City Council - Regular Meeting

There I am. Are we about to start? Please silence your cell phones, devices, etc. You start at six, right? Right at six. Not before 9.

All right. I've got six o'clock. 6 o'clock. It calls us meeting the Sagon City Council order. Please rise for the pledges. I alian to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. Thank you. Please be seated. I do not see uh anyone here for the invocation. Do I have a volunteer that would so feel so moved to give the invocation? Anybody?

You want to do it, Sean? Yeah. Everybody bow your heads, please. Dear heavenly father, we are so thankful that we get to uh gather here in this place. We're thankful that we have a safe place and uh to live and to conduct business. board. Um, we just ask that you uh be with our city, be with our staff, be with our citizens, uh, and be with our leaders here as we help make decisions that will be best for the community, for their safety, and for productivity. Um, Lord, just be with us during this time. Help us make those decisions. It's in Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Thank you, Sean. Uh, 1D is audience participation. If there's an item on the agenda you wish to speak about, please see the uh, chief over there. There's a form to fill out. You can may speak on any item that is listed on the agenda. Moving forward to the consent agenda. A is action regarding minutes of February 17th. B is action regarding purchase of police patrol units. C is act regarding me of understanding of the library courier serving Metrour community libraries. D is action regarding ordinance 20264 amending Sagon city ordinances solid waste franchise agreement. E is action regarding ordinance 20265 amending the master fee schedule by amending the water and sewer tap fees. questions, comments on the consent agenda? If not, I'll entertain a motion.

May I make a motion that we pass the present? Thank you. You're right here. All right. Please cast your votes. I did.

Motion pack. Let the record reflect. We do have a quorum. Mayor Pro Tim Puffy is on the way. He is stuck in traffic, so he will be here shortly. 3A recognitions, presentations. Gabe, what do we have tonight? Uh, don't have any tonight, I believe. Mayor, nothing. Any council have anything you want to highlight? Anything? The fire truck's pretty. It is. We have brand new fire truck. Chief, you want to say about your new fire truck? Your new toy? Just We're very blessed to be able to get that. It's It's a good tool for us to use. They're expensive, but they're necessary. Thank you. Thank you. Good call. All right, moving to 3B. Discussion regarding recording of boards and committees and making the recording available for the public.

Nick, I think you brought this up.

Yeah. So, a couple years ago, we uh paid instituted on the U to have all, you know, to be able to record I hear myself. um to record meetings and stuff and we've done that for a couple years. There is a couple the PNZ and a couple others that do get recorded. It is uh the citizens very much like that. I definitely know I like it being able to go back and look when I'm looking at it and u since these committees are of interest to the citizens u I felt that it is time now to move forward and have make a motion to have them all recorded so that citizens and others can can watch them. I would absolutely agree. Is there any logistical issues with doing that? Any staff knows of any logistical problems with any all the boards? They don't all meet in this room though, do they?

Uh just about all of them, but we have them kind of spaced out as best we can across the week um in the month. We do have some issues occasionally, but um I know it's been brought up, can we do it across the street? And we could record them, but we don't have the capability of Um, we don't have the equipment over there to u connect to the agenda system is the only problem. So, we could record things and then place it on the internet on the Facebook page or I mean the web page after that, but they wouldn't be live.

Yeah, I don't think it's necessary that they be live. But I do think that uh there needs to be when they do get recorded that that they they get made to public within a reasonable amount of time like you know 48 hours something like that.

Oh Mr. Mayor I just wanted to add uh there actually is a state law stating that any meeting that is recorded has to be posted uh on the city either website or their channel. Uh so right now each meeting is recorded except for the library board and board of adjustments. Animal services just uh jumped over on what was it like the last what was it last meeting? Last week. Uh but yeah, that's something that me and Leaf talked about to potentially uh either record or have have it set up like we have it set up here. Okay. Do um to make this happen, do we need a motion or Yeah, I'll make a motion. Yeah, let's do it. Go for it.

What is it? This is which one? Four. 3B 3B. Mayor, I move that we approve 3B. Second. Second.

Motion pass. Let the record reflect. We have a full house now. Welcome, Mayor Pro. Glad you made it. Got to love Rex on 820. Just in time. All right. Thank you, folks. Let's make that happen. 4A. Consideration action regarding ordinance 2026-6 amending the Sagon city ordinances parking of certain vehicles prohibited on certain streets. Fire Chief Doug Spears.

Thank you, mayor and council. Uh hopefully you had an opportunity to read all their information that was in the council packet and view the additional uh info in an email as a result of questions from council member Lawson. Staff's intent is just to provide you enough information to make an educated decision regarding certain vehicles that are uh can be parked up on the street. staff does recommend revising the the ordinance uh from the 3/4 ton max up to the one ton max. As you know, pickup trucks in Texas are really common. That includes all sizes, half up to up to one ton. I believe the decision really comes down to whether you allow Duly style pickups to park in the roadway or not. Uh as mentioned, there's some residential streets in the city where parallel parking in general causes some navigation issues. any vehicle wider than that average can increase enhance that uh challenge for us. But to be clear, not to the intent that we should have a citywide prohibition on those duly vehicles as common if they become. So that's really the emergency the fire chief stance on that. So with that, I'll answer any questions that you have.

Yeah. The question is if we've got those parked in the street, can a fire truck get down that street? That's my only concern. There are some challenges uh some streets that are challenging with just regular size vehicles on there. This would potentially enhance that. If that type vehicles on the roadway, the chances of two of those being across from each other is probably extremely rare. So, in those instances where it was a regular occurrence, we could reach out and talk to that person and see if there was another option. Uh but again, the concern is not great enough to put a citywide prohibition in the city in the fire chief's opinion. So my question to you would be um because I know that sometimes there's like service trucks or box trucks that are dually that might be under that one ton but would be the the the shell of the vehicle sticks out beyond the wheelbase um where the tires are. And so is that would that could it be better to limit that or would it be better to just say none altogether in your opinion? I've driven I've driven a couple taken a couple opportunities to drive through the city and see how that is. Really, it needs to be later in the evening when people are home from work to see how impactful that really is. I haven't found that to be a major concern now. I I do know a lot of people bring home their work truck because they're required to do that. And the last thing I want to do is create a hardship for somebody that's trying to do work and having to use that vehicle to do it. So, my answer to you would be it's not a big enough to concern to prohibit that. If we did something here and we found that to be challenging, we would certainly want to come back and correct it. But I don't I don't foresee that.

Um would it be possible to create districts um where some of the residential streets are narrower? you have different requirements um based on where in the city they are, the width of the the residential street. That way, it's not a city-wide prohibition, but on in the areas where it would be difficult uh to get through some of those streets. That's a possibility, but my personal opinion, I want to wouldn't want to penalize somebody just for the area of town that they live in.

Sure. Uh that's kind of my stance on it. Where where we really run into it is where the driveways are really short, can only accommodate a couple vehicles. The it's really dense and a lot of people live there. There's a lot of parallel parking. Those are the roads that I'm talking about. And we do have a few streets in the city that were constructed many many years ago that vary in width. Some of them are a little bit narrower than the 28 foot requirement. Uh those are the ones that are really challenging because there's there it's really inhabited over there. But we've been navigating it for quite some time now. So, other question.

Yeah. Um, one of my concerns is we have a traffic safety advisory board and that this wasn't taken to them. I'd like to see us table it and have it go to the traffic safety advisory board for their recommendation. That's why they're in place. So if we did that, could we also have it reviewed by Bin and make sure that the language includes that the DY uh trucks as well and then have that for the traffic. I did take a look at many of the ordinances in other cities and there there's they've got a lot with a lot of uh I guess provisions and much of them. I don't want it to be so right

convoluted that you can't tell what's right and what's wrong, but it it might be beneficial to take another look at some other ones and add some language. Certainly revisiting the service truck issue and all that. I don't think you can go all wrong doing that. I just want to make sure we flexibility and you can handle on a case by case basis if there's an issue. I don't want to put too much of an onus on, as you said, working folks that that need need their trucks. You know, I want to be able to get through the neighborhood. That's my big concern. Another thing to be clear on, I talked to police chief Ragdale. I know this to be fact that this is not something they're out there spending their time really looking on, right? But when a complaint is brought forward, that's something they're, you know, they're going to react on. Sure.

So, yeah, I I asked a bunch of questions and and looked and u far as my understanding, we haven't had any safety issues with with the douly um and so therefore I would not want to penalize citizens because of that. Um, second is I also absolutely support this to go to the committee because there are some things like that last sentence on there. I don't know what that sentence means. Um, so therefore I take worst case scenario. I read a lot into that and that gives me areas of concern.

Um, so I I definitely think it needs to look at it's it definitely needs to be adjusted. Uh 3/4 ton that's Yeah. I mean all of them a lot of people drive bigger than 3/4 ton. Yes sir. And we'll base on a 3/4 ton to one ton F-150 F350 removing the doulies is the exact same size and a dy adds 18 in or 19 19 in by the way. So um I uh I encourage the council to allow this to go to the board. And by the way, I correct me if I'm wrong. I think anytime we change an ordinance, it has to go to Brent, right, to be reviewed. That's my understanding. He reviews all the ordinance. He reviews all.

It's my understanding that did occur. It went to for legal council review. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure that after this discussion that it goes back to make sure that we tweak it, you know. But yeah, I I I agree. I agree with you. Are other comments, questions? No, sir. Oh, you want to make a motion? Yes. So, I'll make a motion that we table uh item 4 A and refer it back to the traffic safety advisory board.

All right. Motion table. We will see this again. Uh I'm looking at executive session is not required. I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. Mayor, I make a motion we adjurnn. Let's take a motion second at 6:13. We're out of here. Thank y'all. Natur