City Council - Regular Meeting

Time is now 6 pm. I'm calling the meeting of the Keen City Council to order and I ask that you all please silence your phones. Uh and council member uh Rob Foster will give the invocation and then uh

Troy will do the uh pledge of allegiance. Shall we bow our heads, please? Our dear kind heavenly father, we just thank you for the many blessings we enjoy in this life. We thank you for this beautiful day that you've allowed us to enjoy today. This spring-like weather has been a real blessing. And not tonight, Lord, as we deliberate the matters of the city, we pray that you'll give us wisdom. And may the decisions that we make be in the best interest of the city. and may everything that we do and say tonight bring you honor and glory is our prayer we ask in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Texas flagged one state one and indivisible. Well, thank you all for coming. We looks like we got quite a few people here tonight and we have several cards. So, um, need to make some announcements and, uh, then I have a comment. On Thursday, February the 12th at 3 p.m. will be a pushin ceremony at the Keen Fire Department to welcome the new brush 678 into service. The public is welcome. Monday, February 16th is President's Day and the city offices will be closed that day. By now, most of you know uh most of Keen has been made aware that May mayor Parish uh resigned uh which council will consider later this evening. I want to express my gratitude to Lisa for all her hard work and dedication to the city of Keane these past few years and appreciate her so very much for saying that she is relieved to be leaving the city in capable hands. Her vote of confidence in her mayor pro Tim and the council is much appreciated. I personally want to assure Miss Parish that we as a council will continue to work together for the future of our great city and we wish the parish family all the best moving forward. And now we're going to have some public comments and our first one will be Mr. Will Keaton and we will be trying to keep the comments to three minutes.

Okay, I'll keep it short. Thank you, sir.

All right, mayor. Council, I just wanted to introduce myself tonight. My name is Will Keaton. Give you a little bit of my background. I'm running for Johnson County District Clerk. And uh prior to my law enforcement career, I was self-employed for 17 years and overseeing employees uh corporate budget and uh customers customer service. Um certified in the code of criminal procedures, legislative updates, uh the family code, which is a direct transition right into the district clerk's office. What I'll bring to the district clerk's office is just a respectful office, ethical office, accountable, transparent, and good leadership. Continued training for all of the deputy clerks and uh nothing but respect to each citizen that comes to that office to direct them to to the best that we can to get provide the service that they're seeking. Pretty short. That's that's all I need to say really.

Well, thank you for coming and let us meet you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Our next speaker uh from the public will be Jake Petty.

Good evening everybody. My name is Jake Petty. I'm running for county commissioner of precinct 4, which encompasses most of Keen. Um I think most of the full spectrum of Keen will be in my district or in my precinct. Um what I bring to the table is a background in administrative consulting and is also constructing. So uh you know my generation grew up with traditional systems and we were charged with integrating technology into the traditional systems to make them efficient and effective. Okay. Um so I'm trying to bring that perspective to the commissioner's court and to the county barn so that our roads can be effectively maintained. we can provide long-term solutions that's transparent so you can hold me accountable. So, I plan to bring uh that integration into the precinct barn so we can provide the taxpaying public accountability and visibility of what I'm going to do, when I'm going to do it, and then you can hold me accountable for those actions. Okay? Um we have to make a change if we want to maximize our budget. Our roads are decaying at a faster rate than we have finances to repair. So, we got to get ahead of that maintenance. um especially with the growth that you all know is coming to the area. So now is the time for change. We don't running out of time. Election day is coming up. So please encourage all your citizens to vote. Whoever they vote for, low voter turnout does not provide change for the community. So we got to increase our voting turnout so we can let the voices of the community be heard. So I appreciate you guys and for your servant uh hearts to serve the city of King and hope to work alongside you. Thank you. Thank you. Can I ask you a question before you rush away?

Absolutely. Sure. So you said that maintenance is falling behind. What will you do that will be different than what's been done in the past? I mean you said about integration, but that's a big word that

it is. Well, so to be clear about it, um LAR texts and scanning's been used for text dot for road assessment. Um major repairs cost a lot more than minor repairs. The majority of our infrastructure problems come from water mitigation, not from road uh overusage of road. Okay. So uh using scan tools and technology that's available now uh we should be able to scan our roads and if you do it within a multiple times you can see where roads are degrading faster than they should be comparative to other areas that alerts you to uh irrigation problems that you can fix right so you stop the bleeding there. Um it also gives you a worst to first list so uh you can maximize your yield volume uh and your day-to-day operations. So, you know, we all know we have cell phones. I can say I want to go to the Keen uh city council meeting, right? And it's going to take me 11 minutes to get there. All right. So, we can map out and geoteag even potholes that we're going to repair. It'll tell you volume specs that'll say this, you need this much uh material to fill that pothole. And it takes you this long to do it. You can put all that data into a system to where you can map a guy out, one guy with the maximum efficiency of pothole repair material and an eight hour route. to ensure you get eight hour workday out of your employees. That maximi that's not adding to the budget. That's not changing anything. It's just maximizing our ability on a day-to-day basis. So, cutting off that mitigation to where we're having we're making minor adjustments to prevent major repair and maximizing that efficiency on the repair side is how we'll start turning the tide and starting getting ahead of the maintenance that's ahead of us. Does that answer?

So, we're not using LAR now. We have no technology. The greatest piece of egg technology in the county barn currently is a chainsaw, I believe. Wow. So, interesting. And we have the budget to purchase this equipment.

Um, you know, budgetary things are challenging, right? But, uh, I know we purchased uh three pieces of equipment here in the recent past. So, we were improving infrastructure. My plan is also to reach out to startup companies that are incre that are getting into drone surveying and LAR tech. Um, at the end of the day, it's not uncommon for and we should be doing this practice where we're scanning our roads for infrastructure problems. Uh, obviously, if the budget's not there, then we, you know, that's when you make a plan to of improvement and you put that in the budget to go forward. But we've got to move into the technology. If it's not there when I get there, rest assured, I'll be pushing to get it because it will cost it will end up in cost savings for the taxpayer dollars. As soon as that immediately when that gets implemented, you will begin to save more than you spend on it. For sure. and technology is being more readily available. So, it's not like it used to be. This is not cutting edge technology. Textiles has been doing it for decades. So, it's not a, you know, million-dollar purchase.

All right. Answer my question. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Patty. If you get voted, uh, we'd ask that you'd start on the Keen Roads first. I didn't want to say that. Thank you, Bob. I didn't want to say that. Okay. Our next um person is Jeff, excuse me, Jeff Henkins.

How y'all doing today?

Sponsoring you. Well, I was talking with John and all and I know that the city council and know I want to put it toward y'all about getting more extensions on the water with more days to be able to pay them because we got a lot of people that everything's going up and they're they're budgeting everything and it's just knocking them out and it takes them a little longer to get the bill paid and thing I didn't put down there. I also wanted to find out and I have to talk with the chief on that is why we only have two patrol cars running around when we got more officers. What do they do? I mean, are they just stationary at home or what?

Chief, would you like to address that? How many officers do we have working in a day at daytime? Time two. Two. Why do how many we have? 14. Why we only we'd love to have Yeah. Why Why did we only have two officers working?

14 officers during the day, two nights. Well, I mean, can we not have more officers kind of roaming? I'd love to advocate for more officers.

Yeah. Well, because there is more stuff going on and you don't see an officer around. Just the other day, I had a driver parked out in the street in front of Sank, loud pipes and everything, and just as I come by, he he racked up on and almost caused me to hit another car. I mean, and we have cars running up down East Oakdale that they'll they'll run from that stop sign on out 50 60 m an hour. We need some way of getting places like that, speed bumps, something where they'll stop that because there is kids that play right in there. U if we can get work some kind of deal to where we can get more visible on stuff, it it will work. You know,

Mr. Henkins, we appreciate your um caring about that. Um, I can only say that our police officers do the best they can. We need more officers. We need more equipment, stuff like that. The city is looking into all of that. Yeah. And they're working on it, but they do, you know, they have to spread our police officers out and they try to cover as much as they can and we go through um I believe it's the sheriff's office um to call for emergencies and stuff like that, but they do patrol. Yeah. A lot. And sometimes we don't see them because we're not looking out all the time, but they are there.

Yeah. Well, I mean I I get out, you know, sometimes I'm out all day or something and I might see one. Yeah. And the whole time coming down the main street or on the side street and

Well, I try not to speed because I see them too often. Uh but uh that and I like I said the water department. I mean I was told that we're only allowed two extensions a year. And I mean this town's growing people everything's going up. Is there any way that the council can work on maybe getting more extensions a year and maybe a few added days on it or 10 days is great. That's kind of hard to meet sometimes. And did you say you did talk to Jonathan, right? Yeah.

Correct. Okay. Then Jonathan, I'm sure, will address it and get with the council. Yeah. I I basically explained to him I can't just arbitrarily change things. And so right now there's a 10day you have kind of 10 days past the due date to to make your payment. And the thing I communicated to him was is we always want to work with our citizens. And so as long as citizens communicate with us, we you know, we're we're we care about our citizens and so we'll work with anybody. The important thing is they communicate with us. Thank you very much. You're welcome, sir. Thank you. Okay. And our next person is Mr. Vincent Castro.

Hello everybody. How you all doing today? just fine. Thank you.

Um I don't want to talk about the water as for personal reasons as others know, but uh I do want to make a comment that I don't know if anybody knew this but about the Slate Slers I believe they are Sllayton that got arrested and I know they have friends up there and I hope that none of you guys are involved in that. I would pray that none of you are. Um but um I know you guys are going to be talking to me later as you uh look to my application for one of the boards and Miss Gillian and I did check into applying for the seat that you have and I was told I cannot apply for it because it's filled. So in order for me to apply for that seat, you would have to resign. Yes.

Like you said you would if somebody was a nurse. No. said if the attorney told me that I could not legally be there and I well I I know I understand but you also said if somebody was interested you would resign. You had said that in public comments and I just want to say somebody is interested and cannot apply for it because you said I would have to apply for it but I cannot apply for it because it's not open. Well, as I understand right now we are considering you for other positions tonight and we'll see how that goes. Yes, sir. We will. Okay. and we can talk about the rest of stuff but during that time. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. And next, Mr. Owen Larson's

pass out a few pass Owen Larson2 Shelley Drive. Um not sure what else you need. Good to meet you. provide.

Thank you.

Um, Mr. Sides, this will be your copy.

Okay. I'm sorry. I just want to let you know that. So what I have in front of me is a petition to address the improper storm water drainage on Shelley Drive. This is a petition and so when a petition obviously is made, you get signatures, right? So this is this is has everybody's signature of all the owners on Shelley Drive from uh from beginning to the end. And so what we're looking for is to rectify the problems. We've gone through the issues. We've had lots of discussions. Some of you, well, I don't I'm not sure any of you actually that that are here today have been to my home and or Eddie's home to look at the issues. This is a problem that's been going on for years and years. The water comes from the back of the properties behind us into our backyards. It has filled up the uh the backyards with silt and water. And of course when it rains it just stands and it you can't walk back there. You can't enjoy it. And so I'm not going to read this whole thing but essentially there's flooding of yards, soil erosion, standing water, accelerated deterioration of creassote um cold tar creassote log wall. Um increased risk of foundation damage. This is uh our position is essentially that overflow is caused by the diversion of water. um you know it's a property owner must accept natural unaltered water flow right that's not what this is the development behind us was raised four feet so if I'm standing in the if I'm standing in the back of my yard I can let put my hand out like this and the home behind me that is where their foundation is and I'm standing in my backyard so you can imagine

That's how much dirt that they raised up. And so instead of taking the water and pushing it towards the front like they should have, they put a creso log wall which was approved by the city at that point in time and they just ran with it. Even after myself and Tony Hilly, who no no longer lives there, um after we came to the city and said, "Don't do this." We were told you weren't going to do it. And I don't think any of y'all were on the city council at that point in time, but we've been here. We were here before I was here before all of this was built. Nothing happened. I've been coming periodically trying to get some things resolved. I was here, Rob, I don't know if you remember, but it's been about a year, year and a half,

and we had um uh Brent Batler, who was the city manager before you, Mr. and he looked into it and essentially it came down to the almighty dollar, right? Well, I can tell you I own two houses and I just paid almost $10,000 in taxes this past week. So, if I can if I paid $10,000 this past year and if you keep going back, how many times have I essentially could have paid to rebuild the wall behind me? Well, I don't own the wall. The wall is not on my property, but it's affecting me. It's not affecting my neighbors behind me. They're not the ones that built it. They're not the ones that approved it. The city approved it with that developer who I believe is dead now. So, I don't know if you can you can't do anything about that. But essentially, if the city approved it, the city is now responsible for it. And so, this petition, there's a lot of things in here I'd like for you guys to address. You know, I'm not I don't want y'all to think I'm so dogmatic and upset that I can't work with you. Last time I was, nobody worked with me. Nobody come and said, "Okay, like I hear you. You got an issue. What can we do to fix it?" He just said, "You know what? $200,000 to do this wall. No thank you. That that was the last I heard of it." So, you can see I can get a little worked up. I think I'm done. Thank you for your time.

Well, thank you. Okay.

Okay. And I'm probably not going to pronounce this last name correctly, but it's Eddie Arabella. Okay. Sorry, sir. I've got the same issues. I'm neighbors with Owen. Okay.

Um, it's been going on. I've been there for 11 years and I just had enough of it. It was going the water was coming into my house. So I had to put the city wouldn't do nothing. So I had to put a French drain in which come out of my pocket for something that the city approved of. So that was almost $6,000 that I didn't have, but I had to come up with either that or ruin my house. So about a 8 foot cedar fence which is being pushed in by the dirt and the water that's coming from our neighbors and behind us.

So are you saying that there's a retaining wall there that is not steady? No, it's already rotten. It's all it is is uh railroad ties. So I mean they're they're falling over. I had the neighbor or the the guy that I bought the house from built concrete wall all the way around, but the dirt's already coming over the top of it and pushing my fence in. So, I mean, who's going to who's going to pay for the fence now? Me

after paying for a French drain. It's it's ridiculous, guys. I mean, it shouldn't have never happened. And we're having to deal with it. The neighbors, like Owen said, they don't have to worry about it because they don't I mean, they don't see it. We're the ones that see the water. We're the ones that see the damage. I've got the damage and it's coming out of my pocket and I don't think it should. Okay. Jonathan, would you It needs to be addressed ASAP. Pardon me. What year uh were these homes built? 2008.

And I do remember that. I mean, we they y'all send people out there to look at it. They turn around and and leave. That's it. Nothing was said. Nothing. No kind of help. I mean, I'm asking for some help. Well, actually, the whole block is asking for help. We we've got all our neighbors signature on that paper and they've got the same issues that I've got and no one's got. Okay. Let let me ask you folks. Have you come together as a group and decided on what would fix it and how how that would work and look?

Correct.

Goes into I understand. So, actually, if they were built in 2008, 2009, when did these things start coming to to pass that you noticed them? The that the retaining walls were breaking down and and when Oh,

and the builder did what what was what did the builder say? Okay. Owen, could you Owen, could you come to the mic, please? Thank you, sir. Thank you.

So, so the developer is out was out of East Texas. Don't know his name. Can't remember what his name is. I think he's actually passed away now last I heard. But he was a low lowincome low de, you know, housing development um developer. And so, he only built one or two homes there. One of which is directly behind my house at the very end of the street is right behind it. James Evans lives in it. And so that that home right there was considered low income, but that's the only house he built because at the end of the street at the end of Shelley Drive, there was an individual that lived there who put some disparaging information into the newspaper here in Ke at the time. And I think they tried to sue him. Actually, I'm pretty sure they sued him. Then I think he left. Not sure if you remember this or not. Been a little bit. Um, but uh, so he I don't know if he just Well, I'm not sure exactly what the question is except for

Well, I I was just trying to determine to what to what level did the developer get involved in it? Did the developer come to the city and talk about it at all or do you know anything about that that conversation? Super Johnny Cobber Johnny at the time and there were a couple other mayors. Well, let's see. Mr. Hinri, the city manager, Bill Gwyn, um uh uh Robinson, Roy Robinson, Roy Robinson.

Um all these names are just coming up. I don't remember exactly, but I've over all these years I've had these discussions and really nothing's happened. Do I do I think they went back to the developer? I don't think they went back to the developer. I think he washed his hands of it. Yeah. Thank you all.

Oh, Chief, you didn't have a yellow card. I know. I'm sorry. I want to clarify with my friend here. I met him about six months ago and he did bring attention to me about some of the racing and loud cars in his area and I committed to him that I was going to have more officers in that area. I didn't follow up with him and I was able to talk to him last month and I keep saying, "Okay, we're going to try to put more and more in that area." So, I'm I'm telling you right now I wanted to tell the council we're going to try to do more enforcement in that area along with things where we do but he says if we need more officers I'm with him tonight to advocate for take a vote and stuff. He's been really good to us. Yes, sir. We know.

I was coming down the water department today. You know, it was about 12 and right there on the corner grab you with right across from the apartment, city department. There's a roofing company truck parked right on the corner. I had to literally get out around his back tailgate to even see up the street. Pretty much everybody has my cell phone number. So, I'm gonna make sure he has it, too, so he can contact me directly if I get these.

I mean, it it's just that a lot of people, you know, they don't care. And I don't know where it's a young generation. It could be I know one truck that the guy's not young. He's about my age and he'll tear it up all the way down east. We're gonna work on it. I'm gonna discuss this with him more after the meeting, too. So, I appreciate y'all. We appreciate that very much. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Mr. Grant.

There's a um this is just good information that uh there's a poster that I've seen quite often. It's see something, say something. And so, if you see something like that, like I would report those things to the police because we've had problems in our neighborhood and then we call the police and then they just end up doing a little bit more patrolling and then that problem seems to go away. So, I mean, you did the right thing by being here tonight and expressing while the chief is here. But for any of those that are watching online or watching the future and they have issues, just call the police, let them know what's going on, and they will patrol. They, you know, the chief will get that notification and they'll they'll patrol more and they'll they'll be in the area a little bit more just to kind of mitigate that that issue. So, it's worked in the past and I know it'll work again right here. So, thank you. Is there anyone else from the public that would like to say something? Okay, we're going to move on to city manager's comments. Be a report from the city manager to include the topics of council and director training, post winter storm, downtown revitalization grant, IRS audit, and emergency services district ESD additional funds. So, Mr. sites.

Uh good evening, council, um citizens, um both at home and here. Um I'll try to keep this short because we have quite a few reports. Um so I'll get through this as quickly as I can. Um just want to let you know that the council training is ready to go. So March 1st and 2nd, uh we've got all the speakers lined up, the attorneys and and this will entail making sure that everything is in compliance um as required for, you know, council members and and all that to keep things updated. Um so looking forward to that. There will be an email coming with the official outline, but we'll have everything officially um reserved tomorrow. Um have some great speakers coming in that will help us educate and level up as leaders. So, I'm looking forward to that. Um, the downtown or the post winter storm, I just I wanted to give props to my team. Um, obviously, I've never been a city manager dealing with a situation like this before. So, I wanted to circle up with my directors um before uh the storm just to see where things are at, what's the pregame plan, all those types of things. And I was I was very impressed with how well they had things ready to go. um all the way for our public works things you don't think about, you know, we keep our water tanks at a certain level and and to be um cautious, they filled them to the top, made sure they were all full. That way if water can't pump in, we have extra water to our citizens. They went through and put um uh even like all the valves and and the the pumps and things, they actually put heat wires over them and wrapped them. And I mean, it was just it was really good. I just want the citizens to know that um you know, this wasn't a bunch of people that were rushing home to beat the storm. they were um just really putting a lot of thought into taking care of of our community. So, and also with our fire department, our police department. Um I know I I heard some complaints that uh you know, we should invest in snow plows

and those types of things, but um kind of my comment to that is um let's pretend that I'm a city manager that could literally make every single road safe and keen so you could leave your home. I'm not doing our citizens any favor because now I'm encouraging them to leave and um so I was very impressed with Texot keeping Maine thorough affairs and those types of things. U but when the experts say it's better to for people to stay home for safety reasons than you know but uh but our public works was ready for any type of situations and um I guess our ambulance had to be pulled out of a ditch a few times but um thankfully with the new brush truck it rode along and pulled it out and you know so it was it was really good. Um, and also I also want the community to know that we just didn't go home and put our feet up and sit by the fire. Um, you know, we had W2s going on, 1099s, um, you know, payroll going on. Uh, the directors, we all worked from home. Um, and they even came in, a lot of them came in on Wednesday, um, when we didn't didn't have to. And so, I just want the community to know that, you know, even though we weren't here, we were still working. So, a big thank you to my staff um, for taking care of this community. Um,

they did really good. uh downtown revitalization grant. Um just want to let you know that is still going forward. Next month we will be reviewing some maps to designate a downtown. Um but that is going as well as our um street our city uh plan that's also officially underway and um so same type of thing that the gentleman was talking about worst to first. um a lot of that technology will be implemented with this grant that's in the process to give us a good road mapap on how to address these issues and which ones need to be addressed first. So I really liked his uh definition there. Um IRS audit is still ongoing. Um but I I kind of wanted to uh focus on the good, right? Who wants an IRS audit? and and it seems like every time we get one area wrapped up, which I want to give a big thank you to me in the finance department,

uh we get slammed with another one. And so that's kind of why we're behind on the audit. Um you know, there's some people out there that have accused me of lying. It wasn't lying. It was just, you know, IRS kind of comes first right now. And um I just wanted the community to know that that actually resulted in a like a $72,000 refund. Um so it's not often that that happens. And so, um, there's the positive from this. Um, and again, uh, really appreciate the finance department, uh, really getting things organized in there. Again, we, you know, we're still digging out, but but we are getting there every day. I think we should give him a run. Really?

Um, and then the last one, uh, I was going to let Chief, uh, Chief Warner come up and talk about kind of this last one. Um, and this is some of the goals that we're going to talk about at the the training. and and sometimes it's hard. There's a lot of things we want to do. Uh but it just takes, like I've said, time and money. And so, um I'm very appreciative of of the ESD and uh their partnership. And I was going to let Chief speak brief about the good news.

So, council, thank you so much. I appreciate everybody being here tonight. Before I announce uh this good news, I just need to give you a little bit of background and give our citizens some background as well. uh this is uh the culmination of years of work and it's not just me but uh all the fire chiefs in the county have been working with the ESD a lot of negotiations a lot of meetings a lot of planning um I'll say it uh if you're not aware there is a county uh we call it the chief's association Johnson County Emergency Services Association for several years I was a uh leader leader in that organization and helped bring some of this to uh to bear fruit. So, and again, this is not strictly just a keen, it's countywide, but along with that, uh we did get some benefit out of that or have the potential to. For those that are not aware, uh, every year we go through a contract and we negotiate that with the Johnson County ESD and they, you could look at it as they they supplement, they give money to the city for us providing services in the county area. But there it is so much more than just that. There are a lot of benefits that go into that. I'm sure that some of you have seen those contracts. uh every year I come up and ask for that vote. Right. So after this for the contract for this fiscal year had already been approved, another announcement was made and I've had several meetings with the executive director of the ESD. Um we've got a lot of things clarified as well. So, I'm happy to announce that

we are eligible to receive $129,16 and some change to uh help purchase equipment for the fire department and the MS this particular year.

Wow. This is not a year-to-year thing, although we expect it to continue, but the the the amounts are going to change depending on how things happen at a county level. In addition to that, we are eligible for $193,660 for station upgrades. So, we have the opportunity to use those funds to uh maintain and upgrade the fire station. There are a lot of rules that go along with that and again I I keep emphasizing we are eligible for those funds. So the caveat to that is we have to come up with a plan and we have to let the ESD board know exactly what we're going to do and the expected cost for that and then they will vote to either allocate the funds or not. So this is it's not like they're going to give us a check for these amounts tomorrow. It's we have to get their permission first and they have to approve it and then we can move forward. So um had a a lot of different meetings with the city manager and with the finance director as well. You are aware that at some point in the future police department will be moving and then the fire department will be inheriting that whole building uh that we're currently in. And so what we can do is hopefully the ESD will approve a phased plan to begin using some funds to get to a certain point. Um, I've already got one estimate now for a um it is basically we're looking at hiring an architectural firm to give us a phase plan and uh if if that gets done and the ESD

board approves that then we have the foundation and the plan to move forward. So, we're very excited about this. It's quite a bit of money and uh we can do real we can do a whole lot of good with that. I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any. I have a question. Well, and what this means for our community is like you mentioned with that building part of the money that we would need to borrow would be to work on the fire station and so that's just money that it's it's less that citizens are responsible for. So it was very exciting news. Yes, it is exciting. Thank you. Thank you, Chief.

Um, and and I do have one more thing that wasn't on the list, but that's because it kind of transpired more recently. Um, I did reach out to uh Lisa Parish and um there there are conversations that are going on right now. Um, and we will be putting together a reception for her. Um, you know, Samantha, you and I have talked and several people in the community in the the chamber and all those things. So, um I just I want the community to know that that we do appreciate her service and and we will be recognizing her um you know the right way as you know since she did decide to step down to go take care of family. So, um just I didn't want the community to think that you know we weren't we weren't working on something. So,

yes and that will be great. Thank you. Okay, any other questions of Mr. Sites? Okay. Next, we'll receive and discuss the quarterly financial report for the month of October 1 through December 31st, 2025. Mayor Lamb, director of finance, gives her report.

Good evening, council. Happy to be here today. Um, let's start. Okay, first first page. Hold on a second. Sorry. So what we have here is the breakdown of our total revenue um from October 1st to December 31st, 2025. Um we'll just start with the overall year-to-ate numbers. As of 123125, our total revenue is 1,269,475.95, which is $695,000 less than our fiscal year last year and it is actually 16% lower than what we budgeted. But before we address this, I just would like to say a great big thank you and give the highlights where words do. Um, thank you fire department. Um, so fire department has two major income lines and one is the ambulance services and the other one is the c county emergency district that they do. um service that they do um both of them are over last year by 88% and 150% over last year. So good job chief. Uh so overall uh fire department is actually 112% over than last year. So that's really good. Uh going over to Dawn. Yes sir.

Is that because of the rates went up or is it because of what caused that significant increase? There you go.

Uh to answer your questions, um several different factors. So, it's not that we increased rates. The the fees for the ambulance are the same as they have been for a couple of years. About every two years, uh I will take a look at all of that and see if we need to do any adjustments. I'll talk to some consultants with a firm that we use for billing and they'll let us know whether we're at market, below market or what we need to do. So, those rates haven't changed for several years. It's call volume that's changing. And then as far as the ESD, uh, as more funds become available from them, they are are able to disseminate that to different agencies. So, like my prior announcement, that's roughly $300,000 that we are eligible for and should we be able to get that that would count towards this revenue. So, there are some really big increases uh along those lines from the ESD. But as far as the ambulance, we haven't raised rates in several years.

Thank you. Thank you. Did we tell everybody that deployed TIFFMAS? Was I supposed to? No. Oh. And and uh if you recall uh one of the uh items that we approved that council approved for budget was to go ahead and support the TIFFMAS program and Captain Bobby Metave was deployed for two weeks, right, Chief? And that revenue is in the worst as well. So, can we say praise the Lord?

Good. Okay. And the next one is uh development services. Um as you can see they're actually 10% over last year. They are though still 11% under uh budget uh this year. Um but I did talk to Amber uh before um we have before this and she said that she has 15 15 plan reviews right with the Ashton and five for the canyons that is in the works. So she says it's coming. So we should see more revenue coming from development services. Any questions? Oh, and then oh the elephant in the room. All right, let's go and talk about that. Okay. So, our revenue is $695,000 less and and this is because if I have already said it somewhere and it's because um the big batch that we usually get in December was delayed and we received it in January on January 14th. But just to make sure that we manage expectations and to make sure just to be clear and to set facts straight, I have done an update on this slides. So our property tax is actually recorded cash basis. That means that when we get the money in the bank, that's when we record it. And what I would like to um make clear is that the trend is always the same. mostly is 2% in the beginning

October maybe 5% in November but usually by January what we're seeing is 77% collected in 2324 76% was collected by January 2425 only this year in 2526 81% has been collected so even though you see in December there's a huge difference in what was budgeted But if you really see the trend is still the same. Um if you would uh go with me and go to the next Oh, you have it there. So I actually updated this slide which I just kind of like gave to you. So you can see this is very easy to read. Uh the blue legend represents the 2023 2024. The green legend is 2425 and the yellow legend is the 2526. You can see it. It's way up there, right? And um and if we do a variance, if we really go in and look at the year to date between 20 and there's a definite increase in property tax that we collected over the past two years between 23 and 24. If we uh if we do a comparison between 23 24 to our current current collection, we are actually up by over $100,000 in the same in the same period, right? And if we compare it to 2425, we are actually over by $29,000. So it's all good. It's all good.

Good. All good. And we're talking about an increase in in money, not tax rate. Correct. That's correct. Just wanted just wanted to clarify that. Yes. Yes, sir. Um Okay. So, all good, right?

Okay. And this is slide for our sales tax. Are we just excited? Okay. So, the blue is 2425 and orange is current year. Look at that. I mean, I don't have to say anything. It's self-explanatory. You see it? It's higher. If I if I do a um a comparison of our year to date, last year, this same period, we collected $36,000 and this year we have collected $72,000 more. It's good news. Good news. Can I Good job, you guys.

Can I interject here real quick to you? So, I don't know if you remember a year ago, I talked a lot about revenue, bringing in additional revenue and and it was almost like it was this negative connotation and and as a city, we know we need to fix streets. We know we need to fix infrastructure. The problem is is the current budget that is based on 11% tax sales revenue coming in. We're our hands are kind of tied. Fine, we can put away $100,000 a year, but that's going to replace, you know, 200 feet of road. Okay? And we have a lot more than that. And so with the focus being additional revenue, if we can maintain and get to what a healthy city is, which is 25%, that's an additional 15%. And if we can grow that sales tax revenue and additional revenues that come in that are not on the property tax burden, individual owners, then we take that money as it grows and keep putting it on off to the side and start fixing that infrastructure. This is kind of a model that the city of Berles does. you know, they they take a certain portion of sales tax revenue and and apply it to their daily operational budget, but that additional because it is going to adjust. It's sales tax. It's going to adjust. But with that additional, that's what they reinvest into their infrastructure. And that's what I was saying a year ago where we need to get to as a city is so I, you know, everybody wants me to fix everything now, but it takes time and we have to do step one, which is get that additional revenue. Now also

without raising taxes preferably also tractor supply made a big difference there too. Yeah. And as we add commercial it's really going to help. Yeah. Okay. Next.

Uh this so this page is an expense report. Um it does look like we're over by 41% over last year. Um, keep in mind we did increase our revenue in in expenses budget by 23% if I'm not mistaken. And but if you look at it on budget is actually it's actually on budget. Um overall increase of the expenses when compared to last year is because of the um is the brush truck. We we made a huge payment in October and that just like spikes everything. Um let's see next slide. Um this is where our pool cash this is how our pool cash is doing. Uh at the beginning of this year we had slightly less money than we did um last fiscal year by $70,000. And as of 123125 we had almost 2.4 million. Uh whereas last year we had over 2.5. But I want you to take into consideration that there was a a $358,000 uh transfer from ARPA fund into our general uh fund. So if you take away which we don't have anymore, right? ARPA fund is completely exhausted by April 2025. But if you take that transfer, right, because it's not really revenue, uh 3,58,000 out, we're actually over what we had by 214,85.91. So we are actually better like cashwise than we were before.

Good positive. This is the reserve u money market account. Um, as of 123125, we have just over 20 uh2 million70,000 uh with the average of 3.9 in percent in interest. And the next one, I thought I'd keep this. I don't usually do this one, but I thought I'd just keep it in here. So, we usually have to do this at the end of the year, but I thought you all want to know all our bank accounts.

Thank you. Um, so these are all the bank accounts that we have. Um, you see that Councilman Foster fire truck is not there anymore. It's gone. I love that he noticed last time. Um, the TWWDB I will have access soon. Mhm.

So, at the end of December 31st, 2025, we have um 5,538,93649. Last slide. Okay, this is uh water sewer. Um, at the end of the year, I mean, at the end of December 2025, the revenue for water sewer is $123,553.91 over our expenses. This is including our water franchise fees, remember, and the sewer um, franchise fees. So, that's already in there. And that shows you, you know, like we can do it.

Yeah. Okay. Um, any questions?

That's all, folks. That's all I got. Thank you, Mara. Thank you, Mayor. Very good. Good news. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Say, okay, city manager, can I ask him a question? Sure. Since you mentioned the water sewer fund and I know that we replaced a lot of meters last year, do we have more to be replaced this year?

Um, yeah. I I think I think there's there's a few, but uh the original plan was, you know, by the end of this month we would have them all switched out that that we have. Meters are always going to go down and we got to get them here and that sometimes takes a while. Um but like I reported last I think it was last month you know we had replaced 553 last year and we had three more 300 more to replace for this year but you know the way the I mean Derek and his team did a great job of coming up with a plan and and putting several people on it and so by this month we should be we should be good

that's good that bring you some Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Now, we'll receive the report on the city um county transportation service from John Eric AJ. I'm sorry. I don't know if I can pronounce your last name. Arjen Arjen. Arjunan. Arjun. Okay. Great. General manager. Thank you.

Thank you very much, mayor, council, city leadership, and staff and citizens. It's a pleasure to be here tonight. Uh really looking forward to reintroducing you to City County Transportation. Um before we begin, if you would oblige me, by a show of hands, could Thank you so much. Could you please let me know if you're familiar with city county transportation?

All right, good. And all all city council familiar? All right. Wonderful. I'm glad I'm here today. Um, you know, really over the next several minutes, what I want to do is walk you through who we are and what we do and why we do it, as well as where we are and where we're going. I think that's really important and really kind of let you know what we provide to your constituents and the citizens, not only of King, but of the uh greater Johnson County. So, we provide curb to curb pickup. It's scheduled. We are a city entity. Um, and we provide this service throughout all of Johnson County. This 7 I believe it's 734 square miles. Uh, it includes Texas Hugley Hospital as well. And our we operate Monday through Friday 6:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. with limited Saturday service. Citizens rely upon us um as a form of mobility for trips to vital medical appointments, for employment, grocery, shopping, senior centers, and leisure. 68% of our trips are attributed to the elderly and disabled. I apologize. I wasn't keeping up. Thank you, Holly. And 27% of those trips require a wheelchair, a scooter, walker, some type of mobility assistance. Our funding source is FTA, Federal Transportation Administration via Tex DOT and North Central North Central Texas Council of Governments, as well as our participating cities, which of course Keen has won. So, as you can see our budget here, I

think it's really important. We've talked a lot about tax dollars in here. Uh, we are committed to remaining fiscally responsible with the citizens tax dollars and always striving to improve our efficiency. Our operating budget is 1.97 million. 80% of that is attributed labor and fringe, 9% M&R, and 7% supplies and material. So who are the participating cities? As you can see there, Alvareo, Berles, Cleburn, Godley, Grand View, Joshua, Keen, Rail Vista, as well as Johnson County itself. And I just gave a presentation to the commissioner's court uh the Monday before or Thursday, last Thursday actually. So this one you may be asking why do I have a quote up here in a presentation? I I think it's really important to to know who we are, where we came from, and where we're going. Uh, I've been here for a short time and when I came in I I understood we had some cultural challenges that needed to be addressed and this is a quote that I used uh to my drivers when I had that first meeting with them. It's something I use to influence that culture change, promote buyin and support of our vision and our mission statements, enrich the workforce, but most importantly ensure our people, our drivers, our employees understand how important they are for the endeavors that that that our community needs of us. So, what are purpose statements? You see the the vision statement is short and simple to deliver the safest uh most reliable customer- centered mobility

service. I made it broad for a reason. Um when you're your vision is your that that's your destination. That's where you want to arrive to. Well, when you've got a broad vision statement, you never know if you've arrived. Correct. So, you have to consistently improve day in and day out. And we do that of course through our mission statement as you could see. So when we look at 2025 we had a strong end of the year. I will tell you that we had a 8.4% increase in wrership and that attributed to 1,700 additional trips that our citizens could get to medical appointments whether it be dialysis or grocery shopping or even employment. When we look at Keen in particular, 1.3% of all of our yearover-year writership growth was attributed to Keen. 3.2% of all of our originating trips and 2.2% of our destination trips in FY 2025 were attributed to King. 93, this one's interesting, 93.4% of all of our cross city trips. So that's those are trips that either originate in one city and you know that the destination is Keen or vice versa. 93.4% of those trips in and out of Keane were to Cleburn and those were for medical as well as work. So you think about your citizens relying upon this for vital me medical needs as well as employment for their livelihoods. We did have a 9.5% increase in productivity. That's what that uh number there is. Um the trips per revenue trips

per revenue hour. The higher that number, the better. We were at 1.25 uh for FY25. Currently, we're sitting at 1.4 for this fiscal year. So, our wrership is increasing dramatically. Um, what I'm most proud of with this team and this organization, this department is the culture change, the buyin from the drivers and the dispatchers, improved attendance. Absenteeism has completely fallen off and that is a great thing. When we have drivers who have to call off, those are trips that we can't get people to vital medical appointments. And we've got drivers actually inquiring about our performance metrics now. And that is a huge they they understand, but now they're seeing, hey, if this number reaches this 1.4, if it hits that 1.7, that's this many more trips, it equates to this many more trips over a year. So what are we doing? We're improving early our access to early medical appointments, employment, and essential trips across Johnson County. I can tell you um when I arrived Monday through Friday, I you you saw the slide, it's 6:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. When I got here in July, that was only for Cle the city of Cleburn. All other Johnson County was 8:00 pm or 8 am to 6:30 p.m. Well, that was changed in October. I sent out a note that we were changing that. We were going to add add some drivers so we can make sure that people outside of Cleburn had the same access to early medical appointments, employment, and grocery shopping.

October of 2025, we had a 13% increase. It was 268 more trips. That was 20 2337. Um that was our highest in over five years going back to uh COVID. December 2025 was our second highest, but that was a 45% increase year-over-year with when you when you look at that one, that was 710 more rides in one month. We're presenting to partner cities. Uh I've got one other after this and as well as a commissioner court. Um because it's important for you to be aware. I know that's something that when I talk to the city managers when I when I introduce myself when I came on board, they said they would like some more transparency. And that's why I'm that's why I'm here and I want to make sure that I continue doing this. Um if not a quarterly, a halfy year basis. I would like to do that. stand up and let y'all know because we've got a lot of big things coming up that that we're going to talk about. And that's really a reimagining what we can be. An emulation of customer service, better service, quicker response, and improved flexibility. This is the fun part. Where are we going? Service enhancements. How can we better serve our customers and our community? Drive economic activity. accessibility for employers and businesses. So, what we're doing as part of um reintroducing ourselves is getting with employment centers, getting with businesses to find out what they need help with and then quite frankly to let them know what we could use help with. Uh buses. I've got three new buses that are ordered and they'll be here March,

early April. And that was all part of a NCT COG fully or excuse me text dot fully funded grant that we have received. So we'll be getting those soon. The biggest challenge we have right now, people can only schedule trips Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. And we schedule five day or seven days in advance. When you have that many people trying to call in, the only way they can schedule a trip is if they call in, the average wait time on hold is roughly 45 minutes to an hour. That's unacceptable. Um those are people who have given up on us. A lot of people, you're not going to sit on hold just to be told we can't we don't have any availability for you. But we're going to change that. That's what this new software is going to do that we're really excited about. So this new software, it's state-of-the-art. Ours is antiquated. It's from 2009. The maps, it's not like Google Maps. It's not updated. If you think about it, it's antiquated software. None of the updates. We know all the roads are changing these days with new uh neighborhoods being built, but this is going to be a state-of-the-art. Um, it's going to be bilingual. People will be able to schedule their trips on their phone or a web portal. Now, don't get me wrong, we're still going to have our dispatchers Monday through Friday for those people who choose that route, but that's going to take the stress off of off of our dispatchers, and that wait time is going to go down dramatically if there's any wait time because people will will be able to do it. It's going to have an app that a lot of our calls also are, "Hey, where's my bus?" Well, on the app, it's y'all used or Uber, it's right there. They can see exactly where their bus is. It's going to send them reminders. Hey, you've got an appointment tomorrow at 5 or at 5 p.m. Do you still want to confirm that trip?

And it'll give them that opportunity. And if they say, hey, we have a lot of last minute cancellations. So if it sends them that reminder and they cancel it, then now it opens up vacancies for additional people to get trips last minute. The software that we chose is a organization called Eolane. They showed the greatest value. uh state-of-the-art, like I said, smart uh powerful analytics, and that's this is what I'm having to use for analytics. I had to dig into raw data and put together to identify those areas of opportunity. That's why we're seeing growth because I sent this report out and and Jonathan has it. Um this is going to make it so much better for our organization. highlights like I said mobile app the web portal uh schedule cancel trips they'll be able to pay fairs on this as well right now they have to come in they have to pay cash or check that's it we do not accept cards that's going to change with this and the one I am really most excited about there are people here who don't know what uh city county transportation is we're about to change that so here in the coming months we are going to do a complete relaunch and we are going to rebrand and there will be a new name for our organization. Um, and it's a play on words, but we're we're going to make sure that we are truly connecting Johnson County. uh it's going to be vibrant and what my ask for this city and the council members and the staff is that when we go to roll this out that I have your support that you can get the word out to your constituents to the citizens to let them know we're here. I was not aware of city county transportation when my mom needed it

and I think there are a lot of people out there. So, let's help our constituents. Like I said, 68% elderly and disabled. 27% of those require some type of mobility device assistance. So, that's going to be my ask when we go to relaunch. And and I will keep uh the city manager uh apprised of of the timing on that. But that's all I have unless y'all have any questions for me. Question. I've got a question. like what does it cost the average rider to go to Hugley Hospital or to go to Waterburger or wherever they want to go?

So it's it depends on the distance, right? So uh if it's within the city, so say for instance it's keen to keen, it's $3 flat. Anything outside of that, it's $3 for every five miles with a max of $15. So if they're going if they cross city limits then that's where it goes to the five miles. So is it $15 there and $15 back? Yes. Yes it is. Okay. Then one of the question it said that you uh fairs increased 26.7%.

That was fair revenue not fairs. We have not raised fairs in 1520 years. So that was just fair revenues that we've been able to receive based upon the increased wrership. I I just want to say thank you AJ. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and we appreciate your partnership with with the community of Keen and it citizens. And I also wanted to recognize u uh your city manager. Michael Morero is actually in the audience. He's a city manager for Clever, ironically enough. we we met this morning and um but it's also been a pleasure getting to know him and we appreciate you know again the partnership that we have with our two communities. So thank you f both for being here this evening. Absolutely.

Thank you all very much. Well, thank you so much. It's good for our citizens to know. Good to see you. Okay. Next, uh, receive a report on code enforcement that explains the basic overview of department duties and responsibilities and their ability to enforce code violations. Mr. Martin gives his report. You want to go first?

Good evening, Mayor Council. Appreciate you. Um, I was asked to give just kind of a a brief update on what's going on with code enforcement because I know in the past code enforcement like when Mr. Owens was talking about did permitting, did building official, did you know it was a one person doing multiple jobs. So, now that we are we are growing and we're we're getting a better staff in place, we do have a excuse me, one full-time code enfor code enforcement officer. Mr. Stevens goes first.

All right. Um, basically falls under me, director of neighborhood and development services. Uh, he is a certified and a licensed code and forward code and wow, I can't say that. He's a licensed officer. How's that? For code enforcement. Uh, he drives city at least once a day to conduct inspections or investigations on complaints. Um, he did kind of in, you know, put in there what his basics duties are. You should have a copy of that. I don't really think I need to read the whole thing unless you have any questions about it. I did put in some uh add in with Holly's help what the new software we just received is going to look like, you know, so you'll have I can get you these reports weekly, monthly. This, you know, most of these are animal control. if you look over to the side um because Taylor was kind of the first program set up in that and she's been rocking and rolling and using it greatly. So anyways, we'll get a nice report like that for you. Um let me see. We just added a link to the report for the citizens to report problems um code or animal control to our city website. Thank you Holly for doing that. Um, it's on the animal control page, it's on the code enforcement page, and it's also on the how do I question mark page. There's a link this new I work system. So, somebody sees an issue, they can log on, complete complete the form, send it in. It goes directly to code enforcement

or animal control.

I'm going to jump in just real quick, Don. As you all remember on the budget, there was quite a bit of software upgrades and things that we were investing in to to help with permitting and all that. This is all part of that. Um, when I first got here and I would go ask Mr. Johnson for a report, it was a spreadsheet. He'd have to keep a, you know, multiple files and I mean, it was very he he was very organized and he he did an amazing job with what he had to work with. But this is something that will kind of tie everything together that'll give us more visibility and so that we can continue to kind of just make things better. Um, you know, again, both for our citizens and and for us. So, the software stuff is still coming. It's just taking a while to get implemented as you all understand.

Right. We just had another was that yesterday or today? They just had another now we're working on more the uh the permitting side of it to get that up and running. It was three modules al together. So it's it's going really well training and that that should be online shortly as well. They can make payments, they can do inspections, they can you know it's just trying to streamline everything instead of you know one person doing multiple things. It's right there should save a lot of manh hours and a lot less frustration for the citizens. Any questions? Any other questions? You're welcome. Thank you very much, Mr. Martin.

So, um I'm I'm going to go ahead and jump in here while Ricky's coming to the to the stage here. Um I I do want to apologize to our guests. Um so often we just kind of have internal reports and you know, sometimes hindsight's 2020 and looking back I wish we would have put our guest first. Um it's just kind of habit. So, I do want to apologize publicly to uh Dr. Stevens uh for for putting him last and in the future when we have this many reports. Uh we will definitely be cognizant of putting our guest first. So, I do publicly apologize.

I'm going to I'm probably I've decided I'm going to invite Jonathan to be on our agenda for our buddy meeting this coming Monday. So, if you would I'm gonna put you on there. Um make him dead last. Fair is fair. Exactly right. if you want me.

Uh Ricky Stevens. Um I am not running for anything, nor do I ever intend to run for anything. So I was glad to see those guys that are willing and again to just to tell y'all thank you uh for being willing to stand up here and and hear from the community and and have to deal with just the roads and the sewage and the water. Um not everybody has the patience to do that. So I appreciate y'all and I know I speak for a lot of people that says thank you for putting in the time to be on a a city council. So thank you a lot. One of the things I wanted to talk today. How do I get to it? Just hit. Okay. So, back in November, as you know, we had a bond that did not pass and I think the board on Monday is going to go back out for another bond. So, I wanted to take a little I told you that real fast. I tried to talk fast last time because I was on a yellow card. Um, now that it's 7:20, I know you want me to talk fast again, but starting Monday, I have to go neutral after the board calls election. And that's just part of the electioneering laws as a superintendent. You may not know this, but in the state of Texas, the only person that can't talk pro or con against a school bond is the superintendent once the bond has been called. So Monday night when they call the bond, technically I have to be the neutral observer. Now principles, teachers, other administrators, assistant soups outside of school time and hours, they can stand on the street corner and and preach the needs. Uh but superintendent cannot. So, since I do have that opportunity today to still talk because just for the record, I'm for it in case you didn't know that. Um, but most of this will be factual, I just want to I've cut this slideshow down to not very long, so I'm not going to keep you real long, but I do want to go through some things because I believe that knowledge is power. And y'all do have the ability like I do at 4B board to see that on your TV screen, right? Okay. Knowledge is power. And even if someone is against the bond or is for the bond but is against the tax increase, I think that knowledge um is

still very powerful where they can talk to why they are or not. Real quickly, our bond was 25 million. Here's a breakdown of the way the votes came out. It was 1684. It was 347 against about a 2 to1 margin. That was 515 votes. So we kind of know that breakdown how it was. early voting was 884 and 154 against. So that night when I saw the early vote and I knew it was over because it's a school, you have to win the early vote. Um if you don't win the early vote, you're in trouble because that's when the people are really coming out that are there to vote on purpose

compared to vote day when it's like, hey, it's time to go vote. So we knew we were in trouble on that. We recently sent out a survey uh to the entire world of Keen through social media through our parent square which goes out to,200 students parents. Um you know this so I'm not going to stress on it. We're 1135 kids now. That's 233 up since I got here is 122 up from uh right after COVID but we're only 4.2 square miles. Give you an example what that means. our tax base that we just got in from the uh the CAD just on Monday, we're at about 248 million in taxable value. Another school that's exactly our same size, which is Grand View, who also doesn't have a whole lot of tax base, is like 580 million. So, just the sheer amount of land, brings in a lot stronger tax base. We're very, very small at 4.2 square miles. Um, we do believe we're a school of choice in Johnson County. People have asked through some of the Facebook stuff in the past, well, what are vouchers going to do to the public school? They're not going to do anything to Keen ISD. We already have kids that are that are choosing to come to us. That brings in about $10,000 of transfer. It's about $4.39 million in added revenue. We were the highest rated district in the county this year with a you hate to say a B, but it was an 88. It was close. And we graduate almost every kid that comes to Keen. Our graduation rate is really good. Demographic study. This is just a chart that shows you how the growth has gone. You'll see the reds. That's right after COVID. And you may not know this, but there was a group right after COVID that came through. They're now third and fourth graders. There was a low birth rate across the nation. Schools all over the nation were having low numbers in those grades. That's obvious here by that, but you see the growth. And this is what we expect. You can see them when you drive over. They're the ones right behind the school that are going up left and right. They're the ones that are going to go up back here eventually.

About 400 homes. Zonda told us before COVID to expect about 61 kids and that's basically 243 kids which is one classroom per grade. We need so about 13 classes. We need to build this right here and it'll help on your screen. You'll be able to see it more. This is the Zonda 10ear forecast from right before CO. If you look at that gray line, that gray line that I've got the red box around the gray one below the orange one is actually this year. They predicted we'd be at 1277, but we're at 1139 1150 back and forth. You say, "Well, they undersshot it quite a bit." But if you look in that red box that I that I boxed there, they're about a year and a half behind, which is pretty pretty good considering we had a year and a half, two years of hard COVID. So I think the Zonda deal is pretty good. It's just delayed because of the of the COVID. So when you look down there at at 203132 and you see 1400 I think 83 kids they estimate let's just pull that back even 80 something kids that say 1400 that's about 300 and something more we have now which is the classroom per grade. So they look they they were fairly accurate with that. We sent out that survey. We had 136 people respond to our survey. One of the things it said is um how do you feel about each one of our four things that we did? I told y'all last time, but I'll go over it real quickly. We're going to we need to take the elementary cafeteria and turn it into eight classrooms. That gives us the classrooms for the elementary kids. We're going to take then outside that elementary and build a brand new cafeteria that will be a storm shelter that will that will hold all our kids. New cafeteria, renovation of the cafeteria. were almost equally supported. We're going to take the junior high gym. It will no longer be a gym. It'll be turned into eight classrooms and a band hall. Uh that meets the needs of the classrooms at Junior High School. And then we're going

to go up on the hill and build a gymnatorium which will house a theater arts stage, let us do all our performing arts and all our daily athletic PE classes. Almost all four of those propositions um were equally supported. It said, "You strongly agree or agreed that the needs were appropriate in the bond." About over 75% said that they agreed that the needs were there. A lot of the comments in that area um were well, we also need parking. We also need HVAC. We also need So, it wasn't that they didn't agree with the needs, they just didn't think it met all our needs. And you're never able to meet all your needs. You have to have endless. You just never will be able to meet them all. And like you always know on always survey, there's always one person that is going to give you the bottom little red mark down there. It doesn't matter what survey you do. Then we ask them, why do you think the bond failed? Number one, at the top, not number one, but at the top it says it was a 22 cent tax increase. And that's that's legit. It was a tax increase. It was um we'll see it. I'll show you in a minute. It's not a very big tax increase if you have the normal home in Keem. If you have a half a million dollar home, like many people 55, 60 and up have, they bought it 25 years ago for $200,000 and now it's worth 650. That happens. That was a 7075 tax increase and that they felt the the bond the um survey people felt that was a reason. You see some other ones, but if you come on down and you see the purple voter indifference, I think we can all say amen to that because it's that way with almost every election we have. I mean, we have a city council election. 500 people vote. Um, we have the runoff and about 330 voted. Um, that's on the that's on us about voter indifference. We've got to get people more motivated when we go out. The lack of information lack of information was weird. One of my board members went into the coffee shop about a month and a half ago and saw three ladies over there. They said, "You're on the school board, aren't you?" And she goes, "Yeah." They go,

"Yeah, we all have kids in Keen." She goes, "What did y'all think about the bond?" They go, "Oh, we voted against it." She goes, "What? you voted against the bond. They go, "Yeah, it wasn't doing anything to help our elementary kids." Well, that was just misinformation because our main thing is building this this elementary school up. So, we got it. We know we have to do some of that. And then the bottom was misinformation. Really good information for us to know for a bond. Um, how many of the 136 thought we needed to go out for another bond? It was 95%. Uh, but the main thing they said was they wanted it broken out into two different propositions. So, you could actually vote on the cafeteria elementary or you could vote on the high school junior high uh renovations or you could vote for both. So, we are going to be going out for two propositions. Real quickly, I want to just explain how school uh funding happens because this is where this is where when you even explain this to teachers, they're like, I had no idea. So, for me to think that the majority of the community has any idea would be would be false. There's two buckets that we use when it comes to funding. the M which is right now for us is is 7705 that is how we operate the daily workings of the school that's all our salaries everything that happens at school comes out of that bucket and that bucket is refilled every year through taxes taxes and then the federal and state dumping in the INS bucket is interesting thinking that bucket can only be used can only be filled with bond taxpayer passed money um those buckets can't take they can't swap in and out. You can't say, "Oh, I've got somebody in M. I'll put it into interest in syncing." And you can't say, "I've got interest in sinking and put it into M." So, the only way to ever build schools is through the INS bucket. Um, a lot of people, especially in Texas and especially in our area, they they may not claim to be, but they they are in theory. They're Dave Ramsey fans, right? And Dave Ramsey says, "Don't buy a car unless you can pay for it with cash.

Don't buy a house unless a lot of it save and then go and buy. The problem with that is you can't do that in schools because even if you did save in your M, our budget is $18 million at the school. If you were to save a million dollars a year out of that, that'd be almost 5%. Let's say you saved $2 million out of that at at 10%. When you saved for 10 years and you got to the 20 million that we need, construction costs are going up over 12 10% a year. So actually every time you saved in order to buy, you have just it's eaten it up. So at the end of that 10 years, you got 20 million, but that 20 million projects now costing 40 or 50 million. You can never catch up. So you can't do like you should do at home and avoid debt. The system is set up that you have to get the debt first before you can pay it. So you pay it back at three or 4% while construction costs are going up at 10 or 11. So that's the dilemma we have as a school is fighting that that good mentality of no debt with the reality that's the only way the school system can go. This is our budget. The gray is staff cost. That's teachers, pair professionals, that's cafeteria workers. That's everything. That's their benefits. That's insurance. That's everything that goes. Almost all all schools are going to look like that. The state wants about 65% but all schools are going to look like that. So when suddenly you come in and say, "Well, I need to take a million or$2 million cut." It's pretty obvious by looking at where that cut has to come. It has to come from staff. And if you've got staff just where you have enough kids, that becomes difficult. Which makes me want to say one thing. This is kind of a little bit off base um off this topic, but a lot of times whenever you see a the um tax appraisals come in, the way that the way funding happens from the state, I think I can get you something that that this is how state funding works. The

state says this is what your value should be. If your values are here, we'll give you this much money. So imagine that this was $10 is what you were supposed to get locally. The state says, "Okay, then we'll give you 10, so you get 20." But the state says, "If this 10 all of a sudden goes to eight, more than 5% of what they say, they're not going to pay you for eight." Because if it was normally go to eight, this go to 12. But in reality, the state says if this goes to eight, and it should be 10, we're only going to give you 10. So this becomes a loss in revenue. uh that comes into play as you see some of these um some of the tax when we get our tax values in every year if they don't match the state it ends up hurting all the school districts. Our tax history has gone down. Um around 2019 that was a six cent tax. Those of y'all that have been around long enough and are are unfortunate or fortunate enough to hear me every year at chamber lunch I made a comment in 2019. I said, "We're cutting your taxes six cents. I'm going to ask for it back one day." We all laughed. Remember? We all laughed. Then about two or three years later, I said, "We're cutting your taxes six cents. I'm going to ask for it back one day." And we all laughed. You know, it was funny. And then we came in and this November, we said, "Hey, we need that back." And we didn't all laugh, but some people did. Um, but we've notoriously brought it down. Some of that's from compression for sure, but a lot of it's not. When you look at everybody along the bottom, it's everybody that we deal with around here, and we're in the bottom. We're in the bottom third of taking care of our business with tax rates. Uh school construction, uh it's it's more difficult. One of the things we hear a lot with school construction is you're going to build a 10,000 square foot building. It's $550 a square foot. And the thing is, I just built my mans my half a million dollar home for $212 a square foot. Make it make sense. It's

hard to make it make sense until you realize this little example that that all of a sudden made it so clear to me just a couple days ago actually. It's a residential house versus a a schoolhouse. A door. If you think about the door to your bedroom, many people don't close their bedroom at night, especially those of us that don't have kids anymore. We just So, our door on the bedroom may close once a day, twice a day. Door in a classroom is going to close 15, 20, 30 times a day. A door that opens to any area is going to close three or four 500 times a day. So all of a sudden that door on the right is going to cost 10 times that door on the left. That's same for air conditioning. Same for sprinklers. So school construction cost is really really a lot higher. That's why whenever we go what we told you our projects were those renovations of those buildings instead of going like 580 a square foot or going like 182 a square foot because you're renovating something you already have. It's just a way that we were trying to to cut back and save money because the way that school districts are allowed to go out, there's a gap. Okay, that gap is how many kids you have in school compared to your tax base. And then they put some magical Austin voodoo numbers on it, right? Math. And they come up with a number. It says this is all you can have in debt. Our number happens to be about 30 million. Well, we still have 10 million or 9 million from the last bond in 09 0809. So, the most that we can ever go out for is 20 million right now, 21. And if we were totally out of debt, only 30. So, you see a lot of these school districts that like go out for 268 one year and they pass and then the very next year they come back for 180 more. They pass and then all of a sudden a year later they come back for another 94 million more and they pass. That happens a lot. Those are districts that are growing crazy growth. Keen will never be able to do that. This is a kind

of a one-time shot on this 21 million. Um, if it were to pass, it would be not very many of us here would still be actively involved before you could come up with another big bond to do anything with school. Because of that, I've already told you about the project, so I'm not going to waste your time there. Here's the big one for May for us. It's bond tax impact. If you'll notice, the red line is roughly the average house in Keen. 223,000. I think the average is 232 or 252. Either way, um if you have if you vote for Proposition A, which is the cafeteria and the rooms for the elementary, if you have a quarter million home, it's going to cost you about $8 a month. Um that's that's very manageable for most people. Um if you have the half million dollar home, it's going to cost you 31. Now, somebody might say, "Well, quarter million dollar home, $8. Double it. Half a million dollar home, $30. Why isn't it $16?" Well, that $140,000 um homestead exemption is actually over half of a quarter million dollar home, but it's only about a third of a 500,000. That's why it's not one to one. If the if B were to pass, that half a million dollar home is costing about $10, about $11 a month. So total both of them is going to cost uh the average home in Keen about 19 bucks a month give or take a dollar it no doubt the half a million dollar home is we're asking for about 70 about $78 a month so for sure um homestead exemption this this hit me last night in the meeting for the first time I hadn't thought about it this way we all probably know that 65 and older their taxes are frozen on homesteads right so to me that was always hey 65 and older is frozen that should be an easy yes vote. But the problem is, and somebody mentioned this last night, a lot of times when you're 65 or over and you realize it doesn't affect you, it causes you just to stay home. You know, like, well, it doesn't affect me. I'm not going to vote. Um, that's also

people who are for the bond's job to motivate those people to say, hey, it doesn't affect you, but it does affect your grandkids or maybe your grandkids kids and um to get out and vote. This website is is live as of about four hours ago. It'll be going out to all our staff and on all our social media tomorrow. But that is the website that you can follow the progress of the bond. It's got all kind of stuff. It's going to have all the podcast. It's going to have all the committee meetings. It's have minutes of those meetings and all those things. So, we'll be sending that out. Last day to call a bond is the 13th of February. So, we'll be calling that Monday, I'm quite sure. Last day to register to vote is April 2nd. So, one of the things that we have done to help with voter apathy is we have gotten all our secretaries at each campus trained to be a um voter registration registar. So, you can we're going to be pushing stuff out that hey, come get registered to vote. You just come into the office. Every one of them can do it. It's quick and easy. The easy way is just bring your driver's license, show it, you fill out a piece of paperwork, put an envelope, throw in the mail. So, we're going to try to get people registered to vote. Last day to vote is April the 2nd. Voting will be at the high school in the transformation room, which is when you walk in the front door right to the to the right. And early voting is the 20th and the 28th. We're going to be open the 20th and 21st from 7 in the morning to 7:00 at night. Mainly because you have to have two nights you're open 12 hours. And the 20th is a board meeting and the 21st is a meeting at the elementary school which will bring people up to the school. The school in no way can ever encourage people to vote yes for the bond. But we do want to encourage people to vote because like um one of these young men back here may have said a little while ago, we want to know the will of the people. And 300 people doesn't tell us the will of the people. 500 people. We need we need a I mean honestly we need a thousand people to vote to really be able to say thus saith Keen. And so we want more and more people to vote. And u that's got to be it. Any questions before I let y'all move on?

I just wanted to ask a question. How do you get out to the a lot of the citizens here in Kee that do are not technically involved? They don't get on the computers. They don't use their phone. I mean, they make a phone call and they answer a phone, but they don't really Yes, ma'am. Well, the first time around, and I think I I told you this last time, the first time around, we intentionally went very low-key. We wanted to very much be you know us, we know you. We're going to put this out here. We need it. We um and so what happened in that is there were lots of people that came to the polls. They've told us they came to the poll didn't even know we were having a bond.

So there will be a pack and this will be separate from the school. There'll be a political action committee formed I think next week that'll be parents of kids that live in the district and it'll be their responsibility to put sign. We'll have signs this year. Um they won't be funded by the school but it'll be there'll be stuff out there where people are doc doortodoor knocking. They're picking up the phone calls. They're sending out emails that trying to reach those people they didn't even know. We had a lot of parents that again sometimes people tell you stuff and you're like how is that possible? But we had parents that have told us we didn't even know there was a bond even though we sent stuff out and but you know city people tell you I've had to come up here multiple times and pay my water bill late because I don't look at I don't look at that mail. I've got it on automatic payment. I just get it in. I throw it in the trash because it's automatically paid. And then when my credit card expired and I didn't tell the city, I threw away like three of them because I don't look at them. So we can't rely on mail, even email, because I delete 300 emails a day. I could easily miss one of your emails. So if I you ever email me and I ignore you, pick up the phone and give me a call because we that's how we operate. So we have to intentionally do what you're saying and get let people know.

I have a question for Jonathan. Is there any way to help our schools by putting something with the water bills that everybody gets? Nope. Cannot do that. Okay. Yeah, it's not. Erase that. No, it's a good question though. I mean, for sure that question because people because I know that there are people that want to help. It's you just it gets um with elected boards and other taxing entities, it becomes difficult like Ricky, we cannot be for or against or have any type of, you know, this has to be like he says the will of the people. Well, I just thought it was informational that and then then you may he may can check you may can put some order bill that says there is a vote. I don't know because that's that is because we can do that. We can send out stuff like in report cards that says

election, you just can't put anything on there that implies against or for. Well, I was I was thinking about the people who pay their water bill, but they don't know that there's even a bond for the school, you know, and I was talking to Paul a while ago. Yeah. One of the things there are a lot of times that is great that we don't have a newspaper in town. I mean, there are there's some great you can make a few mistakes here and there that somebody doesn't snap a picture and roast you. Even though we kind of do that through social media, but this is the time you miss a Paul and the paper where he would come right at two. I was going to say why doesn't he do that again and everybody would see it. But we, you know, it's just tough. I will reach out to our attorneys and just just ask see. Yeah, for sure.

I was looking at this page um where basically just describes how many kids that you are anticipating. And of course, I know it ends in 3032 or 2032, excuse me. Um, but have y'all updated that? Because obviously I understand what you're trying to do. You're trying to project for years ahead so that way y'all don't have to worry about this again. But, um, do you guys plan on having another growth spurt? I mean, well, I mean, you don't I know you can't plan it. It's just based on what you said like, hey, it's how many homes come in here and that's going to dictate what we do. But I'm just trying to think of your future because, and I know you're thinking of the future, right? you're thinking for the next 15 years how you're going to be able to culminate and then you know do portables outside if you need to until something comes up. But um I think that's the most important part is just understanding that we're all we're trying you're trying to do this for the future of the

No. It's not for tomorrow. It's it's for 10 years. It's for 20 years down the road to be ready. And I'll be honest and this is

it's not my place. I guess it is as a citizen. Um the thing that would kill us would be a three or 400 um unit apartment complex that all of a sudden popped in. But and I know that's y'all's responsibility to not let that happen. Um that that's that that's my fear, Troy, but because I don't I don't fear another housing development because you can handle 100 200 homes, especially built out over four or five years and we run out of space at 4.2 square miles. But if all of a sudden right across the highway from the school, a Venus apartment complex popped up and within nine months it was on the ground and within nine months there was 300 new kids coming, it would that would kill it. We'd look like an RV park at the school because of portables.

Just to remind everyone, that apartment complex is going in is actually Cleber. Yes, it's not ours. Yes, it's not key. Oh, I was gonna ask that question. It's not It's not ours. That was I would be You'd be hear a lot more from me if it was ours, but hopefully you'll get some students from there. Well, we'll get students that we can choose to take or not through our open enrollment, which is always good. And that's one of the things that as we grow into what we build, when we have those empty seats on the bus, I think with that that apartment complex and the big development that's being built. What that's almost ours. 805B or C. Was it Stonehenge or Stonegate or whatever that is?

Hey, start with an S. I got it right. I mean, with them, we're going to have plenty of people to fill bus seats with once we take care of our kids and get enough room on the bus. One one last question. And I know I know currently we do not offer bus services in this town, but is that something that is coming up for for KISSD?

That's I'm glad you asked that question because yes, it is being thought about a lot. It's been thought about a bunch in the state of Texas. If you do not have anyone that lives over two miles square two miles from your school, you don't have to provide bus service. We don't have any of that because we're 4.2 square miles. However, the state also will not reimburse you for picking up kids that live within two miles of the school. So, you don't have to do it, but if you do, you're on your own. So, we have looked into it and um Mr. Morgan has put together a plan because I think what would happen is once these developments fill out is that we would probably have bus stops, not doortodoor like but bus stops. We might pick up at city hall. We might pick up at the road at the mobile home park. We might pick up um so yes, it is being looked at too. Okay.

To to do. Can you charge for that? You can. And and the program that we put together did show what it would cost. It would be minimal, but us knowing our kids, it would it's not worth it. We would just eat it. It would be 15. just I don't want to say what it would be, but it wouldn't be outrageous if we had the kids that needed it cuz second you start charging and you get those kids that say they can't afford it. So just I just assume everybody be free than just some. Yeah, good question. Any more questions for Dr. Stevens? I appreciate y'all putting up with me for two months in a row. Thank you. Thank y'all. Thank you for the information.

Thank you, Ra. Let me know when you want to pay me back. I will help five people. Thank you guys.

Thank you. Okay, so we're going to go to consent agenda. All items listed below have been previously discussed, require no deliberation or any routine by the city council and may be enacted with one motion. Uh a consider approval of the minutes of the regular Keen City Council meeting held on January 15, 2026. B. Consider approval of a resolution to remove Lisa Parish as a signatory on all of the city's bank accounts. And C, consider approval of a resolution to add the city manager and city secretary as signitories on the Texas Water Development Board TWWDB grant bank account. I move to approve this consent agenda.

I'll second.

Okay. All those in favor? Okay. Okay, we didn't have any of them to be removed or anything. So, um there are no public hearings items at this time. and uh general review, discuss and consider acceptance of Mayor Parish's resignation effective January the 16th of 2026 and giving a vote of confidence for Samantha Gillan, Mayor Pro Tim, acknowledging the mayor pro Tim shall fill the vacancy and conduct city business as the acting mayor until a new mayor is selected in the next Keen general election to be held November the 3rd of 2026. Council, is there any discussion on this item?

Motion. Yeah. A motion was made by if you're going to give one. Yeah. So, I move to uh accept Mayor Parish's resignation effective January 16, 2026. Second. Sorry, didn't know you I thought and endorse Samantha Gillan as our acting mayor. Second. All those in favor. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

On behalf of the city, I will say thank you Samantha for being willing to step in and fill that role um fill the gap during this time. So, thank you very much. Well, thank you guys for your confidence. Excuse me. Okay. And we are going to be going into executive session. Pursuant to the Texas Open Meetings Act, chapter 551, Texas Government Code, the City Council may recess to executive session at any time during the meeting that a need arises for the city council to seek advice from the city attorney as to any posted item and by following authority. Excuse me. Excuse

gracious.

So this will be item 8A, Texas government code section 551.074 personnel matters. discuss the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties of a public officer or employee. So, recess into executive session at 7:47.

Okay. Okay. The time is 8:57 p.m. and I'm calling the meeting back to order. Um, council, do I have a motion? He's not here yet. I need to Yeah, just a second. Pause for a second

at 858. He's usually the first one out here. There we are now. Okay. the time is was 8:58 and I was calling the meeting back to order and um council, do I have a motion?

We do. Um I'd like to make a motion and although there was only one applicant, uh we have chosen not to appoint the applicant to the board of adjustments. Okay. All those in favor And mayor, one of the things that we discussed back in executive was our city secretary, Holly, and I'd like to go on record as saying that she's doing a fantastic job. Absolutely.

And I've been on council for a number of years. In fact, I was here when she was hired. and to see how far she's come in that amount of time. My hat is off to her. So, thank you very much for your service. In fact, I think we should give her a standing ovation. Honestly, I really do.

Thanks, Holly. And I might say that the entire council is very very happy with our city secretary. We're going to buy Velcro and Velcro her to her her chair in her office and the city manager and the city manager. Well, okay. Um, do we have anything else that we need to discuss? Okay. Yeah. need uh any requests for future agenda items for the next meeting. I'd like to have us adopt that uh boards and commissions policy that we talked about back in July but didn't adopt.

Board commission. The boards and commissions okay policy. Okay. Rob wants to bring back the boards and commission policy or discuss it at the next meeting. Does anybody else have anything else? Don't have any. Huh? I'll make a motion to adjourn. Okay. Meeting is adjourned. 901. All right. Okay.