City Council - Regular Meeting

So we have established a quorum, and we have, as our privilege today, for the invocation, Dr. Gene Glazer. And I called upon him last time to give the invocation. He did so, and I asked him again to do this. He's with our Lake Church.

That's my popular demand.

Yes, popular demand.

Don't know about that.

Thank you.

Dear Father, we thank you so much for the day, and you know, we thank you for the hope of the changing of the seasons. We look forward to the refreshing fall. We're reminded that everything has a cycle, and we're reminded that you're in control. We thank you so much for your love, for the way that you shower your blessings upon us. We thank you for these men and women who give their time to govern this city. We thank you for the responsibilities they feel and they take and for the way that they honor you and the way that they rule. We pray, Father, that you'll continue to give them encouragement and strength and wisdom and discernment as they decide what is best for this community. We thank you so much for the many people here for their interest in the community, the way that these people pull together whenever there's a need. We thank you for the way, Father, you've given us all the opportunity to help those who are not as blessed as we are. We pray that you'll continue to give us discernment and eyes to see that and to deal with it and to handle it in a way that brings glory and honor to you. For we pray through the power of your son's name, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Thank you, Gene, very much.

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 your Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Glad to have everybody here today. And I wanted to remind everyone, as we typically do, if you would like to sign up to either give a presentation, particularly for our Legislative Advisory Committee, or for any other matter which you might want to speak to, even if it's a public hearing, go ahead and sign up in the back here. and put your name and the item number that you're here to speak about, please. And we will get to those in due time. So the first thing we want to do today is some announcements and staff recognitions. And I think Jeff Koska and Rick Williams are going to be our first on the block.

All right, if you just want to stand in the middle. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, residents. Today we have a five-year service award for Rachel Hearn, Director of HR. Rachel came to the city five years ago as the Payroll Administrator and was promoted to the Human Resources Director in June of 2022. Rachel holds a bachelor's degree in business administration management and has more than 15 years of management experience throughout her career. She also holds the SHRM-SCP credential awarded by the Society of Human Resource Management, excuse me, for senior level professionals of the field. During her time with the city, Rachel has focused on strengthening recruitment and retention, employee benefits and programs, compensation practices, professional development, excuse me, I had a peppermint, which was a mistake, and organizational culture. She especially enjoys the opportunity to work across every city department and develop programs that support employees throughout their careers with the city. Originally from Austin, Rachel spent three years living in Chicago, which I think makes her a Yankee kind of, before returning to central Texas. Outside of work, she is a mom of two humans and two cats. She enjoys traveling, spending time with her family and finding new ways to keep busy, which between work and two kids is rarely difficult. Despite being a lifelong Texan, Rachel would happily trade the Texas heat for mountains, cold weather, and winter any day. She loves Christmas and everything that comes with the season and firmly believes there is no such thing as starting Christmas too early, which is wrong, but that's fine. Please join Jeff and I, and he has stuff to say too, but please join us in recognizing Director Hearn for five years of distinguished service to the city of Horseshoe Bay.

I'd just like to say it's been a real pleasure working with Rachel. She has brought the city so far in the work that she's done to change the culture that we have in the city. And I can tell you the impact that she had has affected not only the service level because of her care and her dedication, and her education and influence that she's had on our staff has been immensely important to us, and I just think it's right to recognize her for the good work that she's done.

Thank you, Rachel. Thank you. She is a pleasure to be around, unless you're acting inappropriately, as I do oftentimes, and she will tell me that's inappropriate, Mayor. So now we got Ray Garcia here, and he has a great big kudo for Derek. And a great big Derek, too.

Mayor, Council, and all those in attendance today, we have an award today. We would like to recognize Derek Warren for the Texas Water Utilities Association 2025 Exemplary Community Service Award. Derek's outstanding service and measurable contributions to the City of Horseshoe Bay's water conservation and utilities management efforts, expertise and proactive community engagement has played a vital role in strengthening the city's water conservation program while helping reduce system water loss and recover valuable utility revenue. In his role, Mr. Warren has consistently demonstrated proactive approach to monitoring irrigation practices, identifying water leaks and ensuring compliance with the city's water conservation ordinance and conducting comprehensive irrigation inspections, and water use audits for both residential and commercial properties. Derek has helped residents identify system inefficiencies, repair leaks, and implement more responsible watering practices. His efforts have directly contributed to reducing unnecessary water consumption throughout the community and preserving one of the city's most valuable and natural resources. In addition to advancing water Conservation, Derek has made a significant impact on the city's water loss by helping recover water loss through identification of unauthorized water connections. Now functioning meters, which is huge, and excessive leaks that had previously gone undetected. He has helped ensure that the water usage is accurate, measured, and properly billed. These efforts have resulted in the recovery and revenue that would otherwise have been lost while improving the overall integrity of the efficiency of the city utility system. Beyond his technical accomplishments, Derek has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to public service through education and community outreach. He regularly works with residents and business owners to explain water restrictions, recommend efficiency irrigation practices, and promote water-wise landscaping techniques. his approachable demeanor, professionalism, and willingness to assist others have made him a trusted and respected resource throughout the community. The city of Horseshoe Bay proudly recognizes Derek Warren for his exceptional service, dedication, and lasting contribution to the water conservation, operational excellence, and responsible stewardship of public resources. To add to this, Derek would have not gotten this award hadn't it been for Corey Everett, our regulatory and compliance administrator. She has done an enormous amount of work to make sure that we were also put in for the Best Tasting Water Award as well. So this has a lot to do with the team, but specifically, again, yes, Derek, just outstanding in what he does, exceptional, but without Corey putting effort in and going out and looking for these awards and to get our city recognized, I would be remiss by not saying that Corey is, she is a part of this. So again, Derek, outstanding work, sir. Thank you very much. And Corey, thank you as well. And thank the team. Jeff, would you like to say anything, sir?

Yes. in our community and the culture we were talking about earlier about taking care of our residents. It's the golden rule that we live by. We want to be treated, or we want to be treated like, you know, service needs to be treated as a lawful home. But the reality is that this is a state rule. This is something that's looked at in the whole state. So this recognition is very...

Jeff, while she's taking the pictures, I do want you to address the public about the water smell and the water clarity that we've been discussing.

Thank you.

But the tent is really hard to get rid of. So they're working extra hard to get it done. Eventually, you know, people out there are going to be collecting out of the ground. It's a dark ground. But you can see clear footage. So it's clear water. It's just the stain of the water. And what usually happens is over the next several months, you know, the warm water quickly gets flushed down some of the canopy. and flush this water out and go downstream, and we get the clean water that comes out through the bottom of the canyon lake. But in the meantime, you know, we've had superflates. We did have some taste and odor things that were going on. Can y'all hear me? Yeah. Okay. You too. So we did, we had taste and odor. There's a lot of people. Yeah.

Thank you very much, Jeff. I thought I'd take that out of order since we're on water as we are right now, so thank you very much. Okay, we're going to move on to public comment. This is a part of our agenda where citizens can take up to three minutes to discuss anything that concerns the community that they would like to. If it's a matter that's already on our agenda, I'm probably going to wait until we get to that particular matter to call you up. But if you've signed up, don't think I haven't overlooked you. I'm just going to wait until we bring up that matter so that you can talk. These are matters that, again, the public has full access to give the council any understanding of anything in the community that you think would be of interest to us. By law, we cannot respond to you, so we will sit here like we're bumps on the log, and we cannot say yay, nay, or whatever, but our staff may pipe in if they need to or may contact you later to give you a little fill-in on what you've discussed. So I wanted to let you know that. I'm going to call these in order of what has been signed up. The first thing I need to ask is, Robert, only? Did you want to just give us a comment or were you here for another matter? I'll tell you what. We're going to require everyone, if you don't mind, to come up here so that we can have a full and final recording of our proceedings. We do that for... for state law as well. If you could state your address and your name.

My name is Robert Olney, and my address is 607 Longshot in Horseshoe Bay. Anyway, my question is, the opening from Thunder Rock area, which is not your jurisdiction, it's part of another Marble Falls. Anyway, that traffic and all those houses, I don't know if any of you have been up there, but they're planning on building, I'd say, 500 houses I looked at the lot. In fact, I have a picture of it. I got it from the city of Marble Falls if you want to see it. And my question is, I was on that road about two months ago when they had an accident. And I stayed in line for like 40 minutes before finally just turning around and going. Has anybody, can you put pressure or have you looked into talking to somebody about just widening that area and giving them a turn lane so the people can turn into that, their complex? And that's kind of what I'm getting at because I know when they open that up, traffic is going to be really, really bad. And it's getting worse ever since I've been here. More and more traffic is on 2147. And I'm just wondering, has anybody looked into that or do you have any poll one way or the other with the Texas Department of Transportation?

Yeah, all I can say is that we really can't comment to that. But I do know that Texas Department of Transportation can comment to it.

Yes, one thing I can do is I know that that development is the city of Marble Falls, and so I can get a hold of them and talk to them and say there's concern with the traffic there and if there's any issues with that. But as far as the long-term plan that we're looking at, you know, in conjunction with the dam road, that comes across Works Dam that the county's trying to get built. With that, we do have concern with 2147 as well. We're working with some US and state senators and representatives to see if we can get some funds to make a road that will cut through and bypass 271. But we really understand the problem, too, because we all back up there on the light and traffic, and we think there's no shoulders. So we're going to be pushing on tech stocks as well to try to widen the road and make it safer. Are you going to have an answer within a year or something, maybe? Tech stock doesn't work that fast. But we have put it. They had a public meeting, I think it was the week before last, and we did comment on that and that the road needed to be widened. and that the bypass road needs to go around. So it is part of the plan. CAPCOG is another group you can contact. I think they are taking comments as well. We can give you a number if you just contact us later, and we'll give you that information. All right.

Thanks, Mr. Olney. Appreciate it. Bob Brooks, I didn't see what you were here to talk about. Which item were you here on? Okay, that's not on our agenda, so that would be a public comment. So you may approach the podium, please, and state your name and your address.

Good afternoon. My name is Robert Brooks. It's not Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I'm under some cancer treatment, so I should have covered it up. But I have gone through some of the costs that are associated with the increases here in our jurisdiction. Burnett County has only had an increase of 2% over last year's costs. We have an 8%, and then it says that for the next two years, we're going to have a 7% each year. Now, that's fixed, but the thing with it is that's, your budget projection and are we going to be there or are we going to be way up in la-la land? Because some of us are under fixed incomes that it really affects us quite a bit. So I would just caution you on where our costs are going to be.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, that concludes our public comment signups. And now we will move to presentations. And we've got Molly Jester, who's going to give us a third quarter financial report.

All right. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. It's Molly Jester. If you turn to page nine of your packet, I'll go over the financial statements for the first nine months, which is 10-1 to 6-30. And nine months divided by 12 months is 75%. So that would be the target. if everything wasn't even. So the general fund revenue, if you go down to the bottom, you'll see that actual is 13.4 versus a budget of 16 million. So we're at 83% or actually ahead of schedule. I will note that the budget amounts later on in the council, I will have some budget amendments that are not in this presentation. So for instance, the first-line administration, we settled a lawsuit and got $178,000. That's that big. That explains the 275%. We're going to have a budget amendment, so that will even out. The next line, the fire department, we actually booked the deployment on a cash basis, and so it's a little bit behind, but today I got... At least four emails saying that we got some money in, so that will get better. And really all the other lines are pretty much on target. Are there any questions? All right, the next page is 10. We'll go over the general fund expenditures. Again, 75% if you're on a good run rate. We go down to the bottom, we look at our total, it's 13 million compared to 18.6, so we're running at 70%, which is less than 75. If you recall, our revenues were 83%. Two that kind of stand out, our technical, oh, I'm not doing anything, I'm sorry. I did, I'm bad. Thank you. So page 10, again, general fund expenditures is technical services and GIS. There's some reclasses going back and forth between those budgets to even them out. That will be later on discussed in the amendments. The next page is the general fund capital expenditures. Go down to the total, $381,000 compared to $2.4 million. So we're running at 15%. If you look at the third line, we're very excited. Probably in a week or two, we'll get our new fire engine, which is a million one. We've been budgeting for that, and there's a couple of other budget amendments that will happen. Also know that the last line is the shared use path, the Kimley Horn, the roundabouts, and what's not spent will be carried forward to the next year's budget. The utility fund revenue, again, we're looking at 75%. We go down to the total. It's close to $12 million versus $15 million budget. So we're running at 78%. And we're doing above our target. That doesn't include a budget amendment for water. So we're actually doing very well due to the hot weather and the dry climate. The next page is the utility fund expenditures. We go down to the total, it's 9.45 million compared to 13.9, and that is 68%, so we are below the 75%, and if you recall, our revenue was at 78%. One of the lower ones near the bottom is debt service. We pay that twice a year, and we paid that in August. The next page is the utility fund capital expenditures. Go down to the total. It's 2.4 million compared to six, so we're running about 39%. The items on top are our routine capital, so those are running well. We have a couple of items that are at zero, means they haven't been started, and we will carry forward those to the following year. If they're at 100% or very high, that means they're close to the project being finished. Next page is capital fund, our revenue on that. Again, we're looking at 75%, where the total is 8.6 to 9.8, so we're at 87. We're doing well. We got our bond issued a couple of months ago, so we will true up for that in a budget amendment. And we actually had savings from the general fund to pay for this building. Those are the transfers coming in. So we'll have budget amendments for that. So keep that in mind. And then page 16 is our capital fund expenditures. This is, you look down at the bottom, we're at 7.7 compared to 14, and we're at 53%. This is where we show this building, the city center, the fire station we just built, the streets, the seal coating, the old city hall, a lot of projects. You will see some of them are low, some of them are high. We will have budget amendments now that this building is done and the fire station and anything that is a project that is ongoing will be carried forward to next year. Are there any questions?

I would like to walk back something that I said and Mr. Brooks, I didn't I didn't know what you were here to talk about, but your topic did kinda dovetail a little bit to our expenditures. I didn't wanna cut you off. If you had additional that you would like to add to this, I'll be glad to open it back up to you. Okay, okay, I just wanna make sure you feel like you've had an adequate opportunity. Thank you, and I'm sorry, I didn't realize that. Okay, any questions for Molly? Okay, Molly, appreciate you. We've been listening to Molly most of the day, to tell you the truth. We've had a budget workshop since 9 o'clock this morning. Okay, so now we're going to move to... second half of our presentations and this is what i've been waiting to hear from these are the last of our presentations by our applicants to the legislative advisory committee we heard from i believe it was four last month and this month we have some more and i'm excited to hear from them i will tell you this the way that this is going to work is that we have seven that will populate this committee. And it's an extremely important committee because we're going to deal with some really heavy stuff that's going to be narrowed down to cities like Horseshoe Bay. And we want to make sure that we are represented at the Capitol as these matters are brought up and that we have a voice there. And so this committee will be our... our voice and they will report back to us so it's an extremely important committee and we will be the council will be balloting and counting their selections towards the end of this hearing today this council meeting we will do that towards the end if you want to give your presentation and then leave I totally get that but we wanted to let you have an opportunity to present your application early on so that if you wanted to leave that was absolutely fine. I want to say one other thing. We have grouped these into three groups and the three groups are exceptional, superior, and extraordinary. Every one of you who applied for this is in one of those three groups. That makes our job extremely hard to fulfill, but extremely fulfilling as well. So I want to thank you all for applying. If you're not the final seven selected, it doesn't mean you didn't fit the bill. It means that we want to try to dovetail everyone so that we have a fair representation of education, experience, and training on this group that's going to be representing the city. So without going on any more about that, I want to take these in order. And I think our first one is going to be Brenda Burdick. Ms. Burdick.

Good afternoon, Mayor Jones and council members. My name is Brenda Burdick. I live at 1206 Sunray. We came to Horseshoe Bay, my husband and I, eight years ago this month and no sooner did we get here that we knew we wanted to be fully engaged and we immediately signed up for and graduated in less than a year from when we moved here from the Citizens Academy. So that set a groundwork for us and we've loved it. We've loved being here full time. And that being said, we came from Houston. So this was a nice adjustment after 40 years in the big city where I was an educator as both a teacher and a school administrator in that time. Once we were here and got settled, I decided I wanted to pursue an interest that had kind of been pushed to the side, and I got my real estate license. So for the last six years, I have been working with Horseshoe Bay One Realty, and I love it. I am also on the board of directors for the Highland Lakes Association of Realtors. The biggest and most fun part of that for me, as far as at the association, is that I serve on and have been the chair for the TREPAC Committee. TREPAC stands for the Texas Realtors Political Action Committee. And we specifically travel to Austin and speak to our legislators and decision makers about property rights, the rights of property owners, property taxes and all those things that affect not just people in the real estate business but everyone that owns property in the state. I've enjoyed that piece of it and I also see that this activity could kind of transition well into doing something to represent the city as well. If I look familiar, it's probably because I already attend nine or 10 city council meetings every year just to stay engaged, interested for my own benefit and for the benefit of my clients. So I know what's coming down the pipe, what changes are coming. Being a part of the Horseshoe Bay Legislative Advisory Committee would be an extension of the political process that I'm already engaging in and I would consider it both an honor and a means of fulfilling my civic duty.

Thank you so much. Anybody have any questions for Ms. Burdick? I have one. Oh, yes. What is the most frustrating thing that you have experienced while being in Austin working with the legislators?

Sometimes it's their schedules. We get there and we think we have an appointment and if there's voting, you're nodding, they're out and we end up sitting with their assistant for a while and waiting until Ellen Troxclair or whoever else can get back to the office. And sometimes you end up seeing them and sometimes you don't. So that can be frustrating.

We have been there last session.

They're in and out of their offices.

The toughest thing. Thank you so much. Anybody else? We appreciate you coming. Thank you. Okay. So now we're going to go to Bob White. While he's coming up, I do want to remind everyone, if you aren't one of the seven that are eventually selected for the committee, don't think you won't get called because you probably will. We will need some extra help, some extra hands to help us with this matter because we're outnumbered. Okay. Mr. White.

My name is Bob White. I've been a short-timer. in Horseshoe Bay, we've been here only about eight years. And I'm like most of the people in Horseshoe Bay, I don't work a lot. But, and in that capacity, I don't learn a whole lot. And I don't pay attention to what's going on. So I probably shouldn't be anywhere close to this committee. But what I would like to say, I'm an architect, I spent 40 years in business, primarily in, my office was in Denver, but I worked across the western states, mostly for governmental and quasi-governmental entities, the state of Colorado, and big, large corporate facilities like AT&T, probably one of the biggest ones. You talk about a conflict of interest, get a boardroom with 20 of those people. Anyway, that's worse than you. But anyway, I have learned one thing, is I'm not very smart. I was learned this week, well, I opened the newspaper, and I see the headline that the power line up in northern Burnett County, in Llano, was nixed, at least slowed down, maybe. I hadn't even heard about that. And I discovered that, you know, this one lady jumped up and says they're building this power line. And it got all the way to the state house. We're small city Texas. We're like it being in a small city. And we like to keep it that way. But we're being... with big city problems and big city legislation to solve problems. And to that end, a plethora of uniform legislation that doesn't help us a bit and that we can't be a part of the problem, but it destroys what we're after. And I'd like to know more about that. So that's the reason I'd like to be here.

Bob, thank you very much. True words couldn't have been said. Thank you very much. Thank you. I agree. Okay, thank you. Now we've got Rob Blanche.

Hi, everyone. I'm Rob Blanch. I live at 319 Azalea Court, nearby Golden Bear Reserve, right here in Summit Rock. First of all, I thank you for the opportunity to possibly be on the legislative committee. I've lived here now a little over three years. In that time, I've gotten involved in a number of things, including, you know, I took the Citizens Academy in 2024 fall. graduated from that. I am now president of a POA, the Golden Bear POA, or it's called the Reserve at Summit Rock POA. And I also represent precinct one of Llano County on the board of directors of LCAD, which is quite interesting. So I've got myself involved in a few things. Also drainage, Rick knows me a bit from that. produce decks, send materials along, deal with POA, obviously, but also ACC, the city, on all sorts of drainage-related issues over in Summit Rock. In light of all that engagement, when the opportunity came up to possibly join the legislative committee, I thought it was a good way to actually get involved with the city side of things in terms of the government. I've lived in a number of places, Washington State, California, I see some similarities where the state houses basically start, you know, influencing the entire state with rules and regulations that come from some of the larger cities. And that's kind of what I see in some of this legislation. And I have a variety of concerns about that. I've seen the impacts of that in other states. So I definitely would want to be engaged and involved in representing the city in terms of influencing those things. I did do a bunch of analysis. I'm not going to go through it, but of the things that were in the legislative packet. A couple things, I don't know, I have questions about, like the ETJ roadway impact fee things. As far as I know, from my research, it tracks back to 87 and legislation that was introduced then, so I'm not exactly sure The new legislation really prohibits anything that wasn't already prohibited. But I'm very good at analyzing and processing data very quickly. And it comes from my professional background. For those of you who don't know, I was basically a technology executive. I spent a long time at Microsoft, and that's provided me a bunch of skills which allowed me to quickly understand things and present things effectively. In closing, I definitely would appreciate being on the legislative committee, and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to take questions.

Thank you, Rob. Any questions for Mr. Blanch? Great. Thank you very much. See those three categories that you're all in? This is it. Okay, we've got Ann Whittington.

Hi there, can you hear me all right? I am Ann Whittington. I am probably going to read most of this so I can get it over with fast for you. But I am very interested in being on the city legislative advisory committee. A little bit about myself. My family's from Texas. My father was military, primarily in the diplomatic corps, so I was fortunate to grow up all over the world. A number of interesting places. I went to college in Europe and then transferred to a more normal place like UT Austin. I'd say normal. I stayed there. I had too much fun. And then, in fact, my first job was I got a degree in government and journalism. And my first job was working in the state capitol for Texas Legislative Service. I was fired from that job within two months because I couldn't type fast enough. So I, at the age of 22, decided I better get another movement going. I ended up moving to San Antonio where I lived for the last three plus decades. I've been here for five years. I've gone through the advisory committee. I'm currently an alternate on the Board of Adjustment. I found Horseshoe Bay, like many, through family connections and ended up here five years ago to retire. My husband's a civil engineer, and he's retired as well. I was out of pocket during the last session because he was diagnosed with throat cancer. But he's doing very well now, and he's in full retirement mode. I tried to follow when I could, but needless to say, that year was a little off for me. I believe my background is well suited to help, I put HSB, I'll say that, and its leadership maintain in advance the type of community that you all have made it, and it's currently achieved. It looks like local control is eroding and calling for a lot more communication on both sides and developing good relationships. You've probably read my background, so I won't go too far into details, but I did work in and around the political world for the majority of my career as a campaign consultant, fundraiser, media advisor, strategist, researcher, and advocate for elected officials ranging from county chairs, mayors, city councils, statewide, large civic issues, and a fun one was the Spurs Arena back when they first started that. It was fun. It was all fun. Don't confuse that. I started my political work during the era of John Cornyn and Joe Strauss when they started their political careers and when Republicans were on the rise. Over the years, I worked in less partisan races, city, county, school bond elections, and I've even slipped in a few Democrats in there. I served as president of Bexar County Republican women for a number of years ago. A number of years ago, I will say. Of the many things I learned in the business of utmost importance was to communicate issues clearly and understand the lay of the land. which is not easy to do in the political world. You develop good relationships and engage and interest citizens enough for them to act positively when they possibly can. In spite of the nature of partisan politics, I've developed and maintained a good relationship with a number of those engaged in the legislative process over the years. on both sides of the aisle. However, I must admit I haven't been engaged in the last five years, so some of the newbies are new to me.

We're going to ask if you can to wrap it up so that everybody can get a chance here.

That's one of the things I just wanted to say. It's very interesting. No, no, no, that's fine. I worked for the last 15 years with the Council of Engineering Companies. We worked closely with the legislative session and legislators then. And one of the things I learned is when to close your mouth and leave, and that's right now. So thank you.

And thank you very, very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Lee Larkin. Can you tell us your address and your name as you approach? Or when you've approached? Yes, sir. You know what the drill is.

Good afternoon. I am Lee Larkin. I live at 208 Long Mountain. Becky and I bought our house in Horseshoe Bay back in October of 21. We moved here permanently in June of 22. I've been an attorney for 45 years, practicing exclusively in commercial complex litigation. I've advocated for clients all my life, so advocating for Horseshoe Bay just falls right in line with what I've done all of my life. One of the first things I did after moving here was go to the Citizens Academy, graduated in fall 2022. Thereafter, I was privileged to serve on the Transportation Advisory Committee meeting or committee. As you know, the transportation plan was adopted by the city and is currently being implemented. You know, the, the members of the committee, and as you've indicated, all of these individuals have come up here and the ones that I know have already come. We're all very well qualified for this position. Uh, it would be an honor to, to serve on it. I would enjoy it. I would think that all of the members of the committee would help you guys solve the challenges that are being cast upon the city by the legislature. You know, Horshey Bay, as we all know, it's a special place. It deserves a special place. It deserves special recognition, special place in front of the legislature. As I was thinking about all of this, what we're going on, it occurred to me that kind of what the mantra for the Legislative Advisory Committee should be a short version of the Hippocratic Oath. First, do no harm, legislature. Do no harm. So having said that, appreciate the opportunity to visit with you. And if anybody has any questions, happy to answer.

Any questions for Mr. Larkin? I had a quick question. Yes, sir. you went to law school with Kirk Watson, the mayor of Austin. How would it feel to go against him on most of his, you know, I've actually thought about that.

And the, the short answer is, and Kirk and I have actually talked is, you know, a lot of the things, and I know that Austin and Horseshoe Bay are two different worlds, worlds. I get that. I get that. But there are some things that there are some common, there's some common ground, right? And, uh, So, you know, when it gets down to the nitty gritty, you know, of course, Perk's got his own problems in Austin, right? Yes, he does. But, you know, he might be able to help and call on him for a little help here and there.

Lee, thank you so much for coming. Appreciate it. Mark Knudson. Mark Knudson.

Mayor and council members, thank you. My name is Mark Knudson. I live at 200 The Trails Parkway. And I think it was a moment of weakness when I applied. And after hearing everybody else, you're going to be in good hands, let me tell you. I'm an engineer by degree. I've worked at large corporations and been a small business owner as well. We retired here and bought our first home in 2013 and have lived here permanently since 18. I've been involved with the city on a couple of different occasions. Like many of the others, I went through the Citizens Academy, the longest Citizens Academy ever in 2020 because of COVID. I think it was like nine months. Um, then I served on the land use and development advisory committee that helped, uh, guide the city plan for the future. And, uh, during the last legislative session, I was part of a contingent that went down there and visited with, and you're exactly right. Trying to get a meeting with them is the hardest thing to do. My involvement in the community, I was sitting back there thinking that I must like animals more because I volunteer at the barn out at the Phoenix Center for the equine therapy. I'm involved with Fire Plug Freeway and 365 Pet Connection. Other things that I do here are that I'm an ambassador for the club, and I regularly attend the business alliance. Along with all that, you will see me on a golf course. I tend not to use the word golfer. That's just something that doesn't fit real well for me. But as I said, this city is very important, I feel honored to be here this opportunity. But I'll tell you, there's probably a fourth category that I fit into that's kind of lower than those others. And I would be perfectly happy to be the first one out. Thank you.

Any questions? Thank you very much. Any questions for Mark? We appreciate you.

Thank you.

Certainly do. Okay, Mike Saba.

Hello, Mike Saba. I live at 816 Oxbow here in Horseshoe Bay. I am a graduate of Citizens Academy as well. I've been a full-time resident of Horseshoe Bay for eight years. I've owned property here for about 20 years and have been enjoying Horseshoe Bay for probably 30 years. Unlike a lot of people, I'm not retired. I build a few houses around Horseshoe Bay. I've interacted with a lot of the departments and a lot of the employees of the city. Uh, my first career was the apparel business and I was in it for about 30 years and then got tired of travel and all the corporate world and started building houses in the Dallas area. My wife has a business here, a concierge business. We moved here full time in 18 And I thought I was done and I built us a house and then all of a sudden I'm building a bunch of houses again. So my training, I went to the University of Texas and my role in the apparel business was eventually leadership. which sort of gave me the opportunity to learn, to persuade, and influence. I think probably two of the best qualities that I have. I enjoy Horseshoe Bay. I'm here by choice, and it's a place that I'd like to be able to serve.

Thank you. Questions? Anybody? Thank you, Mike. Appreciate it. Okay, Susan Pierce.

Mayor and Council, I'm Susan Pierce. 98 Island Drive is our address, Unit 11. Thank you for the opportunity to apply for this committee. I've been on a banker in this market, when I say this market, Marble Falls and Horseshoe Bay, for over 40 years. I've seen tremendous growth. I've seen cycles when we've been up and down. I've also had the opportunity to serve on the leadership board of directors for IBAT, which is the Independent Bankers Association of Texas. And part of what we do is go visit in Washington, D.C., and in Austin, our legislators to advance community banking goals. So I don't see this as a whole lot different than that. As Brenda said, one of the challenges is getting into the offices. I think one of the key things that this city has to have is a point person that has the connection with the legislators so we can get into their offices and have their ear and have their attention and plan that and plan that with people who have connections. That's the biggest deal that I see. A lot of the people that have those connections are people that donate. to those politicians. So everybody should vet that out first to know where you're going and who has the ear with those individuals. I did take a little bit of time to look at Governor Abbott's tax empowerment plan. There's five keynotes that he has in there. Local spending limits. I think that's the biggest category that we would probably be focused on because it sounds as much as the state tried to doge their budget, I think that's what they're trying to push down to the local level. So we need to work. and understand exactly what all that's going to entail. The next thing on his plan was required two-thirds supermajority of voter approval for local property tax increases. So that's one other issue. Voter rollback. If they have at least 15% of the registered voters to ask for a rollback, that they could get that done. Appraisal caps, right now we're at 10% per year. He wants to pull that back to three. And the last item that does affect all of us, he's looking at pulling all the school district property taxes off of your individual bills and letting the state fund that. They would fund that through their budget surplus and through sales tax revenue. Horseshoe Bay, we're a little bit unique. We don't have a big sales tax budget. What we do have is our property taxes, and I believe that's 52 or 53% of our annual budget based upon 26, the best that I can see. So I think there's a lot of things that the council needs to think about, who are the right people that have connections with the right politicians and know what our goals are and make sure the communication is key.

I appreciate that very much. Right in line with what we're...

interested in Howard rough Afternoon council and first of all I want to thank you for what you do for a great city I've lived at 218 Buffalo Peak otherwise known as the eighth hole on Apple and My wife and I have lived here three years. We've been married 35. We've been in the oil and gas industry the entire time, so about 45 years' worth of oil and gas experience. Started in the field with a company called Schlumberger. You may not have heard of them, kind of a global leader in technology. Spent 30 years there, and then went off and created my own Schlumberger, and we developed a company that does fracking, so I'm an Evo fracker. Did that with a big company, and we grew that to 450 people. We sold that, and here I am. My background is all over the place. With Schlumberger, you don't specialize in anything. You learn a lot of lots. You start in the field. You work in the field in well construction, development, safety, operations management. Leave that, I went to personnel, from personnel to HR recruiting, recruited 1,500 people a year across the U.S. and South America. Again, my career, we've moved, my wife and I have moved 15 times across the U.S. in different places. I learned a lot. We're also dual citizens of Mexico. We were residents of Puerto Vallarta for many years, and we go back and forth there. Love the place. I'm not certain where I really fit in the mold because I have a little bit of experience in everything, but I'm interested in helping out. I have no axe to grind, no things I want to get done, but I do believe that ahead of that, transportation is most important, especially for those of you who've lived in Houston or Dallas or Denver like I have. uh you realize that the you know the traffic is terrible because they never plan for the future right they plan for today and then they build on the second leg and you're waiting again the next year for the next line so i have a little passion around building developing i love this place it's a blessed place to live we have great leadership in our church and our founding fathers here and i like this place and i want it to be wanted to be able to grow adequately to fill the society. Most of all, around that, I would say it's about safety. These roads are getting very dangerous, as the gentleman spoke earlier, and so I think transportation is one of the most important parts of that.

Any questions? Did I cut you off? No, sir, I'm done. Oh, great. Any questions for Mr. Ruff? Okay. All right. Howard, thank you for coming in. You bet. Thank you. And thank all of you all for coming in and giving us a really difficult decision to make. Oh, did I? Are you on the list? Okay. Christy Lofton is here. I'm sorry. You weren't on the list. I'm sorry.

Christy Lofton, give us your address.

Okay. Well, thank you all so much for giving me this opportunity to speak with you. My name is Christy Lofton. I live at 827 Creek Lane in Pecan Creek, and I've been a full-time resident of Horseshoe Bay for 11 years. Over those years, this community has become much more than simply the place where I live. It is my home, and I care deeply about its future. That's really the reason that I'm applied for this. I'm interested in serving on the Legislative Advisory Committee because I believe I have both the experience and the perspective to make a meaningful contribution. I own a custom home building company and that means I deal every day with regulations, permitting, contracts, budgets, planning, and the practical consequences of decisions made at the state and local level. I'm accustomed to taking complicated information figuring out what it actually means, and asking questions, and looking at how a decision will affect people in the real world. And I think that is especially important for this committee. Legislation coming out of Austin can be complicated, but ultimately, the question for Horseshoe Bay is much simpler. What does this mean for our city, our residents, and our future? I also bring quite a bit of board experience and leadership experience. I currently serve on the Board of Trustees at the Church of Horseshoe Bay, and I previously have served on the Pecan Creek POA for three years and other boards when we lived in Houston. Those experiences taught me how to work with people who may not always agree, how to listen, taught me how to listen, how to manage responsibilities carefully, and how to keep the interest of the organization ahead of my own. I also participated in the Horseshoe Bay Citizens Academy in spring of 2025. which gave me an even greater appreciation for everything involved in operating our city. It reinforced for me how important thoughtful, informed citizens are to good local government. There is one principle that has guided me in every leadership position I've held, and it's very simple. It's not about me. If I were to serve on this committee, I'm not there to promote my own interests or personal opinions. I'm there to listen, do the homework, consider different perspectives, and continually ask, what is best for Horseshoe Bay? I believe I bring a practical business perspective, financial and board experience, common sense, and a genuine willingness to work. I'm comfortable digging into complicated issues, but I'm equally comfortable in saying, I don't know. Let me learn more before I give you an opinion. More importantly, I love this community. I want Horseshoe Bay to continue to be an exceptional place to live not just today, but for the people who will call it home years from now. I would consider it an honor to serve the city in this capacity, and if appointed, I can promise that I will come prepared, listen carefully, ask thoughtful questions, and always try to put the best interest of Horseshoe Bay and its residents first. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you so much. Any other questions? Okay, that concludes our applicants for the Legislative Advisory Committee, and I once again appreciate the participation of everyone who applied. It means so much to us, and it's going to be a committee of heavy lifting, no question about it, and we will be voting later on in this meeting for the seven, but Don't move anywhere because you'll be asked to help out later. Okay, so we're going to move now to our public hearing items. And the first thing we have is a public hearing on the adoption of the proposed fiscal year 2026-27 budget. Molly Jester is going to be up again.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council again. The local government code 102.006A states that the governing body.

You've got to open the hearing.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm opening this public hearing at 4.05. Thank you, Mr. Williams.

All right. There's a code that states that the governing body of a municipality shall hold a public hearing on the proposed budget. The other code states that the hearing shall occur 15 days after the proposed budget is filed. It was filed on August 10th with the city secretary, but before the date the tax levy is made, so 15 days after the 10th is today. Notice of this public hearing was made and the budget has been placed on the city's website for inspection Should citizens prefer copies are available? for inspection at City Hall or the city center with the city secretary if citizens wish to comment on the budget the hearing provides that opportunity I Do believe that's when the gentleman? Should have been speaking as he spoke about the budget.

Yes.

Yes. Okay.

Right. Thank you, sir.

Also the code states that at the conclusion of the public hearing, the governing body shall take action on the proposed budget as changes are usually needed before finalizing the budget for adoption, especially after the workshop we had today. This action is generally accepted to be setting a date and time for the approval of the budget. The staff recommends that the next city council meeting be at the next city council meeting on September 15th.

Okay. I once again will ask the gentleman if he would like to participate in this at all. Okay. Well, you don't have to, but I didn't want to cut you short. I would ask you to keep it to two and a half minutes if you don't mind. I already gave you 30 seconds.

Mayor, Council, I'm Robert Brooks. I live at 216 Ski Court. No, I'm sorry, that's the other. I live in 316 Grove Court. I have to I think you got me a little flustered here. I wanted to emphasize that there are some people who live in Horseshoe Bay who are welcomed to the community. And what has happened is that three to five year period We've seen the costs at this level. Now they're at 2027 at this level. And I'm worried because of the fact I came from, God forbid, I came from Westlake Cove in Austin, and I saw what happened there. The taxes and everybody needs to be paid correctly. There's no question about that. But I just want to make certain that we just don't go wild and just increase, increase, increase. The Hayes County has gone, in the last few years, now they're up to 12% because of all the people moving there from the Travis County area. And they're trying to catch up, catch up, catch up. I believe that there are some people here who have done the same thing, moved from Travis County to here. And they were hoping to get a certain tax rate that was not like Travis County. I noticed that we're not feeding the people that are on the streets, and we're not having tremendous sway that way in the budget, which is great. if you could all just take it easy on some of us. Okay?

Very much. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Something we're struggling with, no question about it. We've had most of the day spent at discussing cost of goods and services that are hitting us as a like, and then the resulting decrease in revenue. And so we're We're having to figure out stuff as well here because we want to keep the level of services that we have, but it's sometimes difficult to do that with limited dollars. And those are decisions that are very difficult for us to make, and we're still making them right now. So, Molly, have we concluded your presentation?

Yes, sir.

Do we have any questions for Molly? And would anyone like to make a motion?

I don't think we have any more questions. We've asked those for about three hours today.

You need to close the meeting.

You need to ask if there's anybody else that wants to.

Okay. Was there anybody else who would like to speak to this who didn't sign up? Okay. I assume by your silence there is no one else who would like to speak. All right.

I want you to close the meeting.

I'll close the hearing at 4.11. Do we want to discuss this? Let's have a motion first.

I move the adoption of the proposed budget to be postponed until the next city council meeting set for September 15, 2026.

Motion by Mayor Pro Tem Morgan. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Fetchner. Discussion among the council? Discussion. And again, by state law, we have to wait until September to vote on this. All in favor? Aye. All against? The ayes have it. Thank you, Molly. Appreciate it. We're going to move now to public hearing continuation. We will not need to open that. From our last city council meeting, we're going to discuss, consider, and discuss take possible action on ordinance 2026-08-016 regarding zoning change number 2026-05. We discussed this fairly and much in depth at our last meeting, so I don't want to go over all of those things, but certainly we'll have a few additional items that people would like to add in on this, and I believe the applicant is here to present as well. So, John Byram, what you got?

It's a continuation from the last meeting. Just as a quick reminder, here is the aerial map that we have showing where the property is. There are a couple of clarifications from the last meeting that I wanted to clear up real quick before we have the applicant come up and speak. So it was mentioned about the future land use map that we currently have. So this is the adopted map from many years ago, not the one that is being currently discussed with our comprehensive plan now. The property is outlined in black. You can see it's that pink color, which is neighborhood commercial. So that's the current future land use map. The zoning for the neighboring property where Lake Church is, is actually GUI. Not our six as as it was show last time. So just wanted to clarify those things real quick And then if the applicant would like to come up and speak Okay, Sean real quickly I'm looking at the map so the the area outlined in red is not our sixes So the current zoning is our six what there so the property to this is South right here where it says GUI. That was R6 on the map, but they went through a zoning change. Our map wasn't updated. This is updated. So I just wanted to clarify that from the last meeting. Thanks.

Thank you, Mayor Jones and the City Council. Sorry I wasn't here last month. I appreciate you all extending it a month so I could be here to talk to you all about what we're trying to do.

And for the record, can you state your name and address, please?

Sorry. My name is Brady Meyer. I've been a member of Horseshoe Bay for, I haven't even thought about it, 12, 13, 14 years. Love the place. We really do. In 2024, we joined church, Lake Church. And I met Gene, and Gene started talking about we needed a place to put a church. So in 2024, my wife and I bought the Stonehouse property for the benefit of the church. And it was only for the benefit of the church, not for the benefit of us. We gifted the church 11 acres. We sold the back part of the property to the resort. We kept five acres, which is in discussion at this point. And Whenever we started building the church, we realized, hey, we needed more funding. So I started talking about selling the property for the benefit of the church. And we realized really quick that we needed to get it rezoned to get a full maximum value for the property. The city required us to do traffic studies, all sorts of stuff, and they wanted us to tie the two properties, the one that says C2, which is Ted Burgett's, and the R6, which is mine. together from the highway access or wherever it's gonna be accessed from. I realized immediately that the easiest thing to happen is one person owned the two properties. My intent was to sell the property anyway for the benefit of the church. And so I approached a person that is involved in the C2 property, the commercial, and it's currently under contract and set to close this Monday. as long as the rezoning is approved. So I'd ask the city council members to please pass or vote for this, for our rezoning application. I think it makes sense where you've already got somebody in the corner that's gonna do something they're already gonna be, it's already commercial. So we're just trying to tile that and make one property out of that. Thank you. Do you have any questions?

Do we have some questions for Mr. Meyer?

So you're closing on Ted's property Monday?

I am not buying Ted's. Ted, it's actually another gentleman that's tied in with him, is purchasing the property, the 5.03 acres that we have.

And... Educate me a little bit about the fact that C2 then would be more valuable and bring in a bigger price than R6. Is that right?

I want to... In my opinion, yes. Just because... the neighboring people we what happened when whenever we started doing the traffic studies and y'all started the city required us to have access throughout our property to the Ted Burgett's property I just in my opinion the easiest thing to do would be to make that one property And it just made more sense to me to do that than for myself to go build an apartment complex there. Then he goes over and builds an office building. So that was my thoughts.

Okay. I get that. And then... As I understand it, John, correct me if I'm wrong, what's before us today is simply a zoning change. It's not the use of the property, the construction on the property, the access, the egress, the ingress, the drainage, the retention pond. None of that is before us, correct?

That's correct. You're correct, Mayor.

Okay.

We're going from R6 back to C2. Correct. And it was originally C2 to start with.

You know how far this is from the intersection of 2147 and Baywest Boulevard in feet?

Oh, but Nathan answered that. I'd say approximately 2,000.

Yeah, it's about 1,200. 1200 because we have a, um, we're a 300 or 375 feet from the, or more than 375 feet. I think it's 425 actually to the, um, to the intersection with Bay country and the, um, the church entrance. And then, Yeah, so it's roughly $850,000 to $1,200,000, somewhere in there. It's called $1,000,000. But we did take into account the roundabout between at Bay West and 2147. I worked with Sam Lundquist with Kimley Horn & Associates, and we went over what they're planning there for the roundabout for the left turn lane that's going into our property. We took that. Actually, when we do the roundabout, the left turn into our property will actually function better than when it will right now with the intersection, because right now you have a dedicated left turn into Bay West, and that queue length and deceleration depth is a lot longer than a deceleration into a roundabout. you'll actually, the queue length, the left turn into Baywest, that will go away, and we'll be able to actually have a longer queue length into this property. I think we're shy of like 50 feet.

Are they proposing, and I know we're not into the weeds right now, but are they proposing an entrance on 2147?

Um, right now the, the entrance that's proposed is right at the Northwest corner of the R six property. It's a very Northwest corner. Yeah. And so that has already been, um, incorporated into the TIA.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Does it not use the entrance to the church, the same location?

It is not the same entrance as the church. No, sir. It's about 425 feet to the northeast of the church driveway. It meets the minimum requirements for a 45-mile-per-hour roadway for textile driveway access.

Did you explore a partnership between the church and the commercial property for a driveway there instead of having one on?

That's been approved by our board at the church to have that. If that's a requirement, that's something that the next, hopefully.

I think that, because one of the things we've tried to look at is minimizing traffic. the entrance and exits to 2147, and if you could share that for that commercial property, that would be a win-win.

Absolutely. That's fine. We can provide that.

It's another 400 feet?

Well, it's... Yeah.

They butt out. This way, yeah. Okay.

So it's just, if that's not a problem, Gene, okay, that would be, that's a win-win.

Okay. Other questions? No other questions. We have, I believe maybe our closest land owner, Ms. Thomas. Yes. Who is here, uh, signed up to speak. Would you like to speak?

My name is Donna Thomas, and I live at 213 Mitchell Creek. I'm the lot that is adjacent to the proposed parcel that's being changed.

Can we get a close-up on that? Where's John? You're in the R4. Are you in the one next to the R1? Correct. To the left of it? To the left of it.

To the left of it. And I'd like to point out, I'm glad you brought that up.

There you go.

Right, a little lower. A little lower. A little lower.

That one.

That one, right. And right there where the current R6 property, that point right there by my lot, that is a underground spring. That's where... The concrete is fed underground, right? And there's two things I want to talk about today is I used to own a house on the Frio River in Concan, Texas, and there was no one there that protected that beautiful river that fed Garner State Park, one of the number one most visited state parks in the state of Texas. And I lived there for 20 years, or I had a home there for 20 years. And over time, a lot of property was developed there, a lot of pools. And now the water, you used to tube the water like the San Marcos River. And now there's no water in that river, right? And I fear that if we don't, you know, we've got, the church. We've got the other planned development right next to the nursing home. And then if this is commercial and the other one's commercial, we need to start thinking about Pecan Creek, right? Because it feeds into the Lake Marble Falls, which is our water supply, right? So I just fear that if we make this commercial I mean, I get that if it's residential, it could be the same problem, right? But maybe not.

I don't think so.

But anyhow, I think that if we don't look at it holistically with everything, then we run the risk of jeopardizing the concrete. And I'd also like to state that, again, the... survey that was done for land and use, they don't want any more commercial development on 2147. And this just adds to more of the commercial development that so many residents voted against.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Only comment I have, C2 will always remain commercial. So with C2 being commercial, there's no way that's going to go residential. So I think I understand your point, and I think any development will have to address that.

Well, that's just a difference of opinion, Frank. If you look to the east, there is residential developed right next to Prosperity Bank. So it would be, in my mind, somewhat symmetrical to have residential on both sides of those C2. And as I've shared repeatedly, I spent most of my life in 2024 on the Land Use Development Advisory Committee, spoke to a lot of residents, looked them in the face and said, your input is important. We will use it to guide our decisions on city council. And so for that reason, When people don't want any more commercial on 2147 directly, I just have to say, I'm going to support the community. I don't disagree that, hey, it might be a better development opportunity for zoning. For me, that's not the issue. The issue is integrity. And I told people we would listen to their voice. So that's how I think about it.

Am I right that this... If it were changed to R6, you'd also have to do a significant drainage study as well?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

It would be the same drainage requirements for commercial to residential.

So concerns about Pecan Creek would have to be addressed in that respect?

Actually, with this zoning case, what's also being considered is a protection on Pecan Creek as well on top of, the already LCRA requirements, a 30-foot landscape buffer along, I think it was 30 or 25, I can't remember exactly, along between the R1 and R6, an actual defined landscape buffer between the two properties, and then also a 70-foot building setback from that R1 zoning as well, which forces the pond to be in that location And I understand the concern with the pond. Right now, there's already ponding going on there. There is a, I think it's 42 inch storm drain pipe coming out of 2147. That pipe is going straight to Ms. Thomas's track and ponding right in front of her property. When Ms. Thomas built her property, she filled in the property. and it's actually impounding water on our property. So the water that's actually making the pecan Creek below ground is actually the, the, the ponded water from her property being filled in. So, um, right now where we're putting the pond is the same location, except we're actually going to be doing a water quality pond. So the water is going to be treated prior to release into the concrete.

Yeah. Whatever's done there, the Creek's a consideration.

whatever we do however it's zoned the creek is certainly a clear consideration for sure yeah i just i want to make sure everybody understands changing the zoning on here doesn't do anything with regard to development right whatsoever is that the only place that the retention pond could could be where it is right now um

It's really the only place that it makes feasible sense. And by putting in that 70-foot building setback line from the R1, it's going to force it to – nobody will want to put anything else but a pond there. So that's kind of what – when we were talking to Sienna Creek POA about this, that was something that I came up with in order to make sure that any development in the future, this is the only place that makes sense for a pond. So that's always going to be – Yes, ma'am, that's correct. That's POA board. Yeah.

Are they here today, the POA president?

I understand the POA does not oppose this. The P&Z did oppose this. So we're faced with a conundrum here.

Well, did you want to speak to that, Donovan?

The board of directors got together and voted on whether or not that lot should change to commercial. They did not send out an invitation to any of us homeowners. We were not made aware of any of their concerns, their negotiations with the property owners, none of us. I asked to attend that meeting with them and I was told, no, it's not a public meeting. So that is not representation of the POA. It is representation of three men.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. Other questions?

Bottom line is with the retention pond, the amount of acreage is reduced considerably. So the plot, the usable plot is what do you figure? Out of the five acres, once the- Three, one, six, seven? Yeah, a little over three acres instead of five acres. Which, okay, all right. I just wanted my clarification of that point.

Other questions for Mr. Meyer or John or Ms. Thomas? I'm going to close this public hearing at 433. I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve Ordinance 202608016 to rezone the property located at 11001 Farm to market 2147 as requested with the condition of requiring an access point to the track To the east to follow the agreed-upon site specific zoning conditions has outlined and that would include connection to the Church's entrance as well as the Requirement to address all issues related to the pond and

Motion by Mr. Hosia. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Mr. Weatherby. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. All against? I'm against. We have Mr. Fetchner who is against. It is four to one. It passes. So we will move on now. I've already closed.

Did you state the time for closing the public hearing?

434 now. Yeah. Okay, we're going to move on to our business items. First business item is Rachel Hearn, consideration and possible action of renewal of benefits with United Healthcare. Ms. Hearn.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm sure you're excited to hear from me again after we've spent all day together.

I will try to quickly go over this again since we extensively talked about it at the workshop.

Just as a reminder, our dental and vision insurance received a rate pass. Also, life and disability were signed with a rate pass for three years, so we did not have any increase on those. Our medical insurance from UnitedHealthcare originally received a 19% increase. We were able to negotiate that down to 13%. In the July workshop, you all asked me to bring back some plan design options to reduce that cost to the city. I brought you today three plan design options and today I'm asking the council to determine the plan design and also what percentage will be on the employee for the cost of the plan.

And you got those numbers with dispatch and I appreciate that. Yes. And it came down to, what, 7%? 7.3%. 7.3%.

Much better.

Before we go further, I do want to remind everyone that I went to a mayor's luncheon the other day with 20-some-odd mayors across the Hill Country, and their stories about their finances and their expenses for insurance, infrastructure, and the like was just heart-rendering. It made me feel blessed that I'm in Horseshoe Bay. Even though we've got some of the same problems, we don't have them nearly to the extent and duration that some of these other communities do. So kudos to our staff for that. But they're wrestling with the same issues. on their insurance that we wrestle with this morning. So thank you for doing that. Any questions for Molly? What's your name? Rachel? Rachel. Molly, I got you on the brain. Where are you? Y'all can ask Molly instead of me. That's fine. Any questions for Rachel? I will entertain a motion.

I'll make one. Thanks, Rachel, for turning this around so quickly from this morning's discussion and all the hard work you did. to find these plans for the staff. So I move to approve the city's 2026-2027 employee medical benefits renewal utilizing UHC plan design option one and to approve the high deductible plan to maintain current percentage by the city and reduce options two and three to 50% dependent coverage and authorize the city manager to execute all necessary documents and implement the approved benefit contribution structure Effective October 1, 2026.

Motion by Mr. Fetchner. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Second by Mr. Hosia. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. All against? Motion carries. Thank you, Rachel, for your hard work. Item B, consideration of possible action concern reducing the building permit fee for the Horseshoe Bay Resort Racket Clubhouse. John Byram.

Mayor, Council, excuse me, good afternoon. The Horseshoe Bay Racket Club is requesting a building fee reduction. They are building a new racket clubhouse that's just a little over 4,000 square feet. When you do the math based on our current fee schedule, it would be 1% of the prior approved construction costs, which that means the permit fee would be $66,500, which is a little high. The applicant provided some examples of some similar developments that they've done over the years. all the clubhouse and the pavilion and you can see that they are much larger and the price is much less. And you can see the fee per square footage going from $1.18, $1.65 to a little over $16 per square foot. So what the applicant is proposing is to do $2 per square foot, which at that rate it would be $8,116. Of course, as you know, staff is currently in the process of studying and updating the fee schedule, which we're gonna see in a few items from now. What staff is gonna be presenting to y'all on that item is that there would be a base fee of $1,500 for review. And then on addition to that, it would be $2 per square foot for the development. plus 115% of any professional costs that would incur. That doesn't necessarily mean that that project would have those professional costs, but if we need to reach out to legal, have ATS help us review, then those costs would be in addition. So looking at doing the $2 per square foot plus the $1,500 for review, if adopted, the permit fee with the new fee would be, or the new fee schedule would be $9,616, of course, plus any incurred fees for professional services. So with that being said, staff did find that the $66,500 was excessive. So staff does recommend council reducing that permit fee. The applicant is here if you all have any questions.

Okay. I have a question. What is, Rick, what are your projected costs?

John would probably have better information on that. I would presume that you have normal review costs. Do you have any engineering or legal?

So when doing our fee study review and looking, we compared with other cities. The 9,000 seemed to be a good coverage.

The 66 is clearly exorbitant. I don't think there's any argument on that. My question is, you know, in today's world, we're going to have to make sure that we cover our expenses. Yes, sir.

Yeah, for this building specifically, there's not additional, there's not a structural engineering.

To me, when I see this number that was brand new, we have to take infrastructure out. This is already, we have infrastructure surrounding. So this is just a connection. Yes, sir. But I want to make sure. that the 9,000 number covers all expenses that we would incur in hooking it up.

Yes, sir. That does. So, and just real quickly, too, the way we handle construction projects at the staff level, we separate out vertical and horizontal. We separate. The question from Council Member Jose is essentially, would this cover all the costs associated? All the infrastructure costs is a separate permit. That is closer to the 1% plus a cost-based fee schedule. So there's more costs, more third-party vendors and stuff that we utilize to handle that work. This is really just the building. And so that is correct. All the infrastructure work's already been accounted for with this. For racket clubhouse, it's already there. This is a lot that already has all that. If for some reason, I'm just going to throw a hypothetical, if the fire suppression system changed and it needed some upsizing, we would engage in third parties, and then we would bill them under our ordinance for 115%.

All right, that's what I wanted to hear. Okay, thank you.

So the reduced fee does ensure that we get our costs recovered?

Recovered, yeah. And you think, John, this is generally the direction y'all are going to head with the future, right? Correct.

And you're going to eventually bring in a whole new fee schedule? We've got it on this agenda.

Two items from now. Okay. So yes. Not eventually. frank so what we did is um with the um item on the fee schedule i just took what we're proposing to give you the numbers as to what it would be if it's perfect what i wanted to hear okay okay uh i'll um have we voted on this i don't know okay any other questions make a motion do you want to do you have anything for the applicant

Oh, the applicant. Do we, applicant would like to?

He gave a thumbs up, so I don't.

I think we're fine. I don't see any issues.

Okay. I'll entertain a motion then.

I move to approve the reduction of the commercial building permit costs for the Horseshoe Bay Resort Racquet Clubhouse to the amount of $9,616 plus 115% of any professional cost incurred. Motion by Mr. Weatherby. Any second? Second.

Second by Mr. Fetchner. Discussion? All in favor? Aye. All against? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Okay, we're going to move to C, item 8C, and it is consideration of possible action concerning Sterling Creek Homes to exceed the maximum number of spec homes starts.

Here is an aerial map of the site. This site should be familiar with y'all. We had a plaque come through just a few months ago, those nine cottages, if you remember with that, right off of 2147. So Article 3.03.010 in the Code of Ordinance says that on spec homes you can only have two active permits. Anything above that, too, would have to come to council for approval. Here are those conditions that council has to look at when deciding on a vote if they can go more than the two or not. The applicant is requesting to do the nine all together at once. So they'll come in, do the nine, and then be done as quickly as possible. So again, here are those conditions. So the first condition in the code is that the financial ability of the applicant or contractor to complete the home, they're an established organization so that they should be able to meet that no problem. On the second one, that they don't have any issues from any deposits or violations with the city. This would be the first development with the city, so they don't have that issue. The third one, it would be working with other cities. Are they doing the work in a timely manner? They've done multiple projects. They've been able to get it done in a timely manner. So with that being said, staff does recommend approval that they are allowed to do the nine.

Did we do some due diligence on these other cities?

Yes, I reached out to other cities. Didn't hear any complaints.

Would this approach to probably reduce construction time? Wouldn't it give them a chance to finish out more quickly?

Come in and do it quickly instead of doing the two, and then that's just going to prolong it. So the staff took that into consideration too, which is also another reason why staff was going to support it.

Will it also possibly decrease the inconvenience for the neighbors around there just having one fell swoop come in?

I would think so. I would think so. Okay. And then the applicant is available.

The big thing I remember on this is the parking situation. Did you address that because you have that one oddball piece?

Yes Good afternoon, Jeff Kelly for sterling Creek Yes, as far as a construction Traffic and parking and all that that will be at that upper location that we discussed at the last council meeting good The biggest reason that mr. Corcoran has done that is obviously just to reduce the traffic in there I do want to reiterate one point we made promises to the neighbors that we would minimize the impact of both construction and everything, and that's one of the reasons we come in front of you today, to request your approval to be able to honor that promise.

That I think we should add as a condition.

With the parking area?

Yeah, the parking area. If you don't have a problem with that, then... None whatsoever.

Okay.

Great. Any other questions for Mr. Kelly? Or for John? Okay, I will entertain a motion.

I move to approve the construction of nine speculative houses at one time for Sterling Creek Homes Inc. for the development located at the intersection of FM 2147 and Horseshoe Bay North Boulevard and included the appropriate parking as discussed.

Yes.

Mr. Fetchner makes our motion. How about a second?

I'll second.

Second by Mr. Hosia. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. All against? And motion carries. And I'm excited to see those things come up. Very nice. They're going to be very nice.

That's been an eyesore for a long time. Very, very nice. Very nice to see that taken care of at Blast.

Okay, we're moving to 8D, and it is approval of ordinance number 2026-08-013, fee schedule for building and development fees. John Byrum.

Before I get started on this, I just want to thank staff real quick. We worked on this for quite a few months, comparing other cities, looking, listening to applicants, taking all that into consideration, and I think we came up with a good one, so I hope that you will agree with that.

Long overdue. Thank you for doing this.

So, of course, Article A3.01 is our building and development fees. The last time that this was in front of council was back in September 16 2025 not all of the fees were updated only a few so there are some fees that are quite a few years old One big change that we're doing is it's currently in a formatted and more of a paragraph where you kind of have to read through to find your fees what staff is presenting is to move into a chart form by doing that is just going to be A little easier to find certain fees for if you're an applicant. And of course, just a little easier to understand. Most of the proposed fees did either remain unchanged or just went up slightly, although there are some several noticeable changes that I will get into here in a minute. With the short-term rental permit, staff is proposing to double that fee from 600 to 1,200. That $600 has been there for a few years. As you know, we don't have the hotel tax, so there is some money right there that we are missing out on. So by doubling it, you're looking at $100 per month for the $1,200 for the year. On the building permit extension, staff, we did not touch the fees, so those would remain the same, but what staff would be proposing is that that third and fourth extension extension would go from city council deciding if it's going to be permitted or not to where it would go to the development services director, but y'all would still retain the fifth and sixth extension. That's going to make it a little quicker instead of some applicants, once they expire, then they get a work stop order for a whole entire month. They're just sitting there waiting to come to y'all. whereas when it's that third and fourth, they can just come to us, and I can extend for them. The fees would still be the same. It would still be whatever the amount of time that they're requesting. It wouldn't have to wait a month to come to y'all. If they do get to that fifth and sixth extension, then it would have to come to y'all. I think maybe in my time, I think we've come once with a fifth extension, so they're a little more rare. But staff, we can definitely add that to our monthly reports to keep you updated how many extensions I've done, if approved. Here's the construction cost one, as that currently at that 1%. Again, so with staff we would just be doing the, there's that review fee plus the $2 amount per square footage. Permit deposits, we are proposing to go ahead and eliminate the permit deposits, and instead they would be charged incrementally. So if you do have to go to a third-party review or any professional services, then we would just charge them instead of taking that deposit, trying to keep math of that deposit, knowing where it's going, what credits need to be issued for what. This kind of eliminates that. so excited yes she is trending up that would be add is the technology fee so earlier in our workshop it was mentioned kind of the administration fee so you can think of it that way it would be a new technology fee that would be added to permits that require significant amount of time in gov well our new permitting software not all of them have it most of them do if it's something where the either really they're not in GovWell, we wouldn't need to charge them for that, or if they just need to upload one thing and then we can issue a permit. I didn't feel like we needed that need for a technology fee, but if you were in there, we're reviewing, they're uploading, we're doing inspections, that technology fee would apply. And staff was proposing $10 for the technology fee. The public hearing notice, this would be a new fee that we have that it would cover our public hearing requirements, so for our mailed letters, our posted signs, and newspaper publications. It's best practice that this is actually in-house with staff. Currently staff will review it, and then the applicant is in charge of sending it out. By bringing it in-house, we've had a few instances where notices haven't been sent out or it missed the paper deadline. So by bringing it in-house, hopefully we can stop those from happening. But currently right now we don't do it and there is no fee, so we would need to add that in there as well. You have the entire chart with you. I know we talked a lot about numbers and finance today, so I wasn't going to go through every single line. We can if you want. I wanted to hit the big changes, which I believe I did. But if you have any questions, we are available. And I would like to say we did review and compare to the city of Lago, Marble Falls, and Mayor, yes, Hutto. Of course.

The hippos.

The hippos. And so I think with our fees, we were kind of lined up with them. Not the cheapest, not the most expensive, but reasonable.

So with that being said... Are we going to do tree mitigation by the... Is it going to be with the GIS? Or is it going to be visual out there?

They'll have to measure. Okay. So they'll let us know. So it'll be visual. And we do have... I believe it's on the first page. Yeah, right there. Proposing a two to one ratio, 200 per caliber inch with a maximum of 20,000 per lot.

And you've taken input from builders, other cities, I mean, so this, you feel pretty comfortable?

I do feel really comfortable with this. Like I said, we're comparing with other cities. for the most part, it lines up. I think the big one was making sure that 1% fee came down, and I think that number that we came up with, doing it by the square footage, that was very common. We even looked at other cities, not just the three, just to see what they do, and it seemed it was very common to break it down by square footage, which it was funny. We were already going to move forward with that $2, and then to know that the applicant with the Racquet Club was even proposing $2 made it seem like that was kind of, we were on track with that. So with that being said, staff would recommend approval. And we are available for questions.

We've been asking for this since, what, 25? Yes. Okay.

There's much more thorough thought put into it in comparison. So what's done is done. But current staff did a good job, I think. Perfect.

Great job. Thank you. Great job.

Thank you. Other questions for John? All right. I will entertain any kind of motion.

Consideration and possible action, approving ordinance number ORD 2026-08-013, amending the appendix fee schedule for the city. I move to approve ordinance 2026-08-013, amending appendix A, article A301, building and development fees as presented.

Motion made by Ms. Waddell. Do we have a second?

Second.

Second by Mayor Pro Tem Morgan. All in favor? Aye.

All against? And the motion carries. Thank you. Thank you.

We're going to move now to E, which is an amendment of budgeted funds. Now this is Molly.

Don't call her Rachel.

Actually, I'm Rachel. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. The city staff is requesting budget and reclassification amendments. I'm going to ask you to see Schedule A and also Ordinance 2026-08-014. If we look at Schedule A, let me see what page it is. Sorry. It's page 85. We've already gone over these at the workshop. If you look at column F, that is the proposed amendment. Column E is the auditors require us to do a roll forward of our budget. From our original budget, roll forward every amendment and come up to a final budget. So that's what column E does. And then once we input the amendments, if they're approved, it should be the amended budget in column G. The first couple of lines are the general fund. And I'm not going to go over them individually. I already did. But if you look at the total for the general fund, there's going to be an excess of a million one. The next department is the fire department. The main amendment in that is the engine 12 was totaled and we got proceeds from TML, our insurance company, and That will be discussed later to get that approved. Then that's to 12,000. The development services, they have reduced a couple of their fees down to what is currently happening for re-permitting and miscellaneous. That's about 107,000. The police department, am I supposed to be doing it? Okay, sorry. Oh, I can't even see those. I can barely see my paper.

Okay, you've got hard copy.

And the police, a couple of amendments that have already been approved, the cameras, the backup server, and the emergency purchase of a Tahoe. That adds to 128,000. The lot mowing, we're truing that down to actual and removing a lot clearing expense. to add $48,000 to that budget, the public works. We are adjusting for Kimley Horn. They are the engineer for the roundabouts. And we're also adding phase one and the shared use plan. That nets to about $58,000. Also on those lines, I think it's 47 and 48. The account numbers, there's a typo, 02-9999-50972 should be 02-9600-40175. There could be some other typos because I'm human. If there's any more, I will bring them up at the next council meeting per the auditors. I must mention this in the meeting. The total effect to the general fund is a positive $1 million. The capital fund is next. We are, as I mentioned in discussing the financial statements, truing up our bond that was issued in May. We're truing up this building, the city center, the fire station number two. landscaping, old city hall, and the transfers from the general fund. I mentioned we had some savings, the streets, the seal coat, it's all being trued up. That nets to, I can't even see myself, $131,000. Escondido PID, $23,000. The utility fund, the big ones are the lines, The second and third line are water. Everyone knows it's hot. It's not raining. Our water revenue is up. It took actuals at July 31st, took the daily rate for July, and forecasted August and September. If you go down to the bottom for all the utilities, it nets to 172,000. Then there are reclasses between various departments and some accounts. And that nets, obviously, if it's a reclass, to zero. Are there any questions?

Questions for Molly?

We pretty much beat that to death.

Yes, we did. I thought it was dead when we left it two hours ago. Okay, I will entertain a motion.

I move to approve ordinance 2026-08-014, approving and adopting the amendments to the City of Horseshoe Bay adopted budget for the beginning October 1st, 2025, ending September 30th, 2026.

Motion made by Mr. Morgan. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Second. Mr. Hosia, discussion? All in favor? Aye. All against? And the motion carries. Thank you, Molly. Doug Fowler, how are you doing?

Mayor, Council, as we discussed this morning, We had engine 12 was totaled in a fire back in March. And we were notified that we were getting $499,500 from TML to replace that engine. We evaluated what was on the market. We had 10 qualifiers. Our mission was to try and put us in at least the same position we were before Engine 12 caught fire. We found an engine in Cypress Creek, northeast of Houston, Texas. It was listed at $400,000. My folks went down there and evaluated it. AND THEY COULD NOT FIND A SINGLE THING WRONG WITH IT NOTHING TO COMPLAIN BUT WE WERE ABLE TO NEGOTIATE AN EXTRA TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS OFF SO WITH YOUR APPROVAL I KNOW THE MOTION SAYS NOT TO SPEND MORE THAN 499 500 BECAUSE THAT WAS WRITTEN AT A TIME WHEN I DIDN'T KNOW WE WERE GOING TO GET THIS ENGINE SO WE DO INTEND TO SPEND 390 TO BUY THE ENGINE PLUS THERE'S GOING TO BE EXPENSES For the markings replacing and adding markings and communications equipment and anything that I've forgotten about But again, we will not spend more than four hundred ninety nine thousand five hundred dollars.

Can you show our interested people that? Ain't that pretty?

We will remove the blue and white and we will put on our horseshoe Bay markings questions for chief Fowler Thanks for your diligence.

Um, don't do that. It's awesome.

That's awesome. I Motion? I move to authorize the city manager to execute the necessary purchase documents to replace engine 12 at a cost not to exceed $499,500.

Mr. Morgan makes our motion. Anybody want a second? Second. Second by Mr. Fetchner. Discussion? All in favor? Aye. All against? And the motion passes. Thank you, Doug. Appreciate that. Okay, now we have our consideration and possible action regarding the acceptance of the revised water and wastewater impact fee study committee report that we sent them back to redo the work and come up with a different scale for the LUE. Is it LUEs or MUEs? LUEs. LUEs. Equivalent. And we have got Ray Garcia who's going to tell us how all that went.

Yes. Mayor and council, on July 21st council meeting, the following agenda item was presented to council, agenda item 7A, public hearing to consider the amendment of land use assumption, a capital improvement plan, and imposition of an updated impact fee for a new or expanded services from the City of Horseshoe Bay water and wastewater utilities. For consideration and possible action regarding Ordinance 2026-20, amending Chapter 10, Article 10.04, impact fees. Council directed HDR engineering consultant Grady Reed to review changes of scale and present new scale to the Impact Fee Committee for review and action in accordance with Chapter 395, Texas Local Government Code. On August the 11th, an Impact Fee Committee meeting was held to present the revised impact fee changes by HDR Engineering Consultant Grady Reed to the Impact Fee Committee. The committee reviewed and discussed with a final unanimous vote to approve the report as presented. The FY26 Water and Wastewater Impact Fee Committee has approved the FY26 Impact Fee Committee report for council consideration and request that council set a public hearing date for the FY26 to consider the amendment of land use assumption, a capital improvement plan, and imposition of an updated impact fee for new expanded services from the City of Horseshoe Bay Water and Wastewater Utilities. Staff does recommend acceptance of the revised report as presented and request council to set a public hearing date in accordance with Chapter 395 of the Texas Local Government Code for Tuesday, October 13th, 2026.

Okay, any questions?

No.

Thanks for turning it around so quickly.

Oh, no kidding. That was really good.

That was great. Another one we beat to death.

No, we did beat that one to death in July. Okay, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve the revised water and wastewater impact fee study advisory committee's physical year 2026 recommendations and reset public meeting in accordance with chapter 395 of the Texas local government code for Tuesday, October 13th, 2026. It's about when this meeting is going to be over. It's 3 o'clock.

It's out of order, Mr. Weatherby.

That's a motion by Mr. Weatherby. Do we have a second?

Second.

Second by Mr. Fetchner. All in favor? Aye. All against? And it passes. We will see you in October the 13th.

All right. Stay until then.

Stay after class, Mr. Weatherby. All right. Mr. Koska, you've got Resolution 2026-08-000401.

Yes, Mayor and Council. The city has been working with Candice Bank and then now has been working with Huntington Bank to get a piece of property to be donated to the city for the shared path connection. This is the part of The shared path that will be on the north side of 2147 immediately north of Summit Rock Boulevard We've been working with them quite some time. We're in the final stages of that and we'd like to adopt this resolution to move forwards with that process and We'd like the council to adopt that the resolution right perfect any questions for Mr. Koska Motion by anyone

Consideration. I move to approve resolution number 2026-08000401 as presented.

Second. Motion by Ms. Waddell. Second a little prematurely by Mr. Hosea. All in favor? Aye. All against? Motion passes. Give me that thing. I want to sign it. Okay, Mr. Koska, you've got Jay.

Yes. Okay, the city has accepted application for the Legislative Advisory Committee. So the council needs to determine the candidates and to elect a chairman for this committee as well. There's seven positions open.

And how we propose to do that is you have a ballot in front of you, council, each person does, and you've got seven votes that you may make. And we will present those. You need to write your name at the top of your ballot and give it to Susie. She will tabulate the votes, see if we have a majority on the first seven. If we don't, we'll go to ballot number two. Does that make sense?

Thank you.

Oh, yeah.

We need voter IDs in these things.

Can we do another for expedited? We have to finish this.

I was wondering about that. I was about to ask Dottie, but I was afraid of her answer. Do we have to wait until this is over, or can we move on while she's tabulating?

Continue this?

Okay. Do I need a motion for that? If there's no objection, I'm going to continue this until Susie has an opportunity and take all the time you need, Susie, on the first ballot. And we're going to move now to Jay, which is Mr. Koska, about the interlocal agreement. And I'm afraid we didn't hear back from them, did we?

No, we have not. To put this in context, Leno County has requested that the city sign a magistrate agreement with the county. What they required is our municipal judge to be on a on-call notice to help with the magistration at the jail. Our contract with the county or our municipal judge, I'll spit it out in a minute, does not have that in the part of the contract, nor does he have any interest in doing that since he lives in Lago Vista, and that's about a two-hour trip for him to do that. So we worked out with the county that the JPs would cover that expense and trade for the fines for the magistration service and the penalties. So this really reflects that it's only a Class C misdemeanor, which would be disorderly conduct, mostly what it is, and we may have maybe four or five of these a year, and somebody may have to spend the night in jail, and then they're released the next day, generally is what that is. Anything above a Class C is really a state and a county responsibility, and so we have worked this out with them that they're going to provide us with a revisions to the contract they submitted to us. And then we're going to approve that. What I ask is a motion to go ahead and approve that since the mayor and I have been involved with the negotiations and we will work with the city attorney to make sure that as to the form is approved before we have it signed by the mayor.

And we hammered all that out at the end of last week, I think it was. and sent them, so it's all, it's on their desk right now. And so they had wanted us to get this out by this meeting, and we're ready to do it, but we don't have their signed copy. And I'm not signing ours without theirs.

Should we continue this?

No, what we're going to do is we're going to give Mr. Koska the authority to negotiate, or to, excuse me, to sign when it comes back in substantially the same form that we sent it out.

Yes. what we agreed to and, of course, with the city attorney's blessing.

I don't give consent, but I would approve as to form, so I'd review it. Substantive issues, and if there were, we would bring it back to council.

Yes, exactly. I'll make a motion.

Mr. Hosia.

I'll try to do this one correctly. I move the city council approve the interlock agreement with Llano County for the magistrate services and authorize the mayor to execute the agreement once the language is agreed upon by a Llano County judge and the city manager with the approval as to the form by city attorney.

That's correct. Motion by Mr. Hosia. Second? Second. Second by Mr. Weatherby. All in favor? Aye. All against? And you got a thumbs up from Dottie. That's pretty good.

I've never had one of those. That's good.

It passes. Let's go to the consent agenda. And does anybody want to take anything off of the consent agenda? What do you want to take off?

I want to take off 9, let's see, hold on. Where is it? D. D, 9D.

D as in David?

Uh-huh.

Approval of City Council Minute Meetings, August 7th workshop. Okay, we'll take that one off.

Because it was put on there by Errol.

Okay, who's got this motion then? Me. Okay, go for it.

I move to approve the consent agenda items 9A through 9N. And we already took the 9D off, correct?

Yeah. Okay. Okay, motion by Mr. Weatherby. Second? Second. Mr. Morgan, all in favor? Aye. And the ayes have it. Passes.

Now what again?

Well, while they're discussing, we'll have to take some action now on 9D.

So we got him now.

Since you removed 9D, we'll have to take some action.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I can't believe it. That's great. Okay. All right. Good.

Good. Good. I want you to emphasize how difficult this choice was.

It was really difficult. It's all over the board. And I knew it would be. But we do have a consensus, believe it or not. We're going back now to 8I, which we had tabled. And now we're going to reopen again. And we will announce the... Top seven on our legislative advisory committee. In no particular order, I might add. Thank you. Mark Knudson, Lee Larkin, Susan Pierce, Walter Price, Howard Ruff, Johnny White, Ann Whittington. Johnny White is Reverend Johnny P. White. Yes.

And who was the last one?

Ann Whittington. And I'm telling you, these are all over the board. So all of you received at least participation trophies. That's for sure. Come on. But very difficult decision. We thank everybody for applying. And please answer your phones when called if you're not on this list because I'm going to give everybody's name to the committee. Oh, we need to pick a chair. I'm going to give everybody's name to the committee to use those who aren't necessarily on the committee as their... As their support. So you're going to be an ex officio member, I'm sure. Now, the council needs to assign a chair of this. And the names, well, I've already given you the names. And do we have anybody who would like to discuss? Chair?

I would suggest that for Price, with his experience in the House of Representatives, be the chair.

Any other discussion on that? Motion is made by Mr. Fechner to name four Price, who is Walter Thomas Price, the fourth, as chair of the committee. And do I have a second?

I'll second that.

Second by Mr. Hosia. All in favor?

Aye.

All against?

We need to name all seven members. And the motion. I thought I did. Oh, yeah. You said you won, but we didn't make a motion.

Oh, we did not. We did not.

That's right. I can do that.

You're right.

All right. I move to approve the following seven members. Mark Knudson, Lee Larkin, Susan Price, Walter Thomas Price, Howard Ruff. Johnny White, Ann Whittington, and appoint Walter Thomas Price as chair of the legal advisory committee.

Motion with chairman made by Mr. Fetchner. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Hosia. All in favor? Aye. All against? And we have now a full committee and a chairman. And now the work begins. And I do want to thank everybody.

Yes, sir. The way y'all did the consent agenda, y'all removed 9D. Y'all have to come back. Y'all have to take some, y'all have to take action. You can say it was on there inadvertently and you're choosing not to take action.

Okay, we took 9D off. And so we need to revisit 9D. Do I have a motion? to remove that from the consent agenda and delete it. That was in your motion.

That was part of my motion. He excluded 9B. That's what I thought. He's already removed it.

So you're not going to bring it back. Just make the record clear that that does not need to be brought back.

Okay. Opposed?

It's clear.

Let's go on record to say this does not need to be brought back at all. August 7th, 2026 workshop never happened and never will. There it is.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we're going to move now to monthly reports. We do need to hear from some of our folks. I think our chief of police, we've already heard from him on the cars. Can you tell us anything, Paul, on the flock cameras? We don't have any up right now, do we? Okay. And do we have those on order or do we?

No, we just was awarded the grant. And so I know we've talked to him and I believe they are being ordered, but it won't be anything anytime soon. I think they're probably four or five months out.

Okay. All right. Don't listen to all the commotion we have from all the other areas. We're going to take care of our cameras. Is Tim here? Tim Frim? Yes. Yeah. Tim, can you talk to us about the sinkhole, please? What's the final cost of that thing?

The cost hasn't risen at all. It's the price that I gave you. I believe it was $590. We poured concrete again today, a strip tomorrow. We're basically on the home stretch. We'll have the road put back in. The curbs, I believe, were poured this afternoon. We'll open the road probably by the second week of September, if not sooner. We'll finish the minor details like putting the columns back up after the road's back accessible to traffic, we can work off the side.

We need to communicate that opening.

Yes. Yes, we will.

As soon as you've got a firm date, get with Cindy and let's get that published.

Yes, sir. Is Cindy here?

Cindy? Yes. Let's get some pictures out there, too. Yeah, I've got pictures. I'll send them to...

I mean of the finished product, too. Once we get that. Okay, good, good. I'd like to show everybody what they got for their money.

Okay, now... On a non-budgeted item.

On a non-budgeted item, I might say. That's a rainy day fund item.

Rainy day.

We're now going to go into executive session under two matters. A, the government code section 551.074, personnel matters, annual evaluation of the city manager. And B, government code section 551.074, personnel matters, the police chief applicants. And we will feel free to stay if you'd like. We're going to go into executive session back here. And the time is 526 for those of you all who want to know. Executive session at 623 Central Time. and we did not conduct any business inside the executive session. We do have a motion, I believe, from Mr. Morgan.

I make a motion to ask the HR director to bring back the police chief applicants for interviews.

I'll second that. Motion from Mr. Morgan, second by Mr. Hosea. All in favor? Aye. All against? And the motion passes. If there are no... Oh, do we have one other matter of business?

Oh, my gosh.

I'm sorry.

You're killing me, Smalls. You're killing me.

Not really me.

Is this on the agenda? We shouldn't be doing this.

I talked to Dottie. Yes.

Yes.

I talked to Dottie. She said we could revisit the budget amendment and ordinance. This is a change order? It is a change order. Everybody has a copy. Not everybody, sorry. It's for the new fire engine. The first two lines net to what we originally is on the budget, the million 161. They've added a by-bore fee and a change order. And if you look at your big sheets I just handed out on line 28, we would like to add an amount up to $40,000 to add to the fire engine. And Chief can explain.

So I'm not very happy about this right now because the truck has been delivered from Wisconsin. It's over in Manor with final preparations and then we get this. And my guys are kind of dumbfounded. So I need to do more investigating. But we recognize the fact that they have the ability, you know, they had a range above the 161 for change orders. We just, I feel blindsided and I didn't authorize it and I want to get to the bottom of it. We may not be paying the $38,000 or we might have to. We just have to be prepared and authorized to do so.

So do we know what it is?

No. It's just that's the sheet that I got today because I got forwarded from one of my guys that went up to Wisconsin that he got it today.

Well, then I don't think – I don't want to make a – There is something in the agreement that they can go up in contact with them.

It's always the same price. It's the same price.

Well, if we approve the change order, can we approve it on a condition that you buy into what the change is? Yeah, well, let's do that. Let's do that because if you don't even know what it is, I'm not going to approve $38,000 without knowing what the hell I'm approving.

But we can give them the authority to make that decision.

Yeah. I don't know what choice we have.

Let's do this as a condition. The condition is after you guys get satisfied with what it is.

Review it and validate it.

Appropriate, then you're authorized $40,000. I mean, I hate it.

It's another expense thing, but.

I know. It is.

But we've got to have a fire engine. Yeah.

Fire engine is pretty important around here.

And the fact that we got another one for under $499,000. I know. I'm a little bit more receptive to this.

But I want another deal.

Okay. Do we have to do a motion on this?

Yeah.

All right. I'll take a sway. All right. I approve we move forward on the change order once it's approved. The change is accepted by Chief Fowler and the city manager.

Motion by Mr. Hosea. Second. You want to include the amount?

Of $38,000. What is this? $38,158.51. $40,000 is probably a good $40,000.

No more than $40,000. Yep. Good. Okay. Second. Second.

I already did. Second.

Okay, second.

And this will go on item 8E. It'll be a second motion. Second motion. Okay, thank you.

All in favor? Aye. All against? It passes. If there are no objections, we will adjourn.

Holy cow. I'm going to go in. 629.