City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm losing my mind.

Okay, good morning, everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Welcome to City Hall and Council Chambers. This morning, our invocation will be led by Pastor Jordan Shimon from Rock City Church. Shimon.

Shimon.

Shimon.

Good morning, Mayor, Council Members. Thank you so much for having me here to pray.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you so much for Corpus Christi, your sparkling city by the sea. And we come to you humbly asking for guidance and wisdom and strategies from heaven. We thank you for what you've done for our city so far by sending the rain to help fill up our reservoirs so that we can begin to at least lighten the load to what the water crisis is here in Corpus. We thank you for our leaders and our governing authorities that are here to make laws and make decisions on our behalf that are for justice here in this place that you love so much. I thank you, Lord, that your scriptures tell us that the coastlands by the sea will wait for your instructions. And Lord, we ask that today that the spirit of God would come and rest on us and give us a sense of patience that we might not move in our own will or in our own desires, but we would move in accordance with what your instructions are here for us. We thank you, Lord, for protecting this place. We thank you, Lord, that you are showing this place off to the country and to the world in a way. But Lord, we ask that you would protect it the way that we desire to see it protected, that it might harbor life and exuberance and fellowship and excitement and family. And we just thank you for all that you're doing here today. We ask, Lord, that you would come and move before us. and that you would make a way for all things to rest in your peace the way you see it, and not that we do. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen.

Thank you, Pastor. And our Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the Texas state flag will be led by Rebecca Orozco. She is a Mary Carroll High School senior, graduated cum laude, and she is a Del Mar dual credit program certified phlebotomist and registered medical assistant.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please join me in honoring the Texas flag. Honor the Texas flag.

I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.

Thank you so much, Rebecca, and good luck in your studies.

Go Tigers. That's right.

Ms. Huerta, would you please call the roll? Mayor Paulette Guajardo. Present. Council Members Roland Barrera. Here. Sylvia Campos. Here. Eric Cantu. Not here yet. 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. Winston.

We'll go to Section E, and that is our City Manager's comments and update on city operations. Mr. Zanoni, you have two items.

Yes, ma'am, thank you. Mayor and members of the council, we do have two items on the city manager's report this morning. And the first is an update on several TxDOT projects that are happening in Nueces County. And we know TxDOT's an important partner of the city in developing our transportation network. So several projects are either underway or in the case of Northwest Boulevard have just been initiated. And so we wanted TxDOT to share with the council and the community the importance of these projects. So with us here today is Eric Martinez. He's the TxDOT area engineer, and he's going to provide this update of about five to six major TxDOT-funded and constructed road projects in our region, or in our county, I should say. Eric?

Morning. Thank you guys for having me. Eric Martinez. I am the Corpus Christi area engineer with TxDOT. just a few project updates. I was going to start with the largest construction cost project and work our way down, which is our State Highway 286 Crosstown Extension. That's the Crosstown Extension from FM 43 to FM 2444, which is Weber to Staples out on the south side. That is a new roadway and bridge construction. We got retaining walls going up. We have pictures going in. Currently, we are working on all of those things. You might see a lot of work happening in that area. We have bridges and retaining walls happening at the same time we're working on that southbound frontage road with earthwork and lime. Current contract cost was $79 million. That's what it's been at for 805 contract days of work. We're about 54% complete. So we've got about halfway done with that job from a dollar standpoint. We still expect our completion date on that project to be June of 2028. So we hopefully plan to hit that goal. Second project we're going to discuss is the state highway to get ramp reconfiguration project that's when you're seeing out there on S P I D between staples and Nile reconfiguration the ramps on that area right now at this time we're working on widening of our frontage roads through that section once we get those frontage roads widening drainage structures in place and we'll look to work on that main lane. The main lane work the main widening and reconfiguration of those ramps in that area. That's a $58 million contract. As it was led, we had 844 contract days in that one as well. We're currently about 25% complete. We're spending about $14 million into that job so far. So we still got a ways to go, but we expect to be completed on that project in August of 2029. FM 624, as was referenced, is the project that just started out there in the Catalan area. That's an extension of the Boulevard section from Wildcat Rd all the way out to County Rd 73. So we're adding a lane of capacity in both directions. Past Wildcat is three lanes up to that point. We're going to continue those three lanes through there. We've got raised medians in that area. We've got curb and gutter and drainage going in there as well as sidewalks and shared youth paths for pedestrians all the way to the end of the project limits. Currently, we are working on the County Road 69 widening portion of that project. That's the end of the drainage, the closed-loop drainage that will be going through that project. So we're trying to get the County Road 69 widening done before school starts here in August out there. That's a $31 million contract, and it's got 780 contract days, and we're about 7% complete. We started last month, so we're just at the beginning of that project. It's installing drainage and widening that County Road 69 road so that way traffic can get through there. We expect to complete that project in January 2029 as well. Park Road 22 Bridge Preventative Maintenance Project. That was a bridge preventative maintenance project we started back in November. Currently it is on a time suspension. We put on a 90-day time suspension at the beginning of July. We won't see them back out here until October to finish up the remaining work. The remaining work is under the bridge at the West Laguna Madre structure that we were working on in the end of June. All the other work on the other three structures, which is the Humboldt Channel, the East Relief Channel, and the West Laguna Madre Channel, we finished that work back between November to February. That's a $1.8 million contract for bridge preventive maintenance through there. It was 106 contract days, and we're about 81% complete. Like I said, we've got about a month worth of work left underneath the bridge when that picks back up in October. A few other notable projects. You might be seeing the sidewalk happening over here on State Highway 286 between Horn and Baldwin. On the frontage road there, we have an ADA remediation project where we're just upgrading the sidewalk over there to ADA standards for pedestrians through that area. A $900,000 project that's about 10% complete, but I think we're moving faster than that. It's got 92 days in the project, but we still expect to be completed by the end of the year on that one. Two of interest, I think, Yorktown Boulevard over the bridge replacement over at Calle de loso and then the Ocean Drive bridge replacement over at Calle de loso. Those are under contract right now, but we have not started work on those. We're currently waiting on material procurement. Give us a little time to get the materials in. We expect Yorktown to start sometime near the end of August and then maybe October on the Ocean Drive bridge. Those are the projects I brought. Other than that, we've got minor sign projects here and there. We've got other smaller projects going on, safety projects happening, signal projects. But those are the big ones. If you guys have any questions, I'm happy to answer.

Great. Well, Mr. Martinez, thank you for that information. How long do you think the Yorktown Bridge will take?

I've got May of 2029. It has 537 contract days in it. It's a $21.2 million bridge reconstruction is what it ended up as.

Can you give us a little bit more info on that one? You're widening it?

It's a bridge replacement and widened to four lanes. So it's matching what the city is constructing right now through that bridge structure and the other side. And it begins in August? It'll begin planning on August. We're waiting on material procurement, so it's manufacturers sending materials to our contractors until we can get going.

This is really good information, so thank you. I'm not sure if we asked you to To come give this update or if that was on your side, but this is very helpful to us.

Definitely.

Councilwoman Vaughn. So the Cal Allen 624. So we have two lanes now with the turning lane. So tell me what you're going to do. You're going to do three lanes or tell me.

Yeah. So there'll be three lanes and then there'll be a median, a raised median in the middle there. So there'll be access points much like the section from 77 to Wildcat is. Okay. They'll just continue median through there with different access points, but there'll be also be a third lane of travel.

all the way to 73.

I'm sorry?

All the way to County Road 73?

All the way to County Road 73, yes. Okay, thank you. Three lanes on both sides all the way through.

Got it, thanks. Councilman Scott.

The Crosstown extension, when's that complete? I'm sorry? The Crosstown extension out over... Oh, I think I had January of 28 or 29.

June of 28, so.

June of 28. You guys are doing a great job. I just didn't know the timing. Thank you.

That's our goal right now. I think they were progressing the job pretty quickly, so I think.

We appreciate you being here. We appreciate you bringing your pocketbook, and we appreciate the construction work you're doing. Yes, sir. Go ahead and get some more. Go get some more. Working on it.

Thank you, Mr. Martinez. We appreciate your time and presentation. Thank you, guys.

Yeah, thank you, Eric. And just for Eric and Ernie's business here, we On Northwest Boulevard when we had the public engagement meetings, one thing that became apparent was nighttime street lighting and Texas just replaces like for like with the city wanted more lighting, especially with the pedestrian use path will be. So we were to enter into some interlocal agreement to add more. So we'll just follow up on that as well as something that the community expressed interest in. Yeah, but with that nice shared use path and especially by the school. At night, it can be pretty dark. So we're going to improve lighting as well. Great. Thank you, Peter. Okay, good. Thank you again, Eric. And thank you, colleagues and Mike Walsh at TxDOT because we do appreciate the partnership that we have with TxDOT. The city is in the road business. Others provide transportation services. network improvements here as well, including TxDOT and the county as well, Nueces County. So we thank them all for improving our community.

Yes, we do. We have one more comment, Peter.

Oh, okay.

Just one quick comment. On this report, you know, it's not visible to our audience. Where can we see the complete report that you just presented? Can you send that to us, maybe?

Is that something that we need to look up somewhere on what? I mean, I just wrote down some notes on things. I mean, this is a presentation that I just put some information on really quick. It's not really, I can get y'all something. If y'all want information, I can put a report together.

Okay, that'd be great.

Send it to Ernie, if that works. Just a summary of what you... Yeah, I can summarize.

We'd appreciate that. Thank you.

Great, and that sidewalk, Councilman Campos, would be nice over there. I see the construction of it. Yeah, that's real nice. Okay, great. So we have one other city manager report update, and that is on the Hart Library. And so we know this has had a lot of community engagement and councilwoman Paxson and myself and Many members of the council have been to several community meetings about a year ago. I think or more than that, but Just for background context and I'll turn over to Laura This library is one of two that we have in the system that is a shared use library And so we part we partnered up and some time ago with two schools two school districts, CCISD and Flower Bluff ISD, to have a library that has two customer groups, the school and then the general public. It's an old model. I think many cities in Texas, and maybe the country did this before, We had issues with gun violence and other issues on school with states like Texas have put stricter rules on who can go in the library if it's on a school campus. So that's caused a little bit of an issue in the business model that used to work back in the 80s and 90s, so it's different today. So we've tried to react to that while still having the city operated library, the school operated library. The Hart Library is a little different than the CCISD one because it's co-used still, meaning the school comes in and the general public comes in. The CCISD one is only the city. CCISD moved their library into the school building, but the Hart Library and Flower Bluff doesn't have that option. There's no room in the school facility, so we co-locate in there. So Laura is here to provide an update. We know Marilena Garza, the board chair for the library board is here. She and I spoke last week. We've promised her to continue to do a better job in communicating with her and the library board. If there's no update, even telling them that, that there's no update this month. So we appreciate Ms. Garza's passion for the library. I see a bunch of folks signed up as well on the budget. One of the things that has come up in our community meetings is more resources for the library. And so it's fitting that Laura can speak today. The budget will be submitted to council next Tuesday. And I don't want to give out the information now, but the library is going to do a little better in that budget. And so we'll see that next week. I'm just proud to announce that because we know in the past eight years, we've worked pretty closely with Laura and the library board to reinstate a lot of the, a lot of the services that were cut prior to me being here. So we're glad we've been able to fund the library in just about every budget, and you'll see next Tuesday that continues. So with that, Laura's going to give us an update on the Hart Library, and we'll go from there.

Good morning, council members and mayor. This is, like the manager said, an update on the Janet F. Hart Public Library. In October of 1998, the City of Corpus Christi and the Flower Bluff Independent School District entered into an intergovernmental agreement to establish and jointly operate a branch library on school district property. The Janet F. Hart Public Library, located on the campus of Flower Bluff High School, in Council District 4 opened in August of 2000 as a joint use facility serving both the public and the school district. So the intergovernmental agreement is actually a 13-page document. So these are just a few of the points that are on that document. The lease agreement is for 99 years. The city owns the public library building. Florida Boulevard ISD owns the land and the parking lot, and they provide us with 50 parking spaces When there's no school in session, we're allowed to use any part of that parking lot. So in cost sharing, the city pays 75% and Floribla pays 25% of utilities, cleaning services, alarm, monitoring, and inspections. The city pays for the library maintenance expenses for all repairs. City establishes hours of library operation and opening and closing procedures with recommendations from Floribla FISD. Also, so the city council knows that legal has reviewed this document on several locations. In the spring of 2025, Florida Boulevard ISD notified the city of the requirements outlined in Texas Education Code Section 61.1031. This section mandates that school districts secure building entry points and limit public access during instructional hours. To enhance student safety and comply with these safety and security requirements, Flowerville of ISD and the city mutually agreed to temporarily adjust the Hart Library and operating hours to align with the start of the school year and went into effect August the 11th. At that time, we were going to be opening for 28 hours. And after receiving feedback from residents and at the request of Councilwoman Caitlin Paxson, the city and Flowerville of ISD held a joint town hall meeting at the Hart Library to gather input from the community. The city manager was there, the superintendent was there, and Councilwoman Paxton, and I believe a few of you others were there, perhaps, I think, Councilwoman Campos. So residents primarily expressed a need for increased weekday operating hours, curbside service accessibility, and access for homeschool instruction. So in response to the feedback, the city and Florida Village ISD worked to address those concerns. So on September 15, 2025, the hours were increased up to 40 hours. And what we added was Thursday morning hours from 9 a.m. to 12.30. We also, instead of opening at 5, like we were going to do on August 11, we were going to open from 4 to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. And we added Sunday hours from 2 to 6 and curbside hours from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. So after that the city in Florida ISD initially we considered installing a temporary partition while to separate the public from Florida ISD and Florida ISD actually received approval from the Texas agency. education agency to move forward with that plan. However, then we found out that building code constraints and fire egress requirements deemed it unfeasible for us to implement. So then in January of 2026, the city hired an architecture firm to conduct a pre-designed engineering assessment. The assessment was intended to evaluate the construction of an eight-foot partition wall, analyze system impacts, develop as-built and schematic plans, and provide cost estimates. As of June 2026, late June of 2026, the pre-design assessment is at 90% complete. The Engineering Services Department is currently working with the architecture firm to finalize the pre-design assessment and provide cost estimates. I stand by for any questions.

Okay. Thank you for the presentation, Laura. Councilwoman Paxson.

Thank you, Laura. And thank you, Peter. Uh, this was something that we really dove into last year and I appreciate that we were able to in such short notice and the constraints that we were facing. Um, it would have been great if we could just provide the needs to the school and also turn the library right back over at a hundred percent to the community. But we didn't have that option at the time. However, you guys were very helpful in trying to make as many changes or concessions to what the needs were as possible for that. I do understand that there's been some issues trying to communicate with our library board as per board members, but I appreciate that we're trying to bridge that gap now. I see that we're still moving forward because without a long-term solution, we still have to address the needs before us, which is this safety component. And I know we're putting in something that's a little more robust than a temporary wall, but I would still challenge us to look at the future of this. We received this well-thought-out, well-studied letter from the library board with very valid points And I think that those definitely need to be taken into serious consideration for the future of that location. Um, and so that being said, you know, we're weeks now away from a semester starting. I realized that we want the kids to be safe. I realized that, but I'm challenging us not to stop here. Um, the hearts really wanted to make this a facility that the community could always come to. And I, and I know that flower bluff ISD is growing and, My heart is close to them. You know, we're Hornet Nation out in District 4, but there's got to be a way to do both. And I think from what I've seen in the community, of course everyone supports our students and their safety, but everyone also dearly cherishes their library. So I don't think this is the closing point of this decision.

Right. We would agree, Councilwoman. So the ultimate solution is a new library, standalone, and that would take, you know, some dollars. So We had looked at some property as well. So there's some options that we know about of where we could cite a new library. But that cost would be probably 10 plus millions. So it's something we can look at for the next bond, which would be bond 2028. But in the meantime, the solution would be, it's not the ultimate, solution, but it's a good once the wall, we call it a temporary partition, but it's built to be a permanent. And what it will do is put some square footage only for the school district that the general public can't get into and vice versa. And then the rest of the library, probably, what is it, 85, 90% of the building?

Yes, and just for clarification, I've always considered that there's always been an invisible wall between what we do and the students, when they come in, they knew that there's always been an area for them. And so that's what we're looking at the wall. After hours when there's no school, we will still be using that area for our own programming as well as perhaps if somebody wants to have a meeting in that area.

Right, but how much library would be open to the general public once the permanent wall?

Once we would be open, 90% majority of it.

The majority of the building. So the goal with the wall is so that we can open normal business hours like the other libraries. That way the general public can't mix with the school children. So that's the biggest goal.

At what point before we approve 100% on this design, at what point do we get to see those renderings and release that to the library board?

Well, we'll work with the library board to get their input. And Sonia or Laura will have to answer that question. What percent are we in the design?

We're at 90% pre-assessment, so we're still not really into the design yet until this other decision. Yes, so this is just a pre-assessment.

Okay, just like the trestle bridge, just like the seawall, just like any of the other major designs, it's very important that the stakeholders are in that conversation, especially with something that is so vital to District 4.

Right, we agree on that.

And retaining that. I don't know what the future looks like. I don't know if this is going to be a sole responsibility of the city. I don't know if this is an area for the school district to have an input on how can we take those career-ready resources and things much like CCISD did. I don't know what the ultimate decision is going to look like. But the commitment that our goal is to try to get heart back to the community, that's what I think we need to continue to focus on. So I appreciate all of the help here. Thank you.

Thank you.

Laura, remind me who owns what?

The land?

We own the building. The city owns the building, and the land is owned by Flowerville of ISD and the parking.

So we own the building.

How many square feet is that building? The building is 14,800 square feet. Okay.

A couple of things. I think that one of the points of contention, Peter, was that there was no communication to our library board. This is what I'm being told directly. in having the information, some of the partition wall and for the idea or whatever it is, whatever it was, and that is not acceptable. Because when we have committees, when we have committees and boards, people are volunteering their time. And this is not the first time it's happened. I don't know why, and I want to know why. Why was that not communicated? This is not for you, Laura, please, I'm not directing this to you, probably to Soni or to Peter. Why was that not communicated to the library board who meets to make this better, to be part of the solution? Why was that not communicated to them? And the first time they heard it was when you all said it here.

No, I'm going to, and I understand. That's what I'm told. I understand, and I understand the, passion of the advisory board and we enjoy working with them. There have been updates on the situation at Hart Library since August of last year. It's even in the minutes of each meeting. There was one month I believe in May, it was either April or May, that we didn't meet in May, and so they weren't provided an update then. And then June, at the most recent advisory board meeting, they were working on a letter to the city council, and from there there was still any, there was no, progress or updates from the last update that they received in April. So pretty much where we are is the same information that we have been communicating to the library board that we are in the pre-assessment process and working with Flower Bluff.

Right. Yeah, so the issue, and that's what Ms. Garza and I talked about, even if there's no board meeting and if 30 days lapse, people want to generally know is where we ended in April still the condition in early June? And so that was the issue. So they have communicated. to the library board is just when there was no meeting, they didn't provide an update via email or at least advise the chair, so.

Well, I would just, you know, I think communication is obviously key and if one side or the other doesn't feel like they've been communicated with, then we need to improve that, which is what you just mentioned.

And that's what we've done. I've personally called Ms. Garza and I, excuse me. So I'm not saying there's no merit.

That's fine. What was the study that was done? You mentioned a study? Sorry, you mentioned a study?

Yeah, for the partition wall, the construction of a permanent partition wall. It's a pre-designed study.

And what was that cost? What was the cost?

Yes, so the early estimates right now, all in cost would be $180,000. No, but for the pre-designed work? Oh, the pre-designed, sorry. The cost for the pre-designed, $15,000.

Okay, but all this is going to be cost shared?

With? Not the pre-design. We talk on the cost of the pre-design. But the actual, for the wall moving forward, everything is cost share 50-50.

Okay, all right. Councilman Hernandez.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. You know, we kind of knew this was coming, right? And I understand the partition wall is somewhat of a band-aid. But, I mean, we saw this with CCISD at the Garcia Library. We went through the process of designing a new facility new library combination with the rec center and I understand it's you know we're not gonna be able to do a bond packages this election that this probably get pushed back to 2028 but ultimately we're gonna have to vacate that spot at some point this is just a band-aid right So I would say take that design that we're utilizing for what was going to be to replace the Garcia Library and do the same thing for the Hart Library. And then we should be negotiating with Flower Bluff as to what that would cost to have them buy that building. Now, I understand the idea of location, but this is just – What's the term? Lipstick on a pig kind of thing, right? I just want to make sure that we're having a long-term solution that fits the needs for both the community and the school district. And I don't know if you've ever tried to get to the library at 3 o'clock, but it's almost impossible. Same thing with Garcia. So I think ultimately it should be two separate facilities. I appreciate what they tried to do in the past by combining these things and trying to have some synergies, but times change and here we are. So if we can take that design and maybe utilize it for both libraries. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Councilman Scott.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. So we own the building. We have a 99-year lease. We can't allow the school, the students to come and go at the same time or commingle. But we have a building.

We own the building.

And we have a 99-year lease. I don't know why we have to leave. I get that they can't commingle, but I guess the simple answer would be, close it off. And then we have a library with 50 parking places that we can use at our leisure, our leisure at the hours we decide, I guess maybe there ought to be a car and you're going to, I guess I talk a little bit about an alternative to the, but I wouldn't be so quick to abandon, um, the building and the, the, the lease agreement that we have, um, I knew the hearts. I knew them well. I was at the opening. I was very young when I went to the grand opening, but I think that was their vision. I think we can continue with that and keep the building, close off the... I get the temporary answer is the partition or the wall, but I think the permanent answer is just remove access from the school into our library.

Yeah, the agreement allows them access, though. Got it.

Well, they can have access. I mean, I don't know that... I just don't... I don't know that... Let me back up. This is an interesting experience for me. I get educated, and then months go by, and I get educated, and months go by. So I'm not up to speed. And I wrote a note last week to try to sit down with you and get educated, but then I saw you put it on the agenda. So thank you for doing that. But my basic assumption would be we ought to figure out a way to keep the building as it is. provide them access to what their needs are, and move on down the road. Right.

There's actually a little room for an expansion as well. So if we give up 10%, you can almost build 10% more. Yeah.

Well, I just wouldn't be quick to just say, hey, we need to go build a new building and move somewhere else. Unless they want to pay, you know, $12 million for a building, then golden, you know. Yeah, right. And I love the school district. I just think that we have made a commitment. And I get the world's changed. Nobody's bad here. But if there was a way to keep our building, keep our hours, and still provide some library access somewhere, somehow to the school, that's my preference. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Please keep in touch with your library board members, because if you don't, we will. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. If you're not talking to them, they're talking to us. That's not good for anybody. Right. We prefer our conversations with library board members to be casual, positive, and supportive. We're not getting answers, so thanks. Yes, sir.

Councilwoman Paxson. Thank you.

I understand Councilman Hernandez's thought process, but I would have to maintain that it is the building, the library building, that building, That is what we need to, I think, continue to work towards. That's what is so valuable. That is what the hearts envisioned. That's what they gave. It's not the same to just put another spot. And I'd almost, I think you mentioned it briefly, is add-on, a 10% add-on. I mean, if we look at what the school is utilizing, there's some library resource training, some homework hours, some career readiness, those types of things. And again, I don't know, if that's something we could evaluate our time, you know, if they do that before the 10 a.m. opening, things like that. I still think there's some creative use ability there for $180,000. I don't know about putting that towards adding on another room or something, but I think it's astronomical. That's a big price for a temporary wall. I did receive calls from the library board. I won't belabor it. but I will put it on the record, like I will say, because this is fair is fair, I did receive calls before May. I was being told that the updates were few and far between and they were very limited if they existed. And basically, you know, they weren't even in favor of the $15,000 study, whether they agreed or didn't. My point is these individuals were appointed to serve this purpose. We call on them, they call on us, like that's their role. And I think that that needs to continue to be very much at the forefront. And if there is a discrepancy, like I would like to know, be like, hey, our board doesn't want us to do this, but we really need to do this. then I'm not getting a phone call. They're taking this, what do you mean they're taking $15,000? I'm in the dark here. So I will say that before May, this was an issue before the meeting was skipped. And so I just, in their defense, because they tried their due diligence to reach out and that's where I started calling people. I appreciate that we're talking about it so we can do better going forward, and that's, I think, all of our expectation. So thank you, guys.

Thank you, Sony, and thank you, Laura. We appreciate the presentation and the information.

Thank you for the feedback.

All right. So that's going to conclude our public comment. I'm sorry, Peter, your report.

That concludes the city manager's report.

Thank you. So we're going to go into public comment. It's 1210 this afternoon. We have... 40 in person and about four either on phone or WebEx. So before we begin public comment, I want to remind everyone that the City Council has adopted rules of decorum to help ensure our meetings remain orderly, respectful, and productive. Copies of the rules of decorum are available at the City Secretary's office across the hall here and are also available on the city's website. and I just ask everyone to please conduct themselves accordingly. We're here to do the people's work and we would like to proceed in that spirit. So, also I want to make this announcement, beginning with our next regularly scheduled council meeting, if you would like to speak on a specific consent agenda item, public comment period at noon will be the opportunity to do that. So public comment on consent agenda items will no longer be taken at the consent agenda posting part of the agenda, or when that item is considered. The change doesn't reduce anyone's opportunity to be heard it simply moves those comments to one designated time so which would be the noon hour so that we conduct our meeting in more efficient orderly and consistent manner while we ensure that everyone has the same opportunity to address the council so we're moving it from one place to another not today that would start on our at our next meeting so if you have any questions regarding that change please see our city secretary at the break When you come forward, please state your name and city in which you reside before beginning your comments. In-person speakers will have up to three minutes. For callers and Webex participants, Corpus Christi residents will have up to three minutes, and non-residents will have up to one minute. The timer located at the city secretary's desk will help and keep everyone within their allotted time. And if you have a petition or any other materials that you'd like to give to the council, please provide them to the city secretary before speaking as normal. So, our first speaker. Yes, ma'am. Councilwoman.

Thank you. Mayor, with all due respect... I disagree with this policy change, allowing individuals to exercise their public comment opportunity at noon gives them the opportunity to speak on a variety of issues. extending a second, which is, I think, an appropriate interpretation of how we're supposed to extend that at our action, which is the consent agenda, then allows them to speak on the consent agenda. If those two are consolidated, they have to choose which topic. They're reduced a little. So I disagree with this policy change. Thank you.

Colonel Oberon Sexton.

I don't know, over in J. Sexton, U.S. Army. E-5, play my video.

All right, folks, E-3 here, and look at this. Look at this. Paulette's campaign finance, Adrian Garza, $1,500, starting 3-9. That's March 9th, and there is his address, supposedly. But look at this. Old Adrian Garza was arrested 328 for terroristic threats and still was getting paid by the mayor. And look at that one. His address don't even exist. Now, you ain't falsifying those reports, are you, Paulette? Remember this? June 19th when you went on Larry Alessandro and called me out by name. By name. Then what happened? Your boy come on my page pointing a gun at me saying he's going to make me famous. Well, I'm your huckleberry because I went on his and I certainly told him, you know, that it was about your 91K trip with Roland to D.C. Then your boy starts attacking my friends. And then your friend's Tito piles on. And who's Tito? Oh, look, he's going after my friends again. Oh, and me again. Oh, look, and Robin now. Oh, and look, but Hood News done got the truth on you, boy. Look at all these charges. Paulette, or should I say, Wallet. What are you doing, Wallet? Look at this. You hiring this guy, Wallet? Look at all them charges. Lord have mercy. Oh, Lord have mercy. Those are a lot of charges, Paulette. Are you just surrounding yourself with criminals or what? Ooh, Lord, 13 plus arrests. Now, here's an interesting bit. I got contacted by somebody who said they want you and your pals to go after me, specifically through Kronika. And see that? Yeah. Yeah. Look what else. Oh, look. Yeah, I had a nice chat with this individual two times, as a matter of fact. And see that there? Oh, yeah, Paulette. I recorded both of them phone calls. Got them. Recorded. And look at this. Doug Allison put it out there that you are paying two chairs, Kronika, Garza, and Tito, and also Wayne Docefino. So you're paying all these people, Paulette, to come after your opponents. And guess what that means there, Paulette? I hope you are familiar with Texas Penal Code 3902 and 3903, because guess what? You violated the law, baby doll. Woo! And today is judgment day.

All right, next. And I will say statement of fact. Not true. Thank you, sir. Goodbye. Bradley Bartleson. We're not going to have applause and we're not going to break decorum. Okay. So please, I'm asking y'all, we have two hours of public comment. Let's respect one another's time and the rules of decorum here, please. Thank you. Mr. Bartleson. Mr. Bartleson. Yes, sir.

Brad Bartelsen, Corpus Christi. Going forward, our city leadership needs not to merely react, but to understand AI and develop a winning strategy. The explosion is not in the future. It's here now in our local forms of HUD-8 and Bootstrap Energy. The governor is pushing a six-month AI moratorium. Our Amanda Short is heading up Texas Infrastructure Stewardship Initiative. It occurred to me that we are incurring the impacts and yet the use and benefit is going elsewhere. Imagine if our Hut 8 is used by the Chinese military. The idea I'm proposing here is to control data flow, requiring it to be tagged and filtered for safety and location and giving local use priority. Tax on labor is government's primary funding mechanism. Google, DeepMind, and others recently determined that tax base erosion due to AI displacement is a certainty. This target diagram displays the current AI workforce by industry in the red center area and the anticipated in blue. While better news for manual workers, white collar jobs pay more and have been generating more tax revenue Once most secure, computer programming is most exposed. Media hosts are being replaced by AI. We don't know when and what an AI workforce will look like. A harmful lag is anticipated with deep unemployment. A multi-year tax chasm would occur in which the government hasn't the funds to meet its obligations. As of 2025, 65% of federal tax revenue came from labor. Proposals to replace that revenue include boosting wealth and consumption taxes, hiking corporate taxes, or a new tax on AI. All of these will object, fight, or will flee. Replacing this revenue, for example, would require a 33% consumption tax. It's been highly problematic to tax multinationals. I like the idea of AI token taxes as this is a growing revenue and profit pot to take from. Seek control of AI data centers and the data be on the forefront of educating our kids The new jobs attract businesses that employ these workers, find a new way to tax AI data centers do like Sweden and Singapore save up tax money, cut back spending, say no, no to new 30 year debt obligations. Bootstrap energy is example how we need to do better. And I'll say quickly on our ways to lose our lover in new ACS Bay. We have seven steps of ruining this already. We don't need another one. The far field modeling is incomplete. I can talk to you in more detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bartleson. Vidal Conde.

Good morning, City Council. Thank you. Good afternoon, should I say. My name is Vidal Conde, and I'm running for Corpus Christi City Council District One. And the reason I decided to run is because I have experience in the maritime business. I have experience.

Yeah, Mr., Mr., what if I could you please advise on this?

We're not currently a polling location, so there's no prohibition to the gentleman speaking regarding his candidacy that I know of. The city attorney can chime in if needed, but at this point he is allowed to speak on that.

I thought y'all had mentioned recently that candidates were not. I think there was a question on that. I'm not sure who answered it.

I haven't been asked the question. Is this a part of my introduction to get to know me better on the agenda that I'm leading to, if I may say so?

So a candidate can come up and talk about his candidacy and running? Who needs to answer that?

I mean, to my knowledge. Yeah, I'm not aware of any such prohibition.

I mean, somebody would need to point that out in the rules.

All right, that's good. We established it then. Go ahead, sir.

Okay, no problem. Well, you know, I have experience in the maritime business and dealing with the Corps of Engineers, TCEQ, environmental agencies, EPA, in maritime projects. And that's one of the reasons I decided to be a candidate. But the point that I'm trying to get to is that I'm no and opposing to Inner Harbor, okay? Inner Harbor, just for starters, it doesn't have the footprint for us to grow. It's in a limited space. It has approximately 13 to 20 acres, okay? So we're gonna invest $1.2 billion or a billion dollars into a project that has no real room for growth. Now if we were to expand it, the only thing we're gonna expand is the amount of brine that we're going to expel into the marinas. So right now in those waters, and it's been stated and it's been there since day one, there's microplastics in the waters, there's hormones in the waters, there's estrogens in the waters, And there's forever chemicals in those waters in the Inner Harbor, okay? Now, if we were to move forward with something like this, for every 30 million gallons of water that we produce, hypothetically, at that location, it's a 1 to 1.5% ratio. So for every 30 million gallons of water that we produce, we're going to be expelling 30 million to 45 million gallons of brine out into the intercoastal waters. And that would be Corpus Christi Bay, Nueces Bay, and all the way up into Oso Bay. So what I propose that we do is find a way to eliminate that idea. Let's invest our money in flower bluff at the Barney M. Davis plant. let's put that money into that location because right now Barney M. Davis footprint is almost 2,000 acres, okay? So what we do is we go to Barney M. Davis, obviously it's a municipal owned by CPS, and we propose to them, hey, we would like to purchase at least 100 to 200 acres of your land so that we, because we cannot have Barney Davis, we cannot have CPS as our landlord. As them being our landlord and us being their tenant, we're never going to get anywhere. That's a prime location because it's right next to the Gulf, it has the footprint for growth, and the water is a lot cleaner out in the Gulf than in the Indian Harbor. Now, let's say we sit down and we have a friendly meeting with CPS and they say, you know what, we don't want to sell you 200 acres. Well, what do we do? We do eminent domain. where we are able to, based on Texas Local Government Code Section 251.001. Study that.

Thank you, Mr. Conde.

You're welcome. Appreciate y'all.

Julie Rogers.

All right, start that timer. I'm Julie Rogers. I live in District 1. I want to take this back to the libraries, please. Also has a layer of data center to it. Y'all might have seen the meme that's going around all over social media. I love it. It says, libraries, they're data centers. So we can be against corporate data centers and be for libraries and real data centers. I do want to address that the library board, the advisory board, they did not skip a meeting in May. They did not hold a meeting in May. because we lost a dear librarian, Dorothea Castignon. She's dedicated over 30 years to this city and that community morning. And so were the staff. They've all worked together for over 30 years. Congratulations to our library director for dedicating her life to libraries. She's worked for over 40 years for the city of Corpus Christi. These are the reasons that we love libraries and they are big parts of our life. And when I went to the town hall in Flower Bluff, that community loves that library. And Council Member Paxson's right. You can't just put another building. That building's part of their life. You know what, too? The Padre Island uses that library, and that community's growing. Yeah, we're going to need another library, and that one needs to stay there because there's not enough libraries. We need the one that up in district five and you know what else we need? We need flower bluff, independent school district to take responsibility for their part in this. The city is not responsible for it. We own the library and that wall. I'm sorry if my child was in school, I would not be comfortable thinking that a wall is going to protect them because they are in danger and this is about public safety. And you do have to carry it forward and think of a different way. And it just blows my mind that it's $180,000 for a temporary solution. Invest that in a library. Or make Flower Bluff do what CCISD did. What did they do? They got out of the library. I don't hear that discussion whatsoever. All I'm hearing is the city needs to do this, the city needs to do this. What does Flower Bluff need to do? And one more thing, there has not been community engagement on this. There was the town hall meeting, and that was it. That's all there's been. So I suggest that you reach out again to the Flower Bluff residents and the parents and grandparents and find out what they want. You know what? That's not my library. my library is labratama because people go to the libraries where they live and each library is dedicated to that community what they have in the building has to do with what that community wants at flower bluff it's all about water the hearts intended that so do the right thing thank you miss rogers uh tom tagliabue

Good afternoon, I'm Tom Tagliabue, District 2. I'm also here about the Library Advisory Board. They've asked for answers, and the staff has deliberately ignored those requests. They've withheld information, and they've intentionally denied the briefings to the people that you appointed to oversee those libraries. 28 years ago, the City Council implemented the agreement with the Flower Bluff ISD to ensure the city's authority to protect taxpayer investment in the libraries and guarantee the library patrons would be served for generations. It's an agreement your current staff has chosen to disregard and allow the Flower Bluff ISD to bully and manipulate the city into restricting access. I don't believe the education code or the administration code referenced by the school district applies as this building is not defined as an instructional facility for curriculum. The 1988 agreement specifically states the city is not responsible for enforcement of school district policies. We've taken the word of the Flower Bluff ISD. Flower Bluff ISD isn't paying a dime towards resolving this issue. They should either build their own facility or let us buy that land from them. For months, the library board has pleaded for updates. We finally got one today. It took, for three months, the library board debated the language that was going in the letter to you. And only after that came to y'all last week did staff decide it was the appropriate time to brief you on this subject. The lack of transparency is an indication of a greater problem. It's not the first time staff has demonstrated a disregard for its residents and your appointees. I'm a retired city employee. I've been appointed to three boards by city council, and it disgusts me that there's a lack of respect given to those volunteers who serve on those boards. If you can't be honest about small things, how can we trust you on the major issues? The public trust, I think, is irrevocably broken. We've become a laughingstock statewide, and it's time to clean house.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tagliabue. Sandra Meyer.

Hello, Sandra Meyer, District 4. Thank you all for all being willing to serve. I know in my heart that none of you have put yourself through this, through campaigns to serve. aggravate the city. You all wanted to be here to try to help. Our employees and staff are the city's best resource and y'all are their leaders. And so I've spent the last nine months almost since the audit was done in September trying to understand what has gone wrong with this Homewood Suites thing that we are at the point of having a hearings over the next couple of days. It really makes me sad. And I realize that Corpus Christi is kind of like a little mini snapshot of what's happening nationwide. And my newest conclusion and my word of the week is, oh my gosh, what's the word when you say something but you mean something else? Like, oh my gosh, I just totally forgot. So that's good. That means I don't get to call y'all a bad name. But in the Bible, it talks about accusing people of things when you've got a plank in your own eye. And as a city, as a state, even as a nation, we are doing that. And we talk about, as citizens, we want trust, we want transparency, we want ethical behavior, but we have to have that from everybody. We cannot be demanding that we get it and then not expect it from everybody else. It can't be, okay, I want y'all to be ethical, but I'm going to be wrong. And so I apologize for forgetting the mean word that I had. But I really wish that this thing over the next couple of days would go away because it just seems very cruel. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Falwell?

I have the floor. Thank you. Well, I have a speech to tell, but I'm going to have to cut it short because you blew my mind again with your idiocracy. Texas Upmeeting Act. For everybody behind me, you're allowed to speak on the agenda item before or during. There's nothing this bitch can do about it. Don't listen to her. Weasley, help her. She's failing miserably again. All right, just like she did last week or week before last one, she let the chief get up here and dictate that he could talk no matter what. You tried to help him. That's the first time I ever listened to you and knew what you're talking about, and she just Let him control the whole room. Who controls the room? Her. Yeah, Texas Old Union back violation. You were right. Chief did it. She didn't care. Or maybe she's an idiot. Or both. All right. What I came to talk to you about is many citizens, including myself, believe there's two parts to the justice system. One for us and one for the servants, in which y'all aren't held accountable for shit, and we are. Okay. The 14th Amendment. Guarantees equal protection under law. That means the law should be applied fairly consistently regardless of person, title, or position. This is out to Chief Markle. You've got three questions. And remember, sir, only cowards lie, so I'm going to hold you to this. First, was Officer Maria Sanchez, who was at the scene of the crime where Officer Martinez beat that woman, she watched the whole thing? Is she being investigated, and is she on paid leave? I'd like to know. Second, The Corpus Christi police officers trained to intervene with witnesses when they witness another officer using excessive force, or are they permitted to stand by and turn cheek? I'd like to know. What's your policy on that, sir? Third, this is a loaded gun because of what you told me. If a union electrician working under contract with the city, same as the union officer sitting behind me, if a union electrician walks into somebody's house and beat the shit out of a woman, Does he get to sit at home on paid leave like these guys do? You're telling me it's because of union contracts, so we better be doing the same as you said and holding everybody equally accountable, right, sir? I'd like to know that one. Let's see if you lie about it. If an ordinary citizen was accused of the same conduct, we go to jail, we have to be bonded out or sit there for 180 days. Not the police department was blatantly corrupt, and we can tell, right? Not y'all in particular. You, for sure. Not y'all, too. All right. I am not asking for you to do anything out of the ordinary. Just continue a due process the right way. I'm asking whether the law is applied equally to everyone. And, of course, you already showed us that it is not, Chief. The public deserves accountability, transparency, and confidence that no one is above the law. Please do what you're told and serve us. You don't serve this council. You serve us. You took an oath to the people. If one of your officers beats a woman, he should be held accountable. The hearsay on the streets is Officer Martinez was fired after almost three and a half months of us paying. If that happened, good. But the other thing in the public talking about right now is that he won't go to jail. He won't even be fucking prosecuted.

Samuel Andre Fryer. Thanks, guys. Councilman Cantu.

I want to apologize for him calling me that. I don't think that was right, saying the V word towards you. But I do want to say something, and I have 100% faith in our police department. I think you guys did the right choice of doing what you did to that officer. That officer is not working with the city of Corpus Christi no more. And the DA's office declined to file charges against him. So it's not on PD. It was on the DA's office. So I just want to throw that out there. I understand he has his rights to speak, whatever the case is, but I just couldn't sit here and not apologize for him, what he called you. Thanks.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, council. My name is Samuel Andre Friar. I live in District 4. First of all, I just wanted to say it's admirable what you all do on a regular basis as a city council. I know Councilman Gil Hernandez said at one point that he said that what the city council does affects decades. And so I keep that in mind when I think about various things. With that said, Um, that's the reason why I feel that our, our students are very, very important because things that take place on the school districts, as far as the, the, um, board of trustees affects generations. And that's very, very important. And that's one reason I'm running for the Corpus Christi independent school district, district four position. And I filed my papers yesterday and that's the reason why I'm doing it because I think it's very, very important. And I want to stand with parents who. desire the best education for their children, which is our future. Families first, financial trust, and informed citizens. Now, with that in mind, I wanted to bring up a few things dealing with the budget. I have a pleasure for the last couple of years to serve on the Crime Control and Prevention District. So you have a choice today to approve the budget that was presented for you for the police department. I believe the police department is doing an exceptional job. Appreciate everything they do. Without them, we could not be as safe as we are. The next thing is I want to look at the proposed amendments to the charter that were presented. Now, if they are going to actually be individual items, then I 100% support that being a choice for the people to vote on. However, two of them have to be in tandem, and that is to increase the term limits to four years has to work in tandem with the actual point when you stagger the council terms. It has to work together. The other thing is the at-large positions, making them position one, two, and three. I believe that's also important. Some people will argue, well, it's no longer an at-large position, but actually it is. It just means that you put in for one position, the second position, or the third, and you still have to get a majority vote. So I do agree with that as well. And then the increasing the requirements vote for removal of a city council members from two two-thirds, I believe that is a good call. And so without any other things, that's just my opinion about the whole thing. And the last thing I wanted to do is all the things that are going on now, as far as all the things going back and forth, city council, the audience, the citizens being as disruptive as possible and being very insulting. I just wanted to make this one thing. In conclusion, brothers, focus your thoughts on what is true, noble, righteous, pure, lovable, admirable, and whatsoever virtue and something praiseworthy. Keep that in mind as you go forward from this day forward. Thank you.

Thank you. John Dugan.

I have some handouts. How are y'all doing? Good? I am too. But I'm worried. I've been worried about this water situation for I can't remember how long. Finally, I decided to look into it. And I looked into the desal plants. That's what I'm really interested in. I'm worried. We used to have a water shortage problem, but it looks like at least we're getting some help on that. I think that one of the main things that I was worried about was the fact that a lot of the areas around here get their water from the from the aquifers, and I thought it would be a really good idea for us to stop producing water out of the aquifer once we get the situation under control. That was my first observation. Also, I'm concerned about the Inner Harbor desal plant. I don't think it's a good idea. Not that it wouldn't work. but we're taking it from sort of polluted area, okay? We know there's PFAS in it, which is continuous and doesn't dissolve. When you take the water in, the reverse osmosis takes the salt and the PFAS out, and we get to drink water that's clear and pure, but we send the salt and the PFAS back into the harbor. So... I don't think that's too good of an idea. It stays contaminated. As we increase the amount of water we're producing out of the plant, the situation only becomes worse and can get much worse over time. I think the plant is too small to cover our problem in the long run. We need more water available, especially when we get into a situation where there's a lot of no rain, so to speak. I think we need to worry about the money, too, because it seems like we're spending a lot of money and we haven't gotten anything out of it. Of course, that's pre-planning and preparation. I think a better choice would be Barney Davis plant. It's larger. You can use it to expand on. The plant can be built in sections, and you can have an increasing amount of capability as time passes. I think that the idea that, I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. I think all the work that's been done with the Inner Harbor plant should be used in working with the Barney Davis plant. God bless all of you.

Thank you, Mr. Dugan. Hope Malkin.

Hi, good afternoon, Hope Malkin, District One. Nice to see you all again, and thank you for your service. I'm speaking on agenda item 18. We recognize that this agenda item is not an immediate stop work order. Its value is in preserving what remaining authority exists at the city level, determining what is and isn't vested at this point in protecting residents from cost shifting and preventing future data centers from being approved by default. Monday, July 20th, HUD-8 announced that it signed a second 15-year lease for an additional 352 megawatts of IT capacity at Beacon Point, doubling their contracted IT capacity to 704 megawatts. HUD-8 now describes this 1,000 megawatt campus quote, fully commercialized with a reported base term contract valued at 19.6 billion. Fully commercialized means commercially committed. However, it does not establish that every local permit for phase two has been filed, approved, or vested. The question we pose is whether this new lease term of an additional 15 years that we're calling phase two is already included in the same qualifying permit series, PLAT, site plan, or project scope, or whether it requires new or materially different approvals. We aim to determine exactly what HUD-8 has already secured, preserve every remaining city decision, seek a voluntary pause on unvested work, and establish permanent protections regarding beacon point expansions and all future data centers. To that end, we request that the council add a project-specific directive requiring city manager and city attorney to publish, within five business days, information that would address questions that while unanswered, prohibit us from understanding what has and has not been vested in this overall Beacon Point project. A handout has been provided that details the necessary information that we're requesting. We understand this is a time-consuming process added to an already heavy and pressing load on the part of city staff and city government. So I specifically want to thank you for the time and effort required to fulfill this request. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Malcolm. Hope, I'm sorry, Susan Elwood.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Amanda Short, founder of the Texas Infrastructure Stewardship Initiative, resident of District 4, and I am presenting comment on behalf of myself and Sue Elwood, who wasn't able to make it today. What is the most valuable infrastructure in Corpus Christi? It is in our roads, it is in our electric grid, and it is in our water. It's the people sitting in this room and the hundreds of thousands who call this city home. Every budget you approve, every permit you issue, and every development you authorize ultimately is a decision about people. What is the purpose of local government? I believe it's to create conditions in which people and future generations can flourish. Infrastructure doesn't raise children. People do. Infrastructure doesn't teach, heal, invent, innovate, volunteer, mentor, or love a neighbor. People do. Psychologist Eric Erickson described one of life's defining challenges as generativity versus stagnation, whether we invest in future generations or simply consume what we have inherited. I believe that cities face that same choice. People are not here to serve infrastructure. Infrastructure is here to serve people. The greatest asset any community possesses is not its roads, utilities, or buildings. It's the people, the teachers who educate our children, the nurses who care for our families, the contractors who build our homes, the entrepreneurs, 78 years family run business. It's the people who make up our communities that is our biggest asset. Every infrastructure decision, should be measured by one simple question. Will this decision help our people flourish? The United Nations widely uses the brunt principle of sustainable development, which calls for meeting present needs without compromising future generations' ability to meet their own needs. Responsible development must meet today's needs without taking away the ability of future generations to meet theirs. Our nation was founded with a responsibility not only to ourselves but to our posterity. Our laws likewise recognize that each generation serves as a trustee for the generations that come after it. Trustees do not exhaust their inheritance. They preserve it, strengthen it, and pass it forward. I look forward to speaking with you on Agenda 18 also. Thank you.

Thank you. Marilena Garza?

Marilena Garza, District 1. Good afternoon. I appreciate that after nearly two years of waiting, the public is finally receiving an update on Hart and But let's be honest, this update should have happened months ago. This information was available weeks ago prior to our July meeting, yet it was withheld from the very board appointed by this council to advise on library matters. Heck, we're hearing new numbers today with staff blurting out new numbers in the presentation just now. That is the first time I have ever heard that 108, 180,000 number. But I kind of already knew that's about how much a partition costs. It's great that the staff has that kind of confidence in the board that you have to say it here. But our library board meetings are not recorded. So this is recorded. So everybody can see staff is withholding information in real time. I would venture to guess that staff knows more, and they're not sharing information still. The board requested updates, we were ignored. The public requested updates, they were ignored. So I have to ask, what is the purpose of an advisory board if staff chooses when or if to involve us? Is our role to provide meaningful oversight, or is it simply here to dress up and waste my time? Today's presentation raises more questions than it answers. We're being asked to accept that a permanent partition wall is the solution. Yet the engineering consultant Dykema isn't here. Where is their report? Why are we relying on a summary memo instead of hearing directly from the professionals who conducted the assessment? If this recommendation is sound, let the public see the evidence. And let's remember who is being impacted. Hart is the only public library serving Flower Bluff and Padre Island. District 4 residents pay taxes just like every other district, yet for nearly two years they have had reduced library services while continuing to fund a system they cannot fully access. That is unacceptable. I also want a clear answer about funding. Who is paying for this project? I do not support shifting the burden onto taxpayers if there are other responsible parties. The public deserves complete transparency before another single dollar is spent. We've already spent $15,000. I'm asking council for three things. Release Dicama's complete report when it's done. Have Dicama present its findings publicly and in a way that the community can ask questions and provide a long-term restoration plan, not just a partition wall, but a real commitment to returning Hart Library to full service to the city. Trust is built through transparency, not backdoor deals. Right now, that trust has been damaged, not because of the engineering challenges, but because of the lack of communication and the decision to leave the public and your own advisory board in the dark. District 4 has waited long enough. It's time for complete transparency and real solutions, not another memo and not another sweetheart deal to somebody else.

Thank you, Ms. Garza. Chair Suarez?

Jairus, what is District 2? Mayor, after watching your interview on Inside Texas Politics, I was sick to my stomach. If every lie were a gallon of water, that would overflow a 30 MGD capacity Gucci bag. Anyways, the city is $3.1 billion in debt. I don't think the people truly understand the gravity of what exactly $3.1 billion is. This graph will be available on my Facebook page, Jairus Wattis for Corpus Christi. It is estimated that 150,000 citizens work in Corpus. If we all get $20 taken out of our monthly income, each month would amount to $3 million, to which in a year it will equal $36 million. Now, how long will it be if we all pay $20 a month to settle this debt? Take note, this graph does not show any other sources of revenue except that $20. It will take about 86 years and some change to come clean. This does not take into consideration any future debt and loans to pay back along with this interest. So how did we get so far in debt? Allegedly, allegedly, the city manager wants to be city manager in Austin. Austin told him that he needs to be able to manage a bigger budget and control major debt to be considered. If this If true, is this why this city is drowning in debt and why he takes on expensive projects? Is he trying to prove himself to the big dogs? Debt increases our taxes and makes more loans to manage a bigger budget. With so many hidden taxes from the city, it makes you wonder if there is money laundry going on, and if so, who are all involved? Does the city auditor and chair every penny is accounted for? Is the money funneled by companies who play ball and possibly charities too? The city manager is getting paid $409,000 annually, and yet money is missing, debt is growing exponentially, and in speculation with this salary, That high is it should be able to hide money from the books to pay people off to do what he demands. Wasn't it a crooked council that signed off on such a salary for him? I wonder what their kickback was. Jesus, meek and humble heart, make our hearts like unto thine.

Thank you, Mr. Suarez. Maria Rosa Suarez.

Maria Suarez, District 2. When my parents take me somewhere around the city, it feels like a bad carnival ride. I don't understand why fixing roads are not being handled faster. Is it because we don't have enough workers? Do we not pay well? I got to thinking, maybe we use cheap materials and not the good stuff. Apparently, with constant potholes everywhere, we definitely do not order high quality materials. Many foreign countries and different states use a machine that's a 4-in-1. A power air blows the area clean, sprays asphalt, then blows a crushed stone mixed with asphalt. and finally sprays a top coat sealant. This machine is called spray injection pothole patcher or spraying patching machine. It can also repair about 100 to 150 potholes in one day. It is expensive to buy, but it will pay for itself less than three years and save us tens of thousands of dollars. So if we can't hire people, it can at least take one person to operate. The people will have smooth streets and will not feel like a bad carnival ride. The people will not have to constantly repair their cars. Don't you want people to save money and keep their cars in good working condition? If you are really for the people, fix our roads so people will be driving safe, Motorcyclists don't have to worry about crashing and possibly dying. And keep the disabled and elderly from feeling pain from all the jolting. Keep Corpus Christi smooth. Thank you.

Thank you, Maria. Susie Saldana.

Susie Saldana, Corpus Christi. I'd like for you to pay close attention to what I have to say. You have to do away with your decorum because you're not following it. I stood here and listened to Robin Knox insult each and every one of you and compliment some of you, okay, by name, which is a violation of your decorum. She was never stopped. I've heard people come on and dressed as clowns and come up here and insult, and he wasn't stopped. So why do you have decorum if decorum is not enforced? Why are you paying an attorney if he doesn't object? Why is it that you have these people and you talk about decorum and they come over here and they're allowed to talk about anything they want? and they're not stopped. So what is the quorum for? I can tell you honestly that it is selective. The person that came up here to insult and said, oh, Arian Garza and Tito have been out there and they've said lies and the mayor's doing this, she's paying that, everybody hires people for their elections. You don't know if he was hired to put up signs or he was hired to put up other things up there. And some of them are paid under the table and some of them threaten and try to put young ladies like me around. Those are things that are happening, and that's a break of decorum. I think if you're going to have decorum, you need to enforce it. If you're not going to enforce it, then you don't belong in those sits. And according to your attorney, when I ask about it, any single one of you can stop it. When people come out here and spew insults, any single one of you can stop it, but you have chosen not to. The people of Corpus Christi deserve better. The people that I listen to say that it is a fiasco, that this is a circus. And I'm beginning to think it's more than a circus. It's more than the people can take. It's time to stop the shenanigans. It's time to stop the way that this council is being run. And you can't blame one person because each and every one of you is guilty if you're not putting a stop to it. You need to come to fruition. You need to come to a place where you can understand what it is that you are there for. And then I see you want to increase your salary. For what?

Captain Dave Heasley. Captain Dave Heasley. Henry Williams.

You know, to the Mayor Henry Williams District 1 and the Hillcrest neighborhood. You know, first, I would like to speak to our vision of who we are as a people. Whether you're there as city council members, officers, or here in the audience. We must understand that we are the body of Christ in our city, and we must conduct ourselves as such. Secondly, our police department. I conduct a prayer meeting at the police department. I've done it for the past 30 years. Assistant Chief David Blackman and I have been friends for many years. Chief Markle, the assistant chiefs of police, our police department of this city are commendable. They're commendable. There are cities in our nation that have problems, police departments, communities, and so forth. We work very, very well together. Thirdly, item 20 on the agenda.

I would ask that you vote no to this item.

I request that those who have voted no in the month of December Regarding the Inner Harbor Desalination Project, we vote no to the funding, funding the preparation and submission of the City of Corpus Christi U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Water Smart Desalination Grant application for the Inner Harbor Desalination Project. I ask that you not approve the funding of an item that has not been approved by the council and that you would say no to item 20. And may God bless you all and may God bless our community. Thank you.

Thank you, Reverend. Shannon Ross.

Good afternoon. I'm Shannon Ross with District 2, and I'm speaking with volunteers for Nueces County Defending Freedom. I'm following up on Hope Malkins. We wish to read these broad questions. Oh, first of all, I do want to say, y'all have the hardest job in the whole city. I just think it's so hard. And just want to encourage you that there's a scripture that says all elected officials are appointed by God. So I hope that encourage you. But we wish to read these broad questions into the record for public information and educational purposes. What exactly is vested thus far in AI at Beacon Point? What permits and approvals already exist? What work is occurring today? What authority does each governmental jurisdiction retain? What agreements were made directly with the city? What city decisions remain? And what can be done before a moratorium takes effect? How do you envision this agenda item helping to safeguard the residents of Robstown, Corpus Christi, and Nueces County from the adverse impacts of Beacon Point Project? When will answers be made public? And because these questions cannot be fully addressed within the format of city council meetings and public comment periods, we respectfully request that the city establish a working group of citizens and city representatives. This group would coordinate the collection and verification of accurate information so that the community and its leaders can make well-informed decisions about these critical issues facing us now and into the future. We respectfully request that Citizens Defending Freedom volunteers be included as active members of this working group. Our volunteers have vested substantial time in reviewing project documents, identifying unanswered questions, and communicating community concerns. Their participation would provide continuity, strengthen public trust, and ensure that residents' questions remains central throughout the fact-finding process. We hope that each and every council member recognizes that this is exactly the desired function of local bodies of governance, both to include the public in a meaningful process in which they have genuine influence and to enhance the quality of outcomes through citizen participation. The challenges posed by HUD-8 projects specifically and AI hyperscale data centers in general offer a unique opportunity for us to rally public opinion and forge a cooperative relationship with the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Melissa Zamora. Melissa Zamora, Jennifer Espino.

Hi, Jennifer Espino, D4. As usual, I'm starting my comment by noting that I am a working class Corpus Christian, which means that I had to take the day off of work to prioritize being here. Some of you may actually not know who the Corpus Christi DSA or Democratic Socialists of America are. And some of you may be pretending not to. Our city manager has referred to us as Mark Minster's team, a label that I wear proudly. Some have just preferred to call us the socialists, a label I also accept. And some have accused us of being paid agitators or outside agitators. So I will once again remind folks that I am not paid by the DSA. but rather pay dues to the DSA to be a member, and also that you can see my birth certificate if you doubt my corpus cred. There's much to be said about the recent wave of electoral wins we've made across the country, from Zoran Mamdani in New York City, to the more recent NYC sweep, to Philly, to Denver, to D.C., and even our own socialist in office on the Diasylvia. While our commitment to electoral struggle is unwavering, it's the work that happens between elections of building trust in our communities and meeting people where they're at and committing to making our lives and city better that truly advances our mission some of you may know and some may have not checked your inbox but we unveiled our people's budget prior to this meeting other dsa comrades are signed up to speak to that so i will not belabor going through the tenets of our people's budget proposals On one hand, I'm relieved and grateful that I'm not up here talking about the water for once. And on the other hand, our budget is just as much of a manifestation and reflection of the mismanagement of our resources as our water crisis is. Since our mayor so shamelessly likes to invoke her religion or reference the pope in comparison to, of all things, the unholy and inappropriately named Environmental Protection Agency, I will just, A, encourage her and everyone else to read the pope's encyclical. And because I know she won't, I will, B, share a couple of key takeaways from that encyclical. On solidarity, he writes, solidarity is expressed when each person, both individually and collectively, takes part in the life of the community by staying informed, engaging with others, making their voice heard, and contributing to public decisions and choices, while also assuming real responsibility so that the common good is achieved through shared decision making. We are not sharing that decision-making in our budget development, are we? On social justice, he writes, the idea of social justice helps us recognize that injustices do not arise solely from the wrong choices of individuals, but also from structures, mechanisms, and economic and cultural systems that produce inequality almost automatically. Justice is not merely about the fair distribution of resources or the correction of current injustices, but also assumes a restorative dimension. It aims to mend broken bonds and reintegrate those who have been excluded, taking into account the wounds caused by injustices. So I would just encourage you to go to confession. Do your penance.

Pam Matlock. Pam, oh, there you go, sorry.

Good afternoon. I'm Pam Matlock. I'm from District 1. And I've lived here in that area all my life. And I want to know why we were not told that this data center was being built right next to an elementary school with kindergarten, first graders, second graders. You've all seen reels on all these AI data centers, how much noise there is, how much light's going to be put on. Is this what you want to do with the children in our area or even in any area? We know these are bad. And now we've got phase two coming on. And they want to build something out in the violet area. I know a couple of farmers that aren't going to sell, so we won't probably get that. But still, why were we not even given the chance to vote on this? This is our area. This is where we live. I don't know where you live, Everett. I voted for you, but I was hoping that you would be for us. I don't know what's happening, but... I just don't understand this. I'm a citizen. Like I said, I've been here. I'm 72. I mean, I've never had this problem before. Of course, we have some things that come up. But this is a big thing. This is going to hurt people in this area. I'll invite y'all out there once it gets started so y'all can sit out there with me in my backyard and listen to the commotion that this is going to cause. I sit out there all day long, you know, in the afternoons, listen to the birds and the kids playing, and now I'm going to have to listen to 24 hours a day. So next time you think about something like this, let us make the decision, not y'all. I don't know if it's y'all. I'm sorry. I'm not mad at y'all. I'm not upset with y'all. I'm just that this got done. without asking the residents in that area their comments. I mean, give us a chance. So thank you very much, and I appreciate your service.

Thank you, Ms. Matlock. Councilman Boyd.

I just wanted to give a statement of fact. Unfortunately, where they're building that data center, it's actually in the county. If you know where the... What do you call those? The storage? Yeah, the tankers. That was also an issue that's in the county. And so everybody that has called me, and I've had a lot of phone calls on this, I've just asked them to contact Mike Pusley and talk to him because he is the county commissioner in that area, and hopefully maybe they can address that issue.

Yeah, I've had a meeting with Commissioner Pusley and County Judge Scott, too. Okay.

Yeah, we have the same concerns as you do. Unfortunately, there's just not anything that I can do because it's outside of our jurisdiction.

Can we get something to tell people what's going on out there? Because there are a lot of people that don't know what's going on. Yeah, we can't have that.

Ms. Matlock, I'm sorry. The councilman's making a statement of fact just to let you know that This is completely outside for the majority of the part of that facility of the city limits. So it is a county issue.

But you can certainly call him and discuss. But I know they've asked the city if they can have like 10,000 gallons a month for toilets. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. Amanda Guerra. Amanda Guerra. Carrie Meyer.

Carrie Meyer, District 1. Good afternoon, City Council. Thank you for your service to our city. I'm here to talk about a few things. Number 20 on your agenda, please say no to the Inner Harbor and to the Voices for Coastal Bend Energy grant. And set your sights on desalination at Barney Davis or Harbor Island. or somewhere where you can intake and discharge into the Gulf. And thank you for what you've already done for our water supply through the Mary Roads improvements, the groundwater improvements, and the aquifer improvements. And also, thank you for the rain. Number 21, as a businessman, businesswoman, I'm a kayak guide. My business relies on bay water quality and a healthy marine ecosystem. for its survival, my business says. So I served on the far-field committee, and I feel that the update that you're receiving on the agenda item 21 is overly optimistic, when the reality is that the most important scientific analysis really hasn't been done. and that's from the marine science experts. So we've got the data and the modeling, but really what it means, that's still yet to come. Finally, as a neighborhood advocate, I would like to recognize four different city employees who have really helped me. And they are Assistant Chief David Blackman. I talk to him on a regular basis and update him about things that are going on in my neighborhood that are police issues. And Ross Patchen, who's with Peter Zanoni's office, and he's a liaison for our neighborhood, and he has really helped us. and continues to. Joseph Johnson with engineering services. He's the assistant director and he's got so many projects on his desk at any given time and he takes the time to stop and focus on the street that's near my house and some questions I might have. The eco park project that we're all real excited about and some of the details on that. and the little canal that we're getting over there. And, you know, they're just working really hard to make all that happen, which is real difficult because it's infill development in an historic old part of town with all kinds of hidden things, infrastructure problems that, you know, you don't know about until you start to dig up the ground. So I really appreciate all the work that Peter Zanoni and his staff have been doing over there. The final city employee I'd like to recognize is Tracy Cantu with Code Enforcement. And she is a very personable person and listens and sends out her field workers when needed. And I just think she's probably my favorite of all. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Meyer. Mark Munster.

Mark Minster, Corpus Christi. I'm here today with a bunch of people from Corpus Christi DSA, and we're here because we want to take collective action. We want to speak together and speak up. For residents, a lot of people that are not able to attend these meetings, you're lucky. There's a lot more people that are going to be impacted by the water rates and property tax increases, things that have to do with the budget. We're here talking about the budget because you'll be releasing the one for this next year at the next meeting. And I've been going to the budget input sessions and been watching the process for the past three years and how there isn't really clear avenues for resident input to be seriously implemented into the actual city budget. And when you look at the budget numbers and you look at the revenue that the city collects from residents and large volume users, I just think it clearly shows the inequities of how residents will face significant rate increases because of large volume demand and large volume usage that we don't get a say in how our resources get allocated. And I feel like when you look at the city revenues, we never see those numbers. We never see the total numbers of how much revenue the city collects from each customer class. It's really untransparent. And instead, we get numbers like, oh, residents are only paying 13% for the desal plant. But rates are going up. They're going to be impacted. And that's just financially, not environmentally. And so it all goes back to the budget. And the budget just shows clearly on paper these inequities. And just in talks of, I just think the city council is out of touch when we hear that these are low-interest loans. How much is that interest? It's hundreds of millions that will stack onto the principal payments, the maintenance costs, and the environmental impacts. So I get really mad when I hear that it's low-interest loans. The city already has a significant amount of debt and these projects would just add more. And debt isn't a bad thing. We've talked about the libraries and how ten million dollars would build a whole new library and that's deemed as too much but we talk about billions being spent for corporations. They're not the ones that elect you. They're not the ones on regular fixed incomes that are paying water rates and that are going to save the increases that you present to us. And Let's see. I'll take my time. And then there's all these concerns about data centers. Residents are already concerned about our water projects, and data centers are just going to be on top of that. So I think you should expect to see more residents and just know that so many people are busy, are working, and they're the ones that are producing the surpluses, the profits for these companies, and they're getting screwed over, and people over profits.

Thank you, Mr. Munster. Amanda Breland.

Okay. Amanda Breeland, Corpus Christi, honored member of the Munster team, as well as the DSA. I'm also a current co-chair for our People's Budget, People's Platform working group. I'm just going to read some from the press conference earlier. So... One thing that I focus on, come up here multiple times, is the parks, our trees. So as a mom of two who frequents the local parks and libraries on almost a weekly basis, it's clear to see that our public facilities need work. The city needs to prioritize spending in ways that benefit the community as a whole. Currently, our city spends over 50% of its budget on public safety, while parks and rec department accounts for barely 7%. Numerous studies show that cities that invest heavily in their green spaces and public libraries create stronger community relationships and social ties among other things. I'd also like to point out that our libraries only receive about 1.8% of our current city budget. So a small step that the city can take towards improving our green spaces. by adding trees as a line item in the parks and rec budget adding more trees to our parks and rec our parks and other areas of the city will not only improve our urban canopy but will also provide shade help with storm water management improve air quality and so much more i've personally spoken with city staff before and they will state that we're not planting new trees due to the water CURRENT DROP RESTRICTIONS. I CHALLENGE THAT AND I ARGUE THAT THE FACT THAT WE ARE IN STAGE THREE DROP RESTRICTIONS SHOULDN'T MATTER AS THE CITY CURRENTLY WATERS ALL TREES WITH RECLAIMED WATER IN THE FIRST PLACE. SO WE'RE NOT LOSING OUT ON ANY DRINKING WATER. I'd also like to mention, as someone who attended two in-person public input sessions and one virtual, those sessions could use a lot of work. There was only five departments there. There needs to be more work done. Attendance was so low. I know the city has a advertising budget. It's clear. Y'all use it to push desal a lot. So take a chunk of that. Use it to push these budget input sessions. These are important. They need to be accessible to working class people. We need to have our voices heard. Free Palestine, fuck ICE.

Thank you. Hannah Leach.

Good afternoon. I'm Hannah Leach from District 2, and I'm here representing as a corporate DSA member, and I want to encourage you guys to support our people's budget. So I moved here with my family in 2022, and it was quite a change for me to go from endless prairies to a vast coast, the Gulf Coast. It wasn't until I volunteered at the Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve that I really started to love the city, that I really started to enjoy it. Volunteering there really showed me, I'd say, the most precious part of our city, which is our children and our children's education. Because people would come there, they would bring their kids on school days as well as off days. to show them our beautiful park and our beautiful place. And I was able to show them the beauty of our preserve and hear about their curiosity and about our flora and fauna. And I'm here for you guys to ask that please don't forget about our wetlands and to remember our public parks when you consider our budget, to remember our trees and our birds, and to remember that if we abandon the preserve, we are also... abandoning our children's education. Because children's education is not just within the classroom, it is also as they go out into the world. I know I'm not from here, but I do really want to stay here. I want to make this place my home. The Corpus is the body of Christ, and as a believer, I want to tell you from the bottom of my heart that I believe if we spent maybe just as half as much money on our parks and our libraries as we do on the unnecessary infrastructure for the benefit of profit-driven corporations and giving huge tax breaks to same million and billion dollar companies, We could, more people would want to stay. More people would want to stay in Corpus if we put more money and effort and funding into people in places like the Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve. Like why don't, I hear a lot that we don't have enough funding for these places. But why do we have enough funding for AI data centers? That's something that always bugs me. Politics makes people uncomfortable, I understand that. I think it's important for us to get out of our comfort zone and be there for each other. I do not intend to attack anyone, but rather to critique and to push for change because I want for everyone to care for their fellow humans and to care for the land that we live on. That's why I wanted to volunteer there in the first place. I hope that you will hear us today in the same humble spirit that it takes to care for one another. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Leach. Autumn Hensick? Autumn Hensick? Okay. Chloe Torres? Yeah.

Chloe Torres, District 2. I'm speaking today as a member of the Corpus Christi chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and to advocate for our people's budget platform. As you've heard, it's our way of increasing public participation and one of the most critical aspects of local politics as it literally determines how wealth is distributed throughout our city. I typically keep my comments and personal, so I don't lose composure, but I'm going to take a risk and speak from a very sensitive place today. I want to talk about my friend, Renee Davila, who was murdered from the organized abandonment he experienced at the hand of many government agencies, but in particular our city, I met Renee in the homeless and Corpus Christi Facebook community page in late 2024. He made a post about needing help with groceries. And while that's initially what made me reach out, It wasn't what gave me my first impression of Rene. It was the fact that he commented on many other posts offering guidance to those who were similarly struggling with homelessness and financial instability. As we spoke more and eventually became friends, I always took note that his compassion and willingness to help others never wavered. Many people in the best of circumstances don't rise to the level of compassion that Rene did, and I think he was remarkable for this. Rene was evicted a couple of months after we connected, and he had nowhere to go but to the streets. The very few public programs and services that are funded by the city were his main lifeline, and that line was profoundly weak. As library hours are abysmal, and shrinking and publicly run shelters are non-existent. Rene was already struggling with health before he was evicted. And once he was out on the streets with very few reprieves from the harshest heat and cold, he deteriorated quickly. He survived until December of 2025 when his heart finally gave out from the constant stress, lack of rest from constantly being forced to move by the police department and lack of access to healthcare. I grieve for Rene's family and all the friends who depended on him for their mutual survival. And I just miss my friend so much and regret not spending more time talking to him about our favorite animes or exchanging more silly memes. I grieve for the city that we could be, for all of the lives that have been wasted, lives that could have been fulfilled. And that's my why. That's my why for this people's budget. That's my why for engaging In the DSA, it's my why of why I've been organizing for the past decade in the city. I do it because I know we can do better. I know that we deserve better. And I want your partnership in this. It doesn't have to be an adversarial relationship. So I call upon the spirit of collaborative energy, of intention and care. And I hope that you will set meetings with us or accept our invitations to meetings when we ask to meet about the people's budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Torres. Maggie Peacock.

Thank you, Chloe, for sharing that. Yeah, Maggie Peacock, District 2. If you're not moved by stories like that, I... Maggie Peacock, District 2. I'm a very proud member of the Corpus Christi chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Because of the repeated failures of the city in regards to establishing democratic processes for creating a city budget, We at the Corpus Christi DSA have initiated our own community engagement processes and are actively developing our own budget priorities and demands through data based on countless years of organizing within our community and also just talking to our neighbors and fellow community members, like what Chloe was just talking about with Renee. Through this, we have developed three tenets of a people's budget. That includes democracy and transparency, quality of life programs, and people-centered infrastructure. Today I would like to focus on quality of life programs. We are demanding robust funding for programs and services that will improve our collective quality of life and produce equitable health outcomes. Mental health services that promote safety and reduce crime play a vital role in meeting these demands. Examples of these demands include de-escalation training for city staff and behavioral crisis response programs for community members, counseling services, restorative accountability processes and recovery programs, investment in evidence-based youth prevention programs such as functional family therapy and targeted diversion programs, and to dissolve the industrial district agreements, annex heavy polluting industries, and reallocate that extra tax revenue into community-owned funds for quality of life programs. Thank you for being committed to investing more in our libraries. Libraries are really among the last public spaces where people can simply be without having to purchase a good or service or spend any money at all. As Miriam Kaba says, the library is the last of public goods that exist. that we don't have to ask people to dream about making. It exists, it is here, and if we lose it, we will not get it back for a very, very, very long time. These are the political institutions, and all of them are sites of contention. We know that spaces like these are real forms of crime prevention, by the way, and we need more. We know that another world is possible, and that starts with the moral document of a city budget. We believe that our city should not be controlled by market forces or by capitalists, but by the people who inhabit them. Capitalists do not have a vested interest in things like parks and libraries because these things do not generate profit for them. We ask the question, why are we investing in things that solely generate profit for the capitalist class instead of investing in quality of life things for the people? But yeah, we're actively working on collectively uncapping our political imaginations to build this better world that we know is possible. I just have one more sentence. We think of things like we want strip malls or farmers markets. Do we want eight lane highways or a robust, equitable, accessible public transit system? Do we want urban sprawl or a walkable city? So I ask you to uncap your political imaginations with us. Thank you.

Armand Alex.

Good afternoon, Mayor, council members. My name is Armand Alex. I'm speaking today as the newly elected co-chair of the Corpus Christi chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America in support of the people's budget. I was born and raised here in Corpus Christi. I graduated from Moody High School and attended A&M Corpus Christi, and I love this city. And that's why I'm here and alongside many other folks in the audience today, organized to better our city. Budgets are often presented as technical documents. We're told about balancing numbers and having to make difficult choices and living within our means. It makes sense, but budgets are also never neutral. Every budget answers a simple question. Who are we willing to invest in? And year after year, working people, hardworking people are told that there isn't enough for them. Not enough for our parks, not enough for our libraries, not enough for our neighborhood infrastructure, not enough for the public spaces and the services that make a city healthy, connected, and dignified. Yet somehow, There is always enough when industrial expansion is on the table. Our city continues to devote resources, public resources that we pay for, infrastructure, planning, and political urgency to accommodate industries that already generate enormous amount of their own private wealth for them. At the same time, residents are asked to conserve more water to prepare for higher utility costs and accept that investments in our neighborhoods just got to wait. Those aren't separate decisions, these two things. They are the same budget as it is designed to operate. As a scholar and activist Ruth Wilson Gilmore reminds us, where life is precious, life is precious. A city budget should reflect that principle as well. The people's budget says if life is precious, then our children deserve libraries before corporations receive another accommodation. The people's budget says our neighborhoods deserve trees, sidewalks, and parks before polluters receive another public investment. The people's budget says our families deserve affordable public services before private profit is treated as a public priority. This is why so many residents over the years have supported a people's budget. It begins with a different understanding of what public money is for. Public dollars should strengthen the public. They should improve the everyday lives of people who wake up every single morning, go to work, labor, raise families, care for neighbors, and make the city possible. I urge you all as a council to adopt principles of the people's budget and build a budget that reflects the dignity, needs, and future of the people you were all elected to serve. Thank you.

Miriam Gara Rashidi. And then Fatima, if she wants to come down with you. Okay.

Good afternoon. Miriam Gara Rashidi, District 1. I'd like, again, to thank all of you for all of the hard work you do. It's not easy, and I do not envy you in any way, shape, or form. So God bless you. I want to start with thanking the city for the beautiful 4th of July celebration that we had recently. I hadn't gone in a long time, and I happened to be sitting at the water's edge with the live music and the food trucks right by the little park with the trees shading everyone. It was just so beautiful, and I was truly grateful. So thank you. whoever was involved and I know it takes a lot of people to put it together and I know that there are a lot of issues and problems that the city may have and that our country may have but I am so very proud to be a resident of Corpus Christi and a citizen of the United States so We have the right to speak and the right to fight. And that is the beauty of our country that a lot of people don't have. So I'm ever so grateful to be able to give my opinions and my thoughts. So thank you. That being said, I've already brought up the issue of the concrete and gas stations and quick quacks all over the city. And I just want to say that I know that in Austin... They have strict regulations that are upheld, not just to maintain, but to enhance the city's natural environment, living in harmony with the residents of the city. And that is completely opposite of what we do here in Corpus Christi. We have a chance, like I said, to create more jobs. As many people have said today, there aren't enough trees, there aren't enough parks. I'd rather have water go to trees and beauty than to big industry any day. So if we can all work together, if we could find some programs to help communities to have different, even if it's volunteer community parks. I know that Melissa Salmato was giving some compost classes for people. These are just such great ways for us to be in harmony with the earth. So these are, like I said, great ways great job opportunities for people. So let's fight for the beauty of our city and stand up for the people and the environment. And I still stand firmly against Inner Harbor desalination It is not a solution for us. We all know where the water would go to. We want, we're praying, we exhort you to serve the people. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Kedar Rashidi. Fatima? Oh, yeah.

Fatima Rashidi, District 1. It seems that while we are focusing on and still are focusing on desalination in the Inner Harbor, another major problem has been rising all over the area. AI data centers are coming everywhere unless we fight. Recently, the governor of New York signed an executive order to create the nation's first moratorium on new hyperscale data centers throughout the state. San Marcos became the first Texas city to ban AI data centers. New York and San Marcos banned AI data centers for a reason. They are looking out for the people and the environment. I was pleasantly surprised to see Governor Abbott call a ban on AI data centers in rural neighborhoods throughout Texas. I just want to say the city's inability to control what happens to communities with our county is disgusting. I'm still strongly against Inner Harbor desal, but AI data centers, Inner Harbor desal, and industrial plants are all connected. So put the people and the environment over profit. Thank you, and God bless you and your families.

Thank you, Fatima. Jessica Villarreal?

Jessica Villarreal, District 2. So much to discuss, I have to pick and choose on what to read about. It's pretty depressing. I'm here to voice my absolute opposition to the self-serving, short-sighted agenda currently playing out in this chamber. Let's look at what's really happening this week in the realm of the wicked. While everyday citizens are enduring strict drought restrictions and everybody's watching our reservoirs, UNETHICAL DECISIONS ARE BEING MENTIONED. I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND THE NERVE. NOT TO MENTION OFFICIALS ASKING FOR RAISES, WANTING TO EXTEND THE YEARS IN OFFICE. THIS IS A PRIVILEGE FOR YOU GUYS. IT'S NOT SOMETHING THAT YOU TAKE. YOU HAVE TO PROVE TO THE PEOPLE THAT YOU'RE FOR THEM. You can't just try to bury the public in all the decisions that you guys are making for us. It's time to stop. We need change. We need transparency. We need honesty. That obviously isn't coming from a lot of people. The mayor, it's disgusting to see you on the television over there in Dallas, on the news, lying. You are lying. Everybody knows that you're lying. Also, I'm trying to change the amendment so that you guys are basically just trying, you're reaching for more power. It's gonna change. The election is close. Everybody is watching the decisions that you guys are making. Yeah, you too, Roland. You'll be gone. People are tired of this. It really burns my heart to see the elder up here worried. I've seen a video of you speaking about your parents in one hand, literally worried about the rates and the water and everything else. What happened to your worry? Where did you change? Why are you not for the people? It's very obvious where y'all's hearts are at. It's disgusting. It's overwhelming. We're tired of it. I hope to see some type of change and stop asking for money because it's not going to happen.

Thank you, Ms. Fierro. Jasmine Evans? Jasmine Evans? Oh, okay. Sorry.

Jasmine Evans, District 5. I'm here to talk about the Hillcrest desal plant and asking y'all to say no to approving the application. Council has not approved it and we the people absolutely do not. Our community has come out to speak out against Inner Harbor for years now. We're coming out today as well to ask y'all to say no. We're tired of wasting time, money, and resources on a project that nobody wants, except for those who directly make money off of exploiting our community. You have marine and agricultural workers, local workforce business owners, scientists, environmental experts, families, organizers coming out time and time again to suggest alternative water projects, insisting upon protective testing and regulatory guidelines, new locations, and it just falls upon deaf ears. Regardless if you want to say we're a democracy, a constitutional republic, whatever, the community you represent doesn't seem to move you. Money talks and you listen. Where was this initiative for communal funding and collaboration when it comes to saving our libraries? You put air conditioning in hell if you were paid to before addressing the needs of your people. Our children need safe spaces to grow and learn, clean air and water, jobs and educational opportunities that benefit us rather than bleed us dry. Our community deserves transparency and collaboration, not just very limited chances to be heard or rather ignored. We're hearing this issue come up across the board. DSAL, data centers, the budget. Y'all don't know everything, and that is okay. Lean on the expertise and perspectives of your Coastal Bend community. Let's actually work together to protect our Corpus Christi, not just from financially and environmentally ludicrous DSAL projects, but the incoming threat of data centers in our already fragile coastal community. Corpus, Robstown, Gregory Portland, Taft, we must work together. You have orgs out here like TCE, DSA, Sierra Club, For the Greater Good, Ignition, so many other people coming out here that are very qualified members, volunteers that want to work with y'all to meet our common goals. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Ms. Evans. Melinda De Los Santos.

Good afternoon, Melinda De Los Santos, District 2. I'm going to speak a little bit on the interview with the mayor and Inside Texas Poly, but in a lighthearted manner, if I were mayor. Okay, the question was, have you thought at all that after a decade of trying to get this through, millions of dollars spent, if there's not an appetite for this now, is it time to walk away from the Inner Harbor desal plant? Your response was no, it took five years to get the permit. We have invested way too much time and millions of dollars. Me? Hindsight is 20-20. It's been a long, expensive road. So if it were up to me, I would say, let's cut our losses and walk away. What's the next step? Majority of council says we are not interested. Mayor, they are saying we are not interested. They aren't saying we aren't interested. If you are saying you are not interested, you need to walk the walk. our mayor majority council are not saying they aren't interested in desal they are just not interested in the inner harbor desal plant because of cost minimal ngd and a few have concerns about the environmental impacts you see delay after delay the farfield study is it going to be resolved once this comes back or do you think they're going to ask for something else I'm optimistic because we all know as a council, our city manager knows, this is the only shovel-ready project. Everything is lined up for this project. Me? I believe the farm field study may give us answers we didn't have prior. And if there is concern about the environment, that's okay. We have many shovels on the ground with diversified projects that will bring ample water supplies. And remember, we had all this rain, which, thank God, buys us some more time to assess the other desal projects. I was reading about the Inner Harbor plant. It could produce up to 30 MGD, which is a fraction of what you said the city uses. Is this the right project if it does not produce enough? It is. 30 MGD is a good number. We don't want to overproduce. Me, it isn't enough. To tell you the truth, It's mainly going to be used by industry, so we need to end exemption programs for industry and require them to pay drought surcharges. This way we can allocate more money for a desal plant. What point should the city move on from Inner Harbor and look at these other ones that produce a ton more water? Here is the problem. The Inner Harbor is the only shovel-ready project that we can consider. Me, there has been a lot of pressure from the governor and industry regarding the Inner Harbor. In fact, I've heard cases of retaliation and threats occurring. So I hope this far-field study will bring to light the impact it will have on our dear Hillcrest neighbors and environment. After September 1, when far-field study comes back, what makes you think the majority might finally say yes to this? Because you can only kick the can down the road so long. A decision needs to be made one way or the other. I have more of an appreciation of just make a decision and let's move on. Me, I think the far-field study, if done correctly and honestly, will finally put a halt to the Inner Harbor desal plant.

We can stop kicking the road. Julian Hernandez. Julian Hernandez. David Varga.

David Varga, District 4. There's two reasons why up to this point, let's go back three weeks before we got all the rain, that we were having to put more restrictions on our water. Because of this, the situation we're in. Okay, two reasons why we're in this worry. First of all, Mother Nature can't control what she does or what she doesn't do. Simple as that. The second one, you can take a proactive response or a reactive response to what situation you're in. Three years ago on my daily run, I passed a house by Kentner in Ponish. The guy watered his grass every single day. Didn't matter. Didn't matter if we had rain coming. Didn't matter if it was raining. Every single day. And so I saw that gentleman one day. I said, sir, why do you water your grass every day? He said, because I can. That is taking a proactive, that's taking a reactive approach with the water we had. If we would have had a proactive approach to our water crisis three years ago, we would not be in the situation we're in now. And it's very simple. For instance, I don't know if Mr. Rizzoni I hope I have the attention, and the council put the 8,000 gallon limit on households if we're going to go on the next water restrictions. That means because I use 2,000 gallons a month, I could put an extra 6,000 gallons of water that I can use Or in my backyard, nobody would know it. Take 10-minute showers, blah, blah, blah. That's 72,000 gallons a year just from one residence. And the formula is very simple. We did this back in 1980. 1,000 gallons of water per person, per household. Simple as that. And because of that, first time you do it, they give you a little warning. Second time, you cut the water off. That's taken a proactive approach. And that being said, that wasn't to be done. We need to start drought one restrictions at 50%, drought two at 40%. And that way, we wouldn't have to be reactive. We could still be proactive and still have water. And that's very important to all. We need to take our second most important resource to more of an exception and to more to dealing with. It's a lot that we have. People think we have a lot, but we don't. We live in a drought-prone area. Irritification has already come out. Our area that we get our water, especially in Cho Canyon, is going to be drier for the next 30 or 40 years, if not more. That's the predictions I've already read. So I would say to this council, we need to redo. if we go on to more restrictions, that we do 1,000 gallons of water per person, per household, and follow my regrets in that way, follow my suggestions in that way, maybe, maybe we're going to have more water than we need. And that's what we need to do. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Varga. Rachel Caballero?

Rachel Caballero, D1. It's really hard to come up here because it feels like we're attacking everyone, but I'm saying this is not for the five. This is for the four. If you're not paying attention, you need to wake up because the political environment that has been occurring over the last couple of years is changing. And the community is demanding to be involved. The community is demanding to be heard. And we're done with the tyrants. We're done with the tyrants. Ask Judge Canales. And it's so crazy that somebody who despised that individual so much is acting exactly like her now. It is crazy. This is craziness. Anybody that changes our ability to... utilize our constitutional First Amendment rights will not get reelected. Period. End of story. No matter how many losers you pay to defend you and bash Good citizens who are using their time and they're not getting paid to come here to air their grievances and fight for their community. We're going to continue fighting. This isn't the end here. So you can be on your phone. You can yawn. You can hem and haw. You can get up and go to the back. We're going to be here. We're not going away. This is our community. Oh, dang. I need my phone. all right the frustration levels are so huge because we are not being heard we're not how many different sessions have we told you people we do not want the inner harbor plant how many sessions we wanted to fund the far field modeling the community wanted to fund it you all said no But now you got the rich guys, David Loeb, promising $20,000 saying, oh, if they don't take this money, you didn't take our money when we wanted to do the Farfield study. So I'm seeing a theme here where people keep throwing bad money at bad mistakes. They keep throwing money at bad projects. For example, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Before Stuart Richmond Haynes Circuit judges per curiam, it is ordered that appellant's motion for an injunction staying the impeachment proceedings in the city of Corpus Christi pending appeal is denied in capital letters. Denied. So when you're throwing money at appeals and you have broken the law, guess what's going to happen? We will see you in the next two days.

Robin Cox.

Hi, I'm Robin Cox district three. And when I was here a few weeks ago, some ladies in front of me turned around and said, wow, this is like a circus. Well, you know why it's like a circus because the residents are fed up. They're mad. They're angry because they've been overlooked. They've been overlooked and pushed aside by industry. I'd come before to council, but I really started coming with the whole inner Harbor deal. I wanted to stand up for the residents of Hillcrest and also for my own health and my own safety. And what happened to me? I got totally attacked. Guess I must be making a difference when, like we said, we're getting people that the mayor has on her payroll attacking me, verbally attacking me and getting other pictures, using the Internet, cyberbullying. I thought cyberbullying was something middle schoolers had to deal with, but we're officially in middle school. Going after what I wear, my clothes. I called one guy that I personally knew, and he let me know, well, I'm getting paid. I need the money. Really? They're admitting it now. They're getting paid. Will you come up and say it? No, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of the backlash. When I've asked other people to come up here, you have all these things. Did you want to come up here and talk about it? No, I don't want to go through what you're going through. We're even going so far now as to attack the homeless, the lowest people that are at the bottom of the bucket in life. I had someone get on the internet or get on one of their little shows and say that my boyfriend, my fiance, was homeless. He never was homeless, but what if he was? This is what we do to society? Who did I have call me? Some of these nice kids, they called me and said, I'm so sorry. And you know what I would do? I would help. I would help the homeless. I wouldn't snub my nose at them. They're members of society. You talk about taking pictures with the bishop, the priest. Where is God in your life now when you do that? Where is God now? Don't go to confession anymore. You can't go to confession and keep doing the same bad things. And when they come up here and say I get paid, I've never taken a dime. I do this because I want to help my community. They want to find out some personal things about me. I can clear them right now. What race are you? I'll tell you what race I am. I'm of the human race. That's the race I belong to because I feel like we're all the same. Why am I doing this? I told you all why. You know, guilt hides in darkness. Truth comes to the light. So go on with the trial. I would want it to come out what I have to say if I'm guilty. You're going as far as releasing sealed records on somebody. Had paid someone to put up that my boyfriend had a drug charge 22 years ago. Boy, I can look into some of y'all's past. I know some drug usage going on up here that y'all probably don't want people to know about. One lady was taking pictures of me at the grocery store. Shocker. I buy beer. Yeah, I'm close to 60 years old. That's a shock. So when you do these things, think about it. You don't like them done to you. And I am a private citizen. Every day, one of them said, I'm bringing all kinds of homeless people. Do I help the homeless? Yes, I do. It's called being a good person.

Yes, thank you. Jim Klein?

Mayor.

Mr. Klein? Yes.

We have a 2 p.m. time certain executive session.

Right.

With our out-of-town attorney.

Right, okay, so we still have one, two, three, four, five, is that correct?

Two, no, I know, but this is for you. The only person online right now is Eli McKay, and Mr. Zertuch is here.

Okay, Mr. Klein, go ahead and come on up. And this is from your item, isn't it, Rebecca? The item in the 2 p.m. time certain?

Yes, ma'am, it's an executive session, the one on charter.

Right, right, right. That would be your item. Yeah, go ahead, Mr. Cline.

Good afternoon. My name is Jim Cline. I live in District 2 here in Corpus Christi. I'd like to talk to you today about data centers. Last week at the City Council meeting, there was some discussion about the Bootstrap Energy Project. I'm not sure what it's called now, but that was the original name of it. And members of the council and staff highlighted some of the problems with that Bootstrap Energy issue. that there was money that had been promised to the city of Corpus Christi that was not paid until the staff did not even catch this problem. It was a member of the public that had to catch this problem and bring it to the staff to get it corrected. I think what that does is it highlights the problems with IDAs. And what I would ask is that you seriously consider an audit of all 80-plus IDAs in the city to see if any of these other partners are reneging on the terms of their agreement. With regard to Bootstrap or whatever they're called now, I would argue that they are in violation of their IDA because they failed to pay when they were supposed to. That IDA should be null and void, that land should be annexed, and they should be paying 100% of their property taxes and be bound by all regulations in the city. There's another data center being proposed. being under construction very close to Cal Allen, just outside of Cal Allen, within less than a mile from East Cal Allen Elementary School. This is the HUD-8 data center that you heard about a few minutes ago as well. I have real concerns about this as well, about the water usage for all these data centers. And you heard this talk about a closed-loop system. At least 75, if not 85 percent of the water usage from data centers comes from their energy production. If they have a closed loop system, their energy production goes up. That means their water usage in the front side is going to be that much higher than it yet as well. So I have real concerns about that. I have concerns about the electrical draw. I'm not convinced that our shaky grid is over the problems we had just five years ago. And I think worry as well that this additional draw from electricity is going to raise electrical rates. There are temperature issues involving this as well. What I'm seeing now, studies indicate that in the immediate vicinity of these data centers, temperatures will rise 20 degrees above the atmospheric temperature. And within a mile, this is again where East Elementary, Catalan Elementary School is going to be located, temperatures will rise 10 degrees more above atmospheric temperatures. On a day when it's 98 degrees outside, that's pretty alarming. I have concerns about the noise as well. There's a low hum that comes from these things. Some of the noise is inaudible to the human ear, but seems to be having a negative health consequence nonetheless. People are unable to concentrate. People are unable to sleep. The location for this HUD-8 center is the last place we should be doing this. It's right, as I said, next to this elementary school. I know this is technically outside the city limits. It is gonna affect people in the city limits. And I think that we need to be doing something about this. I also, from what I understand, looking at the maps, I think 25% of HUD-8's property is within city limits. Most of it is outside, but 25% within city limits. I ask you to consider that as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Klein. Mr. Zanoni, is the briefing gonna include the details of all of this, the HUD-8?

Yes, so Ryan is going to present a briefing, and he's been tracking the comments and questions, and I've asked him about half an hour ago to answer as many as he can during his presentation today. I just wanted to be certain.

And we're going to go ahead, Mr. Zaduce, since you're here, you want to go ahead and do your public comment, and then we'll break.

Albert Sartucci, D3, Hard Life Spade and Tackle owner, Team Hard Life YouTube channel as well. Why is it almost two years now we still haven't gotten any answers from the questions I asked about the experimental Inner Harbor desal plant scam? No updates. Maybe I've got to get on the bandwagon to get paid to spread false information and learn the behind-the-scenes payments. Also, there should be an update on those who sign up to speak. online but cannot speak because they're at work there so there should be some kind of amendment set up to where somebody comes out and verbalizes what they have posted because they're taking the time out of their day to get on there with the chance of being able to speak it's obvious y'all are trying to deny it because y'all are trying to go into executive session now which means they got to further put their their day off to come and speak to y'all y'all are making it impossible and this is wrong Back to the experimental Inner Harbor desal plant. Is it in the best interest of the taxpayers when we're not going to be getting that water? No, it's not. But you're going to make us pay the brunt of the force on that. The facts are large industry users continue and historically account for a significant use of the municipal water, yet they refuse to pay their fair share while they continue to sue our city for reduced rates on taxes. which the taxpayer citizens end up having to carry that burden. Example, my house jumped $18,000 in taxes for one year. That is ridiculous. They refuse to pay their fair share in natural resources, yet the taxpayers are having to pay top dollar for increased costs per year. Look at our water bills. Facts again. We, the taxpayers, need to see the real total of the cost for the 30-year terms, including taxes, which will include about $2 billion alone in repayment for that $1 billion diesel plant. We, the people, demand the truth for the far-field model. The scientists and marine biologists have still been denied the information so they can continue doing what they need to do to show. What are those totals in the billions of lost revenue needs to be shown to get us an understanding how the taxpayers actually carry this city, not industry? That's a fact. We carry the city. We pay the taxes. We pay for everything. Industry is not carrying us. That's a false information right there. And you can Google the facts. It's all in there. It's all in your actually it's all in your city documents showing that we pay more for everything. We have seen the numbers. The total of the Texas industry is paying millions less than the whole city. We have seen the numbers from natural resources. They drain hundreds of millions of gallons of water and pay less than taxpayers do. I run several small businesses in our city. I can see how numbers work and don't work. I move accordingly. The city council needs to remove corruption and industry lobbyists sitting in conflict of interest no different than insider trading.

Thank you, Mr. Sertice. Who is online?

Eli McKay.

The other two are not?

No, ma'am.

Okay. Let's go in now.

Okay. Ms. McKay? Hello?

Hi, Eli. Hi. Hello. My name is Eli McKay, and I live in the historic north side, District 1. Some might call it Refinery Row, but I much prefer to call it the historic north side. There's a lot of items on today's agenda that I wanted to chime in on. But unfortunately, I had to watch virtually today. So I'll do the best that I can with this time. Let's start with item 17. No one cares what the outgoing governor has to say. His words are always a political stunt and never for the people. Item 18. An IDA for the tech bro losers of Hut 8 who lost $250 million last year.

No, thank you.

They are already beginning to pillage part of our community that has retained its small town feel. But Beacon Point will change Cal Allen, Anneville, and Robstown forever. The council that fell for the Ponzi scheme of the bootstrap debacle made our city a target. and now those tech bros see a bunch of dum-dums to take advantage of. And here we are. I don't think y'all are dum-dums. Let's not do this. We do not need another IDA. We need an audit of all existing IDAs so that people can understand how much we're sacrificing to these corporate sweetheart deals. No new IDAs. Okay, item 20. Finally, how pathetic How how laughable to see the ignorance of the rich pawns to fork over cash for a grant that could produce a tiny portion of funds for a zombie project that no one wants. David Loeb donating $20,000 and boasting about it on Facebook to stroke his ego only proves the points that many of us have been making for decades. Maybe He should invest that money into filling his properties in uptown and stop blighting uptown. There's so much more I could say, but I know y'all have an executive session to get to, and so I'll give any of the remaining time that I have for a moment of silence to those who are killed by poor planning and the bad decisions of rich people.

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

Okay. So we're going to go, the council's going to go into executive session on items 23 through 25 per Texas Government Code sections 551.071, 551.072, and 551.074. And we will return. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and reconvene our meeting. We have no action, so we're gonna go to our consent agenda items. That is section I, items three through nine. Council members, do we have any requests to pull any items three through nine? Nope.

I move for approval.

Well, I'm gonna ask the public, is there anyone in the public that would like to pull any items three through nine?

And they are we're going to number 9 we're going to just defer to next week a delay him to pull it and delay it till next year pulling number 9 yeah we have to do a little more work on number 9 so pull that one okay we'll see you next week.

Consent agenda agenda items 3 through 8. We have a motion in a second. Please submit your vote. Oh, I just saw that. Okay, the motion carries. Let's see, Section K, that is our public hearing. Item number 10 is an ordinance approving the Corpus Christi Crime Control and Prevention District Budget for fiscal year 2027. Okay, well, we can move on to the next one, come back to it if you'd like us to, Pat. Okay, we'll come back to number 10. We'll go to number 11 is zoning case number ZN9255, House Finder TX, or I'm sorry, Texas LLC. This is in District 1. It's a rezoning property at or near 556 Virginia Avenue.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Yvette Wallace, Interim Director, Development Services. The subject property is in District 1 with a request to rezone the subject property from the CG2 General Commercial District to the RS6 Single Family 6 District. The subject property is plotted and is .017 acres. The owner has requested a building permit for a 1,200 square foot single family home. The purpose of this request is to allow aforementioned construction of a single family home The property is part of the West Side Area Development Plan, adopted on January 10, 2023. And the subject parceled is Zone CG2 General Commercial District, with the north being Medium Density Residential, RS6, the south being Medium Density Residential, Zone CG2, and then the east is Commercial Zone CG2, and to the west is Public Semi-Public Zone RS6. Regarding the required public notification, 21 notices were mailed inside the 200-foot buffer. Seven notices were mailed outside the 200-foot buffer. Zero notices were received in opposition. Zero notices were received in favor. The proposed rezoning is generally consistent with the elements and goals of the City of Corpus Christi Comp Plan. However, it is inconsistent with the future land use designation of mixed use. The requested amendment is compatible with the present zoning and conforming uses of nearby property and the character of surrounding neighborhood. The abutting property to the north is zoned RS-6 Single Family 6 District, and much of the block continuing the north maintains residential land use up to Baldwin Boulevard. Additionally, the abutting property to the south is zoned CG-2 General Commercial District and has been utilized as a single family residential structure since 1955. If approved, this rezoning will allow for the continuity of single-family residential uses. It should go unnoticed that the shortage of attainable and affordable housing creates a need for additional infill housing opportunities, such as the proposed zoning case. The property is suitable for the uses permitted by the zoning district that would be applied by the proposed amendment if approved. A Planning Commission and staff recommend approval from the CG2 General Commercial District to the RS6 Single-Family 6 District. And I'll stand by for any questions.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. I'm gonna open public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak on item number 11? Okay, there being no one, we'll close public hearing. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. We'll go back to item number 10, and this is an ordinance approving the Corpus Christi Crime Control and Prevention District Budget for fiscal year 2027. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Councilwoman Gumpels.

Thank you, Mayor. I think every year that we pass this budget, I always, I mean, I try to... to ask, make sure that we are using these dollars for crime prevention. I think I've asked this before, is to show proof. I mean, what is it that the police department is doing to actually prevent crime? I did share something that another city was doing just this morning. For example, just leaving the lights on at the basketball court down by Water's Edge. As a matter of fact, it helps to reduce crime. But again, this is just one example, but I wanted to hear what it is that the city is doing to actually reduce crime.

Yes, Councilman Campos. Assistant Chief Blackman, Police Department. You know, that's a great question. And let me start by saying, you know, we're not against crime prevention programs and all these, but everybody knows that we're funding seven to eight officers out of this budget, right? So as far as what are we doing, I stand before you 38 years as a police officer. And through the years, crime control, I've been part of a bunch of this. So I was one of the first bike officers when the creation of the bike team, one of the first direct patrol officers, all of those things were covered. by the crime control. And I know we've already heard that, but let me kind of tell you what we do with those programs.

Well, I wanted to see statistics is what I've been wanting to get from the police department. Show me that your programs are actually reducing crime. I've not seen it. I've not heard of it. Again, this is going to be my third year that I've been here. And that has not been brought to the right.

And preventing crime. Sometimes it's a, it's hard to show what crime you prevented deterrence. And then like chief Markle said, one of the, one of the biggest crime prevention deterrence is a, as a Mark police car in the neighborhood, bike officers in a neighborhood, your direct patrol officers, working with code enforcement, eliminating blight, those things. So they're reducing crime by doing these things. Sometimes those are hard to measure because the crime hasn't happened yet, right?

Well, I'm just looking at nationally when your cities are proud of the reduction of crime. It's in the news. You hear of cities... actually reducing crime. So I'm like, okay, well, what is it that that city is doing that where we could be doing?

And our numbers, our numbers, uh, have come down and some, and some they're staying, staying flat. Uh, we always say we, you know, we, you know, we're hesitant about taking credit. There's a lot of, they take credit for, for big crime reductions, but at the same time, you have to be willing to take the hickey when crime goes up. Cause sometimes there's national trends that you look at throughout the country, you'll see crime rises and falls throughout the nation. It's the weirdest thing, but you look at it and throughout the nation, crime rises and falls throughout cities.

Okay, so let me just say it this way. Could you bring us statistics? from let's say the last, I don't know, 10 years or something that shows that what you're doing with the $11 million that we budget for this, that crime is being reduced. Could you provide that? And if it's not, then maybe that's what we need to know. What is it that we could do that we're not doing? Could you provide those statistics to us?

We can provide statistics showing what our crime numbers are for the past years. You're funding seven, eight officers that are out there working the streets, right? I can't, you know, I can't, nobody can provide numbers for what you've prevented, what you may have stopped from happening.

If you prevented that crime just by having that officer in a neighborhood and... Well, I think you could because I think if you're saying that the reason that why we need to increase police enforcement or police into the city, you know, having... it's actually helping because now we don't have as many robberies or maybe we don't have as many killings or, you know, whatever. Right? And we can show you where those time reduction numbers are.

Right. What I'm getting at is, and you alluded to a very good point about leaving lights on it, at the basketball court. some of those things are deterrent and they're hard to measure. Others, others are, we can, we can provide numbers and show you what, what the crime reduction numbers are. And I think, I think we have over the years, especially during the summer.

I, I, I just sent that article to the chief and Peter and, to see something that we could discuss. But, you know, I remembered that you were coming here, so again, just wanted to see what, if we could bring that into our conversations. You know, let's see what we can do, you know, in addition to, I know that y'all, at least for me, you know, throughout the years, at least a rapport that the police department, at least personally, has had with the community, myself, has gotten better. I mean, way better than when I was growing up in the 70s. And so I appreciate that. And that, I think, is attributed to training. because, you know, it does. And so I do feel that, you know, the police department has come a long way, but I also feel that, you know, you can show us the numbers to show that this money is being used wisely. So again, you know, I will support this, but I still want to hear those stats.

And Councilwoman, not to belabor your point, but I will say that so every time we had a crime prevention district meeting, we provide them with stats, crime stats, what the stats are for the month or We can for the six months. By all means, we can provide you with crime stats.

Okay. Well, this is an important agenda item, and it would be helpful to have that. Okay. Well, I think already somebody seconded, so.

We have a motion to second. We have a couple more comments. Councilman Scott.

Thank you, Mayor. I had the honor of block walking for this effort in the late 90s. I've supported it ever since then. I thought it was a fantastic effort. endeavor for the city. I had a really interesting evening last night. I had the opportunity to be with some of our finest at a neighborhood meeting talking about some neighborhood problems. And the Director of Patrol officer was there. And it was an extraordinary experience for me just watching you all and your knowledge and the way you interacted with people. personally, I think you make acronyms up just on the fly. I wasn't sure half the stuff you were talking about, but you were, your folks were impressive. Um, and I think the neighbors felt it. So I'm a huge fan. I, I do get the math. You eliminate what? 78 police officers. That'd be bad. You know? So, uh, I think I appreciate that they're there and appreciate what they're doing. Um, I do get a chance to talk to my appointee regularly, and he's very supportive of the Crime Control and Prevention District, thinks you guys are doing great work. And then I'll close by saying I thought part of the most interesting part of my evening last night was the sidebar conversations with our police force, what the chief was here. and to learn how innovative you all are, and it's outside of our world. And the examples they used about how you see these other communities that get themselves in trouble, and they go, well, we're not going to do that anymore. The chief's saying, well, golly, Chief Garrett stopped us doing that back in the, you know, the 90s, you know. And so my sense is you guys are innovative. You're doing all you can. I'm very supportive and just want to say thank you. Thank you, sir.

Councilman Cantu.

Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I support this 110%. Can you imagine not approving this and then having 78 officers off the streets? I mean, that's crazy. In my own opinion, I think crime has gone down, what I see. Of course, on the news and briefings that we get and stuff like that, I think crime has been has been down. I mean, there's always going to be crime no matter what, no matter how many programs you have out there, no matter how many officers you have out there, you're going to have crime. Um, a lot of people on social media, you know, don't support the cops. I wish I could say what I want to say, but, um, you know, there's, there's a saying, um, If you don't want to call 911, then call a zip, you know. Call them a clown. Call a clown except to call 911, you know. I'm going to call 911 because I need you guys, you know. So I support you guys, and I support this. And how much money was it, Peter, on this?

$11.2 million a year.

$11.2?

Yes, sir. That's a 1.8 cent sales tax, and so it generates about that much revenue each year. And you said about 78 existing police officers are funded out of this fund. Yes, sir.

How long has the crime control budget been around?

It was initially in 97. 97?

Yes, sir.

Got it. 20 years, right? Yes. The first term was 10 years, and it was renewed once already, so this will be the third renewal. Got it. Okay.

All right. Awesome. Thank you.

Chief Blackham, thank you. Thanks for the presentation. And I want to thank the board members of the Crime Control Board for all that they do. And this is, again, as everyone has said, an incredibly important board. And, of course, their budget is critical. Seventy-eight officers is a lot. That does include, does it include their, yeah, their equipment as well?

Yes, equipment, cars.

Right, right. So I know we're very dependent on that. So, yeah, thank you for that. We appreciate that. Councilman Vaughn.

Well, I support this. The most of your budget is the 78 officers, over $10 million.

That's correct.

Clear. So what is the $100,000 for election cost?

So that is actually to hold the crime control vote in November. Okay. Because it has to be renewed through the vote.

You all have to pay for that? Yes. Okay. And the professional services? Yes.

It's, that is going to be, that's for the MDR, right? So that is for the advertising and stuff to get out to the public.

Okay. And then what do you have to contribute over to the police academy?

We're not contributing anything. That's zero this year. So we had some residuals from before, but this year it's going to be zero.

But next year you're going to? No. It says 26383? It says 2627, yes. Hmm. Okay, on expenditures, police academy cost 26, adopted budget, amended budget 383.

Yes, that was the residual from the academy from last year when we built it. So for this budget coming up, it will be zero.

Okay, thank you. Yes. Okay, we have a motion and a second. I'm going to open public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make a comment on item number 10? Okay, there being no one, we're closing public comment. Please submit your vote. The motion carries. Item number 12 is a zoning case number ZN9250, Moorhead Dots, Ryback, located in District 2. This is an ordinance rezoning a property at or near 301 Indiana Avenue, 305 Indiana, and 2767 Santa Fe, and 2771 Santa Fe.

Mayor council you've got Wallace interim director development services The subject properties are in district 2 with a request to rezone from the o n Neighborhood office district and from the CN 1 neighborhood commercial 1 district The subject property is point 4 6 acres an area all for the lots are plotted with a 50 50 foot width widths and each roughly 5,000 square feet in lot area and The purpose of this request is to allow a vintage retail store at 2767 Santa Fe Street. Article 5 of the UDC stipulates that the retail uses must serve as an accessory to an office use. In this context, a small boutique currently occupies only half of the total area of the structure. Upon approval of the rezoning, the boutique store will be permitted to occupy the entire structure. The applicant proposes to utilize the two vacant lots that are on the northernmost part of this parcel as open space for community-friendly events. The properties are part of the Bayside Area Development Plan, which was adopted on December 10, 2024. The subject parcel is zoned currently ON Neighborhood Office District. The north, south, and west is medium density residential zone RS6, single family with the exception of two properties to the north and four properties to the east zone RM1 multifamily and RSTF2 family, where townhomes duplexes reside. To the east is commercial zone CN1, neighborhood commercial, Sugar Baker's Restaurant, Baba Furniture Store, Fork and Vines Restaurant, and Mia Mia Pizzeria. Regarding the required public notification, 36 notices were mailed inside the 200-foot buffer. Five notices were mailed outside the 200-foot buffer. Zero were received in opposition. Three were received in favor. The proposed rezoning is consistent with the Bayside ADP. Of the four lots to be rezoned, two of them are inconsistent with the future land use designation of medium-density residential. While the other two lots located at the southeast half of the property will maintain the commercial flume designation. The requested amendment is compatible with the present zoning and conforming uses of nearby property and to the character of the surrounding neighborhood. The property is suitable for the uses permitted by the zoning district that would be applied by the proposed amendment if approved. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval from the O.N. Neighborhood Office District to the C.N. 1 Neighborhood Commercial 1 District. And I stand by for any questions.

Councilwoman Campos. Thank you, Mayor. Well, I really wanted to bring wanted to hear it only because I love that neighborhood. I love the pizzeria, the sugar bakers, Baba's and what is actually happening happening right there. It reminds me of when I ended up going, visiting New Orleans, I think, New Orleans, yeah, where it has that kind of mixture where the residents and the businesses are coexisting. It's just a really cool, nice feeling, and there's just not a lot of these kind of niches in our city, and I just wanted to congratulate the owner. I actually met her I don't know, a couple of months ago I was on my way to the beach and they were having a flea market. There was a lot of parking. I'm a little concerned about that, but hopefully the residents will be good neighbors and be able to navigate that because I don't think it happens all the time where they have these flea markets, but yes, I wholeheartedly support this, and I'm glad that the, I guess the owner is here, and hopefully that people will go and visit this vintage shop. I'm like, oh, it's exciting. So with that, I move for approval. Second.

Are you the owner? Oh, raise your hand, okay. Yeah. I think you emailed? Yes, okay, great, great. So we have a motion and a second. I'm gonna open public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make public hearing on item number 12?

My name is Yvette Richards and I am the owner of the Vintage Pearl. We have been so welcomed by the community. When Ms. Campos came in, it was just, it was amazing because it happened at the perfect time. The store was loaded with customers waiting in line. We were having our market, our open market, which I had 20 vendors. The community came out in full support. Most of the vendors sold out of all of their items So it's been fantastic. I can't thank you enough for being there.

And I was one of those that bought a couple of vintage items. So, yes, good deals.

Yes. Thank you. Like I said before, the community, all the neighbors, they walk over. All of our morning people who have breakfast or brunch at Sugar Baker's walk the street over. It's been fantastic.

That's wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Richard.

Thank you so much.

Yes. Anyone else? Okay, we'll close public comment. I think we have a motion and a second, so please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. Item number 13 is a zoning case number ZN9194. This is Miller Street Holdings, LLC, located in District 1. It is an ordinance rezoning a property at or near 3641 Mueller Street.

Mayor, Councilman Yvette Wallace, Interim Director, Development Services, this is the last zoning case today, I promise. So the subject property is in District 1 with the request to rezone from the CN1 neighborhood commercial district to the CN1 with a special permit. The subject property is 0.23 acres in area and unplotted. The purpose of this request is to allow a wireless telecommunications facility to be erected. The property is part of the West Side Area Development Plan adopted on January 10, 2023. The subject parcel is Zone CN1 Neighborhood Commercial. North is public, semi-public, and medium-density residential, Zoned RS6 and RM1. To the east is vacant and medium-density residential, Zone RM1. To the south is commercial and vacant zone CN1 and CG2. And to the west is public, semi-public, and commercial zone CN1 and RS6. Regarding the required public notification, 14 notices were mailed inside the 200-foot buffer and three notices were mailed outside the 200-foot buffer. Zero notices were received in opposition and zero were received in favor. Within a one-mile radius, there appears to be four towers. The proposed tower will shrink a gap in coverage. To note, the nearby tower is a small rooftop, a small telecom tower on the old value bank building, so it's not a large telecommunication system. The proposed rezoning is consistent with the City of Corpus Christi Comprehensive Plan. However, it is inconsistent with the land use designation of commercial. The applicant's request is compatible with the existing zoning and conforming uses of nearby properties as general necessity and a use with very limited on-site activities. And additionally, the sleek, space-efficient monopole tower with co-location will have limited visual impact on the surrounding area, and the proposed infrastructure generally expected to be part of the landscape is deemed a necessity and will augment critical infrastructure. To accommodate the growing demand for telecommunication services, The Unified Development Code regulates the development of telecommunication towers and facilities in a manner that addresses location needs while also balancing compatibility factors such as aesthetics, distractions, and public safety. Telecommunication towers have the ability of polluting the landscape if not properly regulated, which can result in adverse impacts on the overall aesthetic and causing damage if designed on a site that's poor for this type of development. The proposed tower adheres to all of our standards. The property to be rezoned is suitable for the use to be permitted by the special permit to be applied. And staff determined that the requested zoning map amendment will not have a negative impact upon the surrounding neighborhood. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval of the special permit. So the special permit is going to limit the telecommunication tower by height. So this one specifically will be limited to 115 feet. And it has to be designed to meet the maximum wind speed of the area, which today is 143. Access and placement will be off of Mueller Street. And, of course, like any special permit, it has a 12-month limitation. So if work is not started in that 12 months or if they cease to use the property as telecommunication, they'll revert back to the base zoning. And I stand by for any questions.

Make a motion to approve.

We have a motion and a second. I'm going to open public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make comment on item number 13? There being no one but close public comment, please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. Section L, individual consideration items, item 14 through 20. Item number 14 is an ordinance reappointing Jacqueline Deliano-Chapa as presiding judge for a two-year term of office beginning August 1st of 2026 and ending August 1st of 2028, appointing Carlos Omar Reyna as part-time judge, number three, for an unexpired term of June 24, 2025 through June 24, 2027. I'll make a motion to approve.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. I'm going to ask for any public comment. Would anyone like to make comment on item number 14? Okay, we'll close public comment. Please submit your vote.

Mr. Gunther, do you want to vote?

Okay, the motion carries. Item number 15 is an ordinance amending Corpus Christi Code section 55-50 regarding water rates for all customer classes effective January 1 of 2027.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, Nick Winkelmann, Corpus Christi Water, Chief Operating Officer. I would like to go over first the adjusted water rates, but nothing, just to remind everyone, nothing has changed since our last two workshops, so this will purely be a review of the previous information. Reminder of the goals. So this is a continuance of our 3 year phase in legacy stormwater water debt plan. And we we've outlined the approach over the previous years for 2025 so in 2025 0% of the water rates went to the legacy stormwater debt. Where the remaining went to was paid by wastewater 2026 14% of the rates The legacy stormwater debt was paid by water and in 2027 the proposal is 36%. 2028 in future years we're proposing 50% water and 50% wastewater to cover this stormwater legacy that service. Also this year the debt service coverage is 1.25% in accordance with city policy. Couple of things to note. The minimum charges for the outside city limit customers will be slightly lower than the inside city water customers, primarily because of the stormwater debt. The outside city limit customers do not see benefit from the stormwater improvements. Monthly minimum charges were improved to be progressive for meter sizes up to 30 inches in diameter. The water and wastewater funds will continue to meet cash reserve and debt service coverage requirements. When you look at the rate adjustment drivers for water. 21% of the adjustment is required for operating expenses. Another 21% is required for prior approved CIP project debt issuance. 36% of the adjustment is associated with our new water supply projects, and 22% is associated with debt service coverage. The next slide shows more specific details of the projected debt associated with our new water supply projects. Again, this is the same slide that we've shown in our workshop. But you can see we have different projects listed, including the Nueces groundwater program, the brackish RO treatment of the Nueces groundwater, the reclaimed water or the wastewater reuse project. We also have the Evangeline project as well, also known as the San Patricio groundwater project. We've detailed the monthly minimum charges. On the left of this page is the inside city retail water charges. On the right is the outside city retail water charges. You'll note that the inside city is a little bit higher than the outside. Again, that's associated with the legacy stormwater debt. Slide 9 is a detail of the different rates and their adjustments for fiscal year 27. And I would like to go to some examples. We will go through some examples of residential users in the forthcoming slides. But I do want to cover first our wholesale customers. So the public agency wholesale raw water rate For San Pat, Municipal Water District, South Texas Water, Port Aransas and Violet is $1.43 per thousand for the proposed fiscal year 27. Wholesale treated water for San Pat Municipal Water District and South Texas Water Authority is $1.74 per thousand gallons of water. Wholesale treated water utilizing our distribution network is $2.33 per thousand gallons. Those costs are largely determined just per the requirements of the contract. Wholesale water taken from the river. We have a number of customers who actually take water directly from the Oasis River. They are the San Pat Municipal Water District, Celanese, and Flint Hills. The current rate is $1.36 per thousand. The new rate proposed for fiscal year 27 is $1.45. Now I'd like to go through some examples of our typical customers. Again, this is not new information. It's identical to what we've shown previously in the workshops. Typical residential customer, and we always use 6,000 gallons of water when we're talking about rates. The 2027 adjustment is an additional $2.48 a month. Again, that's for a household using an estimated 6,000 gallons of water per month. In 2026, the adjustment was $4.78. So the adjustment last year was more than two times greater than the requested adjustment this year. Commercial... Customers, a 20,000 gallon commercial customer, which is a typical restaurant in the city of Corpus Christi, they would have a monthly adjustment, an increase of $15.70 a month. So that is a commercial customer within the city limits that's using 20,000 gallons of water per month. When you look at large volume customers, we have three separate examples for you. The first is a high-end large volume user. That's 260 million gallons per month. That customer will be paying an additional $67,629 per month in 2027. A middle large volume customer would pay an estimated $23,429 per month. And then what we would call a small, large volume customer would essentially be paying $3,149 additional per month. The wholesale customer receiving treated water would pay an additional, on average, $4,129 per month. That's a customer using 50 million gallons of wholesale treated water per month. Then one thing that we talked about is rate impacts over a period of time. So NewGen, our rate modeler, along with the CCW finance team, developed this chart to show the projected rate impact until 2036. And you can see the increase for the different sizes of meters and customer classes. This is meant to show, again, this is just a projection. Things change over time. And that's one reason why we recalculate the rates on an annual basis. But this is a projection showing potentially what the rates could be over the next 10 years. Rate comparison, where do we fall along other cities within Texas? So the bottom yellowish line is our current rates. This is for an average residential customer. So in 2026, Corpus Christi is $42.07 a month for an average residential customer. Projected in 2027 is $44.55. You can see with the adjustments, we are a little bit below middle of the pack here. But I do want to call to everyone's attention that these rates with the other municipalities are 2026 rates. I'm fairly confident everyone's water rates will be raising this year. This slide is a historical view of water rates since fiscal year 2020. You can see over the years where water was increased and held at zero and actually decreased throughout this time frame. There's a lot of detail on this slide. We've shown both residential, commercial, and large volume. One thing to note is in this table, and this item is solely on water rates, but on this table we have shown both water and wastewater rates, showing the history for that. The same thing goes for our commercial customers. And then, of course, our large volume users do not use our wastewater services. Before I stand by for questions, I do want to acknowledge Andy McCartney with NewGen Solutions. Him and his team has helped us again in putting these rates together. Wes Nevgan, our director, is here as well. Camille Terrace, our assistant director of finance for CCW and Esteban Ramos and assistant director of water supply management is here as well. With that, the team mayor stands by for questions.

Thank you, Nick.

Councilman Vaughn. Okay, just a couple. On the new water supply project debt schedule, on the new ACES water wells, eastern and western, you've got $30 million. Is that the $30 million that Denise Villalobos got the city?

Okay. Council on communal tires. No, this is the, the wells are 60 million. This is just the extra. Yes. This is removing the 30 million that was received from the state.

Okay. And so the previous, um, the prior approved CIP project debt was from the previous council. That's 21% are the ones that have been ongoing for years.

Ongoing for years. So this is prior projects that were, we don't issue that until we spend the money. So it could have been two or three years.

Okay. I'm just clarifying. I just want to make a statement. When we all voted for the CIP projects up here, we had like six, I think, projects, water that we voted on that I remember.

That's the new water supply project? Yes.

We voted on them knowing that we were going to have to raise rates because that's the only way you can pay for them. So it's very difficult up here because if anyone's up here running for council, they're thinking, oh, I'm going to be in trouble. But this is our job. We don't like it. I don't like raising rates. But we have to pay for what we approve because we had to have the water projects in order to have water. So I want the public to understand that. And Nick, if you can address the fact that we know there are some that cannot pay for their water. So you had talked about doing a fundraiser, and I know the mayor has talked to industry. So there will be a pile of money that are going to have residents like single moms, veterans, elderly that cannot pay for their water, correct?

Yes, Councilwoman, and thank you for bringing that up because that's very near and dear to all of us as well. So one of the enhancements for next fiscal year is to bring in the utility assistance program in-house to CCW. That way we can administer it on a more efficient, proactive basis. I like the fact that people can call in and talk to someone to move forward in the process instead of CCW referring it to an outside agency. The other thing, and you touched on it, is previously we did a One Water Summit to raise money to put a little kickstart into that program. We're committed to doing it again. We didn't do it this year. We were dealing with a lot of things. But we are committed to doing it, and we're working on the schedule to get that done.

So we're probably going to do that maybe in the spring?

I think a spring is a great goal. I've got staff working on it right now, but I think that's a great goal because that will give us that kickstart to that program.

Okay, well, my point is I don't want to raise water rates, but I know that we have to pay for the CIP projects that we did, and we have to have water. And we've got some really good projects coming online within a year. Thank you.

Councilwoman Paxton.

Thank you. I don't want to belabor the point, but Councilman Vaughn's absolutely correct. A year ago, we were talking about being just weeks from possibly declaring a level one emergency. In reality, but we have really quickly. The team, the council, the community, everybody's worked together to prevent that. And yes, we've had beneficial rains, but we have really invested in a good portfolio for our water supply. That is why nobody wants to do this vote, but we have to, because if we committed to protect that water system, then we have to commit to supply for it. And I do think that the team has done a great job being able to space... those commitments out. So it's not that hard of a hit at the beginning. But Peter, I would like to just reiterate and request that we be able to publicly demonstrate our active efforts to try to offset some of these really big costs that we've agreed to. Going and looking at grants and things like that for this specifically. Because as much as we can get that offset, the future of those rate changes changes. Thank you.

Councilman. Yes, and I think Nick is at some point, we have a compilation of all the grants we're looking at and have applied for. Is that in your water briefing?

It's in the water supply update today. There'll be a one-page slide.

today we'll go over that what we're yeah councilman kentum nick um so the residential rates are going up the commercial rates for like a tropical typical restaurants going up but what i'm seeing is wholesale treated water wholesale treated water network the rates are going down in 2027 why is that why can't it be all across the board

Because of the contracts, Councilman. So the wholesale contracts utilize actuals for the year to develop their rate, and it's actually formulaic in the contract, so we have to utilize that process to determine their rates. How long are those contracts for? Well, they're for different lengths of time, but they're for different... periods, for instance, this council approved a three-year extension to South Texas Water Authority. So that was maybe 10 months or so ago. But one thing that, because of how it's determined, their rates next year will go up significantly. It's just because of how the contract's written, we have to use actuals, and then those costs will catch up. And we've informed them of that. We met with them just last week. Mm-hmm.

Do you have the contracts yet for the refineries? How's that working?

Yeah, Nick, go through the list. So we've been focused on this, and most of them are in the works, so we have some nearly done.

Yeah, we've got a lot going on. So one thing that we've been talking with is Flint Hills Resources. We've had conversations with Phillips 66. Just a discussion was held Monday afternoon with Phillips 66. Lyondell, the attorneys are working on the contract. Of course, Citgo, we're reviewing potable water contract, effluent water from Greenwood, effluent water from Broadway. So there's actually three contracts with Citgo we're working on. There are some large volume users that are inside the city limits. That's STX Beef and Howard Energy. So we're focusing, of course, on the outside city limits, large volume users. There's a lot going on and a lot of contracts.

I appreciate your work in this. I really do. And, you know, I got mixed emotions about this. I mean, yes, we did, as this council approved, a lot of projects for water supply. But we did this because of one group of people, industry, the refineries. Um, we didn't do it for the residents because the residents never ran out of water. Um, it wasn't, it wasn't for us. It was for the refineries. We did all these projects for the refineries and I'm okay with that. And I always been okay with that. But what's just, what's, what was disturbing to me is this, for example, and, and I don't know, you could tell me there should not Nick. Um, but, um, You talked about Broadway. So my understanding is Sitco was going to use the wastewater from Broadway station. They're gonna get three million gallons a day and they were going to find somebody to do the work and do whatever it is to get that three million gallons per day. And I was told that they backed off now because we have water in our lakes. And they're not very concerned right now. And I don't understand if they want to be a good partner, they should not back off on that deal and continue doing that and getting that 3 million gallons a day from Broadway. Can you talk about that?

What I can tell you is what I know, Councilman, is they have never told us officially that they're not interested in anything. Their legal team is reviewing those three contracts that we talked about. And the last time that we met in person, I informed them myself that we wanted to bring all three of those contracts to Council at the same time.

I just don't understand how... I don't understand why the refineries are taking their time on these contracts if they need water and they want us to approve an Inner Harbor project for them. desal plan i mean it's for them like you would think you know what show good faith i'm gonna get these contracts to you guys so the council that you know we're we're we're a team together and and we don't want to screw nobody so we're gonna get these contracts um lined up i mean you know um i just i just i just don't understand like you know where's where's where's the urgency at you know, and we're bending backwards for them. We're trying to find other water sources for them, you know, and I just, I don't feel like they're helping, but they're putting a lot of pressure on us to get this Inner Harbor project done. Like today, they want us to do the grant, but where's the contracts at? You want this body to approve the Inner Harbor project, but with no contracts, right? And then once we get that approved, if it gets approved, the water rates don't go up again. I just don't understand, you know. I get it. We approved them. I agree with Carolyn Vaughn. We, as a council, approved water projects. But, you know, it wasn't for the residents. It was for the refineries. So, okay. Thank you.

Councilman Hernandez.

Thank you. I want to make a correction here. The money that this increase is going for is for existing projects, not for the new water projects. We haven't paid for them yet, right?

36% of the increase is for the new water projects.

No, no, no. What I'm saying is that I'm going back to the CIP, right, and how much money we have spent on projects. The Lake Texana dam repairs, 15 million. Mary Road's pipeline phase one assessment improvements, 16 million. Mary Road pipeline phase one improvements, 16 million. Mary Road phase two improvements, 14 million. Wesley Seal Dam gate rehabilitation, 18 million. Raw water pump station upgrades, 16 million. The chlorine system improvements that we've spent, 58 million. Clear well number three at Owen Stevens, 39 million. Filtration system hydraulic improvements, 23 million. Raw water influent and chemical facilities improvements, 66 million. Sediment basin improvements, 31 million. So we're not just paying for new water supplies. A lot of this debt is from stuff that we've already been doing.

21%.

Yeah, and a lot of that is coming up for purposes. We haven't spent all the money for Evangeline yet, right?

$66 million.

Okay. So I just mentioned a whole bunch of things that were way more than that. The improvements for the wastewater, reclaimed wastewater units, how much have we spent there?

We have encumbrance. I don't remember from the memo exactly the amounts.

Okay. What I'm trying to get across here is it's not, don't just put this on new water. It's not. This, a lot of our debt service is for projects that we did because of all the crap that happened in the past, and TCEQ came down on us pretty hard. Remember the water boils from 10 years ago? We're still paying for that now. Yes. With these projects. So I don't want this to be, oh, this is new water sources. Don't go down that road because a lot of this is old debt that we've spent money on, that we've maxed out the credit card on. He coined a phrase, right, that I know Councilman Barrera doesn't like because we have an asset, right?

So you're correct. So referring back to the pie chart, 21% is those projects that you mentioned, the CIP projects like the ones, that's the additional debt that we issued because, of course, we issue over time. And 36% is the new water supply projects. 22% is the debt service associated with all of that debt. and then 21% is operating.

So are you talking about you have new water supply project debt issuance? Yes. That's not coverage, right?

No, no, no. That's the debt issuance. And then of that, you have to also have coverage.

This pie chart is deceiving because that's not what we're actually paying, right? The issuance is different from the coverage.

The debt coverage is a separate pie chart. the 36% is the debt issuance. As part of the debt issuance, you have to have a 1.25 debt service coverage. So there's a little bit more. We could have made that 36 bigger and just broken out the debt service coverage over you know, to the 21 and to the 36, but we wanted to show what the debt issuances are and the debt service coverage for state policy.

So our debt, what was our debt? The percentage of our budget last year was how much was debt service for the Water Department?

33... 34%, right?

And what is it now?

It's going to be $68 million out of a $200 million budget.

So about 36%?

40 to 36 yeah 36 so our debt service is going from 33 6% right of the grand total budget so that's why I'm saying this this way that you have this chart is not is not reflective of what we're actually paying in debt service well that is correct this is the the chart only shows out of the increase that sure that that the two dollars and 48 cents 36% is related to this 21% is related to The CAP approved 22% is the debt service coverage, not the total utility bill, not the total water bill.

Okay. Do you see how that can be construed as deceptive?

I don't know. It says fiscal year additional. Okay. So I don't know how.

You're assigning the increase to the amount. But what I'm saying is that the overall debt service is not just new water projects. Oh, absolutely not. No, no, no. Okay. So going through this, I want to make sure you understand that this is, you know, not only for future water projects that you're signing issuance for, but what we're actually paying on. So, you know, I just... Don't think this is indicative of how much it were actually paying for everything This is only what you kind of shifted everything into just what the $2 was for.

Yeah, it's in the slides titled Rate Drivers, and it's really the incremental change for the rates, what's causing that adjustment. We titled the slide Rate Drivers. And you're right, Councilman, there's tremendous infrastructure improvements. You listed everything that's going on at Owen Stevens.

Oh, I only listed about a third.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, and it is something that's going to benefit this...

community the region for years to come in terms of resiliency and reliability okay so i want to make sure that we understand that there's a lot that we're paying on right now and i'm pretty sure our bond rating agencies are listening to us right now making sure that we're going to be uh increasing our rates so we can cover our bond probably and that's the reason why we're you know our bond ratings are going down is because we have an excessive amount of debt you Now, we don't have a policy on our debt management policy to reflect how much debt we can have. I think that was intentional so we can manage what we have without having to go back to the policy. But I still think that let's not paint this in a frame that it's just the new water supplies that is causing this. The majority of it is not. And I want to say that 36%, we had an increase of 3%, so now 36% of every dollar that we receive goes to pay to debt service. Now, our hands are tied. Once you borrow that money, you've got to pay it back. There's no choice in that matter. So unfortunately, we're put in this position because we have had our foot on the gas and maxed out the credit card. And some of it is well justified. But I think we need to really make sure that we're understanding what's causing these increases.

Council Member Roy.

Thank you for your presentation. Appreciate the work that you guys have done. A couple things I want to mention. Number one, and I go back to this chart that shows the CCW water rate adjustment, well, the consumption for the proposed rates. And it has all the different cities. If you want to take a look at the bottom, I guess Laredo, which is sitting there in terms of the lowest cost. And then we're about right in the middle. And so when I look at this, One of the things I wonder about, like, for example, in Dallas and Arlington and that, how do they basically manage their system and maintain their cost at such a low level per month for their consumers? But I had a conversation with a lady that was from Houston a couple weeks ago, and she said that her water bill She moved here to Corpus Christi. Her water bill in Houston was $22 a month. And I'm just looking at Houston here, and it's $62.79 on average. So I don't know where that came from. It makes me wonder sometimes, does the average person really know what their water bill is? I know that, like us, we bill a couple of things related to that one bill. So we're sitting really in the middle. And I look at some of our partners, our neighbors, because really what struck me here is that I feel for Ingleside and Taft and Portland and Rockport and Port Lavaca and Aransas Pass. I mean, they're paying a lot more in terms of for their use in water. And so I feel we're kind of fortunate to be in the middle. But the other thing is, is that... asset management i mean really at the end of the day because we're having this conversation about what percentage of our debt is attributed to old debt what percentage is new debt you know what's current debt but the bottom line is is that the biggest thing that we have to take care of is our assets because they are assets you know we've learned a lesson and we're in the situation that we're in, and I'm not going to blame a particular council member group or whatever the case is, but when you take a look at different things, not only with water, but earlier today with TxDOT, and we were talking about the improvements out in Kyle Allen, where we're going to a three-lane road. They're putting sidewalks in. They've enhanced the sewage system. They've done a lot to be able to do that because for a long period of time, they didn't do anything. You know, we didn't do anything. That's kind of the same thing with the water. When I go past Owen Stevens and I see the work that's being done right there and I think about this asset that we have, we can't neglect our assets. And so you guys juggle a fine line in terms of making sure that you get the most out our biggest bang for our buck because at the end of the day, we're not just throwing money out of a window. When we invest in our city and our assets, it pays us back threefold. and so i i just want the people to understand that but yeah we got that and i don't necessarily agree with my other the other council member that we've um... what's expression something about the credit card next time we've maxed out the credit card because when i'm looking at his debt service i'm looking at what is that what is our debt service coverage ratio as far as this where we're at as a city and what our assets and that that's the balancing act and i think you guys do a good job with that we could be up there At the top, we could be sitting at $78 or $80, and we're not. We're right in the middle. And so, again, that's just my thoughts. I wanted to just address that and let the people know that we got to take care of it. I think we've learned an important lesson. If we don't invest in the Mary Roads pipeline, you know, and we've done that, and we don't talk about the things that we did in order to take it from 42 MGD up to 72 MGD, we would be doing this city a disservice. But you had to go in and you had to update the pumps, right? You had to go in there and reinforce things. You had to put the pig in there. Isn't that what they call it?

Right? Yeah, we actually put an ultrasonic device in there. Sometimes it's referred to as a pig. This isn't exactly a pig, but yeah.

But you had to understand that so that you knew exactly where you're at and where your vulnerability is because you're protecting your asset. So I just think that's important. I thank you guys.

Councilman Scott.

Yeah, so what I get out of this, God, you guys spent a lot of money over the last six to eight years. God dang it. And I thank you for it. So I guess my sense is what I told somebody today is I got good news and bad news. The bad news is the rates are going up. But the good news is we're spending that money to protect our assets. All the money you're spending on Owen Stevens would be an example, I think. And we're spending it trying to go find new water supplies, which is, I think, what you expect from us. I have a different opinion. Some of my fellow council members, I think their water supply projects are water for all. I don't designate it for one segment of our customer base or another. I think it's like somebody said, somebody asked me this morning, hey, can I just water my yard? I said, hey, hold out, hold out. I think our water supply job projects for all is the reason why. So you're some of the wholesale customer stuff. I guess we overcharged them last year. And so there's an adjustment this year.

I'm going to let Andy McCartney come up and he can talk through some of the contractual aspects of the, of our wholesale.

If you overcharge them and just want to blink, I'll just move on. So, cause it goes to the bottom line.

No, sir. Mayor counsel. Andy McCartney, principal with NewGen Strategies and Solutions. So, no, when we first worked on the rates over four years ago, going back to 2022 and got the contracts, we had to analyze those. And they do have true-up mechanisms, as well as the raw water for the San Patricio, Salonese, Flint, Coke Hills that take it directly out of the Nueces River. So what happens is we have to use, you know, the proposed budget for 27% So then we go and look back, what was the proposed budget we built in the rates for 2025? And then we look at the actual expenditures for 2025 and calculate what that delta or true-up is. And so it happened to be an addition, I mean, a credit to the 2027 budget. We don't like those kind of true-ups. That's like a true-down, and we don't like that. Yeah. So a true-up would add to their rate. Unfortunately, they had a true-down to where – The department was really good in that they underspent their budget. It was probably because chemical prices, which are very volatile and are variable costs when it comes to water treatment. There's not much going on with raw water diversion, just to note that raw water diversion is when you take it out of the Nueces River and pump it to Owen Stevens. So it's a very small fractional cost.

And then why do we think the rates are going to go up significantly next year?

Right? Isn't that what you said? Like, hey, get ready. It could be. Yeah, it could be. Because of the projects. Yeah, because of the projects. And we'll be looking back at the 26 proposed budget that we worked with last year, and then we'll be truing those up next year.

Got it. So the message to our HOSO customers is give it a year. Just give it a year because you're telling me there's a big true-up coming in 2007.

Yes, sir. And I see this working on the full-worth water rates. As a former staff person, as a consultant that helped out on that project this past summer, I mean, their rates for both water and wastewater going up, they weren't used to that and it was shock for the wholesale customers. And so usually there was one going up and while one went down because they'd have wet versus dry years. And so it was just a process. Kind of like the weather here, it's kind of been a prolonged dry season. Got it. So it added that double whammy for them. And you asked about the bill comparison. Councilman Roy, like Dallas, they're a little bit different. Working on Dallas 15 years ago, they were built out, as well as their wholesale customer cities. Now to the north, those communities are served by North Texas Municipal Water District. Those are growing. But really, Dallas hasn't been growing. They're landlocked. And so they don't issue much. They do have impact fees, and they're not issuing a lot of new meters collecting impact fees. Just like I mentioned at one of the budget workshops, saws, they're a totally different animal because they're totally 100% on groundwater. I know when I worked for them 25 years ago, they had a water resource fee that they added to the customer's bills for water supplies. And at one point, they had spent over $100 million looking for new water. And I think that they do have a project for Caldwell County for additional water supply. But basically, because the Edwards Aquifer had so much water, they facilitate a lot of growth. And so with that aquifer, they installed vertical pumps. They pumped it up. They injected chlorine and then pumped it out into the distribution system to the customers. So they didn't have an Owen Stevens water treatment plant or a series of water treatment plants like the city of Fort Worth has. So it's you can't really say it's apples to apples. It's more like apples to oranges. But still, everybody wants to see how are they doing? Like like here, how's Corpus doing to the rest of the big cities in the state, as well as some neighboring communities that you. unfortunately compete for in economic development because everybody wants businesses to come there because that's a benefit for the residents. So you want to see how do our utility rates, both water, wastewater, I'm sure the natural gas department does it too, how do we compare to other communities? And so that's the benefit of what we call a regional bill comparison.

Just for record, Mayor, that wasn't my question. That was Council Member Roy's question, right? So I want my time back. I have one last thought, and I'm supportive of them. I'm going to take another swing at the windmill. It's my understanding the San Patricio IDA payments are going to go up significantly in 2032, 33, to the extent of $33 to $40 million a year. So those of you in the audience have been who have been talking about IDA payments and council members, I would like us to have a conversation about the possibility of allocating a large portion of those payments to offset water rates. And that's not for any particular project. That's just to offset water rates. And if it's system-wide, so be it. And if you shame on me if you tell me it can only be used to offset Corpus Christi ratepayers, hey, I'm good to go with that also. But We have, just by a freak of maps, whatever, 50 years ago, we have several large industrial projects that are inside our city limits. And as he's mentioned, we've incentivized them, but those incentives go away in 2033, and then we're going to get 33, I think it starts out at like 54 million, then it comes down to 33, but we ought to have a conversation about let's just say it's 30, do we take 20 of it? Do we take 15 of it? Is there a possibility to offset our Corpus Christi ratepayers' water payments? And I think that deserves a conversation. I'd be even willing, I don't think they are, but to have a conversation about net present value of those payments and see if you couldn't implement them sooner. Because what an interesting concept to say, hey, those refineries that we're all mad at over there, by the way, they're offsetting your your water rate increases. And I just think that's worth a conversation, and I'd appreciate you guys following up on that. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman Hernandez.

Sorry, Nick. I just wanted to be very clear on the new water cost. It does not include Inner Harbor Desal, correct?

That's correct. There's just the cost for the amount that's been expended to date, right, that we have to continue to pay back.

Okay, and I wanted to clear up what I was saying, that you looked at it as a whole for the entire budget not just the increase of the two dollars the amounts you would be looking at for the for those particular items would be much smaller as opposed to the overall uh debt service and operating cost right that's what i was trying to get at yeah councilman i think we're on definitely on the same page uh you know we we phrased it as drivers to the adjustment but okay yes sir you know the thing about it is we've got to see the the full picture right not just one small section of it uh also last thing i just want to mention that the ida payments go to the general fund not to the enterprise funds so it might not be something you can offset your i'm just saying the way it's structured right now the way the way it's structured right now it's it's a it's a pilot A payment in lieu of taxes. So that goes to the general fund. So I just want to clear that up. Thank you.

Yeah, let's let's let's spend a minute on that. I appreciate your interest in that. What would be some ideas you've you've we've had conversations about how you could allocate funds from the general fund to the water fund to help offset payments. Right. And you'd have to get clearance, certainly.

But well, general fund, the general fund, the general fund can send money to anybody who pleases.

Well that's good enough for me. Thank you so much.

uh okay so i think that's all of our comments so i'm going to disagree with all my colleagues i'm not going to be supporting this i think we're in a time where families and businesses have carried a tremendous financial burden and and that seems like it's typical and i think i don't i'm not condemning anyone because we all have our reasons um and i'm not voting against water infrastructure because i understand that but i think that We have had opportunity. We talk a lot about grants. And we've turned down some of that opportunity. And that's turning down the pressure on the rate payer. And it doesn't matter what project it's for. In the end, just like was described, 22% is debt service, 36% is new water. I think 36% was new water, is that right, Camille? 36%? Regardless, 21% operations, somewhere in there. Um, and I think, you know, all of it has a play into Councilman Roy made some great points in terms of the debt service. Um, but for me right now I think that, um, we could demonstrate better in terms of pursuing all available, you know, and I know you're going to have a slide on this later, funding sources and, you know, to offset that additional cost to the ratepayer, but that's just where I stand. Councilwoman Vaughn.

Well, thank you for clarifying that, because if the city mayor is not going to vote for it, knowing that she voted for projects on there and past projects to pay for this, why would any of us want to hear? Why would we want to vote for that? So here you have the mayor, the face of this city, saying she's not going to vote for that. You've got the credit rating people looking at us. You don't do that. You do not do that so that you can get votes. It's about election, and it is about Inner Harbor because we don't support the grant. You have to separate yourself. You cannot do that. So thank you for clarifying it.

We appreciate it.

Are you all hearing this? Thank you.

It's been recorded. Councilwoman Paxson.

Well, I mean, yeah, if unfortunately if the head of this body feels like this is a bad direction for us to move in and if the actual direction we should be moving is to not fund our water rates when we've worked this entire year and a half to try to signal to our bond rating agencies that we can go through a catastrophe and still be stable and invest in our future and commit to what's necessary, then maybe it is a bad decision and maybe we should all vote this down. If it's going to be that black and white, I mean, I really felt like, Nick, you and your team had done a great job. You've laid it all out. It all makes sense. And I think that it's prudent as leaders to accept that this is what secures a healthy environment for our water system. So I appreciate that you presented that. And you asked me this week, could you rely on my vote to support this? And I said, yes, but... Now our leader is saying that this is a bad idea, so now I'm going to have to think about it again. Thank you.

You should, because the bond rating agents have made it clear that we failed. with votes that the majority of this council took. So let's not point the finger at me because it's not, well, I'm pointing it right back at you. Your no vote on 100, so have you, ma'am. So have you. Your no vote on foregoing grants. So you can't attack one person when your no vote have caused the credit ratings. Councilwoman, you've already attacked. You've already attacked, so just enough. I mean, that's Councilman Roy. So I cannot state how I feel, but you can. Councilman Roy and Councilman Kentu after that, take the vote.

I'm going to say one thing. That's why we're a council form of government. Every vote here is equal. We don't have the ability, I mean, and I'm gonna use, Gil, I hope you don't mind, I'm gonna use this in a positive way, but one of the things that Gil says in the past, you know, because he's always looking at the budget, but when we look at different projects, especially within his district or my district or whatever the case is, When you go forward with a project and you start the pre-engineering and the engineering and the design phase and that, hopefully to get to the end of the project, one of the things I always say to Gil is that, hey, those are great projects, but at some point in time, we're going to have to pay for those projects, right? Because you really don't want to go into a situation where you start putting projects out there and then you either yank the ability to pay or you don't intend in paying for those projects. That's a little disturbing to me. I'm a little disturbed by that. But at the same time, we just have to remember that we all do have opinions, and that's why we're not a city manager form of government, that we're a council form of government, you know, council management form of government, because we're set up here where my vote is just as important as the mayor's vote. So thank you.

Councilman Cantu.

This changed a lot of stuff around here, that's for sure. You know, if our leader is not going to vote for this, I mean, why should we vote for it, right? I mean, I want to correct something when she says that we turned down grants. It's only been one grant that we turned down for the Inner Harbor project that's not been approved by this council. That's the only grant that we have turned down. We haven't turned down any other grant for any water projects. We welcome all the grants. And the only reason why we turned down the Inner Harbor Project grant is because if we accept that grant, we will have to buy everything American made. So that $1 billion project will end up being $2 billion. I mean, I would love to buy everything in the U.S., but it's expensive. And there's never really... There's not that many desal plants in the United States that has parts. Like, parts supply. You know? And why do we want to buy everything American-made if you're trying to cut back on cost? I just... You know, I don't know what to do anymore, to be honest with you. It just is... I don't know. And I hate to put you guys in this position. So let's see what my colleagues have to say after this.

If I could just comment on your reply, Councilman. What CCW has done is presented a plan in rates to diversify our water supply by adding groundwater, wastewater reuse, to significantly upgrade our infrastructure, not just in one year, but that's over the last three, four, five years. And all of that, we are benefiting from all of that. The region is, the community, the citizens of Corpus Christi. And they'll continue to do so because we're building a system that's resilient and reliable.

Thank you, Nick. Well, I said what I said a moment ago and I still believe it because if I may use my final minute that I didn't use as my last, I'm requesting to speak once. I appreciate that and thank you. I stand by what I said a moment ago because I think that it's important that anyone that can hear this because it's going to be taken, recorded, snipped, copied, and shared everywhere. It's important to recognize Words versus actions. So where we go from here, what I believe we should do is protect this city like we committed to do and approve these rates. It's not the easy thing to do, but it's the right thing to do. That's what our city needs.

Council Member Barrera.

Well, thank you. Hold on, I'm looking for this. Here, I'm looking for the slide that had the rates, the rate history. Here it is. Okay, so, hey, I'm ready to vote yes. I mean, regardless of what anybody says, I've been getting a lot of work done here while you guys have been pontificating. So I want to thank you for that. Hey, great job. Great job. I know you guys did a lot of work. I know Nugent a couple years ago, I didn't get along with you guys because I was the, and I say this with pride because I was the sole person that voted against doubling industry's rates. I still say that with pride. And I've said it ad nauseum to many, to many periodicals, you know, the Texas Tribune, Inside Climate News, and I said that industry always felt there needed to be adjustment. I just felt that it was wrong that The individuals that use 60% of our water aren't communicated, and that way we have a process. Considering, I think, their water rates are going to go up, what do we say? Our largest volume is going to go up $67,000 a month on this particular one, and they kind of knew it was coming. So I just think, I've said, all that industry is looking for or the community is looking for, mostly those if you want to bring in developers, is a predictable regulatory environment. And I think that's what our bond companies are looking at as a predictable regulatory environment. So I told you the other day when I talked to you on the phone and we had our meeting, I thank you for all the work we do. Sometimes it's a bitter pill to swallow. What is it? But we suffer from the same inflation that the community does. And I'm not here to judge anybody else's vote, but I just wanted to make it clear I'm voting yes.

Councilman Campos. Thank you, Mayor. It is shocking. I can't believe that we're here. I can't believe that, of course, you have every right to vote the way you want to, Mayor. But when we started on this path, this looking over the rates every year, this is the reason why. It's because you have to have the courage to do what we have to do in order to move the projects in order to have water in order to have the banks you know financing all this is is clear uh and i was not going to say anything only because i had already made up my mind that of course i was going to support this and i i told you this that i was so there was really not much to add but this cannot what the mayor just stated does not make sense. How is it that you cannot support what we have been working on as far as making it fair and equitable? This is the path. These are the hard choices and the hard votes that we have to do. This is why we get voted. That's why we're here. So yes, I am ready to vote and let's just get this over with.

I move for approval.

Okay, and I'm really glad. I'm really glad that y'all are voting for it. I think there needs to be a respect for, yeah, there will be. I think there needs to be a respect for what my reasons are. I'm flattered that your vote depends so much on me, Councilman Cantu. It shouldn't. I can, well, I'm sorry. So if my reasons are my reasons, And my reasons, I mean, there shouldn't be pointing fingers. If y'all don't vote for desal, you don't vote for desal. And if I feel like the majority of the leadership on this council regarding water is not one I agree with, Because of what has been done, we have rejected up to $120 million. Whether y'all believe in the project or not, $120 million in grants. You've got an opportunity here in a second. Then you vote no. But there's no need for badgering. You vote no just like you have. Just like you have. Sylvia, you've always been a no from day one. That's respectable. That's respectable. But when people are campaigning and they're for DeSalle, and then they come on council, and then all of a sudden DeSalle looks, it's the worst thing in the world. And we're not talking, DeSalle's not on this item, so I'm not gonna veer from it. But I am gonna say, every vote here should be respected. And that wasn't respectful, Councilwoman. That wasn't respectful. Not you, her. No, not you. And thank you, Councilman Gompels, for even saying I apologize. Because you don't have to. We have every right to do that. And I have every right to speak my mind. If you don't agree with it, you don't agree with it, you vote no. So I am voting no because I don't believe that this is the time for that, regardless of what anybody thinks. I respect y'all's votes. I'm glad you're voting for it. I really am. But thank you. So we have, yeah, anyone, who would like to make public comment on item number 15? Just come on up.

Hi, I'm Amanda Short, Texas Infrastructure Stewardship Initiative. Councilman Hernandez, Councilman Paxson, and Councilman Vaughn, we have a later agenda item where you said that you desire to prevent the cost shifting to taxpayers and residences. So I'm going to break this down real quick. The percentages that you discussed, Councilman Hernandez, that were from his slide, 21% of this is old debt. That's easy to see. I've got bills to pay, right? 21% is operating expenses. That's, you know, imagine we were roommates. No. Anyway, and there were four roommates, right? And we had these shared bills. But me, by myself, am responsible for half of them. And as Corpus Christi taxpayers and residents, that's what we're doing. We're shifting the industry water use and infrastructure cost to the taxpayers. So if you support this today, then you're also saying it's okay to share the rates with the taxpayers, okay? Thank you.

Sometimes I think I come from a different world. As a entrepreneur, corporate person, opinions matter a whole lot less. I look for analysis of options. You know, we did what we had to do, we spent the money, we have to pay our bills. But going forward, I think we need to be a lot more strategic about what debt situation we're putting ourselves in. So, you know, things like Let's just give it back to the taxpayers now. I think you should be preparing a kitty. I think we should be getting into a lesser debt situation, getting ourselves in a lower risk position. So, you know, like I said earlier today, they found that taxing people more to get yourself out of a situation is very difficult. I think we do have an economy with some jobs that are kind of resilient against AI depletion. right? We got some new opportunities I heard about. We're really lucky, but let's not be hasty at getting elected again by giving back money and claiming victory when what I don't see and I still frustrate is where are we going to be five years out? What do we want our debt situation to be five years out? So unless, well, I think this is good and I think that's bad. I'd like to hear a whole lot less about that than talking about Debt ratios, years going out. I'd like to see a capacity plan on water. I'd like to see a lot more discussion about that than I would, are we going to pay our bill that we just did? We just did what we did as a group. We decided we were in a difficult situation. And you went and spent this money and you did what you had to do. Thank God. I'm okay with that. I would like to see a little bit more appreciation for things that have better return ratios, though. You know, putting the coverage on Lake Corpus Christi doesn't cost you anything and you get water. It's passive. You always do those things first. I don't see any interest in that. I see it's been, it has appeared to be quite a focus on one project over here, and that looks to be a big problem, so. I would encourage us to look at, as I've asked before, what is the cost-benefit ratio of the things that we're about to do? And what does it look like five years from now? So that we're not just trying to run for office every couple years and have short victories. We need to get ourselves in a lower debt situation. And Acts H. Joe, if somebody came to the table and said, I'll take that on. I'll take the risk off your plate. And if we don't deliver, we don't deliver. I don't see, this is another one like the evaporation. Where's the loss?

Where's the loss?

It's only if you want control, right? But I think we gotta be looking at numbers, less opinions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Rachel Caballero, D1. Well, we have now opened the season for reelection campaigning. And for the watching public, that's what this looks like, political theater. I will never understand. This is why the community does not trust some of the leadership. Because you shove projects down our throats, you got to pay for them. And then during election season, oh, I'm just kidding. This is an extreme concern for our community and why people are so disappointed in leadership. And I refer to the four, not the five. We have to trust that you guys are making good decisions. And the four fail at every pass, every single pass, including bringing A community, community, which we all know is industry supported and driven. They're coalitions and they're using the money that the community made them to go against the community. This is complete insanity. If you're going to promote projects, support projects, and vote in favor of projects, have a backbone. Thank you.

Mark Minster, Corpus Christi. I think it would be helpful to have the numbers of the city's revenue from the different customer classes, bringing to the last couple meetings in my presentations the residential and have this for the next year's budget and have how much you're collecting from residents revenue-wise how much you're collecting from commercial inside city limits and large volume outside city limits because last year residential inside city limits paid 41 million and the large volume paid 37 million and then you look at the IDAs the IDAs around 30 million so when we're talking about how you've done all these projects these CIP projects to find water, water for who? And then it just seems unfair. Residential rates have increased 17% the last two years, and then the chart of how much they're gonna increase over 10 years. And then considering other projects, I think it would just be helpful to just be very clear with the numbers of how much the city revenue is now from each of those classes. Because whenever I looked at the budget, I had never seen those numbers before. And I've seen a lot of CC water presentations. So I think those would be helpful to show how much revenue we're collecting from each class. and if it's equitable or not. Yeah.

Susy Saldana, Corpus Christi. The water rates that you're talking about, my concerns are this. Thank you, staff, for all the work you've done to try to bring everything down, because somehow we've got to have water. But let's take a look at what you could have done or should have done. When I first started this, I told you that the refineries were the large water users, and the best thing you could do was annex them. So they pay the same rate we do. They're an X, and I was told no because the infrastructure would cost too much. Well, right now, the way that it's set up, this particular project, with the amount that's gonna go up on industry, will they not be suing us again? Because it's going to go up higher, and then they want their money back, and we can't beat them because they've got a ton of lawyers. Are they gonna be suing us? Is district going to be suing us because their rates are going to go up? Not as much as the others, not as much as the taxpayers, but they're going to go up. I still say your easiest defense is to annex them. Bring them into the city. Let them pay the rates we pay. Thank you.

Michael Miller, District 2. Our water rates are already extremely high. we should have some of the lowest rates in the state of Texas. Our rates are extremely high because we're delivering three times what the average citizen, you know, the GPCD per day compared to San Antonio and Houston. We're delivering three times the amount in Corpus Christi. So we have to do these very expensive water projects. In 2016, the Harbor Bridge project was started, and that was a $1.3 billion project. In 2017, the deepening and widening of the port was begun. That was a $700 million project. Combined, that's about $2 billion worth of investment. What was the City of Corpus Christi's contribution for all those projects? $6 million. That's because, yeah, it's nice to have a new bridge. It's nice to have a deeper ship channel. But the citizens don't need that. My 24-foot boat does not need to draft 54 feet of water. My car does not need to go 500 foot in the air or however tall that bridge is to get over the ship channel. But the federal, state, and the Port of Corpus Christi funded all of those projects. The citizens don't need to be delivered 110 million gallons per day. Industry needs that. Where is the state and federal funding? And Mayor, I appreciate you going and asking for a contribution, but it's tiny in comparison. We need to be thinking about this different because we're getting hoodwinked. The benefits are going to the state, the feds, and the global economy. But they're all looking at us, the poor citizens of Corpus Christi, to pay for all of this. So the time has come for us to put our foot down and say no. So, Mayor, I appreciate your vote. And what I would suggest to the rest of the council is call for a roll call vote, let the mayor vote first, and then follow her lead on this thing. Because there is waste going on in CCW. I drove around putting out some signs over the weekend, and I saw the wall that's being built around Owen Stevens. And it was described as a security fence. That thing costs about $400 a linear foot. I'm like, what are we trying to secure ourselves from? The dinosaurs from Jurassic Park? I mean, this is a very serious piece of infrastructure. And I'd like an explanation of why we need that. Because all of our expenses keep rising and rising and rising, as do our rates. And something's got to give. So I'd appreciate you all doing something about it. Appreciate it. Thanks.

Thank you. I don't see Peter. Is Peter back there? Well, just Miles, if you'll make a note, or Revae, if you'll make a note for him to get, or staff to get with Mr. Miller regarding the fence. Oh, yeah. I'd rather you send him the information because it's a lot of information, especially the reasoning. All right. Anyone else? Okay. We're going to close public comment and submit our vote. Item number 15.

The motion carries.

Okay, we're gonna go to item number 16, and that is an ordinance amending Corpus Christi Code section 55-100 regarding wastewater rates for all customer classes effective January 1, 2027.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. This is a similar presentation to the water rates. I do want to just comment on the two workshops we had. I am thankful, and so is staff, to having those two workshops because the last workshop we had, we got to go in a little more detail on the consent decree, and that was a welcomed opportunity to go through those details. So I am thankful specifically in presenting this information today that we've had a chance to review in detail previously. So the rate study goals, again, this is for the wastewater rates. This is the identical slide to what you saw with the water rates in our plan to bring the stormwater legacy debt to a point where it's eventually 50% water rates and 50% wastewater rates. Just as in water, the wastewater rates, the debt service coverage, is calculated at 1.25 times coverage. Again, the minimum charges for the outside city limits will be a little bit lower due to that stormwater legacy debt. And I'll go through it, but there's very few outside city limits wastewater customers. The volumetric rates are still equal for ICL and OCL. That's inside city limits and outside city limits wastewater customers. And the water and wastewater funds will both continue to meet the cash reserve requirements. If you look at the drivers, this would be for the incremental increase in the wastewater rates. 52% of the increase associated with debt service coverage and 48% is attributed to the prior approved capital projects. There is no increase in the rates associated with operational expenses. The changes that you can see, again, I mentioned it earlier, the outside city limit residential customers, there's only 14 of them. The inside city limit residential wastewater users, the meter charge went from 38.29 to 39.95, and then the volumetric rates increased seven cents from 8.41 to 8.48. Commercial customers inside city limit The base or the meter charge went from $38.29 to an adjusted $39.95 and then of course the volumetric rates remain the same across all customer classes. The outside city limits, there are only 22 commercial customers using wastewater services outside the city limits. Their meter charge $33.12 to $35.15 and again the volumetric rates are the same across all customer classes. Wastewater charges, this is your typical residential bill. It's an average of 5,000 gallon usage. The increase is approximately $1.87. That's the adjustment. It's $1.87 more per month for your typical residential customer. The monthly bill went from $63.52 to the projected $65.39. The commercial class utilizing the same reference point, 20,000 gallons of water per month. The monthly adjustment is an additional $2.92 per month. This chart, like in the previous, shows the 10-year projection for wastewater rates and the potential impact on our ratepayers. One thing that I do want to point out that both water and wastewater service is determined on a cost of service method that we've instilled since bringing NUGEN onto the team to develop the rates. So a true cost of service is what's charged. In a similar chart, if you compare the City of Corpus Christi wastewater rates to other areas. You can see in the yellow, that's our 2026 rates. And then in the orange is the 2027 rates. These are for your average residential customer. Again, all of the other cities are 2026 rates. We've heard from many municipalities that their wastewater rates are also increasing. So we're comparing our 2027 to their 2026 rates. And then the last slide I have for you on the wastewater rates is the historical rates for all of our customer classes. So FY20 compared to fiscal year 27, you can see the rate impacts each year and also combined water and wastewater. The chart is the exact same as what I showed in the previous presentation. With that, Mayor and Council, I'll stand by for questions as I also have staff here as well. I move for approval. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Would anyone in the audience like to make comment on item number 16? Okay, there being no one, we'll close public comment. Councilman Hernandez.

Okay, I want to clear up a few things here. We are on the backside of a lot of stuff. And maybe a lot of you don't know that how much costs are associated with the, and I always refer to as sins of the past or neglect in the past, of where we didn't do preventative maintenance and the EPA came down on us pretty hard. We agreed, we paid a million dollar fine and we agreed to pay seven or expend up to $750 million over a 15 year period as part of that consent decree. You know, the wastewater budget is half the size of the water budget. It is nowhere, and so the per capita costs, and it only applies to people within the city limits pretty much completely. So there's a lot of debt cost. There's a lot of projects that we approved, including a $3 million, 5,000 square foot building this year, which still rubs me the wrong way. But all these things were put out forward over the last several years with regards to the capital improvement plan. And if you know me, I've rarely, I think maybe I voted for one of them, voted to approve the capital improvement plan because I thought we had too much, we were doing too much too quickly. So this is what happens. We spend a lot of money, over 30% of our operating budget is now debt service, and so what do you do? You have to pay your debt. We're in a situation where our hands are tied, and like I said, we have these rating agencies that if we don't pay for our debt or have the funding to pay for it, then they reduce our bond rating. It's not because we didn't approve desal, it's because we have a lot of debt and we have to pay for it. So all those CIP projects that we approved, and I can go through them again, for wastewater. Right? Broadway wastewater rehabilitation, $15 million. Greenwood process upgrades, $75 million. Wastewater process and BPC facility decommissioning, $57 million. Citywide wastewater IDIQ program, $60 million. Lift station, forced main repairs, $13 million. I mean, These are monies that we've already spent. And unfortunately, we have, you know, anytime, just like when you borrow money for your mortgage for your house, you gotta pay it back. Or you get kicked out. Or in this case, our bonds would go to junk status if we didn't pay for our debt. Or we would go back in the same place where we weren't doing preventative maintenance because we got a cut somewhere. It's not, you know, the money just doesn't appear out of, Now, I don't want to raise these rates, and I was waving the red flag for a long time with these projects. And I know we needed to do a lot of these projects, but we have to live within our means. But now we're in this situation where we have a lot of debt because we had a lot of repairs because of all the neglect from 20, 30 years ago. I hate being in this position. I absolutely hate it because I'm going to be accountable for it. I don't want to raise rates. I don't. But I know we've got to pay our bills. We've got to pay our bills. So I will be supporting this begrudgingly because we have to pay. We can't have our bonds go down because we still have a lot of improvements to make. But I can tell you this, Nick, you need to reduce that CIP significantly, because I'm not gonna vote for it. Thank you.

Councilman Fon. I agree with Gil on this right here, too. We've gotta quit spending. How much of this is current debt for the current council?

Estimate. Right, so I'll defer to Camille, but I do wanna say that in a lot of the projects, some of them that Councilman Hernandez has named, They're long-term improvement projects associated with our six wastewater treatment plants. So a couple of them were approved a couple of years ago. Some were approved this year. Some were approved previous years. And those are typically those large wastewater treatment plant improvements are two to three years at a minimum. And so we incur debt and expend cash every single year. That's how it's budgeted.

Okay, and I think the citizens need to understand we were so far behind on infrastructure, the roads, all of these things that we've had to catch up since you've been here, Mr. Sinoni. Because of decades of neglect. And you can't do that. We have to continue to improve them. I will always put this city first. I will. I will always put it first. That's what I got elected to do. And everybody in here, you can say it's for industry all you want to. Every project that we have done, every citizen benefits from it. Every citizen does. And we do need industry. And you know, I get tired of hearing industry bashed all the time. We still need them. We have got to work together.

but these projects for everybody thank you i'm going to go ahead and open public comment would anyone like to make comment on item number 16. okay we'll close public comment and let's please submit our votes The motion carries.

Thank you.

Item number 17 is a briefing on data centers, including an overview of Governor Abbott's recent guidelines. And Peter, you said this was going to include the HUD-8, some information on it?

Right, Ryan's been listening, and I've been texting him through the meeting. So he had some initial information on HUD-8, and he's going to try to answer some more as well. Ryan, you're laughing. And then let me, for the mayor, the secretary may have told you this, but this is a briefing, so no citizen comment on this one, but on 18, citizen comment. We moved the briefing up ahead of the three signature memos, just to give it some context. Right. Ryan? Yes, sir? Good.

Yes, Mayor, Council, Ryan Skobarczyk, Director of Intergovernmental Relations. We've got a presentation. So this is going to be a very broad overview of data centers just because they are essentially the third rail of American politics at the moment. So we're going to give counsel and start from kind of a conceptual basis before we talk specifics with DSD and the three signature memo. So first and foremost, what is a data center and how do you define it? because I think that's the nuance that council and not just city councils but state and federal government are dealing with when it comes to potential policy recommendations on data centers. And essentially they are large facilities that hold the equipment inside of them that are used for the compute power that needs to be generated. So things like server racks, power generators. You've seen these conceptually probably in images. But really what we're seeing a lot more of are what are called hyperscale facilities. So briefly, to give you a general history of data centers, obviously they go way back as we started talking initially about enterprise data centers, which are facilities that a single entity might own. It's where we house our IT infrastructure. We have one for the city of Corpus Christi. And it's where we put all of that. We keep those servers and that data and that information and that equipment, and we keep it under certain conditions, secure conditions, cooled conditions because of the heat it generates. And so, however, what you've seen is the development of data centers reflects the changing use of technology, where we've gone from a company owning their own data to cloud computing to now the advent of artificial intelligence and the use of that in everyday life. And so importantly over the last 20 years you've seen the onset of these hyperscale facilities and then they are increasing dramatically in the proposed number of facilities across the country and in particular in the state of Texas. And you can see there from the information the amount of capital outlay that will have to happen just to facilitate the rollout of AI. So generally speaking in When we talk about how intentionally we want to be when it comes to the regulation, we want to define the types of data centers that are out there. As I mentioned, enterprise or maybe on-premise data centers that a company or an entity might own to control its own IT infrastructure, its own server racks. Think things like school districts, the city, for example, commercial entities with credit card data or other things that they need to keep secure and they want direct access to those servers. The other kind of more conventional category is the colocation data centers where you have the ability of cost sharing between entities that don't want to solely own that infrastructure. The more trending data centers that we see kind of in the early 2000s was again cloud data centers when those large scale data centers needed compute power in order to be able to basically virtually house everything that you needed access through the cloud. The other is very small data centers, and we have several in the city of Corpus Christi called edge data centers. They handle latency issues where you need that compute power close to wherever that function is going to take place. And they're small facilities. There's one several blocks away. If you go just north of the post office in uptown, you can kind of see what I'm talking about think like a connex box with like an AC unit outside, just to conceptually give you an image of what that looks like. But the one that is captured a lot of discourse in public policy, of course, is the hyperscale data center, which are the very large facilities. And so I just wanted to run through those definitions so that way council, as a policymaking body, in addition to the conversations that are happening at the state level and the federal level, can be very intentional about what we DO OR DON'T ALLOW AND HOW WE REGULATE IT. SO IN THE COURSE OF DATA CENTER DEVELOPMENT, LET'S TALK BRIEFLY ABOUT THE LANDSCAPE IN THE STATE OF TEXAS. SO VIRGINIA FOR A LONG TIME HAS BEEN THE LEADING STATE FOR DATA CENTER DEVELOPMENT. BUT TEXAS IS GOING TO BE RIGHT BEHIND IT. IT IS DIFFICULT TO GET EXACT FIGURES AND I'M NOT SURE THAT THEY'RE EXACTLY KNOWABLE BECAUSE SO MANY OF THE DATA CENTERS WITH the rapid progression of technology and the use of artificial intelligence are happening maybe through the use of certain investor groups that are coming in and proposing a data center that may never come to fruition. And so knowing the exact number of where they are and how many of them are actually gonna be constructed It's not something easily done. However, you can look at certain sources that will show you from an investor standpoint, we have an immense amount of growth in the announced category of data centers looking at the state of Texas. So as the information there on the slide says, many data centers are proposed in unincorporated areas where there's limited regulation on site development. So when we talk about new data centers for our purposes, you know, folks want to discuss the new data centers in the coastal bin. The one that's been announced and has seen a lot of, well, it's actually commercialized and is underway is HUD-8's Beacon Point Project, which is a hyperscale, could be classified as a hyperscale data center. There are several others that are proposed in that kind of large scale or hyperscale category. Of course, there has been rumored to be one in Senton or in the San Patricio area. There were two different groups that have approached Corpus Christi International Airport in seeking a letter of intent so that they could put together a proposal for a data center out there on open land that's available at CCIA. Um, those conversations are in the early format. And of course, anything that, uh, happened with property at CCI, a, uh, the lease agreement would have to come to city council for approval. But as, as again, as I stressed, many new data centers are constructed outside of municipalities. So there is a limited ability for us to know exactly how many there are even within our region, as they're not required to file with any permitting or zoning authority. So some of the resource demands of data centers, first and foremost, we want to focus on is power. So the state of Texas has recognized how tremendous this growth is in the demand for what is called large load to the ERCOT network. These large-scale requests have gone up from 24 in the year before to 519. To give you some perspective on how rapidly within a 12-month period or within a two-year period, we're seeing the request for that. And so the majority of those are projected or are claiming they want to start in the near term. Because of the public policy issues there, whether it is the vulnerability of the Texas grid and the ERCOT market, the capacity to be able to actually provide that power, The state of Texas is looking at changing certain regulations, and I will get into that here shortly. But as a result, and some of the conversations that are happening on a statewide and national policy level about data centers bringing their own power, many of them are contemplating that and what it would look like. And so it is a growing trend. It is not an absolute that they would generate their own power. And they may have power purchase agreements But I think as what you'll see on water, there's not a uniform characteristic that would define how data centers and data center developers are approaching the power situation. If they can find a spot that has capacity, where they have access to the electric load that they need, they may locate there and have a power purchase agreement. If there's not, they may anticipate bringing their own power generation. They may anticipate bringing their own power storage through battery storage. And one thing to note when it comes to power, when there is a conversation about requiring data centers to pay quote unquote for their power, there's a difference between the transmission cost and the generation cost. And so I think that's something to keep in mind. An entity could pay for the line to connect to its physical facility, but their generation, unless it's co-located with them and they bring it, it may be somewhere else in the state, it may be a larger part of the grid, and that certainly is a policy conversation that's happening with the larger Texas market and ERCOT and what the state is looking at. So, of course, an issue that is very important to our region, but the water use varies by proposal, frankly. Some data centers, seeing the recent policy trends, are planning to, quote, unquote, bring their own water, whether that's purchasing enough property in order to obtain access to a sufficient amount of groundwater. They would drill wells or something of that nature. They may be trying to access brackish water in certain parts of the state of Texas. But what is a growing trend is the push to have all data centers go to closed loop cooling systems. So instead of the more traditional cooling towers where they use evaporative cooling and they don't capture that, these closed loop cooling systems will essentially be charged at a low frequency meaning you know the hud aides proposal is once every seven years so they will fill that cooling system for their server areas with a water glycol mixture and that will be trucked in from somewhere else where they manufacture that specific chemical mixture they will put it in their closed loop cooling system and then the only need to refill it or flush it and change out the fluid every seven years according to the company's proposal But the thought there is that they're not taking constant demand for their total cooling needs off of whatever the regional water provider is. Like I said with power, it is important to note there's not a mandate right now, although there is a proposal to do so at the state level to require hyperscale data centers to use closed loop systems. And so it's a conversation that each individual community is confronted with right now when they're talking about a data center moving into their community. There can be a trade-off between what type of water conservation technologies employed at the facility versus its power consumption. And this was made clear on the June 23rd at the House Natural Resources Committee where the industry testified to the fact that if you require us to go to more energy intensive air cooled systems with closed loop cooling systems or other things, there will be a trade-off between the amount of energy then we have to consume. And so whether they have access to sufficient power or access to sufficient water does enter into the decision matrix of the developer when they're putting together that data center proposal. And so the last resource demand I want to touch on is obviously land. When we're talking specifically about hyperscale facilities, they're very large, require amount of land, means they're going to put them where that land is largely available. And so they are going to be typically out, or a lot of the newer ones that have been proposed are outside of cities in order to have a freer regulatory environment in order to develop their specific proposal. And cities, obviously, as this council is aware, are limited in our annexation powers due to the last several years of annexation reform. And so the ability to reach out and capture a facility within our regulatory environment is limited by the current state law. I do want to talk on, as it comes to land, some of the questions around specifically the beacon point project. You know, we were asked to talk about phases one and two. Are they vested? The answer to that would be yes. Vestment is a legal protection in Chapter 212 of the local government code. to ensure that once a project starts, its rules can't change. And so the plats are done for phase one and two of the HUD 8 Beacon Point project. Thus far, they've got permits and approval of a OCL water contract and a site work permit where they're doing clearing and grading. And so assumably right now, what they're doing out on that location is site work preparation. Um, as far as what government entities have regulatory authorities there, you know, the county has no zoning, the sitting, the city has platting in our ETJ. Um, and, uh, we have permitting by the way of an outside city limit contract, a water contract. And so in terms of future permits, there'll be necessary for that specific project. It'll be permits for the vertical construction of that facility. And regarding setting up a moratorium, we've had this conversation when it came up in the context of water shortages. A moratorium has been very expressly limited by the state legislature and what municipalities are allowed to do. It takes you about 100 days to get to your first period of moratorium. A moratorium is limited to a 90-day period, and then it can be renewed for one additional 90-day period, but then can't be reimposed for another two years. So it's a very narrow window. So in terms of the public policy considerations around data center it's not dissimilar from other major development or construction projects. Obviously land use and zoning including what a large facility does to what is probably a greenfield site in the way of stormwater management is a consideration. We've touched on water supply and obviously wastewater use depending on how an individual facility might partner with a community to utilize those utilities. Electric power generation, storage, and delivery are all separate areas that you would want to consider in the fact that they may have co-location of power generation, lots of different proposals. Obviously, renewables are available. Gas turbines are available in terms of commercially available right now. There is a lot of investment going on in this area towards small modular nuclear reactors, but they're not. commercially available at present and we're probably several years away from that. And there is such a thing as large battery storage projects where they may have those on site in order to balance out their power demand or their power costs associated with their demand. And then obviously delivery of how far away they are from a substation if they require a high intensity line to get there or if they're going to pay for the infrastructure to connect themselves to the electric grid. Like any large facility, particularly one that requires cooling, you're going to look at potential noise and light pollution abatement. Although several facilities that are being proposed right now in the state of Texas in regards to light, are proposed in dark sky areas and so they've had to incorporate certain design aspects that would cause them to shield their outdoor lighting at night as to limit the amount of light pollution that is there. Heat dissipation, just specifically talking about the servers that are there and how the heat dissipation from the cooling might cause a near term, what do they call it? Heat zone, what's it called? Heat Island, thank you, Heat Island. Nobody out there help me. That's okay. Construction impacts and operational traffic impacts, obviously, during that period of construction. And then there are property tax implications depending on where the property is located. Obviously, if it's in an area that captures both real property and business personal property, it's gonna, it could, it has the potential to generate a large amount of property tax. It's, In the context of what the council wants to talk about, obviously there is policy activity all the way from the White House and President Trump's recent statement on data centers to what folks like the state of New York have done to what Governor Abbott has done. It's really touching every end of the political spectrum. And so specifically in the state of Texas regarding the regulation of the development of data centers, and a memo to this effect was already sent to council But back in June, Governor Abbott put out a letter to the PUC and to ERCOT with a list of recommendations about how to limit the impacts of new data centers on ratepayers. And so, specifically, the instructions that were included in that were to include, were to require those two agencies to ensure that data centers paid for their own infrastructure. to connect to the grid and limit that immediate rate payer impact on the rest of us. There were a list of legislative initiatives that he included as well. Of course, the legislature doesn't go into session until January of 27. And even a bill with immediate effect, the earliest it could have an impact is likely sometime in the May, maybe not likely April, but probably May. June timeframe. And so all of these items are being considered. The legislature right now has a litany of at least five committees that have interim charges where they're conducting studies on proposing legislation for the next session on this issue. Some of them have already had their meetings. Several of them haven't yet, but they are scheduled in the upcoming months. And so there'll be a lot of development on what the state and what the legislature wants to do, whether that's enacting exactly what Governor Abbott has put out in his proclamation, or if there are recommendations beyond that. The PUC and ERCOT were asked by Governor Abbott to put forward several recommendations, and I believe as of the 17th, they did come up with some additional recommendations, just trying to encourage the legislature to put into state law that they, as regulatory agencies over the energy market, have the authority to communicate directly to and potentially curtail these large load facilities on the overall electric market. And with that, Mayor, I'll be available for any questions.

Thank you, Ryan. Thank you for the presentation. Councilwoman Paxson. Thank you.

Two thank yous. First, thank you for having a supplemental presentation to the upcoming discussion and action item, possibly. And second, thank you for taking the questions that we received this morning from that group and answering those. I know you did that pretty quickly.

It wasn't me, but I will pass along the credit to the rest of the team that did all the research.

Thank you to the entire team. Whoever is the team liaison, please email me with those answers. And then next, so the reason this is coming up is a couple months back I approached Mr. Zanoni and I had a couple council members with me that this was an impending concern because we were seeing the HUD 8 information coming out there. And our first priority is protect this city. And I'm not against AI, I'm not against data, I'm not against technology. I don't think anyone up here is. But the reality is, just as all the organizations and governmental agencies that you just listed have recognized, we're not at the point where we can handle this from an infrastructure perspective. Between the electricity, certainly the water, the drawn water right now, we're not at the point where I believe that we can responsibly take on this much load. We're just now getting closed looped data centers in these mass scales. This isn't something that will benefit us inside city limits, absolutely. I understand that our jurisdiction, our powers in the ETJ are a little bit limited, But I think we're trending that way in the state to have some good controls put over any projects regardless of where they come. So that's the very first thing is protecting us inside city limits. With that being said, the one that's coming into Cal Allen, which I think is the one you've been referencing, my understanding is there's a big portion of its facility that's actually in city limits.

Not the facility. There's a portion of the property that they own. So what they've listed online is 525 acres, I believe, is on their website. About 100 acres is within inside the city, but neither phase one nor phase two of this proposed facility is inside city limits.

Okay.

So with it being outside of city limits and now they have an OCL outside city limit water contract with us. And he said, our next step is going to be our role in the permitting as they begin construction. Right. What is the relationship look like between us and our partners in the County? If that's where this project's going to be able to contact them about what can be done, it's less than a mile from a school.

Yeah. Well, I think it is important to note that the site was probably selected intentionally with the reality that they were going to always develop in the area outside of the city of Corpus Christi. And so with that, the Nueces County has very limited, I don't think they have any at all zoning authority. And so it's not like Nueces County has much in the way of determining how the site or the project specifically is developed. I think it is important to talk about the fact, and I don't want to get in front of the presentation that's going to happen as a result of the three signature memo, but it is important that the permitting will still take place for the vertical construction of that facility as a result of their meter being inside our CCN, our water utility CCN, which requires us to provide service. the fact that we have that permitting ability does allow DSD to implement certain standards. And I know that there's been consultation with what those requirements would be on that facility, but I'll have to let them speak further to that.

Okay. And I trust that by standards, we were talking as much as we can possibly put the foresight into protecting those neighboring areas. So maybe you can elaborate on our provisions.

So Councilwoman Paxson, to add to what Ryan said, they strategically left a lot of open space between the proposed Phase 1 and Phase 2 and the residential structures as to act as a natural buffer between that and the development, which far exceeds any buffering requirements that we have in our Unified Development Code today. In regards to vertical construction permitting, it is being looked at by DSD and FIRE and has to meet all IBC and IFC requirements. prescriptive guidelines that we have in place, all of our local amendments. So any setbacks that we have to roadways, any distance requirements that we have for fire, making sure that they have a fire lane around the building, making sure we have adequate access to combat a fire if we need to, and then also just the vertical construction itself. We're in a windstorm area. They have to meet all of those intents. They have to meet the code standards that any other commercial structure would have to meet today.

So would we be able to? I appreciate that they're going to have to be held to the same standard of anyone else. However, this is a little bit different. If I was going to put, I like to use the example that Councilman Hernandez used a few years back where there was a car wash put very close to a residential area. And even though it may or may not have been specifically required with consideration to what it was abutting, we requested that much more of a dampening wall. So is there something along those lines for protection of sound and potentially even time zones of this decimal that could be impacting these neighboring areas?

Yes, that's a great question, and we did talk to one of their designers last week, and that is one thing that they are really putting into the design. So specifically for the neighbors that are right across the street, they've already had those discussions with those neighbors that are also OCL and putting in that sound buffering wall. And that's something they'd be looking to do on the other side as well, where it goes into Cal Allen or near the school or those areas that they have there. I don't know what the messaging has been to the neighborhood. I know they have talked to the ISD out there and they've been working with the ISD for this project, but they will have sound buffering noise buffering, they will have to do any light emissions, right? It's a flight path. Airplanes fly above that quite regularly throughout the night, throughout the day. So they'll have to meet all of those lighting requirements as well.

Okay. Is there potentially, Mr. Zanoni, like we would, any other special case? Is there a town hall, something that we can do to engage these stakeholders? Because as you see this morning, even though they're talking to the ISD and they're talking to the immediate properties, you've got to... address the concerns of all participants in that school district which may or may not be immediately abutting that everyone that's going to be impacted by this because Until today, there's not been a whole lot of communication from the city as to what to expect, what's our parameters, what are we doing? This is the key point here is what are we doing to be proactive where a lot of the measures we would like to utilize, we cannot because it's not in city limits, if that makes sense.

So I think a good path forward, and we can definitely talk to HUD-8, is having that joint meeting with HUD-8. And I don't think that they're opposed to that. It's just figuring out what that location looks like and doing that, they will speak to anyone if they're wanting to talk to them. I mean, maybe they just haven't made themselves as readily available, but they have told us that they would definitely do that.

They will. Okay. I have other things to say that would explain and go into detail on the three signature, but being that this is a separate item, I will hold on those. But thank you for the presentation.

And if I can, Councilwoman Paxson, really quick to the water question that you had outside of the closed loop system that Ryan alluded to. is the amount that they've modeled for. So the amount that they've modeled for is about 3,800 gallon per day, max 5,800 gallon per day for phase one, and that would be mirrored in phase two. So it'd be about 11,000 gallon per day, which is very small. It's like a restaurant. It's not like a heavy industrial usage.

And Mr. Zanoni, while we're still in a stage three, potentially stage two, and I pray that in the next seven, 14 days, we go back into a stage two. If we do, I don't know how long or what that will look like because we're still growing that water back up. We're still replenishing that. So what I'm getting at is right now they're coming to us like a standard commercial use outfit. Should that change given the sensitive nature of our water supply point in time? What mechanisms and are we prepared to engage those so that we're not signing up another large volume user right now?

Yeah, so Nick's not here, but they will not be using water for any of the cooling processes that we've heard a lot about AI data centers. The water will be used for things like restrooms, break rooms, regular office type water use.

They're not going to go buy it from one of our other customers?

No. Yeah, from what they've told us, and Aaron's here, Aaron Farmer from the Regional Economic Development Corporation. Aaron, can you raise your hand? Yeah. So he was dealing with them before the city was even aware that they were coming here, but they're using water from out of the state and some type of a closed-loop system. So their water from us, and I'm glad it came up. I was going to raise the issue myself just so there's no misperception. The water that they'll get as an outside city limit customer is merely for office use and about equivalent to what is used in a restaurant per day. So they're not considered a large volume user.

Thank you. Councilwoman Vaughn.

Everett, I was going to suggest to you because that's in your district, although it's in the county. I know where the school's at. I've been out there a couple of times. There is a buffer. But maybe you could get with Commissioner Pusley. And y'all can have some kind of town hall so that they can get information. Because I think what happens is people operate on fear when they don't know what it is and not facts. So I'll be glad to help you with that as well. But I think that that might just be an idea for you, you know, and get the county involved because it's their area. I was told that the parking lot is in our area. Is that not true? The 500-something acres, is that where a parking lot's going to be? Mm-hmm.

Let's turn it on.

So, Councilman, we'll just go back and forth. Councilman Vaughn, out of all of the proposed layouts that we've seen, we have not seen any parking in that area. We've seen it around the Huddy building. In a recent meeting that they said that outside of construction, They anticipate about 150 employees. And, of course, that's on a 24-hour rotation, so not all 150 will be there.

You know how rumors swirl. You don't know what's true and what's not.

Understood. And until we actually saw something, we also didn't know what it was until we saw it.

Thank you. And I think what's happened, they're going to the farmers and they're buying the land. And, you know, you cannot fault the farmers because they will not make that kind of money in their lifetime farming. So they're probably going to other areas as we speak because there's talk of others that they're talking to now. My question is this, because they're right down the road from AEP, because they need electricity. They're very smart to do that. And I will give them this. They were smart to go to the other side of the road where Epic is. And it is going to be humongous, no doubt. So can we not talk to AEP and see if there have been any other data centers that have come to them and said, We are talking about getting in the area. Can we not do that? So we can do that.

For this specific project, they talked with AEP exclusively. So this project is going to have their own substation and their own battery energy storage system, which is kind of mirroring what Calicoat already has because AEP did that at their substation. So they're providing their infrastructure. They're also providing a water line for the city, even though they don't really need it. They've offered to put that in to help with the water pressures in that area and just the overall circulation. So that is a benefit because right now there's some pressure issues for like Epic and down Calico.

Okay, I have a couple for you. So I've been reading up on this. So I saw a documentary the other day and what they said was, and I'm not for or against the data centers. I don't know enough about them, but I do know it's new technology and we don't need to keep being behind. We need to move forward like everybody else does. Is it a matter of national security, some of these data centers?

Well, the president has said it's a matter of national security. So I'd have to say that, yes, there are experts that have testified at the federal and state level that have said that there is a global race towards being able to have enough compute power to develop artificial intelligence faster than particularly China.

And it says, and I don't know if this is true, laugh if you want, but it says that, and by the way, I don't just watch Fox News, I watch CNN, I just kind of flip the channel, so I didn't just get this from them. They said that China is spreading propaganda about the data center so that America will not want them, and they rise up and they protest against them, and that's really what's going on right now.

There was, yeah, there was an institute that testified in Austin specifically to that effect, Councilman. that talked about there are legitimate policy considerations that any local body might make when it comes to the development of property, but that according to their information, China is involved in trying to influence public opinion on data centers on both the left and the right because they know that that could be one of the ways that they could stall the United States' ability to develop the technology.

And I would just challenge us not to jump to conclusions. Let's get the facts before we go and do something. Let's just don't jump on the bandwagon and say we don't want them. Let's don't do that. Let's look and try and find the facts. And thank you for what you did today.

And I'll just say from at least what appears to be the legitimate kind of industry standard is they are all encouraging their members to have more town halls, to be conducting more community engagement because they recognize that public sentiment is not with them. And whether it's a company that is developing a hyperscale system facility or it's a group of investors that are trying to make one to then sell the lease to one of those companies, probably the best approach could be over-communicating the details of their project to the public.

Yeah, because whenever you don't know what's going on, your mind tends to go somewhere else and you imagine things and you think all kinds of things because you're hearing all the worst-case scenario, and we really don't know what it is. Data centers, like you said, they've been around for a long time, just not to this scale.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

And I think that's what's concerning people is how rapid the development is, right? They're such large-scale facilities and how rapidly we've gone to not really hearing or knowing about them to their major topic.

Well, and you named a number the other day. When I heard the number, it was 464, and that's the ones that have been done and the ones that are proposed for Texas and that we were behind. Was it West Virginia?

Virginia. Virginia.

Yeah, Virginia.

Yeah, there's, yeah.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation. I guess at some point we're going to discuss what's on the agenda, but... The signature memo?

Yeah, there'll be a separate presentation.

I guess then, okay, so this is just for you. So... So nothing, obviously the one on the table in particular, there's nothing, even though we have the benefit of having development services have to oversee the permits. Right. What is it? But we have no regular authority to withhold it or to prohibit them from moving forward. Right.

Okay. If they didn't have an OCL contract, we wouldn't have any... they had gone to another water provider oh well that i guess that's good uh what is it for you know eventually 10 11 000 gallons a day um i think their their projected demand is a little bit less than that that's what they're expecting that's what's out there publicly but in terms of on their website but i think when you look at just purely the number of employees that they would have on site in the facility size that they're proposing for the administrative offices that maybe end up being slightly less than that.

I'm just curious then, what are the permitting fees? What kind of revenue does that bring in? Not IGR. It's going to be a lot.

Ryan ducked out of that one. It's all going to depend on the value of the project, and we have not received that to date. So to date, we've only done a site work and grading permit, so that is an unknown at this time.

But how big is the project?

I believe the Phase 2 that they just announced said $9.8 billion, and the Phase 1 I don't think ever announced the dollar amount, but it is a relatively high dollar.

So that would be significant.

Correct.

Okay. That being said, then, I guess I wonder what the revenue to the county would be, and it's in Cal Allen ISD. Ryan, that's probably a question for you. You can give me an estimated guess.

I don't know. I'm not going to hazard an estimated guess because Unless the EDC has any kind of updated information on the phase two commercialization that they've successfully concluded. But it's a multi-billion dollar project. So it would all go on to the county and school district roles. So in terms of the revenue generated.

The county can demolish their own courthouse. Oh, did I say that? I'm sorry. Okay. Okay, so I guess that's the whole thing. I said there's nothing from a regulatory authority that will allow us to prohibit them from moving forward. It seems like they've got the question on water answered, and then obviously we know. I think in Mark or Carolyn's issue stepped out, wasn't it about a decade ago that Google was looking at us specifically for a data center? I don't know. It was. So that's another thing. So it's just now, obviously, that it's just come out. I think it's just very interesting. And, you know, here, I still can't look for the last. So I guess Amazon, Google, and all these other search engine and AI, I guess it's for their purpose. It just fascinates me how they can invest so much money to have that kind of speed.

Well, I mean, I think it's really about the artificial intelligence technologies that they're still in the process of either refining or developing. And it's not just the names that we're probably familiar with, like Amazon Web Services or Google. There are a lot of entrants that are particularly well-funded in this in order to try to meet what they see as the demand. HUD-8's particular model is they're essentially the owner of the warehouse and then the leasee owns the equipment that's inside and so yeah it's it's going to be either one or a couple of tenants that have enormous investment inside that facility so the taxes are going to be i mean dare i say it i get criticized all the time now is is on the personal property a good portion of it will be on the computers inside is where a lot of the valuation comes from okay all right thank you very much um yeah i know that i i hear a

I get stopped all the time and people are talking about it. And one of the questions, and I know we'll probably cover this later on in your presentation, but 500 acres. 500 acres is pretty large space. And I heard also that the parking lot was on the city side. But from the elementary school to where this actual building is going to be, how close is it?

I wish I would have remembered to have that measurement for you. I don't have it. Andrew, does anybody even, it's a, it's a pretty, uh, large distance, right? It it's, it's about, I would say three quarter. Yeah. Three quarters. Not, not quite yet a mile up until the city limit line. So probably about three quarters to two point from the school, three quarters of a mile. Well, from the school boundary line from the school boundary line, because remember this, the school has like the playground in the back. So you'd want to, you'd want to take the property line.

It just, I don't know, maybe somebody out here knows if 500 acres, to cross 500 acres, what is that in equivalence to like miles? I guess my point is, it just fascinates me, and there's been several projects like this, and I had this experience myself. I lived on a place that had 10 acres, the people next door bought 10 acres, and they put their house right basically in my backyard. I'm like, what are you gonna do with the other nine acres? But I do have a concern about that, and I would like to have more information because if anything, they haven't, have they broke ground yet?

So they started site work and grading, so clearing and grading.

So they have, but they haven't because, I mean, if anything, if we have any influence, maybe we can get them to move it further away from the school.

They're putting it right along the boundary with EPIC. The phase one is right along the boundary with EPIC. It leaves just enough room for the buffering between them and EPIC and then for the required parking and fire lanes. that's required around it, but it is very close to EPIC. So they're putting it as close to industry as possible.

As they can. Okay. Yeah, it would be great in the future to have some type of aerial view or whatever, if you can, to see what the proposal is.

We can provide that. We'll provide the distance measurements and also the acreage that's the buffer.

Yeah. The other thing I had a question on is somebody said that just by design and the way that these – centers work is that they're not meant for long term. So in other words, is there like a particular life shelf on these centers that, again, everybody's just talking. Somebody said, oh, well, you know, they really aren't any good after six years or seven years.

It's not the center itself. It's the equipment, right? It's the servers. It's the chillers. It's the generators. So those have a longevity, right? And then they have to be replaced.

They'll just replace them there. They're not going to sit there. What I don't want to see is a bunch of abandoned buildings and them hopping across the street and doing the same thing. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all I had.

Councilman Scott.

Yep, yep. I'd like to see a map, too. I mean, I'm looking at what's been provided. Interesting to me. It does look like it's right up next to Epic, but it's also, I guess, across the street from some residents, and that's just an artistic rendering. Yeah, it's just an artistic rendering. A couple thoughts. One, our CCN, right? CCN? We can't say we don't like you, so we're not going to sell you water. Do we have the ability to tell one particular industry that we just don't like you and so we're not going to sell you water? My sense is we can. I fought this years ago, and I didn't like the project, but we were told that if we don't give them an agreement, they'll sue us and get the agreement anyhow.

I'd like to talk through that. Right. You can't do that as a short answer.

All right. Well, I think it's important to note because there's going to be a lot of, well, you don't like them, just don't sell them in the water. Now, I guess you could do a moratorium if you're doing a moratorium on everybody for 90 days.

Challenge like what Ryan said with the state moratorium on prohibiting new taps, that type of thing.

Right. I mean, it falls under the same category. process that's been mandated by the state in terms.

And if you did a moratorium, it'd be for all projects, anything, any new taps for none. No, not necessarily.

You can, you would target it, but like I said, you could target it towards new construction. You could target towards type of, of a facility. But again, what's limited is how long it takes you to get there to begin the moratorium. And then, you know, it's 90 days already under total of 180 days.

Yeah. Can't take the tap back. Right. We're here to take our meter back. Right. It seems to me that the issue is really, you know, not how much, I mean, it's how much water somebody says they're going to use, but the relationship between, was it the meter and how much water? So if somebody says, hey, I'm only going to use 10 gallons a day, but they get a massive meter or tap, help me with the language. How do we determine how much water someone can really use? Is it by the meter or the tap?

It was both, actually. So the different size meters allow for the amount of water, the volume of water to be transmitted to that customer. The tap size to the main tap corresponds to the meter size. So typical, if you have a two-inch meter, the tap is going to be two inches as well.

Okay, so I guess that's my point. If somebody says, hey, we're going to use 10 gallons, but we don't trust you, but if they file for a two-inch tap and a two-inch meter, there's a capacity in that. You can't get a million gallons a day out of a two-inch tap, can you?

So no, you cannot. So if a For commercial projects, they do what we call a water meter sizing form that looks at the fixture count within the facility, and that determines the meter size that's going to be needed for that location.

Okay, and do we have, we don't have that from them yet?

We don't have a full set of plans, and one of their renderings, I was counting every urinal and every commode, and it looks to be, and every faucet, it looks to be about 13, but again, we haven't received a full set of plans, so I couldn't give that number, but they have done their own water meter sizing form, which is our form, And they've said that they need a two-inch meter, which is a relatively small meter for commercial.

By the way, is that a normal thing? Everybody counts toilets as they're putting up?

If you're going to get a water meter in a commercial business, yes.

Well, I guess my point was if they're asking for a two-inch meter, then that should tell us that they're not going to use a million gallons a day. We don't trust anybody, and that's okay. But I think we all want to focus on that meter size because if it ends up being two inches, I think we're good to go. That's all I have now, Mayor. Thanks. We'd like to see a map at some point.

Councilman Hernandez.

Yes, thank you. We don't have zoning for what would be considered a data center, right? No.

Good question, Councilman. That's going to be in the next presentation. But no, we currently do not. And as it's rapidly growing in Texas, that is something that we were already working with our development services technical advisory group as we're looking at the UDC right now to incorporate.

Yeah, I kind of have the UDC up right now.

It's not in there.

Right. There's nothing that states what it is. Correct. Do we have some idea from the state as to what they classify a data center as in terms of the amount of servers, what the size of the facility? I mean, do we have some aspect of what the definition would be?

So we do. We've been looking at best practices in Texas, and there's a lot of cities that have recently underwent UDC rewrites or zoning rewrites, whatever applies to there. their area. And we do have some common definitions that we'd be looking at, whether it's hyperscale or the small scale or cloud. And it basically is pretty much by size, under 10,000, over 10,000.

So we would have a square footage facility. Correct. Okay. So, and thus is a lot of, you know, reason why that three signature memo came out was because we need to have some form of regulation within the city so we can have some aspect of it. We can't do it once they're here, right? I mean, HUD-AID is already in the process. It's not like you can go back and say, we're gonna go back and regulate them now that you're already here, right?

So HUD-AID is still OCL, so the zoning restrictions that we have inside stadiums wouldn't apply. But we have seen an increase in people looking to our area, asking our staff questions for data centers, So we had already seen the need to put in some definitions and some parameters. Right.

So let me step back. I didn't mean it in terms of just zoning, right? I mean, we have no regulations. And obviously, the HUD-8 is going to be in our ETJ, correct? Correct. And so there are aspects of that as well that we have some things that we can do within our ETJ. But like I said, we want to get in front of it, not be behind it, right? So... How many data centers do we have in the city now?

So at our count earlier today, it was two small ones. And then Beacon Hill, of course, would be under construction. But there's two small. There's one uptown and downtown. Very small. They support the one uptown we know for certainty supports the education services or the ISD. So it's a very small one. And I believe the downtown is similar.

Okay, so, I mean, I know we have certain stuff that's in this building. Would that be considered a data center?

We would have to come up with a definition in the Unified Development Code that allows these small-scale server rooms within your building, right, which is not, it's not literally, it's not the data centers that are all over the news right now. That is just your server room, if you will.

Okay, so I want to make sure that we're looking at regulation, not necessarily prevention or, you know, demonization or anything like that. We just want to make sure that we have some tools so we can have the aspect of at least not putting them next to people's houses or next to a school or whatever that means, whatever we consider or what the data suggests that we should not place them next to, right? Sound requirements, any kind of, I don't even know if we have electromagnetic concerns with these data centers. But the main concern I have, especially with some of these things that are going to be outside the city limits, is that since they're outside the city limits, we don't receive any fund recovery from property taxes or ad valorem taxes. However, we do end up having mutual aid agreements with other fire services where our firefighters can be put in a situation where they have to go out there, right? And so my biggest concern is that, okay, we're talking about massive amounts of computing equipment, electricity, a lot of electricity requirements. Are they gonna have lithium ion batteries on site? What's gonna be their backup generation? There's a lot of questions associated with that that make it concerning. And honestly, from a perspective of me as a city, what liability do we have with regards to firefighting, right? Ultimately, you gotta think worst case scenario. I give the same discussion with battery-powered vehicles. What if a battery-powered vehicle gets on fire on top of the Harbor Bridge? How do we address that? So it's something that we also have to consider, and policy-wise, make sure that we're covered not only for the sake of our firefighters, but also for the cost associated with that. So I want to make sure that we have full coverage of what we're trying to accomplish here. It's not, you know, we're not trying to demonize these facilities, but we want to make sure we have good regulation. Is that understood? Okay, thank you.

Councilwoman Gumpels. Thank you, Mayor. I was just catching up with the latest that our governor was stating. Even though the title of the Texas Tribune says, Governor Greg Abbott calls for a ban on data center development in rural Texas neighborhoods, it really is deceiving because it still appears that he's still following the June 10th like you just pointed out to us. So Even though he's saying that, you know, he's banning, it's not. Can you clarify just making sure? Because it is confusing. Here you are thinking this is what he's telling the rural communities, and here all of us, I mean, we're getting, it's an onslaught. Like, you know, we can't keep up with, we don't even know how many have called on our area. So, again, can you just,

reiterate what it is that good question because i think there's there is as fast as the information is coming towards y'all and as it is out in the media it's happening at every level of the policy world and so um the it is important that the clarification that came out from the governor's office was it is in line with his june 10th letter a ban on something being put somewhere would wouldn't be able to take effect until the legislature took an action like that And so he's not instituting, there was a public comment earlier about the governor instituting a six-month moratorium. He's not announcing a moratorium or doing that. He is working with the legislature to develop a concept like that in particular around what he calls rural neighborhoods, which I assume, but it is an assumption that he's talking about co-locating a facility within close proximity to a residence. It's not about banning it everywhere.

Yeah, okay. So really, it basically comes down to, I mean, I don't know where the candidates stand, the ones that we're going to be electing in November, but I think that would be a very important question to ask them where they stand so that we know, you know, and the audience and the constituents know where you know, they're coming from, because right now it's not a left or right issue, it's, you know, what is it that is best for our communities? And it doesn't look like data centers are wanting anywhere, not in their front yard, not in their back yard, not in their site, nowhere. And so, yes, it is about communication, but again, I think just based on what I was just seeing about the applications how we have had like an onslaught of applications because they know that it's a matter of time where whoever we elect, it's going to matter. And hopefully we'll elect the right person, the right people that will hear what the constituents are saying, which is we do not want any more data centers. I think you can hear from all over the United States how it has affected their lives And like you said, there's different types. Yes, I understand that. But I think people realize when you buy like 500 acres or when you get 500 acres, you get 1,000 acres. That's a lot of data center. That's a lot of industry there. So anyway, I'm glad that we are having this discussion. How much time did you have, though, to prepare for this? Because you did a pretty good job in getting all this information, Ryan.

I had as much time as we... talked about it. I don't know.

There was a last week.

So see, y'all were, he's, he's been doing work on it since, you know, just in general, we've been tracking it.

So like the memo said, one of the things we wanted to do was get through the house hearing where they had an opportunity to hear from all sides at a state policy level experts. So at least since you know, June 23rd, kind of looking at where the conversation about from the industry perspective.

Okay, but you had already been tracking it and like the three-member agenda.