City Council - Regular Meeting

OK, we have recessed the previous meeting and we are calling. Special City Council meeting. And it is now 626. And I'll call this meeting to order. OK. Let the record show that all. Council members are present with the exception of Council Member Nash King. She is absent. I need a motion to approve the agenda. Council member Kimmo. Motion to approve. Council member Kendricks.

Second.

All in favor signify by saying yes. All opposed, no. Motion carries 6-0. It is now time for citizen comments. Citizens will have three minutes to speak.

There are no citizen comments. We have one public hearing item after we have remarks from staff.

Okay. All right. We are Madam Secretary.

All right. PH26017 hold a public hearing to receive citizen input on the citizen comment and participation process and open a 30-day comment period from June 22nd to July 28th, 2026 to receive citizen comment regarding the proposed activities under the program year PY2026-27 annual action plan. Describing the use of Community Development Block Grant, CDBG, Home Investment Partnerships, Home, and Home American Rescue Plan, Home ARP. Program funds, first of two public hearings.

Hello again, Ms. McNair.

Hello again, thank you. So I just want to be clear that this public hearing is only to discuss the proposed comment period. We're not here this evening to talk about the CDAC recommendations, but I will talk about the grant and the proposal process. So, um, as an entitlement community, the city of clean is awarded funding from HUD, uh, through the block grant, uh, community development block grant, also known as CDBG and home investment partnerships act, also known as home. And in 2021, the city received a one-time award of home art funds. CDBG activities must meet a national objective. Home activities must be used for affordable housing initiatives. Home ARP activities include supportive services, acquisition and development of non-congregate shelter, development of affordable housing, and tenant-based rental assistance. What's unique with Home ARP is even though it is designed for low to moderate income households, they have four qualified populations that must be targeted for this money. And they are listed here, homeless, at risk of homelessness, fleeing or attempting to flee, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking or human trafficking. Other populations were providing supportive services or assistance to prevent homelessness. So that is to get into a space where those that are maybe at risk of homelessness through an eviction process, they can be a qualified population for this. And then also veterans and families that include a veteran that meet one of the criteria. So the citizen participation and survey, according to our citizen participation plan, a citizen comment period of no less than 30 days is required prior to the submission of the draft annual action plan. Comments received on the draft will be included into the final submission to HUD. The city holds community planning meetings and public hearings to receive input from the community. Additionally, a public survey is open to gather citizen input on community needs. This year we did actually see more respondents to our survey. We had 99 respondents as opposed to last year. We were just shy of 50. Um, I do give a big compliments and uh, thanks to the communications department who really worked with us to get that survey out there. Um, the survey was available from February 11th to March 4th and the detailed resort results are available on our website. So this is just a timeline. We started in February with the community planning league meetings. Takes us through March, April, May up until today where we are here to discuss the public comment period, proposed public comment period. And then we'll be back in July for detailed discussion on the recommendations and potential adoption of those recommendations by council. So we received nine applications in the public service category. Eight were recommended funding. One rescinded their application after recommendation for funding. For CDBG, including housing, infrastructure, code enforcement, we received, and that's also Parks and Recs, five applications were received, four were recommended funding, and we have one forward funding commitment for code enforcement officers. And for the sake of informing our new council members, our forward commitment is when CDAC votes to vote in votes to award funds in that year, but also votes to award funds in the next two, three years. And so that's the, uh, forward commitment that we have there. And that's for code enforcement officers. Only at this time home, we received four applications, one recommended funding and two home ARP and two recommended funding there. Our entitlement for program year 2026, which is our fiscal year 27, is $1,437,398. And we have reprogrammed funds in the amount of $66,637.94. And these are the categories and the spaces we are allowed to use that money. I do want to note that the public services category is actually an optional category for HUD. If you are going to fund public services, HUD says you cannot fund it more than 15% of your annual entitlement. And that doesn't roll over from one year to the next. It's just 15% of that year's annual entitlement. And these amounts here, they do include the $126,446 for the forward commitment for those code enforcement officers. For home, here are our set-asides, 75% towards activities, 15%, which is required. There's no going below that for the CHODO set-aside. And then the admin is 10%. And our entitlement for FY20. or program year 26 is $585,207.77. Both of these entitlements did see an increase from last year to this year. And our home ARP was the one-time fund in 2021. And these are funding categories spread out here. And we have had two amendments. One was because we had additional about $1,900 come in from HUD. And that was something we just did an administrative amendment. And then the second was we moved money from the supportive services category to the tenant-based rental assistance category. So the comment period allows for additional input from the community on the proposed action plan and the proposed uses of the CDBG home and home art grants. Our comment period is open from June 22nd through July 28th or will be, we're proposing that anyway. If you saw our public notice that initially went out, it had the comment period from June 22nd through July 21st. But when the council voted to have the special meetings, we were able to actually give the community additional time and extend that by one week. So comments may be submitted via public hearings in writing, including email. And the email is communitydevelopment at kalinetexas.gov. The draft action plan will be available at five city facilities, Colleen City Hall with the city secretary's office, both libraries, the community development department, and Lions Club Park Senior Center, and we will also have it available online. So our next steps, there's no vote tonight, just discussion on if we are going to increase that comment period, change the dates, or anything like that. But I will warn against changing the dates because our plan is due to HUD by August 15, so we're really working within the time that we have allotted. July 28th, we'll have our public hearing and conclude our citizen comment period. The council will vote to accept, reject, or modify the funding recommendations. And then August 15th, if the funding awards are approved through the council's ordinance, we will submit our annual action plan to HUD. And then on October 1st is when the program year starts, and we will have executed all of our agreements, and we will be rocking and rolling for FY26. I'm sorry, PY26, FY27. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions from the council? Comments? There's no questions or comments. Council, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you. Thank you. Ms. McNair, can you just touch on or explain what the acquisition and development of the non-congregate shelters is the $500,000 or 20%? Can you explain what that is?

So with the home ARP money, traditional shelters are congregate shelters, meaning one big open space, a communal restroom, communal kitchens, and you have one entry, one exit. So this money came into B because of the pandemic and so HUD wanted to see more development of non-congregate shelters meaning there's a room more like a single occupancy type situation or a studio apartment where the individual or the household will have their own bathroom their own kitchen and their own access. It's in case we ever see a pandemic, which I hope we don't, that people will be able to be safe and healthy and have a place to go. And I forget what they used to do when you were sick. You had to go and be alone quarantine. Thank you. Thank you very much. But that's the purpose of non congregate shelter is really to going back to those qualified populations when it's homeless and at risk of homeless. They wanted to have shelters that were available to those folks that they didn't have to share.

I appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Brown? Councilmember Brown? Yes.

So I guess can we look at it as the difference between the friends in crisis shelter and the families in crisis homeless shelter? I'm sorry, women's shelter, domestic violence shelter. That's the one I was looking at.

Yeah, you could because I do know that they have a couple of units inside of there that the families have their own restroom. The only thing that would be missing is having a kitchenette or a kitchen in there as well.

Okay. Just for me, I think that's a good visual for people to try to understand that difference. Yeah.

Thank you. Are there any other questions? Some other questions?

Thank you.

Thank you. At this time, we're going to hold the public hearing, and public hearing is now open.

I have one person signed up, Ana Luisa Carrillo-Tapia.

Good afternoon, sir. Good evening, sir. I mean, oh, I'm sorry. My apologies, ma'am.

No worries, sir. Good afternoon, Mayor.

Good afternoon, ma'am.

City Council. I am Ana Luisa Carrillo Tapia. I am the representative for the League of United Latin American Citizens. I'm standing before you while you're talking about spending money for the city. It's always a good time to talk about health and safety of our families, family members. We have issues with galvanized pipes that have lead. We have notices going out to families. The letterhead says to the resident. There is no deliberate dedication to say who the resident is. So oftentimes it might be looking like it's one of those letters that just need to be discarded. We're asking for those letters to have the proper addressing of the resident. We have some residents that do not speak English. Do you understand what I'm saying to you right now? No, that's the same thing that our families encounter when they receive paperwork that they cannot read, they don't understand, irregardless of the value of this letter. So we're asking under CDBG to stretch out that hand and reach out to these families. It doesn't take but a minute to find out who your customers that are non-speaking, non-English speaking, to make sure there is that communication back and forth. Don't just come see me when I had to pay a bill. Come and see me to make sure that I am taken care of and I'm taking care of my family. And if there's anything that because of... the way that the money issues are going. I can't take care of my family. There's some budgeting available. Please consider taking care of those families that are very, very needy at this moment, especially the north side of town. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you.

Thank you for your concern, and again, I apologize. Council Member Brown? I'm sorry, do we have another? Someone else?

I have no other people signed up for this public hearing.

Okay. Okay. We'll close public hearing. Council Member Brown.

Just a couple questions based on what the speaker had to say. And I'm going to try to walk our line because I know the instruction you gave us about what we're talking about today. So if somebody, if LULAC wanted to submit written comment regarding recommendations to put money somewhere out of they had appropriated grants, into assisting those families on the north side of Colleen that have received the galvanized water notices. Would that go under home, home ARP? What entitlement would be best for that to go under? That would ideally be best for the block grant. So then in reference to that, for anybody interested in submitting official comments for the record on it within the next 30 days, they would email communitydevelopment? At cleantexas.gov. Okay. And then recommend under the block grant funding that that be a proposed usage? Yes. Correct.

They could. They don't need to know which funds would be most appropriate. We don't expect that of a common citizen. They could just let us know the programming that they would like to see in the city and the staff could evaluate that and make a recommendation to council and or see that.

So then this is where I guess it's going to become important. Those written comments, they come back to the council the same day we do the next public hearing?

Yes, we will, and we have staff here, and so we're going to have our computer to make sure if anything is coming in, we're receiving that.

I'm just making sure if the council wants to recommend any changes at that public hearing that we would still have time. So then if we recommended changes, they would either be approved that night or could we come back that first week in August?

Typically, you would approve those changes that night because of the timeline that we have to actually submit the draft to HUD so we can go live on October 1st.

Okay, so I'm just going to request, if it's possible, at least a couple days before that meeting on the 28th, can we get a copy of those comments so we can kind of review them?

Sure. If we get any comments, we'll email them and make sure that you have them. The letter, if I may, I did see the letter that is through our Public Works Department, and at the top it does state that it's in Spanish. It does say if you need the translated version that there's a site that the recipient could go to to get that.

I'm all too familiar with the letter. And I think there is a point to being able to have it in the language that people understand. But I appreciate it. Thank you. You're welcome.

Mayor Boateng.

So thank you for touching on that, because we had a very lengthy meeting when our former Public Works Director went over these notices, and that was a very hot topic back then, and the questions were raised about the way in which they were presented, and then that there was not a Spanish notice on there. But we confirmed that, and I just want to make sure nothing has changed there, that that notice is still appearing on there.

Yes. Ms. Celeste Sierra, who's in my office, she's our CD Grants Program Manager, and she's our in-office translator. She actually translated it for me so that I could understand that that's what that was saying at the top is that there is a resource available if you needed the letter in Spanish. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, ma'am. I think that's it.

Thank you.

We're going to close citizens' public hearing, so I need a motion to adjourn. Council Member Brown.

Move to adjourn.

Can I get a second?

I second it.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay. Meeting is adjourned.