City Council - Regular Meeting

Council members to please come to the dais so we can go into our next meeting, please. Where did it go? Get that food off your mouth. Council members, if you are available, please come so we can start our next meeting. Thank you.

Is there any council members? We need two more so we can start our meeting. They knew it was gonna be a short break. I mean, staff trying to get home.

Dummy.

Hello? I know. I'd like to call our second meeting to order. Let the record show all council members are present. Council member Cobb is on zone.

Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Councilmember Solomon. Approve the agenda. Councilwoman Gonzales.

I second that.

All in favor, yes. All opposed, no. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. One, two, three.

Yes, ma'am.

Motion carries six to zero. Council member Alvarez is in the back. Madam secretary, whenever you're ready.

Public hearing. PH twenty six zero zero one. Hold a public hearing and consider an ordinance authorizing substantial amendment to the annual action plan for program year 2025 through 2026 to reprogram CDBG funds from the u reunification center project to the Rosa Hereford Community Center and senior wing and Killeen Community Center ballpark water reuse irrigation system project in the amount of $1,349,445.69. The caption of the ordinance reads, an ordinance authorizing adoption of a substantial amendment to the community development annual action plan for fiscal year twenty twenty five reprogramming community development block grant program funds in the amount of $1,349,445.69 to the Rosa Hereford Community Center and Senior Wing and to the Clean Community Center Park Irrigation System, providing a severability clause and providing an effective date.

Thank you. Welcome back, Ms. McNair.

Thank you.

The background on this hasn't changed from our previous meeting. So just really quickly, back in the 2025, we talked about the proposed reunification center. Council provided us a motion to direction of direction to suspend the project until further notice. We had two sources of funding for that project, CIP funds as well as community development block grant. Instruction was to hold the CIP funds until final decision is made and the CDBG funds, we were to reallocate those funds to an eligible project.

With the reallocation of those funds, we are required to do substantial amendment to our annual action plan. In August 2025, we did go to see that about the reprogramming of the funds for the reunification center to the Hereford community center and senior wing project and also the Killeen community center ballpark. The funding detail is laid out here from 2022 all the way up to 2024 and 2025 program years. We have a total of $1,300,000 $49,445.69. And this was what we awarded towards the reunification center.

We spent $49,000 of that. CDAC provided us a recommendation in November to put the funds towards the Hereford community center project and the Killeen community center ballpark water reuse irrigation system. CDAC was presented with several options. One was to purchase unfunded costs for kitchen appliances furniture and IT at the Hereford community center, funding the community center ballpark. And then finally, they were offered an option of not to recommend any funding and allowing all the funds to be made available for reprogramming in our next program year or fiscal year 2027.

Members present voted unanimously to recommend the following funding be reprogrammed. There's a typo here. It's $349,445 dollars 69¢ towards the Hereford Center of kitchen appliances furniture and IT, and then a million dollars towards funding of design and construction of a new reuse water supply at the Killeen Community Center ballpark. We received no citizen comments during the comment period. We had it available at five locations and online.

Four locations and online. Next steps, if this is approved, we will submit the substantial amendment to HUD via IDIS no later than January 16. Additionally, staff present an update to counsel on January 20 regarding the status of the reunification center project. Staff recommends that counsel approve the ordinance for the substantial amendment awarding $349,445.69 to the community center for IT kitchen appliances and furnishings and the remaining balance of $1,000,000 towards the Killeen community center ballpark water reuse system. Thank

you. There are no questions of you. Public hearing is open. Melissa Brown, you have three minutes.

Somehow I knew my comments at the last public hearing wouldn't be taken into account. So let me go again. I told you so. I told you the last time the substantial amendment came up that you were rushing to a decision for a project that wasn't gonna qualify. So let me go ahead and tell you again that this is not the best use for this money.

There is no place in RCIPs. It's not even in the parks master plan to put a new irrigation system at the community center, much less at the ball fields. We don't have any other money for it. We just found 100,000 plus in our CIP money to pay for the design of this new irrigation program now, which leads me to the conclusion that this council had already made the predetermined conclusion, you are going to vote in favor of this, otherwise we're paying a whole bunch of money for something we can't afford anyway. How is it possible we have invoices for all of the furniture, all of the computers, and everything at the Rosa Hereford Center and the Bob Gilmore Center, but we couldn't find $300,000 to pay for it, and that was unfunded.

So we're gonna use the CDBG money for it now. Sounds like we're really just trying to reimburse ourselves expenses. We won't be able to take that 100 plus thousand dollars out of the CDBG money to pay for this because then we are reimbursing ourselves since you approved that spending before you even approved putting it on our plan for the money. But go ahead. Approve it.

Let the citizens know that you feel there is no better need or use for this money. We have citizens all across District 1 who just received a second round of letters about the water the water lines that they have. They may contain contamination on their private side of the line and they should probably replace those lines. Most of the people who receive this are not in a financial position to pay for it. So there are two things that should happen with this.

Either a, keep this money for a reunification center, whether it's building a new $4,000,000 place that we don't need to spend that much money on, or whether it's upgrading another building, upgrading an existing homeless shelter, use it for what it's already been appropriated for, or put it to a better use, because we're going to charge everybody money to use those fields. We're going to charge family money in order to enroll their students in these youth leagues to use those fields. So how is that really benefiting the low and moderate income families? It's not. It's making it look prettier.

It's gonna cost us more money, and a million dollars will not cover the full cost of that irrigation system. So where is the rest of that money gonna come from? Don't rush this decision. Just let it be allocated next year.

Public hearing is closed. Can I get a motion to approve or disapprove pH Dash25 I mean, 6? Is that 26? Uh-huh. 26Dash001. Council member Solomon. Yes. Madam, may I make a motion to approve PHDash26Dash001. Council Member Ameres. Mayor, I second that motion. Is are there any comments? All in favor, yes. All opposed, no. Yes. Thank you.

Motion carries seven to zero. Can I get a motion to adjourn? Council member Aberrest. Council member Solomon. Second. All in favor? Aye. Meeting adjourned.