Council - Regular Meeting

didn't. All right, folks. We'll call the city so sorry for the technical delays. We'll call the uh city council meeting for Tuesday, January 20th to order at 7:09 p.m. I'll ask the city recorder to call the role. Council President Briggs here. Councelor Berentos here. Councelor Blosser is excused. Councelor Fitzgerald here. Councelor Holesapple here. Councelor Jance here. Councelor Schilling here. Councelor Shane here. Councelor Spivey

present. Right, we have a quorum. Please join me in standing for 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.

Right. Uh, we have any introductions, recognitions, or proclamations tonight, Brian?

No, mayor. All right, then we'll move right on to public comment. A script I have to read before we start. Uh, for the record, please provide us with your name and whether or not you live inside the city limits. You have up to three minutes. It is your turn to talk and ours to listen. You are responsible for the content, even if it was written by someone else. Please direct all comments to the mayor. Do not direct your comments to individual counselors, staff members, or the audience. Defamatory or lielless comments will not be accepted. Is it expected that you will maintain decorum and respect for each other? A wide variety of viewers watch these proceedings. Therefore, we would kindly ask that you refrain from the use of offensive language and name calling. Distractions take attention from the speaker. The audience, city council members, and city staff are asked to focus on the speaker during their time by being respectfully quiet. And the first person I have up is Anne Herd. Good evening, Mayor. [laughter] Uh, I am president of Friends of the Dallas Aquatic Center, the nonprofit that helps with the [cough] operations of the pool. There are several different ways we give money. U, our business banners bring in about this year about $18,000 and we've got almost half of that already. And um then we have donations from our patrons. And because the spa broke down um in December, we had to get a new motor and a new pump, which was $12,000 minus $6. And as of today, we have that amount covered. And when it's put in, and it's a four to six lead time to get it, but and it's already been ordered for a couple weeks, will be the only swimming pool complex in the valley or the coast that has a spa. the others uh they've either closed

like Corvalis because roof falling in or it broke like it did in Newberg and they're not take they're not going to be fixing it right away or they never had one and so we're pretty special and it's all from donations from the people that use the pool. I told you we've had a 3,000 donation. I've had five or six $1,000 donations. I've had $10 donations. 50, lots of hundreds, 250, 500. It's just incredible to me. Another way we raise money is we give away swim passes to other nonprofits like CASA or Salem Angels, anybody that has foster kids, we give them swim passes and then when they um [clears throat] bring them in and redeem them at the pool, then the pool keeps track of the swim passes that come in and we pay the pool back. At our meeting today, we paid $736 back to the pool for swim passes that had been redeemed and one party package. Now, the party packages raise anywhere from $400 to $650. And we [clears throat] usually try to give away four a year, but this year there are so many expenses we have to pay for or to help pay for, we're only going to do two party packages a year. And one of them is going to Kasa for their auction. And um they make a lot of money on those and sadly some of them are never redeemed. So it's great for the auction people but and great for us too. But I hope that you know people who buy them use them because it's a lot of fun. And we just wait till the money keeps rolling in and give it to you guys in $5,000 increments and watch everything wonderful happen at the pool in February. So, thank you.

Thank you for your report. We appreciate it. Do we have anyone else in the audience who wants to give testimony tonight? Do we have anyone on the phone? No. If not, we'll close public comment and move on to the consent agenda. Uh we have uh three items on the consent agenda. The December financial report, approval of the January 5th work session minutes, and approval of the January 5th city council meeting minutes. Does anybody want anything removed from the consent agenda today? If not, we'll move on to reports and Oh, I'm sorry. Second.

Been moved by councelor Schilling and seconded by councelor Shane to approve the consent agenda. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you. Um, we have no items removed from the consent agenda. We'll open up to reports or comments from the mayor and council members. Do we have anything from council members tonight? [snorts] Councelor Fitzgerald.

So, I just I wrote this down and I'm just going to read it so that I stay on on point. Um, at the January 5th council meeting, I voted with the majority on the motion to move ahead with the remodel of the former IO building into the new city hall and this building into a police station. It seemed to be a creative solution to the city's need for a police station for the least amount of money. At that meeting, I asked if the proposed fee that would pay for the projects could be placed on the ballot, and the answer was yes, but that the amount of money was small. After thinking about it, I disagree. I think when you need money from your citizens, you should ask and not tell. The proposed fee to pay for the 2.5 million is a is a starting number. The cost of renovating this building, even over time, is unknown and will be several million. So, the fee will more than likely increase and be extended for years to come. For these reasons, I think the citizens should have the opportunity to vote for these projects and fee. It is because of this that I make a motion to reconsider the January 5th motion made by Councelor Shane directing staff to proceed with option five.

Okay. So, we have a motion on the floor to reconsider the January 5th motion made by councelor Shane at our previous meeting. Do we have a second? I'll second it so we can [clears throat] settle it.

Been seconded by councelor Shane. Any discussion? So, just to be clear for people, um what [clears throat] councelor Fitzgerald is asking for is to reconsider that motion from um the January 5th meeting. And so, what that would do is if you vote affirmatively for the motion, it would be as if that motion in January 5th never took place. And so then you would have to continue, if you wanted to, you could continue that conversation. You could do that tonight or you could do that at a future meeting. Um if you're not in favor of uh reopening that conversation, then you would vote no on this motion. Sh councelor Shilling

and that conversation was not ju just about the itemizer remodel and changing this into a police station. It was the putting out to vote a full new building on the one of the other three more than likely it would have been the three-story building with the shell upstairs if I remember right was the Yes. So the the the conversation so I would recommend that if this motion were to pass tonight, what we could do is we could um you know make a new motion tonight, you know, you could make the same motion you made last time if councelor Fitzgerald would just want to you know vote in a different way. That could happen. You could do a completely different motion. You can choose one of the options that you didn't choose last time. Um or uh make no motion at all. Um you could continue the conversation to the next meeting where staff could present a report. I'd essentially bring back the report we had on January 5th to have um you know all those options presented before the council again. If you'd like me to do that, I could do that. So, um but the motion on the floor is to reconsider that previous motion which was approved [snorts] um which would just effectively if it was passed remove that motion as if it never took place.

Councelor Shane.

Yeah. [clears throat] Regarding the motion on the floor, I'm going to vote no on it. And you deserve to know why. The why is because the decision that we made at the last meeting was not to go ahead with this project. We haven't voted to actually do it yet. What we what we decided was that we what we voted on was to ask the city staff to delve into it, take a deeper dive and get us some harder numbers so that we could decide whether or not to do it. And I don't see any reason to forcehorten that process now. Any [snorts] other discussion before we vote on the to reconsider? If not, I'll ask that all those in favor of reconsidering the January 5th motion made by councelor Shane directing staff to proceed with option five. Um to say I. Those opposed, can we have clarification?

Okay. If we're voting I would be in favor of the motion on the floor. Is that correct? Yes. So voting in the voting in the affirmative would be yes to reconsider the motion. So then we would be getting rid of the work that was done. That is correct. So this is you need more clarification. Councelor Shane. No, I was just going to suggest that since we did a voice a roll call vote last time, we should probably do it this time as well, just for consistency sake.

Sure, I'm fine with that. We'll do a roll ask the city record to do a roll call vote. Remember, if you're voting in the affirmative, you're voting to reconsider. If you're voting no, you're voting to leave it as the discussion we had last week. Uh, I'll ask the city recorder to call a roll call vote. Councelor Holes, no. Councelor Jance, no. Councelor Schilling, no. Councelor Shane, no. Councelor Spivey, no. Council President Briggs, no. Councelor Berentos, no. Councelor Fitzgerald, yes.

Right. The motion to reconsider is does not does not pass. All right. Is any other reports or comments from uh council members? Seeing none, we'll move on to reports from the city manager and staff.

Thank you, Mayor Slack. We have a couple of items tonight. The first is uh item A, which is the alternate proposal for the basketball and pickleball courts at City Park. So, I'll invite our public works director, Jennifer Ward, to come up and present on this topic. And the staff report is in page 38 of the st the packet. Thank you. Good evening, counselors. Good evening, mayor. Um this is a um this is a project that you've seen before. Um what's being proposed is a um a bit of a of a flip of where we put new pickle ball courts at city park. And so initially we proposed to put them on the north side of of Branold at the intersection of Branold and Levens where the old city pool was. Um, we are proposing now to put them on the south side where the basketball courts were and to build new basketball courts on the north side. Doing so um allows a consider allows us to do so um for a much lower price tag. It allows us to do so um on a much quicker time frame, i.e. this year, this fiscal year. And um both of those things are due in a large part to not having to excavate and refill the old pool that is um still buried at that site. So um you've seen that before the uh the site plan that's in your packet is not substantially changed from what you've seen before. We had some discussion about maybe where to put gates, but it it hasn't changed. Uh we had staff had received direction to get some public input on this proposal. So, we did do a public survey that ran um for I think about 3 weeks on the city website. We had 192 respondents, I I believe, which I thought was pretty good. Um a summary of that is included in your packet. Um we also took these um these uh the results of the survey to

the parks board at their December meeting and also had a public hearing during that meeting so that additional um public comment could be given at that time. Um, [clears throat] Parks Board received um that comment as well as the results of the survey and um are bringing to you a recommendation to approve this alternate plan for um for the pickle ball courts and the basketball courts. Questions for [clears throat and cough] Yes, Council Shane. I move to approve the alternate proposal for basketball and pickle ball courts park. I had a question. Go ahead, Larry.

Jennifer, I just wanted to ask there's if you look at the strongly dislikes and the dislikes, the total is about 70 and the likes and strongly likes, it's about a hundred. That to me seems like an awful lot of dislikes. Were there any comments about why they dislike that?

Sure. There were um let's see here. And I did prepare just a a quick summary of that. um most of them um so the ones that were non-supportive um kind of fell into two main categories. One was just a feeling that our community doesn't need any more pickle ball courts. And the other um it it was kind of it was um well I don't know it was balanced because I didn't do an actual count of people who said this was the reason but we had a fair number of of supportive comments about this plan because of the cost savings. And then there were also comments that u were not supportive um because of the cost. they felt like there were other things that um that the the money yes that the money should be um spent on. I I would point out that not entirely but a sub substantial amount of this project is being paid for by parks um system development charges and we can only spend that money on um new parks, new recreational um facilities within the parks that we that we have. So,

so not a lot of dislikes on the location or the switching of it's just more of a financial, why don't you put in water slides at the other parks, whatever. Okay. Get that one, but give it time. All right. Yeah. Now [clears throat] that you've put it on the record, [laughter] now I'm going to get slammed. Thanks a lot, Councelor Briggs. Council, I did have [clears throat] I have a question about the pickle ball courts. Uh the plan is it just to paint over the where the black top surface is with the quartz itself or is there other questions that I've received is is is it just going to be the course painted over what's there now the black top that's just been resurfaced or if it's going to be a different surface.

Um a little bit of both. And I'll invite support services supervisor um Michael Pierce who's here tonight and has done a lot of the um planning on on this project to answer that question more thoroughly than than I could. You want to take that Michael? [cough]

Have a seat. Good evening everyone. Um, so to to uh address the the question there, it's actually an acrylic surfacing that goes on top of that black top there. Um, so much like the the surfacing that's over at the the current existing pickle ball courts, um, they did a a black top and then put that acrylic smooth um surfacing on top. And then we would need the appropriate paint as well. Uh, I believe that acrylic goes down um they they put down with all the striping and then it gets sealed. Jans that is there any leveling that you see or is it flat?

It's currently pretty flat ground. Uh so when we re um repaved that we actually paved it to address for with the possibility of the pickle ball courts um and having a 1% flow um which was the the maximum allowable for all that. [clears throat] Okay. And then the other thing I on the planet shows around the basketball courts some like plantings or something on the what is that south side the sidewalk. Is there any u fencing around there for how close is that to the street like are balls going to be flying into the street and kids are going to be chasing them? Is there any fencing or barrier?

Uh so it will be enco encompassed in a fencing as well u much like it was. Um, it'll be the parking lot, uh, also the creek side and the street. Um, so fully encompassed by, uh, fencing there. Um, that landscaping strip is actually a walkway. Um, so you can come northbound on Leaven Street and be able to walk directly into the courts or get to the parking uh, viewing areas. On the basketball courts, Michael, I think that's counselor's question. Is was will the basketball courts be fenced?

Uh, sorry, I mis misinterpreted. Um, at this time because of that that burm there at Leven Street, um, we do not find it necessary uh to put that basketball or put a fencing up there. Um, [clears throat] if we do see that it uh does in fact need one, we would install one. And then I think, oh, as far as timing, uh, it probably says it in here, but is there a timeline on when you think this would be started? So, [snorts] if approved, um we can move forward with the basketball courts at any time. Um concrete is easy to lay down. Um we can blanket it and get all that installed uh sooner than later. Um as far as the acrylic surfacing for the pickle ball courts, uh we would have to wait till warmer weather uh roughly about 60° and above um [clears throat] consistently uh to be able to put that acrylic surfacing down. Shane, what

I think I just heard is that it'll be ready in time for summer. Okay, [snorts] any other questions for our speakers before we continue? There is a motion by councelor Shane. It's been seconded by councelor Schilling. There's no further discussion. I'll ask for a vote. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mayor Slack. The next item um is on page 42 of your packet. [snorts] And so, um it's titled the referral of municipal code updates to standing committees. So, um council recalls back in December, uh we talked about, um kind of reviewing comprehensively the city's municipal code, um becoming familiar one with the ordinances and also uh updating those as as we see needed. Um the direction to staff was to start selecting um kind of lowhanging fruits or things that we know need to be uh looked at and addressed. [snorts] So on page 42 in the table there is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 uh did I count that right? 1 2 3 six there's six items um that staff are considering. Uh the first is the section 6.700. That's the non-motorized vehicles. Again talking about scooters, bicycles, other things on sidewalks in the downtown. Um section 9.850 850 is the waiver of development fees. Um section 3.500 to 3.535 uh are provisions regarding sidewalks and driveway driveway repairs um specifically in the noticing process and also midblock sidewalks. [snorts] Uh open burning is the next section that would be a new ordinance um to consider. The u public the public safety committee has talked about that in the past and we have a draft new ordinance for that. Um, electric assisted bicycles again is a new ordinance that we would take to the public works committee. And then finally is section 5.212 is drug paraphernalia. Um, some updates to that code section. So um, the standing committees that are identified are there on the right side of that table. And so staff are really just looking for kind of consensus from the council or the mayor to um, move those items to those committees for review and discussion. public

or would the uh public safety be more applicable for the electric assisted bikes? Um so the the ordinance that we're really looking at is uh relating to kind of where um we allow the public assisted bikes to be utilized. Um so you know staff were considering it to be uh more like street and sidewalk um considerations. So public works made some sense. If you want that to go to public safety that would be a fine place for it as That makes sense. I'm good with that. Do we have language in the code now um to provide that sort of regulation for ordinary bicycles, human power bicycles?

Um there are some rules about uh non-motorized vehicles in the code. Um so that's under section uh 6.700. Um that's another reason that I'm looking at putting this in public works is because we're looking at that code section for other reasons. Um we'll just add the public assist or the electric assisted bicycles kind of in that same conversation. So the driving force behind here is the fact that they're motorized as opposed to Okay. [snorts] The electrical assisted bicycles also include those little electric scooters that go zinging down the road. There's a statutory definition for electric assisted bicycles and I think those are separate. I I don't know. I have to look into that. If we're going to do one, we might as well do the other.

There's consensus. I'll just refer those to those committees if that's fine with everybody. We'll go ahead and just refer those to committees.

All right. Thank you. Okay. Uh the final item for me is um the combined meeting for the city council and planning commission. Um this is part of the transportation system plan uh update. So the consultants want to get together with both the planning commission, city council to kind of present what they have so far um and solicit feedback from uh those two bodies. And so we're looking at this is just kind of a for your information and mark your calendars. Uh February 17th, the [snorts] second meeting in February, the day after President's Day, um we'll have that's a Tuesday. We're going to have a 5:30 work session. We'll have that in this room. We'll add kind of the table like we do for the budget committee and we'll have the council and the planning commissioners um here. There are seven of them. So, we'll we'll add them in and uh have that meeting on that day. So, it'll be about an hour and um a little over an hour and a half to have that conversation with the consultants. So, [snorts] there's no other questions on that um unless there are any questions. All right. Um that's all my reports.

Right. Then we'll move on to first reading of ordinance. Ordinance number 1918. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, ordinance number 1918 is an ordinance amending the provisions of the Dallas Municipal Code to allow for the reservation of the shelter at John C. Barard Park. This is the first time the council is seeing this ordinance. Um, what this is is, uh, we have in, uh, the municipal code section 2.556. Um, it's titled reservations authorized. And so we have certain amenities in our parks where you can reserve those amenities. It includes um [snorts] the Branold uh kitchen um and also the uh the gazebo and the shelter on the south side of the park um in City Park. It also allows for the reservation of the Rotary Stage, the reservation of the disc golf course. We're adding to that the the shelter at Johnc um Barnard Park.

All right. Is there any questions or discussions on that? If not, I'll declare it's passed as first reading. Next, we'll move on to resolutions. Uh resolutions number 3556.

Thank you, Mayor Slack. So, um we have three resolutions tonight. Um this is the first of the three. Each of the three are regarding um uh the utility infrastructure in the community and the fees andor rates that pay for those. So the first is the storm water resolution. Um the storm water fee uh has been updated and and annually increased over the last you know at least five six years in Dallas. Um it currently sits at $16 per month. It is a fee. It's not a rate. So everyone pays the same amount. um uh any any sewer customer in the city pays that amount. Um it's paid per unit. So like an apartment complex would pay $16 per unit where a single family house would just pay one $16 charge. Um for example, the um fee was combined with uh the water rates in resolution 3497. One of the reasons why we have three separate resolutions is to break each fee and rate into its own resolutions. So, this is a standalone resolution with just a storm water fee. Uh staff are proposing to retain the fee at $16. So, it's not going to increase. It's not proposed to decrease. It's just um going to stay at the same rate that what it's collecting. Um again, in the storm water fund, um this fee would pay for any flood uh hazard mitigation projects, um storm water management, uh so widening of ditches, uh widening of culverts underneath um bridges and stuff like that. Um we have a number of large ticket uh projects. Those are several years down the road, 5 10 plus years. Um so saving money in this fund is important. Uh which is why we're proposing to keep the fee uh at what it's collecting today, which is a little, you know, it's a little north of a million dollars, about 1.2 to $1.4 million a year it's collecting. So there's about $3.5 million in the fund today with ending fund balance or a contingency fund. It does pay a little bit towards uh we do have a staff person

that gets paid out of the storm water fund um that does the street sweeping. Um there's also other operational costs that come out of that fund as well. Discussion on the storm water fee resolution. If not, we just do a roll call vote. I'll ask the city recorder to call take a roll call vote. Council President Briggs. Yes. Councelor Berentos, yes. Councelor Fitzgerald, yes. Councelor Holesapple, yes. Councelor Jance, yes. Councelor Schilling, yes. Councelor Shane, yes. Councelor Spivey, yes.

Right. Passes unanimously. We'll move on to resolution 3557.

All right. So 3557 is the proposed uh sewer resolution. Um so the sewer fund um pays for uh the collection uh treatment and disposal of any sewer water um generated in the city. So anything that goes down drains um gets collected and treated at our wastewater treatment plant. So the rates pay for that collection and also the the treatment of that storm the sewer water. [snorts] Um the fee has remained uh steady since at least I believe it was 2019 was the last time we raised um the rates. Um since then they've been been frozen. Um and so we've maintained a a $4521 for single family residential rate um since that time. So we've had a 0% increase over the last you know four years. Um the we did make some changes in this resolution. Um really the changes came from uh definitions and also trying to simplify the commercial classifications. If you look at resolution um the former resolution I think it's 3365A and 3433 and you compare that to the proposed resolution you'll see that um our commercial one classification is anything that's not a commercial 2 or commercial 3 where before we listed out a lot of different types of uses in commercial one. um having that law laundry list wasn't all-incclusive. So, we simplified that down a little bit. We also made um some better definitions for residential. Uh again, the the rates here um have not increased for the last few years. Um so, staff, what we're really attempting to do is to uh balance out our rates. Um we'll talk about the next resolution, which is the water resolution. We're proposing a 6% increase in the water uh water rates. So to counteract that, we're proposing a 6% decrease in the sewer fund. Um the sewer

fund has performed well over the years. Um again, even without the rate increases, we've we've held steady with growth to be able to keep that uh a healthy fund. [snorts] Um so what you'll notice on page 56 of the report uh put in there a simplified graph to show um if you do a 6% decrease this year and then have a 0% increase over the next you know five years. So this year being one year one and then the next four years being a 0% increase. Your uh ending fund balance is um a little over $3 million this [snorts] year. It would drop down to um just over 2.4 4 million um in year five. That's a healthy ending fund balance. Um the reason you keep that ending fund balance healthy or why you want it to be healthy is in case there's a sewer emergency, right? Let's say we have a a major break in a line or um you know a need to repair replace a big project. You want to be able to have those funds to draw from. Um so you want to have a healthy ending fund balance. Staff felt that keeping an an ending fund balance, you know, at or above $2 million was good. Um, and you can accomplish that with a 6% decrease this year with no increases over the next four years. So, that's what staff's proposing. If there are any questions, I'm happy to answer those.

Any questions or discussion? If not, I'll ask the city recorder to take a roll call vote. Councelor Barrytos, yes. Councelor Fitzgerald, yes. Councelor Holesapple, yes. Councelor Jance, yes. Councelor Schilling, yes. Council Shane, yes. Councelor Spivey, yes. Council President Riggs, yes. It passes unanimously. Move on to resolution 3558.

All right. Thank you, mayor. So, resolution 3558 is the water fund um resolution. So, in the water fund um [sighs] in Kim Kim Herring is passing out um a corrected corrected resolution. Um, we did send out a corrected packet with um, a revised resolution. Even when we sent that out, there was a couple things that we still missed. Um, so I'll walk through this resolution uh, in a few seconds to [snorts] point out the things that were changed. Um, but what we're looking at with uh with the water fund resolution, the water fund rates is we pay for again the the um the collection of of raw water from our reservoir in the river, the Corell Creek um to our treatment plant. We treat the water and then we distribute it to our our residents and businesses in town. Um so the water rates pay for that that entire system. Um and so uh we have for years had um kind of a steady uh and consistent uh increase in the water fund. Um the former resolution before resolution 3497 um had a an annual rate increase of 4.21%. Did I get that number right, Sicilia? That's off memory.

Yeah, it was 4.21%. Um and then in in 2020 uh three I believe 2022 2023 we uh passed resolution 3497 which we saw a significant increase in the water rates and the reason that we did that was to start to set aside funding in a reserve account for uh the Aaron Mercer Reservoir dam expansion project because we know that's a very expensive project and we want to set aside money for that. At the time of that resolution, we um had forecast and estimated that those rate increases would generate around $2 million in revenue annually. Um we're not quite achieving that number today and still paying for the needs of our water system. Um what we have been able to put aside is about $1.5 million after those three years of increases. We know that we can continue to put that $1.5 million aside for each of the next five years with the proposed rate increases in this resolution. this resolution that we're proposing is a 6% increase this year and then 6% each of the next four years after that. So, it's a 6%, you know, annually where again, before you had a 4.21%, you're looking at a 6%. Um, not only does that set aside the $1.5 million to be able to do that, it also allows you to have an ending fund balance that again is healthy enough to accommodate any emergencies in the future um and to pay for capital projects that are planned. So, um, again, if you look at the graph on page 67, um, the, uh, ending fund balance is shown there, February of 26 this year, um, is about $1.4 million with the increase of 6% each of the next five years, including this year. Um, you're growing that number up to a little, uh, north of $2 million in 2028. It then drops back down to about 1.4 4 million um in 2029 and then again grows um after that in year 2030. The reason for the dip in that is because in 2029 we're

anticipating um $2 million roughly in capital projects in the water fund. And so um by building up that reserve in those first few years, you're then being able to pay for those capital projects in cash, which is a great thing to do. So, um, and then again, you you build that fund back up for those future outyear capital projects, of which we know we have some, um, that are in in the windshield ahead. So, um, that's what staff's proposing. Um, I'll walk you through the the changes in the resolution. So, the handout that Kim just gave you, um, the, uh, definitions, um, we added definitions in the in the water fund. Um so again you have single family, multifamily, um commercial, industrial and irrigation are all um under one category and then we added a special uses which is a fire suppression systems. Um there are meters that just serve fire suppression systems. So we wanted to capture that. Um if you turn over to uh the next page, page two of resolution 3558. Um there's a table here. The table shows um the numbers in green are what's proposed. Red is what they currently are. Um you'll see that if you compare it to the resolution that's in your packet, you'll notice that the um 0.75 in and 1in meters um for single family, residential, multif family, and commercial um weren't propo. They did not reflect the 6% increase in the one that's in the packet. This resolution does show what the 6% increase is. So, um, again, you're going from 34.96 today for a single family residential inside city limits to 3710. Um, with a that's the 6% increase for your base rate for water. Um, down under the commodity charges, which are in section three, um, those also were not updated in the resolution in the packet.

Um, they are here. So, again, you're going from 376 to $4. Um so we updated the commodity charges as well um to reflect the 6% increase um which weren't reflected again in the resolution of the packet. So apologies for not getting that straight um when we sent out the corrected packet initially. Um so that's I think most of the highlights. The last change um that we made is to the language in section 9. Um so if you again compare to the packet to this the language is slightly different. Um, so section 9 now reads, "The rates established for water service furnished by the city of Dallas as set forth in this resolution reflect a 6% increase." Again, we changed all the numbers to reflect that 6% increase. Um, and shall be effective February 1st, 2026 and increase each February 1st thereafter by 6%. And then we included rounded up to the nearest nickel until changed by resolution of the city council. Um, the reason that we're rounded up to the nickel is because the US has stopped making pennies. We don't know when those are going to go off the market, but we figure make that adjustment now in the resolution. Um, you can take that or change that if you'd like, but we also feel that just having that to the nearest nickel is also um just cleaner. So,

yep. So, happy to answer any questions. I did I hear you say that it'll be a 6% increase for the next four or five years? Yes, 6% increase unless changed by the council. So this would not for the next four or five years. It's changed by a resolution by the council. Right. So it would it would be 6% this year and 6% every year thereafter until changed by the council. Yes. So it could be it could be could be 10 years. Okay.

Right. But um what I showed in the the graph was just a five-year forecast. So we we forecast for five years to be able to make sure what we're proposing is going to work with the capital projects that we have planned over the next 5 years. um you know forecasting for paying for the services that we provide the staffing other things like that. So it's automatically come in front of the council every year or do we have to

would not come before the council. So if you wanted to um if you wanted to evaluate that resolution, you would do that around this time next year. And I presume that the if we for some reason decided to change this scheme after it's put into effect, we would have to draft a new resolution repealing this one with whatever change we want to make. Okay. Correct. Yeah. So like you know as part of this one as this resolution is repealing those former resolutions. Um and that's what you would do with a future resolution. So if if we determine hey you know we don't need that 6% maybe it needs to be 3% or um like we did in the sewer fund maybe we can reduce that in the future. Um, you can make those decisions through again future resolutions.

Any other questions or comments? Councelor Shelley,

can you build that 1.5 in 2023 when we did the resolution last time? We had had a goal roughly of 2 million to cover the fees associated with building the reservoir and putting it in and collecting fees. So, we had skin in the money. I mean, skin in the game before we started so we could show the agencies that will give us larger amounts of money that we're serious about this. And is that 1.5 million the the number that we need to cover each year? It's it's a really hard question to answer because we don't know exactly what the project's going to cost and we don't know what our outside funding sources are going to be. um you know, we kind of was a, you know, could put your finger in the air and and try to catch the right wind um even at $2 million. Um and so we anticipate that we're going to have some level of debt that's going to come out of this. Um you know, we don't even know what the total project cost is going to be. We're anticipating somewhere between 60 and $90 million. Um and so when that project gets built, how much are we going to have um from our savings to put towards that? What's the debt service going to be? Are we going to get any loans or grants? Um you know, what that balance looks like. So, it's really hard to answer that question with any certainty. I think somewhere between a million to 2 million is what your debt service is likely going to be. Um, to cover a 60 to, you know, let's just call it $60 million in debt if that's what you had to take out. Um, I think it'll [clears throat] be less than that, but we'll see. [snorts]

Shane, just an [clears throat] editorial comment. Um, nobody likes raising fees. I mean, we all have to pay them, too. But uh the need here is pressing. Um the reservoir that we have opened somewhere right around 1960 and at that time the population of Dallas was less than a third actually closer to a quarter of what it is now and we're still using the reservoir that was built at that time. Um we keep growing and we're going to keep growing. um the infrastructure and the supply side has to grow too or eventually we will be in some less or a greater degree of trouble with the water supply with the adequacy of the water supply. So, we have to do this. Um, one way or another, it's going to have to happen at some point in time in some way. Um, [laughter] you know, the need is pressing and yeah, um, there was another point I was going to make if I can remember what it was in connection with that, but that's the basic point. Um, if no, none of us was happy a few years back when when the mill closed. Um, but it was our largest consumer of water and if it had and the closure actually bought us quite a bit of time to deal with this problem, but we do need to deal with it. Um, the mill hadn't closed, we'd probably be in trouble now, so we've got the time to to deal with it ahead of time and uh and we should. The council that that created this reservoir in the first place was looking at the future and we should as well. That just further continues the discussion from 2023 which we're trying to be proactive instead of reactive. And if we're reactive, the fee is going to be much larger than 6% increase on one fee to pay for a reservoir and not have money being put away at at the rate that we're putting it away. I mean, it'd be

substantial and required by state statute

for sure. And I I think the the 2023 decision was certainly forward forward thinking. it was progressive. It was the right decision. Um, you know, to to stock money aside and to have a debt service, um, you know, even if you're, uh, I think as you continue to grow, the communities continues to grow. Um, you know, that 1.5 could, you know, may be able to increase, right? So, I'm not I'm not going to say we're not going to get to $2 million. We may get there. Um but uh we feel confident over that over the next five years we can put away that 1.5 million retain the healthy in fund balance with that 6% annual increase. Um but yeah your point's well taken. That's exactly what would happen if if we decided hey we don't have any money but we need to do this massive project now we're going to pay for it. Um some communities deal with that. I know some small communities that have um you know water water alone bills that are overund you know $150. Um you know we're under 40 or around 40. So, it's it's a we're in a good position here in Dallas, I would say. Um, two,

just putting an example is Newport. Newport's looking at $110 million dam. That's not even feasible right now. It's probably going to be closer to 200 million. And so, our our geology is actually very good, very well suited for what we're doing. they're having to do a concrete dam completely because of their geology and the earthquake factors where we can do an earn dam that's on very very stable soil and non-liquequifiable materials so it keeps our cost down. Uh two other things that one I neglected to mention I meant to um in resolution uh 3558 um one of the things that we changed um this year is uh what we're proposing to change this year is charging your base rate based on meter size. Um and so probably 99% of all single family residential users have a 3/4 or 1 in meter. Very few of them have any meter larger than that. Um so this really only affects multif family residential and commercial and industrial users. Um in my research which I called a lot of cities and talked with a lot of cities and I know Siccilia our finance director also did a lot of calling and and looking um we were unable to find anyone who does not charge based on meter size um for their base rates. Uh Dallas is unique in that way. Um and it's unique in my opinion in a bad way. Um, when you have a larger meter, um, we talked about this in the public works committee. Um, when you have a larger meter, there are, uh, larger costs associated with the replacement of that meter as well as the maintenance of that meter. And so, charging a higher base rate for that larger meter size. Um, because again, the base rates, one of the components that the base rate is paying for is replacement and maintenance of the meters because again, the city owns those meters. Um, and we need to replace those as they, you know, malfunction and break down over time. So um charging higher uh base rates based on meter size um is logical. Everyone else does it. So

the public works committee unanimously approved that approach. That's also a change in the water rates resolution that was not there before. So you'll see that um we broke out, you know, multi single family up to a 2-in meter. Um we don't have any 2inch meters for single family. Nothing larger than a 2inch meter for single family residential, nor would you ever need that. um multifamily and commercial and industrial go from the 3/4 inch up to a 4 inch meter. Again, um larger base rate charges as those get larger and larger. Uh and then the final uh point I'll make I I made earlier I alluded to that um we're trying to balance this out for the single family residential customers between the water, the storm water and the sewer um resolutions. So just the quick math on that for single family residents um an average single family residence uses five units of water. So that's what this math is based on. Um the uh customer for a single family home in Dallas um with a 6% decrease in sewer is a savings of $2.71. The increase of 6% in water based on five units is a $2.62 increase. So the net is about 10 cents difference um in the favor of the citizens. questions or discussion.

If not, I'll ask the city recorder to take a roll call vote. Councelor Fitzgerald, yes. Councelor Holes Apple, yes. Councelor Jance, yes. Yes. Councelor Shane, yes. Councelor Spivey, Council President Briggs, yes. Councelor Bantos, yes. passes unanimously. All right, with no other resolutions, do we have any other business tonight, Brian? Not for me.