripturally, 2 Chronicles 7.14 says, If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, Then will I hear from heaven will forgive their sin and heal their land. And we're asking God to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Reverend. Eli Ray.

Ellie Ray District 2. I'm here today for a different topic. I came up to talk about how a lot of our community members here in Corpus Christi do not have all their papers in order for their immigration status. And just the fact that for so many of us, that's not an issue whatsoever. Our community is defined by What it means to be a neighbor for me is so much deeper than immigration status, immigration paperwork. And we have so many families in our city that are of mixed status. We also have families that are here together as an immigrant family. And they're all, in my mind, very welcome. And I know a lot of people feel the same way. So I wanted to bring up three things that have happened that to me put our immigrant families at risk. First of all, there have been a lot of images and videos and detailed verbal descriptions online of CCPD being present at ICE detainments here in our city, working with ICE and Border Patrol. I've seen at least six recently that have been pretty verified incidents of CCPD working with ICE. and that really disturbs me. I think CCPD is tasked with protecting our community, not just our citizen community, and to have them do a traffic stop and then call ICE, for instance, is, to me, very against what they have promised to do for us. So those images and descriptions have really disturbed me. Secondly, there's a post recently, and I don't know the details of it, but there's kind of this notice put up that they're looking for an elderly woman with a limp, and it was, you know, Border Patrol and CCPD are looking for this person. And if it's an immigration issue, I don't know why CCPD is involved. If it's a silver alert issue, I don't know why Border Patrol is involved. That's very disturbing to me that they're working together on that level to find this elderly woman. And third, because the city, through the Crime Prevention and Control Committee, very recently, just this week, I believe, approved an increase in funding for CCPD. And knowing that they are using some of their funds to collaborate with ICE like this, it is really disturbing to me that we're investing more money into plaguing more of our residents, more of our neighbors with the oversight from CCPD that could lead to them being deported. So I want to call on the council and CCPD to cease collaborating with ICE and to protect our citizens and our residents and our neighbors, all of them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Rye. Councilman Kintu?

I just want to comment on that. I talked to Chief Marco a few months back, and he assured me that they're not helping the Border Patrol. If you see city units there, it's probably because something happened, a fight, or they needed assistance. We're going to assist them if they need assistance, as in if something... officer safety type of deal. But I believe Chief Marco that he told me the right thing. And I don't think, I know that we're not assisting the Border Patrol on immigration. So, you know, you might see units at that location for whatever reason, but it's because they called for assistance and we have to respond if they call for help. Thanks.

Joe Bonavides, I believe, is not with us today. So Jim Klein? Jim Klein? Okay. And I believe that concludes our public comment. I signed up for public comment. Oh, didn't I? Oh, I'm sorry. Robin Cox. Yeah. And then that would be the end, Ms. Huerta? Rebecca? After that, you've got the video and phone. Thank you.

This is Robin Cox, District 3. I know you didn't do that on purpose. So I'm here to talk today. I'm going to save my water comments for later, but we're in full swing campaign time. We're going to start seeing campaign signs everywhere, campaign promises. People are going to come up and say, you're getting a Bass Pro Shop, you're getting a Costco, everywhere you go. And this morning when I was getting dressed, I had several people call me, you've got to turn on the Larry Show. I don't ever listen to that, but I thought, okay, and they said, frickin' frack is on. I don't know who freaking Frack is. So I turned it on, and it was Mark and Roland. But I missed Roland. But I thought it was very interesting, some of the things they were saying. But I thought it was more interesting that Larry Elizondo referred to them as Cheech and Chong. Did I miss something? Because when I think of a show with them, I kind of go more with leaving Las Vegas, leaving and loathing Las Vegas. But in the middle of that came Ainsworth's song, the Roger Kreger song. And he said, Ainsworth is our best. And it sticks in my head every day. So when I was thinking about that, I thought, you know what, we should get a song for each and every one of you, something that we can relate to. So just on a little fun fact, my fiancé and I went through, and we had songs that, man, resonate when every one of you walks in the room. It would be awesome if it would be playing. For Carolyn, my good friend came up with, Son of the South, Alabama, because she says Mississippi cornbread and shut your mouth. She'll tell you like it is. Sylvia, every time I look at you, I think of my show, favorite movie when I was a little kid. I think of somebody fighting for justice, and I think of the song from the legend of Billy Jack, One Tin Soldier, and I think of all the kids lining up, holding their hands, fighting for justice. With Gil, I'm going to go with Tom Petty, I Won't Back Down. Then I'm going to go to you, Roland. Smooth criminal. That one is it. Smooth criminal. Everett, you know, we went over and over yours and the lyrics, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon. I'm going to step out the back, Jack. Making new plans, man. Kayleen, hit me with your best shot. Mark, we're all going to agree. Carly Simon, you're so vain. That's a good one. Then, Eric, I know this isn't from your generation, but I think this is how we do it. I think I can see you walking in, kind of doing a cool jive. But the mayor, well, we had to go with Steve Miller. Take the money and run. So on that note, we feel to take Zanoni with you, and y'all take the money and run. Thank you.

Okay, that concludes our public. I think that was public comment.

All right, next we have Sean Merritt.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Sean Merritt, C3, live from D5, baby. The menu today, accepting 120 million Bureau of Reclamation grant tied to the Inner Harbor desal project. Now, I do not support more restrictions on gas. I support long-term water security. I support building new supply. I support solutions that bring in private capital instead of strapping residents to a debt rocket and asking them to smile while city hall lights diffuse. The question is simple. Why should residents finance Inner Harbor when private capital alternatives remain on the table? The city's own numbers put Inner Harbor at nearly $979 million to build, about $32 million a year to operate, and more than $3 billion in debt. The average residential customer is projected to pay another $14.16 per month. Residents are being handed the tray at a debt buffet for a project that started as an industrial solution. Region and planning documents show that the original desal strategy was developed to meet industrial demand. At that time, no municipal shortages were identified. Later, the project evolved into serving both industrial and municipal customers by freeing up existing potable water supplies. So a project started in the industry lane, took the scenic drive through the public necessity, somehow arrives at the residential ratepayers' mailbox wearing a bill collector's hat. Now, is this capitalism? Capitalism said if you need something, you invest in it, and largest users pay their fair share. Corporatism. Now, this says someone else pays while you call it economic development. Industry uses 60% of this community's water. If industry needs additional supply, why aren't they paying roughly 60% of the cost? Why are residents being marched towards billions in debt for a project born out of industrial demand? Finally, this federal grant is not a wedding ring for the Inner Harbor. The city has already acknowledged these funds can support desal projects more broadly. And Peter, Nick, I've asked you this on the water briefs that you've canceled. You all know the truth. Before residents are dragged toward nearly a billion dollars in construction costs and more than three billion in debt, why aren't alternatives like Axe H2O being brought back for a public side-by-side comparison? And I will remind you all, you voted six to three to bring them back. If private capital was willing to finance new water infrastructure, why is City Hall so eager to put residents on the hook first? Residents deserve water security. They deserve sound science. They deserve honest economics. And before anyone signs them up for decades of debt, they deserve every viable option laid on the table in broad daylight. And we also deserve honest council members who have the integrity to recuse themselves from discussions involving other cities like Senton if they do insurance business with them in violation of our city charter. And yes, Roland, that one was for you. Come on, hit me with some of that Mandela Mancha and dream the impossible dream, baby. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Next is Jared Suarez. Jared Suarez.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Jaris, what is District 2? What a time we live in, where more decay is the rule of law. Ethics is thrown out for self-gain. Pleasures for the eyes bitter. Corpus Christi, Texas used to be called the sparkling city by the bay, and regrettably, it is now called Industry City by DeSalle. The people of Corpus Christi are tired of the corruption. They are tired of the same council members lying to our faces, breaking charter rules and getting away with it. Allegedly, going to nursing homes to help the elderly vote only cheat on the ballots and attack the system with false mailings. Doesn't our city attorney not submit such crimes to the Ethics Commission? Probably not. It's sad that some would rather sell their soul than to stand up to evil and sacrifice self for righteousness sake. Are not our elected civil servants not to be our guardians to vote for what's best? Not what's best for special interest groups. What a difference a city can be if we all had a moral compass to guide us to greatness. It's not too late to change. Expose the fraud, waste, and abuse. Hear the people crying out in frustration for y'all to do the right thing. You can make a difference. For you veterans, we swore an oath that does not expire. To defend our country from both foreign and domestic. Does that not cover our city governance? Do not go against your oath. You are better than this. Now is the time for a city-wide renewal, because we are drowning in $3 billion in debt, crumbling infrastructure, industry controlling our water, and backdoor deals consisting of kickbacks. Get up, City Councilor. Fight for the people, not against us. We elected you to be the change that this city so desperately needs. Do not steal, do not lie, do not forge, do not ballot harvest, do not attack rivals, families, and businesses. These are principles that we can all follow regardless of the different faiths and beliefs. And shepherds we shall be for thee, my Lord, for thee. Power hath descended forth from thy hand that our feet may swiftly carry out thy command. We shall flow a river forth through thee, and teeming with souls shall it ever be Amen. Next is Alberto Zertuche. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Albert Sartuccia, District 3, owner of Hard Life's Bait and Tackle and Team Hard Life YouTube. So motivated today to see more of our community coming in and standing up against corruption. This experimental decel scam is a prime example of how a larger portion of our community is paying attention to the city council and what it is doing to ruin us or kill our city. Right now, we stand as a community, even those names that are going to be called but are at work and can't speak. I would like to thank the Fab Five for standing up for the taxpayers against these industrial lobbyists that are on city council, who are sitting in a position with a conflict of interest. You should remove yourselves. So to this day, we have... No updates again because these questions go unanswered. Who is going to pay to fix the bays when this environmental scam goes through and how much is that going to cost? Who is going to pay the locally owned businesses that lose profit because their livelihoods are destroyed, loss of revenue because of the ecosystem that we depend on was destroyed? How much of those industries going to sue Corpus Christi because the plant was shut down because the water that they don't get is no longer being given to them? Or will you force the city taxpayers to curtail again to give those industry water to offset those lawsuits? How many hundreds of millions or billions will we lose because of that? How much will our water bills increase because our city has spent $2 billion on water plus supplies, and now they want to add another billion with no end cap? Will industries get 60% at reduced cost because they don't like to pay what the rest of us taxpayers pay and will sue us to avoid them extra costs? Or are you going to make us pay for the full amount so we don't get sued? How much will our property taxes go up for this increased cost? How much electricity will it draw and how much is it going to cost to build an energy plant for it to run? Who's going to pay for it? The taxpayers? How much is it going to cost for the hazardous byproducts to be removed from that area? Trucks, drivers, permits, fuel, and of course the fines. Corpus Christi is known for the fines. Do some research, guys. You will find out we have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars because of fines. What will we be looking for as taxpayers if this goes through? Lost local businesses, lost tourism, lost fishing, fishing industries, lost homes in the Hillcrest area, around the bays, lost lives due to increased health risk, lost marine and land animals alike. lost ecosystems, and the stench of death from our bay and estuaries. We're talking over $3 billion to start and will grow to over $30 billion in the coming years. When are we going to stop? When is this going to end?

Next is Chloe Torres. Ms. Torres, are you online? We can't hear you. Hello. Okay, try again.

Hi, can you hear me now?

Yes, we can.

Okay, great. Chloe Torres, District 2. I'm speaking today on the importance of our budgeting process and some recommendations to the city on how to improve if the goal is to expand participation from residents and to meaningfully include our feedback. First off, a common sentiment that I've heard numerous times from this council in an effort to be more palatable is, I'm not a politician. I'm not trying to do politic. Well, one of the most valuable lessons that I learned from my time as a student tutor for Chan UCC's political science department was the definition of the word politics from one of my professors. Politics is about who, it's what, when, where, why, and how. And so the management and distribution of resources to particular constituencies is a fundamental function of politicians in our society. So when I hear sitting council members say they're not interested in doing politics, it worries me that you're not taking your responsibility to our community seriously. Our current water crisis lays bare the consequences of what happens when particular sectors...

Ms. Torres, you're fading in and out.

Okay, I'm not sure what's going on. The WebEx keeps telling me I'm muted and unmuted, so I'm also not sure what's happening on the back end. But I'm not touching my phone at all. Can I start over or continue? Continue, please. Any guidance? Okay, our current water crisis lays bare the consequences of what happens when particular sectors of our society are privileged time and time again over others when it comes to resource distribution. My challenge to those on council or those who want to be is to be a politician that takes great care in researching current inequities and how resources are distributed throughout our city and working collaboratively with residents. particularly those who have historically been left out of this kind of consideration in order to eliminate those inequities. So I'd like to introduce the concept of participatory budgeting to the city as a way to get closer to this reality. Participatory budgeting is a democratic process where community members directly decide how to allocate part of a public budget. It fosters transparency, inclusivity, and collaboration, empowering residents to shape our community and prioritize projects that matter most to us while building up trust in public institutions again, which the council I'm sure would deeply appreciate and benefit from. It has three basic components, idea collection, where the public is asked to submit project ideas, and those ideas must follow certain guidelines based on the type of budget being used. Second, evaluation and proposal development. After the first phase, public officials review each of the submissions to make sure that it follows the guidelines and fits within the budget. Each project that meets these simple criteria can be approved and given a price for the final phase. These proposals, which require tweaking, can be developed further. And finally, the vote. The public gets to vote. Any individual. Thank you.

Next is Kareli Leal. Ms. Leal?

Hello, can you hear me?

Now we can, yes.

Thank you. My name is Gareri Leal, District 3. I'm here to make a comment about Agenda Item 21 and about my concern that some city staff members, some city council members, water... Corpus Christi water managers and other people just don't understand the concept that no means no. And that's quite alarming because we had over 100 people come to city council in person, the people who can make time out of their day to come express their concerns and exercise their democratic rights. And these people come out here to tell you that they're afraid of their health risk. They're afraid of the impact on the Bay. They're afraid of the future of Corpus Christi. Some people, they benefit from the tourism. Some people have been here their whole lives. And this is their home. They cannot afford to just move and leave if things start getting too expensive. So to me, it does concern me that we have people that aren't really caring about our needs and are still struggling. just worried about how they can fill their pockets and make industry bigger and continue bringing bad business to Corpus Christi. And I do say bad business because, I mean, they get tax breaks, they get IDAs. If these people were really benefiting our community, like many people have mentioned before, how come they're not investing in our public resources? Why are we cutting down are probably like shutting down hours of libraries or water parks or pools and like not stopping not helping with real crime prevention or homelessness and things like that but there's these people who will still take so much from us and then try to sue us if we try to demand some fairness to me that's crazy so to me i think that it's bad that we have people up there that don't care about us and I don't know what God y'all pray to. I don't know if it's God or Satan because y'all don't have a heart. But for real, if you guys pray to Jesus Christ, I don't know how y'all can do that when you're literally poisoning the body of Christ. This is like the center of the heart and you can still do that to him, corrupt their people and take from them. So I don't know how y'all can do this for real. I don't know how y'all sleep at night, but. Some of y'all are rich enough to just get up and move. I don't think you guys care about living here your whole life. I don't think your kids are going to be here. Well, for y'all, it doesn't matter. But seriously, you know, we can see through the fakeness, and some of us are going to call you out for it. And I don't know how wide you open your ass for Daddy Trump, but, like, seriously, just put it. Like, you don't got to be like him. So have a good day.

Thank you, Ms. Lyle. Mayor, that concludes the public comment period.

Yes, we're going to go ahead. Mr. Klein, I know you just got here and had signed up.

Thank you so much. Sorry I'm late. My name is Jim Klein. I live in District 2 here in Corpus Christi. And I've been hearing a lot about the cost of the desal plant. We can argue about that. I think it's going to go well north of a billion dollars, but let's say roughly maybe a billion dollars. What I've heard very little, greatly less about, though, is the operating cost after it goes into operation. And I would ask you to check with CC Water staff about this. The numbers I got from them, I believe this is two years ago, and I'm going on memory here now, is that it's going to cost $80 million. That it's going to cost $80 million a year to operate the desalination plant. THESE ARE FROM THE ADOPTED OPERATING BUDGET BOOKS. THIS IS FROM THE 2021 FISCAL YEAR. THE ACTUAL OPERATING BUDGET COST, OPERATING EXPENSES OF CCY WAS $135 MILLION. THIS IS FROM 21 AND 22, THE ANNUAL OPERATING COST EXPENSES WERE AGAIN $137 MILLION. 22 and 23, that fiscal year, $141 million. That was the actual operating cost. We've only got estimates now for 23, 24, and 24, 25. The estimates are $156 million back in 23 and 24, $157 million, some odd, for 24 and 25. I should note as well that these are the amended budget numbers for 23 and 24 and 24 and 25. Those budget numbers were inherently quite a bit higher than the actuals. So I'm going to guess that maybe the operating budget expenses, annual operating expenses for the CC water is about $140 million. $80 million represents about a 57% increase in that operating expense. And I wonder where that's going to come from. That's not going to come from federal grants or loans or the state or anybody else like that. That's going to have to be borne locally. So I ask you to keep that in mind as well. Thank you. And please check my math.

Thank you, Mr. Klein. We're gonna go to the consent agenda items. Are there any requests from council members to pull any items two through 14? Number eight. Number five, number nine. Two through 14.

Yeah, Mayor, we're going to pull 14 from the agenda. The developer needs to submit some additional information, so we won't consider that one today.

Oh, she said 13.

Okay, I'm sorry, but 14.

We're still pulling 14, okay. Right, we'll pull 13. Anything else? It's pulled. Okay. So with that, I'm going to entertain a motion to approve consent agenda with the exception of items 5, 8, 9, and 13. So moved. Okay, we have a motion in a second. Okay. Five, eight, nine, and 13 have been pulled. Okay, please submit your, are you putting this up, Rebecca? You don't have to if you don't have it ready. Yes, is it ready? Yeah, we're gonna...

Okay, it's ready, Mayor, if you'd like to vote.

Okay, we're pulling these items to speak on, and then we're gonna go back, and as I always ask, if anybody would like to do public comment on the items. Please submit your vote. Ms. Huerta, in mind?

So we have to ask for public comment prior to acting on the items.

right okay that's that's what we need so we need to do that first yeah okay i apologize for that okay so we have five eight nine and thirteen so would anybody like to make well are we doing that now or at the at the when we i thought we typically do that when we uh when we ask typically we ask the council members if they want to pull items and then we ask the public if they'd like to make public comment on any on any item 2 through 14. Right, before we, okay, I was, yeah, before we move it, I was sectioning it off, but that's fine. 2 through 14, anybody would like to make public comment, including the ones we pulled? You can just line up here in the middle.

I'd actually like to request to see the presentation on number seven, because I just need some stuff clarified, and you guys can't answer questions anyway, so I'd like it pulled to see the presentation by city staff.

I WASN'T PREPARED TO STAY HERE ALL DAY, BUT JUST WANTED TO GET SOME CLARIFICATION, BECAUSE THIS HAPPENED THE LAST TIME. WHEN WE ASKED, WHEN YOU ASK THE PUBLIC TO PULL CERTAIN STUFF AND SAY WE PULLED THREE ITEMS, IT'S USUALLY WHEN YOU GUYS TALK ABOUT IT, THEN WE COME AND MAKE PUBLIC COMMENT. BUT THE LAST TIME, WE WEREN'T, I THINK I PULLED TWO ITEMS. I DIDN'T KNOW, I WAS ASSUMING THAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO COME BACK AGAIN. but I talked to city secretary and it was jumbled kind of like it is today. So if we're pulling three items as the public, do we speak on the three items now and have a total of nine minutes?

No, Rebecca, correct me if I'm wrong, you would make the comment on your item pulled now.

Okay, what I'm saying is if I pull three items, okay, and I want to make comment on three items, do I get a total of nine minutes? Or do I go back and get in line again?

So you would pull, we would present you, you would make comment on each of your items that you pulled.

Okay. So that was three minutes per item that's pulled.

Correct.

Okay. So do, do we get back in line or do we sit here for nine minutes and talk?

Well, you're, are you pulling an item?

No, ma'am. I'm not, but I'm trying to get the record straight.

There was someone in front of you. I would pull her item first and it would go in order.

I understand that. But if she pulled two items, would she have two minutes to three, six minutes to talk about two items? And this was, I don't know if she can speak to it now or not, but this happened the last time. And so I was under the impression, because usually when I come here, the public pulls two, their items, y'all pull it and then y'all talk about it during the duration of the council meeting. And the last time y'all didn't do that. So I didn't get to comment on a couple of items that I had pulled because I wasn't aware that if we pull two items, we talk about them right now because it was changed the last time. So I just want to know what, I guess, is it called decorum or what the process is because it's not being followed and it's kind of shifting and I just want to get the record straight. And maybe she can comment on what happened the last time.

Well, remember we spoke about this, and my understanding was that the process would be that if a public commenter wanted to speak on any item 2 through 14, you would get three minutes to discuss those items at the beginning.

Okay, so if I pulled two items right now, I would have six minutes up here at the podium.

You would have three minutes to talk about both of them.

To talk about both? Yes, sir.

I mean, Mayor, that was my understanding.

So if I wanted to pull all 14 items, I have three minutes to discuss all 14 items.

Yes, that's right.

So is this written down anywhere? Because that wasn't the norm when I first started coming here, and it just changed when I wasn't allowed to speak the last time.

Well, no, as you pointed out, it had been, it wasn't consistent. So I did, Mayor, we spoke, and that was my understanding that how it would be handled.

On... when every meeting we say, I say, any request from the public to pull items, to make public comment on those items at this time, to, through, whatever, the numbers. So we say that each time. And then people come up, make a comment on that item. When we get to that item, you've already made comment on the item if you cared about that item. And we move forward and we vote on it. So we're taking our consent agenda, the public gets to pull whatever items they would like to speak on, and this is when it's done. So then we vote, okay, on this consent agenda we pulled the council pulled certain items that you may have or not. And then we do the same thing, right?

We, we, they have their, I get what you're saying, but even this time, if, if you just rewind a second, you didn't even ask for public.

Yeah. I, That was my error.

But what I'm saying is that there's no consistency because this just changed the last time I was here, which was two meetings ago.

I read this every time.

No, ma'am, you do not. You can look back at the YouTube. You can look back at records and it's never like, because I pulled two or three comments before. And then I come up here. and talk about, say, item number two, and then after the discussion has been had, I go back, and then item number 14, I come back and have another three minutes until the last episode when I wanted to speak with her because that didn't happen. It just changed all of a sudden, and I asked her, where is it written down so I can follow the rules? And I think you said just a second ago that I get nine minutes if I pull three, or do I get, I guess my understanding, if I pull all 14, I get one minute to talk about each of them. I mean, three minutes to talk about all 14 items. And that doesn't seem fair, right?

Well, I think it's something, Rebecca, we need to clarify.

Yeah, I agree.

Okay, so thank you for bringing it forth. So, again, what we've been doing is... No, you haven't.

This is the last twice you just did that.

Okay, sir, this isn't...

It's clearly something... Well, I want to pull all 14 items in, and we'll go that route. And we'll actually clarify it now. So do I get one minute, I mean, three minutes to talk about all 14 items? Or do I, when y'all talk about it, do I get three? And I'm just, I'm doing maliciously now because there's not an answer.

Right, and I'm not telling you there is and then isn't. I'm being really honest with you. It needs to be clarified, and we appreciate you bringing this to our attention because there's clearly confusion. So if you're confused, maybe others are as well, and we don't want that.

Well, she was confused, and she's not others. She's the city secretary.

That's what I just said. So Rebecca and I need to sit down and clarify this so that— there is no confusion and that we explain it and it's clarified and everybody understands. Because I see what you're saying. I hear you. And I hear you.

Okay, so do you want to take a break and discuss it?

Today, did you pull something?

I'm trying to get clarification first. Right, so today... And if there's no clarification, then I'll pull off 14.

If you have an item you'd like to pull today... Anybody? You have three minutes each item.

Three minutes each item? Yes.

And then we're going to clarify this and we'll make sure that it is super clear on all of our parts.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

So is that just for me or is that for? For everybody. Okay. Can I be right back? Let me go pull an agenda item because I wasn't prepared to stay here all day long. I didn't want to, but I got the clarification.

Mm-hmm.

Does anybody else want to ask anything? Okay, well, at this point, I do not. I'll sit down and read if there's anybody else. Thank you.

Okay, sure thing. Anyone else? Okay. So with that, I'm going to entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of items 7, 8, 9, 5, and 13. We had a motion. Do we have a second? Okay, please submit your vote. He didn't pull 14. He said he was gonna, yeah. Okay, the motion carries. Item number five is a zoning case number ZN9048, Ruvana Investments. This is a rezoning property near 2601 David Street. And who pulled this item? Councilwoman Paxson? Oops, hang on.

Okay. Thank you, Mayor. I pulled it because I wanted to vote against it like the first hearing. Thank you.

Because what? Okay, she's just voting against it again.

I'm up for approval.

Councilman Hernandez?

The same thing. This is, and I'll reiterate it again, if it's not something I would do in my own district, I'm not going to do it in somebody else's by changing RS-6 to two-family in the middle of an RS-6 neighborhood. It's inappropriate. Thank you.

We do not.

Second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote.

Is there public comment on that? Mayor, public comment. Yes, they're correct.

Because you... We went 2 through 14. Ma'am? Didn't we do 2 through 14, public comment?

Yeah, I thought you said that when items were pulled individually, they could speak.

Yes, until we clear. Yes, I'm going back on the old system. So any public comment on item number five, which is a zoning case? Okay, there being no public comment, we'll close public comment. And please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. The next item pulled by constituent is item number seven, ordinance amending the roadway master plan of mobility, CC. Who's presenting?

Councilor Ernie de la Garza, Director of Public Works, Assistant City Manager. This item being presented today is an ordinance to authorize a developer amendment request to remove a proposed C1 collector from Corpus Christi Roadway Master Plan. So Public Works is responsible for the Transportation Master Plan. The Transportation Master Plan designates the right of way for collectors, arterials, and freeway segments. This plan defines how roads will be designed and constructed. A request was submitted by Coastal Dunes LLC to remove a proposed C1 collector identified as Project 18V from the Roadway Master Plan. The Master Plan identified that a proposed roadway would be constructed between State Highway 361 and the beach to provide beach access. The master plan would require the developer to dedicate 60 feet of right of way and construct a two lane roadway with five foot sidewalks on each side. This slide illustrates both the master plan and the requirement that the developer put in for the request, and it's shown there in red. So that red there is the proposed collector road that extends from State Highway 361 to the beach. The developer's justification to request deletion is due to the presence of jurisdictional wetlands, drainage concerns, and proximity to another planned beach access road, Beach Access Road 3, and existing Beach Access Road 2. they will be providing two points of access off of 361 to meet fire department building code requirements for access for emergency services. Public Works presented this item to the Planning Commission on March 18. Both Public Works and Fire Department supported the recommendation for removal of the Beach Access Road. The Planning Commission voted in favor of removal as well. Justification and support to remove the Beach Access Road was based on the proximity of the proposed project to other planned and existing beach access roads. Beach access road three located one half mile north and beach access road two is located two miles south of the development. The fire department confirmed that both beach access points would be sufficient to meet emergency service requests. This is better illustrated in the next slide. So this slide gives you kind of a layout of the area. Number one, the location of project 18V highlighted in red, which was a proposed beach access road from 361 to the beach. Two, location of the proposed beach access road three highlighted in green, which is approved as part of bond 2020 program located approximately one half mile north of the project site. Number three, location of Beach Access Road number two, highlighted in navy blue to your left there on the diagram, which will be located about two miles south of Beach Access Road three. And then here in orange, limits of beach patrol from Beach Access Road two to approximately 4.1 miles north, where mobile patrol is used for beach patrol and safety in lieu of stationary lifeguard stands due to long-term are due to the long, narrow beach terrain. And so in summary, city staff recommends approval of the ordinance to delete project 18 V from the roadway master plan. I stand by for any questions.

Okay. I don't see any questions. Is there anyone in the public that would like to make comment on item number seven?

Julian Hernandez, D3. First, I have to apologize for getting emotional when there's uncertainty or confusion and you try to follow the rules. When I started coming here, I started asking about the rules. And then when those things get changed, then it doesn't leave an avenue to talk about stuff. But this one in particular, I did look at it, and I had some questions, and he brought up some more questions. If it was a bond approval and there was money taken on that, so does that money get reallocated because now we're not going to build a street anymore? The other concern I had was when I first looked at this was we spent over $2 million as a council for engineering that Mr. Scott, I think if I remember right, that he bicycles down and it doesn't go anywhere, but we spent $2 million just to engineer that street because it was already in the city master plan. Am I correct? Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, and so I look at it, and we spent $2 million then, and I want to say it was over $2 million then because it was in the city master plan, but now we're just taking it out because somebody wants to, you know, because it's not convenient for somebody else. So if it votes to go through... then where does the platform stay? And she's taking my hand, so maybe I need to be re-corrected on that. So that's all I have, thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, we'll close public comment. Councilwoman Paxson.

Thank you. Thank you, Ernie, for the presentation. This was, of course, tied to the request for the development and with having those neighboring communities on both sides. it was adamantly heard from all the input from the surrounding areas that they were opposed to adding the road. And so the developer in his gracious compromise to try to make the situation work with the communities nearby is requesting that we remove that requirement in summation.

Correct. And to correct the information, this master plan street is not the bond project. The bond project is the, Green Street off to the right on the on the map.

Thank you for clarifying.

Thank you move for approval Councilman Roy I Thought that was a good Question that was bought up. Can you just tell me offhand by canceling this project? How much money will that cost the taxpayers? By by by not going forward how much money will this cost I

Well, this is a developer.

So the developer, it's on the developer.

It's on the developer, not the city, sir.

So basically.

Indirectly, it's going to save the city money because that's a street I don't have to maintain.

So you're saying that it's just basically on the developer. Right. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. Thanks for the clarification. Okay.

We have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. The next item pulled was item number eight, an ordinance authorizing mid-year budget adjustments. Who pulled this item? Councilman Cantube. Go ahead.

Just a quick question. Yes, sir. I'm just concerned about the positions that is in the department. Have we had any progress of the employees finding other jobs within the city?

Amy Rodriguez, Director of Management and Budget. I'm going to ask if my colleague from Human Resources is here to answer that question.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Good afternoon, Odette Cruz, Assistant Director of HR. So the employees that were given initial notification of the reduction in force, we have had one resign their position, so we are not actively looking for that. They've resigned and so they're outside of the process at this point. We have five current parking compliance employees and we do have pending offers for them considering If the item is approved today, we'll move forward with giving them those offers tomorrow. We only have one other employee that is under consideration for reduction in force, and we have not had any interaction with them other than when we initially met with them and we've been informing them of the positions that are available, but they've not expressed any interest. So we do have pending offers for all other employees. I understand.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

I move to approve.

Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

Second. Would anybody like, I'm going to open public comment on item number eight. Would anybody like to make comment on item number eight? Okay, a closed public comment. Please submit your vote. okay the motion carries next item pulled was item number nine that is a motion authorizing amendment number six to the service agreement with new gen strategies and solutions for utility rate model development and consulting services who pulled this item Councilman Paxson, your question or comment. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I was reading through the packet, and I noticed that it gave a very nice detailed breakdown for the other amendments and for exercising the additional years of the agreement. So I really only have a couple questions. I noticed that there was a... one of the amendments was missing a detailed description in there, and I just thought it was interesting that I didn't have that in the packet along with the others. If you pull the actual memo, it's on the second page.

You're talking about amendment number five, which was last year's. I do apologize for that. I must have not used the right version, but Basically the amendment number five that was passed in 2025 was similar to this one as the additional resources needed for nutrient to travel to Corpus Christi for multiple meetings with council staff and additional additional reports and the full study performance that was not included in the original contract and number two Number two was a small amendment that I believe we needed just a little bit extra cash funding for the initial agreement to finish the initial study for 23-24. Okay.

I appreciate that. Then my last question, Mr. Zanoni. We had talked briefly about engaging our rate modeler to look at some amendments possibly to the relationship with the DCP and things like that. Is that included in this amount?

Um, the drought contingency plan modifying, it's going to, it would be, uh, another consultant we're looking at that we're working with Corolla will help us on, on the drought contingency plan, taking into consideration all sources of water, right? Councilman, is that what you're talking about? Yes. So, uh, Nick can speak to that, but Corolla who helps us with the dashboard, uh, has been assigned that task and I believe is working on it, Nick.

That's correct. So Nick Winkleman, Chief Operating Officer, Corpus Christi Water. Corolla is our modeler for the water supply dashboard, and they are our technical expert when it comes to our water supply. So they are currently looking at our future needs and also better understanding the trigger points for future drought restrictions.

So they're engaged.

Okay.

Corolla is, yes.

Thank you.

And then Councilwoman, Mayor, if you don't mind, the Council hasn't asked, but we are considering another consultant, and Nick will have to help me remember the name, to help us on contracts for large volume users. That's been a conversation that Council has had. So NewGen is the one that brought it to our attention, but you can see they're pretty busy just working on the rates. So we've engaged at least a ton.

Stantec, yeah.

Stantec, that's it. Stantec's another large national modeler. And so they're going to help us look at how do we develop contracts for large volume users. So we have agreements with entities like Valero and Flint Hills. So there's like a take or pay agreement annually. Have we used them before, Peter?

What was that? Haven't we used them before?

Yeah, Stantec is a large firm, and they've done some wastewater work for the city, namely the consolidation of the wastewater treatment plants. They did that. They authored that study.

Okay. Councilman Hernandez?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. I notice on this there is a deliverable for a 10-year rate plan. Yes, sir. How is that going to be presented? Because I don't think that was given to us the last time we discussed rates. I want to make sure that, I mean, that's going to be up front and center. And can that also include how much of that rate is debt service? Yes.

Yes, sir. Beginning with Andy McCartney with NewGen, principal consultant. Beginning with the 2024 rates, we included that 10-year projection as part of the study, and it's been in our report. Bear in mind, cost of service is a snapshot in time, and so we merely escalate those rates by the forecasted expenditures in the budget. So we apply those, that same percentage increase to the rates, but we're not doing separate multi-year cost of service studies because cost of service changes over time as the customers change their usage. So that's why we look at that every year.

So what I'm looking at is projected debt service for future years. Obviously, there's some plans that you can see through our CIP long-term plans as well as our need for future water sources that can be included into those rates. So I want to make sure it's an accurate snapshot of what we're paying now and what that would look like in the future. And when I say future, to us, I mean to council, an open session, right? Right. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Okay. No more questions. Thank you. I'll open public comment. Would any of you like to make comment on item number nine?

Rachel Caballero, D1. There has never been really any discussions, as far as I can remember, on profitability analysis on especially the experimental Inner Harbor plant. Since we have 4,000 staff, but nobody seems to be able to do anything, so we have to keep hiring consultants. Maybe this is something that they can include in there. to find out what the true profitability analysis is of the experimental Inner Harbor plant. And the days of we're going to start making profit after 30 years are over. Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay, we'll close public comment. I'll entertain a motion for item number nine. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. Last item pulled was item number 13. That is a resolution to approve the capital improvement program submitted by the Art Community Center of Corpus Christi. You pulled it, Councilwoman Campos, your question or comment?

Yes. Well, first of all, I've been a proponent and supporter of the art community forever. But there was something that was brought up to my attention and I just wanted to address it here since it was coming up as an agenda item. The issue of the parking, the parking lot. I received some calls about that there's now prevention of people, the public using the parking lot. It's a publicly owned building and What they were told was that it was something that we had approved, that city council had approved. So I'm trying to address that issue. So I thought, since the art director is here, can that question be answered? Or is it something you could answer?

Jennifer Buxton, Planning and Economic Development. And I'm going to turn that over to the executive director of the Art Center, Diana Blunzer-Sherman.

Thank you. Hi, Diana Blenser-Sherman, Executive Director of the Arts Center of Corpus Christi. And yes, I think I know exactly what you're talking about. There have been three gates installed around the parking lots, and that is actually a security move. There was an incident on Old Shoreline on the abandoned part of the street. There was a shooting, and I was told that late nights after bars were closed, groups of people were cutting across the parking lot um, on the north side to access old shoreline. And so this was a measure to be able to close those gates only after hours. One would be to prevent, I haven't gotten the, we haven't decided the full scope of it and it's not my place to decide, um, exactly when those gates will be closed. Uh, but it's primarily a security move to prevent, more problems?

Well, what was told to me was that, you know, that building has been there for over 60 years, and that it has always been open. And yes, maybe there was an incident that did occur, but I hope that that will not continue to deter people from, you know, parking there, the public. I mean, yes, you did bring up this one situation, but I don't think it warrants the gatekeeper Correct.

In my opinion. Correct. And to be fair, it was not really something that we requested. Okay. We did want some kind of a gate to close off the parking lot from Old Shoreline because that is often used for parades and public events. And it would just be simpler if there was a gate there. I don't know how long, but there had been a gate there that got damaged. And we did want that. And the other gates are, I'm not really sure. Some of that may be related to when there are large public events around there that then the public is not allowed to park in the art center because the art center users don't have the opportunity to park there.

And this is what happens, Diana. I asked the park and rec department, how this occurred, and then they go, oh, we're going to have to speak to, you know, to you. And then you say, well, I don't really know how this occurred, but this still does not answer. Like, how did all the gates, like you just said, maybe you had asked for one gate on the one side, but not on the other side.

It's entirely possible that when the gate discussion happened, we said, oh, yeah, it would be great to have gates at all three entries. which it would be because one of the problems we have is, for instance, when the Buccaneer Parade happens, preparations for that happen the day before, and people will come park in the parking lot at the Arts Center, leave their cars there, and then there's no parking for the users of the Arts Center. So it is wonderful to have a gate because then we can protect the parking lot for users of the Arts Center.

Well, I disagree. But, I mean, you could always put barrels or whatever. But, again, I mean, I think this is a, you know, public building. You should be able to use the public parking. And so I really am disappointed about that. Okay. All right. Thank you. Councilman Hernandez.

Yes. Thank you. And, Peter, this opens up a bigger question because the shoreline that's on the other side is often closed. But on the flip side, where the park is at, it's open for parking. I think we need to have a full understanding or policy from either parks or public works or however you want to do this. We want to make sure that there's access for people to park to utilize our facilities. We want to make sure that not only that you have parking, but there's parking available for the public. Let's not make this a chore for our citizens to figure out where they need to park to enjoy our facilities. Okay, so I expect a policy regarding not only the art center, but also what used to be shoreline along the bayfront. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Councilman.

Councilwoman Devon. Just curious. So you had one gate that was damaged. They replaced it. Mm-hmm. And then they put two more gates up? Yes. Three more gates up. Yes. Two. So you have three in all? Yes. Who paid for the gates? City. The city paid for the gates, but yet we don't know who approved the gates. That's what I'm hearing. That's not within my... Yeah, so it's like you guys are going back and forth. To me, this is important. I agree with Sylvia. It is public parking. Let anybody park anywhere they want.

So may I ask a question then regarding the lease? Is that something you want to address?

Yeah, address it.

So the safety concerns were brought up by CCPD and coordinated with Parks for the installation of the gates, but it was done on a recommendation of the Corpus Christi Police Department due to some after-hours nighttime shenanigans. So Parks paid for the gates?

I believe so, yes, at the recommendation of CCPD. How much were the gates? I'm sorry, I don't have that information. So in her lease, does it say she can have the gates?

It's the city's facility, but we would need to install those if that's what we were asking for. Her capital improvement plan does not require her to put in things that she doesn't think she needs.

And I understand what you said about problems with the people coming in there. So to me, the solution would just be there's a certain time that you close the gate. If things happen after midnight, we all know that. So I agree with you on that.

Is that there yeah that two o'clock in the morning? There doesn't need to be anybody in the parking lot. No there doesn't there doesn't Councilman accomplished.

Okay, if I could get some assurance that you all would leave the gates open during the day and So that people that use the facilities can park there? Absolutely. Absolutely. That's our desire. After midnight or 10 o'clock? Okay, that's another matter. Correct.

And that was really the intent to have gates was for that reason, not for during the day. We would not close the gates during the day.

Okay. But what the ones that called me were like, why are the gates closed? And it was during the day. That's why. I'm making an issue of it. Perhaps when it was being installed? I don't know, but it was during the day, and so that's why this issue. Okay.

Yeah, okay. So I'll keep that in mind just in case the wind does blow them because they are recently installed and that mechanism hasn't been fully finished, the installation.

We'd appreciate that. Thank you. With that, I'll make a motion to approve it. Councilman Bonetta.

I just want to add that, I mean, I support this project fully, and I want to thank you I actually thought that's why it was being pulled, because the item on the agenda is for us to amend the capital improvement program so that the Arts Center will, through their own initiative and their own nonprofit, secure $3.8 million for the improvement of the facility for the public.

Correct, that's what we are proposing to be considered.

Would you mind, could I ask the board members to stand?

Oh yes, please.

And we want to recognize them. Very fortunate. Pat is the incoming chair. Yeah. So what is it? Thank you so much for, uh, you know, reinvesting into our community, $3.8 million taking the responsibility for, for that facility. I know, I know I've used it. I have family members. My grandchildren have gone. It's an amazing facility. I like what you've done with gallery 41. I know there's so many things that that was an amazing lease agreement. They've been so successful. So I just wanted to thank you for all the fine work that you're doing and then making the commitment to invest $3.8 million into this public facility.

Thank you. And part of the proposal was to assure the council that we intend to be very good stewards of that asset. It's beloved by many people, and we intend to make sure that it remains in top condition.

Yeah. The farmer's market, everything's amazing. Keep up the good work. Thank you. We're so glad. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for being here. We have a motion, and I'll second that. Do we have any public comment on item number 13? Okay, I'll close public comment. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. So it's 158. The council is going to go into executive session on items 24 through 26 for Texas government code sections 551.071, 551.072, and 551.074. Yes, councilman. Go ahead. On an e-session, item number 25, I'd like to table that, please. Do we have something on 25, Peter, today?

You do, yeah, the 25 is the evaluation.

Oh, 25, I'm sorry, I'm looking at 24. Oh, okay, okay, you're wanting to table.

Table, correct.

Peter's evaluation. Yes, ma'am. Okay, we have a motion and a second to table item number 25. And I want to state that the reason we're having Peter's evaluation is because it's actually past time again to have Peter's evaluation. So the city managers, and I don't know, you know, things get said and I don't know where it comes from, but his contract states May of every year the evaluation should happen. We reached out to HR to make certain because his evaluation last year was supposed to have been in May, but the new council members justifyingly said, can we wait? We'd like to have a budget season with the city manager before we evaluate him. So that's what took place. So we ended up evaluating him in November of last year, but we're trying to get back on track because he has a contract that the city council approved and we must abide. He of all people know you abide by contracts. And so that is why this evaluation was placed on the agenda because it is now July and we still have not evaluated. So at some point the evaluation has to abide by the contract. So if the majority of a council would like to table it, there's nothing I can do about it. But I wanted to make certain that we are doing our due diligence and trying to abide by his contract.

Mayor, with that being said, it's my understanding when I went over the contract that our city manager has to be in agreement with that. And my understanding is that he sent the mayor's office a memo saying he wasn't in agreement because we just did one six to seven months ago. So and I don't think majority of the council hasn't turned in their report. So that's the reason why I want to table it. And I don't think today is the right time to go over it. So we could come back in a couple of months and look at it. But I think right now we should table it. Thank you.

Well, again, we are trying to abide. And when the city manager did voice that he thought it might be too early and I came back and let him know we're abiding by the contract and that's what we were advised by HR, he agreed to it, sent in all of his information. But again, we'll get with HR. I am trying to abide by the contract. So we have a motion and a second to table it. So please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. Okay, so we will return. I already read the executive session part, and we will return. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We are going to reconvene our meeting. And without objection from the council, I'd like to move item number 21 up at this moment. And this is to accommodate really Congressman Michael Cloud who is on WebEx with us now. Congressman Cloud's direct role in advancing this particular funding opportunity Well, he was essential in that, and he would like to be a part of the discussion. Couldn't be here in person. He's in Washington, and so he'd like to be part of the discussion. So we're going to go to item 21, which is a motion to authorize staff to work with WSP for the execution of all documents necessary to apply for and accept the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation grant fund. for the construction of the Inner Harbor Seawater Desalination Treatment Plant as requested by Councilmember Scott, Roy, and Bonetta. Yes, Councilwoman. If I could.

I know that we do have the Congressman, but we do have item 20, which I don't think will take much. If we can take care of that real quickly before we, because I know 21 is going to.

Well, I wish he could, but he literally has like 10 minutes, and we're giving that professional courtesy. Very well, thank you. But I appreciate you asking. Councilman Scott?

Oh, are you going to go to the Congressman or do you want to introduce the item?

No, I just did.

I know. I didn't know if you wanted me to ask for background or if you were going to... Oh, no.

Well, whoever's introducing should come up and then do we have the Congressman on the WebEx? Rebecca. Okay, go ahead. I think if he's ready to... Hello?

Can everyone hear me?

We can hear you.

Okay, great. Well, thank you, Council, and thank you for the indulgence in working with our schedule up here. I do only have a few minutes because you may not have heard it, but the buzzers just went off, so I'll have to go vote here in just a short time. But I won't take long. I just wanted to give you all an update and have the opportunity to give the community update. We've been trying to get schedules to align for a couple months, so sorry this has taken so long. But really just wanted to update everyone on what we've been working on. As you all have been working together, on meeting the community's needs for water and trying to find solutions. We've been doing what we can up here to lay the groundwork for federal support for what the council would come up with and be willing to support. I know y'all are weighing a different application, or I should say application for a federal grant, and so wanted to just give an update to what we've been working on. We've been working on this for some time now. I'll first kind of lay the groundwork of what's been the normal status quo when it comes to water, especially around desal and the federal paradigm. And so historically speaking, federal desal dollars went to the Berkeley labs to be distributed across the United States through grant process. This is a process to which Texas has not generally won out on. As we began to look at what we could do from a, to support what you all are trying to accomplish here, we had to look at a couple of hurdles in our way. One was this paradigm to where federal dollars were not coming to Texas under the current paradigm, but there was also another hurdle in the way, and that is that there was a cap on a $30 million cap on water infrastructure projects related to desal. So that's not unsubstantial, but when it comes to the kind of projects that we're looking at, it wasn't going to be quite enough to do what we needed to get done. And so over the last couple of years, we worked to do a couple of things. One was through legislation and the last funding cycle that's already been signed into law. President Trump's already signed into law. We worked to create It started off as a desal center of excellence for the Gulf of America. It has turned into a water technologies center of excellence for the Gulf of America. And the idea here is that, you know, for thinking 20, 30 years down the road, we will be known as a region, not one struggling with drought, but we would be known as one that is the source to go to for best practices in the United States when it comes to water technology. So certainly part of that would be desal, that would also include water smart ag uses, recycling, all those different kinds of technologies and practices, best practices that we can bring to how we use water. And so the idea is that skating down the road a bit, kind of skating where the puck is going, we're looking to position our region as a leader on water for decades and generations to come. And so that's the big hope. So we basically created that new bucket, that Desal Center of Excellence in law already. This legislative cycle, we've worked to get the first funds into that. So those are research dollars that would be used in part at the Corpus Christi A&M campus. And that's, And so that would go to research as well. It's tens of millions, hundreds of millions for the research side of things. But the first dollars are often from a federal perspective, the hardest ones to get. So we would expect to see that to grow. That's already in the energy and water bill that's passed out of committee and is headed to the House floor for consideration. And then we would expect to see that move on through the process. um and so that's kind of what we've been working on to over the last couple years uh most recently as most of corpus christi knows the president was in town uh recently and made a commitment to the region to do what the federal government could to help and for his administration to do what they can to help out in in helping meet the need the water needs of the area and the region and so uh we've been working before that with the administration but certainly uh since then uh with our office uh this is a daily weekly conversation we're having with different uh administrations with different officials in the administration and They've been very supportive in us looking at where we're going. Most recently, on May 14th, as you know, the application, they released the funding opportunity that opens up a window for a grant application. What they did the same day was they removed that $30 million cap that we had talked about. That limited the amount of dollars that could be applied for in a grant. And so currently there's about $120 million bucket that's there that could go to applications that would that different communities can apply for. We are well positioned, I think, to be looked on favorably. We've had a number of conversations with the administration when it comes to how they would look and view an application if it did come. Notably, three days prior to that May 14th deadline, the application. for the Inner Harbor was they approved the eligibility of that project being eligible for these funds. And so that's the latest of what's been going on. And And, again, this would be an application process. It would have to meet approvals, but Corpus Christi is well positioned. We've had a number of conversations with the administration that it would be favorably looked upon and that there would probably be, hopefully, significant changes. funding to come along with that. Now what that can mean obviously is open to interpretation and they'll have to look at other applications as well. But I did want to take a moment and just let you know what we've been doing on our side to make sure that was part of the conversation to make sure the community knew sometimes this kind of nuts and bolts, the kind of the elbow grease of trying to get stuff done like this. flies under the radar of some of the headlines of what we've been trying to do we just want to know that we've been doing our best to partner uh with what you all are doing to bring federal resources to the table and uh And so I guess I'll yield back. I don't know your format. I apologize. But I think that's kind of the top line briefing. I don't know. We might have time for a couple of questions. I do have to go to votes here very shortly. I'm looking at the clock. But if there are a couple of top line questions that I... can answer and happy to do so. Or as you know, our phone's always open and we stay in good communication with all of y'all. And so thank you for working with us in our efforts to try to help you as well.

Congressman, thank you. I don't see any questions, but we appreciate your comments. We appreciate your time today. And of course, your efforts in everything that you've done regarding this particular grant. So thank you so much.

Thank you. God bless you all.

Thanks. Councilman Scott.

I was one of the three that signed this, and I don't do that. I think it's the second time I've done that. But I wondered if we could get Ryan to kind of walk us through where we came from, what this entity is, and what we've had to do to get to where we're at today. Is it possible? Because we passed an ordinance, I guess, in 23 or 24. It was pre-me. that set about attempting to get Bureau of Rec money?

Yeah, Mayor and Council, Ryan Skobarczyk, Director of Intergovernmental Relations. So I think generally the question was just the background on the Bureau of Reclamation.

Yeah, I don't think the public realizes we've been working on this for years.

So a couple of years ago, Council approved authorization to move forward with an application for this. And so that entailed becoming an eligible project. If you look at the Bureau of Reclamation's water smart desalination construction program, there are a list of eligible projects that have completed feasibility reports. And so that initial action by the council at that time was to authorize staff and the engineer of record to prepare the documents necessary and initiate that process. And so since that time, without repeating too much of what the congressman said, There was a $30 million per project cap from that program, and it was different from other programs, other grant programs that were approved under the same legislation. And so the city in pursuit of additional grant funding more than necessarily low interest loans. requested to have that removed and it had been a long running effort to try to get that taken off as we recognize the size and scope of diesel projects and so that was committed to actually under the previous administration but never taken into action by the agency and so with the current administration that was one of the first things that they've done with this nofo or notice of funding opportunity. And so when a grant program opens up and there are funds available, the administration publishes what's called a NOFO, and they issue that with information on how to apply and what the rules are. So this was the first time, that I'm aware of at least, that they had removed that $30 million cap, which is significant. This is also one of the last years that, or is the last year, that the program will have access to the funding that was appropriate under the bipartisan infrastructure law, which was a five-year really substantial infrastructure package that was passed with, I think, north of a trillion dollars of infrastructure investment across all sectors. This will be the final year of that. And so the funding that is available now, the $120 million, represents a larger amount than it is actually appropriated by Congress to this program. And so that's how you got, you are seeing the publication of a larger amount than might otherwise be.

Then what do you have to do to qualify for the grant?

Well, first and foremost, complete a feasibility study to be eligible. And, you know, I think that process for us took about two years, going through all of the agency approvals. And so other than that, there's a short list of approvals that are there that were in the memo that was published. The project has to be owned and operated by an eligible entity or sponsored by one. And there's a definition in the memo that was distributed actually to council on Friday of what that sponsorship means, but significantly contributing to the capital costs there. I think really other than that, those are the primary.

Okay. But it took you two years. I didn't realize it took you two years to do the feasibility study. And that was recognized as completed?

The city received a letter from the Bureau of Reclamation prior to the publication of this notice of available funding. So, yes, May 18th was the date of the letter.

And then what's the deadline to apply for the? This round would be August 26th. Okay. Well, I appreciate your time. I just wanted to give the history because I actually didn't realize we had voted on something two years ago. Oh, I do have one other question. So we appropriated funds back then to do all this work, and I assume it cost money to complete the grant. I'm guessing it's not a two-page grant application. You know, it's $120 million. It ain't, you know...

That's correct. Nick Winkleman, Chief Operating Officer, Corpus Christi Water. Yes, it's a robust application. It's going to require quite a bit of information regarding this specific project. We do have, in terms of putting it together, we do have a contract with WSP. and they were retained to help us through the contract negotiations with the Corpus Christi desale partners. Part of their original scope was to help with any potential grant or funding opportunities, so they can work with us under that already approved scope. to move forward to get the application submitted in the timeframe, which, like you said, Councilman, is August 26th.

In my sense, I don't know where I heard it from, you need 45 to 60 days to complete the grant application? I mean, it's not something we could do, you know, the night before the final exam.

No, it's going to take all the time we have to get it together and submit it in time.

And, Peter, you need more than just let's go get this grant. At some point you need some affirmative action by the city council that says we support the project, but that doesn't have to happen today. Um, it doesn't have to happen today, but the, but the need it before the grant deadline though, right?

Right. The grant application needs to have a resolution or an ordinance from this council that says we, we, that we approve the project essentially. It has to be an approved project. There could be a budget item, which there isn't. So it's a two-part question for the council today. Sure.

I call it the Texas Tuesday.

We could apply all day, and this is an important part for the council. It's up to the council here today. Without a council-endorsed resolution, then the application will be incomplete.

Okay, but you don't have to have that today for those of us that want to spend more time reviewing the environmental impacts of the project or letting Spiros provide their information or whoever is supposed to check their homework or the PhDs that want to check Spiros' and the other entities' homework, right?

Right, unless Nick has any more information, we're assuming he could turn it in the 26th.

That's that's right that's the 26 and the and the city managers correct there is part of the application is they're calling it a budget narrative and that narrative requires support from the governing or the the governing body so that the bureau knows that the project is supported and can move forward. Otherwise, our application wouldn't be complete.

That makes sense. But can you use those funds for design or engineering? Does it have to go to construction? Could you reimburse yourself for your engineering costs?

That's correct. We could. I mean, it would go to the total cost of the project, which isn't limited to construction.

Okay. My point is if you spent, I forget the number, $78 million and you got to 60%, you decided that's not what you want, but you at least have a design at 60%, and you got the grant, you could reimburse yourself, or are you committed to construction if you get the grant?

I think to clarify, the grant is they're going to want to see that project through to commission. I don't blame them.

And I think you heard from the congressman, the administration's watching, the congressman's watching. Thanks, Nick. Councilmembers, I was one that voted to table action on hiring Ardura. I was unaware. and maybe I should have been aware, but I was unaware that that date passed the deadline, and I just missed it. I did not know that. So I am one that signed this three-member memo that asked us to get this thing going. I do recognize others have more questions than I do about the environmental impact. I would vote for hiring Ardura today. I'd hire him next week. I'd vote the week after. But I wanted to be sensitive, and I am sensitive to other council members that want to do more homework or hear others' input. But I don't want to miss the opportunity for a $120 million grant. I think the responsible thing, the logical thing, the financially prudent thing is to direct you all to work towards that grant while we continue to do our homework on the environmental impacts. And I'm hopeful that at the end of that work, We recognize that the project would not have a negative environmental impact to the bays and estuaries, and that it is a drought-proof water supply, and we go forward. So, Mayor, I appreciate you guys' background. If anybody else, that's why I signed this to bring it back, and I hope that we approve the agenda item today, directing staff to go spend the money and time and energy to get the grant.

Thank you. Councilman Kintu.

Um, question. So how much is this going to cost us to get somebody to do this grant?

So this is just an estimate, but of course you're going to have a staff time, significant staff time to do that. And then in terms of professional services, I would estimate 50 or $60,000 councilman at the just 60.

Okay. How many people do you think it's going to apply for this grant?

You know, I don't know if I can... I can't answer that question. I do know our project was...

I answered it. I found out it was probably, like, 500 different cities supposedly is going to be trying to apply for this grant, supposedly. I don't know how true that is.

Well, I do know our project is deemed feasible, so we achieved that first.

And so the thing that I... disturbs me is everybody in here is saying we're going to give, we're going to go apply for $120 million, everybody. $120 million. The news is saying it. Everybody on social media is saying it's $120 million that we're applying for. And if these five council members say no to it, what a shame. Well, newsflash, okay, yeah, it's $120 million, but it's going to be 10 different people that get part of that money. So if you divide 10 out of 120 million, if they do it evenly, $12 million per person for 10. I mean, that's a lot of money, but that's still a drop in the bucket of $1.2 billion. I mean, that's just realistically. But that's the thing is that the people who want this project done so badly for industry, not for the people, but for the, for, for the people across, across from us, you know, they're going to make it look like we're the bad people trying to stop it and kick the can down the road. All we're trying to do is protect the people. You know, um, there was a, there was a, um, show this morning I heard, and, um, there's not much people on the other side. It's all the inner Harbor people. And, um, Councilman Baeta made a comment that, you know, the majority of this council is stupid. And it just blows my mind. I mean, I guess you're the smartest guy in the room, you know. You're the smartest guy in the room. But I don't think we're stupid. I think we're trying to protect the ratepayers and the taxpayers. And, you know, we're not sellouts, you know. I didn't sell myself out. to the refineries. I sold myself to the people. And I'm going to keep on doing it for the people, not for industry. You know, I support them. I always have. But at the same time, why do we have to pay for it, you know? Why do we have to pay for it? It just makes no sense, you know? And it's just not right. You know, I'm all about getting money and looking for money and trying to get our price tag down and stuff, but we don't even have a project. You know, I think this council voted it down last year, came back again. You know, we're in the same spot, you know, and it's disappointing that the headlines and the Social media, $120 million, $120 million. That's not the case. We don't even know how much we're going to get. We might get $50 million, okay? But nine other people are going to get money if we even get choosing. It's just... Do you know if... Can we still apply for this grant if there's no project that's been approved?

Well, what we do know is the Bureau has already approved the feasibility analysis, so they've approved the project, the concept, and the project in total, and they've said that we're eligible to apply. And then I did ask Ryan, so there's 14 eligible participants across the country for this grant. How many? Fourteen.

We need an approved project, right, Nick?

That's correct. Part of the application is they want to make sure that we're committed to moving forward and there's a strong approval and a path for financial funding to move forward.

Yeah. Okay. I'll come back with some other questions. Thank you.

Councilwoman Campos. Thank you, Mayor. Okay, well, I guess... Part of my questions were answered. The feasibility study, so none of the projected projects that we have online are even possible. So like Evangeline, since it's not, you know, we're not settled, you have the Barney Davis, we have Harbor Island and all that. But because no feasibility studies have been done, those projects would not be eligible. Is that correct?

Correct, Councilwoman. So the process started years ago with the the feasibility study and the submitting that.

So you're telling us that basically we, again, we put all our eggs in one basket on this one project, the Inner Harbor, that we knew was in the wrong place and just not environmentally not environmentally safe for me. And of course to displace even more people in the Hillcrest neighborhood. So again, looking at 120 million divided by 14 applicants I'm just thinking back, you know, when we voted it down back in September, we wouldn't even be having this discussion had we just stayed on that course, Inner Harbor, still not a good project, still the wrong place. So no, I will not be supporting this.

Councilwoman Vaughn.

Okay, I have some concerns. First off, I agree with you, Councilman Cantu. When you post stuff on Facebook and then you go to the news, because unfortunately the news sometimes does these great big headlines to get your attention. $120 million in grant. Yeah, that's a $120 million grant. But the mayor gets on Facebook and she does this, and if we don't do it, we're going to turn down a $120 million grant. No one's going to get $120 million. There's $120 million to go around. They're going to pick $10 million. groups to get it and they probably have good projects just like we do because everybody in the state of Texas has got water problems. So to me that's manipulating the public and the citizens and the city council to trying to say I'm going to turn that knife and you're going to support it regardless because we all know this project for this grant is only and the news needs to report it. It is only for Inner Harbor. It is for no other project. A project that has not even been approved. So here we are putting the cart before the horse again. If we had done the far-field study way back when, we wouldn't be doing it right now, a legitimate far-field study. I have some questions though. On page two, it says the cost-sharing requirements. What is that, Nick?

So we are, anybody who receives a grant, they are required to at least commit 25% of that grant amount in its own funding.

25%. 25%.

So if it was a $100 million grant, we would have to make sure we commit $25 million to the same project. Okay.

And odds of us getting $120 million. We own up. Let's just say this. We are not getting $120 million. We're not. We need to quit saying that. Hopefully you might get 12 if they divide it evenly. Is that the correct math? I think it is. So we're not getting that. We need to quit saying it so the public does not believe that garbage. But we do have to commit something is what I'm asking.

That's correct, and we could use the SWIFT loan funds to do that.

To do that. Okay. So, build America, what is it, build America, buy America.

Buy American.

So I saw that in there. So that means our cost is going to go up if we have to buy American products. We know that right now, especially in this atmosphere and years down the road, it costs more for American products for pipe products. So that's going to make the cost go up. It may just eat this little grant in the long run. I don't know. Number 11, page 11. Okay, and it talks about permitting challenges, approvals, unresolved issues that have emerged since the completion of the feasibility study. One of the unresolved issues is the Farfield study. We don't have anything on that yet. So here we are, jumping the gun again. We're waiting on the scientists to tell us, is it safe for the harbor, for the inner harbor? That's another thing. So that's a concern. Number 17, we don't even have page 17. My time is going to run out. Talking about the points. Let's see. Okay, what percentage of the current annual demand for the services does the desal supply? How is the estimate calculated? Talks about proposal containing supported description and quantifications of projects benefits. They get more points. Here's what my concern is. We don't even know how much, I didn't read one of the sentences, how much it's going to cost the taxpayers for water. We don't really know what we're going to be paying for the water. We've got a lot of unanswered questions to answer. apply for the grant, sounds to me like we're going to have to answer those questions. And it would be nice for the council to know before you even do that.

So we have submitted cost projections for each of our projects, and we also know in July we'll be presenting the rate structure to council, so that information would be utilized to fulfill these projections.

Okay. Page 18, it talks about the environmental impact. I'll go back to the Farfield study again. So there's some real unanswered questions here. I'll come back with some other stuff, but I'm concerned about that, and I'm also concerned about spending $200,000 for a project that has not been approved. It's not been approved, and we all know it hasn't been approved. The vote has not been taken again. Thanks. Councilman Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor. Councilman Cantu kind of touched on this, right? It's the whole amount that the Bureau of Reclamations has is $120 million, or is it $120 million per award? Because it says the floor is $1,000 for a grant. So the way I read it, it's a total of $120 million to be distributed among 10 awards. Is that correct?

So I couldn't comment on the number of awards. I don't even think the Bureau knows that yet until they go through the process, and we don't know how they would distribute the... Distribute the funds.

Okay. It was in the memo you sent to us yesterday But page 2 it says assist listing number and that gives you a number estimated total program funding 120 million correct expected number of awards 10 award ceiling 120 million award floor 1000

Right, and I understand that. Let me just try and clarify my statement a little bit, Councilman. We don't know, so say there are 10 applications submitted. We don't know yet if all 10 will be complete. We don't know if all 10 will make it through the process. That's all I'm saying is I don't want to assume.

But the expectation may be more than 10 apply for it. Because, I mean, this is a problem we had with the last of the 30.

I just don't know. That's all I'm saying.

Because, I mean, it was an up-to amount. There was no guarantee you were going to get the full $120 million or back then $30 million. I remember I had this exact same question when we were talking about it several years ago.

It's part of the grant process. Yeah, you don't know until the award declarations are provided.

Okay, and it says that there's two submissions timeframes for 2026 and 2027, both on August 26th of each year. So there is an element of a second submission that you could do in 2027.

So what we know, and I do want to refer to, so we do have... We have a professional services provider that's helping us with our grants, and they put together a memo regarding this grant. It's called the Color 9 Group. And what they've stated is, and Ryan hit on this earlier, that it's $120 million. That's what's in the grant funding for this cycle. Next year, unless there's other measures taken by the federal government, it's likely that the available monies would be about $10 million, $10.5 million.

So it had been $30 million ever since I've been on council. So, I mean, you're expecting it to not be there next year?

I'm just relaying the information put put together by our consultant, and that memo was included in the packet. Ryan, clarify, though.

Well, yeah, I just want to, so for clarity's sake, the $30 million you're talking about, Councilman, is a cap per project. The $30 million isn't the amount of money that's available in the notice of funding availability. So what Nick is talking about and what was in the memo that you all received on Friday was the amount of, or on Monday, was the amount of money that might be congressionally appropriated in a given year. That's why there's 120 now and may not be in the next window of this grant period because the bipartisan infrastructure law funding that is commingled with this won't be available. So it could be the 30 million, again, was a cap. It was not an amount of money that's sitting there available to apply for. So all that could be appropriated unless Congress deviates and takes some other kind of action which we don't have anything in writing at this point, as was detailed in the memo sent to you all, will be less than the $30 million.

Okay. Lastly, it says that the requirement for the accepting entity is to build, own, and operate. Considering we're not looking to operate it ourselves, would that still be eligible?

I think that's something we'd have to work through with the Bureau, Councilman.

Okay, so there's a lot of questions here that, I mean, a lot of speculation on these things, and we don't even have an approved project yet. And I understand that Councilman Scott tried to address this, or should I say run interference on it on the front side, but this is, like I said, a classic case of cart before the horse kind of thing. And, you know, there are other options. So I think this is not the appropriate time to vote on this, and I will not be supporting it.

Councilman, I can answer your question as far as us not operating and maintaining it. So that's one option to qualify, or the project must be sponsored by the eligible applicant. And to sponsor a project, the eligible applicant must contribute funding or a substantial portion of the capital construction cost. of the project. So you just, there's two qualifiers there. So either you own and operate it or substantially commit capital to it.

So if we do something like a build, own, operate, transfer type thing where we invest a certain amount of money or a portion of the construction cost, we would still be eligible?

As long as we own it, I believe. If we own it and then contribute it.

Well, when you say build, own, operate, transfer, you ultimately own it at some point. It just may not be at the exact, at the beginning of the project.

Mr. Yeah, we'd have to clarify that as far as the timing of ownership. Mr. Okay. Mr. But as far as investing substantial capital, that would qualify. Mr. Okay, thank you. Mr. And so, when you invest substantial capital, it's also ownership, right? Our own capital.

Mr. Substantial capital, that might be. Mr. Right. Mr. You know, it says it's your, it can't be any more than 25 percent of the total project. I don't think we'll get that from just the total cost, but it's not, I mean, I'm understanding what's substantial, more than 50%?

I would imagine so. We can get some clarification on that, though. Thank you.

Councilwoman Paxson. Thank you.

So... I was actually on a call earlier today with Congressman Cloud asking some questions about this, and he had indicated at that time there, much like the other council members are saying here, there's not a guarantee that this means it's a $120 million grant. So similar to what Councilwoman Vaughn said, we need to get away from that discussion. Even if this Even if we applied, there's no guarantee that this is a $120 million grant. Going through this packet, I have an entire series of concerns about what would even be submitted. When we went through the conservation plan, on a call with our water department team, there was all types of numbers and percentages and goals and hypothetical scenarios that we were willing to put into print that were not finalized. The city is engaging a consultant to try to tell us what is our firm demand, what is our expected firm demand in the future, what is our expected firm need in the future, We don't have any of that information, and this is asking for a lot of that. And based on the preliminary information that I've seen printed in documents that were just assumptions and estimates, we're not even prepared to apply for this. I don't see how that could, how are we going to say yes to applying for something that we don't have firm information for? One is that percentage. It's asking what percentage of your overall demand is this going to be able to secure or supply for? No one can even tell me today what is our firm demand.

We know what our demand is. We showed on the supply dashboard, right? So we would utilize those numbers. They would be current numbers, correct?

Mr. Winkleman, I've asked for months and I've been told that we have to engage a consultant to be able to get what is our firm demand. We don't know who's coming offline. We don't know what the new actuals are. Every time I ask that question, it goes around like this.

We know exactly what actuals are and they're posted on our website. What we're referring to is the current demand Now, we do want to engage and we are engaging consultants for future demands. That's correct.

Well, I disagree here because I've asked this question a lot of times. And if you go through and look at what is our actuals and what is our forecasted, they're not the same. Also, our firm yield. We haven't come to that decision either. We don't even know. I mean, there's numbers that's thrown around all the time. What is the amount of water that we need to search for? We don't have that information either. As far as what is the cost of the project, what is the cost for operations of the project, we're not even at 60% design. What are we going to do? We're going to put preliminary information in here.

We're gonna put the information that we have together. That's how we would apply for the grant. And you're right, you don't know what kind of grant amount you may or may not be awarded that's part of the process. And that's the same thing we go through with every grant we apply for. So you're right there, Councilman, yes.

I understand, and Nick, please understand, I am not positioning any of this as directed specifically at you. I'm speaking to the situation, so please understand that. I have a lot of respect for you, and I appreciate all of your hard work. I want to say that. But just going through these different pages, particularly starting 17, 18, 19... We don't have firm information on those things. And for us, if we were going to be approving a grant, I would want to know the firm information on the project before I agreed to approve funding towards it. So it makes me uncomfortable to ask our federal partners this. All of that aside, It was asked weeks ago that when this item was tabled to September 2nd, it was said at that time that there could be some budgetary decisions that need to be made between now and September 2nd. Mr. Zanoni said that at that meeting. We knew one of them was this grant. And at that time, and I haven't changed my position, is we do not have an approved council project to apply this to. So at the end of the day, I don't support moving forward on this because we don't have a project that I support to apply this for. There's other projects out there that I firmly believe should have all of the focused energy of support so that this region has a strong future. But like I said then, and I appreciate this, this came about in a three signature memo, so I know where it didn't come from. But at the time, We don't have a project. It is not approved. So I would be speaking out of two sides of my mouth here to say, go apply for this, but also don't move forward on this. So again, Nick, not directed at you, sincerely, but thank you.

Councilman Bonetta.

Thank you, Mayor. Where did $200,000 come from? Do you have an idea? I do not. What do you think it will cost in it?

I think it's $50,000 to $60,000. That's what we're estimating. And like I said, councilman's staff time. So $50,000 to $60,000.

So when did we contract, when did the council approve contracting with Kiewit? Yeah. Yeah, 2024. Okay, so when we engaged a professional service contract in October of 23, we voted at that time to do the feasibility study to apply for what we thought was $30 million, and the amount that we spent was $220,517. And we directed staff. And I want to say for the record, the people that supported that, Paulette Guajardo, Roland Barrera, Michael Hunter, Mike Pusley, Dan Suckley, and Everett Roy. Those opposed, Gil Hernandez, Jim Klein, and Seve Campos. So that council, those six individuals, supported a $220,000 feasibility study for a $30 million grant with the Bureau of Reclamation. So I just want to say that, I mean, we know where this is going. I mean, I always knew where it was going. I mean, you know, I didn't say exactly what I was accused of, but I alluded to that, and it's just because I knew where it was going. And then where this money is coming from, where? The $50,000.

We'd be using the drought surcharge exemption fee funds for that.

So industry is paying for it. They are the ones who contribute, yes. So, and then they're the ones that also paid for the $220,000 from what I'm reading here. Would it come from the same fund, correct? Okay, now, is there any requirement? There was no requirement by the EPA, by the Army Corps of Engineers, or TCEQ, or the Department of the Interior to complete a far-field study. Am I correct in saying so? There's no requirement. You're correct. And from what I understand, the purpose of the far-field study is for compliance of the TCEQ grant, because it's going to have to continue to be ongoing. Yes? No? No, but we have to be able to determine what... I mean, they're still going to have to be testing on a regular basis.

We have to continue to monitor the environment when the plant is operating. So there's no requirement for this grant to do a far-field study? No, we met the environmental requirements by obtaining the TCQ permits and the Army Corps permits.

Okay, so is there anything in addition to the $220,000 that we've spent so far to move towards acquiring this Bureau of Reclamation grant? Any other funds other than staff time?

Well, you know, the work that Keywood has done previously, right, all of that previous work, all of the work done by previous consultants, everything would be utilized to submit this application.

Yeah, but that's already part of money that's already spent. Not necessarily appropriate, correct? That's correct. Okay, how much time do I have left? Oh, good. Okay, so... So once again, this is just for an application of which we're going to spend $50,000, which would typically be, but it requires us to be able to approve it to decide we're going to move forward. When, you know, those DAG grants, I'm just curious, does somebody help us write those? Don't be smiling.

In the past, we have had a consultant help write them. And here recently, the grant staff and IGR have written them. Okay, but how much do we typically spend on that? I'd have to go back and look. I think somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 million.

Okay, so it's not significant to that.

But those grants are smaller. They're capped at $5 million.

They're capped at $5 million. So once again, we've been successful with... Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, Texas Water Development Board, and in each case, the Texas Water Development Board funding was highly competitive, of which we've qualified twice. That's correct. So here we have a situation. I doubt seriously that the Bureau of Reclamation, number one, to be able to, it would have made no sense to raise the cap from 30 million to 120 million just to be able to divide it by 10 or 12 or whatever the easy math is to say, hey, then there would have been no need to raise the cap. And this is something our congressman has been working on that was monumental in my opinion. to be able to get us to this point. So it's not going to be, it's kind of naive to assume that it's going to be divided simply by the number of applicants. The other thing is, how did we come to, what is our relationship with WSP and why is it that we're using them with this process?

So WSP has a lot of seawater desalination experience, and they helped us put together what's called the design criteria package for the overall Inner Harbor site. So they're very familiar with the project from the beginning. That was a key document, and that document will be utilized in this application as well.

Okay, and I want to add, you know, there was this thing that we put ourselves in this corner where we're just, This is the only thing. This is the only project that qualifies. That's the situation. Because we've looked at several. I mean, the harshest one, $2.7 million with no permits, no rate model, no funding, very, very little engineering, no customers. They're already on their second round of requesting additional dollars because I would just assume, I can only speculate that they're already out of money. And no timeline. $2.7 million on a promise to reserve something that has no deliverables at this time other than a promise. How much have we expended so far on Evangeline? Evangeline is $46 million. So we've expended $46 million on a project with no permits. And that is currently in, not necessarily litigation. So I'll continue my comments later. Thank you very much. Thank you, staff. Appreciate all the hard work.

Councilman Hernandez.

Mr. Winkleman, does Evangeline have production permits?

Evangeline has the production permits for approximately 24 million gallons a day for that site. Okay, thank you.

I just wanted to clarify that. When we first started this process, Drew Molley and Mr. Esteban Ramos had mentioned there was $180 million available in grants, but since that time there's been no mention of that 180 million dollars when i went and looked at it from the bureau of reclamation it was only a 30 million i brought that up to us but so there was a ghost amount of 150 million where is that 150 million let me harken back to the history there uh the 180 million dollar is a statutory reference to the programs that created the water smart programs so again it's not money that is available in the program

That was an estimated cap for that. The city's position has been that the removal of the $30 million cap in order to make more grant funding available. And so as was the case at that time and was up until the agency took action to remove it, that's where the $30 million cap was. Neither cap reflects the amount of money that is available in the program. Does that make sense? The program money that is available is issued in periodic releases of the notice of funding opportunities.

So let me get this understanding. This was a theoretical amount of money that was out there but not necessarily appropriated for us to be able to get.

So it was not a theoretical amount of money. It wasn't available probably at the time you were looking at the publication. But there was $250 million appropriated through the bipartisan infrastructure law for desal construction in addition to the amounts that Congress was appropriating every year. So in theory, could the agency have at any one of the intervening years made $180 million available? Yes. In theory. Well, they didn't.

You just said in theory.

Well, yeah, because in practice they could have, but they didn't. So the $250 million that was available could have been released at any one period of time, or the account could have been plussed up through congressional action.

Okay. Sorry, but that's clear as mud.

Well, I'm trying my best to explain it to you. Okay, so...

You know, the biggest problem I have with this particular grant is it has a lot of strings attached to it. You know, there's reporting requirements, there's a certain amount of things that you have to do, certain purchasing requirements you have to make, certain federal procurement requirements that are associated with it. It all comes, you know, anything federal comes with a lot of things. We struggle with the federal block grants on a regular basis because of the reporting requirements and ONLY CERTAIN ORGANIZATIONS CAN DO IT. IT'S A REFERENCE TO SOMETHING ELSE. AGAIN, YOU KNOW, I HARKEN BACK TO THIS IS THE WRONG WAY TO DO IT BECAUSE ANY TIME WE BUILD SOMETHING, IT COSTS US A LOT MORE MONEY TO BUILD SOMETHING BECAUSE OF OUR PROCUREMENT PROCESS AND IT GETS WORSE THE FURTHER IT GOES UP THE CHAIN. YOU KNOW, I CAN GO BACK TO A SPECIFIC 5,000 SQUARE FOOT BUILDING THAT WE PAID $3 MILLION FOR. And I can only imagine how that reflects when you have a project that's a billion dollars and how much we're overpaying for it. I think we should still go back and look at a public-private partnership similar to what we're looking at for Barney Davis as a way to save money so we can avoid the hoops and the unnecessary expenses that we charge ourselves as a government entity. And like I said, once you add the federal requirements, it gets worse and your cost goes up significantly. Again, I still think we have other options to do things in other places with better procurement processes. Thank you.

Councilman Campos.

Thank you, Mayor. Okay, I just wanted to make sure that I heard right that, let's say this were to pass. Again, it would require, I think, Peter, you said, all the staff's time on this one project that has not been approved yet. Is that what I heard you all say?

Nick was saying it would take staff time plus the consultant time to fill out the application.

Okay, so what would happen to our other projects that we're working on? I mean, like...

Yes, there would be some, you know, we'd be able to work on everything, so...

I think we've proven that we can move projects forward in extraordinary circumstances.

Have you? Like what? What have you moved forward?

Oh, the wastewater reuse project, Oasis County Groundwater Project. I can't talk highly enough of staff and all of the extra hours that they are doing in managing this situation.

No, I give my applause, kudos, to the staff. Believe me, I really do appreciate all the hard work that they're doing. I mean, I've visited the groundwater wells where they've been working, you know... feverishly to get us that water. But what I'm trying to state is that we have several projects, I think, viable projects on the line, and I think putting all our eggs in one basket on this one project that still has not been approved is, for me, wasteful. I mean, just wasteful. So I just wanted to make sure that I did hear what I heard, which is it's gonna require most of y'all's time, and again, hiring another consultant And I think I heard 50 to 60, maybe, thousand?

What I stated was 50 to 60,000, yes. Okay.

Councilwoman Paxson. Thank you.

Peter, you had sent out a note, I think it was yesterday, about the progress. I guess we received the final study from Spheros.

Yes, ma'am, on the Farfield study.

Thank you.

So we received the draft report.

We received the draft report, okay. I had spoken to you previously that the bays and estuaries perhaps were interested in helping. My question ultimately is when we looked at the presentation from Spheros, the marine biologist team said the next steps is a peer review. Right. and then they would be able to analyze the whole study and do a true impact study on the marine life. Are we pursuing that next, the peer review? Can you talk a little bit about what the next steps are?

I can, yeah. So the draft far-field study by Sparrows Environmental has been submitted to Nick and us. The next step is in the process that we laid out initially is that Plummer and Associates, who was hired as well, is now going to do kind of a technical review, not so much on the merits of the reporting study, but technically is it sound? Are there any major gaps in the report? So that's going to take about 30 days for Plummer to do that. By the end of July, by July 31st, then Spheros will issue the final report And then it'll be available for consumption by whoever wants it. Right. So that'll be July 31 after a technical. This week, we're going to try to meet with the two doctors, the two scientists, doctors from Dr.

Wet, Dr. Wets and Dr. Herska.

Dr. Herska. We're going to try to meet with them this week so we can give them all the files that Spheros has turned over to the city. That conversation that you mentioned, we do need to talk to the bays and estuaries because they were on the committee as well, and we think they'd be another good entity to review the findings from Spheros to draw their own conclusions and report back to the community. So those are the three groups. You have the Hart Institute, the bays and estuaries, and the UT Marine Institute, who will take the data that we give them now, and then they'll also get the report on July 31st. And then that's why they here said it would take about 60 days to render their opinion on impacts to aquatic life.

I think when we were talking about the date to which we were tabling the item, the 60 days was presuming that the marine biologists would have that information for 60 days. So we have another 30-day lapse here.

Yeah. Well, so we're going to we're going to provide them the data sets like the files this week or early next week. It's it's so much information we have to put it on like a hard drive or something. But we want to meet with them in person. So we don't. So there's nothing lost in translation. So Nick is setting that up. Right. But so that this clock doesn't start right now. Starts, you know, this week, next week. It could start in the end of July. They might want the actual report as well. Yeah.

I think that's what they needed.

Their request was the model itself, all the data. They really wanted to go in depth over the data and how the model was developed. So we're trying to get that in their hands as soon as possible so they can hit that 60-day timeframe.

Okay. Something that was very important to them, and that's why I keep kind of stressing to it, is to pass this through a peer review. And it sounds like we're initiating a technical review, but where's the commitment to a peer review?

So that is one that we verbally have stated. You and I have talked about it. And so we have to Nick and I have to engage the basin estuaries. The director was involved in our on a community panel. She was on the panel and talked to her about like a peer review, another independent review and assessment. This plumber review is just really a highly technical review. Right. Just to see, is there anything wrong in the written report? not so much the data, they're not gonna take the data set and run it through their own models like the doctors will. So that will just give it a check to say, okay, now Spheros can release it. And then I would say the clock could start around that time for these reviews that people wanna do.

Okay, all right. And I agree to Councilwoman Campos' point. It's another issue to me with moving forward here on item 21. with all the staff time and commitment that we would have to put into this when we've got all these other things, like there's a dozen questions. I mean, we've been talking about the amount of time that it would take to put together which of our customers are moving in, you know, adding wells to their plans or moving off systems or who's collaborating to purchase water here, there, or the other. What our experience, and this is no slight to the department because I know that they're incredibly busy right now is that they're already incredibly busy and I would hate to ask them to do something that would waste their effort if that makes sense.

Right. Yeah.

Um, so that's, that's a big thing in, um, in this consideration as far as applying this year, if that makes sense.

It does. I mean, there's a lot of different things that we're working on at the direction of the council.

Yes.

I just mentioned a few early, we have to do contracts for the large volume users. We have to do modeling. In July, we're going to be working with the council on the budget for water, wastewater. We have two workshops just on that. We're still developing groundwater in our effluent reuse project. There's still a lot of work to be done there. So those are just a few.

And applying for a grant that's tens of thousands, maybe a couple hundred thousand. This is $120 million. This is a big thing to apply for. That's a lot of time. And I recognize that. And I don't like putting staff in a position to where they feel they're being asked to follow an initiative and then it's just stopped.

That's why it would be good to have council as a two-step process. It'd be good to have an approved project to attach this to the grant application.

There's so many other projects that I think we really need to all get behind. And there was a comment made earlier that we wasted $2.7 million towards a project that had nothing. Well, that project has completed a lot. And that project, I think, is very viable for this type of support. And that's the Harbor Island Marine Desal Project. And I still think that one needs to be at the forefront of a lot of discussions. It provides a lot of water. It's very viable. That's what I think we should be supporting.

Thank you. Councilman Roy.

Thank you. Before I get into this, I had one question because we've talked about this marine biology part. And correct me, and Mark, I know we talked about this the other day, but did we do, did Pape Dawson, is that the right company that did a marine biology? Did they do a study in the past? So Freeze and Nichols. Freeze and Nichols.

Freeze and Nichols did a study, and I think we handed it out at the last council meeting.

We did, and there was a study done in 2020, and then there was another study done for the Army Corps of Engineers in 2024.

Okay. You know, when I take a look at this, I haven't been on any radio shows. I haven't called anybody stupid. I basically, I look at what the city needs in terms of water across the board. But one of the things I do know right now is this council has selective representation. In other words, I mean, if you stand back, and I try to look at this really non-bias and just look at the facts, if you can talk about facts. But when you look at the fact that we maybe, I don't know how long the briefing was. I mean, we had several short briefings, basically, from the river community. as far as the Harbor Island project went. And we did, we coughed up $2.7 million based on a couple, not really in-depth presentations, but enough to get the idea in terms of what they're gonna do. But I also understand that that project had limited risk in terms of on our behalf, because basically for that 2.7 million, we put up money and they assumed all the risk, right? So I accept when it comes down to what they were going to charge and what the rate payer, because anytime that that's the risk, because all of a sudden, if the cost is really high and they built this thing and they tell us, Oh, well now it's $22, you know, per 1000 or whatever, then there's a risk there. But when you also take a look at the fact that we sat there and we had maybe one presentation on the, the, uh, uh, the, the ax group that, uh, admitted that they've never done this type of project before. I mean, they've built space blankets or other things that they've done, and they're very accomplished in their own right as military leaders, and I give them credit for that. But we really had little information and all of a sudden there's a lot of support on that. Barney Davis is another example. When you take a look at Barney Davis, we really don't have any formal outline in terms of how they would achieve what they're looking for. Am I right? what we're looking for. There's no plans, right? There's nothing that we can sit there, open up, and put our hands on. This is what the Barney Davis project is. There's basically speculation that Barney Davis will let us use the land. They're not going to let us have favoritism on certain things because they can't. Right? And correct me if I'm saying this wrong. You're correct. And so we went down that road and we're like, okay, this is the greatest thing in the world. Right? Again, it goes back to this representation in terms of what people want to get behind. Then we look at CC polymers. Okay? So first of all, the history. And I've been working with CC polymers as long as Gil has and trying to bring this desal that they had to fruition. And we went several times. They've had change in ownership. and we went several times basically to them and were rejected. Now all of a sudden they wanted to come back and sell us water and they're still working on that, right?

They've got a group. Correct. So Aqua Tech is their representative and we are negotiating with Aqua Tech and moving forward on a letter of intent.

But even then, when you talk about the fact, are they going to, is that water going to be something that's going to be used for industry only or is it going to be something that's potable, right? They have to decide on that. Is that correct?

The plan, the discussions have involved making it potable water. Right. And

But that's a change from what they have now because it would require them to have a different permit.

Well, it certainly requires infrastructure improvements. The permit, there would be a modification to the permit. Right. Modification.

Now, on top of that, then we have to look at the fact that... There was another project that I had. But anyway, we've looked at all these different projects. Oh, I want to talk about Evangeline. When we sat here and the gentleman that's like the world's most foremost expert in water stood up and said, oh, this is an easy deal. This is a slam dunk. We're going to be able to get permits really quick. We're going to be able to get this really quick. We're going to get the Remember, one of the issues was, can we get all the title representation from all the many owners? But it was supposed to be a slam dunk, and we've had multiple hurdles, would you say, and I'm just summarizing it, on this project. Right?

I would agree to that.

And there's been a lot of roadblocks, so we don't necessarily have a clear path to that. On top of that, now you want to take a look at groundwater. And the interesting thing about groundwater and being able to protect the community and the ranches and everything else, we've had our share of issues there, correct?

Groundwater has to be managed responsibly and proactively.

And we said that it's going to be intermittent. It's not going to be something that's going to be permanent.

That's correct.

I want to stop there because I get another chance to speak, so I'll let anybody else speak, and then I want to come back and speak one more time so I can finish what I'm saying.

Councilman Scott.

Thanks, Mayor. I'll be quick. I kind of think maybe I'm ambivalent about this, but Buy America is not a bad thing. especially if it came from a grant from the federal government that helped us buy American products, it's probably okay. Look, I get it. If council members do not support Inner Harbor today and will not support Inner Harbor tomorrow, totally get it. I don't agree with that, but I respect that position. I'm okay with Inner Harbor. I'm okay with reading the 2020 report and the 2024 report and the Friesen-Nichols report. And then from what I heard on the Farfield model, both the GHD modeler, isn't that what it was last year? GHD worked with Kiewit. I just never forget the 400 million iterations. I thought that was a cool number. And then listening to Sparrow. So, I'm okay with where I'm at on environmental. But I get if you're not. But I do think we're looking. There's a $120 million grant right there on the table. And what we're told is it'll be $10 million next year. And I get that if we go, hey, man, we don't want to apply this year. I don't like that decision. But there's $10 million next year. I do find it interesting that we don't have firm information on putting this together, but we did write a $2.7 million check to Harbor Island, and I don't think there was a lot of firm information with that project. So my question is, would this grant application overload staff?

I would say no.

It won't overload, but we'll have to. We can't do everything, right, so there's certain things we probably... Peter, do you think we should apply, yes or no? Do you want me to remove my motion to apply... No, except for the council has to decide if they want us to apply. Except for the council, I don't vote. I totally get it. You do not think it would overload staff, Nick? We need an approved project. I get it, there's only 10 hours.

Right, with the plan using WSP and knowing the staff capabilities... It would not.

If it were me, I'd pay him $65,000 and reduce your staff time because, again, I think it is likely. I think the administration is watching. I think our congressman sits on appropriation, and that is really important to the bureaucracies in Washington, D.C. You heard him say that he's in communication with the president's office regularly on this project. So I think it is likely we would get a substantial grant. That's just Mark Scott. That's why I talked about the timing, that we vote yes for you guys to apply today. We allow council members to continue their environmental review. I get that if we had a year, you know, that would be a perfect scenario, but we don't, such is life. But I think this allows you guys to go forward and apply while we continue our work on the environmental review, such that we could have a vote. If we did that, we would move up from the September 1 or whatever it is to mid-August. And if it passed, which I think the environmental says it will, then we would have your second step on your two-step process, which we said would be a resolution to support. I think people are watching. I think Congressman Cloud on appropriations is a much, much bigger deal than I guess many of us maybe think. I think the fact that he told us today he's talking to the administration is significant. The president was here saying he wants to help. I think the number is much closer to 120 million. When I saw the other applicants, some of them had been applicants for a decade. I mean, this isn't like five people applied and they all got their feasibility in in the last 60 days and we're competing with viable projects. Is that impactful, Ryan, before I run out of time?

Just to speak to that, the application, the eligible project list has been up, and I think the earliest eligibilities have been out there since 2017.

Right. So there's applicants that have been out there since 2017. And now, you could make the case that means they're first in line. I don't think first in time is first in line. I think what it means is if you've got an application that had been funded, there's probably a message there. I would just close. I think it's a responsible thing to move forward with this grant application. I think it's logical to me. I think it's financially prudent. And I think it's a common sense answer. And so that's why I brought it to the council. And that's why I think we should vote yes on pursuing this grant application today. Thanks, Mayor.

Councilman Roy.

Okay.

So I want to take off where I left off. But, you know, part of what we're dealing with today, and we hear this, we hear numbers, okay? So, yes, and I agree that there is a lot of information out there in terms of $120 million. Maybe that's not the case. That's a best-case scenario. Maybe that's a far reach. But I think we have to take a look at, and you're saying $50,000 to $60,000. So if we invest $50,000 to $60,000 that we may get $10 million. Right, 10 million, that is earmarked for this specific project, if this specific project goes forward, because that's the big if. Now on top of that, when you take a look at the fact that we did, as a council, agree that we would move forward unless we had the far-field study done, correct? And the far-field study was, would you call it halfway completed? What percentage would you say it's done?

Oh, I would say it's 85% done.

Okay, but it's not completely done.

No, because like the city manager said, there's a final review of the report, and then we finalize it.

And then you have peer review on top of that, right? That's correct. So, you know, to basically validate, we said we're going to be open on this and see where we stand at the end of the day, right? Okay. So all of those things, and it's unfortunate that we have a deadline here, but it goes back to what I'm saying is that is it a risk? And maybe this is the banker side of me, is that when you take a look at the risk, if we put $50,000 to $60,000 in on this, just like we decided the $2.7 million, just like we decided $46 million on Evangeline, and right now if Evangeline doesn't happen, because there's no guarantee, we've got about... $46 million, maybe $38 million in pipeline just laying there, right? And we've got to figure out what are we going to do to try to recoup our costs. But it's not a given. It's not a given yet. To sit there and say it is, that's just not the case. So we're juggling all these balls. I will tell you one thing about this council, though, that I firmly believe that this council has done more collectively, even though they don't agree all the time or we don't agree but collectively to try to meet our objective of making sure that we have multiple sources of water. We found out since this journey that groundwater, you know, groundwater at first was supposed to be the big mecca, right? And then what we've had hurdles there. We've learned some things. We've learned a lot since we started in this entire process, just like we've learned when it comes to this inner harbor, just like we're learning right now in terms of CC polymers. and all the other things. But we've got to continue to get... We've got to go forward with something because the bottom line is we've got to have some wins. We have to have some completion. We have some. I mean, I guess the Far East and the Far Western, the water fields, that's been good. But at the same time, we've had to worry about the level of arsenic, too. And we've had to make sure that we take care of and do the things that we have to do to make sure that those levels are acceptable, right? So we have to basically... be selective in terms of when we dump water into the noices. That's correct. And we're talking about treatment in the future. So we've learned a lot. I firmly believe $50,000 to $60,000, and I understand that we haven't made a firm commitment as a council whether or not we're going to continue with the Inner Harbor. But I think the risk there to put that $50,000 to $60,000 down to be able to have, even if it's 10 million to 12 million, that will help curb the cost. Because I do know, right now, the cost is going up on all these projects. And we don't have a lot to show for it. We need some wins. Thank you.

Councilman Barrera.

So I've been ready to skip the soliloquy and vote for a long time. I've been the same for eight years. You know, I think now in this day and age in politics, you know, good politicians look at all the information and make a decision. I mean, I already knew where this was going to go anyway. I knew it is because it's been that way for the last 18 months. You know, there are the naysayers out there that say I'm just for industry. Well, we've been a manufacturing community for 70 years. 70 years. What is it? My grandfather worked at American Smelting. You know, what is it, I had cousins that, I had an uncle that worked for DuPont. What is it? Yeah, yeah. So we've been through all that. I had cousins that's worked at, you know, my wife works at Chenier, she's worked for Sitco. You know, we've been a manufacturing community for 70 years. And our air and water is cleaner than it's ever been. And what is it, I'm sorry, you can base that with facts, you know. And the common denominator is that there's this obstructionist party that basically either they're anti-industry, which is okay. They can be that way. And sometimes they're the rudest ones. I did like the term smooth criminal, by the way. Somebody called me muttly earlier. I thought that was cute, too. But You know, I mean, is the goal post keeps moving because what happens is we eliminate the excuses. All right. We said we need to do a far field study. Okay. We did a far field study. In fact, I was kind of opposed because the individual that solicited saying, well, we can do one originally said they could do it for 50,000.

How much did we end up paying for the far field study so far?

500,000, 500,000, 500,000 for a far field study that didn't get the answer that we want. So now we've got to kick that can down the road to find somebody else to look at I mean, then we moved the goalposts there. We moved the goalposts saying it was too expensive, it's too much money. Okay, so then Ardura, I was going to say LNV, Ardura came out and they said, okay, we're going to sharpen our pencils, we're going to modify this, we're going to get this down, we're going to get it to write just under a billion dollars. Okay, so of which they had, and then we told them, hey, put your pencils down, we want to wait. Because we want to wait and before we're going to engage you to go ahead and to move forward. And then our congressman has been working feverishly on our behalf, who's been supportive of this project, you know, was able to work with the Bureau of Reclamation and Congress to remove that cap from 30 to remove the cap of 30, ready to raise it to 120 million. You know, we removed Kiewit because of the corruption engaged, and it was too expensive. So now I'm still being accused of corruption, you know, even though it's a different contractor. I mean... At what point? You know, they say that we've put all our eggs in this basket. I mean, we've looked at numerous projects over the last 10 years. There's an argument that this council has done more for water than anybody else. Well, we don't have anything that's certain. We don't have anything that's certain. We have those that maybe they have some permits, but we don't have the permit that we need to be able to move forward. And so I think, like I said, I knew where this was going to go when I put my hand on that signature. I knew where it was going to go. But I just wanted to hear all the obstacles so that way I would be prepared to understand where we're at. And I'm highly disappointed because I think we're here to serve the community. And I'll get some chuckles from the usuals. And to serve the people. I knew that was predictable. But the thing is to serve the people and to serve the people that work in this community And they have been part of this community for over 70 years. And I think it's really disingenuous to look for excuses not to do a project that's fully permitted, that was supported by the Biden administration, that was supported by the Trump administration twice now, where the president has committed to provide full support, supported by the, and I've done this soliloquy a couple of times, so maybe somebody could repeat it for me, but supported by the governor, supported by the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, supported by the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee for the state of Texas. But for whatever reason, we can't get five individuals to support it. And part of it is they're either anti-industry or they're either tied to a project that is a competing project that is convenient to state whatever item they have because they want to kill this project because they know it doesn't support their network or it doesn't support industry. Thank you.

Councilwoman Vaughn. Wow, that was a mouthful. First off, I'm so glad that you admitted that you put it on here knowing full well no one was going to support it because what you wanted to do was cause chaos. That is not the way to run city council. That is not what you do. That does not make us a group that's unified and being led because we don't have that. And that's part of the reason right there. And part of the reason is because you call people stupid. That's such a childish thing to do. You do that whenever you have nothing else to say. Mr. Sinoni, I would like to ask you, I just got a text saying that that far-field study was supposed to be released today and that the scientists are not going to receive it until July the 31st. Is that true?

Not quite. So the draft was due by the end of the month. It was due by the end of the month. We got it Friday, and we notified council Monday. Maybe it was Friday. I can't remember now. So we have the draft report. The plan all along was to have Plummer, who we hired months ago, to do a cursory review of it, kind of a technical review of the document. That's on track. And they will have their review done by July 31st. Then Spheros and the city will release that report to whomever wants it. We'll put it on the website. Right. But the files that the scientists asked for and groups like the bays and estuaries, those are available now. And we're beginning to set up. conversations with the two doctors that were here so we can give them the files this week. We didn't want to just put a file in the mail and say, good luck. So we're going to sit down with them, Nick and I to say, here's what we have. Is this what you're expecting? What else do you need? So that their work can begin. Now the actual report, the paper document with conclusions and the graphs and the scope of work that's going to be done by the end of July.

Okay. Just make it sure because if they don't get the information, they're not going to be ready.

Right. We need to get them the data as soon as possible. We're going to get them the data this week, and then they should be in good shape to do their kind of review.

Everyone keeps bringing up Evangeline. Of course we have hurdles. Part of it is the data center now that we didn't know they were going to have. That was a great thing for them to keep from us. So that's one of the reasons we have hurdles. I'm proud of that project, and I believe with the laws on our side, I believe that's going to happen. On page 7, it says... Recipients should expect the federal agency to have substantial involvement in the project. When you start getting in with the federal government, you are going to have a lot of problems because they've got a lot of reports that are going to be due, which is understandable. So, Nick, I agree. You've got a great staff. You do. But to think that they're going to be able to keep up with all this is hard for me to believe, especially the things they're going to request that I've been reading. And then on page 23, points will be awarded based on the extent to which the project implements a regional planning effort and meets the needs of different areas and stakeholders within the region. You know who that project sounds like? It sounds like Harbor Island that no one talks about. That is a desal project. They are moving forward. They've already picked who's going to build it. They've got a permit. They're waiting on the last one. So to say we don't have any desal project is also another point. It's untrue. News never talks about Harbor Island. That is a project that we have done, and we have supported some of us up here. Some of them have not. By the way, I am for the America first. I am all for that. But my problem with this project is it's going to cost a lot of money. If you're going to start getting pipe and all of those things, if you've got to buy America in this environment, we are going to be in trouble. It's going to cost a lot of money. So anyway, we so appreciate y'all bringing this to us, knowing full well we weren't going to support it. Thank you, Mark. Mark, I take you at your word. I take you at your word. You had hope. But it's a shame that that's what it's come to, that you want to cause chaos. So, hey, guys, just get ready. Put your boots on, because we're going to have a lot of memes out there, and a lot of ugliness and untruth. But you know what? I really believe this. From the people I'm talking to, all the things they're doing, paying people, all of these things, the public is not stupid. There's a reason they want Inner Harbor so bad. The public is not stupid. Thank you. Councilman Cantube.

Thank you, Mayor. I've got a couple questions. The far-field study, the cost was $500,000?

It was round numbers. It was less than that, but that was a round number, yeah.

I think it was like $200,000, right, my understanding?

You know, I'd have to get back to you on that, Councilman. I want to get you the right number.

By the time I brought the guy over here for $50,000, we should have done this a long time ago, you know? Maybe you're right, right?

Maybe maybe it's closer to 300,000.

Yeah, let me double check that number for first They would have been done long time ago. We won't be in this situation And the report that Friesen Nichols did I thought it was just Like short distance, so it wasn't a far field. Is that correct? I

Yeah, there's been no complete, except for this one that we had sparrows do, there was no far field that looked at the entire bay system and the new ACES bay and the ship channel.

You know, I was concerned a few weeks ago about the Inner Harbor project and what people really thought. And I hear a lot of council members, including the mayor, saying it's the same people that come here every day. I see the same faces. I see the same faces, too. And, you know, they only see that. So I want to do a little study. I was like, you know what, I'm going to get up on a Saturday and go do a little study. And it was $298,000 for that study. So you're right, Mark. So I did a study and I went to my district to gas stations. And the reason I did this is because a reporter a couple months ago told me, you know, I went to go do a story about the Inner Harbor and I asked people at gas stations what they thought about it, if industry should pay for it or should the residents pay for it. And not one person said industry. And she said, and there was like two people in those blue overalls, you know, and working for the refineries. So they gave me an idea. So I went to the gas station, and Holly and Castores pretended I was putting gas, and I talked to people. At first, you know, I had to tell them I was a council member so they could talk to me, because, you know, it was kind of weird. But I talked to people, and I asked them a very simple question. Do you think we should get a desal plant, and who should pay for it? Three of them at the gas station, Holly and Castores said yes. 3 of them were for it. Get it? I don't care who pays for it. 14 was against. Weber and Holly H-E-B gas station. 2 was for it. 9 was against it. S-P-I-D and Weber. 4 was for it. 19 was against it. I went to the gas station on Staples and Holly. 3 for it. Against it. 14. And these are regular people. This is not your loud mouths in the regular morning shows that just want to hear themselves talk. This is regular people. I didn't see none of the people I talked to in these chambers, and the people that I talked to, I don't recognize them on Facebook, the loudest ones out there. This is regular people. And I really feel that some council members is out of touch with the people of Corpus Christi. And You know, I hear these threats, so you better be careful of the election if you vote against Inner Harbor. The people see it, the people are going to vote you out, blah, blah, blah, blah. The people I talk to in my district, they were against it. They're tired of getting screwed by the people of the council. Like, we always have to... Overpay for stuff, do stuff for other people, industry this, industry that. We can't live without them. Yeah, they provide jobs, but you know what? I really believe that if you add up all the jobs in this community, small businesses, we're outdoing the refiners any time, any day. A lot of small businesses are supplying the workforce. And to comment today rolling about you and I'm going to be honest with you, I disagree with you at times, you know, but you made a comment today on the radio saying that out of the six years Gil has been on council, all he did was build a pool. Yeah, you're right about that. That's all he did because he didn't have the majority of the votes and you guys are the ones that the majority and you guys push your agenda. for self-serving, not for the people. And I can't wait till November elections so I could prove a lot of people in this dais wrong, because we're going to kick ass in November. Thank you.

OK. First, I want to reiterate my support for Buy American. I think that's something that comes back to benefit us. and Americans. Secondly, the federal government is advertising this as a $120 million grant opportunity. That's what it is. It is a $120 million grant opportunity. And it is my opinion that anybody who votes against this item is voting against the city of Corpus Christi receiving up to or $120 million. That's my opinion. I think it's interesting and I think it's great that there's sudden concern for staff because there was a time where the three signature memos didn't stop coming and these guys were working. You had to make them come in on weekends. We had conversations about what this is doing to staff. You have people leaving this organization Because of what was happening, that's my opinion as well. That is my opinion as well. So to question you, it's offensive. Because what you guys have endured in 18 months has been, I mean, it was getting thrown at you from all sides. And then today we have council members saying, well, we don't want to, how can we do that to you? It's a $120 million grant. This very council voted a resolution, a federal agenda on go and find grant monies. He, on the end over there, Eric, Councilman Cantu said it should not be on the rate payer. We all did. We all did. I just remember him doing it really loudly. And that's okay. There must be grant money. And there is no one in this city that would disagree. We went to Washington and I'm getting criticized for it now because it's going towards a project that people don't agree with. Then I get the same amount of thank yous for doing my job for people who do support it. It's split. I mean, that's just, that's how democracy works. But the facts are the facts, and the Inner Harbor project has undergone one of the most rigorous environmental review processes under state and federal law. And after that review, the EPA did not object to the state-issued discharge permits allowing the regulatory process to move forward under the requirements of the Clean Water Act. That is huge. I remember the day that happened. That doesn't happen easily under the administration at the time, the Biden administration. So we can go round and round and round. And at the end of the day, we have a huge advantage with our congressman on the Appropriations Committee. Huge. The reason this is happening is because that cap was lifted. The reason that cap was lifted is because this has been a priority to this city, agree with it or not, for over 10 years. This is not a project that just started. This is a project you were supporting the minute you got here, Peter. This is a project staff, whomever came on or off board, supported and carried through. So it has been a huge endeavor. And it does not obligate to construct anything. And it is prudent and it is standard practice to go after grant funding before it's being constructed. This is the way large infrastructure projects work. Of course, I definitely support this. And I think, you know, we each have, we're a council, we each have a vote. But I don't believe that we should be talking about poor staff and how are they going to handle it and there's too many projects and going on and on. Either you support it or you don't. And I think we're at a point where, you know, it just needs to, there needs to be, I shouldn't say there needs to be. There is candor on this subject. But I just think it's important that we recognize the facts. Facts you can't argue with. Facts like it's a $120 million grant. It isn't just called that. And I sat in front of the Office of Management and Budget at the president's office. And the Water Smart program And the group of people we met with were very, very optimistic about this project. I know that doesn't mean anything in terms of guaranteeing. But as the councilman mentioned, it is a great investment for a small risk. So I'll leave it at that. We've all spoken twice, and I'm going to go ahead and open public comment. So would anyone like to speak on item number 21? Just come on up.

So many notes. Julian Hernandez, D3. What does your campaigns look like? I go back to that. I support big industry. I see you shake your head, but what did you campaign on? It's 30 MGDs a day, not guaranteed to be on every day, for one. The cost price. Roland, man, I mean, Scott, Mark, I love the way you approach stuff. It's not all in, but I don't see, I see us, you're like attached to this dinghy that's being led around and it's not going anywhere. And I see your facial expressions when stuff comes out of certain people's, when they talk about stuff and you have like, man, and like you're trying to just shovel all the water out of the boat that's sinking. And really trying to, I see good in you, but I hear, you know, the Harbor Island, $2.7 million, and I can't iterate it enough that we did engineering on a road that's never going to be built for about that price tag. So every time 2.7 million comes up, that's my go-to, too, because everybody talks about 2.7. Are you still cycling on that road? I mean, you know, that's going nowhere? 2.7. We talked about staff costing $50,000, $40,000, $50,000. The guy that was here, he mentioned that he was going to sue the city because they were charging him how much? $200,000 for phone records or something? I mean, it was something outrageous is what I'm kind of getting at. I don't know if the city ever turned that, but I'm here to get paperwork from the city, so I would see it charging about $200,000. That's just a little... Make it fun. The $120 million, 10% of the estimated cost. We're already in at a billion dollars, just everything else. So you figure at $2 billion or whatever, the total it's going to cost is 5%. 5% of, you know... theatrics, I wanted to come up here and just poke holes in a paper because that's what I saw sitting back there. Maybe I'll have a shirt made and see if I'll run for city council or at large position and see industry on the back or maybe on the front where they can see it right here. That way, hey, maybe I'll get some votes. But as Eric said, he actually sat there and went to, and I applaud him for that because real people can't come over here They can't, but they can go put gas. Thank you.

Thank you.

Isabel Raisa, District 2. I'm asking you to vote no on this grant. I wanted to point out that the three people that put the item on the agenda were Roland Barretta, Everett Roy, and Mark Scott. and For the Greater Good looked at their campaign finance reports in 2024, and surprisingly, Roland Barreto, who called himself a whore for industry on a radio show, only had 7,786 direct donations. Everett Roy had 11,500, and Mark Scott had 24,100 of direct donations. But the Coastal Bend Coalition spent $719,000 in 2024. And for the greater good, having a very narrow definition of what counted as industry. So we didn't include Turner Ramirez Architects, which gets a lot of city contracts. They donated $15,000. We didn't add that in. Victory Building team donated $10,000. We didn't add that in. David Loeb donated $2,500. We didn't add that in. So of the 50 donations, 23 donations were petrochemical. related to the chemical industry, totaling about $384,000 for the three people that were endorsed that put this back on the agenda. I also want to point out that $120 million is only 10% of the cost of building the desal plant when you guys, like the $1.2 billion. What else? I also want to point out that we've been paying attention to this stuff since 2016. And part of the reason this problem is because when you guys were voting on desalination stuff back then in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, oftentimes what you all said was, you don't have to do it today, right? If we vote yes today and moving forward, we can always reverse course. That happened over and over and over again. And we were pointing out that your project was poorly planned. The initial wastewater permit was only 75 pages. And then when it came back, it was 277. You had to revise it, but you didn't tell the public. You did this over and over and over again. And you have an opportunity to actually say, no, because you have not done your due diligence. Also, the far-field study, we had been asking for that for years and years and years. And the answer from Friesen-Nichols was, it's not mandated, so we don't have to do it. And I've been watching those far-field study meetings, and those are a farce. We're just lucky that some white males got up and said, this is bad. Because the reality is that people have been saying this is bad and concerning for decades. And I also applaud Eric. I do want to point out that Laramie and Armand also said, hey, you know what Eric's doing? He found community organizing. You go out and you talk to the community. And so vote no. Have some integrity. Stop being so embarrassing. I've got to go make dinner.

Rachel Caballero, D1. It is really, really difficult as a community member to sit here and understand that there are elected what should be public servants, making a joke out of the political system, which he's always called political theater. So I'm guessing at least there's probably four of you that are really bad actors, really bad actors. Congressman Cloud has never said, neither on the Bob Jones show or today, that his support is behind the experimental Inner Harbor project. He's saying, find projects. We need them. And here's a little bit of money. that maybe could or could not go your way. And we have to remember here, grants don't come from the federal government. They're still coming from taxpayers. It's taxpayer money. So how we can continue to come to this conclusion that, oh, well, I already knew the outcome. How many tax dollars was wasted today bringing this three-person memo to the agenda? How much time has been wasted today? And not just for y'all, for staff who still didn't have time to even get the information on the grant, what's required together, shocker. This is crazy. And to sit here and try to take credit that our community has been a manufacturing community for 70 years, take a look around. Everything's falling apart. If industry was an economic driver, we'd have a flourishing downtown. We'd have streets that are good to drive on. We wouldn't be having to pay $519,000 for attorneys because they're fighting their water increase for the first time in several decades. The Gold Post keeps moving. Actually, the Gold Post hasn't. Three different times we have come as a community and spent six, seven, ten hours here. We've stayed here until 2 o'clock in the morning telling you all, we want to bring on the desal, but not to the Inner Harbor. Why don't you listen to that? Why is bureaucrats, why are bureaucrats more important than your community members? Why? Why? That's the true question here. I'd like to also list the Corpus Christi Taxpayers Association is against this location. The Democratic Party is against this location. The Libertarian Party is against this location. Sierra Club of the Coastal Bend is against this location. Texas Campaign for the Environment is against this location. CCA is against this location. SEA is against this location. So the way that you can list your buddies in industry that are for this and your bureaucrats out in Washington who are for this,

just goes to show and this is just a friendly reminder friendly reminder thank you miss it's an experiment goodbye thank you ma'am anybody else after the reverend just come up okay i would like to encourage henry williams district one i would like to encourage

our city council members that you vote no to item 21. The Anaheim desalination seawater plant is destructive to our waters, and it is destructive to the Hillcrest neighborhood. Also, with regard to the Fairfield modeling, Mr. Wickerman, I would like you to Be sure that in the modeling, they have factored into the modeling 1,200 oil tankers per year travel in and out of the ship channel, okay? That should be factored into that because it certainly would not allow, okay, the modeling to show that it would have no effect, okay? great effect would take place.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

Hi, David Rousey, District 4. Councilman Hernandez, you said something earlier about putting the cart before the horse. It's really a cart before a Trojan horse in this case. It's, this thing is just so bad. All this talk about money, you know, money this, money that, grant this, get a percentage of it here and there. You know, everybody, Roland mentioned, you know, the loud people in the audience and in the community that speak out the loudest about this. We speak out about it because it's a bad deal for the rest of the community that's not involved in the industry. You know, if you make a living in the water, tourism, anything like that, we can't have this thing go wrong and expect to fix it. It will take 100 years to fix something like this if we have the money to do it. And with this community, we're not going to have the money to do it. You know, I've sat with some of you guys personally at different deals and had conversations. Scott, Barrera, Councilman, you know, y'all are vehemently opposed to the Seven Seas deal and dumping that water and baffling. I was certainly on your side. This is no different. Yeah, it's different because we're having to buy the water from somebody. And it doesn't matter. People are not against desal. 90% of the people in the community want it. They don't want it dumped into the bay and kill everything out there, Mayor. It's just not fair to everybody. And what's really not fair is putting the burden on the taxpayers. It's a billion dollars. Do you all know how many streets we could fix with a billion dollars? My street's over 50 years old. It's never been repaved. Yorktown Boulevard, I mean, there's drops on the shoulder that deep. It's unbelievable. and you've got this outfit, Axe H2O, they're coming in and wanting to privately fund it. Give them a shot. Y'all voted six to three to at least talk to them. It's in the best location. It's piped offshore. Everybody's happy. So what that they just got started? I mean, who on this council's got experience running DeSalle? Nobody. Nobody. But at least generals are good at logistics. They know how to kick people in the rear end and get things moving. It's private money. It's no burden to the taxpayer. Let's give it a shot. All of this grant and this and that, I mean, it's just, it's overbearing. It's just tearing this city apart. And then just all the things, you know, real estate taxes and Streets and picking up trash around every turn around or so much Think so many things we could do with a billion dollars at this point that need to be done Let somebody else privately fund it.

Thank you Thank you Robin Cox district 3 well when I saw that the three amigos were putting this on I thought well Okay, we're gonna see what this is three amigos three blind mice. I'm not sure what and But I have to say, I was so glad that Mr. Cantu went and interviewed a lot of common people because most people don't want this. They're scared. Some of them are scared. They see on there the bloggers getting on there doing the crazy memes, saying stuff. The bloggers that think they're Woodward and Bernstein, hoping that Deep Throat will give them some information. They can come back and do something false. He did his survey at a gas station. I think the ones that won it, well, they're standing outside Julian Gold where they can afford. That's where they did their survey. And for the ones who said that they're America first, you're saying you buy America first when you're carrying a Gucci purse? I think that comes from Italy. Could be wrong about that. But this is being shoved down our throats. No means no. If you took this to the voters, which... We hired y'all to do that. We elected y'all to do that. No means no. You're like the guy that keeps asking out a girl or the girl that keeps thinking this guy is going to like him. Man, the project, I got to tell you, he's just not that into you. It's not this project. Roland keeps saying that his family has all been in refineries, been in business this whole time, been in the industry. Well, most people that come to Corpus come for tourism. They come for the beach. This is out in the lobby. I remember when Bay Fest was fabulous and we had great things here. None of these people said, I'm coming to Corpus Christi because I want polluted waters. No one is going to say, man, there's dead fish here. It smells. Our bay is ruined. That's okay because Roland Bonetta's family works there. Not one person is going to say that. A long time ago, I was in Nantucket on vacation. I remember I met some CEOs and people there that they said that they had They lived in Nantucket, but they were CEOs from Houston, from the refineries. I said, well, you don't live there? And they said, no, it's gross. It stinks. But you want to put this, the bottom line is this is going to be in someone's backyard. It's going to be in Hillcrest. You're okay with just up and moving people with a chance that it could destroy the bay. And like he said, it'll take hundreds of years, but you're willing to roll that dice. The community has proven we are willing to make cutbacks, sacrifices. We're willing to have rain barrels, do everything possible. Maybe you should watch a great commercial that Eric Cantu has out. I know it's not as savvy as the ones you've got, but it's showing we're willing to do what it takes. Listen to the people. Nobody wants this project except a select few of you and the lady standing outside, Julian Gold, that their husbands work for the refineries. Please consider other people, not just your own pocketbooks. Thank you. Thank you.

I understand you have different decorum for different people because my understanding was you couldn't mention people's names and you had to address people by such. So I guess I operate by a different decorum than some of the previous speakers. However, I come to you because to me this isn't about water. This isn't about the inner harbor. What's happening right now is about you and them. It's us against them. And when you have that kind of an attitude, nothing is going to be accomplished because each of you should be thinking about what's good for Corpus Christi. You can have differences of opinion and that can be respected. But when it becomes very clear that you're after each other, then you're not thinking about the people. You're not thinking about those people at the gas station. You're not thinking about those people at the refineries. You're not thinking about those people at the store. You're thinking about what's going to fit each of you, and it's us and them. When you get out of that different attitude, start thinking about the citizens of Corpus Christi. Thank you.

Afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Armand Alex, born and raised here in Corpus Christi. Earlier today, I spoke about budgets being expressions of a city's values. Agenda item 21, in my opinion, is another example of that particular principle. This item is presented as an opportunity to pursue outside funding, but a federal grant does not transform a flawed project into a sound one. I understand the argument being made today by some council members this isn't a final vote on Inner Harbor desalination. It's an authorization to pursue federal funding. Some might even reasonably ask if Washington is willing to pay for it, what's the harm in applying? But I think that's fundamentally the wrong framing. The better inquiry is what are we choosing to prioritize by pursuing the Inner Harbor desalination, especially if it doesn't even qualify. The council hasn't even approved it yet. The city managers just said that this grant would eventually need a firm yes on Inner Harbor. It currently does not have that. The reality is that grants aren't neutral. They require time, they require political capital, and they signal institutional commitment. And once significant public dollars begin flowing toward a project, history shows how much harder it is to step back. and honestly evaluate alternatives. That's why these three council members, plus the mayor, want it so badly. A federal grant doesn't resolve the valid contradictions residents and experts have pointed out. It doesn't answer concerns about environmental justice in Hillcrest. It doesn't settle the scientific debate surrounding the modeling. It doesn't even change the long-term operational costs residents will ultimately bear. And on June 15th, more than 12,000 Corpus Christi residents exercised one of the most democratic rights available to them by signing the Fair Water Amendment because they care about water. They weren't simply speaking about water. They were asking for a greater voice and decisions that will shape our community for generations. So before asking Washington to invest in this project, I asked this council to invest in rebuilding the public trust that so many residents feel has been lost because of statements like those of the mayors that contain half-truths online. The problem before you today isn't whether federal dollars are available, it's whether this is the path The people of Corpus Christi have asked you to pursue and that answer is no. This is not the path. I respectfully ask you to vote no on agenda item 21 and city manager come on. Consulting with the bays and estuaries program for the far-field modeling results. This is the same environmental group that loves to cozy up to the port and oil and gas corporations. I'm sure they'll have an unbiased opinion for the oil and gas friends. Their current board, their composition of their current board right now has direct ties to the port of Corpus Christi and the oil and gas sector. So I don't think that they will give you an unbiased opinion. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, Bob Hollison, District 4. I'm the Executive Director of the Coastal Bend Industry Association. As you know, we support the project and have for a long time. I'm going to keep my comments very narrowly focused on the agenda item this evening. As has already been pointed out from the dais, and has been repeated many times, it's a fully permitted project. It's substantially funded, but not completely funded. And as has also been pointed out, there's been direction from Council, this Council and past Councils, for staff to go out and seek grant funding. And that's exactly what they're doing. And, you know, as has been brought up in the presentation, the Inner Harbor has been determined by the Bureau of Reclamation to be an eligible project. The feasibility study is complete. The funds are expiring this year and will not be available. I mean, this is a high leverage kind of opportunity that we have here where we've got you know, $50,000 or $60,000 to take the first step to be ready to move before the funding deadline, even if it's $10 million, even if it's $5 million, that's a lot of leverage. And it helps. And on top of that, the support that we've gotten from Representative Cloud, other elements of the federal government here supporting this project. I think we really need to take advantage of this opportunity. Please take advantage of this opportunity. Please vote yes for moving forward with this first step of this grant application. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mark Minster, Corpus Christi. I say vote no because even regardless of the grant money, the project is very expensive, and it's going to impact residents when their demand is not driving the need for the project. When y'all went to Washington, DC, did y'all tell them about the amount of residents that are coming and speaking against this, about how residents on both sides of the political spectrum are speaking against this together, about the amount of people that stay here and come here over and over, even though we don't want to, but lots of people can't, as Councilman Cantu was saying. You say you spent 10 years on this project, 10 plus years, you spent two years on this application, and for what? The project hasn't moved forward because of these significant concerns, but you've still chosen to continue moving forward when you know the residents do not support this project. And we already have massive current debts. There's so much context to this project and why you should just not move forward because of the amount of time already spent and resource already spent and meetings already spent hours and hours on this project. You say that we continue to make excuses and move the goalposts when that is actually just listening to the constituents, listening to the actual concerns that residents have and addressing them, their financial, economic, environmental, political concerns that you aren't working for the people. It's not moving the goalposts at all. You talked about Trump and Biden by how there's been support on both political sides. We've seen that that's happening here. It's not a partisan issue. This is about residents saying that we are going to be impacted by this, by our water rates. And like I presented earlier, it's not equitable when you look at their property tax rates, when you look at who's using the water and the rates, who is actually contributing to the city. We aren't actually anti-industry. We're anti-corporations exploiting our resources and residents, regular people who are not billion-dollar corporations facing the impact. We're not anti-worker, actually. And like Councilman Cantu said, when you talk to regular people, Every restaurant or other place in Corpus is packed, but people aren't going to be here. People just are not tuned into city council. But the majority of the people know that residents should not pay for this, that it does not make sense, that it's not good for our bay, it's not good for the environment, and it's in the Hillcrest neighborhood. The location is just wrong. It's just absolutely wrong. And... Yes, if you've taken the time to speak to regular people, you would see that they do not support this project. I'm a member of Corpus DSA, and we, along with many other organizations, stand against this. And it's very obvious to me that it's former politicians, former mayors, and people that have significant political influence that are influenced by the large money behind that is going to benefit from this project, that that's what's pushing the demand for this project. And you are just showing... that you are not listening to the people. Whatever happens, you're going to continue pushing for this project. All it's going to do is create more people that realize, you know, this system is completely broken and they're not going to be quiet about it.

Thank you.

Mayor, Council, I'm Taylor, District 1. I'm standing here today stating that $120 million in federal grants, you're going to have to pay 25% of that. So in essence, you're not going to get $120 million in federal grants. Being a grant writer for 39 years, I know exactly how much money you're going to get. It's 75-25. That's the rate. You're not going to get the $120 million. You're going to get 75% of that $120 million. So Let's make that perfectly clear so you don't get telling people you're going after less than $120 million. You're going to have to put in the rest of that to make that $120 million. That's fact one. Fact two is that during the four field margins, thank you for allowing me to be there. I was ill when they did the presentation. However, the doctors are correct that they're There's a lot that was not presented that needs to be presented as far as the bays and estuaries are concerned because they will be impacted if this particular plant comes to life. And if this particular plant comes to life, it will not only kill the bay, but it's going to cost you more money in maintenance because the downtime of those filters that are going to be clogged is going to take more city money And if you think that the budget for water department is $160 million this coming fiscal year, just think about how much downtime that that maintenance for this plant is going to be on the citizens of Corpus Christi. And then to add injury to insult, you're going to have a dead bay with rotting fish and stinky smells, and no one is going to be coming to Corpus Christi. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else? Okay, I'm going to close public comment. And I'm going to take my quick second opportunity. Everyone speaks twice. I spoke once. I'm going to take just a few seconds to clarify one point before we take the vote, which I meant to do prior. This chart was given to the council. It was part of a presentation. And the point I want to clarify, it's a pie chart that says Customer classes that use greater volumes of water will bear a proportionally higher share of the total cost of the Inner Harbor Desalination Treatment Plant project. So to say that the residents of Corpus Christi are gonna pay for this and that's not fair, that's not a true statement. 13% of residents will pay for the cost of this project. So if the project's $980 million, the residents of Corpus Christi are not paying $980 million to build this. It is proportionally balanced. 13% of that is $127 million. Commercial pays 14%. Large volume users pay 31% and wholesale 42%. So this is public record. This was given to the council. It was presented to the public. And I think this is very important. Because misinformation is to say that you as a resident, you as a rate payer, are going to take on the cost of $980 million or whatever the cost is for desalination. And that is simply not true. What is true is that it is proportionally balanced. And that's fair. And Peter, who, remind me earlier, you mentioned $500,000 was spent on a study, what study?

Yeah, that number was incorrect that I gave, so it was about $300,000. $300,000 was the far-field modeling, right? Around $300,000, $290,000-something.

That was a $300,000, not $500,000.

Right, right. Five was the initial estimate, but $300,000 is what it ultimately came in.

And the $120 million has a $25 million match, if you will, correct? Is that correct?

Yeah, Mayor, so it's basically since the city has $755 million in SWIFT funds, if it's a billion-dollar project, we're funding about 75% of the project, so we're easily hitting the component of that 25% component.

So it's 25%.

Yeah, the applicant has to pay for at least 25% of the project.

Right, and you mentioned that that was going to be paid by, is that correct?

Sorry, so just quick clarify, the applicant pays 75%. The grant can be up to 25% of the project cost.

Okay, but that ends up, y'all mentioned 25 million.

It ends up over 120 million, yes.

What was the 25 million you mentioned earlier?

I don't think anybody said 25 million. I think he was talking about a 25%. I see. Which is what the grant can provide, up to 25% of project costs. Understood. Yes, ma'am.

Okay, thank you for clarifying. Okay, with that, we close public comment, and I'm going to entertain a motion to approve item number 21.

I move for approval.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote. The item fails. 5-4. Okay, so we are going to go back to Section K, and that is public hearings, items 15 through 18. Item number 15 is a zoning case number ZN-183, Diego Vasquez, located in District 1. And who is presenting? Oh, Eva. That's okay.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, Yvette Wallace, Interim Director, Development Services. Before you tonight, we have Diego Vasquez rezoning in District 1. It lays within the beach portion of Bluff, portion Bluff subdivision. It's located at 321 Waco Street and consists of 0.17 acres of land. The request is for the subject property to change its zoning from CI intensive commercial to CI intensive commercial with an SP with the special permit. The applicant is requesting to expand upon the existing special permit that was granted to the applicant on the abutting property to the north, which is 1113 Comanche Street, to allow for the warehousing of goods, welding, and machine repair shop. The current request is to expand storage capabilities through the construction of new storage building on the vacant property. 20 notices were mailed out inside of the 200 foot buffer, and two notices were mailed outside of the 200 foot buffer. Zero notices were received in opposition and zero notices in favor. With the special permit, some of the restrictions that we have in that are the landscaping restrictions. Access will only be allowed off Comanche Street. And a minimum 7-foot tall screening fence will be required to be constructed along Waco Street. No pole-mounted sign is allowed on Waco Street. And the hours of operation will be limited from 8 to 8. The proposed rezoning is consistent with the City of Corpus Christi comprehensive plan. However, it's inconsistent with the future land use designation of mixed use. The special permit will ensure compatibility of the requested expansion with the present zoning and conforming uses of nearby property and to the character of surrounding area to limit any adverse impact on surrounding properties. Staff and Planning Commission recommend the approval from the CI to the CISP, which is the intensive commercial with the special permit. And I stand by for any questions.

I'll make a motion to approve. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. I'm going to ask for public comment. Would anyone in the audience like to comment on item number 15? Okay, there being no one, we'll close public comment. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. Item number 16 is a zoning case number ZN8979, Gulf Shores Joint Venture, District 4.

This property is in District 4 with the request to rezone the subject property from CR2 with an island overlay to the CR2 with a PUD, a planned unit development. The subject property is currently vacant and not platted. The purpose of this request is to allow the development of a mixed-use project that incorporates commercial uses and residential options. The property is part of the Padre Mustang Island, which was adopted on June 29, 2021. The subject parcel is currently Zone CR2 with island overlay. And there is a beach access road, 3A, that I just kind of want to mention that was not considered a viable access point due to the reconfiguration of surrounding access routes. So I'll speak to that in some future slides on what we had to do to allow those access points. For public notifications, we did send out 127 notices within the 200 foot buffer and five outside of the 200 foot buffer. One was received in opposition and none were received in favor. The site plan deviations are the single family developments will reflect the standards of an RS 4.5 single family a four and a half district. The applicant is still requesting the planned unit development overlay on the existing CR2 island overlay to allow single family homes, a use that's currently not permitted by right in the current zoning. The proposed 81.21 acre mixed use development would include commercial uses allowed in the base district. The development plan includes a variety of housing types, townhomes, multifamily dwellings, and single family homes in the land use deviation. This range of housing options is intended to provide diverse size and price points for future residents. Cottage housing, which is already permitted in the base zoning district, those will also be incorporated. A couple of other deviations that we'll be having in there are deviations to the right of way, and that's to create a more scenic corridor and to allow the three points of access that were needed for this development. Staff recommends, Planning Commission and staff recommend approval of the CR to Island Overlay with PUD. Can I stand by for any questions? Sorry, and there's a site access overview just in case.