City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, it's six o'clock and I'll call this meeting of the Mount Hart City Council to order. Appreciate everybody attending. Good to see some new faces in the crowd today, too. Uh Kathy's Oh, we do have a quorum present. Yes, we just have Harold N who's down in the Florida Keys on Business, I'm sure. Yes, he'll like that we called him out, I'm sure. Yeah. Kathy's gonna lead us in our invocation. We thank you for this day. Amen. Please join for our pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation with liberty and justice for all. All right. If the council's had the opportunity to review the consent agenda, we would need a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion. Motion for aka second. Second from Marty. All in favor? I. Items of community interest. Does have anybody have anything they'd like to share here at Springfest. All went good, right? Yeah. Anything else cooking that anybody like to share? Anybody visiting have anything? You got something out of the community eastern interest.

It's a good idea. That's a good idea. Yeah. All right. Well, uh, we also have nobody signed up to speak during citizen participation. So, it's 602 and I'm going to open our public hearing. The purpose of this hearing is to hear evidence for or against a request made by C. Wayne Wman, DBA C. Wayne Wman and Associates LLC to replat the property located on the Northwest Access Road between Love's Travel Stop and Gatlin Street, Mount Vernon, Texas. I don't think Wayne has anybody here to Jim, you're Jim. Okay, great. Jim, anything feel free to if you'd like to share anything um I'm a land surveyor, owner of Cypress Surveying. Um, a while back, Wayne Bulman contracted me to do some survey work for him. He purchased uh some acreage from the industrial foundation. I think it was a Franklin County Industrial Foundation. And uh then he is wanting to break that up into four lots. Uhhuh. Currently, there is a still building on uh what we're calling lot four and the other three lots are vacant at this time. Um I have not heard of what plans he wants to do with the other three lots. I believe he is looking to sell them to

somebody to develop um and put business on it that are would be consistent with uh what he has. Uh now the current seal building is to be uh I believe sold to uh Freedom Olay as a loadout facility. Other than that, that's about all I know. That's that's good though, Jim. I appreciate you being here. He had told me you were coming to represent tonight, so glad you're here. Any questions? Question. Yeah, that's that's okay, though. All right. Thanks, Jim. All right. The uh the other public the other purpose of this hearing is to hear evidence for or against the economic development corporation's purchase of property that can be described as 202 Jackson Street, Mount Vernon 51 acre tract and the Joseph Talbot survey 8493. and Joseph Sloan survey A425 from the FCAD parcel number 4119 and 303 North Kaufman Street 28 acre tract in the Joseph Talbot survey A493 FC a parcel number 9668. Why we got to read all this? I guess I'll speak to it. Can I speak from here? Um, my name is still Craig Lindholm. Uh, last week the uh Economic Development Corporation board uh uh voted to approve the purchase of two parcels of property. One is a half acre that's vacant and one is about a quarter acre that has a building on it and they're purchasing it on behalf and for the use the future use for the city and we appreciate their willingness to do

that. That's all I have. These are over by the park. They're they're Yes. in that proximity. Look at her. I want to make sure that I'm reading this right. You're you're reading it absolutely correctly. All right. And the uh the third purpose of this hearing is to hear evidence for or against an amendment to the zoning ordinance and adopting a land use ordinance. Yes, mayor. As you're well aware, as council's aware, the uh MHS planning has been working uh diligently over the last four or five months on uh our future land use plan. Um and they've completed that. Uh they were here last month presenting that to council at a workshop. Uh they've also completed an amendment to the zoning ordinance and uh that's uh we're just holding this public hearing prior to y'all making a decision with regarding an adoption of those two documents. All right. So it is 606 and I'll close the public hearing on items to be considered. We'll start with item number two. Consider an act appro on considering act upon approval of ordinance 2025-04 adopting the replat request by C Wayne Bowman property ID 52 geographic ID read that 0085 120 four lots anyway this is this is pretty basic stuff Wayne's making the rest of that property available to be developed and thankfully he's done it on the front end and got Mr. common to get it surveyed out and platted properly so that property can be marketed and and put to work for the next buildings to go on. So, this is instead of sitting on stuff and he's uh he's pushing pushing things forward and and and moving

forward with a plan. So, it's great to see somebody buy something and and try to put it to work right now. Absolutely. That's that's what this is. So, need a motion. Need a motion. Motion. Motion. Second. Second from all in favor. I thanks Jim. You push it over the line for him. Tell him it was tough. He had to do the negotiation. No, thanks for getting that thing tidied up for him. All right. Item four, consider an act upon a appro upon approval of resolution 25-08 adopting the land use plan. So, we've done this through public hearings and I mean hearings, but workshops. Workshops and several meetings. Yeah, several meetings. So, this is I skip three. Okay, we'll do four first and then do three. I've already read it. Yeah, [Laughter] this is this 174 line page deal we're looking at here. Yeah. Yeah. And there will be a test on it next month. And this was the last workshop when he came to talk about all this. Yes, sir. Yes. Land use is about 30. It's good work, too. We do need a motion to approve the land use plan. I'm sorry. I'll second. Second from Rebecca. All in favor? I. All right. Number three. Consider an act upon approval of the economic development court purchase of property that can be described as 202 Jackson Street, Mount Vernon 51 track, Joseph Tapet survey, A493 and the Joseph survey A425 FCAD parcel number 4119 and 303 North Coffin Street 28acre track in the

Joseph Tallett Survey Survey A493 FCAD parcel number 9668 and appointing city administrator Craig Lenholm as designated to sign or flip the closing documents. We want to make sure Craig has the ability to close on this. Yes. Now, now is that is this it's like landlock and this is an opportunity to buy some property for future for future city use. Okay. And we're voting on both of them to to purchase. Okay. We're we will only be closing on one of them at this time. Okay. This is that beauty shop that sits between here and the splash pad right against other wraps around the back. Correct. So, we need a motion to a motion from Mark. Second. Second from Mary. All in favor? I. All right. Item number five, consider an act upon approval of ordinance 2025-03 amending the zoning ordinance. And and I'm excited us finally get to this point. So we go from being very vulnerable to really bringing ourselves last time we updated zoning was 50 years ago or whatever it was in the 70s. Didn't we have some question based off that workshop you follow up with us on? I forget exactly what it was. couple of zoning like tied together. Yeah, it was good thing about what we're doing too. It gives us a lot of flexibility to consider project by project and so it's not things that can be addressed when an opportunity comes along. But it gives us a lot of protection from things just showing up that we didn't have the ability to have any say in.

So, we need a motion to approve the new zoning ordinances. I'll make a motion. Motion from Mari. Second. Second from Rebecca. All in favor? I. All right. Item number six consider 16. In your leisure. Oh, that's right. So, we're going to wait till next the May meeting on this one. We're not prepared for that one yet. The reason we're doing that is because Cool. Hey, you did it. Yeah. For those that don't know, we got a $750,000 grant dollar grant from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. And uh so this is kind of cool. They're drawing out all the opportunities to have us put it to work the best. And then Texas Parks and Wildlife came back and said, "We like y'all like y'all to apply for even more grant funding." And one of the things they like is that we've been um I'm going to say this just so it's all recorded for in the future, too. But um instead of just having Little Creek Park as a park, y'all did this as a council. We we made the city lake and the land around it a park. We also made the plaza a park. The higher percentage of land you have in your city limits that is a park versus higher percent is the better it looks and the better you rank applying for grants and so we like to see walking trail running trail around the lake I mean that's a that's a big part right so anyway it's encouraging to see that the things we're doing are they're absolutely leading to positive progress too so we'll do this next month and apply for it as one project again it was nice for them to ask us to apply it's always a very good sign when she did

the very bought. So now some fun stuff here. A little ketchup from the guys. Yes. Yeah. I think that we need to ch start with our public works director and I'm just going to go over the major things that we Chad P. All right. Uh in the last few months, we completed the the meter installation minus we're still waiting on two meters, two three inch meters. They're back. Uh, we talked about selling the old meters to whoever would like them, scrap them, bring revenue in, and everybody wanted them. Nobody showed up. So now when the guys have downtime, they're breaking down the meters. Cities going to sell them. We'll make a little more that way, too. Um, we completed wastewater treatment renovation, the water plant treatment renovation. It's It's done. We're still working on organizing stuff around the maintenance bar, but it's getting a lot better. Uh, we helped the county. We located and exposed the leak to their geothermal system so they could have it prepared. Looped in the water man on street. So, you know, it was a dead in main that we weren't aware about. So, we looped it in. So now there's water circulating through there. And we're currently working with electricians and a concrete contractor

at the wastewater plant trying to get the new generator from Missouri here and getting bids and prices on what it's going to cost to finish that job. We're also working with you know they have a long list of stuff that they the state would like to see. So, we're going to try to work that into our schedule and then on Scott Street then I'll rest get more in detail. Thanks, J. that don't know I'm Kyle Rogers department head for maintenance and utilities. Yeah. Kind of feel like this has been the season of remodels and new builds because we started with our office move to Kathy's office. We assisted in remodels for both wastewater and freshwater plants. We redid the plumbing for the bathrooms. We completely built freshwater plants bathroom painted red cement tiles trim work did it all. Uh and we currently assisting the animal shelter. We got to do some concrete work. We got to tear down some walls, expand their laundry room, washing dog blankets and such. concrete work. We got to cut new drainage ditches because that's one of the state requirements for all the kennels. They have to have a

ditch to easier to clean. Uh as Chad had mentioned, we uh recently changed out all the meters in town or had a subcontractor company to come in and do all that. It's really a good thing. It used to take us nearly a whole day to get every meter in town. Now we can do the whole lot more time to knock out all these other projects going up with our normal duties. You know, we've had people come in water taps and of course now we don't know if you have been driving down the streets lately. We have had a few pop since these major rains. The guys out today project also mowing season's upon us shed all our rideways. We also helped spring installed we installed and repaired the faucets down at rock out through there. We'll be cutting a drainage ditch. as well. Thanks. You guys don't get bored, do you?

James has put together a dent. No, no. I'm James White. supervisor or department head for the wastewater treatment plant. Uh since January, we've had quite a few things we've done. Uh we've had uh we swapped out pump, one of our large flight pumps on lift station number two. Uh I believe that was one of our $40,000 pumps. Uh we've got one sitting in the shop right now, but we're going to hold off on rebuilding it right now. We've also had lift stations uh number four and number five. We did electrical work to them. They've got their own little metering system that tells us reads back to the to our phones and stuff. We had some issues with the omni box. So, one of my guys is real good in electronics. So, he hooked it up and got it all going himself. So, I'm proud of that for him. Uh we've also finished up the tool room. We all have new lights, new paint, new shelf, all in the tool room. uh service team. Let's uh service team. We had a uh open house which everybody knew of 242. We had our open house at the wastewater plant. Uh we had some float issues with our fine screen. So we worked on our fine screen. We raised our level of our floats to help more flow. Uh it's going off too soon, running too often. So we've kind of fixed it. it. We've redone all the Wi-Fi to the plant. All our SCA systems all been moved into our lab as y'all know and all the wiring, everything has been chained up, redone. Uh we had our air raator serviced back in uh here just just recently uh the end of February and uh they said everything was good, but I think next year we're not going to use them. I was not real impressed with

their work. So I feel like We want to change that. Uh we've had some RAS pumps issues. We've got one RAS pump that's our return activated sludge. Uh matter of fact, it's at the shop right now and I'm waiting on a bid on it for rebuild. We've got three others that are running. There's a total of four. We got three running right now. So right now we're okay. We have backups while we're running. KSA was out to do surveys. They did survey on all manholes, all vinyl structures, everything out there. Uh did a lot more in depth survey this time. We also cleaned up the animal shelter. We helped the We moved the animal shelter from waste water to the new facility. Uh we've got everything cleaned up down there. All the kennels are out. Office is all cleaned up. All the chain links gone. So we've got it all cleaned up. We did some repair work on air raator number four. We put a hub assembly on with Chad and utility guys come out and helped us. We needed some way to lift it, so they helped us with all that. We've cut floor drains into our belt pressure room. Our water would just run out the building, been rusting out the side of the building. Chad and his guys come over and we did they cut drains in the floor for us. made it a lot nicer than what it was. It don't go anywhere. And I've been in touch with KSA. Our wastewater permit will go out three of 2026. So we'll be renewing our waste water treatment plant. Thank you, James. Blake, come on up. Thank you. [Music]

Mayor Manager U Blake Sheffield, the fire chief in Mount Vernon. Got um from January 1st to March 31st of this year, we've ran 311 calls for service. Uh so we're on pace this year already to hit, 1244 calls. That'll be a 10% increase from 2024. Uh we've had 117 calls in the city, 147 calls in the county. We have had also uh 46 no response. So these are calls Normally these are uh around 14% which is about average for what we've been going. These are calls usually that are medical calls at nighttime on the weekends that no you know they'll call for the volunteer departments and and nobody will show up. That's kind of is um we're about we've got about 20 or 30 fire hydrants left in the city to be fully uh complete. So we will have inspected every fire hydrant within in the city and we'll have that done here probably by the end of this month. And this is something that's not just something for the fire department. This is something for our ISO rating. So these are points that you get for your ISO. So right now the city of Mount Vernon is sitting at ISO 4, which is what your insurance is based off of. And so with with the hydrants doing that take care of these hydrants uh every every other year. That will help us in point so we can drop that and help lower insurance rates for people's homes. Do we know the last time they were inspected? I do not. I'd have to call the state fire marshal and see when that was done was it. So we're due for So having this stuff will help us. This the reporting system having the hydrants inspected. Uh all these will give us more points to lower our ISO. We currently have four uh firefighters here in Mount Vernon that enrolled in commission classes. Three of them are inspector one and two. I think I talked about that earlier this year this year, but these uh they're about twothirds of the way through their classes and they have reported that they're all have A's

in their classes. We also have one more one firefighter that is enrolled in the basic structural firefighting class. He is almost finished with it. He will have his two weeks of on hands in in June and then once he's done he will be a certified firefighter. These classes are all paid for through the Texas Forest Service through a grant. So they're 100% reimbursement. Um Oh yeah. Oh, so March 13th last month we had our by annual inspection for the commission. This was a big thing that's done every every two years. We basically I I say we scored a 95. We had one uh one deduction or thing we were written up for and it was basically a deficiency in the documenting of the inspection of our hoods. So the hoods nowadays have to you have to hold them up, stick a light up through there if the light shows shines through the hood that it fails. We didn't do that properly document that that's been taken care of, remedy. So and we've got so we've got a clean bill of health through the Texas Commission on Fire Protection. So, we have two years for that. Also, we've received three bids to remodel the fire station. Firefighters are not as gifted as a lot of these other city guys, you know, as far as doing our own remodeling. These guys are talented in that. Fireman, not so much. Uh, so more good at knocking. They tear up. We tend to tear up more stuff. Station was built in ' 87. So, I think when the bu when the station was built was not ready to accommodate any potential overnight stain or housing. So, these are something that we're looking at in the future. Uh, got a report from the Texas Forestry Service. They're expecting a dry summer this year. So, we will have an elevated fire risk for wildland and fire hazards and grass fires and things like that out in the county and around the city. So, these are things that we're trying to nip in the bud as far as taking care of mechanical issues. So, each apparatus that we've got has got little issues and we're slowly working on them a little bit at a time trying to take care of them. Usually, if we have to send it off an will be gone for two to three weeks. So, we're trying to fix what we can here

and then hold off before we send it off and have that fixed. Uh last, the city has sent over an interlocal agreement with the county. Uh this is to provide fire protection to the unincorporated areas in Franklin County. Um, this will not only help for fire protection and response times throughout the county. This will also help with the people that have had insurance issues around the county outside outside the city of Mount Vernon. If you're outside the city of Mount Vernon, say in the north side of the county and the south side of county out past five miles, you're you have you now have an ISO of a 10, which is declared as a no no fire protection. So, a lot of these people have seen their insurance rates go up, if not I, usually the first of the month, I'll get several calls when somebody's insurance is up for renewal. They'll call them out fire department, say around the lake or up around Hagensport asking for help from the fire department as far as writing a letter saying that we would cover. Technically, we can't do that because it's outside of our fire protection. So, so anyway, we've we've submitted a interlocal with the county and we're basically waiting for a response or questions on that at this time. Question on the the fire engine transmission was out transmission problems. Did we ever get anything on that? It was a what they call shifter solenoid. So, basically helps put it in getting out of gear. But that that particular apparatus you had to break the transmission apart the transmission. Yes, sir. We love I'm Jennifer with with the animal shelter and animal control in Mount Vernon. So, we're in our new shelter now. Um we're organizing everything, trying to get it labeled so we know where all of our supplies are. We're

It's an amazing building. The animals are having a in their playard and we're able to disinfect fully the cement pad that they play on and stuff. Um, we're just trying to get all the paperwork in order for our volunteers and all the other many paperwork that we had to do. It was amazing to have the state come out and evaluate our facility and tell us what ways we need to fix it. Um, but we have a bright future there and we're super excited. You're taking some animals in come in, right? Yes, we've had some come in. Luckily, over 50% that have come in have been reclaims. So, we've been able to find their original owners and return them, which has been phenomenal. Last year, we didn't have very many reclaims. We had a few here and there, but this year we're doing really good on the reclaims. Facebook is doing great. People are spreading it. If they see an animal, they're neighbor, and we're getting them back to their original owner, which is phenomenal. So, we have a bright future and we're super excited. We can't wait to see what the future holds. Elon Musk and JD are getting along well, too. I adopted a little black cat and I named it Elon Musk. So, somebody adopted a cat last week, too, and they named theirs Elon, too. They did? Yeah. I was like, a trend. Okay. Exactly. I got the the last one I adopted, I named it JD Vance. So, we got JD Vance and Elon Musk. So, now you need to adopt one and name it Trump. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking for a puppy. Yeah. Before you go adopt another, but thank you for all you do, council. Thanks, Jennifer. We always save the best for last. My name is Leah Thomas. I'm a lieutenant for the Mount Vernon Police Department.

Um, from January the 1st till April the 1st, we have responded to 676 calls for service. We have also made 939 traffic stops as well as uh 39 arrests. We have also completed nine crash reports. Um, so there's been nine accidents inside the city limits where we had to do a report and send it to um, text dot. And there has also been 103 reports that have been done and submitted to C, which is me and Jason. So 103 reports so far this year has been submitted to me and Jason for uh investigations and um to be sent over to county attorney and um district attorney. I had also applied for um two grants this year. So I applied for one through Homeland Security which was for the ballistic shields as well as the uh gas mask. I'd also applied through JAG for six desktop computers. Um, we had a committee meeting last week based on the JAG pertaining to the desktop computers and they are recommending for us to get full funding for it. Doesn't mean we're 100% there yet, but they are recommending for us to get the funding. So, um, haven't heard anything on the other one, so hopefully I should hear something in the next couple weeks on that one. And that's really all we have. Trying to keep everything on the the grants we got on the the cameras. Those coming in handy for y'all? So the flock cameras we have now, we did not get with the grant, but when we did apply for the grant for the additional flock cameras, we have not heard anything back on those. EDC bought those

Oh, they're very helpful. Oh. Oh, yeah. The cameras we have, they are they are very very useful. I won't ask you for details. I was just asking how they were working out. No, we have and and actually I'm starting to kind of they've kind of updated the system now with the flop cameras to where anytime we do utilize the cameras to either um solve a crime or anything related to that and arrest all that. It now downloads onto a spreadsheet to where now I can start utilizing and keeping up how often we're using the cameras and how productive they are at helping us. So yeah, it's actually And then um the live cameras here at the square, they have been amazing, too. I've been able to actually solve several cases with these cameras. I thought you were going to come entertaining. No, no, I don't I don't I don't watch for that. See enough of that without cameras. So, but no, it's all been helpful. Good. So, we do appreciate the purchase on all that, y'all. I really do. Any questions? Thank you, Leah. All right. You're welcome. Okay, for me, I just got a couple of things. Uh, I got a notification from my board today that next week they're committed to finishing our audit, which is going to be helpful because we need to get it to the Texas Texas Water Development Board. Um, for that's part of the technical review for the the big project with the water line, raw water line. So that's basically the last thing that they're waiting on for that and also for the wastewater treatment plant. Um on the 24th, uh Chad and James and I have and probably uh Anthony have a meeting with KSA uh to look at their their draft final draft of engineering for the projects for the uh

collection distribution for all the projects to kind of look at that. make sure that we haven't they haven't missed anything and that we're all on the same page on that. So, that project's moving along quite well. Um, you've been informed about the parks project. We're uh we have Carell and Arrington uh uh resurfacing on on the radar. We that project hasn't been completely approved by the state yet. It's a very long process through the that was a grant project and the client closing out the grant. So, we're not going to take any action on that until we get that final approval, but it will be done. It's hitting at a good time because we want to hit resurfacing a street in very hot, dry weather. Yeah. So, we're waiting on that and then everybody's getting ready to work on the budgets for next year. So, that's kind of where we're at with everything. It's been, as you know, it's been a very busy busy year. Submitted an appropriation request, too. We did that this last week. appropriations request for some improvements on the waste on the water treatment plant, further improvements and also uh for the uh reservoir for city lake to be designated as a reservoir or backup reservoir. So we've all that's been submitted and we'll see how where that goes. So like I said, it's been busy busy. So anyway, anybody have any questions? Thanks team for coming and sharing on all your departments like always. So it's my favorite part of our meeting I think because I mean it's you guys are making it happen but we got got the best team right now. We absolutely do and you are fun. I like that like fun people to work with but thanks for coming and sharing from all the

departments. All right there's nothing else. Ask for a motion to adjurnn. Motion motion. Second. All in favor? I thanks councel. Okay, we're putting a little bit safer ground.