Community Development Block Grant - Regular Meeting

Welcome to 12/11/2025 regular meeting Morning. Of the CDBG MIT Advisory Committee. I'm calling the meeting to order at 09:30AM. May get a roll call, please?

Okay. Bill Agnew. Here.

And Michael Dillon?

Here.

And Travis Kelce? Here. Keith Oven.

See you. So okay. That's it.

Alright. So that takes us to the citizen comment period. Is there anyone in person online that wishes to speak?

See. Okay. Listen. Some doubt. No.

Okay. Then we'll move on to the minutes. So we'll consider approval of the minutes of the October 21 meeting. Do I hear a motion?

I I move to approve the minutes of the

whatever date it was made.

I'll go I'll I'll second it. Any questions regarding the motion? Seeing none, can you call the roll for the vote? Okay. Bill, I'm new.

Aye.

Mike Dunn?

Here.

Hi. Hi.

We're voting on the minutes.

I'm sorry. Say it again, please. That'd be a different I

got my job. Let me check the audio. I'll approve.

Hey, Mike. Can you hear me?

Do want me to make a motion to accept the minutes?

Actually, the motion has been made and seconded. Do you approve?

I approve.

Do you I wonder

Yes. Vote yes.

Okay. Thanks. Okay. I'll just

Mike, can you hear us okay?

I didn't see much. Say again, please.

We've got some technical difficulties. Give us a second here to try to figure it out, but we did get as much.

Can you hear better now?

Probably one more time.

Okay. Mhmm.

Can can you hear me?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Let me try. This

is why I don't do them both. Yeah.

Good. They won't be as mean as they want to. Right?

I didn't do it right. Sorry, y'all.

Let me test it again. Just test the pump. It's not about that. Okay.

As far as we can tell, it's okay, Mike. It seems to be working on this end. I don't think you can hear us.

That sounded better all of a sudden.

Okay. Okay.

Let's see. We'll move on then roll call. Mike, do you approve the minutes?

Here.

Okay. And Travis?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay. So we'll move on to item number five, presentations. We will now receive staff updates on community development block grant, mitigation projects. Committee members are welcome to ask questions or make comments for discussion at any time during the updates. So first up is Carol Griffith, housing and community development manager.

Carol? A little slow.

It's already

up. I just have to get to it. Okay. Okay. It's showing over here. I can see it. I bet he can see

this version. Think we're good. Okay.

Here we go.

Today, we're giving project updates on the MITT grant. And as you said, I'm Carol Griffith. I'm the housing and community development manager. So I'm the CDBG program liaison for this grant. I make sure things are done according to the rules of the grant, and then I also help with any amendments to the action plan.

Go to the next slide.

The action plan sets forth the projects shown in this table. As you can see, several projects are completed. So I'll go over the smaller completed projects, and then I'll hand off to Brandon Cortez, one of the engineers, to talk about the larger stormwater infrastructure projects. The mid grant ends in 2032. So while the city is spending it quickly or expeditiously, we're not really under time pressure.

I'll also talk briefly about the budget and the expenses, so let's start there. As you go down the list, you'll see that four out of five of the construction or acquisition projects are completed. So we know how much they have spent and how much we have left over. So notice that, like, right here, Blanco Gardens project only spent about 1,300,000.0, so we have about 2,000,000 available for something else. The enhanced flood warning system also has about 75,000 left over.

These funds can be combined with what you see as unallocated. So we have in planning, 793,000 and in administration, $5.41. To be allocated to another project, Could be a planning project or an infrastructure project, or it could be land acquisition that helps with flood mitigation. The use of this funding will be guided by the engineering studies and the stormwater master plan update, which is actually one of the projects. And so it is likely that the creation of another project may not happen or the decision on it may not happen until 2027 after that plan is fully updated because it'll guide the decision.

The action plan, as I said, contains the budget for the grant. So if we move more than 25% of a project's funding or if we create a new project, which is going to happen, we have to go through an amendment process with a public comment period. And so it'll have city council approval. It'll have submission of the amendment to HUD. It's kind of the whole deal.

And this committee, of course, will be part of that public process. So but probably not to happen for another year or more. A few more brief notes about the budget. The grant regulations require the city to have an internal audit function. And since we don't have in house auditors, we've contracted that funding that project function is what I'm trying to say out to Weaver.

That's the total of their contract over the course of the grant. They expect that that's probably all they'll need. They're doing a great job for us. So they the purpose of the auditing is not only to ensure the financial activity happens correctly. So they do look at some of our transactions and our processes. They also ensure that documentation for the projects and the plans is in place as we go. So they're taking each project and looking over it and making sure everything's in place. We have to upload the documents to the to the web. Basically, they pull them down and call them through everything and make sure we're in good order. So by the end of the grant, whenever we are done, everything will be ready.

We'll just close it out. So we'll be in good shape. They are very detailed also, I must say. Okay. Overall, about 18,000,000 has been spent, and about 6,000,000 is in process or pending, and then we do have those unallocated funds. So the pending prod oh, no. That's the 6,000,000. Sorry. Pending projects will depend on the completion of something else before they can get started. So, for example, we have this update to floodplain maps and models.

It's just March pending. That's because other things up here have to happen before we roll into that project. So it's just sort of we know we're gonna do it, but it's on hold. Okay. Any questions about the budget or the like, you can always ask in detail about the expenses once we kinda get to the projects. But anything else?

Anybody have any questions?

Okay. Okay.

Okay. So next up is Brandon Cortez. Oh, I'm sorry.

Next slide.

Don't give me a script. I'm a

I'm sorry. That was beautiful. Okay. So I'm gonna talk about a few of the smaller projects that have completed. These were actually managed by other people, like an engineer or the public works department, but I just thought I'd give you a quick briefing.

One of the projects is the addition of 10 flood gauges to the flood early warning system that was already in place through the county. So these gauges that now are specific to San Marcos in various areas are connected to the county system directly, like, you know, through the magic of the Internet to provide early warning for San Marcos. They were installed in places where a road intersected a creek or a tributary. So you can kinda see where the gauges were placed. I'm gonna go ahead and go to the next slide.

So everything's in operation, and here's where the data can be accessed. The public can access, you know, sort of a map of the data and general data. Background, there's a lot of other things downloaded by the county, and then that can be accessed by our engineering and public works departments. So they could see it real time, so can the public, and get ready and get out to the field if they need to.

Can I ask a question? Sure. Yeah. Why do we need our own flood gauges if the county has

They needed some. And for this, since we have this money, we wanted more to pepper into the system so that we get a quicker, read on specific areas. So this was was specifically like, these are all in San Marcos. The county covers the whole county.

So Yeah. That was the only question. So these particular gauges are not well, they're not in the same spot as the county

gauges. Yes. Exactly.

So they can fit specific to San Marcos.

And then we put in some more detail. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question.

And that's huge. Yeah. A lot of our floods, you know, Little Blanco Creek. We didn't know that was.

Right. So this will hit those spots

where if

had Like, filled in gaps.

It does. Yes. And specifically for our city too. They had some, of course, in San Marcos, but now a little more detailed. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. That's very nice. Okay.

I pulled this as as built. I don't know if you I don't know if you can see the little

notes, but this is a

VHF antenna, and then there's a GPS antenna here. This is one of the rain gauges. I just thought it'd be interesting to see. It's attached to a sort of traffic like pole on a concrete base. So this one that I pulled is just it's specifically to measure rainfall. It's got, you know, the electricity coming to it here and and the connections and so forth. And then here's the tipping bucket.

Sounds

Is that part of the flood mitigation project or something else?

It's part of the enhanced warning system. So this I just wanted to show you. Like, here's one of the things that was installed. There's also, like, as I understand, it gauges, you know, like, closer to the river to to show the

see the flow.

But this is the the rain gauge to tell us how much is coming down in this area. So I was

just That's

what was thinking. I wasn't sure that would be part of a flood prevent. Okay.

Oh, it's for risk mitigation.

Oh.

That's how they see it. So you can do it doesn't cause less flooding, but it causes less risk because we can get people out of

the way.

I understand. Okay.

Thank you. That's a great question too, because that's part of the reason for the grant. It's a you can use it to stop the water, or you can use it to prevent damage.

Okay. Yeah. Thanks. I understand.

Yeah. Okay. Next

thing, another sort of smaller project, but a good use of this funds preventing risk to life is the public works department has six gates installed. This wasn't, you know, a very expensive project, but it got some more physical gates that they can close so that people don't try to drive in the flooded areas. I did not go out and take a picture of one. So here's you know, it's just your standard pole gate, you know, with some signs, and they would get out there and manually close it. So I don't know.

One more that I'll talk about just real quick is our emergency management division asked to do this project. This is they did a a separate hazard mitigation action plan custom to the city of San Marcos. Before this, the city of San Marcos was like an appendix onto the county's plan. But because the engineering analysis and all the the the planning for hazard mitigation is now custom to San Marcos. It does put us in a better position to apply for future grants.

And then it also does give more detail for our people to work off of to prevent any kind of hazard, but mainly flooding like, to to respond to flooding. Sorry. I should say it that way. So they're trying to mitigate, you know, or eliminate human life and property risk from the identified hazards. So this plan goes through the whole gamut of hazards, and it identifies flooding as our biggest one. And then here's some more detail on how we can mitigate the risk. And that's the yeah. Alright. So now we turn it over to Brandon. Let's see.

Brandon, you're up.

Great. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? Is my microphone working?

Yes.

Yes. Perfect.

Okay. So I'll just go ahead and give a a quick recap over what was accomplished by the Blanco Gardens and Blanco Riverine infrastructure projects. As Carol mentioned, these projects are both fully complete at this point. No no constructions occurring. In fact, the the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Blanco Gardens neighborhood project occurred in January, so almost a year ago at this point.

Yeah. I'll go ahead and do a just a quick recap on on what the project's accomplished. So together with the Blanca River Reef flood mitigation project, which is comprised of flood berms or essentially, you know, containment hills that surround an an area to prevent floodwaters from overcoming them, flood walls, and an 80 acre relief channel between the Blanco and the San Marcos River. The now complete Blanco Gardens drainage improvements neighborhood project significantly reduces the impact of high flood events on the Blanco River that may impact the Blanco Gardens neighborhood. The way that this works, the Blanco Riverine flood mitigation project has a 80 acre relief channel, which is designed to activate beginning at a twenty five year flood event on the Blanco River and will provide a controlled path for floodwater to continue downstream to the San Marcos River San Marcos River up to the fifty year flood event rather than running through the Blanco Gardens neighborhood and streets to get there.

So, essentially, it it won't really start, taking floodwaters over from the Blanco River to the San Marcos River until we have a one in twenty five year event or a a 2%, sorry, a a 4% chance flood event from occurring. So anything less than that, any lesser events, won't activate the channel. And by activate, it means the waters within the Blanco River will rise to a high enough elevation that it'll overtop a spillway and pour into that relief channel. So twenty five years, the designed event to get the spillway to activate, and the this depth of the relief channel, we could make we could guarantee that we can contain the the fifty year flood event, meaning anything less than a a one and two purse sorry. One and fifty year chance or a 2% chance flood event will be contained within the channel.

That said, the flood events that occurred that initiated the the CDBG program to begin with, those major flood events that San Marcos experienced in the twenty tens, those were well over a fifty year flood event. Those were closer to one in a hundred year, one in two hundred year flood event. So it should be noted that, you know, those size of flood events won't be fully contained by the relief channel. However, that relief channel will provide faster relief to the neighborhood in those events by allowing the neighborhood to dissipate its floodwaters more quickly, and it'll also give the residents more time prior to their neighborhood being inundated with floodwaters as a result of the relief channel. So it performs two functions.

It it buys residents a good amount of time once, you know, that that flood events starts and and begins. The relief channel will activate. There'll be more time to evacuate the neighborhood. And as well, the second benefit is the the time in which the water's received from the neighborhood will be much quicker as a result of the early channel. So specific improvements within the Blanco Gardens neighborhood include alleyway concrete channels, which provide new concentrated paths for floodwater to make its way downstream to the San Marcos River.

So rather than just relying on the right of way, the the streets to convey those waters through the neighborhood, these channels provide an alternate path that are much more suitable for concentrated flow of of floodwaters. So this will significantly reduce the amount of floodwater that runs through the streets and the properties of the Blanco Gardens neighborhood during major flood events. Residents in the Blanco Gardens neighborhood and surrounding areas now have increased flood protection due to the completion of both the Blanco Riverine flood mitigation project and the Blanco Gardens neighborhood drainage project. Again, final note here, just recapping, while these projects do not provide one hundred year flood protection or alter the limits of the one hundred year floodplain, the Blanco Gardens neighborhood would still experience significantly lower depths of flooding thanks to these improvements. With the ongoing development of the city's stormwater master plan update, the city is continuing continuing to investigate larger projects along the Blanco Blanco River, such as regional detention projects that could help further mitigate future flood events.

And that is the the quick recap of these two projects.

Do you

have any questions for Brandon?

Yeah. I I have one, if I could. Can you hear me okay, Brandon?

Yes. Yeah.

The fact that the Relief Channel could handle a fifty year flood, but but not a hundred year flood, was that just like a cost benefit

type to save it?

Or It was limitations due to the available space that we had to build the channel, the 80 acre channel. When you're working with certain soils and and, like, geotechnical analysis of that channel, you can only go to a certain depth before you start, risking erosion of the sidewalls where it's not structurally sound of a channel. So there's only a certain amount of depth they could go realistically before it wouldn't be a a resilient form of channel. So they they went as deep as they could to provide the benefit the most benefit they could, and that was the the fifty year event.

This is really a matter of what's possible. Right?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Thank

you. I do wanna mention that, Brandon has been my main contact for, coordinating, and so he has done a lot of extra. He helps with the audits, and he also helps track the budget and that kind of thing for the all the projects. So he's a project engineer in the engineering department.

Okay. Also babysits us every once in a while.

Every once in a while. Yeah. So next, we have Greg Schwartz. He's a senior engineer. Good. Yes. He is right here. He's gonna go over several things that he's currently working on.

Thanks, Carol. So I'm tasked with managing the stormwater master plan update. Give you a little background on what that is is it's the master plan provides a comprehensive strategy for managing stormwater within the community. Some of the key aspects of this v San Marcos stormwater master plan is identifying think that just sure. Yeah.

Identifying drainage issues, identifying solutions to drainage issues, and prioritizing projects, and identify strategies to improve storm water quality, and all with the goal of protecting public safety and also the environment. Next slide, please. So why is it being updated? Our last update was in 2018, so it's been been a good eight years. I think I've accomplished a lot with regards to addressing drainage issues.

So it's a good time to relook at what we've accomplished, doc document that progress, and also investigate and see if if there's other drainage issues out there. And we do that by updating our modeling. Some of the precipitation data that we used previously in the previous update has been updated as well, so we have new data to incorporate, and we take a look at the city, again, as a whole as it relates to the storm water and drainage. And, again, we look at looking look at investigating any additional drainage issues as well as identifying proposed solutions and then prioritizing projects. And then we use that to program our capital improvement program and actually construct the projects.

It also helps us look at our strategies for water quality. We look at them so to see if there's ways we can improve based on how things are are functioning. Next slide, please. We did have a community outreach meeting back in April. We had a actual physical meeting you could attend where it was mostly an open house where you could go to different locations where we talked about different things relating to the drainage issues.

We had discovered and documented also water quality strategies as well and and what the city has been implementing in the past. And all this was an effort to get feedback from the public, making sure we've we've captured all the drainage issues and and and seeing if the public agreed. We also had a story map, our virtual virtual open house. Story map is a program through our platform platform through RGIS, but it allow anybody who wanted to learn more about the update and interact from their house remotely to check out the progress and also get feedback. They could actually if there was a drainage issue that they're aware of, they could actually locate it on a map and add a point, and we would get that information.

So we've we've taken that and and that feedback and incorporated it into the master plan master plan effort. We'll have a second public meeting in the spring after we look at developing solutions to the drainage issues. Next slide, please. This is our our timeline, the light blue, and the dark blue is our phase one, which we've completed this summer. It, again, looks at identifying drainage issues, ranking those drainage issues, and also looking at our stormwater quality strategies and and seeing if they're still effective and what we wanna make some changes.

You see the public meeting we had in phase one. We're now in the phase two where we're looking at solutions to drainage issues. We're just beginning that that process. So early in the spring is where we'll we'll take those solutions and prioritize those solutions. We'll have another public meeting once we're done with that to get feedback from the public. And then after that, we'll finalize stormwater master

plan. Next slide, please.

Oh oh, so the new project. Sorry. Okay. And your next one.

And as far as the land preservation plan, you're all at Penn mentioned that some of this work will come out of what we learned in the Stormwater master plan. So part of what we're doing in the Stormwater master plan effort is looking at regional detention sites. These sites will could be potential opportunities to provide attention for future development, or they can also provide mitigation for current drainage issues. So that's something we're looking at with the stormwater master plan. These ponds will likely need a large area to to make them happen and construct them.

So if we identify those opportunities with stormwater master plan, we plan to use those use the land preservation plan as a way and those funds as a way to actually purchase property for those systems. That's all for for my projects.

Any questions?

Yeah. The land preservation plan you're talking about here, that is separate from the land. There's a similar type plan in the flood mitigation. Isn't there

So if we go back to the budget let me show

you real quick. Well, the right terminology for all of them.

Yeah. The land preservation plan is and correct me if I'm wrong,

but it's

it's like the procedures of selecting which piece of land would be best to use for mitigation. This is the nonengineered talking. That plan or those procedures have already been drafted. Now the stormwater master plan update, all the analysis on what's needed in the community is going on. And then we also have this public space acquisitions up here. So you can see land preservation plan is here marked as complete. You see that? And then this public space acquisitions money is what's already been set aside to buy a plan and set it aside. So we kinda have several things going that are in our lot.

But this is a separate program from the two that are

From the, for example, stormwater master plan, it is separate.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. It's not okay.

Yeah. And then the hazard mitigation plan is something a little bit different kind of from an emergency planning aspect.

Yeah. I was just really asking about the land preservation portion of it. But okay. This is a totally a separate program from what we've got Yeah. Over here. Okay.

Yes. Okay.

But it is a part of the stormwater next to one.

It it So you have you have

to gather that information before you can move on with the stormwater master. Or the master plan was of it. Yeah.

It's a tool to use as a guide to identify lands and and perhaps use land preservation funding to purchase those lands. Yeah. And as

I understood it, see if I'm wrong, but the land preservation plan had to do with sort of setting out the idea that we're gonna choose the land based on engineering, not politics, that kind of thing. Right. So it kinda sends out those points right up front so that, you know, there will be a committee. Parks department, I'm sure, will be involved because they'll be managing the land, but it kinda sets in place. Like, once we have the analysis, then here's how we'll be able to proceed. Sure.

Kinda upfront. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Is all the slides we have. Next up is Richard Dreynosa. He's the assistant director of the engineering department, and he'll talk about projects he's working on. I guess I'll leave this budget up over here so you can see it. He's working on the community rating system and then later the floodplain. He's also our floodplain administrator.

Yes. Yes. Thank you. Actually, Greg's actually gonna be working on the floodplain models in Mats. I mean, that's kind of integrated, you know, in in multiple different ways, but the stormwater master plan, that consultant will potentially be, working on updates to our flood floodplain models and maps.

And so we have, since the twenty fifteen floods, been updating our maps to more current accurate data. During that time, even more, up to date information was was, provided hydrology statistically for how the intensity of rainfalls occur. And so that requires even additional updates to our flood maps and and floodplain projections. And so Greg Greg's working that on that within the stormwater master plan as well as some other efforts to make sure to bring our maps as current as possible with the the latest information. So so that's kind of a ongoing endeavor that we try to keep up with the technology and statistics of rainfall data over time that we're always trying to catch up with.

On the community rating system, the city is in the national flood insurance program. And with that, we are considered a CRS community, which gives us a guideline, a 600 page document of activities that the city can can do and gain points for. And and with that participation, it grants mixed availability of federal subsidized assurance for for flood mitigation or for flooding. And and with our participation, in that, it actually provides a reduction in those costs up to right now, we're a class seven community. It it starts at a a 10 and goes down.

And so sevens seven is an improved from a 10, and it provides a 15% discount to flood insurance rates. Right now, we are going through an update, a recertification of our program, and we're hoping to improve possibly one or two class categories in this next update and and could achieve, I think that'll get us almost to, like, a 25% discount. And so this specific project, the CRS update, is is helping us in that way. It's providing us a a document for assistance in guiding. It's almost a a cliff notes in a way version of the 600 page document.

It it documents where we're at, what we're doing currently, and areas for improvement. So it's gonna be it's a a massive plan in a way of our program, again, documenting what we're doing, what we can pursue to gain additional credits and improve our our our program, our floodplain management. You know, it it really we've done a really good job over time. We require structures to be elevated so that they're protected from future floods. Improvements significant improvements to existing structures even have have to comply with that as well.

So we're trying to preserve and protect existing and definitely hold new developments to the highest standard so that they don't see any greater flooding and that they mitigate within their own own development flooding to take into account all the information that we have. And so, again, this the CRS document goes into that, those regulations. It also, includes, even our drainage maintenance of channels and ponds. It's it's pretty pretty broad reaching over not just specifically floodplains, but it's how city manages the drainage system as well. The the discounts you

were talking about, who do those go to?

Are those Homeowners. Homeowners. Okay. Homeowners. Typically, homeowners are required to carry insurance by a mortgage lender, so they'll get it through them and and they'll get it. Those are all those discounts. Yeah. There are third party private insurances that that wouldn't, you know, fall under this realm, but if they're doing it through a, you know, federal subsidized mortgage that they they should be receiving those credits.

It's good.

Yeah. And we are about wrapped up with that. We should have that completed this month and a final document that we can share showing showing that information.

Okay. Fantastic. Any other questions?

That's all I'm answering. Very interesting.

Okay. So it brings us up to item six. Discussion items. Do we have anything to discuss? Mike?

Say again, please?

Do do you have anything for discussion items?

No. I'm y'all doing a fine job. Keep up the good work.

Okay. Then we'll move on to items. So are there any future agenda items, anything you gentlemen want to see on future agendas? Mister Dillon, any ideas for future agenda items? Okay. I'll take that as a note.

I think, actually, the agendas we've been getting all have all been good.

Don't No. Yeah. That's great.

Probably just mess them up if I start making changes.

Then, Sid, do we have any quest question and answers that should put the press in public? Is there anyone in place or online? We'll have

That is probably staff and committee, so no.

Okay. I'll make the motion to adjourn.

Sure.

And I have to leave my whole

call and everything. I don't know. Okay. Bill.

Your call.

Hi.

Mike? Yes.

Travis.

Hi.

Okay.

Alright. Good seeing you, Mike. Merry Christmas.