City Council - Regular Meeting

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this lady Cheryl Murray the first season announcement. That's right. Okay,

it goes She never done this before. right there. It is 6 o'clock and we'll uh call the meeting to order at 6 o'clock. And joining us for our prayer today is Reverend Cheryl Murray with the United Methodist First United Methodist Church of Commerce. This church has a long history of commerce with local Methodists holding worship as far back as 1881.

Wow. First United Methodist holds worship services on Sundays at 10:00 a.m. and even holds classes for the community such as adult friendship Sunday school and children's Sunday school. The church is located at 1709 Highway 24 in Commerce and their office hours are Monday to uh through Friday 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Reverend Murray, please lead us in our prayer.

Okay, let us pray. Gracious and holy God, we pause in our busy days and in the midst of this agenda we've been called to to reflect for a moment on your abundant love for us. We give you thanks for calling us to this place and to this service. Sew in our souls your wisdom and your peace that passes understanding. Save us from false choices that in your light we may see light and in your straight paths we will not stumble. In the name of Jesus Christ our savior I pray. Amen. Amen.

And for the record we do have a forum. And John Harper if you will lead us in pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance 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.

Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. Thank you all very much. Number four is our consent agenda. We'll ple everybody take a look at it and see if you have any questions. Are there any questions? I move that we accept the minutes as presented.

Second. I have a motion and a second to accept the consent agenda. All in favor say I. I. All oppose? Nay.

Motion carries. At this time, we'll have presentation of the city council by members of the public. This is to be conducted at 605 or as close to as possible with three minute limit per person. The public comments will cease at 6:20. This period is con uh reserved for citizens to discuss items not on the accept uh listed agenda. The response to public comments will be limited to a statement of fact or policy direction to set up an issue with a city uh staff member or an offer to place on an item on the future council agenda. Our first card I have is from Frank Higgins. If you'll come forward, state your name and your where you live and what's your issue. Most of y'all know me. My name is Frank Higgins with 507 North Neil Commerce, Texas 75428. I didn't know that. I have one question. Uh something was mentioned uh last week kind of in passing about tiny homes coming to commerce. I just want to know if y'all are going to allow tiny homes in residential areas or are you going to try to do like like uh Campbell has done and put tiny homes in an area that's just for tiny homes. If you're going to put tiny homes in residential areas, you're going to you're going to devalue those properties quickly. It'll be like if if you got a certain area you're going to put them in. If you're going to put them in north of the tracks, we're going to fight. If you're going to put them everywhere in commerce, even over on deer trail, we don't have a problem with it. But if you're just going to select certain areas to put m these tiny homes, it's not going to work. Not going to work at all. Just that's all I got to say about that.

Thank you. And we have another card from an unknown person here. know Teddy Rail and if you'll come forward state your name and where you live.

My name is Teddy Real. I live at 2004 Creek View Drive, Commerce, Texas 75428, one of the eight addresses I've had in Commerce since I've been in Commerce. I lived in one house three times, but that's another story. Uh tonight I'm coming before you as a candidate for Hunt County Judge. Wanted to take my three minutes and kind of give you a little bit of information about me. Um, something I'm not comfortable doing, talking about me, but uh, we're going to give it the best shot. I am a graduate of Commerce High School. I married my high school sweetheart. We've been married 41 years. This year make 42. We have three grown children married. And we're very fortunate to have two of the three move back to Texas to start families. Our daughter moved from Pennsylvania. And it has little Teddy and Eleanor Grace. And then Quinton moved from Palestine into commerce and has grandson number one Silus. We are both graduates of East Sexy State University. I have a bachelor's degree in uh marketing. Uh as I was finishing my school, I started working for L3 Harris or E Systems at the time in Greenville and I retired there in June of 21 with approximately well nearly 40 years of service to the nation there. And uh I tell people that I wasn't in the service, but I got as close as I could. During my career that at L3 uh most of it was spent in project management, managing people, budgets, cost, schedule, and quality. And uh I've managed budgets from a few dollars to over 500 million. And uh when you manage budgets like that, you try not to think about it, otherwise you don't sleep at night. But it's it was all good. I had an excellent career. The last three positions I had out there were director, senior director, and general manager. And at that time, I was over the organization that managed all of the communications systems on the Air Force One fleet of aircraft. That included two 747s that the president flies now, the new 747s being built in San Antonio, and

all the other 30some aircraft that support the executive fleet of three different types of aircraft there. I had an organization of 64 that I managed in Greenville. had people that work for me at Hickham Air Force Base in Hawaii, Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, and a cadre of 20 plus people, of course, at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington DC. It was a great career. I tell people that uh the farther I get from my retirement date, the more fondly I remember my career. I I forget the nights that I spent out on the flight line in the freezing cold or the days in the blistering sun. I had an aircraft one time. My forehead was so blistered that the hanger like a line guys bought me a ball cap. They called it a lid. I said, "Mr. Ru, we have a lid for you because your forehead is blister up." And so, um, so anyway, good times doing that. When I retired, I was on the city council of commerce and then have been elected twice to the mayor mayor's position here. So, I am looking forward to the opportunity uh that presents itself for Hunt County Judge. I believe that with my career in management of dollars and people and projects and schedule and budgets and also my time as an elected official uniquely qualifies me for the Hunt County Judge position. So I ask for your vote, not only your vote, but also the vote of your friends and family. So thank you very much. Appreciate your time.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on to number uh six. This is comments from the council and pursuant to Texas Local Government Code 551.0415B. The purpose of this section is to allow the mayor and each city council member the opportunity to announce an event or community interest and request that the items be placed or the items be placed on the city council agenda. Mr. Tony, I have nothing.

Mr. D, I do have one thing tonight. Um, I'd like to extend our sincere appreciation to the local church community for their uh collaboration in providing a warming facility and volunteers during the recent Texas winter ice storm. Their support enabled the fire and police departments to dedicate their resources to the numerous other uh emergency calls and uh associated with this uh storm. And we thank you for stepping up and helping the citizens of Congress. Miss Beggy, I have nothing. Mr. Jim and I have nothing.

All righty. All right. We've move on to item number seven, Oak's records request designation. This is discussion and possible action on a resolution to designate an address, an email address, and a website for the submission of open records request to the city of commerce. How you listen, city manager,

mayor, council. Thank you. Uh Texas law allows for um what we call the open records act. I'm sure it's got some kind of official name. Uh but it simply stated that almost every document that is created by your local government is a public record uh and should be available for review by the public since it is on behalf of the public. uh and so the law is is lengthy and got a lot of nuance but in in essence uh almost every document that we create is available. There are some exceptions but almost every document we create is available and the general requirement is the request has to be submitted in writing that that's it. Uh, and so in theory, uh, if someone writes on a napkin and goes up to a water leak and climbs down in the hole and hands it to the guy covered in mud, they've submitted an open record request. Um, and so there are an an enormous volume of records that are available and we have an enormous possibility of ways in which those requests can be submitted. uh and it's possible for requests to get handed to staff members that don't necessarily know what to do with it and so we could potentially miss a request. We have not at this point. Um but it's kind of wide open. The law does allow for the governing body to identify a physical address for the requests to be submitted. So if said person wants to write the request on a napkin, they can't go to the worker in the whole, they have to bring it to the address that is designated uh by the governing body so that we can streamline and make sure that we're getting the requests and we're able to process them as quickly as

possible. In addition to a physical address, you can identify a single email address for them to come in electronically or you can identify a website uh that the requests can be submitted through. And so we're asking the governing body to specifically identify city hall at 1119 Alamo Street as the address. Uh we're asking for the email foyer freedom of information at foya@commercex.org. And then we have a website portal city of commerce tx.nextrequest.com. And so those are the three um areas in which citizens or members of the public can request documents. And this allows our staff to be much more efficient and effective in receiving those requests and filling them in a timely manner. Be happy to answer any questions. Mayor,

anybody have any questions? All righty. I have a motion.

I move that we designate an address, an email address, and a website for the submission of open records request to the city of commerce. We have a motion and a second to um designate a resolution to designate the uh address and email and website for open records request. All in favor say I. I. All oppose, nay. Motion carries. Move to number eight is the 2025 racial profiling report. This is a presentation of the 25 racial profiling report in compliance with the code of of criminal uh procedure article 2.131 article 2.138 discussion and acceptance of the same. Mr. Cory Weatherford, Chief of Police,

Merit Council. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure requires law enforcement to keep certain statistics on traffic stops throughout the year. At the end of the year, we were required to provide that data to one, a consolidated report of all that data to the state and then also to the governing body. So on January the 21st, I submitted our 2025 racial profiling report to the state as required by Texas CCP. And then also uh that data is here before you. Just a brief overview of that data. In 2025, we stopped 2,215 cars. That's a 7.7% increase over 2024 and a 170 stop increase or 93.44% over 2023. of those stops, 68% were made on city streets. And um there's a whole host of data within that report. But um that is essentially the kind of the brief overview of the report and that entire report is submitted here for y'all as well as to the state and also made publicly available already on our website with subsequent years and historical years.

Any questions? Does anyone have any questions? Do I have a motion to accept? Move that we accept the racial profiling report in compliance with the procedure code there and for 2025. Second. Have a motion and accept and a second to accept the 2025 racial profiling report. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you. Item number nine is a vacant uh building registration ordinance. This will be a first reading and we'll have a public hearing. This is a discussion and possible action on an ordinance of the city of commerce amending chapter 22 building and uh building regulations to include a new section article number nine vacant buildings section 22-266 through 22-275 repealing all other ordinances or parts of ordinances in com in com conflict herein and providing for a penalty and providing for an effective date. Mr. Parker,

good evening. In 2024, the city council adopted a strategic plan for the city of commerce. And part of the one of the objectives was to improve the appearance of the city. And one of those um one of the goals was to research vacant building ordinances, uh registration ordinances, and and then implement that ordinance. And we are at that time. Um the ordinance is built to protect the property of neighbors uh the health of neighbors, reduce crime, fire risks and whatnot. uh the residential time frame or it's a structure will be deemed vacant at 30 days but residents single family structures will have 120 days I believe um to come into compliance or register uh with the or as the ordinance states uh 90 days for commercial businesses um and that's in the in the the main reason for the difference in days is because it does take a long time depending on the time of year to rent out of structure. So, we wanted to have that compliance in there and then it allows us to go in and look at these buildings to make sure they're not an attractive nuisance or have some element of crime to it or storing u illegally storing uh chemicals or whatnot in these in these structures. Um, staff recommends approval.

All right. Does anybody have any questions before we open to public hearing? All right, it's 6:18 and open for public hearing. Anybody have any questions or comments? If you'd like to step up to the mic so we can hear you, state your name, where you live. Rob Ford, one2 North Neil Street, Commerce, Texas. Just for clarification, uh I thought I heard something about 120 days on residential and 90 for

commercial commercial. So what is 180 days? And what does that require the residents to do to get in compliance? They would have to sign up after 180 days for the vacant building registration. To make what registration? The vacant building registration. Okay. So, all residents in the city of commerce are going to be required to do this. No, because they'll be occupying their structure.

Okay. Just curious. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? And close the public hearing at 6:19. Do we have any other comments or questions from the council? Do I have a motion? Motion to pass on the first reading. Sir, I have a motion and a second to pass the vacant building registration ordinance on the first reading. All in favor say I. I.

All oppose, nay. Motion carries. Item number 10 is the scrap tire ordinance. This will be a first reading and will hold the public hearing. This is a discussion and possible action on an ordinance of the city of commerce amending chapter 38 environment to include a new section article 12 article 7 storage transportation and disposable tires section 38-150 through 38167 repealing all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict here and providing for a penalty and providing for an effective date. Mr. Okay, going back to the strategic plan of 2024, um, one of the objectives of course improve the appearance of the city strategy was focus on effective use of code enforcement in building inspections. Part of that is scrap tires. Scrap tires are tires that are no longer intended for their original use. Um, this ordinance would require businesses to register their business and they would have to rack and screen their tires. They would also um have 30 days upon passage of the ordinance to remove all scrap tires from the ground. Um that would effectively from today would be 60ish days and um code enforcement notified me right before this meeting that they have notified at least two of the businesses and plan on meeting with the other one in the morning or in the afternoon depending on schedules. Staff recommend approval.

Any questions before we open for public hearing? All right, I open it for public hearing at 6:21. Do we have any comments or questions from the public? Okay, I'll close the public hearing at 6:22. Do we have any other comments from the council or questions? May I have a motion, please? I move to approve on the first reading. I have a motion and a second to approve the first reading of the scrap tire ordinance. All in favor say I.

I.

All oppose, nay. Motion carries. All right. Item number 11 is the fee ordinance amendment. It's the community development. This is the first reading. An ordinance of the city of commerce, Texas, amending uh appendix C, fees, rates, and charges of the code of ordinances of the city of commerce, Texas, establishing a master fee schedule for cost, fees, and rates associated with services provided by the city of commerce, Texas, providing purpose and intent, providing for the incorporation of premises, and providing for an amendment, providing for a savings and repealing clause, and providing a severity clause. cause and providing for an effective date. Mr. Harper,

appendix C uh is our fee schedule and instead of having fees in multiple places, we like to keep them all in one general area, which is appendix C. This will cover the vacant building registration fees, the scrap tire business license fees, and we added a disposal fee for residents that could pay $2 to dispose of their tires at the service center moving forward. Um, logistics will still need to be worked out, but that was the the fees that are in here. Uh, for a minute, council have any questions? You said $2 per tire. Yes. Resident or non-commercial tires. Thank you.

For the set or per tire? Per tire. Any other questions? All right. This does not require a public hearing. So, do I have a motion, please? Motion pass on the first reading. Second. I have a motion and a second to pass the fee ordinance amending the community development on a first reading. All in favor say I. I. All oppose? Nay. Motion carries.

And that leads us into number uh 12, city manager report. Mayor Council, thank you. Uh I do want to report for the record that we currently have three mayors uh in the room all at one time. Uh and so uh the stars are aligned uh for us. Um Frank, thank you for your comments and questions about the tiny home development. Uh as we went through the adoption of our comprehensive plan, uh we talked extensively about housing needs in commerce, uh specifically affordable housing and what are the different opportunities and strategies to add affordable housing options to the current residents of commerce and those who choose to call uh commerce home in the future. And so one of those options is indeed tiny homes. However, we had extensive conversation about where and how to accommodate tiny homes. Uh the general consensus through the comprehensive planning process agrees with you, Frank, uh that we should not adopt a regulation that allows tiny homes to be built on a single lot in the middle of an existing single family residential zone. Um and so we don't anticipate uh that being the path forward. uh but rather the direction that we were given through that comprehensive planning is looking for a way to develop tiny home parks uh which would be larger lots of land uh that are not subdivided but rather have uh spaces available for tiny homes to be put uh and then the conditions in which tiny homes can be um attached to the land. And so the the direction given to staff through the comprehensive planning process was to begin to research this Um, a month or two ago, uh, city council had a workshop and we spent quite a bit of time in that workshop talking additionally about tiny homes. Uh, and the council directed staff to continue

to look at options to create tiny home parks, uh, and the zones in which they could be created. Uh, we're still performing that research right now and looking at what some of the best practices are. uh what works in communities, what doesn't work in communities, what are the unintended consequences of those policies. Uh once research has been completed, it will then go through an extensive adoption process beginning at the planning and zoning commission. Uh and so staff will have to take that research and recommendation to planning and zoning. They will conduct at least one public hearing, maybe multiple public hearings, uh so that the community has a voice and input in how we handle that. Ultimately, the planning and zoning commission will then make a recommendation to the city council, and the city council will have to hold at least two public hearings uh before any kind of regulations can be adopted. And so, we don't know exactly what it's going to look like in its final adoption phase. Uh but preliminary, it looks like we'll be looking for a solution that allows tiny home parks, uh which are large lots with multiple units on it rather than a single lot with a single structure. Uh we do feel like that is disruptive to existing neighborhoods. Uh and so where that's located, we don't know yet. Uh there's a lot of unknowns. We're continuing to do research, but generally we agree with you, Frank, in the comments that you made. Uh and hopefully we'll continue to move in that direction. Uh so thank you for that. Um Mayor, I'm going to hand it over to Mr. Jamie Campbell for our finance update. Good evening, mayor and council. I am happy to be back in front of you with a financial update. I know it's been a couple of months. I really appreciate the grace that you've showed me to get through some of the transitions we've been making in the finance department. So, if we start by looking at our

property tax, as of January 2026, we are at 70% collections for our property tax. We expect more significant collections as we kind of continue through March now that refund season is upon us. Um, so I still expect good collections February, March, and then we kind of start seeing it trail down after that. When we take a look at sales tax, um, I just want to preface and say that this slide here does include February and February's numbers. Um but the actual individual analysis will be for January. So if we look at this slide um the collections we've reached including February are at 758,000 which is right about 49% collections. Uh February is our largest month for collections. Um but when we look at the individual categories for January, January still was a very healthy month for us. Uh we met right on budget. We were right on schedule. Um you'll see that retail has a large increase which is kind of covering some of the decreases that we've seen um in the food, manufacturing, construction, that kind of thing when we're comparing it to last January. And so if we look at retail specifically, our top vendors um had um collections that were on par with last year. Okay. The anomaly that I see is that I had one vendor who happens to be a top vendor of ours that had a large payment. Um, I can only assume and make the assumption that they had gone through

some type of audit that maybe chewed up some past payables. Uh, because if I look at the prior months for this vendor, they were lower than normal. And so I am making the assumption that this is part of an audit and a true up after the end of the fiscal year. And that's what that payment is for. Um but that payment thankfully kind of pulled us up by our bootstraps because we do see a drop um in the accommodation and food. And so when I look there, yes, we've had some establishments close from last January, but we've also had some new establishments. Um but the biggest anomaly was a refund that was given to one of our vendors in this category. Um, and again that probably has to do with did the right city get the right tax. So again, a sales tax audit, which happens from time to time. Um, and so because of that drop, if we didn't have that drop, I guess that refund, we would have had a very healthy month here in accommodation and foods. But uh because of the refund, but then the overpayment in retail, have a nice balance out kind of thing. I don't have forecast for you guys yet. I'm still working on building that out for the year. Um but my goal is to have that for you guys next council meeting. Thank you.

Anybody have any questions?

Thank you, Molly. Good evening, mayor, council, citizens of commerce. Our friends at East Texas&M University, specifically the College of Business, have partnered with our friends at the IRS um and a group called VITA, and they are offering a virtual free tax filing service for qualified taxpayers within northeast Texas. So, just to give a quick recap, um who is VITA? Vita is a group out of Dallas, a volunteer income tax assistance program and they um as I mentioned partner with East Texas A&M and it's an initiative designed to support free tax preparation services for underserved populations through various partner organizations. This service helps individuals with low to moderate income persons with disabilities, the elderly and limited English speakers file their taxes each year. So, one of the qualifications is that you have to have an annual household income of 67,000 or under to take advantage of this service. So, we printed out some extra flyers and left them up front. If you know of anybody um that would benefit from that service, we've left some of those out. Um and we can certainly point you in the right direction to get more information on that. For our clean commerce campaign, we have a section C pickup on February 25th. So, as a reminder, you can put bulk trash curbside as soon as the weekend prior to that Wednesday pickup date. And we also have those calendars, plenty of them available here at city hall. If you don't have one, you're welcome to come pick one up. And then we have that calendar also available um on our website and we share it regularly to social media. East Texas A&M has their annual big event or their day of service for the citizens of commerce doing

community service projects. The deadline to sign up for a service request to be a recipient of those services is Friday, March 6th. You can um scan that QR code. We have flyers posted to the front of city hall. Um or certainly reach out to us if you need more information on that. The City of Commerce Parks and Recreation Department is partnering with a young lady who is doing a um internship uh sort of course project and we're bringing um a program called Angel League to the city of Commerce. This is a baseball softball league for special education children. Um we are taking registration for that right now. Registration is only $10 for the program which is great. It's very inexpensive, covers um their uniforms and all of their games. Registration for that program will end March 7th. As far as I know, this is one of the only programs around here like that. Um so we are happy to reach out to Campbell, Cumbi, Cooper, anybody that you know around here um and take the registration fees and and get as much participation as we can in this new program. And then just a reminder that the city of commerce parks and recreation partners still with script um and we host senior bingo uh with our friends at the First Baptist Church who are so generous to let us use their facility every Monday and Wednesday. Uh we qualify seniors as 60 and above. I've seen quite a bit of misinformation that 65 and above. It's actually 60 and above. Um and then there's congregate meals there as well. So you

the competition for bingo prices. They're trying to eliminate some of the younger crowd.

We have great bingo prizes, too. Um, you can certainly come if you're under the age of 60. You just can't win our bingo prizes. Um, but you can still participate. Um, and then we serve congregate meals there, too. So, you can come for the bingo at 10:00 and stay for the lunch at noon. So, just a reminder that we still continue to participate in that program every Monday and Wednesday here at the First Baptist Church. And that's all I have. Mayor, we do want to continue to remind the public that early voting for the March primaries is ongoing right now. Uh commerce is not a polling location for early voting. Uh so citizens in commerce that want to participate in early voting must go to Greenville to the civic center or no their election office. It's

so early voting is at the civic center. um now through when does it close? 27th. Two weeks. 27th. Um and then on March 3rd, the election day, City Hall will be a polling location for local citizens to vote in the March primaries. Uh and that's an important uh calendar event. I think the times for this week is 8 to 5 and then next week it's 7 to 7. Okay. So, all right. Um we have no further updates. Uh and we do not have any for executive session. Alrighty. So, do I have a motion to adjurnn? So, move. Second. All right. We adjourn at 6:36. as he want.