City Council - Regular Meeting

good evening everyone at this time we're opening our city council meeting in case you this is all monday august the third twenty twenty six

Heavenly Father, we come to you this afternoon thanking you for this day. Lord, we just ask your blessing upon this meeting tonight and give us wisdom pertaining to all the subject matter tonight that we may get things done that bring glory to you. We thank you and give you all the praise in Christ Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

with liberty and justice for all.

At this time, we said thank you so much for joining us today. At this time, we don't have anyone that signed up with the recognition of visitors. We do appreciate your being here. We don't have any sign-ups for public comments, but we're still open for comments. Will I have a comment? Does anyone else have a comment from the council? Okay, I'd just like to say that this weekend was really a good representation of the city. We were invited to, we had an unusual amount of funerals over the last two or three months, and it has been a pleasure that we were represented, different members of the council, myself were able to visit and add some support to the family and I think that's very needed in a community of this size and also I'd like to give a shout out to John and the secretary who actually wrote the proclamation we have it was a group from the rural area that all their basically their family had kind of moved into the city the Reese the Williams they did their celebration and they stopped by the city hall and they just wanted to meet and see where the city was at this point and I think Misty provided they wanted four one for each of the older generation and it was it and I finally understood why I wanted four proclamation recognized because each was a family branch and they came as far from New York all the way down and they ended their event in Houston where a lot of the people were there but we're grateful that John got refreshments for them they said well y'all gonna have any water and stuff I said well let me see and I saw I saw John and it was like about 25 26 from the family and they came in individual cars but they were really appreciative and they were just said they're gonna keep kind of keep up with the city and I thought that was really good that they haven't forgotten where their roots were and we appreciated that and so with that being said it brings us down to item number one approval minutes from the regular session July 2026 Mike go ahead

I just have one information I'd like to ask the city attorney or whoever can answer. There were some statements, my understanding that the agenda should consist of statements and activities that happened during the meeting. So if there were statements that were made at that time and they're missing from the agenda, do we need to go back and review and have those input? placed in there or because there were statements that I had made that I needed to clarify and so when I reviewed the agenda those statements were not there.

It is basically a summary. what was what was deemed it's not necessarily word for word if it's an item that was we should probably maintain discussion and questions after a vote and a second is made um well i'll make a motion that we approve i said minutes from july 20. okay it's been in question okay it's been moved in second yes now no question okay

Now, can I continue with the question?

So you want to add statements in?

Yes, ma'am. Review the review. Because there were statements made by counsel. So there was not added in the... It was not noted, I needed to say, in the minutes.

Not every statement is typically noted in the minutes.

Okay. Okay. Okay. I thought that, uh, well, I mean, being it's not nothing stated, nothing's noted in the minutes that was stated. So, um,

A lot of those corrections can easily be made. We send it out a week in advance, these minutes, and so if there's any corrections that need to be made, we can do some quick research and include those to have them ready for council. If those are correct requests, we're always happy to, but we can't review them when they're only brought to our attention the day of or at the meeting.

Okay, surely I was not, unless I was the only one that recognized it. But I'll bring this to your attention later, and then we'll revisit it. Okay.

Okay, with a motion on the floor, all in favor? Okay, minutes approved. We're on to item number two, business. Is it considered to approve an electrical contract for energy supply for all city facilities, effected June 1, 2027?

Mayor and council, I brought this about six months ago. And at that time, it was council's decision to wait a little bit longer to see if rates improved. I am happy to say that the rates have improved. I do have a summary from our energy broker that sent an update as just a quick refresher. These are the options as of today. I highlighted the lowest offers in green. As a reminder, your current rate with TXU is 0.0335544 cents. So we pay 3.3 cents, essentially, Now per kilowatt hour, but the market has only continued to go up since 2018. That's when we're under a contract from 2018. Here recently your strip particular has come way down. It's very smart to budget for the city and go with the longer term while the market is at a current low point. This is. The quotes as of today they change daily. These are the quotes that she submitted today. using months, 12 through 96, a 12 month through a nice or one year to an eight year, uh, is highlighted there in green. And if we wanted to go to a nine year, uh, TXU is the lowest ng is the lowest one year through eight years, um, year over year. Um, we're currently with TXU as our provider encore is our distribution, um, So obviously, we stay with Encore as our distribution, but the energy is purchased through one of these companies. Our contract expires in June 2027. Here's a graph I put in your packet to show where the market is. It's just now reached a two-year low. So it's shown a continuous and gradual increase. We are in a dip. ERCOT themselves, their projections and forecasting do not predict us going down you know, continuing a downward trend. They believe we're going to be in an upward trend. That being said, if we were to wait another week, month, two months, it's kind of like, you know, investment in the stock market. We don't know. I can't guarantee you whether we're going to be at the lowest, and this is the best time to buy. But I do feel like the risk is much greater than the reward if we don't take advantage of locking in our electricity. Um, there's some pretty big risks of not being able to lock in a long term as it is with the best rate that they provided us today. Our energy will be increasing by about 25% in total costs over the year over year because our energy purchasing is going to double our distribution rate stays the same. So the 50% portion that we pay into energy costs that will be doubling. the question maybe would be what the what's the data centers going to do as well it's recently put out by ercot that the demand on the grid will increase i believe four to five fold um by 2030 and so there's also a push by legislators and and governor abbott and so forth to load the costs of the Of electricity that's going to be increasing the grid to have the data centers carry that cost. However, I don't know how it's going to impact. I can't see it being for the good.

Um, we have we have a data center here and located in the city of Crockett or. So, um.

We purchase a little over 2 million kilowatts a year. That's with all city facilities and street lights and everything throughout the city. This is the rates. As I mentioned, our rates being it 3.3 cents here. The best rate for 12 month is 5.8 cents. If we stretched out to 36 to 48 months, I would like to see us if we are going to go with the contract that we at least due to three to four years. We're not taking a big risk of foregoing savings if we do continue a downtrend, because we can do tag-ons to that contract. If the rates go further down, we can renew after the end of that contract, and we can lock in some rates for the future contracts.

That was going to be my question is like I'm just prior to our past contracts. Have they normally been year by year?

Our first contract was a five year contract with TXU and the rates dipped a little bit lower and I added a three year contract to the end of the five year. So we've been benefiting so 2018 under roughly three.

So we're under. We're currently under the three.

Yes, yes, yes, right. But an eight-year total? Yes. But we added a three-year after that five-year term.

So 48 months and 60 months with NG is a better term.

The only difference would be the the rates which the current race is 3 and a half 3.3 cents. But yeah, what like I said I can't show you another contract to compare with as we have not.

locked in any contracts with any other companies other than TXU.

I do have a current TXU contract.

But then you would give an opportunity to look at the contract to see. And so it would be similar, so the contract that we're looking at possibly would be similar to the one that you're asking us.

Terms, the difference would be terms that council selects and or the rate.

So those are going to be the main differences.

It'll be the same electricity depending on no matter who what supplier we choose.

You have a. For us, like the cost of usage like for our departments, you have something like that.

Yes, and it's in each each budget. Every budget has the cost, both in activity and in what councils have proven for our subsequent budgets.

I'm going to ask for each department.

Yes, ma'am. Each department is in y'all's budget. And I just handed y'all y'all's latest draft budget. So every department has a line item for electricity in there. OK. The biggest one is the street department, I believe, which includes all of our street lights. And then the Civic Center is another higher consumer.

So five years would put us at 30. I said five years of push it 31.

You know, and so yes, yes, I do. Those are the meters that we're serving services.

Some of our meters and some of them are accounts, so multiple large accounts all operate for streetlights. They all operate under one ESI, so it's either multiple multi account meters or. There's an ESID for the City Hall and Police Department. Every facility has a ESID.

But the bottom line right, but we have 64. Basically using the same rate. Yes, and so I mean, depending on what you're the size of your department at the rate. I mean, if the amount is going to differ, but the rate is what we're kind of deciding what we're going to. Balance so not so much monitor what they're doing, but overall with the rate will be offered to the city.

I know in 2018 our electricity budget was close to 400,000 a year. That is what we spent in electricity and we currently spend about 140,000 a year. If we are to increase that by roughly 25%, then you know that's going to be 10. There's about $35,000 increase across all departments. Within our that will impact our next budget. Yes, that's if we lock in one of our better rates. Now later it may be more and it may be less.

So also only the rates. They'll be using encores. We got transmission. Okay. So with that being said, the uncle charges that entity.

So those costs know that they charge us. It's passed on the electrical bill. So, regardless of who we go with, the encore charges would be the same with each department with each of those companies.

Okay. They charge so we could we we got it. And we pass that the on to.

Because we know when we pay I mean the where they should be based where the consumer and the taxpayers are concerned.

John wordy the the layout that you have that you that you got on the board where did you get that from.

from the uh... energy broker they go out shop they go out shop the market everyday they believe they were on our number based on two point two kilowatt or million kilowatts uh... they could present us as a customer uh... into the market and they get quotes on them each of these providers pay a fractional of a cent to that broker uh... we looked it up I'm a couple last 6 months ago Council. We had 3 different brokers and all the rates came the same what what happens is a lot of these companies will only deal with one wrote we were now we're unable and what we found out was the companies are the ones that pay the broker not the city. So there was no way for us to go out and bid a broker. This broker is the one that's worked with this since 2018. Whenever we have a concern or a problem or an outage or something that we need service on, we contact them and they take care of it.

So do we have any history on this engine? In other words, do we know anything about them, the company?

They're a big electrical provider. I know that.

They're nationwide.

I have the same concerns that Councilman Ivey does with the data centers going in across Texas. That means that the energy grid is going to be taxed, which means they're going to pass that on. I don't care what they say in the government. That's going to get passed on to the taxpayers, in my opinion. And that being said, I kind of like the idea of having something locked in now before it gets up and running. Because if you've been out towards Austin lately, you can see the growth of those facilities out there. And then that being said, I'd like to make a motion that we lock in a 60-month rate with InGen. at that 0.06566 rate for the next five years so that we have something locked in. Yeah, that's it.

I second his motion.

We have a motion on the floor.

It's just a fraction different, right?

Each one of them is about a tenth of a cent apart from each other. The shorter you go, the better the rate is, because it's better market predictability, and the further out, the less they know. And so they hedge their bets the further out you go.

Yeah, I just wanted to basically, because I'm trying to familiarize myself with this procedure here, so I would like to look at the contract that we have with TXU so I can understand better this process.

The contract we have with TXU is about to expire. I can show you that as far as the impact on this decision. I can show you what our upcoming contract will look like as well, and you can compare those after we notify them and they send us a draft. You know an agreement, but we do. Every day if we wait. So I'm going to have to send them notice tonight of this one to be able to lock that cost in because next tomorrow the cost will make a difference or will likely be different.

We have a motion and a second.

We have a motion and a second. We had our discussion all ready for the vote. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you, Councilman.

So that brings us to item number three. Consider and approve of participation in the TX21 program including payments of membership dues and authorized travel expenses for designated delegates and afforned City of Crockett representatives.

Mayor Council, I was asked to put this back on the agenda. Our last meeting we did was able to reach out text 21 had a couple representatives and they they were asking for a couple minutes to present the Council. From. The their their standpoints and the benefits of our participation with text 21. Are you all OK with us allowing them to present this afternoon?

Yes, Sir.

Yes, yes, alright. This was kind of last minute, so I wanted to. Alright, Gabriel, you're able to hear us. Yes, I can. Sorry, the speakers in the room are not going, but can you

All right, go ahead. Are all y'all ready then? I'll go ahead and get started. Is my colleague Zach on the call?

Do you need the mic?

Let's see here.

Do you need the mic?

No, Zach is not showing up in the lobby or here.

Uh-oh, let me text him real quick on my ads.

Are y'all able to hear that somewhat?

Okay. Do you need the mic?

That would help in the room.

I can hear you. But we can definitely see you. And we're in session, so if you have a.

Season wants to hear.

Yes, Sarah is about to sign on. I know that all of us at TEXT21 are incredibly appreciative of it. So that being said, my name is Gabe Serna. I'm one of the consultants with TEXT21. And the reason I'm here is because we would like for you to approve participation in the TEXT21 program. And I understand I have a couple minutes, so I'm just going to go down like what TEXT21 is and what we do, what we've done for Crockett in the past, and then what we can do in the future. Absolutely. So we're a coalition of cities and counties that are committed to bettering multi-modal transportation. So the cities and counties are the owners of Texas 21. And in a bit, if we have my screen shared with Zach in a second, you'll notice that Crockett is one of our faithful members. We've worked with Crockett pretty closely in the past. We've worked with Crockett EDC Tom Lamberts. We've also worked with they've been close allies of Texas 21. Even after Tom Lambert went to the cater, he was still a close Texas 21 friends. And we've been working alongside Mayor Fischer, City Manager Angerstein, and Council Member Hicks. And we're very grateful for y'all guiding us through Procter and we just go alongside and listen to us talk about this. So as of right now, Mayor Fischer is the current representative, but there's also two reserve spots. Is that something for y'all to discuss? Who y'all wants to fill those spots? One second, my color is here. looks like he's still trying to sign on my apologies about that but i'll go and keep on going in the interest of time but yeah like i said mayor fisher is the current representative there's two reserves plots that y'all can fill and the dues are pretty simple it's just based on the 2020 census there he is this is my colleague zach turner zach if you're able to share your screen can you put up the membership list While he's getting that up, the dues for Crockett would be $2,500 a year, which is not a huge commitment. So whenever it comes to that, we're pretty easy. So we don't just have the members of the coalition itself, but we also have a legislative caucus and a congressional caucus. There we go. So that's the front of our info packets. The next slide is our coalition. I'll briefly point out Crockett on that next slide. So you can hit the next one. No worries. But yeah, Crockett is a member right now. And we're just asking for you to continue that membership. What is that? We have a legislative caucus and a congressional caucus. And y'all state Representative Ashby is a proud member of our legislative caucus. And Congressman Sessions is a member of our congressional caucus. In terms of the time commitment, it's not much. We have statewide meetings that y'all can attend. Y'all don't have to attend all of them, but we do ask for some participation there. There are some over Zoom that we have every few months. And then we have a quarterly statewide meeting. And actually in August from the 24th, The 28th through the 21st, we have a statewide meeting down in Houston, Texas. Not Houston County, but a little bit south of y'all down in Harris County. Right. It's hosted by Houston Metro, and we would love to see Crockett there. So that's just a bit about who we are and what we do. And so by this point, you're probably wondering, what have we done for Crockett, Texas specifically? And the answer to that is something we've shared in a lot of our meetings with various people, and that is 287. A while ago, the citizens of Crockett came to Texas 21, and they had a transportation concern, and that was US 287. They had the idea to convert that into an interstate highway, and they asked us, what can we all do? And we saw a lot of success. We created a coalition along that corridor from down in Jefferson County, Texas, with Judge Brannick, who's a proud Texas 21 member, all the way up Through Texas, we have members in the Caner, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and we've also talked with different congressmen in Oklahoma, in Colorado, and Wyoming. And not only do we have those connections, but we also were able to, let's see, we were also able to prompt TxDOT to have a corridor study done of US-287. This was a end-to-end, multi-million dollar study, if you can go to the next slide real quick, that was done by TxDOT. And what it found was that there is a 161% return on investments whenever 287 is turned into an interstate. That validates what Crockett wanted in the first place, which was that it's a good idea to turn 287 into an interstate highway. And not only that, so we got the information, we got the supports, but then we had to go to the legislator, to Congress, and we saw a lot of success there. We had a Texas Senate resolution passed by our chair of the legislative caucus, Tan Parker. He's a senator from up in the DFW area. And that resolution commended Texas 21 by name. and talked about how the different cities and counties ought to work with text 21 and text on this 287 projects but furthermore senator cornyn introduced a bill in the senate that would designate us-287 as a congressional high priority corridor which is the first effort to turn into an interstate and designate it as interstate 47 which is a huge success in and of itself but over the past couple months we've done even more with 287 We have talked to the congressmen along the corridor from Brian Babin and Randy Weber, Pete Sessions, Roger Williams, Ronny Jackson. We talked with Frank Lucas in Oklahoma. We talked with Colorado congressmen, Wyoming congressmen, and we have seen borderline unanimous supports for Crockett's original idea. And we've gone a long way with this. We have helped Crockett in the past with what they've wanted with transportation, and we've proven to be effective. But we also have more things that we can do, and that's why RASPB is continuing to be members of TEXT21. For one, there's continued work on 287. We have gone a long way with it. We have a lot of momentum, but there's still more work to be done. And we would love your support as we're going through that to be part of our core of our coalition, but also we have several other projects that will benefit you guys. We have a project on I-369 where we are taking the existing routes, which is up on I-59, and we are connecting it down all the way to Beaumont and Port Arthur to create a north-south corridor in east Texas, which will create FEMA evacuation routes. It will be a great economic opportunity for the east side of Texas, including Crockett. But not only that, we have a third coast initiative. where we are looking at trying to expand Texas ports to accommodate post-Panama container vessels. That will give us a competitive edge with California's ports and the East Coast ports that can currently accommodate these. The vessel that you see in front of you cannot land in Texas ports because they're simply not equipped for it. The text 21 is currently working on getting those ports equipped to handle those to have huge economic benefits for not just the east part of Texas, but for all of it. The rocket is in that economic impact zone and is a huge reason for continued participation. We have a space corridor. We have a safety initiative. We're standing at I-14. We have so many other things that if we had hours to talk about, we could spend possibly even days going over all the benefits that Crockett could get. But that's a bird's eye view as to what we are, what we've done in the past, and what we'll do in the future. And if any of y'all have any questions about Texas 21, we would love to answer those for you.

All right.

Well, thank you so much.

I have one question for Gabriel, John.

We got one question here. Just a second. Go ahead.

um would he be a would uh would he be aware to uh any representation uh for for the city of uh crockett prior to mayor fisher becoming the uh the voting uh representative so there's a question that's yeah there's a question about um before the mayor uh was uh just put on y'all's um

on y'all's list of voting members of whether there was an appointment for anyone else.

Really, I think, Zach, you've done some work with this, and I think you can answer that one pretty well.

Yeah, well, the point that comes from any resolution that you pass, I believe that the city council passed a resolution being the mayor as the representative. I believe it was two others as well, Ms. Fisher and then another gentleman, as alternatives or alternate people to deal with text 21. But Mayor Fisher, according to that,

resolution is the representative okay then that's how it's posted now okay so did you not have so you don't have the you don't have any alternates yeah well yeah i'll get that yeah yeah yeah but it's questions who so who was representing

was Mr. Price's question. Yeah.

We were just, yeah, so it was just being asked of who was named as the representative before the mayor was just put on there.

Prior, so, you know, prior to the city of Crockett re-engaging with Tech 21, the EDC was on the letterhead, and so there were EDC members that were on there as well. But when we re-engaged with the city of Crockett, it's been the mayor.

Okay, okay.

Thank you. All right. Well, thank you so much.

Thank you all for your presentation. Yes. Yes. Thank you.

I don't know what the question is.

So thank you, John. Mayor, council, the reason I had asked that question prior was it was my due diligence to bring this agenda item back in enlightenment of new information that I had received. upon searching the text 21's website it shows here that Crockett's representative for 2026 voting members is Ms. Natrina Hicks and my motion on November the 6th of 2026 November July the 6th of 2026 this to to prior meetings pass was that the mayor be our representative and miss Hicks and Mister during be appointed as alternates with that with this information being on their website that went against my motion or they went against the city's they would against the council's wishes at that time And I'm just asking Mister Gabriel had there been any prior if he was aware of any prior knowledge is or any changes then if he wasn't aware of this it was listed on their website so I would have been and say it did not provide some clarification that too yes, sir.

After you can brought that we've gotten that to our attention. I did reach out

based on our conversation to Mr. David Dean. Mr. Gabriel and Mr. Zach are not aware. They're working for Mr. David, so Mr. David would have been the one to ask. The gentleman that we just asked, they didn't know. I did reach out to Mr. David, and he said that Ms. Hicks had told them to place her as a representative for the city. After I talked to him, I said that was not council's motion. The direction was for the mayor to be appointed.

he recently removed her and placed the mayor in her stead um and so that's why there was lack of knowledge on behalf of people that work for the company and not the director thank you well further to classify i mean further to clarify the reason that i wanted to bring this this item back was to clarify the motion that i had made um i was unclear in the direction given to counsel to you, John. And being that I just stated that representation be made by the mayor, Ms. Hicks, and Mr. Dern, I wanted to clarify my motion. But in light of this new information, I move that my motion be rescinded.

Second.

Second.

Now to let you know, Mr. Price and the rest of the council, my name was actually placed on there before you even made the motion. So my name was placed on there actually when I went to the convention in Dallas. Under whose authority? Excuse me? Under whose authority? Well, basically he placed me there so that he would have a contact at that time. And he basically said until he gets a resolution, he would need a contact person.

Then John Angerstein is our contact, ma'am. He's our shooter manager. If you if you needed a contact, it needed to be him, not a council member without council members. We're not without the councils say so.

Well, he needed a contact person. Well, I'm just telling you, sir, how how how everything happened and he needed contact person. I did give him permission to put my name there as a contact person until we did a resolution because I had been conversing with Mr. David Dean at that time. So all of this happened prior to you making the motion to make the mayor the contact person.

That's not a contact person. It's a voting representative.

So in order to make her a voting representative. It's fine. But I would just appreciate that from now on. Just, you know, if you would have spoken with me to give a little bit more.

We all appreciate that when we're spoken to ahead of time.

Yeah, my concern is that we just have a representative because we don't want to be left behind. We don't be trying to catch up. We want to be a part of Texas 21.

And I couldn't hardly disagree. I made my position known last time when Mr. Price made his motion. It still stands today that we do not need to be a part of this right now. As you can see, it's a big consortium of people from Houston and Dallas with their interests involved and not small town Crockett, Texas. They do not care about us. They don't care. And all they want is our money.

Well, I can't say they don't care, but I know what I do know is I do know that Texas 287 comes to Crockett. And I do know that in the near, in the future, that if it comes to Crockett, that it also adds economic value to our city. It allows for companies and businesses to come here. We've just dissolved our CDC, just cut our hand off. for a second resource for our city. So what do we do now? I mean, how do we move forward?

grudges from way back when or or just just uh we need to really look forward and um but i would also say we have senator sessions and representative trent ashby uh if they do the job that we voted them in to do that they would represent us on this project

I would still note that um I have I have but moved to rescind my motion and it's been taken because it moved in second all in favor motion cares I'm opposed I'm sorry

where are we with that well that might be clear that we're still going to be a part of texas 21. is that correct at this time there's no vote against it they just he rescinded his what he was suggesting so right now so he took it back basically so at this point we're actually not his motion was so i'm not sure is it what was in place doesn't stand or does it stand

It doesn't know and until Council gives mean new direction at this point. We did pay for the one year worth of membership news. The y'all's previous action at this point by rescinding it. We'll possibly have one year of membership.

But we just want me to say that we're just letting you know we should be utilized.

I can see if they'll allow us to be reimbursed other than that. They will be utilizing our funds.

Yeah, well, we have a representative, that's what I'm asking, from this council.

Not currently, no, sir.

We move to the next item here. All right. Okay, that brings us to item number four, discussion regarding a city swimming pool.

Mayor and Council, this was requested to be brought back on the agenda. I have a quick packet in your handouts just to recapture where we're at currently. In 2026, the spring of this year, Council directed me to apply for a $1.5 million Texas Parks and Wildlife grant. The deadline, as I mentioned to Council at that time, was August the 1st. Based on the direction from Council at that time, we did apply for the grant. We did get noticed this week, though, that what was typically a 90-day turnaround on sending us notice of award whether we get the grant or we don't get the grant and the placement of it has been moved to a projection of spring 2027 so it'll be you know six months to you know six to probably eight months or so before we get a notice of whether we get the grant or we don't get the grant That's all the new information I have the rest of the information we you know we discussed it this spring. On what Council was asking, you know kind of what our options were. And so I at this point I don't have any new. Any new information and it was just asked to be brought back.

So for clarity, we are in the process of being considered for the grant. The grant has been submitted submitted and. I I just said within. I guess I don't know where the article in the paper came about about the swimming pool and the problem that Lufkin was having when was in a clan with that or whatever but it was a reminder that the pool itself is an expensive I'm for a pool I want a pool I love a pool And I think it's something, but I think if we can get funding for it, because it wasn't ever a cheap proposition. We found out when we jumped in the bottom of the pool and it was bounceable, or you could bounce in a concrete pool. I knew there was a danger there, so I knew it wasn't feasible for us to try to fix it. But I think if we can... I think it is a time limit that would be worth the cost if we were going to get something out of it but either way we're in the process of budget we're not going to really be able to address it fully in this budget because we've run out of time and funding but I do believe that we really need to have a booth and I think that it's a good thing that we're still pursuing options for it.

I would like to ask, basically, how many times have we applied for, how many grants have we applied for?

For this pool, this is the second time that we've applied for it, for this project.

So are we going to continue, like if we don't, we're moving forward, if we don't get approved for this grant, so what are we looking at moving forward?

Council in spring told me let's apply for and then if once we receive notice of worst case we don't get a fun get get funded and we would discuss it then. What our options were.

So options were so we are being that the funds are for the pool. We are still looking at once we found out the results of the grant, we're still looking at, because that money is designated for the pool, correct?

The money was set aside by council for the pool. Council can make decisions on that money. They can choose not to set it aside any longer, but that was what council at our last discussion said to do, to set those funds aside for the pool.

And so how much, what was the amount of those funds?

725,000 is what's in the fund for this one.

Okay. And I have mentioned to you about the funds, which is the American rescue plan. Well, we got funds for from the. So, we have how much left in it that.

A little over to the right of 200,000.

We've had that awarded.

Yes, we have our funds still the remaining that have not been allocated to other projects and one of those funds available for for any governmental expense and they were they were appropriated to all cities and counties throughout the state of Texas for programs for any governmental expenses Council. The only on on. Purchased or funded. On the council did initially appropriate and we're we finalize the bids on it now is this woman I mean the the fire station concrete. the floor out in the bay where all the trucks are parked uh council um said that they they intended to use grant funds or arpa funds for that and so that has all is the only remaining item that has not been followed up on and completed what's been approved by council so did we use did we use any of those funds for like because we did we used the funds for the animal shelter to re

Do the animal shelter at all or what do we do?

No, we purchased the animal shelter from the South Pine. We purchased the animal shelter when they sold it using ARPA funds. That's what we bought that building with that we're currently using.

So that's where I'm at with that is that we value our animals. more than we value our children. So, because I'm just asking, because I mean, you use ARPA funds to, when you knew we had a project, a pool that already had funds available, all we had to do was add funds to that to make that pool happen for those children.

A small portion was used for the animal shelter. We purchased police vehicles. We purchased street equipment. We purchased lots of items that council approved.

What was the total amount of the ARPA funds?

When they were allocated in 2021, I believe how much wasn't was 1.5. I have a listing of it. I can bring that. I will be bringing it back to Council pretty quickly due to the need to move on the fire station project. I want to get Council's direction on that. So I'll bring a listing of what funds have been expended.

And building on what Ms. Hicks said, I believe we should invest in our children heavily. And I get the need for a pool. And building on what she said as well, we don't have economic development. And I'm not going to even touch that one. But we want to bring money into Crockett. Well, instead of investing in a pool, that's not going to do anything except be a drain on our budget. Why don't we reinvest that in like the baseball fields or the soccer field and start hosting like travel ball tournaments? I know for a fact that, you know, if we host a couple of travel ball tournaments, we redo the fields, maybe AstroTurf the inside or, you know, the infield. You know, put some lights up and start hosting something. I mean, we could bring in 15 $20,000 on the weekend. You're talking six teams come in with 12 kids, you know, 12 kids plus your parents. I can promise you because I've had to travel doing that stuff. Yes, it's expensive and they're going to bring that here to Crockett, TX. We don't know what kind of businesses that could get to us. So we're investing in the kids. I'm sorry, Mayor. We're investing in the kids here because those fields will be around and available 365 days out of the year. Also, we can do tournaments because baseball, softball, soccer, they play year-round. I don't care if it's hot, cold, or whatever. We could also do... like uh you know like john was talking about or like in this thing like a grant match where we put money in there so if they want to put lights up we do a two for one if they bring us five thousand dollars we'll match it and give them ten okay well you know what i'm saying right now

kind of bring back our focus. We weren't trying to, and just for your, we discussed the, we weren't trying to go into the other funding source tonight. Basically what we were looking at was the timeline and then what we could appropriate but we weren't going into the details because we're still just projecting and I do understand it's a good like you said where we invested is really good so at this point I think all the discussion can really cover in terms of we're not doing another funding source tonight we're asking are we gonna wait until we hear from the grant, or we're not gonna hear, and then we'll start with the details of what happens next, because we could project a lot of things. So just in terms of just the focus, we've already agreed that we want a swimming pool, and we especially want it if we get a grant, but we still have to decide how we do it at a later date, depending on whether we get it or not. so I mean I would propose at this point that we just kind of bring it to a

I believe in that motion. Also, I can't remember exactly when it was, but when we would explore and do some research on surrounding cities and towns that had pools. But my understanding most of them that surround us now have closed down because of operating costs. Uh, I think Russ closed down, uh, Lufkin, uh, Palestine, uh, closed this week. because of the expense of operating costs. Well, I'm just saying, you know, if we've got the money to do it, but then we've got to We've got to operate it. And it's got to be maintained year-round, not just three months while people are swimming, but year-round. And I understand that. I've had several swimming pools in my lifetime, and I enjoyed being in the water, but I didn't enjoy the expense of them.

The thing of it is, it's for our children, it's for our communities, basically because we do have families that come back to the city. Not just that, though, mine is that it was a commitment that was made to the youth of this community. It was also a commitment that was made to the community. So I think that we should hold up to our commitments. If we give that word and say that we're going to do something, We need to keep our word and make sure we do it.

Well, where we are at that point, nobody has changed their word. All we're waiting on is what we're going to do next. Nobody has changed the premise of where they were. We were asked, and for some reason it came up, we're going to wait and see. I guess the motion was that we're going to wait to see what the outcomes is, and then we'll go to our next step. And it might be a different design or something or whatever we have to do. But at this point, all we can do is cover in this discussion really is we need a motion really are we prepared to I'm just thinking ahead three or four

years down the road and we run in the same problem that that that that palestine rusk and luskin you know uh has uh what what would we do would we raise taxes to to maintain it well i'm gonna say this and i'm gonna have to cook for the kids

well we have i understand that but we've got we've got a lot of things here for the kids we can build another splash pad i feel like that we can do both if that's the case if that if that's the case we can give salaries we can also give our children a safe a safe place we can give the if we give the animal

How is it going to be a safe place when we can't... Lufkin, Texas can't afford lifeguards.

How is it going to be a safe place when we can't... They can't fill them in Lufkin. How are we going to fill them here?

Okay, each one kind of talk it. Okay, we're at the point. I think we had a spend-spill-only discussion in terms of everybody has an opportunity to discuss with, I mean, to state their concern. So from this point, it wasn't any need to make a motion on anything?

Well, I mean, it's been brought up. So I'll make a motion. We don't go forward with the grant. We pull from it. We take the remainder $725,000 that we have, and we utilize it for our parks that we already have, improving baseball fields, softball fields. Tracks soccer field, whatever the case may be. But it's my motion that we withdraw from the pool project because of the the overall cost of it in the future that we're not going to be able to sustain.

I second.

OK, it's been moved in second. All in favor. Opposed. Motion fails. So at this time discussion.

um john could you um we developed a a pool board correct we have a parks advisory parks advice currently yes so out of that out of that board we came up with a plan a and a plan b um are you still instructed to to you know follow

So as the direction that I've received from council so far is to apply for the grant. If we do not receive the grant, then we will proceed to coming up with a plan B presentation to council. If Council changes that it would need to be done by motion, otherwise we're still on the plan for the grant is already been applied. Yes, that's planning and that's why yes, yes, so I was instructed to do so in terms of thank you.

There is a we're we're we've already covered what we should OK. Are we ready to move to the next item? If council is. Council? OK. Item number five, consider approved proposed tax rate.

All right, mayor and council. I have some. I have our latest updates from the appraisal district. Also have our draft budget. I have some highlights and I'm going to mention real quick. Tonight's goal and need. That I need from Council in order for us to move forward with proposed tax rates, we need to approve a proposed tax rate tonight. We're not approving. Any final tax rates you're giving me a tax rate and budget to be able to post. And I will have draft budgets on our website. Draft tax rates on our website. We will have to begin posting in the newspaper. We will have a budget. Printed and available in the foyer. For comments, people can come in and look over the budget and see it in detail and make comments pros and cons. prepare themselves for a public hearing we'll have a public hearing and um and so that's tonight is what kicks off that process um as previously discussed our property values came in lower than estimated we got hit by a significant amount of tax property value exemptions um our our proposed our values were at 428 million and they're at 415 million currently The proposed tax rate is 77 cents, and that is a 13.5 above the no new revenue rate. For a homestead with 100,000 in taxable value, the annual city property tax would increase by $92 a year, or an equivalent of $7.70 a month. This increase is directed entirely to maintenance and operations, an increase in our street department budget, as well as a 10% COLO. Our debt service portion of our budget decreases. It was at $0.16, and it has been lowered to $0.15. The proposed rate remains 3.52 cents below the de minimis rate. As I mentioned, this 10% COLA, if it's shown as a fixed across the board rate, it would represent a $2.50 hourly increase to all city employees, excluding myself, the city secretary, and finance director. This average is 10% overall, but it provides a greater percentage increase to lower paid employees. For example, a $15 an hour employee would see an increase of 16%, and a $30 an hour employee would see an 8% increase. In comparison, if Council was to go with the voter approval rate of 72.9 cents or .7290 per $100 value. We would only be able to fund a 5% call. Based on the rates shown in y'alls attached PDFs. And I'll pull it up on the screen. The proposed budget includes the police rifle package, fire hose, and a street broom. Those will not come out of our tax rate. Those will be paid for out of reserves. Council's motion also did not address the purchase of a police vehicle. If it is purchased, it would also be funded from reserves and not affect the proposed tax rate. Finally, the proposed water and sewer rate adjustment applies equally to all residential and commercial accounts and is not based on consumption. The monthly increase for water service is $1.53 and $1.58 for sewer service. Combined impact of $3.11 per month on the total utility bill. As you recall, the city has already directed me to absorb the water rate increase from the Houston County Water District for our wholesale water rates. And we've absorbed that into the budget and not passed that on. The last important item of this bill, of this bill, of this budget, proposed passing on the 3% garbage collection rate.

That's the increase?

But yes, it's a garbage collection rate increase imposed by our solid waste contractor. And that equates to, um, 66 cents a month for each month residential bill.

Um, so you just received that information on the increase for the garbage.

No, ma'am. That wasn't gone over in our budget workshop earlier. This portion, as it relates to our water and sewer customers, if you see here, we have a total of 3,186 customers. We have a base rate, which addresses fixed costs, and we have a consumption rate, which addresses variable costs. Our fixed costs are primarily personnel. That's why you have that dollar amount. If we sell a gallon or if we sell a million gallons a day, that rate stays the same. We pay for the people that show up to work. It addresses a few other. fixed rate costs as well, like permits and things of that nature. Everything else is loaded into the consumption rate where when we sell more water, electricity goes up, water goes up, the chemicals go up, and all the materials and supplies associated. The reason it's loaded on the base rate side is because the primary cost or reason for this cost increase is for employees. And so right now it's currently divided evenly across residential and commercial at $1.53. What council can do, essentially if you see down here, If you see down here I have. The 50 I have a $58,000 need. For the employee colors. $1.53 for both. Commercial and residential equates to a revenue increase of 58,494. If Council was to load. This differently. We can calculate it. And bring in the revenue necessary. That's just my initial proposal to counsel as a starting point for instance if you put if you put a Well, I can't I can't type there there we go So please it's not let me type here I

So basically, I'm sorry. So basically, a person is making just give a true numbers instead of percentage. Some people understand numbers, true numbers instead of better than the same. So if a person making which which are. salaries are and I've mentioned this before how our salaries take up majority of our budget so and I also talked to you about in the event that this does happen and we already have some departments that as far as overtime, they go over their overtime break budget. So that would also include the overtime. So with that being said, just give them, General someone making $33 that would give them because the salaries, I don't think a lot of people realize what the salaries are here in the city, what we actually pay. They're thinking that the pay salaries are very low. So if they would inquire about what salaries would pay, then they'll understand better why I was against giving increases at the current time. I did express about looking at increases at a later time, but just basically I was trying to get, which I talked with you or sent you a letter, trying to get real time figures on how much it would cost a household, um, with water rates, property rates, you know, all of that involved. So, uh, just it's $1.53 a month.

This is the impact. Well, that's it.

Okay, included with the $1.53 a month. That's for the water of the water plus, which is going to be like $3 added extra.

Yes, that's what I just went over. So it's $3.11 for water and sewer. Yes, ma'am.

And then your garbage went up.

Our contractor, our contractor increased by three to 3%.

3% and 3% of what?

Of existing of current costs.

And how much is that?

You have a you have a list of.

It's been increased by 66 cents is the is it was going to cost consumer about 45 extra dollars per year somewhere about that. For utility and for utility and garbage or what.

It should be only it should be a little over about 37. $37 for water and sewer and 66 cents times 12. So that's $7. Yes, we're about 40 roughly $45.

OK, man property tax increase.

$2.50 I mean. I just presented that just a minute ago. It's a $7 an equivalent of $7.70 per month. Or $92 increase per year.

So $92 plus that 47. 4545. Wow. That's a bunch. The reason I say this is because a lot of times just looking at some people have more month than they do money. So I'm really struggling with this because in real time, I deal with this on a daily basis, on a monthly basis. So I'm standing in for those people that have more month than they do money. So I don't agree with the increases. I think we can look at this at a later time because if we can't afford all those extra avenues that's been presented, I don't think we should do it. We don't have any other resources coming in.

But at the end of the day, you're still having to admit what the cost is. we're still going to have to use the same facility with your money as long as your money short but to personal budgeting like I said I have property got enough I mean it's not and it's not scary because every time I go to the store they're increasing so some I mean even if you eat if you sleep if you drive the gas goes up everything is to reflect where we are in the community and if our bills are going up in the city and we're not bringing in revenue we're going to miss something we're not going to be able to meet what we need to meet It's not a lot. I live on a fixed income. I went back and took a little part time and it's gone now.

you you're you are where where you make money it's about budgeting but those people are not getting a cost of living raise and it's just like robbing peter to pay paul you're taking money from someone that does not have to give to someone that's making a decent salary you're not you're not really giving people are working

They don't work and they're earning. And most of them, you're looking at what they've done over years. It didn't just start. People have worked to get five years of a salary. They didn't just get one initially.

Mayor and Council, I'd like to make a motion that we move forward with the proposed rate. Like I said before, I don't want to have to raise taxes. It's the last thing I want to do. But we've got people in this city that are starving to death without a cost of living adjustment. And therefore, it has to be done. Therefore, I make the motion we move forward with the proposed rate.

I second.

Okay, it's been moved and second. Any discussion we do with the discussion?

Yeah, I think yeah, I just think that if we if we would not have and pay like. Excessive salary amounts and power in with higher salary incomes and I was even looking at the. Okay, I think the over time the tax abatements that we give different businesses that could actually help with the with our income or revenue.

So yeah, I just I don't know. Okay, now we've had a discussion. I'm ready for the vote.

We come up with a number of 10%. That's what the council told me to use.

I presented multiple We had requests from department heads of up to 25% trying to keep employees and. Compete with other cities so we don't lose valuable employees. I presented the 10% because in 2022 we voted. To adopt a pay policy to provide our employees with a certain amount and since 2022 we have not adjusted that at all and since 2022 uh cpi and inflation has hit us by over 12 and a half percent and so i presented a 10 option and like i mentioned to council then if y'all can it's easy you know if you wanted to go higher than that or lower than that i can go but council told me to use a 10 number okay okay is it any

are you ready for the vote all in favor opposed okay motion carries okay that brings us to between the budget uh we don't have an executive session okay that brings us to item number six uh we have we're well we can exit for our for our executive session in the media conference we do our executive session okay okay

Thank you very much.

What brings you to council? What brings you to council? um um Thank you. That's fine. Thank you. Thank you. I don't understand anything.

um . . . That's always a factor for the city-city. That's your responsibility as a citizen. And it is our responsibility. So I say, excuse me, the front of your property, there's a 10-foot easel. I have to get it signed. But I'm in the back looking at the city-city. This is our right to do what we need to do. but there are also certain things

But if that's civil order, the city, I suppose, T.R., D.C.Q. should go to the front seat.

So the big question I would ask is, why do you have to do that? Because the water quality is something that we need to be aware of, not asking. So the water quality is a problem. Why? The important part is, why is it that we have water going down this street all the time from the earth? Is it because of the static in it that possibly that's so... The parasite that's in the water still, if you go up to here, you can stop it. So that pressure doesn't make a difference. The same situation appears to be the case. Are there problems with our system? Or we can't even protect ourselves. We can't protect ourselves. We can't protect ourselves. We can't protect ourselves. Thank you. It's good for three days, four days. so you have to be excited That's how it works. That's what we're talking about. So I asked him, I said, well, is it that way y'all put a hole in there and turn that hole back into my plate? Well, I'm not up to it. I've been doing that for three months. . . . . . . Why can't I listen to her? They said, my kids are completely environment, and I want to go out there and sing out from my bedroom. And they said, shoot, you can't do that. I said, well, then, every time you open that up, when you tell them there's a problem, and a part in yourself, when you tell them everything, they don't know it. Because that's the line that needs to be taken. Should it be not a public notice? Oh, and we can't do that. I said, we should be able to do that.

I know on the radio, you hear it all the time. Well, we can work. We can work.

We're not going to have to go again, whatever.

Should we be more aware here on this situation? And I'm just saying those are questions that possibly could be addressed to give us a more sense of self-confidence. And if we're open to that, I think it's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. But that's council's fault. But even in the first three years. Yes, you're right. I don't believe that it's simple. It kind of means that they were ready to do that. But I don't see that. I don't see that. But it's so far wrong. I don't think that you have to take into account that it's simple. Thank you.

Sure. Yeah. I've heard, I've heard, I've heard that it's super, super bad.

It's not like you're... No, it's not like that at all. And it's so close to water, and you cannot put it on top of anything.

We're officially back in session.

Mayor and council, as discussed during the executive session, I would request that we take action on our current city secretary, Mincy Stefka, and her retirement notice.

I make a motion that we accept Mincy Stefka's letter of resignation effective September the 30th.

Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Motion carries.

The next up item, Mayor and Council, I would like to nominate Ms. Selina Ellaby as the City Secretary for the City of Crockett, effective October 1.

I move that we accept Ms. Ellaby's effective as October 1.

Okay. Ready for the vote? All in favor? Second. Got the second.

Got too fast for me.

Okay.

I did just want to make note for the record. I did address the posting of the job to ensure that it was legal for us to move forward. And my understanding, I got direction that it was legal for us to move forward without posting.

just want to thank you thank you all ready for the vote all in favor. Motion carries no it goes congratulations.

Motion to the motion to adjourn.

Yeah.

some leftover for something. I hate to say it. I'm getting my age.

Oh, no, you haven't been. I told you. I think I was six years old now. You ain't that old. You're the one we're treating him. I was 30 years.