City Commission - Regular Meeting

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That's it. It feels better already. Good evening. Good evening and welcome to the city commission of the city of Brownsville. Mayor, may we call the meeting to order? Yes, please.

Pursuant to chapter 551, title 5 uh of the Texas Government Code, uh that the Texas Open Meetings Act, notice is hereby given that the city commission of the city of Brownsville in accordance uh with article 5, section 12 of of the said city will convene at a regular meeting today on March 3rd, 2026. The time is at 5:00 p.m. here um in the city commission chambers on the second floor of the Brownsville City Hall old uh federal building located at 10001 East Elizabeth Street, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas 78520. May we proceed with the roll call? Yes, please. Starting with Mayor John Cowan Jr. present. Commissioner Aino Vara, present.

Commissioner Ninth Galanski. Commissioner Brian Martinez. Commissioner Linda Mas present. Commissioner Gustavo DeLeon here. Commissioner Pedro Cardinas present. We do have a quorum to proceed. We will next have the invocation that will be led by by Alicia Justilian and following we will have the pledge of allegiance to the flags of the United States and the state of Texas.

Good evening leaders and citizens. Please let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you to thank you for this day and this moment. Lord, you are the giver of life and all good things come from you. You have entrusted our city officials and citizens to work together for the good of our city. In your word from the book of Matthew 7:7, you say, "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you." So Lord, we seek your wisdom and understanding on all matters spoken tonight. We place our trust in you for a blessed and fruitful meeting in Jesus' name. Amen. 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. Next, we have the proclamations and recognizing Officer Gonzalo Rubio and Officer Frank Mandano. Monados.

Good afternoon. The proclamation from the city commission of Brazil, Texas. recognizing officer Gonzalo Rubio and Officer Frank Maldano. Whereas while many public proclamations honoring Brazil police officers recognize acts performed during moments of immediate danger, this proclamation acknowledges a quieter yet equally powerful demonstration of compassion, reflecting the Bronzo Police Department's core values of service from the heart and servant leadership in the early morning hours of December 5th, 2025. While on routine patrol in the downtown area, Officer Gonzalez Rubio and Officer Frank Molina of the Brownsville Police Department observed a male individual laying on a sidewalk covered by a blanket and stopped to conduct a welfar check due to the cold, breezy conditions and temperature in the low 50s. Whereas upon making contact, the officers observed that an individual was shivering and covered by a soaked blanket and further discovered that he was not wearing pants and was exposed to the cold. raising immediate concerns for his safety, health, and personal dignity. After attempting unsuccessfully to locate and open business nearby to obtain clothing during the early morning hours, Officer Rubio and Malinau chose not to leave the individual in unsafe

conditions or treat the encounter as a routine. And whereas demonstrating initiative and compassion, the officers drove to Walmart and personally purchased a full set of warm clothing using their own money. returned to the location, assisted the individual in changing into dry clothing, and ensured he was safe and comfortable before continuing their patrol and where such actions exemplify the Brazil Police Department's philosophy of service from the heart and reflect the type of policing that strengthens trust, demonstrates humanity, and honors the dignity of those most vulnerable in our community. Now therefore, we the members of the city commission of the city of Bronzville, Texas, by virtue of the authority vested by the charter of said city, do hereby recognize and honor officer Gonzalo Rubio and officer Frank Maldonado for their outstanding service, compassion, and dedication to the safety and wellbe well-being of our community done on this day, third day of March 2026.

For the record, Commissioner Martinez is online.

It's already on, right? You guys can hear me? Oh. Um um on behalf of me and my partner Frankie, uh on behalf of uh the rest of our partners, our officers, right, that are working, um they do these kinds of gestures every single day, right? Um and obviously not everything gets noticed. So it does feel nice to get recognized. Uh uh we don't do it for it, but it does feel nice. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Um, one last deal. Uh, Chief Seda, I've always believed and still believe that leadership comes from the top. The way you run that that police department is very commendable. Having gun officers that thank first the citizens before themselves is something taught by the leadership at home and excellent job on the police department and the training department that trains these young officers. You uh officers stay safe. I commend you. Coming from law enforcement myself, sometimes this is a is sometimes a thankless job, but I know what it's like firsthand to save lives, to protect people, and great job. Thank you. Uh next we have the public comment period. Uh all registered um uh speakers have acknowledged uh the city's public comment uh conduct rules as displayed on the screen which was also um amended and agreed upon uh prior. So, as a reminder to the speakers that all comments shall be made to the mayor and the city commission as a whole and not to an individual member or also to city staff and speakers are not allowed to use their time to conduct um any of the moment of silence or may not conduct a a

filibuster. Speakers will be allowed to speak up to three minutes and the timer will start after they state their name and their address for the record. We do have three that on the piece and uh some time back I took someone out to lunch. Maya, may you state your address for the record? 1844 Din Circle. Thank you.

Some time back I took someone to lunch and the person was rude to me because I was late. thing is I made the meeting after all and then the person proceeded to treat me poorly. Don't think I wasn't paying attention. Then when I tried to pay for the meal because of my tardiness as a way to apologize, the person would not let me pay and told me it wouldn't look good. After he told me it was inappropriate to come to him with my concerns, even though serving the public is part of being a civil servant. Well, that person was very concerned with how things looked. And so now I have to ask, how does it look right now that you were complicit with not one but three racist incidents over the past six months in these Brownsville city commission meetings? I'm not out of order because I'm still addressing the entire city commission. No one from the city commission nor the city manager's office said anything and no one made any effort to remedy the situation. The entire commission just smiled and let the racism fly disrespectfully and complicitly. How are people knowing what they know going to react when election time rolls around and people are going to know that you were complicit with these racist actions not just once but three times? And you did this over six months. Do you think I was the only witness to all of this? We record these videos every first and third Tuesday of the month. the double standards of gaslighting. You clutch your pearls and hope no one saw them, right? Well, the way those racist moments came and went and no, not one of you said anything, hoping none of us was paying attention, but we were. Do you think your silence was not seen as a form of complicity with those racist and derogatory and disrespectful remarks and actions? Do you really think that people

are really ignorant and naive? For the record, we did see some people are just polite. As we all know, I'm not polite and that's why I'm here. If you think this is no longer something people should be concerned with, think again. Your efforts to hold your positions with the city are pointless. Why not just do what Cesar Deleon did? remember him when he was caught saying some racist things during what he thought was a private conversation. He chose to quit even though what he was saying despite his racist remarks had validity and if it weren't for those racist remarks heads would have rolled on a grand scale. Maybe this is something you all need to think about knowing what all of us know. Next, uh, Daniel Benvidz. Same none. Uh, next, uh, Diablo. Name is Diablo. 1254 Tyler. I'm going to talk about Yolanda against the city of Bransville. Yolanda commissioners, as you know, she's getting more violent, more radical, and the city is getting more intolerant, more controlling. Yolanda, she got enraged. She got infuriated because her constitutional rights of freedom of religion, freedom of expression were taken away from the city. You need to remember that Yolanda's

moment of silence come from pastor Burke decision to have a moment of silence for Charlie Kirk. Something that enraged a lot of people. I understand according to Yolanda of course that prior to the mayor mayor coin have becoming a mayor he have a meeting with Yolanda however mayor dismissed Yolanda's complaints about police harassment and mistreatment as no sense something foolish now the mayor of Brunby Mr. Cohen, he come out with this invention of banning the moment of silence only because he no longer can stand Yolanda staring at him. Let me repeat this again. Mayor Cohen, the mayor of Brownsville, he put a ban on the moment of silence only because he no longer can stand Yolanda staring at him. What a shamement. What a disappointment. I wanted to recommend that the manager, the city manager, I don't know who is the city manager now, uh, explain to the public where this moment of silence, this ban on the moment in silence come from, where the city is going with this, and what are the ramification to have a moment of silence on the city, taking down people's constitutional rights of freedom of expression and constitutional rights of religion. This argument between Yolanda and the mayor is making the city take decisions that are so radicals and so controversial. I wish Mayor Cohen consider reconsider to take this ban away. Thank you very much.

Next we have the presentation starting with the downtown Renaissance master plan update. Good afternoon, mayor, commissioners. I'm very excited to be before you today to update the commission, the mayor about what we've been doing this past uh almost a year, almost there. I know we started in August, so not really, but it feels like that because we've been really at it and it's very exciting as I mentioned earlier. So, we wanted to to update the commission on stuff that has been happening in the downtown area, specifically about, you know, some of the stakeholder input that we've had, whether they've been business owners, property owners, uh, our nonprofits, our higher education institutions, right? We've been meeting uh, with these different stakeholders throughout the community, and we wanted to share that information that we've been getting also to let the public know as well what we've been up to. Also uh a lot of the activity that we've been seeing is a lot of discussion about you know what are the big picture ideas for downtown. We are discussing again with with our property owners and other stakeholders the big uh ideas for downtown whether it be 10 to 20 years from now but we're also tackling and looking at you know the smaller items that could be potential big wins immediately right something that's low hanging fruit right so we want to share this show share those with the commission and mayor about what we've been seeing so we'll be you know showing those to to the commission and also asking for some feedback and direction as well so I actually will open it up now to u Mr. Daniel Leal, the planning director, to get a little bit more into some of the uh community events that we've been doing. And then after that, he'll be followed up with Miss Caitlyn Admire and uh with Freezen Nichols and with LOI as well. Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon again, Daniel Le. I want to go over the community engagement. I think we've done a really good job and we are not finished yet, but we've done a really good job so far on community engagement. The bar was set really high with the parks and health master plan, but we wanted to honor that and adapt that that type of engagement to our downtown where we and I need we need to go very fast because there's like 30 slides but h we're like twothirds halfway uh in the process. So we have a lot of ideas 80% of the content of the plan is already there. uh and we are having a final in-person round of uh community engagement this week as I will explain. So we are presenting to you today and we will presenting to the planning and zoning commission and historic preservation commission uh in the next uh iteration. This is like a snapshot that I will go in more detail in the next slides about the public engagement. I will just highlight some of the direct comments that most of the comments uh will not be uh reducted and will be part of the appendices of the plan. Some somebody said we need more parking options. I understand downtown parking is always challenging but more parking options will help also. So safety and parking are two big uh ideas but not the only ones. How did we did this? Uh it seemed chaotic uh because it was at times but we tried to be very flexible and uh meet people where they are. So we range from formal presentations before city commission like this one to popup events at the zoo at farmers market um yeah university campuses and we've also met

uh different stakeholder groups uh group by theme or interest such as um nonprofits, city staff, property and business owners, local artist affordable housing providers, religious institutions and the metacultural district where so far uh this week and last week we tabled an event at charot days and some fest and this week uh we just had a meeting with the mixed perspective stakeholder focus group tomorrow morning we've been meeting with the city of Bronzeville department heads downtown business owners downtown property owners which is is kind of unprecedented in longrange planning we sent out more than 3,100 letters to people who own land in downtown regardless the use and also future engagement opportunities even after tomorrow sorry tomorrow there will be also a stakeholder and community openhouse uh just walk in at Ebridge all of these will be done at Ebridge at 3:30 and after that the website will remain open for uh the pin uh map ideas and the idea wall where people can just uh uh express open-ended ideas and the first available draft available to the public will be after collecting this this feedback around you know in late spring and having said that I'll pass it on to the character and transportation ideas.

Thanks Daniel and good evening commission. Nice to see you again. Um, as was mentioned, we have a strict timeline here. So, I'm going to try to run really fast through some of this stuff and just give you an update about where we are. Um, you may have heard, if you were at our meetings last time when we were here in November, you may have heard some of these big ideas talked about. And what we've been doing over the last few months is we've gone back and we've been vetting these ideas. We've been digging into the details. We've been talking to people that we need to talk to. Um, and so these are the ideas that are kind of sticking around that we're moving forward with. And we're really now with the stakeholder meetings we're having this week, we're talking about how do we actually get these things done, moving into that implementation and action planning conversation. Um, so as we've talked about before, this is a very large study area. So we're breaking it down into character areas as you can see here on the screen. And what that helps us do is really understand level of investments and types of investments that the city should be doing across the downtown area. Um it is such a large area. You're not going to be able to do everything on every single block in this study area. So this helps us identify levels of investment throughout the throughout the district. And with that, I'm going to let uh Sam with LOI talk about some of the transportation things they've been looking at.

Oh. Uh good good evening. Um our transportation framework is built around the idea of Brownsville's transportation needs serving three different uh elements. One being downtown Brownsville as the downtown of the Rio Grande Valley. The second is downtown Brownsville as a destination for the city of Brownsville itself. And lastly, the set of transportation needs for people who live and work downtown every day. Um this is also organized into looking at key corridors within downtown organized into corridors that move into downtown. So Palm 6th and 7th, 12th and international and corridors within downtown. So Washington Elizabeth 11th and 12th, Adam, Ringle and Pulk and 15th. Um we also looking at parking throughout downtown identifying locations of parking garages in addition to looking at sets of solutions for on street parking to help uh support downtown parking in general and also park and ride and event parking for uh large scale events where there's a high volume of parking needed at a single time downtown. Uh we're also looking at uh the transit system. B Metro is uh absolutely the best uh uh public transport system in the valley and so ways that that can be supported as well as a fixed route trolley that can be used to help support events or used as part of a park and ride system to help support uh parking through downtown. We're also looking at uh alley activation and key alleyways that can help support pedestrian activity downtown, as well as options for creating more options for active transportation, including doing things like making sure there are more uh protected bike lanes and pedestrian priorities in certain corridors, especially uh 11th and 12th Street, as well as alley activation, including the alley uh directly in front of Market Square and other sets of priority alleys to help that pedestrian access to the to the network downtown. Um, unless we're looking at kind of larger scale issues as well. So, one is highway access improvements to the connections that allow for access to downtown and international bridge and the and

international boulevard making finding ways to make sure that especially at high volume times uh the there can be it can be less of a barrier between downtown and the more southern parts of the city. Uh other mobility projects could include a uh sixth and seventh street connection to the Amigoland area to help create more connectivity and take uh pressure off of Palm Street. And we're looking for ways to have improved pedestrian crossings again along international, especially at Adams and Ringold again to help that connectivity and help international to be less of a barrier between downtown and other parts of the city.

That was an impressive amount of time. Thanks, Sam. very impressed. Um, all right. So, in addition to the framework elements of the character areas and the transportation networks, there's also a set of big ideas that we've been talking about with the community. The first one is the public realm. And so, we want to focus on the public realm first. This is looking at the sidewalk areas, how people are experiencing the downtown. So this is looking at shade, seating, trash cans, general maintenance, landscaping, those kind of elements. And this is really what creates that basic experiential um feeling for the people walking around downtown, right? And that being said, it is also connected to parking because if people have an unenjoyable walk from a parking area to their destinations in downtown, it makes it feel worse. People don't want to do it. they complain about not being able to park right in front of their destinations. Right? So, a lot of this is connected back to the parking issues as well. Now, you're going to see we're not going to stop for discussion at each of these questions, but I'm going to pose these questions for each big idea. And when we get to um the discussion Q&A, I'd like to you to keep these things in mind. So these public realm elements of seating, shade, um maintenance, trash, those kinds of things, is that going to address the gaps that we feel people are experiencing in downtown adequately? Um I will say some of the things we heard this afternoon in our stakeholder meeting was adding wayfinding and signage to our public realm list of elements as well as not just trash collection for the regular trash cans, but also for the business um like the dumpsters trash trash collections. Those are two things and we've already kind of added to the list as of today's conversations. The next big idea is the mobility parking and the trolley. These are the things that Sam just talked about. Kind of this whole suite of things that will

help solve the parking issue. You know, adding one parking garage will add some capacity, but it's not going to solve everything. So you have to have these layers of things like parking capacity paired with the park and rides for larger events paired with those micromobility solutions such as a trolley. And so it's really the suite of strategies that come together to address the issue of parking in downtown. So the question here is how should we be prioritizing these investments? You know, money is a limiting factor as I'm sure you guys are aware. Um, so if we're having to prioritize some of these parking strategies, which ones might might we prioritize first or might we leave later on in the process? Number three big idea is revamping Washington Park. Um, if you think back to that picture of the study area, Washington Park is a very important nexus in the connection between some of the major character areas like your your commercial core with your arts and entertainment and cultural district. It's a really important nexus between some of your major north south corridors such as Adams Street and your east west corridors of sixth and seventh. This becomes a really important space. Um and there's a lot of opportunity to do more here. The good news is that we know Sombrero Fest is already looking at enhancing the space and even better paying for it. Um, and so we've been meeting with their um, architects and we've sent them the information we've been collecting from the community about Washington Park to help um, in their efforts. And so big idea of revamping Washington Park, the good news is is the city um, doesn't have to do a lot of that work. It's already being done for you through Sombrero Festival. So just being good partners with them as they move forward in those efforts. Um so the question here is what role will the city play in working with those partners to improve that improve that space. Fourth big idea is Adam Street PO. This is starting to look at some of the

bigger the bigger more long-term ideas. Um so looking at Adams Street especially in a first phase of 10th to 13th. So those are the three blocks kind of east of Market Square and looking at turning that into a space not that cars aren't allowed there anymore. They certainly could still drive there, but that the pedestrians and other multimode modes of transportation are also kind of more celebrated in that really important north south connection um that goes down and makes connections down to the university campuses on the other side of international and eventually all the way up to um Washington Park and Sixth and Seventh Streets. So, this is looking at what we might call a festival street. You bring the street level up to the sidewalk level. you don't have curbs. Again, cars can be on it, but it's also very easily shut down for larger events and it kind of allows maybe something like a first Fridays to spill out into the street and just have a little bit more breathing room for events like that. So, the question here, especially thinking about, you know, we're in that implementation and action phase is what issues or risks will need to be addressed for this big idea of the Adam Street PO to be successful. So, we'd love to hear some thoughts on that. make sure we're considering all the right things as we move into this implementation phase. And the last big idea we'll present tonight is the big idea of downtown living, getting more people in downtown living there, making it um you know that 18-hour environment. And so how we do this with create taking the historic blocks of downtown that are very dense. It's what you kind of see on the left side where there's very limited access to light and air. Um, and on the right side you see some different strategies about how you can kind of very surgically insert more light and more air into some of these blocks and some of these like individual lots along blocks that doesn't take away

from the historic character of the facades of the downtown um, but allows for some of those uh, kind of organic infill of residential coming into the downtown area. So the question here is do you think these strategies would appropriate appropriately support the needs of residential growth in the downtown area? So I think with that that is our quick our quick 15 minute summary of about 150 pages of content that we've got going right now. So with that we'll take um questions or feedback. Oh, tomorrow the session is in the morning from 9 to We have a few different sessions tomorrow. We'll be meeting in the morning with the um city's department directors and then we'll be meeting with the business owners in the after early afternoon and then the land owners in the late afternoon and then there is the community and stakeholder openhouse that anyone's invited to come to starting at 5:30. Is that correct? Yes. 5:30 at Ebridge.

Yes. business owners at 100 p.m. Uh, land owners at 4 p.m. and open to the public 5:30.

I have a question in terms of parking and and potential. I know there's a proposed potential parking garage that will also I don't know if that's figured into this plan. I know you talked to about that in the potential locations for that. Yes. So, if we look, sorry, this is way back in Sam's stuff. Um, yes. So, if Sam might come up here and chat as well, but if you look here, so the bright green colors are potential lots.

Yeah. So, all of the the purple, the green, the orange, and the blue are all potential parking garage locations that we're looking at and considering and talking about. Uh the idea being to locate the parking garages within the set of the network to make sure that there's not additional congestion added by the parking garage, but at the same time it's close enough, especially to the pedestrian priority corridors to create um an effective means by which people can park and then move around downtown effectively. these uh these potential parking garages that you have laid out here on this map. Uh do you have more or less a number of spaces in each of these locations or or or how tall how you have anything? We we will be discussing parking options in more detail in the executive session uh today but uh we haven't looked into actual specific numbers. We have rough ideas of some specific locations but not in all of the locations

and all of these will be significantly different. I mean some of these are a quarter block, some of them are whole blocks. So it all just I mean you know you can have kind of a rule of thumb about how many parking spaces generally fit in a three-story garage on a quarter block and kind of extrapolate from there. Yeah. Um, with the the idea that the a parking garage becomes more space efficient the larger it is, but the larger it is, the kind of worse the traffic effects are going to be around it. So, creating a balance between those those two issues is something that needs to be uh developed.

One more thing on my um Sixth and Seventh Street. Is there any way to continue to look into the possibility of going across? I I know we've spoken about in the past. I don't remember we spoke to you about it but it's something that we've we've dreamt of right so it might be something you want to continue to look at. Yeah. So if I can just jump over to so we have it marked on our uh framework. Oh

uh on this so one of the ideas to create uh create a connection between both sixth and seventh going across to the amigoland area. And one of our uh sets of recommendations is that this ALS both both helps create a network connection going across but also potential potentially relieves uh traffic congestion on Palm which is Yeah. I just I saw this one and it's kind of cut off. I I think that's the street. I don't Yeah, but the idea is to look at a possibility going across. Absolutely. Yep.

Thank you. you know, in terms of of, you know, I going back to the parking, right? If we want to add more residential um units downtown, um we already have a parking issue now and there aren't that many people living downtown. So h how much analysis has there been into what's the total expected demand for you know currently but also going forward if we're we're going to add more more.

So the way we've been thinking about parking is within three kind of big general categories for parking demand. So one is everyday residential but the highest really is during during events. So the kind of system that needs to be built to deal with each of those parking demands needs to be about each of those uh each of those kind of analyzed uh analyzed separately. So the parking the street level parking needs kind of street level street level solutions like ways in which the parking meters can be can be run effectively that sort of thing. Then for everyday everyday use and also city use the parking garages are part of the solution for that one. And then for event level parking, things like a park and ride system are are part of that. So by being able to think about it as like a layered a layered system that overall can help uh build the solution for parking.

Yeah. And just to add to that, you know, one of the nice things about a mixeduse environment like a downtown where you have offices and housing and retail and entertainment uses is that there's a lot of opportunity for shared parking, right? So like for example that I know the city lots over behind city plaza, right? some of those are leased to the residents in Elhardin right during because when the when the workers for the city aren't there then they can be used by residents. So that's a really good um solution in this kind of environment for sure is the shared parking. So the the ideas that are presented, are there any costs associated like estimated costs associated with this with the

We're just starting to put some to some of these ideas and that's part of this implementation phase that we're going to get into is doing some cost estimating, right? Yeah. I just want to thank you guys. I participated in the the youth advisory boards. You had as much fun as they did.

Yeah. had a great time just thinking about downtown in the future and what it could look like and and I do know that all the comments we hear are about uh shade, parking, walkability, and uh and while while we're in a growing community and I think that that this addresses a lot of that and I know that's been a lot of hard work and a lot of more hard work uh to be done listening to all of the different uh sectors within the from business owners, land owners to even youth advisory board members which are young kids. So I just wanted to thank you for the for the work and and I know that that you are taking everyone's opinion into consideration and when that happens there's a lot of opinions. So kind of piecing it together. I think that this looks a lot to me the last time I saw this was uh maybe a couple months ago in early de early December maybe at the youth advisory board. looks a lot different now and uh it's coming together nicely. Thank you very much.

Our pleasure. Any other questions or comments from the commission? Really appreciate it. Thank you guys.

Thank you so much. Uh the next presentation is of uh of the Brownsville of uh public utilities board the 2026 through the 20 2030 of the strategic business plan. Good afternoon, mayor, commission. Pleasure to be here today. Uh just say a couple of words before the uh presentation is uh made, but uh just wanted to come before you again and uh ensure that we have continuous communication. Wanted to be here in front of you. Uh most of you have reached out personally uh just to continue uh providing you the information and answer any questions you may have around the the utility board. Uh I think a few minutes ago we also had um Joseph come and discuss water specifically. So today will be uh the strategic business plan and uh next we'll uh probably provide some information on the electric utilities and more details around that. I know there was a lot of questions about that. Um, so without further ado, I'll introduce uh Marilyn Gilbert, general manager and CEO of your PUB.

I just like to say, Mr. Martinez, thank you because you have been reaching out. So, thank you,

mayor, members of the city commission. My name is Marilyn Gilbert, general manager and CEO and thank you for having me there here. One of the things I want to say start is also thank you for your participation in this plan. I know some of you participated and some of you were there as our mayor sits on our board for countless hours there on various different meetings that we had with the various uh different areas. We also had members of the community that participate in here with me. I have part of our executive team Mr. Mark Dumbroski our assistant general manager and COO. We have Constansa Miner uh assistant um chief uh administrative officer and we also have with us Jose Medano, one of our pubcaps public utilities board citizens advisory panel with us as well. The reason we're all here today is to present this strategic business plan and I won't take very much but I just wanted to give you the highlights. On your desk you'll have a copy of the full presentation. I'm not going to go page by page over this 40 plus pay land, but we want to give you more or less what did we do and how we got here. In March of 2025, we issued an RFP. We hired Scott Maiden and we actually started on embarking in this process and we finally got it a board board approved and adopted with the members of the community. So Scott Maiden is a management consulting firm that specializes in strategic planning and utility sector transformation since 1983. worldwide forum very good in helping us to do that and actually facilitated a lot of the different conversations we had with the various different members of the community. We wanted to make sure that there was a a complete transparency but at the same time uh candid feedback from the members of the public that we met with. It was a 19week engagement from March to December of 2025. It was uh approved the contract in June of 25. We had our kickoff meeting a month later in July of 25 and then our board approved the strategic plan and del in 2025 but it's not over

once it's approved then what we actually have implementation and this is part of the communication out to the community and our ongoing um communication. So you all are receiving for the first time the full plan but we plan to meet with various different members of the community once we get to the plan. So with that, part of the external partners was the city Brownsville leadership, the Cameron County, the Port of Brownsville, formerly the JIEC, now the Greater Brownsville Economic Development Corporation, BCIC, which is the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation, and of course our very own Public Utilities Board Consumer Advisory Panel. Internal stakeholders included our board directors, our leadership team, department directors and managers, and employees across all divisions. There were a couple of subordinate plans that was included as part of the various different that fed into this plan. We had about 11 different plans and some of them varied in various different stages that were in their development a lot more detailed and some of those plans are not just a five-year plan. They're actually 20 years plans, 30 years plan. You heard Dr. Hullman talk about our water strategy um plan and that was but that's separate than our water and wastewater master plan. The water wastewater master plan actually addresses the next 20 30 years in our in our city's uh growth and as we all know we are looking into a lot of areas of growth in and in in the plans. We are preparing BPV for tomorrow and how are we doing that? We have 10 strategic focus areas. They start on page 18 of the plan in the various different areas that we look and we have 16 measurable KPIs of those strategic plans. Those start on page 40 of your plan which is there. Those strategic for focused areas vary some very different things. It prepares us for the future.

They address areas in everything from workforce development, from infrastructure resiliency and we established the 16 industry benchmarks that we are making sure that we meet into the four desired outcomes. And what are those desired outcomes? Those are affordable rates. They are workforce excellence, customer satisfaction, and service reliability. Those are the things that resonated with the community to ensure we all want affordable rates. With a clear implementation roadmap spanning from fiscal years 2026 to 2030, we're positioned to meet tomorrow and the challenges that we're serving our community today with. As a result, we have a new vision and mission statement. And the vision is empowering greater Brownsville's future through exceptional utility services, community leadership, and operational excellence. And for our mission is to deliver safe, reliable, and affordable utility services that empower community, champion growth, and are guided by operational excellence, financial strength, transparency, and strong leadership. It is reflective of what the community focus groups indicated and also rose to the top. And that's why we included them in the vision and mission statements. I also wanted to also see what things we look into and it's aligned with the city's visions. Enclosed you have you have the various different the six um city's pillars. Our focus on affordability drives economic development by keeping rates competitive. Infrastructure investments support planning and sustainable growth. Technology and reliability improvements enhance quality of life. and our governance initiatives ensure accountability and transparency. We're not just running a utility. We're supporting the city's bridto's vision.

Here we have where our plant a plant is located. We want to make sure that it's transparent and accountable. And how are we staying accountable? The plan can be located at sp2030. Brownsville.com. And the complete plan includes the KPIs, the roadmap and it is all publicly available on our website. We have the quarterly performance tracking. All 16 KPIs are measured against industry benchmarks. We are reporting at the board level as strategic plans as we bring agenda items and we're transitioning everything that we do is towards that strategic vision. We'll be having regular updates and briefings on the and the progress and the risk and the risk. I also wanted to say that this plan was also developed and I skipped over on a previous slide doing a SWAT analysis and it's very important because in the plan you'll see on page 20 I mean I'm sorry on page 12 the various different um strengths um weaknesses opportunities and threats and all of them are included on there. With that I'm going to open it up to questions and things and I'll be happy to meet with you on oneonone and any of those things. And I do want to commend all of you for participation and those of you that were able to meet and make time um with our consultants questions or comments. Thank you so much for uh presenting. This is a a very well done plan and I look forward to further engagement. Thank you so much

and thank you so much and we look forward to participating on your um breakfast that you will be having and hosting on uh on with March 13th. We will be there with the some of the members of my team and be able to take back and also provide you any information and feedback we of the plans we have. Thank you. You uh next we'll turn it over to the city manager update.

Good afternoon mayor commissioners. Today we uh have our citizen survey satisfaction that we recently went out for procurement. We had 10 proposals that were submitted. After review and evaluation, we shortlisted to three firms. After we completed interviews with the three firms, we selected onpoint who is here to present to us on the citizen satisfaction survey. And I'll go ahead and turn it to Mr. Ron Gayley who will give you an update and uh let you know what the services they'll be providing for our citizens. Um thank you very much. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes. Yes. Perfect. And will you be advancing the slides for me?

Sure. Yes.

Okay. Let's go to the next slide. Just a quick introduction. I do want to say that we have assigned a very a top level team to work on the survey with you today. So uh I will be leading the team. Just a a few minutes of background. Uh I was the re research director for two major banks and then I left and went to Coca-Cola. I was the research for research director for Coca-Cola responsible for all of Asia. And so for many years I have helped executives in large corporations make use of data and I've I'm applying that to cities and towns now. So just so that you know I I want you to know that we have we bring a lot of experience and especially a lot of experience helping executives make decisions and I'm backed up by a really strong team too. Let's go to the next slide. Now, one thing you should know in a survey is do they have experience working with cities? And over the past two and a half years, three years really, we have helped the cities that are listed here. So, we have a long list. Many of them are in Texas. Um that was actually the first city that I worked with about five years ago was in Texas and uh word of mouth has spread and we have a very strong Texas uh um contingent of of of positive clients and so you'll be another one of them and we hope that you're just as delighted as the rest are. And uh in addition to helping cities with the survey of the type you asked for, we do many other types of surveys, employee surveys and park design surveys and recreation surveys and so forth. Um because after we do one survey with cities, they often will ask us to do other types. So I want to let you know also we bring a variety of skills to the base for you and we'll

help you. Now I want to let's go to the next slide and I'd like to tell you a little bit about survey design. There are two things that we do. First of all, we assure the design is very easy for residents to take. It's not that we make the survey simplistic, but there are ways of asking questions and question types that are simply easier and we do it. We do that. Is everything okay for me on this? Okay, good. So, we do that. Another thing that we do that other research providers don't do is we use some of the most modern ways of distributing. Sometimes they'll just use mail. We love to use email and text messaging and it works very well. uh they are multilingual so we recognize the high Hispanic population and so we can accommodate that really well. Um and u when they're finished residents will just be happier with the surveys that that you do with them. On the other hand, let's go to the next slide. On the other hand, I want you to know that that this is actually built for your decision makingaking benefit. And so the other side of it is the surveys need to be designed in a way that are super useful for you. And so we allow for full customization. We use templates that are very trusted and that cities love, but every question has the ability to customize to be specific to your needs. That said, we also keep it very short. Some surveys are horrendously long. The first one that I helped the city with, they had a 25 minute survey, which is crazy. And so we we shortened them down, but we have efficient ways of running surveys so

that they can stay in that tw 10 to 12 minute range. Um, and they also, our surveys, the way we design them, they just flow beautifully. People love them. I mean, they're easy to take and you don't feel like you're being lost or manipulated into a super long survey. And there are other things that we do here. The thing that I want to mention last of all is that we design for an intuitive analysis. Whenever you do a survey, the worst thing is to get one that is like you get the results and you have 200 pages of data to go through and and that's something that is so frustrating and it was frustrating for the leaders at Coca-Cola and the banks like they hated that. And so anyway, we have designed a way of presenting the results that will make it super easy for you. Let's go to the next slide. I'm going to show you one page. Um, this is not the dashboard, but this is a copy of a page from a dashboard. and and it shows you on the right hand side you'll see the leftmost chart image that talks about like what what's most important to residents and on the left you can see that the city parks were really important and also down at the bottom you can see that Earth Days was important to 1% of the people. So on the left you go you you look at these ad items. What's most important? On the right you see three columns of how are we doing? And in this particular example you see some things are important like the parks but we're actually doing fairly well in this one. Of course we could do better. You look a little further down you see the senior center. Not that important to everyone, you know, but very negative, right? So you

you know something's important to everybody or important to a group and then you also know how we're doing. By the way, am I able to share my screen and give you a demonstration of the actual dashboard? Is that possible? I don't believe so. No sir, it's not.

Okay. Then we'll pass on that. But we can provide for you and and in this document that I provided for you, I have links that let you go through the a survey and I have links a link that lets you go through a dashboard and it's for a Texas city. Um, North Richland Hills is the example that I'm providing with their permission and also it's out on their website so you don't even have to go and get their permission because it's public information. And I will stop right there and answer any questions you may have. Any questions or comments from the commission?

I don't I don't believe we have any questions at this time, sir. Thank you so much for the presentation. My pleasure. Thank you all. Thank you, mayor, commissioner. That concludes our city manager's update. Next, we have the consent agenda items. Item number five has been requested to be table as the sunburfest is requesting um some additional time. So for today's uh consideration will be items 1 through 4 and then six through consent item 15 or sorry 16. Move to approve. All right we have a motion and a second to approve. Any further discussion? If not all those in favor please say I. I.

All those oppos say nay. Eyes have it. Motion carries. Consent agenda was approved excluding item five public hearing is a public hearing in action on the first reading on ordinance number 2026-1788 of the vehicles for hire uh in repealing and replacing chapter 106 under the vehicles for hire in its entirety of the city code of ordinances and adopting a revised chapter 106 for the vehicles for hire providing a a repeater clause providing a a cerillability clause and providing an effective Mayor, commissioners, good afternoon. My name is Juan Miguel Gonzalez. I'm the chief safety officer at Bronzo Metro, and we're here to propose some changes to city ordinance chapter 106, uh, commonly known as vehic vehicles for hire. Uh, our first proposed change is the increase the drop rate from $3.50 per first one of a mile for passengers of the taxi drivers. Uh, increase that to $6. there hasn't been an increase since I began here in late 2020. The second uh proposed change or or an in addition, not even a change, we're adding a definition of TNC vehicles, transportation network companies uh which include ride hailing services like Uber andyft. These companies are more regulated through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations, but there is currently there was currently no definition included in the current ordinance. Uh, and we're also looking to amend section 106-316 from the current reading from all funds will be designated for the use of the police department for the purchase of necessary supplies and equipment to be used for administering said ordinance to a new uh change to all funds will be designated for the use of B Metro for the use of necessary supplies and equipment to be used for administering said ordinance. Uh, currently Bronzo PD does not administer the issuance of permits and licenses. B Metro has taken

all taken over all of those responsibilities. So there I'm open for any questions currently. I have a question. Yes, sir. Um the $ 350 to $6. What does that mean? Does it mean if your whole rate will it still go up or just on that section? Just on just on that particular section right there, sir. Just for the first fifth of of the first mile.

So if it was a $20 build yesterday, if this gets approved, it won't be a 2250. No sir, it it will just be the first fifth mile and then the rest they charge per fifth of a mile after that and that rate remains unchanged. It was just the initial first fifth of the first mile. Yes, sir. I'm sorry. Uh so a little confused. So only they get dropped off or No, it's the initial when they get picked up. It they call it a drop rate.

That's that's that's how it's defined. But it's when you first get on the on the cab, your first first fifth of a mile will be charged at $6. After that, it it falls down to a I believe it's a dollar per mile after that and that remains unchanged as per their request.

But how's that going to make taxis more competitive from Uber and Lyft? Like wouldn't that price them out? Well, ma'am, uh, Commissioner, what this is after speaking with with the individual company owners and the taxi drivers themselves, and over the past couple of years that I've been, uh, helping to or I've been issuing the licenses and the permits, they have brought to my attention that the rate hasn't changed in a very long time, but their operating costs have increased. So we as we were going through this year looking at uh making some changes as per what we had discussed they we looked at competitive rates in Harlingen and Macallen to what their rates were and ours had were no longer at um at a very competitive rate. Their concerns to to me was uh fuel costs have increased, their insurance costs have increased. Uh operating costs have increased. Uh so they just wanted to be a little bit more competitive for them. Uh I don't know specifically how it would compare to uh ride hailing companies like Uber and Lyft because I don't know their rates commission.

We did we did meet with them from October through December to discuss this rate increase and they were they were actually the ones who proposed this rate increase

that you said um in comparison with the other cities in the valley like how what are the other cities charging? So, for example, mayor in uh in Harlingen, their first fifth of a mile is $4 and ours is $350 and has been since as far as I've been here, it's been 350. Macallen has it $7 per mile. We had I had speak spoken with them and proposed that we go to $7 as well. uh they have some concerns for their passengers particularly their their passengers that are regular passengers going from their home to HB to run uh regular errands on on a daily or a weekly basis and they have money allocated specifically based on those rates. So they didn't want to go any higher and and uh eliminate or be a burden to those passengers that they they uh normally use. I I present this to my fellow commissioners because then doesn't this become a burden for people who can't have credit cards because basically taxis I think are going to cater to cash clients. So you're making it sorry I'm looking to you but because I think you really you understand where I'm going. Um but is is this not then making it um pro more prohibitive for those people who don't have credit

or or or phones probably too. Oh that too. Oh yeah. Thank you. So I don't know where they're going with this. It just it seems like they're going to they're they're going to charge more their their their client base and it's going to make it more difficult for the their client base, the people who don't have cell phones and um the older people the older people which I think need need more help. Yeah. Well, I think they're also looking at it from an operating cost for them to sustain their operations. like there this rate is also covering they mentioned it's also covering their their fuel their maintenance of their vehicles. This is from the owner's perspective. That's that's what they brought to the table.

Yes, Commissioner. This this is not our proposal. This is from us meeting with them and listening to their concerns.

It's off. You got to turn it back. I I agree with Commissioner Galansky. For me, it's it's uh I remember when we did the the bus rates and we went from 50 cents to a dollar. I mean, we had 40 people out here. This the way it's put out here, I guess nobody found out what it was really about. Um I don't feel comfortable with doing a 250 cent race. Personally, I'd like to hear if anybody else on the commission has anything to say.

I think the bigger question is if if it is like you say to uh sustain their business. Um, I think one of the biggest issues that that we've heard is that in order for you to have a taxi, so I I don't know all the details about whether you have a taxi and you're an independent contractor or you have a taxi company. But I think that one of the biggest things is they they are they have to by ordinance or by law have a headquarters. I do believe that the reason that's so that someone doesn't line up eight taxis at their home, right? Like I I would assume that in today's world I I don't know how many of those owners have multiple taxis. A lot of these might be independent owners. So, even those independent owners, I do believe by law still have to have a headquarters. Is that correct?

That's correct, Commissioner. Uh, they cannot have a home office. They cannot have their business uh address be a home office. It has to be separate. And part of their application when every year is they have to provide a lease, a 12-month lease of an area. uh when we take the application, uh they list their home address and then they also have list their uh business address with a 12-month lease, particularly when they're uh submitting to apply for it to be a new company in the city of Brownsville. So there they cannot run it out of the home.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I I think that like you said, if you're if you're talking to them and they're asking for this increase, I do agree that I mean beyond just getting priced out general, but also the people who don't have the technology or credit cards. Um it puts it puts us in a real tough situation. And I I I don't know when you all had those meetings with them, but uh but I do think that just me personally, like Commissioner Carden said, just reading and and getting the information on the packet with all the festivities last week and just kind of looking into it. Um I personally I would think that I think we need more information. I don't know what what what what the purpose of having this on the agenda today was. I I I don't know um is I would love to hear from the the taxi

taxi owners owners myself if we're making that if we're making that decision. That's just my opinion. Commissioner, if if I may, uh I on a daily when when I walk in every morning, I did I did mention to them that this was on the agenda that they were will come here and support it or speak on on behalf or against it for themselves. Um so they they they were aware that they could come in here and listen to this as well.

I think maybe we can send this back to them with some feedback. you know, maybe we can ramp this up over a number of years rather than one a one-year increase of I think what is it 80% of the base rate, right? I think I don't I don't know. I I think there probably is a middle ground here to get to, but know I don't know like you know we this is impact the the people that probably need this service the most, right? Where they don't have another option. Yes, sir. But I do understand their perspective 100%. Understood. I can take that back to the mayor and commissioners. You have something to say, commissioner?

No, I agree. I think that we should have a plan in place. It just feels like a very big jump and um we in this instance and in the past where we've seen jumps, we like to do small um changes. So I do understand the cost of living has gone up, fuel has I mean everything has just just gone up and it's tough for small business owners and and I empathize with that. So I want to meet in the middle. Um I want to be able to also see from their perspective as a business and also the perspective of the clientele that they serve. So I want to be conscious of that. So I would have loved to have had them be here to advocate and give us a bigger picture because I'm not into that business. my business is counseling. Um, and I I don't have numbers so they can even advocate for that. So, I would have liked to have had a little bit of bigger picture for a greater understanding and to be empathetic and then see what plan in place that we can implement that we can meet in the middle for them. I'm willing to advocate for them and I thank you guys for meeting with them, for being here. Um, you guys truly advocated for this. But I think for now we just we want to be conscious and we want to have a little bit more information. I think that's something that we can work with.

And I I do have another question. Has the has the rate after the the first fifth mile has that changed? No, mayor. Nothing else changes except for that particular part of in the past. When when was the last time that changed? As long as I've been here since 2020, mayor, uh there's not been any changes to to the rates. This has not been uh addressed before. Not not since 2020 at least. Who sets that rate? This uh city commission the rate after the first uh one. Yes, because everything the all the rates are listed in the ordinance itself. So that that's not on this slide, right? No, it's not. Okay. And how does that rate compare to

uh actually the additional 1/5if of a mile for the city of Brownsville is 50 cents for every additional mile. Uh city of Harington is 55 cents and the city of Macallen is also 50 cents for example. uh each additional person uh that here was the ordinance reads at 50 cents per additional person. Uh city of Harlington has it at $2 per additional person.

So is everybody supposed to have a meter? Yes, every uh the ordinance reads that they can only operate using a taxi meter and that gets that gets inspected annually by us because I I mean I took a taxi from the bridge to uh West Alton Glor and it was $21. I mean this was during co

um $21 in 2021 I think. And and when I've taken one an Uber from there to the same place, it's $13. So, and I don't know if it would be that's like 30 miles technically. It would be 50 cents, $3, and then we're talking about 34 miles. There's no way that that would have been 34 miles. So, I I don't remember if I saw a meter. I I don't ride taxis often. I Yes, sir. I'm just wondering how they got to $20 because it's always $20. Yeah.

Like I when my son or my daughter Bamos are coming to Browns like take a taxi or an Uber and it's $20

and and Commissioner just just to clarify uh the rates should be somewhere similar if you're traveling on a regular basis. Say for example the example you just used. Um, but we always remind them as per the ordinance, they should not operate say, "Oh, because we've done this every day and I have a commissioner, he goes from here, so we're always going to charge him $23." No, it's whatever is on the meter itself. They have to operate as you enter, turn the meter on and and use that route and use that amount there. It's for the protection of both the consumer and for the uh operator as well. If there is a discrepancy, you can use a taxi meter as well, you know what? this is what we're charging you and they can ask for a receipt and that where that's where we can look at the disputes if if necessary.

I mean I don't remember sure what taxi it was or many years ago but yeah would it be okay we could table this and then we come back and we could see what other cities are doing. I would love to see what other cities are doing. I would love to hear back from the taxis and kind of see what their numbers are looking like. We would really appreciate that. Just one problem.

Um I know that I've been in cities where when you take a taxi, you pay by zone. Like if you're going into one zone and it's a set rate, maybe that model would be a better way for them to cover their cost because then they can leverage the shorter routes versus the longer routes. But um it's something of that I think we need to look into more more uh thoroughly.

Um I know that there is a motion, but I have a question here. I see that the funds I mean I don't I wouldn't see an issue of the funds going to be metro or for the supplies and stuff. Is there any way uh Commissioner Miaz that you would be all right with part two and three of this and approve part two and three? Is that something we could do? I I mean I know there's a motion, but I'm just asking for it.

I think Yeah, I think the greater part is when you look back at this, it's repealing and replacing chapter 106 vehicles for fire. And this slide only touches on three things of an entire ordinance, right? And so for me, the most important thing is getting down to like feedback for you with the owners is I know that they have challenges like know the challenge of of where they're able to park um for um the old bridge, the new bridge, like where where people do take mostly the taxis, right? I know that that's a challenge. I think that we should take a look at that. I know that looking at other cities and their ordinances of what a um whether an independent contractor is different than a non-independent contractor as far as having a home office if you have one taxi that you declare. I mean, do you really need a home office? Is that just by law? I don't know that. But I would love to to look at different ways to work with the taxi companies and look at what other cities are doing because I know that some of their challenges are that they have to have for example if they own one car and they um go and they're able to inside our airport uh waiting. Okay. and Ubers are not able to be there, but we only have a couple of flights a day that arrive. And so the moment that you see a flight arrived, there's Ubers parked by B Metro and they light up. So they're pretty close. They're not really there. And so there's all these

challenges going on that I just really don't think that they're addressed in this one slide with if we're like it reads here, repealing and replacing chapter 106 vehicles for hire in its entirety of the city code ordinances. So if we're repealing and replacing an entire code, I I think we need more time to look at the entire code. But Commissioner Cardinas, I do agree. I mean, I do think that if it's no longer administering by the Brownsville Police Department, it's administering by B Metro. I mean, fine, but this is a pretty jam-packed uh thing when you're repeating and replacing an entire code in its entirety. Think we need more time to look at that. So, so we do have a motion

to table. We just need a second. Oh, second. But for the next time, maybe bring more input and more. Yes. Well, we'll bring more information. Second. Do we have to open public comment because it is a public hearing? You you could, but since No, you don't have to because we're going to bring it back and have a public hearing again. Well, if there's somebody here who wants to say so if there's someone here speak would that be all right with everybody else. Yeah. Go ahead and close this one and then we'll we'll go ahead and open it up. This is a public hearing. So if there's anyone here that wishes to address the commission on this item, please board say your name.

Move to close. Second. All right. We have a motion and second to close public hearing. All those in favor please say I. I. All those oppose say nay. Eyes have it. Motion carries. And then there's a first and a second. Correct.

Yeah. So move to table to our next city commission meeting March 17th. March 17th. And I'll second. Right. We have a motion and second. Any further discussion? Is that enough time? Yes. Is it or do you want it for the first week? Yes. Okay. First week of April. Is that all right if you change it up? Yeah. Can you make table to the first April? April. April 2. We just want to give you more enough time. Appreciate it. Thank you. So, it's table to April 7th.

We We have a motion and a second. All right. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppos say nay. I just have a motion carries. Thank you. Uh so the public hearing number two will be tabled as well to a future uh meeting. So we'll move it on to the public hearing item number three is the public hearing in action on the first reading on ordinance number 20261799 um to amend the chapter 40 of the elections article two of the electoral districts to adopt the updated um um electoral districts within the city including the adoption of the updated electoral district uh the city limits in the in the extr territorial uh jurisdiction maps. We'll turn it over to cityr, you know, to our city attorney.

Yeah. Good evening, mayor and city commissioners. Um, essentially what we're doing is the electoral districts were already approved in 2022. Um, and it was based on the census. The one thing that was not done was updating the precinct listings in section 40-31 of the code of ordinances. And here you can tell we have a a snapshot of that particular section that breaks down the districts into the different precincts. Um on the far right we have a basically a a little bit confusing but it's a overlap of the preceded and the city's um commission districts that are broken into the different um uh precincts. Some of them overlap and so there's actually a better map that's on the next slide. So this particular map actually does show the precincts by commission districts. Some of them do overlap. Um again this was already approved in 2022. The only thing that is changing is the actual codification of the precedings within the code of ordinances. Next slide. Since 20 uh 22, there has been some annexations and disanexations within the city's corporate limits. This does not affect the redistricting that was done in 2022, but what it does is it u updates a lot of the um district boundaries that we have throughout the city. And so part of the action is codifying those electoral districts that

you approved in 2022 and updating the maps for the different annexations and disanexations that occurred. Um do keep in mind that the annexations and disanexations themselves have already been approved. Um every time there was an annexation or disanexation that came before you, you either approved or denied that particular ordinance. So, what this is is this just um administrative cleanup for the city's GIS team so that they can update the maps. Next slide. This is just another map showing the electoral districts. Next slide. And you all have this before you within the ordinance. This is an update of the city limits. Next slide. This is a um the eleatorial districts that are um shown with the annexations disanexations that have occurred. Next slide. And then a lot of the county precincts are within the city's ETJ. So this is updating the um ETJ of the city as well with the different um ETJ releases that we have received since the state has changed the law on ETJ releases. Next slide. So a lot of these actions have already been done previously. Again, this is just administrative cleanup so we can update the GIS records.

Any questions or comments from the commission? This is a public hearing. So, if there's anyone here that wishes to address the commission on this item, please step forward and say your name. To close the public hearing. Second. We have a motion second to close public hearing. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppos say nay. I have a motion carries. Move to approve to adopt. Second. Have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppos say nay. have that motion carry. Thank you. A huge thank you for Vadisto and his team for updating the maps. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Next is um um items for the individual consideration. Item number one is the consideration and action uh to authorize a contract with HRNA Advisors, Inc. in the amount not to exceed uh $300,000 for contract number 001-26-PLN-RFP for a term of one year with the potential extension of three months for the purpose of providing a professional planning of the economic uh research and market um analysis housing demands and gaps a potential um initiative and action plans and the identification of funding source.

Good afternoon again may council. Uh so today we are here in presenting the uh results of the RFP uh for the housing plan. Just a reminder of what were the primary goals and objectives of this plan. So the main goal is to develop innovative policies and strategies to ensure the availability of a more inclusive and balanced housing supply that meets the needs of Brownsville residents across every demographic. More specifically, the four main objectives are assessing the current housing market conditions and identifying gaps and challenges. Uh project future housing needs based on demographic gap analysis and economic trends. Develop innovative policies and strategies to ensure the availability of affordable housing and engaging with the community and stakeholders in the planning process to ensure the plan reflects the needs and aspirations of the community. and Damian Espinosa is going to walk you through the process itself.

Thank you, Daniel. So, commissioners, um, as Daniel alluded, we received this request from the planning and redevelopment uh, services department. So, we started to coordinate with them and any key stakeholders to develop uh, what was ultimately an RFP for this process. Uh right now you're going to see an outline of uh all the dates uh important dates regarding this RFP from where it was released until today. Uh on the next slide I'm going to go over uh the actual results uh of the uh RFP. Um a total of seven proposals were received in response to the Bronzeville housing master plan. uh out of those seven four consultants were selected for interviews and uh a HR advisor were selected as the top uh consultant after um evaluation and interviews with them. Um right here you're going to see a list in alphabetical order of the uh vendors that submitted a proposal and to your right you're going to see uh the evaluation committee member that had various backgrounds to uh make an accurate determination uh from the planning uh uh development services department all the way to the grants uh department. So right now I'm going to turn it over to Daniel so that he can go over some of the background and key highlights for uh HRNA advisors so you guys can see.

Thank you. So why HRNA advisors? Well, they have over 20 45 years of national housing advisory experience with recent work than here in Texas such as the city of Dallas housing action plan, city of Houston and city of San Antonio housing plans. It is a firm that is nationally recognized as datadriven analysis experts. They've developed a a specific tool they call housing weaver which is an online prop proprietary platform that provides up to date housing needs information. This is their bread and butter basically the the data analysis and making a lot of uh data sources combined to meaningful analysis. They also provide sound housing affordable affordability practices. So for example they will be creating um policies to implement an action items for general housing plans and policies. And finally they also partner with tech uh which is a consultancy firm specialized in multilingual engagement with experience in the RGB. They are known for their inclusive engagement methods and they're open to extending additional engagement requests as needed. So they presented some uh options already in the proposal but also uh there can be more additional engagement meetings if requested by the city. Um do you have any question or comment?

Questions or comments? I just have one question. Is this the first time ever that the city of Brown's had a housing plan? Housing plan. Mhm. Yes, mayor. Just want to This is the first time. We're excited of this opportunity. Yeah, it's a really important plan and I I I'm excited to get this going and I want to thank you guys for all your hard work here.

Yeah, thank you for the opportunity because basically the market has been trying to guess what to build, right? So every developer had their own ideas and every developer has their own needs. But this plan is going to give us numbers like how much is needed where we hear about you know SpaceX and executive housing but we don't know how much. We hear about affordable housing but we don't know how much. This is going to give us actual numbers. Yeah. Thank you. We look forward to this plan. It's necessary as we see an influx of individuals coming over to Bronzeville. We just need to properly prepare for the growth and I think preparation is key. So, thank you. Mhm. Thank you. I'll entertain a motion.

We'll move to approve. Second. We have a motion and second to approve. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppose say nay. I have a motion carried. It passes six to zero. Next item is two is um um is the consideration and action to to approve umou between the city of Brownsville and the Brownsville historical um association uh for the rehabilitation and operation and maintenance of the Neil House.

Good evening, mayor and city commissioners. Uh next slide. This agreement contemplates the cooperation and collaboration between Brownsville Historical Association with the city on the restoration operation and maintenance of the historical Neil House. Um since the property is owned by the city, the city in the agreement um is proposed that we would cover costs for relocation and the full exterior and exterior restoration of the Neil House as well as waving any permitting fees that would be applicable for the relo relocation. um BHA and the city would assist each other in fundraising efforts uh so that there's funds necessary for the res restoration beyond the relocation of it. Um there are language in there in case that there's no appropriations or there's funding gaps. There's language in there that protects the city um for those possible funding gaps uh in the future. Next slide. BHA would assist the city with fundraising uh restoration activities and community engagement. They have uh tentatively agreed to um assist the city in restoring it within two years. Um upon restoration, they would then operate and maintain the Neil House as a historic public site. um providing programming and quarterly reports to the city on the different um museum operations that they might have ongoing there at the Neil House. Um additionally, the agreement would indemnify the city for any compliance failures dealing with environmental or any other u historical type of u compliance issues.

Next slide. Now, the proposed agreement is a 10-year agreement with five-year renewals that would give BHA a license to use a Neil House. Um, BHA has tentatively agreed to the agreement, but they are asking for a longer term. They're asking for a 40-year term. There are certain grants that they are eligible for, but they would not be eligible, as my understanding, if they had only a five or 10 year term. They have to show a little bit more longevity for some of these grants. All improvements including the fixtures that become part of the property would be the cities and so the city would retain ownership of the Neil House as well. Next slide. And so this would be this would only be for the um agreement with BHA for the restoration. There is of course a separate agreement coming um either at the next meeting I believe for the actual relocation of the Neil House. Any questions, concerns, comments?

I've read through some of the documents that you've sent and I just wanted to be clear that the city's taking on the responsibility of of putting the bill for for everything, right? in terms of the moving and the restor interior and exterior restoration because there was somewhere else where I said where where I read that um just the initial part of the restoration would be covered by the city.

Right. So, in the quote that we received um from the the company, the I believe it was um and Damian has the the numbers, but it was a little over 400,000 and that included relocating the property to Linear Park as well as when you relocate it, you have to stabilize it. And so, part of that scope of services included stabilizing the structure so it wouldn't fall. And I'll let Damian explain more on the scope of services.

That information was correct. So, this is for the structural component of the restoration. So, just making sure the walls are up in their place, the flooring uh as well as the roof. That was just the quote that was presented to us in the previous um meeting. Correct. Yes, that's correct. So thisou though that that we're voting on today, I just wanted to be clear that the city's agreeing to cover the cost of the move and the entire interior and exterior restoration. Correct.

That's correct. Now, there is contemplation within this agreement that BHA would assist in fundraising for those costs as well as any that we might encounter in the future. Um but given that this is one of the oldest homes and looking at pictures of it, you can see that it restoration is needed and stabilization is required which is probably the reason why we had that that um that initial quote for the u relocation.

Yes. Can you please uh do we know how much money has been raised up to date or has anybody any funds been raised to to help out with the cost? I'm not aware of that, but I will defer to management, see if they have an idea. We're not aware of any of their fundraising ability to date. We can look into that. Well, and so even if we adopt theou today, BHA can come back by the next meeting and present a different proposal for the moving and initial stabilization of the building. Correct.

Correct. Correct. This is only the memorandum of understanding with BHA for their part in this restoration relocation and they have committed to assist the city in um in not necessarily funding it but in fundraising efforts to help get funds for the the restoration. Um they have also um expressed their interest in using their expertise and helping with the restoration using their contacts. Um there's quite a bit in the historical uh realm in renovating a property. You just can't use any other you know uh flooring or ceiling etc. There are certain guidelines that have to follow and Juan Veles would probably be more wellspoken about those but you will have the proposal for the relocation coming at a future date that was at the last meeting. Of course, it was tabled. This would be just setting the um the rules by which we will engage with BHA on the restoration of the nail house. So per thisou though, who makes the final decision about um which route to take like about who who's going to do the restoration and how they're going to they're

it would be the city. The city has to approve any contractors that they used to. Correct. Correct. Yeah. And my my understanding is the initial contract will be going before you all for the relocation and

correct. We're getting an updated contract with revised figures for the relocation and moving of the building and stabilizing of it. At this time, we don't have an estimate to my knowledge of any improvements just to relocate it. So, no one has gone to take a look at this beautiful I think it's a beautiful house and I think we should save it uh 100%. Uh the questions I have is has anybody gone to go take a look at the house to make to even have a ballpark figure of what it's going to cost to uh restore that I I believe a beautiful house.

Yeah, I believe so. No, what we've looked at was looking at the moving of the house because we were given a timeline to move the house from its current position to a new location wherever the city would like to see that building and we went through the process of getting a cost to relocate the building. If we can definitely look into the cost of renovating. I think originally the intent was that BHA was going to perform the renovation of the building. Therefore, the city had not looked into the cost of that. This new agreement is now asking for us to take into consideration not only the moving but also the rehabilitating of the house itself. Uh we can definitely look into those cost and and come back to you at the next meeting with both theou if you'd like and an estimate of what those cost for moving and estimated an estimated cost for renovation would be.

Okay. Uh, I got several questions. Uh, is there a risk at maybe the house not making the trip from where it's at to linear park? So, is there any uh guarantee that because I walked there yesterday and I cannot believe that the city of Brownville would let that house get to that far of condition of what it is right now. I mean, it's it's it's it's shocking. Such a a historical building and we as a city did it get that bad. and it is in bad condition. Uh so what guarantee are we going to have that that trip voyage whatever we want to call it makes it to its uh final destination. So commissioner the the house itself was not the city's house to begin with given the condition it was in they asked for us to step in and they would donate it so we can salvage the house. Number one. Number two, as far as the relocation of it, we've had several structural engineers and historical experts that do this for a living, relocating homes. They've determined that the portion of the home that is in in movable condition will be secured and stabilized for the move. So, it can sustain the move from one location to the other. There is a portion of the home that is not in a condition suitable for the move. Therefore, it won't be considered in this move.

Is that the backside? They can tell you. Is that the addition? Yes, I believe it is. They're going to remove that.

The the route itself has been predetermined based on the conditions that the historical mover needs to move this uh from the current location to the park and guaranteeing the stability and condition of the home. Obviously, it's a it's a very complex move. Therefore, the costs are what they are. Uh I know there were some concerns with the with with how high the cost of moving this facility was and a lot of it has to do because of the conditions that it is in. Uh I believe there is a performance guarantee as part of the contract for the move and an insurance as well. Correct. Yes.

Okay. Do you know who do you know who do we know who the company is that's going to be moving this house? Yes. Uh go ahead and provide that information. The name of the proposal is going to be Dodson. Okay. And where are they from or located? San Antonio. And they were both they were recommended uh not only by BHA but by Texas Historical Commission and they've performed these types of relocations through throughout the state is my understanding. Is B uh BHC involved in any of this? The historic commission? Correct. Are they involved in any of this uh decision making or any input?

Um the THC, yes, they were involved. Um they had to authorize the movement of the house and they had already reviewed the scope of work presented by Dodson House Movers. So they agree with it and released the letter of authorization. I think the commissioner is asking about the city's historical preservation commission. Definitely. We've been to several other board meetings. I have a quick question. Uh hello. Yes. Go ahead. Um with with the investment we're considering for for this house, are we going to be receiving a historical marker for the house once we restore it and and move it to its new location?

The house already has a um historical marker and the THC letter protects it. Okay. So that is that is moving with it. Okay. All right. And just to add, I I believe the BHA wants to be involved with the restoration because they feel they can they can do it much cheaper with their contacts, the actual restoration work than if the city were to take, you know, go out for bids and and follow the normal similar to what we've done on San Fernando building currently and at the uh the market square. They've done some work in the past where we've worked in partnership with them. So that's the intent of this agreement. Yeah. I I think that's a that's a good fit for that part.

Sure. Yeah. I I don't think there's very many companies out there that move such historical bills even like this, right? There's probably less than a handful. To answer your question, we we actually did an RFP uh for this and we received zero bids. Uh therefore if we went with this alternate process uh based on the recommendation of Texas Historical Commission

if I may when we did the RFP as Mr. Garcia alluded to you uh the only company that assisted or that attended the pre-proposal meeting was Dodson. So after the RFP closed out we met with them where they expressed their concerns as to why they couldn't bid. Um that's when we found out that they had a uh eyeboard contract. We went through the list of vendors and cross referenced them and was able to determine that there's no other vendor that could move the house at least authorized by the Texas Historic Commission.

I just have one comment on theou. I would love to see something on there that the city can use it uh hopefully once a month or or find a way to use it because I I hate to see that other beautiful home next to it. It's only one time a year where we're able to sit in it. I would love for the city to have, hey, you guys can use it one day out of the month or figure out what we can do. Um, I mean, we're going to be paying a lot of money for it the end of the day. So, I think that the citizens should have some way to enjoy it, right? So, if it's the desire of the commission to pass and approve this, I would ask that you approve it subject to city manager and city attorney final approval so that we can include those stipulations in there.

I think I I agree with you, Commissioner Cardinas. I think that the that the other house we paid for the moving, right? And I and I think they paid for the restoration. Correct. Correct. Yes, that is correct. And this one if we're if we're if the city's doing the entire I I think the other house was actually owned by BHA. Correct. Yeah. The only thing about it is I mean it's in the middle of our park. So, but I'm thinking the BHA owns the other house. We will own this house. We will only But we will let them use it for up to almost 30 years, right? Operating. So I think here theou says 10.

10, but they were saying that they wanted longer. Is that Well, I think they want 40, but if they're not putting any money into it. Yeah. I'm just saying I mean I I just honestly think obviously there's a lot to be discussed but yes I do think that the Neil House needs to be moved needs to be restored and and is is a part of our city's history. Right. So I think we can work out all the details. Yeah, I agree. I agree with you. I think it's a it's a very fair ass that Commissioner Cares is asking for. So let's let's try to get that. I'm sure they'll be amendable to that. Yeah, they they they really are interested in this house and we'll we'll work with them. when negotiate.

Yeah, for me it's just that let's be able to use it. It's right in the middle of our parts. We're about to take more green space, so let's have the ability to use it for something. Okay. Thank you. And then you want to keep it at 10 years. Okay. Yes. Yes. I would I I want to get the the feedback on what grants are going after, right? I think is that for the restoration or what what are the grants for? Yeah, the grants would be for restoration, right? And so that might be that might have implications. Sure. Tenure. Yes. So that that'll affect their we can but I think we can make then then they have we need that information before the second rating. Well, if we're going to increase the amount

there's no Yeah. If they're if they're going after certain grants, we need that information what they're actually going after and what are the requirements so that we can make that, you know, more. So, so, so there there this is this is a one reading item. Um, we could Yeah, it's a Yeah, it's a it's a just approving anou. Normally, we would have it in consent, but because it's a high-profile item, we wanted to bring it in individual consideration. Question then, Will, is if we approve it um, you know, as is with 10 years, um, I I mean, I don't know. I just if they have a grant that they're going after, you know, we can they can bring it back and we can try to

end. Right. I I feel confident that if we leave it at 10, I mean, I can come back with, you know, finding out what grants they're looking to apply to, but I feel confident that if if if if they have a difficult time with a tenure with renewals of five years, then the city can apply for the grant, too. So, um, but we'll we'll work with BHA. Yeah. I want to make sure that Yeah. I mean, we don't want to stop getting grants, but if we can apply for the grant since we own the building as well. I mean, there's there's too there's a lot of options here. The difference is the city will own it. And so, I do I do agree. Someone needs to obviously

I think the idea to maintain it, right? But yes, we do need more access. Correct. I I I think the idea with thisou was to get BHA's experience and expertise in the historical reservation part. Absolutely. Yeah, we can we can push back on the other the other house. Y what was the motion will that allows city manager and city attorney? It's it's it's already part of the um recommendation in the staff report. So it would just be approving it subject to city manager and city attorney's final review. So moved. Motion done. Motion to approve. He already has it. Second.

Do we have a motion in a second? Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say I. I. All those oppos say nay. Eyes have it. Motion carries. Perfect. Item number two passes. Moving on to the consideration and action. on resolution number 2026-044. I'm I'm establishing the nightlife mayor as an advisory liaison to support chapter 6 amusements and entertainment the administration and to facilitate uh the coordination among the businesses residents in the city to promote the downtown and and culture activity and advance the public safety and late night mobility.

Yes. So good evening mayor and city commission again. Uh this resolution would be establishing the nightlife mayor. It is a first for the Rio Grand Valley, but it is not the first for the city. If you all recall, we do have a downtown manager that assists the business owners and acts as a leazison. In this instance, the nightlife mayor uh would be a unpaid position. It would be volunteer, but they would serve as a leazison between the city and the establishments. Um there's plenty of room for them to advise and assist in promoting strategies related to public safety, crowd management, um arts, festivals, cultural programming, and we would also provide them information from 546 help so that they can understand and of course 911 calls so they can understand where the complaints are coming from and they can assist the city in addressing those. Uh next slide, it would be an advisory capacity. Again, it would be uh unpaid, but it I contemplate that it would be very similar to how Alan Garces handles the downtown um management, except in this instance, it would be for the nightlife establishments. They would provide quarterly reports to the mayor and city commission on the activities and also providing any recommendations as well. Next slide. Again, just as a reminder, the entertainment district um the Midtown is the one that's in this uh lighter orange and the next two items if approved would create the downtown and central district. And so their jurisdiction would be over this um blue, green, orange map. Uh next slide.

And if there's any questions, this would create the office as well as you have the opportunity of appointing someone this evening if you'd like. I do have questions. Number one, um, this the bar owners that want representation. This is what I'm sorry. Is are these the bar owners that say they want a representative? Yes. My understanding is these are the bar owners that would want a Mayor Commissioner. This was based on our uh commission retreat. Uh this came up for discussion during our retreat and that's why this item uh was requested by the commissioners to be placed on the agenda.

Cool. I mean I would ask the commission that if this is something we want to do, I think the bar owner should elect their own mayor. Uh I uh met with foreigners several times and uh we pitched uh they pitched this idea uh and as long as we get uh and I thought it was a good idea because the bigger cities do do something uh similar, they have a nightlife mayor. Uh, and I think if they can get uh people throughout the throughout the city to participate and uh make everything, you know, better for the nightife district. I that's just my opinion.

I agree that that there's something about it, but I still maintain that the downtown area is very different and so they should have their own voice. And so I while I I approve of the concept and yes, there should be representation from the bar, I also think that one person can't do it all the same way that we have four districts for the city.

I I believe the way they want to do it is a a mayor with commissioners and get commissioners through downtown area so that they all communicate and work together. Uh that's what this was trying to be uh worked out so that everybody throughout the city has a uh a voice in a uh in the I don't want to say in the establishment.

No, I think this is this is awesome to pitch forth, but I feel like we're already doing that. I can tell you as a representative of district 2, um I report out anything that is of concern, any needs within the community. I do that all day, every day, 24/7. And so I don't I personally do not believe that we need a dedicated individual for this. I just feel that we as commissioners should do our job and our job is to always advocate um whether it's night life or day life. So that's kind of like my my only thing. I just feel like these are things that we're already doing. Why create more work for others and for staff if it's things that we're already proudly representing?

I just think it just in terminology, right? When you you want to create a mayor and a commission, another commission, I think there it starts to people start to get confused on who's actually representing who, right? So, I just throwing out there, it could create confusion for the community general. But I do agree representation's good and and having more uh bigger voice for people to go to, you know, that's more dedicated in that regard. But

I I think it would be just like any other board mayor. Uh but when when you when we say the nightlife mayor that that and and maybe we don't need commissioners or or or but they could have a board like any other board that we have or the numerous boards that we have here in Brownsville uh that they meet and they talk and they I I think it's a good idea. Let's create a nightlife commission. There you go. that would standardize and that would that would be an option, you know, where we got that nightlife mayor is from the bigger cities. Bigger cities

and and that's what that's what they're called. They're not a mayor. I understand but you know how it can create confusion. confusion is is big, but uh it's just like another board that will be created to help the business owners. Will that be accomplished with this item if we Yeah, we amend it. We what I would ask is if you approve it as amended to include a nightlife commission or advisory board or whatever you want to call it and then we can we can expand the slots. I'm sorry. and ad hoc committee.

How's it going to work? are we each gonna appoint a person and so right it would go I think I don't know right it would go like we do every other board right we would come back at the next meeting they'll apply and we all have one appointee why start out with just you know someone say hey we're going to come to every third city commission meeting and tell you what's going on instead of creating another board for city staff to that's just my whole theme why why burden city staff And I if they're very interested, these these bar owners in and doing it, then why don't they just come to our meetings or or even just calling us up or emailing us?

Well, I could tell you right now, Commissioner, I get my my phone gets litten up by a lot of these bar owners, uh, you know, for issues and stuff like that. So, they do reach out to me. Uh, and I I try and help everybody. Uh, but you know, it's just like a every board. We got how many different boards? 10 or more like you know 20. But that's why it's not really working. Yeah. Because it's it's there's too many boards and currently we have uh 32. 32.

I have a I have a question. What is it that they call you about? Like what is their issues that happen? They call for like, you know, the fighting and in, you know, downtown getting more than North and they want to they want to have a seat at the table. Uh, you know, like I said, I met with with Will and I believe Nur, Miss Golanski, Commissioner Garanski went with me on one. No, I went with you to

You went with me. So, yeah, I I do meet with him. So, so I mean I the fighting we've established now an ordinance which should take care of that, right? It's and if they get more or less I sorry I don't understand um are they talking about the big programs and the grants and the BCIC stuff or or the first Fridays or what is it? Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. I mean like I said I'm for it. Whoever's against it against it and I you know No, I respect everybody's decision.

Me personally, I just agree with Commissioner Galansky. I don't want another board. Like I think we have too many boards. Could this be something that there's one person who just reports to the commission on an easy basis? I I mean, like you said, I get calls as well. Um but I I don't think we need a board to try to fix it. I think we need communication. And she also mentioned a great thing They could be here. I mean, they're at five meetings. They're not at night, so their bars aren't open. We could have a lot of them here. Uh I speak to a lot of bar owners as well. I understand maybe the hate of the big program, but it started because we didn't have anything downtown. That was the reason. And Pablo Cel, which is the bars you're speaking about right now, it's on Pablo

Cell. Um they they have the all the hotels are around there. They got all their entertainment, but now they have all the fights. Let's just I I think we we let we start with a line of communication with somebody. Uh I don't think we need commissioners as you're mentioning. I don't think we need another board. I think we can start with one person who you can nominate and we can go from there and we put it as a pilot program. See if it works. So it has an end date because if it doesn't work, why do we want to keep it open, right? Um that's my point of view, but obviously like you said, everybody has their own their own.

I would be more com I agree with you, but I would be more comfortable that if they feel they need representation that they should select their representative. I don't think that we should appoint first person. And I also feel commissioner that you already do that like you you go out at night time to these bars, you know, sometimes with a vest. No, don't you No. Okay. No tactical equipment. Okay. Good. Okay. But I feel like you you do that already and I think you do a wonderful job representing your district and I don't think that there should be like an official title for it. Um I I think that everybody's doing a really great job. I feel like we're all very accessible. were all very caring like anything that I know you have brought up a lot of issues. You've even hosted like your own town halls with the bar owners and you have brought forth um as well at large commissioners and the police to be on standby. We've done a lot of ordinances. I think we've been very proactive and we're trying our best. We just need the community to do their part. Like we're doing our part. We just need them to do their part. So given the input um it to address commissioner Gatana's question or comment it's already drafted to be one individual um and then to address the mayors and I believe commissioner via's comments um you you can change it nightlife mayor is just what they called it in other cities um you can like downtown manager you can call it nightlife manager and have that one individual serving a voluntary role. Um, so those are some options. And then for I think there was a comment about whether we can sunshine it. We can have it in place for a year, maybe six

months, and then come back and revisit it if it's working.

I think that, too. And I think um I think like what Mayor Cowan said was that it does create a lot of confusion who to go to or or what. Um and recently we just rejected the mayor promp idea. I want to be fair. We feel that hey the mayor should just have that position himself and um have the people select whoever they want as mayor. I think we should just keep it in that way personally. I'm I'm in favor of trying out as a pilot program, see how it works, right? I mean, I think you think if you think that there's value to this, that that's what people want. They want someone to go that that will be their advocate or be their their go-to.

I I think so. And and and filter the calls that we get. I think that create less potentially less back and forth and maybe solve I I I believe so. And I say let's try it for six months. I I say so. And then come back and see how it works. Would you be all right with one person? Not a whole commission. One person. Yeah. One person. No board. Just So are we going to name you the party mayor?

So I don't I don't I don't disagree with a pilot. I just I get very just a precedent like I get very I just don't like if if it's if it's something that the bar owners want let them choose their person like I I just don't like appointing one person as a board like why how do I know their background or their experience what what qualifies them to be this nightlife advocate I don't I wouldn't know how to appoint somebody like that what what expertise do they need to I actually like that nightlife advocate. Yeah, nightlife advocate. But

what's the criteria? How are we appointing who applied? I have no idea. But I I completely would understand what you're saying, but we put a lot of people on board just to put them on there. I mean, they're not expertise to go and work on that board. Yes. But but we all get one commission. So we all get to represent somebody with our seat. And I totally agree here. There's going to be only one person that this board will appoint. We don't get seven.

No. That's what we're saying that we're going to nominate one person. And you and you're 100% could disagree or or vote no or vote yes. You you have your right. This is something that I believe in. This is something that that I'm going to do. And if I lose this fight six to one or one to six, where however you want to put it, well then that's what it is. I don't think it's a fight. I think we all agree that there should be someone. I'm just don't understand how we get to appoint somebody if there's no criteria of what it means to be a nightlife advocate.

Well, I think the commissioner actually wanted the mission like he wanted a whole board and I think at least Ner and myself were like we don't want a board. So, I mean, his idea was actually to have everybody have somebody represented. Uh, me personally, I wouldn't want a board, but if that's going to make it, again, I agree with everybody. What I'm saying is if the bar owners want a representative, let them choose their represent. Oh, I agree with that. Yeah, we should have. I think Commissioner Leton wants us to pick it. I don't want to pick it. Oh, is that what you want? You want to pick a You want to pick someone or you want them to pick someone? the pinnix pick their representative. Oh,

let let the bar owners in the nightlife district pick their representative. That's all I'm saying. All right. Well, that sounds good to me. We can open it up. We'll let them come in and they'll put little ballots and they choose and that's their job. They pick who they really want. What we can do is on the application add the nightlife advocate or the ambassador to help. And then if y'all have those bar owners that submit, then we can possibly bring it back. Hey, regarding this advisory advocate, then we can bring back this is the amount that we received similar like the board appointments but specifically for right

that way you can vet who's applying. And then one more thing to note, the resolution does require that the person adhere to the personnel policy as well as the code of ethics for the city. If they're going to be represented in the city, we want to make sure they follow the rules. in align with the chapter 6 amusements and entertainment area. Correct. So, no drinking. They're the they're the nightlife mayor, ambassador, advocate, but no drinking. So,

any other questions? Nope. A motion. So, I move I move to create a six-month pilot program for a Brownsville nightlife advocate that is selected by the nightlife business owners. Second. We have a motion and second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say I.

I. Those say nay. vote against it because it's so like halfhazard like we need more input from I think bar owners throughout the city otherwise it's going to be the the public bar owners that control everything but but and I mean at the end of the at the end of the day it's up to us what decisions we make so um I feel yeah I'm just going to vote against it right so there's one in opposition that's right so there's a motion and a eyes have it. Motion carries.

Okay, it passes 521. The next items, items four and five are companion items that have one presentation. It's in in in consideration of the approval on the second and the final reading on ordinance number 2026-17958 to amend the chapter 6 regarding the downtown entertainment district. And then item five is the approval on the second and final reading on ordinance number 2026-1795B in regards to uh to amend the chapter 6 establishing the central entertainment district. We'll turn it over to the city attorney.

Yes. Hello. Uh hello again, mayor and city commissioners. Um this was approved at the last commission meeting. Normally we put these type of ordinances on consent for second reading and final consideration. Given the high profile of this particular um two agenda items, we wanted to put it under individual consideration. Um as a reminder, the Midtown entertainment district was already created previously. This would create the central and downtown entertainment districts that have similar rules as the Midtown. Um, and additionally though, we would create the one unified and contiguous entertainment district, which we're calling the Brownsville Entertainment District. Um, then it breaks it down into subdists. The downtown, which is the historic core of the city. Uh, next slide. the Midtown which we know as the public area and then central which is the primary commercial hub. That's the remainder of the city. Um next slide. This is what the proposed downtown district would look like. Again, as a reminder, the areas that are carved out that are not in green were heavily residential and 90% of it has to be commercial. Next slide. And then the central entertainment district again the areas that are not highlighted are already residential and um drinking establishments are not allowed by right in those areas. Next slide. So together the three districts would make the one Brownsville entertainment district where you have the Midtown, downtown and central.

Next slide. And as a reminder, they would adhere to the same rules and regulations that Midtown currently has. The one rule that um does not kick in unless they have two violations would be the requirement for having a security officer. other requirements such as lighting, cameras, and um checking the age restrictions of the individuals attending the particular establishment would be in effect. Uh next slide. the restricted hours be between 12:00 am and 3:00 am. Uh we understand that 2 am is when bars actually close, but we left the 3:00 a.m. there so that if they have the security officer um kick in place, then uh they would remain on site until they have cleared the parking area. Next slide. Again, BYOB would be prohibited as well as open containers. The restrictions or the exceptions for open containers um that would be in place in case there is a city festival or another event that the city's participates or sponsors in um would be available in the downtown area of course Midtown as well and central. Uh next slide and we covered this. Next slide. Again, penalties would be the same as in Midtown. Of course, there would be any violations for TABC. Those are higher violations, so we would go after those first. Um, any other violations that are applicable would be 2,000 for health and safety violations, 500 for all others. Next slide. Questions?

Questions or comments from the commission? No, I just want to thank all the departments, Will and everybody who I know this was a struggle, but I think we got there. Well, thank you. Thank you guys. Um, is this We can take both four and five together. Yeah, you can take four and five together if you're going to have a motion to approve both in the one. I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve four and five. Motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppos say nay.

Nay. Okay. So, four to one. Let's have it. Motion carries. Okay. It passes 4 to one. We do have Commissioner Maria's absent. I do want to make a note for the record on the individual uh consideration for item two u that commissioner Martinez was in opposition just to you know just to share for the record. Uh moving on to the board appointments but it still passed but just for the record he was in opposition but

so he's no longer online so this item will reflect 4 to one. Um but it did pass. Moving on to the board appointments is is the consideration in action on the resolution number 2026-039 to appoint or reappoint members to the special needs advisory board to fill an existing vacancy. This appointment is for uh Commissioner Galansski. Actually, I have reached out to two people, but I haven't um um received a response. So, if I can just defer it to the next to the next. Okay, we'll table it to the March 17th meeting.

The next item is two. It's regarding the consideration on on an appointment on on resolution number 2026-043 to appoint members to the one city committee. Good evening, mayor, commissioners. We do need seven members for this committee as it is an inaugural committee. I'll uh I'll appoint Lily Ortiz. Second. Have a motion to second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppos say nay. I have a motion carries. I'll appoint Rose Timmer. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say I. All those oppos say nay. Eyes have it. Motion carries. Pass five to zero. Oh yeah. I want to nominate Claudia Ramirez. Second motion. We have a motion in the second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say I. I. All those opposed, say nay. Eyes have it. Motion carries. Pass five to zero. I'm going to hold. Me, too.

So, we'll table uh both of them to the March 17th commission. And Commissioner Marcas is nonpresent for this item. So, we'll table hers to the March 17th as well, as well as Commissioner Martinez. The next item for consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Uh the next item for consideration is um on resolution number 2026-045 to appoint three of commission members to serve on the budget subcommittee for the preparation of the city's fiscal year 2027 through 2020 2026 through 2027 budget cycle.

Good evening m commissioners. So, it's uh we're getting to budget season again, and we need three volunteers from the commission to help us uh uh make sure we're in alignment with commission pillars as we go through our uh budget planning process. Just for the record, who was on the budget committee last? Uh it was myself, Commissioner Mias, and Commissioner Commissioner Martinez. Typically, it's rotated, right? I think so. And typically it's the the newly elected and then Commissioner Deleon and Commissioner Golonski maybe and then we'd need one other person. Commissioner Deleon and Deon.

Yeah, I'd love to. Commissioner, would you like to be on the budget committee? No, Commissioner Deion does not want to be on the budget committee. Will you go Commissioner Galanski? I nominate Commissioner Galanski. Do we need to do nominations? Yeah, we can. Yes. Okay. I nominate myself and Commissioner Golanski. I'll sit on it and then we can do it in the motion. Tina wants I'll sit on it again. And Commissioner Ver. I nominate all three of them. All right. So, we have a motion. Yes. Do we have a second? Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppose say nay. Eyes have it. Motion carries. Passes five to zero. Thank you.

Now moving into executive session. May we enter? So vote. I perfect. We will be um tableabling the executive session for number three. So we will enter into executive session for number one um and number two which is this close session pursuant to the Texas government code 551.071 071 and 072 and 0087 uh in in relations to the downtown Renaissance master plan as well as item number two in Okay. Tabled as well.

Thank you. And we're tableabling number two and three. The time is 7:20 p.m.

Heat. Heat.

Yes, please. The time is 810. Uh 8:10. We're back into open session. Is there any possible action on the downtown renaissance plant? Yes, I believe. Perfect. I'll move to proceed as discussed in executive session. All right, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second caros. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say I. I. I. All those oppos say nay. Eyes have it. Motion carries. Perfect. It passes six to zero. Adjournment. Entertain a motion to adjurnn. Mo. So moved. We have a motion and a second. Second. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. I. Is it? Meeting adjourned. Everyone,

we're adjourn at 8:11 p.m. Good night. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.