City Council - Packet - briefing

Good morning. I'll call the 07:30 packet briefing to order. Ian, please call the roll.

Mayor Morgan? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Stevens?

Here.

Council member Lee? Here. Council member Flores? Here. Council member Fleming? Yes. Council member Otega?

Here.

Council member Montgomery?

Here.

All right. Citizen communication. Anybody wishing to speak? Seeing none, staff briefing. Consider staff briefings and council member discussion and questions regarding items on the agenda for the March.

We have regular citizen communication. I will be switching f one and e one, so everybody knows where we can get the people that are here for the proclamation out. So that goes to then we have e one. Everybody received, email, from city attorney. Does anyone have any questions for the city attorney on this? Alright. Staff presentations. We'll have an update from Michael. Consent agenda. Does anyone have any questions on the consent? Yep. Council Member Fleming?

I just had one on H6.

H6. Let's Is that H6? Which one can come up and answer it? Corey?

It says banks, but was just curious what Come on, Chief. Chief. It's early. I was just curious if you could give some examples of what the professional consulting services entails.

Good morning, mayor. Good morning, council. The professional, servicing services. What that one entails, and I apologize. I don't have my glasses on with me. So I blame Justin. He already says, you're supposed to have my glasses. No. You're good, sir. So this this contract itself is is, it's a supplement agree agreement, and we're just adding it's a consultant that we normally have for written examinations, for our department and assessment centers. So as we do our testing process for our new cadets, this is the company that we use. Promotional processes as well, doing assessment centers, so we're this company for those processes.

Thank you.

And so the firefighters use it as well then?

So so the firefighters are on the contract, but, however, they have changed to a different, consulting company. And so because they were originally on this contract, we kept them on this If they have to fall back into this contract, they're still allowed to do that, but they are currently using a different consulting company.

Are any of the changes due to the I know that we were advertising about the lateral hires and I mean, did that have anything to do with some of this?

It does. Thank you for that, Mayor. So, as a result of our change and thank you to the city manager and and US council is allowing us a different way of hiring lateral officers. We're being more competitive within the Central Texas area. I'm really in in in the state of Texas and bringing on additional lateral officers.

As you know, lateral officers, we can get them out on the streets quicker and also with a lot more experiences. And now as we go for one for one, one year for one year up to ten years makes us more competitive. And so as a result, we're going to be able to bring laterals in quicker, hire more laterals, and, not to dismiss the fact that we're still hiring cadets, as well. So that's just putting more bodies into the testing process.

Which is all good. I mean, we want to make sure we have enough officers out on the streets.

The best quality officers.

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

And I think that's what the public needs to understand is they still go through training the Round Rock way once they're you know, hired.

Yes, sir. For sure. Only the

process, right.

They have to go through state qualifications and state training, but then we put them through the way our training, so absolutely. Alright.

Any other questions on that? Thank you, chief.

Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, counsel.

Alright. Is that it on consent?

Oh, councilor Martega. Yes. On item, h seven, I just need to know what the meaning is in place field nuclear, destiny testing is.

Good morning, mayor and council. Morning. This item here is for our Gladysko Segment 6 project. Every time we do a road construction project, we have a geotechnical firm. This is professional services for geotechnical. What that means is all the materials testing. The the subgrade, once we get it prepped for the road, we do testing on the densities, compaction. We also do concrete testing, asphalt testing, so that nuclear density is related to our asphalt and our concrete testing for the project. This is very important. It's the quality assurance, quality control piece. We wanna make sure the material we put in is the right density, the right components, so that when we build a road, we don't have failures in the down the road.

What the nuclear part do for that? So that's what's throwing me off.

That that's just the the laboratory term. It's not it's a testing. Like for concrete, we do steel cylinders, and it's the process that they use to test densities and breakability of the concrete and all that. We've got a twenty eight day test, etcetera, etcetera. Alright. That makes sense.

Any other questions on evening?

Thank you, Michael. Alright. Resolutions. Consider resolution authorizing Maydex King of local agreement with Travis County. Chief?

Good morning, mayor and council.

Good morning.

This is just for an auto aid agreement with Flugerville Fire, also known as Travis County ESD two. This auto aid agreement is a little different than the ones we've done in the past because this is for structured fires only and not for all services. The reason for that is ESD two covers with their own with Pflugerville's own EMS service and the ESD, and then they have a private firm that does it for the city. And so some some of our response times when we've done this in the past have been extremely long on getting that EMS service, which is why we pulled EMS service out of this contract, and that's for structure fires only. Be happy to answer any questions.

Questions on this? Councilmember Flores? I just wanna make

sure I understood what you said. So outside of fire just just tell me what you tell me right now.

So the the only thing that an odd that Pflugerville will automatically be caught into Round Rock 4 or Round Rock be automatically caught into Pflugerville 4 are infrastructure Okay. Fires

Everything else is handled within each city? Yes, sir.

Okay. Alright. Thank you. Mhmm.

Yeah. And I think the thing too, councilman Flores, is it's really confusing because most cities contract with counties for EMS services. Georgetown, Pflugerville do it on their own. And so then you have ESD I mean, EMS with the county and within the city, and so it does make it Alright. Really confusing. Councilman So

I

think I just got the answer. So this is strictly for the EMS services, not for the firefighters to fight the structure fires?

No. It's vice versa. It's this is strictly for us to go fight fire and not for EMS, though.

So then knowing that we've got proposition b

Mhmm.

On the ballot, if it were approved and then it's requiring that there's four on a truck, is Pflugerville four on a truck?

Yes, ma'am. Okay.

Thank you.

Mhmm.

Yeah. All the smaller communities are.

And they're, again, 100% an ESD versus a city department.

Right. Mayor Pro Tem.

What's the protocol for the number of units that you send based on those different types of structure fires?

So a basic normal home duplex are gonna get four engines, two ladders, and two battalion chiefs. The two ladders can it's a little fuzzy, and what I mean by that is we have a rescue truck here without a ladder, and so that rescue, we consider it as as a ladder. It just doesn't have the aerial capability, so that's that's thrown into the mix. But you'll get a minimum of six fire trucks and two battalion chiefs.

Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

How many firefighters does that equate to?

So, if you're at a minimum of three, you're at 18 with the fire trucks, two with the BCs, so you're at 20. Normally, we're running three to to four units per day that have four person staffing, so the odds are you're going to have some of those units there. And then, also, if it's a true working fire, the battalion chief has the option to bring in additional units if needed.

National average? Is it higher than the national average? As far as the staffing As the staffing goes?

So we're we're holding true. So even though we're sending more units, the number of personnel we're sending is meeting the national or NFPA standard.

Okay. Councilor Mordega? So which fire stations will be the ones that are gonna have to pay attention to this? For For Pflugerville in case

of those So, typically, it's gonna be Stations 34, and eight just because they're on the border of 45. Alright. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Councilmember Fleming.

And then I think if structure fires for Round Rock was about 35 last year, is it similar in Pflugerville? Do they what does it look like?

So Pflugerville is a little stretched out, and again, being an ESD, so they cover a lot more unincorporated area, and so some of that, the demographics normally tend to have more structure fires. But, again, on the side that's more built towards Round Rock, you have more of the fluid neighborhoods, so they're they're running about the same as we do structure call structure fire volume. And then the again, it's it's hit or miss. There's no specific hot spot as far as where structure fire is. So we could have a year where they're in our city more than the normal, and then we could go a year to two years where we hardly ever see them and vice versa.

And so I guess the purpose of this is, in essence, to be a good neighbor and help each other out when we're Is leading this common to do?

Yes, ma'am. So we have auto aid agreements, I think it was three years ago, we we joined an auto aid agreement with all of Travis County. The reason we got out of that contract is the city of or Pflugerville Fire and the city of Austin didn't agree on some of the response terms that were that were in the auto aid agreement. And when I came up here and brought that forward to you all, I sold it to you as we're getting the the closest truck and the quickest time to these incidents. Well, when when it went live, we were Round Rock Fire was responding into Austin, but Pflugerville is still on station.

So that wasn't true what what the whole auto aid agreement was for. That's why we got out of it, and that's why we've come back in the past, and we've we've done a one off agreement with Hutto, now Pflugerville, and Sam Bass. And so all of our area is covered. We still work well with with Georgetown as well. And and Georgetown, they're they're they're building the station off of Westinghouse within the next two years. And so, again, having those auto agreements, what it does is it it doesn't take all the resources out of one city. It allows, again, the quickest resources to get to the instant, providing faster service to the customer.

Thank you. Chief,

have we been on a different note, just have we been asked to help in Bastrop at all? No, sir. Okay. All right. Any other questions? Thank you, Chief. I too consider resolution sir, resolution approving a resolution. I don't think that's right. Consider a resolution approving of the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority Inc.

Kevin. Good morning. Ten years ago this month, the city issued BCRUA city of Round Rock contract revenue refunding bonds in the amount of 53,995,000 to finance the city's share of the first phase of the BCRUA system. These bonds are issued with a ten year call option. At that call option, we have the right to redeem these bonds for the remaining principal left on it, and the market conditions are favorable to execute that call option and refund those bonds with new series 2026 BCRUA city roundup refunding bonds.

The BCRUA board of directors will consider this item tomorrow night at their board meeting before the council will consider it Thursday evening. Some financial details. The principal balance to be refunded is $34,970,000. The average coupon or interest rate on these ten year old bonds is 3.93%. And while the exact interest cost of their funding bonds will be subject to market conditions similarly locked in at pricing on Thursday, our conservative estimate is 3.33%.

This would give a net debt service reduction over the remaining ten year life of the bonds of $1,297,000 Normally, our industry benchmark we look at for refunding opportunities to pencil in or to make financial sense is when net present value savings are greater than 2%. Our estimated net present value savings for this refunding is 3.02%. So, staff is recommending these refunding opportunities. I'll be happy to

answer any questions you may have. Questions? Questions? Thank you, Kevin. I three, consider resolution authorizing the adoption of City Of Round Rock title six program.

Mayor and council, this is part of our transit program because we are federally we receive federal assistance from the federal government. We are required to adopt this, title six, guidelines, once every three years, and it basically just talks about the federal guidelines that we must follow, and we do follow all of those. We have a, Edna Johnson as our transit coordinator. She follows all this very well. It talks about you cannot discriminate against anybody for the, use of the program. We have two programs. We have mobility on demand, which is Round Rock Rides, which is being, doing very well, and then we also have the fixed route, which is CAP Metro. So recommend approval of this title six program, update, and this will be good for the next three years. Be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions? I have four consent resolution authorizing me to execute an out of city water service agreement with Whittlesea Real Estate.

This is an out of city water agreement with Whittlesea. We are on the South side of town. Here's the interstate. Here's Greenlawn. Whittlesea, this property is located in our ETJ, but not in the city limits. They have mulch piles there, so it's very important that they keep those wet to prevent potential fires, etcetera. As part of we've been working with Whittlesey on a number of things down here. We've are recommending an out of city water agreement just for this purpose only. So if Whittlesey comes back and sells this property in the future or changes use, this agreement is terminated. Okay?

So if they wanna redevelop it with something, we're gonna terminate this. We are gonna require them to voluntarily annex into the city because this is contiguous with Greenlawn. But for this purpose, we're okay with the out of city. In exchange, the city, they built this water main extension here in green turquoise. They built that, and then also they granted an easement for us for detention purposes when we expand Greenlawn Boulevard.

So the city got a couple things out of that in exchange for this recommendation for out of city service. They will put in a two inch water meter. That's eight living unit equivalents, so they'll pay water impact fee of eight living equivalents, which is around $33,000, for the water impact fee. So that kind of summarizes that. Recommend approval of this out of city agreement, and I'll be happy

to answer any questions. Questions? Councilor Member Fleming?

And then when it comes to the rates, are they playing the in city rates or out city rates?

They pay out of city. So we have Okay. Will not we have three different rate structures. We have the, residential rate structure. We have a commercial rate, and then we have irrigation rate structure. They will pay the irrigation rate structure, but it'll be twice the rate as well since it's outside the city. So the base charge and the volumetric rate will be twice the monthly rate.

Thank you.

Mhmm. Councilman Flores. So,

Michael, I was curious. What's their source of water now?

They have a so we have a fire hydrant located on the north side. See this blue line right here? We have a fire hydrant off that. There's a construction meter attached to that, and then they run a temporary line under a culvert to provide at the site. So they're paying construction meter rates, that's been hooked up for a while. We did that was a temporary. We did not want it to be permanent, so we we came to them and said, you need a permanent fix. So that's what they use now. Is

I know it's their decision, but is there a reason that they wouldn't annex now?

I think, there there's some the ownership and all that, I think that they don't wanna pay property taxes, obviously, right, city taxes. But that they we gave them that. That was our first conversation. We want you to annex because you're contiguous. We did not have a waterline there. So just during the negotiations, because we were getting a waterline, we were getting easements, they had certain reasons, and we agreed to that for the current use of that property only. We didn't we didn't wanna hamstring ourselves because in the future, hopefully, that property develops with commercial or whatever, and we can get them into the city.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions? Alright. I have five, consider a resolution authorizing May to execute a water treatment transmission agreement with Georgetown.

So we are at, on the North side of town. Here's our Westinghouse water treatment plant, the city's. This blue line here comes down from the interstate. It's a raw water line that comes from Lake Georgetown. There's a double line there that brings raw water into our plant. Once it's treated, we will send it across the interstate, and we send it up here to Barton Hill. That's where an elevated tank is. We have an interconnect with the city of Georgetown right there. Because we have extra treatment capacity here, Georgetown five years ago came to us and said, would the city be willing to treat up to 3,000,000 gallons a day of their water? So Georgetown's water in Lake Georgetown that they're paying for.

Would we be able to treat that and deliver to this point because they had a pressure plane issue? We did that. The benefits to the city are a couple things. We have extra capacity there. If the treatment the demand on any given day reaches a certain amount, we will cut them off. Secondly, we get a 10% rate of return. We do make money on this deal. So it's a maximum of 3,000,000 gallons a day. So, basically, there's a control valve up here on this hill and divide twenty four hours a day, fourteen hundred forty minutes, and set that valve so it cannot go over 3,000,000 gallons a day. A lot of times, they use a lot less than that.

So they ask, will we be willing to renew it for five more years? We are recommending that, but we put even more clamps on it. So when we have drought contingency, drought issues, we cut it back. If the plant reaches so the plant there is rated at 52,000,000 gallons a day. If we reach 44 for three consecutive days, they're required to cut their use back in half down to one three to 1.5.

So we have restrictions there. We do have good relations with them. If there's ever an issue, we will we will cut it off. But we never wanna risk our planning for infrastructure for this city at any time, so we're very careful on doing these deals. But we can help a neighbor, benefits the city of Round Rock, and then it's just short term deals. And next time, we may not renew it, but recommend approval of this agreement.

Questions? So this is a continuation of an agreement already in place, did you say?

Yes. It was a five year agreement that expired, and they wanted

us to renew it for another five years. Do we have any idea what they paid us over those five years roughly?

I don't have it on top of my head, but I can sure have it for Thursday night. Yeah.

Mean, and I think the importance of understanding, know, it does benefit the city, but it benefits our citizens more than anybody because we've paid off debt and stuff doing this. Absolutely. Yeah. So it keeps our rates down. Yes, sir. Okay. Any other questions? Thank you, Michael. Sir. I'll six consider resolution updating the program groundings for the facade and site improvement.

Morning, mayor

and How are you?

The commercial facade improvement program is focused on improving the exterior of commercial buildings within the program boundaries to make them more economically viable and visually appealing by replacing, removing, repairing, and installing signs, awnings, and renovating the facades of buildings. So when the pilot program launched, we had two areas. Both were on May Street. The photo on the left is the northern boundary, where we had the northern side B Commerce Boulevard and the southern boundary being Texas Avenue and the northbound I-thirty 5 French Road. And then on the southern section of Mays, we had every business located along East Logan as the northern boundary down to Hester's Crossing.

And then some of the program details include external improvements being paint, awning, door, window, trim replacement, brick stone masonry, lighting, landscaping, pavement, sidewalk, patios, as well as signage. Ineligible items are anything of routine maintenance or anything inside of these commercial businesses, heating, air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, anything equipment related, and legal and financing fees and costs are not applicable. Some Some of the grant terms include it's an up to a fiftyfifty matching grant with a $5,000 minimum spend and a maximum of $100,000 Property owners must be up to date on their ad valorem taxes and not have any current code enforcement cases, and the matching funds are done as a reimbursement. So applicants submit an application to staff. We review it to make sure it's complete and bring it to counsel for consideration, and if approved, the applicant then begins the construction and repair process, and then once they submit payment to their vendors and they verify that with us, we go and do an on-site post inspection, and then once that's complete, we render payment.

So, it's done on a reimbursement. And the source of funds is general self financed construction. To date, three grants have been awarded, Rock Creek Plaza, Renaissance Square, and the South Mays Corner Store. Both shopping centers were awarded $100,000 each, and the corner store received 15,000 and the program allowed the property owners to make additional improvements they otherwise would not have funded. In total, the program has awarded $215,000 The total improvements invested by the property owners is approximately $292,560 So, while the city grant program is an up to fiftyfifty match, we are seeing more being invested than what is being reimbursed.

The owners of Renaissance Square, in fact, are outside of the state, and during my discussions with them about the grant, I mentioned that they are eligible to consider redeveloping their property. This is something they hadn't considered since it wasn't allowed where they were at. The owners have conducted a pre submittal meeting with the planning department and have a concept for a mixed use development that includes high density multifamily combined with retail and restaurant uses, thus demonstrating an additional potential benefit of the program. Staff recommends extending the boundaries of this program. First, we would take the existing Mays corridor and make it one long corridors connecting the north and south boundaries as well as adding Round Rock Avenue.

On the Round Rock Avenue side, the western boundary would be Deepwood Drive, and the eastern boundary would be IH-thirty 5 Frontage Road. Both routes include high opportunity shopping centers and downtown businesses located along Mays, and these areas were selected in consultation with the chamber to maximize our combined efforts on commercial revitalization. And with that, I'm available for any questions you may have.

Questions? Mary Proton?

Not really a question, just commending you on doing this. I think this is very forward thinking. I think sometimes we are in competition with our neighbors that are building more now and have new shiny toys. I think this is what you've done here and the improvements are drastic. I think that adding these extra areas is going to go a long way to helping our commercial businesses decide to come here. So thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Any other questions over here on this side? Council Member Fleming?

I just wanted to add to Kristen's or Mayor Pro Tem Steven's comments. I'm really excited to see this because we've had a lot of discussion about how do we reinvest in the strip centers and how do we make them look nicer. And when I've driven by those locations, they look great. And I think it just shows that we're there to partner with them. And then instead of them spending the money on different sites, they're investing it in Round Rock. So, really excited to see the parameters you've set forth. Great job.

Excellent. Thank you.

Any other questions? Councilman Flores. Hey, Joe.

How far off of the corridor is eligible for this program? Is it 100 feet deep on each side? Is it 200 feet deep?

So, for us, for the shopping center specifically, if there's an entrance to the shopping center and the, you know, the store itself is off the street, everything in that shopping center is eligible.

Okay. And then, when you do the $100,000 maximum, is that is that property specific or if by chance there's one property owner that owns three sites along that corridor, is it if it's one ownership, is it limited to $100,000 or is it considered $300,000 because he has three different parcels, three different lots?

We haven't had that situation come up yet thus far. However, I think we would take that in totality. I think a lot of the we have certain criteria that determine the grant amount that we give and part of that includes square footage. So, I think that's something we would take into account.

And as we expand the program, it's a great program. I think it'd be interesting or good to brand those corridors part of this, you know, come up with some fancy name or or street signage or something that says part of this round rock, you know, to to name it and and and own it that it's it's part of the internal beautification of the city or something like that because you already have so much road to work against. But anyway, just a thought.

Excellent. Thank you, sir.

Good suggestion. Questions? Any more questions? Councilman Ortega?

I think it's a great program, and my understanding is that this we can expand this. Can the grant also be more at some point? Do you know?

Depends on how much revenue GSF. Yeah. I mean, that's the it's always dedicated each year after.

Our current budget for these grants is $100,000 a year and $100,000 when we've used these, the significant work was done at the two large shopping centers that was awarded $100,000 Well, that's

a great job. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Any other questions or comments? Alright. We got I I guess j one and j two is a repeat from last meeting. City attorney. Is that correct? Oh, j one's new. Consider public testimony regarding the development of the CDBG.

Alright. This is the needs assessment for the upcoming CDBG action plan. HUD requires two public hearings. The first is the needs assessment, which we'll do on Thursday. Request public comment on the needs of low income residents in Round Rock.

Nonprofit agencies have been notified and are encouraged to come and attend and testify on behalf of the needs of their clients. The public hearing notice was published in the Round Rock Leader posted here at city hall as well as on the city's website. The second public hearing is normally held in June once the details of the draft action plan is prepared, and we have the details of the proposed projects to be funded for council's consideration. CBG allocations for this upcoming fiscal year will be announced in May. Our current year funding is about $642,000 and we anticipate a similar amount for the upcoming fiscal year, and two home repair recipients have expressed interest in speaking in support of the program on Thursday. So, that, I'm available for any questions you have. Questions?

Questions? Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Jay two, consider a public testimony regarding the annexation of the right of way. This is a repeat. Right?

Copy and paste from two months

ago. Mhmm.

That's easy. Nothing in Anybody have any questions on this? Alright. I then we have an executive session for an evaluation. And anything else for the good? Alright. We stand adjourned.