City Council - Regular Meeting

Right on time. You are on time. Good afternoon everyone. I'm going to call this meeting to order. We do have a full quorum here today, all five voting members. The mayor of course does not vote on matters. I wanted to remind everyone if you wish to speak on any matter, We would prefer, if you would, to please sign up back there at the desk where Ray Garcia is standing back there. And it contains information about who you are and what matter you would like to speak on. So if you would please sign up if you're intending to speak, we would appreciate it. First thing we do, as always, is we give an invocation. And I am going to ask Dr. John Duncan from the Church at Horseshoe Bay to give our invocation today. Dr. Duncan. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, today we thank you, Lord, as we come before you for your goodness and grace.

We thank you for a great community to live in. We thank you, Lord, for your blessing in our lives and so many things that we can be thankful for. And so today, Lord, we give thanks. Lord, we also pray for this council, pray for our city. We pray for the guidance, your shepherd and care. Lead them, Lord, in all the decisions that are made. Then, Father, in a room like this, we know that everyone here has their own burdens, concerns, and needs, and probably some things that weigh them down. And so, Lord, you know our hearts. We bring those things before you, knowing we can cast our cares on you because you care for us. And so today, Lord, bless this meeting and guide us and lead us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. Thank you, Dr. Duncan. We are gonna start off with some staff recognitions today, and I'm excited to hear about these. Ray Garcia, I think you are going to lead us off with a recognition of Alexia Brooks, is that right? No? Nope. Now we can.

Check? Yep. All right. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, and all those in attendance. Ray Garcia, Utilities Department Director. Yes, I would like to introduce Alexia Brooks, who is not here. Today is her day off because she works out at Reclamation Center. I'm going to introduce her on paper to you all. We would like to welcome Utility Department's newest team member, Alexia Brooks. Alexia Brooks was raised in Burnett, where she developed a strong appreciation for small town values, hard work, and community service. She has recently joined the City of Horseshoe Bay Recycling Center as a recycling monitor, bringing her strong sense of accountability, reliability, and service to her role. Alexia is passionate about meaningful work building strong team professional relationships, and contributing to long-term growth and well-being of the community. In her free time, Alexia enjoys outdoors, gaming, hiking, and hunting. And she's a spirited little young lady that she's a welcome member of our team. Wonderful. Congratulations on her hire. We'll bring her by when... She's not off. Wonderful. You have another one, too. I do. The next one is Mr. Michael Dela Cruz. Michael is the newest member of the field operations department. And Michael is actually here. Michael, come on up here. Michael was born in Austin. raised in Leander, where he developed a strong work ethic and family values. He has recently joined the City of Horseshoe-based Field Operations Division as a field operator, bringing a strong sense of accountability and service to his role. Michael is passionate about being his best in every task assigned. Michael values strong professional relationships and contributing his best to the community he serves. In his free time, Michael enjoys his family, gaming with his son, and sports that his children attend. Michael, welcome aboard.

Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to Horseshoe Bay, Michael, and we look forward to many years of your service here. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have now, I think, John Byram. You're going to introduce a different position Employee who's been here for a while.

I'm going to reintroduce one of our employees. So as council knows, we recently added the building inspector position, and I'm happy to say that we filled it and we were able to promote from within. So we have Michael Ellis who, um, was our plans examiner. Um, but of course now he is our building inspector. Um, right now he is starting to work on all his residential building inspector certifications. So outside of work, Michael is a devoted family man. He and his wife, Alina, are proud parents of five children, including a daughter that's already in college and two sons that will be graduating from Marble Falls High School next year. So we're super excited that we're able to promote from within, and we're super excited to have Michael as our building inspector.

Congratulations on the position, Michael. We need you. We need you. Yes, absolutely. We come now to the time of public comment. I want to remind everyone here that our public comment is such a time that you can speak on anything that touches or concerns the community. You are limited to three minutes. If it's a matter that's actually on the public hearing agenda, We will wait for you to speak at such time that we take up the matters in public hearing. And so, but if it's on any other matter that's on the agenda or off the agenda, you have three minutes. And I think I have a list here. Vanna White has given it to me. And let's see. Okay. Sterling Holmes, Silver Rock Electric. think all of these are on the agenda are they not okay okay we're going to hold off on these until we get to the public hearing matters in which you have signed up and thank you for signing that and so if there's no other persons who have signed up for The public comment, I'm going to go on to presentations. Presentations is a time of our meeting where we have special events that need public acclamation, and this is one that fits neatly into that. Chief Doug Fowler is going to tell us about some heroic activities here.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. On Sunday, May the 10th, At 8.44 p.m., the Horseshoe Bay Fire Department was dispatched to Lake LBJ in the area closest to Pax Settle Drive in Blue Lake. A pontoon boat had lost power, was adrift in the middle of Lake LBJ. A storm had blown in with winds recorded up to 40 miles an hour and was creating three to four foot waves on Lake LBJ. There were 11 people on the boat, three adults and eight children ranging from seven up to 17-ish years of age, one boy and seven girls. So I'm going to play a couple of the 911 calls for you so you kind of get a sense for what occurred.

841 and 44, second, May 10, 2026. 911, what's the emergency?

Oh, yes. My girlfriend just called me and said that she's stuck out on the lake in between Apple Red Island and Sandy Creek. And they're in a pontoon boat, so I don't think it's going to be smooth. But I know there's bad storms coming. They can't get it to start. And they have other kids up on the boat right now.

Um, okay. Yes, sir. It does look like we actually got a call from someone on the boat.

Okay, okay. I was just...

So that gentleman had had a girlfriend on the boat and someone from the boat had called him because they were having trouble calling 911. However, some of the other passengers were able to get through the 911. One young lady in particular was on the phone for roughly 35 minutes, 16 minutes and then 19 minutes and I'll play a little bit of her recording. Battalion 11 and Engine 12 were assigned the call. Engine 12 is directed to Blue Lake, which was the initial incident address. Battalion 11 heads to Horseshoe Bay PD to get their boat keys. PD asks if they should go with Battalion 11, but Battalion 11 decides that there are 11 people on the boat, and if he's got to load all 11 people on the PD boat, it could be an issue with weight. So they make the decision that he's going to go by himself. Battalion 11 accesses the PD boat and responds to the adrift boat. The Highland Lakes Regional Emergency Communications Center is staffed with four people at the time, a supervisor and three dispatchers. They stayed on line with one of the callers, a young female, for the duration of the event. The dispatchers recognized that this was a critical event and stayed with the event for the duration while still managing other calls. This is the young lady on the boat.

I don't know. I think my mom's best friend called again. I think that's okay. I'm going to stay in line with you, okay? Can you still hear me? Yes, ma'am. The other call stopped. Like I said, I would talk and nobody would answer. Yes, ma'am.

It's okay.

We have you on the line now.

Is everybody trying to stay calm?

Hey, I need you to stay calm. Can you hear me? It was very stressful. Every time a boat wave hit the boat.

that would happen. They were very scared and of the three adults, one's trying to drive as best he can, even though he has no power, and the other two women are trying to keep the kids in a safe place. Granite Shoals' boat was requested early on when the pontoon boat was initially between Granite Shoals and Horseshoe Bay, but the police chief determined the weather was too severe to launch. Battalion 11 contacted the drifting pontoon boat and towed it to a dock at 123 Applehead Island. Engine 12 assisted taking the 11 passengers off the pontoon boat, got them to a warming station and addressed injuries. Llano County ESD 5 was alerted to the incident and had determined the weather was too severe to launch. Personnel at their boat dock observed an Austin Fire Department boat team had arrived at McNair Park and appeared to be preparing to launch their Zodiac Swift watercraft. Understanding the weather was too severe to launch engine, I'm sorry, ESD-5 initiated contact with AFD to let them know the incident was about to terminate. ESD-5 personnel facilitated contact with Battalion 11 and confirmed no other resources were needed and the incident concluded safely for everybody involved. Today we want to recognize four groups that participated in that successful rescue. But as much the case in our business, sometimes people are called away or sometimes people are staffing their stations and can't be here. For example, the dispatchers with the Highland Lakes Regional Emergency Communications Center played a critical role in providing incident location details and stayed on the line with the young passenger on the pontoon boat, attempting to keep them calm and stay up with everything happening on the boat. As a side note, a significant storm was occurring and the dispatch center was handling dozens and dozens of calls for downed trees and roadways as well as handling a structure fire. On the night of May 10th, those dispatchers were very busy and they did a fantastic job. Those dispatchers are on duty, are unable to attend today's recognition, but we were able to stop by their location in Marble Falls last week and present them with the plaque for outstanding service rendered over an extended period of time. The next group I'd like to recognize, Chief Cates and Lieutenant Trammell. Come on up, please. Yeah. Assisting with presenting the awards is Mr. Jeff Walker, who was rescued from the pontoon boat, and Assistant Chief Stephanie Black. So we are presenting them with a plaque today for service above and beyond the call of duty. Had they not taken the actions they took, we would have had more people in a hazardous situation. So we appreciate their efforts, and they're such a great partner of the region. So thank you so much.

Thank you both so much. It's chilling to listen to those tapes.

Yes. Next, we're going to have a unit citation for Engine 12. So Engine 12, please come forward. Engine 12 crew was dispatched to Blue Lake to attempt to put eyes on the drifting pontoon boat. They established command and changed positions several times, attempting to obtain the best position possible to manage the incident. Engine 12 met Battalion 11 at 123 Applehead Island Drive to help remove the passengers from the pontoon boat and place them in the cab of Engine 12 to get warm from their adventure and to survey and treat any injuries. They later transported several passengers back to the fire station, awaiting pickup by family and friends. For team performance in overcoming unusual circumstances that are beyond normal duties in completion of a difficult mission, Lieutenant Jason Blackman and firefighters Josiah Villareal and Asa Oliver are awarded the unit citation. And I'm gonna ask Lieutenant Blackman to stay on and accept an award for his captain, Ben Miller. The Horseshoe Bay Fire Department has an inflatable swift water boat. However, with winds estimated over 40 miles an hour, creating three to four foot waves on Lake LBJ, Captain Miller recognized weather conditions were too severe for the use of our inflatable. He decided to use a larger vessel to effect a rescue and was able to launch and respond in the Horseshoe Bay police boat. Once Captain Miller entered the main body of the Lake LBJ, communications were impossible due to the strong winds and heavy rain. He continued his response and used his cell phone to communicate with Engine 12. Captain Miller fought the adverse conditions until he made contact with the boat adrift and towed the boat with its occupants to safety. Captain Miller took action in a very hazardous environment to effect a rescue of 11 people. For performing a courageous act, Under dangerous conditions above and beyond the call of duty, Captain Miller is awarded the Medal of Merit.

All right. All right. Get a picture with the chief there, too. Chief. Chief. Get over there. Thank you, one and all. Thank you so much. Thank you, one and all. Okay. Appreciate that, Chief Fowler. We're going to move into public hearing items now. And the first hearing item is actually a continuation of a hearing that was opened last meeting, which was in May. And so there's no need to open it this particular time. but it's a public hearing continuation of an application to amend Silver Rock Planned Development Ordinance number 2024-14. And as I said, it remains open from the May meeting, and I'm going to allow Sandra to give us an update on what has transpired so far. As I recall, we had some questions with regard to the square footage and the number of structures that could be built and the types of animals and some other things, correct? That's correct. And you've got an agreement with the applicant, I believe.

Yes. Good afternoon, Mayor and council members. I'm Sandra Nash and This is carried over from last May's council meeting. And this is the Silver Rock. And Silver Rock is a PD. And as we discussed at the last meeting, we have two areas of Silver Rock right now that are moving forward with development. And one is right here is the senior living campus, the Falcon Center. And the other one right here is called Stillwater. And it's the single family area. There was about 30 single family lots that did an amendment to take it down to eight single-family lots. Now the Falcon Living Center is requesting two changes and I don't know if you want me to review them or not, that hasn't changed.

Well I would like just a tiny overview of that because we're going to be voting on that as well.

So the Falcon Living Center is right here on this big old lot, the C2 lot for commercial and then the Stillwater is right over here for the R1 for the single-family. The Falcon Senior Living Center would, they have a driveway that's off Silver Rock Loop. Their driveway is not off of Highway 71. And they would like to do an entry structure that's a little bit more elaborate than what we may have seen here in the city before. And their height on this is 22 feet. And the reason for that is so that we can get some vehicles, some safety vehicles underneath it. They basically got the stone columns with a small type of pergola across the top. That is 22 feet height, but we would normally limit that to 15 feet under our zoning ordinance. So they've asked if they could go ahead and build that entry structure at 22 feet. The other item that Falcon has is they have a row of parking along their back lot line. and they would like to come back in on their approved site plan. It's just surface parking. They would like to come back in and be able to offer some carports or some covered parking. It's mostly employee parking, so they're going to be there all day, not just come and visit and go back out. And so they've asked for permission to amend their site plan to put a row of covered parking along the back of that property. The covered parking would not be visible from 71 at all. Uh, and staff supports those two changes. And that's really the gist of what Falcon has. Um, I don't have any exhibits. I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing here. Rick tried to tell me how to do it and I still screwed up now. The, um, but the, I need to do this, but the Stillwater portion is a single family portion. And they had requested a few changes last week, or last month, and one was to further define their accessory structures to include a casita or a pool house, and to include that they would be allowed to have stables and barns for their animals. They also agreed to no more dwelling units, and so that was something they put in. And they've also agreed to a provision to no more subdivision of the lots. And that's really important. If we talk about putting larger structures or more structures on these lots, we wanted to make sure that we're not going to permit all this cause they're five acre lots. And then they, they come back and a owner of five acre lot subdivides it into 10 half acre lots. So we asked the applicant and they agreed very willingly to put in no further subdivision because they don't want that vision for this project either. Um, The other thing that we had was they wanted to change the size of their accessory structures. They, um, wanted to go from kind of minimum, they wanted to set maximum size from their, for their accessory structures and feeling that maybe the size of accessory structures wasn't going to be large enough for their barn if they wanted to build a barn. Um, and the last item that they wanted to talk about was, um, we generally have a requirement that garages are required to be attached to the main house. They wanted the ability to, because they do have the ability to put in an RV type garage on these tracks that they want the ability to not have that attached to the house. And we said, that's fine. Your regular two car garage has to be attached to the house because that's the zoning ordinance. But if you want to build this accessory structure, that would be an RV bar, a garage or a man cave kind of place, you know, that would be fine. It doesn't have to be attached to the main house. And then that's when we started talking about screening. So that's when at that point the meeting was continued to this month. And in that time frame, what we've done is we've met extensively with the owners. They're here today to also address this with you. And we tried to really pin down exactly what they were asking for. And one of the items that was not well defined at the previous meeting was exactly what type of animals are they asking for permission to maybe bring onto this property. And we found out they were looking at horses, longhorns, or mini bovines. I always think of them as those mini highland cow type animals. But we thought, well, those are a lot. Those are big animals. So we wanted to pin down what animals you're going to have on the property. and how many of each animal. And that's what we've spent from that last meeting to this meeting trying to work through. And there are some other issues that came up with that. So what was resolved was that they would limit it to a maximum of three large animals per property. And they could be longhorns, horses, or miniature bovine, or any combination of those three. Three horses, one of each, whatever you wanted to do. But no other large animals that would be permitted on the property. They would be allowed to have up to 10 chickens, but hens only, no roosters. and they would be allowed up to four dogs and or cats as family pets. They've also agreed that they would adopt a manure management plan that is approved by the LCRA, and we've got some good examples of those that we can share with them, and that they would put these management plans into their HOA and their POA documents. They've also agreed, there's some creeks that go through this area, and they've agreed to, if they're gonna bring animals onto the property, that they would fence the water quality zones and the buffer zones for the creeks so that the animals aren't grazing all the way down into the creek. They've also agreed that they will screen the large, if they put up a garage for their RV or man cave or whatever, they've agreed to screen that large door from the street and from adjacent properties. And they have also asked for provision to increase the height of an accessory structure from 15 feet to 24 feet because that's really kind of what's necessary to build a barn that you could accommodate horses in. And that's basically our summary. If you have any questions, the applicant's also here.

Questions? Well, now, as I recall, each one of these are, each one of these lots are at least five acres, correct? That's correct. Okay. And each one of these lots is also separately gated.

Correct, or are you going to leave that up to the owners? As well as the private road gated.

And so the fact that the height of the accessory units has been extended because they'll be screened from view from the street and adjacent properties, that shouldn't make any difference, correct?

We're only proposing to screen the accessory garage that might have an RV door, the RV garage. We hadn't talked about screening the barn, the accessory structure. They're just such typical rural buildings. We were more focused on screening a garage with a big door.

I see that. What is the maximum square footage on each lot? Aggregate?

Well, the maximum square footage, the aggregate, of accessory structure would be a maximum of 10,000 square feet.

And then the minimum home is 25 or 28, depending on?

Minimum home for a one-story is 2,500, and for a two-story it's 2,800. Okay.

Okay. Rick Towns, would you like to, or Tony? If you want to speak, that's fine. Well, I do have a question for you. It's been indicated to us then that this is a workout between the applicant and the city. Is this acceptable to you as well? It is, yes. Okay. Questions for Mr. Towns? A while back... I've never seen one.

No, that's pretty few and far between for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And these, I had to educate myself with regard to what a mini bovine is, but there are no more than 42 inches high to the hip. Correct? I believe so. Yes. Okay. Um, any other questions? Okay.

Yeah, there's a main entrance gate, double gate, and they'll be gated to each property unless somebody consumes two lots, then it would be probably one primary gate. Yeah, but we're trying, the goal here is to be luxury ranchettes, and so we're not trying to have a bunch of chaos, more continuity and higher end.

Good. And will the main street be gated as well then?

Correct.

Okay. So two gates to get to your house. Yep. Okay, great. Now, we do have somebody. Thank you, Mr. Towns. We do have a citizen who has signed up to speak to this, and it's David Kunkel. Yeah, I was going to take that later, but I didn't want you to think that I had forgotten about you. I didn't want to close this and then not be able to talk about it. So I'm going to have you talk about it now, since you talked about it during the last hearing as well, so that I don't close this first. Mr. Kunkel had some issues with regard to the traffic out on 71. during the period of time that this construction is taking place, and we had assured him that we were going to start looking into that to see what the timetable was and what measures could be taken to make it safer out there before we get the final TxDOT improvements done that will allow us to turn in safely from both directions to the construction site. We also had, did you have any additional information for us first?

Yes, just a couple of facts for those of you unfamiliar with the Silver Rock development and its impact on traffic. Highway 71 between the Horseshoe Bay Turnoff and 2831, the frontage of Silver Rock is approximately 7 tenths of a mile. TxDOT has approved, and I'm not challenging TxDOT, what's done is done, they have approved five cut-ins in that 7 tenths of a mile frontage, entrances and exits, with no dedicated turn lanes, with what we call There are several names you can call them, but with center lanes that allow traffic coming from the Llano area into one of the five Silver Rock entrances. And the road will be widened somewhat. I don't know what the details are. But that's what TxDOT has approved, unless the developer knows something more than what's been published recently. It should also be noted that TxDOT has not approved any... methods to mitigate speed on that particular part of 71 which currently has a speed limit of 70 miles an hour and that will not change according to the current edict from TxDOT. This, for many of us, presents a growing concern. I live in the trails, the residents of the trails, the hills, Blue Lake, we're all affected by this directly. When you come out of 2831 and take a left on 71, you better look real hard at coming over that hill because cars are coming down at 70 and 80 miles an hour. And there's no plans for any lights, any signs, any flashing, anything. It's just going to be the way it is now. So that's the setting. That's the setting I'm referencing here. And as part of that, as part of an integral part of the development of Silver Rock is... including these TxDOT improvements to help better manage traffic during this heavy construction period where large earthmovers are moving daily and multiple times a day up and down 71. And these trucks are parking, and they're in the middle lane. There's no middle lane right now. They're in the lane turning into Silver Rock, and cars and trucks are passing them at 70 miles an hour on the shoulder. Now, the question I brought to council last week, and we seem to have a problem getting any information from TxDOT, on when the construction improvements of 71 would begin. They're well underway of Silver Rock. I'm sure it's going to be a beautiful development. But when is the plan to start and hopefully complete the road construction on 71 to make this a much safer road? environment for everyone to work and live in. That was the question. And I'm not sure who's here to address it, but I would hope that that could be addressed here. I think we have several people.

Yes, Mayor, there is a representative of the developers here that can talk when you're ready for him.

Is that Ryan Morrow? Yes, sir. Okay. Mr. Morrow, can you come to the podium and state your name and your position, please, sir?

Hi, I'm Ryan Morrow with Prevail Project Management. I'm a third party consultant to the developer who's doing the Silver Rock development out there. So, and there's kind of three projects going on out there right now. Actually, I guess four. And so, we put in roads and utilities, you know, for the loop road and utilities going out to the development. Then the TxDOT71 is kind of a separate project And then obviously, y'all have talked already about Falcon doing the senior living facility and then Stillwater. So there's four projects out there, three multiple contractors. And so the agreement, so Falcon, who's doing the senior living facility, we've coordinated with them on the best time. We will be doing the Highway 71 improvements, not TxDOT. That'll be done. We're going to hire a contractor for it. It's not in-house. But we're managing that project. And we've talked to Falcon about the best time to do that work because, as you noticed, I mean, so it's a construction site. It's going to be under construction for, you know, another 18 months. And there's a bunch of trucks coming in and out of there, deliveries, a lot of workers on site. If we did the Highway 71, if we shut down 71 and we have, you know, people funneled through cones and everything while all of that traffic is going in and out of that site, it would be a bottleneck like you wouldn't believe. And so we've talked to them about the best time with their big project to fit these improvements in, and they would like to hold off until they're doing their curb and gutter and their parking lots for the senior living facility, which is November of 27. And I talked to TxDOT. and told them, hey, this is what Falcon has asked us to do. Are you all okay with this? And TxDOT was fine with that. They just wanted to, it has to be 55 degrees or higher in order to do the tom coat that we're going to put out there. And so we will probably try to pull that back into October just so we don't run into weather delays in November if we have a cold spell or something. So right now the plan is to have the TxDOT 71 improvements done in the fall of 27. And if there's any kind of signage or anything that, you know, would be helpful, I'm sure, you know, we'd be happy to do that if there's any guidance from council or development services.

Well, I would, yeah, Frank.

when they think there'll be impact on the people who are actually going to be staying in Falcon. I'm concerned, and I agree with the gentleman, that the issue is construction traffic.

There's trucks coming in and out of that all the time.

Yeah, they're... Unfortunately, the dump trucks are done. They were hauling a bunch of 20,000, 30,000 yards of dirt over to another site for a big landscaping project. That's all done, and the rest of the dirt is going to be reutilized at Silver Rock. So the dump truck traffic is done. It is still going to be a construction site for another 18 months.

Can you tell us why it would be a different type of bottleneck doing it now versus when you're going to have to do it in 15 months anyway?

Yeah. Part of it is, I mean, the damage on the road. Like, you know, if we pave a brand new road there with all of the concrete trucks, I mean, fortunately, like I said, dump trucks are done. There's still, I don't know how many thousands of, hundreds of thousands of yards of concrete they have to pour on that job. So there's still heavy equipment that's gonna be going in and out of there. And so the wear and tear on the road, you know, we don't wanna build a brand new road, turn it over and then it's torn up by a bunch of construction for a year after that. So part of it is, you know, trying to deliver a good product at the end and not having to do a bunch of patches, you know, because of construction damage. And then just, yeah, shutting down the roads, you know, So we are, we're widening the road and we're adding decel lanes, adding a center turn lane. And I mean, so we're affecting that whole seven tenths of a mile, the whole road, you know, the whole width of the roadway is going to be taken out of commission at one point. And so we're going to have to be redirecting cars, you know, at a certain point. And just you mix that with all the traffic coming in and out of there. It's, I think it's going to get, it would be frustrating.

I understand that.

To me, is there a way to make sure, because you brought up, I'm glad the dump trucks are done, but the concrete trucks, are they all coming from Boston up? If we have any concrete trucks coming down from Atlanta, I don't know if there's a concrete plant anywhere near. Can you, if you can get at least the concrete trucks coming, because they can use the shoulder and turn in, so they can desell on the shoulder. You should be building the road before you.

You wait until everything's completed, and you build in the road. We've had a number of fatalities in the Marble Falls, Horseshoe Bay area recently. And I just hope that everyone thinks long and hard about the possibilities, particularly with the speed limit as it is and will remain, according to TxDOT.

Well, this isn't the first time this has come up, I'm sure. There's lots of things that have been built on 71, even at two lanes. Is this the normal way to do it, to where you build out the development first and then put the road in? Or which one is the chicken and which one is the egg?

Yeah, I couldn't answer that question. Obviously, TxDOT is very familiar with the Falcon project that's going on there, and this plan was made in conjunction with them and with their approval.

Was the timing also approved by TxDOT? Yes, sir.

Excuse me. That's what I did for 48 years. So I've always seen the roads built before The project it's just standard procedure and especially if you I heard you mention something about patching and tearing up the roads up Concrete is not going to tear up, you know, I mean this asphalt got a problem concrete Well, and it's an asphalt road. It is an asphalt sir. Okay. Well, what's the concrete trucks for?

for the for the foundations and the podium for the Falcon senior living facility For the building itself

Whenever it's done, it'll be disruptive, whether it's today or 15 months. So I don't think the disruption is a factor. I know one of our primary responsibilities is the safety of our citizens. And it's not a safe situation. I agree with you, Frank. Even if you're disruptive, that would make it safer because people would have to slow down for what would be done on the road. Well, it just seems prudent if this is the final design for safety, why wouldn't it be the initial design for safety? In other words, if this, when completed, is going to have the turn lanes and the decel lanes. Right, but if that's what's deemed safe, why not now? Right. I don't know there's going to be a whole lot more traffic into Falcon early than what we got with all the construction vehicles. You probably got as much or more traffic today than you're going to have 18 months from now.

Well, at the very least, I don't know how you designate these construction zones to where the speed limit is reduced. But if we could have a construction zone for that period of time with signage, with signs for sure. Well, to start now at that point is gonna be time consuming. Yeah, we should get this done. Yeah, we gotta have something done that takes care of the safety right now, whether it's the signage or going ahead and making it safe now. I don't know what the repair work would cost if the whole thing was torn up with the heavy trucks. But, gosh, I know this has happened before. It's had to have.

Well, if most of the heavy trucks are traveling from Austin and Atlanta, then maybe there wouldn't be that much impact to the turn lane.

That's my point. I think that's...

If you could get the...

I would like, I'd be curious who was gonna be the point person on this working with TxDOT because they seem to be somewhat difficult to get in contact with, much less make a decision.

So are we.

We have a contact. I mean, yeah, so I'm not building Falcon. All of their, as far as like where their traffic comes from and where they're getting concrete, that's someone else and I'll have to check in with them. But I have a text, I have a contact at text dot and I don't mind reaching out.

We need an interim safety plan or something like that. Yeah, we do. We've got to. Remember when we did our anniversary thing here, we had a traffic safety plan. We had to go through a text dot. Even the signs in the right-of-way, they're going to have to approve those. We can't just place them. So that will have to go to them regardless.

Which was my question also. What's our timetable on this? We can't just call a timeout for bad accidents until we get it done.

I don't know how long it takes them to review it. I would say, you know, we'd want to – the other thing, too, is here we ask them to do this. I assume the developer is who the ask is going to be since they're doing the – Right. Like they said, there's three or four entities with this. So obviously somebody needs to take point on it. Staff can sort through that if council would like. We can take point on making sure that gets through. Agreed. Yes, sir. Yeah, and TxDOT, it likely won't, and staff will have to liaise with it a little bit, too, because TxDOT could come back and say no. All the opinions, obviously, are valid. A construction zone can sometimes create more accidents than it helps prevent, and so that is why TxDOT has to review them. So they may have some comments on it. Maybe they don't want signs. I don't know. But a plan has to be submitted to them.

Yes, sir.

I can provide an update in the workshop. We'll all know something by then, if that's acceptable.

Yes, sir.

I'll ask them if it's still valid. Yeah, that's absolutely. It's a good question.

reach out to them.

My biggest issue right now is in the interim, until we figure out, even if it's a temporary solution, we've got to stick our finger in the dike somehow and make sure that this gets done. Have you ever requested a reduction in highway speeds from TxDOT?

I haven't, but I'm sure it's an easy process, so yeah.

Not scared. I hope you're right. I hope you're right.

Asking for it probably is easy. Getting it, maybe, maybe.

Okay. Well, this is probably not something that our motion is contingent upon. But I wanted to have this discussion because it's valid, and we're all concerned about it as well.

So, Rick, can you take kind of the lead on this? I'm emailing Sharon right now. Yes, sir. Yep.

Yep. Great, great discussion. Thank you very much. Any other from you, Sandra?

Nope, that's it.

Oh, yes, please do.

I have not talked to my neighbors and told anyone about this because I can tell you And I can't afford to lose value in my home because when you open the window...

Good point. Thank you. Any other questions for Sandra or the applicant or Mr. Kunkel? Okay. I am going to close the public hearing at 3.57 and I would entertain a motion on the

the application yes we are yeah this does not concern the traffic issue no it's just the changes for that we've discussed yeah and I would like to tell the development folks thank you for spending a lot of time addressing multiple discussions and concerns in terms of how many structures how many animals what kind of animals Because I agree that this is part of our future, and I think you all did a great job responding to our concerns related to what the structures are, where they're placed, how they're screened, how the animals should be managed, et cetera. So thank you for going to all that effort and the city staff to spend all that time doing that. I think we came to a pretty good place from what I see.

Well, if it's not one of those three animals or some chickens.

That's it? That's it. Well, you get four cats.

Well, four cats, four dogs, whatever. Two cats, two dogs, whatever. Okay, I'll entertain a motion.

I'm glad to do that. I move to approve Ordinance 2026-15, amending the Silver Rock PD with the following exceptions. A traditional garage shall be attached to the main house. The connection may be a breezeway. A garage for a recreational vehicle shall not be required to be attached to the main house if the garage is not visible from the street or any adjacent property.

Motion made by Mr. Fetchner. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Mr. Weatherby. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. All against? It passes. Thank you very much. We'll move now to... 7B, which is...

Excuse me.

Did that motion include the talcum as well?

Yes.

It included both. Okay.

Yes. That's what I was... Yeah. It was part of one... That 2026-15 is a large number of pages of material, and what we just spoke to were the changes since our last conversation. The talcum was 20-2014.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, now we're going to move to public hearing discussion consideration on an application of approval of Horseshoe Bay Platte number N18. 1001-F, a replat of Horseshoe Bay. A plat on Horseshoe Bay North Boulevard in Zone 4A. And we have John Byram, I believe, here. And we are going to open this public hearing at 4 o'clock. Mr. Byram.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Here is an image of the proposed property. you can see it's right off of fm 2147 horseshoe bay north boulevard so the existing here is the existing recorded plat that we have on file so as you can see it's for 12 townhouses what the applicant is proposing is instead of doing the 12 townhouses to do nine cottages so you would have instead of the 12 you would have nine individual lots Included with that would be nine boat docks. So instead of 12, they're going down to nine. Excuse me. With that being said, we've gone through all of our notice requirements. This item went to PNC yesterday. It was a unanimous recommendation for approval. The applicant did provide a packet for you all that I did hand out at the beginning right before we got started. Within the packet, you will see some elevations. It's going to be a really nice product, and it's going to be kind of one of the first properties that you see as you come into Horseshoe Bay, as you can see on this image right here. So with that being said, it is a public hearing. The applicant is available for any questioning, and so is staff.

So we're taking this from 12 living units down to 9 living units? Correct. Okay.

for the, how did it just, was it about 4,200? 4,200? 4,200, mm-hmm. So it'll be, it'll be three stories. So as you can see, if you can look, it's on page six of the packet that was provided to you at the beginning. You can kind of tell that it's the three stories. But it'll meet the height requirement in our code. All that will be met. Like I said, it's just the plot today. But again, going from the 12 townhouses where you would have six attached, a space, and then six attached, nine detached from each other.

And staff recommends... Approval of this?

P&Z recommended approval, and so does staff.

Okay. Were there any opposition to the hearing?

We didn't get any letters. I know we did receive a phone call today, and I believe that person has signed up for public comment.

Okay. And the height requirement is the exact same height that the townhomes had? Is that right?

I'm not sure on that part. Yes, yes. Okay. They confirm yes.

Okay. The applicant is here. I'll take the applicant first, and then we'll take public comment.

Okay.

Thank you so much for your time. My name is Jeff Kelly. I'm with Sterling Creek Homes. John Corcoran, the developer, is present with me. As was said, as John said, we put this packet together high level. What we have is a parcel of land that's been vacant in kind of an eyesore for quite a while, for a long time. And what Mr. Corcoran has proposed is instead of the 12 units, and this proposal is listening from the community, from neighbors, from everybody, downsizing it to the nine units. One of the biggest reasons we're doing that is density. The product that's gonna be constructed is gonna be something that this community is gonna be very, very proud of. If I could take you through the packet real quick, page one obviously is the council section. That map shows that that's a parcel that's right off 2147. Page two, as Mr. Byram said, What we were previously and could build today was the 12 units. From our neighbors and the community, we reduced the density so as to accommodate parking, less people, traffic, all those things, you're gonna have a whole lot less traffic from 12 units versus the nine. So that's one of the biggest reasons we've done that. Page three, this is our proposal. As page three shows, Nine units, nice and clean. There's spacing in between each one. They're going to have side yards, individually owned. They're also going to have docks. Page four, this is a top-level layout, so you can see exactly where the parking is, the docks. Mr. Corcoran has spent a substantial amount of time and money trying to figure out how to minimize the impact on the on the community and this is this is his proposal we have two it's a two-car garage and then two spaces for uh parking outside so that's four parking spaces per residence uh it's it's more than enough and it also meets the requirements and then if you look at the docks on the on the lake side each individual residence will have its own dock Proceeding to paragraph, I'm sorry, paragraph, page five. This is a rough sketch of what we believe you will see when you drive down 2147 looking towards the lake. It's going to be a whole lot better than that vacant piece of land that hasn't had anything done with it. On that point, the vacant piece of land, I don't know if you all have noticed, but Mr. Corcoran has already spent a lot of time pulling a lot of the fill and everything out of there so as to lower the elevation of that lot. And this came from speaking with the neighbors. They didn't want our structures towering over theirs and being able to see into their residence. So Mr. Corcoran has spent the time lowering the elevation of that and being able to put this product in that location. Page six. This is what you'll see from the road view. As you can see, two car garages for each one and then two parking spaces as well. And if you see this, so much better than those 12 units because you can see straight through to the lake. Just having that access to the lake is so much better. Personal note, this is the third subdivision that I've worked with Mr. Corcoran on. I think it's very important that this council understand that every one of those he has done exactly as he says he would do. He's an incredibly experienced and very responsible developer. With that, any other questions? Oh, you know, one additional point, I'm sorry. On all of his subdivisions, he requires and is going to on this one as well, put a homeowners association in place so as to guarantee that all these residents here will have a community that will be regulated, self-regulated, and be a quality community for years to come. So that's super important. We can police parking, we can police exterior maintenance, we can police where the trash cans are going. We're doing this because we want it to be a very, very nice subdivision. And I think that with that homeowners association in place, that will help that.

Do you have the template for the homeowners association already or is that to be determined?

To be determined, but as I said on those previous two, he's put together a template that is very, very solid and regulates, like I said.

Will there be any parking on the street there in front? I noticed you have two places in front of the garages, two places inside the garage, very little area outside.

Very little area outside. I believe, and we can confirm this, but I believe that the Homeowners Association will prohibit parking on that street so as to allow for emergency vehicles to get in and out, our neighbors, everything. So no, I don't anticipate parking on that street.

Will this change significantly, these renderings? Because I really like the way that the exterior looks. It breaks it up with every other unit has a different facade.

This is a portion of the current plan. Mr. Corcoran provided me another picture that shows all of the units, but substantially the same as this. Okay. This is what we expect.

Any questions for Mr. Kelly? I just have one.

This is a crazy one.

Do you know that we have 90-gallon garbage cans? I do, and I've got a solution for that. Actually, it wasn't mine. I can't take credit for it. So if you will turn to page four, you may require me to get my glasses out, but in the corner of the garages towards the house side, there's going to be a trash can storage area. Yep. See that? Yeah. And again, I don't like the looks of trash cans, and I don't think any of us do. So one of the reasons that he's done that is to prevent that.

Well, the ACC didn't like it either. We were told that, uh, any other questions for Mr. Kelly?

Not a question. Just a comment. I attended the planning and zoning meeting yesterday. And if I'm not mistaken on the image quarter along the roadway there, you guys are going to build a wall, but you've also thought about if y'all seen the entryway into horseshoe Bay north recently, It's it's due to probably a refresh. I think you all are considering working with the resort to refresh that entryway.

Actually better than considering we're already in talks on teaming up to, to redesign and modernize that, that entrance. And then, as you said, and I'm thankful that you said that, um, that image corridor, we're going to have, um, rock and landscaping there, but we're going to be careful with the landscaping, because if you, if you think about the way that, that 2147 curves, It's kind of tough to see. So we're going to keep the landscaping close to the wall so as to maximize the visibility on that turn. So yes, we are actively in talks trying to figure out what we're going to do to modernize that entrance.

Super. Ma'am, did you have a? I have a question. So this is one flat. Are you Patricia Bowen? Yes. Oh, I was going to get to you. Well, I just want to ask a question to clarify. Sure.

Speaking of the might, please.

Why don't you approach the podium, state your name and your address.

My name's Patricia Bowen and I'm the HOA president of the neighboring property. My question is if this is one plat and part of the application is to break this plat up into three separate plats, is that correct? Just one plat?

One plat, yeah.

It stays as one plat, okay.

Maybe a point of clarification would help. So we're only moving forward with the residences. There is another parcel that's, well, if you look that kind of to the left, it would be to the west. We're not moving forward with any site planning or anything like that for that parcel. It's just those residences.

How many cottages, if you did cottages over there, would that take, would that house? The additional?

The parcel on the west? Yeah. Right now, we don't have plans for that. And I don't anticipate that being residences whatsoever. We just...

They can't. There's a raw water line, that easement that cuts through there, that's the raw water line for the central plant. So I won't say can't.

It would have to be relocated, but... At least for residential, it's unbuildable.

Okay. That answered that question. Ms. Bowen, did I cut you off or did you have additional?

Okay.

You want to present?

Hi. Like I said earlier, my name's Patricia Bowen. I'm the HOA president of Emerald Bay, which is next door to this development. My primary concern, or one of my primary concerns, is about the parking. My background, just so you know, is I am very pro-development. My father was, he was a real estate broker that found sites for HEB. Our background is primarily light industrial and retail, so I'm very, very pro-development. The product that they are proposing is very attractive. However, I've worked at multiple commercial real estate companies. One of them was Invesco Realty Advisors, where Delta Airlines and Stanford University was our client, so I've had lots of experience looking at site plans. The parking that's specified for these units is so insufficient, it's very frightening because They have two car garages in two spots outside the garage and a fire lane. There is nothing you can park in that fire lane. There is no parking allowed on the street in Lucy Lane and Horseshoe Bay North. Most people that use their lake houses also stuff their garages with tubes and golf carts and everything else. And these units have four bedrooms specced for what they propose to put in them. So I would like, I call upon our experience being at Emerald Bay. We are six units. We also have two car garages. with two spots outside, but we also have a lot of common area. Three of our owners are extremely elderly and do not use their units, so that means we are only at half capacity. We use all of our parking all the time, especially during the holiday weekends of Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day. Our concern is should this go forward, that there is going to be no place for these people's guests to go but our property. We are actively discussing decals for our cars and guest parking swatches because we will tow. And I just, I would like to implore Horseshoe Bay to revisit their code compliance because I understand that they are compliant to code. Code is not synonymous with good design. Just because somebody's code compliant does not mean it is a well thought out project. And you need to maybe come up with something where when you exceed two bedrooms, that there is some minimum amount of common area parking that you'll have. Because if you have four bedrooms, a husband and wife that come up with their two cars have three couples that will join them. You're at five cars. There's no way. My son is on the Texas A&M track team. and he had the jumps and throws squad come to celebrate their national championship last summer. We took up the entire common area and we were one unit. So I really, really think I would like to ask them to re-look at their design and add additional parking.

Thank you very much.

What that sound was.

Yeah. You're reading our mind, Frank.

We just decided for you.

You didn't have a plan for it. Maybe now you do. Quite a few.

Yeah.

Parking is always a challenge, but.

Understood, okay.

I think Ms. Bowen made a very good point that, in fact, we are in compliance with the requirements for the parking. But we will take a look at that.

I think it would be helpful for the residents to have a common area. I think that would be a selling point.

How many units do you have next to this? Six units. Okay. And it's just to the north of this, right? That's right.

I think people would gravitate there anyway. That's right.

This is just curiosity only. What's across the road around the horseshoe there? Is that just a home or is that vacant land?

Oh, in the picture? Yeah.

There's mailboxes.

When you come into the entrance, there's mailboxes right in front of you.

I see those. There's their house right now. There's a house.

It's a black roof home maybe? Okay. And lots of Space around the home. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, as I see it, and I think it is a point well taken, not necessarily do compliance with ordinances equal good judgment, but we as a council have to understand that we're bound by those ordinances. And if it's within our ordinance, it probably behooves us to be careful about overstepping our bounds as well.

We're getting ready to go through the code. Yeah. So.

Okay. Any other questions or comments by the council? And I appreciate all of the comments. I understand your position. I will then close this public hearing at 421. I will entertain a motion. Did I miss you? I sure did. I'm so sorry. Patrick, I'm sorry. Come on up. Yes, sir. I'm not going to close the public hearing at 421.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and member of council, city staff, friends and neighbors. Thank you. My name is Patrick Kelly. My wife, Valerie, and I live here full-time, full-time residents, and we're very familiar with the property in question. We have been for... many years. We brought a lot of offers and never could get it closed. And when we finally got the listing, we reached out personally to John Corker and invited him to take a look at this project because it's what he does and it's what he does very, very well. My wife and I are real estate agents, obviously, and so we understand real estate. We've sold over $30 million in the last 12 months, most of it here in Horseshoe Bay. And we've helped Mr. Corcoran design these beautiful homes. And I've got a newer rendition. I think, Mr. Mayor, you had asked for it a moment ago. Would you like to see it? It's okay. It's updated, if I may. This is, we're preparing our advertising vote print and billboards as well to promote the property and the residential development.

Yep, thanks. Looks good.

Thank you. This is what my wife and I are very excited about selling. We think it's a beautiful project. It's a beautiful, beautiful home and residence is what we think. would really spruce up that lot. And as someone else said, it's been vacant forever. And I believe it's unsightly. And I think that you couldn't ask for a better project. I know you couldn't ask for a better man or a better developer. I met John probably 10 years ago or so when I sold his father's home, became friends with him and the family. They live right here in Llano County. They're not somewhere else. And They have a great reputation. They've built many, many homes on Lake LBJ. And I was excited. We were excited when they came and bought the property. I will also tell you, when you close a multi-million dollar... Real estate deal, you get to know somebody. They say when you travel, you get to know somebody. Well, it's even more so when you go back and forth over 45 days on a big project like this. And I came to admire him even more. And I can just tell you as a Horseshoe Bay resident and as someone who sells a lot of real estate, this is perfect for Horseshoe Bay. When you drive in past Arrowhead Bank and you come around that turn, and you see this product, I think we're all going to be proud that we were a part of it. I know I am. And to be honest and to be fully transparent, we've been hired to sell out the project, so we have that vested interest as well. But even if I wasn't hired and he hired my competitor, I would still speak on his behalf and for this project. And before I close, I want to say 40 years ago I joined the military, and I'm born and raised in the state of Texas, and I love Jesus. And the fact that y'all and we honored God, country, and the great state of Texas makes me so proud to live in this town, and I thank you all for that. And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Anybody?

Any questions? Anybody have any questions?

Great. So I would ask you all to vote unanimously for this project. I think it's what we need in Horseshoe Bay.

Thanks, Patrick. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Any other questions? I'm going to close the public hearing at 425 now, and I will entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion. I move to approve the replant for the 2.03 acre tract as recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Motion by Mr. Weatherby. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Mayor Pro Tem Morgan. All in favor? Aye. All against? It does pass. Thank you. Okay. We're going to move now to the business section. And we're going to take up 8A, which is Chief Nelson. Chief, tell us what you got today about a new patrol unit.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. I'm here today to ask for approval to purchase a 2026 Chevy Tahoe for patrol unit. This will be replacing an old unit 9, which was... 2020 Chevy Tahoe. Between the transmission going out and the other several mechanical issues that was going to be costing over $10,000, we're requesting permission to go ahead and purchase a new Tahoe, which would be coming out of the budget next year. So we're just kind of getting that a little early.

So it's changing one year for the one year earlier then, basically.

Yes, sir. Okay. About $122,000.

What do you think you'll get for that ballpark figure?

Well, actually, I was hoping $10,000, but probably won't.

If you keep the lights on there, I'll take it.

We can push it to your house.

The attorney gently shook his head no.

Okay. Any... Any questions? Okay. I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve the emergency purchase of the 2026 Chevy Tahoe in the amount of $101,102.60.

Okay. Motion by Council Member Waddell. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Mr. Weatherby. All in favor? Aye. All against? It passes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, we're going to move to 8B, which is approval of the 2026 City Legislative Advisory Committee Charter. Mr. Koska.

Yes, sir. It's hard to believe it's that time again, and we're knocking on the door of the next legislative session, but it is. They will convene in January of 2027, and they will convene in January, And in recent years, the state legislative activities increasingly affect our authority over land use, utility operations, public safety, and local finance. The city of Horseshoe Bay has been actively engaged in legislative monitoring and advocacy, producing formal position letters, working with the Texas Municipal League, and participating in legislative forums during the prior sessions. The staff is, this is the first year that we've actually created a committee like this. We've had meetings with the mayors over the last two or three sessions, and that's produced a lot of advocacy for municipal governments. However, we, like our other committees the city has, we thought this was time to start having a city-run, city-based, citizens run committee that reports to the council and seek out some of these folks that are good in this activities and have experience in it to provide some advocacy for the city. We've been doing that internal with the staff and the mayors and it's quite a role to play so we're really asking that we create a city committee that will help produce these results that we're looking for. By creating this committee, the actions will establish a structured citizen-led advisory body to monitor the Texas legislature activities, interpret its implications on Horseshoe Bay, and develop community engagement strategies to advocate for the city's interest at the state level, and actually on the federal level as well. The purpose of the committee is for the committee to review and monitor past, pending, and proposed Texas legislator activities, translate legislation into plain language communications, prioritize legislation entities by impact, and develop citizen advocacy strategies. The membership would be up to seven citizen members appointed by the city council, plus one city council member liaison and one city staff liaison, which is generally gonna be me. The city council will appoint the chair, this is very similar in all of our other committees, and the members will elect a vice chair and a secretary. Qualification members with background in law, public policy, government affairs, journalism, communication, business, or prior legislator service are particularly valued. Preference will be given to Citizen Academy graduates. So we love them. The deliver will be an internal legislative priority and citizen action plan presented to council prior to the next legislative session with update reports, position papers, and community communications produced as necessary. The governance, this will be a committee operated as advisory committee only, no authority to lobby, expend city funds or take official city actions prior to city council approval. Final adoption of the legislation positions in advocacy rests solely with the city council's request. So if approved, then the next thing will be go through the citizen application process And upon approval of the charter, staff request authorization by the city manager to begin solicitation for applications for qualified Horseshoe Bay residents. The applications process will include publication of the public notice and application of the city's website, social media, and other communication channels, distribution of the committee charter and applications of city academy alumni network, collection of applications by the city secretary's office for review and presentation to the city council for final appointment. And the city council will make all final appointments including designation of the chair. Staff will target initial appointments in a timeline that allows for the committee to convene and begin work well in advance of the 90th legislative session. So the staff request is that the city council approve the 2026 city legislative advisory committee charter and authorize the city manager to solicit citizen application for membership on the newly formed legislative committee. Also, in your package, I provided the legislative plan that we have and a draft plan for the committee to work from, just kind of a springboard to kind of get them started and move forward.

It's really good material. It's a great start.

It really is. Thank you. Great material.

You weren't so generous to the Land Use Development Advisory Committee. Yes.

It's really good. To re-educate the council on what kind of sparks all this is that we've been told by several different entities including Texas Municipal League that the old way of doing things at the Capitol no longer works like it used to. It used to be the big guns went in there and twisted arms and got it done in the back room. Now what we've been told is that the grassroots really does make a difference. If a group of citizens who are voters, by the way, go to a legislator and tell him we've got 5,422 people that we represent and here's our agenda and our people have vetted this out, that's gonna speak volumes. And I would also like to say that I have agreed as mayor to join a compact with Hill Country mayors that goes all the way down to Fredericksburg and Johnson City and up to Burnett and over to Llano. And the compact is basically banding together, because we've got a common interest in our unique communities, banding together to make sure that the legislature hears our our wants and our needs instead of just going to the capital and doing whatever the lobbyists want so uh the way that i like this because it doesn't empower this committee to act on our behalf except if we give them that empowerment so they're educating us as much as anything well i think helping to mobilize a community yeah absolutely we did some of that this

last year where we got folks in the community to either email or get onto the websites of their legislature. And I, that had an impact and, uh, was it the city of Georgetown that gave the presentation at the Texas municipal league?

Yeah.

They were so effective at mobilizing their community that the legislators, when new legislation was being brought up, would call the mayor and they would call the city manager to see how they should vote.

Yeah. That actually did happen.

They didn't want 100,000 phone calls to tell us what you all were interested in, and we'll vote that way.

That actually happened here, too. Elsie got a call from West Verdale and said, what do you want? And so it's proven that it works. And the other side of the coin is the state legislator has been trying to restrict our ability to lobby, but on the other side of the coin, there's a lot of lobbying and other things that are going on that we needed to have our own voice, and not just the way that we've been doing it to where just the mayor or the city manager go there. This really speaks to the representatives, and it gets their attention, because this is voters, and that does get their attention, and I think last year we had one one series of the letters that went out, there was over 200 that went to their offices. So this is proven.

And we went down to the Capitol. Yes, we did. And some of them weren't able to meet with us, even though they promised to meet with us. I see Willie back there. He was with us. But word gets back to the senator and to the congressman that these people came in there and sat for an hour and a half waiting. So they must have something to say, and it does make a difference. That's right. So it's a great. I had a couple of names for it. We don't have to go through those now. One was Baywatch, and one was the Bayway. I'm not going to tell you the third one. Never mind. Let's keep going. We need a quirky name. Baywatch. Baywatch sounds good to me. Okay. Any questions for Jeff? I'll entertain a motion.

It is. I've already got 16 names for you.

Awesome. That's fantastic. I would encourage our... Oh, do I have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Fetchner. Motion by Mr. Hosia. I want to encourage us all to start getting some names together of folks who would be particularly effective at persuasion. It doesn't have to be twisting arms, just persuasion. And I think it would give us a blue-ribbon idea committee to start out with. So do we all in favor of the motion? Aye. All against? And we've got us now a advisory committee. Jeff, do you know about when the deadline for taking applications and then voting on this would be? Because we need to get this thing rolling.

Yeah, we're going to get to work on this right away. And so probably in July. We'll start having some applications to bring to y'all. Maybe if we have enough by then, then we'll make a decision then. So we'll advertise it starting probably this week.

Will we interview people in council meeting?

In the past, they came to speak, right?

Yeah, I think generally what happens in these committees, usually they're November, kind of the end of the year, that we would take the application in December, we'd make a decision, but we usually get two months to come up and present. This one, if we get a bunch, then it stops and we'll just bring it forwards. But we usually have the applicants come forward and kind of talk about the reason why and their background so y'all can make a decision from that.

Great, thanks, Jeff. We're gonna go to 8C. which is amending Ordinance 2026-18, Fire Prevention and Protection of the Code of Ordinances. Chief Fowler.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. We're asking that you all and update of our section in the code fire prevention and protection the intent was to align better with the current fire code also align better with state law local ordinance and fireworks best practices and A big portion of this has to do with the permitting process that has to do with burn permits and firework permits. In particular, we addressed sensitive receptors or people who live near where open burning is happening and they have health issues. So that's added. We restricted the number of days of fireworks permit to currently you have up to 14 days. You have that latitude on when you're going to shoot off your fireworks. As you know, the weather can change significantly in 14 days and we can go from a moderate level of fire risk to critical in that timeframe easily. So we're reducing it down to three days to better reflect the nature of our environment. And then we want to adjust fees to reflect the cost, because right now we're not recouping our costs for what we put out there.

Great. Questions for Chief Fowler?

No.

Anybody have a motion for me?

I move to approve Ordinance 2026-18, amending Chapter 5, Fire Prevention and Protection of the City of Horseshoe Bay Code of Ordinances, as presented by staff.

Motion is made by Mayor Pro Tem Morgan. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Mr. Weatherby. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. All against? And it carries. Thank you, Chief Fowler. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. 8D now. John Byrum's going to tell us about the approval to reduce commercial building permit costs for Lake Church at Horseshoe Bay. And we've got one person... who's signed up for it as well. And we'll let John take it away.

Mayor, council, as the fee schedule states, when it comes to multifamily and non-residential new commercial, you take 1% of the approved construction cost and that 1% plus $1,500 review fee is what your building permit fee would be. When you do the math for Lake Church at Horseshoe Bay, That fee comes out to $183,445.11. We have some representatives here that would like to see if council can maybe help them out with that cost. I sent you an email on Friday, and then I printed it out and handed it to you all right before council started. Just to give some background information, I looked at eight other cities in Central Texas, so either off of I-35 or out here in the Hill Country, just to give you an estimate cost of what a building permit this size would look like in those jurisdictions. So you can see there's a whole range of it, but even the highest, which is in a very nearby city, is about half the cost as to what we would charge. It's important to note that each jurisdiction is different. Different things calculate for the permit fee. Some are just off the square footage. Some it's based off the estimated cost plus addition. So that's why you kind of have that whole range of fees there. So with that being said, I know we do have some representative here. So if you have any questions for them. fact we do have uh does anybody have a question for john yeah john have do we have a precedent that would help us with this or or no what what do you mean in terms of reducing the the fees it would just be at the council's discretion so we don't have an example of that we could and this is really the first application that we have that would be with this fee because this um

fee schedule was just approved last year and we haven't had anything that fits the multi-family non-residential criteria yeah as i see it this is an unintended consequence really of our change it works out great for residential but on a project this size it seems cumbersome to I'd double it.

The other thing, Frank, is I thought about it. We've got this lumped in with multifamily. So think about the impact a multifamily is going to make in terms of water usage, services required, traffic, et cetera, where a church is going to have minimal impact. So I'm with you. I think the code needs to be looked at differently.

Well, and we are. Am I correct? We are revamping our code to make sure that this doesn't happen on subsequent Well, so this this would be a different one.

This would be under our fee schedule I have been making some some notes as to some fees that do need to be changed I can add this to the list and we can get it in front of y'all.

No, I mean going forward though.

It'll be Absolutely, and we're gonna be getting more projects where this would affect them. So I If we don't do anything, it would be coming up to y'all, basically asking this request on many projects.

Yeah, because this won't be the last one. That's true.

Yeah.

Well, let's hear from our resident, our citizen, and that is going to be Dale Fowler. Substitute for Dale Fowler.

Pardon for my attire. I was in an intense ministry event when I was called. Pishing. I'm Gene Glazer, senior pastor at Lake Church here on duty. Obviously, thank you so much for your consideration. We were rather shocked when we received the invoice. And we obviously the benefit that we're bringing to the community is continuing to be appreciated and the opportunity to serve in the community in the various ways that this building is going to allow us is just very exciting to us. And we're thankful that the building permit is actually, I guess, approved. And so we're anxious to move forward. So with your guidance, we're ready to write a check and get going. How much do you want to write a check for? About $20,000.

You asked. That's a good down payment. I did ask.

I'm an old sales guy. What'd you say? Well, council, we don't have, as Ruben pointed out, we really don't have a precedent for this. I think it has to be done. The question is, what amount? $183,000 is way, way too high, in my opinion, and it needs to come down significantly. Does anybody have any?

Well, the question was, what about $50,000? Plus $20,000.

All right.

I was talking to John a little bit earlier. I don't know if I'm misrepresenting anything here, John, but the Falcon Center, under a different fee structure, was roughly...

So that project got in right before this fee went into effect. If I remember correctly, that project was about $65 million, so that based on this would have been $650,000 permit. Their fee was roughly $23,000. However, they did work without the permit, so it was doubled. So you're looking at $46,000 and some change.

But that's still less than 10% of what it would be in the new fee structure, which I think is kind of what the pastor is asking for.

well it's actually documented we can document it for you that uh new residents are coming to town because of the church and so uh you are increasing your uh receipts oh mr costco yeah um

I discussed this with Rick, and about these projects will cost us around $35,000 to $40,000. And I'd like to propose that we would start with a figure of $35,000, but then say if our consultant costs or anything goes over there, we just get reimbursed for that. work for that uh we did use that the process for a while where we had a fee and then it would be made whole if it got to 50 of that fee you know that that deposit number and then we would just work off that and so so it would be a retainer of such of sorts somewhat of like a retainer to pull from that and just start with 35 000 and because that's kind of the average cost Because I agree that it's for the public good because there's a lot of things that churches provide to the community besides just, you know, there's AA meetings and other things that they provide for the community service. And we don't have a lot of places like that to deal with this. So I do think it is for the public good that we look at this. But I do think that we've got to look at their 1% fee because it's not the only entity that's raised their eyebrows about how much that's going to cost for them. for the permit fee, and so I agree we need to bring it back.

35.

Sure. Yeah, that's about what a project costs, plus or minus, and of course, it just depends on the project. We don't do many churches, so we're going to kind of say that's a good price, but we will, you know, we'll write something in it to say if it is an excessive cost over than that, then we will ask for, to be made whole.

Do we keep a ledger of charges on every,

Yeah, for commercial projects we do. As you remember, our old fee schedule included a permit cost plus a matching deposit. Finance strongly encouraging the auditor for us to kind of go away from that other than commercial projects. So we still track cost. It's easy enough to do. We just ask finance to flag it if that's the direction you'll want to go.

Yes, I wouldn't adjust my salary too much.

Okay. Any other questions? Do we have anybody who would like to make a motion? Motion by Mr. Hosia.

The only thing I could get concerned about is... Let's get a second first, then we can discuss.

I'll do a second.

Second by Mr. Fetchner.

Now, discussion.

The only things that get me is like when something comes up and it's been ambiguous, like this is, like we'll work something out. You know, that's pretty ambiguous, you know, it's... Oh, I agree we need to make a change. It's just that, you know, when it comes down to sitting down at the table, there's really nothing specific that you can go on. It's like ambiguous of like, well, you said this, but you said this. You said we'll work something out.

From staff to clarify, could we request that if costs exceed that, we'll bring a financial report from finance back to council to approve the decision?

Is that good with you? Yep. Do we have to add that as an amendment? That's working something out. I think we don't. Yeah. Okay. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. All against? Congratulations. That's about an 85, 90% reduction. Something like that.

I don't know. Just a I guess since that's been set, we can keep moving forward and obviously we'll write checks since we get the invoice. Okay. Yeah. Everybody good with that? Oh, yeah. Great. Okay. Thanks. Appreciate it so much.

Thank you, Gene. Appreciate it. Okay. Number nine, our consent agenda. Does anyone on the council want to pull something off? of the consent agenda and discuss it or cuss it. All right, I'll entertain a motion.

Okay, I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented for consent agenda items A through E. Mr. Weatherby makes the motion.

Do I have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Morgan. All in favor? Aye. All against? Consent agenda passes.

Monthly reports. Jeff. Yes, sir. I have a couple of reports. I'd like Ray Garcia to come up and talk a little bit about the high storage zone and the status of where we are on that. And then after that, I'd like Cody Layton, who is a public worker assistant director, to discuss kind of the situation with High Circle and kind of where our process is on that. And then last but not least, I'd like to have Cindy talk about kind of our 4th of July event coming up and just make sure we're in tune with that.

Mayor, Council, update on high zone transmission. It is fully operational and we are currently... We just received our engineering firm's punch list, so that'll be going on, weather permitting, so we can get the rest of these things done. This is what I'm alluding to in terms of the punch list will be for the streets, anything that still needs to be repaired, and other areas around the entire transmission line. So that's where we're at with that. Roads too? The streets?

Yes.

Yes, sir. We've had some calls since then. With the rains that came, we had some washout, but that's been repaired as well. So, again, not complaining about the rain, but it had some damage done during that time, but that's all been repaired as well. So we are still working on the punch list at this time. Also, if there's any, just any questions?

Cody, I think. That will be Cody.

Yeah. There is one thing that we would like to do. Corey Everett has some T-shirts that she would like to present the city council for the Best Tasting Water in Texas Award.

Thank you, Corey. What's this for?

Oh, Best Tasting Water? All right.

Is this extra small, please? Thank you.

Those are beautiful. Best taste in water in Texas. Microplastics, which we're trying to get away from Texas.

Great. That's it.

Ray, thank you very much. Corey, thank you for my shirt, by the way.

Yeah, thank you. Good job.

Cody, what you got?

We'll also be in touch with you when we win the national. I think it's, what, next week? Are they up there next week? Next week we're going to Washington to represent the state of Texas.

What are you taking the water in? What? Oh, you have to ship the water. Who's got the chain of custody? I mean, how do we know that it's our water?

We'll protest the results if we don't win. Cody.

Hello, Mayor, Council. Just to give a quick update on the blowout there on the bridge on High Circle West. We are currently waiting on the water and sewer valves. The utilities have put a rush on getting those valves here. They're supposed to... The last of the four will arrive Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. During that process of getting the valves, we... had a drainage study done just to see if the drainage pipes were still adequate. The old 48 crush pipes that were in there were still adequate to today's needs. We had Willis Engineering do a study and they said there's 100 acres that drain into that spillway, that waterway there. We are going to go back with four 48-inch boxes from one side to the other. And then after that, we'll be going with the HDPE pipe on top of the boxes. We're waiting for Aaron Concrete already has the box is secured. So as soon as we get the valves, we can start replacing. We can start, and that's something else, that bridge didn't really have a cutoff. So there's going to be a water and sewer cutoff on both sides of that, on that bridge. That way they can do away with the pipe, put the covert boxes in there. And then, yeah, I think that's it.

We have it initially. I don't know that we have – we can communicate more. Until we get a timeline, a little bit more from Aaron Concrete, it's hard. But, yeah, we can.

Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, we're hopefully PEC will come out sometime this week and just confirm they don't have a trunk line of some kind running in there as well.

When you get that, can you get with Cindy to update the, uh, I would say all of them probably, uh, and they may not be in that. That one was in pretty rough shape when they dug it up. They're not all in that better shape, but, uh, most of the crossings if they fail.

During our, we did our first study on the drainage, all of the bank creeks across the roads, we looked at a lot of those and there was quite a few of those where the size of the culverts needed to be increased because of the, you know, we actually have better science now to look at that and those replacements. And those plus what we're working on now with the drainage system is looking at some other areas like the place across the street that had the issue of the creek flowing down into some people's backyards and causing issues. So we're finalizing the drainage study, which will probably be in the next couple of months. We'll finalize getting the cost estimates together on that. And then the next thing we'll be doing is bringing the ordinance and work with the POAs on how do we develop this utility fee that we've been talking about and then there will be a fee that will assess like to the utility bill and part of that will be placed on priorities so the ones that we're talking about that need to be replaced and try to proactively replace those but it's going to take some time over time to replace those because those are not cheap to replace but they are on the list and that is why we're doing a drainage plan just for this purpose so we don't have this type of issue in the future.

Okay. Oh, Rick's going to give us a report, too. His name is Sue.

Yes.

What's that? His name is Sue. Oh, Sue.

Maybe asking when did Cindy get taller and a little larger. Hello, Cindy. She has a little bit of stage fright, so I told her I would do this one for her. I know. I'm throwing her under the bus. I'm only doing it because I think all the residents have left at this point. It's just staff and council. No, she asked me to give the update for this. So for the 4th of July parade, For those that haven't been involved with it in the past, which one of those people is actually me. I had signed up to volunteer last year and we had that flooding. My house in Burnett was one of the affected homes. So this will be my first go to assist. But essentially the parade will start at 730 with balloons at 420 High Circle South, which I believe is the stables area. And then it goes from there. We have the land parade, land parade judging. Another land parade at Clayton Olin. At 10 a.m., the Quail Point festivities begin. That's children's games, food, and water. Also, at the same time, the dog parade assembly. Online registration is required ahead of time for that. And then, so a lot of stuff happens at 10. The boat parade assembly east of Island Drive. And then at 10.30, the dog parade and boat parade will both begin. So we assemble at 10 and then they begin. And at 1130, the patriotic program inside of Quail Point Lodge. For the parade, the mayor will be in the lead golf cart as one of the grand marshals. So we'll be Grand Marshal Jones, I guess, going forward. The city manager and Mayor Pro Tem and Chief Nelson will be in the Bronco passing out candy to the children and adults if they see fit. The city is donating hot dogs that will be handed out by council members and staff throughout. I don't know where those spots are that they're handing them out. I guess Quell Point. Okay. So that's the food they reference at Quell Point. The fire department is donating and delivering the water for the event, the bottled water. The resort is providing several things, but among others, hamburgers, chips, popsicles, and condiments for the hot dogs, hamburgers. Some of the Hadrian has much better handwriting than me. Other volunteers are Next Level, Star Republican Women, Lake Church, which you heard from earlier on an item, the Hill Country Men of Faith, Blue Bonnet Chorale, and the Wildflowers Dance Troupe. So they'll all be in some volunteer capacity as part of this.

So I'm getting our group together to hand out hot dogs and hamburgers like we did last year.

Mm-hmm.

I've got us starting at 9.30 on hour increments. Is that good enough, Cindy? Are you going to be through being the grand marshal by your shift? I'm not taking the early shift. I'm taking the middle shift.

With me?

With you, I think, yeah.

I just want to make sure you're going to be there. Oh, I'll be there. I'll be hungry by then.

So did you all get my email on your times? Yes. Yeah, you didn't read it. That's what you really want to say. There you go. Oh, yeah, that's right. I had you working food, but if it works like it did last time, if you're unable to do the food program you want to do, the children's, I bet we have plenty of people. I bet Alex comes with you too.

Yeah, he'll hide. Oh, will he hide?

Oh, yeah. He'll run through and say, I'll think about it until next year.

I will pass out food for Elaine's shift.

Okay, good. We should have enough. I wanted the public to see us, you know, know who we are.

Thanks, Rick. That was me as Cindy. Cindy. Thank you, Cindy. Thank you, Cindy.

Jeff, you got anybody else to give us any updates? Let's give these folks an update on our police chief situation.

Yes, we've had the group, this Texas Police Chiefs Association, has come in to the police department and met with the police department. I met with Paul and his group there, asked them a lot of good questions, and they're in the process of kind of doing an assessment of that, and they're going to come back with their recommendations or any changes we think we need to do. I know that Paul has kind of led a lot of the conversations over there on what they needed to do to make some changes, but things are looking really good. I think we're starting the process of the ad has been done, and now As soon as we get that assessment back, then we can kind of finish the ad to put in those recommendations, what we think is really superior for a candidate to have it in our city. And then we'll start advertising. Then I know that they also will sit in on the interview panel. and we'll work through that. I think it's tomorrow. We'll meet with the police department and talk to them.

You, me, and Larry are going to meet with the police department just to kind of give them an update on where they've been. I also want to give a shout-out to Chief Nelson back there because our coffee with the cops was very well attended. And very appreciated by the community as well. It was a great, great event. Yeah, it was. Anybody else? Okay. If there are no objections, I'm going to adjourn this meeting without a motion or a second. At 5.09, it's adjourned.