City Council - Regular Meeting

Hey everybody. Um, I just want to let youall know we're waiting for uh we have we need at least one more council person for our forum. So, we're just waiting for one to show up. All right, we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. It's 6 p.m. 602 uh Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. Uh and we do have a quorum and Garrett's going to come up here and pray with us. Dear Lord, uh thank you for bringing everybody here safe tonight. We ask that you watch over uh our council as they guide us through this session tonight. We ask that you be with the men and women overseas as everything going on in the Middle East. Uh in your name, amen.

Amen. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Thanks, Garrett.

All right, we're going to get to item number one, the promotion of personnel within the Mount Pleasant Fire Department, uh, with Chief McCrae. Mayor, council, we want to take this opportunity tonight to recognize some of the members of our department uh that are being promoted. And the first one we're going to recognize is Trevor Jesse. He's been with our department about six years. He's being promoted to driver engineer. Trevor, you come up. You and your wife. His wife's going to pin the badge on Trevor's job like he's going to be promoted to driver. He's responsible for driving the apparatus, getting the guys there safe and getting them water. He pumped the truck once he gets there. So, a really important job and we appreciate his dedication.

Thank you. [applause] Our next member is Jayce Collins and he's been with us about five years. He's being promoted position captain. His wife too is going to pin him. Captain's responsibility is he rides a front seat in the engine. Um he's responsible usually for being first on scene, being the first in the commander. He's also over the station, make sure everything's done right. He'll be out of ste uh on sea ship. And again, we believe in the fire service, our company officer, is almost one of our most important positions because they're with the guys 24, well, in our case, 48 hours on their shield. So, they're right there with them. So they eat with them, they sleep with them, they wash dishes with them, and these are the people that are probably the most important in all of the fire department is our company officer. Thank you, Jason. [applause] You notice these guys are on the younger side, so we're preparing for some of us older folks to exit this department at some point. and we're going to have the leadership and the and the guys coming in behind it to take care of our citizens. Thank you.

Thanks, Chief.

All right, we'll go ahead and move into public comments. The city council welcomes citizen participation and comments at all council meetings. Citizens comments are limited to three minutes out of respect for everyone's time. The council is not permitted to respond to your comments. The Texas Open Meetings Act requires that topics of discussion, deliberation be posted on an agenda, not less than 72 hours in advance of the council meetings. If your comments relate to a topic that is on the agenda, the council will discuss that topic on the agenda at the time that the topic is discussed and deliberated. Do anybody that's coming up? Uh my name is Kyle Moing, Mount Vernon, Texas. Uh Mayor Lion, council members, on February 9 18th, the city requested a meeting with me. I came with documentation. I came looking for answers. I sat across from the mayor, the city manager, and the mayor prom with evidence of inspection reports submitted to state agencies that were not based on fact, underolcted permit fees, missing public records, and a child grooming police report that MPPD closed without a single arrest, without logging a single piece of evidence, and without filing a single supplemental report. Despite marking the case cleared exceptionally, which means they believe the offense occurred. What I received were rationalizations, minimizations, and justifications. When I raised missing records, Mayor Lion told me the burden was on me and described how the city secretary and IT contractor ran my keywords and produced what they found. So, I requested the search methodology. The keywords the system searched the custodians queried. One week later on February 25th, the city certified in writing no responsive records exist. You cannot tell a citizen a search was thorough and then certify you have no proof a search was ever conducted. City manager Vine told me if I had a smoking gun, I should just bring it in and hand it to him. when I raised that a building official documented unpermitted work at Walmart in a violation letter, then 20 minutes later was directed to remove that violation. Silence. This is the same city manager who on October 17th sent a written directive to this governing body. He named me personally and instructed in his words, "Do not

respond to this individual or engage in any back and forth. A citizen raising concerns about child grooming, contaminated food, and code enforcement failures, and your city manager instructed you to stop listening." Mayor Lion told me he stopped reading after the second email. their books, right? Were his words. Yes, because the issues are serious. Because the evidence is detailed. Because accountability is not a sound bite. And now I understand why he stopped reading. He was instructed not to engage. I filed formal ethics complaints against five city employees over three months ago. Sent to every member of this council referenced from this podium. No acknowledgement, no investigator, no agenda item, no response. Yet, when an ethics complaint was filed against a council member last November, his body retained an independent investigator within six days and authorized the use of subpoenas in that investigation. Swift action for personal conduct and silence for public safety. There's an old saying that goes, "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue." This council will decide tonight which ones one is offering. Thank you.

Thanks, Kyle. And Lee, I know you're going to try to stop me, but I'd just go ahead and like to add an agenda item for Kyle at the next meeting. Can y'all hear me? Okay, Austin.

Yes, sir. Sorry, I was I was on mute. You're fine. I didn't catch that last part. We just want to go ahead and add an agenda item for Kyle at the next meeting. Yes, sir. We can certainly do that. We'll get with Candace on that. All right. I appreciate it. Does anybody else have anything to say? All right, we'll go ahead and move on to item number two. Consider approval for February 17, 2026 meetings uh meeting minutes. And has everybody had a chance to review those?

Yes, I need to make an amendment. Um at the very bottom where it says discuss and consider an agreement for municipal court uh judge services. Um underneath that, it also talks about um something else that we voted on. Um can we have that? I've refused myself. from that motion that we Yeah, we can add that right. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

All right. I get a motion with modification. I make a motion that we accept the minutes from February the 17th with the changes requested. I second. All right. Madam Secretary, can we get a vote, please? Yes. I I I

All right, we'll go ahead and move on to item number three. Discuss and consider resolution 2026-3 adopting the Texas Information Act uh policy for the city of Mount Pleasant. And this will be Candace and Austin. For everyone that doesn't know, Austin is actually the lawyer that is specializes in this kind of stuff. So, Hello everybody. Um, Lee is actually uh I think she'll be joining you all here shortly, but she had a a conflict that kind of ran late, so she asked me to cover and and I actually help Candace in preparing the policy. So, I told her I'd be happy to step in and answer any questions y'all have. uh it's largely um you know most of what's in there is a is a recitation of state law and so there's not a lot of um you know just discretion there with with what we can do but it's nice to have it all in one place and I think the other benefit to uh adopting this policy like I've talked about with Candace in the future if y'all do decide to adopt other rules or as the rules change you're you have a the policy will serve as a vehicle that you can update and have a place to put things like some cities will decide we're going to have, you know, PD handle their own records or whatever. You know, you might um have administrative type things to put in there as as time goes on and that's that could be it's useful to have a place to put it on. So,

that's great. Thanks, Austin. Uh, I mean I I definitely like the fact and and acknowledge that, you know, we'll put it on the books and when we need to, you know, modify it or whatever as time goes along, we'll be able to do that. Is there any other discussion? All right, we have I That's okay. Yeah, that's cool. Sorry, I'm trying to do all my P's and Q's on

um So, I support adopting uh the written TPIA policy. Um, but I believe this draft has a, you know, a couple significant problems. Um, starting with the basics, the agenda item calls it the Texas Information Act. You know, that's not the name of it. It's the Texas Public Information Act. The policy uses organization where it should probably say city. Um, and then the fact that the staff contact, you know, the person that that the policy designates as the public information officer is the same city secretary named in my November 2025 ethics complaint about how TPIA requests have been handled. Um, and then on substance, the statute says promptly, you know, the statute itself says promptly defined as soon as as possible without delay. The policy doesn't use that word or phrasing. Um it doesn't specify a single deadline, not the 10 business day production window, not the AG ruling deadline, not the brief deadline, and it doesn't mention that, you know, uh that under section 552.3 uh 302, if the city misses the AG deadline, the information is presumed public, it must be released unless there is a compelling reason to be to withhold information. The policy defines business day as a day offices are open. The statute says it's determined by weekends and holidays, not by whether the building is open. That definition could be used to argue deadlines stopped, you know, during weather closures. Under the statute, they don't um the clarification procedure, you know, is is dangerously vague. The statute requires written consequence statement, certified mail, 61day window. Um and then on cost estimates, if the the charges exceed $40, the statute requires a written itemized statement with specific notices. Without that language, the city cannot collect more than $40. I've received estimates over like $1,700 with no breakdown, not true breakdown. Uh the policy does not fix that. And I think there's, you know, a couple other discrepancies, but I I just want to make it abundantly clear. I like I have more than a dozen open complaints with the

attorney general's office for the open records division um regarding this specific city. This this policy does not fix any of the problems those complaints describe. I would ask the council to table this resolution until it can be reviewed by independent counsel or you know if you're not inclined to table it I'd ask a minimum that the name of the act be corrected you know in the agenda item of the business day definition be fixed and the statutory deadlines be added before you vote thank you Austin do you want to add anything uh so it's fine if you don't to the extent

yeah to the extent that there's any I mean state law is always going to control what the public information is any I mean even if the city were to say otherwise like it it we we're always going to refer back to to state law. Yeah. The ordinance overlay, right? I'm sorry. It's an overlay to state law, right? Yes. And all the deadlines and everything you mentioned are all required whether they're in that policy or not. So, uh we can certain I mean there's always room for improvement and things we can add to it to be more detailed. Uh this is the version presented to you all today, but if you want any of that added, we can certainly um bring that back to you. That's not a problem. Perfect. Thanks. Any discussion?

Austin, a recommendation. Do we need to change this a little bit before we vote on it in your opinion?

I I think if you start including all of the deadlines and and and getting too specific, I think it defeats the purpose in my opinion of the the the policies really. I If you if you look at it, it's it's designed to internally direct city staff and be a resource for city staff on, hey, when I get a request, I need to give it to to the city secretary. Um, it clarifies, you know, people's roles and um and things like that. It it you can certainly go into much greater detail, but at some point you might as well just copy and paste, you know, the whole act and in there. So, it's it's really up to y'all how details you want to get. This is what Candace and I, you know, had worked up. Um, and I I think it's fine as is. I mean, that's that's my recommendation. But uh if there if y'all want more detail or you want to and and that's kind of at the outset why I said I think the real value in this is moving forward if y'all decide hey we want we want a you know a summary of how cost estimates work. This would be the document we would go edit to put that information in there right if it if we decided that that was something your staff needed to know. Uh, same thing with deadlines and things, but you know, at the end of the day, it doesn't change whether it's in this policy or not. It doesn't change that the city would follow it. So,

yeah, thank you, sir. Yeah, I think it's a good idea. Like you were saying, get it on the books and I mean, we can start revisions right after we vote on it. So, yeah, this is an ordinance. What's that? Just as a reminder, this has the weight of of an administrative policy. So, it's an internal document. It's something for your staff to rely on. It's It doesn't have the force of law like an ordinance does or anything like that. So, it's it's it can change, you know, at any time if you all want to add to it, subtract to it. It's not um it doesn't carry the weight of an ordinance. So, all right. Well, we appreciate it. And thank you, Candace. What's up?

So, this ordinance, I mean, this policy goes along with the ordinance. Council member Hagen asked us to create a policy to go along with that ordinance passed um in 2025. And so, this polic just goes along with that ordinance that was passed in 2025. Thanks for all your work on it. I have a question. Is this first policy of its kind um that the city has established or guidelines for the city to go by?

Yes. Because the policy that we I mean the ordinance we adopted in 2025 was its first ordinance. This policy goes with that ordinance. The one thing I would like to say is that I can speak for me is that when I got on the council and I'm looking at some of my other fellow council members that there were no policies or they were very outdated policies. And so for the past two years, that's what we've been trying to do is just clean up, get some updated wording, get some updated dates. And so that's why we seem to be swimming in policies and ordinances, but that needed to be happen happening because it's been ignored for a while. So, um I don't see a problem with a start on something since that's what we're trying to do.

Exactly. And Kyle, we hear you. We just we're still standardizing. We we we've got to make ourselves accountable with policies and ordinances and everything else. So, some stuff's never going to be popular with anybody, but I mean, I always want to work on that. We good? Any discussion? Good. All right, let's go ahead and get a vote. I make a motion. I'll make a motion to adopt the Texas Information Act policy for the city of Mount Pleasant, Texas. A second. Madam Secretary, can you get a vote, please?

Council member Hinton, can you say the resolution number 2026-3, please? I'll make a motion to approve resolution 2020- 2026-3 adopting a Texas Information Act policy for the city of Mount Pleasant. Second. All right, Madam Secretary, can we get a vote, please? I I I Yes.

All right. It is uh unanimous. We'll go ahead and move on to item number four. Uh discuss and consider resolution 2026-4 adopting a council initiative and transparency protocol. And this is with our city manager.

Mayor, members of council, good evening. Tonight we're present to you the council initiative and transparency protocol. It has resolution 20 2026-4. And what this is is this basically gives council a structured or method to bring ideas to the entire council before directing staff. It's also a good way for citizens to present information, programs, project ideas, tasks to the council that then presents it to the entire council. Um, and what this does is it does not add red tape. It creates clarity, a clear structure. Uh, and it also gives everybody a voice at the table. Uh, it it it supports smarter spending spending, excuse me. And also it re there are no hidden everything will be discussed out of the open. So to briefly go through that process and what that would look like uh the process from from concept to direction there's a a submission of initiative there's a memo in your packet and as you you as a council member would create that initiative memo bring to bring it to the council meeting in the next two weeks. During that time staff can have a chance to look at it uh to get some preliminary information. So when it is presented, you can talk about everything from start to finish. How it's going to impact the budget or will not, how it's going to impact the community or will not, how it's going to impact staff or will not. Uh that you it's placed on the agenda. You have a preliminary presentation. Again, we get you as much information as we can. Council deliberates on that uh topic. Does it align with the city strategic plan, comprehensive plan? Is it does have a potential for a budget current or future and uh is it prior a priority relative to existing staff projects? So you may have an idea you think it's a really good idea. We have to pick one of the 10 to move down now to the back. Um but

that's going to be council directive. So what this does and then after that you provide formal direction to uh staff. This just creates a solid structure for that process from start to finish. So how it impacts the budget, it will not cost us anything. It might cost a little time, but what it what it does do is create uh transparency, accountability, and it should like I said impact budget, the current budget, future budgets should make us help us spend more wisely. So uh staff recommends approving this resolution in 2026-4. All right. On this one, uh, the way this came about was that people are reach out to Debbie or or other council members and stuff like that and have things going on and we'll need to come up. I mean, it's an email, so it's public, you know, it's public, but we want to make sure that that our constituents know that they're actually they're not just taking their information and and moving on, right? They're they're now we're going to go through an administrative thing where we bring it up in the public. We actually vote on it, right? so we can prioritize it and this was this is what Rob and staff have been working on alongs right along with everything that we do is is uh standardization and transparency. So I mean I really appreciate the work. I know they do too. So any other discussion?

So Rob with this form are we [clears throat] to turn it into Candace before an open meeting to discuss? Yes, you will you will turn that into the city secretary uh and then we will get that on either the next agenda or whichever one you direct us to put the larger the project you might push it out a little further to your staff time do it at the next council meeting just that's great any more discussion all right madam secretary can we get a vote please I make a motion to approve resolution resolution 2026-4 adopting a initiative and transparency protocol for the city of Mount Pleasant. A second.

Madam Secretary, the bill, please. I Yes. I I All right. Passed unanimously. We're going to go ahead and move on to number five. Discuss and consider resolution 2026-5, a generative artificial intelligence policy for the city of Mount Pleasant. And this will be the city attorney, but it looks Austin. Are you good? I mean, you're probably the one that's been working on this. Are you on mute? Very good. Yes, pull up.

I've got a few screens going up here. No worries. And Rob, this just ties along with like um standardization, right? We're kind of we're actually we're trying to get ahead of it. Yes. Yes. That's awesome. Nothing's on fire.

While he's looking for his notes, I will say we did reach out to our IT department to see if um Microsoft Copilot is the platform that we will use and it is in the um in the resolution of the the platform that we will use for that that all TD employees will be allowed to use will be Microsoft Cilot. tied to the tenant and not to like a cloud base where anybody it's a tied to like me or Jillian and all of us. So we did get that information a recommendation from our city attorney and then we did reach out to the IT and they did say that that was we had that capability.

So are they going to blacklist the apps that are like chatt or Gemini? Are they going to keep that from being installed or like we hadn't got that far. He was just Lee was asking for us to find one that we could use that across all tenants and that's the one that we came up with. Good to know. I mean, I read over it. It looked like it was pretty plain language. It's just again studying the document and revising it if we need to.

Yes. And and this is one Lee would have would have prepared this there. There's no the resolution itself is is pretty simple. It's really more of a of a technical more of an IT engineering question, but if you have any legal questions, I'm certainly happy to answer. All right. Any discussion? No, we're good. Madam Secretary, can we get a vote, please? Oh, motion. Can we get a motion? Sorry. I make a motion to approve resol resolution 2026-5 adopting a generative artificial intelligence policy for the city of Mount Pleasant. I second the motion.

Madam Secretary, vote, please. Yes. I I I All right. Motion passed unanimously. We'll move on to number six. Consider approval of ordinance 2026-6 establishing an outdoor burn ban. And this is with the chief,

uh, mayor and council. This is a uh an extension of the burn ban we have in place today. The way the burn ban's work has worked in the past. Uh state law allows the mayor or the county judge to put a disaster declaration in place, but it can only be in place for seven days. After that, uh council has to act on it to extend it or not. Uh and we do that by ordinance. This ordinance actually extends it if y'all approve it for 90 days. It doesn't necessarily have to go the full 90 days. As you've seen the forecast, there's a possibility we'll get some rain. We're not sure that rain is really going to get us out of our mess. Uh but at some point we will get rain some will. So if a month six weeks from now we get a rain uh again we would come back to you with an ordinance saying remove it back.

Any discussion? We're good. All right. I make a motion to approve ordinance 2026-6 establishing an outdoor burning ban. I second. Madam Secretary, can we get a vote, please? I I I Yes. Motion pass un. Thank you, Chief. We go ahead and move on to item number uh seven, city manager report.

Mayor, members of council, uh catch you up on a few things. Participated in a meeting with Jean Kenan with your public service last Wednesday with assistant city manager Webster was there. Mayor Lion was also there. Council concerns were shared with Republic uh regarding inability to either deliver rolloff records or pick them up in a in a a proper time, an appropriate time. Um they said they would look into that that they also have check and balances in place that they will be able to share with us. Uh the mayor then asked what the agreement would look like if the exclusiveness for these roll off course was to be taken away and how that would impact the cost of residential. So that way we're able to share that information. So they're going to republic is going to work up a proforma. Uh we are not working in that direction to to talk to any rumors but uh we are they are working up a proform to see what it what those numbers would like look like if that were not the agreement which is uh development continues at Anderson Town Crossing. We have two very large hotels looking to come in. They both pose a investment to the city and I've talked with the develop the developer for both. Uh we're working on a development agreement. Uh it will I will not obviously sign anything before it's brought to council and as it develops I will share that those agreements with you. We're working on one they're working on proformance so we so we can see what the total investment will be will look like how it will impact our hotel tax sales tax and property. You should have all received an update on the compensation study last week. This is a synthesized report from the report with the or the meeting with department head number one and number two was the meeting with you as council members. That report that you received synthesized those two to see where the where the commonalities were and also where the bridging efforts take place.

So that project is on track to be completed at the end of March. With the upcoming vacancy of our finance director, staff has have worked with strategic government resources to locate a qualified interim uh person. This person will start this month. There will be a little overlap time with our current finance director which we're we're thankful for and also we will start looking for a permanent fulltime replacement for finance. We've also made a job offer to a qualified individual to help fill the vacant and in related The financial audit is progressing as it should be and should be completed on time. There uh should be a form in front of you. Three three of you shared information as to which projects or boards you would like to be involved in. If you do not see your name on there uh or you would like to add a board or a project, please get me uh put your name next to that board or project and get it back to me if you can this week and we will put that on the 17th discussion for on the agenda. Go ahead and report.

Thanks, Rob. To clarify something on the Republic's thing, I' I've talked to them. U we're listening to you, right? Um, if you're a city resident and you have a problem with with the rolloffs, I mean, that's going to affect your bill. I want y'all to email me so I know that somebody has concerns about it. And it'll be mayor MPC.org. So, if you mean if we come back in two weeks and I don't have any emails. So, and I I mean I really it's going to be whether you want it, you know, you want those rolloffs. Um because we need to know how much participation is out there. All right. I appreciate it.

Well, I can tell you of 27 people that will tell you absolutely not.

That's that's what I've been hearing from residents inside of the city. So, I mean, I need I need it. I need those emails. So, so we're hearing you. Okay. We just we just need that participation. Any discussion? Uh, y'all have any anything y'all want to add to it? All right, we're going to go ahead and uh pursuant to Open Meetings Act, chapter 551, Texas Government Code, the city council will recess into executive session close meeting to discuss the following deliberations regarding economic development negotiations uh Dorchester Dorster um refinery site. uh consultation with the attorney regarding proposed termination agreement and mutual release with Tyler Technologies Inc. and consultation with attorney Texas code 551.071 and personal matters 551.074 related to evaluation and goals of the city manager. Is there anything else? Nope. All right, we'll move into executive. It looks like it's about 6:33.

I don't think Yeah, I think that's going to be 100% anything. So, He's my neighbor though. What's up? 30th.

Okay. Yes. Who? Oh, awesome.

She works with me. I won't do without only one. He has like

I heard this one picture. One, two, three.

Hallelujah.

Stop it.

Those faithful waiting.

That's right. It is 7:41. We'll be moving back into regular session. Uh, can I get a motion on item number one?

I make a motion to authorize the mayor to execute the termination agreement and mutual release with Tyler Technologies Incorporated. All right. Can I get a second? A second. Madam Secretary, could I go a vote, please? Yes. I I I All right, madam. Passed unanimously. Uh we'll go ahead and move on to item number two. Um can I get a motion for item number two, please? Make a motion to approve the city manager objectives for February August 2026 as submitted by the city manager. I second