City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, we will call the meeting to order this city council public hearing on August 20th, 2025 7 p.m. Roll call. Mayor here. Doug Ewing here. Alex here. Pam Sardo here. Chapel here.

All right. If you'll stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. This time we will let Pam do the invocation.

Thank you. Please bow your heads with me. Dear father in heaven, we are very lucky to be in a country where we can meet as a group and establish policies and have discussions with each other. And dear father, we want to um be we are very grateful that you want to give us all the gift of eternal life based on John 3:16. And dear Lord, please protect all of the first responders and uh help us to make wise decisions tonight on behalf of the citizens. In your name we ask. Amen. Amen.

All right. At this time we have any citizens who would like to come up address the council. All right. Now we will move to new business. Um it's 3.1 the public hearing for the proposed tax rate. Um, this time 7:02 p.m. we will open a public hearing to receive input regarding the proposed property tax. The proposed property t the tax rate of 0.468097 per 100 of a taxable value is effective in 12.77% increase in the tax revenue. The tax rate will effectively be raised by 3.1 or 3.61% and will raise taxes for maintenance operations on 100,000 home by approximately 0. Anybody who would like to speak on that? If not, we will close the public hearing. We will close the public hearing at 7:03 p.m. All right. 3.2. Discuss consider an act on adoption of an ordinance setting the proposed property tax rate for fiscal year 2025 2026 at a rate of 0.468097 468097 per 100 valuation living taxes to provide revenue for the payment of current expenses providing for an interest and syncing fund for all outstanding debt of the city of

Josephine beginning October 1st, 2025 and ending September 30th, 2026 on all property within the corporate limits of the city of Josephine pointing each levy for the specific purpose and providing for collection of all annual taxes by state law. All right, council. I only have one brief comment that this um the way this is worded might be con confusing, but this basically means we have the same tax rate as we currently do. It's the tax rate is not going up. Thank you. That's all I have.

Any other discussion? I move to adopt an ordinance setting the proposed tax rate for fiscal year 2025 2026 at a rate of 468097 per 100 valuation levying taxes to provide revenue for the payment or of current expenses providing for an interest and sync syncing fund for all outstanding debt of the city of Josephine beginning October 1st 2025 and ending in September 30th. 2026 on all property within the corporation limits of the city of Josephine appointing each levy for specific purpose and providing for collection of all annual taxes by state law.

I'll second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Patty, you do roll call. I Dr. Pam Sardo. Yes. I Gary Chapel I mayor attorney present and not voting. Brad is obviously not present. All right. So the motion passes.

All right. Let's move on to item 3.3. Uh, here a request from Magnolia Point Mud Board President Micah Phelps requesting a joint work session with the Josephine City Council on the Mud Board to discuss public safety fees and services and possible direction to staff to set a date and time for work session. I wrote a few things, but I'll probably just as we kind of go along. I'm not going to go off the scripts. Uh but mayor and council, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to speak with y'all today. Um I want to share a few perspectives of mudboard um as well as regarding to the public safety that is provided to mud. Um and the relationship that's involved as well as the fees that are involved with that. Um we fully understand that the city has to do what they got to do to make sure that all ends meet. Um, and that includes making sure that everybody's paying their fair share into the pot. Um, and the muds being included in that. Um, we also understand that there is um or we want you all to understand that there's not just a concern around simple dollar value um in the regards to the increase. Uh, but too often the fees uh change active suddenly uh with little notice, no detail breakdown. This creates confusions, frustration, and what residents describe as sticker shock. Uh, one of the great things I've heard in the last city council meeting was in regards to the topic of reviewing contractual workers that came up. Brad had mentioned that he wanted to fully understand as to why we were looking into contractual um, digging deeper into it, understand why we're looking at possibly changing some of the contracts that the city currently holds with some of their uh,

I would say like contractual partners as their attorney and so on so forth. Um and then Alex, you obviously seconded that with him um to fully understand exactly why um you're looking into that and getting into it um to make sure that you're making the best business decision for the council as well as for the city residents. Um for us as a mud, we look at it in the ex exact same fashion. U we want to make sure that we're making um wellinformed decisions in regards to contracts as well as services that are being provided. Um and it was honestly great to hear that conversation in the last city council meeting because it it also resonates with us making sure that our values are very aligned as to where we're focused and focus on residents at the end of the day. Uh but also to make sure that we dig deeper to understand exactly why we are uh going to spend and resources into um something of that nature. Um all costs aside, residents are deeply concerned about the quality of service. Uh too many have had experiences where the police have responded and they either say, "I can't or I won't do anything." Um that has left people feeling unprotected and unsupported, concerns about promotions and staffing being based on more relationships than merit. Um and that has added to that distrust. At this time, Point mud district does not have the confidence of the current police leadership to be looking out for the best interest of the community or our city. We also question whether decisions are being made in the best interest of their officers and the residents they serve. This lack of trust in leadership undermines the confidence of the department as a whole and makes it difficult for residents to pull to feel supported. Um in contrast, the fire department is generally seen as reliable, visible, and engaged. The shows that there it is possible when uh

service cons consistently demonstrates commitment to their community. Uh we have been asking for a breakdown for months. I have I have had the ability to run the reports through some filters um and provide and I can provide you some factual information um at a later date if you're interested um in regards to the breakdown of calls for service in um the different mud districts as well as in city and county. Um, I essentially, long story short, just took a lot of the call runs um and then filtered it through um what was officer initiated versus what was initiated by an actual citizen. Um, and then we also broke it down when looking at it by what calls for service where uh essentially building checks or or maybe something a bit more proactive um as it calls for service as well. Um, but in in the little bit of time that it took me to kind of break that down, um, we've been asking for this call for service for for a while now. Um, and have yet to receive any of that information um, from the city and or the police department. Um, one of the biggest things that I asked initially when there was an increase um, for the service was there's just a lot of calls in Magnolia. Um, and so that started to make me question it, which is why I dug a little deeper to understand exactly where the service were coming from. Um, and due to a breakdown, I didn't determine that that was not necessarily the case. The other thing I that I dug into was in regards to the Riverfield mud district, they also took the same increase. What was the reason behind that? Um, when I can start picking apart their those those responses pretty easily by just digging into seeing that we're adding the same cost to one district as we are another. Um, and Is that correlating to one's the other? I couldn't prove that. Not in the calls for service that I was interview. Um,

but again, when I might tear tear apart pretty quickly, it makes me ask more questions and want to dig a little deeper. Just as you said, Alex, um, in the last city council meeting, um, as well as Brett had said, um, at the end of the day, um, especially in public service, like transparency isn't optional. It's it's essential. It's essential to build trust with the community and essential to build trust um with the people that they serve. At its core, the relationship between the mud and the city feels strained. Instead of being collaborative, it often feels adversarial. Us versus them. Um and that doesn't reflect the fact that the mud contributes to an estimated 70% of the city's public safety budget. Um I know they've been discussed obviously through numerous forms of communication. Um and Lisa and I have had numerous conversations in regard to that as well. and we're we're very aligned in that front um as well. Uh within that level of investment, our residents deserve a voice in the public safety planning, staffing, and budget decisions. Uh we want to not we don't want special treatment uh but a partnership and a mutual respect shared uh shared and problem solving and a regular communication with each other. I want to be clear that the MUD has already received quotes from other service providers. Uh switching is an option but not what we're looking for. We are looking to continue our services with the city. That is our end game goal here is to make sure that we can build a healthy and strong relationship between the mud district and the city. Um but now that we we've lingered this problem a little over a year at this point, um it is it is imperative that we we do start moving the needle and making sure that we open that line of communication. now is our board but also the residents are also getting uh uninherently frustrated um with the the service that is being provided um as well as the lack of transparency around the costs that were being at the time. Um all they were hearing is that there's going to be 115 roughly% increase to

their cost of service uh with no explanation at the time as to what that what that increase was for. Obviously, we've received those reports from Lisa and the city um which does inherently um give us some more clarity and some guidance, but also I know there's some other added questions that um our board would like to have just in regards to the service and what that exactly looks like. So there's a clarity and understanding and transparency between not only the mud district but also the city as to what is expected from of that service provider. Um, but at the end of the day, like our goal is to truly work together. Um, we want to see us work as a unison and not as a to each other's services and the citizens that live inside of it. Um, and that's inherently why I'm here today. at at the end of this uh what we're hoping for is that we truly want to work together in a good way to make a partnership stronger that's more effective for everyone that's involved uh from the city from the mud from every citizen that lives inside of either aspect as well and that one is not compensating for the other. Um and then lastly um what we're asking for is a joint public session for us to be able to have a conversation with our board and your board um to make sure that um there is open discussion um around expectations, communication improvements, and the full cost breakdown. Um the second thing we're asking is regular proactive dialogue where challenges are addressed uh early instead of reactively and that we can be a bit more proactive in this situation. Um I truly believe if we would have had this conversation a year ago, uh this would be a very very different outcome and honestly very different uh I would say emotion of the citizens that live inside. um as well as I'm sure if this was understanding as well in other districts um there'll be the same concerns um as well. And then lastly, um Lisa and I have had conversation and it's been

suggested that we review our service agreement so that way there's clear definitions from both aspects as to what the MUD expects from the services that are being provided, but also that the city can can give a clear understanding as to what services will be provided um in those contractual agreements. as most of the contracts that are there, they've been reviewed um and I don't have the number in front of me, but I believe it's like six or seven times um from the city and our attorneys that have been involved. Most of those were prior to our board actually being made up of residents. Um and so that way that there's a mutual understanding and accountability going forward and that way it's not a a struggle between the two. Um and then in closing, our goal is not to be confrontational. It's a partnership. We want to ensure that our residents uh contribute so much to public safety's budget when you talk about 70% of the homes that are in it and as that continues to grow with more muds that are being added to the city. Um but that we receive quality services and the openness they deserve. Um we want in the future where the costs are explained and communicated clearly and in advance and services are proactive, visible, and trusted. We're looking for data that's shared without resistance and a relationship between the city and the mud is collaborative, not combed. Um, mayor and council, uh, what we want most out of this is an open conversation to share the real concerns from both sides, not only your concerns, but our concerns, and that we can have an effective dialogue between the two. um and to ensure that we can we can resolve this and essentially build a relationship and grow the relationship between our district and the city of

Thank you. So do you I don't think council will have a I think it'd be great to have a meeting where we all sit down. Um do you have a y'all looking for week night day like uh weekends? Saturdays work best for me. So, I know if council's that's okay with me. I'm not trying to speak for everybody, but that works for me as well. I would assume everybody's open to sitting down.

I'll have to take it back and and I can work with Lisa and we can help coordinate that. I will need to get with our legal counsel as well um and make sure that they're able to attend meeting and that all of our members can also attend. U we've already designated the city hall and u the community center as a meeting point for us as well. So, we're utilizing the city where for everybody. Yeah.

And and Mike, I have I I'm I'm speechless because I had no idea you'd been waiting so long. I I it you know, water under the dam now, but I wish you'd come to us sooner. I understand the rate may have triggered been the icing on the cake, but um I'm I'm I'm I'm apologizing for myself that I didn't know you'd been having this issue. So, thank you for coming and thank you for willingness to work with us. So, what we can do, I guess, is um have Lisa coordinate a date between the council and you and then maybe make us a few suggestions and then see which one everybody can make it to. I guess

couple dates and that works great. I think uh the suggestion that was made at our last board meeting was if we can try to schedule it before obviously the the rates go into effect. So, we can effectively all of our residents. The sooner the better. Is a lot especially for some of those residents out there so they can plan effectively. I mean, I'm available this Saturday, so I'm I'm ready. I'm ready to do it whenever. I'll have to work with our local. Yeah. Yeah. Just reach back to Lisa. Lisa will fire back to us and we can kind of just go from there. Yeah. And then Awesome. That'd be great. Thank you, Mr. Phelps. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. All right. See? Oh, man. Yeah. All right. At this time, we will recess a regular scheduled meeting and uh go into executive session 7:19 p.m. Pursuant to the authority granted in section 551.076 076 of the government code. City council will meet in close session to deliberate the deployment and imple implementation of security devices for city property. Discuss change order requests for the public safety building related to safety and security features. [Music]

Ready? [Music]

All right. We will adjourn the executive session at 7:45 p.m. There's no action. Um, city administrator will um follow up at the next meeting with uh what we discuss for the information. So, I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All right. Voting signs in favor. All in favor? This meeting's adjourned.