City Council - Regular Meeting

Can you talk talking. [cough] Good evening and welcome. I'd like to welcome you to uh the city council meeting of uh the 20th of January at 6 o'clock p.m. at the uh Thomas Ward Council Chambers. Would you please stand with me for our invocation and pledges? [clears throat] To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisibley and justice for all.

Thank you. Okay. All right. We're down to our citizens comments. We have one uh Mr. Clier. Mayor, council members, citizens, I appreciate a moment of your time this evening. I'm here today for the representing the Henderson area Chamber of Commerce to formally invite you to our candidate forum primary edition on February 10th. Our doors will open at 5:00. We'll begin the forum at 5:30. Going to have a free taco bar to people in attendance. So, I thought I probably should have led with that. What do you think, Mr. Brown? Free tacos. A good lead. But no, we we really would like to see the citizens come out. Uh the chamber is going to be aggressive this year and trying to pursue a full house and getting all of the candidates at the county level and below to come and tell you and the business community what they intend to do should they acquire the office they seek. So, that's all I have for you this evening. Thank you for your service and thank you for your time.

Thank you. Okay, now we're ready for presentations and announcements. Um, we have Mr. Pope with us today. for your service. Recognize you on your for your service for the uh board of board of adjustments member and you serve from uh 2016 until 2025. Okay. Just want to appreciate you for your service that you uh rendered uh on that committee and let you know that we greatly appreciate it.

All right. [applause]

[laughter] You got to do a five minute speech. [laughter] have a proclamation here for the Lions Club. Do we have any uh Lions Club members? Anyone else? Come on up. Okay. The city of Henderson mayor, know ye that this official certif certificate recognizes 102year birthday of Henderson Lions Club. The Lions Club International was founded by Chicago Insurance man Melvin Jones on June 7th, 1917. In its earliest years, the organization was known as the International Organization of Lions. The Lions Club is the largest and greatest service organization. The Lions Club was voted in 2012 by the United Nations as the number one non-government humanitation humanitarian organizations in the uh world. Their motto is we serve. On January 9th, 1924, formation of the Lions Club in Henderson, Texas occurred. The history of the Lions Club states there were four clubs in Henderson, a morning, a noon, and an evening club.

The only uh current remaining club in the Henderson is the Henderson known uh Lions Club. The Lion Lions Club supports Texas charities while championing the uh global causes of hunger, vision, youth, humanitarian effects, disaster relief, childhood cancer, diabetes, and environment. Therefore, I, Henry Pace, mayor of the city of Henderson, on behalf of the city council, do hereby proclaim the month of January as the month of recognition and encouragement to all citizens to join in the honoring of their 102 years of service while also acknowledging their comm continued dedication to serving our community and support the meaningful work that they do for the people of Henderson. [applause] Great work though. Thank you. Okay. Now, [clears throat]

the team from the University of Texas, um, UT Tyler would like to present to the council a look back on 2025 and share the latest critical, uh, clinical updates from our EMS medical director with the council. Hey, council. Thank you all for allowing us to come this afternoon. Kind of give a kind of a recap. Just want to start off by introducing the the people I brought with me tonight. Um with me I have our medical director Dr. Yagnish Desai and our CEO of UT Health Henderson, Jared Smith, myself, John Smith. I'm the CEO for both our EMS and our air1 operation. Appreciate the partnership. Want to take a little bit of time. We will be trying to be real brief, but we want to be kind of concise doing this a couple years trying to go around all the counties know what's going on. Just kind of a quick snapshot of our coverage area. We cover We're in seven different counties in East Texas covering close to 5,000 square miles u with ambulances, helicopters, radio network, hospitals throughout. One of those which team is made up of over 350 paramedics and EMTs. You kind of see there we have 14 flight nurses. controllers, but most of us

and in that we have a full-time medical director, which is kind of unique for for EMS to have a doctor that's dedicated full time to your staff. We have him with us tonight who present a little um one of the things I just a little bit uh is a radio network. We're proud to partner with a lot of different agencies across East Texas about 20 years ago. We started putting partnership agencies covers over 5,000 5,600 square miles that system local agencies

[clears throat] the uh kind of a snapshot of the calls last year. 2025 was one of our busier years. It's kind of like everyone else in East Texas is growing fast. Overall, we ran over 100,000 calls. Um here just in the city of Henderson there's over 3,000 um over 2,800 of those were transports and similarly helicopter we flew 132 out of the city of Henderson. A lot of those were taking critical patients from our hospital to our a breakdown of those numbers just kind of give you a kind of a snapshot there. 533 of those were life-threatening calls. We call in dispatch and ask questions. We use international protocols to determine is it a life-threatening non- life-threatening and that that helps us determine, you know, the the P3s there. We don't even go lights and sirens. You may see an ambulance going to to 911 call. It could be something that's not emergent. Um so those are the different classifications we have there. And this is just kind of breakdown like kind of show you what what is the kind of breakdown of your calls in your city. You can see right now trauma is at the top there. Um 451 followed by cardiac abdominal issues. And this slide just another slide just kind of breaks down a little bit further. Just a little more information for you to as far as uh you know with the city we have an agreement in place a contract that has time commitment to it of those looking back over the last year. We had a compliance level of 97% for the non-emergency calls at 98.3%. Little bit on the flights kind of breaking those down. We talked about those earlier. 97 of those are from the hospitals. 14 are from scenes.

One of those when we can't fly, it doesn't mean that the patient doesn't still kind of here too. We're looking at we love to be part of the the community. You probably seen us out at some time ask a little bit of the clinical aspect of what we do. Is that better? Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Uh thank you everyone for coming out tonight. Appreciate you uh lending us a little bit of time so we can discuss um a little bit about our service. Um so I'm going to talk a little about the medical capabilities of what what happens when you call an ambulance and what are you getting? Right? Is it just a ride? Is it just a ride to the hospital? Why do you need an ambulance if all you need is a ride? Right? Uh well, we look at ourselves as as more than just transport. Um as a part of a greater health care system that's comprehensive and complete, we don't look at ourselves as just a way to get you from point A to point B. We look at ourselves as point A all the way to Z. Um and [clears throat] it's very important the care that started at the moment of the arrival of an ambulance. we're the first care provider that you're going to meet on your journey in healthcare. Um, and it's very important that the skills they bring, the equipment that they bring,

and even the ambulance that they show up in is of top grade. So some of the things if you look at this slide uh you look over there on the right hand side new medics 3 purchases we have a a plan in place to replace and keep our fleet updated uh on an annual basis so we have the best trucks out there because that's the utmost number one thing you got to have to make sure the patient is safe. We have to be able to transport you safely. Um if you look at the other equipment that's shown on there we invest in hospital level equipment. We don't invest in, and I don't mean this as an insulting way to EMS, but there's EMS level equipment that sometimes you will see. And this is a lower quality. It's made for a temporary time period of of clinical care. We want to continue the same care that started in a hospital. And we want to start that care when you call 911. So, some of the calls that we ran, the highest number of calls that we ran were trauma, cardiac, and respiratory. Okay. all of these very life-threatening depending on what's going on with the situation. And so we carry equipment that lets us care for these patients in the best manner possible. So if you look, we carry Hamilton ICU level ventilators. And these machines allow us to ventilate an intubated patient. So that's a patient that's no longer breathing. Um it also allows us to continue any sort of BiPAP treatment that started. In addition during COVID um when we had no vents available a lot of patients were getting placed on high flow nasal canula treatment and that has continued because it's far more comfortable for the patients and it has pretty good outcomes and so we carry the same device that is used in the hospital so we can continue that same level of care in the back of an ambulance. We carry IV pumps on all of our ambulances. When you're on a very powerful antibiotic or any other medication that's supposed to go in at

60 milliliters an hour, you don't want a couple of extra drops in there when you hit a bump going down the road, right? You want to get 60 milliliters an hour and exactly that. And so we equip IV pumps on all of our trucks. And we made the choice to carry the same IV pumps that are that are in our hospitals because the process of moving a drip from one pump to another can be quite complicated when you have different kinds of pumps. This makes it very easy and you don't lose that 60 milliliters an hour that you're supposed to continue getting at all times. Um, in addition, we have our Air1 fleet, one of them based right here at UT Health in Henderson, and we also carry blood and plasma as well as ultrasound capabilities on the helicopter, which is going to be really important on those trauma calls that uh that we get called out on. And then of utmost importance is the ability to communicate. It does no good if an ambulance shows up, but they're unable to let the hospital know, hey, we're coming in with this critical trauma. we're coming in with a cardiac arrest. And so we've equipped all of our ambulances with uh double uh mobile hotspot capability because we all know in certain parts of the county Verizon's better. In other areas, AT&T is going to be the better one. So we carry both so we can stay connected at all times. And we use what's called a Pulsera app. Um the old days of communication with EMS included radio or telephone traffic. And you know, if you're at the hospital, you took their word for it and you hope they were right with what they were telling you. The Pulsera app is a an application that the state of Texas rolled out across the entire state, made available to all EMS agencies. And what it does is it allows us to take pictures of your EKG that shows you're having a heart attack and send it directly to the cardiologist. He can look at it himself on his phone. He was like, "Oh yeah, this is the real deal." It lets us even

take videos of a patient's stroke exam and send it to the neurologist and he's already thinking, okay, what vessel in the brain is being blocked off right now. And if it's a terrible trauma, we're able to take pictures of what the scene was like, what sort of injuries the patient sustained. And the trauma surgeon's already rolling the ball inside of his head thinking, okay, this is what I need to get ready for, and I need to have my team ready for the operating room. So, it's a very uh great app that harnesses the technology that's available to us this day. Um, like I mentioned, the care that's initiated when an EMS uh unit responds to your emergency is going to determine how well the outcome is. Right? We can hear him right there. I don't know if that's us or that's fire, who it is, but we're going to pray for for whoever it is and hope that everything's okay. But we carry Lucas devices on all of our ambulances. And what a Lucas device is, it's an automated CPR device. Now, has anybody ever taken a CPR class or CPR certified? That's pretty hard work. Uh if you want a good workout, go do a CPR class and you will uh you will understand exercise. They will work you out. Well, when someone's life depends on it, it's even more important that you're able to continue CPR without getting tired, without stopping, without taking any breaks. And that is very hard to do if you've done manual CPR on anybody. Um, Striker has came out with the Lucas device which allows us to continuously provide CPR using this machine. And doing CPR in place is hard. Doing CPR while you're trying to pick a patient up off the ground, put them on a stretcher, roll that stretcher out of the house into the ambulance, and then load that ambulance uh load the stretcher into the ambulance. It's even harder to do good quality CPR. So having this machine up on every scene um is going to continuously provide CPR. It

doesn't get tired. It doesn't have to stop when we're trying to lift the patient onto the stretcher. And it continues to provide high quality consistent CPR even as we're going lights and sirens down the road to get you to the hospital. And when you're in cardiac arrest, we can all hold our breath for maybe 10 seconds, 20 seconds, some of us 30. But when you're in cardiac arrest, you can't have even a single second of poor perfusion uh because that leads to not getting a pulse back. So it's it's very important that this device is uh is there whenever there's a cardiac arrest. In addition, you have to have good cardiac monitors which uh we have invested in the Striker Life Pack 35s and and what this is is this is the machine that allows us to do our job. Um, it allows us to print EKGs on a patient that's having chest pain. It allows us to monitor vital signs continuously so we know at all times what the heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory oxygen levels are. And whenever we have a patient in cardiac arrest, it allows us to shock them if they're in a shockable rhythm. Okay. Um, this is the the newest device uh that Striker's put out as far as cardiac monitor goes. And it's it's wonderful because it has all the connectivity that a modern day device has. And the reason this is so important because it will speak directly with the Lucas device that's doing CPR on a patient. So in previous times before this device was out, every two minutes we would have to pause CPR to check for a pulse and look at the monitor screen and see what kind of rhythm they're in. And if they were in a rhythm that can be shocked, then we would charge up the monitor and we would deliver a shock and then we'd return back to manual CPR. The problem with

doing this is you have long pauses in CPR. And as I just mentioned, even a single second pause in CPR leads to bad outcomes, right? You're not going to get a pulse back. So, with the new technology in this device, it it's able to read the CPR that the Lucas is providing, and it's able to tell you, is there a shockable rhythm or not? So, we never have to stop CPR anymore. At 2 minutes, it lets us know, yes, you're in a shockable rhythm. We continue CPR with the Lucas device. We charge up the the life pack, and it delivers a shock, and CPR is never stopped. So hopefully this is going to lead to really good outcomes in cardiac arrest patients. In addition to being the EMS provider, as I mentioned, we're part of a bigger health care system. We're part of UT Health. And this is this is huge because in Tyler at UT Health East Texas and Tyler we now have ECMO capabilities. I think we're very lucky to have this uh here in East Texas. Um if you look at ECMO centers, they're usually located in in large metropolitan areas, Dallas, Houston. Um I'm not even sure I think has ECMO capabilities at LSU, but they've never been in places like Tyler or East Texas and we now have it. And if you're wondering, well, what is ECMO? It stands for extra corporal membranous oxygenation. So that cardiac arrest patient, we get a pulse back from this patient. His heart's not going to beat too well. In the not too far past, we had COVID and everybody remembers what CO did. Uh people got really sick and they couldn't get oxygen through their lungs. So ECMO is a medical therapy. It does the work of the heart and lungs. So the heart and the lungs can rest, can

heal, and recover, and it'll keep that patient alive until they're able to start functioning on their own. So it's it's almost miraculous when you talk to ECMO providers what this is able to do for for patients as far as watching them get better and walk out of that hospital. Um, it's great on adults. However, sometimes even our youngest and tiniest patients need help. And so we have a level three NICU at our hospital in Tyler as well to take care of our youngest patients that need our help. Well, we're all sitting here like, "Well, that's great. You're in Tyler, but we're in Henderson, right? So, what is that? How's that going to help us here in Henderson?" So, what we did was we purchased an ECMO ambulance. We call it our ECMO ambulance, our critical care truck. And what it is is a much larger uh box and a much larger ambulance than our normal 911 units that's able to fit the entire ECMO team and all their equipment. It's able to fit the entire NICU team and all their equipment including the isolet. And we're going to bring that team here to Henderson so they can initiate ECMO. They can initiate whatever neonatal critical care procedures and treatments they need to do. Then we're going to stabilize that patient right here in Henderson. We're going to load them up in this critical care ambulance. Then we're going to transform back to Tyler to continue the treatment that we've already started here. Um, we've brought this equipment as well as our critical care ambulance here tonight. And I'd like to invite all of you to um, stop by and and take a look at what it looks like on the inside. Uh, hopefully no one's ever going to have to ride in one of these things. Uh, but we want you guys to see what all goes into it. And lastly, what I want to touch on is it's great to have all this equipment, but you got to know how to actually use it, right? Uh the equipment doesn't do anything on its own. Well, a lot of it does nowadays, but you still have to know how to operate it. And so, we focus on continuing education and training for our crews on a regular basis. All of our

providers are required to attend mandatory byianual education. Uh we go over the latest medical guidelines, best practices, and how do you use all this equipment that we're carrying? uh we reinforce critical skills such as airway management, uh trauma care, as well as cardiac arrest management. And on top of that, you know, it's not only the EMS providers that are on the scene. You have your first responders. Um and it's important that the first responders also have good protocols to let them initiate care and treatment while they're waiting on that ambulance to get there. So, we have a a protocol app that all of our providers able to download for free on their phone. It's got their protocols in there so they can pull it up and they know exactly what they need to do once they get on the scene. Uh we've included Narcan, epinephrine for anaphilaxis treatments and stop the bleed, some of the critical interventions needed to save someone's life. And then we've also provided uh EMR classes as well as new hire equipment and protocol training for new members that join the fire department here in the city of Henderson. Um, so with that being said, I'm going to turn it over to Jared Smith now. He's representing UT Health Henderson Hospital here, and he's going to talk to you a little bit about our hospital care here in Henderson.

Great to see you all. You know, as John Smith had pointed out, they were going to do their annual update on EMS services. I thought, well, what better time to also share an update on hospital services so that you're up to date on uh what's going on. So, I live here in Henderson, only a mile from here, so I could walk or jog if I was feeling ambitious. But I've been here a little over a year and have enjoyed my time here in Henderson. And super passionate about what the next five years looks like. And this is an opportune time to kind of share updates midway through the decade of looking back last five years, looking forward the next five of what can we do as an organization and as a community to help build a healthier Henderson. And you know with that my my passion and the organization's focus is really uh two parts. So one be the best place to work and two be the best place to receive care. And if you let that two-part focus drive everything that you do at the end of the day, at the end of the month, at the end of the year, you know that you've made a positive impact on the community. you know, when it comes to best places to work and to be the best place to work, Modern Healthcare, and I know it's got up there and I'm proud of it because we're the first time winner, but Modern Healthcare, which is essentially the Wall Street Journal of Healthcare, you know, they recognize top 150 employers in healthcare nationwide. Half of them are hospitals, half of them might be insurance companies, healthcare vendors, and we were the first time winner here in Henderson. The only other winner in East Texas was um UT Health Equipment. They were second time winner. So we're looking to win it again and it's a testament to the great culture and great people there. And then on the quality front, so Leaprog comes out with a grading system and we've actually successfully achieved and maintained Leaprog a designation which is based off of lots of criteria around quality of care at the right patient receive the right time, right treatment at the right time for the best possible outcome. And that's actually been successfully achieved for seven consecutive years, which is fantastic. I I kind of wish that happened back in grade school, you know, but but a great job with the team there. And you know, with that, why is that important? So if you've got the

culture and the fundamental foundation to be having great teams doing providing great care, you really look at the continuum of care and everything from what you'll see from an emphasis perspective for us for 2026 and going forward is health education, health prevention and as well as early detection, early intervention to help improve outcomes. So then let's say you've done everything right and you're slowly adjusting positively uh health behavior, right? You can't sometimes beat genetics, but you can improve healthy behavior and healthy education on what to look for and and how to prevent u possibly negative health outcomes. But as a part of that, then when you do come to our hospital, you know, what can we do to further provide additional services and retain patients here in Henderson? So, one of the things UT Health did a great job of when they came on the scene and since 2016 is what can we do to further keep patients here. So, actually, you know, just some data for you. Uh, this past year, you know, we had over 200 deliveries. So, over the last five years, we've had over a thousand births here in Henderson, which is fantastic. On admissions, we've actually been having over a thousand admissions a year. And what's important about that is while our ER volume declined this past year in 2025, admissions went up. And you may say, how does that happen? Well, we've added additional capabilities to keep more patients local to be have patients closer to home, closer to family, closer to friends, and familiarity, which also helps in the healing journey. So, you know, my focus in the next five years is what can we do together as an organization everywhere from here at Henderson to EMS to UT Tyler position ourselves to keep more patients local so you're not having to travel for care and further grow access to services. And then, you know, we even on a weekly basis have a transfer review process where we look at patients that had to get transferred out and say, what could we do differently or what services could we add in the future to help in the future keep those patients here locally?

So, that's a huge initiative and passion of mine. And then you know, with that for those higher acuty patients that are in traumatic situations. Super proud of the Air1 team and EMS crew that we've got the flight crew in the hospital and they're in the basement. I joke, I'm like, "Why don't they put you guys in the basement?" They're like, "Well, we've got a nice suite down here. It's good." But, you know, having the helicopter there on site stationed here in the city providing that support for the county as well has been has been huge. So, you know, my focus and you know, as I'm getting more involved with uh the community and community efforts is looking forward the next five years and collaboration through the continuum of care. How can we make Henderson healthier and keep more patients close to home? So, that's just kind of the update for you that we're doing well. You know, we're growing. We're adding services. We've currently have physicians posted and uh interviewing physicians. There actually been a couple physicians that we interviewed that I I said no to because didn't feel like they were going to be a good fit. We want to make sure we bring great providers here to provide excellent care and positively impact our community. So off for me, try to keep it short.

In uh closing, just kind of wrap up. Every time we have new hires that come on board, I get to share some uh some what we stand for with the company. And these are the two slides I share with them. I was just real quickly go over with you guys. This this is what we tell them. Um we we work for you. We work for the city and counties. you know, we provide 911 on your behalf. When we walk in there, we need to represent the cities and counties we work for really really well. And and I I think we've done that well for City of Henderson. Um, but we we remind them that we're we're going to uphold the most ethical standards there. There's no gray area. We're a black and white company. We're going to follow the rules and and we're going to have accountability um and transparency. And then the next thing we we go over with them is is the accreditations that we do and why we do them. Um, in in the in the state of Texas, there's over 800 licensed ambulances. I looked up on the way over here, I was kind of like, wow, that's a lot of not licensed, licensed companies um or that provide 911 and facility transfers. Of those 812 are accredited with the CAS accreditation, less than 2% across the US. And you're like, what does that mean for for the CF Henderson? That means that your ambulance company is reviewed every three years by an outside agency to make sure we meet the highest standards in the nation. Um, we just recently went through that. It's not an easy process. It they they come in there there's outside auditors. They look at everything we do from how we maintain our vehicles to how we write our protocols to how we dispatch our calls. Um then then they go out and they talk to our our employees with no management around and and and see if what we say we do is what we actually do. Um and and proud to say we we've met that with a perfect score the last two times. Um we also take that approach with our Air1. We were the first accredited air service in East Texas. Um have same thing have an outside agency come in and look at what we do there.

And with our dispatch center we we um follow the same process there. have an outside agency come in and make sure that um we're meeting the national standards. So, I think for for you as a uh as a city council mayor to just to know that there's there's someone out there looking and making sure and checking the boxes that hey, we are doing what we're supposed to do as as an agency. So, with that, um happy to answer any questions. I know I don't want to take too much of y'all's time, but um hopefully that kind of gives y'all a snapshot of what's going on the last year and you know be happy to come back and and do this again in the future. But I think it's good important for you to kind of see what what we're providing.

Um not yet. I think it's sometime this year. All right. Thank y'all for coming. Okay, so we're ready for our consent agenda. This contains routine or non-controversial items. Are there any items that the council would like to move into regular session? If not, can I get a motion on the uh consent agenda? I'll make a motion for approval with one correction. The October 28th meeting, I was not present in the minutes show that I was. But with that correction, I'll make a motion for approval.

I'll second. Motion was made by Mr. Cersei, second by Mr. Strong. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. All right. The consent agenda is approved. All right, we are now going into uh going into regular session for the city city council's business. Uh item number six, consideration and possible action upon the final payment of $126,890.30 on the extension of the east side sewer main replacement project. Mr. Neil, Mr. department. Thank you, Mayor, Council. Uh this is the final payment on the east side sewer project. If you'll recall several years ago, uh we've upgraded our east side sewer main that began at the wastewater treatment plant on the south side of town. The first phase extended and increase the capacity of that main coming north uh to Highway 259. The second phase, which is a part of this work order here, extended upgraded that system along our Willow Lake and all the way to uh MLK Drive and stopping there. When this project was winding down on this phase two, the the city opted to go ahead and extend uh moving that project forward roughly uh to US79. Uh there was still money available in our funds to do that. Uh so a order was authorized to the contractor to do that. When that decision was made, easements had not already been obtained for those properties. Wasn't anticipated that we would move forward that quickly with that project. So, it took us a little bit to obtain those easements and then once those were secured, contractor went back in and extended this. So, this

final payment wraps up that project and includes all the work that was included as a part of that change order to phase two. It's our recommendation that uh that you authorize this payment and uh close this project out.

You have any questions? Be happy to answer questions. All right. Um, can I get a motion for item number six? Second.

Motion was made by Miss Wares, second by Mr. Cersei. All in favor say I. Any oppose? Same sign. Item six carries. Moving to item seven, consideration of possible action upon authorizing Stokes and Associates to file a project information form to the Texas Water Development Board Clean Water State Revolving Fund for potential funding of the Lake Striker water infrastructure improvements. Mayor, uh, in the first quarter of 2025, the city authorized Stokes uh, to evaluate the feasibility of developing Lake Striker water as an alternate drinking water supply for the city. I'd remind you that when this project was taken on, this was a priority project. It was originally identified in the city's 2050 comprehensive plan that was performed by Kimley Horn about two years ago. If you're not familiar and those that may be in the audience that aren't familiar, Lake Striker is a small reservoir that's located about 15 to 16 miles south of Henderson. The dam was constructed in 1957 and impounded water to serve two industries. Those industries were Texas Utilities and Abativi Paper Company. Uh the lake was originally developed for only industrial use. Uh in 2004, Abatibi forgave their rights back to the uh water district and again the water district, the authority that owns those rights for the Angelina and Nakadocious counties water control and improvement district number one. U being good stewards of this water when this these rights became available. uh the directors uh sought to seek out communities within approximately 60 to 75 miles of the reservoir to see if

there was interest in obtaining these rights. U they wanted those rights to stay in East Texas. There were several communities that uh were interested in this project and over about an 18month period, most of those uh entities fell by the wayside. There were others that were still very interested but just didn't have the funds or resources to be able to tackle a project of this scale. Uh Henderson was uh the primary uh entity that had the most involved interest in the council at that time. in 2006 entered into an option agreement to secure water rights up to 4 million gallons per day in Lake Striker to have those rights to secure those rights and were forwardinking enough to be able to secure those at that time. In 2018, uh, additional rights were obtained by the city that total 7.4 4 million gallons of water that's available in Lake Striker. Um, currently the city operates two sources of water. We have wells. Those wells, uh, there's approximately, there are eight wells that the city has. And I would like to recognize Randy Boyd. Randy was very instrumental in getting us all of the production data uh, of the the well production and surface water treatment plant production records. I want to thank him for including that to help us prepare this report. But of the eight wells that the city operates, five of those wells are operated on a daily basis. Three of those whales are not because of water quality issues, whether they be hydrogen

sulfide or color issues that create u issues with our water supply and can create some problems for our citizens. So, of that production, uh we have a firm yield of 3.9 million gallons of water that are produced by our wells. our second option of water available to us. And in the early 90s, the council uh after we see an aging um supply of our water wells and I want to just jump back on those water wells. Of these eight wells, the five producing wells, uh, one was, one is 90 years old, another is 78 years old, another is 70, 61, 56, and 47 years old. These are old wells still producing. They're doing good. But again, it's an aging infrastructure that we need to be aware of and be planning for for our long horizon of our ultimate water supply needs. Our other uh in early 90s uh the city opted to secure water rights from the Sabine River Authority in the Sabine River. The city owns those rights equal to 4.5 million gallons of water a day. In 2000, our surface water treatment plant was uh constructed and made operational. And so the city can produce uh both surface water and wellwater and they mix those to produce our drinking water that you see today. So when we look at the feasibility of trying to uh look forward to how we might could obtain a portion of that water in Lake Striker and bring it to our city. Uh we

looked at three different options. I've got David here with me. He's going to serve as Vanna White today to help me uh walk you through some of these plans. So again, when you you look up to the top of the map on the very top, this is our current water supply at the Sabine River where the city share has an 5050 share entrance for the city of Kilbour. There's a pump station there at the river and a raw water supply line that goes to Kilbour. All of that infrastructure is uh is supported 5050 between Sorry. No. And um what you see in redu that line represents uh trying to to build infrastructure that would pull water from Lake Striker to get it to our city. So when we looked at this, we looked at three different options. The first option was and before I go through these options, there are some commonalities that will occur in all three options. Any option that we take water from Lake Striker would include an intake structure and pump station near the dam. Second option would be a either a raw water supply line to transfer that water from the lake to the city. That's either in the form of raw water or treated water depending on our options. And then lastly, we looked at because we don't need all 7.4 4 million gallons to make up our water supply production right now. We looked at providing a 2 MGD plant that would supplement or provide additional water uh to coingle with the other water that we have available to us. In the event that we have problems with that raw water pipeline that's shared between us and Kilgore, that line is 50 years old. This also crosses the Sabine River of which we've had to go in and replace a portion of that before because high flows in the river. We've had the river wash out. It takes our

pipeline out with us. So, it's just a thing that you should note that there are liabilities with that pipeline. So option one looks at bringing raw water which would our pipeline would be designed in size to account for 100% of the potential flow which is 7.4 million gallons. We don't want to have to come back in the future and add a second supply line. So we would go ahead and build the the pipeline equal to 100% of that flow. We looked at bringing water 27 miles to our existing water surface water treatment plant on the north side of town. Uh in doing that, um that's a 27 mile pipeline, uh pump stations, a 2 million gallon per day, uh expansion of our water treatment plant. Our estimated cost of that project would be approximately $56 million. The second option we looked at and please stop me if you have any questions or if you want to we can dive more in the details if you want to. Our second option would again have a pipeline coming to town. This pipeline would stop somewhere near the south or west side of the city. Uh currently with our water system the way it is all of our wells and our our water production coming from our surface water treatment plant. We push water from the north side of the town to the south side of the town. So having a treatment plant somewhere near the south or west side of the of the city would enforce that or increase that ability to be able to push water both ways and have added supply and pressures on the south side of town. This is a little bit shorter pipeline. Again, the same surface water treatment plant of 2MGD.

That project would cost approximately $47 million to complete. And lastly, uh we wanted to look at a third option uh just to make sure that we were looking at any potential opportunities uh which would be we would construct a 2MGD surface water plant at Lake Striker. That way if there is the need if our any of our surrounding cities had an opportunity that they needed additional water uh from that treatment plant we could then send water different directions could be the city of Jacksonville could be the city of white house could be truth could be a number of cities that might have a need for that in the near future. So, we want to at least explore that option just to show you what the potential could be there should that need become available to us. And looking at that option, that option uh is estimated to be uh $53 million. As we look and evaluate all of these options, if the city has a desire uh to want to pursue a project of this nature, we would recommend option number two to you because of it's the less fe least feasible option. It also provides us a a second supply of water near the city. It's close operational. Uh we have all of our staff easily access this as opposed to to drive 16 miles uh to service a water plant that's outside of town. And uh also it will reinforce future growth that we've talked about in our comprehensive plan as we see the city hopefully expanding out west and uh to the north uh of our community.

When you look at these options, uh the the best funding source for projects of this scale is the [clears throat] Texas Water Development Board. Uh the state of Texas recently passed legislation. There is an emphasis on new water projects for the state because of the projected growth that's coming uh as a result of communities uh moving whether they be from California, from New York, or wherever. We've we've seen an influx over the last several years. We anticipate that in increase to uh to uh continue uh as a part if you're looking to do a project, if you have interest in doing a project, we would recommend you that uh the city at least apply for funding through the water development board. And and in doing so, we have to have that submitted by March 1st. That's the action item on your agenda today. That's a project information form. It sounds like it's a simple process, but it's a pretty long and drawn out process. There's a lot of information to be gathered. You have to provide all that in a format that the state will accept it. It's no obligation to the city to apply for these funds. you apply for these funds and in the fourth quarter of 2026 uh scoring will come back to see if the city is either in the money or you may be slightly outside of the money depending on the number of applications that may be submitted. uh if you are successful and uh they uh they will contact you and let you know that you've made the cut in the criteria then you reapply in 2027 for an actual loan application. So there's this is not a quick and simple process. uh but quicker

that we get our information in, we get on uh the state uh uh water board with our project uh the sooner a project like this could be funded. So the only thing that I would leave you with is that you know what we do know is with certainty you know an abundant reliable water supplies required for growth and health of any community especially those uh businesses and industries that may be looking to expand. uh a community which has a current water supply, not one that they're going to have to create after the fact hoping somebody will come, but a community that has a current water supply and land for development and a visionary leadership would be poised and be in a position to compete for some of these opportunities. Be happy to answer any questions if you have. Is there any chance of us losing our rights to that water? Say we do this or we don't? There's always a risk of that. U if even though we have the uh we've reserved the rights and you pay for those rights every year, uh if the state were to come in and there be a need that they saw that this water was not fully obligated, they could come and take that water and obligate it to someplace else. Uh so it was very important of the leadership at the time 19 years ago uh to at least take that first step in in securing those rights. And so obviously uh if we the city wanted to move forward and and start taking water from there, we would set a precedent of the need for that. And it would be less likely or more difficult for them to then take that water away from us. Only thing I'd add is that, you know, we think we have an abundance of

groundwater. We do. Uh there's there's no doubt about it. We blessed to be in East Texas and have good groundwater. Uh but I would encourage all of you to look out uh on the internet, gentleman by the name of Kyle Bass. He's a hedge fund manager and he's already seeking to uh drill numerous wells in East Texas. It's including Smith County, Henderson County, uh Tyler County, those counties that are east and south and east of us or I'm excuse me, south and west of us. U he has applied for permits to pull over 16 million gallons of water a day from those whale fields and then as a hedge fund manager, you know, sell those rights or sell that water to other industries that may be outside of our immediate area. Current legislature is working hard to to stop that, start people stop people from coming in to to scavenge those rights. We want to keep them here in East Texas. And so, I appreciate you letting me give this presentation today. Be happy to answer any more questions if you have any. that second project 47 million the one we're you're suggesting

correct that would be our recommendation certainly we you know and you don't have to commit to that right now again this is a long process let's just if uh since it's not going to obligate you to anything financially uh other than submitting an application to the water development board where he's looking at right now. It wouldn't affect us uh as much as it will those communities where he's pulling those waters, but it sets a precedence that you know our water's for sale and we don't want that. Yeah. Uh we had a hydraologist do a study back in 1991 and that was from the inceptions when our wells were drilled. Uh and again back from 1939 being the first one uh up to 1991 when the hydraologists were looking at the the water table uh in our wellfield area. uh the water table had already dropped 130 feet at that time. It's been a while since 1991 and those water levels continue to drop. I am not saying that we're fixing to run out of water. I'm just saying that we need to look at alternative solutions that we can we're not so heavily dependent on one source of water. And by having that, it just po uh good things to happen. Thank you.

Um, we've heard the uh presentation. Do we have any uh questions about item number seven? Yeah, we need all the due diligence and all the work to do it.

Motion was made by Mrs. Wararez, second by Mr. Jackson. Can I get a motion on item number seven? Yes. The study option two. You got the motion. It's time to vote.

All right. [laughter] Could I get a vote on item number seven? I made a motion. A vote. Any uh post? Same sign. Item seven carries. I meant to say that and said motion. Excuse me. All right. Moving on to uh item number eight. Consideration of possible action upon authorization. authorizing the mayor to create and appoint a rate study task force for water. Mr. Hartman.

Yes, sir. Mayor, councel, this is uh just to update y'all to let you know we [clears throat] have completed gathering data to enter into start our rate study. I've been working with city manager, all of our directors on getting this together. It's been a very extensive ordeal, but we are ready to move forward and create a task force to present this to so a so that can be brought back and recommendations can be made to the council. Ultimately, C council, what we're asking for is just the authorization for for the creation so the mayor can create this task force and then um appoint the members per the recommendation from council like we've we've had some conversations on. So, it's just the granting the authorization to the mayor to create the task force and appoint that um that group to to start work.

Mr. Horman, how many meetings would these people have? That would be we hadn't determined that yet. Once once we get this together, we've got all the data. I would hope it would be no more than two, possibly three meetings. Um, but that's Does that mean three months or does that mean months from now, we'll we'll

I would hope it wouldn't be I would hope it'd be pretty pretty quick. I mean, I can't guarantee that. But once the task force is created, we'll have possibly two meetings within what do you say maybe two weeks, two, three weeks and be brought back to the council. Hopefully next month or in March.

Maybe by March when it's all officially brought back. I don't know we can get it done before February's meeting. Depends on how long it takes to actually but no longer than that. Yeah. Yep. We'll get the members quicker we have those and we can start it. Y

if we're cooped up like the weather's predicting this weekend, we'll have time to figure it out. I I move we authorize the mayor to create appoint this rate study task force by Mr. Cersei, second by Mr. Strong. All in favor say I.

Any oppose? Same sign. All right. Item number eight carries. Moving to item number seven, consideration and possible action upon authorizing the finance director. Where am I? Okay. Okay. I thought I was at uh nine. Oh, did I?

We're looking out for you. Dyslexia and glasses. Okay. Number nine. Consideration and possible actions upon authorizing the finance director Stephanie Kimbell as an authorized signer on all the city of Henderson accounts with financial institutions. Council, we missed one important thing here. Uh, so when we appointed Miss Kimell as finance director, got to authorize her to actually be on the signature cards for the banks because they just kind of look at her like, "Yeah, who are you?"

Yeah, that's kind of important. Yeah. Banks are looking out for us, you know, for fraud. So they say, "No, no, no. You got to have that." So we need that official officially in the minutes that council does appoint her as authorized signatory signature for all financial institutions.

So moved. Mr. Cersei made the motion. Miss Wararez second it. All in favor say I. Any oppose? Same sign. All right. That motion carries. Item number 10, consideration and possible action upon a recommendation for the vacancy on the Main Street uh board. She lives two doors down from me and she's the president of the county historical commission right now.

Yeah. Ran have any questions? If not, could I get a motion? I'll second that. Where has made the motion? Mr. Cersei second it. All in favor say I.

Any oppose? Same sign. Item 10 carries. Moving to item 11, consideration and possible action upon a recommendation for the vacancy and a reappointment on the planning and zoning board. do those individually or do them together? All right. Can I get a There are no questions on motion.

I move for the appointment of Miss McDougall and the reappointment of Mr. Walker. Mr. uh Cersei made the motion. Mr. uh Strong second it. All in favor say I. Any oppose? Same sign. Okay. Item 11 carries. All right. Item number 12. consideration and possible action upon a recommendation recommendation to replace a member on the board of adjustments with an alternate. Mr.

[laughter] All right. Uh, Miss Wararez, may the motion and Second, Mr. Jackson second it. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Item 12 carries. All right. Item 13, consideration and possible action upon the appointment uh of the charter review committee. Right. Do we have any uh questions? Would someone uh make a motion?

Miss Warz made the motion. Mr. Strong second it. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Same sign. All right. Item 13 carries. Item 14, consideration and possible action upon performance agreement between Headco and Velvin Production Company. Mr.

Thank you, Mayor, Council, City Manager. Uh, this is a fairly straightforward project uh that the EDC has worked on. Obviously, Velvet Oil is a very important company that's been here since 1964. Um, to third generation ownership and um really wanting to uh lay down some new roots within our community. We had uh the property in the old industrial park that had been languishing for years that we could not get sold to anybody and there was a great opportunity to work with Velves, which is what they plan to do, as well as also benefit our railroad um Blacklands and and some projects that they need to expand on. So from the EDC's perspective, we were more than willing to put the property into this uh so long as they create create the capital investment that they say they're going to create and the job creation that they're planning to create. And um over the next five years, you know, this is probably going to be about a $5 million capital improvement project and probably something in the neighborhood of about 15 brand new jobs within the community with a guaranteed wage of $20 or better. Um, Velvet is very excited about this project and and uh looking to get it moved forward. We are as well. Uh, so that's why it's in front of you tonight. The board um of uh the EDC unanimously approved this and that's why we bring it forth to you now. Any questions? Could I get a motion? Mr. uh Strong second. All in favor say I.

I. Any oppose? Same sign. 14 carries. 15. consideration and possible action upon the uh headco 2026 bylaw amendments.

Mr. Cardell. Um thank you, mayor. Um this was again another opportunity for the board as a collective to be able to look at the bylaws that were in place um and see where we had some outdated concepts in there and try to bring them forth to you guys as recommendations of updating the bylaws. A for example item is AC payments that we now make to people as opposed to writing checks. Well, the current bylaws say we we have to write a check for everything and more and more people nowadays are not accepting checks as payment. Obviously, we don't give cash. So, AC has become something that we needed to make sure that we altered the bylaws and put in there. That's just one example. Um, some other things are the uh the banking rotation to make sure that we're protecting that uh and protecting the integrity of what the original bylaws uh stated when they talk about a banking executive from within the city. Um the board is making a recommendation in here that um no board member should be able to serve more than three terms without terming terming off and then of course after at least one term off they would have the ability to come back should council opt to appoint somebody back onto that board. Um so most of these are really and when you look through it you'll see a lot of it is correcting some language getting some apostrophes in the right place or uh some pluralities marked down. Uh but that's really what this is. And remember, this is a recommendation to you guys on behalf of the board. You can obviously say yes, no. You all can take your time, look through it, make different alterations if you want, but this is from the EDC EDC board to you guys. Um the yes it there will be one bank right now

that will be impacted by this and that is Origin Bank because they no longer have what was deemed to be an executive living within the community. So, the original bylaws stated that the banks, Vera Bank, Texas, uh, Origin, I think those were, uh, and

Federal Henderson Federal, those in the rotation, um, the language stated you had to have an executive from that bank that lived within the city that would be appointed. And the other alteration to that is to make sure that that bank executive is also automatically the treasurer uh for that organization. That's a it's a two-year term. The rotation is every two years. Um so that's the cycle that they wanted to maintain. But Origin Bank would be impacted by this right now because they don't have a representative. However, the language does state in here that should a bank in Rusk County come back into a fruition period where they have an executive and they choose to be added to this rotation then the board could uh accept that and put them into the rotation.

So per se if origin bank cannot then it goes directly to the next bank. Correct? Yes. And yeah thank you. question. I don't have it in front of me. Was it the fine blank executive?

I don't recall that being actually spelled out as to what that definition of what an executive would be. Um just wouldn't leave it up for interpretation is what I'm getting at. It um and I think banks are notorious for [clears throat] titles. just got to figure out what an executive is. And every bank is going to be different or what they consider maybe an executive.

And and that's correct in the fact that you have some banks that an executive means just a loan officer, but then it it all at some other banks it means the executive is a board member of the board. So, you know, I do agree that it kind of needs to be def defined. We can uh we can revisit that section and present it back to you guys next month. Um are there any other areas that y'all have had an opportunity to look at that we should revisit some language on as well?

Have you had an opportunity to look at this? Did you see anything? would this be something we would

and it come up next month for sure or how does that work? Table it pending the table it pending the corrections on the definition limit us to one one thing or it just goes to the next meeting. We'll have to do something with it the next meeting. Have to have an action at that meeting if I table it or uh so it can go Okay.

Yeah. Uh I make a motion we table this uh pending new verbiage and then we'll revisit it next month. And under section 604, the notice of the meeting with House Bill 1522 making that three business days.

Yeah. I thought Did that not get corrected? I thought it just less than three days. Oh, okay. That was the only thing I had noticed. But yeah, I I'll second your recommendation the table until the language is cleared up. Mr. Strong and Cersei second it. All in favor for tableabling item number 15.

Okay, we'll just table it. [laughter] Is that Did we uh Did we get a vote? Wait. Okay. I just heard one eye. [laughter] Okay, there we go. We'll table it. All right. Item Thank you, council.

16. Consideration and possible action upon a minor plat application received by Norman and Gretchen Walton to combine three lots located at the intersection of Peach Street and US79 for development purposes. Mr. Benberg.

Yes, sir. Good evening. Um, this uh this application apologize if there's any confusion here. I think I put three lots, but what you're looking at here is uh basically six it's currently three three addresses there on that north side. Uh 621 US79, 623 US79. There's also a um a lot by deed back there in that left corner. Um I think it's addressed at 103 Peach Street, that little square there. Those lots are those lots are by deed, but they've not been they've not been platted. the it's really a replplat uh of these lots. They were platted as lots eight and nine. Um but by deed, they're just separated there. And um so there's technically two platted lots there, but three by deed. And on the southern end there, um those lots five and six were already platted. Uh Mr. Walton simply, he he's owns and his wife, he he owns all of this property. Uh he wants to try to there used to be uh where that concrete is up there. There used to be an office building there. It's next to tobaca junction there on the highway and he wants to he just wants to build something new. He wants to build a a new commercial office building or something and he needs to to be able to have all that area to do it. So um this is in district two by the way. So but if you have and of course the bottom uh lot is just getting platted together. They were already by deed five and six, but they're just he's just going ahead and platten both of them for future development. So, you know, if you have any questions on, but we do recommend that that we approve that council approves this.

That's pretty straightforward. I'll make a motion for approval. Okay, Mr. Cersei made the motion. Mr. Strong second it. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. All right. Item 16 carries. Item 17, consideration and possible action on a minor plat application received by Sam Ariano to divide a parcel of land located at 301 Yandel into three lots for development purposes. Mr. Bradenberg.

Uh yeah, this is also in district 2. Um, this is out on east east connects east main and Carthage Highway, Yandel Drive. Th this land not been not been platted previously. It um it's about an acre comprises about an acre and a half u land there on the the west side. Uh Mr. Ayano wants to wants to build something on it. So, we need to plat these lots out. Um it's located in the R1 zone. The only minor minor caveat to this would just be the fact that technically speaking, by the development standards, R1 lots are halfacre minimum. Um, I don't know how y'all are at math, but it looks pretty close to me. So, I wanted to make sure and get your approval that um his plan to develop three halfacre lots out of this approximately one and a half acre track. Uh, water and sewer available. Um the only the only existing structure is um is is right there in the middle lot. There is a a small um existing 800 foot grandfathered in which is usually was used as a house um at this point in time, but he plans to uh convert that into like an accessory structure. And so he drew this to where he could build um basically three houses there on those on those lots as platted and the rest of it would meet applicable setbacks. So um after discussing it with them, didn't see a didn't think that this would be uh too difficult to do, but I definitely will address any questions on it.

You answered mine. If there's nothing else, I'll move for approval. Mercy uh made the motion. Mr. Strong second it. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Item 17 carries. Thank you, Mr. Brightenberg.

Okay. We are down to our departmental reports. The city council may deliberate and make inquiries into any item listed in the uh departmental reports. Does anyone wish to do so? Council, we've got a rather lengthy report that didn't make it in your packet, but I'm trying to finish that up here tomorrow. We'll go back to you firstly year type of stuff and end of year stuff. Um, so that will be coming to you as well. Um, um, also take this time to to let you know that we are obviously watching the weather and what goes on this weekend. We're going to meet in the morning with our directors of um, utilities, public services, public safety, and um, make sure that we're not going to drop any balls. They're always very good and and understand this ahead of time uh, when it comes to streets and and utilities and whatnot. So, appreciate what they do. But, we're going to meet early in the morning and and continue to watch it. Um, and uh probably have Cersei on Councilman Cersei on speed speed dial. Weatherman Cersei on speed dial.

Well, there's 10 a.m. conference calls every day set for the storm. Exactly. So, we'll be on be watching that. But just want to make sure I we talked about that. Um, weather's continuing to change. We'll watch it. Hopefully, the freezing rain piece goes away. That's what we're really concerned about. By the way, I also heard from uh SwepCo and Mr. Mark Robinson. Y'all might know Mark. Um, saw him today at the chamber meeting. Is anybody else on the chamber board there? Yeah. So, well, I think he said the the the weight of a power line. Give me Tell me if I'm wrong here. Covered in a quarter inch of ice, an eighth inch of ice between poles. The weight of it is the same weight as an average grizzly bear.

Grizzly bear. A grizzly bear hanging on the line. Anyway, just if in case you were wondering, you needed to win the TW trivia game later on. Well, not to mention some of the trees, the sims are I don't know, flimsy. That came that came that's straight from a professional. So, [laughter]

grizzly bear Wrangler. The the Texas Division of Emergency Management was wanting to make sure everybody had 24hour contacts for center point. I know we have them, but he told me to stress it tonight since we were all here.

Absolutely. Boards and commissions, are there any questions or concerns upon any of the board minutes submitted? We'll move on. Great. Okay. is 7:29. Uh we will move in 7:25. We'll move into executive session at this time. Yeah, this thing here is wrong. Okay. Right. It's a little slow though. Four minutes slow. Three minutes,

maybe four minutes.