City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Welcome to City Hall and City Chambers. This morning, our invocation will be given by Reverend Claude Axel with Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church. Reverend.

Shall we pray? But before we pray, I just want to do a confession. Mayor, as you were talking about the rules and regulations regarding locking your car and removing the items, blah, blah, I just about broke every one of those recommendations that you made. So I just wanted to let you know. And if I have to call Chief Markle because something has happened inside of my car, I am guilty as charged. So I just wanted to let you know that. Shall we pray? Eternal God, our Father, how excellent is your great name, and I thank you, God, that you are God, and you are God all by yourself. Heavenly Fathers, we come on this morning, each speaker that will come and approach this mayor and the city council members and all of the other persons who are here, I pray that everything that is done on this day in this meeting will be done decently and in order. I pray, oh God, for the understanding and the respect that would and should be given to every person who speaks their concerns. Bless this city, bless our state, and oh God, Please bless and protect and keep these servants of God who are sharing and sacrificing their lives and who are also letting each person know as they speak their mind that everyone should be allowed to speak their opinions without any disservice or without any disrespect in terms of approaching and following the rules and regulations. Keep us now, God, and forever protect us. Again, bless us and keep us in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Reverend. Our Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the Texas state flag will be led by Robin Spencer. She is a senior at Teloso Midway High School, magna cum laude, and two-time All-American cheerleader.

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 the Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible.

Thank you, Robin, and good luck in your studies. City Secretary, Ms. Huerta, would you please call roll?

Mayor Paulette Guajardo? Present. Council Members Roland Barrera? Here. Sylvia Campos? Here. Eric Cantu? Okay, he's absent. 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, Ms. Huerta. We'll go to Section E, and that is our City Manager's comments and update on city operations. Mr. Zanoni.

Yes, ma'am. Good morning, Mayor, Mayor, and members of the Council. We do have one item on the City Manager's report this morning. And that is to provide the council and the community with an update on our public engagement for our budget process for fiscal year 27. And so, as you may know, we have a budget survey that was issued back in May 12th. It was both in English and Spanish. It was an electronic survey. And we extended the time the survey was out for one additional week to get additional respondents. So it stayed open until June 8th. And you'll see we had a real good response rate, better than what you need to have a statistically valid sample. So in addition to the survey, we've hosted three community meetings across our city to get direct input from citizens as well. I know several on the council attended those meetings, I think everybody did actually. And so Amy will provide an update from those as well. So between the citizen input and the survey that'll help guide the proposed budget that'll be presented to council two Tuesdays from now, that'll be delivered to council. So Amy Rodriguez, our budget director, is here this morning, and John is here as well, our assistant director. Amy's gonna present a real nice presentation here on the summary of the survey and then a summary of the community input from those three work sessions we had, or town halls that we had. We do wanna thank the entire Office of Management and Budget and the communications department as well, our internal staff, for all the work they did to develop the survey, to get the results, and then to help conduct those town hall meetings on the budget. So thank you, staff, and thank you, Amy. And with that, we'll turn it over to Amy, who will walk us through the presentation on these two results.

Yes, sir, thank you. Mayor, City Council, thank you. Amy Rodriguez, Director of Management and Budget. So as you know, we've been working really hard the last few months as we begin to develop the FY27 budget. With feedback from the community and from yourselves, we've really tried to engage the community earlier in the process. And so I'm going to walk you through some of the responses that we've received from the online budget survey as well as the community input sessions. First, we'll take a look at the online community budget survey. So we did conduct this survey to gather input for the FY27 proposed budget. The FY27 budget begins on October 1 of 2026 and runs through September 30th of 2027. The survey included eight questions and asked residents to prioritize city services. specifically services that are provided by the general fund. And just a reminder, our general fund is where we collect property taxes, sales tax, and district revenue, primary sources of revenue in the general fund. This survey was launched on May 12th, and it ran through June 8th in both English and Spanish. So for a population size for Corpus Christi, a sample of 665 responses is required to achieve a 99% confidence level with a 1% margin of error. Our survey resulted in 1,504 responses, so that exceeded the required amount to meet that 99% confidence level. The first question asked residents to choose the top four services that were most important to them. The result was fire and EMS at 12.7%, residential street maintenance at 12.3%, and police services at 11.4%. and animal care services at 6.9%. Now in the survey we had listed specifically 21 general fund city services as well as an other category where citizens could specify what other would be. But we've summarized those on the pie chart to the right, categorized them in a few different categories so that you can see the overall prioritization. For question two, we asked citizens to let us know what the top four least important services were to them. The first was parking enforcement at 14.2%. The second was pools and aquatics at 9.2%. The third was economic development at 7.4%. And the fourth was code enforcement at 7%. And again, the full results are represented in the pie chart on the right. The third question we asked citizens to let us know which services their families utilize the most. So the most utilized service was garbage and recycling services at 16.7%, parks at 11.6%, and residential street maintenance at 10.1%, and libraries at 7.1%. The remaining questions are demographic based. So we have a slide that shows the districts and how the districts were represented by the respondents. And you can see that there's been a pretty good distribution across all five council districts. We had a question related to the respondents age groupings. And then how many dependents were in their household. if they currently own, rent, or live with family in Corpus Christi. And then the last question was an open-ended, text-filled question that allowed them to provide their comments. There were 458 valid responses. When categorized against the 21 general fund services that were listed for the survey, a word cloud was created to represent those services that were mentioned in those comments. The larger the word, the more frequent it was mentioned. So next, I wanted to briefly go over our FY27 budget development input sessions. Before I get into that, however, I would just like to inform the council that we will be uploading the final report for the full survey on our website. We expect that to be finalized and ready by Wednesday or Thursday of this week so that it will be on the budget development site.

And we'll send it to city council as well.

Yes, sir. So we did conduct three budget development input sessions that started on June 29th. We had one on July 1st and then another on July 8th. And in these development input sessions, we had an average attendance of 13 citizens per session. We also had 174 average online views because each session was streamed on YouTube. And the topics that came up across all three sessions were libraries, animal care services, parks and park amenities, tourism and quality of life, streets and sidewalks, infrastructure, trees, water security, public safety, unhoused services and infill housing, stormwater and code enforcement or abatements. And just a reminder, our budget development timeline in May, we brought before council the financial policies for approval, so those set the foundation for our budget development. Also presented a general fund financial forecast and launched our online budget survey. Through June and July, we have been working to develop the proposed budget and conduct the input sessions. July 28 we will present the proposed budget to City Council. And during the month of August, we will conduct an additional seven community input sessions to gather additional feedback from the community. And we will conduct budget workshops with the City Council on the proposed budget. In September, we will have the first and second reading on the budget. September 1st, we'll present the first reading of the proposed budget to city council. And then on September 8th, we will present the second reading. At both first and second readings, we will be seeking city council's approval of the proposed budget. This slide shows our currently scheduled input sessions in August. And so the first three input sessions that we held just recently were prior to developing and presenting the proposed budget. These next seven will be held after the proposed budget is presented, but prior to bringing the budget to City Council for approval. And then we have three City Council budget workshops scheduled. There are three for the month of August. In most years, we have had a dedicated workshop for CCW, but those workshops are actually taking place now currently. So we had a workshop for CCW last week, and we'll have another scheduled for this Thursday in two days. For August, we'll have a council workshop on the general fund budget, public works, stormwater, and then the CIP program, as well as any budget wrap-up. Thank you, and I will stand by for any questions.

Councilwoman Gumpels.

Thank you. Thank you, Amy, and thank you to the staff and everybody that participated in this survey and the input. But one of the things that I know that I personally have been hearing, and I don't know, maybe I missed it, but the code enforcement, I know personally for District 2, we get a whole lot of calls for high weeds and that kind of thing, and as you know, there is zero, zero money in the budget. So how are we going to address that? And was that part of the questions that or some of the concerns that the people voiced? Did they?

Yes, ma'am. So on the survey, code enforcement and the abatement program is listed as a general fund service, and so it was part of the survey results, and it did also come up at the community input sessions. I know that we are working to incorporate that back into our balanced budget this next year with city leadership. We are definitely looking to address that.

So we are looking into trying to refocus include a budget for this year, for the 20?

For FY27.

Okay, okay. And the other was, of course, sidewalks and trees. That's one of my passions, and I think it's picking up steam with the rest of the residents, which should have been addressed a long time ago, but I noticed that it's not part of the conversation as being part of the city services, because as you know, in our UDC, It comes out, I mean, it states that the resident is responsible for the sidewalks after it's initially built by the developer. So maybe in this sense, you know, I don't think the residents are realizing how much power they do have because we can change that UDC code. And of course, we are hopefully going to address that in the future. But I just wanted to know, because I was not able to attend those community input sessions, but how was that, what was her reaction on sidewalks?

It did come up once or twice at the community input sessions, and I know that that is a topic that is being considered by city leadership and the public works staff.

Yeah, Councilwoman, we'll have a presentation in about, not next Tuesday, but the following Tuesday. I don't want to present today the policy option or recommendation, but there'll be recommended funding for sidewalks. We'll show that at Council. And because of your influence, we did do a pilot program, Ernesto de la Garza did in public work, so we'll use the basis of that pilot to... to try to have a program, so that's coming.

Okay, but I think the last time that it was brought up, I mean, in general, was that there needed to be some kind of evaluation or a study, but that no longer... No, we're not doing that.

Yeah, we're just direct funding sidewalk repair.

Good, okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

For a substantial amount. Okay, because... That's coming.

All right, good.

Yes, ma'am, yeah.

I guess that's all for now. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Gosh. Oh, okay, to your point. So, you know, I think it's very important to note, and for all council members, I guess to note, you said the average attendance was 13 people. And that goes to show that not everyone can attend. It's not always, you know, the most opportune time for someone to show up. for whatever reason, parents or kids or family or whatever reason. So my point there is it's hard to really gauge. And again, my point is, I'm encouraging people that those sessions aren't the only way to be heard, to send us your thoughts. I got an email, I think this morning, of a gentleman who, he didn't get to come, but he sent five different things that he outlined, and I was sending it to you this morning, and said, these are important to me in the budget. So I just wanna encourage everyone, when you have an average of 13 people, That's not, you know, that's not really a collective voice. We have to hear from people, and that can be done through phone calls, emails, you know, drop-ins, whatever. But reaching out to your council members, to your mayor, to the three at-large members, and just letting us know what is important. So thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Paxson.

Thank you. Peter, I do want to take a second and say and recognize you and the staff for making these budget sessions possible in the summertime. Last year, we stressed how valuable that was to the entire council. We had really good attendance the previous year during budget, but it was kind of later in the game. And so you guys did make it a priority. We had these budget sessions set up for the summertime. Unfortunately, we're winding a few months we were in a little bit of a different spot, and we had to kind of pause all of that for water information. But working with you and staff, I really commend that you guys were able to put these sessions back on early in the summer. Now, I do think that because we kind of did that shuffle with the schedule, that I think that's kind of what impacted the attendance a little bit. I certainly heard that from my district, which was like, gosh, we had like a week to know. We already had plans going out of town. We really want to be there. You know, I had people reaching out with their priorities as well. So I think the interest is definitely there. I'm very grateful for y'all to be able to pivot. I'm still hearing input that people went back and watched those sessions and things. So I wanted to take a moment and say they were important to the community. Thank you for those efforts. And I think this is just the beginning of that input. So thank you.

Thank you. Councilwoman Campos.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I want to continue to because thank goodness that these input sessions really started with our city manager. So but again, I think it depends on the timeliness. You know, we started we when he started, I think it was kind of late. It was already later in the budget cycle. So I've been encouraging trying to get our input sessions even earlier. I mean, you know, June is fine, but I think we need to do it like March, April, very, very early on. And if we could put those dates now so that people would know and it commits us. The other thing I'd like to mention is that there was no input session in my district in District 2. So I know I have a lot of vocal people in my area and there was also complaints about that as well. I would also like to offer or suggest that one of the input sessions be held here and maybe possibly offer babysitting if they're going to attend here for one hour. It's just one of those things that people are working and they only have a limited amount of time and I think it might be helpful for maybe a church or somebody to volunteer and take care of the kids for an hour, and, you know, that's it. But anyway, it's just an idea, and I'm just grateful for all the people and, again, for the staff for putting this together. But I think we can do a much better job, and hopefully we can put this in an earlier part of the year. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. We do want to continuously improve our engagement, but I do want to emphasize that the community input sessions scheduled for August are still very valuable, and so the community does have the opportunity to come out and provide input. The proposed budget in July is the city manager's recommendation, but we have historically made changes to that proposed budget based on community input collected in August, so those are still very important.

Thank you. Okay, Amy, thank you for the presentation. Very good information. Thank you, Peter.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. And that concludes the City Manager's report for today.

Okay, great. It's 1156, and we're going to go to public comment. We have 21 in person and 26 total. So I want to take a moment to address the rules of decorum. The council chambers is a place of public business, a forum for civic discussion and decision making and service to the people of Corpus Christi. We are here to do the people's work and we'd like to proceed in that spirit. If you would 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 City Attorney Miles Risley to please review the council meeting rules of decorum.

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, Miles. So please state your name and the city in which you live before beginning your comment. 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 positioned near the city secretary's desk will help manage that allotted time. And if you have a petition or any relevant information, please present it to the city secretary prior to speaking. With that, we will start with Mr. Shawn Flanagan. Yes. Councilman.

I got a question for Rebecca real quick. Can council members do public comment?

No, sir, they can't. State law doesn't allow us. By statute, you cannot make public comment. Since you are a council member, you have a lot of freedom to speak on the dais, so that's not something allowed.

Got it. Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Mayor, Council, my name's Sean Flanagan. I live in District 2. I lead the volunteer group Citizens Defending Freedom at Corpus Christi. A month ago, we had our monthly meeting, and Hope Melkin gave an inspiring speech on AI. Coupled with the fact that there's a huge AI gigawatt data center scheduled, and it actually is under construction in our Nueces County, we formed a study group to look into this. What I handed you is a group of questions and concerns. We, the citizens have, we regard this and I'm don't have CDF on there cause we've joined with other groups because we don't regard this as a left right issue. This is a community welfare issue. We're hoping to come together and cooperate and get some good solutions working on us. I think we've been handed a bad situation. Our extensive conversations with the county, Basically, we don't have any power to stop this data center going in, even if we wanted to. The problem on this side of data centers, the HUD-8 data center, is these are on precedent in size and scope. They're talking about putting $20 billion in, hiring 4,000 folks during construction, The effects that this might have short-term and long-term on our community are immense. Plus, our original research showed that of the 524 acres that Hut 8 is going to be located on, 133 of them are within the city limits. When we found that out, we contacted Councilman Hernandez and asked him what the implications were of this. He said that the implications were that they've applied for, he found out that HUD-8 has applied for city utilities, but AEP is providing them electricity, and so far their water needs were very minor, 10,000 gallons a month, which is about the same as a residence with a swimming pool. However, there are great concerns that we have in regards to water, Uh, water power. There's a school within a hundred meters of this land that HUD eights on noise, public benefit and environmental impact. That's why all of those questions are on there. And what we're hoping to do is to you as elected officials and defenders of our community have more resources than we do to get answers to these questions. We're researching these questions, trying to get this going. We'd like to establish a chain of communications, with us to work together on this because, like I said, the problem is nobody knows if this is going to be a positive or a negative. We don't want to accept at face value the industry's fact statements. We don't want to accept at face value the hair on fire of people saying this is going to be the end of the world. What's the accurate deal? And that's what those questions are designed to do, and we're hoping that we can form a working group to work together on this. And several other people are going to be talking about this when they come up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Flanagan. Bradley Bartleson.

Brad Bartleson, District 5. An investor due diligence look at AI data centers market wise, the rise has become begun. One metric energy consumption has a growing by 50% next year. NVIDIA's hyperscale GPUs will be obsolete in three to six years, meaning a $12 billion swap out at HUD 8 in Robstown. Mill megawatt hour based user lease contracts fuel HUD eights revenue 98 billion over 15 years. Even replacing 12 billion in hardware in six years yet leaves a highly profitable property taxes should render 250 million a year. Yet I hear them getting 60 million locally. JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and a tiered Hut 8 financial structure created to afford isolation are who we're getting in bed with. Add BlackRock, Lone Pine, and Vanguard, the types of people with deep pockets, massive legal and communications resources. Reportedly, 230 are to be employed. Question is, what are these jobs, and will any management reside locally? HUD-8's closed-loop cooling requires no continuous water. However, replacement of its two million gallons occurs periodically. The coastal bend, Laredo, Rio Grande Valley area consumes five gigawatts. HUD alone will add one gigawatt. HUD-8 will create a hot island, heat island, in the area closest in Robstown. Electromagnetic fields are generated from the power lines and connecting equipment Studies indicate risk of childhood leukemia increased. Contaminated cooling water from metadata center in Cheyenne created a problem with a rare bacteria. Noise generated is low frequency, 60 hertz and up, a constant hum reaching to 96 dB in penetrating drywall and glass. Robstown's noise ordinance doesn't specify a dB level. just anything that presents material distress or discomfort. Now, quantum computing will first replace a portion of a data center and soon thereafter replace quite a bit of it by 22,000 reduction in power. Quantum computers are already in place in some data centers. Small modular reactors are an ideal fit for data centers. They generate power on site, eliminating the need for the transmission lines. Four SMRs went critical before July 4th this year. They are quicker to build, less costly than conventional. Their demand is driven by data centers. Two SMRs are fully commissioned, 90 more projects to come on, pausing our data centers for quantum, and SMRs would present a quantum improvement in performance cost and our human experience. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bronelson. Susie Luna-Saldana.

Susie Nassau Diane district to you know I come all the time before you and tell you all the things that you're doing wrong okay sometimes a couple of times things that are you doing right but this time I come before you so that the taxpayers know what is going on here and that we need to do something to safeguard the money of the taxpayers. I am really concerned about the way that you guys are spending money and the way that you're spending money that affects the taxpayers that shouldn't be affected. I understand when you spend money on streets, when you spend money on water projects, when you're trying to do things that are better for our community, those things I understand. What I don't understand is your fascination for spending money with attorneys. I really don't. I don't understand it. The common people out in that city do not understand it. They get so mad, the first thing they tell me is get rid of all of them. That's what they tell me, get rid of all of them. I don't believe all of you are bad, okay? I believe you're misguided. I believe your opinions sometimes differ from the regular taxpayers. But I believe that it is very, very important that you tell taxpayers why you're doing it. And don't tell me because it's the right thing to do or because it's in the charter. Think about the fact that it's our money you're spending. It's the money of the taxpayers. Put it into your conscience that what you need to do is why you're on those chairs. Do the right things for the right reasons. I'm not here to yell at you today. I'm here to ask you to put your heads on and think about the taxpayers. That's all we're asking. We the people are asking you to think about us, to think about what's best. Whatever your opinions are, they're yours. And I respect them. I have mine, and I hope you respect mine. But I want you to think about the thousands and thousands of people that you represent. And it's time you look for the truth, not as what's your best interest, but what is in our best interest. I ask you to honestly think about the taxpayer, the amount of money that's being spent, and quit spending it, please. We need it. Marilena Garza.

Marielena Garza, District 1. What's been handed to council is a letter drafted on behalf of the Library Advisory Board. It is available for public viewing on the Legistar website under the Library Advisory tab. good afternoon i stand before you today not only as a resident but as the chair of the corpus christi library advisory board a position i was appointed to by this council and later elected to by my fellow board members i have followed the hart library issue for well over a year Since the last public town hall that many of you attended, I have repeatedly requested updates on the status of the Janet Hart Library. Community members have done the same. We were told we would have answers this April. It is now July, and instead of answers, the city has authorized a $15,000 consultant study that has still yielded no answers and only examines one solution pathway. Meanwhile, our libraries are being asked to do more with less. We struggle to replace aging public computers that people rely on for GED classes, job applications, workforce training, and access to essential services. And if y'all remember, those are the computers that we used after Hurricane Harvey to make all those insurance claims. Every dollar matters and every month of delay matters. The Hart Library is a treasured community asset. Residents deserve transparency, a real timeline, and a plan. If the current interpretation of the state law is incorrect, we need to know. If architectural changes are necessary, we need to know. If there are obstacles preventing progress, those should be discussed publicly. My concern is that the continued delays risk turning this into a failure of leadership instead of a problem that can still be solved. Our community loves its libraries, and they expect action. I also want to invite each of you to attend a library advisory board meeting. We meet on the first Tuesday of every month at 1030 at Labratama Central Library. It is not recorded or available on YouTube. That is where these conversations are happening, where residents are showing up and where your presence would be very much welcomed. Today, I ask this council to prioritize the Hart Library direct staff to provide a real public update, establish a timeline for resolution, and ensure this issue does not continue to sit on the shelf while our community waits. Thank you.

Mm-hmm, Councilman Scott.

Can we get, I share some of the concerns. Can we get an update in their future? Yes, we can.

Yeah, I've been working with Councilwoman Paxson on it in the district, but just a quick update here is that the study was an architectural assessment of how we can put a partition up so that the library hours for the general public can be much more prolonged or much more, won't have accommodations. And we do need to, if we haven't briefed the board in an agnosium, we will. You know, we heard Ms. Garza, and thank you for coming this morning. I know you're a board member, and we do have the written report, so we'll make sure the board's thoroughly, there's a lot of good news, or news, and so I'm not sure why we don't have it out there, but we'll get it out there to them, and we'll also brief city council. Maybe we can do that the next council meeting or the one thereafter. Thank you. There could be a good solution, which is this partition wall. Then there'll be essentially two libraries in the one building, and we'll have unrestricted hours. The issue is school safety with gun laws and that type, well, not gun laws, but with shooting in schools. The state has really come down hard on public school districts. So that's what we're following. But anyway, we'll have a report for both the library board and the city council.

Okay, great. Councilwoman Paxson.

Thank you. Yes, Peter, I know, thank you for acknowledging we've been talking about this at length. Do we have a timeline on when we can get those, expect those updates? Because I know this goes back weeks ago with us talking about that.

Yeah, I think we can actually do one next Wednesday at City Council, and then the next board meeting will be in... I guess August, right? So probably August at the board, but we'll put something on for next week.

Okay. I know this is a library that is truly important to this community. It is.

Thank you.

Peter, sooner than later is probably best because we are receiving emails and... What was that? The first part, ma'am? Sooner than later is best. Yes, ma'am.

Right. Maybe we can put together a memo and then we'll also have a public briefing so the general public can see it.

Thank you. Jessica Villarreal? Jared Suarez.

Jared Suarez District 2. Allegedly a man named. Alpha, Delta, Romeo, India, Alpha, November, admitted to a certain person that he is getting paid by Gucci bags to come after us folks who are exposing the truth and attack us with our social media accounts, businesses, clients, relatives, and abusing city departments like using code enforcement to come after us. Gucci bags surrounds themselves with a bad crowd, who have many crimes under their belt in collection, 13 arrests, felony theft charges, assault charges, prison time, and child porn. Is this the type of person you want to re-elect for this city? As it is said, tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are. This leads me to speculate. If the company around you are criminals, what then are you doing behind closed doors with the power of the city in your conniving hands? We hit a nerve because city officials are resigning and jumping ship. People are being paid off to snuff out the light shining on this city. They are on the run, yet trapped. Hot Wheels wants this city to be completely industry and is getting onto the council to pass this Inner Harbor deal. The corruption runs deep, not only in the citywide, but that of the state. Everyone wants kickbacks. Greed begets greed. I ask myself, Why that spot for Inner Harbor? Well, look what refinery is closest to it and imagine a pipeline having a straight shot to them, easy access. You think it will stop there? Look at all the abandoned buildings hanging around. People behind closed doors are intentionally not selling them or fixing them up to lease out because Hot Wheels wants that land for industry. They're also buying up surrounding land. St. Paul tells us, that let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die, but not seduced, evil communications, corrupt good manners. Awake ye just, and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of God. I speak it to your shame. Don't forget to pray your daily rosaries and go to Latin Mass on Carolina Gallagher, our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. Pray for us, and may God help you.

Maria Rosa Suarez.

Maurice Juarez, District 2.

I look around the city and see how beautiful it is. The wind blowing around the trees and waves crashing on the sand. I also see bad things happening. Why build in a harbor desal when it will ugly our water? Why is it so much money to build? My dad says we are $3 billion in debt. Will my generation have to pay that? I am worried about our future because bad people are making bad choices. Where is all our money? We need to pray and fast so our city will be beautiful in the eyes of God so it is not too late to change heart and do what's right. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Ms. Suarez. Jeff Lehrman.

Good morning. Jeff Lehrman, District 3. I'm here to discuss the Aji Elevate lawsuit that is on the agenda in executive session today. I'm not here just as an attorney for Elevate, though. I'm also here as a citizen and lifelong resident of Corpus Christi. Indeed, I have developed professional and personal relationships with many of you over the years. I've also previously represented some of you as your lawyer. And in fact, I've represented the city of Corpus Christi as its lawyer. So I understand my perspective when I come up here to talk to council about these important issues. Why are we here? We're here because Ajit and his lawyers have alleged crimes, yet state and local national law enforcement say there is nothing illegal that was done. They allege violations of city charter, yet the city's own outside council hired to investigate whether or not there was violations of city charter found none. They alleged the Type B board was misled by misrepresentations as part of a presentation. But they apparently failed to ask the Type B board their opinion on the matter because yesterday, by a 5-0 vote, they roundly rejected that assertion and reaffirmed their contractual commitment to my client and rejected any breach of contract. They alleged that the Type B incentive was not designed for this project, yet we learned that Mr. Ajit and his group applied for the same incentive. They've asked for the same money and they've received some of that money. And now we understand that the city council is actually contemplating settlement as part of this case. Why would you consider settling and paying off somebody in light of these facts? In light of the advice you get from your own lawyers that you've paid for. However, yesterday the type B board sent a very strong message. This is what they said. The Type B Board of Directors finds canceling or impairing contracts already binding in effect creates a major obstacle to both business development and consumer financial health and must be avoided. The Board of Directors finds that the premature cancellation, termination, or rescission of an economic development incentive agreement in the absence of a board-determined, uncured default or other established contractual basis for termination may cause substantial barriers to business and economic development. result in financial and reputational harm to the corporation and expose the corporation and city to unnecessary legal risk. They held no default. Resolution Section 2, the Board of Directors finds no default by Elevate. Number 2, the agreement is reaffirmed by the Board of Directors. And number 4, the Board of Directors respectfully requests that the city not impair its contract. That's the type B board appointed by this dais. They spoke loudly yesterday. When you're in executive session, remember that message. So all we're asking you to do is understand the risks that the city has if it continues to go down this path. I'm asking the city withdraw its default position. We have sent a letter to your city attorney in response to the default, and I humbly ask that you review it. Thank you for your time.

Amanda Gomez.

Good afternoon, Amanda Gomez, resident of District 5. I'm here today to ask the council to consider an upcoming proposal that will be made by the Planning and Economic Development Department to support Mother Teresa Shelter, pictured there, through the distribution of ESG funding. Mother Teresa Shelter is located at 513 Sam Rankin, right across the street from us here. It's a nonprofit organization. We're the largest state shelter in Corpus Christi, serving the unhoused community, open Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. This shelter is near and dear to so many people, including myself. I'm a little biased in my affinity towards the shelter because I work there. I'm the director of Mission Advancement, and the favorite part of my job is bringing awareness to the community, to you all here, about the unhoused community of Corpus and how Mother Teresa Shelter accompanies this community, providing respite and hope. Our services include, I'm going to read these off because it's a long list, daily meals, showers, laundry services, personal lockers for belongings, a mailing address, phone and internet access, bus tokens, document retrieval, group counseling, an onsite case manager, and a men's transitional housing program. We also work within the continuum of care and have community partners that provide onsite access to things like healthcare and various resources, The Christus Bond Caravan is there today on Tuesdays. Annually, we serve at minimum 920 unduplicated clients. That is about 52,000 meals each year, 6,900 showers, and 2,500 laundry cycles. And I like to mention those because those are essential services. Those are things that we don't even think twice about. In fact, sometimes we complain when we have to throw a load of laundry in when we have to stop our show and get in the shower but hundreds of people Monday through Friday right here in corpus look forward to entering the doors of the shelter they look forward to getting a hot meal to take a shower and to wash their clothes. There is no arguing that homelessness is a very complex issue we all know that to be true it takes time to build trust. to work within the system of available resources and provide lasting change. After 15 years of homelessness, we finally got a couple housed, and that's huge for us. It's an all too familiar reality. Things like this take time, but it's not hopeless. It is not a hopeless cause. That is why our day shelter is vital. It meets each person where they are, providing dignity through every service. And on this note, once again, once this is proposed to the council, I urge you to support the shelter to you all as council members, as well as the public at large. Thank you.

Thank you. Shannon Ross.

And Mayor, can I just make an update on that? So we do appreciate Ms. Gomez speaking and On the draft agenda that was put out Monday, for next Tuesday, the CDBG home budget was listed as an item. But the department needs one more week to finalize the budget. There's a little more program income that we have that wasn't included. So we gotta make some fine-tuned adjustments. So for Ms. Gomez and others, the budget will be presented on the 28th of July to the city council.

A week later.

Yeah, a week later with a second read in August. But Mother Teresa, we have that application. I think Ms. Gomez will be happy with the recommendation. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. We'll see you on the 28th.

Thank you, Peter. Scott. No, I'm sorry. Shannon Ross. No. Okay. Scott Barasa.

Good afternoon, Scott Barraza, Nueces County. I'm still waiting on that well mitigation plan. I think it's being worked on. With that said, the hydrology report's finally dropped. It's on the Securing Water website. I highly advise y'all to go look at it. It's pretty eye-opening. But in that report, when you read it, it is flawed. The modeled amounts of pumping for it is less than what the permits are. Just over 2,100 acre feet less, and it's a standalone hydrology report for just the western wellfield. It doesn't factor in the eastern wells or any of the industrial wells like Lyondale or P66. Just yesterday, I saw a Weisinger rig at Celanese. None of that's in there, not to mention Gill's Buddies at Seven Seas. It's only factoring in the western wellfield pumping. So with that said, the real-world drawdown and subsidence is going to be worse than modeled. Everyone is getting off of Corpus Water and going to groundwater because they lack confidence. The modeled impacts. It was a 30-year model, but it's likely to happen much sooner and worse because of the additional groundwater pumping by everyone else. The Western Wellfield, nearly two feet of subsidence. What is that going to do to the river flow impacts in the area? Robstown. Three-quarters of the city of Robstown is in the 5 to 10-inch ring for subsidence. That's a city that already has drainage issues. Not to mention foundations cracking and everything else that's going to go along with it. Cow Island and Five Points, they're in it also. That five inch ring actually goes out to just past Calicoat. So Cow Island and Five Points are going to have drainage, foundation issues, everything like that. The real alarming thing on this is your water infrastructure. Between those five and ten inch rings lies a saltwater barrier dam. the Mary Roads pipeline and the Owen Stevens plant in there. What is the Mary Roads pipeline? Does that do about what, 70, 75% of the water supply? When that subsidence goes down five to 10 inches, what's it gonna do to the pipeline? Will it bust? Probably so. What's that gonna do to your water supply for your status? Not to mention the Owen Stevens plant. It's right there between those 5 and 10 inch rings. It's going to have it. It's going to have foundation problems. You're going to have the pipes having issues there. Outbound pipes. What's going to happen when they break going outwards? What's that going to do to the city's water supply? It's Just a matter of time before the catastrophic failure. It's imminent. It's going to happen if you continue to pump at these rates. You're a seven-county regional water supplier. You shouldn't be putting yourself into self-harm like this. It demonstrates a lack of ability to plan and really gives the state a reason to step in. We are literally looking at the first city to run out of water and while simultaneously destroying their infrastructure for that water. It's, you know, I didn't even think this was possible. Congratulations. Y'all have really shocked me on that. But groundwater wells is no longer just a well owner issue. It is now a Northwest Noises County property owner issue. The impacts of it is going to spread out to everyone in the county. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Barraza. Emily Barrera.

Hello. Emily Barrera, District 2. I'm here to give some perspective as a citizen in regards to our water situation. It is to my understanding that our current allocation of resources is heavily catered to industrial usage. I once took great pride in this city. I've traveled around the country and have never felt the love I once felt for Corpus Christi anywhere else. This is my home, and it is the home of the many generations of my family that came before me. A big part of why I felt so connected to the city came from the time I've spent researching the history of Corpus Christi. From this research, I know that we've been an industry town from the very beginning. We have solidified our role as a major player in the game of production, and I know how important that role is to our infrastructure. With that being said, I think we've bitten off more than we can chew. Because of the relationship that we have to industry, we have seen exponential development at the expense of residential well-being. I used to think that there might have been a way to compromise between the two, but with the way things have been unfolding lately, I see how this thinking is flawed. We are trying too hard to satisfy both parties that have opposing needs, because this is bigger than water. This sets the precedent for where your priorities lie. You either value residential well-being or you don't. So this is what it comes down to. This is the line in the sand. If we continue to prioritize industry over resident, Corpus Christi will take one step closer into becoming the city that once was. Corpus is worth fighting for, but if this is a fight that we are insistent on losing, then there is no future here. The love and pride that I once felt for this city has now been replaced with grief and shame. I mourn the future that my niece and nephew could have had here. It's not too late to change course. We're just running out of time. Thank you. Thank you. Mark Munster.

Mark Minster, District 4, and I'm happy to talk about these slides with any of you at any time. The mission statement, I put this from the budget. The city government should be working to meet the welfare needs of residents and improve their quality of life. And this is an article that came out yesterday. Our city manager, Peter Zanoni, said that industry is not paying their fair share. They're not being a good partner and that it's not fair to the retired family or hardworking family. when they're subsidizing industrial water usage and industrial demand. And we see this with all the projects that are proposed. And the impact is going to be faced by residents. I'm starting off with economically, the economic impact. Last week, or the prior meeting, I presented about the water fund and just looking at how much residents pay versus large volume. And to me, it just doesn't look equitable when residents also pay wastewater, pay stormwater, and they're facing these increases on their utility bills. Regular people on regular incomes, not billion dollar entities. And the CC Water Fund, they have more expenses than revenue. This is looking at the industrial district agreements, not just with the water rates are unfair. When you look at the tax agreements and when you consider the property taxes that residents pay, these industrial district agreements just make it extremely unfair. The top water users get huge tax breaks where they're not contributing at all. And they're the ones that are driving the demand and causing the city to go into debt for these projects. These are slides that I presented last year. Here you see the property tax, the industrial district agreement. I just don't think it's equitable when this class of water users is driving all the costs and as I said, I don't think it's fair. You see in the top right, all the water projects that are proposed and the impact that they're gonna have to residents and the bottom left, all the interest that we're gonna be taking on. The principal payment for this project is around $50 million. And then the interest payments, the maintenance, this is really like an $100 million contract for 30 years just for one water project. And y'all are looking for more than that. So I just think it's contradictory when city staff is recommending this, but we say that it's unfair. And then residents face the impact. You're pinching pennies for things that impact resident infrastructure. And, like, these same companies are profiting and residents, regular working class people face the impact when they're profiting. When they're the ones that have driven why we have to spend money, because of just prior issues that we've had. And these are just the economic issues. Like I was just looking at, like, residents, working class people, the people that are living here are going to face these long-term effects. And we all remember in 2016, the same one that's suing us. And our natural resources should be democratically controlled and managed by people and residents, not private entities that are working for profit and they organize, their entire organization is just to expand and increase their profits. And just think about the residents that face increased gas prices, but working class and regular people in other countries face the impact for this drive for energy and profits in Iran, in Cuba, in Palestine. Think about working class residents everywhere.

Hope Malkin.

Hi, y'all. Hope Malkin, just up the street, 2117 Leopard Street, Corpus Christi. I am with CDF and very concerned about the HUT 8 facility going in. What we've done is compile a lot of questions. They're very dense, I understand that. But we're just trying to sort of prep everybody about how to think about this. There's a lot of due diligence that, of course, hasn't been done. This has all happened very quickly. And that's our concern. So we're just trying to backtrack. I'm just going to list a few of these questions. You saw them because Sean handed you copies. I'm going to make these available to anybody in the audience who's interested in following up on this because we want citizens to be informed. Did the city review approve or facilitate any municipal utility connection for any part of the project? What was it? What were the parameters? We know that they're saying municipal water hookup is for sinks and toilets. How will this be tracked, monitored, or made public? What does the city plan to do if they exceed their stated water purpose and or usage? Will the facility have access to municipal wastewater treatment? Are there restrictions on what type of water can be discharged into the system and how much? Will the project discharge any cooling loop, purge water, commissioning flush water, glycol, biocides, corrosion inhibitors, or other chemical waste into Corpus Christi wastewater systems. Has the city received or reviewed any industrial wastewater application, pretreatment request, discharge plan, hauling plan, or emergency discharge plan for the Hut 8 Beacon Point project? Will the city require written proof that no closed-loop cooling discharge enters municipal wastewater? So these are just the water-related questions. We have these on all kinds of subjects, power, environmental degradation. This is a huge topic for which, frankly, we were all unprepared. So we're trying to play catch up now. And in view of a look back, I have one final question that I feel is of great import. Did city staff, city manager, the utility department, economic development representative, or consultant, meet with Hut 8, Beacon Point DC LLC, AEP Texas, Jacobs, Vertiv, or the Corpus Christi Regional EDC about this project. We are officially requesting a list of these names, if so. Thank you very much. And if anybody wants any of these questions in the audience, I'm going to leave them with the secretary. Appreciate your time.

thank you henry williams to the mayor city council my highest regards and respect to each of you and may i would like to commend you and Sheriff Hooper for the prayer meeting that took place last Wednesday, July 8th at Cole Park. The gathering of pastors, of ministers in unity, praying for our city, praying for our families, praying for our future, and also prayers for repentance and prayers for rain. And when we come together to pray and to see God's face and to lift up the name of Jesus upon our community, it makes a great deal of difference and we'll be seeing rain come. It will be coming. I also pray, I looked up the Hillcrest community to you. The hopes, the needs, the aspirations of the Hillcrest community. and that the Inner Harbor desalination project not be seen as the solution to the city's water problems. And I ask that you vote no to the Inner Harbor desalination project when that vote comes indeed to the council again. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Reverend. Melinda de los Santos.

Good morning, Melinda DelSanto's district team. I was at the same prayer meeting the pastor was, but there was a deacon or pastor there who commented, and I'm not quoting, but in essence, the opinion was people complain at city council rather than count their blessings. And this bothered me for the next few days because what I see and hear are citizens from your districts taking time from their day to voice their concerns and opinions. You receive an enormous amount of information requiring decisions that impact our community. You depend on truthful and accurate data from the various agencies. Many citizens have stood here presenting a vast amount of research, evidence and suggestions to enlighten you. So what some may regard as complaining, what I see, and I hope you will see, are concerned citizens sharing independent sources of information. So regarding the data centers and stuff, our concerns regarding the school related information or has a city evaluated the project's proximity to Cal Allen East Elementary, including traffic, dust, noise, power line routing, emergency response, and air noise exposure. In addition to that vital information for the neighborhood residents and school children, will the city request an independent cumulative impact review specific to the school boundary, playgrounds, classrooms, bus routes, and surrounding residents? And how will these results impact studies be viewed by the public? Has Cal Allen Independent School District been formally briefed by the city, AEP, ERCOT, HUD-8, or the city or the county. In regards to noise, we know there's noise ordinance. Will the city require baseline noise measurements before construction and before innerization? Will the noise studies include the common scale decibels, the high low frequencies, the low frequency hum, the nighttime operations, transformers, substations, cooling fans, backup generations, and cumulative equipment? How will results of these studies be viewed by the public? And what enforceable decibel limits will apply to the school property and to affected homes up to five miles away? Will post-construction noise data be public and continuous, not just a one-time consultant report? Again, we're not against AI, my son's all about AI, but we are again looking at the safety and we don't want things to be turning around that we're having to pay all this money because of studies that have come up that people are having effects from these. So all we want is to see that these questions are answered so we can have a better future for the next generation. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Julian Figueroa. Julian Figueroa. Okay, Sandra Meyer. Okay, Rachel Caballero.

Rachel Caballero, D1. I do find it comical that a lot of sitting electeds and city council candidates are going on radio shows and saying that as citizens, we're taking the time here and using our First Amendment rights to air our grievances to our local governing bodies. So any individual, whether elected or a candidate, that is saying that we're complaining has no room to represent our communities. One of the things that I wanted to talk about is the data centers and not having enough information and how the negative impacts of our communities, especially Cal Allen East Elementary, the people in that neighborhood really need to get involved and reach out to myself or Mr. Sean Flanagan, because it is very, very, the information that is out currently is extremely alarming. And so this is further damage that will be occurring to our community, including with the experimental Inner Harbor desalination plant. So I'm not sure at what point, if you guys are trying to just blow this entire city up, or what's going on, but many community members are against this data center and where it is located, and we're going to continue to put pressure on elected officials holding office now and the ones that are trying to get into office. Also, I learned something new today that when you do a survey, you have to have at least 665 responses in the city of Corpus Christi to get a 99% confidence level. As of today, there are 2,674 signatures to remove Mayor Paulette Guajardo from office for breaking the city charter and her oath to office. So that needs to be made clear. And the reason why this petition came to this council is because of perjury. and malfeasance, misconduct, all of those things, every single one of them. And to date, no one in this community has been able to obtain any reports from any outside agencies Neither the FBI, the CIA, the Texas Rangers, none of those officers have been named. There hasn't been any reports. As far as we are concerned, this is just propaganda because until you are ready to publicize those reports, they do not exist. The other thing is these data centers, by the way, only have a three to six year lifespan. And from what I understand, a percentage of the property in District 1 that is owned by the city is being leased. So we need to be very, very careful in how we move forward with this. Thank you. Robin Cox.

Robin Cox, District 3. And before we get started, I want to say something that's different than the water I'm talking about. I was honored Saturday to be invited to a baptism on Ocean Drive. I had never seen that before. I'm a devout Catholic, and of course, we're baptized at birth and private. And it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed, seeing somebody on the seawall on Ocean Drive, accepting God into their life, and it was moving. And when I wonder why I still live here in Corpus and what's going on, that's one of the reasons. We are people from all different faiths, all different walks of life, and embracing each other. If any of you have never watched Malcolm X, fast forward it to the very end when Malcolm X says, I was wrong, and we can all get along and all be together. That alone, that part of the movie is well worth watching. But on another note, I'm sure everyone has seen, it's all over Facebook, that Corpus Christi gave $100 million in water discounts to industry giants. This appalled people who never, ever follow the news. When we're all worried about our water rates. If you go to HEB, you're going to see people looking and putting things back on the shelf. I wonder how many of you know exactly how much a gallon of milk cost. Because when I was a single mom, I knew how much each jar of baby food cost, each gallon of milk, each loaf of bread. I was one of the ones that made a list and went in there. And most of the residents in Corpus do. And when we raise citizens' water rates so high that they can't afford to pay their bills, that is a horrible thing. Because when they find out that we're giving industry I don't care if they drive Maseratis and Lamborghinis and have Gucci purses. I don't want those things. That's never been something that I've wanted, even if I can afford it. I don't want it. I can't afford it now, but if I could. But I don't care if they have it. But don't skimp off the regular taxpayers. When most people rent in Corpus, I'm a landlord. When we do that, we have to raise water rates. You know how hard it is to go to people that are already struggling and tell them, I've got to raise your rates. Because we're giving industry. I am still appalled when I think about the cane meat packing company. And everybody shut their eyes. It didn't really happen. One person on council kept bringing up, and that's Sylvia Campos. Some of you weren't on council at that time. So the other ones shut their eyes. When I read on here, and it says... If companies prevail, Corpus could be forced to refund them tens of millions of dollars. So I know we've got to be good neighbors. This isn't being a good neighbor. So come here, pollute our air, and then we're going to give you money back? That makes no sense at all. I want to applaud Mr. Zanoni. He did say this was unjust. Thank you. Amanda Short.

Good morning. My name is Amanda Short. I'm a disabled veteran, registered nurse, Texas property land developer, and business owner. Throughout my career, I have learned one fundamental truth. Infrastructure is the foundation of every successful community. I'm here today because Texas is entering a new era of industrial development. These facilities and other emerging technologies are arriving at a pace that our laws were never designed to anticipate. While these projects may be regulated by various agencies for individual permits, Texas does not currently have comprehensive statewide framework for evaluating their cumulative impacts on the taxpayers, the communities, and the infrastructure. By the way, I'm district four. The challenge is even greater in rural and unincorporated areas. Many Texas counties have little or no zoning authority or legal tools to evaluate whether these extraordinary industrial facilities are compatible with the long-term needs of their communities. As a result, local leaders and citizens are often left with few meaningful options once a property project is proposed by a landowner, even when the potential effects are far overreaching the property itself. That's why I've begun a Texas infrastructure stewardship initiative. This is legislation that I will be taking before the Senate hearing. This purpose is to not stop growth or discourage investments, Its purpose is to establish a modern statewide legislative framework that prepares Texas for the next generation of industrial development. It will use objective standards and consider the long-term impacts on infrastructure in the communities. Responsible businesses benefit from clear expectations. Communities deserve transparency and meaningful participation. Future generations deserve infrastructure that is resilient and sustainable. Stewardship means preparing before a crisis, not reacting afterwards. The initiative is intended to bring everyone to the table, industry, land owners, local government, state agencies, and citizens to develop practical standards that provide certainty for businesses while protecting the long-term interests of the Texas communities who will live with these decisions for decades to come. I look forward to working with all interested parties to develop legislation that balances economic prosperity with responsible stewardship. Thank you for your time. What you have before you is an issue brief. Thank you.

Thank you. That concludes our in-person public comment. Ms. Huerta, do we have WebEx?

Yes, ma'am, we do. The first person is Sean Merritt.

Can you hear me?

Now we can.

Live from D5, baby, this is Sean Mayer, Corpus Christi citizen, presenting you Mark Scott's Excellent Adventure and Bogus Ideas on Channel 361 News, giving you the gonzo truth, no matter how bad it hurts. Rebecca, please start my time, and boys, play my three-minute video, if you will. Whoa, hi dudes. I'm Mark Scott, or as my college buddies used to call me, Skid Mark. They brought me on today to explain decile and math to you, and I've been sitting downstairs for the last two hours drinking beer, sniffing glue, and going over my notes with this really awesome lava lamp. It was totally rad. First, because it's first, Axe H20 at $650? Bad. Weird, bad debt vibes, man. Don't ask me how, but it just gives me the willies. Inner Harbor at more than $3 billion and another $1426 on you residents for water that ain't yours? Well, that's totally righteous and most excellent, man. And then Harbor Island comes in at $15 to $20,000. Premium water, dude. It's wearing a tux and a tie. And it's got backstage passes to Aerosmith, man. Totally righteous. Now, people ask, Skidmark, how does that math work? Well, simple. I do math by vibes. And if the calculator starts harshing my mellow, I go ask my dog. He's pretty smart. Point three. The Bay won't notice half a trillion gallons of brine over 30 years. Direct quote me there, dudes. Won't notice. The Bay is super chill. I asked it. I said, Bay, are you chill? And the Bay was like, dude, turn up the Skinner and quit trying to do math. Wait a minute. Oh, no. Oh, no, Bay. Water. Deep purple. Smoke on the water? Dude, the 70s were trying to warn us, man. We didn't listen. My apologies, bros. Rather gnarly Sid flashback there. Anyway, look, Dave Loeb has already settled the science, and he's the smartest guy I know. Yeah, look. He wants a boat, the Swizzle Stick. Corpus Christi Bay becomes a margarita mixer, man. He's gonna take that boat out there and do donuts till the fish start singing Jimmy Buffet. Righteous! Point four, Inner Harbor is the best deal there is. Don't ask how. You have to feel the math, man. You know, like a 12-minute guitar solo, nobody asked for. Or, speaking of what nobody asked for, Roland Barrera singing at Cinco de Mayo. I wish I was deaf, bros.

Thank you.

Point five, it's the same salt going back into the harbor.

Next we have Alberto Zertuche. Okay, we can hear you, sir. Go ahead.

All right, give me just a second. I was actually on my way over there. Let me pull over real quick.

I'm sorry, are you going to make public comment now, or are you coming in in person? Is that what you said?

Yeah, I'm coming in in person.

Okay, well, I'm going to move on to the next person then.

All right, thank you.

Sure. Next we have Ajit David.

Hi, good afternoon. Can you all...

Yes, we can hear you, Mr. David. Go ahead.

Wonderful. Good afternoon. This is Ajit David. I live in District 2, Corpus Christi. I tuned in a few moments ago just to find Elevate's council talking about certain things that Type B had talked about yesterday. I was in that same meeting. So was the city manager. The only problem is it looks like Elevate's council and me were in two different Type B meetings. because one of the resolutions that Type B had passed yesterday, and I'm quoting this, it says that Type B wanted to admonish the applicant at Monash, they repeated that word twice, applicant, for conduct leading to allegations for the breach of contract. That was the resolution. I don't think they gave a pat on the back of the council or the applicant for altering a document to procure tax dollars. But let me just give an update to the residents and the city where we are. Yes, I filed a lawsuit against the city. September makes it two years. Here's the status. The city, through its outside attorney, George Hyde, pled in front of the trial judge saying no discovery whatsoever. No discovery, no depositions whatsoever. That got denied. The trial court ordered limited or targeted discovery. They went through depositions and then they complained that the judge was abusing her judicial discretion in doing so. And they filed an appeal in the 13th Court of Appeals. Added a whole bunch of pleas more to the 13th Court. The result, all the pleas got denied, denied, denied, and denied. They were forced to go back to the trial court. What happened next? The trial court did the same thing. In the spirit of transparency, ordered depositions of the mayor, among others. The afternoon before the deposition was to take place, George Hyde convinced the city to rush through the Supreme Court to stop all discovery right away. No problem. If the attorney has been winning for the last two years at the cost of close to $500,000, what are all these appeals for? Does counsel still want to appeal? What next after the Supreme Court? Because the pleas are the same. It would be insane to expect a different outcome. The city is bearing two defense costs. The lawsuit against the taxpayer-subsidized Homewood Suites, and second, more importantly, that they never talked about. Thank you, Mr. David.

Your time is up. Next is Mr. Falawel. Okay, I don't hear him. Laura Madden. Hello. Yes, Ms. Madden. Go ahead, please.

Hi. Laura Madden, D1. Can you please play my video?

And now, as I understand it, Valero and the high water users are going ahead and protesting. And they have high-priced lawyers that will try to get us out of it so that they don't have to pay anything. And how does it impact? us, we the citizens. Let me tell you, it's gonna impact us greatly because they have prized lawyers and they probably will win some of these issues. So what can we the citizens do about it? Because if you look at the bills and I pay $150 a month on my utilities and the probability of it erasing, probability of 30%, guess what? I'm gonna pay another $45 so that the industry can have their free water. So my question to you is what are you going to do about it? We know that they have price-to-price lawyers. We know that they're going after our water and our taxes. My God, our taxes like crazy.

Does that conclude your comment?

No. At least Susie got one thing right, or Valero may not have paid her yet to talk about being a harbor scam.

I still have some time.

So I'd like to remind everybody that there's multiple lawsuits going on at one time. And when a decision is made, it's not made for all because some people are getting them confused and they're thinking, oh, well, this decision made by this court, you know, goes with this lawsuit and now it's going to go away. And that's not really the truth. And I'd like to see If there's some way that city council can establish limits given for representation or reimbursement of attorney fees, if it's not already in place, we shouldn't just hand over a blank check to anybody, especially so they can continue to avoid conversation and transparency and hide undercover of petitions We just shouldn't keep paying until they run out of courts to file in. There has to be steps along the way that hold accountability. And once extra amount of dollars has been spent, I believe they either need to take their own responsibility or it needs to be approved. Whether you're the mayor or the janitor, we all should be given the same courtesy. No one person is better than the other. But some people think they are, and they will run and hide as long as they can. I think transparency means openness and willingness to be honest about everything. And if you make a mistake, own up to it, admit it, claim it. None of us are perfect, although some of us try harder than others to pretend that we are. That's called a false sense of transparency.

Thank you, Ms. Madden. Your time is up. So, Mayor, that concludes the public comment period. I don't see Mr. Zertuche.

Did we have two more on the third page?

Oh, I'm sorry, Mayor.

Oh, there you are. Okay.

Okay. Next we have Amanda Guerra. Thank you.

It'll be a second.

Okay. I understood that Ms. Guerra wasn't online. The same for Christopher Olivares. So I'll just call him one more time. Amanda Guerra or Christopher Olivares? Okay, ma'am.

Okay. Mr. Zertuchia will be the last one.

Come on.

Albert Zertuchia, District 3, owner of Hard Life's Bait and Tackle, Team Hard Life YouTube. So motivated here today to see more of our community standing against corruption. The experimental desal scam is a prime example of a large portion of our community, which is paying attention to what the city council is doing to ruin us or kill our city. Our community is speaking today, which includes the names who were called but couldn't speak because of the work, which notify you, city council members, that they are paying attention and will be paying more attention come election time. I would like to thank the Fab Five for standing up against taxpayers. Man, I'm out of breath from running. This includes the industry lobbyists on city council who are sitting in a position that had several basically created a conflict of interest, and they should remove themselves from city council immediately. Now I'd like to address what industries are doing to our city. They aren't paying their fair share in taxes, natural resources, and or on their fines. They're getting huge reductions, and it's become... completely evident in the news. This is stuff that we've been talking about for years, and now it's here. What a surprise. Hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue given to industries, while us, the taxpayers, and those refinery workers are paying for industries to continue to make hundreds of millions in profit. Through a simple Google search, Sitco reported a 48% increase last year from the year before. which shows they have done major improvements to their refiners yet sued to get reduced rates in taxes for the same upgraded equipment to get better refining margins and record crude processing rates. They fight with the city lawsuit after lawsuit, which shows they are not good community partners, which is, like I said, costing the city hundreds of thousands in legal fees, hundreds and millions, And billions in lost revenue. I'm sorry, I ran over here. I'm out of breath. But when will the city and our courts put an end to this tyrannical influence and city council members who are industry lobbyists selling our city by the sea, our homes, our way of life, our history to industries who don't care about the damages they cause to their bottom dollar? The proof is in the amount of lawsuits they have filed. The city has bent over backwards to give them everything reduced. They will not stop until they get everything for free. And they're still charging us at the pumps for everything we get from them. The only thing that has gone up consistently for them is their profit margins and the amount of money that we give to them so we can survive. We are tired. Tired of seeing people, as they described, putting stuff back because they can't afford it because now they're paying for water. All because industry lobbyists sold us out. We voted y'all in the office to take care of us and y'all not.

All right, Mayor, that concludes the public comment period.

Thank you. So let's move on to our board and committee appointments.

So the first board for your review is the Landmark Commission, which has two vacancies representing the following preferred but not required categories, one historian and one at large.

Okay, we'll go ahead and open it.

We have two resignations.

I'm sorry? Well, they're resigning. So we have four applicants, and so I'm going to open nominations. This is the Landmark Commission, and we're filling two. And you said they do not necessarily have to be the categorical assignments? Yes, ma'am, that's right. Okay. I'll go ahead and open. Isasi and Goldstein. I'm sorry? Isasi and Goldstein. Isasi and Goldstein. For Landmark Commission. Landmark Commission. Jerry Colmenaro. Okay, Jerry Colmenaro. The only one left is Shelly Rios. Any other nominations? Okay, so all four. Okay. So we're going to pick two, and I'll start with Councilman Cantu. Councilman Scott?

Jerry Colmenaro and...

Can you hold on one moment? I'm sorry. I was just trying to make it bigger. Oh.

Okay, Scott, can we start again?

Mr. Colmenaro and Mr. Goldstein.

Goldstein and Rios.

Colmenaro and Rios.

Um, Goldstein, Isasi?

Did you wish to vote, Mr. Gunther, or you're just... Okay, so Goldstein and Rios are appointed. All right, next we have the Planning Commission and the Airport Zoning Commission. Okay, so we appoint Michael Esparza and Justin Hedrick.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say no. The motion carries. Okay, so we have two. You want to explain that, Rebecca? Garcia and Ortiz got it. Okay.

Still nominating one, maybe?

Well, do you want to explain the two? Ma'am? So we have one, Cynthia Garza met her sixth limit term. Yes, ma'am. And then we have Michael Miller, who has resigned. So we have two spots to fill. Yes. And we have what nomination?

Alex Garcia and Dorothy.

Okay, Paul Cervantes.

We'll nominate Aaron again.

Any other nominations? Okay, any other? Okay, I'm gonna close nominations, and we're gonna, I'm sorry, choose two people to fill these spots, so we'll start with Councilwoman Vaughn.

Garcia and Cervantes.

Cervantes and Etienne.

Cervantes and Etienne.

Garcia and Cervantes. Garcia and Cervantes.

Okay, so Garcia and Cervantes are appointed. Thank you very much, Mayor and Council.

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Werther. Okay, so next we're going to go to the consent agenda items.

Mayor, and just, I'm sorry, just to clarify, so we, the members of the Planning Commission also serve on the Airport Zoning Commission, so those appointments, yes, so both are, we appointed to both boards.

Right, those are for both. I'm sorry, we should have explained that. Yes, I'm sorry. Okay, our consent agenda items three through 14. Would any member of the council like to pull any items three through 14? Okay, number 11, and we do have a motion and a second. And to clarify, I'd like to clarify something we weren't sure about last, a couple of weeks ago. Public comment on consent agenda items will be taken at this time, at the forefront of the consent agenda. So if you wish to address any consent agenda items, each speaker is also limited to three minutes total to address those items. So the time limit is established under the city's public comment procedures, and it is also consistent with the Texas Open Meetings Act. So with that, we have a motion and a second to pass the consent agenda with the exception of item 11. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say no. The motion carries.

We have to do public comment before we vote.

Oh, before, I'm sorry. So would anyone like to speak on any items 3 through 14 at this time? Okay, with that, we're closing public comment. We have a motion to second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say no. The motion carries. So the item pulled by Mr. Hernandez, item 11, a resolution authorizing the submittal of a grant application to the Texas Department of Emergency Management. Councilman Hernandez, your question or comment? Go ahead.

Do we have anybody here from Public Works? Ernie should be here.

There he comes.

Ernie, I wanted to try and highlight this a little bit more. I know this has been something that has been ongoing that we've gotten federal funds for. Can you kind of go through the details, and I don't know if you want to go through the presentation, but what exactly, why this is important and what it does for the community?

Yes, sir, I'll go through the presentation. Good morning, Mayor, Council, Ernie De La Garza, Interim Assistant City Manager, Director of Public Works. So I'm bringing you a resolution authorizing submittal of a grant application through the Texas Department of Emergency Management for funding in the amount of $6.6 million for La Jolla Creek project. All right, so this project is comprised of two separate packages. Package A is the detention pond that is near substantial completion. That's currently ongoing and is shown here on the map here under package A. Package B widens the crossing under State Highway 358 or SPID and Hawley Road by adding box culverts. Together, both packages increase drainage capacity and reduce flood risk in the surrounding neighborhoods. So some history here. The neighborhoods around this area where this La Jolla Creek watershed is located have experienced repeated flooding over the last 15 years with notable events occurring in 2010, 2015, 2016, and 2018. The project was developed to address that recurring problem. Some history on La Jolla Creek flooding. The current FEMA maps in use were last updated and published in 2022, which are shown here. The hatched area represents the floodway and the dotted line represents the 100-year floodplain. Compared to the previous historically published maps, both the floodway and floodplain have grown since the project's inception. So three established neighborhoods benefit directly, La Molina, Los Encinos, and Las Colonias. And the next slide shows the areas that have been modeled where these no longer would fall in the flood zone. So the blue shading is a 100-year floodplain area. So at the time of design, the 2009 edition of the map was the most recent. The pink represents the modeled area of inundation after both packages are completed. So the footprint shrinks substantially, providing relief in inundation levels for many structures in that area. The official changes to the FEMA maps will be noted using as-built data once both package A and B are completed. And this explains what each package delivers. So package A is the 130-acre detention pond off of Greenwood, built for flood relief to Las Colonias and Los Encinos. Excavation finished in March, and we expect substantial completion this month. The pond holds stormwater and controls how quickly it releases into La Voya Creek, effectively reducing peak flows entering La Voya Creek by creating a new low spot in the system for stormwater to divert to. The package B that this grant will go towards installs two additional box culverts on each side of the existing box culverts underneath State Highway 358 and underneath Hawley Road, allowing more stormwater to move beneath SPID and Hawley, widening the restrictive choke point And that could cause water backing up upstream. So these additional culverts are going to add that capacity so that we don't have that choke point underneath those structures or underneath those roadways. This is just a cross-section of what that would look like. Construction is estimated to take eight months and cost $8.8 million. Because the work occurs beneath one of the city's busiest roadways, construction must be completed in multiple traffic control phases while maintaining traffic. The city is finalizing utility installation review, and we have to coordinate an agreement with TxDOT to get this done. In February, TETM notified us that the FEMA identified additional hazard mitigation grant funding for Package B, and so funding could grow from 163 to 6.6 million. This grant is still a 75-25 split, So our local match increases comes from the stormwater capital fund, no new debt or no new tax impacts. And then this is a schedule of a snapshot of today. So design was originally completed in 2022. And updated this year, the next milestone is finalizing the textile agreement, followed by bidding and construction. Once construction is complete, we'll update the hydraulic model and submit the map revisions to FEMA. I stand by for any questions.

Thank you, Ernie. Well, we appreciate the work you've done. This has been ongoing. I think it's been multiple years. Correct. and thousands of households that it will affect. Councilwoman Vaughn.

Sorry, if I could finish my... Oh, I'm sorry, you were still on.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay, I just want to make some clarifications on where the funding is coming from. You have it under 4532 Stormwater Fund from 2020.

Is that the... Revenue bonds, yes, sir.

Is that the revenue bond from 2020? So we've been holding on to that funding since 2020?

I believe so, yes, sir. You're looking at the funding detail?

Right.

Yeah, I'm tracking at their revenue funds, their savings from the CIP, yes, sir.

Their savings from the CIP? Yes, sir. Okay. We have, obviously we did the 1.8 cent sales tax for stormwater and coastal resiliency. This would be somewhere along those lines, but you already had the funding designated for that? We already had the funding. From the revenue? Yes. Okay. So going forward on new projects, we're going to have that funding associated for it. Okay. That's correct, Councilman. All right. I want to say that this is, you know, I remember this was the September 18, 2018 flooding episode that we had over there. And so this is important. It also takes out a lot of Molina out of the flood zone by providing a lot of way for water to get out of those areas. So this is an important project, and I will be supporting it fully. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Whereabouts is the detention pond going to be?

It's currently, it was on the map. If you go all the way down to Greenwood, where Greenwood ends, you look to your left,

I'm visual, so that's why I asked. And the reason I bring it up is because in 2014-15, I think it was Ron Olson, was that what his name was? The city manager, Mark Van Fleck and Dan Grimsbo. Lucy Rubio and I went to them and said, why can't we do a detention pond there? And they laughed at us. So this is one for the women today. We knew back then, but they didn't listen to us. This is a great project. Thanks for doing it.

Oh, yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Councilman Bonetta.

Also, I just want to I've known this project to be going on since 2018. And so I think you, were you here during that time or part of it? I remember you made a presentation around that time. So I think the person that probably put a lot of effort to this on the front end was Yvette Wallace. Yeah. And so we really just need to give her credit. You're giving me that look. Anyway, well, the thing is, is that she's the one who made the original grant. She did. The grant, what is it, application. So I know she's moved on up, and now she's more so obviously in development services and doing a great job there. But I just thank you, Gil, for pulling this. I was just going to vote support it. But I just wanted to give credit to Yvette because a lot of this was her work and a lot of stick-to-itiveness from engineering and then your department when we made the change. What is it? Gilbert also, I think, what is it, before he left us, also was a big part of it. Right, right. What is it? It's just been a great team effort. And, you know, this is, I mean, an eight-year project right now, and it'll take nine years to get done. So, anyway, kudos to your staff. Kudos to your team. And, Peter, thanks for keeping everybody in there.

Yeah.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote. Ernie, thank you.

All right, thank you.

The motion carries. Individual consideration items number 15 is a discussion and possible action regarding IDA 110A and 110B related to the loss of millions of dollars in revenue from the 2024 rewrite and what recourse does the city have as requested by council members Sylvia Campos, Carolyn Vaughn, and Eric Hintu. Councilman, press your light, Sylvia.

Go ahead. Okay. Well, I guess I'm the one that led this. So we have had several discussions over this bootstrap IDA, and I had already spoken to Peter, and he had already advised me that he was going to refer it to Weaver. audit team to look at this but I still wanted this presented in the public because it seems like all the ideas the industrial district agreements for people that don't know what that stands for is always done an executive session and this one highlights how bad it can go and I wanted to ask first the staff to present it and then I wanted to have a chance to rebut or to make suggestions as to what we are going to do about it.

Do you have a presentation? No, ma'am. Jennifer Buxton, Planning and Economic Development. We don't usually do presentations for a three-signature member, I don't think. Okay. But I can tell you that it's been handed to Weaver. Weaver's agreed to do it as part of the interim audit for the annual comprehensive financial report. They're going to start that in August, and then we'll be able to come back and make a presentation after they're done. Okay, but can you...

I guess let the public know what this is about, or do you want me to make that publication, that public? You're welcome to. Okay, okay, then I guess, is that part of my five minutes, is that all I get, to make the presentation, since we're not getting anything from staff?

Well, with the three signature memo, and Peter, you can jump in, there isn't, staff doesn't typically do anything, go ahead.

Yeah, right, and the Councilwoman and I have spoken, so even prior to this three signature memo, it became apparent we need to do some type of a performance audit on this agreement. It's an economic development agreement. And so between internal staff and our auditor that we use for the annual financial audit, Weaver, who's done similar work, those two will do a thorough analysis of the initial agreement, the amendment, and the terms being met, and what was the difference between what we thought was going to happen to what did happen. So Jennifer doesn't have her presentation because we don't have all the facts together yet, Councilwoman, and for the full council, but we will come to this council with the full performance audit soon and lay it out. We just hate to say something because of staff changes. Jennifer's not 100% familiar with this agreement yet. But we will be ready, we're just not ready today, as I've told Councilwoman Campos already. Yeah.

And okay, so I was told, like Peter said, that it was going to be referred to Weaver. But in the meantime, the reason that I wanted to bring this forward is because one of the main negotiators for this is Miles Risley. As Mr. Risley will be leaving us in a couple of weeks, and I wanted to have an opportunity ask him and to have time to respond to what happened to the original contract agreement that we made. In the new IDA 110 in section 3.01c, new improvements are now to pay 0% for the first four years, which differs from the original requiring no payments for the first two years. This greatly reduces city revenues. So why was it changed? The original Section D regarding business personal property no longer exists. This was to be the largest source of revenue for the city. This is what we were told. Why was that change? Was this intentionally removed from the revised IDA or was it negligence? We don't know. So who should be held accountable for the loss of millions of dollars and needed revenue? How can the city now revise these IDAs in an attempt to recover the revenue lost because of the omission of the original Section D? Important note, in the new IDA Section 110B, Section 3.01C, personal property continues to be built at 100%. It appears that personal property and business personal property are used interchangeably. And an IDA-110B, does personal property still include business property, business personal property, which was included in the original IDA-110B? If not, it will greatly reduce city revenues. So we have lots of questions. I will continue in the new IDA-110B in Section 3.01C. The wording has changed regarding new improvements being taxed after four years. This differs from the original requiring 100% payments immediately. This greatly again reduces city revenue. So again, the continued question is why was this changed? So, According to the new agreement with 1242 McKinsey LLC, IDA 110B, if the project wasn't in operation by December 31st, 2025, the company needs to pay a minimum of $100,000. This would be due no later than January 31st, 2026. According to a records request for the dates January 1st through February 4th, 2026, the city has not invoiced them for the $97,205 This is the difference between the 100,000 owed and the 2,794.47 collected. Nueces County billed 1102 McKenzie LLC, 1242 McKenzie LLC and 1242 McKenzie owner LLC over $1 million. They were paid all the money they were billed on January the 29th, 2026. They show a total of 14 different account numbers. Only one account number has even collected for the city. The amount was 16,259.81. So if Nueces County has remitted the $16,000 to the city, $259.81 to the city, again, do I get another five minutes? Because I'm the only one doing this presentation.

Well, it's not about a presentation. Well, just to break this. Okay, thank you. How much more do you have?

Just a few more. Okay, so... And it's the or is there another breach of agreement the city stated they have built the company for the 100,000 on June the 5th as of March 29 2022 meeting the developer promise and that investments of what over 1.1 billion dollars in revenues for the city for the 2425 fiscal year of 4.3 million. This was amended for the October 10th, 2023 meeting to extend the time the developer had to meet the requirements and change the scope of the one of the two IDAs. The point is that there's been a lot of changes and that company or the company that it has changed hands has not completed their part in the agreement. And so I wanna make sure that the city and the constituents of our city know about this agreement, and that's why I don't believe in IDAs. I see them as Trojan horses. I see them as being something that is good for the city, but then it turns around that they don't come through the promises that they've made. So again, I just wanted to make sure that this was out in the public, and I wanna make sure that Miles Risley and the team has a chance to respond, and hopefully y'all can respond before his departure in August.

And so, ma'am, may I? Weaver's going to look at it when they start in August, and we are having Weaver look at it. Also, the city did invoice for $100,000, and that was paid.

And that was a result of because of the person that has brought this up to the city and has... been working along with other people trying to bring this to our attention. So I'm glad that we've at least asked for this money or demanded for this money. I don't know.

Councilwoman Bond. Well, I want to thank you, Ms. Campos, for bringing it forward because I think the most of us on here that are new did not know anything about it. And I'd like an update as well, too, because that's what you call transparency, as we know. And so it's important. So thank you for doing that. Councilman Hernandez.

Okay, Peter, this might be kind of like who does, who's responsible for managing our pilots?

Who in the city? Right. Our finance department does the collections and economic development, does kind of the, you know, if there's a new, if there's a, change or substantial change, but primarily the finance department's responsible for making sure collections come in. Okay, so I don't see anybody from finance here. Well, the position that we said in the beginning is that we're not quite ready to talk about this yet because we don't have all the facts. We know it's a three-signature memo. I've talked to the councilwoman, the author of the three-signature. We're going to put the right time in, the right people. They may even hire Weaver to put extra time in analysis. We're going to be bringing this forward. It's just we're not ready today. So you're including this in Weaver's annual audit?

They're doing it additional. They are going to do it additionally, but for no cost.

So you're, but they do an annual audit for us. So it's included, they're going to review just this particular IDA or all of them. No, just this one.

We just want to know, because it's had some, as the councilwoman said, compost said it's had some substantial changes. And we want to see what happened from the beginning to today.

So just for historical references, this started off as kind of a Bitcoin mining operation and then shifted to something of a power storage. They buy power at night, put them in batteries, and then resell it during the day. Did this change their water consumption, their water usage?

That's another area we have to look at, Councilman. We have some general idea, but I don't want to misspeak right now. We're just not ready. This thing was submitted last week, Wednesday, so we just, it's going to take a couple of hours, a couple of weeks to get all this in order.

Corrections, too. So I'm going to remind everyone, because this is getting a little awkward. When you submit a three-signature memo, there's no time, and most everyone on this council has done that, and there's nothing wrong with that. Okay. That exists for a reason. But when a three signature memo is submitted, and Peter has explained this, staff doesn't have, they don't get to go do all the work that they do on every item that is placed on an agenda because it is submitted by way of a memo. So it is placed by procedure or by guideline or whatever it may be. It must be placed on an agenda as was or is turned in. So our staff is not, they're not equipped, they're not ready. Our city manager sometimes can provide some information, but most of the time, there may not be enough time to do everything. This is a great item to look into, absolutely, but we're asking questions while we used a mechanism to place the item on an agenda that cannot be answered until, now the Weaver thing is great information because there's already a path forward because clearly you all spoke, Peter and the councilwoman. But to go into depth is a little bit, it's asking a lot when the process doesn't, it doesn't allow for them to do all the work that they typically do on an agenda item that is typically placed.

Okay, so with that, these are kind of questions that we need to have answered. So, you know, I didn't expect you to be able to, you know, if you can't answer them here, I'm not going to beat you up for it.

It's okay. And we, and I don't want anybody to think we haven't been looking into it. We have, but we're hearing your questions. We have Mr. Weber's emails. We're, we're going through them and we're to the point. It's like, okay, we need to bring in somebody third party who can evaluate it from the front to the back. This is the sequence of events. This is what happened. This is what should have happened. This is what we need to do. And then we'll have a path forward. But at this point, even if we were to stand here and say this is what we think happened or this is what went on, we need to have a third party look at this just because of where this is.

Okay, so just as a lens for how this is kind of coming about, it might be, you know, kind of have what policy you place to review pilots on, you know, don't have to do them all at the same time, but maybe review one occasionally, you know, through Weaver or whoever just to make sure that we're, Review getting what we we said we are on the agreements. It could be a process audit associated with but since it's mostly financial It could be a kind of component of what we were does when they do our annual audits some sort of compliance check Okay.

Yes, sir.

All right.

Thank you Thank You mayor and the mayor does bring up a good point as to you know How we bring some of these items to the diets and how we're able to discuss it In order to discuss this, we have to be able to put it either as an individual three-memo agenda item or have our city manager place it, or the mayor. And just for clarification, I did give our city manager two weeks, not one week. Yes, it was placed on the agenda, but it had been at least two weeks, because I know it was in the last meeting, and then we had the Fourth of July. So just for clarification, He and Mr. Dice had this information. As a matter of fact, we were supposed to meet with Councilman Barrera regarding this because Councilman Barrera was one of the leaders in the original bootstrap IDA. So, again, this also has been in the news, and that was the other reason that I wanted to bring this up forward and to discuss it. And so I get that y'all maybe did not have, of course, all the information at hand, but I still would like to hear from Mr. Risley as to where you were at this conjuncture. Whenever these agreements were being discussed or changed, what was your role in this?

The city team was led by Heather, and the city team negotiated 70 industrial district agreements obtained substantially uh... substantial additional funds increase the percentage that the city was able to get tremendously in the industrial district agreements two types of industrial district agreements were adopted by the city council and you actually see in the bootstrap situation the two types of industrial agreements are shown a one hundred percent industrial group agreement that represents a tract that was disannexed and a ordinary industrial district agreement that represents the type of industrial district agreement that applies throughout all of the IDAs. So there's only two types that were adopted by city council and both types were actually attached to the ordinance that was approved by the city council.

I'm not sure if that answers the question, but okay. You'll have time, I hope. I can give you the questions if you haven't received them already by Mr. Weber and some others. But we still have a lot of questions that need to be answered as to why these were changed. Because actually, this particular IDA was going to be like a great example how we were going to receive additional monies. I mean, that's why we, you know, or the council before me, agreed to accept this, and then here we are, you know, not, we're losing millions of it. So again, I thank you for standing here. I know it's, you know, it's a, I know, there was nothing much that you could have done, but I would have appreciated at least a little background so that the public would have known, but I'm glad that we got the opportunity, or I got the opportunity to at least open it up for the public, so thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Councilwoman Paxson.

Thank you. Mr. Zanoni, so two weeks ago, June 23rd, there was a lengthy discussion regarding an application for a grant, specifically through the Bureau of Reclamation. The way I recall it is we had our Intergovernmental Relations Director present a lot of information about that grant. And I'm curious who it was that made contact with a U.S. Congressman to get on his schedule for a call. The reason I bring those up is because those two supplemental acts were in conjunction with a three signature memo. So this body has three ways to get something on an agenda, as you're well aware. If three of the elected officials here feel like something is important enough to put together the time and energy to get it on the agenda, I think it's worthwhile for our staff to be able to look at that and bring whatever information it is that we have. I myself had put forward a three signature memo several months ago pertaining to the drought contingency plan and protecting emergency services. Our emergency service department put together a presentation specifically for that. So I don't think it's fair to say staff doesn't have the time and the effort and the resources and the energy if a three signature memo gets put on the agenda. We are exercising a chartered provision of this elected body. And I think that's something to think about. whatever it is that needs to change there. Because I'm not saying that we're directing staff. That's not it. But as our liaison, our city manager, this is something important enough to put on the agenda. Then that's something to have some attention to. So I wasn't on this signature, but I myself have email threads from staff and things pertaining to this because a year ago I had questions about it. So I can demonstrate that timeline. I'm not going to here because we're taking the effort necessary, I think. But as a supplement to the efforts on this specific IDA, I think that if we can have our finance and economic development departments look at our agreements, this is all a question of enforcement, accountability. If we wrote an IDA that was supposed to actually improve what the city walked away with, and now in fact the opposite has happened, there's a breakdown in how we're executing that. So we need to look at all of those agreements, Mr. Zanoni.

Yeah, I agree. Excuse me. I agree, Councilwoman. So what I told the author, Councilwoman Campos, is we definitely want to bring this performance audit to City Council. It's going to take a little, and we are working on it. We have Sergio doing some preliminary work. Jennifer is as well, even Miles is, but we don't want to misstate something and then have to come back and say, oops, we said something that wasn't quite right. So we're going to do a very thorough, I'm not talking, though, months and months worth of time, but we want to do a very thorough analysis of this agreement because it changed quite a bit along the way, as Councilman Hernandez said. So we're doing that. We heard the request of the councilwoman and the two councilmembers that signed it, and we take it seriously. We just don't want to mislead with misinformation. So we're going to be presenting at council soon from staff. And then we may hire, there's been a mix of the opinion of the team. We were to co-work with us. That hasn't been a hundred percent determined yet, but.

And I appreciate that needing the information before you represent it. But I think that there is something to be said behind providing a preliminary Outline. This is the topic. This is what we're looking at, and here's our status. Even the department that steps up ready to answer questions for a three signature, the fact that we got the right department head, we got the right topic, we have some background to it. This item is 100% defending our taxpayer. It's worth at least two or three slides and some attention to it. And I think that once we do this Weaver study on this specific incident, and we look at all the other IDAs and do a quick snapshot audit, are we on timeline? Are they meeting their deliverables? What is our ratio of positive completion? That can guide us as we go forward into future agreements. Thank you, Peter.

Thank you. Councilman Scott.

Scott.

Thank you, Mayor. Look, I wasn't around when I did this. I have no idea what you did. I have a couple thoughts. I would appreciate a presentation as well. My sense is, did the council approve these ordinances? They did, yes, councilman.

So this is all council approved? This is an IDA, but it was a separate kind of economic development agreement. Okay. And so we have about 80 IDAs. Most of them have been around for decades. This one is brand new. And so while it's an IDA, it was a standalone economic development policy item that was brought to the city council. Okay. That makes it a little different.

Well, okay. And then you're going to address were changes made outside and after the ordinance was approved?

No, because we don't have the authority to do that. That would be my thought. Right. There may have been changes to the execution of the developer's plans. We don't control that, but the city staff is not changing legal agreements. Okay.

We can't do that. Again, this is all new to me. I mean, we weren't, I mean, yeah. It's all new to me. I was going to make a joke, but it's just all new to me, and so I'm interested, right? But I get a sense that there may not have been the appropriate follow-through on the invoicing, so you'll get back to us on that.

There's been some enforcement follow-up. In fact, as Jennifer said, we sent them an invoice for $100,000, so there's been enforcement. I think the big difference, and that's what we'll show, is that what we thought was going to happen didn't happen not because of the city, but because of the developer.

And will you show what we lost? I don't understand that. I don't know if we lost anything except for what was promised.

So we didn't lose, we didn't, we didn't, we didn't have a bill that was never paid as an example.

And this is part of why we want to be very careful. Weaver needs to do what they're going to do and look at it so we can get the audit of what happened so we can present accurate information. and that make sure that whatever we say here today is incorrect because Weaver went through and found something else. So I just, I mean, we're not trying to get out of sharing information. We're going to get information from a third party that's going to be able to tell us what happened, what's going on, and what we need to do.

I have confidence in this conversation with the third party that we're going to get the answers that we seek. I think it's important to communicate that this is, we're not implying that, change staff made changes to the agreements after the council voted on the agreement that's a big deal right that's right that's a problem right okay so it's not so much that we're concerned about uh staff making changes to council approved ordinance um we're we're curious about the implementation of that how the invoicing went and

Yeah, it's my again cosmos more the developer had a concept of what he said or she's what they said was going to take place. What we see today is not what they said initially and we got to walk the council through that as to what happened.

Yeah, but it wasn't that they promised us $10. And they didn't get, they didn't pay their $10. They promised to build a $10 building. Then they didn't build a 10 ball. That sounds about right. Correct. I get that. Okay. Thank you. And thanks for, yeah, you'll, you'll come back to us. We're going to definitely be coming back, um, to the council.

Um, thank you. Um, you know, I was very much engaged when this first came up. Um, And, you know, obviously initially it was going to be two properties where the blockchain facility with blockchain facility and, you know, the pandemic came came about and obviously things changed and they had some challenges with the development. The way I found out about the discrepancy was through a reporter with the Texas Observer. And I think she was more concerned about their water consumption. But then we found out about what it was, is that their the actual revenue coming from the IDA. And so at that time, I called Jennifer, what is it, who I think is probably the third or fourth economic development person to work on it, you know, since its scope. So thank you so much. You and Mike, Michael Dice, also, you know, that assistant city manager. I think the assistant city manager initially worked on it, is no longer with us. I think, and there was two of them, two separate ones, so you're not a third So, and I think that's part of the challenge. You guys are playing whack-a-mole now because, you know, we're throwing everything at you, like three signature memos. What is it? And so I want to commend all the hard work they've done. And then when I found out Peter Sergio had already been, Sergio had already been working on it and to try and review it. And I think, and at that time I had requested a meeting because You know, Mr. Weber had also reached out to me. Mr. Weber had also reached out to me and had the very same specific, which I thought were valid and needed answers. And really, that's what I wanted to do at the time of the meeting that was canceled, was just to basically put this before you so that way you'd have an idea of what to be looking for. And I commend you, Peter, for saying, hey, we're having a hard time with staff time. What is it? Let's get Weaver involved so that way we can get them to review it and we can find out what the situation is. I went out there to the facility. The blockchain facility is out there. There's no battery storage facility out there. What is it? I still think it's a good deal, even if we only collect $100,000. And the reason being is because of the ag exemption. Number one, that property is undevelopable because of the fact of all the underground lines with Lyondale and all the other facilities. You can't build homes out there. So anything is also better. Now, I do feel that my personal opinion, and I'm not an expert very far from it, is that $100,000 in pilot is not enough for the facilities that are out there because there is something going on. It's very complex. So I think there's a point that, is that a new bill? So I think, but here's my thing. Here's the process that I followed. And, you know, I think it's kind of unfair. And my apologies to bring up the other three signature memo. And I was part of that one, too. But there was a lot of work already done with that. You know, there was a lot of work already done with that. All that information was already put together. And that's the thing I had wanted to do, too, here on this. is let's get all the information together, let's get an inventory of what it is you need to know of what the council's asking for, what the public is asking for, so that way, number one, if the press calls us, we're able to give them answers, and I didn't have any answers, and then if a very individual that's committed to uncovering issues like this, like Mr. Weber comes, then we wanna make sure he gets his questions answered. But the process I had was to meet with you, let you know what my questions are. That way you can go about it. And then kudos to you. So here has been doing a bang up job. Kudos to you to getting Weaver involved so that way we can get to it, because obviously there's been a lot of turnover. So I just want to say thank you and what the purpose of that was. And what is it? I'm sure we'll come to some kind of review of what it is that either this council or the prior council, the mistakes that we made. You know, maybe it got caught up. I mean, I supported it. Maybe when we got up and we wrote the new ideas and, you know, we had all the 80 that we're reviewing and this one got caught up in it and got and we made a mistake. If we can make some changes to it, then I think that would that would be positive. But still, once again, I don't think we're getting four thousand dollars in revenue before this. So any improvements are going to be able to bring any type of revenue and. They pay for the water that they use. They have minimal use of waste management. What is it? They're not going to acquire a ton of police because, once again, it's not a neighborhood that needs to be patrolled. What is it? So I think the services that we provide, I think we're getting something back in return. But thank you and your team for doing a good job.

Councilman Roy.

So... I want to go back and talk about the three person signature, you know when you take a look at this tool. We have 3 ways basically to get something on the agenda number one Peter can place it on the agenda, the mayor can and then the Council has the 3 signature memo which. I believe each mechanism is a viable way to be able to get something on the agenda. And I think it's important. So I want to take a look at this. I'm not going to talk much about this subject. I think we've done that. But I want to talk about the process in itself. Because when you take a look at this and you get council members that go forward and they put something on that they want to have addressed, there's a couple things that make this a little bit different than when Peter does. Because Peter and his staff are going to put something on the agenda once they have went through, done the work, feel comfortable that they can get it out there and present it. If the mayor... feels like she wants to have something on the agenda, then I'm sure, Mayor, maybe I'm wrong, but you will coordinate and discuss that with Peter. Council, on the other hand, when we use this as a tool, it's usually because there is an urgent issue, something that's come up in the news. We want to bring this to attention and make sure that we are looking at this issue and addressing it. So with that being said, each way is a viable and important way to communicate. But what I want to make sure is that, number one, I hope when you do put a three-person memo that you are talking to Peter. I think timing is important. If all of a sudden you say, okay, I want to have this on in the next week, and they're not basically, haven't done the work to be able to investigate what you're asking, that could be an issue. But on the other hand, I really believe, Peter, that when we do these three-person memos, that staff needs to at least have an idea addressed and do a presentation, not in terms of saying this is you may not even know what's going on at this point but at the same time if you have any information on there then at least come forward and say look this is the information i have this is where we're at this is what we're doing because that three-person memo deserves the same respect that your mechanism for putting on the agenda the mayor's mechanism for putting on the agenda And it should be looked at. Even if you don't have all the information, but to come up with a little bit and say, okay, this is what we're working on. These are the questions. Maybe even ask the questions. Are there specific concerns? What this council member doesn't want to see is the fact that, oh, they put a three-person memo on there. We don't have to prepare for it. Let's just blow it off and go on down the road. And I think I've said that pretty much as easy as I can. So that's my thoughts on that. And I really think that as we use that tool, it's different past councils. At the end of the council, the former mayor used to ask at the end, and I've talked to the mayor about this, is that is there anything that anybody would like to put on the agenda? That was the last thing that we talked about. In that council meeting, was there anything that you guys would like to put on the agenda? And I would say, yeah, you know what? I'm a little bit concerned about dogs over on the west side attacking people, whatever the case is. So I think everybody gets the point. That's the communication. And I hope we can do a little bit better job. Yeah, that's great, Councilman. We appreciate the feedback. Thank you. Okay.

mayor i'd like to remind the council we have a two to three p m time certain attorney that's going to be available and he and he has other things going on to right today so we have to do it during two or three yeah no no i'm i'm cognizant of it um and and maybe rebecca you can look into why um they didn't allow mayor mccomb to continue asking that question there was something there

there was a reason um anyhow so uh councilman can too real quick rebecca do you remember when um the council approved the three person memo like by count um it was we've always had a mechanism to do it but the before it was five and they went to four that's right three was probably a couple years ago right right yes sir the same council that roland was on that he approved Okay, I just want to clear something up. That's all I wanted to know because, you know, the people that are complaining about the three... memo um person is is the one who approved it um you know i think every council member on this dice could put whatever they want on the agenda it would be nice that we could you know call the mayor's office and say hey can you put this on the agenda you know but and it's it'll be kind of hard i will think um but you know i think um putting stuff on the agenda i think it's healthy i think we should have discussion on it and and i think i'm going to do two memo today for the next week's agenda, so I'm gonna keep on using them, thank you.

Yeah, and for clarity, and then we're gonna break for lunch because of what we've got, we've got someone waiting, but let's be clear on, I don't think anyone is talking that, or saying that there shouldn't be a three-seater memo. What I have heard from our city manager, what I have heard, And I understand it. It's the timing, Councilman. It's the timing. So if a three signature memo lands on Rebecca's desk on Friday afternoon, how do you prepare if the meeting's Tuesday? So I think we have to take everything in stride. And I believe, Peter, that you would gladly say, I'll put something together. Why don't we do this? Let's put a timeframe. Let's submit a three-signature memo, but you must do it within a week or two. to give staff that time. And I think, well, and maybe not in your case, Councilwoman, because this is a legacy, this particular topic. But anyhow, we're kind of getting off topic. But that is coming from you, Peter. You have told me that before. Rebecca has told me that before. It is very difficult when signature memos, and why don't you give us that count and what days they land on your desk? Because I think that is what people are saying that maybe should change in order for you to be able to come forth, and maybe not this particular one. Maybe this one warrants something because it's an ongoing issue, but if it's something that has never been brought forth, your suggestion to me and Rebecca's was if we had, maybe we put in a week, if they would give us a week's time or two, then we can come forth, with thorough information and not question because it is not about not having, that mechanism should be there. Before I was mayor, I used it. I have used it. So that is definitely not something that anyone on this dais is saying. So anyhow, we, let's see, we did, no, we didn't. So Councilwoman, you've got, What's gonna move forward is they're gonna bring forth. We already discussed that So we're okay with your item. All right.

I have the questions. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Yeah Well, he'll he'll and you'll get you know, I'll get you I'll get you a date by the end of this week Yeah, okay, and we'll get you I got a report with Jennifer But we'll get you a date when we'll come to council and when the report will be ready.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, I Well, there's no action, Mr. Bartleson, so we've already, they've established that work's going to be done, it'll be brought back thoroughly, and then we'll have all the discussion and all the public comment on it. Councilwoman Paxson.

I don't think that the mechanism needs to be that maybe this three signature warrants a presentation. The fact is that this is one of the avenues to get something on an agenda. Right. And therefore, it should have the attention. And the reality is that you're nodding your head, but you're sitting here and you're saying that in an ideal world, council members would give our city manager two weeks notice, and that gives him enough time to make a presentation let me tell you as one that guilty as charged leads a lot of the three signatures I usually do talk to staff in advance of two weeks with outline with some background with some concern and they say I don't have the answer for that. That's why we put it as a three signature. So it's not as simple as sitting there and saying that if council would just give staff two weeks notice, then maybe we could have a presentation. And just for the record, according to the Texas Open Meetings Act, our deadline to post for the Tuesday meeting is that it has to be submitted prior to the end of day Wednesday. Therefore, by default, it's almost one full week of notice. And I think that our city manager has all of our contact information. So let's say I didn't pick up the phone prior to putting a three signature in and one comes across his desk. Hey, councilwoman, notice we've got a three signature. I know we've had some discussions on this. What is it that we're shooting to do? Five-minute phone call, maybe. So it is not that we're not following procedure, and I think that needs to be said, because if it's going to be put out front that the three signatures are not a comfortable situation because we're not following process, that's not accurate. Okay, thank you. So, for the record.

for the record and we're moving on. That's coming from our city manager. That's coming from our city secretary in the past. I don't think any situation is the same. Every item is not the same. You can come to me. Councilman Cantu said you can't, I don't know what he was, I'm not even sure what he was referring to. You can absolutely come to the mayor's office and I have had council members come and say I'd like to put this on the agenda and again, we're beating a dead horse. There are options and options are being taken. That is up to each individual council member. No one can make anyone come to me to add an item or to Peter to add an item or to go through a signature memo. But again, if you drop a signature memo on a Friday afternoon, you have told me this directly, and it is four o'clock in the afternoon and it has happened, and Rebecca has also contested to this, It is not enough time and it is not right to expect a presentation. Do I think today could have had one? Something short? Absolutely. Because we know this topic. But we're going to move on and we can always change that little charter procedure and add some time to it so we can appease everyone. So the council is going to go into executive session on items 17 through 19 per Texas Code, sections 551.071. And 551.072, we will return. It's 206.

We're gonna reconvene So we're gonna reconvene our meeting councilman Hernandez Yeah, I said just one and this has done not with you, but does city manager and our city attorney Considering the discussion we had in an executive session. We need a motion to release Attorney George Hyde as the attorney as a represent representing the city of Corpus Christi Yeah, do we need a motion is that is that a question right we We need to substitute counsel to do okay, so you need a motion to release him and then find a substitute the

In litigation, the judge has to approve the substitution. No, we don't. The city manager typically hires attorneys, especially when it's within the dollar amount by the city manager's authority, and we are actively getting substitute counsel, but we have to be continuously represented in a lawsuit.

Okay, so should we accept the motion or have a motion to accept his release?

He hasn't, I mean, we need to substitute counsel. We need to have counsel. We can't have no attorney in a case. Otherwise, I don't want to put us at risk of any kind of sanctions.

Miles, to get the process going, what do we need from the city council?

We don't need the city council. If you wish to request that the city... replace George Hyde and substitute him as counsel. You could make a motion to request city staff to substitute counsel for the current attorney on this case, George Hyde.

Okay, so let me reiterate what you said. We'll make a motion to direct staff to replace attorney George Hyde as a representative of City of Corpus Christi in the case against Ajit David versus the City of Corpus Christi?

And would that not be based on his letter?

You can make a motion to request staff to replace George Hive, but I don't want to deny him any, because any motion to substitute would probably need to be filed, need him to still have authority to act in the case. So, The best type of motion would be a motion to request staff to obtain substitute counsel in the Ajit David case. Okay.

Peter.

Okay, so what he just said. Make that motion. He's conflicted out.

Why is he advising?

Say that again. That's not going to be. Okay, excuse me. Miles is conflicted. Where's Buck at? Buck's been our lawyer helping us with this. We just need to move this. Yeah, because Miles is conflicted out. You're right. Sorry, Mayor. to my point so we're going to get back downstairs but uh... but i think what you say councilman is consistent with what was said by the council so we do need some okay direct to have have yourself a book write something up bring it to us and we'll bring it back before the close we close the okay house meeting so rescinded until we get that okay i'll call bucks right now i'll get him in there i'll call him because you okay so we're gonna hold off on this Right, and we'll have the motion here before the end of this council meeting.

Okay, we're going to go to the water. I think it's a short water supply update. Oh, Councilman Scott.

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we waive attorney-client privilege specifically to the letter our attorney, George Hyde, sent councilmembers today. Second.

Okay, we have a motion to second. Councilman Cantu, you have a comment?

So this motion is, what is it again, Mark, to release a letter? Yeah. But, I mean, I really thought the last meeting we had, you guys complained about releasing stuff, and now you want to release stuff.

Well, I think the conversation, I'm still on.

That's all I want to say. Thank you.

Councilwoman?

Okay, so then does that mean that we're not gonna wait for the language from, here we are.

Buck is coming down, Buck is bringing down the language, he'll be here in a few minutes. But we'll, so we'll just, so we don't waste time and sit around, we're gonna have Nick do the next presentation.

This is separate.

And then we'll come back to this item, come back to this item, except for Councilman Scott's motion, I don't know if you voted on that one. Oh, Buck's there, okay.

Okay, hold on, hold on, we're gonna, Buck, just have a seat for a second. We've got a motion on the floor.

All right.

there's a motion on the floor i know but i want to make sure you understood that these are two separate issues okay so we were waiting buck is going to come and talk about the other the the initial and and right now councilman scott is making the i can you repeat the motion again yes ma'am i make a motion that we waive a time attorney client privilege specifically to the letter that our attorney george hyde sent council members today so that it can be made public, because right now it is confidential between, it's attorney-client privilege. So we have a motion and a second for that. Okay, please submit your vote.

That's a question. Yeah. We had public comment at noon, but if you want to open it on this, you can.

We can go ahead and open public comment. If anyone in the audience would like to make a comment on this particular motion.

First of all, I want to thank Councilman Mark Scott for bringing this up, because you all talk about transparency, and this is a good way to show transparency, by releasing the information that people would like to see of why you're firing the other attorney. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, a closed public comment. We have a motion, we have a second. Please submit your vote. And again, this is to make the letter that we received from our attorney non-confidential and public. Okay, the motion fails.

We'll put it on the camera. The next motion we do have, if the AV control can put it on the sky cam. We have it on that table there. There we go. Can you zoom in on it a little bit? Yeah, can you straighten that out, Nick? Yeah. Okay, good. Can you see it, Councilman Hernandez?

Substitution of council for represent... So what it reads is motion to recommend substitution of council for representation of the city in the matter of Ajit David versus City of Corpus Christi. Now, should this reference the letter that he wrote to us?

It's not necessary.

I'm sorry?

It's not required.

Well, I didn't say is it required. Should we reference the letter that is not going to be made public, but in that letter there are some things stated that are leading to this?

Again, this is not legally required.

Councilman Bonetta? Well, he was on to make the motion. Right? Yeah, you're on to make the motion. Yeah.

Why are you making that motion? Questions for you. Why is this body making that motion?

I don't understand what's the purpose of this motion. So we can get direction, Councilman?

No, no, no. Okay, so where does that stem from?

From the council.

Okay. I just want to understand the motivation from this council to hire new counsel. If you don't want to tell me, you can.

You don't have to. The idea for it wasn't ever to hire new counsel. That's what's requested by our legal as a substitute counsel. We were just going to accept the release of George Hyde as our current counsel. Okay, well, I don't accept his release, but that's what I think. The fact that he went ahead and did things...

Okay, hold on a second, because he's... I know, you're...

I mean, I asked him a question. You did, I know. I apologize. I just wanted to correct your statement. Okay, the fact that he went ahead and... I don't want to get into the details because I don't want to drag anybody through the mud or anything like that. Let's just say that there were things that this attorney did that we did not ask him to do, and he did anyway. So I want to make sure that we understand that we're not happy with his performance. And so that's, I don't want to, like I said, I don't want to get into details. I don't want to, like I said, I don't want to go into all that. I just want to, you know, make the intention known from council that we want to go in a different direction. Okay. And since the only, by our charter, the only people that can hire and fire attorneys legally or hire attorneys really in the charter is the city attorney. So we have to direct that. our city manager who directs the city attorney to do that.

Okay.

Okay. So now there's a, there's a, we're waiting on a plea to jurisdiction or it's, it's right now it's gone. What's the status on it right now?

The case is on stay. It's with the Supreme court on a, on a written mandamus review.

Okay. So there, there's a good chance this goes away based on that in, in your legal opinion.

Yes. I think there's a strong chance that the, um, ultimate decision of the court once it's sent back down to the local court that there won't be jurisdiction.

So I mean I'm moving delicately because I don't want to discuss anything in executive session. The only thing is I'm just reiterating what the plausible chances are. And so this council wishes to basically terminate our arrangement with the existing attorney And this is my opinion, when we see an opportunity to win. So I'm just saying that for the sake of saying it. And so I don't know how to vote then. I guess because we obviously, I guess if I did vote no, then that means I support maintaining current councils. I mean, I don't know. I'm saying that I'm not saying it necessarily rhetorically. I guess I'm going to say that I'm going to vote against this because I don't I don't think we should terminate our arrangement with current council. OK. All right. Thank you. I said it out loud.

Councilman Vaughn. Well, I thought we were going to come out here, make a motion and vote. I didn't know we were going to have discussion. So is that appropriate to sit out here and have discussion when we've said we're not releasing the letter? Is that appropriate?

You have a motion and a second.

It's appropriate. Okay, y'all want to discuss this then?

We're discussing it.

Okay, because we already have two rulings where he didn't win. So that's why he went to the Supreme Court, because he didn't win the first two rulings. So what in the world makes you think he's got a 50-50 chance to win when he's already lost two?

Is that rhetorical in nature?

Oh, stop. Anyway, I'm not trying to censor you, but I'm talking. It's my turn. You interrupt every time, Roland. Every time? Every time I talk, it seems like you do. Okay, guys. You know what? I don't really care.

Y'all stop, please.

You're such a gentleman.

Roland, councilman, councilman, councilman, let's stop, please.

I'm done. We just need to take the vote.

I'm not supporting this. This is going against what we've been advised. This is not in the best interest of this city. We've got different perspectives on that. We're not lawyers. And we have a lawyer who is telling us something a majority probably of this council doesn't want to hear. And it is not in the best interest of this city. It just is not and so I is the wrong the wrong decision. I think it's the wrong thing to do We have a responsibility and I get it there's another side to it fiduciary we have a fiduciary duty to do what's in the best interest of the city and some people think it's one thing and Obviously, I disagree with that But we're being advised by lawyers when you're advised by someone that went to school To become a lawyer who is, we're not lawyers. I don't care how many suits or lawsuits or legal matters anyone's been involved in, we're not lawyers. And if we don't listen to our lawyers, and I get it, we're the client, we have that right, it's just not good. And that's something that's very serious in my opinion. Councilman Hernandez, do you have a comment or are you still waiting on the... Right, I know, but we've got commentary, so we'll come right back to you. Yeah. Councilman Scott.

I think this is okay. So, hey, Buck, tell me the timeline. Tell me how this goes from here to when you go to court to replace an attorney. I just have no idea. Is that a week thing? Is that a month thing? How long does it take? to replace an attorney? I've never been involved in replacing an attorney.

Once you find an attorney, substitution of counsel is quite, I guess, it's common in court, so it's not a long process.

So how long does it generally take to find? I mean, give us a sense of when we might have a new lawyer if we choose to change lawyers.

You know, I think one or two weeks. It could be longer. And what would make it longer?

If it took longer to find one?

Yeah, if we, you know, we solicited a couple of attorneys and they said, no, I'm not interested in taking this case. And then we'd go on and continue to solicit.

And then once you... Let's just say it's Nick. Once you've got Nick lined up, and I don't think he would do a good job as our lawyer instantly. Once you line him up, does he just go to the court and submit something the day of, or do you have a hearing?

No, we would enter a contract with the attorney and then have him. So our current attorney would submit it to withdraw, and he would submit his substitution counsel statement.

I'm thinking a soccer game where they have to stand on the sideline.

It's just kind of that. No, it's more just formal filing. Okay.

So the time is really, the length of time is really more about how long it takes to find somebody to replace. I personally think our lawyer is doing a good job. I understand I may be in the minority, but that's okay. Actually, I don't think that's okay, but I understand. I was really curious about how long it would take to replace. Thank you, sir.

Nick, I will hire you as an attorney anytime, any day, okay? I think what's going on is a lot of people are not saying the truth about this attorney, and I'm not going to go into details, but I'm going to say this. We have wasted a half a million dollars, and he's asking for another half a million dollars. So, you know, he's promising us the world, right? which he's a salesperson, he's getting paid by the hour, and he's charging the city an arm and a leg and two fingers. And I think this council wants to put a stop to that. I mean, you know, spending a million dollars in attorney's fees, plus, you know, 500,000 was just for a year, more or less. Another $500,000, I mean, it's just crazy to me. So that's part of the reason why... His counsel is making that decision. My own opinion is I have no confidence in him. He tells the judge one thing, and he tells us another thing, and it's in black and white. So that's it. Thank you.

Well, I have to defend because that is just not true. He doesn't tell anyone one thing and us another. In my opinion, this is a frivolous lawsuit. He has made it very clear that we are moving forward in the right direction. So be it. Councilman Hernandez.

Go ahead. Put that motion back up. I can't. Okay, motion to recommend substitute counsel for representation of the city in the matter of Ajit Dev versus the city of Corpus Christi within 10 business days. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. All right, our last... Councilman Hernandez.

Okay, so we talked about going to mediation. Do you need a motion direction from us as a council to pursue mediation so we can stop... so we can try to move through this. No, no.

I would like a motion for that. Motion to mediate? I won't support that, and we would like that on record, yeah.

I would like to recommend that the city mediate with the parties, that's acceptable.

Okay, so I'll make a motion to direct staff to try to come up with a mediation with all parties concerned, or at the very least, the party of the city, with the lawsuit with Ajit David and the city of Corpus Christi. Well, it's whenever they can put it together.

Okay, we have a motion. Second. We have a second. Rebecca, do you want to put it on or just voice? Voice? Okay. All in favor say aye. This is a motion to mediate and move forward. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say no.

No. No. Abstain.

The motion carries, and that's Councilman Hernandez, I'm sorry, Councilman Barretta, myself, Councilman Scott, voted no. Councilman Roy abstains, and the rest, yes. All right, so we are going to go to item number 16, the last item of the day, that is a water supply update.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Nick Winkleman, Chief Operating Officer, Corpus Christi Water. First, I'd like to update you on the status of our surface water supply. As you can see, the drought monitor, which is the picture on the left, actually shows some relief in drought over the state of Texas. I do want to point out that large portions of our watershed are still in an area defined as drought. The table on the right shows our surface water reservoir capacities. Lake Corpus Christi is currently at 33.8% capacity. A year ago it was 20.9%. Choque Canyon Reservoir is currently at 8.1%. A year ago today it was 12.9%. The combined capacity of the western reservoirs, that is Lake Corpus Christi and Choque Canyon Reservoir, is currently 15.3%, a year ago it was 15.1%, so two-tenths of a percent greater than last year. Still not a very comfortable position to be in. Lake Texana is currently at 97.2% capacity, a year ago it was actually 99.2%. And the water requested along the Colorado River is still available. Next, I'd like to give you an update on our ongoing new water supply projects. The Nueces groundwater program continues to operate. Recently, we did request a modification to our production permit to the Groundwater Conservation District to aggregate all of the production in the western wellfield across both the original western wellfield and the Ed Rochelle property. The decision by the conservation district was to postpone that decision. However, they did authorize temporary drilling permits. This allows the drilling to continue on the Ed Rochelle property. As part of that discussion, a subcommittee was established by the Groundwater Conservation District to meet with both CCW and our hydrologist in Terra to further review the modeling effort. The production across the Nueces groundwater program continues to vary, and it varies by different factors, including the TCEQ monitoring protocol, operational decisions system requirements and of course best management practices. Again this just falls in line that the operation of the well field is not consistent in fact it's more intermittent as we continue to make decisions every day to ensure that we both properly manage the resource and also meet the water requirements the system. Work continues with updating the model and with our hydrogeologist. We're committed to updating that effort and providing additional drilling logs and pumping tests as that work continues. CCW is also working with the Groundwater Conservation District on the best approach to implement a mitigation plan where Funds could be set up to address any issues that may be uncovered as a result of our well field operations. We have a number of monitoring wells at both well fields. We continue to monitor them daily. The water levels remain not impacted at all. In fact, they'll dip a foot, they'll go up a foot, they'll drop two feet and go up another three feet. They remain largely unchanged. Our other existing new water supply project is the wastewater reuse project, which, in fact, this program consists of multiple projects. One is the green... Greenwood Wastewater Treatment Plant, that is where Valero is designed, built, and building and funding the construction of a conveyance line from Greenwood to the Valero facility. That will allow Valero to use up to 3 million gallons a day of effluent water in lieu of potable water. That will occur, it's projected to occur later this calendar year. Flynn Hills Resources is working at the Allison Wastewater Treatment Plant and their adjoining property that they owned. Flynn Hills is projected to start using effluent water from the Allison Wastewater Treatment Plant early fall. This council approved a construction contract, a CMAR contract, Construction Manager at Risk with Raytech. to build a conveyance line from the Oso wastewater treatment plant to Greenwood. We're very appreciative of that support because that will free up an additional 11 million gallons a day of effluent water that can be diverted to other customers. Just as a reminder, 5 MGD of that 11 is already spoken for with contractual obligations to Valero. And then, of course, we have other entities looking at a potential of 2 million gallons a day from the Broadway wastewater treatment plant. The Evangeline Groundwater Project. This is the San Patricio County groundwater program. Currently, we still have yet to receive any dates and projected schedule for the contested case hearing. from the San Pat Groundwater Conservation District. Their next board meeting is July 24th. CCW and city employees will be represented at that meeting, and we will indeed ask the district for an update on that process. Construction on the Evangeline project continues. There is approximately 10,105 linear feet of water line already installed. If you recall, there's approximately 30 miles of total water line associated with this project. There's a long way to go, but efforts continue. CCW and city staff have weekly update meetings with both Pape Dawson and Garney Construction. City staff continue to work with both the seller of the groundwater rights and also the protestants in an effort to try and come to an agreement so the project can and the permitting for both the drilling and transport permits can move forward. Additional water supply projects that are in the works and moving forward in terms of discussion and planning. The Seven Seas Water Group has proposed a groundwater project in Nueces County. They have secured a driller to construct a test well on the project site that driller has mobilized and we've been informed by seven seas that they hope to have the test well complete by the end of July. That will allow for critical hydrogeological modeling. It will also allow city staff to take water quality samples so that we can better understand the water quality. In fact, staff, myself, plan to visit the project site at some point next week. Staff is also reviewing the terms of the provided sample contract that Seven Seas has provided us. That effort is ongoing simultaneously with the work that Seven Seas is doing in terms of the hydrogeologic and groundwater modeling effort. Regards to the Inner Harbor Seawater Desalination Project, the far-field model data input and runs, the data has been requested by the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries. They are proposing to conduct an independent review of the model itself. We are waiting for the bays and estuaries to reach back out when they will obtain the data. Additionally, we were informed by Dr. Wetz and Dr. Herska that they have worked with the Coastal Bend Basin Estuaries who will be submitting to us a plan to review that data along with a projected timeline. We have yet to receive that information. Our consultant, Plummer, is conducting a technical review of the draft far-field modeling report. This is the bound report that SPHEROS Consulting, SPHEROS Environmental has prepared. We expect that review to be completed hopefully within the next week or so. Once that is complete, then SPHEROS can finalize the report and that will be made available on our Securing Water website. we will make sure that everyone knows that it's posted and we'll give all of this uh the council body a hard copy of that report additionally we have sent a request to the texas water development board to restructure our loan commitment that's for the swift loans the next texas water development board meeting is july 23rd we don't know as of yet if that decision will be on that board meeting or another subsequent board meeting. The Harbor Island seawater desalination project, of course that is being pursued and managed by the Nueces River Authority. The development partner for the Nueces River Authority is IDE and they are working to advance on 30% design and also developing a cost of treated water. It is the expectation we were informed that that work would be completed within the next 90 to 120 days. The NRA has formed a stakeholder group to provide updates and direct information to those entities that are participating in this project. The city of Corpus Christi is in fact participating in the form of a reservation fee. Therefore, we will have a member on that stakeholder group, and it will be our city manager. The TCEQ intake permit for this project is approved, and we've been informed that they are expecting approval of the discharge permit by the end of the calendar year. We are also informed by the Nueces River Authority that the projected cost for this project is $6.2 billion. They've also informed us that they will focus on delivering the first 50 million gallons a day of the proposed 100 million gallon a day plant. They will focus on that first. CC Polymers and Aqua Tech, the city, its staff, and Aqua Tech have been working to finalize a letter of intent that both parties will sign and agree to. That letter of intent is not yet signed. However, we did receive an email last night with some final edits from AquaTech, so hopefully we're nearing to a point where we can move forward with that. The Barney Davis location, this has long been mentioned as a project site for a future seawater desalination plant. We're working with our intergovernmental department to set a meeting with the new interim CEO of CPS Energy so that we can further discuss the next steps. Additionally, CCW is finalizing a contract with HDR to provide assistance on the next steps. That's a site review and to better support both the city and CCW on moving forward. And we also still have our current contract with Carlos Rubenstein to assist us on any efforts related to public utility agencies, which may be a method to move forward with a seawater plant at this location. Now, I'd like to just provide a quick overview of the public utilities case hearing. As you know, the outside city limit ratepayers have initiated a case to debate the 2024 and 2025 water rates. The process has been moving forward with quite a bit of work by both our independent outside legal counsel, our city staff legal team, and CCW, and also our other consultants, such as our rate modeler and also our hydraulic modeler. The did request to postpone the hearing. It was originally scheduled to take place a couple of weeks ago. The hearing actually took place this week. And I'm pleased to inform all of you that the hearing is complete. It was completed today about 11 o'clock or so, 10.30 or 11 a.m. It was a full day yesterday and just a partial day today. The next steps on this process is that is the fact that briefs are due to the Administrative Law Judge on August 5th, and reply briefs will be due on August 19th. We are anticipating and hoping that we will have a decision by the Public Utilities Commission before the end of the calendar year. So the Administrative Law Judge, which is a SOA judge, will make a recommendation to the Public Utilities Commission and then they will make a final decision. And again, our outside legal counsel, he has estimated and he's hopeful that maybe we'll have that decision by the end of the calendar year. And we continue to provide updates on this and all of the other water supply projects in my weekly water supply update memo. And as we get more information, we'll continue to keep that memo updated. With that, Mayor and Council, I stand by for any questions.

Thank you, Nick. Great presentation. We appreciate the updates always. Now, I was going to ask, were you going to be sending the last page you typically send, which gives you the MGDs, the amount of water that's coming online monthly?

I appreciate you bringing that up, Mayor. In the We have had that as part of the weekly water supply update memo. Currently, the only projects that are scheduled to bring water online is you have the Noasis program, you have effluent reuse, and then Evangeline basically every month that we are delayed. The production gets delayed a month. Currently, if we get our permits by August 1st, we would be able to provide approximately four MGD at some point in January 2027. And then if it's September 1st, it would be February 2027. And we've worked with Garney and also Pape Dawson to come up.

uh... with that schedule so so everything else is because it's far out where they're their projects that are in the making if you will it's really just to the wells don't agree with the wells in the in the reuse the at the other projects you know we don't have contracts yet we don't have permits yet thank you can spend her name is tracking rainfalls here

We are. So then there's been a lot of chatter and a lot of discussion. And just out in the hallway, I've had a number of people show me the radar, sort of in the upper extents of the watershed. In fact, Esteban just before this supply update showed me just some pictures of the Frio River near Three Rivers, and it was completely dry. So if that water can make it to us, it would be beneficial, but currently we haven't seen the water make it to our reservoirs yet.

I just looked up rainfall totals in Uvalde for the last 24 hours, and it's nearly six inches of rain. and that's kind of close to both watersheds for the Frio and, uh, Noises river. Uh, as a matter of fact, the whole area just West of San Antonio has been under a flood watch for the last 24 hours.

Yeah. And, and I'm going to, I'm going to let Esteban come up. I'd like him to just talk about the watershed a little bit, but typically, um, You know, the rainfall in the San Antonio area, we typically don't see. It doesn't always make it our way in a beneficial manner. But I'm going to let Esteban talk to that.

Thank you. Those are great questions, sir. I was a little disappointed with it right now, because to your point, there was a whole bunch of the rainfall totals look real high, a little intense, and some of the projections that are on flood and NOAA, but we're just not seeing it right now actually get to the inflows. So everybody talks about rainfall. Everybody talks about how much it rained, 6 inches, 2 inches, 3 inches. It really needs to get to the stream, then into our reservoir system. And then this particular area that you're referring to is really on the upper part of our watershed. So a lot of this right now, the city of San Antonio and that area is flooding like crazy because of these numbers that you're describing. If it was just a little further south, we could see it. There's like a line there that the two different river basins, the San Antonio River Basin and And the Nueces River Basin, we're at the very top. And then additionally, what is working against us, and you all have brought it up in the past, is the Edwards Aquifer. So this area is very, it's like a sieve. I don't know how else to describe it. It's very rocky. Everybody loves to go float and enjoy themselves out in this area, big rocks. But a lot of that has to get past the Edwards. And so I'm knocking on wood and praying that the six inches, these numbers that you're describing, do come into fruition as a stream flow. Right now I sent my guys that work up at Cho Cannon to go do some investigations to look at, and I was showing Nick those pictures. We're just not seeing it. Maybe we'll see it tomorrow, maybe the day after that. But if you're asking the question right now, I don't see it.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Cantu.

Nick, thank you for everything that you guys are doing. I'm very impressed with our lake levels right now, to be honest with you. I think we're going to be able to see all that rain that's coming this week, hopefully in our reservoirs. Are we doing a water update every council meeting still?

Yeah, that's what's on the agenda, yes. Okay. Should we do one every council meeting?

Yeah. Okay. Just want to make sure we should. Okay. My, my, my third question would be, um, when can the residents of Corpus Christi water their grass? At what level do we need to be at?

Right. So it's, uh, once a week, it's, it's drought stage two. Once we go back to drought stage two. But there's still restrictions on it, but that's when we can water it.

That's great. Okay. And the combined lake level should be at what at stage two? Above 30%. Okay. We're not releasing water right now, right? In Lake Corpus Christi?

From Lake, yes, we are. Yeah, from Lake Corpus Christi, yeah.

Yeah, he's talking about environmental releases.

Oh, no. So we're not releasing any water over the Cal Allen Barrier Dam? No, sir.

Well, we will release it if it's over 50%. Is that how the law is right now?

That's how the agreed order currently reads, yeah. And that's over the Cal Allen Barrier Dam.

Are we going to follow that in case we do get up to 50%? Or are we going to break the rules?

So no, we're not gonna break any rules or regulatory requirements. We have started a conversation with TCEQ and we've also retained some outside professional services. The request would be to limit or eliminate flows until we see full recovery of our western reservoirs and then go back to that original plan. But the agreed order is a, you know, it's a legal agreement. There's multiple parties there. It's going to take some time to work.

How much time do you think that's going to take?

You know, I think it depends on the state. It depends on TCQ. It depends on the other signatory parties, Three Rivers. More or less like a timeframe.

Like six months to eight months.

Yeah, it's not less than six months.

Yeah, but we're putting a temporary request in to forego the 50% release.

So when we're at 50%, which I really believe we're going to be at 50% real soon with the rains.

Yeah.

Are we going to release water then?

It depends if we can make good enough work with TCEQ to ask for that one-time waiver of that until it gets to 100%.

That's right, and currently we're at 15.3%, Councilman. Okay.

So those will be the combined numbers, not just Lake Corpus Christi?

Yeah, that's correct.

Okay, I was thinking about the Lake Corpus Christi. If it gets to 50%, we have to release. We don't.

It's combined, yeah, but you're right, Lake Corpus Christi's at 33.8, but the combined is 15.3. Okay, so the combined has to be at 50%. Yeah, that's right, yes, sir.

Got it, okay, well, we're okay then. We're good, okay. We're going to keep working on it, though, sir. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Councilwoman Campos. Thank you, Mayor. Okay, so Councilman Cantu was asking the question that I was wondering about. How much water do we need? So we need to go above 30% combined levels. Right? Is that what I heard?

To water your lawn? Yes. Yes.

Okay. I would still like to see on the projects the cost of the projects so that we can try to keep up with how much it's costing us, like every time that you say Evangeline or Harbor Island or any of these other projects, CC Polymers. Can you let us know about how much we're spending for each project? That would be helpful.

Yes, Councilwoman, in fact, that's in my memo. In the memo is cost expended to date, so cash out the door for each of those projects. Yes, okay. But for like CC polymer, there's no cost associated with that, that's staff and legal time working.

And that's good to know, right? Yes. Okay, and Harbor Island, like right now, we've expended the $1.7 million.

It's $2.7 million. $2.7 million. Yeah, but that would be it. Okay. Correct? Correct.

And, um, the inner Harbor, I know we've, I don't know where we're at on the inner Harbor.

You know, we had that in our last, uh, presentation, uh, and I provided that information. So, but it was in our last inner Harbor presentation, what we spent today.

Okay. But do you have a round number right now?

I mean, you, it was, you know, I want to say it was in between 40 and $50 million. Total, that's from inception.

Okay, and then the seven Cs?

No expenditures to date.

Okay, and Barney Davis, none either, right?

No expenditures to date.

Okay, all right, thank you. So you are including staff time on these, or we're not?

What was the question, Mayor? Are you including staff time on the cost estimates? No. Just outside contractors. Correct, yeah. Whether the design firms or construction firms or consultants.

Correct, yeah. We are not included in those numbers is not city staff time.

But of course there is city staff time.

Absolutely, yes.

Okay, thank you, Nick. Thank you for the presentation.

Just one more thing. So our water supply dashboard update, we're targeting to deliver it to council on July 28th. Okay. you know we said about every 30 days depending on when the council meeting is so currently the target is to update that dashboard july 28th thank you thank you nick go ahead um i was talking to somebody in houston earlier and they said it's like a monsoon up there or do we have any idea if that's gonna um we'll get any over the watershed we are well you know Texana got some rain over the weekend and I think later this week they've got some more water projected for Texana yeah they're at nine it was 97.2 Texana is healthy for lack of a better word yeah yeah I think we are it's on the radar okay thank you thank you Nick for the presentation thank you so there being no further business this meeting is adjourned at 359