City Council - Regular Meeting

You should make an announcement. There's one that you got them all now. Oh, all the microphones are on. Test one. Yep. Testing. Testing. You could have sing a song. Oh, no. Not today. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the big show. There you go. Radio got entertainers up here. movie star. We all feel good.

Thank you for everybody coming. council. Um, if you wouldn't mind silencing your phone and we'll ask David to offer our invocation tonight. Amen. Please join me in the pledge.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Um, I think all of you have seen the little gifts that Cindy left you. Cindy Roller left you. And plus, she's left you a year-long itinerary for the activities for the city of Buoie. A lot of which she is directly involved in. In fact, I don't think there's anything on here she's not directly involved in. Um, so put them on your calendars if you can. tried to attend them. I'm gonna ask I'm gonna go out of order here for a second and I'm gonna ask you, Miss Borrow, if you have a public comment tonight because we are going to have to go into executive session. So, I thought I would move you to the front. Okay.

And let you go earlier on so you didn't have to sit through the whole executive session thing. Thank you.

You're welcome. I don't know that I need the microphone, but we'll we'll use it anyway. I came to Buouie, Texas in 1984 with a dream and a whole lot of goals. Buouie was not my original hometown. I was not born or raised here, but I chose Buouie. I could have gone anywhere at all, and I chose Buoie. I made my life here. Buouie is my home. Over time, I moved my brother, a lifelong bivocational pastor and special education teacher, and his wife, a teacher and tutor, to Buouie. Next, I moved my sister, a registered nurse who served in public health, and her husband, a career law enforcement instructor, along with their children and some grandchildren to Buouie. Recently, my niece, my sister-in-law's daughter, has moved here as well. So, Buouie is my family's home now, too. Yesterday, I received a call from Dr. Jeffrey Sevel, vice chancellor and dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University, informing me that I have been selected as a distinguished alumni for 2026. from their website. Distinguished Alumnus Award is the highest honor bestowed upon a former student of Texas A&M University. It has been awarded since 1962 to only 354 of Texas A&M's more than 629,000 former students. I am so proud to bring this honor home to Buouie, Texas. The awards ceremony will be at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas on May the 1st. Thank you.

Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. That is awesome. All right. Um I think we've done the items of community interest. So, let's go over to the city manager report.

U remember I had to write this a week and a half ago. So, I have to read it again because I can't remember everything I wrote. Uh, Hater Engineering came on February 11th to inspect inspect the downtown revitalization project on SM Street. They created a punch list and I I'm going to kind of go through the punch list that they created so that you'll know uh how they inspected and the things that they found. uh TDA requires the contractor to provide uh project record drawings uh which we have not seen yet but that will help us in the future uh to have that information all in one place. Uh the contractor must remove the required sanitation convenience station which is the portaotty. Uh and I don't know if it's still there or not but several of the valve boxes had silted in and could not be operated. The contractor uh will have to vacuum and clean all valve boxes to ensure the city can access and operate the valves. There are several locations where no joint sealant was installed along the project. The contractor shall remove the redwood prior to applying the sealant. Ensure the joint sealant is installed in all joints. There areas where the ground was disturbed during construction activities. The contractor shall provide and install behind all sidewalk locations where grass was originally present. During construction, there was a curing compound oversprayed on the fire hydrant. Contractor will have to remove the concrete curing compound from the fire hydrant. Uh there was expansion joint material left from construction. The contractor will have to remove the expansion joint material behind the sidewalk southwest of the creative cakes building. In front of the creative cakes building, the brick road has sharp uneven bricks uh due to

construction activities. The contractor will have to repair the brick road to to preconstruction conditions or better. All in all, the punch list is fairly short. When the contractor finishes these items, the the contract will be substantially complete. Uh last Thursday, I sent in an application for the cyber security grant. Hopefully, we will secure funding for the new computer equipment through this 7030 grant. I was somewhat surprised by some of the application requirements. We had to include a form, the CEO law enforcement certifications and assurances form, which states that our police department will assist the state and federal investigations, including the FBI, ICE, Border Patrol, DPS, and others. That's a good thing because our police department would normally help those agencies, but I'm sure there's some metropolitan area cities that will not sign that form. And if you don't sign that form, you don't get the grant. So that that would should help us uh w with that project. Uh the next grant project will be the water supply and infrastructure grant through the Texas Water Development Board. I've sent an email to Water Development Board asking if more than one project can be included with a single application. Uh if it is allowable, we will fly for funding for the raw water pump, a pipeline to flow our wastewater effluent over a hill to the creek that flows back into Aiman Carter Lake and the engineering and design of the expansion of the wastewater treatment plant which will be required in the not too distant future. And some good news, last week Stony and his crew finished the water line that runs from Matthew Street down Montg Street to Sanders Street. And the line did what it was supposed to do. It increased the volume and pressure in the SM street area. Tony told me that the line was doing about a thousand gallons

a minute, which provides enough pressure to run sprinklers and fire hydrants. Any questions? Um on the SM street issue, not on SM Street itself, but where it tees and then the road goes across and goes down into the water flow area. Um the height of that was changed and in the last rainstorm significant water is along the roadside on the side of the buoy pet clinic building between the curb and the center portion of the road. It has standing water. Standing water.

I'll make a note. About six or seven feet deep from the curve. How long did it take it to dissipate? I don't know. all gone yet. I didn't look at it today. I'll take a look at it. Any other questions? None. All right. Well, let's move forward. Um, we have a resolution for the utility and the library, but we also have financial statement. So, I'm going to ask Pam to come to the podium to present the December 2025 financial state.

I'm sort of like the other Pam. We don't need those. Well, good evening, mayor and city council. This is um the first quarter of fiscal year of our budget, and as you can see, we're doing quite well. The water has increased 132,000 the first three months on the building side. And if you take that, it's average of 43,000 a month increase. That's due to the slight increase that the council awarded to take care of water projects that are needed. And sewer and electric are holding their own. The total um revenue is up 134,000 compared to last year. Expenditures are down a little bit compared to last year. Last year at this time expenditures we were over 228,000. Right now we're only at 19,000 which is excellent. We made a lot of headway this year. So I'm very pleased with the utility fund general fund on the advoces. I do know the first week of January we collected 1.1 million that are not showing on this. This is only the first three months through December. But through this time what I look at is if you go to page six real briefly I look at the salaries they should be below 25% which they all are you can go to page 23 also which is I'll fire which is below 25%. That tells us in a lot of areas that we budget correctly. So, and you can see on the revenue side,

we're a little bit ahead, 423,000 over last year. And also on the expenditures, we're 356 over, but that's due to the local and state grants on page 16. And if you go to the very last page, which I always bring to your attention, that is our investment funds. You can see in text pole, which we have right now, 1.8 million. That's going to help pay for the water pump. And if you go down to general text pool, we have 4 point 4.2 million 4.3. And that's going to help with the street project and the bridge project. So that's where we're getting the funds for those two projects. We decided to use some of our reserves. That's what it's there for. We've been saving this for a long time. and instead of going out for a loan and or a bond for those projects. And then the very bottom is our checking accounts and the first one up there is utility and general that's our operating account. Everything highlighted in yellow is actually what is there at this at the end of December. Joe,

are we fully staffed in these major departments? I'm sorry. Are we fully staffed in these major departments? Uh, we're a couple down in here and there. Yes, I know my staff is down one and a half um at currently. I know. So, um, well, public works, I don't want to speak for them, but I know there's a couple other fire can always use some help I'm aware of. And we are hiring. Um, Jerry's right now going through a hiring process. We're doing it both together, hand in hand.

We have enough turnover so that we're I don't believe we've ever been fully staffed here. Not in all funds, not in all departments. You're correct. You're correct. I'm more looking at the s, you know, the salaries you pointed out being under 25%. Is that due to because we're not paying two people? No, no, no, no, no. Because some of these just left and this is only through December. Okay. So, December is true and blue. We were we had more staff at that time. Sure.

Couple of them just left in January or first of February. Any other questions? If you look through this later on and find some more, I'm sure Pamela will be willing to take your phone call. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, Pamela, while you're still there, um before we It didn't have anything to do with this vote, but um can you give us an update on the audit?

Yes. Um it's almost finalized. There was a lot of grants going to and from at the end of the year, which I let the council know last time, and we decided to turn those back over to last year, so they didn't affect this year. So, we're working on finalizing those. And um she's well aware of that she needs to be in front of this council middle of March, no later than the end, because it has to go to the state and S&P ready by those dates. Thank you. Welcome. Um now, we'll go back to a vote. I would entertain a motion to accept the resolutions and the financial statement as presented. So moved. Shaw. Do I have a second? Second. Post. Shaw. Hi. Holstein. Hi.

Sprouls. Hi. Post. I.

The next item on the agenda is new business to discuss. The building and construction codes of article 3.10 building code section excuse me 3.102 102 2018 and other international codes adopted a national electric code the code of ordinance of the city of Buouie Texas amending appendix Q from 7 2018 international residential code repealing any conflicting clause or severability clause Anybody have any questions?

I have a million. Okay. Like what is this? David, would you like to Yeah. Could you break this down into layman's terms for me by any chance?

Yes, sir. What's your what's your question? Well, overall the um the way this is is worded, we're amending a code. What what is it we're doing with this amendment? We're deleting appendix Q, right? That that talks about uh tiny homes. Okay. Are are we opening that up? No, we're deleting appendix Q appendix Q not allowing uh tiny homes anymore. That's what this is doing.

Okay. So, while you opened that up, let me We have several reasons for this. Um it's not because we are opposed to housing options. It is when the tiny houses were approved. When we accepted appendix Q, we said then the council said then that we would look at this for three or four years and we would come back to it to see how it how it's working out for us and how it's working for the city. We feel like the the department heads, Bert and I, we've all discussed this that we need more planning because of the infrastructure changes that are taking place because I don't think we anticipated quite so many communities and so many in one small area. But we're also having to deal with it seems like everybody thinks every little tiny piece of land that doesn't have something on it should have be allowed to have a tiny house on it.

I

um the most extreme example I have to give you is what recently came up. Um it's it was going to be a tremendous infrastructure cost. not necessarily to us because our ordinances say that the builder has to to build in the infrastructure, but we're talking several hundred,000 to do four little tiny homes that were 160 square feet each. So, when we got when we sat down to look at this, we really wanted to look the at our responsibility for what we have to supply our city, our existing city. And I don't know, you have not heard this, but I think the rest of the council heard it and Jerry is will back us up and and and um we have had lots of conversations with Jay and the electric too. Every meter that we have counts as a meter whether it's for one h one person in the house or five people in the house and those meter counts is what's costing us when it comes to our water plant expansion. So, we feel like we need to get a handle on the tiny house construction and go back to larger planning for our community than these small sign insignificant areas.

Okay? So, that's why it's coming to you. But in order to do that, we have to remove appendix Q. All right. It's not that we're against any kind of housing, but we are really pro- infrastructure. Okay. That that helps a lot. Thank you. Sorry, David. Didn't mean to put you on the spot there. If we if we're getting rid of Q, what does that revert? I guess the mo the smallest footprint or smallest house size you would look at or are we at 800 or,000

in in a single family zoning district, the minimum square footage now is a tiny home by definition or less. Oh, that is tiny. Yeah. So, needless to say, when we saw 160 square feet, we're like, whoa, that's little. That's little. But we determined David's office is bigger than that. So,

it's more of a responsibility that we have to the existing citizens and our pocketbook when it comes to us planning for future expansion. And since we're already now in the throws of the water plant expansion, the water pump, um we we we need to back off and we need to be a lot more um Okay. I think selective two when we passed the original when we said okay with this, give it a try. It was more geared towards affordability if I'm not Absolutely. And I don't in my opinion these were these aren't affordable. They're not affordable

for that. We saw that real fast after um 2020. So we we brought to the community what we thought would be good. Um but now we need to slow it down some.

Makes much more sense. If you'd like to have some statistics on what they're doing to us and what I mean by doing to us, the number of meters that increase because of the that u the reason for the raw water pump requirement is because of the number of meters we have. The reason for in the future we're going to have to expand the water plant is because of the number of meters we have. And the same thing goes for, you know, maybe a few years down the road, but overhead water storage. So that number of meters that they do for one person or two people in that little tiny home,

right? You know, it just uh taxing our system and we're not getting any revenue out of it. Right. Right. So, okay. be we have to take these individually as you see on your agenda. So the first one we're going I'm going to ask for a motion to approve or a motion for ordinance 2026-03. So move do I have a second? Second. Laura Sprouls Shaw I Sprouls I post I

and Holstone I

So then the followup to that is ordinance 2026-04 an ordinance amending chapter 12 planning and zoning section 23 use of land and buildings subsection 23.2 Two, residential uses of the code of ordinance of the city of Buoie deleting tiny houses in its entirety from the residential uses chart repealing any conflicting clause providing for a several billability clause. Um, this this diagram in in page two of your ordinance information there, that's just one line out of many many many many lines in David's books. So, we're only eliminating one line. So, what does this do to the existing?

We're going to allow everybody that's permitted to continue with their projects. There will be no new issu permits issued. Okay. So, do I have a motion to accept ordinance 26 2026-404? So, moved. Sprouls. Do I have a second? Second. Post. Holstein. I Spr. Thank you.

Okay. So, the next item on our agenda will be discussed in executive session. And so at this time, I'll call the meeting at 6:24 for us to leave to go to the chambers to discuss another item. Please leave your phone and your paperwork here. Phone

Where? Oh, where'd you go? All right. Are we back on? All right. I'll call the meeting back to order at 6:32 and ask if we have any action for the agenda in executive session for the item in executive session. All right. If we have no action, we will call our meeting at 6:32 p.m. Thank you for coming. Very good.

Good job. I'll save that