Council Meeting - Regular Meeting

the way that you're at work among our churches our businesses our nonprofits our government our education institutions Lord um we pray for this evening tonight Lord I pray that you would help us to seek the peace and prosperity of our city uh Lord that you would help us to um to seek you for wisdom and for courage to know and to do what's right in each and every decision that's made and Lord I Thank you for each of the leaders gathered here tonight I pray you're anointing and blessing upon them for um the weighty uh task of leadership and I pray that you would give them uh joy in sering ask these things in Jesus name amen of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all i al to the state IND all right um next is our citizen comment period but we don't have any so we'll move on move into presentations updates reportes mayor council we have a couple updates the um fight person on Winfrey is done uh still got to go back and do a little road patch there they have a couple little high spots in there mer low low high we need to kind of smooth out wo streets uh already started it's underway there's been cut diges we got a little side track last week because of the snow

but um they're out there making progress on that have a President's Day on the 17th so we're moving that meeting to the 24th um of February and then Jennifer said we have a community shred day on March 1st it's going to be from 9: to noon it'll be set up here at the community center it's paper only uh no electronics or yeah no electronics you you don't have to take the binder clips off you can leave them in the binder but just paper on and the last update say The Best For Last is the sewer plant the gear box of the SE plant we found out today is no good so we should have some numbers on that tomorrow it's what it's going to be you already gave us the word t on those yeah yeah we just don't know for sure like we're hoping it comes in way less we could use we need to come in yeah also we didn't really have anything major during the storm or snowstorm snow apocalypse um everything went over pretty well uh we had plenty of people here on call and ready to respond but there was no need so we weathered it pretty good all right thank you sir uh moving into our financial reports good evening mayor and Council um this report represents a general overview of the financial operations through December 2024 which is the third month of the fiscal year for 2425 the budget is at 25% complete for the fiscal year we have general fund total revenues are at

2,749 287 or 24% of budget which is 18.5% more than last year year today and this is due to increase in Revenue in property tax tax and Franchise Tax um we have total expenditures are at 2,435 370 or 22% of budget which is 6.3% more than last year year today however expenditures are Turing 3% more than budget numberers to the year revenues are over expenditures 31398 which are slowly increasing as we collect more property and sales tax in the upcoming months St will keep monitoring the closely throughout the fisal year for the water and sewer fund we have total revenues are 1, 83141 or 25% of budget which is trending on target total expenses are at 1, 37876 or 18% of budget which is 53.3% more than last year year to date and this is due to the purchase of machinery and equipment hyber expenditures are 7% lower than budgeted numbers for the fiscal year revenues are overe expenses by 53615 expensing so I wanted to be clear on something quick um says that we um we're 53% more spending 3% 53% more than we did last year yes but we're still revenues are still over expenses yes and we're still trending 7% lower thanet numers for the F year okay um for solid waste fund we have total revenues are at 2,116 or 24% of budget which is spring almost within budget um total expenses

are 12741 or 18% of budget which is trending 8.5% more than last year year today however expenditures are turning 7% lower than budget numbers for the fiscal year are ere expenses by 7365 due to less expenses for the month of December um for the fiber fund total revenues are at 77952 or 15% of budget um which is 44.8% more than last year year today and this is due to continuing to service Serv sub um total expenses are 11 17,010 or 8% of budget which is 4. % less than last year year today revenues are under expenses by $ 3958 and this is due to lower Revenue collection expenses in Bur to meet the needs of the residents okay okay thank anybody have any questions okay thank youy um moving to mayor council and staff comments um one thing that I do want to say um is I want to say thank you to all of our city staff especially our First Responders um during what I'll call snow mdon um that uh they were they were out they were ready they were available there were some of the Public Works folks even got stuck having to work in some of it for that I say thank you and uh I think that uh we're shaping up for a good year I believe that also uh boots and bullets was a

fantastic time um Murphy Tammy Shane everybody else in here who was there um who helped it was a really good night um I mean I think we had a I think we had a pretty fantastic time um it's nice to be able to support our fire department um and to see so much love and caring um and a community really coming together so for everybody who worked on that and who met thank you you are very loved and very appreciated all right moving into our consent agenda if I can get a a motion on the if there's no questions uh can I get a motion on the consent agenda I'm Mo that Council approve the consent agenda as written okay second okay I have a motion to approve the second all in favor say I I all opposed genda passes action item 8 a consider with possible action on ordinance number o 2025 D1 authorizing Municipal participation and Regulatory rate uh rate proceedings involving energy taxes thank you mayor um this is an ordinance we do every every year um where we hire the laon law firm to represent us as well as this Consortium of cities Southeast Texas region about 30 cities that are a part of this and basically what happens is we all everyone gets together they hire this firm who ultimately we don't pay um they get paid out whatever settlement ends up getting done with Ingy and basically the LA and Law Firm like every year interg will make some sort of an application to do a rate

increase or something like that and this FM steps in and challenges it and inevitably settles for a lower rate increase than what they would have been and then these people get paid out of by Ingy ultimately as part of that settlement and so this is just something that we you guys as a home City have the authority to um TR to uh well basically to to argue against any sort of a r increase for the citizens and this is the route that we do use to do that it's the cheapest most effective way that we've seen so trying to help regulate rates for the city the rate increase for the city that's right I'd recommend the but it doesn't cost us anything no man not at all okay if there's some more questions can I get a motion on item 8 a i motion that we um pass ordinance 02251 authorizing Municipal participation in regulatory rate proceedings involving interg Texas Incorporated second okay I have a motion to approve with a second all in favor say I I all opposed A passes um 8 B consider with possible action on or number 02252 ordering the general municipal election to be held on the 3rd of May 2025 for the purpose of electing two council members for positions four and positions five authorizing an election Services contract by and between the city of Dayton and other contracted entities and the Liberty County Clerk's Office providing for early voting

providing for two 12-hour days of early voting providing for publication and notice of election and establishing other procedures for conduct of the election mayor and Council um Council has to adopt an ordinance to order the election it's got to be done between January 20th and February the 14th um this ordinance also approves Contracting with Liberty County to conduct our elections uh we do have a basic contract that we use every year but we won't know the price until they know who who all is having an election so so we're not we're not partnering with the d i no we don't have to anymore since um before it was just us splitting the cost with Liberty County but now since it's all the other entities school districts in Liberty County that gets split between all of us okay so our motion that we approve ordinance number 02252 I W go through all that reading but there's enough there second okay I have a motion to approve with a second all in favor say I I all opposed passes 8 C consider with possible action on resolution number r2251 approving to the selected engineering architectural survey and services provider for Grant preapplication application and block implementation for the city of Dayton's 202- 2026 Texas Community Development block grant fund program for program funded and administered by the Texas Department of Agriculture mayor and Council we came to you a couple months ago and asked about the $750,000 grant it's part of that

Texas block program um we had to go out qes on that to look at engineering firm that's part of the grant we had two submit U staff met and recommended Jeff Levens with lead engineering to go forward with that project that is a 10% Grant just to refresh your memory so but that's going to be on drainage projects on Lover Lane and luk Street area and we have made some on that it looks like it's pretty a shot on that so about 70,000 about 75,000 all right any questions um okay can I get a motion on item 8 C make motion we approve resolution r2251 approvement Award of Select engineering AR survey and discussed uh Texas development block I don't know the name of that M le le le you can say le le second I have a motion to approve with a second all in favor say I I all opposed C passes 8D consider with possible action on resolution number R 20252 approving the submission of a grant application for patrol Fleet funds all right good evening mayor and Council it's hgac Grant season again uh the first grant before you for resolution is one we applied for last year I believe we ended up scoring like 36 or 38 on the list and the cut off was

around 32 we almost made it uh we're applying for it again this year it's going to be for two fully riged tahos uh to get it under the $150,000 non-matching fund Grant we had to take The Radars out which dropped it from a little over 150 down to 147 [Music] 9396 and we're just asking your for your permission to uh go out for this grant again so quick question uh um so if you don't have The Radars on two vehicles what would go ahead yes sir all right okay so we have some Radars out of older Patrol vehicles that have not met their end of life and we'd be able to retrofit those into of this it's already coming with the the wiring installed to Connected we also have if it came down to if we were going to pull some other service fleet vehicles out of service we would use those Radars in there or we actually have some seasure funds we also have some Dona funds that we' be able to pay for those Radars that need okay so that that kind of rolls me into another thought that just kind of entered um so you you may mention uh having some Radars in some vehicles that haven't me end of service like what's the lifespan or what's the service not on the vehicle the end of service life on the radar they're still actually supported by the manufacturer and what what kind of terms are we talking I'm just being curious it it just depends it just depends so every electronic device has an end of service life or the manufacturer in order to get everybody to buy the newest greatest thing says hey we're no longer servicing this okay okay I've I've seen them last John you

probably seen them last 10 15 year MP one these are stalkers that we have now so I think it's and the only reason why I ask is because technology is moving so fast um and and obviously we want to keep the department with some relatively current stuff if possible yes we have multiple options to make sure a functioning radar is placed in each vehicle okay um I have one other sidebar question um with us having cars and things that are out end of life out of service are we looking at doing a auction anytime soon just just did one okay we all the ones that were out of service that weren't being used or couldn't be used they they were you know how many that was um units about six or eight I don't think it was eight it least six but some of them wrecked and yeah the last one w we we had do you remember what the total was on that sale 37 around 37,000 and surplus sale that we were able to get off of some other city also awesome awesome all right uh if there's other questions can I get a motion on item 8D I move that Council approve resolution R 20252 approving the submission of a Grant application for patrol Fleet funds second have a motion to approve with a second all in favor say I I all opposed 8 pass a consider a possible action resolution number R 20253 approving the submission of Grant application for FL cameras okay raise your hand if you know what A Flock camera is that was gon to

be my question sounds like a bird camera it kind of is well no not really okay flock is more than just a camera it's a license plate reader a camera and a huge National Database of public and private entities that collect data through license plates and vehicle photographs so we found two different grants that this one we're going to try to apply for Jackie's been working on it pretty diligently it may not fit this which is hgac criminal justice Grant if it does not there's another Grant that's coming open in March may excuse me that's through text Dot that's geared towards stolen catalytic converters and stolen vehicles where this will absolutely fit but we're just needing your permission to go for these now but what it does for us so flock the company itself can come give you normally from what it was explained to us they give you three options the bare minimum number of cameras placed strategically on your map to get the most number of traffic contacts in and out of your city or one that's in the middle or one that the skies the limit uh these cameras they average $3,000 a year per unit would be the cost uh the initial cost also you're going to have if it's on the city ride away they would charge us $500 a camera to install it if it's on a text Dot right away because of the interlocal agreements they have to enter into with text Dot it averages is about $1,200 a camera that would be a one-time fee but the 3,000 would be per camera would be recurring this gives us

a database it'll automatically flag stolen vehicles coming in and out of the city anytime we flag a suspect in the system with the different Vehicles they drive it will let us know when that vehicle comes through uh it will also let's say somebody calls in and says uh red Honda Accord just broke into or people just broke into my car and a red Honda Accord and they left no license plate well we can actually search that time frame for red Honda Accords anywhere in our area that has flock cameras in that system and it flags all of them with their license plates and sends it to us so it gives detectives a great place to start uh this camera system and database uh several cities now are going to this putting it into their development plan where if a developer comes in and wants a neighborhood they have to put one of these at the entrance so you know if there's anything comes up missing crimes that were committed in the neighborhood we can go back and look for vehicles that don't normally come in and out of the neighborhood and it gives us a good place to start so did you say that this flock system is connected to a National Database yes sir all over the United States okay how many other other than obviously probably Houston are others Jasper Mont B uh has so many over there you can't go anywhere in town and not be all oh actually MO is actually has a a national agreement with flock they have they have F Camas at every loow across the United States several hotel chains do uh

there's several agencies within Harris County we've already been able to go through Mont biew or another agency that has a block contract to track down vehicles that or suspects and crimes that were committed in what what what is the monetary value of do we have one we do not have one like I said this is in such early stages we just need your permission to start looking at it uh we weren't for sure to begin with in both grants actually we put in that you would agree to pay matching funds these grants that are through hgac there there's no matching funds to these it's a 100% Grant can you what was the cost per camera again for the installation 1 12200 on teex RightWay and what was the other 500 on a city RightWay or RightWay that we can controler get permission and were those recurring did you no man that's a one time fee for the installation is that covered under the gr yes sir okay but it is a it is a recurring annual per camera yeah the 3,000 per camera per year is re okay there is another use for them too from an EDC perspective that they can also use the same data they're using cell phone data right now to track uh people that come in and out of town as far as shopping purposes they use the geating stuff that EDC uses um they they could actually have access to this as well not to the level that we would have access to it but it would help them track who comes in and out so I have seen in the past edc's partner with police departments to cover help offset the recurring cost of that year so it's it's an option and also the grant itself maybe not necessarily the one

we're looking at here through hgac but the other one through Tex that is a reoccurring Grant you can apply for any still not a guarantee okay any other questions okay uh can I get a motion on item A E I move that Council approve resolution r225 D3 approving the submission of application for clock cameras second okay I have a motion to approve with a second all in favor say I I all oppos 8 passes thank you sir thank you uh 8f consider with possible action on ordinance number o 20253 amending the article 413000 in our code of ordinances regarding coin operated machines thank you mayor so right now we don't we have a game room ordinance so what this is talking about is game rooms these are the coin Opera machines um we have a game room ordinance it it's not as uh robust as we would like it to be um so what we went ahead and did is put one together that I'll just tell it's the same one city of Liberty has adopted several years ago and is if you read through it really it's broken down into a couple of sections I want to go through this and I share something else with you too but after I finish that but really what this would do is it says we can charge a $15 tax annually on every coin operated machine that's statuto that's state law you can't charge more than that um and we can we have to make them we can make them get permits for us for every machine uh for game rooms which is defined as be having six or more in a location which again that's statutory state law has told us that's what a game room do um it has bunch of regulations

in here that we put in that says basically the the gist of it is to make them open in a manner where the E can get in and where they can be regulated so they can't be in a back room somewhere with no windows um if they apply for a permit they have to sign a the owner of the property and the person applying for it has to sign a document acknowledging that they're liable uh criminally liable for any uh legal activity that takes place there um it sets a fee of $750 annually for game rooms is a permit fee for those and just has a whole bunch on game rooms then uh the last part of it is a section um on Amusement Redemption establishments which is frankly a term I invented a couple years ago which is any place that has one to five machines uh because initially City Liberty adopted ordinance that said you're a game room if you have one machine and we immediately got sued and got a whole bunch ofand letters and got a whole bunch of push back on that and so because Texas law was what defined it as being the six machines or more and so um basically for these other Amusement Redemption establishments it has similar regul ation to game rooms but not quite as many so this would be your you know gas station that has two machines in it fall into those but again all the same regulations for the machines apply all of them and still have to be open they can have them hidden in the back room somewhere um and so I would recommend that we adopt this tonight just because we've been getting a lot of phone calls from a lot of interest from folks that are wanting to put these machines these

game rooms in and so this would get something in the books that's a lot that's more robust um an interesting note as I was looking into this before tonight uh City of Fort Worth actually just adopted an ordinance saying that it's illegal to have any sort of gaming machine in the city and uh I'm curious to see I'm anxious to see how that goes because they've actually read an article they've been in litigation over it for about about six years and spent about $600,000 litigating uh Game Room litigation trying to block it and the Supreme Court the court of appeals in Fort Worth found that they could regulate game rooms um and gaming machines but and then the court of appeals I mean the Supreme Court said hey we aren't going to hear it so that rule applied for there right but so the court in Fort Worth court of appeals doesn't have jurisdiction for us but anyway something I'm going to dig into a little bit more to see if we can go even more robust with our regulations um that's something that mean that's just happened so and uh if we do something more along those lines I'm going to get with Chris and we're going to go through the zoning and see what we can do zoning wise to try to even regulate where those things would be located how is this not gambling well and see that's what the court of appeals was uh was technically if they do it the legal way they're only giving away things of value less than $5 um which I'm sure all ever given away at these things right um they call it like it was under they called it the fuzzy animal rle and it was the what they were giving away was fuzzy animals

right like stuff from a machine exactly and so but if they're giving away money that it is illegal and that's kind of the deal is though by adopting something like this it makes it where it has to be out in the open where PD can walk in and see it and hopefully stop it if AR something do we have any idea of how many of these we currently have we don't have to my knowledge we don't have any actual game rooms inside the city now there are a couple of gas stations they do have some machines in there um that really the intent of this ordinance is to stop an actual game room which would be like a building this not a building center side this size room filled with machine um I John and I talked about this I think they' got y'all got some out in the county um it it it's not a it's not a good thing uh I can tell you from where I came from they've got four right now and it's a constant problem there's constant aggravated robberies um it's not something we want so to Rand Point um if we decide to go down this route to adopt this ordinance um is there any way to prevent pending Council action coming you guys coming back with a plan on where to place these things in the correct zones can we can we put a not a moratorium but put a well right now they would have to be it would be General

commercial or somewh yeah I mean right now somebody came in apply it would have to be in a General commercial area now what we would want to do is come back and try to limit even more to uh and it says in here you can't have to be within a certain distance of schools churches live residences all those sorts of things too trying to limit those locations we just we wanted to get something adopted so that we can get a start and then come back with a more detailed with the zoning form how how do we how do we limit them to R around the police department um all right uh is there any other questions right can I get a motion on item 8f a motion that we approve uh ordinance number 0225 D3 amending article 413000 in our code of ordinances regarding coin operated machines okay I have a motion to approve with the second all in favor say I I all right um it is now 635 and I hear about recess this city council meeting to Executive session all right it is now 81 and I hereby

recess this executive session to reconvene our regular Council session uh action I in 10 a consider with possible action regarding Economic Development opportunities as discussed in executive session Mr Mayor I move that we move forward with the tax abatement process as discussed in executive session second okay I have a motion in a second all in favor say I I I all opposed item 10 a passes can I get a motion to adjourn motion toour a motion to adjourn we are adjourn