City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Sean Salter, and I serve as the chief executive officer for Christa CMS and Christa's Flight for Life. I came to speak to you uh tonight on agenda item number four regarding an amendment that the city is considering uh to uh put in place again with an extension of the Ardent UT EMS uh uh contract. Last Friday, I sent an email to each of you individually wherein I shared the interest that the CMS has in being considered as your next provider of EMS service. Just as art UTMS diligently worked with the county uh to propose for them to seek an RFP for their next EMS contract, I humbly request that the city uh continue to do the same. As I shared in my note with each of you, I believe that Chris is in a great position uh to offer the city more services and more resources than what you are currently receiving. Additionally, I believe that the city deserves um some additional transparency in your response time reports uh compared to the reports that you're receiving currently. I only ask that each of you as the elected officials uh who make important decisions on behalf of the citizens of the city of Henderson uh take the opportunity to critically evaluate and select the best option uh for your future emergency medical services provider. Uh by doing so, you're helping to protect your citizens and those who come to visit your city. Christ EMS has a strong history of working with uh receiving hospitals including those that are not part of our own health system. What we believe that patients should be able to do is to select where they want to receive their health care. And so for us the receiving facility uh doesn't really play into our decision making. If the patient has a strong desire to go to one health system or another or one city or another, we try to accommodate that request. I just wanted to take the opportunity again to

let you know and remind you that you do have options as a city and uh there are those uh such as myself that would have an interest in being considered and I just uh thank you for your time this evening. Sean. from the city of Henderson February as heart American heart. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Individuals and families and uh communities across the nation. Research shows that many forms of heart disease and strokes are preventable through healthy behaviors including regular physical activities and balanced nutritious eating. Maintaining an active lifestyle and making healthy food choices can help reduce the risk of high blood pressure. High cholesterol, obesity, and diabetes, major risk factors of cardiovascular disease. American Heart Month observed each February serves as an opportunity to encourage residents to adopt heart

healthy habits, increase awareness of cardiovascular health, and support uh prevention efforts. Community partners, healthcare providers, schools and local organizers play an important role in promoting opportunities for physical activity and assess the nutritious foods. The Healthy Texas Youth Ambassadors Program and the City of are committed to promote heart healthy heart health by encouraging healthy living, supporting local programs, and improving the overall health of our community. Therefore, I, Henry Pace, mayor of the city of Henderson, on behalf of the city council, do hereby proclaim the month of February as a month of recognition and encourage All residents to prioritize healthy eating habits engage in regular physical activity and take proactive steps to help heart health and overall wellbeing. [applause] Not that you're not adorable.

Is that good?

Okay. time is 6:44. We will reconvene into regular session uh and take any action necessary as a result of the closed session.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make go. Uh yes. Can I get a motion where I am on? Yeah. On number two there.

All right. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we reschedule our next regularly scheduled council meeting from March 17th to March 24th. I second that. Made by Mr. Cersei s second by Mr. Jackson. All in favor say I.

I. Any oppose? Same sign. All right. Motion carries. Uh let's move on to item number three. Um can I get a motion that we drop item number three?

So moved. Second. Cersei made the motion. Uh Mr. Strong second it. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Same sign. That motion carries. Moving on to item four, consideration and possible action upon the amendment uh to the UT EMS renewal contract with the city of Henderson. Could I get a motion on item four?

Mr. Mayor, I make a a motion we renew the contract between UTMS and the city of Henderson. Motion's been made. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. I note my abstension. Okay. Second that. All in favor say I.

Any oppose? Same sign. Abstension. carries. All righty. Right. Now, 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 upon the uh consent agenda? So moved

second motion. Mr. Strong seconds it. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Consent. Agenda passes. All right. We're [clears throat] going to move into our regular council business. Item number nine, consideration and possible action upon the amended performance agreement for First Baptist Church Preschool.

First, what I said Baptist First Methodist, excuse me, y'all. Mr. Gardelli. Good evening, council mayor. Thank you very much. Uh, we present this to you as a simple amendment. We presented this u agreement to you, I think about 60 days ago, and uh the church preschool folks came back to us and said that they had a slight alteration of how they wanted to repair the retaining wall. Um having a different structural engineer look at it and say that they could fix what exists there by using some better rebar, cutting out some sections and using some rebar as opposed to tearing it all down and building a new block wall. and um and the board has agreed to that. It only adjusted the price by about $2,200. The secondary part of the contract that we gave them the ability to do was to have an additional six months so they could get through the winter months and get under construction when the temperatures better and the ground won't have uh the potential for um any more swelling and and thawing if we get an ice storm or something cold. So, those are the only two alterations that occurred in that agreement that we would ask you to go ahead and approve.

I second made the motion. Mr. Jackson second it. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. I abstain from this because I I'm the one that presented it originally originally. All right. Item number nine carries. Moving to uh item number 10, consideration [clears throat] and possible action upon the head code 2026 bylaws amendments. Mr.

Thank you. This we brought to you last month and you had um some questions about two items. One was to better define an executive on the banking [clears throat] side and I think we did that and put that in in writing for you to see. Um, the second issue was to make sure that we were complying with state law on meeting notices and we put a section in there that says uh, all public notices will be met according to the Texas state public notice statute. So, we believe that um, our attorney believes that that should cover the questions that you guys had and hopefully bring that up to the uh, the level that you want to see it at. second war. May the motion Mr. Strong second it. All in favor say I.

I. Any oppose? Same sign. All right. Item 10 carries. Item [clears throat] 11, consideration and possible action to approve the waiver and release for Braso Development and Construction LLC. Mr.

Yes. Thank you, sir. This is just a minor adjustment to the agreement that we had. They had a name change from Brasso Development to Brasso Development and Construction or I got those reversed. I can't remember. Um, so it was just a correction on on the uh the company name of the agreement. The secondary part for us though was we had agreed to give him a an 18-month option on the 35 acres on the east side of even side and we asked him to uh forego that option which he did. So that's what's been memorialized in this amendment. So, we no longer have any type of incumbrances on moving forward on that 35 acres with any other developer should someone present themselves to us. And um and we we we're looking forward to having some conversations with some local developers on that side.

Have a question. Yes, sir. So, he's still on the west side? Yes, sir. and he's continuing that process or developing that on the north five acres of the 10 acres he has and he has the rights to the first that that north five on even side and I believe as of today we have figured out a way that he can move forward without making the $460,000 utility investment but probably get these seven lots now built. So, that just occurred this morning. Um, so I believe we've gotten him off center on how he can start to go vertical with some of these homes.

Does he have a projected t? Uh, no. I didn't really talk about that. Yeah, I get you. Yeah, but the cost came in line. So, what happened was we all know eventually the infrastructure has to be put around the entire property. The goal of Henderson Texas economic development was to try to get new custom homes built and keep them around a $300,000 price point. With the addition of dollars that would have to go into the infrastructure, it was going to put those price points at about 320. So, it was higher than what we were really comfortable in saying if we're trying to get generational wealth to people to to buy a home, 320 is putting them at the higher end of market rate right now. We wanted to bring them in at a lower rate on the market side so they could invest and buy that home. So by migrating from the even side to the whipperwill side, we believe that that now provides this opportunity to get that done. And the lots on the whipperwill side were going to have to be built anyway eventually. So instead of starting on even side, we can start on the whipperwill side and then eventually we can work with the city on the infrastructure needs, get that created uh and then he can build along even side. That's on the north five acres. The south five acres he does have an option on currently to once he constructs uh the first house or sells the first house, excuse me, on the north side. then he can if he chooses exercise his option on the south five acres of that 10. He may will be willing to forego that option as well if we have a developer who wants to come in and get constructed on that side as well. We just don't know.

We were hoping to bring the price point in around 275. It's just a challenge to get a house built here for 275. These aren't McMansions. They're only 1,600 to,900 square feet. We think that um we past and we will ask future developers to put them on at least a third of an acre because we're rural. We want to make sure that people have property where their house is. So, we could sell them for less if we made the lot smaller. If you had a typical suburb is a 60 by 120 as you guys know, but then we look like everybody else. We wanted to make sure that these these properties had room for people to grow on. Um, and Since there's less lots, the price is just coming in a little bit higher. Um, you know, we want to we as the EDC want to be as helpful to any developer who comes here because our goal is to make sure that our investments are helping people in this community. We want to do that through housing to help with creating this generational wealth, but we also want to do it in the best interest of the city. So, if we could if we could get him down to 275 and the developer could make money and he has shaved his development fee. He's he's cut 10 grand off of his development fee. So, he can still make some money, but we can save some money for the end user, the person who buys the house, but I'm not sure how we could get it any less price. And we didn't want to go with a quality that was not benefiting of the future either. We we didn't want to go with a typical starter home product that had uh your uh contractor grade bathrooms or lenolum sinks, countertops, um wire shelving. We didn't want to do that because that's not an attractive

look and those homes tend to deteriorate and lose value quicker than something else that's going to be a little bit more custom in design. Get a motion on

11. This one's on the name change. That was I'll make a motion. I second the motion. Makes the motion and uh Mr. Scoggin second it. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Same sign. All right. Item 11 passes. Thank you, council.

All right. All right. Moving on to item 12. Consideration and possible action on approval of the city of Henderson becoming a member of Sourcewell. Council. Thank you for your time. Uh we budgeted this year to replace a say dilapidated out of date collection system camera that we used to push through issues we have our sewer problems drainage issues covers and uh we're ready to move forward with that. We've done our research. We've found what we believe to be the best suit for what we need. Um, this company that we're using, we've used in the past. They've been they've been really, really good working with us on replacement parts or warranty issues. Um, but they are not members of by board. They're members of source, which is the same as same as by board. They do the leg work. They make sure that we're getting the best deal. Um, so that's what I'm asking the council to approve is for us to become members of source so we can move forward and go ahead and get this uh get this ordered.

Cost the what we budgeted this year will cover a tractor camera, a push camera. Oh, okay. Oh, there is no cost. There's no cost just like I just want to be clear on that. There's no cost to us. Okay. Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve agenda. I'll second that. Strong made the motion. Mr. Circus seemed it. All in favor say I.

I. Any oppose? Same sign. All right. Item uh Thank you. Item 12 passes. Uh item 13, consideration and possible action upon a minor plat application to combine two lots at 418 Broadway Street for the purposes of development. Mr. Brightenberg.

Yes, sir. Uh good evening. This uh this property here is located in council district 2. Um the roughly at the corner of Broadway and Peach Street. Uh there's one lot up. There's two lots sitting there. Um Blake and Jaylen Elely uh approached us to want to try to do something with this this uh these two lots and um it's located in an R4 district with manufactured home district. Um, we talked about the possibility of building two single family structures on each of the lots, but they wanted to build a a duplex and so they went to approach the uh board of adjustments last week on Tuesday and uh granted a special exception use for a multifamily structure on these two lots pending uh council approval of this minor plat application. So, um, basically that's those two lots 12, 11, and 12 will be combined in lot 11A. And they've already g given us plans for that. So, uh, just waiting on your blessing to combine the two lots to proceed with the the construction.

Uh, make a motion for approval. Second. Mr. May the motion. Mr. Mr. Cersei. Cersei made the motion. Mr. Jackson, uh, second it. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? same sign.

Thank you, Wes. All right. Thank you. Item 13 passes. Moving on to item 14, consideration and possible action upon the Main Street Advisory Board bylaw amendments. Good evening, everybody. Um, these are pretty straightforward and simple housekeeping amendments. Um, do you want me to go over each of the changes or did you have an opportunity to read them or Okay. Um, we changed the wording on exeicio memberships because it had a bunch of specific city positions listed that are now occupied by one person. So, my jobs were in there three times. So rather than putting job titles, um we changed it that um any city department or representative that is concerned with business on the board can come to the meetings and speak and have input instead of delineating specific job titles. Um, we changed clarified that they can serve two two-year consecutive terms and then they have to take a break before they can come back onto the board again. Um, we changed instead of you have to have three consecutive absences before they can consider removing you from the board. That three absences because Main Street America, one of their standards for us to be accredited is that at least 75% of the board must attend 75% of the meetings. So, if they're missing too many meetings, it can keep us from getting our accreditation.

Sorry, Alex, I didn't mean to. it's been there. Um, we delineated the required committees that Main Street America requires us to have. There are four main committees that we have to have and then we can also have additionals other than that. Um the fiscal year they put in there that it will rotate with the city's fiscal year that the board has to approve of any expenditures over $500 that they can request financial reports at any time. And that's about it. Any questions? I'll second that.

War has made the motion. Uh, Mr. Cersei second it. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Uh, item 14 carries. Okay, we're moving into our departmental reports. Um, city council may deliberate or make inquiries into any items listed in these reports. Does uh, anyone wish to do so at this time? Are there any questions or concerns upon any of the uh minutes submitted by our boards and committees? We'll move on.

Yes. Could I get a motion to adjurnn? Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I uh make a motion to adjurnn. I'll second that. I think everybody's in favor.