City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here. At this time at 6 p.m., I will call the meeting to order, May 28, 2026. This is at 6 p.m. We will start with invocation, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and Texas Pledge, and then we'll establish a plan. Heavenly Father, Guide us with wisdom, unity, and eternity as we serve our community today. Bless our decisions for the good of all. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

At this time we will establish a quorum.

Ms. Dora Barrera is here. Mr. Mario Morales is here.

Mr. Jake Lambert is here. Ms. Frances Torres is on Zoom. And Mr. Felix is here. and myself, Grandma, as Council Mayor for the film. We will start with our public comments. At this time, any person wishing to address the council regarding an item on the agenda may do so. Speakers are requested to state their name and address for the record. Public comments are limited to five minutes per individual. In accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, The City Council may not deliberate or take action on any matter that is not posted on the agenda. However, the Council may direct staff to place the item on a future agenda for discussion or action, if appropriate. Thank you. Do I have any citizens' comments at this time? Council? Ms. Dora? Mr. Morales?

No comment.

Mr. Lambert?

Yes, I do. This is a couple of questions, a few questions towards our city manager and our city finance director. Just a simple question, Mr. City Manager. Your salary increased? I'm sorry? Was your salary increased just since you've been here at all? Yes, sir. Okay. All right, this is my next question for the finance director. Is our city under any type of budget cuts right now?

I did send out a memo with the last, in April, beginning of May, due to sales tax being down and also due to our commercial sewer and water being down by 8%.

Gotcha. So, you know, I was made aware that the city purchased service pros for admin for the staff and it seems to me nobody's using them. So if we're under so many budget cuts, why are y'all still using paper and not utilizing service programs?

We use them in our staff meetings. I use them daily in my Zoom call meetings that I have daily with different vendors, companies. But we did also discontinue any iPads, any MiFis, and we did discontinue cell phones that were not for the, I guess, first-line employees.

Got you. I know a couple of months back, we were sent an email to leave for headshots. And I just out of curiosity, when we scheduled those headshots for the council, why did we schedule those during the early election when we probably knew that there was going to be a change of council or something, you know, a change of department heads? since Mr. Munoz has been here. So why was that? And to be quite frankly honest, we haven't seen those headshots. So why did we spend that unnecessary funds for that?

Sure. Those headshots were not during the election. They were prior to the election. And what we did is we executed the contract knowing that they may be a potential change. So the new headshots were included in the contract. I believe we still have two or three members of council that have not taken their headshots.

Yes, correct. You know, I've noticed just driving around, why does the city continue to start projects that do not seem to finish and then leave the public with excuses instead of results? I can give you a few examples, if you're not aware. My examples are, It is behind the city wall, the concrete barriers. You can continue laughing if you want to. I'll give you some time. Don't stop. No, I can say whatever I want. I'm going to continue. So he has to do all the projects that's going on?

Sure. If you recall, we were waiting for the new engineers to be procured and selected. One of the task orders, I mean, we have the six existing task orders currently. We have some tonight before you. One of those projects coming up, we're still negotiating that task order, is to address the parking lot here as well as the drain insurance signal. That's good.

You know, I noticed in the lobby that the kiosk was removed and the wall was patched. So it's pretty unappealing to the public that it doesn't match. I've gotten several complaints about that. So that's another project. You know, that's when people walk in, you know, attention to detail is a huge thing. that are possible to be fixed up to make it look good?

We can power wash the exterior of the building. It's gonna be hard to match because that facade is old. And so you do have some wear and tear and some sun bleaching, so it'll be hard. But we can try to see the best we can blend it in. That's not a problem. But the kiosk was removed because, as I understood it, only one citizen had used it throughout the life cycle of it. And a lot of hot air during the summer was coming through, and so we were having to buy additional air conditioners for staff because they were complaining about the hot area, the temperature in that office area. So that was another reason we removed it.

How many times have you personally gone to the public works yard at a public works job site or the sewer plant to see the condition of city operations for yourself? I've been twice. Twice? Yes. And how many days? 90 days? Is this your 90th day? We're coming up on your 90 days too. No, sir. It passed on the 18th. Okay. So you've been here more than 90 days? Yes. Okay. You've only been here twice? Yes. Okay. Another thing. So we're talking about budget cuts. How can an HR position be unbudgeted? when the assistant CM position has not been filled yet. Our past assistant city manager was moved to EDC and that salary stayed with the position, with that position and the assistant city manager position has not been filled. I guess my question to you is, there was a termination of our administrative services person. Was that job budgeted for this year?

Both jobs are currently under the budget. I will tell you, both positions were eliminated. Those positions, the funds that were used for that, as I had discussed, and not only my weekly memos at the time, but before council, was we were gonna re-appropriate those monies for the new planning director as well as the new parks director, so we were gonna reallocate some of those funds. We did not use all those funds. There is some savings, back to the city's general fund. We did not have an HR director. You have never approved an HR director. You had an administrative services director that would do HR general duties, but they were more under the job description of just a HR tech generalist. And that's the function that the individuals served at the time.

That position was budgeted, and the email that we got from you, the reason why they were terminated was because of budget problems. You do, you apparently have some budget shortfalls, yes. Okay, so we got rid of a position that was currently budgeted for this fiscal year to do the budget cuts. Makes sense.

Thank you. At this time, do you still have anything to say? And Ms. Flores, do you have anything? No comment. I don't have a comment at this time.

Good evening, Mayor and members of council. Just two quick announcements under city manager comments. Number one, I received an email yesterday from the appraisal district. They are looking to build new offices. Apparently they tried to send out an email a couple of weeks ago that didn't go through to us, and so yesterday I received an email. They need a decision via resolution if you're in favor or not in favor of them moving offices or purchasing a new building or property to relocate the appraisal district offices. Unfortunately, they didn't extend a deadline to us, and so they need a response by June 8th. Our next scheduled meeting is June 11th. They do need a response via resolution. If we do not respond according to the letter, then we automatically approve. There are budget increases with that if you do approve it, and so I just wanted to put on your radar, we may have to call a special meeting to address that one specific item. Item number two, I wanted to introduce our new Planning Director and Chief Building Inspector, Mr. Juan Martinez. He comes from us with over 20 years experience in planning, code enforcement, building inspector from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And then for our Parks and Recreation Director, we have Dr. Reena Gonzalez. She comes from us from the city of San Antonio. multiple years of experience in parks and recreation. She understands the industry. We've already had great conversations trying to move to getting our city park system certified and accredited. And so she's done a lot of great steps so far, both of them have. I know Mr. Martinez has already reviewed a lot of our code enforcement as well as our ordinances and updating those for the new attorneys so we can work on those as quickly as we can. But they're great. I think they're going to be great assets for the city. They're going to be great for the team. I know everyone's kind of excited and we're re-energized with both of them coming in. Moving forward, I think it addresses a lot of the needs of what we have currently for the city in terms of what the city's looking for and in terms of what we need to do here in the near future. And so I just wanted to introduce themselves a little bit to you if they want to. But just to recognize them that they did start with us and we're starting the ball rolling rather quickly to begin making a lot of modifications and updates to the city.

Thank you and we welcome you. We have the same. Thank you. Moving on to, I'm going to change, I'm going to put the agenda around and we're going to go to executive session right now. TO DELIBERATE ON... THE CITY COUNCIL WILL MEET IN CLOSED SECTION TO JOIN TO TEXAS GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 551.07 FOR DELIBERATING ABOUT PERSONAL MATTERS. NUMBER ONE, DISCUSSION OF CANDIDATES AND APPOINTMENTS OF A CITY ATTORNEY. AND B, THE CITY COUNCIL WILL MEET IN CLOSED SECTION TO JOIN TO TEXAS GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 551.07 0.074, deliberating about personal matters, and section 551.071, consulting with attorneys. Discussion regarding the performance goals objectives, compensation, quarterly evaluations, and pending grievances asserted against the city manager. Do I have a motion to go to executive sessions? I'll make a motion here. I'll second. Motion made by Mr. Peter Cantu. Second by Ms. Dora Cantu. All in favor? Motion passes 5-0. It's 6-14.