City Commission - Regular Meeting

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And now we move into a workshop of the Macallen City Commission [music] held in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act. All workshops are open to the public and serve as an [music] opportunity for city staff to present detailed information, reports, and updates to the commission in preparation for future action [music] or decisions. While no formal votes are taken during these sessions, workshops play an important role in the city's policymaking and decisionmaking process. [music]

I'm on the agenda. Do we have any questions for staff from the city commission? Out of here. No, for me, city manager. Okay, then uh Mayor Prom, we have uh city engineer Mendoza here to give you an update on the uh Balboa RDF and buoy drainage project.

Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Tim, city commission, city manager. Thank you. Um, just before I open up, uh, just a reminder, we have a ribbon cutting for the Baloa sllegates tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. It's going to be right across, uh, the the golf course, um, at the parking lot where the the there's an an entrance into the west side of the the golf course there. And we look forward to seeing everybody who can make it. I'll go ahead and start this uh, presentation. So what uh we're presenting today is we undertook a project to fill Buoie Reservoir the area about 70 acres there. As part of that project, our deputy city engineer came up with the idea to get the fill from another site that would help us uh do a second two projects for the price of one. Um, when we were looking at this project to fill a buoy and having to get that fill from an unknown source, we were we had estimates that range between 4 and a.5 and $6 million at the top end. Um at one point when we were looking at that project through that that creative idea of trying to get that fill from a source that we had and then we can do a project. We we decided that uh pairing that with the Baloa RDF which is right adjacent to the southwest um sewer plant uh on where inella it it was very beneficial and I'm going to show you a slide just kind of a a little background two slides. So when we look at the buoy reservoir site as as you know that used to be uh the old uh site where we got our our reservoir for water um that has been um a new reservoir was built on the south in a triangular shape if you look on Google Earth. And so we we relocated this we

designed the fill for 137,000 that included the excavation of the RDF at Baloa. So that that 137 we got the economy skills we paid them to design the RDF area and to design the fill for that site. So it's pretty economical when you look at the design side of that. And then when you look at what we got the construction bids when we looked at the fill and um excavation we got it for $2.9 million close to $3 million. When we look at the Baloa RDF phase one drainage improvements, as as you can see here, we highlighted in red where that is being dug out. And then when you look at the blue area, that's the area that um the drainage area that we that we improved. It's over 1500 acres or about 2 4 uh square miles. that project we had estimated to cost us about $1.1 million uh if we had to excavate it and then move that fill. And so when you look at these two projects, we we really got an economy of scales when when we paired that together. We did that for $3 million when we estimated that to be on the low end of four and a half and in the high end to $6 million. Uh remember these are times when we were closer to COVID. Uh it was about a year and a half ago when we started looking at that and uh just very bene beneficial project. When you look at the [clears throat] the southside and what we've improved just with this one project that's a tremendous area of 1500 acres of improvement. It it improves all of Baloa and then some of our industrial area and some of our areas that we're looking to develop in the future. And so this is a uh we feel a very key project and we wanted to present that to you um to show you know that one we're good

stewards of the city's money and and always looking for creative ways to uh get extra extra money or stretch our dollars a little further. We would I'd like to open it for any questions or to Ike if he had anything to add on it. How are we getting the drainage water to the retention area? So, right now there's uh what what I call Sarah ditch or staff calls the trade zone uh ditch.

And so, right now there's a ditch that runs through there and then heads out into the mission inlet. Um we're right adjacent. So, before it before it releases into the mission inlet, it it's going down the Sarah ditch and then it will fill up here. um store store um the water and then be released into the floodway or mission and so it's right adjacent to a ditch and so this it just offlines and then once the system is able to take that water back it releases out

some of those some of those waters would go east into the Baloa area right so this is preventing those waters to go into to the east of the Balba area it east of of 20 of road. It gives us additional storage. Um it does head east, but there's a ditch that heads east and there's another to get into the machine inlet. This gives us additional capacity, right, which reduces that surface water elevation for the whole area. It it'll it'll keep it for hours and then drain it steadily drain it as needed. Correct.

As it's needed. Yeah. [clears throat] What it's giving you commissioner is more than half a million cubic yards of additional capacity within the system. So tomorrow when we have the baloa slle gates this is right adjacent to this. Those slle gates now have uh backflow preventers um in what we call inline valves. Basically if we get water that comes back you know those things will close down. We have this storage uh space we would pump over. Um, so there's that additional project that we'll be doing, the ribbon cutting tomorrow that's that's right adjacent to this.

Um, done a lot of work on the southside and just wanted to make sure to highlight that uh for commission today. In speaking with Edward, though, so thank you for giving me the opportunity [clears throat] to chime in. The principles that that he and his team at engineering used in designing this are principles that they're looking at with other projects. So, we know we've got projects with a need for fill and when we find areas uh where we either have ditches ditches um or drainage systems that that we can improve

um to lend to another project. Uh we're looking at that and so we've got one that we started talking about um in the last week and we'll have that on executive session later today. Yeah, the more you can do those, you know, the county has done tremendous work, but uh if we can if we can do that in in our area, the middle of our city, that would be fantastic. Drainage continues to be a very high priority um for the capital improvements we're looking at over the next several years.

It's going to help a lot on where road because remember that that were road right around the Eidella Street area. and and and just for the people to to again to to remind them why these RDFs are are built. This is to give time for the water to to go into the drainage system and go to the east. I mean it's it's just uh time is is to to give them time when when it rains a lot. This these RDFs are going to capture the water and and more water can go through the system out of the city. That's right.

We get a lot of questions about this project and this part of this project in particular. So, we wanted to take a minute to talk about it with you just in case there were questions or additional information that you wanted to have uh as people approach you about what we did with Babau and

these are necessary things, very necessary things. And and and as the the county expands the drainage system of of course as we know most of the water goes goes off to the main drain and uh they are they are giving more capacity into the main drain. you know, going to help uh all all the Rio Grand Valley more rains, more uh more water in less time. And uh

if there are no more questions, the remainder of the items on the agenda had a motion to go into executive session. This concludes the workshop of the Macallen City Commission. Workshops are held on the second and fourth Monday [music] of each month at 400 p.m. in the City Commission Chamber located on the third floor of Macallen City Hall. The public is always welcome to attend [music] or view online. Thank you for staying informed and engaged with the city of Macallen. [music] [music]

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