City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Welcome to City Hall. Welcome to Council Chambers. It's wonderful to be back with you all today, so thanks for joining us as well. This morning, our invocation will be given by Father William Campbell with the Church of the Good Shepherd. Father?

Let us pray. O Lord, our Governor, bless the leaders of our land, that we may be a people at peace among ourselves and a blessing to other nations of the earth. To the president and members of the cabinet, to governors of states, mayors of cities, and to all in administrative authority, grant wisdom and grace in the exercise of their duties. To senators and representatives and those who make our laws in states, cities, and towns, give courage, wisdom, and foresight to provide for the needs of all our people. and to fulfill our obligations in the community of nations. To the judges and officers of our courts, give understanding and integrity that human rights may be safeguarded and justice served. And finally, teach our people to rely on your strength and to accept their responsibilities to their fellow citizens, that they may elect trustworthy leaders and make wise decisions for the well-being of our society, that we may serve you faithfully in our generation and honor your holy name. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Father. And the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the Texas state flag will be led by Melina Guzman. She is a senior. at South Texas Science and Technology. She's an honor roll scholar and student council senior class officer.

Melina. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please join me in honoring the Texas Pledge. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible.

Melina, thank you, and good luck in your studies. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

City Secretary Rebecca what that would you please call the roll. Mayor Paul at what heart of the present Council members rolling but at a year so the compost Eric and to kill it none this year Kaelin Paxson. Everett Roy. Mark Scott. Carolyn bond. City manager Peters and any president interim city attorney back price president. Mayor and Council a quorum of the Council and the required charter officers are present to conduct the meeting.

Thank you, Ms. Woodson. We'll go to Section E, and that is our city manager's comments and update on city operations. Mr. Zanoni.

Okay, great. Good morning, Mayor and members of the council. We do have two items on the city manager's report, and Nick is going to deliver the first one this morning, which is an update on our requested temporary suspension to the environmental releases that we do out of our Weston Reservoirs pursuant to the 2001 agreed order. And so, as you know, we did put an application in to have a temporary reprieve and requested that we begin those releases only when the reservoirs combined get to 50%. uh... today they're forty one percent and so the tcq administrative director executive director uh... did approve this request however does need the commission's full approval and that meeting is tomorrow so nick is going to give an update he'll be traveling later today with ryan scrobacic our intergovernmental relations director to austin for the tcq meeting tomorrow And we thought it'd be important to let the community and the council especially know about where we are with this request. So, Nick, we'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Peter. Nick Winkleman, Chief Operating Officer, Corpus Christi Water. As the city manager stated, I would like to give an update on our request for temporary suspension of special provisions of our agreed order. The current certificate of adjudication was formed in 1976 with the creation of Choke Canyon Reservoir. There was an agreed order establishing special procedures of specifically releases associated with our western reservoir systems in 1995. In 2001, the agreed order was amended to allow for further reduction of pass-through requirements of the total reservoir system. The parties of the agreed order are the City of Corpus Christi, the Nueces River Authority, and the City of Three Rivers, all of which have co-signed this request of the suspension of the special conditions. What is the agreed order says well when we are have a combined storage of 70% are greater the target per year is a 138,000 acre feet of water of environmental flows. The target is broken down into monthly totals and also is dependent upon the inflow received by the reservoir system. When the water system is less than 70% but greater than 40%, the amount of targeted releases is 97,000 acre feet. Additionally, the city receives credits for monthly targets of periods of low flow and other discharges into the bay system. The temporary requests and our paths forward, just go over some historical dates and what's going to be happening tomorrow and the rest of the week. On August 11th, the city of Corpus Christi, Nueces River Authority, and Three Rivers submitted an application to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to suspend the releases for 180 days or until a combined western reservoir capacity of 50%. On August 25th, the TCEQ executive director approved this request and in effect made the request effective at that date. However, the TCEQ board must review this decision and that's the board meeting tomorrow. We are first on the agenda. What the commission will do is either grant the request as is, deny it, modify it, or potentially they could send it to a hearing. So this state office of administrative hearings also called SOA. If it is sent to a SOA hearing, we believe that there could be a preliminary hearing as early as tomorrow after the TCQ board meeting, and then the hearing itself would start the following day. That would be Thursday. Again, we've seen quite a bit of support surrounding our request. Those include support from State Senators Chewy Hinojosa, Adam Hinojosa, Senator Zaffarini, and Representatives Todd Hunter, Denise Villalobos, and Ryan Guillen. Additional letters of support were furnished from the City of Beeville, Mathis, the San Patricio County Farm Bureau, the Nueces County Water Supply and Improvement District No. 3, River Acres Water Supply Corporation, and the San Patricio Municipal Water District. One thing that I can say is the team, including our legal counsel, put together a very strong petition to the TCQ, and we're thankful to the executive director for approving our petition and making it effective. We have worked and continue to work closely with TCQ. We will be in Austin this week to answer all their questions and further discuss the situation and the benefits that this suspension would have for our water supply. With that, Mayor and Council, I'll stand by for any questions.

Okay, thank you, Nick. Councilman Hernandez.

Yes, has Colsa Bend Basin Estuary still against this, of us not releasing water? or opposing this temporary halt on releasing water? That is correct. Do you expect them to testify at the board meeting?

I believe that would be the case. I don't know for sure. They haven't confirmed that or not, but I believe it would be the case.

Okay. When we brought this up in years past, it had been a recommendation from CCW specifically Stefan Ramos to not open this can of worms is it is it still his position or CCW's position on that or.

Sure councilman so this is a temporary request a temporary suspension so and again it would take it effect if approved for 180 days or until the western reservoirs recovered a 50%. We feel strongly that that is the right move for our water supply. Additionally, though, a full change of the agreed order would require the establishment of the NEAC, the Nueces Estuary Advisory Council. CCW is fully supportive of getting that council back together. and meeting to discuss about the next steps because I do know Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries, they've approached us. They would like to see some of the conditions change a little bit. I think they're in favor of more of a consistent flow. So it's worth getting the group together and reevaluating the entire agreement.

Okay, so it's your position, CCW's position, that we do want to move forward and go to a more permanent solution as opposed to just a temporary one?

We want to work through with all the established parties on reevaluating the full agreement. What that looks like, I'm not sure, because we'll have to, you know, it's not just CCW that has a seat at the table, but it's all the other entities, and we're committed to working through that with everyone in the NEAC.

Okay, and I noticed you're not doing a water report today, and there was some question I did want to ask on that, but specifically the, I know that Sinton has refused to provide us their hydrology report, and we submitted an open records request on it, and did we, or can you give us the status of that?

Sure, the city did support an open records request to the city of Sinton, The response that has been received is that they have reached out to the state attorney general to see if they can indeed furnish that report.

Okay, so I want to be clear on this because did we provide them the hydrology report that was done by the Evangeline group?

The seller did.

So they were provided with Steve Young's report, the hydrology report.

They were provided with hydrogeology and information from Steve Young, and that would have been from the seller, the Evangeline Laguna Group.

But you're saying that they're refusing to provide their hydrologist report to us.

That's what we know is they've asked the Attorney General if they could send it to us because they wanted to seek a second opinion before submitting it just directly to the seller, Evangeline Laguna.

Okay, so did we, when that report was provided to Sinton, was there any redactions to that report? No. Not that I'm aware of. Okay, so we provided full information about the hydrologist report on the Evangeline property. To my knowledge, yes. But they refused to provide it to us. Yes. Okay, thank you.

Councilwoman Paxson.

Thank you. Thank you, Nick, for the update. So our request is for basically six months of... on those pass-throughs or until the combined levels reach 50%?

Correct, it's or, either or.

Okay, either or. And so we received that initial approval, and it has to go to the full board. When does that 180 days take effect? When we applied or when they give us that final approval?

It took effect immediately when the executive director approved the request. So it took effect on August 25th.

Okay, so... You said that CCW is in support of reactivating NEAC to evaluate the long-term solutions. I'm just curious, I think that's something that we would already be initiating right now because I'm hopeful, I appreciate TCQ's support in this temporary pause. We've needed it for a while, but I think we need to be proactive because we're still, I think, going to come to them with some kind of long-term change recommendation, and I don't want us to be the holdup. Six months is not a long time to look at that.

Yeah, it goes quick, Councilwoman. One thing that I can say is CCW is not in charge of the NEAC. It's not our job to facilitate or bring it back together. It'll be, and we'll make a request of TCEQ to do that, to reestablish the group.

Peter. Right, just to add to that, so we have to get going to get TCEQ the City of Three Rivers and the Nueces River Authority to, in partnership with us, send that written request in. In fact, when Nick's, they're going to be at TCEQ tomorrow, so they probably will give them a verbal tomorrow as well. But we have to officially request the more long-term review. And so we're in the process of doing that.

That's what I'm trying to assess or rather get some confirmation that we We're not pausing that because we do have to get that.

Correct.

I want to be very proactive is what I'm trying to say, you know, get that, get the approval from the other two partners and don't wait on it because six months is going to go fast.

No, we agree. So we'll have a resolution for the city council to, to, to give us guidance to do that. New Asus river authority will need something on their, uh, on their commission's agenda, as well as the city of three rivers, their city council probably will pass a resolution as well to guide us all three to submit something in writing. Because as Nick said, the TCEQ is the one that activates that oversight group.

Sure.

But we have to put in an official request. They know we're working on it, and Nick will be telling them tomorrow in person, but we need official writing to kick off that review.

So seeing them tomorrow, which we know we will, and we're grateful for them to support this endeavor, when do we anticipate bringing that resolution to council?

We'll have a better answer after tomorrow, so it could be next week, Tuesday, or the first meeting in October.

Okay, could you send that update to us after we receive it tomorrow?

Yes, we can.

Thank you.

So, Peter, we already passed a resolution on this.

Well, I think we passed one on the temporary application.

No, it was, I mean, because it was my item. It was a resolution to move forward with the temporary, and then there was a separate item, a resolution, to move forward with looking at the framework, because it is from 1995, and I believe it was amended in 2001, but to really look at this and start this process. So this should be, it is there. We'd have to look at the agenda of when that resolution was passed, but I know it was two items. One was for the agreement, the temporary, and the second item was for exactly this to move forward with the process which was going to be a long one but nonetheless it has to start so so yes i think we have been proactive and we appreciate that but let's look that up and make sure we we do move forward with that okay we'll double check that and then uh we'll activate those other two entities that are absolutely certificate holders with us thank you peter and nick thank you for the presentation thank you yes

Okay, good. And Nick and through my through, I'll keep the council informed as to tomorrow's actions. As Nick said, this is their first item on the TCQ committee tomorrow. Okay, good. We have one other item and Chief Wade's going to help me on this one, but we want to talk to the council and the community about what this city is doing for our 9-11 remembrance. 9-11 is this Friday. And each year there is an event that's held by the city and it's the city's fire department that holds the event. This year, the city's police department will be there, as well as the Port of Corpus Christi will join us in our efforts. This 9-11 is significant because it marks 25 years since the day of the attack on our nation. This year's remembrance ceremony is at Heritage Park on North Chaparral Street, and Chief Wade will be leading that on Friday. And just a quick fact here, according to the 9-11 Memorial and Museum, 100 million Americans, 100 million are too young to remember the day of 9-11. So it's important for those that were here on 9-11 that we continue to share with our generations of Americans how significant this day was and why it's important to remember the legacy. There'll be other ceremonies here in town. The Coast Guard will have their annual Whataburger field climb amongst the stairs there. The Refinery Terminal Fire Company is also hosting a memorial walk along the seawall. But at this time, Chief Wade's going to go into a little more detail about the event that we'll sponsor as a city.

Absolutely. Thank you, Peter. And thank you, Mayor, Council, Brandon Wade, Fire Chief. So as the city manager said, this is the 25th anniversary of the attacks of 9-11. And you're right, there's a whole generation that was not alive during that time that those events happened. So it is important for us to always remember this because a lot of things have changed by that day when those attacks occurred. So on September the 11th, 2,977 victims of that includes all three of the events that happened, the airliner crash, the Pentagon, and of course the World Trade Center. Especially to the fire service, 343 firefighters' lives were lost that day. That is the greatest loss of life of firefighters in the world that we know of. So that is a huge day that marks the fire service, and many things have changed in the fire service with that event on that day, as well as 71 law enforcement officers from NYPD, Port Authority, that responded that day as well, lost their lives responding to that event. Since that day, though, one of the more remarkable numbers is more lives have been lost now due to the effects of that day from cancers, the various diseases, from the recovery efforts, from the response efforts that is now surpassed the number of lives lost that day is now through the health effects from all of those responders and the recovery efforts that happened and we're still seeing that today and that was everything from firefighters police officers that was there during that time to even the urban search and rescue teams that came from across the country to help in the the recovery efforts many of those have unfortunately perished due to cancers and everything else with it So here locally, we have our 9-11 Remembrance Ceremony that we host as a city. While the fire department may take a lead role in it, we are assisted greatly by the Corpus Christi Police Department. and helping us make that event very special. If you've been there before, I think it brings great dignity to those lives that were lost or affected. And we will be having that at Heritage Park this year, same place we held it last year. It does provide some nice shade. It's typically hot this time of year, so being able to be there under the shade trees while that ceremony is going. So it will be at Heritage Park at 8.30 in the morning. There will be remarks by myself, Chief Markle, and more than likely Chief Giannamore from the Port of Corpus Christi as well, giving remarks. The Honor Guard is there. Again, the ceremony is very humbling to be part of, and we're blessed the city continues to sponsor and support that. That is open to the public, so the public can go and join in the ceremony as they have done in the past. We see everything just from citizens wanting to be there to retirees from various fire departments, police departments, military that do come and take part in the event. There's also the 9-11 Memorial Workout that is sponsored. The Coast Guard is the lead for that. They work with the Whataburger Field. They have that at 7.30 is when their opening starts to let people inside. And that event, though, is going to be specifically the first session at 8 o'clock is going to be for military or for first responders. And they will do the walk through the stadium. And then they will have a general public walk at 930, which then they can take part of. Also, the Refinery Terminal Fire Company, they also host a memorial walk. And they do that along the seawall there. And they start right in front of the Hilliard Center. I think mainly people park there at the Art Center parking there right by the water. They start their check-in at 7 a.m. in the morning. They do a short memorial at 746. And then at 803 is when they begin their walk down the sidewalk and back over there to it. That event is also open to the general public for them to be able to take part in as well. And with that, again, as we said, we are blessed to be able to serve our community. The police, the fire, it is a distinct honor and privilege. I think as we go back and we remember those ceremonies, I mean the events of that day, it was really a marker in time in which it showed the heroism, the bravery, the true courage of the police officers and the firefighters that responded to that day. I know personally from acquaintances, And people I know, it's remarkable to hear their stories and their tales of them responding to that event. And I think that shows the courage that firefighters and police officers had. Many of those firefighters and police officers, they knew they would not be returning. They knew they were going up to save people, and they did not believe they were going to survive and they went anyway. And that is what your firefighters here and your police officers here do every day when they're responding. So it highlighted that at that time. But I just want you to know that that same commitment is here every day with your police officers and your firefighters that serve the Corpus Christi. And we're blessed and we're privileged to do it. So, again, we invite the public to come out, take part in the event. You can bring your family. And we look forward to seeing everybody out there. And thank you for your all support. to public safety and letting us continue to do the job that we do. So with that, if you have any questions.

Thank you, Chief Wade. And thank you for sponsoring this wonderful event. And you said it very well. Our firefighters and officers, they don't know. You don't know what you're going to encounter. So we appreciate everything that we have in both departments. Councilman Scott.

So my brother lives in New York City. And he was there on 9-11. What he says is the terrorist mistake was we came together, right? We came together. And you saw it that day. He saw it when he was walking down to see if he could volunteer. And they said, you know. And then we saw it in the baseball game a couple of days later. So I just want to say thank you. Chief, thank you. Chief, thank you. Thank you to your men and women for their service. And I look forward to coming together and recognizing the prize. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Chief White, thank you for the presentation.

Okay, that concludes the City Manager's report.

Thank you, Mr. Zanoni. So it is 12.02. We are going to go to public comment. So before we begin public comment, I want to remind everyone that the City Council has adopted rules of decorum to help ensure that our meetings remain orderly, respectful, and productive. Copies of the rules of decorum are available at the City Secretary's office across the hall and are also available on the City's website. I ask everyone to please conduct themselves accordingly. We are here to do the people's work, and we would like to proceed in that spirit. When you do come forward, please state your name and the city in which you reside before beginning your comments. In-person speakers will have up to three minutes. For callers and WebEx participants, Corpus Christi residents will have up to three minutes, and non-residents will have up to one minute. The timer located at the city secretary's desk will help keep everyone within the allotted time. If you have a petition or other materials you would like the council to receive, please provide them to the city secretary before you begin speaking. So this afternoon we have 21 total public commenters. We're going to start with Ms. Robin Sanders.

Let me give this to the secretary. Before I start my reason for being here, when you're talking to the water people, tell them that's the stupidest thing that could possibly happen is releasing our water into the bay. Take a teaspoon, put it in an Olympic pool. What difference does that make? We have struggled and we have suffered, and I'm ready to march on that one. My purpose for being here is concerning removing the chairman of the board of directors from the appraisal district. All through this FEMA fraud, particularly, Mayor, that dog and pony show that you went through, Not one time did I hear mentioned that the second party in that conflict was Devin Bokta. Nor was it associated that he is the chairman of the board of the appraisal district. Not one time. You cannot participate in something like that and keep that position. How did Devin Bokta get that job? You gave it to him. City council appointed him. He's there to represent the city of Corpus Christi. You put him in there and you can take him out. You've let the wolf in the hen house. Right before his nomination, Devin Bokta spread $20,000 over the city council. Now that's not particularly horrible for people to make contributions. But what does make it something to look at is that the contribution to a council member was made a day before the vote or a day after the vote. Now that's something that makes it look like a quid pro quo. There are no records, and I've done deep dive ANI research, cannot even find his application or a resume or references. All of a sudden, he just appeared to be put into that position. Now, what I've given to our secretary has a list of no-no's. that are conflicts of interest and things that a person in that position can do to be removed from that position. I am begging of you to please read that information and agree with me that you need to put into action the removal. I understand that it only takes three people to get this on the agenda. And I know I've got three honest people there, at least I'm counting on it. That's it.

Thank you, Ms. Sanders.

It's your duty.

Stephen Klepper. Then we'll hear from Robert Rocha, Marilena Garza, Adam Rios, and Susie Saldana.

Steve Klepper, District 2. I'm here to give you three suggestions on what to think about when you look at item number 31, the briefing on the internal auditor annual work plan. Step number one, keep in mind why we have an internal auditor and how it came to be created, which was relatively recent, 2010. Mr. Councilman Scott was on the council then. the citizens voted to establish for the very first time an independent, independent is the key word, Office of Internal Auditory. If I could get this guy, Cam, to zoom in on, yeah, I would appreciate that piece of paper that I have there.

Can I move it down?

This is a slide that I used January 25th of 2025, just 18 months ago. But it's the same issue that led to the creation of the internal auditor, the city auditor. The city wasn't transparent. The city, at least viewed as not being transparent, not held accountable. The citizens want to know, still want to know, what it is that infects their lives, like the stray dog complaints, how many potholes, how long they've been out there, and all of that. The whole idea of accountability, my little picture here of the castle... Like, well, we can't really see any. There's city council out there. Lack of an independent internal audit function makes your job more difficult, too. And it certainly shortchanges the public. The whole idea, provide a source of information. As Pudge on the Pudge radio always says, often says, We're late to the party. For those late to the party, the city of Corpus Christi was very late to the party. It's the only major city to not have had an internal auditing department. All the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex cities do and did then, Austin, Dallas. And I was an audit director in one of those cities up the road. And so here we are. We find us again where the auditor would be very useful in providing information to help with the budget. The budget is not built around levels of service and service levels. It's just about how much money is being spent. That could be a job of the auditor. Now, one of the things, and that would actually be, so keep in mind, and I wanted to make sure you keep in mind that the auditor is a legislative audit. It's an auditor for you, the council, just like the GAO, which is Government Accountability Office. It's not an accountant. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Klepper. Robert Rocha.

Good morning, Mayor, City Council, Robert Rocha, District 3. How fitting it is for the item that I'm going to bring up for discussion revolves around firefighters and retired firefighters and Councilman Scott, I appreciate your comments about the coming together process, and I certainly hope that that's going to be near into our future. What I would like to ask the city council, the mayor, and the city manager is to take a look at the increases that are being charged to our retired firefighters and their families. It's my understanding there's been an increase proposed, and all I ask is that the interested parties come together, take a look at it, If it's what it is what it is, then that's what it is. But I just ask on behalf of our retired firefighters that we take a look at that pension, the cost that it costs to have insurance for themselves and their families. And I appreciate the opportunity to come and say hello and welcome back to the City Council, Mayor.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rocha. Thank you. And we do, just to address that, we have an item that I'm placing on the agenda to have a briefing over that particular subject next week.

That's correct. We'll have an item on next week's City Council agenda.

What's that?

I'm sorry. We're going to have an item on next week's City Council agenda on this issue. Yes, thank you. We did send to Council, too, a memo on Friday, September 2nd, And so we'll make sure you have a copy of that, Mayor, that lays out the cost for retirees. And just to point out here, the fire retiree, single person only, no dependents, is $395 per month, where the police is $667 per month, and the civilian is $988 per month. So while the cost may have gone up, for all accounts, the fire retiree still pays almost half and even more than half of what the others do. But we'll have a full report for the council for next week. I talked to Councilman Roy as well this morning, so we'll have some options for the council to consider next week.

Thank you, Peter. Councilwoman Paxson? Thank you.

Peter, we talked about this like three weeks ago, and this was... Right. You went back and forth with the association, with the fire department, and... Basically, we discovered that that was reality. There were some retired firefighters who were experiencing nearly a 90% increase with this.

That's correct, Councilwoman. So for the fire retiree, the insurance is governed by their collective bargaining agreement. And so Michael Rodriguez, our deputy city manager, worked with the fire union president, other leadership, and we're making the recommendation to not change or open the contract. And as I pointed out, when you look at more details, it puts things in context. $395 a month versus for the civilian, $988, and the police... Retired person, 767. But the item for next week is to talk to council. We know that several firefighters are talking to the council, which they should be doing. But we just want to lay out all the facts for the council so that you can hear from us the issue at hand.

I think what we need to do is make it very clear to the individuals who will be experiencing this and also to the public because it's a terrible concern. But as far as we go, there's not a lot that we can do to change it. And that's the position that we're in is they're coming to us, which is rightfully so, and saying this is a problem. It's going to impact me very negatively. And our hands are tied.

Right.

So that type of thing where they can communicate on their end and get that clearly explained on their end, because that's where I don't want there to be the gap.

Right, that's why we'll talk about it next week.

Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Peter.

Marilena Garza.

Marilena Garza, District 1. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. We are 56 days away from the November election, so I want to ask a simple question.

Are you truly listening to your constituents?

Because what I'm hearing from residents at public input, budget sessions, public comment, candidate forums, and more is that they value their public libraries. They want them adequately supported, they want access protected, and they want this council to pay attention to what is happening inside these facilities. And what is going on inside them is in fiscal year 2021-2022, Corpus Christi Public Libraries recorded 330,094 in-person visits. In fiscal year 2025, that number had grown to 378,095. That's roughly a 15% increase compared to the pandemic-depressed 213,589 visits recorded. in 2020 to 2021, that's a 77% increase. And circulation tells an even stronger story. In fiscal year 2025, our sixth library system increased circulation to a record of 844,079 items, books, media, and digital materials. The library also provided more than 3,400 free programs with more than 91,000 attendees. These are not empty buildings. These are heavily used and treasured public assets. And yet, when the Library Advisory Board, the board this council appointed to advise you on the future of libraries, unanimously agreed to send a letter raising concerns about Hart Library, we received no response from council. No member of council came before the board to discuss concerns. That's troubling. Heart is not simply another municipal building. It is a 13,500 square foot public building with more than 47,000 pieces of material serving Flower Bluff and surrounding communities. So I'm asking this council to to do something very simple. Listen. Talk to your advisory board. Come to our meetings that are the first Tuesday of the month at La Ratama. Ask questions. Hear the concerns about heart and the future of the Corpus Christi's library system directly from the people you appointed to advise you. You appointed us. I had almost a unanimous vote with the exception of Gil to be on that board. And now I sit as the current chair of the board. So please start treating that responsibility and our libraries with the seriousness they deserve.

Thank you, Ms. Garza. Adam Rios.

Adam Rios, Corpus Christi. Good afternoon, mayor, council, and city staff. When I first became involved with Parks and Recreation, I came with a simple belief that recreation should reflect all of us. As you've heard me say before, not every kid carries a football or swings a bat. Some carry a skateboard, some ride a BMX bike. Some find their community in places that cities once overlooked. And I just wanted those young people to know that their passions matter, too. And I'm proud to say that together, we moved that idea forward. We were able to fight for skate parks. We helped bring new ones into the conversation and even into reality. We created greater awareness around alternative sports and communities that surround them. And although I did formally announce my departure from Parks and Recreation, I'm not finished. I still remain committed to the work of bringing a BMX track to District 3. I've accomplished a lot of what I wanted to accomplish with Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee. I'm just now choosing to carry that energy somewhere new. My next chapter, I'm hoping, will be as a member of the Arts and Cultural Commission. Because I believe a skateboard, a painting, a song, a mural, and a stage can all do something remarkably similar. They all exist in the same space to me. They give someone a place to belong. And I just want to help expand arts education and create opportunities for young people to discover that creativity belongs to them. I want to help develop new cultural events that can stand alongside the spirit and success of Day de los Muertos, Art Walk, and of course our newly formed Music Walk, because we have a very growing music and artistic community. I want to do events that are distinctly Corpus Christi, events that bring people downtown, fill our businesses, our independently and owned operated businesses, support local working artists and musicians, of course create tourism and generate real economic activity for our city, which these events do. Culture isn't simply decoration for a thriving city, I believe it's how a city truly thrives. Through my work on the board of directors at K-Space Contemporary, my relationships through our local music and arts communities, and my experience turning unconventional ideas into achievable projects, I believe I can bring something meaningful to this commission. So today, I respectfully ask for the support of council when this comes up to pursue this next opportunity to serve. I'm grateful for my time on the Parks and Rec Committee, for the people who believed in some pretty unconventional ideas, and for everyone who helped turn those into reality. I just want to take that same spirit and build something new. I want more art in the city. I want more music in the city. I want more books in the city. I want more culture in the city. I just want more people, more reasons for people to stay here, visit here, and most importantly, create here, because we all believe in Corpus Christi. So the work continues for me. I'm just sort of changing canvases, if you will. And I just ask when this subject comes up that I be considered for it. Thank you all very much.

Thank you, Mr. Rios. Susie Saldana. Yes, Councilman Cantu.

Peter, can we set up a meeting next week sometime about the library and have her involved in it?

Yeah, Ms. Garland.

I have some questions I want to ask, and I want to make sure we clear her concerns and everything.

Okay, a meeting with you, her, and us? Yeah. Okay, no problem. We'll set that up. Thank you.

Ms. Santana. First of all, Mayor, welcome back.

Thank you.

And next, I want to make sure that now that we're back together, that we start off on the right foot. And I know you all are willing to work for it so that we can come out and come out as one council. You know, I would love to shock the people and say that you guys are working 100% together. So it is my hope and my prayer that that happens and that it is done for the best of your constituents, the people you represent. That is my hope. And I hope that you guys really put your mind to it. It is essential. You've got from here till December. Some of you will not be back on those chairs. Some of you will. But you got from here to December to kind of straighten out your things and remember that you're going to be working with a whole different board, whether you like it or not. Some of you are gone. Some of you may be gone. So it's essential that you put your minds to it and put Corpus Christi first, the taxpayers first, and then you're going to do okay. Have a blessed day.

Thank you, Ms. Saldana. Amanda Gomez. And then we will have George Johnson, Jared Suarez, Amanda Guerra, and Carissa Tamez.

Good afternoon, Amanda Gomez, resident in District 5. There should be a video if we could.

Daniel's journey is one I'll never forget.

Lori came to us seeking food assistance from our pantry. Kelly was facing a series of life-altering challenges.

Ann arrived at our adult day center when she was 72 years old.

Paul started to believe in himself more and more.

He felt the warmth of people who never gave up on him.

I think that our highest calling is to help others. Helping someone in need restores and strengthens our own faith.

I felt as if the wisdom and traditions of our faith had come to life right in front of me.

I handed out more than supplies that day.

I saw through another's eyes, and I remembered what it means to love, to serve, and to be the neighbor somebody needs.

As a Catholic, I believe offering service to others in need with kindness and compassion is a fundamental teaching of my faith.

I kind of thought a little bit, is this great timing or not? In the midst of kind of a lot going on and high intense situations. And I thought, you know, this is a great time. One, because the event's happening next week. But two, because it's always good to throw a little bit of hope in every situation. To not lose hope ever, even when things get very difficult. So I have the pleasure to announce that Catholic Charities is going to be hosting the traveling museum that you saw in that video. It's that large tractor trailer retrofitted with a museum inside that's traveling across about 168 agencies throughout the United States. And the whole purpose of this traveling museum is to bring hope to every city that it comes across. It'll be here in our wonderful city of Corpus Christi on September the 14th and the 15th, which is next week. Public hours, as you see there and the invitations that you have, it will be at St. John Paul II High School from 3 to 5 o'clock. It takes about 30 minutes for you to go through the entire museum. And what is in there is several things. You have statewide statistics on poverty. You have stories of hope from staff volunteers who have encountered clients throughout Catholic Charities agencies. And there is also an in-house recording studio where anyone is welcome to record a story that they have of hope and service that they've encountered. I'm originally from the Rio Grande Valley. I moved here in 2021. And one thing that I've noticed about the city of Corpus Christi is a nonprofit organization community that comes out and serves the community. So this museum is more than Catholic charities. It's more than one agency. It's a community coming together.

Thank you, Ms. Gomez.

Thank you so much. Yes, ma'am.

George Johnson.

George Johnson, Corpus Christi. I live at 610 Brock. Came back from Austin this, well, I said Sunday, Monday. And across the street, there's a big sign in front yard of the neighbor across my street. And it's a roommates for recovery halfway house. Had just moved in over the weekend. And now I've come to find out that up to six individuals can live in this house right across the street from us. 27 years ago, I bought this house. I told my wife at that time, I'm not moving out until they pull me out in a box. And I meant it. I love Corpus Christi. I've lived here 54 years. That's how old I am. My parents lived in South Carolina. I was born and two months later, we moved here. So I got here as fast as I could. I never left here. I went to college here. I own a business here. I don't want to leave here. But guess what? This just made me want to leave. Portland and other places are looking really, really good right now. I cannot imagine if this occurred in Lamar Park, King's Crossing, Any other neighborhood. I don't even care if it happened on the west side. I can't imagine living across the street from a halfway house with a big sign that says roommates for recovery. And these are all men. I'm not going to dis men, but we're talking about all men. Up to six of them will live in this house. And please, I've already looked. I know that this is legal and within your code. But something must be done about this. I don't know what happened with the Airbnb crud that happened a couple weeks ago. I don't really care. But when a halfway house moves across the street from you or next door to you, oh, and by the way, single female lives across the street from them, right next door to her. Single female lives beside me, right next door to her. I would hate to be them. My wife is scared to death right now. She looked at me and goes, what are you going to do? I'm going to go talk to the council. And that's all I know to do at this point. I understand there was one in Meldo Park, but a big bunch of lawyers got involved. We don't have that in my neighborhood. There's a reason why I live in my neighborhood, because there is no homeowners association. I don't want a homeowners association telling me what color my door can be. But I'll tell you right now, I definitely don't want this across the street from me. I've looked into the guy. He's great. Veterans, all this other stuff. But I have no idea of any week who is going to be living in that house. Thank you.

Mr. Johnson, if you would, I noticed there's no you don't have a phone number or an email. If you'll right across the hallway is my office and you leave the ladies there with your contact info. And Peter, if you would maybe apprise the council of what not in this moment. in a memo right how this all works right and that way we can you know address this okay thank you councilwoman paxton peter do are we aware has development services at all talked to mr johnson i'm not aware of this the first i'm hearing of this situation so i can't answer that before he leaves property today can we have someone

go and address this and talk to him and get him some information so we can have the information as well so we can look at this deeply.

Yeah, I think Michael Dice is probably in the back, so Mr. Johnson.

I think Yvette's also back there.

What's that?

I think Yvette is also back there. Yeah. Okay, thank you.

We'll get somebody to come talk to Mr. Johnson before he leaves.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

Jared Suarez.

Jaris Watt is District 2. Welcome back, Mayor. The past Tuesday meetings of you suspended from being found guilty on three charges has been very peaceful around here. I hope you can continue that track record. Ms. Paxson, you did an excellent job with allowing the people to complete their thought when the timer went off. You allowed public feedback of clapping and ensured everyone had a chance to say what they wanted to say for every agenda item. I'm sure we'll hear the quorum to be said today. Last Tuesday meeting, the Corpus Christi Football Complex was brought up. I want to reiterate several questions that were asked. One, who ordered the pooling of funds? Two, why did the $5,000 check take so long to be accepted by the city? Three, who told CCPD to arrest Dr. K? And four, was it in retaliation that ICE was called to target the workers? Mayor, I would love to hear your thoughts on these questions since you have been accused of doing all of this. Last Tuesday night, a few caught in the moment when Mayor Pro Tem asked the city manager about the Inner Harbor vote if their no is all that is needed to shut down the Inner Harbor. The city manager responded with the vote wasn't on the agenda item, but on the motion. It seems knowing how the Fab Five would vote, a certain someone told a council member to quickly make a motion for this very thing to happen. Because the agenda was technically not voted on, they left the back door open to keep Inner Harbor alive. Just an observation, when council meetings last all day, we see y'all fatigued and want to go home. Who wouldn't be? My question to council and city manager is, why don't we have the big agenda items start after public comment? That would be better for your constituents to stay longer after public comment to address important big ideas, and then go home, doctor's appointment, or back to work. Think about your constituents, the ones that voted you in, unless you pulled a fast one with mail-in ballots. September 8th is the feast day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Happy birthday, Blessed Mother. Don't forget to pray your daily rosary and go to Latin Mass at the corner of Carolina and Guadalajara. Thank you.

Yes, statement of fact, that is completely fabricated and our city manager will clarify that today in executive session. Amanda Guerra. Amanda Guerra, Carissa Thomas.

Hi my name is Carissa Tamez District 3. My name is Carissa Tamez. I'm with the transportation. I'm a transportation planning coordinator with the Corpus Christi Metropolitan Planning Organization which we call the Corpus Christi MPO. We'd like to invite you and the public to attend our upcoming community meetings and public outreach events that we will be having. These events are an opportunity for us to hear directly from the community about the transportation needs in our area. and share information about our 2050 Metropolitan Transportation Plan, which we call our MTP. Our first community meeting will be held tomorrow, September 9th, right across the street at the RTA building, and it's going to be on the second floor boardroom. Additional meetings are going to be hosted in different locations across Corpus Christi and the Portland areas, and I And I would like to also invite you to attend our public outreach events that we will be having, which the public has a chance to enter into a drawing for children's bicycles. Our next event will be at the home opening weekend for the Corpus Christi Ice Race, which will be held September 11th and 12th. And each game you'll have a chance to enter into a drawing for the bicycle. Each bicycle drawing at these public events attendees must stop by our MPO table, it's the bright blue table that we'll be having, to receive a free ticket, and they'll also have the opportunity to talk with us about transportation. We encourage you to visit the 2050 MTP webpage to learn about our ongoing community engagement efforts and how to enter our year-end drawing for 10 adult bicycles. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions, and we'd like to thank you for your time.

Thank you. Henry Williams.

Henry Williams, District 1. And first, to the council, city manager, city secretary, and to the mayor. And mayor, we'd like to welcome you back.

Thank you.

Also, I would like to commend Councilwoman Paxson on the admirable job that she did as Mayor Pro Tem in your absence. Secondly, I would like to thank you all for voting no to the Anahaba desalination project. And if you would, I would certainly appreciate it if the Anahaba desalination did not resurrect itself again. Also, during the Nueces River Authority's presentation at our past city council meeting, there was a, in their presentation, a man from Israel desalination engineers spoke. And as he was speaking, someone asked him had he considered the Inner Harbor desalination. And he said that he did not because he did not feel that it was an appropriate place for desalination. And I would like for you all to consider that in case the Anaheim desalination does resurrect itself. And I certainly would hope that it does not. May God bless you all. Thank you.

Thank you, Reverend. Robert Schultz. Robert Schultz. Kathy Wimmer. Kathy Wimmer. Armand Alex.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Armand Alex. I was born and raised here in Corpus Christi. Last Tuesday, the people of Corpus Christi won, specifically because for the second September in a row, This council rejected the Inner Harbor desalination plan. And I want us to understand really what that means. We saw ordinary people organize for years against this particular project. Hillcrest residents have fought against putting another industrial burden beside their historically black neighborhood. We saw environmental advocates fight for our bay. Working class people questioned why we should take on nearly a billion dollar project when so much of our water crisis has been driven by heavy industry and the constant demand for more industrial growth. And despite all the money, despite the paid politicians, the consultants, the political pressure, and years poured into Inner Harbor, people kept showing up. And we won. So Mayor Guajardo, welcome back. But I hope we're not coming back into the same old politics. Because Inner Harbor should not get a third life. The project is unpopular. Yet after council rejected it last year, we watched it crawl right back onto this dais because the institutional machinery for the project was left standing. That cannot happen again. And we really do need to pull the permits. If there are specific legal procedures required to surrender, to terminate, or to relinquish them, please begin them. The city manager should bring those actions before city council, tell the public what must be done, and really finish the job. Keeping these permits alive sends a message to voters that somebody, somewhere, is still waiting for another political opportunity to resurrect the Inner Harbor desalination plant. I grew up here, I've watched Corpus Christi sacrifice land and neighborhoods, our clean air, public dollars, and enormous amounts of water in the name of industrial growth. And somehow working people are always told that the next sacrifice that they make will finally bring prosperity to them. Where is it at? Is it in our libraries? No. Is it in our streets? No. Is it in our parks? No. Is it in our public services? No. Start with the largest industrial users, strengthen curtailment, expand reuse and conservation, fix losses in our water system, and protect resident affordability. Our economy should be organized around human needs. Human beings should not be organized around the endless unchecked demands of industry. Please don't make the people bury it a third time. Pull the permits. Please do whatever it takes to prohibit inner harbor desalination. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Alex. Rudy Riojas? Okay, okay. And we're going to go to WebEx. Stephanie?

The first person we have signed up for online comment is Sean Merritt. Mr. Merritt, are you there?

I'm here. Hello, hello, hello. Can you hear me?

Yes, sir. Go ahead.

Sean Metz, live from D5, baby. And look who's back. Elton John wrote a song about it, but if I said the title, suspended mayor there would put out an arrest warrant for me. I'll continue referring to her as the suspended mayor because I do not recognize that 30-day suspension as having been properly completed. 30 consecutive days means 30 consecutive days you don't get released for good behavior for partial compliance. Before we get to that, though, let's remember what C3 was doing last week. We took you inside a multi-sport complex. We showed you the well-maintained fields when you pull in. Then we showed you the unfinished main field disappearing into the weeds. The empty grandstand framework, the entrance, CCFC identified as the location of the icing counter. The fire lane markings, they say, had to be painted before youth soccer could resume. And approximately $4 million of seats, covers, and equipment, they say, remain sitting uninstalled. We asked simple questions. Who called ICE? Who interfered with the Type B funding? Who pursued an arrest warrant for Dr. K? Why was the permit pulled? And why does approximately 80% complete private multi-sport complex appear to have encountered every bureaucratic landmine Corpus Christi could scatter in its path? The people directly involved kept pointing us towards one name, suspended mayor, which brings us to today's alleged return from suspension. Tassel found the suspended mayor responsible on three counts. Formerly reprimanded her, suspended her for 30 days. On August 8th, the day the suspension began, the mayor began posting using the Facebook account linked to her mayor page. On the 14th, she must have had some great pancakes at the hi-ho, because there she was posting about that too. Then her personal first page displayed Mayor Cydia Corpus Christi, linked directly to the official mayor webpage. This is why, as far as I'm concerned, she's still suspended mayor. A 30-day suspension isn't complicated. For 30 days, you separate yourself from office. No access, no government-linked accounts, no using the office while simultaneously serving punishment for misconduct. But this fits increasingly a familiar pattern. Matthew Rankin criticized his government from this podium. A complaint resulted in an arrest warrant. Dr. K had a drought exemption, an arrest warrant. Rules seem to become remarkably rigid when they're being applied to citizens. Then we reach the suspended mayor, and suddenly 30 days requires advanced theological interpretation. So I'm not welcoming the suspended mayor back today. I am going to say 30 consecutive days means 30 consecutive days. And until they are served, you are still the suspended mayor. And we will show you in November, we don't want you to be mayor anymore. Thank you very much for my time.

Okay. Next is Terry Samuels.

I can't say that I've ever had to follow a clown before. Mayor, welcome back to the seat you belong in. Evidently, defunct math class. To the rest of the City Council, well, some of you I'm greatly disappointed at. When he talked about clowns, you know what's funny? When you Google the Corpus Christi City Council, you come up with either clowns or puppets since he brought up clown. So I just wanted to say that. Look, I'm a fisherman, worked in every aspect of the fishing industry there is here. Plus I have a degree in marine biology and worked with Tony Amos. There's 18,000 desalination plants in the world. There's no eco disasters anywhere and nobody has proven one yet. Now, talk about pictures. He's talking about pictures. There's an interesting picture of a couple council members having lunch with Ajit David and Doug Allison just days after the mayor is suspended, but the mayor's not supposed to use her Facebook page. I find that quite interesting. I mean, he made it easy to lead into these things. But look, God can't keep saving us every time that we get down to 7.3%. We have climate change. I don't know if the Fab Fives notice that yet, but we do. And when the governor has to twice call out our city council, not the mayor, but the city council, Let's understand that there's a difference. And it also had to call one council member and ask her to start acting like a leader. And she got on Instagram and said, wrong girl, and thought we were friends. And she was not going to be strong-armed into doing things. It's not strong-arming. It's making sure that we're secure and my grandchildren are secure in the future. You guys are not looking at the future. You're looking at the now. You've done nothing for 20 months, but spend our money. And we've barely got a drop in the bucket. And you've spent close to a million dollars. And speaking of which, all the things like the library and such and the nepotism with the Parks and Recreation or the animal control and the gentleman that was in here, that nobody knew that he had a halfway house across a street from his house. I think it's time that we ask for the city manager's resignation since the budget is coming up. I believe that that would really alleviate a lot of problems and maybe find a city manager that's...

Thank you, Mr. Samuels.

Educated and decel.

Thank you, Mr. Samuels. Next is Melody Cooper. Ms. Cooper? Okay, how about Nishi G?

Hi, this is Nishi, District 2.

Please play my presentation, thank you.

I'm at 4710 Hackle. I come before you today because I'm really appalled that our city is being sued. Our illustrious mayor is named 31 times in this lawsuit. Also, one of the things that really bothered me in looking at this lawsuit is that it says Mayor Palegwa-Harder privately solicited a fellow councilman's vote during the public meeting in violation of Texas government code section 551.021 and 551.143. It's a shame that we the citizens have to go through this extreme in order to get things done. So I am very appalled at this behavior and especially the people who I've named. So have a great day. You too, Ms. Saldana.

Disgusting. Jim Klein.

Play the video! Play the video!

Two things. One, it was altered. And two, that it would be hard to argue that it was not intentional. Correct? That's what he said, yes. And you're agreeing with both of those things?

Yes. Yes. That's what he said.

This is exhibit number 59. This is, you know who Daniel Ray, he was the attorney hired by the city to do some independent work. Yes. Yes.

After review of the presentations, deposition testimony, investigative materials, and applicable Texas and federal penal statutes, the PowerPoint slide at issue appears to have been intentionally altered to cover the dates that appear on the government website. Do you agree with him?

I agree with his report, yes.

Okay, including the statement I just played. You agree with the statement made that I just played into the record?

I agree with what he said. I mean, I'm not, I'm sure, what are you asking me precisely? If I agree with him, or do I agree with what he's saying?

I'll tell you ahead of time, I'm going to play it again for you, and I'm going to ask you if you agree with him.

You don't need to play it again. We just saw it.

Okay, do you agree with what he said?

Yes, I agree with his statement.

Okay. Okay. And so do you think it is appropriate to give $2 million to somebody who intentionally alters a federal document?

No.

Okay.

Does that conclude your comment?

Yes, thank you.

Okay, thank you, ma'am. I understand Ms. Cooper is back online, Melody Cooper? Ms. Cooper? Can you see me? We can hear you and see you. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. Melody Cooper, District 5. Welcome back, Mayor O'Hardo. I've missed you sitting in that chair. I want to express my admiration for your fortitude under fire. Your courage and bravery are an inspiration to us. While you were gone, bad things, in my opinion, occurred. Peter Harbor was shot down, at least for now. The 4B board was gutted for, in my opinion, wholly political reasons. I'm sure many other things happened of which I am not aware. One other thing I would like to mention is that the budget of the sister city committee, which you always so strongly supported, was totally eliminated, which may in due time mark the end of this 50-year institution of our city. On behalf of myself and the current chair, Valerie Horvathalik, It is, if it is not too late to revisit this issue today during the budget discussions, we would greatly appreciate it. It may have to wait for a new city council if the committee still exists by then. The committee of which I was chair for many years did great things for hundreds of exchange students and completed numerous projects for the benefit of us and our sister cities. I would like to take a moment to mark the passing of Muriel Casanova of Agen, France. She was the vice chair of the Agen sister city committee who lost her courageous battle with cancer last week. She worked tirelessly on behalf of the committee and to welcome and care for the students that we sent to Agen, France over the years. She came to Corpus Christi at least twice and loved our city very much. She was beautiful. intelligent, and courageous, much as you are, Mayor, and will be very much missed. Again, welcome back, Mayor O'Hardo. We missed you. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Cooper. Isabel Araiza? Okay, Ms. Araiza. I hear there's one additional commenter. Is it Stan McDaniels? Yes.

Mayor, council, my name is Stan McDaniels. I'm sponsored by MasterButler.com. And I'm from Pensacola, Florida. So we've got quite a bit in common here. You know, we send all our guys from the Marines and Navy that are training to be pilots in Pensacola, we send them here if they get jets, right? And so I've gotten to speak with a lot of those gentlemen living and being raised in Pensacola, Florida. I've been on the road traveling the country up to Mount Rushmore and through the Badlands and going down to see the Starship launch. My oldest son was born in Houston while I was chasing my career back in 2013, so I'm very well established. aware of how great Texas is. But this is my first visit to Corpus Christi. I've driven through a couple times, but I just wanted to come and speak about the duty of the American citizens so that you guys kind of have an understanding, especially since y'all will be you know, celebrating the Constitution next week. I think it's super important. You see, I stood up for the Constitution in Florida, and on September 10, 2025, it was ruled in McDaniels v. State of Florida that the open carry ban there in Florida was unconstitutional. So that leaves only a handful of states left with an open carry ban. I stood for the Constitution, and I was persecuted further through the courts and through the family courts. And we have a certain situation going on in Florida with DCF and a grand jury report on how they're handling the children that are most vulnerable in Florida communities. And it was very scathing report towards DCF and the failures of any oversight. And it's human child trafficking that's what's going on in Florida through DCF. And so I don't know what's going on here in Texas, but I seem to imagine that it's pretty much the same in every state in this great country. And citizens are starting to wake up. They're starting to have some bravery to come up here and speak up and speak out about the Constitution and how it's being violated in every state in this union. So I've seen some of your shenanigans here from this city council online. And I think that it's most important for you to adhere to that Constitution when you're making all the decisions here for this city of Corpus Christi. Because the citizens that are standing up are growing. And there is momentum building. And it's time for you to stand up. Because the Constitution was not written to protect you. It was written to protect me from you. And so I would just encourage all men to start standing up in their communities. Stop being distracted by what's national and focus on your local community. My name is Stan McDaniels, sponsored by MasterButler.com.

Thank you, Mr. McDaniels.

Okay, Mayor, that concludes the public comment period. Thank you, Rebecca.

I tried to sign in online. I was here last week, and I waited three and a half hours to speak. So I try to do it online, and I'm not good with computers, obviously. So I was wondering if you could give me a few minutes of the concern I have. I'm disabled, and I'd like to share some of the... Go ahead, sir. All right. I'd like to share this with the mayor, and maybe he can pass this around. So I can show you that I am disabled. I'm an ex-high-voltage power worker out of Seattle, Washington.

Thank you.

Go ahead, sir.

Yes. I have concerns about the asphalt that you guys are doing out here. I'm showing some pictures around Snead Park, and it's around a cushion and a metal cough. It's all in that area. And anyways, I'm disabled, and when I come to these crosswalks, it's heartbreaking.

I mean, look at this.

If you can see it, there's all kinds of gravel. See all that gravel? Look at that. And then it cuts over, and it's been there for two years. Nobody's repaired it. And what they're doing is that a lot of the areas, you can see the one highlighted on the right, they're putting in these wheelchair ramps after they've paved. It's heartbreaking. And on this picture here, the homeowner right across from the park installed that pipe and that asphalt so they wouldn't have to wade in the water. Actually, what they've done has made it worse over there in flooding. And these things need to change. You're supposed to put, and that broken sidewalk is Snead Park. It's a city park. They put new asphalt, but no drains, no curb, no sidewalk. And kids walk to school on that. Citizens walk their dogs on that. Would the city be liable if somebody falls on that? It's disheartening. You know, it really is. Because I was born here on the Navy base. And I spent a lot of years in Seattle. I've been in the industry of high voltage and underground utilities for over 20 years. I'm 66 years old. I know what I'm talking about. Water is gonna get into those cracks and it's gonna lift up that stuff. And I have a friend that I would take her out walking. There's a HUD apartment complex right down the street, seniors that like to go out there and walk. How do you walk on that stuff? It's very challenging, even for me. But anyways, that's all I want to show, and I think maybe you guys can somehow get some correction.

Yes. Yes, sir. I'm sorry, what was your name?

Pete Ibarra. Mr. Ibarra? Yes. And I'm in Ms. Paxton's area district. Yes, sir. But this, like I said, this is in another area where my friend lives.

Right.

But I live on Paloma, and what they're doing there as well, they're coming over there week after week, and instead of digging out the ground and putting enough asphalt, they're barely putting any asphalt. So now, in front of my house, there's a whole bunch of that gravel, the asphalt, in the curb. So now I get to go there and broom it up, and when I take the trash cans out, I'm rolling on rocks. That's not fair.

Mr. Zanoni, yes, can we have staff meet Mr. Ibarra, because this is an operational issue. Mr. Zanoni can absolutely address that.

Yeah, somebody will come get you. What was your last name again? I couldn't hear it, Pete. Your last name? Ibarra. Okay.

Ibarra.

Yeah. Yes, sir. Okay, great. Thank you.

So staff will come over, Mr. Ibarra, and speak with you and address, you know, go address these issues. Okay. Yes, thank you, sir. Thanks.

The paperwork that I gave you guys, I hope you'll throw it away. It's just, I wanted to show that. Absolutely. It was labeled out of Washington.

Absolutely. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Councilwoman Paxson.

Thank you. And Mr. Ibarra, just as a statement of fact, we are investing over a million dollars in the beginning of a sidewalk project, and we have had lengthy discussion about bringing sidewalks up to speed at our parks. So thank you for bringing this facility. You're not supposed to put in sidewalks after you put in pavement. You're supposed to do all that before you put in pavement. We appreciate it, sir. This is a big priority to us in the next budget. We appreciate that. Thank you.

Yes, the area he's talking about is actually in District 5. It's around Sneed. There's an area there that is an older neighborhood, but this was kind of a result of us doing the pavement-only aspect. They have a lot of gutters that are turned up the wrong way, and then you see where it doesn't drain properly. We actually have to send a vac truck out to those neighborhoods, that particular neighborhood that he's referring to, in order to suck up water because the way the street was designed, the drainage is on each end of the neighborhood. So the whole section, if it drops down, doesn't drain. So we don't have, as a result of just pavement only, that was never corrected. So I just wanted to kind of identify that this is one of those areas where the drainage, the way it was designed many years ago, wasn't great to begin with. and it's not gonna work.

Well, they'll inspect it and see and address the issue.

No, they're aware of it. Ernie's well aware of it.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, Rebecca, we're gonna move on to board and committee appointments.

Yes, ma'am. There's one board on the agenda today. It's for the Arts and Cultural Commission, and these are mayoral appointments subject to council confirmation.

Yes, and I would like to recommend the reappointments of Ernest De La Garza. He is with the Business Development Group corporate representative, and Melina Gosa. She is in the marketing slot, and I'll entertain a motion to approve the recommendation.

So moved.

Okay, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say no. No. The motion carries. I would also like to recommend the new appointment of Adam Rios in the public art and public space area. I'll entertain a motion to approve the recommendation.

I move for approval. Second.

Okay, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say no. The motion carries. All right, ma'am. Thank you so much. That's the only board. Thank you, Ms. Watson. So next we have our budget items, section I. Budget-related items, items 4 through 13.

Here, Mayor, if at all possible, I'd like to move to approve items.

I'd like to move to approve items 4 through 13 with the exception of 7. Is that a possibility?

I don't see why not.

It is councilman. Yeah, this is second reading. So last week we did the first reading an adoption, right?

These are all second.

Yeah second reading or would have to consider seven individually the tax rate for record vote, but Okay, so we have a motion so I'd like to move to approve items four through 13 with the exception of seven Okay, we have a motion in a second

to approve four through 13, with the exception of number seven. Is there any public comment on items four through 13? Okay, if there is no public comment, we will, I'm gonna finish, I heard him. I'm gonna close public comment. Councilwoman Paxson. Thank you.

Mr. Zanoni, before voting on item four, I wanted to circle back to last week's discussion, jumping down to item seven because they are connected even though this proposed passage excludes seven before we take a vote on four. Do we have an update?

An update?

Originally, there was a motion made to go to the no new revenue, and I think the discussion centered around bringing back a recommendation. If we were to do that, this is what we'd need cut before we vote on number four.

Right, not only do we have that update, but the staff went back and looked at what impact does this have on the next year, the second year budget, which would be 2028, and it's a greater impact than even the nearly one million now, but... Amy can go through. If we were to do the no new revenue rate, it would be about $900,000. We'd have to...

It's about $820,000.

Okay. And then the recommended reductions to achieve that would be essentially all the spending amendments that are on the table here. So that would be the mowing of vacant weedy lots, the $200,000 for homelessness, and there was one other thing.

There's a... One of the other options that we had brought forward was to reduce one mowing crew in the Parks and Recreation Department. So we would have to do that as well in order to balance the general fund.

Do we have a presentation on that showing totals? Do we have anything prepared?

No, ma'am, we do not. Amy Rodriguez, Director of Management and Budget. I did want to say quickly, though, this isn't just a general fund impact. So when we reduce the revenue in the general fund, I believe Councilman Hernandez mentioned this last week, It impacts the amount of revenue that we send to the streets funds as well. And so with this change, we would have a deficit in the street fund of about $20,000, street maintenance fund. So we would have to also reduce pothole repairs in that fund. And then there will be a reduction in revenue to the TERS funds as well.

Okay, so the recommendation in order to facilitate going to the no new revenue tax rate would be I think it was 700 million, whatever that offset was that we were putting into these new items. And there was no other recommendations on other ways that we could save that 820?

No, we'd recommend the things that are being added first, like the grass weed abatement of 450,000, the 200,000 of homelessness service. And then as Amy said, we'd have to eliminate one of the mowing crews and parks, which would have an impact on park maintenance or mowing, at least the mowing cycle.

I guess from the last discussion, I recognize that you said that would be the first recommendation, but it seems like there was potentially going to be a secondary. These are other options that we could consider. So I guess that's kind of what I was looking at because we know abatement, we cannot lose that. So that's what I was kind of looking for.

Well, the council didn't consider this, but there are those fees or revenues that we talked about. You could do the vacant building registration fee, the small fee to the weekly curbside solid waste program, and then a community enrichment, I think, fee is what we called it. Those would generate about that million dollars each per year.

They generate a million each, you said?

It's about roughly around a million each, less than a million, but right around that 900 to a million. So that was our first recommendation to be able to do the grass and weed abatement and the homelessness program.

I guess I'm a little disappointed that we don't have something kind of showing those dollars since there was actually a motion made and there was discussion about it. So... I appreciate that, thank you.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to put through, let's see, items four through 13, with the exception of number seven. Please submit your votes. Councilman Hernandez. Hold on a second. Yes.

Peter, I mean, I was, you know, in terms of how you look at this, you look at particular programs, which you don't look at it as an overall, concern. What is the percentage of the budget that $820,000 represents?

We can calculate it real quick. How much? 4%? If you just look at the general fund budget.

So what are we looking at the general fund? $360,000? I'm sorry, I didn't look at it. It's about $350,000, yeah.

It's less than 1%.

Less than 1%?

Yes, sir, less than half of 1%.

Less than half of 1%. So if you did a small less than half of 1% across all departments, would that be an issue?

It would, yeah. We don't recommend that type of a budgeting approach, Councilman. And it has a bigger impact in the next year, in 2028.

Next year we have to look at our... Can you articulate that a little bit better?

Yeah, so with a reduction in the tax rate, next year we're going to have to look at the debt service and the operating and maintenance and might have to make an adjustment to maintain both operations. Plus, next year's with increased base value and with new improvements with a lower tax rate, it'll have a more significant... REVENUE LOSS IN ONE MILLION, JUST IF YOU LOOK AT THAT ALONE. AS WE MENTIONED LAST WEEK, THE CITY COUNCIL EITHER BY STATE LAW, FOLLOWING STATE LAW, OR BY CHOICE, HAVE LOWERED THE CITY'S TAX RATE BY FOUR AND A HALF CENTS IN THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS. WE'VE ALSO PROVIDED EXTREME PROPERTY TAX RELIEF in the form of doubling the homestead exemption from 10% to 20%. So when you see pictures like the gentleman just showed us of sidewalks, the way they look and issues with our roads, we're getting to a point where we've cut back a lot of things to where even the essential services are gonna begin to see an impact, and that includes streets and police and fire and parks. So what may seem like a little, it has an impact overall, especially as the next year and the year after, it has a compounding impact. The savings to the homeowner was how much a year? Five dollars.

It would save the average homeowner roughly five dollars.

Five dollars, mm-hmm, so.

A year.

Okay, I did have an issue with the way this was done. Did we make any changes to the cost of living allowance versus merit pay? We did not, Councilman. We kept the recommendation as we had it. Okay, well, I didn't vote for all the items from 4 to 13. I did not vote for 4. I also did not vote for, I want to say it's... Item number 12. So, Rebecca, on this thing, since we're voting them all at once, can I select certain ones that I'm not voting for?

So you want to, for the record, four through 13, and then noting that Council Member O'Donnell, this is voting no on four and 12. Is that what you'd like to do?

I believe so. I think there was one other one that I voted against. I think I also voted against six as well.

Okay, so just so for six and twelve Yes, okay, we can we can note that for the record if you like, okay, okay Otherwise, we're voting on we have a motion in a second for items 4 through 13 on foreign exempt with the exception of item 7 Please submit your vote Okay, and for the record and council member Vaughn is voting no on four and eight. I

Councilmember Vaughn is what, excluding? She's voting no on four and eight. Four and eight. Well, if it's two and you're notating it.

You know what, this is getting a little confusing now, so now that we have somebody else doing it, so why don't we just, we'll pull those items where they're voting no. Especially on the budget, that needs to be very clear who's voting no.

So let's go, do we need to rescind the, because we have a motion to second.

Okay, yeah, if you would, and then we'll just pull all the items that the council members are voting no on. Okay, so I'm going to start with item number four.

I move for approval.

Okay, do we have a second?

Second.

We have a second. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. Okay, the next item, item number five, ordinance establishing compensation for the presiding judge and municipal court judges of the City of Corpus Christi beginning in fiscal year 2027. Are we doing this together or individually? Individually. She's doing them individually. Yes. Yeah. All right, so item number five, do we have a motion?

I move for approval. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote. Okay, next item, number six, ordinance adopting the Corpus Christi fiscal year 2026-2027 capital budget beginning October 1 of 2026. Do we have a motion?

I move for approval.

Do we have a second? Second. Please submit your vote. The motion carries. Item number seven is an ordinance setting a property tax rate of 0.599774 per $100 valuation. which is effectively a 0.50% increase over the no new revenue tax rate and approving the tax roll as calculated.

Mayor, I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of 0.599774 for $100 valuation, which is effectively a 0.5% increase in the tax rate.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote.

Okay.

Okay, so that fails. Okay, the motion fails. Yes, Peter.

If the proposed tax rate doesn't pass, the budget will need to be revisited to be amended to reflect the tax rate that the council wishes to adopt.

Can you repeat that, please?

I said if the proposed tax rate of the .599774 doesn't pass, then the budget is not balanced, and we'll have to revisit the approved budget to amend accordingly.

So what does that process look like?

We need to go reconsider item number four, so we open it up again and then discuss the cuts required to go to the no new revenue tax rate.

Councilman Hernandez.

Just for clarification, this has to be a supermajority, six vote?

Yes.

Of course, 60%.

Sixty percent.

That's six. Six votes are needed to pass them. This one, yeah. Thank you.

Councilwoman Paxton.

I think there was some good suggestions as far as less than 1% from each, or up to 1%, a reduction from the budget like Councilman Hernandez recommended and merit versus... COLA, those types of things. Again, I wish that those could have been presented today to avoid this type of a situation because there was so much discussion on it. But those were really good places to start.

Councilman Bonetta.

Well, it's disappointing, especially after months of workshops. You know, as I say often, I think all Staff and developers and individuals that invest in Corpus Christi is a predictable regulatory environment. And to come at this time to request, and I tell you what, in Austin, this is called a bumper sticker initiative in order to be able to basically state that we're reducing the tax rate to save every homeowner $5 annually. And I think the consequences that we're not, you know, this year because of the tax relief that this council, the prior council did, that put us in a position where we're not able to have a bond initiative of which we can't reinvest in our community. And this, again, would jeopardize that ability to be able to reinvest in our community and simply because we don't have the revenue to do so. I just think it's very, in my opinion, it's not responsible to move forward. It's not good fiscal responsibility because the impact is not only on this year, it's in years to come. And so we're gonna remove the flexibility of the next council to be able to utilize these hard-earned dollars that individuals pay to us to be able to reinvest in their community and their infrastructure. So I just want to state that for the record. I don't know anywhere else that basically that there is an opportunity to cut. We have a staff of professionals of which we pay millions of dollars millions of dollars to make recommendations. And I don't understand where it is that we want to, what it is we're trying to accomplish. What's our mission? What's our vision? What are the values that we have? And if the mission is just to be able to say, I voted against a tax increase, I voted to save you $5 a year, then I don't know how that helps. You know, you've been a champion for sidewalks, and that money, those items were put into the budget, you know? And I think those are those things. I mean, we had public comment regarding libraries. So to be able to move that across the board and the consequences associated with it, I just, I don't understand the logic in what we're trying to do.

Councilwoman Campos.

Thank you. Like I said this before, this is a really, it's a big responsibility that we have here. And as much as I don't like to see some of the cuts and this kind of at the end theatrics, it's not needed. I mean, those things should have been discussed beforehand. I also am very disappointed with the mayor with her latest votes of just the abstentions. She's been here long enough to know how important this is. So again, I hope that we're able to redo this vote and everybody come to the table and do what we were elected to do, which is pass this budget.

Yes, and for the record, I have not been a part of one conversation of this budget, and this is not the same budget as years before so no it would be wrong of me to be voting on something that i have not had one conversation with my colleagues or the city manager on so councilwoman uh bond okay mr senoni you know last week we kind of had a plan on what we were going to do so to me it's just kind of being up leveled i'd like to see us finish the agenda and for us to go back to number four

And then the tax increase and talk about it. And let's figure something out because I'm disappointed that we don't have anything, any other cuts that we can present to us other than cutting the mowing. I don't like that. So I am not pleased with what's gone here either because I voted for both of those last week. But now I'm confused as what. So I want to hear for in detail what we're cutting, what we're not going to cut. And then. I want to go back and vote on the increase if it's, because I realize we've got to pass a budget, but I also want to make sure what cuts we're doing, that they're fair and that we're not going to have to do it and we're not going to be a knife in the back saying you're going to do this or we're going to get mowing cut because that's not what we want or the abatements, any of those things, and you know that. And I know it's difficult. That's just my suggestion, Mayor, that maybe we can finish through the agenda and then come back and just hash it out. Yes.

I mean, we, uh, we, we, you know, we gave a, uh, including consolidating yet another department, the communications and the governmental relations eliminating yet another executive. Um, so when last week the vote was, I think seven, one on the tax rate. So w w I, we must've missed it, but it didn't seven yeses for the tax rates. I, I didn't, I wasn't given any clear direction that we wanted yet another whole list of, of a million dollars in reductions. That's why we don't have them today.

uh... nor do i think we can get him in a few hours percent your forward number four so we can see exactly what's going on here so that we can get in some kind of agreement some of them up for the budget and not the increase i mean i think they go hand in hand we could do that that's just a suggestion yeah that's that's a good one where we could review

It's taken us six weeks to get to this point with lots of input from the council, the community. So using the current tax rate, I thought we had a pretty good plan, which is we can still have reductions and even more, but we did those to be able to come up with the grass and mowing and the homelessness programs, and we even funded the demolition through another fund. So we have well over a million dollars for vacant lot demolition buildings and mowing.

So we talked about are still in there. I'm just saying, let's go back and do a review. And then the mayor hasn't been here and she can hear that as well.

Yeah, that's a good idea. I mean, we have, it's close to 750,000 and more reductions that we came up with to including consolidating departments, eliminating the communications director, eliminating positions and communications, So it's up to the council, but we can review. We do have the presentation for item number four. All right.

Well, let's, yeah, we'll do that. Let's get the other comments through here. Councilman Cantu?

Quick question, Peter. Can we table this until next week so the mayor can be up to speed this week on this?

So one of the reasons we're here the day after the Labor Day holiday is that the tax assessor-collector, tax assessor collector wants to send out the tax bills, and we have to get that person the information by the 14th in order for him to mail out the bills. So the 14th is... The 14th is Monday, because Tuesday is the 15th. We could ask him if we're one day late, what would that matter? I think it's still Kevin Kieschnick, right? The tax assessor collector. What was that? He's gone. Okay. It's no longer. I knew he was gonna Okay, I just think it's yeah that they send out the combined tax bill So we have to know what the city's tax rate is that they can send it out by So they waiting for us.

Yeah, so they could wait a couple more days. I think They may be I don't think the people are in a rush to get their tax bill.

I Do want advice counsel that if we do delay the information to the tax assessor office As a result, they would have to send out a separate tax bill just for the city of Corpus Christi. There's additional costs to the city for that. I don't recall the amount. We had reached out to the tax office regarding that information for preparation in case there was a voter approval needed for a tax rate. So there will be additional costs if we go beyond that deadline.

We don't want to do that.

Okay, what we're going to do is move forward. I know we have a couple more comments. We'll move forward with the consent agenda item, and we're just going to move forward with the agenda, and then we'll go back to four. All right, Councilwoman Campos, and then Hernandez, and then we'll go to the consent. Go ahead.

Thank You Sergio thank you for reiterating what this vote actually means so again I just want to point out that yes maybe the mayor was not here present but I would think that she was still listening to the information that was being presented plus the months leading to this so again I want to urge and encourage all our council members to please vote accordingly and let's just get this done.

Yes, so Councilwoman, statement of fact, based on your vote, I was not here for 30 days. I was not able or allowed to reach out to any staff member to our city manager, so regardless of where I, you know, listening to the conversations or not, I was not a part of them, and it would be completely irresponsible of me to vote on a budget that I have had absolutely no input on. I have not been able to ask a question or receive a response on, and that was based on the actions that were taken by you. So that is why I cannot vote on a budget that I have not been involved in. Councilman Hernandez.

You know, a while back, just a month ago, we made a suggestion to put before the voters the final two cents that probably would have addressed some of these issues. Now, ultimately, I think the voters should be able to decide on some of these things, right? Especially on something like a tax increase for streets specifically. I don't... You know, I didn't vote for the budget last week because I thought there were some issues there, but I did vote for the tax increase just so we could get to this week so we could get some information put forward on some options. I'm disappointed we didn't see any of those real options or any work being done on that, so I don't know what we can do within this one day. If we have to do a special meeting on Monday of next week, I'm willing to do that for the 14th. But let's see if we can do anything today. Thank you.

Okay, so we are gonna move on to section J. We did have some other ordinances, eight through 13, under the budget-related items. Was the council wanting to vote on those?

Is that okay? I thought we wouldn't vote on those until, are we able to vote on those?

Yes.

Okay, that's fine.

I'm sorry, I misunderstood. I thought we could not.

So let's go ahead and vote on items eight through 13. And there were some in there that somebody had a problem with? Okay, so item number eight is an ordinance amending the Code of Ordinances, Chapter 9, Aviation, Section 9-35, Parking Rates, by revising the parking rate for long-term parking at the Corpus Christi International Airport.

I move for approval. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion fails.

All right, so this is, these rates wouldn't be increased at the airport, which is just impact maintenance.

Okay. Item number, did anyone have an issue with 9 through 13? We already had it. I'm sorry? 12?

Okay, so do you want to make a motion? I move for approval of items 9, 10, 11, and 13.

Right. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve items 9, 10, 11, and 13. We have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote. 9, 10, 11, and 13. Well, nobody had an issue with 9, 10, 11, and 13. The only issue was 12, so we're pulling that individually. Okay, the motion carries. Councilman Hernandez, you have a question or comment on item 12, which is an ordinance amending section 14-1341 of the Corpus Christi Code to add a fee for processing petitions for annexation.

Like, the only issue I had with this was because of the state restrictions on us unilaterally annexing in the future. I didn't want to discourage people from annexing into the city with additional fees. So I didn't think this was appropriate, so I'm voting against it. Here, I move for approval. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. Consent, that takes us to consent agenda item section J, 14 through 27. Do we have any items that council members would like to pull? 14 through 27. 19, 20, 21. 19, 20, 21. Anything else? 27. 27. Okay, then I will, any requests from the public to pull an item for public comment at this time? Okay, there being none, we'll move on. I will entertain a motion to approve consent agenda with the exception of items 19, 20, 21, and 27. No, that's separate. Okay, we have a motion to approve. Do we have a second?

Second.

Okay, please submit your vote. The motion carries. So the first item pulled is item number 19, and that is an ordinance annexing a .99 acre tract of land located at the southwest corner of County Road 47 and FM 43. Councilman Hernandez, is that you? No. Councilman Cantu.

Have you got any feedback on this one? From any residents? No residents at this point on the restaurant, correct. Okay, thank you. I'll move to approve. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote. The motion carries. Next item pulled was item number 20, and that is an ordinance annexing 1.377 acre tract of land located along the south side of FM 43 and east of CR 47. Councilman Cantu, was that yours as well?

Yes, ma'am. Is this the Dollar General? Yes, sir. It is, right? Correct. Okay. Does anybody hear from them? Do you have any pictures of the building that you're going to build there by chance?

Well, I do not.

You do not have anything? I do not. Do you know what kind of building we're going to build there?

Just a general standard dollar journal that we normally do. I know you had some questions about facade and lighting. Yeah. For the facade, the developer is open to setting up a meeting with the engineers to discuss any changes that can be made for facade, even though we're not in an overlay district.

Got it. There's some concerns from residents of the just having a plain old warehouse type of building out there, and then also the lighting in the back of the homes, the back of the building facing the homes in the back. And then I believe they don't want a big old sign.

I understand. The lighting will only be in the front of the building, which faces Weber Road. It will not affect the residential neighborhood that is south of us. They have included a 41-foot buffer, which... visit the standard 10-foot offset for the back of the property there that abuts that residential neighborhood. We do studies on all of our stores so that there is a 0% light pollution on the neighboring properties. You know, if there's anything else that we can do, I know that we can install a fence with vegetation to help reduce any lighting concerns that those residents may have.

Okay. Um... Um... I think that's all I have. I move to approve.

Okay, we have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? Okay. Please submit your votes. The motion carries. Next item pulled is item 21, and that is the ratification of a city ordinance disapproving the program expenditure in funding under the termination, settlement, and release agreement between the Corpus Christi B Corporation and Elevate QOF. And who pulled this one?

I pulled it. I just want to do a vote by itself on this one. Thank you. I move to approve.

Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the item. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. Next item, last item pulled is item number 27. That is an ordinance amending the chapter 380 incentive agreement with La Palmera Mall. And who pulled this one? Councilman Hernandez, go ahead.

Mayor, before we do that, I know we had two people from the port here. Both of their items were approved in 24 and 25. I wanted to see if they had an opportunity to at least say something on their agenda item before we do 27. Sure. Kent?

Did y'all want to say something? Are you... recommending they say something. This is a very good news item and items 24 and 25 are related. 24 is a motion authorizing the execution of the interlocal agreement with the Port of Corpus Christi. This is for flood wall upgrades at the Science Museum for the Port of Corpus Christi Authority to design and construct a flood wall or bulkhead with concrete apron, provide flood protection, pedestrian connectivity, and ship channel operational improvements.

Yeah, so I'll just say in general, appreciate the opportunity to work together. I think when we get that opportunity and we do work together. We're far stronger. We're going to be able to accomplish things that we wouldn't have been able to otherwise. I appreciate the approval. We're going to do the same at our commission meeting as well. And also wanted to just thank Peter. Peter and I work together quite a bit behind the scenes, which doesn't always come to a council or a commission, but appreciate the teamwork and the collaboration. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. You're good? Well, thank you for all the work you've done as well, both of you. Okay.

Okay. Okay. I just wanted to clarify something on the, on item number 27. There's no additional funding associated with this. It's just an extension of the timeframe to, to get to that funding. Is that correct?

Yes. Jennifer Buxton planning and economic development. Correct. It is an extension on the 25 year agreement to 2045, giving it a 35 year time period with no additional funding.

Okay, I just want to make sure that was clear. We're not providing any more funding. It's the existing funding that was already approved back in 2028, or I'm sorry, 2008?

The first year would have been 2010 of funding, yes.

2010? Okay. But the agreement was in 2008?

Yes, sir.

Okay, so I just wanted to clarify that, that we're not just handing out money. We're doing our due diligence here, giving them an opportunity to complete what they're doing.

Yes, sir.

Okay, thank you. With that, I make a motion to approve.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Councilwoman Paxton?

Well, my comment was actually on item 24, but I just wanted to thank the port because this is not only gonna be a very valuable enhancement to that structure, but through this partnership, it's a huge saving to the city and it's an incredible facility for the public use, so thank you for that. Hopefully, and I don't know if it's possible, but I'd love to see if there was fishing returned over in that area somewhere. I've actually had some people bring that up to me. I'm sure we'll see beautiful designs in the future, but thank you for your partnership.

Councilman Roy?

I wanted to just speak on the item number 27, the La Primera Mall. Yeah, I think this is a good news item. Number one is that I know the world is changing and a lot of people are buying things on eBay and whatnot, but The other thing is that I really do believe overall when you take a look at the number of the fraud that's involved in a lot of times when you're buying things and you're not familiar with the retailer on the other end, there's a lot of issues there. I think America is, in my opinion, is going back. and welcoming the ability to touch something, to deal with a live person, to make that purchase. And we're losing our malls in America. And I think it's so important that we stand behind this. And it's a great thing. And I think all the things that are coming forward with La Palmera, it's just extremely important. I don't want to lose that mall. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Councilwoman Campos.

Thank you. I just wanted to also just thank the people that continue to invest in our city. I did make a request that perhaps may be a demand that at least if with the incentive that they plant more trees on the back end of the Padre Staples Mall, that is known as a heat zone, and they could really help out with that. I hope that they're listening and I think it's a good news for the city of Corpus Christi that they have invested and that they've reached out to some of the other companies that are already here and continue to see Corpus Christi as a place to come play and work here. So with that, I hope that we're able to pass this I'll pass on my to, I guess, Eric.

You want to turn your light? Yeah, he spoke. Okay, I think we have a motion and a second, so please submit your votes. Okay, the motion carries. Thank you, Jennifer. Okay, so let's see, we have, it's 1.47. We're gonna go ahead and break for lunch. We'll come back and go to public hearings, individual consideration items. Let's see here. Okay, so the council will go into executive session on items 32 through 33 per Texas Government Code Section 551.071 and 551.072. And we will return.

I was just going to say that we got a call this morning from the auditor's office for item 31, and they're not ready to present today. Okay. We'll move that out. Did they call you, Councilwoman Paxson? We asked that they call Councilwoman Paxson.

I think they were asking about the timing. They were able to present, but they were trying to confirm on the timing as their short staff. So I don't know if we can move that item up earlier, and that may alleviate that issue.

Okay, earlier in this meeting today?

In the agenda, yeah.

Okay.

I think they were anticipating it being quite late this evening.

I see, okay. Well, we can call them back.

Just get confirmation, Peter, and see what we need to do.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, thank you. So we'll return. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and bring the meeting back to order. We left off on section L, public hearings, items 28 and 29. So item number 28 is a zoning case number ZN9151, MVR Construction Company, Inc., located in District 3. Ordinance rezoning a property at or near 6201 Greenwood Drive from the RS6 Single Family 6 District to the CN1SP Neighborhood Commercial District with a special permit.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Yvette Wallace, Interim Director, Development Services. This property is located in District 3 with a request to rezone the subject property from RS6 Single Family 6 District to an RS6 with a special permit. The subject property is currently vacant and not platted. 60 notices were mailed. I'm sorry. Slides are out of order. 60 notices were mailed inside the 200-foot buffer. One notice was mailed outside the 200-foot buffer. And three notices have been received in opposition, totaling roughly 1% of the neighborhoods within the 200-foot buffer. Sorry about that. I have a slide missing. So the zoning and land use. So to the north is agriculture. And then to the south is high density residential, east is medium and high density residential, and to the west is agriculture vacant. The proposed rezoning is inconsistent with the city of Corpus Christi comprehensive plan and future land use designation of median density residential. Staff considered the inconsistencies to the guiding documents and also looked at the regulatory floodway that is in close proximity and a portion of the property to help with the special permit. Planning Commission recommended denial of the original request and staff and the applicant agreed to an alternative RS6 with a special permit. And that is something that we also had Planning Commission agree to. And on that, these permit conditions that we agreed to, and I'll just go high level on the ones that are the most impactful for this area. So the use, the only use authorized by the special permit other than the use is permitted in the base zoning district of RS6. is a warehouse and freight movement used particularly as a storage warehouse, including office space with indoor storage of up to 10 vehicles. Storage of fuel and loose aggregate materials is prohibited. There will be a buffer yard required of at least 20 feet and 20 points. All lighting must be shielded and directed away from abutting residents in nearby streets. Signage, only one freestanding sign will be allowed. Noise regulations will adhere to Section 31.3 of the Municipal Code. And hours of operation shall be limited from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Did you have a comment, Councilman?

Okay, we do have a motion and a second. Councilwoman Vaughn?

I just have a couple questions. So they didn't want it there because it's like a throw-down yard for their equipment, correct?

So originally it was more than just a lay-down yard. There was going to be a proposal for fuel storage, outside storage of vehicles, and what was requested was a light industrial. We recommended initially a CN1 neighborhood commercial, and then we have taken down what would be allowed in that area to include the warehousing and freight. with limited amount of vehicles, no fuel storage, removing some of the issues that the neighbors had.

So the building will stay? Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. Councilwoman Paxson?

Thank you. What were the three oppositions, and was it to the amended or the original requests?

So it was to the original request that went to Planning Commission, and then also to the amended request of CN1. So it went from IL-1st, then to a CN1, and then to an RS-6. So the opposition that we received And I can tell you that was a lot of what we just kind of covered. So it's the noise pollution, the light pollution, the proximity of fuel storage was the initial one. And we've since removed the fuel storage from this, the hours of operation, which is why we limited those hours from eight to five. And then also the amount of vehicles, like the larger industrial vehicles, which is why we have restricted the amount of vehicles for that property.

So it is... One of the renderings looks like a, you know, it looks kind of nice, that storage facility. I guess my thing is, is it's right in between so much residential.

Sure. And so there is an AEP easement that's along one side that already acts as a natural buffer because they can't really put the buildings in that place. So they're going to exceed the 20 feet required. And then there's going to be an internal roadway that's going to give it an additional buffer in addition to the 20 feet on the other side of residential. And I'm sorry, I pulled up the site plan here right above to kind of show that that it's a very long, narrow lot. And so the buildings would be proposed on one side and the AP lines are against those buildings or in the rear of those buildings. And then there's still an easement buffer on that or a buffer, 20 foot buffer. And then on the other side to the east, that is going to be I'm sorry, to the north is going to be residential as well. But then there's a 20 foot buffer and then there's also a roadway in there. So it's going to give an additional buffer.

Are they going to be putting any kind of fencing or barriers to kind of, you know, if that's your home up against what's going to be that roadway and now going to be a new storage facility? You know what I mean? That's quite a big change to their current.

Correct. All commercial businesses require that buffer, like as we will buffering or landscaping requirements would require that kind of screening. So in addition to landscaping as a buffer, they would have screening requirements. So the screening can be done in multiple ways. It can be masonry, which doesn't always help with sound. Sometimes it actually increases the sounds. And there's other methods where they can put up fencing that has noise reduction to it.

Okay. Have they indicated doing one of those?

Yes, they have. Okay.

Okay. Okay. And is the... I'm looking for the picture. I'm sorry. I'm trying to find it again in the packet. Um, there is a rendering. Okay. There it's, um, it's kind of a sharper looking building. Is that more realistically what they're, I know it's just a rendering, but do we think that's kind of what they're going for? I don't know what page it would be on yours. It's our site plan.

Oh, sorry, it's right there on the corner. Yeah, so it's more of a contemporary warehouse than it is just a metal prefab warehouse.

Okay, and I think you said it earlier, but the lighting is going to be minimized or controlled so that it's not disruptive to the R6?

Correct, it has to be downcast and it has to be pointed to the property, not away, so it can't be pointing to the residential properties on either side.

Okay, and when we remedied some of those concerns that were voiced in those letters, did we ever make contact with them again and tell them they were remedied?

So we met. each individually after every planning commission, because they did come out to speak at planning commission against it. And we talked about the changes that we were making. And what was their sentiment after that? After the second planning commission, I went to planning commission three times. It was tabled twice. And on the third time, we finally moved forward. So on the third approach, the RS6 SP was something that was more palatable to them, whereas before they still had concerns. So as a CN1, as an IL, everyone had concerns as a CN1 and SP. they had concerns they were very much against fuel storage even though it was diesel which is really not as big of a concern they were against that fuel storage on that site and with the proximity to the regulatory floodway a floodway that's at the rear of the property okay and so were they were okay with the r6 yes we worked out those details and again reduced hours they didn't want to wake up but you know seven o'clock in the morning to commercial vehicles you know with backhoes out there getting ready for the day so which is why we moved it down to eight to five

Is the roadway that's going to the north of the property, is that just for their internal use? That's just for that property to use?

That is an internal drive. Okay.

And the building is going to be on the south?

Correct.

I almost wonder if it wouldn't be better to flip it so that there's less traffic.

So we thought about that, but the AEP easement that's there works out better for the buildings to be on that side. Flipping it would become more problematic when it comes to how narrow the lot is.

Okay. Well, thank you for all this information, Yvette.

Yvette, thank you. Thanks for working with the developer because this is, I think, important in terms of the development, which is the next item. How many homes is that?

So the next item is 920.

920. So this is basically to help facilitate building 920 homes.

And that is just one portion of the project. There's commercial surrounding it and multifamily as well.

I think this is a great project. And again, thank you for, I mean, that's the point, right? Facilitate, work with our developer, and move the project forward. So I'm happy to see this. We have a motion and a second. Councilman Cantu?

Hang on, I got a couple questions. Yeah. The front entrance will be on Greenwood, right?

The frontage will be on Greenwood.

Okay. And then we're going to limit him hours?

Correct.

For his business?

Eight to five. Well, it's more of the machinery coming in and out. So limiting that to eight to five to not disrupt the residential budding on either side.

But isn't there like body shops and warehouses around those neighborhoods?

There are body shops on the other side of Greenwood that had been there before the zoning was set for that area.

Gotcha. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Okay, please submit your vote. Mayor, we need the public hearing, please.

I'm sorry?

We need to open and close public. Yes, sorry. I'm going to open public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make a comment on item number 28? Okay, there being no one, we will close public hearing and please submit your votes. Okay, the motion carries. Next item, item number 29, is zoning case number ZN9079, MVR Construction Company, Inc., located in District 3. Ordinance rezoning a property at or near 5514 Greenwood Drive from the CG2 General Commercial District to the RS4.5 PUD, single family, 4.5 district, with a planned unit development overlay.

So the subject property is 134.53 acres of land that is currently not plotted. It is in District 3, and it's located at 5514 Greenwood, or as most of you may know, the large parcel behind Walmart and the movie theater that's been there for quite some time. The area request outlined in red is part of a larger property and development, so that's kind of what I was alluding to earlier. So surrounding will be multifamily and commercial, and the only thing that we're discussing today is the area indicated in red. That is currently zoned as general commercial and the applicant is petitioning to rezone it to an R64.5 with the planned unit development. The purpose of this request is to allow single family development with deviation to the lot areas and lot widths. Through the PUD, the applicant is requesting a minimum lot area of 4,000 square feet and minimum lot widths of 40, contrary to the Unified Development's code requirement of 4,500 square feet and 45 feet minimum lot widths. The property is part of the Westside Area Development Plan, which was adopted on January 10, 2023. Except to the west, the area request is nestled about CG2 or General Commercial Districts to the north, south, and east. To the west, properties are zoned General Commercial District and Light Industrial. Regarding the required public notification, 12 notices were mailed inside the 200-foot, two notices were mailed outside the 200-foot, zero notices were received in opposition, and four were received in favor. The property sits between Greenwood Drive, Hawley, and Crosstown Expressway. The PUD will contain approximately 920 residential lots. The deviations include a lot area, sorry, include lot area, lot width, and block length. Lot areas will be at a minimum 4,000 square feet, lot widths will be at least 40 square The larger parcels which are not within the PUD boundary will maintain their current zoning district and be developed with commercial land uses and possible multifamily. It's important to note that the developer, I'm sorry, is seeking RS 4.5 with a PUD to allow for market flexibility with some smaller lots at 4,000 square feet and widths of at least 40 feet. The developer does not intend to build the max density allowable in the RS 4.5, which would be 1,041. And instead, we'd be looking at building approximately the 920 lots at differing lot widths and number of stories, allowing for full market flexibility. with homes ranging from $200,000 to $300,000. Greenwood Drive and Crosstown Expressway frontage are connected, and Silverberry will continue through the planned unit development connecting down to Holly. This is just the east half of the commercial lot and the left half of the lower corner lot. It was too large to put on one slide, so we broke it up. The parent development, which is what I kind of talked about earlier, is around the boundary of the PUD, whereas the PUD is indicated in yellow. The red is commercial lots that are outside the area of request. A multifamily is still proposed. We just don't know where that would go at this point in time. The proposed rezoning is consistent with the City of Corpus Christi comprehensive plan. However, it is inconsistent with the future land use designation and mixed use. The request is part of a larger mixed-use development that will incorporate single-family residential, commercial, and multifamily uses. The applicant's request agrees with the Comprehensive Plan and Westside Area Development Plan in support of infield development. The amendment is compatible with the present zoning and conforming uses of nearby property and the character of the surrounding area. Staff recommends approval. And I stand by for any questions.

Thank you, Annette. Councilman Roy.

Thanks for the presentation. I just had a comment. I know some of the council members are going to remember the Bohemian Colony. Remember that project? I think we actually did a TIRS for that. And I was all excited about that project. It was 97 acres, I think. And then all of a sudden it kind of went away. The interesting thing about this is that this area now, even though it's not in my district, I'm still pretty pumped up about it because this area has recently kind of went It's kind of a resurgent type area, and it's pretty exciting. In the long term, I think after we get some of this residential housing in there, maybe, just maybe, they'll end up revamping that retail center in the middle there. I don't know. To me, it just seems like the movie theater could use some upgrading and maybe some of the other But I definitely think it's an area to watch. I really do. The proximity to be able to get into downtown, you know, the new bone and...

Bone and... South Texas Bone and Joint.

Bone and Joint Clinic. South Texas Bone and Joint. Yeah, amazing facility. Anyway, I'm just glad to see something there in that area happening because I was so disappointed that the Bohemian colony didn't come to fruition.

That's a great point. So retail and commercial markets, they look at that. They look at the number of rooftops to determine what they're going to revamp or develop.

Yeah, this is going to be a hot area. Thank you.

Councilman Bonino.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I also want to echo that. I want to thank the developer. You know, there's been, I mean, 30 years of history to try and develop this property. And I wish you the best. You know, I'll say a few Hail Marys for you. What is it? Throw a Hail Mary pass. I mean, I can't tell you how much we appreciate it. And, you know, things like this, you know, once again, as I say, it's ad valorem to, you know, help CCISD with their situation. You know, projects like this, you know, it's not just for the city because there's an ag exemption. I think we're getting $5,000 a year in revenue because of the ag exemption that it's really, it doesn't do anything. And this is just a great project. Thank you.

Councilman Hernandez.

Yes, thank you. You know, on your PowerPoint, you didn't include Planning Commission, but I'm assuming that's the case because it was in the agenda memo for Planning Commission approval?

Yes, staff and Planning Commission recommend approval.

Okay, well, it only says staff on your PowerPoint.

Yes, sir.

Okay, the... Now, we're only doing zoning, but obviously you've got to have entrances and exits, right? So are we making a modification to the transportation plan or anything like that to account for this?

This one didn't require a modification, but Silverberry, which runs from Silverberry Drive, is going to extend down. So there will be a connection. I know it says Silverberry Drive there, but there is a connection point back behind Silverberry Drive, so back behind Walmart and the movie theaters. And then you'll see a road that's running from Crosstown Expressway to Greenwood. And then there is no, there's a direct connection at Hawley. So one direct connection. So we have one, two, three, four points of access.

Four points of access. Okay. Are we going to have to make any modifications? I mean, these are C1 collectors?

Yes.

Okay. So at some point, some modification will need to be made.

If it's on the master plan and you wish not to build it, then you have to amend the roadway master plan. But you can always build something that's not predicted on the master plan without redoing the master plan.

Okay. But are we going to add it to the master plan?

We've never done that before, but it's not to say that we can't.

All right.

On the next one we bring forward, we can add it.

Okay. I'm just stickler for the details. Okay. Thank you.

Councilman Kinty.

Before he owned this property, did we put money in this property, the city did, like for sewer and water and all that stuff?

So there's already infrastructure that's been in place surrounding the entire property for decades now. So water, wastewater, all of those utilities have already been there. there's no internal infrastructure, but all of the perimeter infrastructure has been in place.

So we never did anything like added, added more stuff to it.

Not for this particular property. It was just infrastructure improvements in general for that.

What about Holly road? Are we going to, is there any, um, any, um, um, um, making it, making a four way.

I don't have that answer for you, but we can look into that.

Because it's a two-way right now, right?

It's a two-lane.

Yeah. And how many homes is he going to build in here?

920.

What's the average per footage?

It's going to depend. So he's going for some smaller, so entry-level homes, and you can have up to a larger home. So I would say on average, your smallest is probably going to be about 1,400 to 1,600, and then you can have a larger home.

Okay. I'm going to approve. Second. Second.

Councilwoman Campos.

Thank you. Well, I've grown up in this area, so yeah, I've been waiting. And I remember the Bohemian project. So yeah, this is a long time coming, and I wish this company well. I hope that they succeed. And yes, I can also attest that the bus goes through that Silverberry and in between because I've got a sibling that uses that and is grateful for that. So hopefully, again, this will also spur some new development. And I wish them well. So thank you.

Okay. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make comment on item number 29? There being no one, we'll close public comment and please submit your votes. Okay, the motion carries. Our next, thank you, Yvette. We're gonna go to section M, individual consideration items. Item number 30, and that is a resolution establishing an ad hoc committee to review the city's procurement of professional services, including architectural and engineering services, and recommend improvements to city processes and applicable state law, as requested by Councilmember Kaylin Paxson. Go ahead.

I think staff had a presentation.

Good afternoon, Council and Mayor. Sergio Villasana, Director of Finance and Procurement here. The item before you is... We have a presentation on procurement for professional services, and the presentation is mostly informative. What we're asked to do is look at the rules for procuring professional services, some of the best practices, as well as our internal practices, and looking at other cities. And so here what we have is basically kind of what we want to highlight. What you'll find a recurring theme within the presentation is Government Code 2254 provides strict guidance on how to procure professional services, and it really focuses on certain professional services, including engineers, architects, serving services, CPAs. And the government code tells us that these types of professional services must be selected based on demonstrated competence and qualifications. As well, once you've determined the most highly qualified firm based on demonstrated competence and qualifications, then you would move on to the next part, which is negotiating a fee. Now, if both parties can't come to an agreement, then the city would be required to move on to the next most highly qualified professional service. So this government code not only governs cities, it also governs the state. So some of the best practices we looked at was also at the Texas State Comptroller's Rules for Procuring Professional Services, as well as the National Institute of Governmental Procurement and Texas Municipal League. So what we did, the staff pulled together some of the items in the original agenda memo, and what we have for you is basically the state law, best practices, our practice, and other cities' practices. Uh, so we'll start with here, uh, solicitating, I'm sorry, solicitations and marketing. Uh, so the Texas government code doesn't tell us exactly how to do solicitations or marketing. Uh, we did look at, um, some of the best practices, which include publishing your solicitation, which is our request for qualifications, uh, is what I would consider our solicitation. We publish that out there. Uh, so best practices to post that broadly provide enough time for professional services to respond. use control questions and answers, and then release that information to respondents equally and make sure they have equal access to it. And what you'll find is our practice and process line up with those best practices. For engineering services, our RFQs are posted on sithcastusa.com. This is a national platform. We publish our legal notices in the Caller Times. We allow a time frame of about four to six weeks for respondents to submit. We provide pre-submittal conferences. We allow written clarification, so respondents are able to submit questions, and when the city responds to those questions, it's all responded through CivCast or an addenda, and so it gives equal access to all respondents. We looked at other cities, and most cities follow the same methodology. They have their own platforms, their own process, but this is kind of the best practice that we follow to comply with government code 2254. Next item we looked at was qualifications and scoring. Here the state law requires that we select the most highly qualified provider that's demonstrated competence and qualifications. We do want to highlight that competitive bidding is strictly prohibited by government code chapter 2254. So we can't have low bid on these types of professional services. So best practices, we looked at what was out there. So it was important to, as far as the best practice, publish our criteria and weights before responses are evaluated. Score every statement of qualification using the same criteria. Using evaluators with relevant expertise or basically subject matter experts should be part of the evaluation committee. And we need to document and provide the basis for scoring and rankings. So if we look at the city's practice, this lines up with best practice. We use a basic pass or fail minimum qualifications. We do have evaluators that score independently. We conduct interviews if needed to further refine our process. Scores are added and tabulated. And some of the criteria we use is firm experience, team experience, resource, past performance, and understanding the scope. We looked at other cities and what we found is they pretty much follow the same practice for these types of professional services. We wanted to highlight the quality controls or bias controls. So government code chapter 2254 doesn't tell us exactly how to do that. What we found best practice from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts was at least having three to five scoring members that they have relevant multidisciplinary expertise, independent evaluation criteria is published, clear documentation, and evaluator preparation. We look at NIGP, which basically stresses very similar items. The way the city operates, we provide a committee of five members, including a licensed engineer, a construction inspector, a client department subject matter experts as part of the committee to evaluate the RFPs. The procurement team within finance, which is separate from engineering, controls the communication process between departments and the professionals that have submitted their qualifications. We do this for process and consistency as well as being able to document separately from the department. As mentioned last time, material scoring anomalies are looked at by the procurement capital team. And they do reach out to the evaluators to kind of discuss those. but we can't force the evaluators to change their scores. We looked at a couple other cities, and we found that the city of Houston limits evaluators to no less than three, but also have no more than five. The only one that had somewhat of an in-depth evaluation process was the city of Austin. The rest of the cities we found were consistent with our practice. We also looked at high and low scores to see if others were excluding those. But we found that the state law doesn't allow for that particular practice. Again, we have to go back to selecting the most highly qualified, competent firm. The Texas Comptroller's... So best practice here is to use published criteria that consistently... Okay, so sorry. Best practice by the Texas CPA favors independent scoring and documented decisions. That is our practice. We don't immediately discard the high or low scores. We do require written justification or notes within the packets when the scores are unusually consistently high. Significant variances are looked at. The evaluators may revise their score if information was misunderstood or overlooked, but again, they retain independent judgment. We looked at various cities and we found that no other cities are able to do remove high and low scores. The next item is local preference. Chapter 2254 doesn't allow for a local preference or having an offense in a city as a scoring metric. We found some of the best practice which we have implemented here is if the Proposer, the respondent has experience working locally, so understanding local conditions, that could be a criteria used to add scoring, and the city has adopted that policy. So that is under ordinance number 032657. We allow for 10 points for having local experience. We looked at other cities. We found that other cities also do not have a specific local office preference or having a presence. being present within the state as a criteria because they must also follow government code 2254. We found some don't include local experience as a requirement. We found some others do also do similarly what we do as far as having a criteria for understanding the local conditions. Next is a military veteran preference. Chapter 2254 does not contain a military or veteran-owned firm preference. when selecting these types of professional services that fall under this code. The selection, again, must be based on demonstrated experience and competence. Our best practice is encouraging to gather that information, as we do use that information for non-professional services that don't fall under Chapter 2254, as well as other commodities. Fee negotiation is the next category we looked at. So the city first must select, based on the state law, the most highly qualified provider first, then negotiate a fee. If the negotiations fail, then move on to the next highest-ranked firm. Texas CPA advises that we keep pricing out of the initial qualified-based selection ranking. Once you've selected a firm, then negotiate scope, level of effort, and so on. Our practice is the same. is where we basically rank all the respondents first, then the highest ranked respondent, the fee will then be negotiated. Other cities did not publicly advertise or publish on their websites how they negotiate fees for these types of professional services. We did find that the city of Austin has a certain rate review for consultants on their website. The last slide here is procurement efficiency. It was another category that was listed in the original agenda memo. And again, the state law doesn't tell us how to be efficient. We looked at best practices. I'm going to skip that because we line up with best practice. We use standard templates. We have clearly defined requirements. We provide instructions for the respondents. We publicize nationally our request for proposals, request for qualifications. and CIFCAS USA, the Corpus Christi Caller Times. It's also announced on our procurements website. We allow times for questions and answers from the respondents, and then we provide a fair response to all through using the same platform. We look at minimum qualifications. We have independent scoring. Interviews are conducted as needed. Firms are ranked. Fees are then negotiated, and the contract is awarded, and the contract is executed. That concludes the presentation on the best practices, the city's practice on the selected items.

Councilwoman Paxton.

Thank you for the presentation. Chapter, just to be clear, Chapter 2254, that's specifically A&E type contracts. That's what you were referencing in this presentation. Let me go to that.

Right. The government code actually lists, I'm guessing here, about 10 professions, so engineering, architects, CPAs, and there's still maybe like five or six more under that chapter specifically. There's other professional services that don't fall in this category.

Sure. I appreciate that. I think one of the common themes that you demonstrated throughout your presentation was you cited the Texas code, and then you said most cities follow some sort of a close variation to what we do, which is what the code is. Great, we're following the law. That's perfect. To me, that's one of the big driving factors behind wanting to call this committee for a brief period of time is, to look at what could we do across our procurement. And I'm not saying that we're not following good practice. I'm not saying any of the other cities are not following state practice. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying how can we encourage this kind of competitiveness in a way internally that some of those things that we hear all the time that could be deterrents could be addressed. Other things that could drive down costs. I didn't see anything throughout these slides that talked about what are our insurance requirements, our bond requirements, those thresholds, and is that state, is that practice across the other cities, is that just our policy thresholds that we like? Because those are costs that are gonna be transferred onto us, right? And so those are some of those thought processes behind this as far as making a recommendation for our local policy. I'm not at all advocating that we step outside of the state policy, but that's where that second element behind this would come in, which is all the cities are having to follow this because it is the state law. But is there, by evaluating the intent behind the state policy and the execution or the normal practice behind private industry where there's more cost, but still you can have a great product. I mean, people can hire, you know, engineers, architects, builders, and have a beautiful product in the private sector. they're not sacrificing that quality so that's why there's that dual nature behind this request which is evaluating all of the elements of the local procurement and state and saying this is what we could do to open that up this is some policy and i recognize where this said no preference you can't really put something above the um Qualified portion, you know, so you address some of that like military local preference things like that But then in other in other procurements, maybe it's a small threshold procurement Maybe it's specific projects type, you know There's specific funding for diag those types of things that we could look at in those local policy recommendations and then say Evaluating the state behind their intent. How could we make a recommendation that? that that would still come out with a good product but would help cities because of course the whole cities across the state are following the state code that makes perfect sense right i mean they have to but that's where i'm saying we could we could really look at this internally and we could really actually step forward i believe and make some good recommendations that this council could then work with our igr team to go advocate those types of things so i appreciate that presentation

Councilman Hernandez.

Okay, so I'll read the code directly. 2254.004. In procuring architectural, engineering, and land surveying services, a government entity shall first select most highly qualified provider of those services on the basis of demonstrated competence and qualifications, then attempt to negotiate a provider with a contract at a fair and reasonable price. What is your definition of fair and reasonable price?

I'll hand that over to Jeff here. The Department of Engineering Services handles those fee negotiations.

Jeff Edmonds, Director of Engineering Services. So unfortunately, there's not a light bulb that goes off when you reach something that's fair and reasonable. It's an iterative process, and the first part of it is defining the scope. You have to go through scoping. And then you go through negotiation. And we go through kind of a zero-based budgeting exercise where they build it up with a work breakdown structure, task by task, and then they're putting labor hours for different labor categories on there and loaded rates. And we... test that for reasonableness. We test it for consistency across.

How do you test it for reasonableness?

Well, our folks that are doing this, this is what they do all the time.

Okay, so if you can explain that. So, for example, are you keeping a historical record of what these companies charge by hour and average it out to say that that's what the norm should be, or how are you determining that?

We don't actually have a database on that. We maintain, but we... It is kind of based on feel. It's based on what we're consistently seeing. You know, if you see somebody that's charging way more for a particular...

But you're not keeping track of what that looks like on an average basis?

Um... I would say not explicitly. We are, from a budgetary standpoint, we've got sort of a mark one eyeball of 10%. If we have somebody that comes in way north of that on estimated construction costs, that's usually kind of a red flag that we drill down into.

So is there like a reference point, like a professional site that says this should be the average cost for this year in this particular market based on these particular circumstances, do you have some sort of professional site that you can reference to?

There are some sites that publish like... Do you utilize them? Compensation rates. Does your team utilize them? I would say so. I mean, there's different sources, resources. Okay.

Is there a codified or policy, written policy on how you should determine what is a fair market price for this particular year?

I wouldn't say there's anything that's published exactly like that, but. There are publications that look at cost relative to construction dollars for different types of projects. You know, there's not a gold standard. There's not a, you know, one go-to source that's going to tell you what you should pay. And in fact, the latest publication on this, which is American Society of Civil Engineers Manual Practice 45, They used to do curve fitting, and they would publish curves, and this manual came out around 2012 is when it was published, and they went away from fee curves, and they published the spread. They published the actual data points rather than curve-fitted lines, and there's pretty significant spread.

Okay, so with procurement on this, without having some sort of formalized policy on how you determine what costs should be or negotiated costs should be, obviously you can't do it on the selection process, but on the negotiation side, there should be some formalized process to determine whether or not the cost is structured correctly. Okay. So because, I mean, when it comes to us, it's a yes or no kind of situation, right? We don't have any insight into, well, at least it's not part of the agenda memo or the documentation. You have to ask for the individual scoring by whoever did the scoring from that. It's not part of our package. So by the time it gets to us, it's just a simple yes or no. there's not a lot of detail behind how one was selected versus another one. It's just we selected these guys because we thought they were the best with no real understanding of how they were selected other than just that grid that says, okay, these people scored the highest. But when you have situations like, like I gave this example last week, when we selected Fries and Nichols to do an evaluation for DeSalle, when they had no previous experience in DeSalle, and somehow they were selected anyway. And then we ended up with a project that was five and a half times the original cost they estimated. It calls into question, how are they selected? When you have those kind of scenarios, how do we get that comfort factor to saying that this is the correct way to do things or the process is fair?

Well, I will say that it is a two-step process. You go through the selection, and I will agree that the only time that council is seeing that is typically when we're doing the mass selection process. And we're announcing those selections to council and getting authorization to negotiate those contracts up to an aggregate amount. So that's one that you guys, what you don't see there is the second part. But normally, if it's not one of those mass selections, you're not seeing the first part until it's already coming with a full-blown scoped and negotiated contract.

Okay. Well, I understand what Councilwoman Paxson was kind of trying to set here is to have kind of an oversight on the process, separate from council, obviously with an ad hoc committee, or maybe it could be a standing committee to review these kind of processes, but I'll let others ask questions.

Councilman Gumbels.

Thank you Okay, so when it comes to the committee the consists of five members Is it typically the same five members or you all rotate or how does that know it depends on the project?

It's project specific. So usually you'll have a couple of people that are assigned from my department and the whole process is overseen by contracts and procurement and then we'll have somebody well, we might have somebody from construction to and and then you'll have a couple of people that are from the operating department. So if it's for a fire station, you might have a couple people from fire on the selection committee. You might have a couple of people in project management upstairs that work on facilities, and then somebody from construction.

For example, the desal project, since there has not been a desal project, how would you have determined which committee members would be

Part of that do you mean for the one where the key wit they were selected? Yes Well, that was a subject of quite a bit of discussion I Would say we we had a lot of people involved with that project that discussed who should be on that evaluation committee Hmm

Okay, well, I guess then I need to I wanted to ask, I see that the city of Austin requires in depth training for evaluators, including ethics and anti lobbying. So I would, I mean, is it safe to assume that we have anti lobbying in our committees?

Clarissa Johnson, Interim Assistant Director of Contracts and Procurement. Yes, we do have anti-lobby provisions in our solicitation. Both that go out to contractors, and it is understood within the evaluation committee that they're to abide by. We are in a no-contact period from the time the solicitation is issued to the time that it is awarded.

Well, only because one of our employees, what's his name? Brent? No. Can't think of his name. Went directly from here to Friesen Nichols. Who? It is Brent, right? I'm just wondering how, if it happens more often than we know, that our engineers are going to the private sector and back and forth, like, does that happen pretty often?

That's actually, I think, an HR issue.

No, I mean, that can happen. Now, there's... We had a policy at one time that provided a certain sunset period that you couldn't work on a city project for a consultant. You couldn't work on the selection of a consultant and then go right over and work for them. Now, it is a fact that he went to work for Friesen-Nichols. He also went to San Antonio, and he's working on an aviation project in San Antonio that really doesn't have much to do with what he worked on when he was here.

But are you saying that we do no longer have that provision in place where we have a standing rule that you can't just go from, you know, from city of Corpus Christi to the contractor within 90 days, 120 days?

Well, now, it's what you can do. That's correct. That's still the policy. That's still the city policy. It is a city policy? Once you leave the city's employment, it's 12 months.

It is 12 months. You can't work for the contractor. Because I thought that Brent went directly on city projects. Okay, but the city project was the Inner Harbor, and then he went to go work for Friesen Nichols.

Doing aviation projects in San Antonio.

Not, hmm.

Right, so he didn't go to work for them working on the Inner Harbor project after he left.

Okay.

City of Corpus Christi.

All right. Well, thank you.

These people, when they leave here, they usually are taking a job somewhere else. Yeah. It's either the city or it might be consulting engineering. You can't say, well, you leave here, you can't work for 12 months.

No, but you can't work on the same project that you were. Correct. Okay. Okay. Well, thank you for clarifying that. All right. That's all I have for now. Councilman Paxson.

Thank you, Jeff. Thank you everyone for the presentation. I think still at the end of the day and it's no fault of our department because it's state policy. The big thing behind this is, you know, we hear it a lot. We hired the same X amount of contractors and there's so many complex reasons as to why that would happen. So part of this is evaluating that. It's that so much of our costs are increased because we're a city entity. and they charge us more, and that's not you, that's not me, that's none of us, but it's not exclusive to the city of Corpus Christi. It's a systemic issue, and anytime we try to have the discussion, how can we discourage that? It comes back to these state policies. It comes back to how do we have to post it, and so that, to me, is the reason that I think having a committee of professionals who understand private and public sector and they can evaluate all of this and come up with some good recommendations is really important, is to try to tackle those things. And so for that, I'd make a motion to approve. Thank you.

Councilman Bonita.

I just want to, I guess, reiterate, as somebody that competes for professional services, not necessarily as an architectural engineer, I'm just going to make some comments, but... You know, and then I get stuck in between whether or not it's a professional service or you can include the pricing. I think the situation is when you have professional services, what determines the price is the market. And, you know, about two years ago, Corpus Christi, exceeded the the average wage exceeded that of the state of Texas and in some areas it was we exceeded that and if you deal down on it a lot of it was professional services and the challenge is is that when you have a city that's growing and you have tons of infrastructure improvements well then and you want to recruit and I and I always talk about paper Dawson down the hall sorry Rob But I think eight years ago, half was probably two employees, and you're at, what, 18, 20 now? So he's acknowledging that. Babe Dawson, you know, what is it, has a staff full of people, several people that had left Corpus Christi and came back. And what happens is when they get into a bidding war... And they have to compete for all those engineers, and they have to recruit them from all over the state. And there have been several that are local that have come back, and Mr. Schultz being one of them, went from Austin, came to Corpus, grew up here, born and raised here. And in order to do that, that drives the cost higher because the market is competing with each other. And I was accused last week, and I wrote it down, of worshipping the idol of capitalism. And that's just the way the process works. I mean, it's no different when we argue about Peter's pay. That's just what the market requires. So I understand your point. It's difficult on my services to pin it down to an actual cost because I feel like our firm provides a ton of added value. And it frustrates me to no end when you have a firm that comes in and says they'll do it for half the cost. Well, they're providing probably a third of the real value. So I firmly believe in the system that we have. I think there are challenges in procurement. But when you're running a billion-dollar organization that has a CIP that goes into the billions over time, then What is it you're going to have challenges 29 different lines of business and those are management issues? I and I don't I don't know just like I disagree with my colleague to my right who as I have quite a bit over the last eight years What is it? but I don't feel you know there was a comment made when we talked about the judges and you know, that the idea that the cost of living here is less and the value and, you know, what have you. And I said, well, we want to recruit people from all around the state or all around the country. And the reason being is what that does is that elevates the pay for these individuals here, you know, because then they have to say, you know, they have to look at it from that perspective. So I really don't support this. I think it's, as I joke around in the past, it's a solution in search of a problem. But I think the success we pay for being a successful city is the fact that the cost for professional services goes up. I mean, I have a son that's an engineer. And he ended up as a software engineer because that's where the market took him. And he's been very successful as a software engineer who we paid for a petroleum engineer degree. But there's kind of a hybrid of which he works within that sector. And once again, it's because it's the market that drives what he gets paid and the service that his firm provides. And they do worldwide work. So once again, I think getting a whole bunch of people in a room and understanding that unless they're all in professional services and they understand the market, the other thing is is that The state of Texas doesn't support this type of initiative. And you could argue that engineering and architectural firms have a very strong lobby, but the state of Texas doesn't support this. And right now, when we're going through all these preemption bills and we're going to do something different than what the state of Texas provides, I just think it's not good public policy. Thank you.

One second. Oh.

Okay, and just for clarity, you are wanting to have council members choose or appoint a person. Is that correct? Right. And those people would then look at the policy and state law. recommend improvements to city processes and applicable state law. I guess I'm wondering what is the deficiency that you feel there exists?

Thank you. So the outline was to have each Elected a point similar to the committee's we've done far-field Conservation plan all of those a point one and have someone from legal someone from engineer kind of help be the liaison and the objective is really to to come up with An evaluation of our policies and that's that's the whole bulk of things some of the conversation up here would certainly be included things like Who's scoring? What's the training we do or don't provide for those scoring? Where we may not drive the selection, what do we drive in the negotiation? Those types of things. I know that a lot of our action is driven by the state, but where can we look at our policies adhering to the state and encourage competitive bidding, encourage competitive pricing without disobeying the state policy?

Okay, thank you. Peter, we, I think we've heard, we are abiding by, this is very specific, right, this professional services. We're abiding by, we have to abide by state law and procedure and best practices.

And we are, as Sergio said, we are following at a minimum state law. And then in some of these cases, we have best practice protocols in place.

Unless you feel otherwise, I feel like this, number one, is very operational and we're policymakers. So this is more in your lane. I think it does cross over, but I think we have to be very careful. And to put... lay people in a room who are not familiar, I wouldn't think. I don't know, to me it's just a little bit, it could go the other way, where it could become, we create problems. To me, I think this is very operational. And I think, if anything, we are 50 days out, 5-0 out from an election. And I think by the time something like this is put together to review, it's really for the next council. So I don't know how this body is going to benefit, or I realize it's going to be for staff, but I guess... it really needs to start with you looking at what concerns any council members have with this operational process.

Right, since I've been here, we have done a review of our procurement processes and made improvements like the points for being local.

Right.

We developed the manual, the then purchasing director. So we've made adjustments along the way in the procedures. If council wants something different, that's another story, but. If we did do, if the council did do this, I would request that we have some type of, somebody that's gonna facilitate it or guide it and not one of us. Because it's pretty technical stuff and to make sure that the nine volunteers would be using their time efficiently. Probably need somebody to help them develop a process, but what are they gonna look at?

Well, right, and that's also...

Right.

Well, I think that's part of it, too, Peter, is what exactly are we looking for? I know, Councilman, you just...

It's somewhat of a, you know, we're all about, I always tell the organization that we can always improve our processes, and unless you look at them closely, it's hard to know if you're doing that, and that's why we support But wouldn't you do that internally? I've been big supporters of our audit team because they can come in and review a process. So this is somewhat similar to that. There could be some things that we find from a different perspective. But again, to make it meaningful, I think to make it most fruitful for those that are selected as volunteers, that there'd be some expert facilitator of sorts.

Why wouldn't we start with an audit then?

What's that?

Why wouldn't we start with an audit?

You could. You could put this on the audit work plan.

Thank you. Councilwoman Vaughn.

Well, I'm a little conflicted about it, and I wanted your opinion as well, too, because I understand what she's trying to do. I do. I think she wants the process to be better, and I get that, but I can't think of one person that I know that I would put on it because I think we need some really smart people on it. Not that I don't know smart people, but I'm just saying it's an individualized expertise on doing this, and I'm kind of The fact that we are towards the election, do we want to wait and move it towards the next year? So what benefit? I mean, you have an opinion. Do you think it's something that needs to be done? I'm always worried about boards because sometimes we get these boards together and we don't even use them. And then we have to use staff time on these boards and you would have to have staff on it.