City Council - Regular Meeting

Mayor, thank you, Mayor. Today's introductory, first I want to be remissed. Ryan attempted to stay as long as he could. He has been ill the last few days. He attempted to stay as much as he could, so I'm going to be leading today's budget workshop. The purpose of today's meeting was to make sure that we went over some preliminary thoughts and input from you guys. We respectfully assigned for you guys to try to get any input or feedback or things that you may have had in mind that your contingency or yourself thought needed to be priorities so i know we've talked about several things in the past but this is your point to try to bring all them together i'll give an example uh only because i'm making contact with uh councilman wallace uh he's made a very big approach both you and dustin uh councilman oliver excuse me have made the the request for some flashing lights we did try a pilot program with some flashers It has started. We have done it, but if we want to continue, we would need funding for that. That's a capital improvement, or that's something we need to add to the budget. There was a request from different departments, from different folks, residents, to maybe redo the pickleball courts over at Sien Park. If we want to add that, then we need input to make sure that that's something we want to look at possibly having. If there's any priorities that anybody may have or that your contingency may have asked for, this is the time to bring those forward so we can formulate some type of draft budget to bring back to you for initial review. Obviously, it's very preliminary. The preliminary roles are rolling in, no pun intended. But as we go through this process, staff has put together what's in front of you. This is a draft synopsis. We're trying to put together our first ever CIP booklet to show you our capital improvement plan, show you every single item that is needed. The idea for this plan is to be spread over five years and for us to have some type of plan or idea of how we're gonna fund these items. So what you have before you is a preliminary plan. Some of the departments are still putting in some of their final touches on some of the stuff and getting pricing. For example, there's a couple of these that don't have prices yet, or we have a range. Obviously we can't get exact pricing because obviously we cannot bid this out yet because we're not, Approved to actually proceed with some of these items. So this is a preliminary of things that either staff has saw that there is a need based on their evaluations of each individual department. Things that we've identified here, big items that we've talked about or anything else that's necessary. I talked to PD just a little while ago. There's some things they're going to look at possibly adding. I talked to Captain Reese and to Chief Garibay earlier. Our intent is to make this a complete idea of what we have. Now, this sheet totals $1.5 million. Can we probably get everything on here? No. Are there things on here that we might have to spread over certain years? Absolutely. We're completely understanding of that. But the synopsis and the direction we're going is to bring you a list of all things that we need and or want to be better and more effective at our jobs or to protect the livelihood of our residents and visitors. Yes, I'm sorry. I have to report that we did have a couple of leaks. So I do apologize if you hear some banging. We've had a couple of leaks that we've experienced from the heavy rains the last few days. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.

Should we just plow into this list? Yes. I've got some questions like the very first one, court. Yes. Cubicles. There used to be cubicles in there. Well. And then they went away. And where are they? Why'd they go away if we want them?

Originally when I asked for the cubicles. Are you turning on? Yes. Aaron would not let me get the ones that we needed. And it just got to be too much in there. What we're wanting is something to put up. that will help the noise. You know how noisy it gets out here in the foyer when people are on talking back and forth? Well, it's the same thing in our office. You have two people on the phone, they're talking over each other, it's loud. We've got to try and find a way to block this noise. When they're both at that window working, it's horrible when we're in court because we're getting all the noise from the foyer into here. So that's the reason we're wanting to get different types of cubicles to try and help the noise situation.

What would the difference be? Those were pretty high.

These actually go up about seven feet. It has a noise barrier on it. It has its own little sliding door. That way they can shut that door. It also gives them a little bit of privacy. That way they're not on top of each other. They're in that room all day long. They need their own little space.

We also have the, I'm sorry to interrupt, we also have the sensitivity that there is sensitive information being discussed, obviously, when folks are talking, such as driver's license number or any of the information, so forth, that we want to make sure is as protected as possible. Sorry.

Okay, I want to kind of level set, because my definition of capital improvement claim is... literally an item that can be depreciated over in excess of five years. That is what a capital improvement. Now, if you're gonna show me some other Texas law or whatever, that is not the case, but capital improvement. So basically, anything that would not be depreciated over less than five years would not be a capital improvement and should, in my opinion, be in our regular budget. And just to echo your point on, well the numbers are coming in, if I recall correctly at the last meeting, and I asked this specifically, that we would not, we would have actually no new revenue. My understanding, we actually have a budget number that we can actually start shooting for. If there's extra room later on, by all means. But we actually have a budget number that we can shoot for. And from my understanding of what was mentioned by my question and my response from the finance officer. And then the question I had on, for instance, and I wholeheartedly agree with you on the cubicle. But my question is this, and not only you're gonna be able to answer this. You're given a budget, and I know a lot of it is restricted because it can only go for the court technology, it can only go for this. Within your court budget, do you get a portion of your court budget from the city? we do okay and so and i realize sometimes it gets moved here and moved there so i would ask that uh and obviously the other council members have their own input that uh those things that cannot that are depreciated under five years which is what and i believe you're going to have like cubicles that uh that being put in your regular budget and it's just not a CIP item. Again, my other council members may have a different, but that's... We were asked to put in a wish list.

That's what we did, whether we do it under CIP or if we do it under budget. This is something that has to be done because we're going to get some of the laws for the state. Yes, correct. Yes.

But definitely. And then the other thing on ENCODE, would... That's in addition to the court technology.

Yes, that is court technology. Some of it will need to come from the city because of the price of it, but that's if we go with 10. The issue we're having is 9, they're doing no updates on 9. There's no improvement. There's nowhere to go with 9. Yes, we're hosted with it. Eventually, down the road, in a couple of years, we would like to see the whole city go to 10.

Sometimes it's better to go ahead and bite the bullet and take it now than have glitches later.

Any other questions?

This is the same. 10 is the one you and I discussed about a year ago. Yes. And you were wanting to skip 9 and go on. Yes. So nothing really has changed.

Nothing really has changed. We're looking at going to 9 cloud. We're trying to see if maybe that will do some improvement because it's the cloud they are doing updates on 9 cloud. We're just waiting for a feedback from that. It's a lot cheaper to do that. So we're just waiting.

Is there anything needed with respect to

parking software or is there anything else wrong with parking there's several challenges right now yes there's several challenges with the parking right now unfortunately we don't have an estimated price yet we are discussing with different vendors some possibilities of what it could look like so we can put a proper proposal together to go out to get bids or quotes um but right now as of the moment of this meeting we don't have that yet

we have had some challenges because jerry handles yes yes we are we're working on that looking at different companies um the company we have now so they were going to do a certain thing that they have not done which is all falling back on us to try and get it done until we either make a move or whatever we decide to do with it anything else any other questions for miss jerry

Oh, can you turn your microphone on? Thank you for getting that.

By the time I get used to it, you probably change the microphone. No, no worries. I've just got a question. I live in the Huntington complex and I've been seeing and a lot of people have been coming up to you.

Now you're on city council. What can you do about our mosquito issue?

That's with public works. I'm not public works. Yeah, yeah.

They do spray. It's just been so bad.

With the rain and everything, you just can't do it.

But you can holler at Rayshard.

Mosquito man.

Mosquito man. Exactly what's been said. We do have the machine, and the weather has been our problem. And the county has been spraying because we checked their schedule to see if the county is spraying. So if the county is If chemo is on the county schedule, we will not spray for the reason being that we don't want to get in a situation where somebody may say their bees got killed or any of those kind of things so we know who to blame. And we won't get blamed for it. But aside from that, any time the weather is a factor, we will not be spraying, whether it's if it's raining, potential for rain, high winds. Those things are the reasons why we won't spray. And when one or two people call, I don't, in the past, we haven't, you know, went out and sprayed because two people are calling. I've had one guy call all the time in the years. He's actually moved away now, so I don't have to worry about that call. But, you know, we do take that into consideration because we are here working as well, and we're getting bit too. So...

Well, can I ask this of you? Is there any way I can get a copy of your schedule so I'll have it in case somebody asks me why aren't they spraying?

We don't actually make a schedule. We do it, to be honest with you, off a call base. If the mosquitoes are bad, we know it too, right? And if you have a request, then feel free to call me directly. Call City Hall and say, hey, mosquitoes are bad in this area. We will come out, respond to see, you know, what we can do. Put it on our schedule. That way I can ask one of the guys who has a license to spray, you know, hey, listen, you know, council members are calling, residents are calling, and then we can prepare for that, you know, at night, early mornings, or whatever.

Okay, well, I'm glad to know that. The county also has a portal that .

Yeah, and I was going to say that as well. If you can go on the county's website to the mosquito control, it shows their daily schedule. If they're going to spray, a lot of times they're going to say on their schedule, not spraying due to weather. But they're going to show you exactly where they're spraying. There's a spray map.

Councilman Roark, what we'll do is we'll put together something not only for your consumption to share with your constituency, but also put something back out on the website to make sure that folks know and also back out.

Maybe Rayshard or Cesar can email you that link and you can share it with.

Yeah, and before the meeting's over, I'll give you my direct number. That way you can call me directly if you need me. Okay. Thank you.

Hang on, Rashard, don't go anywhere.

You're up next.

Question on the equipment covering. Are you asking for specific covers for equipment or something to park under, like both?

It would be both, but right now, and we've talked about this some years back, about getting some covering for the equipment. We just bought that new machine, sitting out in the sun.

Do you have room for a... barn roof at the yard over there?

We have the room. I've actually gotten a couple quotes, not temporary, but some quotes that ain't really exact, like was mentioned earlier. It's really not exact. And it's not all the equipment. It's some of it, like some of our traffic control devices, cones and barrels. Those things sitting out in the sun all day long are starting to fade. And if we can at least just get those covered, along with some of the equipment. You know, our trailers, maybe not so much, but our tractor, we got two brand new tractors pretty much that's getting baked in the sun. We've had to replace some seats on some of the equipment that's been here for a while because there have been no covering over the years, and the seats start to crack and take on water, and then, you know.

Are you talking more like a carport?

Yeah, something like carports. but a little bit stronger. I probably didn't include it in the packet or whatever, but there's been a couple examples given to me from the vendor on what they can do. And one of the examples was, like you see at the apartment complexes, you see what those covers look like? Basically, that's exactly what they sent as far as the picture. That's exactly what they sent me back, that that's what they do. Some of them, one or two, like for the... traffic control devices that can be a car cover it don't have to be that high dollar one but we we need something to cover this up because sooner or later we'll be trying to buy we need to buy some more right now but they won't be of as use yeah because of you know the coloring is faded the the reflective tape is flakes uh faded so you know that's why we're asking for that what are you thinking about for personnel shelter personnel shelter uh-huh that's

on there with covered equipment and personnel shelter?

I don't know.

I don't either. Did you put something for personnel shelter? I don't see that. That's PD.

No, that's on the PD. Oh, that's on the police. We'll discuss that.

Oh, it sure is.

Yeah, I know what that is now. He can answer that question.

I saw you shaking your head. I should have known.

As I said, police aren't up yet. You'll get in the hot seat.

My bad. Yeah, yeah. If we could touch base on a couple of these items, because even public works, although a good portion of it is not complete, there's some things that we've realized even as we've been putting this together. We don't have an actual jet truck, so we can't go out there and properly take care of some of the culverts. We don't have an actual bucket truck, so when it's time for us to do stuff that we have to get up high, we have to either go on a ladder or rent one, and obviously that becomes very costly. So there's a couple of things that I've asked Richard to start putting together. to put on here and if it doesn't get accepted doesn't get accepted bless you and i completely understand that but we need to make sure that we're properly telling everybody yourselves the residents everybody else what the needs are um sometimes we make things happen no matter what um and we're gonna always preach safety first that's one reason why we got the machine that we uh purchased last year uh because if i can tell you that that grass was still getting cut but if we would have been under osha we probably would have had a problem with the way we were doing it speaking of that machine i don't see any

request on here for other attachments? Unless I missed it.

One of the attachments that we had requested initially was the ditching bucket. That's something that we, Cesar and I, have talked about probably putting and getting into the budget and not actually a CIP. I believe that'll kind of help us at least clean around some of these ditches. And, you know, because I talked with Fabian who's been mainly operating that thing, and he said that he believed it may help, but then it may not get us really what we need. And Cesar mentioned about the ditches. A lot of these culverts are clogged up. I actually called the fire chief the other day to ask him if he would come out with his fire truck with the high-pressure hose and clean out some of these culverts down at the end of Fay The resident has called us twice in the last week. We went out there last week and tried to clean out the cover.

At the very end?

At the very end. They were taking on water down there because that ditch in the curve, in the cul-de-sac, there's two reasons why it's been happening. WCID has been dead-end flushing that fire hydrant and flushing the mud down off in the ditch. And we've asked them to stop, but, you know, I mean, I know they have to do it, but there's a better way to do it. We've asked them to put a hose on it and let the hose, you know, lay in the ditch instead of just flushing it out. So that culvert is packed with mud and these residents.

I do mine the same way on the corner. I've come home many times and they're flushing it out there just right in my yard. Send them a letter, send them a bill.

Do you think that's what's happening at the corner of Evergreen and Gordy?

but something's draining off his property.

I literally just came from there, and it's still draining from out of there. So it's not, you know, it's draining, which is a good thing, but it's draining off of the property, and it's going into the stream.

It hasn't been bad except for the last couple rains. I've been there for two years, and I've never seen it like that. Right. How about you?

No, I mean, the last two rains has definitely been worse. And even days after the rain, you'll still see water come over that curb down to that drain at the corner.

We have the same problem on South Kemah Drive. That vacant property there is draining into the ditch on South Kemah Drive. Just this morning, Tyler called me like, hey, man, there's water draining out of that property over there. But it's been like that ever since I started here. Water has always drained off that property. So there's really nothing we can do about that.

I just wonder if the drains were backing up.

I need to build something on my land that has drainage in it.

it was happening the same thing this morning it wasn't it wasn't as bad this morning on Anders because the time

uh the good thing about it is the tide was low this morning that's why we didn't have a lot of water standing and it went away pretty quick i've got a question yes sir when i lived in galveston they had a lot of property mostly on the far west end that had ditches and they would also complain about the mosquitoes afterwards when water was up and, you know, piling up in the ditch. But I was just thinking, wouldn't it make sense if we could somehow, whether we teamed with League City or just can do it ourselves, to put piping down and then cover the grass,

pipes up and then maybe make sidewalks and maybe stretch the street a little bit wider that is music to our ears that is that is music to our ears to hear you say that that is very exciting to hear you say that i heard you say that before plenty of times right um we we've talked about being more of a curb and gutter city uh and not so much of an open ditch city and that's kind of to summarize what it was that you just said um that is a dream Uh, I think that's more feasible, uh, little by little to phase that in. Uh, and yes, that's one of the pros of, of ditch versus not is ditch requires less maintenance from a regular basis. And because it's, you know, like during the right away, the residents and the businesses would share that responsibility. The difference with, in this case, closed-ditch or curb and gutter to allow for sidewalks and hopefully wider lanes, maybe a bike lane or anything of that nature, is the cost of that infrastructure. It is very, very costly, but something that we have looked at in the past, and it's part of our... master drainage plan, drainage master plan, excuse me. So those are some of the things that we'd like to get done, and there are some sectors that we're attacking first.

Let me ask this. Would it be okay if I went and met up with the people in Lake City and talked to them, see what they had to say, like a joint venture?

I think that they would be very happy to do that. However, we've already started those conversations, and it depends on where it is on TxDOT Road versus City Roads. As you know, for example, you're sensing Lake City, so I'm assuming you're either talking about 96 or Lawrence, because that's where we border Lake City. So it would have a lot to do with what the plans are for that street. There has been some discussion of widening Lawrence Road, for example. We just had a meeting with TxDOT a few weeks ago where there's a plan to eventually widen 96. So those are part of the plans that are coming down. I mean, we're talking about 10 years down the line or so forth. So on those roads specifically, it's going to be a little bit more difficult. But your main corridors, so your Evergreens, your Anders, your South Kemah Drive, those streets are probably a little bit more feasible. One of the plans we have right now for South Kemah Drive, for example, in the portion that is abutting the back of Meritage all the way to Anders, there's a very large open ditch there. part of the plans that we submitted that we've gotten a partial approval from the county through the county bond project is to make that one curb and gutter. Unfortunately, the price of construction has gone a lot since we put those proposals in three or four years ago. And that's one of the biggest challenges that we're having. But yes, your thought process is exactly what we would like to do and we want to eventually get to. Unfortunately, funding is the biggest challenge and we're going to have to find a way to attack that.

Well, let me assess it. Wherever I can help, just let me know what I can do.

I know who to count on when it comes to stormwater. And I'm glad you're saying that because actually if we could, Please, if there's no other comment on that, segue to some more public works items, talk about drainage.

Yeah, we're halfway through, so we need to talk faster.

At no other time has the importance of our pump station been more relevant than it has been in the last few months. I know historically we've said, well, just get rid of the pump drain and raise up, what is it, Crazy Island Pump Jack, and then that will make the problem go away. At no other time have we noticed the importance of that pump station than when we had this massive water leak that shut down the city for pretty much what was up. at least a full day, all that water, all that drainage from that entire lighthouse district and pretty much from eighth, excuse me, eighth street over, we know for sure that is draining into that pump station. We know that because in all the drains that this water went down during the water leak that we could control and find out it was only in one specific area and not tied to other areas, we were identified that that was going to that pump station. That pump station, I would love to take everybody here on council. Obviously, we've got to do it in twos unless we have what's called a mobile workshop. I would like to take you to go see these things. I would like to schedule some time between now and the next public budget workshop so you'd understand and visually see what it is that we're asking for. I think that's of importance so you can see why we're asking for it. That pump station drains directly into the bay. We have no screen there. We have, it is a four-pump station. Right now, we're down to...

It's a three-pump station. Right now, we're down to two. Right.

And... Actually, it's a four, because we never had one before.

Yeah, well, it is. Technically, it's a four-pump station.

We only have three pumps to begin with. One's in the shop, and one of the other two that's there is failing.

And the radiator to the backup generator is non-operational right now. So the most important thing right now is to get that backup generator... operational, because right now, if we lose power, forget about it. There's no drink, that pump station is not gonna work. So that right there is of utmost importance, to go ahead and let's get that radiator repaired. Because we can't even turn that backup generator on, that you're gonna burn it up,

So the pump station backup power and the pump station radiator repair or replacement.

Right. We just had a surge protector put in because if you remember we had to replace the ATS some years back. So we finally got the surge protector put in and an auto dialer that would alert us to when there's an issue or if the pump's running, if it's not running and those things. It's not It's in there, but we don't have the information back from the company. They're still setting it up for us.

Although staff religiously checks this thing on a regular basis, we don't know what the rains that we've gotten. If these rains would have been overnight and we didn't have a person come by and check it and we needed to empty that throughout the night, obviously we're at our mercy of the actual tide. If the tide is high, it doesn't matter. The water's not going anywhere, right? But if the tide is in our favor and we can pump that water out, it still serves for better flood protection for that entire Lighthouse District. So if you notice on here, out of the 10 items that Public Work has on here, four are tied to that pump station. I cannot say the importance of that situation more, and it's never been more relevant than it has been in all these recent rains. We have an obligation to protect stormwater and protect drainage in that area, and I would ask you to please consider those things when we're going through this process. We are searching for grant funding on this. We are putting some preliminary applications together to see if we can offset that cost, but obviously those things take time, and there's also a chance that we can apply and not be able to. be actually given those funds. So the concrete patch, you guys understand, when you guys get a chance to go on the tour with us, right now that concrete pad is capturing anything that comes through. So any silt or anything that comes through those lines, we do have what we call a riff-raff barrier that protects the water before it goes through the drain. But if you go look at that area right now, it is in very, very bad shape. And it's hard for us to maintain it because of the shape that it's in. so we can't send staff in there to go in there and randomly pressure wash it for example if it was a concrete base like a imagine a wide open half culvert that would flow the water in and it would much be easier for us to maintain it and that's what that i'm paraphrasing but that's essentially what that company and the cost is going up because the first quote we got uh about a year and a half 18 months or so ago was 49 000 the same company quoted us 75 000 this time

um just some other quick questions here why why would we need uh community center chairs and tables or something wrong with those the condition that those are in we had asked for this in last year's budget we tried to tape them and put them together and it's it's getting like the six foot plastic tables half of them i've already broken or they're cut up we need new tables the chairs are the old fold up metal chairs

They're not for certain weight, and larger people sit in it, and they've been breaking them. They're old.

Why do we not just rent this stuff when there's an event, charging to the client that wants to rent the space?

I think it would drive the price up so much that you would not get any rentals. You would either have to coincidentally drop the rental rate.

Every event space in this town does it. in the region, does it? No, not everybody. Not everybody. City does not. Not everybody. City has tables.

Municipal, most municipal community centers.

Well, I'm not talking about municipal. I'm talking about the ones that are more full than the city. The Texas City Doyle Center. They haven't.

You don't have to rent tables. They have the table.

I mean, you know, you're getting charged for it when you rent the venue. That's a cost analysis.

Or something else. I just. A question that I think kind of. We could. We could.

We could evaluate that during the process.

we're also wanting to take down the blinds they are they're dusty it's expensive to have people go in and clean them they're old it does not keep the heat out and we're suggesting to put a tent film on there that helps block the heat and

protect the blinds yeah it'll get rid of the blinds i'll make it look a lot better in there don't you have some issues with the windows themselves though yes on some of them yes so that would be addressed definitely well we i just want to take a moment and just talk about that one of the biggest reasons why we're looking at doing that is because of the stress that it puts on the ac right that that building for energy consumption you know conservation reasons, we don't turn the AC on unless we need to use it. But when we do, when it comes to trying to keep the place cool and getting the place cool to begin with, those five, six, eight degrees difference of what it is now, what we believe it should be when the tent comes in, would make a difference.

Also, there has been an increased use.

You just had it repaired. But there is an increased use of the community center. We are starting to get more requests. We're using it ourselves more. We're getting much more, whether it's nonprofits or paid or anything else, we're getting more people to use that center. We do know that it's not a money generating or revenue generating. We try to do the best we can to break even as much as we can, if not try to cover all of our costs as well. But we also know that it's an asset for the community. We do have it stated as our potential location station if we have to do evacuations or if we need in the future another item that's on here for a warming center. That's why we talked about the generator there.

Lions Club uses it for their Thanksgiving giveaways.

There's plenty of community uses, and we're only getting more. This year we've been challenged to put together a facility reservation for them. Once we start advertising this center, it's going to compete with some of the other centers and probably exceed it and then get much more use. But, again, how much money did we lose in the community center last year? We'd have to run that report and get back to you. I mean, we need to know that number.

I mean, some of this stuff, the windows, the AC, that is what it is. You've got to fix the place. We own it. We've got to take care of it.

And we started discussing about putting ceiling fans up to help the circulation.

If we're only losing a couple thousand dollars, I'm more inclined to be – board with some of these because you get your money back faster but if i'm losing 75 000 a year already and it's going to take even longer to make this money when you have people in there and they use it three times a month for free it adds up and that's every month so certainly what we'll do if it's okay i think what i'm reading is for the sake of time is we'll get a cost analysis and bring it back thank you i mean we just need to know we just need to know the detailed number before i get on board with that's good thirty thousand dollars worth of expenses that is it going to take me Two years, do you make that money back for the taxpayer? Ten. You know, I mean, I just, and you're right, we give that place away a lot. And I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I think some of our local, you know.

I think it's abused some, but.

You know, I don't mind the Lions Club using it.

I think it needs to be done because they help us out a lot, but.

one of the things that you'll see for approval is going to be a non-profit rate so that from now on you're either going to have to pay the non-profit rate which at least will cover the cleaning expenses and whatnot and some of the basic cost versus not so that way if anybody comes to waive a fee for you it's because it's they don't even want to pay the non-profit rate so i think that's been a a theme that i've heard throughout the meetings lately so you're going to have three rates it's going to be resident non-resident and non-profit and then at that point you can make that decision

Jerry, I'd like to back up on your ENCODE software. Is that a one-time fee? Do you have to pay a monthly fee?

There is a monthly fee.

Is it on top of this $20,000? Yes. Okay. But you're already paying it now, right? Yeah, we're paying the monthly fee now. Okay. So that would be a wash.

Yes, that would be a wash.

I want to mention one other thing when it comes to the community center and the generator that's a want and actually a need. You've got to think about that you're renting this place out, and if you lose power there, somebody's got an event going on, you're dead in the water. They're dead in the water as far as furthering their event. So that's another thing to look at.

One of the things that we've looked at doing for this as a possible cost-saving factor in this case is that if we can't use that and can't afford a generator, is at least to get the box prepared so that if we needed to add a generator that we could rent and bring on site, it would be a cost-saving measure that way. So we are looking at a different... We're not just coming and saying, hey, we want a generator over there. We're looking at different ways that we had to do it. you understand that that expense is argument there for fema money if we're gonna use as a warming center and a evacuation spot for disasters certainly and they'll pay for the the actual generator that we would bring over that would be paid under fema reimbursement at the appropriate percentage however getting in the hookup done beforehand is something different that would be on us to prepare the site in case we wanted to go that route and again we are also aggressively searching for grant funding impossible to get that done

Okay, let's try to move on and get to everybody on the list.

Let me ask one more thing. Public Works, would this be a good time to talk about sidewalks or not? Yes, that would be a good time. For repairs and for completion of some of the sidewalks that we...

So I did have a company reach out to us a while back, and the gentleman called me Friday wanting to come out and do a sidewalk assessment. I kind of had talked to a couple different people, so I was kind of... unclear what he was trying to do and what the cost was. So I spoke with Cesar about it, and this is a no-cost assessment that this company, they actually were supposed to come out yesterday and today, but the rain, I'm sure they didn't come out. So there is an assessment going on, possibly going on as soon as the weather clears, that they're going to come out and assess, one, chemo for sure, and then once we get that, they may move to another area. And all this is free.

Is this just for repairs or for combination?

I just want to do two different things as far as that. So going back to Councilman Thorne's point, new sidewalks would be a capital improvement. Maintenance or repair on sidewalks would be a budgetary item. But we are looking at both to get that done. So, for example, I believe probably the main one you're talking about is the sidewalk on Evergreen. There will be an item later in a few minutes on that agenda that's part of that project that we're itching to get started.

Okay.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Hi. As far as finance is concerned, oh, city administrator, community center. Oh, never mind.

That was just that's audio visual for that place. We've had several meetings and had struggles with the audio.

I think a lot of things we've talked about needs to come back with a much more specific number. And then we have two things here on finance, which is software related. Ryan is not here.

I can just speak to them very briefly. These, if you notice, we're not looking at proposing these for the 27 year, but when we're doing a CIP, we want to do a five-year CIP. So we're looking at possibly spreading this between the 28 and 29 year. We're not ready yet, but we know that at some point we should include that, and that's why we're bringing this forward.

Okay. Now, Chief, your chunk. My chunk or not? Okay, I'll just talk real quick.

I'll skip a couple things. I'll let Catherine restart. Chief, turn your mic on. Turn your mic off.

About the surveillance in the tower, They're covered, sheltered back here. We're running out of room, as you can see, when you were in there painting. We had that one wasted space. If you come out that side door, it's about 18 by 20 that we could use to cover so we could put more of our equipment under there for protection. You're looking anywhere between $5,100, $5,500. Cesar supports it. We just need to bring this to you guys. And also, there's also an area for these guys to hang out in between. There's not a break area here, period, inside the city. You see them out there in the hot sun, just kind of sitting on the bench, trying to grab something. It's a combo type thing to protect some of our equipment, also for an area for these folks.

No, ma'am.

We could move it. No, it would be from that this way. And it would be connecting to the existing. So that's one of the things on that. So we'll bring that to you. We also want to fence in that back end area. We know we've had members of the media that have come back there in our area standing right on top of our. The other day I found someone that got released from jail sitting back there where we want to put this covered area because technically it's not secured. The other thing is if we bring in evidence, a vehicle that we're trying to seize, whatever it may be, The law requires us to have it in a secured area. A prisoner gets out the door, he's free to go. At least it's another barrier for them to try to escape through. We've already got a couple of bids on that. We were actually surprised. We thought we were looking at $40,000, $50,000. We're getting it somewhere around $25,000 to $28,000. So that's another thing we'd like to bring to you all. Evidence locker. Right now, we have high school lockers where we put our evidence in with a lock. We are behind the time. That evidence room is a whole nother thing. Again, these are just things that we really need, not a want. We really need these things to get up to speed with everybody else. Evidence program, since I was told, we still have evidence in our property room from 2009. Lieutenant Torres, over the last three to four months, with help from staff, we're going through that thing little by little to try to get rid of things. We think we're gonna try to catch up. Our target is 2013. We've had two different evidence programs that they've used. They've lost, not evidence, they've just lost the data to it because of these, we wanna go to this thing called the BEAST, which is compatible with what League City's using, what Seabrook's using, so we could all be on the same link together. But first, our goal is to get rid of everything from 2013 behind, then from 2013 forward, start working on putting everything into this BEAST system. So that's something that we, again, not a want. It's a need that we really, really need.

What line item is the BEAST in?

That's going to be the evidence program. Yes, ma'am. Okay. We should have put the BEAST out there. That's on me. I gave it to Cesar late. The storage slab. We actually got lucky, and we got another Connex box that had run out of place. We were paying for a storage building, paying $250 a month. He and I got together and said, let's save some money. We found a good container, got a hold of it, brought it, save money we just bought the container for now but eventually we need to try to move it out into the empty overflow parking lot and to do it right is to have it on a slab bolt it down the proper way so that's part of what we want to do we actually want to get a third storage container to run out of room so we'd have three but a nice slab to put it on out there in that empty parking lot secure them down for hurricane reasons and make it look nice we may even go get a mural put on them later to just not just be a storage container out in the middle of our parking lot to make it actually look good in the parking lot. Beast, fencing, slab, locker, covered shelter, and then Captain Reese, I'll let you take these other two. There are video surveillance and the communication tower.

Okay, well, I'd start with the communications tower first because that is paramount. That's actually top priority there. Our current communications tower has been in place since 1989 and has never been serviced. So there was an engineering study that was done on it. You all have a copy of that study. And it says that it needs to be either rehabbed or replaced. Another thing with the video surveillance, a lot of our cameras need to be upgraded. So that's one of the reasons why it's in the plan.

And you all see the tower that's outside the PD, right? It's that long thing that's right here on the side, come in the front door. If that thing goes out, we're going to have a lot of problems with what we have. That thing runs a lot of things that we got going on here at the police department within the city.

For safety reasons, since it is a soft target, that's another reason for the required fencing. And I'd rather not disclose that here at this meeting as to the need for it and the extreme need for safety purposes. However, I have no problem talking about that with the guys offline separately. It's not that we're trying to hide anything. It's just we also have to err on the side of safety because it is a soft target.

Wow. Real quick.

But again, yes. I will say about these two things, obviously, there's probably two of the biggest price tag items that are on this entire list. We are aggressively looking for funding or support to try to get these done. And we have been. And I think we may have found one or two that might qualify for it. And when the time comes, we'll bring some of these funding applications to you. And some of them we've already brought, but we haven't gotten word back yet. So either way, we needed to tell you what they were. Because grant funded or not, the needs still exist.

I understand.

Questions, concerns about us?

I don't have a question for the police department. That all makes sense, besides we can't afford all that. Thanks, brother. I understand the need for it. The only question I don't hear, the IT stuff is coming up, but before we get into that, Natasha, there's nothing in here for the city secretary's office. You're not asking for anything? okay so the pd could have i do think i'd like to add for your office some i think we need to at least look at pricing of going having somebody go through our code book and updating our ordinances and... We have that.

It's in my budget under re-quantification.

Okay.

It's not in the CIP, but it's in our regular budget.

As long as it's asked for. Okay. There's a lot of this. This isn't a CIP item. This is just a wish list.

I've seen her budget, and she had that in there. Okay.

Yeah. it was actually in last year's budget if you remember to get to the number that we wanted to get to we had to make some cuts and so that's one of the items that we cut last year so we had a sacrifice from every department and that was the sacrifice made by the city secretary's office

So who's going to answer IT or we're going to tangle it to the next meeting?

I can actually answer most of IT. The plotter, as you know, we've been digitizing all of our records with regular scanners, but some of the documents that we have, including the plans, God forbid something happens, we only have one copy, which is a paper copy. Some of those are secured in an attic, and God forbid there's a flood or a leak or anything happens, then those could be compromised. We want to make sure we scan those and digitize all of those. That's the main reason for the plotter. The desktop laptop replacement is because a lot of your computers in the city are either obsolete or getting there. We want to set a plan over the next five years to get those replaced. Also switching away from desktops and to laptops because in case of emergency, a COVID, a storm, anything that would occur, we could easily pivot and transition to desktops, excuse me, laptops instead of desktops. The redundant server and storage and PD records, we brought this item last year to the budget. We have servers. Again, I'm not going to go into too much detail, but we could do a better job of securing our servers better and making sure that they're safe. Obviously, they have a lot of important information. Our 911 in our entire city operates through our servers or the cloud, and either way, we do need to do a better job of how we have the servers. i can just summarize it by saying it looks like it's been piece mailed as the building has grown or things have happened with the building or needs we kind of have server stuff all over the place and it's best that we put them in the best place possible and as secure as possible because some of them are in places they probably shouldn't be and then the city-wide camera system replacement we've got cameras that have some of them have never been maintenance or replaced or a needed replacement throughout the entire city I believe maybe almost half of them need to be about to become obsolete throughout the entire city and obviously again without going into certain scenarios of things a lot of them are in compromising positions we want to make sure that we update our camera system a lot of them are also older models and on running on software that if the recorder goes down anything happens we're not gonna be able to access any of that camera footage

Ten-second question on that. Is this in regards to the RFP that we just, where we brought in bids, or those are separate things?

Kind of. To answer your question, I guess I could say maybe tied to that in a partial way, tied to that for some of the maintenance stuff, but the RFP did not include everything that we need. So to answer your question, partial.

Has it been awarded yet?

No, ma'am.

Okay, thank you. That's all I have.

Okay, we've only got a couple minutes, but so everybody can have uh i i guess direction would be to uh to everyone that has something on this wish list to bring back um if you want it all in this budget or spread out over two budgets and uh more finalized numbers anything else no we will prioritize like literally put a one and a two

Part of the actual CIP form is an actual form that goes with each one of these items. It includes a full description of what they are. There is a prioritization by department, and then you would get a full prioritization as to how those things align with all the city stuff. That's something that would be collectively done if and when that CIP is adopted. The idea is to adopt that in line with the budget. So that way every year you update your CIP, you also pass your budget accordingly based on what you were able to accomplish and what your new needs may be.

And has someone already started on... a hot fund committee and how to do that through the budget cycle as well.

The last direction we received from this body was to bring that the council would be the hot, hot fund committee because we did have a committee that was formed from before. The last direction was for the council for that. However, if there's a desire to do that differently, then please let us know so we can move forward.

That's I think so. Fine.

I think we've got very clear direction. What I do ask, if there's anything that comes up before the next meeting, to please let us know with enough time to be able to put it together, compile it, and if we need to go out for pricing so we hopefully can get it done in time for the next workshop in two weeks.

And the next workshop should be not next meeting, but every other meeting at 3 o'clock.

I don't have my calendar on me, but I believe it's the 15th, if I'm not mistaken.

But you'll let us know. Yes. Okay. I'll adjourn the meeting.