City Council - Special Meeting

no i'm not on purpose no i know we didn't get we're just a whole nother oh yes i'll go ahead and call to order our city council meeting for september 17th 2026 here in the city of longview welcome we are always excited to have a full chamber of people so excited to have you guys here tonight thank you for being here with us The first thing that we do is our invocation and pledge. And I will invite up Miss Natasha Duncan. She is the executive director of the East Texas Literacy Council. Miss Duncan, would you tell us just a little bit about the Literacy Council? And then when you're ready, we'll stand with you and do prayer and pledge.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. If you don't know, this month is National Literacy Month, so this is kind of our Super Bowl. We're having a fun time celebrating literacy and what that means in our community. So this is my 30 seconds to say that if you know somebody that is in need of literary help, whether that is they want to learn how to read, get their GED, or just be able to grow in the community, please send them our way. We're just shy of a few months of turning 40. We're going to have that big 40th birthday coming up. pretty soon so please just send them to the literacy council and we would just be honored to serve our community by helping those in need for the literacy department so thank you guys so much yeah absolutely if you guys will stand we'll do prayer and pledge heavenly father thank you for the city of longview longview and for the people who call this community home We are grateful for the leaders who have accepted the responsibility of serving our city. Please give our city council wisdom, discernment, patience, and understanding as they consider the matters before them today. Bless our city, our families, our businesses, and those who serve Longview. May our community continue to grow in unity, opportunity, and compassion. In your name we pray, amen. Amen.

I pledge allegiance.

indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so much thank you you guys can be seated

Next thing on our agenda is citizen comment. I do have a handful of speaker cards. Citizen comments are given at the beginning of the meeting unless it is for a specific public hearing for the budget. So I have a couple of them that are designated that way. And after we go through the other cards, I'll confirm that's where you do want to speak. But I'm going to start with Mr. Davis Bull. If you would come to the podium, you'll tell us your name. You do not need to tell us your address. And then you have three minutes to address the council. Just for those that are new, We are not allowed to engage back, so we will smile and nod at you, but we are not allowed to respond. So thank you for being here.

Thank you. All right. My name is Davis Bull. I need to talk about something that started about six months ago on March 4th. Texas DPS Criminal Investigations Division approved an emergency purchase for four 2026 Chevy Tahos to the tune of $4.49 million. That was $600,000 for the SUVs themselves and $3.89 million for the additional Falconet CSS equipment purchased from Cognite Software. Who is Cognite? They're a Middle Eastern surveillance technology company spun off from a company called Verint. Now, Verint had to spin off because they were investigated by Amnesty International for selling to South Sudan and facilitating numerous human rights violations. After spinning off, they became Cognite, They have since been investigated by Amnesty International, Privacy International, Meta, Netstetter, and the SEC for abusive surveillance practices, including in 2021 when Meta had to remove over 100 plus surveillance for hire customers using Cognite to create fake accounts for, quote, social engineering and information collection. And ready for this? Colombia, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Morocco, Mexico, Serbia, Thailand, and more recently, Norway. Now, what is this that they're putting on our streets? It's called CSS, or Cell Site Simulator. This is a portable device that makes all nearby 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G cell signals route through it automatically as if it were a real cell tower, collect all of the data that is transferring from your phone, and then reroute to the initial tower. There are options to collect all kinds of data from these things. We're unsure of what exactly is going to be put in, but on June 29th, an Ohio judge named Carmen Henderson denied a 30 day CSS warrant request to track suspects stating that the data collected from quote thousands of uninvolved, unaware, innocent people would be unconstitutional under the fourth amendment. Again, in August 5th, a us district judge in the same fifth circuit of appeals. We are in Carlton Reeves ruled that tower dump warrants, essentially the same thing, collecting the same information from cell towers. are unconstitutional regardless of how far they narrow the search. But what really gets me is that on this page that I printed off right here is that last year in the Senate budget bill, the Senate proposed to allocate $5.4 million for these cars, and the House shot it down. And then 10 months later, DPS circumvented the legislative process, the checks and balances that are due to us, proposed an emergency order to pay $4.5 million for these vehicles. So what we have is, DPS, an executive branch, ignoring the voice of the people from the House, circumventing legislative checks and balances, forcing citizens to pay a Middle Eastern surveillance company with clear evidentiary chain of civil rights abuses to unconstitutionally spy on us. All of this, I say to everyone watching, everyone in the building and on the cameras, that's for you guys. But this next part is for you up on the council and for you, Mayor. You are the ones with your foot in the door with a voice in places higher than I can achieve, anywhere that I can go. I can't speak on those big stages, and I can't speak to the quality of your character, but you all seem like people who genuinely care about this community. And right now, right in front of us, I see the community's rights being just stripped away from us left and right. We see it all over the place. And there's things that are trying to be done. But in a city of 83,000 people, Mayor, I ask you to remember not to get too bogged down in ordinances and tax rates, which are extremely important and need to happen. But I ask you not to lose yourself signing off and to remember that you are the voice of all 83,000 people in this town. And we are watching our rights be stripped away. I don't know what to do about it, but I sure hope you do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bold. Next speaker card I have is Mr. Wayne Rosette. So we are doing budget item A since it's not the public hearing. So if you're here to talk about recycling, you're talking now. You just happen to be the first one.

I'm Wayne Rosette, citizen of Longview, Texas, and I'm here to speak about the recycling. I have a couple of questions tonight. Can I ask questions? You can, but we will not answer. I'm so sorry. You won't answer them?

No, but we'll have a presentation later, so they might get answered then.

That's why I thought I was speaking later. Okay. Excuse me. I guess finding out that we're talking about doing away with recycling in Longview, I was kind of appalled because recycling's been going on for quite a while here. And as a city of this size, I find it unbelievable that we can't support recycling in this community. I know there's been some issues when the recycling center burned and we changed our plans and we changed what we were doing. We're putting all garbage in all containers and it was being hauled to the dump. And then we came out, got the recycling center back going again. And we said, well, you can put garbage in blue cans too on Monday. And there's a lot of people in Longview, Texas that think that they put it in the blue can, put it out on Monday. It's going to the recycling center. And that's not the case. It's going to the city dump. And so I urge this council to look at what we're doing. You need to clarify communications. If you're going to put recycling in blue, then you don't put anything else in recycling blue. You put the garbage in the garbage can, black lid, put it out on Monday or whatever day it is, Monday for me, and it goes to the dump. And blue recycling goes in the blue can, goes out the next day, and it's picked up and carried to the recycling center. I know there's been talk about how much recycling is down and I think that's because people don't understand what they're supposed to be doing. And so we need to clarify that. And to further clarify that, I would suggest that if we put blue cans out on the following day, you send a crew around, and I've seen trucks following trash trucks around, check those cans. I've gotten a citation once for having something that was in the bottom of the can and I didn't realize it and I got notified. And so if people are putting garbage in the blue can and expecting it to be hauled away, they get a citation. notice and if it continues you do step it up but recycling is important as environmental stewards of this world and this planet and I believe that we need to have recycling and I urge you to consider doing that now there's a price increase I was going to ask how much that was I think it's 40 cents that's going to get added to our I don't think 40 cents is very much to add to a bill to make sure that we're environmentally concerned about the environment And so I would encourage you to continue to do that. How much? Oh, I got three seconds. I'll never get back. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Mr. Lizette.

I've got, just in the interest of time, we do ask you guys not to clap. I know you agree, and you can please indicate silently. But Mr. Bennett, you are next.

Thank you for the opportunity to come today. I just had heard in the media about the budget concerns and the possibility of recycling. It concerned me, and just real briefly, I stand here grateful that I'm not the first one in support of recycling. But anyway, the thing of it is I thought most important to me is I'm and my wife are lifelong citizens from birth here in Longview. So we take a very keen interest in making sure that Longview is always known as a good place to live in a forward progressive type of town. I think doing it the way we're recycling would be a step backward. And I think it would show that we're not as progressive or looking forward to the future or taking advantages of the things that recycling has to offer now in modern society. I think the biggest thing about it is, as was mentioned a moment ago, With the things that happened with the plant in Kilgore and some of the other problems with recycling, I think there has been a lot of confusion, and I think there is more confusion that has led to the decrease in people recycling. I personally have a story that I would relate that makes me or helps people understand why I'm a converted recycler. I go back so far and to date myself as to when Longview had no recycling program at all. and when it came out it was more or less mandated or came out and promoted as a mandatory system and in exchange for that you got two barrels one for recycling one for trash and you no longer had to have black garbage bags at your curb so it sounded like well something what i would do well at first i was a little bit reluctant but i had a sister-in-law who has passed now but She and she lived in Longview or came back to Longview before recycling was a program here. And I used to make fun of her. And the reason why I made fun of her is she would collect cans and plastic bottles and things and bags and take them wherever she could find that she could recycle them so when it came to being now something on the curb i said well i'll try it i was shocked and amazed at how much my trash garbage was reduced by recycling and it's only been accelerated by the advent of new packaging cardboard boxes delivery More and more of the trash we have produced in our home is really recyclable. And so I think it's the thing that should be kept and promoted and find some way to not only keep it budget-wise, but also to promote it as something that's a good thing to do. i think that in terms of the the budget uh and the cost increase that's less on a hundred dollar water bill that's less than a half a percent increase and maybe the way to also increase participation would be to go ahead with that increase but somehow offer some sort of reward or incentive as a credit if you do recycle and And so I think the cost also of recycling versus just using the landfill, hopefully it's been factored in that you have the cost of increasing costs with landfill as you have more trash added to it from not recycling. So I just thank you for your time and let me promote to you my thoughts and ideas about the positive things of recycling.

Thank you, Mr. Bennett. Chris Seldon Marquez, you are next.

Now I can see you over the microphone. Good evening, my name's Griselda Marquez, for those of you that don't know, and I do wanna speak about the Curbside Recycling Program. I don't feel overly optimistic about what's gonna happen, but I still feel I need to speak my piece. I wish we hadn't been placed in this position with such a short deadline when it was likely known it would come to this six months ago. The public wasn't, the citizens were not given a public probational period to improve the program, before it would be terminated. I was recently asked why I personally recycle. The person wanted all kinds of scientific information. There's a reason I got a bachelor's of arts in mathematics instead of a bachelor's of science in mathematics. I did not like science, so those facts do not stick with me. But the reason that I do it simply boils down to it's the right thing to do for our environment. Overall, that's what we need to be thinking about. What it boils down to, like I said, is the right to protect our environment. I recycle even though it's not easy for me because I live in an apartment complex that does not do recycling. My cans have always gone out to my dad's house where my brother takes them for a little extra spending cash. My other recyclables, I have one of two friends that I use their recycling bins to put mine in. So I have to collect it in space I don't have in my apartment and then put it in my car and transfer it to whatever's appropriate. At the last meeting, John Neustadt mentioned that we need to have continual education on this program. That became evident last week when I ran into one of the city council members, and I'm not gonna name names, but they were not aware that the plastic grocery bags did not go in recycling. That was so harped on at the very beginning. And here we are, nearing what could be the end, and they did not know that those plastic grocery bags do not go in recycling. So the education still has to happen. If a council member can sit in here and still miss that memo, why do we expect even more from the citizens? A wise mentor supervisor once told me that if I was going to comment on something, I need to be willing to be a part of the solution. In other words, open mouth, create work. So what am I offering? I can't offer to pay everyone's 46 cent increase, but I can offer my time as a citizen to help educate other citizens. I've offered to discuss a possible recycling ambassador program where citizens would do the legwork literally and get the information to others. There are obviously people who have missed the memos. We have small businesses and renters of homes, town homes, et cetera, that do not get the information because they're not the person that directly pays the bill. And that does not get passed down to them. That's a pretty large population if we think about it. So just give the citizens of Longview a chance to be a part of the solution to increase participation and make it more successful. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Marquez. I've got James Herholm. There's an N in there, so sorry.

Okay, so I'm here too to speak about recycling. My name is James Herholm. So I was surprised and taken back a little bit here a month or month and a half ago whenever I started reading and seeing articles about recycling possibly going away in Longview. Because at the time, though, I also had my own ideas about recycling in Longview because in my own little neighborhood, I noticed that ever since we went back to the Three River Fire and we didn't have anything or a way to recycle for a while, people got used to putting garbage in their blue lid container that on Mondays which is my trash day or pickup day blue-legged containers were still going out all over the neighborhood and they've continued to still go out all over the neighborhood on there so I decided to do a little survey and so I surveyed my just my street 13 homes and when I did that Approximately half the people did not know that Tuesday was a recycling day on there. So in those people I have observed putting out the blue lid container at different times on Mondays. And I also have observed because I got two dogs that I walk every day that sometimes I could see that there was cardboard and recyclable type materials in those cans. And so, you know, they thought that they were being a good citizen, a good environmental person and a recycling and they weren't. Uh, so in that survey also, I asked, would the 46 cent increase in your monthly sanitation bill be an issue with you as far as supporting recycling or not? And everyone, except for one person who had no opinion, said that that was no issue whatsoever for them regarding recycling on there. You know, I just feel like that we've failed in communicating, even though we've attempted several ways to communicate through mailings or in part of the bill, through things in the media and so forth on there. For whatever reason, it's failed to get to apparently about half the people in town because I kind of feel like my little neighborhood is representative of the whole city, even though it's a smaller area for sure. So, you know, I would urge the council to think about maybe giving it another year and see what happens, see if we can improve communication. I mean, like was mentioned a minute ago, I'd be willing to walk the rest of my neighborhood and knock on doors and tell people and talk about recycling on there. And I think that, you know, there just needs to be a better way of communicating with people about the recycling or an extended effort before we discontinue the program. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Herndon. Ann Albright is next.

Hey, um, okay. Good evening mayor and city council members. My name is Anne Albright. I'm a Longview resident, a small business owner and a marketing professional. I also serve as the president of the downtown lobby board and curate and host an outdoor market in downtown twice a year called ATX market. Every time I host my events, I have a crew of volunteers, which is a lot of my family and some of the downtown board come with me to clean up the street. I like to leave it better than I found it because for me, caring for our community means caring for its future. The earth has limited resources that have already been depleted sooner than they did last year. And it isn't time to take steps backward and sustainability. We desperately need to take steps forward. Beyond the ethics of recycling, the choice to keep the recycling program is also the logical choice. Economically, with the loss of our recycling program, we would lose access to funding and grants, money that the city is currently benefiting from. And with the loss of our recycling program, we would also become less appealing to site selectors looking for sustainable infrastructure. When we recycle, we don't use as many trash bags as another citizen stated. Even if a household only recycled around one trash bag size a week, the average citizen would save approximately $10 a year on trash bags based on a 20 cent average for the cost of trash bags. Even with the 46 cents increase, each citizen would actually be ahead about $5 annually. I'd also like to touch on the failure of communication, as others have. Longview residents are either confused or completely unaware, which this survey was great, of his neighborhood. I love that. I regularly see as well blue carts filled with cardboard on trash day, or I've talked to several citizens and friends that had no idea recycling was back. or that their recycling day was the day after their trash day. In the marketing world, we know that it takes someone about seven times for a message to actually stick in their subconscious. With personalized algorithms on social media, it's highly unlikely that most citizens would even see consistent information that they need to in order to choose to recycle responsibly. I would like to offer the city of Longview my time as well and my marketing experience for free to help the city run digital ads to fix the communication gap. I would also be willing to volunteer my time to join a task force of others have said to help brainstorm ways to engage parts of our community that do not have access to social media or smart devices. Before we make a final decision as a citizen, I'm asking the city to do its due diligence as well and effectively communicating to our city at large and make sure every citizen knows the information they need to know. A few sporadic social media posts were not enough today. I urge you to vote against ending the recycling program. Let's protect our natural resources and our legacy for future generations in Longview. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Albright. Next speaker I have is Austin Wade.

My name is Austin Wade. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, City Council and my fellow residents of Longview. I reside in District 3. So, hey, Mr. Smith. I'm here tonight to speak in strong support of Longview's curbside recycling program and to urge this council to vote to keep it. Even whenever I was a child, I felt an urge to take care of our planet. Imagine me at 10 years old instructing everyone in my household on what could and couldn't be recycled, getting frustrated every time I saw a recyclable item in the trash can. Flash forward to today, I am now a proud, young Longview homeowner who can recycle with ease thanks to this exact program. This program is a massive asset to the city of Longview. When out of town friends and family visit, they are shocked and impressed that a city of this size in East Texas makes sustainability this accessible. What is even more impressive is that our city has maintained this commitment since 1995. I'm sorry, but that's before I was born. Through the hard work and determination of your predecessors, this infrastructure was built. Please do not let their hard work and three decades of progress be in vain. I understand the concern with the drop in participation down to 12%. However, as Dwayne Archer, the Assistant Director of Public Works said, at one point, 50% of our city was actively participating before the fire in 2024. Longview residents didn't suddenly stop wanting to recycle over just a period of two years. This decline is not a lack of desire. It is a direct symptom of system disruption and changing rules. Rather than ending the program we have proudly maintained since 1995, we should invest in public education regarding the new rules like postcards, flyers, stickers on bands, or I'd even be willing to join a task force with my fellow residents. When the facility burned down, it was a crisis. But when pickup resumed with new schedules and restricted plastic rules, it left well-meaning citizens confused and discouraged. For this program to work, we need consistent public education, not cancellation. Let's give our citizens the clarity that they need to get back into the flow of recycling instead of scrapping this program. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Wade. Next speaker card I have is Gary Ford.

Hey, guys. Austin stole a lot of my thunder, so I'm going to zip through some of this. The last city council meeting, it was mentioned that only 12% of households were recycling. I feel like it's safe to say that we all see blue bins next to black bins on trash day. Some may contain contaminated recycling. Some may contain trash. But I believe there's a portion that... are unknowingly being sent to the landfill. I just echo the 50% prior to the fire and it dropping down to 12 is not just due to people not caring. I think it's due to a lack of communication. While I can't refute that a lot of communication has been put out, I don't necessarily agree that it's been effective. Otherwise, I don't think it would have dropped significantly. Like others have mentioned, not everyone subscribes to all the media, like Ann had mentioned. And it wasn't until about an hour ago that I saw one of these famous stickers that apparently go on the bins. Um, so I think that it was a good, good tactic. I just don't think it may have been employed. Uh, well, um, um, just to speak to the 46 cent increase, um, while I appreciate council looking after our expenses and our wellbeing, um, when I, I believe when it comes to the betterment of long view, um, we've, it's been proven time and time again, that the citizens are willing to pay for quality of life improvements. This is evident by the passing of $104 million city improvement bonds in 2018 and the most recent 456 million LSD bonds in 2024. I also want to speak to the the credit card fee that was implemented earlier this year um that's a minimum of two dollars and fifty cents i asked councilman neustadt how many people were paying that fee um and over a third of the city of longview is paying that fee so 46 cents kind of pales in comparison to two dollars and fifty cents that a third of longview is already paying this year Lastly, whether it's 12% or 50% usage, 46 cents or $4.60, I feel we have a moral obligation to protect our environment. While most of us won't be here around to see the current landfill fill up in 70 years, our children will. Not our grandchildren or our great grandchildren, but our children. And what are we communicating to them if we give up this easily? What are we saying to prospective residents and businesses looking to move to Longview? I appreciate the sacrifices all of you make to serve our community and looking out for us. You're expected to be experts in every field and every issue that rises, and that's just unrealistic. You also get to hear, like myself and some others, some Monday morning quarterbacks that tell you how you could have done it better. And I just want to say that, like others have said, that I would personally be willing to join a task force to help improve the communication if you're willing to let this go forward for a little bit longer.

Thank you, Mr. Ford. Next speaker card I have is Eric Dunham.

Thank you. Eric Dunham, I'm a plastics engineer and expert. I just want to start out with Psalm 24.1 tells us the earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants belong to the Lord, like the ultimate landlord. And I like to think of us as stewards, right? And you have a stewardship question in front of you for the committee. In this particular case, it's stewardship of our tax dollars versus stewardship of our waste. All right, with the participation drop of 30% is... The bad stewardship funding the program or ending the program? I'm going to try to answer that with the latter. The change, okay? Why the change? One view posits that people no longer care about recycling. But a 2025 Keep America Beautiful poll reported that 87% of Americans find recycling important, even though only about 32% participate. Why the disconnect? Three big things. Confusion. Inconsistent rules and lack of access. Well, we have access currently and surveys show the desire is constantly there and even growing according to some sources. So what we're really facing is a communication problem, not a lack of concern. Is the program worth it? Okay, I'm going to look at it from the plastic side because that's my area of expertise, but rest assured aluminum and paper have similar stories. The APR, Association of Plastic Recyclers, studies have found that using recycled plastic for products uses around 75% less energy. Just Google steam cracking as to one of the reasons why. At current rates, that's enough to power at least a million homes for a year. Recycling supports the economy with 170,000 jobs nationwide, and plastic production is growing 3.6 every year, which means every year we need more plastic, and recycling is the most efficient form to get it. On the flip side, as you increase landfills, then you start to see tipping fees go up, which means that if we cut this out now and all goes to the landfill, now we may eventually see tax increases going along with that. It may just be a short-term gain here. Let's not forget about community pride with this, as we've heard from some folks here. So back to the confusion. After the 2024 fire, our blue bins doubled as landfill bins. We lost the color key, like Wayne and James were talking about. When it resumed, we got conflicting info on what should be recycled. There's currently a sticker on my bin that says one through seven plastics can be recycled. We know that it's actually only one, two, and five. There's confusion right there. And then we have the day switch that James was talking about. That's another point of confusion. So I think this checks the box for confusion and inconsistent rules, right? Confusion creates frustration. Frustration reduces participation. What have I shown? Curbside recycling is wanted. It's needed. You've heard it here. Energy efficient. It's good for the economy, good for the community, and environmentally responsible. Let's not... add lack of access to our list, let's address the others as well. And like others said, I would like to, I would be willing to put my expertise in the bucket with the committee that we're forming of citizens and create some educational videos because my area of expertise, I think I could really help with that as well. So thank you. Let's educate and not eliminate.

Thank you, Mr. Dunham. Debbie? Powell, I think? Yeah. Is that right, Powell?

All right, here we go. I didn't know I was supposed to turn things in, but right here are two of the cutest little animals in the world, and they were very inexpensive over at East Texas Innovation, and they are totally made of 12% field acute softness for your dog or your kids, okay? I give you both, okay. And that is 12 bottles, 12 of your great bottles, okay, that made these possible, okay? Exhibit A.

Not really, I'm so sorry. I am not good at this credit.

Okay, I don't do tech well. I think tech is, it's messed up our, I work with youth. Messed us up, okay? I'm sorry, I love tech when it works, but it doesn't work, there's a lot of problems. Y'all have, you guys got it. You got this, we don't have to stop. We've got people like us that are on. I am such a nut. My kids, I mean, I have a dadgum four-by-eight-foot trailer. Haul it to Possum Kingdom. We have a silly dadgum VRBO. That's the hardest thing in the world to do ever. But you're welcome to come. I'll give you a discount if you keep on this. So anyway, it's Sleep 16. It's a big old place. I haul that crud back home. I'm teaching those people at that lake because there is no sailing. And I haul it back home in my picket. and bags, and I have loaded up three or four containers every week for months. And then to go buy, and in my rental home, so only a few, God and I, we only have a few of them, my husband too, obviously, but I'm running around behind the trucks, but I'm like, gosh, no, no, no, no, that was recycling, let me have it, please, no, no, no, no. I don't have time, y'all, to go to every house. I would do it. You are freaking me out because you look just like my best friend. I'm like having a problem. So I'm just saying, God knows we are supposed to take care of, like you said, this is our job. We are stewards. You are blessed to be in this town. Gosh darn, this town rocks. I've been here 42 years. Came from a Missouri farmer. You don't waste it. You fix it. You mend it. You don't throw it away. Okay, we are a throwaway society, and I just love the fact of teaching. And so I don't know if you can hear this, but here's my grandbabies that have helped me do cans, and I would like for you to listen. We're going to go find out how much money we might make from these cans that we have recycled. And what is recycling, Colson? Tell Dee Dee. What did you say about recycling? Spinning around and it turns into new things. Spinning around and it turns into new things. That's a three-year-old.

What do you think recycling is?

Keeping the world healthy and making the plants and trees healthy. That's right. That's great. Good job, guys. Okay.

And that was what we hauled. We did. Okay, fine. Whoa, whoa, whoa. So wait. Okay, so I'm just saying our children need to learn. Y'all, it's terrible. One person can make a difference. We have Sunshine Acres. It's a place out here on 30726. It's a wedding venue, a big party venue. I have reduced and hauled that stuff, too, because there's nothing out there in East Mountain to hang in, okay? So I've gotten rid of the dumpster, and I bring that trash home, and I re-reduce down to one-third trash, two-thirds recycling. Mm-hmm. But I have no place to go. I can go to Sam's and get rid of my little plastic sacks.

Debbie, I love your energy. You're out of time.

Okay, I know. I got it. But anyway. Thank you. Sam's is there for us, too, for the sacks, whoever wrote that up. We got Sam's, okay? And just let us pray for you and let us help you. Let us be a part. We love our community. I bust my rear for this town.

Thank you, Ms. Powell. Thank you. Next speaker I have is John Smith IV. Oh, yep.

Mayor, good evening. Council, good evening. I'm here to report on a couple of things. One, Wayne Street and Gilmer Road, my neighborhood street, has been flooded for approximately seven to ten days now. On Wayne Street, there's a geyser that has erupted out of the parking lot directly in front of the somewhere between the gas station, Cowboys, I believe it's called, and the vape shop. When I inquired with the manager of the vape shop about it and asked who the owner was of that entire lot, he said that the owner had contacted the city and that the city had not responded. So there are dollars that are being lost in the way of a geyser of water that's literally streaming as we speak and has been for about seven to ten days all the way from Wayne Street to Gilmer Road where it's running. Second concern has to do with something a little bit closer to my residential property. On 101 Falcon Way, there's Gilmer Road and Falcon Way, on the corner there were beautiful pines, trees, and all that shrubbery has been cut down, shrubbery and trees. And what's been left in its wake are dead pine trees, along with a real estate sign that probably was the former business of what's now a spa shop there. It's a yellow and black sign. It's unsightly. If the city was responsible for this, then I would simply ask that they follow up and clean it up. That would be all. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Smith. That is the last speaker I card I have for general citizen comment. I have a couple for budget item C. So just to confirm Destiny Justice, Diana Pittman and Katie Estrada, you guys want to speak at the open public hearing for the budget and not now. It's up to you. Okay. Destiny Justice, then you're up first. I guess you could tell me it doesn't. Good evening. My name is destiny justice.

I'm in a resident and taxpayer of long view and I'm here for my neighbors who are unable to be here. I am here to request full transparency into the budget allocations for police and for an explanation as to if the $95,108 from the federal government is derived from Gregg County's 287 agreement. As a concerned citizen, I want to know that my tax dollars are not being used to harm my neighbors, tearing apart their families and causing fear and distrust in law enforcement. I want reassurance that you all have not lost your humanity, caring more for monetary means than human lives to make up your city. Utilization of the county jail while understanding that they have both 287G jail enforcement model and task force enforced model is complicit in the dehumanization on our Hispanic community. Since the expansion of 287G, local Hispanic business owners, laborers, and consumers have been fearful of being racially profiled to be detained, arrested, or deported regardless of their citizenship status. Just last year, in 2025, in Podemo versus Nome, the Kavanaugh stops were ruled to be legal from the Supreme Court, and that's where the police can detain based on spoken language, occupation, or perceived ethnicity. And to me, that sounds like racial profiling. No one deserves to live in fear. I am formally calling upon this city council to cooperate with county leaders to facilitate a joint public town hall meeting. This will allow municipal and county leadership to speak with constituents, clarify enforcement boundaries, and address financial allocations and hear valid grievances of the community. We are seeking to achieve peace through unity. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Ms. Justice. Next card I have is Diana Pittman. Do you want to speak now?

Buenas tardes, mi nombre es Diana Pittman.

Good afternoon, my name is Diana Pittman.

Y he vivido en esa ciudad por 25 años.

I have lived here in the city for 25 years. Diez años sin papeles. Ten years without papers.

Cinco años como residente de la nación.

Five years with my residency of the nation.

Y diez años como ciudadana.

And ten years with my citizenship.

Gracias a Dios por eso.

Thank God for that.

We are a family, a Hispanic family with biblical. And we have served here in the city for 11 years as pastors.

My husband has been a business owner here in Longview for 20 years.

I have been in social media for 10 years. We have done a lot for the city.

For a long time, we were in the police academy.

Y eso fue muy bueno para nuestra ciudadanía hispana.

And that was good for our citizens, the Hispanic citizens of Longview.

Somos una familia que amamos esta nación.

We are a family that loves this nation.

Tal como amamos nuestro país.

Just like we love our country.

Honramos esta ciudad y esta nación.

We love our country and we love this city.

Mi hijo es paramédico en la ciudad de Tyler.

My son is a paramedic in the city of Tyler.

Y mi hija de 18 años acaba de graduar del boot camp de los Marines.

And my daughter has just graduated boot camp from the Marine Corps.

Mis hijos han sido criados para amar México, pero para honrar esta nación.

My kids were raised to love Mexico, but to honor this country.

Porque esta nación ha sido fundada bajo la palabra de Dios.

Because this country was founded by the word of God.

Y servimos a un Dios de amor y a un Dios justo.

And we serve a God that is a good God. Yes, look at him was who's to see a panacea hand hispanic and all we want is just as for our Hispanic people. Yes, and that that was going to spit on that are citizens are treated with respect.

And the most importantly, that our citizens are treated as citizens.

Because a lot of them do not have the right documentation.

But they have served the city of Longview for a long time.

And they have respected the city. Today we are here for justice.

Y como mi familia le sirve a Dios y a esta nación.

And like my family serves God and this nation.

Hay muchas familias como la mía.

There's a lot of families like mine.

Hoy venimos a pedir una reunión con la mayor.

Today we are here for a meeting with the mayor.

Con el jefe de policía de la ciudad. With the chief of police. Y con el sheriff del condado.

And with the county sheriff.

Queremos que ustedes tengan la oportunidad de conocernos.

We would like for you guys to get to know us. and to value us. Thank you for the opportunity and God bless Longview. Thank you, Ms. Pittman. Katie Estrada.

I didn't want to come up here and cry, so it's going to be hard to follow that.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council, District 3, Brennan Smith. My name is Katie John Estrada, and I'm a resident and taxpayer of Longview. I stand before you tonight to address a matter of profound urgency regarding the social and economic fabric of our municipality. specifically I want to address the localized consequences of the expanded ice 287 G agreements within Gregg County and how this administrative shift is actively impacting our city's governance safety and commerce I wish to present three critical points for your consideration the demand for physical transparency and oversight While the 287G memorandum of agreement is formally signed at the county level, its day-to-day enforcement heavily relies on municipal infrastructure, local taxpayers, and city police cooperation. There's a severe lack of public clarity on how these municipal funds, police hours, and resources are being allocated or diverted to support these federal immigration operations. Texas Government Code Chapter 551, TOMA, the statute guarantees that the public has the right to complete transparency regarding any government actions or discussions that impact municipal resources. Transparency is not optional. It is a statutory mandate. Texas Constitution Article 8, Section 3 explicitly states that taxes shall be levied and collected by general laws and for public purposes only. As city taxpayers, we have the constitutional right to ensure that municipal funds are used strictly for local public benefit, not diverted into complex federal enforcement mechanisms without clear financial auditing. The climate of fear generated by the expansion of 287G task force model has driven a vital segment of our population into the shadows. Our local Hispanic community, business owners, consumers, and laborers. They are avoiding public spaces out of fear due to enforcement of two 87 G through racial profiling. An entire population is being unjustly criminalized. Is local law enforcement here to protect and serve us or to surveil us? This discourages people from reporting crimes and makes us all unsafe. It has directly resulted in a measurable loss of revenue for local shops, markets, community fairs, and municipal sales tax revenue. When a vulnerable community, can't say that word, sorry. When a vulnerable community lives in fear, our entire local economy suffers. Every member of our community deserves to live with dignity. I'm going to say that again. Every member of our community deserves to live with dignity. Longview's prosperity depends heavily on small businesses. Damaging consumer confidence within the Hispanic community diminishes the economic stability of the entire city. The public's trust in local government is fracturing. Under Section 102 of the Longview City Charter, this council operates under a council manager form of government, meaning your primary obligation is the direct administration and welfare of all city inhabitants. If the community feels alienated, that discontent will inevitably be reflected at the polls during election cycles. To prevent our city from becoming deeply divided, we must proactively restore peace and mutual trust. Consider the quote from the marvelous Maya Angelou, the truth is none of us can be free until everybody is free. the first amendment of the u.s constitution guarantees the citizens right to petition the government for a redress of grievances i'm formally calling upon the city council to cooperate with county leaders to facilitate a joint public town hall meeting this will allow municipal and county leadership to speak directly with their constituents clarify enforcement boundaries address financial allocations and hear valid grievances of the community we ask that you choose unity over division let us address these issues transparently before the economic and social damage deepens thank you for your time leadership and commitment to keeping longview a safe prosperous and united community for everyone thank you mrs strada

That concludes the citizen comment cards that I have tonight. The next thing on our agenda is a presentation item, which is a presentation of a proclamation that recognizes October 6th, 2026 as National Night Out Day in the city of Longview. I have a handful of people that I believe will join me up here for that proclamation. If you're here for National Night Out, come on up. thank you come on in hello hello hello

Thank you guys for being here.

And while we do not officially respond to speaker comments, National Night Out would be an excellent opportunity for anyone in the room to attend a National Night Out party, speak directly to an LPD officer. The City of Longview does not have a 287 agreement or contract, nor do we receive funds from the federal government or county that are 287 related. LPD is not managed or controlled by the Sheriff's Office and operates 100% independently. under our administration but they would love to chat with you at a national night out party so please make plans to attend there it is my honor tonight by proclamation to recognize October 6th 2026 as national night out night in the city of Longview national night out began in 1984 and is a unique crime drug and violence prevention program with participation in more than 17,000 communities from all 50 states US territories and military excuse me military bases worldwide and will be celebrated here in the city of Longview on October 6th, 2026. Our annual National Night Out provides an opportunity for Longview and Gray County citizens to participate in local gatherings, recognize the impact their participation can have on reducing crime, drugs, and violence in our community. Police community partnerships and neighborhood safety cooperation are important themes of our National Night Out program. It is my privilege as the mayor of the city of Longview to proclaim the day of October 6th, 2026 as National Endowed Day in the city of Longview. We hope you will find a party in your neighborhood and please attend. Thank you guys for all the work that you do to make this happen. How many parties do we have registered so far? Anybody know? 81. 81 parties. Lots of opportunities to attend a National Endowed Party. Please find one in your neighborhood or decide to host one. But thank you guys for all that you do to make that happen. Look forward to attending. There is still time to sign up to host. Almost 100, yes. We need a couple more parties. But anyway, thank you guys very much. So many things to remember. Consent agenda is next. Are there any items that council would like to pull for discussion questions? Looking, looking, looking at you, Sydney. For consent.

Yes.

Yes. Which ones would you like to talk about? Item B. Yes. C. Got it. F and H. Yes.

And I.

And I. No, I don't think so. G? Okay. Everybody else good? Okay. Consent Agenda B is the resolution to approve and adopt our annual investment policy. Ms. Cohen?

Yes, this is the annual policy that's required by the Public Funds Investment Act to be reviewed by council annually. Okay.

I think that was Sydney. Did you have a specific question on the investment policy?

I just wanted to make a clarification here that people understand that this investment policy is the funds that we received from the taxpayers that we're not spending right then. In other words, Angela takes care of investing these funds and getting a return on the investment until, if they're bond funds, until that project comes up that we need the money for. And I would say she does an excellent job. I would also like to say these are all debt instruments. We do not invest in any equity funds. So you don't have to worry about the stock market. It has no effect whatsoever on our investment policy. If we were going to talk about sales tax, would that be now or would that be later in the budget?

That would be later on. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Item C, consider an ordinance that amends the budget to allocate grant funds for 162-367 for the Federal Transit Administration for Longview Transit. Ms. Laura Hill. Is there a question?

And Laura, I just wanted you to explain what these funds are for so that people understand because I know we've been talking about transit sometimes in the past and just an explanation.

This is additional federal grant funding with no city match required that assisted us in buying a new paratransit bus.

And that's the only thing it's going to do is purchase of buses? Yes, sir. All right.

Now, when you say a transit bus… Paratransit. How many people do these handle? I mean, paratransit, is this for… this is to go like pick up people in wheelchairs and take them from their home to their doctor okay all right but this okay uh this is not the longview public bus system it's a portion of that it's a federally required program okay how many buses do you know or right off hand do we currently have pair transport uh vehicles i think we have three three

no idea on the term limit or where they're at. Do we have one fixing the time out? Yes, sir.

That's what this did. It met its, um, useful life.

Yeah. And that's, that's kind of what I wanted to bring. The attention is, you know, we apply for these grants and we're not just applying for them for the money. But there is a reason behind it. And it's just like I know Chief Grimes and I, you know, the reason we invested in the fire apparatus is we had quite a few that's fixing the timeout. And this is the same situation but on the transit side. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, Laura. Next is F, resolution that awards a contract for construction of 2026 Longview Fuel Station. Ah, Zach. All right.

Zach, I put that on there. I'm excited about it. I know we talked about this, and we approved this months ago, and I know the process to get here. I'm getting better about accepting it takes time to get here before we get started. But I just wanted to know, could you kind of give us any estimated times, hey, this is when we're going to look to break ground, this is anticipated finish time, because I know everybody's wanting to save money on this fuel. Sure. That's an important topic among a lot of people right now, so.

I understand. So upon award tonight, it'll take us about six to eight weeks to get contracts executed. I'm under the understanding from speaking with a couple of the vendors that bid on the project that the longest lead item is the tanks themselves, which are above ground tanks. And so initially, you probably won't see groundbreaking will procure the awarded contract will procure the tanks so that they only have one mobilization. And the whole project from award to completion should be about six to eight months. All right, so next summer.

That's even a little quicker than I felt it would be. And I'm sure, like, ordering these tanks are just like ordering a metal building. That's correct. Sometimes the downtime waiting on them to get there could be nine, ten weeks, and that's nobody's fault. That's just – and you don't want to buy a tank until you know you got the job. Yes, sir. So thank you, Zach. Yes, sir.

Zach, so is there a thing? So you said it's the above ground tanks, and I think that's – Good reason for that, but I want to see your answer why we're going with above-ground tanks versus... Well, I mean, safety.

We feel that is safer. We will have a containment system around the tanks so that if, for whatever reason, one would leak, it wouldn't be leaching into the soils in the surrounding area. They'll be protected by bollards, and we'll have a generator on site in the event of a power failure that we'll still be able to operate. And financially speaking, it was more cost-effective.

Awesome. Less risk, too. Yes. Well, I appreciate you all looking at that. So thank you very much. I asked you last time when we awarded this thing to bring us more of these, so I'm waiting for that. Thank you.

Give me some time. Yes, Eddie.

JC commercial JC commercial rewarded the bid to have we ever done any previous business with him? No, sir. Okay. On one of the other projects, we had an outside engineer also consulting.

Does this project have an outside engineer, we have an engineer on staff that had history of designing these. So we were able to save money by designing it in house.

Okay, that's good. Thank you. Yes.

Great. Thank you. G is the resolution for our 2026 chip seal project.

Mr. Rick Evans.

They did a great job.

They appreciate the work on there. I do want to clarify one thing is on this awardment. So like four street, for instance, is not striped. So the chip seal project, this is separate from the people that did the striping.

Well, that is part of their contract, so they will come back and do the striping. So they will do that? Yes, sir.

So with the final payment, will that, you know, so they'll still come back?

Before they get the final payment, they'll do a walkthrough. Oh, 4th Street was overlay? So separate? Yes, sir. Different project.

That's what I want to make sure was that by paying them on the striping was going to be a different deal with them on 4th Street.

awesome uh thank you and yeah great job with the crew the uh patching and everything y'all are doing too well thank you very much uh noticeable and i'm getting a lot of compliments yes sir thank you yeah thank you uh h is resolution to award a contract to premier site services for citywide park improvements project three zach is back

Zach, I'm surprised Shannon didn't get this. She's got to be excited. This is part of the trail process that we're going to put around Stamford Park, and I just wanted you to kind of explain it. I know it's 10 foot wide. It's going to be close to 400 yards long overall, about a quarter of a mile. That's correct. But it'll give a good walking area. I just wanted you to describe things and kind of give us an anticipated start date. I know with pool season being over with, that's going to help cut down on some of the traffic. But do we see any anticipation with any problems with traffic interfering with construction going on?

We really don't. Obviously, if there are events happening at Stamford Park, we're going to coordinate with the contractors and make sure everybody's safe. Nobody's getting their equipment broken into, God forbid. the trails themselves are basically going to connect all the amenities within that area of the north side of Stamper Park that like as you mentioned it's about 1200 feet or 400 yards there's also a parking lot that's being installed at the old fire training field which will have sidewalks concrete sidewalks that connect you to the trail and throughout the park

All right. And I know people over at Stanford will be glad to get this in.

I think the whole community will be.

Oh, yeah, without a doubt. It just adds another place for people to go and walk. Absolutely. And especially during the summertime when you're taking your kids and grandkids over, it gives you something to do, lose weight while they swim. That would be me.

Hey, I'm right there with you. Okay.

Thank you, Zach. I appreciate that.

Okay, get too far away. Okay, thanks, Zach. Next. Oh, I'm sorry. You had a question city.

The JCR engineers. They examine the bids where they end when we originally drew up the the quality I mean, for the what we were asking for here.

Yes, sir. JCR engineers have did the design on the previous two part projects. So this was a continuum onto their contract.

Where are they out of?

Oh, they're here local.

Oh, they are? Good. All right. In the $626,421 for the premier site services, does that include any money for the JCR engineers?

No, sir.

That's paid separate.

That's a separate contract.

Okay. All right. Yes.

Got it. All right. Move on to I. Resolution to authorize the purchase of a turbine pump. That's Rick.

Yes. All right. All right. First off, I have nothing to do with Allen's Electric out of Louisiana. We just happen to have the last name. In this, for $102,000, does that include installation?

Yes, sir. That does include installation. After they install the pump, they'll come back. or after we get the pump installed, they do a vibration test to make sure everything is good to go. So that does include installation with the city's help.

Okay, thank you.

That was my question. Wasn't this pump about 20 years old, this one we're replacing?

This pump, yes, sir, it's very old, but we did have it rebuilt five years ago. Okay, all right. Thank you.

Thank you. That's all the consent agenda items I had marked. Are there any others you guys would like to discuss or is there a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Thank you. And a second. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Consent agenda is approved. Moving on to our budget items. Budget item A. Is the consider a resolution to direct the city manager to cease or terminate the curbside recycling program? This is the, I think, third time we've talked about it. We had discussions and presentations. And simply for the sake of being included on the budget, it is something, if we do want to have it included on the budget, it does need to be talked about and voted tonight, but at council's discretion. So I am just opening the floor for discussion. Yes, ma'am.

I mean I really want the public to understand that we wholeheartedly want to recycle that is something that we don't want not to do. But on the other hand we also want to look at the usage and I do agree with a lot of some of the comments that we're seeing with the confusion with not understanding how to do the recycling and things like that I do think that was a hindrance on it but for me my opinion is is that We do a time frame on it if we look at it yearly and see if the usage goes up. And then we also look at the cost of the recycling not being done correctly because that was one of the bigger issues. Not only the low usage of it, but the actual problem that the recycling was not done properly and we were being charged. Is that not correct?

That's correct. Yeah, that's where we started.

So can you give them the prices, if somebody give us the prices of what we're being charged because it's not done correctly?

I think it's $150 a ton if it is contaminated.

And so we did have a lot of that. So for me personally, I am willing to keep the recycling, but I do want it to be evaluated. And if we do not see positive returns and people participating, it is something that we have to look at if it's costing the whole city more money. That's my opinion on it. Thank you, Ms. Moore.

Dirk?

Yeah, I just want to echo.

I mean, we've talked about this at the last couple of meetings, recycling. It's not that we don't want to do recycling. It's the numbers we talked about. We have a dilemma here where we have 12% of our – population that's actually using this service, and we're asking the 88% to pay. I think the numbers were it's a cost of about $250,000. Is that accurate? Yes, sir. And so I don't think we – nobody wants to stop this, but, I mean, we also need to understand that we've got people out here that are paying for a service and they're not using it. and that's a tough decision for us. I do think we echoed a lot of the people talked today about communication and look for ways to improve that, but it's a difficult decision for us because of the fact that it's a service that's nice to have, but we have a lot of people that are paying for just a few people that are using it. John?

John? Yeah. And so, you know, a lot of people have spoken and to me it does seem like it is a lack of communication, lack of education on the sense of it and not all the credit to the city staff. They've done an amazing job of getting the word out there. There's only so much we can do. And I think that we're to the point where the, we got to give it time to let the community. go out and be the ambassadors. We have the thing crew. We have those things that are going there. We can continue. It's going to be a continuous education. We're not going to ever get that part nailed down. But we need to set a time limit, like Councilwoman Moore said. Look at this. We put it for a year from now, from this time period. We set a goal for whatever that may be. And we get a plan to have the grassroots, the community going out, and those that are passionate about it, there's more than willing people that are here that want to go out and that want to join that blue crew and help people make the awareness of what we want to be, of a society that promotes sustainability. And so... think we can't say that we have done everything that we can at this point and to eliminate a program that's been around for more than that gentleman been alive so appreciate that and I didn't think about the cost savings like I need to look at how much I pay for trash bags and so I mean so that's amazing there so I say we give it a year. That's what I would ask for the council to consider is we give it a year, we set a goal on it, and I think the sense of urgency that we've had, the discussions have been very fruitful. We've got a lot of people here that are speaking out, wanted to join in. So I do think this was a very productive conversation, but I do hope we give it some more time.

Thank you. Thank you.

And I appreciate all of y'all that come and spoke tonight on behalf of the recycling. And I want to say the 46 cent was not an increase in the recycling. That was over our whole public services with our water, sewer, and trash. And recycling just happened to be included in that. But right now where we're at with the 12%, About 88% of the people who are not participating, what it equivalents to is they're paying $80 for that 12% to get their recycling done yearly. In fact, the numbers are, I believe, over $80 a person. And so I'm like, how do you defend that? Like I said in an earlier meeting, probably a couple months ago, I had a lady that contacted me and said, I'm going to call and let you know how many recycling bins are out there. She said, I totally believe in it, but people do not do it. And she called me back the day after recycling. She said, I walked by 122 houses today. There was 12 bins out. Now, when those 12 bins are out, our trucks are still driving every single road. We're using the same personnel. to get to that if we went to a system to where we charged each person and if you want to do recycling we're going to charge you a i think tyler's fee is going up to ten dollars this year we'll charge you ten dollars well we're still probably going to end up driving every one of those same streets you know same personnel working on it is our numbers going to go up if we start charging for recycling i don't know I've been associated with a lot of things, and whether it's working on something mechanical, you're in the middle of a football game, but every once in a while, you gotta take a timeout and you gotta reset. And maybe there was a lot of confusion that come down the line. I think the city has done a great job, excuse me, the city has done a great job sending out a notification in the water bills, and I know a lot of people say, well, we get ours electronically. Well, they sent one out so people could get the notification. We've done things on Facebook, tried to put information out there, did our best with the tags. And I actually spoke with the guys who were putting the stickers on the bins. But like I say, I've went to a lot of people and had a lot of people come to me and they said just not enough people are doing it. And I don't like paying for it. And we're not making money off this.

This is not your time, ladies. I'm sorry. Either you're going to step out or you're going to be quiet, please, ma'am.

but at at this time you know and here's one of the best ideas that i i found while i was going around here in the last week or so i had an hoa president talking to me and she said we do the best we can and said and i happened to be there on trash days and there wasn't but a couple of recyclable bins that was out with trash i said y'all must have a pretty good success rate she said we send a message out on our homeowner association on Wednesday nights or on Thursday mornings to remind people to do it. And some do, some don't. But she said, at the cost of what we're seeing right now, It needs to go away. And this is from somebody who recycles. And I think it's just the time that we reset. We come back in a year and we look at it and say, now, how can we do it and put it in an organization to where it works good? And if we say, hey, you're not putting trash in a blue bin. You're not putting them both out on the same day. You're going to use your bin. on recycling day or you're not going to use it. Does that make us more efficient? You know, what do we do? I think we take time to think about it because right now, 88% of the people, whether they don't want to do it, they're lazy that they're uninformed for whatever purpose they're not doing it. And it's wrong for them to be paying 80 plus dollars for service for 12% of the people in the city who want to do it. Sorry.

Thank you, Danny. Would you like to say anything?

Yes.

Go for it.

All right. We've kind of got the cart in front of the horse here. This is general trash recycling. The market for that is going away. Nobody wants general trash recycling. It went from China to Vietnam to Bangladesh. You've got a product that the world really doesn't want. Now, if you clean it up, cardboard recycling, plastic bottles recycling, all of those, there's a market for all those and there's a good market. But we're not separate with, Mr. Lucas has a machine over there that separates, but it's still contaminated general recycling. The market on that is going away. You don't have a value for your product. That's what it amounts to. We can recycle all day long, but it's still going to cost us because nobody wants the product. I mean, you see it at the mall and you see it the loads of cardboard on the trucks. You know, that's clean. That's cardboard or plastic bottles. I was in the recycling business for 26 years. I did recycling for 26 years, metals recycling, aluminum, iron, bronze, copper, and all of those. And there's a ready market for that. But you still have to separate and clean the product up. The market for this general recycling is going down, down, down. And nobody wants to fool with it. Where are we going to ship it? Nobody wants to receive it. That's what we're totally overlooking at this point. They don't want our recyclables, general household recyclables. They don't want it. You better think about that.

Thank you, Sidney. May I add, I believe that Dwayne had given us some options. We talked about it, that for people who still wanted to recycle, we would have a place available. Oh, we do. Yes.

Yeah, we got Brandon there.

Okay, all right.

In order to recycle successfully, we're going to have to have a solid plan in place. I mean, we can throw around ideas all night. But until we have something concrete on this is how we're going to do it, stick to it and abide by it, we're going to find ourselves in the same place next year. You know, we give six months, give it a year, we're going to be in the same place if we don't get something solid in place. We want communication. We've seen our communication. You say we're not getting enough communication. We're running out of options. You know, we've got social media, we've got news, we've got these meetings, your personal social media. I mean, there's ways that we can get this out, but 12%, $250,000, that's a low number and a high cost. So we're getting citizens in there tonight saying they're willing to help. If this stays in place, this help you say you're going to give us, we're going to need it. If not, we're just spending our wills. So we have to be mindful of what's in front of us. We want to continue to spend money and lose. Or are we going to just operate with a 12% turnout rate from our citizens that's going to eventually put us in some kind of bind somewhere down the line? So aside of plans, the only thing that's going to make this work.

Can I comment?

Thank you, Brandon. After Derek does, because he hasn't gone yet.

This is a solid plan. I echo what Brandon said. We've been here. We've talked about this. there's no you know for the right or wrong answer we don't have a good plan and so what is going to be the plan can we can we have a um can we look at this in a year and see if there's improvement and then we decide to evaluate a yes or no tonight um and i look at some people talk about the history of recycling here but um you know it's tough to make a decision like this but the numbers Or pretty simple. I mean, 12% of our people are paying $250,000 or $80 a person. It's really hard for me to vote yes to continue that unless we have a plan and we're going to have a discussion right now about how it's going to be different, what can be different.

I think the only thing I'd add, and then, Cindy, I'll let you add your comment, is we – have had this conversation every year so i remember eight years ago going out and asking for citizen comment on who wanted to keep recycling i was a council person for in john seed at the time and got overwhelming feedback that people were willing to pay an extra dollar to continue recycling so we actually have had that conversation every single year and the only comment that i would want to provide is um the the hard thing i appreciate gary mentioning the Quarterbacking of it. I feel like I have personally been talking about recycling for the past two years Mr. Lucas when we brought back recycling invited me out to visit in person his recycling facility to see the contaminated loads that we were bringing Because we were unable to keep them there. So we had to continue making changes and one frustration from the city side is Could we do more communication? You could always do more communication, sure. We are responding to the market that we have with the recycling partner that we have who is responding to the national trends in recycling that are changing what is accepted, what days they can receive things. And so the balance, at least from my perspective, is And I appreciate Mr. Dunham's reference to stewardship because I think that's very valuable and it is the hard spot that I feel like we are in. It is not just stewardship of the money, the $250,000 that we're talking about. It is stewardship of staff time. And we are considering the overall budget tonight. And right now, the amount of time that over the past two years, our communications team has dedicated and Dwayne and his team have dedicated to getting the word out. Um, could we do more? Absolutely always could. Um, but we have dedicated a lot of staff time. And so it is not just the dollar cost. It is staff time. When we talk about how to communicate that some more that's pulling staff off of other communications that are police related road related. The city runs a vast amount of things that need to be communicated to citizens. And at some point, I know everybody here already recycles, right? You guys that are here tonight that are enthusiastic, God bless you. Where were you two years ago? I would have put you on a task force and this would have been much easier. You are here tonight, but you are not the 88%. Since we talked about it in two months, I haven't heard from a single 88%-er that said, hey, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'm going to start recycling now. And that's the growth that we need. You guys are enthusiastic, and I think that is amazing. And I hope that there is a solution. If curbside doesn't move forward tonight, that doesn't mean we're done having that conversation. We can still look for solutions to include recycling in the plan. It just means that maybe we don't think we're doing the best job at the way we have currently done it, which you guys are also saying. So we agree perhaps on that. But that is, in my mind, the difficult part, not just the dollars. but the amount of time that the city contributes to that that draws away from other things and I believe we have to include that as we think about it. I think tonight it is 100% Council's discretion whether we can see I know you want to talk after me that we will either set a ticket we will consider it every year at this time no matter what happens. But if we set some other timeline if we give it a trial if we

discontinue it and we move forward but still look for options all of those things are available to us tonight it is just council's discretion that's my two cents Sydney I think was next and then okay we need to look at our own backyard Eastman Chemical was it two years three years back that they were going to spend 300 million to recycle all types of petroleum products when the government pulled their grant out Eastman Chemical said no we're not going to get in the recycling business So evidently there's not much of a market.

Thank you.

I don't, you know, when I talked earlier about the tough decision, I don't want to appreciate the efforts of people coming here tonight, but I also appreciate the efforts of the city and things that you've done over your time in here in the city council. I just, it's a tough decision, but it's also, I think it's also not just an emotional decision. We have to do what's best for everyone.

The only thing that I would say is that I do feel like if we are going to end it, that we do need to say, hey, this is when we're going to set this time frame. When are we ending it? You know what I'm saying? Because the community, it might not be just a few people in here now, but there are other people that are not here that are speaking that same tone as to saying that they didn't have enough time, they wasn't aware. I don't I don't watch all those things. I don't know all these things. So are we going to the churches? It's like you have to think about it as when we're out here campaigning and we're trying to get these people votes. You know, we're going out there. We're in the trenches. We're in the neighborhoods. I get we have people that are saying, hey, I'll step up. I'll come in and help. And we're just going to say, hey, today we're going to end it. This I mean I just feel like we we owe it to to the citizens to give them something as to what we're going to do in replace of instead of just saying hey we're going to end it today so what are we going to do.

I think Mr. Archer does have at the compost site, there is a bin that would be available for recyclables. People could deliver them there. Mr. Lucas indicated when he was here at the last meeting that they have open bins at his facility in Kilgore. People could bring recyclables that were sorted there. So besides the plan, no, I mean, you know, we didn't create a plan to go either way. So I don't have a plan for that. But those are the answers when I've asked those questions. Yes, Tom.

And I do think this is a community led effort. I mean, the city's been leading this and trying to do this. It's a community led effort. It's clear that the communication is there, that it's not there as far as understanding and getting the word out on when trash recycle days is going to be. And so I just think it's premature to cancel it early. We do have National Night Out coming up, which is a great way to get out there, to get to the neighbors, to talk to them, to promote recycling, to do the things we're talking about. Every single person that's here that wants to do this should become a Blue Crew member. and and we need to really focus on rolling out that ambassador program and getting the community uh behind it and so uh with that with the national i think this is perfect timing for us to have an opportunity to have these discussion with our neighbors yeah i mean the uh it is on the agenda as a resolution to cease and terminate curbside recycling

So, you know, it's further discussion. Motion or no motion? Or, yeah, if there's no motion, we move on. If there's a motion, we vote.

I move to approve at this time the termination of the recycling program based on my experience in the market.

Okay.

But I move to terminate it.

Thank you, Sidney. I have a motion from Sidney. Do I have a second?

And I have a second based on the 88% of the people who do not recycle.

I have a motion and a second to approve that agenda item. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed? Sorry, I'm trying to count. I'm just saying we haven't set a time limit.

I mean, you know what I'm saying? Can we set a time limit? You know, it's like this is where we're at. that we didn't see the increase. We're at the point that this is the time to make a decision. This is the time to give them time to recycle. If they're not, then it ends. And we owe it to the city to come up with a good plan, a good solid plan to keep it. I mean, we can't terminate something without something to replace it or say, hey, we're just not going to do recycling. I mean, it just makes sense to me. We have to give it time.

Okay, well, the motion failed, so we move on. How did you vote? I did not, so I voted against.

Oh, so we got a tie.

Yes, so it did not succeed, and we will move on and continue with recycling for the current time frame. Budget item B is a public hearing on and consideration of a resolution that establishes city fees and charges for the fiscal year 2026-2027. Do I just need to open it?

Yes, you can just open it.

Okay, this is just me opening the public hearing. I do not have any specific speaker cards on this item. So I will open the public hearing. Is there anyone that would like to speak on that or any questions from council?

I would like to go over the fees because I did notice I didn't know that there were that they did come up with fees for them to be able to rent out a green pool and Stamper Park pool. So I would like is john here? Or anybody from parks?

Yep. Oh, he's coming. Okay, I see him coming.

Yes, ma'am.

I just want you to go over the fees and how it works and because it had like staffing salaries, $50 fee and all of that.

Yes, ma'am. So with Ingram and Stamper, of course, there are different amounts of lifeguards that we have to have to operate both of those. So we operate using the hourly rate, which is 1524 an hour for each individual lifeguard. And then we have one of our managers that has to work at those as well. And then, so what we did, we figured up for Stamper, for a pool party, it's around $500 in order to be able to have the loft guards that we need to be able to operate it for the time amounts that we have, as well as the loft guards that we need in order to do that.

so is that 500 with the with the two hour minimum or is that what yes that is that's the two hour minimum and that includes the lifeguards as well as our fee okay that's what i wanted to clarify yes ma'am thank you thank you miss moore any other conversation on fees yes city yes i noticed we got ronald down here anyway in our full addendum

There's about 90 pages. It goes from page 67 to page 156 that are on different fees.

The only fees that were changed or created were in the budget book summary?

You're getting ahead of me. I'm sorry. Excuse me. That's what I was going to ask for. Do we have a chart available that shows only the fees we changed?

Yes, sir. It was the last section in the budget book.

Well, I guess I overlooked that. That's what I was concerned with, a list of the changes we're currently looking at. Now, this has to do with animal shelter. John, I don't think that's your part. Okay. And I'm still, at this point, I'm the liaison. I say I've been a little negligent in that. But anyway, the owner surrendered dog fee, $100 per animal. I remember years back, we came up to this and we talked and talked. And if they don't have the $100, they just drive around the corner and pull the dog off.

Sometimes, yes, sir. Whenever they call to make the appointment, they are asked of the situation and why they wish to surrender. And if it is a financial reason or an emergency situation, that fee is waived.

Okay, good, good. Now, the animal control pickup, when owner, applies when owner request a pickup of an animal by the city. Would you explain? I'm not sure what an animal control pickup I thought that was when you call and you have a dog running wild or running loose or something.

No, sir, it's it's in the situations of it could be a couple actually the owner surrender where they can't bring it they can't contain it they the owner cannot bring it to the shelter and we go out to pick it up or in the case where they may need assistance getting it to a vet for spay and neuter. then we they will pay us a small fee to do that.

Okay, but there isn't. I mean, this is ridiculous. But if there's a wild dog run around the neighborhood, there's not any fee for calling sir. All right. Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions? Okay. We'll move on to our budget item C, which is a public hearing on the proposed budget. I am opening the public hearing, which will be held to consider the proposed FY26-27 budget. Ms. Cohen, I'm sorry. Do I need to close it or I need a motion?

On the hearing.

Oh, I think is it further down? Okay. Well, I need, I'm sorry, I need a motion on the fee schedule. While I have that public hearing open motion to approve the fee schedule. Thank you. Can I have a second second? Thank you all in favor, please say aye. Any opposed fees are approved. Thank you too for keeping me in line. Uh, budget item C, which is a public hearing on the proposed budget. I will now try again to open and Ms. Cohen, I don't think there's a presentation, but I will open the hearing and ask for any questions or discussion from council.

Oh, well, I got, I already kind of told you what I was going to ask or whatever. So this is question specifically because I was looking and the reason why it's not coming up till today is because I just got the information just so that we can clarify that. So I was looking this will be year 2 of the sense of grant or whatever and I was looking at some of the the fees and we're not necessarily fees but the allocation and so this will be a part of this budget is that correct. Okay, so my question is On the community health paramedic, the salary of like $123,000, is that one paramedic? Yes, ma'am. So is that what we're going to do for the year for this program? Yes, ma'am. That's with his benefits. So is that his salary or is that benefits? It's both. So the $79,000 for the project director?

It's both salary and benefits.

Okay, so the salary is increasing in the three within because year one it was different, year two, and year three.

Yes, ma'am, because they follow basically the city's pay plan. So when we give raises on the city side, they follow along too. So it does get adjusted. And that's all been approved by our grant, by our funder.

okay I mean I was just confused on that because I was trying to see because I know that is part of the is being allocated the pay is being allocated out of the grant Chris and so that that's all we need for this program and this program specifically is one community health paramedic a project director and a community nurse PRM as needed okay um

This particular grant, yes, ma'am, we do have several grants funding the overall program.

So you're kind of bridging them all together?

Yes, ma'am, you're exactly right. We call it braiding. We braid together different programs to fund different portions of the overall initiative.

Okay. I mean, I just wanted clarification on that because I kind of didn't understand why we would only need those three people, but You're saying that y'all kind of bund all the grants together? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Perfect. Thank you.

Just out of curiosity, because you said something there, when we received these grants, you said they kind of fall in with the city's salary pay scale. Is that required on the majority of the grants that we have, or is that something that we've just done here on behalf of the city?

It's... They have to be, they're market driven. They want to make sure we're not underpaying anybody. So by using the city's pay plan, we cover that check mark on the application that we're at market.

Okay. Because I'm sure you're not going to get a nurse at a cheaper rate. I'm telling you, you've got to be competitive when you get them. I was just curious about that because I had not heard that before. And when you said, you know, required, I just want to kind of see how that balanced out.

If you're familiar with the Davis-Bacon Act, have you heard of that?

No, ma'am, but I'm waiting on you to give it to me.

The Davis-Bacon Act, it mainly pertains to HUD. But when we hire contractors, we have to guarantee they are at a market rate and they're not being lowballed. And we have to do payroll verification. to verify we are complying with those federal statutes.

Gotcha. Well, I appreciate you doing that.

You're very welcome.

Thank you.

Real quick, Laura. Yes, sir. You know, we've had AI a long time.

We've had AI since Laura's been here. The amount of recall you have on all the grants you write and all the things you do, That just amazes me. So, yeah, we appreciate you so much on all the knowledge you have. History nerd. Thank you, Laura.

Thank you, Laura. Okay, any other comments? Yes, ma'am. Yes, go for it, Cindy.

I think you already posted this. This is for Angela. On the sales tax revenue that's come in this year, and I think we would be through 12 months through September, we have those figures. How much of a percentage increase is that over 25, 26 compared to what? No, no, previous year, 24. Let's see, this always makes me up because you don't do a calendar. 2425 to 2526, the one we're currently finishing up compared to 12 months previously.

So collections to collections, it's 5.4%, I believe. It's about $900,000 over budget.

$900,000, and we budgeted a 3% increase, is that correct? Yes. So we've had the 3% plus 9%. So we've done, they're spending, or is that part of the...

No, part of the increase is part of the amount.

Oh, okay, so three out of the nine. So we had 6% additional funds. About 2.5%. It was 5.4% over last year's collections. We budgeted for, it was in between 2.5% to 3%.

So the 5.4%, that would make about 2.5%.

Okay, maybe it's a dollar amount. Was the dollar amount $900? That's a nine. That's a nine, I remember. Okay, there's a nine in there someplace. All right. Thank you. Yes, ma'am, that was $900-something thousand. Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Angela. Good job. Yes. Okay, I think I'm supposed to get a motion if we're done discussing.

I have a question. Oh, yes, ma'am. So is the action item... From Sydney, is that not going to be included in the budget? No, ma'am.

Yeah, it's down there on B. Okay. Yes, he's talking a little early on that one. Okay.

Because that will be for this year? This year. This fiscal year.

Yes, ma'am.

Move to approve the budget if everybody's finished.

And that would be option one.

One.

Thank you. Yes. That includes the increase for sanitation, although I guess we already approved that one. Yes. Okay. I have a motion to approve. Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Budget is approved. Thank you guys. Um, and then, okay, that was D moving on to E public hearing on proposed tax rate of public hearing will be held to consider the proposed fiscal 2627 tax rate. Uh, city council will actually vote on the tax rate tomorrow, September 18th, 2026 at 9 30 AM here in city council chambers. Um, Anything for Ms. Cohen? No, that's it. I said everything you were going to say. Thank you. Perfect. And then I need a motion to ratify, and I think John has that.

Yeah. So is that time for the ratification? I move to ratify the property tax revenue increase reflected in the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget.

I have a motion. Do I have a second? Thank you. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Item is approved. Thank you so much. We will move on to action items. Consider a resolution that adopts the five-year capital improvements program and allocate funds for 26-27 with Mr. Zach Shaner, our city engineer.

All right.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, Mr. McPhee. Tonight I am bringing forward our proposed CIP projects for next year. I want to first Start off with a General discussion on how we determine our projects we operate off of policies accepted by a council in 2000 such projects include the acquisition of property and the construction or addition or expansion of our city facilities major repairs to our our infrastructure in excess of a hundred thousand dollars major equipment purchases in excess of a hundred thousand dollars as well as projects that were determined in studies or projects from existing master plans So when we have potential projects, we have to score them to determine which ones are going to be in the best interest of the city. We determine this with two categories, priority and urgency. Each of these categories are scaled one through four, one being the most important, four being not as desirable. Beginning with priority, priority number one is a safety project, a federal and state mandate, or economic development. Priority two would be protection of our capital stock. Priority three would be to replace and improve operating efficiency, and priority four would be new or substantial expansion. Moving on to urgency, and urgency one would be an essential project. uh urgency number two would be a desirable project urgency three would be an acceptable project and number four would be a deferrable project now each when each project is given a number on each one of these categories they are combined for a composite score this the composite score the lowest composite score is uh, the projects that we bring forward to do next year. And so these projects are determined by reviewing our previous CIP lists, um, our water and sewer master plans, our parks master plan, our master plan for drainage, as well as the coordination and, uh, with our Metropolitan Transportation Plan. In summary, up on the screen now is the projects that we approved last year for 2526. They included a drainage improvement project, which was in place to alleviate a house on Wellington Lane of repetitive flooding. We had a 2026 wastewater system improvement, which is upgrading lines that are continuing to fail and are beyond their service life in various areas of town. We also are installing an ozone generator at our Lake of the Pines facility, a water treatment plant, which is imperative to the treatment of water. And lastly, we did a Lear Park automation project for the lights and gate access. Now moving on to the proposed list for this year. We have a 2027 drainage improvement project, which is actually alleviating three different properties of repetitive flooding, and they're located on Woodvine Street. This project is estimated cost of $750,000. Our facilities project this year is repairs to our exhibit center at our fairgrounds. Now, that building was built in the late 40s with building materials that were ideal at the time. However, in communications with the structural engineer, they're only supposed to last about 50 years. Now, we got an extra 50% lifespan out of them. However, they're entrapping moisture, which is causing the perimeter structural block walls to start to deteriorate. And in an effort to preserve the building, we are proposing to install a metal panel system around the outside of the building, which will keep the moisture from getting any worse. And there'll also be an air gap between this panel system and the existing block wall to allow the existing block to dry out and stop the continually, uh, degradation of the block. Our water project or one of our water projects this year is to update our water distribution model. Right now, our model is a thick book that had become obsolete back in 2021. Now We rely, as engineers, we rely on this model for various reasons. It helps us predict pressures and flow throughout our distribution system. It helps us design pipe sizing, pumps, size of pumps, and valves. It also allows us to determine bottlenecks and low-pressure areas within town. We can also, with this new updated model, which will be software-based, we'll be able to simulate brakes and valve closures And lastly, we'll be able to analyze fire flow capacity. So we make sure if Chief Grimes' crew comes out that they have the water to put out the fires. Our second water project is a replacement of a 24-inch water line on Fisher Road. This is a main artery in our water distribution system. line itself is uh quite old and has repeatedly have broken and actually most recently about two weeks ago and when that happens it has a major impact on our entire system and puts it in jeopardy so thankfully we have a good crew good crews that were able to over the years repair the line but it's beyond time to replace it so we're not continually patching the same pipe. Our wastewater project for this year would be to replace a 12-inch sewer line between Avenue B, oh yeah, that is the wrong one, Avenue B and Loop 281. This project was recommended in our sanitary sewer master plan. And lastly, We've discussed this a couple different times over the years. It is a grant to develop a comprehensive safety plan, which is a federal mandate to be able to have to allow us to apply for implementation grants. So this plan would be to go around the city and determine safety improvements for the traveling public. And then with that report, it allows us to go after other grants that we can actually construct these improvements. Now that might be a little confusing. So I have some examples here that you can relate to. Uh, the traffic signal heads, putting back plates on them that are retroflective. TxDOT just did this this summer on all the state highways within town. It could be something along the lines of guardrails or median barriers or illuminated chevrons, which we have partnered with TxDOT here in the last couple of years. We've put them on Spring Hill, MLK, and I believe Greg Tx Road.

Thank you for the examples.

Oh, you're welcome. And so in summary, we have six projects totaling $3,460,000. And with that, I'm willing to answer any questions that you may have.

Yeah, what questions you guys have for Zach? No, good presentation. Thank you, ma'am. I need a motion to approve.

Motion to approve.

Thank you. And a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. CIP is approved. Next action item is consider a resolution that authorize and directs the city manager and other city officials to use fiscal year 2526. So part of this year and savings to pay for a temporary cost of living adjustment or attention payment for certain city employees and lawfully encumbering and savings for said purpose that is with Mr. Sydney Allen. That's you.

Yes, ma'am.

We have discussed this at the last meeting. We need more retention, and we need more retention in the lower pay scales because these are the people that have been here the least amount of time, and they're the ones right now that are – hit hardest by the inflation. I don't know, I was just thinking today, we're at $4 gasoline. It's gonna cost you $80 if you'd have 20 gallons in your fuel tank to fill up. The inflation is just getting out of hand. With this, $500, you're going to get approximately 400. I believe that's what and with that money, you can you we you can use that for a catch up. You can use that maybe to, as Jody said before, maybe to buy some tires for your automobiles, or maybe you need a new battery. Or you know, there's always things you need when you're in the lower pay scale that are very hard for you to obtain because it costs so much nowadays just to live. It's just some idea and most of these people are out working on the streets that when we have a water leak, they're out digging up that street or they're out digging up that ground with that pick and shovel and it's 100 degrees in the shade. And they're not in the shade. They're out in the open sun having to do this manual labor. And those are the people we need to retain that are having the hardest time getting by financially.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sidney. Discussion, questions, comment? I got Derek and Shannon.

Well, I just, I mean, can you get the numbers of how many employees do we have that are?

Oh, yes. Do we, yep. We have.

Percentage, I guess.

304 employees is what this would affect, and that is 33.74%, and it would be about $184,000. And this money, this one-time $500 payment, where do those funds come from? They're going to come from all of our different funds, whatever funds that the departments originate out of. So all of our different funds.

But not out of our savings?

No. No, it would come out of year-end savings for each of our different funds.

And so I think we did a really good job, spent a lot of time on our pay analysis. and we had a good plan in place for that. I would even say that if I was an employee that was making that, I would have hoped that we could have maybe given them more money then rather than $500 now that's a one-time fee. I know we put a lot of this in place. I thought we had a good discussion, a lot of good discussion about this at the time. I think hopefully moving forward, I agree with Mr. Allen that we do need to retain and pay these people, and they have They contribute so much, these 33% of our employees. But, you know, this discussion, I think it's coming at a late time because we had already been through the process with the pay analysis, and we paid those people quite a bit for the survey.

Thank you, Derek. Shannon?

I just have a comment.

Um, for one, I want everybody to understand that when you work for a government entity, everything is public. This is the citizens money. This is taxpayers money that the citizens are your boss. So anytime that I ask questions or do anything, it's not to point anybody out or say somebody is making this or that. It's just to point out the problems and to be transparent with the citizens and you know, that are essentially the bosses of this city. They run this city. We work for the city. So when I look at the numbers and I bring that thing up, we're talking about retention, and this is just a comment because we've already approved the budget, but I'm trying to let you know that this is what concerns me because that... Even when we did that pay plan study, these numbers that I'm reading off, these is about all the employees from top to the bottom, and when I say these things, this is the annual, what they make annually, and we're trying to retain employees, and when we're still giving out this $500 one-time bonus to them, or whatever it is called legally, whatever I want to point out that we're still annually increasing $10,000 raises $25,000 raises $15,000 raises $10,000 raises and then you go down to the bottom and and then you see $863 so I'm not saying that we shouldn't have approved the paper and say that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is is that it could have been phased in and then instead of giving $500 we could have gave a more percentage to them and then facing for the other employees later because they are struggling at Sydney saying so that's why we're here doing a $500 when we could have looked at it as a whole, as I was saying, but that offer was not given to even look at. We got one option, and that was it. So we approved this budget, and we approved it like this, but no other option was given. So that's why we have a second vote to give $500 instead of looking and phasing it in and giving more to the lower level employees that really need retention because that's the ones we're losing other than our veteran employees that's been here 20 years plus and are at retirement. And then I look at not only that, I look at some of those lower employees are police, fire, all those people that are out there in safety. That's all I'll say with that. And I want to be clear that when you work for a government, when you work for any kind of city, municipality or anything, your salary is public information and taxpayers deserve to know what they want to know. And that's all I have to say on that. Thank you.

Other comments, questions, discussion on this item? Go ahead, John.

So I mentioned this last time in the meeting, so I don't want to harp in too much on it. So the you know, I'm opposed to doing the one time pay because I value all the employees for what they're doing. The money here, like we're talking about, is not To me, I don't see it as a retention. We have the ability to pay because we have year-end savings. If we didn't have that, we wouldn't be having this discussion. And so it's really that we have the capacity to do it, and the capacity to spend is not rationale to spend. And so for me, we got to look at what end does this satisfy. So a one-time payment with no requirement for retention does not satisfy anything that would come from this one-time payment. It's also not predictable. It's not regular enough to actually create where you're getting a bump in your standard of living and your cost of living to help do this. So I understand the heart behind it, and I completely agree as far as being helpful in times that we have it and that we can do it. I am proud of the fact of the market pay that we are able to provide. So the money that's increasing, those that are increasing more or less than others, is due to the discrepancy in how much they were making from the market pay to what they're at now. And that's really what there is there. So, you know, police and fire, we've done this great job with them as far as getting their pay to market pay. And so they're really not getting anything this time. and that's understandable like as far as trying to this the difference in that gap and whatever that pay is is what the market pay is for that employee and i think that's fair i think that's what we should do we shouldn't be paying our employees fairly and we should give them a way and a path to not only uh stay here at the city of longview but a path to continue to grow in their career and have somewhere as far as uh pay to go to as far as to get advancement in their career and so uh I'll also say on the retention side of things to the biggest retention that we need is the five to 15 year employees. That's where we're missing the biggest gap. And that's what the pay study came to say is like, listen, we're really short there. And so if we're focused on retention, and it would be to the five to 15 year employees, and figuring out a way to incentivize them to retain as well. And then it's deserving. I fully understand deserving the employees that are out there in the heat and the hot. I mean, there's so many employees. If you work for city government, I'm sorry, you're underpaid. I mean, it's just the nature of the way of how it works for the public. But police and fire are out there in the heat. They're doing the same thing as well. And so I understand that as well. I just believe that if there's what end are we trying to solve with this? And so that's why I'm not going to support it. But I understand the heart and everything. That's just my personal feelings about it as well on it. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? Questions? Okay. If not, I guess I need a motion.

I move to approve.

I have a motion from Sydney. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second from Shannon. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Aye.

Item is approved. We will move on to C, consider a resolution that approves a budget amendment to 2526 LEEDCO budget. Mr. Wayne, I can't say your name. It's been a long night, Wayne.

It's been a long evening.

Mr. Wayne Mansfield, the president of LEEDCO. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Would you recognize any board members you got with you, please?

Yes, I believe we do have a couple. We have Ms. Toycia Walker and Ranjit Kadali. And I don't see any others here. Would they please stand up?

Thank you guys for your service.

We did have some others that did want to make it, but they're out of town due to work. But, yeah, so here tonight to request a budget amendment. We're excited about this. You know, ordinarily you would think with budget amendment, because you've overspent your budget, that's kind of a bad thing. But for us, it's different. We allocate anywhere from $2 million to $3 million a year in incentive payments. And if we spend all of that money, that means we're doing our job. And this year in particular, we've had a record year. We've announced five projects, over $320 million in capital investment for the city of Longview. And because of that, it requires us to ask for a budget amendment. Do we not load it on the? No. I don't know.

Well, that's the budget. Is there not the budget amendment?

Well, what we're requesting is allocation. I sat down with our accountant and our auditor, too, to make sure we were in compliance with everything. And we pulled some money out that we did not anticipate to spend before the end of the year. And what we're requesting is allocation of $320,000. and $526 out of our fund balance to make sure that we meet budget this year.

Any questions for Wayne?

The fund balance, would that be a reserve?

Yes, sir. Okay, so we're taking that as a reserve? Yes, sir. Okay, thank you.

If not, do I have a motion?

So moved. Second.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Item is approved. We'll move on to your resolution to adopt the LEEDCO FY2627 budget. All right.

So just kind of give you a year in review. I mentioned the projects, proposals generated. We receive RFIs from the governor's office, from site consultants, or from companies themselves. Many of them we often cannot reply to because they're asking for 1,000 acres of rail-served land. Obviously, we don't have that here. We did generate, actually, I think we generated about seven site visits, which is a pretty good number for us. We call them site selectors. They're not. They're site eliminators. When a company is looking to expand, they send out an RFI. They'll get 80 sites across the U.S., whatever region they're looking at, and we want to be the last one standing. So to generate a site visit means that we've at least gotten to the final round. We have 29 open projects, seven are very active, and we do have a couple of larger projects that we've made, I know, two cuts, the first two cuts on. So hopefully we'll, and we sent some additional information on that project this morning, actually.

The project since 2016, I always like to show this.

This is my favorite slide, Wayne.

I'm sorry?

It's my favorite slide.

It shows the impact that LECO and the work that our team and our board do to bring investment to the city. And you'll see this since 2016, over 4,000 jobs. Sadly, I think Mr. Allen mentioned earlier the Eastman project. Sadly, I had to remove that from our chart. But over 4,000 jobs, capital investment of $800 million. So that's a net benefit to the city generally over 10 years of $174 million. Good job. We're proud of that number. It is good.

I'm sorry to kind of jump in a little bit. Sure. Do you mind explaining to people the gap, so the net to the city is such a large amount. So the benefit of a distribution center, I just want you to kind of highlight that.

Yeah, gap is an unusual project for us because generally distribution centers do not generate sales tax. gap does and it well and we and i go down every session and fight this battle where they're trying to change to a point of destination tax which would destroy our agreement with gap and we get we receive revenue from that there's some members in the house ways and means that want to change it to a point of destination which to me they're robbing from the poor to give to the rich But it's the impact on our community, so that money should stay here. But yeah, it's an exciting project, and they continue to meet goals each year.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And we should all, as a community, understand the point of destination. I mean, we're providing the infrastructure, the safety, all the components to be able to deliver the product. Schools. And therefore, we should be the ones that receive the sales tax on that. That's correct. So just be mindful of that. And I appreciate all the fight that you're doing on that. Everybody else that does the fight to keep that point of destination here.

Rollins joined with me, as well as Judge Stout. Yes.

So on the community note, thank you so much, Wayne. I apologize.

I think Derek had a question, too. Just a quick one. I appreciate, Wayne, your organization

four million dollars four four thousand two hundred twenty eight jobs I may be getting ahead of myself a little bit with the other resolutions but with these new projects do you have an estimation on new job creations with those no no sir well I can get that I don't have it on the slide but it's one of the projects that we're working on is very significant very good and what we continue to see too is that

We're in a position that we can be somewhat picky, so to speak. For instance, there was a project a consultant wanted, but his hourly wages were only like $7 or $8 an hour. And I told him, I said, sir, I'd love to help you, but honestly, you're not going to find labor. And I don't want to help you in a situation that you're going to fail. And he was appreciative of that and went on somewhere else. I don't know where he wound up, but We're fortunate that we can be in that situation. So we look at companies that are going to pay wages above our household income. We're looking at now the $70,000, $65,000, $70,000 range or up. So that's another benefit. That is a benefit.

Very good.

Thank you. Which hopefully, Angela, helps drive our sales tax up. Type B projects, this is another thing we're really excited about. When I first came here, which 10 years ago, August, I don't think LECO really participated in a lot of Type B projects, but we've made it a priority to work with the city and share that revenue. And you'll see George Ritchie, I guess I need to correct that, to Bill Stout Parkway. We did partner along with the city, the county, and TxDOT, which has been really a blessing for development of the North Business Park. The traffic signals there, the land for the fire station in the North Business Park. Then the pickleball course in McWhorter Park, which is one of the newer ones.

Very excited about that.

And the trail system was by far the largest, which has been an outstanding project. And we're still paying debt on behalf of the city of $666,000 a year, which we only have about four or five years left on that bond payment. So going into the budget, you'll see this year we received the forecast from Angela on the sales tax because we are funded by a quarter cent of sales tax. And the revenue fund interest, that's the interest. Again, I think Mr. Allen mentioned investing money. We do the same. So we draw interest on our money market. I set this number intentionally low. That number actually is around $700,000, $600,000 from the interest we received. But I set it intentionally low in case those sales tax projections are lower than we anticipated. So we're not coming and continuing to ask for budget amendments. The other revenue, when we purchased the Barquet property, it came with a grazing lease. So the farmer there pays us a little over $10,000 a year for the grazing rights. So about an $8.6 million budget this year, which I believe is one of the highest we've had since I've been here. So in our programs and our expenditures, industry, that's our recruitment. That's our marketing, our retail. We see that number's increased. A big part of that is marketing. I'm going to hire a consultant this year to do a marketing strategy. I think that's with the social media that's out there. It's getting more and more competitive. And I hear this when I meet at conferences with our colleagues. Texas is a target now. in terms of economic development it has been for a number of years and you've seen other states that in my 33 years of experience like Missouri and Kentucky that have not been competitive there all of a sudden are and they're they're using Texas playbook so I think it's important that we continue to see or improve getting our message out to site consultants, to companies. So that's a big part of the increase there. You see the retail. Our retail development has really increased this year. I think a big part of that was the fresh project. It drew a lot of interest. We are getting a lot more big box regional type of retail interest. So we've got a retail consultant we've had for over 15 years that meets with the companies themselves and the company reps. Talent, that's our workforce development. Projects, that is the money that we provide to the city for the transit system. I know that was, y'all discussed that earlier, but that amount did increase to 375,000. So GNA, the personnel and benefits, a slight increase there. That's for a 2% raise for employees, not me. And then the increase in health care. The health care costs have gone up this year. Office expenses, I just did an inflationary adjustment there increase. Insurance, again, gone up. That's like our property insurance and so forth. Professional services, that's our legal, our accounting, and our auditing. Then you'll see our business park maintenance stays the same. We do have a contractor that bush hogs our business park, keeps it free of litter. So when we're showing companies, it looks nice. And then our debt service. The $556,000 last year, that was an error that I made. Because when we did the loan, came in we came in like the seventh month or i was about three months short so that 886 there was no increase in the payment to texas bank and trust it was just an error i made in looking at not taking it for the full year Debt to the service bonds, you'll see, as I mentioned earlier, $666,000. And then non-fixed assets, our office FF&E will stay the same. And then real property, that's, again, non-fixed assets. If we are doing a phase one study for a piece of property or doing geotech work, we have an engineer that does some site plan development if we get a prospect in. And then, as I mentioned, we're left with the incentive payments that are scheduled for this year is $1.4 million. And then we'll have $2.7 million for new economic development projects for the year. What I am asking, again, is for another $2.25 from our reserve. And that's going into our capital budget.

And you'll see that's going for the Barkay Industrial Property.

We're beginning to look to get water and sewer to that site. So we're losing opportunities every week because we don't have anywhere to put anybody. And we need to now start putting money toward developing infrastructure for that site. There you see the Teague Park and the McWhorter Park is also there. And then 250 other capital projects as the LECO board sees fit throughout the year. So that's the budget in general. And open to any questions.

Any questions for Wayne?

Comments?

Sure.

I want to say thank you for the wonderful team you have. And one thing that I've been, your meeting facility is excellent. When people come to town and they want to sit down and meet with you or meet with the county or the city, your meeting facility is excellent. Thank you.

it's important when when you're meeting the biggest thing in recruiting the companies is built trust and making them feel at home right off the bat and that's what we provide is that home feel and not just a stale core one thing I want to meet you here also is the mr. Mansfield you facilitated the cooperation between the county and the city and lead Co working all together

which is a great thing that sometimes we take for granted, but a lot of counties don't do that. Or cities don't work with the counties. Yes, you facilitated that very well.

Thank you. We've got a great partnership with Judge Stout and the county commissioners.

And you talked about this being a record year. I want to go back and kind of remind people, based on what the five businesses in this current year, it added over 300 jobs to the city of Longview and saved a couple hundred jobs as well at the same time. And so that helps us with keeping taxpayers here, keeping things local.

Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned that because I'm going to talk about that here in just a minute. Okay. Yes, sir, Joe.

Wayne, first off, congratulations for you and your team, the board, and the staff on a record year. So amazing job. The only question I hear is the ending fund balance. What's the target or what's the comfortable amount that you want to have in there, if any? I don't know.

You know, we've discussed that in the past, but we've never come to a resolution as what – I think y'all adopted 15%. That's something that I want to look at in the coming year.

Okay. Because where it's at, you're comfortable with that as far as?

Yes, because we're going to start really, like I said, allocating funds for development of the Barquet property. Yeah.

You've got to spend money to make money. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Wayne. I need a motion to approve the budget.

Motion to approve.

Second. Second.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? But it is approved. Thank you, Wayne. Next is still you consider a resolution to authorize the city manager to negotiate a chapter 380 economic development agreement between the city and quanta services to encourage the construction and installation of capital improvements at the company's facilities to be located at 708 Jordan Valley Road.

Yeah, and this is really a great project. Heather and I had an opportunity to have a Zoom meeting with their leadership. And what this project's going to do there at the Trinity site is going to be phenomenal. It will have a major, much like GAP or the Ninth Avenue Foods, will have a long-lasting impact. Lately we've been seeing a lot of projects generated by the energy industry in necessary infrastructure And that's what this project is quanta is based in Houston But they they make the infrastructure for utility lines And going in into the west part of Longview we We've heard that Before that you know we're not doing anything over there. Well. There's not been any empty spots so what's exciting about this project is With the closure of that Trinity facility there on Jordan Valley, somebody's coming in, so there will not be an elimination of property off the tax rolls, so to speak. So we're really excited about that. And the 380 is a tax abatement for the project. And just to give you some numbers, we like to run an impact analysis on the incentives we put in and what the community is getting back. So we're looking at an 18.7% return to the community and a payback period of less than five years of the incentive that we're putting in, which is $1.5 million over five years. And it's one thing it's important to note, too, the companies don't just get these checks. We break it up over five years. They have to meet certain goals. They have to meet employment and investment goals. And if they don't, they do not receive the incentive. And we do that. We monitor the tax abatement on behalf of y'all working with Angela to ensure that they're in compliance so they can continue to receive that abatement. If they don't meet that compliance, they do not receive that abatement.

That's wonderful.

For just to, Mr. Connolly, give you an idea, over 10 years, that's a $2 million return to Pine Tree ISD. Awesome. And to the city, $2.8 million, and to Gregg County, $1.5 million. That's over 10 years.

That's great. That's great. Any questions, or I need a motion.

Also want to say, I think that that area is not only appreciate that this would be an initiate of other opportunities that can grow in that area also.

We're working on a couple in that area right now, actually.

I appreciate it, Wayne.

Awesome. Do you want to vote?

Motion to approve.

I have a motion. Second. And a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Next is item F, consider a resolution that authorizes the city manager to negotiate a Chapter 380 economic development agreement with Rob Roy Industries for installation of capital improvements at the company's facilities to be located at 2811 Robert Cargill Drive.

Yeah, this is another great project. Rob Roy, again, they make electrical components, and a lot of it's being driven by the energy industry, and I guess a lot of the data centers and infrastructure and components that are needed. But they've outgrown a facility in Avenger. They will keep their facility in Gilmer and move most of their Avenger project here. This is at the old Smurfit Kappa site in Longview Business Park. So just to give you an idea of the return there, it's a $375,000 incentive. That's a 30% return to the community in a payback period of three years. And it's still generating $475,000 for the city of Longview over 10 years. So another great project. The problem is it takes up an empty building, so we've got to find some more buildings.

Keep filling them up. Any questions for Wayne? If not, I need a motion. Motion to approve. Thank you. And a second?

Second.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Item is approved. Thank you so much, Wayne. Thank you, board members. I know that is a lot of time and a lot of expertise that goes into that. And, man, we are grateful for all that you bring to our community. Thank you guys very much.

We do have a great, great board. I mean, it's making business decisions, and we see the benefits.

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Keep going. And we are now on to items of community interest. Mr. Conley, you're up.

Yes, ma'am. I think I have a slide there. There she is. So I had a great conversation with the Pine Tree ISD superintendent, a friend of mine, Steve Cluxton, and reflection on the last eight years in that district as far as academic growth. And I'm just happy that he actually showed me that Pine Tree, when compared to other schools, their relative performance in eight straight years of improvement and there's over 1,200 school districts in Texas and Pine Tree ISD is the only school that has improved for eight consecutive cycles eight consecutive years really appreciate all the hard work that goes in there from the students the teachers and the leadership there and I'm really proud of Pine Tree ISD and I want to add to that on a national night out have an opportunity to honor our Law enforcement, fire, first responders, and Pine Tree. The old stadium on Birch will have a national night out from 5 to 7 and also Pine Tree High School 5 to 7. Love to see everybody there. And I'd like to appreciate my colleagues over here on this side of the table wearing the Pine Tree blue to die.

No, no. Miss Moore. I don't have anything. I don't mind supporting Pine Tree. Mr. Smith.

All right. We got this Saturday, we have the sickle cell warrior of Texas. Kickball tournament, it's in the honor of Derrick Rosenberg. He's recently lost his life with a lifetime fight for sickle cell. He was a proud Lobo supporter. He's one of the guys that you would hear hollering on the megaphone at a Lobo game, you know, barking through the megaphone. He was full of life. He had a great life, and they wanted him. You can come out Saturday and donate blood, have vendors out, have vendor booths, food. DJ, kickball tournament as well. You can still sign up for this kickball tournament the day of and the rest of tomorrow and the day of as well. So come out and enjoy that. We also have October 3rd Breast Cancer Awareness Walk. This is a big event. I think it's a 5K walk, now an MLK. Everybody come out, wear pink, go paint. MLK Pink this day. You can support by becoming a vendor, a sponsor. You can purchase T-shirts and their website they have on their flyer here. Also, there's Grand Marshal. Dr. Tracy Moore-Hicks will be the Grand Marshal for this event as well. So come out, support, and it's going to be a great event also. Again, this Saturday, September the 19th, Parkview Baptist Church and means ministry health fairs be going on calling out all men come out they'll have a free health checks they have a mobile clinic on site they're gonna focus on health faith and fellowship they also be serving free breakfast so I'll be there so door prizes will be awarded Local vendors also will be attending, so we encourage every man to come out and support this event. Also, Officer Pastor Brown, this is his church, so you know the type of show that he's running. He does a great job over at that church as well. So let's come out and support them. That's all I have.

Perfect. Thank you.

Yes, Mayor. I have the annual town hall coming up for District 4. Everybody's welcome, though. But come out at 6 p.m. Thursday, October 15th. It's at Jack's Natural Foods. So I am changing, and it has been the East Texas Builders Association. But I wanted to switch and highlight one of the great businesses we have in District 4 and in Longview. So come there, 310-3110 Neely Way. at LongviewTexas.gov to see more information about it. But come out. We're going to talk about, you know, what we've done in the past year, what we're looking at in the next year. Meet your neighbors. Meet your community. Ask questions. Meet your, you know, city officials, different things. So come out, and we'd love to have you there. And have some good food, too. Awesome. Thank you all.

Thank you, John. Mr. Berryhill.

All right, we're back to another tremendous tree giveaway. And if you were one of the people who were short, or not short, but late getting there, don't mean anything, but if you were late getting there and you missed out on it, this is the opportunity again from 9 to 11 on September 19th at the Longview Arbitorium. Excuse me. All citizens who reside in Longview, this is a first come, first serve, and there'll be another 150 trees up for permanent adoption. And our arborist there will give you instructions on what to do. And I don't think you can get John Albertson out there to dig you a hole, but they'll give you plenty of instructions on how to do it because they've been working hard around the city doing this as well. The next thing I wanted to say is Spring Hill ISD had a great opportunity. So the United States Air Force Band of the West was out there to perform, I believe it was last Tuesday. I'm trying to remember right. I should know that. I introduced them. But the United States Air Force Band of the West, they perform in over 300 different places to about 20 million people during the course of the year. They go from Texas, Oklahoma, all the way over to Georgia and Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. I told her conductor I said I still don't understand how your band of the West when you perform in the southeast and we never got that all clear but it was a very good night if you ever get a chance to go see them you need to do that and if you're looking at wanting to possibly bring them in, all you have to do is give them an invitation, invite them, they'll show up, and there's no cost to you. So great opportunity going forward, and it was a great night there.

Sydney. All right.

Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to clarify one subject on recycling. Now that we're continuing the recycling program, I want to make a personal commitment that I will work with Mr. Archer, and then I will also visit with Todd Lucas to see if we can't find a better market for our recyclables where we're not going into an increasing price when we turn around.

You can be on the task force also.

Oh. All right. But I want to make that commitment that I will work with Mr. Archer and Todd Lucas to find a better market for our recyclings.

Thank you, Sidney.

Anything from you? I have one thing. All right.

So while a lot of us are asleep and sleeping 3 o'clock in the morning earlier this week, we started having some water pressure issues in a certain area. And I want to call out Rick Evans, I want to call out Chris Everett that worked together with Brian Richardson in charge of water and sewer. In particular, two gentlemen named Elvis Wilson and Matt Morrison, as well as Andy Stevens and Ray Rouse, found the break in about three hours, got it isolated, and they stayed all day to fix it. And it's those kind of things that happen day in and day out with those people in public works, and I just wanted to give them a commend. Say 3 a.m.? Yes, 3 a.m. until the line finally got repaired at about 7 o'clock that evening.

Wow, where was that?

It was at the Sabine Street Bridge. There's a backbone of our water system that feeds water everywhere, and those gentlemen responded and got it taken care of.

Well, good job, guys. I know all the residents that benefited from that are appreciative. Absolutely.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you very much. I do feel like I should clarify what happened with recycling. Sometimes it's confusing when we just move on. So recycling stalled at votes three to three. I did not vote, which means I voted against the resolution. So the resolution to eliminate recycling failed, which means we will continue curbside recycling. however I do not want that to be a sigh of relief when you walk away I want to thank everyone that was here tonight and also celebrate how your local participation makes a difference right like where your voice voice may not be heard at a national level your participation can really make a difference here and we are counting on that in the future so We probably will assemble a task force. You've probably signed yourself up tonight by giving me your phone number. But yes, Ms. Johnson, I will put you on there. I see you raising your hands. The yes, the message needs to be tell a neighbor to recycle not tell the city how to communicate better. So I'm just setting that expectation up from the front. I need you to knock on your neighbor's door, drag the recycling bin out on the day after sanitation and make a literal difference in the recycling program. It's not going to be city do a better job and put more resources towards it. It's a tell a neighbor friend. Good. But anyway, I really want to celebrate. That is the difference you can make when you stay engaged and you pay attention and you show up at meetings and you contact a city council person and you get involved. So good job. That was the process working, but it will continue and need to continue working moving forward. I also really want to celebrate council. Yeah, we've had a couple of three hour meetings. Thank you to our city staff that does such an amazing job and stays here and fields all of the questions and helps us with all of the things and makes us look good. Y'all are amazing, and we appreciate you very much, and we're excited to be walking out of here with an approved budget and all of those great things tonight. So good job, council, for being so engaged and involved, and staff, thank you for spending so much time with us. National Night Out is October 6th. We talked about it already. Please find a party in your neighborhood. I really feel like it is the most important thing you can do as a citizen to engage in the community and get to know your neighbors. And like John mentioned, it is the perfect time to shame them into recycling and tell them you see them putting the bin out on their trash day and not on recycling day. Peanut Butter Drive is a competition we have against Tyler to raise peanut butter for all our local food banks, East Texas Food Bank, Community Longview Ministries, Newgate also picks up, Caring and Sharing also picks up. Please help contribute to that. That goes through September 24th. We are ahead now, but it can always turn. And finally, Christmas assistance. We have started an effort acknowledging that this year we are aware of some changes in our local nonprofits that will mean we have some children that will not have Santa as it often is through general Christmas assistance programs the city is attempting to step in and provide some coordination so if you are interested in helping with that you can help us by signing up there anyway we have been here long enough thank you good job guys we are adjourned