City Commission - Regular Meeting

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Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. And now we move into a workshop of the Macallen City Commission held in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act. All workshops are open to the public and serve as an opportunity for city staff to present detailed information, reports, and updates to the

commission in preparation for future action or decisions. While no formal votes are taken during these sessions, workshops play an important role in the city's policym and decision-making process.

And good afternoon everybody. Welcome to today's workshop. Uh we'll begin with uh item number one. Commissioner, do you have any questions regarding today's meeting? No. Thank you, Mayor. No, we'll go down to item number two. Uh mayor, yeah. Item number two, presentation of film friendly Texas certification. We have Lee Ridge from the CBB at the chamber to make a presentation to you.

Thank you, Ike, and thank you, mayor, and commissioners for allowing us an opportunity to be here. We're really excited to share with you all the ways in which we've started to partner with the state of Texas. Um, for us, the CDB platform is essential to the work that we do to promote Mallen as a destination city and I'm really proud of the work that Lee and her team have done. We're really grateful for a great board. I want to thank our chairwoman uh, Fancy Jones for all that she does for our chamber. And I will, without further ado, pass the mic on to Lee. She's got a great short presentation and let us know what you think. We really want to be engaged with you all.

Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for your time. So, Visit Macallen is going through the process of getting our Texas film friendly designation. Um, what this does for us is it makes us a part of the state database. Uh, signaling to our partners in the film industry that we are open for business. We are welcoming these production companies to come to McAllen and do their filming here. Um it positions us as an organized and responsive film ready uh to outside investment destination. Um of course it comes with an economic impact when these production companies come into town. They're staying in our hotels. They're eating in our restaurants, shopping at our stores, and of course they're hiring local. A lot of them will hire local trades people. They'll hire local caterers. They'll hire local actors. And so the employment uh that comes out of that is very important to us. Of course, it's strengthening tourism and city branding, and there's very little investment for this. So, there's really not a cost that's involved uh other than just the participation in the workshop that's already been done. I went to that back in October. And it keeps the city authority intact. So this is basically an opportunity for all of our leadership and stakeholders to be on the same page so that when these uh production companies come to Macallen, everybody knows what the process is and we're all in alignment with that. So, the Film Friendly Texas is a statewide certification program administered by the Texas Film Commission that helps cities demonstrate readiness for film, television, and digital media. Um, again, signaling to these uh production companies that we're ready to go. Uh, it's a very easy process. We're almost done with it. Um,

I'm gonna just There's about 180 cities in Texas that already have the certification in the real Grand Valley, Brownsville, Edinburgh, South Padre, and South Padre have the designation. We've been a little slow at getting there. So that's why for us this is an important next step.

Yes. So, uh, designating the liaison was the first step that's already happened. Attending attending the state training workshop that's already happened. So, what we've done is we've gotten with city attorney so that they can review the documentation, the procedures, and the permits that are necessary for this so that those are um keeping the best interest of the city top of mind. And once that's done, then we're able to submit those policies and procedures to the state website. And then from there, we're able to upload photos of the different areas that are available for the filming process. Once we are able to upload the photos essentially, um we always want to do our hero shots, right? The beautiful uh photos of the convention center campus of um King Mazatlon, but they also want to see other uh locations that you might not think would be the best photos or the best locations, but it might be an old warehouse. It might be an old home. It gives us an opportunity to do a call out to uh different uh business owners and and property owners within the city to upload their photos um to the to the website to be considered for locations for filming. It's not always the prettiest uh locations that need to be considered. You always are going to need something like a cemetery or maybe the bus station. Um you never know what they're looking for. These production companies are going to be coming for film, for TV, for documentary documentaries and also um even for video games. And TV commercials have gotten to be very very uh popular. Texas has become a real destination for filming. Um of course, it's much more affordable for them to do that here. uh with the last legislative session, they designated an additional $1.5 billion dollars for film incentives through

2035. So, it's making uh Texas a very desirable location to do this filming. When we've looked at the state plan for economic development, this section of tourism has been one of their top five priorities for funding and for development. And so what we've taken in our program of work as we collaborate as an EDC, as a chamber, and a CVB is really the state plan and use that as a guide to really uh do deep dives into the opportunities that we think are immediately in front of us. And that are lowhanging fruits since the state is already making that investment. And so for us, that's why this makes a lot of sense.

It does. Thank you, Liz. And again, you know, the economic impact is really what we're looking for in this as well as generating additional tourism. It also gives us an opportunity to create new brand destination awareness. Um, you know, it's an opportunity for some earned media that we don't have to really do a lot of investment in. Um, back in I think it was 2017, they filmed a TV show called The Leftovers in Lockheart. They hired over 300 local people to work on that production for 90 days. So they it has quite a bit of economic impact. So it's we feel like that's very important. Um again um there's not a lot of investment in this. It doesn't take a lot once we get the the okay on the permits and the policies and procedures. That's kind of all we have to do from there. Um, and lastly, the next steps for our certification is just getting these policies approved and then getting those photos updated on the website and we are good to go. Um, that's that's it. It's a simple procedure, but it has a lot of impact. So, if anybody has any questions on this, I'm happy to answer.

Oh, go ahead. No, no, go for it. We have any ordinances regarding Phil? That's what we need to we'll draft and we have the draft. We just wanted to get your feedback on it now and processes. Can we make sure the next time Macallen is depicted in any major film have mountains in the back? We don't control all the production, but we need to get Macallen photos up there. Yes.

One of the things I'll tell you is that Lee has done a great job leading the CVB efforts. This last year as we closed 2025, she landed over 40 convention groups in our in our city, over 15 sports tourism groups that were attracted to our community. The investment is immen immense in our community. Um she's consistently helping us to reach occupancy levels in our hotels above 65%. We're really proud of her effort. Um this year she actually submitted a bid to both the state Republican uh convention and the Democratic state convention and she landed the Democratic state convention. It will be coming here in 2030. It's a big deal. A community in the valley has never landed these types of state conferences. You're talking about over 6,500 room nights. We would have landed the 2028 presidential year if it had not been that we don't have enough hotel rooms. And so I'm really proud of the effort that Lee has really put forward. Um I think that it's a big deal um and and that she continues to be so relevant to the state as a person that can answer questions that can be the fix anytime the state needs anything from South Texas that they feel comfortable with picking up the phone and calling Lee. That has been a game changer. So uh really excited for what you guys will continue to see coming out of the CBB. Tourism is a key priority for us in economic development and will continue to be.

Thank you so much. Any other questions? Make sure we inventory everything that all the work that we've done and that you're going to do, all the pictures, all the videos, everything that you're going to have. We inventoried so that we could, you know, share it and show it to our community what what our beauty is and what what how we're the Macallen way of doing things. Do it right. Thank you, Commissioner. Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you guys. Appreciate you.

And we'll recess into executive session. This concludes the workshop of the Macallen City Commission. Workshops are held on the second and fourth Monday 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 or view online. Thank you for staying informed and engaged with the city of Macallen.