City Council - Regular Meeting

I call this regular meeting on the New Braunfels City Council to order. Today's date is July 13, 2026, and the time is 6.02. We request that all cell phones and other devices be on silent, except for emergency all-call personnel. Madam Secretary Gale, can you please call roll?

Yes, sir. Council Member Carter? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi?

Here.

Council Member Edwards? Here. Council Member Spradley?

Here.

Council Member Lebowski. Here. Council Member Shaw. Here. And Mayor French.

One each, here. A quorum is present. We will now proceed. Please join me for the invocation presented by Council Member, I'm having a brain freeze, Lebowski, sorry. Council Member Lebowski. And followed by the Pledges of Allegiance, please, thank you.

Please join me in prayer. Father God, we gather here today under your care and protection. Thank you for your loving kindness that never fails us. We commit this meeting into your care. We pray for your wisdom and your grace as we navigate through the action items, ordinances, and any and all other topics to be discussed. Let this meeting go smoothly and let us fulfill the purpose of being here today. We pray for all our men and women serving our military home, serving our military home and abroad, first responders, police, fire, EMS, sheriff's department, and emergency management. Let your love lead everyone here today and let us end this meeting in peace. Fill us with your Holy Spirit to do your good work. We ask all of this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to have fun with the proclamation, and this is for Parks and Recreation Month. Hello. This is pretty exciting, this is my first proclamation. So I'm gonna read this whole thing. Everyone here, do I read it while everyone's behind me?

Yes, sir, you can invite them up.

Parks and Recreation. I'm gonna get out of everyone's way. Thank you so much for being here today. This is pretty exciting. So this is a proclamation. Whereas parks and recreation programs are an integral part of communities throughout this country, including the city of New Braunfels, Texas, and whereas parks and recreation promotes health and wellness, improving the physical and mental health of people who live near parks, and whereas parks and recreation promotes time spent in nature, which positively impacts mental health by increasing cognitive performance and well-being and alleviating illness such as depression, attention deficit disorders, and Alzheimer's. And whereas parks and recreation encourages physical activities by providing space and popular sports, hiking trails, swimming pools, and many other activities designed to promote active lifestyles, and whereas parks and recreation is leading provider of healthy meals, nutrition, services, and education, and whereas park and recreation programming and education activities such as out of school time, programming, youth sports, and environmental education are critical to childhood development, and whereas parks and recreation increases a community's economic prosperity through increased property values, expansion of local tax base, increased tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses, and crime reduction. And whereas parks and recreation are fundamental to the environmental well-being of our community, and whereas parks and recreation are essential and adaptable infrastructure that makes our communities resilient in the face of natural disasters and climate change, and whereas our parks and natural recreation areas ensure the ecological beauty of our community and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors, and whereas the U.S. House of Representatives has designated July as Parks and Recreation Month, Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Michael French, Mayor of the City of New Braunfels, Texas, hereby proclaim July 2026 as Parks and Recreation Month in New Braunfels. Anybody wanna speak?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. My name is Jeff Bransford. I'm the Assistant Director of the Parks and Recreation Department. Mayor, Council, we want to thank you for all the support you've given the Parks and Recreation Department. We truly believe, as staff in our department, that we have one of the best, if not the best, Parks and Recreation Departments in the country. We can't... We believe that our park system and our natural resources and the programs and events that we offer the community help make New Braunfels what it is. So we also want to thank you, the residents of New Braunfels, for all of your support. July is Parks and Recreation Month. I guess if you were to choose one month to celebrate Parks and Recreation, it would be July. We have slated a variety of events throughout the month, and we have a few big ones left as we round out July. And I have to use my note card because we have so many events. But this upcoming Friday, the 17th, join us for Family Fun Day at the Westside Community Center at three o'clock. Next Friday, July 24th, come out to DOS Rec Member Appreciation Day at DOS Rec or out at Fisher Park for Fisher Flicks. We're going to be showing Encanto, free event. And then what's proven to be probably the most popular event is on Friday, July 31st, the third annual food truck party in Landa Park. at four o'clock on playground drive come early before they run out of food so again uh mayor council thank you very much we appreciate all of your continued support

All right, we will now open citizens communications. Our public comment period where our citizens are heard. In the interest of time and structure, this period is specifically for individuals to address the City Council on issues and items of concern that are not listed on this agenda. There will be no City Council action at this time. Citizens will be provided the right to speak on posted agenda items, which we will recognize later when those specific items are called. In the interest of protecting the city's network and data security, we cannot accept flash drives or electronic files at the podium. Please use hard copies on the overhead projector for council to view. Individuals desiring to speak, please line up behind the podium and be ready to speak. This is your time to address your city council. We do only ask, ladies and gentlemen, that you remain respectful for everyone in the room and be courteous. Everyone in the room, that's including us up here, please do that. And when you reach the podium, please state your name and whether you are a resident of New Braunfels, a non-resident, or that you live in the ETJ. Thank you very much.

Come on.

Good evening. My name is Julie King, and I'm a New Braunfels resident. Thank you, Mayor and City Council, for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. I emailed all of you prior to tonight's meeting and your strategic planning retreat on Friday about the subject matter I'm going to talk about tonight. I personally believe that the city's strategic plan The guidepost for a number of recent high density and other initiatives advanced by the EDC and city leaders does not reflect current views of the majority of NB citizens. For some who may wonder what Envision in Braunfels is, it is a consultant speak for the city's comprehensive plan initially conceived in 2018 and recently updated by a California-based urban planning firm in 2026. A 70 slide presentation was made to city council by the assistant and deputy city managers on April 27th. I would invite all in the audience to look the video up online on the city's website. At approximately the one hour and 23 minute mark of the presentation, Mr. Werner made the following statement. The strategic plan is a living document designed to evolve as priorities, data, and community needs change. The Chamber of Commerce has a similar planning document called Confluence, again created by an outside consulting firm. We citizens need to become way more familiar with both of these as their findings are the reason behind projects and funding that we have seen approved over the last few years. When New Braunfels was considerably smaller, we inherently trusted our elected representatives and city supported entities like NBU and the Chamber to steward our community. We all understood that NB would grow, but we relied on others to keep citizen interests at the forefront of the planning process. Sadly, what I have witnessed time after time at multiple committee hearings and city council meetings is that we citizens are often the last to know about how our community will look and feel in the future. The positive news is that the recent election sent a strong message to leadership. Taxpayers demand to know more about how city decisions are made, and we plan to be far more active in the future. Some of you who may have attended or seen the video on the June 15th city council meeting witnessed five candidates for openings on the planning committee publicly questioned by you on the dais if each were aware of the comprehensive plan as a precondition of their ability to serve. Those that were selected all passed the purity test to follow the city's planning blueprint. Let's look, shall we, at just one page. IT'S A LITTLE BUSY, THE PRINT IS SMALL, BUT THIS IS THE ECONOMIC MOBILITY BLUEPRINT OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING COMMITTEE OR THE STRATEGIC PLAN WHICH OUTLINES NINE OBJECTIVES THAT THE CONSULTANT HAS ADVISED OUR CITY TO FOLLOW AND THEY WILL BE BENCHMARKED. AGAIN, THIS DOCUMENT CAN BE FOUND ON THE CITY OF NEW BRONFILES WEBSITE AND I WOULD ENCOURAGE ALL THE AUDIENCE TO LOOK AT IT AND READ IT. What jumps out is the number of times in one page that the following words appear. Incentivize, circled in turquoise. Public-private partnership and variances. Just so you know, consultant speak, incentivize means taxpayer dollars. And public-private partnership means the same. In closing, I'm very pleased and I want to end on a positive note to see several city council members holding community discussion forums. And I hope that you are using the taxpayer comments that you received to heart, even if it means a course correction on the strategic plan. We taxpayers deserve no less. Thank you.

I'm gonna move that up. My name is Eva Pepitone, and I am a New Braunfels resident. Thank you, Mayor and City Council, for allowing me the opportunity to share my thoughts about the consulting firm that the city has hired to prepare and advise on the strategic plan that is now being used to guide New Braunfels into the next decade. Within the last two weeks, New Braunfels was identified by Moving Place magazine as the number one city in the entire U.S. in terms of inbound move-ins. Not surprisingly, when asked during the last election season about their number one concern, current residents repeatedly shared the urgent priority for our elected leaders to more responsibly manage growth for those who already live and work here. Consultants per se are not inherently bad. They offer fresh ideas and perspectives to governing entities and officials so they can better identify key priorities. New Braunfels has chosen to work with MIG, a Berkeley, California-based urban planning and consulting firm to assist our city leadership. I moved here from California. I don't think I need to tell anybody that Berkeley is the most liberal city in the most liberal state in this country. Why we chose them, I have no idea. Their consultants were hand in glove with city staff to create benchmarking objectives for the execution of the strategic plan and ways to measure performance. The consulting contract has been signed and is being followed. However, a reasonable question citizens might ask is why should we care what is in the strategic plan or how its findings were derived? The answer is because we may not feel that we've been consulted on the blueprint for our city's future and we may not agree with what is planned. Within the many pages of the strategic plan is a section called community engagement. In it, the consulting firm bragged about multiple ways it would moderate and engage with the community prior to the drafting of its report, meeting with city staff, the Chamber of Commerce, the EDC, and neighborhood associations. They boasted about open forums for citizens and advertised transparency and community buy-in of the plan. In actuality, between November 25 and April's strategic plan presentation for the City Council, we have only been able to confirm a handful of hosted events and community forums that were detailed as part of the City Council presentation. The MIG discussed the draft update to the strategic plan with the City University Class 2025. Consultants made themselves available at the November 6th career quest to answer questions. MIG, with city staff help, promoted and held one community open house on December 11, 2025 at Westside Library from 4 to 7. From the City of New Braunfels website, I was able to find photos of the sparsely attended community open house with vision boards where information was collected about the types of improvements those in attendance preferred. What was evident from the photos of the vision board responses was that people preferred lower density development and more passive recreational areas over high density and entertainment driven projects. MIG also conducted an online survey. However, that survey can no longer be found on the city website and its findings are not available. From the MIG website, its offices and clients are concentrated in California. They also have offices in Denver, Portland, Seattle, and Brooklyn, as well as an office in San Antonio. It appears their specialty is to create dense, urban downtown environments. One of their key projects that they worked on in California is the high-speed rail. I think you all know how that's going. I would encourage everyone to go to the website, www.migcom.com, to make your own investigation. When you learn more about this consulting firm, recent decisions in New Braunfels start to make more sense. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Donna Wolverton, a resident of New Braunfels. I rise tonight to share something Councilmember Edwards, in whose district I live, said near the close of Saturday's community conversation event. He spoke about his responsibility to govern in the best interest of all of his constituents. Ensuring that he hears and understands their voices, applies logic and knowledge to that information. and makes the best decisions possible, not just for one constituent, but for all. I believe that applies to all council members, and in fact, to our leaders at every level. We heard a lot during the election campaign from you, Mayor French, about citizens coming first and listening to the people. I'm hoping that your leadership will bring that to bear in the manner Council Member Edwards has described. And I'm hoping that the phrase, we the people, when used, will really mean everyone, not just the loudest voices or the voices that happen to agree with a specific position. Think about it this way. What has been described as an overwhelming mandate from the people in the form of increased turnout and 60 plus percent of votes cast being in favor of the victors in the runoff election, it might be quite the opposite. Though certainly high for a local election, a very low percentage of registered voters actually voted in the municipal runoff, just under 15% this time. Counting those who voted for the other candidates and those who didn't cast a ballot at all means that about 90% of registered voters living in the city of New Braunfels did not vote for the winning candidates. While voting is certainly a very important way to communicate needs and preferences to elected officials, there are so many other ways. Town halls, email, phone calls, speaking during council meetings and city forums, serving on a city committee, attending meetings of other organizations in the community where leaders are speaking, following and engaging with official social media accounts. I hope that every member of this city council avails themselves of all of these tools. and integrates the feedback they receive into their actions and decision-making for the betterment of all. A representative government where we all feel heard and engaged. So let's get to work. The people's work. We the people's work. Thank you.

Hello, Cassandra Canton, and I am a resident. I started coming here in about March, and it has been... By the way, thank you for that prayer. Thank you so much. It was really good. I appreciate that. I started coming here in about March, April, and it has been an experience, to say the least. So, one word... I've actually learned a couple things. Robert's Rules of Order. So everybody wants Robert's Rules of Order, although I don't think a lot of people know what it means, but Robert's Rules of Order. But what they also need to look up is decorum. Decorum. And it is simply the state or condition of being calm, orderly, and well regulated. I was in the military for 25 years. And trust me, I had to regulate my emotions. In fact, they told me that I had freedom of speech to a certain extent. So being out of the military and seeing all of these people, yeah, that's my freedom of speech. But you don't have to be rude about it. For the people that are sitting up here and over there and over there, thank you for taking crap from people every meeting. But I don't think it should be like that. It should not be like that at all. Because we are adults. And we should conduct ourselves as adults. And by the way, I didn't bring a prop. So I feel, I learned that. In all of these meetings, I should bring a stuffed animal or a guitar or a song or a poem or something like that. I should be pointing and yelling at everybody and calling them by name and stating what you did wrong. But no, I wanna say thank you for doing this. By the way, you're not selfish. And for the person that made that comment, this is one of the most selfless jobs that you guys could be doing. So if nobody else thanks you, I want to thank you. And a lot of people out here want to thank you as well. So... My word of the day is decorum. We just started. We just started. So decorum. And I'm not going to talk about your kid. I love her. Okay? I'm not going to talk about your hair, even though you look like Snooki today.

I can appreciate it.

Thank you. I'm happy that you... I have five minutes, so I can... I'm on the spotlight now. And I want this to be happy because my District 3 person has to hear this and read it. So read happy stuff, sir. Happy stuff. Only happy stuff. But congratulations. Congratulations. Welcome back after your surgery. Way to go. Congrats, and thank you for responding on email. And my heart is there. My heart is there, you know, District 3. But Gail, you know I love you guys. Thank you for all of your support. I'm keeping my eye on the clock. Robert, it was so nice meeting you and your staff. You guys rock. And for the police officers that are here every week that I'm here, thank you. And I have not set that buzzer off yet. So in closing, thank you. And the word of the day is decorum. Thank you.

Yeah, opera.

Good evening. My name is Elizabeth Herlitz-Cortez, and I'm a resident of the city of New Braunfels. I've lived here for 15 years. So people throw around the word transparency a lot these days. And it often gets tied to vague words like change. And I'm not sure everyone knows the difference between true transparency and weaponized, orchestrated gotcha moments. One is a standard of governance. The other is a stunt. But transparency isn't a new idea. It's a very old one. Limited government doesn't mean less accountability, it means more of it. Because the fewer decisions government makes, the more scrutiny each one deserves. A government that governs less has no excuses for governing in the dark, right? The city is about to hire two of the most important people who will ever sit in this building. A city manager who runs the daily businesses of people's water, roads, and public safety. And a city attorney who tells this council in writing what it is and what it is not legally allowed to do. Those are not political jobs. They are not reward jobs. They are not who do you know jobs. And right now, this city charter is silent on how to pick them. There's no defined qualifications, no independent screening, no public comment period before a name gets a vote. And maybe some of that standard has come through in pieces before, depending on who was leading at the time, but it has never ever been written into policy, never adopted formally. That silence, to me, is not neutral. Silence is what lets one official or one faction handpick a name, and walk it straight to a vote before the public ever gets to ask a single question. So here's what I'm asking for. Not a favor, a floor, a standard. And I'm asking for it for both positions. One, qualifications. an actual job description adopted in open session and published for every citizen of New Braunfels to read, not a private understanding among a few people in this room. Two, tell us what screening process you've chosen, not just that one exists. Which one and why? And give us a timeline. with real updates along the way. So the public isn't finding out things secondhand. Three, when you get down to a short list, let the citizens of New Braunfels meet them. A Q&A, a reception, an open forum, it doesn't really matter which. It matters that it happens before you vote, not after. This isn't about growing government, it's actually the opposite. It's checks and balances, plain and simple. Limited government, accountable government, government answerable to the people who fund it, regardless of who they voted for and even if they didn't even vote at all. That's the whole ask. Because whoever fills these roles will outlast every single person on this dais tonight. Whoever we hire will be here after the next election and after the one after that. You don't get to pick the political wins, but you do get to pick the process. And a good process is the only thing that still works no matter who is in the room. I'm asking you to commit to this publicly, in writing, and I'm asking you to hold yourself to a standard of representative government. Because why wouldn't you, right? If your goal is really to govern instead of just change. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Bill Miller, and I'm not that Bill Miller. Obviously, you can tell. Look at my size and see that if he were to offer me some food, I would accept it, say I'm not that mature. But my wife and I moved here about a year ago, a little over a year ago, first-time grandparents, and we have really enjoyed New Braunfels. We have also attended a few city council meetings, And it really was, I was personally taken back a little bit last council meeting, some of the comments and the tone and so on. So I was disappointed in myself last time, not getting up and to follow up those comments. So I may be a little off kilter today, but there's a familiar theme here. What I want to do is to accomplish three items. One, to thank each of you for your commitment to leadership and accepting accountability for critical decisions that will help change or lead our community, have lasting impact for our community. You are willing to accept everything that comes with stepping forward to help, uh, shape our future, you should be commended for that. So that's number one. Number two, uh, in some way offer a counter to some of the comments made during our last session, uh, at the, uh, open session at the last meeting. Obviously there is a silent voice that voted each of you all into office. And, um, and that boards want to see a government that work, maybe not perfectly, but definitely to be productive as a council. So that boards help put you into office, otherwise you would not be sitting in those chairs today. And then the third thing is to make a request of your constituents, actually our community, our neighbors who may not want to be front and center to still be very intentional with their voice and offer constructive feedback so that we can again shape tomorrow and make a positive change for our community. So as I mentioned, my name is Bill Miller. I recognize that I may have some negativity in my comments. But having also held senior positions, as you mentioned last session, in corporate America, I've chaired, I was the chair of a trustee board for a university, I was the chair of a foundation that was well over $100 million. I also started my own company from the ground up. So I understand how tough it is to be a leader and be the target of the many. But you guys have stepped forward, if you will, to do so. So decisions don't come easy, which makes it easy for some to make assumptions and pronouncements. So instead of those individuals taking the actual role in understanding the facts, becoming informed, and offering assistance with the solution other than shouting and conjecture. At the end of the day, each of you were a vote into office regardless of the margin of victory, and you are leaders at least for one term. So trust that you have a solid majority out here that is looking for you to make complex decisions in good faith. Our national political climate often encourages division and tribalism. Our local government remains primed for practical solutions to triumph over political theater. It is incumbent upon each of you to serve our entire community, not just those who agree with you or those who shout very, very loudly. And certainly, we need policies, protocols, and practices that embraces our entire community, and everyone should feel welcome. As residents of this fastest growing city, we've faced significant opportunities and challenges. The time is now for collaboration. Help our community be vibrant and thrive from your diverse backgrounds, your beliefs and ideologies, and political ideologies, and find ways to work together. We see what has happened in Washington, what's happening at the state level across the country. the most successful organizations really thrive through disagreement. And so we have this opportunity here. So tonight I simply want to encourage you to continue the challenging work that you have accepted. Thank you for stepping up. Lead with integrity, challenge one another respectfully, give one another the benefit of the doubt when appropriate, and remember that many of us are watching not for perfection, but for collaboration, competence, and good faith. and ultimately good outcomes. And finally, I want to congratulate Mayor Finch, Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi, and Councilwoman Shaw for your positions. And I wish all of y'all great success. We're behind you guys. Want the community to really work with you all to have a better New Braunfels. Thank you for your time.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and fellow citizens. First, Mr. Capizzi, I owe you an apology.

On June 27th, I attended- Ma'am, please state your name, please. I'm sorry.

My name is Angela. I'm a citizen of New Braunfels. Good evening, Mayor, City Council.

I'm so sorry. Can I have your last name?

Keller. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and fellow citizens. Thank you. First, Mr. Capizzi, I owe you an apology. On June 27th, I attended your Coffee with Capizzi event and I questioned you about building the police department. And I may have said jail, I don't recall. And I was wrong. Let me correct myself. JARIS General Contractors built New Braunfels Police Headquarters and the Veterans Memorial. This was completed in July 2022 at the cost of $36.3 million of the taxpayer money. That money came from the taxpayers. In 2019, voters approved a $117 million bond package. Proposition 3 funded this police headquarters. The citizens of New Braunfels trusted their tax dollars would build something that would last.

Here's what concerns me. Point of order. What's your point?

This is citizen comment.

Is this on our agenda?

Oh, the police department? Yeah, it's on the agenda tonight to discuss the juror's contract as it pertains to the police department.

I didn't even know that, so this is just something for comment. So I should come back and repeat this? Yes. No problem.

You come back at that time so it's recorded for the relevance.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, it's my first time, so if I mess up, I'm sorry.

One moment. I would like to make a statement on that. Texas Open Meetings Act, you can talk about whatever is on the agenda any time you want, okay? Thank you.

Okay. So according to the agenda, Mayor, the way that you all have set forth your agenda, you've defined that if citizens want to speak on an agenda item, they should speak on that item. And so this part of citizens' comment is for items that are not on the agenda. Mayor, you can change that, but because of the way that you've posted that, I would recommend that

No, yes, ma'am, I did make that change, but it was crossed out. But under Texas law, you can. Thank you very much. That's the end of that.

Ma'am, you can go ahead. State your name.

State your name, please.

My name is Kristen Clawson. I am a resident here. I was actually born at McKenna Hospital, so I was born and raised resident. I've been in contact with all of you guys this week, and I just wanted to first and foremost come up and say thank you for taking care of our 18-wheelers and assisting alongside that. We were able to work with some really amazing cops who are part of the Commercial Vehicle Division and we are very grateful that our concerns were taken seriously on Rivertree. The other thing that I wanted to say thank you for was expediting our speed bumps because originally when we were given the yes for our speed bumps, suggested that it was going to take up to a year. And I believe it was Ms. Lebowski who pushed and said after campaigning in our neighborhood, no, this needs to happen now. This neighborhood is very dangerous. So all of that has been really, really great. However, I am coming on behalf of our entire neighborhood. Our entire Facebook group has been blowing up in regards to this cut through that has been opened in our neighborhood and the safety concerns because we do have kids who actually play outside and it's beautiful and they play with their neighbors and my 18 month old goes over to the neighbor's house and knocks on the door to come play with kids four times his age. It's crazy. And so that's just the kind of beauty that we have within this neighborhood and this community. And so right now what we're experiencing is an influx of 16,000 cars coming through our neighborhood a week. That is an extreme amount to go from it almost being a private little oasis in New Braunfels to now everybody is just blowing through our town. And so because of the speed, or through our neighborhood, sorry, because of the speed bumps, it has definitely helped with some of the speeding aspects, except for only three out of the four proposed and requested speed bumps were approved. And because of that, as soon as they get past that last speed bump, they go flying through the rest of the neighborhood, zooming past our mailboxes, which makes it unsafe for our residents to check their mail or drive down to the lake access that we have. Don't tell anybody because it's beautiful. If you're considering buying in that neighborhood, yeah, I would highly agree. And so we're coming here and I guess this is kind of the beginning of me coming out and speaking publicly to say we need to lower the speed limit. And in regards to that as well, we're not just asking for the speed limit to be, reduced within our neighborhood. We're asking that you'll take our neighborhood as an example of the serious dangers and risks that are put upon neighborhoods like ours that are involved in the thoroughfare plan. Our neighborhood is supposed to basically go diagonal with 46 eventually, and if that actually does happen, that puts a lot of our neighborhood at risk. Some of the homeowners on Rivertree are already complaining that their homeowners like how much their house is worth has drastically gone down already because who wants to buy a house on a street that every time you back out and pull back in, you're at risk of getting honked at, possibly hit, And sometimes they just don't even care and zoom on past you anyways. Who wants to buy a house in a neighborhood that doesn't have sidewalks so then you have to walk down the street to get to our lake access? And that's part of the perk of our neighborhood. And I just think that obviously there's nothing we can do about what has already happened in our neighborhood with that one cut through, but possibly look at our neighborhood as an example of what this thoroughfare plan, the risks that it has involved. Okay, thanks.

Lori Rowe, resident. I did not plan on standing up, so bear with me. I've heard a lot tonight about decorum, and so I just want to stand up and speak to the dais. I know that one side will blame one, the other side blames the other side. I've sat back and watched. I've watched the name calling. I've watched the innuendos. I've seen it supported by those of you on the dais. And I would ask you as leaders, to be the leaders of how respect is shown. Start by showing constituents, whether you agree with them or not, that you respect them. They may have a point that may change your opinion. They may have experience that you don't have that may give you an insight. And they may have something in their experience that may benefit somebody else. And the one thing I've learned is that opposing views are never bad. They give you the opportunity to delve in and to search out those issues that you wouldn't when you get groupthink. So I would ask that let's not berate the other side. Let's reach out to them. And I would say, let's start from up here. And I appreciate you guys serving. I know it's not easy. you get the brunt of our freedom of speech. Unfortunately, that's what you guys signed up for, but it doesn't mean that you have to be disrespected. But again, that respect is taught by showing it. So I just, again, I hadn't planned on speaking, but I've just been sitting here watching and seeing and seeing it endorsed by council members, and I think we need to start there. Thank you.

David Warmke, District 5. I was gonna do this last meeting, but I waited for this meeting. And it's a little bit of a light note, but you know, it's July. It's time to start thinking about Christmas. So what do I want from Christmas? Well, I'm gonna show you if I get this thing pointed right way. From our new city council, a top 10 list And I need to remember the clock is there now, sort of. Top 10 things I want from Christmas from city council leadership in New Braunfels. And this is just a quick overview. Number one, take a close look at the ADM mill redevelopment project. Huge project. Million square feet. 12,000 cars minimum a day in and out. It is going to really detrimentally change our downtown. We're going to need to look at that. Number two, kill the idea of the convention center on top of the civic center. This has been around and just won't seem to die. There are much more appropriate places to put it. Behind the marketplace over by I-35, there's plenty of space. There's good access. And it's not stupidly expensive trying to put something on top of a building that's already there that wasn't designed for it. Number three, TURs. Kill them. They essentially are taxation that's not equal. And we wind up with people that are outside of the TERS paying for things like police and fire, because a lot of times that isn't fully paid for by the TERS. 4B to 0B, stop the blue coat group thing. It's all about money. That has been around for about 30 years and has grown. It's gotten so insidious now and I essentially call it what essentially it is on the worst level. It's just a slush fund that money is spent without a whole lot of accountability. Reign of the crazy growth. Start seriously looking at water issues and I know that's something on your agenda, Mr. French. Presentation at city council with facts and real information. Not smoke and mirrors. You've seen some of that in the things last session we had a bit of that that y'all drilled into. Full disclosure for NBU debt, the hidden cost of growth is pushing a billion dollars. Preserve the inner loop of New Braunfels. It's not broken. It's still a great, unique place. And if we do increase density inner fill, which is a grand plan, it's just going to kill it. Stop using outside consultants to use our homegrown talent. We do way too many outside consultants. Stop wasting time and energy on pie in the sky master plans. Envision NB with no BS. Now things I want, there's more, 13. Stripes on the roadway. Wow, what an amazing thing. Maybe down at the plaza so people could get to the plaza without having to take their hand in their lives. The deer. We need to urbanize them and get them to vote. They could be a voting block. I mean, they're useful. They could be a voting block. And last but least... There's supposed to be music, but it didn't start. Let me see if I click again. Yeah. Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all drive Porsches. I must make amends. I had that clip in there, but it didn't play. Oh, there it is. You know, I've been gone from here for about a year. And the Lord has had me just do music. And now he said it's time to be back. So I'm back. The name on my chair is Trey and Candy. That's sort of a joke. But at one point in time, Mr. Spradley said, I need a name on my chair. People get up and sit in my chair when I speak. So the next six months, those 10 issues, basically each week, each city council meeting, I'm going to do some detail on that. Thank you for being here. Thank you, city council. Thank you, our city staff. And most of all, I want to thank the people that speak up. and came tonight. One last thing. I want the citizens of New Braunfels who have stepped up to change things to understand they are important, and they can make a difference. I've been so pleased tonight seeing people come up here and speak, and it's not the usual group, and thank you. God bless you. Merry Christmas.

Angela Allen, a resident here in New Braunfels, Texas. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Angela Allen and I'm here tonight because I believe that we have a responsibility as elected leaders to take care of the residents who are already calling New Braunfels home. Before we approve the next subdivision, the next rezoning, or the next development, we have a duty to make sure that the infrastructure serving our existing neighborhoods is working. I recently received another message which is following up with residents, assuming that a problem had been taken care of to find out that it had not. Residents in Champions Village have told me that the sewer situation has gotten worse. For the past 10 days, MBU crews have been on their street cleaning sewer mains and homeowner service lines. Her family was forced to spend nearly $2,000 installing a backflow valve just to keep the raw sewage from entering their home again. May I state, they're probably in their 70s. Her husband's battling cancer and was going to MD Anderson the next day. Her neighbors also got this done, and some of the neighbors across the street are trying to figure out how they can afford the same expense. Another neighbor has noted that they have raw sewage coming back up into her shower and her toilet once again. No family should have to live like this. I have personally brought this issue. I did it the right way. I went face-to-face with our current city council person, Dee Lee Edwards, and I stated at our national night out that no resident should be living like this. Mr. Edwards, you came out to our subdivision and you told us that this has been an ongoing issue now for a decade. There is a bottleneck on the west side of New Braunfels. During discussions with another development that was recently pushed to create more houses in an already existing problem that we have, which would have added to the problem, it was told that that builder was gonna contribute $2 million to the development to relieve these sewer issue problems. However, residents have shared that it is NBU people that have told them that the significant, the permanent solution would be significantly higher, potentially several times that amount. And if that is true, we must ask whether the proposal would have actually fully solved the problem. Over the years, there have been attempts to improve the existing sewer lift station, including approximately $150,000 and creating an alarm system to notify crews that sewage could no longer flow through the system. Yet the problem still persists, and the residents continue to bear the burden. More importantly, this is not how we solve infrastructure failure that has affected families for more than a decade. the residents of champions village are already taxpayers there are already nbu customers they should not have to wait for another development to potentially fund repairs to infrastructure that they have been paying into for years they deserve a permanent solution because they have faithfully invested in this community they deserve basic services that were promised These are not simply infrastructure problems. They are quality of life issues. They are potential public health concerns. They affect property values, financial security, and the peace of mind of families who simply want to live safely in their homes. And I have to ask, why would we move forward with an NBU headquarters project estimated at $140 million? and $90 million in reserves while maintaining substantial financial, yet allowing residents to continue living in this sewer problem that has been acknowledged for over a decade. Our first responsibility should always be to the people that we serve. As we continue discussing future growth, I ask this council to remember the people who are already here. Leadership means taking care of today's residents before asking tomorrow's residents to move in. For more than a decade, the residents of Champions Village have waited patiently. They've paid their taxes. They've paid their M.B.U. bills. Some are now spending thousands of dollars out of their own pockets just to protect their homes from sewer baggage. This is not the standard of service our community should accept. It's time to do the right thing. Let's stop managing this problem and permanently solve it. These families deserve more than temporary fixes, they deserve action. They deserve a clear plan, accountability, and a timeline with a lasting solution. The measure of leadership is not simply in the projects we approve, but how faithful we care for our residents. who have already entrusted us with their homes, their neighborhoods, and the quality of life. I respectfully ask this council and NBU to make this issue a top priority. Ms. Allen, your time is up. Thank you for your comments.

Hello, Lee Brown, resident of New Braunfels. Mayor and city council, thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'd like to address some false statements that have been made about Envision New Braunfels. The strategic plan wasn't created behind closed doors. It was a result of a lengthy process that involved dozens of public meetings, hundreds of hours of citizen involvement, more than 700 volunteers, serving on advisory groups and nearly 9,000 people participating in the process. It was truly a citizen-led vision for the future of our city. Many of the voices speaking so forcefully against it today were not residents of this town at that time. I actually think that says something. If the citizen-led vision for New Braunfels was so terrible, why have so many people from outside this community chosen to move here since then? Does that mean the plan is perfect? Of course not. Communities change and plans should evolve. But let's not rewrite history or dismiss the work of the thousands of residents who invested their time and energy into creating a vision for the city they loved.

I did bring a prop, Cassandra. I don't know where to put it though, first, just in here, okay. So good evening, my name is Joyce Compton and I'm a resident of New Braunfels. I'll start with a story with a few messages. Don't worry, the messages aren't hidden. It was a Tuesday around 10 a.m. on November 19th, 1991. I was sitting in biology learning about osmosis. I was 14 and I wanted to be anywhere but science. A student runner knocked at the door and said I was being summoned to the office. I had no idea what I had done, but I was so excited to get out of class, I nearly skipped to the office. When I got there, I locked eyes with the school secretary. She motioned to my right where I saw my mom sitting on a couch, tears streaming down her face. That's my first message. Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. My mother told me that her father and her uncle had been murdered by their neighbor. In Port Arthur, where my grandparents lived, mailboxes are grouped in posts in front of the yard by the street. Um... My grandfather's mailbox was grouped with his neighbors on a joint post, and this neighbor had decided he didn't like my grandpa very much. And he saw down their joint post that Tuesday morning, grandpa went out to do some yard work and saw the mailboxes lying on the ground. He called over his brother-in-law.

Just so you know, I'm not lying.

Somebody would lie about that. He called over his brother-in-law, my great uncle, and together they worked at putting the mailboxes upright. The neighbor came out with a gun in his hand and shot them both multiple times. In an instant, life as we had known it had changed forever. Mid-morning on a Tuesday, my beloved grandpa and great uncle were dead in cold blood over a mailbox. So that's my second message. Love thy neighbor. If you believe in God, it's the second greatest commandment. That day shook me to my core. I had attended Catholic school, but I couldn't understand how this had happened. I couldn't understand how God had allowed this to happen. Today I'm pushing 50, as my niece tells me, and I still grapple with spirituality and religion. All that to say, my third and final message is this. It's the word of the day, decorum. Be yourself, but be kind. We are all sharing this planet. I'm my own person with my own thoughts, feelings, and ideas, and I am very much a member of this community. My voice matters. While I don't know much about my councilman, Mr. Edwards, I know that he is my representative in this city, and I trust that he will take into account all of the voices in District 3, regardless of who is the loudest, the most pushy, or who is the most God-fearing. I moved here in 2001 with my future husband, who had grown up here. He described New Braunfels as a small town with a lot of heart, and he was right. It was so different from where I had lived. Everyone was so kind and helpful. It made me want to get involved. I have volunteered with at least 15 different organizations in the last 25 years. I want to be a part of this community, so I give back however I can. In the last few years, though, New Braunfels has changed, and not for the better. It doesn't have to do with the growth or the traffic or the new buildings. It's the people, the ones who think they're better than everyone else. Natives, new folks, and everyone in between. There are a lot of people acting like their voices matter the most. I may not have the strongest relationship with God, but I know we are all the same. No one is better than anyone else. I'm certainly not. I do know that we as a community need to get our, excuse my French, shit together and start acting like decent human beings or the city is going to fracture even further. I know this is going to get a lot of scoffing from the crowd, but Mr. Lawrence was right. Social media is the devil's tool. Behind the keyboard we are all angry and and evil and saying the most awful things to our neighbors, our community members. I know this all sounds very goody-two-shoes and like inspirational mumbo-jumbo, and trust me, I rolled my own eyes at myself for typing this out. I'm just a resident who actually loves the city where she lives, and I want to at least like the people who live here too. I'm raising my kids here, and I want what is best for them and for everyone else's kids. That should be what we all want and what we all strive for. Moan and groan all you like, but I remain hopeful we can drop the name-calling and the insults and work together to get that sense of community back. We had it before, and I know we can get there again.

good afternoon mayor and city council my name is miss ruby i live in new brambles this is my first time to get a chance to come up and talk to everybody for those of you who don't know i had a horrific accident back in october which took me down big time so i have had a lot of time laying on my back and not making any money i'm just saying but it has been a recovery from hell but in the meantime i have had to recover somewhere else and i came to town two weeks ago to see my wonderful new mayor to get to be sworn in and i was tickled pink however I was not tickled pink with how everything is looking in New Bromble's. It is breaking my heart to know that the Green Silo Inn is looking at being torn down all those historic buildings to build this modern piece of junk. Then the corner of Ervinburg and Green Road, there's this modern piece of junk that they're gonna put there. And I'm like, this is a historic town. What has happened? I mean, we're driving down 35 and I'm looking at all these high rises and I'm like, good God, we look like San Marcos. That's not what we moved here for. But this is one of the things that really did upset me when I first drove in. I didn't drive in. I was brought here two weeks ago so I could watch everything. But what I wanted to talk about was that, for those of you who don't know, there was a reporter here from Houston that did a story a couple weeks ago, Wayne Del Trofino, and he reported about the corruption that has been going on in New Braunfels. And this has been studied very well, and there are a lot of different divisions that have been brought into this. I was contacted to help this, and the more I got to looking at it, I could see that there was a lot of things that were going on. Ever since the Kara West lawsuit was forgiven, and it was forgiven illegally, I might add, this town has effectively been owned by Graham Weston. Everything he wants, he gets, from tax deals for his friends to own the new to absolutely everything he demands. Now we have the airport wanting their debt to be debt, I'm sorry, debt to be forgiven. We the people say no, I'm sorry, I'm not paying taxes so all the rich and famous can have their jets out there at the park. All of these billionaires and multimillionaires have planes parked out there and they can absolutely afford to pay their own way. He is the king of getting the government to float tax dollars to favor his personal situations. Look at what he did with Rackspace. The city of San Antonio gave him millions in economic development grants and tax incentives to move into the old Windsor Park Mall, and after he sold the company for $4.3 billion, he did not return those tax dollars to the community. But right now, the biggest and most disturbing story is the situation involving his oldest son. He is reportedly being held against his will, all while this unscrupulous company Care4 is drugging him to the point of almost killing him. This is the tragic reality of what happens to people who refuse to do what he asks. I hate what is happening to our community, but right now we have finally got a mayor, and I'm so proud of him, who is not a puppet to this person, and the truth will come out and the people will finally be heard. I leave the rest of the city council with a word of advice. If any of you are entertaining business dealings with this man, I want you to just stop and think about what kind of person does that to his own child. He is not the kind of man that I want to be helping out. And by the way, even though I'm a die-hard Republican, I've got a Democratic dog, so I'm very fair. Thank you.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Thank you everyone for all those comments.

Mayor, I'd like to make a comment real quick, a statement of fact. Ms. Allen was talking about MBU issue with Champion Village with sewer. That is an MBU issue, not a city council issue. We do have a person on city council that is part of that board, that is the mayor. So I would run it through him to address MBU.

I wrote all that down, Angela. I'm going to look into that, okay? Okay. Is there any other discussion? Hearing no further comments, I now close citizens communications and citizens to be heard. And we're moving on to the consent agenda. All items listed below are considered to be routine and non-controversial by the city council and will be approved by one motion. This will be no separate discussion of these items unless a council member or a citizen so requests. In which case, the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered as part of the normal order of business. Citizens must be present to pull this item. Gail, is there any items that were pulled?

Not by citizens, but by council. We have items B, D, F, G, J, and K. I believe that's all I received, sir.

Thank you, Gail. Without objection, these items will be considered after the presentations and before the posted individual agenda items.

The items on consent to be voted on are A, C, E, H, and I. Is that correct? All right.

That looks like it's correct.

I would make a motion to approve those.

I'll second. All right. You want me to read the items first?

You don't have to, sir.

Okay. Okay. I would like to entertain a motion to approve the items on the consent agenda.

Mayor, you had a motion and a second.

All right. Motion and a second. All right. For all those in favor, raise your hands. All right, it looks like we have an unanimous decision. The motion carries and the consent agenda items are now adopted.

Mayor, may I please hear who made the motion and second again, please? Who made the motion?

I made the motion.

Okay.

Council Member Edwards made the motion, Council Member Capizzi seconded.

Okay, thank you.

In the future, did you want me to read the names?

That would be helpful, yes, sir.

Okay, thank you. All right. All right, now we're gonna go through the pulled items, is that correct?

So approval of a contract award for the- No, sir, we were gonna go through the presentations first and then go through the items that have been pulled from consent.

Okay. All right, we're gonna go to our presentations.

Mayor, I'll be recusing myself for presentation A.

All right, thank you. For the first presentation, Mayor Pro Temp Capizzi is excusing himself in the room. All right, the first presentation. Presentation and update of possible direction to staff on the 2019 Bond Project Police Department Headquarters. Jordan.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Jordan Matney, Deputy City Manager. This evening, we have Gary Ford, who is our Director of Transportation and Construction Services. He's been with the City for about 15 years now, serving in various positions, rising to the rank of Director. He joined this project in late 2021. This project was well under construction at that point. And then Scott McClelland, who is our Assistant Director of Transportation and Construction Services, who joined us in late 2022 after this project had wrapped. But they have been the lead on resolving some of the issues that we have seen at the police department headquarters since that time. So I want to go over a brief history of the police department and how we got to where we are today. So the construction of the new police headquarters was part of Proposition 3 in the 2019 bond. That was a $50.5 million bond prop for public safety initiatives that included the construction of a new fire station 2 at a new location, the reconstruction of fire station number 3, the police headquarters, and the Veterans Memorial, which was completed with the police department headquarters. Here you can see the project scope for these projects. The headquarters, of course, included facilities to replace the aged facility, included space for all of the divisions, included public meeting space, vehicle maintenance bays, a training room, evidence storage, and a gym. And then the Veterans Memorial represents each branch of the military. The total project funding for both of those was just over 36 million. For the project delivery, we did design, bid, build throughout this presentation. We'll talk about some things that have been some learning opportunities for us. At the end of this presentation, we'll talk about some of the things that we have changed about our approach to major capital projects. But at the time, we did a design, bid, build. We worked directly with a prime design consultant, which was PGAL Architects, and then we solicited bids for construction and ultimately selected Joros General Contractors. You can see some of the sub-consultants that were used as well, Luck Design, HMT Engineering, DBR for MEPs, and Terragon was our geotech engineer. Originally, we were working with Architect Design Group, or ADG, as part of the 2019 Bond project development. Our project team which included leadership from the police department as well as our capital programs team And some of the leadership of the city made a site visit to College Station our police facility is The same as the College Station site so we switched to PG AL for final design PG AL is the the architectural firm who did final design for the College Station Police Department you can see the final design costs and then the schedule for design and For construction bidding, we did competitive sealed proposals, 12 bidders submitted. The top four bidders were interviewed. That was including police department leadership and the capital programs team. You can see the evaluation criteria and ultimately Joris General Contractors was selected and the contract award was just over $23 million. The construction phase included a city project manager in our capital programs division, the general contractor and the design team with support and coordination from police department leadership throughout the construction phase. We also did third party material testing We held regular project update meetings. The HVAC commissioning was performed by the MEP engineer. We'll talk again a little bit later in this presentation about some of the lessons learned and we'll refer back to that. And then you can see the project schedule with substantial completion achieved July 22nd, 2022. And then we had ultimately had our ribbon cutting on August 18th, 2022. For those of you that were there, it was one of the hottest days we have ever had. And that was a wonderful but hot and long ceremony for both the Veterans Memorial and the police department. So our contract provided one year warranty from the substantial completion date, which was July 22nd, 2023. In partnership with the contractor, with the capital programs team and the capital project manager, facilities and police department staff there were 193 warranty items that were identified that were submitted and then were completed during that one year warranty phase you can see some of the the things that were addressed during that time we did have some issues with the irrigation system george general contractors worked closely with us to make sure that the subcontractor made all of the repairs that were needed for the system. They also worked closely with our Parks and Recreation Department who were very helpful during that process as well. We had some issues with the front parking lot, so we had some ponding issues identified during the warranty period. There was a joint approach to resolve this, so we worked with the general contractor, with the design team, and with one of the design subs, HMT, to identify the cause of that ponding. We had a new design that was provided by HMT, and then Joris, PGAL, HMT, and the city shared the costs. for the corrective measures. The cost that the city bore were for new infrastructure and underground drainage that would have been required for the city to fund should that have been designed to begin with. So as we move forward with some of the other items that were identified with the building, we're gonna talk separately about building maintenance issues and project issues. Building maintenance issues are routine items that you'll see with any major construction project. This is a 65,000 square foot building on a very large site with lots of site work, with detached buildings. You can see some of the examples here. In 2025, we did work with a separate contractor to install some additional drywall control joints in the front lobby to address some issues that were there. That was the result of, that was not called for in the design. So Joris built that as was designed. So they built up to the designed plans. but we saw some issues afterwards so we wanted to make sure that we took care of that as far as project items these are going to be items that could be caused by how the building was constructed or designed so we'll go through some of the items that we have seen so sewer line breaks we had the first instance in september of last year we tunneled underneath the men's locker room and repaired the sewer breaks We found that the apparent cause was ground swelling. We'll talk a lot about shifting of the ground around and under the building. The second instance happened this month, also under the men's locker room, and we are currently working on repairing those issues. There's also some signs of the pipes on the interior of the building being shifted due to ground swelling underneath the building. And so here are some images. You can see some of those pipes being shifted from the ground swelling. You can see that on the interior of the building. And then you can see an image of the sewer break as well. In addition, we had some roof leaks. So this building was constructed during COVID. As you will all recall, we had major supply chain issues during that period that created issues with many of our capital projects during that time. The roof material on this project was changed during construction, and roof leaks continued to be reported after the warranty period. So, of course, the warranty period, as I mentioned, is one year. There is a manufacturer warranty on the roof for 15 years. As designed, the roof facade created over 100 roof penetrations that were causing leaks in areas in the building. So due to the issue, we reached out to Joris. They came back and worked with us to look at the leaks in the building as a whole. This, as I mentioned, was past the warranty period. They hired a new roofing contractor and at their own cost assessed and repaired the roof. They also provided an additional one year warranty for the repair work after that work was completed. Here are some images of some of the leaks that were detected. We're also hoping to work with Joris to replenish our supply of roof tiles as well. So of course we replaced all of the roof tiles, so we're hoping to work with them to replenish that inventory. We had some HVAC issues reported, some humidity concerns, and some temperature concerns, mainly on the second floor. So we had our internal facilities teams with Public Works as well as our HVAC company do some research and investigate those issues and concerns. They identified a sealed transfer duct within the system. So we worked with Joris again to come back and work directly with our MEP design and commissioning agent, which was DBR. They did identify the need for more transfer ducts to be reopened. And so they worked together and performed that work at their own cost. And those items have since been resolved. And now we'll move on to site issues, which is one of the more visible to the eye issues that is taking place at the police department headquarters. So we're seeing lifting pavers. We're seeing shifting fence panels, which has created some issues with the gates. We have installed and repaired the gate so that those gates are operational now. We're also seeing some water infiltration in the electrical conduits. So we are working with third party firms to investigate each of those issues. We don't want to go out and make repairs. We need to understand what is happening first. So I know that it can be frustrating to continue to see those issues linger, but we need to first understand exactly what is happening and who or what is responsible before we can go in and make those repairs. Here are some visuals of some of that concrete shifting. These images probably don't illustrate as much some of the shifting. Those images aren't really showing some of the separation that you can see from the doorways to the flat work and then some of the shifting pavers. So we have been working on a forensic site movement assessment. We're working with Rob Kistner. So they have done soil samples. They've done site evaluations. They've reviewed our design documents. They have found that there are highly plastic soils with lots of movement. potential to shrink and to swell depending on the moisture content. They found that the design for the building footprint itself mitigated for the clay soils, but there was not mitigation for all of the site elements. So that's why you're seeing shifting outside of the building footprint. They had several recommendations as you can see outlined here. So checking for additional leaks, rerouting the roof drains. So they currently discharge straight down at the perimeter of the building. So rerouting those to discharge into the parking area and then mitigating for moisture under the pavers. For the sewer line and roof drain assessment, we are working with a third party engineer to do a full analysis of the sewer and the roof drains, identify underlying issues, and then provide a mitigation plan. You can see the timeline for completion. That has been funded. It is currently underway. That was funded by the 2019 bond reserves. And then the water in the electrical units will be assessed by the third party engineer as well. So the same MEP engineer will investigate that as part of that contract. As far as roof leaks are concerned, should we have additional leaks? If additional leaks are identified, Joris remains involved and committed to taking care of those at no cost to the city. For the entrance pavers and the shifting of those, we are working with an engineering firm to provide a revised design for the entrance area. That design, as you can see lined out there, will mitigate for moisture. It will look at the limits of the pavers and the concrete. There may be an opportunity to go in with additional sod to eliminate some of that shifting issue, and then evaluating some of the planting beds and landscaping to make sure that we don't have water infiltration. That is underway currently as well, funded by 2019 bond reserves. And then as far as the site concrete, we will address that once we get final design for all of the entrance papers, make sure we understand exactly what is taking place before we move forward with addressing the flat work issues. Moving forward on this project, we have clear coordination between Public Works, which is our facilities team, Transportation and Construction Service, which is our capital programs team, and Police Department leadership. They are in regular communication, have regular meetings scheduled. Joris has agreed to monthly on-site meetings with our TCS team. to continue to evaluate as we move forward with additional repairs on site and as we receive information from that third-party review to understand what the underlying causes are. We also will provide quarterly updates to the City Council via email. I wanna talk a little bit about some of the changes we've made on the transportation and construction services project delivery side. We talk a lot about growth, right? And so as this organization has grown, we continue to reorganize, we continue to add team members. And as this organization has grown up, we have really looked at how different departments are managed. So the capital programs division used to be an independent standalone division. A LITTLE BIT SILOED IN OUR ORGANIZATION. SO IN 2021, WE INCORPORATED THE CAPITAL PROGRAMS DIVISION INTO WHAT WAS, WELL, IT'S STILL THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT. BUT AT THAT TIME, GARY FORD WAS OUR ASSISTANT DIRECTOR IN THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT. AND SO WE INCORPORATED CAPITAL PROGRAMS UNDERNEATH HIM ALONG WITH OUR ENGINEERING DIVISION. THAT ALLOWED FOR MORE COLLABORATION WITH OUR ENGINEERING TEAMS AND OUR CAPITAL PROGRAMS TEAMS. In 2022, we did another major reorganization and we established what was then called our Transportation and Capital Improvements Department. That allowed us to bring on Scott McClelland, who has extensive experience in capital construction, utilities kind of across the board on the municipal construction side. So we brought him in to oversee the capital programs team. And then very recently, as you have heard us report, we did another reorganization renaming TCI to TCS, Transportation and Construction Services. That brought in our development services team. So now we have cross collaboration in that department where our capital programs teams have direct access to our engineering team, our development services team, our building safety team, our inspections teams. So it's allowed for a much deeper review of our capital projects and a lot more collaboration. And then of course we collaborate with other stakeholder departments as well. But all of these construction projects are now led by TCS. So they are their projects until they turn those keys over to the department that we are delivering that project for. As far as process changes are concerned, we have, at the beginning I talked about a design, bid, build process. We are now moving almost exclusively with construction manager at risk for our large vertical projects. This allows us to bring the contractor in much earlier on the design process. It also allows for much more transparency in the bidding process. And it's been much more, we've seen much more success with that rather than the design bid build with a hard bid approach. As I mentioned, there's a much more thorough design process, design review process with many additional team members now involved in the process. And we also have moved to independent building envelope inspections and independent building commissioning. So you heard me at the beginning talk about our MEP engineer did the commissioning for the building. That's now done by an independent building commissioner. So we feel like we've made some real, we feel like we've learned from some of the issues that we've seen over the last several years and we've made some real improvements, not only to the organization and the department, but also to our approach to these projects as well. And so with that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Any questions from council?

I have a lot, actually.

Council Member Carter, you have the floor.

I brought this topic to the floor for a reason, and I'd like for Gail to go through the slides that were provided to you. Do you have those?

Did you send them, Mayor? Or did you get them?

I sent them to you. I could send them to you right now, Gail, if you want.

Okay.

And thank you, Jordan, for your presentation. Of course. So while...

I sent it to you.

Do you want me to send it?

Guess while we're waiting on the process of delivering a slideshow, whatever, a year ago, Councilwoman Carter had mentioned that there's issues at the police department and she went over there and looked and addressed a lot of things. I went over there and looked and addressed a lot of things. And then Friday, last Friday, I went over there with Mr. Scott and took a look at things. A lot of things are completed. inside the building, but outside the building, like the ground movement piece that's not under the building, a lot of that still needs to be addressed.

Absolutely, it does. Yes, sir.

But I would also like to mention that there are two very rare things. There's a building of this size that's extremely rare that you're gonna have a completed project this far after completion with zero issues, right? Even my house has issues. So it's expected to have issues. And how long has it been since the warranty period has ended?

The building is over four years old, so it's been more than three years since the warranty period.

So three years past the warranty. It's also rare that a general contractor is willing to help fix things pro bono on their own as we continue through this process. And they're still willing to have, like you said, have meetings once a month until all these items are addressed. So I appreciate that with JARS construction. I don't know if you want to, can you read this into record? You don't have it.

Yeah, they're sending. It's just a big file.

So Council Member Spradley asked me to read a letter that Joris submitted to our city manager. Dear Mr. Camerino, I'm writing to let you know that we will be unable to attend the meeting on July 13th regarding MB Police Department. Please accept our apologies for the short notice and rest assured this does not reflect any change in our commitment to the project or to you as a partner. We remain fully committed to the City of New Braunfels and the Police Department partnership you've come to expect from us. Our goal is to work through any open items together and land on solutions that keep the project moving forward for everyone involved. We recommend meeting monthly with the PD and city staff to stay on top of any issues you need assistance with. Please propose... any dates or times that work for you. Partnerships like ours are built on trust and communication and a single missed meeting won't change how seriously we take that. We value the relationship we've built with the city of New Braunfels and are committed to seeing this project through with the same care and partnership from the beginning. Bottom line, we're not slowing down on our commitment to the police department or to you. Let's keep moving this forward together. Sincerely, Dan Byram.

So I just want to say publicly, I appreciate the, uh, collaboration from JARS Construction with the City of New Braunfels, three years past the warranty period, I think that's very important.

Right, and if I could just add, I think you make it a good point. There are going to be ongoing maintenance issues. This is, as I mentioned, a 65,000 square foot building. There certainly are gonna be ongoing maintenance items that will be addressed by our facilities team as they are at any city facility throughout the city. This project in particular, we are seeing a lot of issues with site movement. Joris has been a partner with us in addressing items that we have determined that were a result of construction. And they have worked with us hand in hand. We're at the point right now where we're trying to identify what the underlying issue is. And we need to be able to do that prior to moving forward with any solution. So as I mentioned, it is frustrating for all of us. For our teams, it's frustrating and it's embarrassing that we have a project that we delivered four years ago that is having issues. It's frustrating for the contractor as well. But we are trying to figure out exactly what the underlying issues are so then we can move forward with repair. Also, I think that there's some concern about the structural integrity of the structure itself. As I mentioned when we hired a third party to review, they did find that the design mitigated for some of that site movement under the building footprint itself. So from everything that we have seen, we do not have concerns that there is a structural issue with the building itself. We are having movement of the site and there doesn't appear that there was mitigation outside of the building footprint and that's why you're seeing so much of that shifting of pavers and concrete.

The building itself is on 30 foot piers? 40 foot piers. 40 foot piers with, what do you call those cables? Tension cables?

Yeah, there's grade beams connecting the 40-foot drilled piers, and that's what the slab is resting on.

And then since we have board under the building, that foundation looks fine, and all the bricks, the outside bricks and the outside facade of it, if the building was structurally not stable, you would start seeing cracks. There's no cracks in the building, at least that I've seen. There might be, but I didn't see any. So I think the building is stable, but outside the building, where none of that work was done, it was just underneath the footprint of the building, The difference between the two is pretty significant. Yes, sir.

Okay. Did you have any more comments to make right at that moment? I brought this up for cause. It's incumbent upon me to keep the public informed. That's part of what... I'm here for. I went to visit the police station just on a tour last year. I've heard about this police station one time, and it was a few days after I visited. I went Saturday with Councilmember Shaw. We have pictures of 300 serious defects in the building. And it most certainly includes the facade of the building. The outside, the inside, underneath, and you'll see pictures now where I believe it's a water main is submerged. So could we page through those? We just have given you a snippet of the pictures. But I think the public needs to be aware of the money that's gonna be necessary to take care of this building.

Council Member Carter, I'm sorry to interrupt. Do you want me to just keep going? Yes. Okay, thank you.

And this is as of 7 a.m. Saturday morning.

Can you pause on that last one real quick? I wanna address that picture. So this is the arms room and they have three dehumidifiers running 24 hours, seven days a week with a constant flow of water coming out of the arms room. And why that's a concern is ammo and weapons and humidity cause rust and misfiring ammunition and they've experienced that. So that's very concerning.

I do have a comment too. When I did visit, It was the evidence room, it floods. So that may be a big concern there, thank you.

Scott, are those machines hooked up in that picture? No.

At least the white one's unplugged, it appears.

It's running. But you also have a humidifier device that shows how much humidity is there, and currently, at least when I went there on Friday, it was within that tolerance, or no?

Yeah, so the armory is an area that we're actively monitoring the humidity. So that was one of the areas that was affected by the HVAC improvements that JORS came back to do. So that's something we've been working with PD on monitoring the humidity. The units are still there, obviously, and so that's something we're continuing to monitor. Yeah, not sure about that white one, but it appears the other one might be plugged in, but we're working with facilities. They're helping us monitor that as well.

My concern is the engineering. All right, so we're an as-built process, so the public understands. We do the design, and we do the certification, with subcontractors and whomever, and then it's bid according to that, and the builder's held to build what we present to them. I can tell you from my experience, this is an engineering problem. We have high elastic soil. I'll bet you you've got differentials of 10 to 15 easily in that soil pattern. It looks like the concrete was under-specced or under-rebarred. It may not have been stabilized into the substrate deep enough. That's the engineer's thing. This is a real serious case of bad engineering. I've gone through it on a couple of projects, and our redo has been far superior to the original design. But we had a differential in price point, obviously. But the question becomes, How far can we hold the engineer accountable for bad design that has led to a real cluster in this particular case? This is disgraceful. And I would like to see what we're gonna do, what the plan of action is that will help correct this and not put the citizens at a negative impact on this to as best as possible. We're already buried in it. We gotta figure out how to dig us out.

And that's the process that we're in right now. We're in the investigative process working with subcontractors in order to understand what the underlying issues are. So if there are underlying engineering or design issues, we will work with the design team to remedy those, just as we did with the ponding in the front of the facility and just as we have with the contractor for some of the items that have taken place interior to the building.

My other concern is we've had issues with a couple of roads where our engineering didn't cover us and we've had to go back and redo. And now we've got a building like this and we've had to redo. I have a question about what we're doing to double check the engineering on that and who's double checking their work.

And so that's some of the reorganization that we've done over the last several years. So starting in 2021, we have worked very hard to move forward reorganizations that bring all of those experts within our own organization into the same department. So when we talk about we engineer, we hire a design team. to engineer the project to design the project but our internal experts are reviewing all of that from the very beginning they're heavily involved on our engineering team our building safety team our building official our chief building inspector and are are working through the process from the very beginning. And so we're seeing that our projects, that since we have been making these incremental changes, we're seeing successes with those approaches. So not only the reorganization that we've had internally, but also changing some of our processes. So moving to a construction manager at risk process, to having third party building envelope inspections and commissioning as well.

So you're doing a full forensic analysis? Yes, sir. Correct?

Yes.

So the MEP is going to be looked at to see where they were. Same thing on the structural side and the same thing on the foundation and the civil side.

Yes, sir.

And then we'll come back with a full institution on that to make sure what it is. And then with that, so where are we on the engineering? And then did the contractor deliver it to the engineer's design? And were there anything caught in an inspection that says that it wasn't done to the design or there were subcontractor errors that were not seen, right? Okay.

Right, and Jordan, when is that analysis supposed to be completed, this fall?

Fall? Yes, sir.

Sometime this fall, right?

I think it was October.

So sometime after the fall, we'll be able to make a determination of where we need to go. So the bathrooms and all this stuff with the safety tape that says stay out of there, we're not fixing any of that.

We're not going to fix anything.

Until we figure out what is happening.

So what you saw with the restroom facilities is the men's locker room in one of the back corners. That's where the sewer break is. and a lot of the site movement that we have seen underneath the building. And so we are currently addressing those issues, trying to understand exactly what is happening before we go in. And you have to do that first, right? You have to understand what's happening.

It doesn't make sense to fix it twice. Correct. If we have to.

Yes, sir.

Is this a unified slab? In other words, it's one piece, or has it been sectioned out? So where you've got coal seams.

Yeah, I think it was poured monolithically, but we can look into that.

Council Member Carter, go ahead.

Well, some of my concern is how casual we're being about 300 issues that exist today. Today, not four years ago, or three years ago when this building was opened. And how we're so busy saying who's not at fault. I wanna know who is at fault.

So do we.

Because I'll be damned if one officer has a gun jam from ammunition that's been corroded in a facility that this dais, whoever was on it and whoever sits on it, is responsible for. Because if one of them get killed, Hell hath no fury. Because when they draw their gun, those weapons better fire. We must address this seriously. I want to know where my artifacts are. I had probably a request for... a full page of what was the punch list at the time. There were 193 that were accounted for by a city inspector. Why did I come up with 300 four years later? I'm not an inspector, but my list is pretty long. I mean, did you see the same thing I did? This is not a minor problem.

I'm sorry, I apologize.

Go right ahead.

Okay, Mayor and Council, we also wanna know what the underlying issues and where that responsibility lies so that we can then work on addressing those issues as quickly as possible. I apologize to the department for having to experience these and work through these issues, but we are taking this very, very seriously. And Council Member Carter, we will work on providing you that information. We were just trying to work on, actually just focusing on the update for you as well as seven or eight other presentations for a meeting that we have coming up with you all as well. So we've just had a whole lot of work to do as well as some of the items that we knew were being pulled from consent tonight being prepared for those items as well, but we will pull those for you.

It should never be the last one to know. Nobody up here should ever be the last one to know. I should have been getting updates every week. It just is that simple. This is serious.

I'll take responsibility for that, ma'am. I appreciate that. We'll certainly do that. We will provide the council with updates frequently.

But the more excuses that I hear, the more we're gonna drag this out for the public. Because this is millions of dollars. Millions. I question whether this can even be fixed is how serious it is.

I mean... Do you have any comments? So I'd like to go back to the beginning and see the site survey, because I'm sure the ground just didn't start swelling or whatever in the last three years, if that was even a suitable place to build the PD to begin with. To Council Member Carter's point, there's some of those Interior to exterior doors that don't even open because it's settled or swelled or whatever it's done to where the doors, you can't even egress out of some of those offices and some of those buildings. So in my opinion, that is a safety risk for our police officers that are working in that building every day and all night. If they need to get out of the building, they can't. Some of the office doors wouldn't even close. Some of the office doors you had to put your shoulder in to open. I mean, it's really scary to me because I love the police. I love our police force and they're in that building. And I don't know if it's safe for them to be in that building.

And I want to know where the independent inspector's report is that tells me that that building should be open. I wanna know that public folks can walk in that building. I wanna know who's gonna insure that building. Anybody working in insurance? You think that building's insurable? It ain't. My family runs a commercial insurance agency. It is not. Everything would be excluded from the loss. If it burns down, blows up, or whatever, it's all gonna be because of this shift. It's not just a shift. It's not a little shift. It's big. So I don't want it covered up. I want it in front of the public because this is millions of dollars of corrective action. It also could be, an officer's life on the line with that ammunition sitting in a room that has humidity in it. Anybody that knows anything about ammunition knows this. And I dare anyone to convert that. Your safes at home are to be humidity proof. So it is very serious. We were there, we saw the mayor went in, and it's just I want these artifacts out in the open.

We have no problem. We are happy to provide, as I mentioned, quarterly updates to the city council. I do want to state very clearly that nobody is making any excuses. We are stating 100% what is wrong with this facility and what we are working on and trying to remedy. And this team, our Transportation and Construction Services team, is the most respected in the state and in the region. And they and I will get this project completed. nobody is making any excuses and we are doing what we can to move forward and identify the issues so that we can make the repairs that are needed and that the police department the citizens and the rest of the organization deserve what are the preliminary results of the testing that's being done i don't know why there's just now testing being done there should have been tests at the time did the test testing say that it was viable to build there The test that we have had recently, the preliminary results show that there is highly plastic soils, that there's movement, that they swell and shrink, that there's excess moisture in the soils. But as I mentioned, there's the sub consultants that we've had that have walked the building and from everything that we have seen, there is not a concern about the structural integrity of the building.

Like I said, the building is on 40 foot piers. So that's a concrete beam that goes 40 feet down with the bell housing on the bottom, right? So it floats the foundation of the building. So that's why there's probably not a, structural concern, but that's only for the building footprint. So right next to the building where you're saying the doors empty or go outside, that was never done. So you're looking at a building that's suspended on piers and then right next to it is soils that probably just compacted subgrade and they poured concrete right over it. So that's going like this and the building's staying.

Which is evidence in the picture.

We're not gonna know any of that until Rabbi Christian, how do you say it? Christian or whatever. And so they come back and they say, this is what their analysis is.

There's cracks from floor to ceiling in every hallway almost. I don't like buildings that stand up in this or whatever, but I appreciate that analogy. That was good. However, I live just like a mile to the east of here, right? And my house is on clay too. My house doesn't do anything like this. I guarantee you they would be legally liable if it was doing anything like this. I'll defer to the mayor for comments on next steps or council, but I will not settle for anything less than fully foot pedal to the metal to do something. It's shameful how this building looks and what our police station is looking like for those officers that defend this city. It's shameful, folks, and I invite anybody that would like to to go over there and take a look at it. I don't know how far in you can get, but I don't wanna, but we've given you some pictures. I've got 300 of them for anybody that would care to look at them, but it's a disgrace. I can honestly tell you that, and I'm ashamed of it as a council member.

Mayor and council, this is certainly, the issues that we've been discussing here are embarrassing, and again, I apologize for those issues, As has been stated, we will bring to you the results of that forensic review, that review that identifies the underlying issues so that we know what the ultimate solution or the fix is before we actually undertake it. But we're committed to doing that as quickly as possible and moving on this project as quickly as possible so that we can deliver a project that has been expected from the very beginning.

And then once we get those results, we're gonna work with JARS Construction and figure out a plan.

Yes, sir.

Or the design team, yes, whoever.

One moment. This is actually going pretty long. We already know that the building is falling apart. I don't trust this building one bit. Maybe I'm being a little biased. But I think that the core samples for this building It would have told me don't put a big, big building there, 60,000 square feet. I don't think that people are looking at these pictures here. When you go out and look at it in person, it looks like the building is sinking into the ground and probably about one and a half inches, maybe two inches a year. And I don't trust the building. I want to make sure that we get an answer to why it's sinking, and is it going to stop sinking? I think if the building keeps sinking, we can't use this building. That's what I think, and I think we wasted a lot of money. And I don't want the city or the taxpayers to pay for any repairs. $80,000 here and there, that's just not the answer. Going with the bond, I don't think a bond comes with mistakes. So I think we have to take an action here and make a directive. Somebody go investigate what's going on, but we need answers probably fast. Is this building worth saving? That's where I'm going. I don't trust this building. That's me. Thank you very much. And is there any more comments from council? I would like to open it up to the citizens.

Can you address that?

No, I've heard enough. I want to hear from the system.

But you're saying the building's sinking? You're saying the building's sinking? I'm saying it's not sinking.

Larry, then we will have people tell us it's not sinking, but it's 8 o'clock, and we know that the building is not in good shape. We'll have people inspect the building and give us good answers to why it's doing what it's doing.

But it looks like it's falling apart. I agree, doing what it's doing, but I ain't going to say it's sinking because I haven't seen any evidence personally myself.

Mayor, if I may... We are doing the assessment. Excuse me, sir. We are doing the assessment to identify what those underlying issues are, and we will report that back to you and get those addressed. That building is savable. So please, I just wanna make sure that that's very clear to everyone in this room. And I have ultimate confidence in the team to be able to address those issues.

I may be wrong. I may be wrong, but I want hardcore proof. This building is gonna stop moving. Yes, sir.

I think that this calls for a full investigation that is hired by the city council is what I would propose to do. I don't know if we need to go into session to discuss that with our council, but I think it needs to be a full and independent investigation conducted by council to assess the viability of this building. And I appreciate what Robert's saying, but I've not heard one word since August of 2025 with regard to this police station. Clearly, some people were being spoken to, not this council person. So I believe that it needs to be independent.

Well, how would you, how would you intend to do that? None of us here are structural engineers, so...

It would be a specific, and we'll have to speak to our council probably. I don't know that this is a precedent event. Perhaps one of the citizens can tell us that served on council before and might have run into something like this. However, I know from an executive standpoint, I want somebody independent reviewing this that is hired by council in a separate investigation

So you want an investigation running at the same time as Rabbi Kirshner? How do you say that? At the same time and then take both of those and see if they match?

I don't know that I trust... anybody that has been working on this project from the construction world because Who's I think I hear this right now?

Councilmember Carter and council members Bradley the the team that is working on this project currently We're not part of the design team or the construction team. We are working with separate third party and subcontractors to help us understand what is taking place. Is the building insured? Yes, absolutely. Who's the insurance company?

Is there an insurance company? TML. Do they have investigators or structural engineers?

Well, what I was gonna recommend is that we continue to move forward with the work that we're doing right now to understand what the site issues are. And we are more than happy to separately hire an external structural engineer to come in and take a look at the building as well.

I think that it would be appropriate to go to the TML on the insurance side and have them inspect it.

Absolutely.

And hire it through them. Sure.

we can certainly reach out to TML if they would be willing to do that. But I think even if they are not, I think having an independent structural engineer take a look at the building would be a good next step as well.

Okay.

I agree.

All right, I'm gonna open it up to citizen comment. If you, yeah. Please state your name if you live in the city or non-resident or ETJ, thank you.

Sure, Lynn McCord, ETJ. I'll just have just a suggestion. If the evidence room and the humidity are major issues and you have different locations, could you guys temporarily move that evidence room to another room so that the evidence is safe. So that's something that's another option. And then also the second thing is if the building is flooded, floods, have you guys looked at a flood insurance claim in certain parts of the building? Just a thought. So thank you.

Mikey Farias. ETJ. I grew up on that side of town, and one of the things I'm very proud of is the memorial there. It memorializes my cousin John, who was KIA in Afghanistan. That place does mean a lot to me and whatnot. One of the things that I'm trying to wrap my head around is even as a teenager living on Michigan Street, That neighborhood, we called it Barrio Seco, the dry neighborhood. And reason being was it's really dry. During those drought times, you'd have big old cracks in the mud or in the dirt and whatnot. So the thing that I can't wrap my head around is with this scale of a building, how could they mess up that foundation in an area that is known to have dry soil and shifting soils and whatnot? So that's all I gotta say about that.

Just very disappointing.

Hello, Angela Keller, a New Braunfels citizen. Well, I guess I won't be able to apologize to Mr. Capizzi because he had to recuse himself because he works for JARIS. So Mr. Capizzi worked at JARIS for nearly 10 years as senior superintendent. Four months after being elected to represent District 2 in May 2025, he was promoted to field operations manager. And now in 2026, photos that were circulating about the cracks that I mentioned at his coffee with Capizzi, which he said he had nothing to do with, then he said for me not to quote him. The city already knows there's a problem. In 2025, city staff requested additional funding for the geotechnical assessment of soil movement.

2025, we're 2026 now.

Pavement and paver investigation, sidewalk replacement, fence gate and interior drywall repairs. Sounds like everything that was up here. This is 2025. This was on an agenda. I'm sorry I didn't get the date. I'll come back with that.

The agenda stated that there were warranty claims and others that are not.

And more taxpayer money was needed at that time. Why should New Braunfels citizens pay twice for a building they already funded? Who is responsible for this? Is it a construction defect? The general contractor pays. Is it an engineering defect? The engineer pays. If it's a material failure, the supplier pays. And if it's normal soil movement outside all warranties, should the city pay?

So where are the engineers at?

where are the New Braunfels engineers at? Why did not they oversee and overlook these developments that our taxpayer $32, $35 million go to this building? Why didn't our engineers here at the city of New Braunfels go and make sure that they were compliant and familiar with the soil? And the reason I say soil is because I've lived here third generation. My husband's family helped establish this town and he knows this soil probably better than any engineer here. We have a 50, 60-year-old house with no movement because we knew the soil. And we knew we had to, when whatever was permitted, however they had to lay in the foundation, the ground, we went double. 50, 60-year-old house with not even a crack because they knew the soil. This building is only a couple years, a few years old, and we're having issues with it. Well, my formal request to this council is, one, full disclosure, release the construction contract from JARIS, including all warranties and change orders for the public to see. That's our right. We pay for all this. Two, an independent investigation, like mentioned, A commission on independent geotechnical assessment by a firm with no ties to JARIS, no ties to JARIS, PGAL or the city itself or anybody affiliated with the city. Three, status report. Direct the city attorney or whoever that would be to publicly report whether warranty claims have been filed.

2025, we'd like to see those warranty claims. Have they been filed with the company?

whether insurance or bonds have been triggered or how much additional taxpayer money has been spent. Four, no more taxpayer funding until the investigation determines who's responsible. And five, a public hearing. Let citizens ask more questions after they have all this documentation laid in front of us with the contracts and the warranty claims that y'all have already submitted with JARIS. from the city staff, the city attorney, and the contractors. JARIS has built other projects here in New Braunfels. The addition of New Braunfels High School, the Canyon High School renovations, Amagi Bank, so Amagi Bank if you're listening, Cornerstone ER. Be sure you know what's on your contract and in your warranties, especially with this company. If there are any issues with the police headquarters, then there are issues with those buildings as well. I'm not here to make accusations, but in a sense, I guess I am. Transparency isn't optional. Accountability isn't negotiable. The taxpayers of New Braunfels deserve better than paying twice for a building that should have been built right the first time.

My name is Rita McNeil. I just have a couple of quick comments, but Angela covered everything beautifully in great detail, and she obviously knows what she's talking about. I was wondering how many bidders actually did bid the design and the construction phases? How many? And also, what is our total sum? You know, we've heard a million here, 27 million, et cetera, throughout the presentation, but what is the total cost a you know from step one all the way through till today what have we spent so far on this building a lot of this is common sense but we need to know and then the soil is not going to change it's the same soil that was there when they first inspected it and decided whether to build on this side so why the heck did they build there and also um Let's see, what was the other thing? Just the design, and we're trying to figure out who to blame on this, the design or the construction or whatever. We've got a potential conflict of interest with the construction company and all of that. But I just wanna know if the bid initially that we went with was only for the one year, was every other bid only a one year period? That sounds extremely small as a guarantee period. One year, that just blows me away. On a building of this magnitude and cost and importance to the community, surely there was a construction company that was confident that they could guarantee it for more than one measly year.

Before you talk, you want to answer some of these questions? And I guess you can start with the warranty. I think that's typical.

That's a standard warranty for construction projects. We had 12 bidders for construction. We interviewed four and selected the general contractor. I don't have the information on how many bid for the original design. We did work with one design firm for... preliminary design and then we switched for final design and we worked directly with PGAL as I mentioned because our team went and visited College Station and wanted to go in that direction with the same facility. But 12 bidders.

Thank you. Thank you, council. Thank you, mayor. I'm Tiffany Kelly, resident district four. I hate to be kept an obvious here, but mayor, I'm gonna ask you to take this to NBU also because they're building their headquarters. We're investing money in their headquarters right down the street from this police station, this police headquarters. The soil's going to be similar construct soil there as well, so are we looking at additional issues down the road with that facility as well? Thank you.

Randy Clausen, resident of New Braunfels. Thank you all for letting us come speak on these kind of matters. It's very important that we have spent millions of dollars and that we have a building that is going to be sound and firm and will stand the test of time. Obviously, we're not in that situation. Something has to be done. So I'll leave it up to you guys and the city, the details of how it gets done. But there's a couple of things I think time-wise that we citizens need to know about and then also you guys as council needs to know is we've got a city manager who knows a whole lot about the goings on of this and he's retiring. So we're gonna lose a lot of information and a lot of ability and a lot of timeliness of getting this done. In addition to that, We're in search for a city attorney, and that's going to be very important as we deal with this situation. So you guys have got big jobs to do, and we want to support you to make sure that it gets done. Not only that, but some of, and probably none of you know, that apparently with JARIS, The two top guys that would be dealing with an issue like this when it comes to insurance and liability are retiring in the next six months. And so these kind of issues need to be dealt with quickly and promptly because if we wait and those people go, it's gonna be a whole lot harder to put the pieces of the puzzle back together. So put this on your high priority. And when it comes to money, everybody knows that if you want somebody to do something at your house, you get somebody who's bonded and insured. These construction companies have huge, huge insurance policies that they can access if they need to. And we're not putting a blame on anybody. It's just a bad building. but don't let the citizens be on the hook for $35 million that gets flushed down the toilet.

Hey, Mayor and Council, Joy Lynn Massaros, resident. Councilwoman Carter, thank you for raising this issue and pursuing it with such fervor. Thank you also, Councilwoman Shaw, for going on a tour with Councilwoman Carter. And Mayor French, I believe you've also been to the facility as well. Thank you all. And if any of the others of you have been there as well, thank you as well for your attention to this matter. This is supposed to house and resource and equip New Braunfels finest. And this looks like it's for the worst. I remember when this project was proposed, one of the biggest reasons why we needed this facility is because the old facility had a leaking roof and it was falling apart and it wasn't fit to house New Braunfels Police Department. And this is like, this is worse than where they came from. And I appreciate the comment about the NBU headquarters being built similarly because I've also heard it said that the facility where New Braunfels Utilities currently was leasing or owning, utilizing the space, was falling apart as well, right? So we do want to be careful with where we're spending our money to provide better buildings if the issue is leaking, cracking ceilings, poor foundation, and not a safe environment for our employees to be working. I also wonder about mold remediation with all that humidity and the safety of the breathing air quality for New Braunfels Finest as well. My husband is a plumber, and with any kind of water and sewer leaks like that, major remediation is necessary. I noticed a shot back in one of the pictures. It's obvious that they're used to sucking water up off the floor on a regular basis. And if we're flooding in electrical areas, what police officer's job is it to suck water up around electrical? I'm just curious.

That concerns me.

But I will say, we keep saying that this is slightly embarrassing. I heard Jordan Matney say it's slightly embarrassing. This is incredibly embarrassing. Just wanna put that into perspective. It is not slightly. You said you're being transparent about the issues. You showed three small cracks in your slideshow. But thank you so much for really highlighting the vast majority of the issues at this facility so that we have eyes on that. Am I correct in that Mike Capizzi, Councilman for District 2, was a project manager for this project? Okay, just to clarify why he has recused himself from this conversation. Also, thank you to those of you who have mentioned that this same contractor, Jairus, is the contractor for New Braunfels High School, where our children are, which I would also argue are our finest as well. And it concerns me that we're entrusting them with more jobs and projects when this is the quality of their work. They don't even believe in themselves enough to issue a longer than a one year warranty because they don't want this responsibility. And offering to patch the roof or come back and work with it, they couldn't have a representative here this evening, but they had a representative campaigning for Neil Leonard at the library on election day. That's surprising to me. But thank you, Larry Spradley, for being their voice and providing a letter to them. I assume Mike Capizzi gave that to you so you could ask questions, softball questions and suggestions for them on his behalf since he's not in the room. so would decorum be y'all shouting out like that just curious because y'all like your right to do that right so y'all can do that and i'll say this i've still got a minute and 39 seconds and i think i'm being pretty peaceful considering the fact that our police officers buildings falling apart and y'all care more about the fact that i'm calling it out than for our police officers but i'll keep going now I would like to point out the biggest contrast is that our sheriff's department is across the street and it appears to be on a firm foundation, well built and stable to the best of my knowledge. Who was the contractor that did that? I'm curious. What were those soil samples like? I'm curious. What is the difference? I'm curious. And it is possible that this building could have been built well, is all that I would like to say. But in conclusion, I think the underlying issue is JARIS and the cronyism of giving jobs to people's employers and this back scratching that we're seeing with our council members. And I do not believe that they have earned the public's trust to continue getting contracts with the city. Thank you.

I would like to make a statement of fact. That letter was on the desk when I got here, and I'm pretty sure about it. Did you get the letter? Yeah, we all got the letter. So it wasn't just me giving the softball and throwing it out there.

Okay.

Well, and I do concur with Council Members Bradley. Somehow it appeared. I don't know if it fell out of the ceiling or where it came from, but.

Council Member Carter, the letter was provided to the staff, to the city manager and to staff. It was forwarded to the city council and provided at the dais.

Yes, I provided it just minutes after I received it this afternoon.

It just appeared up here. I didn't know how it got here.

And what I asked the city secretary to actually distribute hard copies to you all so that you had them at the dais this evening.

I mean, I agree. I think it's unfortunate that they passed up the opportunity to tell us a little more about their perspective because I would like to hear it. I asked for them to be here, but I understand they've got a schedule to keep. So noted.

Thank you, Council. I've just got some information for y'all. My name's Timothy Davis, and I'm a resident. Ms. Lebowski's my representative. Didn't come to speak on this item. I wanted to listen and hear things. I've heard quite a bit, and I do have quite a bit of experience with building structures like this on a much smaller scale, but I've built 20-foot piers, set them with a time frame, and very complicated engineering. I do understand what you're talking about. Larry, a few things about, we need to be careful about one thing, using the word sinking, okay, because the deflection is what's going on here. We don't know if it's sinking, rising, anything, so we don't want staff to come back and say, well, it wasn't sinking, and then, that still doesn't mean the building is structurally sound. So I would suggest staying away from the word sinking and talk about movement and deflection. There are many things that could have been misapplied in this. It could have been both, it could have been a combination of the engineer and the contractor. There's a lot of things to look at here, and I would volunteer to help out with that in any way to point the finger in the right, correct direction, regardless of any bias. If y'all would allow me on a committee or anything like that, I would like to offer that to y'all. Please be careful. Staff, I ask you to just, it was very clear that you downplayed a lot of this. This isn't the time to do that. Early on in the process, I would ask, that would be fine. But the optics of it is horrible and it's dividing the city. We just need to be truthful and come out and say, you know what? Here's the pictures. We know they're coming. Just be honest, please. It wasn't a couple leaks. It was massive. I heard leaks into the main electrical box of the building. I don't know if that's completely true. Sir, that's deception. We need truth. This is what's causing the divide. It's why I've been coming up here for six years and telling you optics, optics, this looks horrible when you come up here and you deceive the people when it's clear this building is questionable. Maybe your opinion is that it's fine, but your opinion is not a professional engineer. And I'm someone that has extensive experience building and repairing structures This is a whole bunch of different problems could have caused this. Was there a expansion barrier between the floating pier

Yes, all the grade beams and the slab were built on void form, assuming that's what you're referring to.

Between the surface, so what Larry described as a floating pier, you build, I did this for a water slide, the 20-foot piers up in Roanoke a couple years ago. You build a pier, and you're basically building a table. It's basically causing the expansive soil to not touch this. So if you don't put a proper barrier in here, you're going to cause it to actually heave, and actually the building could be heaving in one spot and sinking in the other. So there's a lot of stuff that needs to be looked into these core samples. Who was the engineering firm that was in charge of signing off on the core samples, the drilling, and all the engineering parts, the plan, all of this?

During construction?

Is that what you're referring to?

So Terracon did all of the inspections during construction, so that was all the material testing. So they did all the pier inspections, and they would have done the rebar inspections, concrete testing, all of that.

Did we take any evidence of depth or anything like that? We have all that recorded? How deep the piers went that night? Yes. Okay. The period get poured in sections and it's all done. There's a lot of cold joint stuff and a lot of complicated things that have to happen. And then as far as the, so that's the same company that did the design. Or that was a company implementing?

Yes, so Terracon did the original geotech report and then they did the material testing during construction. Okay, all right.

And I will say that MBU building is less of a concern. It's built on totally different soil than this. So I just know that from camps in that area, knowing that that's pretty much all hard limestone in that area. So I don't think you have the concerns there, probably. But so did we have any engineer on staff that was overseeing this stuff that was coming in, checking on things, any of this in any way?

No, we did not. That was included as part of the relying on Terracon for their inspections.

Okay. I think that's it. Thank you.

I did have one more clarification. I'm sorry. You're good. It wasn't a question that I was able to ask on Saturday. I mean, it was bare bones staff in there. I've also heard this report that the electrical room has water in it every morning and that there is a maintenance person that has to go in and shop vac that clear. Are we aware of that?

Yes, we are. Yeah, that was included in the presentation, the water in the conduit, and that's the conduit that goes from the main distribution panel that's in the main building out to the annex building. So that's the electrical room in the annex building is where we're seeing that water, and it is being... uh monitor maintained by the facilities department uh that water does ebb and flow or we worked with mbu to try to find out uh what the water source is and we had that included in the that third party investigation of the uh sewer roof drains and that to identify their issues with the conduit uh with a break or is it coming in uh some other way so we're we're looking into that

I'm sorry, I'm not fully, I don't know about all these things in construction, but it seems to me that water around electricity is not a good thing. How much wattage is in there or amperage or whatever it's called? I think it's amperage.

Yeah, not sure of the exact loading of that, but there's been no electrical issues. I believe they'll, I don't know for sure, but I believe the wire's coated, so that would be what would prevent the- Is our person safe with the shop vac is more what I'm asking? Yes.

Okay. They gotta switch the power off or something?

No.

I mean, this is just a travesty to me that we have folks that are having to do this. Okay, thank you.

That's okay. Hi, my name is Nicole Baudelaire and I am a resident of New Braunfels. I'm in Mr. Edwards district. I do want to say that I'm so glad to see Mr. Edwards talk about this and want to be proactive about it and not be defensive in any way about it and that you're sticking up for the citizens and being on the hook. and you're sticking up for the police. So that's very refreshing to see. I want to thank you for bringing this to our attention. I don't know why it's taken so long for this to come out in the open. It's very disheartening that these men and women have to go to work in this building every day. Is that something anybody would want to do? Anybody would want to go there, let alone somebody who puts their life on the line to protect us. So there is other things, too, that besides their warranty of standard one year, which seems kind of ridiculous, but if that's standard in the industry, that's standard in the industry. The statute of limitations is four years from when you discover things, and there's also a statute of repose in Texas, which gives you 10 years to bring things to a warranty also. You can go for breach of contract if they didn't meet the plans or do you agreed scope. There's negligence, gross negligence, implied warranties. You can go after their surety bonds like was mentioned before. You can use their insurance company. Subcontractors you can go after. They should be responsible for all the people that they hired. And the design professionals, which goes back to the architects and the engineers, the citizen should not pay a dime. And if this building is not viable and a new building needs to be built, the citizen should not pay a dime. George should handle all of that. This is way more than soil problems. Look at the inside. There's other things going on there. And I'm glad to see that it's on the open and it's being talked about and something's going to be done for them.

Good evening, sorry I haven't done this in a while, so I apologize. City Manager, Mayor, and City Council, thank you for letting me speak tonight. I was on city council when this property was purchased. Ma'am, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. It's, I apologize. Thank you. Leah Garcia. Thank you. Resident District 6. I was on city council when we picked this location, we approved this location, and when the bond package went out and was voted by the citizens. I was term limited in 2020, so I was not on council at the time this was built, so I don't have any knowledge of it. I do know that we did our due diligence at the time in finding a location. In New Braunfels, land is not just readily available for a price that we felt like we could ask the citizens of New Braunfels to pay for. So it was a long process. There was a lot of thought to it. We picked a design of a building from the city of New Braunfels College Station because the size of it, because it had been done, and we felt like it was a good plan to buy. The rest of it, as far as the bid package and all that, I'm not involved in. I don't have any technical experience. I do want to take ownership of what we did do. There's nobody serving on city council now that was there during that time. No one on city council was part of anything that we did. or looked at or any of that, so there's no conspiracy there on our part that we were serving on city council at that time. I want the police department to know that they left a situation where there were rats falling out of the ceiling, the roof leaked despite all the fixes we did, There were offices in closets and they had sewage problems. We thought we were taking them to a much better place. Obviously, right now in the situation it's in, it is not. And yes, as citizens, staff, and city council, we owe them better. We all agree to that. That's not under, nobody's debating that. So whatever you have to do and whatever takes place, go ahead and move forward with it. Just know that moving that many people and all that equipment, there's not really a temporary building in New Brunswick where we can just shove them in right now. And starting over from scratch, isn't going to be your best solution, or let me rephrase that, your easiest solution. So work together, be respectful, keep making it transparent to the people, but don't make rash decisions. Try to make this work if possible. The money that's been spent in it, and hold the people's feet to the fire who deserve to be. But just know there aren't a lot of options at this point. So looking further into this might not be the worst thing. Thank you.

We have one more.

Hi, David Wormke, District 5, and four quick points, maybe it's five, and mostly they'll be in sort of reach, but first off, I want to say thank you. Thank you for this disclosure and this open dialogue about a big issue that in the past tended to be not handled any way like this, and I thank you for that. Yeah, I've known some of the buildings around here. The Glastron, I used to be in often. The Sheriff's Department, I've been in a number of times. I have been in the jail, but don't plan on being there. I don't think they've had any issues. And they were built at different points in time. One of the things we've done now is we have these ROI design things that are designed, built, designed to basically build things quicker. But it breaks down some of the checks and balances. And I'm wondering if that's not what happened here. Because it's lower level ground. So there's a water issue that might not be with the other. But I don't think... There were two separate forces there that were checking and watching. I guess it was just kind of just one. My last thought is don't throw good money after bad. This sounds like a lemon. In my slide, I had the lemonade, y'all, with the cookies for the Christmas gift. So I don't know that you can make lemonade out of this one. I think it's maybe better just to wipe it off and let the lawyers work and the insurance companies work.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to close public comments at this time on here. City Manager, is there a directive I can give to make sure that this is investigated with a, I guess, an independent contractor? Okay. Yeah, I just need to know what to do from here because... Is there a move or a motion or anything I could do to make sure that this is taken care of?

I certainly have consensus from this council. At least I heard from several of you that you would like an independent review of the structural or a structural assessment of the building. We can move forward on that issue and have that go concurrently with reviewing all those other issues as well.

Can I add one thing on there? Yes, sir. So Council Member Carter, her and myself and I guess Mayor French all went and looked, but none of us are experts when it comes to identifying things. She identified 300 and something. I've seen a whole bunch of things. Can we have an independent inspection service come out and identify all those issues as well? I mean, is the city satisfied that every single item has been identified for fixing down the road or no? Because that's really what my question is.

If I may, in a situation like this, a single inspector or somebody who would normally lose is probably gonna miss it because you've got several trades in there that are specific. And so when they call for those inspections, he'll come out and says, looks like you need a specialist. Now he can point out everything he visibly sees, but we already know the staff's identified a number of things in the photographs. As long as we have somebody forensically doing it with the trays that we need to be done, we have foundation work, HVAC, construction integrity, which is part of the integral frame, site, soil, drainage, all of those things need to be looked in them. So my recommendation would be to use whatever outside source is necessarily not connected to this project. to conduct an investigation, tell us who you're bringing forward to hire, give us a timeline for their research, and by when you'll get back to us with an update, let's say every two weeks or every three weeks, to tell us where you are in the process so that we can get evaluation. And if there's things we need to see, if we need to have a site visit, then get us all out there at the time so that we can get this done. Is that a fair assumption of what we might have done?

So we have a soil analysis from Rabbi Christian, but we don't have a structural engineer for the building itself. So we want to do both simultaneously.

Yeah, the issue may be, though, with 85,000 square feet of... slab in there is that we can check the perimeter and the flow, but without tearing into that floor, I can't tell you what's underneath it. Now, they can x-ray it to a certain extent, right? I have one done recently where we found leaks and things of that nature.

Well, on the one end of the building, they're already underneath it. Right, so now would be the time to send an inspector.

I mean, they can do a slant core test, but you miss things in the strata that way. they should be able to come up with a good reference for us if this is actually what they need. And then if the forensic guys say we need something else done, we need to follow their recommendation. OK, I agree with that.

And I also think we need to add in our legal counsel, consult with them, and perhaps we can do it an emergency session. I don't know if this is warranting an emergency session from an attorney's perspective, but I think one, they should advise us what our range of options are. Because we'll need a budget for this. the reporting of it, because I think we need to require legal reporting, the bonds that were associated with this contract, because Mr. Claussen, I believe it is, he is correct. Construction bonds are big, multimillions, and every contractor has to have them. I want to see those in my artifact request as well. But I think council, we need to speak to our legal council about what actions we need to kick. Because it doesn't sound like that's been done yet.

Mayor?

All right. Yes.

I have a question. Okay. This question is for Chief Forlis. My question is, do you recommend moving any of the equipment for safety? Okay.

Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council, Osvaldo Flores, your police chief. One thing you should know is that we're working very closely with city departments to analyze any issues that come up and then any continuing issues that occur for us to make any operational changes. So as we look at that, if there is something that we need to pivot and make a decision on, we will make that. We're not at that place, even though you've seen the photos that are there. that would warrant, unless I get some sort of safety inspection that says otherwise. I'm certainly not in construction myself, but we are monitoring this very closely.

I just worried about equipment that y'all use. I want to make sure that you're able to use it correctly for your safety.

Right. And we'll be looking at that as well.

That's a good point, Mary Ann, in asking. And I appreciate you doing that. And I should address her as Council Member Lebowski. I apologize. I noticed that every shower that was available to officers seems to be down. Is that a correct assessment? I didn't want to run through the men's shower room, but... I was there for an inspection, okay?

And I did not want to run through the women's shower, so I don't know about theirs.

I have to disclose I was there.

But I do know that currently, and it could be because of the work that they're doing under that section in the men's locker room, that those locker rooms or facilities are unavailable to us at the moment. And it has not always been that case.

And I want to... you know, council correct me if I'm wrong, but I think everybody up here can be united in saying to the staff of the city, if there are auxiliary services that can be procured or rented or whatever, so that these gentlemen and ladies can take a shower when they come off of midnight shift or whatever it is that they need to do, or they had, been spit on in a stop that they have or whatever, I'm sure those showers are there for a reason. They are totally out of commission. I would ask that we get on it and make that available to these officers. Unless there's objection from this dais.

My question was about the armory, the arm.

So that has not, the validity or integrity of our equipment as it relates to the armory has not been an issue that's been brought to my attention yet. With this presentation though, that'll be something that we certainly continue to look at should that change based on humidity standards and those kind of things as well. And should that occur, then we will make a plan to be able to mitigate that and at least move the items to a different location to be a little more secure in that decision.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

I want to try to wrap this one up. So I guess the direction is that we're going to look into this.

Yes, sir. Okay. We've got the direction we need. Thank you. Okay. And we'll certainly look into that as well, Councilman Ricardo, the showers.

Mr. Camerino.

We're good to go on this one.

Could you restate your last sentence? I couldn't hear you.

We'll certainly look into the issue of the showers, Councilman Ricardo, and see if there's something available. Also going to kind of get a timeline for when the repairs might be made and really kind of identify if we need to get something in sooner or if the repairs are coming online soon enough that the timing of the issues really kind of conflict with one another or don't align. But we will look into that, yes ma'am.

If you guys don't mind, without objection, we'll take a five minute recess. Be back in five minutes, right now it's 8.45. We'll be back at 8.50. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't mind, can you please sit down? All right, for the interest of saving time, I'm gonna move my next presentation without objection to the next meeting, if you don't mind, for the paid parking.

I object to that.

Okay, that's fine. To be clear, parking will be done, downtown parking, on the next available opportunity date, sir? No. Let's do it today. Let's do it today.

OK, I would rather pull you take the consent agenda. I doesn't do those on the next consent agenda. OK, if we could do that, that's fine.

I'll do it right now.

Presentation B.

Is right now this is presentation B. And it's the discussion. And possible direction regarding amendment amending the downtown PAID PARKING PROGRAM TO INCLUDE THREE HOURS OF FREE PARKING FOR RESIDENT RIVER PARKING PERMIT HOLDERS. SO THIS ONE WAS KIND OF A NEAT THING FOR ME AND I'LL GO PRETTY QUICK ON MY PRESENTATION HERE. I GOT MY CLICKER. SO I CALLED THIS COMPREHENSIVE PAID PARKING REVIEW. SO I DID LOOK AT ALL THE presentations of what the city had put forth for the whole year that we've been through this since last July. And I wanted to see if I can have two proposals. So, On July 7th, it would be the anniversary of our paid parking program. This is one of the main issues during my run for mayor and is something that I do need to touch on. So we do have a few people that hate the downtown parking program and some people that actually truly love it. but I have spoken with a few businesses that they have lost business, and especially with the steady, the regulars, I call them. I can only tell you from what I've experienced moving through and talking to all the businesses that a lot of them did say that they are losing business, regular, the regulars. And at the very beginning, the downtown parking program was strictly created And this is recorded, strictly created to move the parking, move parking along. Park in a spot, move along. It had nothing to do monetarily to make money. And so that had changed. This program did generate over $600,000 and the city received a little over 200,000, maybe more than that to use for land area beautification, sidewalks, repair and all that. So it gradually changed from parking move right along to, hey, we're making money and we're gonna use it to beautify the downtown area. So we are now in the mindset that the downtown parking did generate money. Yeah, beautification. But we're in a dilemma. I think we're in a dilemma. Most citizens do not like the paid parking. I did move through all the paid parking reports and came up with two solutions, proposals that I believe the citizens can live with. Paid parking dilemma. So let me see, next page. So here's our current landscape, existing parking. Uh-oh. So the first hour is free, the second hour is $2, and the third hour, $4, $4, $6, $8. They capped out at $10, and these are citizens, okay, when you go downtown and you park. And the disability, of course, is free, veteran parking and all that. So when you go to the river access, and citizens, they apply for a permit, and they get free river parking. And of course, Psalms Park and all that, Prince Psalms Park, it's $20 per visit, non-residents, guests, 20-20. So proposed city of New Braunfels solutions. So there's a detailed breakdown of two distinct proposals I'm going to give you guys tonight. And it is for both the taxpayers, the citizens, and for making more tourist revenue. So the first proposal, I want to, no, this is a proposal. Extend free period residence for the citizens of New Braunfels and the ETJ. The first three hours absolutely free of charge, downtown. So, of course, it caps out at $10. Now, but the good thing here is it includes the ETJ. So when it comes to the tourist pricing, I say the non-residents, this is my proposal, and the tourists will fund municipal maintenance, high traffic zone areas. The first hour is $3 upon the moment of arrival. And the total cap out is $15. It's $3 an hour and it caps out at $15. Now I want to integrate the resident Riverside parking permits and consolidate it into, And to this proposal, so anyone that got the Riverside permits, they are the three hours downtown free. Proposal two, 100% free resident access. Now, under this proposal, any registered resident of the city and ETJ will receive completely free parking with no limits, nothing. And when it comes to... You just have to register your vehicle. You live downtown or in the city of New Braunfels and ETJ, any time you have an envelope with New Braunfels on it, you have no fee at all. When it comes to the tourism, it is the same, that they first start out, the first hour, $3, and then it goes up, it caps out to $15. You don't pay more than that. So right now our current system, and if you look, and you see it says current system, second column from your left, And we have the first hour free, then it goes down to resident extra hours, it's $2 after that, and it caps out at 10. The ETJ, they don't fall under that at all. And then your tourist rate is first hour free, after that second hour is $2, $10 max. First proposal is that the resident time, first three hours are free. The next, first hour after that is only $2. And so it's a $10 max out. And the ETJ, they do qualify for that. So the tourist rate, of course, first hour is $3 and max out at $15. The second proposal, no fee at all for the residents, residential hours, it's all the time, 24-7, 365, ETJ the same way, but the tourism the same. They start at $3, $3 or $4, and then they cap out at 15. Now, Here's the projection when it goes all the way to the first three lines that we did have from New Braunfels, they did give us this. We made through our, what's gonna be projected for 2027 to 28 is $640,000. And then what the actual revenue the city will get for land area beautification is $399. Now for the proposal one for three hours free, and then the first hour after that is $2, All the tourism, they pay $3, cap up 15. I did estimate with my educated calculations of 15 times, and I got an average. The city will gain at least $456,000. That is about $57,000 more than what you are projected to get. I did make it bigger so everyone could read. We will get about 57,000 more. In this proposal, I do want smart people to look at my projections to make sure that I'm not just saying this or doing whatever. So proposal two. This is a little smaller, but this is when the citizens don't pay anything at all, but tourism still does. And the end run, at the end of 2028, we'll have, instead of $399, we'll have $433,000, and that's about $34,000 more than what you will get. So I'm looking at that, and I'm like, that sounds pretty good. So in the interest of monetizing everything, I still think that the money we will make will improve the sidewalks, the streets, the paint, and all that, the flowers, land area beautification. I think we'll have a little bit more money on that. The only thing you have to do is just register your vehicle. Go down, register your vehicle. If you're in the ETJ or the city, that's it. Is there any questions on that? I'm gonna have smart people look at those proposals to see if I'm not full of crud, okay? I am truly serious. I looked at this a long time. It will generate a lot more money. All right, any questions from council?

I don't have any questions, but how do you come up with these numbers exactly?

Okay, so, no, that's a fair question. So there is a few things I did. I said, well, 80% was tourism, and then I did 70% was tourism, and then I did 60% was tourism, and the first hour was free. Now, the money that you were projecting was about 600-something thousand dollars a year. If I did about the first hour free, people stay about two hours average. So two hours at the first, it would make only $2. And a resident, $2. That's $4 for one two-hour stop. But the first hour would have already projected $3 for that tourist, no dollars for anyone else. But when it comes to three hours after, that's two, four, six right there. And then it starts at $2. So the first, this is the calculations I'm trying to do. So when I do the first cap out of $10 or the first cap out of $15, it's a lot more money. But I can actually send these guys my calculations. But on offhand, when I took my first eight hours, it was projected more. When you have three, let's see, one, two, three, four, four hours times three, that's $12. But if you do that with the first hour free, that's two, four, six, is double the amount. That's where I'm getting at. And that's just the tourist state. So...

Yeah, but how do you know how many tourists use the parking spots?

That's what I'm saying. I am going to get the smart people to look at my proposals, because look at this. The slideshow does not have calculations, and I am not an uneducated person.

I like that we want to be free. Everybody wants free.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one proposal.

But the reason this was brought up, at least the way I interpreted it, was because the downtown businesses have workers, and the downtown businesses that have workers were parking all over downtown. Right, not allowing anyone to park anywhere else. Right, so the idea is to generate, not money, but to generate the revolving, the revolving of the parking spaces. So it's not technically about money. It's about moving parking spaces along.

Oh, that's correct. It was moved from that to now a monetary thing.

But it's not about money.

No, no, no, I'm saying it moved to a monetary thing, to now everyone cares about looking at money. How much money did we make? And how much money are we gonna spend downtown? That's all the reports I see.

I don't care about the money. I care about the convenience. That's what a lot of people care about. So the convenience is switching the parking lots around. I personally don't think the jury's out yet of what all the visitors versus people that live inside the city limits versus the ETJ. I don't know if we have enough information to actually go forward on any kind of, I like that. I like your idea, but I think we need more information.

If we could, if we could go into the public, let them speak, and then we could have questions after that, and then we could say where we're going with this.

All right, would any of the citizens like to come up to the podium and please talk? Just state your name, and then if you live in the city of New Braunfels, resident of the ETJ or non-resident?

Can you hear me? Okay, there we go. Christina Brown, resident of New Braunfels. I have spoke with lots of small businesses downtown, and I think that the city council needs to look at talking with them as well and how much it's affecting their business. I spoke to a certain individual where he said his numbers are down 13% because of it. And we've been going for how many years without having parking? And it's a money issue. I think we have plenty of money that we're missing all the fat that we've been putting out and look at what's the best for the small businesses. Because it seems like this town is forgetting about that. So if you really want to be concerned, not just the taxpayers, the small businesses is who you really need to talk to. And how much is it affecting them? And what if you were in their spot? That's my opinion.

My name is Richard Kelsheimer. I'm a resident. I kind of like your proposal number two, but I'll just share something else with you that I brought up before, and that is that what we might be able to do is we might be able to let the citizens that live within New Braunfels and the ETJ purchase a pass for $50 or $100, and that would cover them for the full year. In other words, they could park downtown, and you could put some kind of limit on that. I know that the employers in the downtown area are concerned about the income the reduction in the business that they're getting from their regulars. In addition to that, I think there is some concern for the employees that are working for those companies that they get off late at night, they're having to walk on the street, and sometimes unaccompanied, and it might be a lady, and they don't feel comfortable doing that. So that might be something to think about. But I think if you could offer the opportunity for them to buy a pass and pay for that, whether it be $50, $75, or $100, I think in the long run you would end up having actually more money. Because most of the people that are living in the city are not going to be the ones that are going down to the bar, other than the regulars that go, and they'll get a pass. And they're probably not going to use and be down there for a longer period of time than an hour or maybe two hours for lunch if they want to be able to do that. And it'd be very easy to have a pass and have that identified kind of like a toll tag that you could put. That would be my suggestion. I like your proposal too. I think that looks fairly, because three hours would cover most of that. So that's just my thoughts on it.

This is Leah Garcia, New Braunfels resident, District 6. This used to be District 6 area, so I do know almost all of the businesses down there. And the 10 or 12 that have reached out to me, because they still have my email address, so you will find that they still reach out to you. And I just told them they have to go to their city council person, but they like it. the plan because it is moving people in and out of there, and they see more foot traffic. I didn't ask them if it translated to sales or not, but because of the turnover, they are seeing more foot traffic. And on a personal note, my husband and I have been going back downtown because we can now get a parking spot and pay, and for an hour, it's free. For two hours, it cost us a couple of bucks, and I find that worthwhile because I couldn't go and walk before. and I couldn't go to some of the places that were. So anyway, but I just want you to know that I still hear from people, and they prefer it this way. I didn't ask them about revenue turning over to beautify anything. I didn't ask them about any of that stuff, but they do like the turnover so that they can get more customers in and out of there, and it's helped them. Thank you.

Council, Clarissa DeSanto, downtown resident. I also have the privilege of representing our downtown association as their president. Right around the one year mark, we took a anonymous survey. I am gonna go ahead and share the results with you so it can help you all make an educated decision. Next, please. We sent this out on the 29th. We had to close it on the 2nd. The total invitees were 162. Those were paid partners and stakeholders. Mind you, those were whom I had email addresses for at this survey, and the total responses were 31%. The questions that were asked was, how has managed paid parking impacted your business? Do you support keeping managed paid parking in downtown New Braunfels? What is the single most important change the city could make to improve parking? The type of business? Does your business have their own parking lot? If yes to your own parking lot, do you use a managed parking system? And lastly, what is your role for the business? Here are the results. How has managed paid parking impacted your business? So you can see the percentages there. And y'all have a printout as well, correct? And I did print that out and give it to you. Second, do you support keeping managed paid parking in downtown New Braunfels? Yes, 29 responses were in favor. Yes, 13 but with modifications. No, six believed it should be eliminated and two didn't have an opinion either way. The type of businesses and their role. We found that role important just so we could speak to who we would consider the decision makers. Does your business have their own lot? 37 said yes, 13 were no. And these were the results. The impact business type, positive, more customer turnover and foot traffic, negative, customers avoid downtown or complain about parking, neutral, little to no noticeable change, and not sure they don't have enough to say. And that concludes the survey results. Once again, this was an anonymous survey. I did not get their names or information, but I do have their email addresses that I sent out. If you would like their comments, I can certainly send you those, but they will come back, they will be anonymous. But I am very happy to share what their feedback and comments were. I feel like this is a great start for you all to really ask, because that's what we did. We asked these businesses what they wanted and what they needed. Any questions regarding? Yes, ma'am.

I'm raising my hand instead of hitting my microphone. I was a former teacher. I noticed this very close bar chart over here on retail. Is there any trend line with them? Because it looks like that means that they want changes. Which one were you on? The last one?

The very last one. Sorry, it would help if I had my glasses on. There you go.

I think that's it, six and six. Okay, so retail as an example, they thought it was positive impact and negative impact. They're literally split.

Yes, well with some changes or modifications. Right.

Correct. So is there something about retail, because I've heard this before, that the retailers feel like it hurts them more. Is there a reason that has been established to you or not?

I can't speak because I'm not a retail owner. However, I can certainly present those results to you in their comments and feedbacks. From my understanding is they need that turnover rate so their customers can come in, shop, get what they need, and leave. Right.

But on the flip side of it, where they want changes, do we know?

Right, and those are in the anonymous survey results that I'll send to you.

Okay, so they didn't expound on that then? No.

They did in the anonymous. Yes, ma'am. Yes, yes, yes. But I want to make sure I send that to you and respect their privacy as well. I feel like those comments are their comments. I need to be sharing with you y'all as a council. Okay. Because I just need to be very respectful of what. All right. Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Yes, ma'am.

Is this email been sent to all the council and the mayor? Or if it hasn't, can you send that to us?

The presentation? Yes, ma'am. I certainly can. Yes, it'll be the exact same printout. And then what I'll do is, like I said, to protect their privacy, I will just include those comments. But like I said, I don't even know what the comments are, who they're from. But the comments will be included for y'all's review. Thank you. Thank you.

My name is Jennifer Wilson, excuse me.

I live in the ETJ, however I am a downtown business owner. I wanna first say this was never about revenue generating. This was 100% about turnover of parking places. I own a restaurant downtown near the courthouse for over 20 years and we have always dealt with people who work downtown parking in the spaces in front of our restaurant all day long and never having turnover. I have had many groups who have wanted to have their group luncheons or breakfasts at our place and have declined using our facilities because there was never parking available close by. The current managed parking has been the best solution I have had so far. My staff help the elderly register because they know that keeps the regulars coming back and our business stays afloat with regulars year round. The presentations on the city's website show that since this has been implemented, sales tax and alcohol tax has increased and the placer data, if you're familiar with what that is, it tracks people's cell phone and they know who people are that are local versus tourists, shows that the increase of traffic downtown is from locals and not tourists. Tourists have been flat. If the QR code is having some malfunctions, which I've read on some comments online, that should be corrected, and I'm sure that's not a hard thing to correct. However, just so far that this program is creating turnover and it is bringing more business downtown. I also have to add in here, I didn't put this in here, I've seen so many new faces new people that can become new regulars for my business downtown in the last year and that has been so refreshing because we do have so many new residents in this town that haven't experienced downtown and a lot of it I think could possibly have been because they didn't have a way to park and walk around downtown because the people who'd been here all the time, employees downtown, were taking up all of those spaces. The data collected about the parking shows that the average stay in a parking spot is two to three hours and this includes the first free hour. If a three hour pass is implemented, that will pretty much kill all of the revenue that is being collected and while the first priority of managed parking is to create turnover, there has to be some revenue brought in in order to compensate for the management of the parking. The three-hour pass would make this program untenable and we would be back to low to no turnover in the parking spaces. I ask City Council to use facts and data versus feelings and opinions when making decisions regarding the downtown parking program. Thank you.

Good evening, I'm Pat Butler. I'm a downtown resident of New Braunfels. So let me start over. I have been a downtown resident for 11 years, and I have served on the downtown board for nine years. So I have been involved in the whole process of this managed parking discussion for a long time. And we have been discussing parking for a long time. even much longer than I've been here. And so it was great when we finally were able to create a committee And we came up with a really viable plan to address the parking situation and have the managed parking. And really what I want to speak to tonight is just about the process. So as you're looking at making some recommendations for changes and hopefully improving the process if it needs to be improved, And as you look at the data and everything, I'd like for you to respect the process, honor the process that kind of is already in place. So we had a parking committee as part of the downtown board that came up with the original kind of plan. And then city staff and the downtown board in that committee worked very hard to gather data, to get input and to work with the with to to find the right company to do the management. And so as you look at making some changes, I would just hope that you would direct staff to go back through that same process and go through the parking committee and the downtown board and see what recommendations that they have. So thank you.

Good evening, I'm Lee Brown, a downtown resident of New Braunfels, and it's been a year since we've had managed parking introduced to downtown, and I think we can all agree that this topic has generated a few opinions locally, right? If you only looked at social media, you might think downtown is a ghost town. Businesses are closing, everyone's boycotting, right? Tumbleweeds are just rolling down San Antonio. Thankfully, we have something better than social media. We have actual stories from the businesses this program was designed to help. And we have data. People have opinions, businesses have experiences. And data tells us what actually happened. You just heard some of that data from Clarissa and Pat, some others. Before we decide where to go from here, I think it's important to remember why this program was created in the first place. It wasn't about making people pay to park. Before managed parking, the closest spaces were often occupied all day by employees and long-term parkers. Those people were likely not tourists, right? Customers drove around looking for places to park and many simply gave up and left. As someone who eats and shops and spends a lot of time downtown, I can absolutely attest to that from my perspective. It was especially frustrating for people with disabilities and other mobility challenges because they could never find parking close to where they needed to go. Those spots were already taken up all day long. So downtown businesses asked the city for help. And last year, the council at the time unanimously agreed that there was a real parking problem downtown. Managed parking was the solution they chose. So did it work? I think the answer is yes. But numbers only tell part of the story. Stephanie Richardson, owner of Gourmage, shared that 2026 is on track to be her highest grossing year in more than 17 years that she's owned that business. Sales from January through June are up almost 10% over last year, 10%. And remember, that's before the busiest part of tourist system is even in full swing. So it's reasonable to think that a lot of that growth came from local residents continuing to shop downtown. She's even hired two additional employees to help keep up with that increased business. And in her words, the parking program is working exactly as it was intended. Another longtime downtown business owner said pay parking has almost completely eliminated the problem of downtown visitors filling their private customer parking lot. And since the program began, street parking turns over more often, and the business's own spots are available for its customers. They were initially apprehensive about the program, but it's had such positive effect on the business and their own experience visiting downtown that they're in full support now. Those stories match what the data is telling us as well. Overall visitation is up, local visitation is up, and despite all of those posts claiming that locals are boycotting downtown, more local residents actually visited downtown than they did the year before. Visitors from farther away are up, sales tax collections are up, restaurant and bar sales are up quite a bit, over 8%. The program generated more than $300,000 and that money stays downtown and is being reinvested downtown. Sidewalks, crosswalks, lighting, landscaping, maintenance, better signage, and future parking improvements. Those are not the numbers of a downtown in trouble. Those are the numbers of a downtown moving in the right direction. And there's one more number that really stood out to me. The businesses this program was designed to help were surveyed, Clarissa just presented those, and 84% supported keeping managed parking in some form. I think it was 54% supported keeping it as is, and another 20-something percent supported it with some changes. That tells me that the conversation happening among downtown businesses is very different from the conversation happening on social media, or perhaps in some of your ears, right? By some of the public. Now, does that mean the program's perfect? Of course not. No first year program ever is perfect. I'd love to see better signs directing people to the free public parking lots. That part's confusing, right? We all know that. I'd especially like to see the private paid lots clearly post exactly what they charge so we don't have anyone signing up for the $35 parking surprise, plus a tow at the end, right? I'd also support accommodations for seniors and others who just genuinely struggle with that technology. I think we could do better there. Those are the kind of changes that make a good program better. There's one other part of the proposal before you tonight that concerns me, and both of Mayor French's proposals would significantly increase the number of people parking for free. Before making that kind of change, I think there's one important question. What will that do to turnover? Because turnover wasn't a side benefit of this program, it was the entire reason we implemented it in the first place. Mayor French's proposals would also extend free parking to anyone with a New Braunfels mailing address, He mentioned city residents in the ETJ, but there are additional residents within New Brunfels Address outside of the ETJ as well. And there's still, of course, a huge question of the breakdown of tourist versus local.

Ma'am, I'm sorry, your time's up. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Sorry, I have to stay hydrated. Hello. I am Kristen Carden, I am a resident of District 3, and I am going to try to move around all of these generalizations and talk about some actual facts. So downtown New Braunfels offers plenty of free parking options, making it easy to visit, shop, and explore without worrying about cost. There are more than 1,000 free on and off street parking spaces available throughout downtown, Only those who choose the most convenient parking spaces pay. It's worth noting that downtown New Braunfels has had paid parking for more than 40 years. 339 paid spaces existed from 1944 to 1988, compared to 258 today. Many businesses provide their own free parking lots. We've heard that residents want to pay for free parking anywhere in downtown, but keep in mind that downtown employees are residents too. If those prime spaces were free for everyone, employees would park in those spaces for extended periods of time and customers would struggle to find parking. As we've gone through in this process, drivers with DV or ADA plates or placards do not have to register or pay. Convenient on-street parking throughout downtown New Braunfels is free for the first hour, making it easy to pop in, run errands, or enjoy a quick visit without paying a fee. Locations of these free public parking lots. This has been gone over multiple times in this room, but I'll touch on them again. Landa and Bridge Street, Landa and Zink Street, Hill Avenue and West San Antonio, Call and South Castell, Castell and Garden, free customer parking at downtown businesses with private lots. As downtown grows in popularity, managed parking helps ensure it continues to function effectively. Here are what some people have said. This discourages people from coming downtown. In many successful downtowns, visitors expect managed parking because it improves access. Downtown remains a place for people to meet friends, visit businesses, and enjoy the community. The city has added free parking during high demand times, including lots at NBU, the county, Caldwell Banker, et cetera. Downtown visitation, especially by residents, has actually increased since managed parking began, not driven them away. Let's see, what have we not already touched on? Managed parking is far more cost effective than building new parking structures, which that has been a concern as well. People have talked about that. There are parking lots not currently being fully utilized, meaning capacity still exists. Special events bring unusual demand, but the city manages with parking shuttles. Priority is to maximize existing parking before investing in a multimillion dollar garage. This hurts small businesses. Actually, businesses benefit when customers can find parking quickly and easily. Turnover means more customers per space per day, which increases sales. Spending in downtown has increased since managed parking began. Managed parking was never truly free, it was simply unregulated. Managed parking helps ensure the most convenient spaces are available for customers and visitors instead of being occupied all day, which many have touched on. And again, downtown has over 1,000 free on and off street parking spaces available. Managed parking was implemented in response to feedback from downtown businesses. In a 2023 business survey, 74% of businesses said it was time to consider changes to the previous parking system. Many businesses support paid parking for the most convenient spaces, including evenings and weekends. Downtown historically has had paid parking, which I already touched on. A couple of concerns I've had since just tonight is all of these general statements of I've talked to certain individuals or employers concerned. I would love to hear who those certain individuals are or if those employees have concerns, we would all love to hear them because a lot of people in this room have been working on this program, including our city staff who worked very, very hard for over a decade now, not just this past year that it's been implemented. I encourage those people who have concerns or who for some reason think their sales have been impacted, I would love to hear some data as to how they can actually track that their sales have been impacted due to parking. And then we can talk about data and not generalizations because that's how we move forward. I also am very concerned about all these general numbers being thrown around, especially from somebody that's in charge of our budget for our city. We need to look at these numbers and this data based on real truth, not just a general assumption of percentages. And that's my time.

Hello, I'm Peter Landerman, resident.

I'm also a downtown business owner. I probably spend more time downtown than anyone in this room. We could fight about it later, but I see a lot of how the consumer acts, how tourists are. I'm constantly walking around downtown between my businesses, and I'm constantly seeing what's happening. To her point, I do have hard numbers. My business has been impacted by the paid parking. My sales are up 3% this year at my ice cream shop downtown. A lot of that's due to turnover and there being more accessibility. Now, a big point that everyone's missing or seems to be missing or no one's touching on is this has been a problem since I've been in the downtown association since 2012. Parking's always been an issue talked about. There's never been. anything that's come to fruition of a way to solve it. It was before we were all paying for parking management anyway, because the parks department was managing parking. So the taxpayers always been paying for management of parking downtown, just to be clear on that. Now it's being subsidized by the consumer who is paying their fee if they are staying over an hour. Being capped at $10 for a day I think is very generous. Most cities you see you don't pay less than $10 for a couple hours of parking. Overall, I think that all of the effort, man hours, money that's been spent, research, public input forums that I've attended, there's been, I mean, I don't know how many months ago we were all in the other room, the Tejas room, with a massive presentation from Jeff Jewell, from the CEO of the parking thing, with a lot of data that was very concise and clear of to like how, what, where and why all of this is happening. Why we don't have a parking garage, how we have an oversupply of parking, how we have all these other problems that have been solved. There's data there showing how long someone's parking downtown. There's data showing what hours they're parking. When we started this, the whole concept of 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. managed parking was, we need to collect data, and we need to collect as much data as we possibly can. The only way to do that is through management. So we're gonna set this big window, seven days a week, 10 to 10, we're gonna get all the data you could ever need for parking. We need a year to look at this data, and then we can evaluate that data and see when we can adjust our days and our hours. We're pretty well closing in on that year, so it seems foolish from my perspective to just throw all that out the window now when it's like there's been so much effort and time spent on this, and a lot of heads and talented people have looked at this problem that's obviously more than a decade long, but since I've been in the Downtown Association, And we're just gonna throw all that out the window and put something else in without even understanding where we were coming from or why we got to where we are. Parking garage is another big one in there. Like if anyone looked at Jeff's presentation, I don't even think this would be a meeting because you're like, yeah, they have all the data. They've answered all these questions. They've looked at everything. They've overturned or turned over every stone. Some positive other things I've seen happen. There were a ton of private lots downtown before. Most of those lots were all managed by different people. So you have 10 private lots, 10 different management companies, a lot of confusion for the consumer. By going with this one managed parking company, now A SIDE BENEFIT THAT THEY DIDN'T EVEN LOOK AT BEFORE WAS THAT THEY'RE GETTING A LOT OF THESE PRIVATE LOTS ONLINE WITH THE SAME SYSTEM. SO NOW THE CONSUMER HAS LESS CONFUSION AND VARIABILITY WHERE THERE'S ONE QR CODE TO SELECT FROM AND THERE'S ONE YOU KNOW SYSTEM TO LOOK AT SO. I JUST THINK WE STAY THE COURSE SEE WHEN ALL THE DATA COMES IN WE STILL HAVE A LITTLE BIT OF TIME FOR ALL THE SALES TAX DATA TO COME IN BUT IF THIS WAS NEGATIVELY IMPACTING DOWNTOWN BUSINESSES. you'd be packed down the street with business owners that would be demanding that all those signs get torn down and not what I've seen. So that's my time.

Mayor, just to let you know, we have three minutes before we reach the 30 minutes. All right, thank you, Gail.

Does that mean I just have three minutes? I can do it, if that's what that means. I got it. My name is Ashley Alsup, I'm a resident, and I love downtown New Braunfels. It is, and, There's been a lot of great information, and I hope that council will, with all the work that's been done, that all of the data will be looked at and evaluated, and we won't just come up with numbers, right? But one of the really important for me, and it feels so funny to talk about this emotionally, but the fact that I can run up to Callahan's and get a parking space on a Friday night and go grab a pizza and not have to walk like four or five blocks in search for parking, that is what makes downtown New Braunfels special to me. It makes me feel like it's mine, right, as a resident. It isn't that I get to stay downtown for three hours for free at any point in time. It is those short little trips. That, to me, is what a resident of New Braunfels does a lot of the times that makes it really special, right? Tourists aren't going to like run into Callahan's real quick and get a pizza most of the time. But I do that almost every Friday night. And I can always get a space now. And before managed parking, I couldn't do that. It was really hard to run in. And whatever your thing is, whether it's a coffee from Two Tarts, whether it's an ice cream cone, whether it's a bottle of wine from Zocalo, whatever your thing is, it has become so much easier to just run in and grab something. You can't do that in green. There's never parking in front of your place in green unless it's in a dead spot. You can't do that in Creekside. You're always going to park way at the back of Target and fight other cars to get in there. That's what makes New Braunfels really special. I wanted to point out too that everybody talks about employees and I'm sure that they were taking up spaces. But if you give me a free parking pass, You know, right now, if I'm going to stay for two or three hours, I am going to go seek out those free lots that are further away because it doesn't bug me to write to rock a couple of blocks if I'm going to stay for a few hours. But if you give me a free pass and there's a parking space up front, I'm going to park there even though, you know, I'm going to stay there for two or three hours when otherwise, you know, I might have opened that up for someone who's just going to dash in. It's a great system and it really has changed things. So I hope that you all will consider that. I also, the other thing that makes me really sad about the whole situation, again, I can't believe that it's like an emotional thing talking about city parking, but this was clearly something that was needed by businesses. And Mayor French, I appreciate that you've talked a lot about businesses and that you support them. I do too, agreed like if downtown businesses were hurting, I would not be in favor of this at all. The city clearly worked on this issue for a long time. Downtown businesses spent a long time thinking about how they could solve this problem. Council spent a lot of time. I know you guys have sat through a lot of presentations about this. I was worried about it when I first heard about it, and I attended some of the meetings that we had to kind of learn more about it. But as we were all doing that, It was so sad to see that there was a really big effort online to leverage the issue for political reasons, right? To make it clear, like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, look, they're being greedy. They want money. Ma'am.

Ma'am. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, everyone. Hey, Tim.

Yeah, Timothy Davis. So what's the, what are we doing with the, we're out of time for it all together?

We actually, we have a 30 minute, a 30 minute for, or a 30 minute against one item, a cumulative time of 30 minutes. And then we, the mayor can close the comments.

So have we done 30 minutes for? It's a, yes. We spend an hour?

No.

No.

No. 30 minutes of those.

Without objection, I wouldn't mind him talking his five minutes, ma'am.

Okay, okay.

I mean, I think we have, what, two or three people left. I don't mind. They waited a long time.

Okay, yeah, I'm fine. Gail, I'm fine. It's your part of you to extend that.

As long as it's not an hour. We haven't spent an hour, right? Okay.

Gail, do you have my presentation? Would you hold off on the front page, and then I'll just let you know when to change. I don't have a clicker, do I? Oh, I do. I never use the PowerPoint, so.

Just, that's fine.

That's fine. Thank you. All right, Timothy Davis. I've thought about this for years, and... Many of y'all know I was running for office, and I have a lot of support on this particular item. It has nothing to do with the particular position I'm running for. However, I did canvass a lot of houses, and I talked to a lot of people, and I had a lot of very good, candid conversations with folks. I listened to a lot of folks, including business owners, and the problem I've seen with this from the beginning was It was a sudden change and of course people don't always accept sudden changes but we've had to deal, folks like myself that have lived here for 20 years had to deal with sudden change quite a bit. So I didn't invest in a town where I had paid parking so it's a little upsetting but I understand the turnover and there needs to be a, a solution for that. Two to three hours and then a full $15 or whatever, I think that makes a lot of sense. That means people are going to have to leave or they're gonna have to pay. And then it's a management issue to some degree that can and should address this, not necessarily a crony government solution. So that being said, I've come up with an idea to use this and more and I'll try to get through this quickly. So I've come up with an idea that we can use this pass for this and more. The discussion we've had with several folks was that we can use the river pass that we already use and integrate this into the system. This is not fully thought out. This would have to be discussed with many different departments to figure out how to make this work with the system we have. but to have a parking system where everyone can have limited parking. Everyone that's a citizen can have this. And I'm just going to go through this very quickly. You're not going to read the whole thing. But the limited parking in fee areas Could also extend this to use this for the hazmat. And another thing that I've wanted to speak with you, Mr. Camerino, for years is why we have the landfill use and we don't get to go there just a few times a year, basically like a punch card, and use that instead of lining up all together and waiting for one specific day because it promotes cleanup. It promotes to allow people to use that. And this is to go and clean up their property and not have to worry about... a certain date that they have to clean up their property. We got rid of the cleanup we could do. We could call them and have them do that. And I'm sorry, I'm trying to rush through this. Anyways, long story short, there's a lot of uses we could use this pass for. I presented something, I'm gonna email this to you. I'm trying to get out of here and not take up any more time on this. There are a lot of issues, there's safety issues, there's quite a bit of issues dealing with going and scanning this thing in the specific spot. Going to do that is a problem. Going down and trying to do a quick in and out at a restaurant is a hassle for a lot of folks. I know a lot of folks, including myself, that don't go downtown anymore. It's a hassle. I talked to a lot of people door to door and they liked my ideas here that I've outlined. I don't have time to cover it all, but there's other things you can do with this later on and basically build a pass that does a lot of things. Promotes business, promotes small business, and it also has these things integrated and it can be used throughout other areas of the city. in which you can use this as a pass to do things like this here. You can get discounts integrated in this. You can do all kinds of things once you have this database and people basically go like they, I don't know where you sign up for this anymore, where you would go down to the office that was by Atlanta Park and you would get a pass, right? Is that where you still get it, wherever you get this pass? You get the pass and then it allows you the parking without having to worry about the scanning system. Now, how you regulate that as far as when you get there and checking in and those kinds of things have to be dealt with, but I don't like the idea that I have to go get out of my car, walk down here, scan the thing, report the spot and all that stuff. It's very difficult to go in and out quickly into a business. I've heard problems about DoorDash and things like that not delivering downtown because of the problems this has created. And so there's a lot of negative effects to this as well. And what we need is balance between the business owners and the residents that pay the bills, that pay the taxes, that vote. Business owners obviously vote, but so do all the other folks. And I had overwhelming support for this version of this plan that is in my Save New Braunfels plan. So please consider putting something together that considers a lot of these items and what everyone else has said. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, Mayor, Council, Chase Taylor, District 5. I'll be brief. I do want to say I think we're actually probably closer together on this issue than we are on a lot of issues. And if you listen to even Mr. Landerman, Ms. Clarissa DeSanto, and the data she presented, there is a large part of downtown business owners that do sound like they want some sort of modification to this program. And as they have stated earlier, it's not just about the majority, it's about everyone, right? So the other thing is Mr. Landerman mentioned the year of data. I believe Mr. Spradley said we need a year of data and that's what was presented from the outset of this was once we have a year of data, we can make adjustments as needed. So it sounds like by some pathway, we're probably close to making some adjustments. And I think that that's all that's really being asked here is for some sort of adjustments. And thank you, Mayor, for bringing some proposals. And this is a discussion, so any other council members welcome to recommend proposals or modifications, and that's what it is, is a discussion. And so I think, again, we're probably a little closer together on this than it may appear. I would, Ms. Alsup, do you want the rest of my time? Where are you? You're good? Okay, thanks.

Hi, I'm Elizabeth Hurlitz-Cortez. I am a resident of New Braunfels. You've heard a lot of numbers tonight. I'm not going to repeat them. Thank you so much, Clarissa. But I am going to remind you of something, that free ain't free, all right? It never is, not this program, not any program, not any promise from this dais. Not tonight, not next month, or ever. Nothing is free. That's just how budgets work, right? You give something and you have to take it from somewhere else. Every time, no exceptions, there are winners in a budget and there are losers in a budget. And pretending otherwise or promising otherwise doesn't change the math. So when somebody proposes free hours for River Pass elders or residents or any subset of New Braunfels citizens, before the very committee that was built to study exactly that question has been given the chance to finish their job, I would ask the question of anybody. Doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter how popular the idea is, What does it cost? And who pays for it? Because somebody does. Somebody always does. And in order for that fund to stay solvent, which is the purpose, it's everyone else who picks up the tab for free. But maybe that's the point though, right? Maybe the plan with the proposal was never no cost to residents. Maybe the plan was no cost to the people who are cheering on getting rid of it. And everybody else just stays quiet while everyone puts the bill. That's not policy, my friends. So now, I get the logic behind having tourists pay for it. We're a tourist town, I get that logic. But let them put the bill. But the problem with that is that this program didn't get built because tourists were clogging up Seguin Street. It wasn't built that way for a six-hour stretch. It got built because locals were, downtown businesses didn't come to this council asking for help with out-of-towners. They came asking for help because their own neighbors were parking in front of their storefronts all day long and their actual customers couldn't get a spot. That's the turnover problem. That's the whole reason we are here. So if you carve out residents out entirely from any of the equation, the very people whose parking habits created the problem in the first place, you haven't solved anything. you've actually just defunded the program. But again, maybe that's the point. And the part I really can't get past is this idea that if you redistribute a cost so one group wins while another absorbs it, that used to have a really, really bad name in this room and in this town and in the state and in this country, and it's a really bad name. It's funny how the name suddenly disappears the second the idea gets popular because someone says the word free Look, I did not wake up wanting to be the one explaining economics to people who wear fiscal conservancy and fiscal responsibility like a badge of honor. I mean, me, seriously. Y'all all know who I am. Me, of all people. I really didn't, but here I am. I volunteer as tribute. Because somehow in this city, someone has to pay for it is a controversial sentence, not a giveaway. Just simple math. So the ask is short, data first, process first. Then and only then decide because that is how we make good decisions, right? Let the committee finish what they were built to do. Let the experts make the recommendations. That's the floor, that's the floor of good government. That's the floor and bare minimum of fiscal responsibility and the standard of government. And every single person in this city, the ones who voted, the ones who didn't, the ones who will vote next time, deserve that standard.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. It actually was a lot of great comments out there. Believe me, I soaked in every bit of it. But so I'm glad I brought this presentation. And I do hear a lot of positives for the downtown parking. So I do wanna make maybe one change and then I'll just bring it as a directive maybe to look at it at a different time. But maybe three hours is too much and two hours might be okay. But we do have the first hour free. and much of it is the app. If we can change the app to make it, well, I'm presenting put an app. I don't like the QR code. If the corporation or the business that's in charge of this can allow the citizens to download an app on their phone, they go into the app and they hit a red button that says I'm here, they won't have to deal with the payments, the QR codes, the signage, anything. And I see that already. And I used it in San Antonio. So why don't you just have a downtown or just an app. You click on it. Then it says, I'm here. You don't have to take more than five seconds doing it. But we take 10 minutes doing it. That's what really is upsetting people. It's not the $1 or $2. It's the act of doing it. And so if we have an app to do it, I think we should just go and look to see what we can do better for the app.

I agree. Some of the comments that have been made by some of the businesses to me were if people were having a hard time with the QR code or with the app, if the store owners are taught and trained where people can come in and I can help you with it while you're using my store, it got a business and it got a relationship right there for seniors that may be having problems with it. It really is, a lot of businesses are looking at the turnover side of it. So a change is probably not necessitated there, but the optics of how we work it are. I mean, I've had bars that call and said, you know, I really wanted to have four or five hours free because my guys stay here all night, you know? And then I've had some of them that said, you know, it's turning over too fast. So we have a report coming to us when, Jordan?

We just finished one year of the program last Tuesday, I believe. We already have time scheduled with our downtown parking standing committee in August. So right now we're going through all of the data, putting together information. We'll be presenting to the downtown parking standing committee in August. And then we will follow up with the presentation to the downtown board and then bring it back to city council after that. So we're moving as quickly as we can.

And then some of the recommendations that came out, such as what's the pros and cons of a resident pass on the UTJ, whether it's a $20 or $50 fee for that, and the impact it would be on the available. I mean, that was a pretty good idea. Yes, sir.

So some of the things that were brought forward previously that we are going to be continuing discussion on is digital chalking, so an option not to register, parking, kiosks where you can pay at the kiosk, sort of like an auto charge card on file, resident parking privileges, expanded free parking, so hours additional than one, free parking after a certain timeframe or a modification of the program hours, and a couple of other minor items. So yes, we're working on it.

So this will get us with their report. Then on the 27th, we have our beginning budget workshop. And then we'll see this stuff so that we can have this discussion in open session and so it'll work.

Yes, sir, absolutely. There will be several public meetings.

So we're looking at what, sometime in early August?

No, sir, we're meeting with the standing committee in August. I would expect that the council would see this sometime in September.

Okay.

Because we have a process that's established, right? So first we take it to the Downtown Parking Standing Committee, which is made up of downtown business and property owners. And then they provide a recommendation. We take the same presentation to the downtown board who provides a recommendation, and we bring both of those recommendations to the city council with the accompanying presentation. And we will look at everything that you proposed as well, and we'll dig into it and do the research.

I think I may change that to maybe two hours, but I do want an app to see if anyone can look into an app. The thing is just make it very, very simple.

So essentially to sum it up, we're going to get the one year of data, we're gonna take all that one year of data, take it to the committee, the committee's gonna evaluate all the potential recommendations that we came up with and bounce that against the one year of data and see what is feasible, what is solvent, what manages the turnover that we're trying to get and what works.

Correct, yes sir.

One of the things that I wanna mention. Go ahead. Is that it was not brought up was that I had complaints on was business parking signs versus city parking signs. at night, they look alike. So when they're scanning, even though it comes up as something different from the city. Yes, ma'am.

No, we know that that is an issue, that some of the private lots, our goal is that the private lots that are charging become part of the Park and Bee system. So they're still private lots, but they're through our system and we can make sure that a reasonable fee that it's understandable for the patron and that there's consistency but we do get complaints that some of those private lots have a separate pay system that is unreasonable fees or results in large fines so our team is constantly making contact and has done a really good job of expanding the park mbtx into those areas and that remains a focus. Yes, absolutely.

And they've asked, several people have asked if you can make it where it actually does look different at night, those signs, because those signs look the same. So some people come in the daytime and they are, they play, they go and eat and then they come back thinking that they've already paid and they park somewhere else thinking it's a, to go have a drink and they get a huge fine.

We can't regulate what they do on private property, but we do continue to reach out and try to get them to be part of our system.

Okay. Well, we can make ours look different than, you know, something because people were getting, you know, They think that they've paid for the whole day and then they're getting tickets is what I've been told. The other is I just wanted to say I have the parking on my – I was able to save it on my phone as an app. And I mean, I pay for it before I go downtown. But I know that it's.

She bookmarked it. Yeah, I bookmarked it. Because it's a website.

Yeah, what I'm talking about is no more inputting credit card or vehicle information. Just open it up and say, press a button, I'm here, that's it.

Right, but you gotta still input your credit card somewhere though.

Well, it's already input. And that's it, it could tie to your bank, whatever. It's just a simple app that says, here's my little red button, I'm here. And now it's already, your credit card, whatever, is paying for it after the first hour or the second hour.

Okay, but also, can we also talk about the sticker? You know, a sticker on a vehicle?

In lieu of a sticker, help me understand.

Remember how we used to have to put a sticker for the river parking pass before all of this? There's still some seniors out there that don't want to, have their credit cards saved at an app, or they don't wanna scan.

So are you talking about like a prepaid, they can load payment on? Yes, prepaid, yes ma'am. Yes ma'am, that's one of the, that's on the list.

Okay, thank you. Okay, Ms. Matney.

We're gonna cover all that in the, when everything comes back up again, right? So I mean, I don't think there's a whole lot of value in going through all this, because we're gonna have to go through all this again Yes, sir.

And we have a list of what the council has requested previously for us to look into.

Can I make sure there's one thing on that list that might have been missed? So we have veterans, disabled veterans. Yes, sir. But we didn't include Purple Hearts or Medal of Honor plates.

Okay.

Just because they have a Medal of Honor doesn't mean that they're a disabled veteran.

Yep.

Oftentimes that's the case, but not all the time. And the same thing with Purple Hearts. And those are very easy to identify and there's not that many.

So, thanks. And Mayor, we will certainly evaluate, Mayor, we'll certainly evaluate your proposals and then come back with the analysis of your proposals as well, including all the things that Ms. Matney just talked about.

Thank you.

And I think caveat to him is if you look at the San Antonio It's called San Antonio Park. That's kind of what he's alluding to, if we had something like that.

Okay. All right, I'm gonna move on to, I think we know what to do from here. So I'm just gonna move on to the first consent agenda item, and that's B. And so approval of the contract award for the construction of the Green Road and the Post Road intersection and the Zip Road and Old Zip Road intersection to Easy Bell construction and authorization for the city manager to execute any change orders or project expenditures up to the contingency amount. And is Mr. Gary Ford here? Yes. No, I'm reading Bravo. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm gonna go through these first. Go ahead, sir.

Wasn't sure what the comment was, or the concern.

Ms. Gale, did we approve the ones that weren't pulled on the consent agenda?

Yes, we did. Yes, sir.

We did approve them. You did. We did. Like it was yesterday. We did, yes.

I don't know.

Mayor.

So when items are pulled from the consent agenda, we usually just accept questions, so I'm happy to answer any questions on this one if anybody has any.

Okay, I'm trying to see who pulled it.

Maybe it was. That was Council Member Lebowski, I believe, that pulled this item.

Council Member Lebowski, did you wanna ask a question?

Well, I pulled it because Mr. Timothy Davis had some questions that he wanted to ask, and I told him that I would pull it for him.

All right, thank you. Do I have the floor now? Gail, do you have the map at all that, okay. So this is my map. There was an issue getting this until just today, and so I had to kind of throw this together. And I've actually had time to speak with Mr. Ford in the hallway, so I will be brief about this. I would ask that this item be, that y'all basically make a suggestion. Do you happen to have the packet item or the engineering drawing? This is kind of overlaid over. I didn't have time to get that to you. I actually had a better, it was after four, but I sent you a better copy of that. That's it, right there. Okay, so just to let everyone understand what this is, this is Green Road and Post, and this is the end of, I can't see my hand here, this is the end of, it's actually, let's see, is it flipped? Okay, now it's actually sitting north, the way you've got it presented. So this is where Green Road currently ends, and then if you look, you can see where it kind of zigzags over, and then it kind of continues through the neighborhood, over to the schools, Correct me if I'm wrong. On Green Road, on that section, that's the one that has all the speed bumps, correct? That's correct. Okay. All right, because that was one of my points was that when this happens, I'm totally for this happening, completely. When this happens, it's going to cause an effect that's kind of an unintended consequences of more people trying to cut through, just the nature of being able to go straight through and not have to, this is a complete mess for anybody that goes by this. I go by this two, three times a day. Recently, I've been going through it all the time. The particular holdup is coming here from the train tracks coming from green and then and then turning what happens more now than not is left, and then you have this mess coming in over here from Green, and you've got this cross traffic, and there's all kinds of near misses all the time there. It's a very dangerous situation. I don't think we're gonna have too much more growth over here unless we see a lot more apartments in this area, which I don't think there's appetite for that right now, but... So I don't think this intersection needs a whole lot more work. I think this is gonna do a huge thing to help. So I'm really happy about this. One thing I'm mainly concerned about this is I think this is a time where we should evaluate, and I've been paying attention to this for a while, did not know this was coming up, the right turn from, there's an opportunity here possibly to add, go back to my slide please. Or do I have the thing? I don't see it. Somebody took it. I didn't take it, did I? All right, okay, so yes. So this is turned a little this way. So this is green at the top coming down. The suggestion is to add space, and this is all within a CAD program I have. I had like an hour to put this together since I got the drawing this afternoon. And to add a right turn lane, or this might need to be a dedicated, LEFT TURN LANE, THERE'S, YOU KNOW, PEOPLE WITH MORE EXPERTISE ON TRAFFIC COULD EXPLAIN THIS, WHY YOU WOULD DO IT ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, BUT A DEDICATED RIGHT TURN LANE THAT TURNS IN, GOING SOUTH TOWARDS THE NEW ANNEX BUILDING, AND THE SCHOOL OVER THERE, ALL THE DIFFERENT SCHOOLS, THE OLD GOODWIN BUILDING. Just adding this little lane here, this little, you see the top left, this little three dots, three dashes, that little lane there to make this turn to the right. What that will do is alleviate even more of this traffic. Every third or fourth car turns right. And by doing that, you're actually making more of a dedicated lane straight or to the left. And if this is gonna be a four-way stop, I think it's feasible to do this. I think there's space to do this, although there was talk about maybe being a, historical marker or something that's right there. I don't think there is. All this is an easement that could get complicated, but I would like for y'all to direct moving forward that this be looked at, addressed in the process. They could get moving forward with this, not necessarily table this item, but approve it with the caveat that they should look into maybe considering opening that one lane this direction. and do so. So that's it. I am a little concerned about Mr. Camerino getting four times the allotment, which is part of this, is allowing the staff to have $190,000, 10%, I think it was gonna be one point, what was it? nine million dollars, something like that. So for this, I'm a little concerned about having that not being under y'all's purview and I think that's one more argument for y'all to have a full-time job doing this so that y'all can go through longer nights like this and have proper oversight over this and not subjugate this to city staff for another $180,000. Just part of the deal here is to allow, I'm not opposed to the contingency itself, it's just having staff be given that extra authority over the $50,000 limit. All right, thank you.

Go ahead, Spanley.

Mr. Spanley.

Mr. Ford, do you mind commenting on that? I know this intersection has been in the plans for, I wanna say years. It's been a long time, so.

That's correct. So this item is looking to approve the construction contract for Post and Green. And again, it's realigning the intersection to an always stop. And that's definitely a community request. And it's also paid by the roadway impact fees and go up for escrow. And this one's also taking care of zip and old zip. Again, a similar situation where we're getting that intersection up to city standards. If you saw the last photo, there's some drainage concerns and then completing the sidewalk in an area. So again, both of those are paid by the roadway impact fee. And again, regarding the contingency, that's standard practice across really the nation, the city. We've been doing that for a long time. And that allows for items that come up. You may have a quantity overrun. or you may make some changes and that allows city staff to work through the process. So typically our project manager works with the department director, gets that over to Mr. Camerino, includes me, also Jordan in the process. But again, that helps kind of move the project along If we pull that out, have to take that to council, that'll definitely cause some issues where we're bringing those items out, have to schedule that as a meeting and it's pretty standard practice on that end. So we would recommend maintaining the 10% contingency amount, but also like Mr. Davis indicated, we'd be more than happy to evaluate adding a right turn lane at this area. Again, we have some utilities or potential historic monument, but we can update City Council and Mr. Davis on, we went through the process, here's the layout, and if we can't add it or we can't, then we can inform him, inform Kansas City Council, but we do recommend the item move forward. That way it's much needed improvements.

I would appreciate it if you would at least look at a right turn lane. There's a lot of streets, not just this one, that would benefit from a right turn lane. So I'd rather have it done. then not done and then have to come back and look at it later.

Yes, I was just going to say that.

Yes, sir.

And I appreciate you. And thank you for including Mr. Davis.

On that 10% contingency, you document what that's spent on if, in fact, you spend it. Or, you know, Robert approves that.

That's correct, we keep numbers of all our change orders that goes through in a process, and then we make sure that we're working within that contingency amount. And typically, after every end of every project, we do a closeout with the contractor to make sure that we're plus or minus on our contingency. Sometimes it's minus as far as getting the city getting credit back, but sometimes we're kinda, and it may be as simple as, hey, we're gonna do another 10-footed sidewalk to complete this gap, a part of the project, we're within that, and we have the authority to approve that within the project amount.

Thank you, is there any further discussion by council? No? Yeah. I motion for approval. I'll entertain a motion. I'll second.

Mayor, we need to give public comment. Please, I'm sorry.

Open up the citizens. At this time, I'm gonna open up communications for the citizens on this item. Is there anyone that wants to stand up and come to the podium? Hearing nothing, I close citizen comment time and I'm gonna entertain a motion.

I motion for approval.

Council Member Lebowski opens the motion. Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi seconds the motion.

Show of hands.

It looks like everything is anonymous and the item has passed. That's right. Item D is approval of Natalie Tham and Daniel Jones as contract municipal prosecutors under the existing contract with Denton, Navarro, Rodriguez, Barnell, Sante, and Zach Pisi. Nathan Brown, go ahead.

Yeah, Mayor, Council, if you have any questions, happy to answer. and so this isn't a new contract we're just adding to substitute prosecutors when justin plusha the contract prosecutor we retained on june 8th is not available so it's not an additional expenditure they'll be filling in for him

Yeah, I guess I pulled this one. My only question on this was, is this going to be full-time?

No, it's not. It's just as needed. And so these two will not be there at the same time. So basically it'll alternate between Ms. Tham, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Plush as they're available.

At will, prosecutorial.

Mm-hmm, that's correct. So just adding resources, as I was doing.

Yes, I should have.

Dollar amount, or contract amount remains the same. Exactly. Scope remains the same. Exactly. Just adding resources to that contract.

Yeah, when I originally brought Justin Plusha to you guys, I should have had backup. That had been our practice in the past, and that was just my first time doing an item like that, so.

Is there any further comment from council on this item? Public comment. Right now, I'm going to open up to public comment at this time. If anyone wants to stand up behind the podium, please. There being none, I close public comment. And right now, I'm going to entertain a motion.

I'll motion to approve.

I'll second. Council member...

That's all right.

Council Member Edwards first, Mayor Pro Tem Capizzi seconds, and all raise your hands for? They're seeing none of the none. The vote is unanimous, and the motion carries for this item. Item F. Item F, let's see. Item F, approval of the budget amendment for the FY2026 general fund city attorney department budget. And that would be Mrs. Becky Weitrich. Did I pronounce your name right?

Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Whatever questions you have, I don't have a presentation on this item.

Let me see something.

Who pulled it?

I know I was one that pulled it.

So you're asking for, if I'm reading this correctly, $484,000 more? Yes, ma'am.

Does it tell me why in here? It does, if you look at the first part, the employee expenses, it's asking for $125,000 to cover the severance payout as well as the retirement. And if you look at the increase in operating expenses, which is 358,000, that's gonna cover outside legal counsel.

Okay, so this is that, how shall we say, unintended consequence of employment decisions. Where are we suggesting that we're getting this money from? is this gonna take from someone's budget?

No, ma'am, the general fund has sufficient reserves to cover this cost at the end of the fiscal year. These, as you know, we're well into our fiscal year 27 budget planning process. These costs are incorporated into there. One thing just to add to what Ms. Beatrix said, we were already anticipating a budget amendment for operating costs this fiscal year. But yes, that's correct, the employment decision certainly added to that, but we were anticipating a budget amendment needed for The city attorney's office's fiscal year, that information is also included in the agenda report.

Yeah, and I really want to call to the attention of everyone the cost of decisions. This is very costly, what has happened. We weren't losing lawsuits. We weren't doing anything. We had a charter problem, and now it's costing us money. I'll just say half a million bucks. And I don't like it at all. So I just wanted clarity on what it meant. I thought I knew what it meant, but I wanted to highlight that.

Yeah, I got a question. Is this actually an expense that we cannot avoid at all? This is something that has to be paid, right?

Correct, we still have remaining encumbrances open that need to be covered.

Does this have anything to do with Valeria Acevedo or Frank Gunion?

Correct, yes.

Okay, yeah, that's all I got, thank you.

Okay, of course.

All right, is there any further comments from council? I'm gonna open it up to the citizens on the floor. If anyone wants to make a comment here for this item, please stand up or behind that podium. Those hearing none, I'm closing public comment time on this, and I'm gonna move for a motion.

I motion for approval.

Council Member Lebowski firsted. Second. And Council Member Edwards seconds the vote. Raise your hands for this decision. One, two, three, four. Raise your hands not in this decision.

Three.

So right now that's four to three and the amendment has passed, if I said that correctly. The item G, approval of modification to the annual contracts with roadway stripping incorporated in interstate barricades and markings incorporated for pavement marking services on an as needed basis for the city. We could do Greg Malatek. Yes, sir. Malatek. Sorry. One moment.

Who pulled this one?

This is one that we were notified this afternoon. Mayor, is this one of those that you pulled, sir?

I'm just going to look at why I pulled it. I did have a note here of why I pulled it, but I don't think it's gonna impact citizens when it comes to where the money's coming from. My main question was, is this gonna come out of citizen money or is this all EDC money?

No, it's really neither. It's one of those things to where this is an ongoing contract for striping work. So initially, this was for public works, and we had $100,000 in our budget every year for striping contracts. It's since been used by our Transportation and Construction Services Department for their traffic calming striping. And so it's increased, but the amounts, it's about $250,000 a year for five years of these contracts with these two contractors, but it's in these departments' budgets. So it would be strictly in the budget. It does come from the general fund, but it's what's allocated every year in the budget. For instance, for Public Works, it's $100,000.

Okay, I just wanted to know all that.

Yes, sir.

Is there any comments from any up here at council? I'm going to open the floor to the public comment time on this one. Please step up to the podium, state your name, whether you live in the city, the ETJ, or a non-resident, please. Thank you.

Angela Wadiola Keller. I live in the ETJ zone. I just have a question in reference to how long we've had the contract with roadway stripping?

These contracts started in 2025. 2025?

Yes, ma'am. Has there been any increases in the amounts budgeted towards this each year?

Or decreases? For public works, it's been for the last two years $100,000 allocated for a striking contract.

Is that on average per year?

For these two years, yes, ma'am. It was not average. It was $100,000 each year.

Okay, and as a concerned citizen, I would like, whenever there is any approvals of any contracts going here on, if we can actually have a visual instead of somebody come in and say, hey, we need money for this, and doesn't give any explanation, any paperwork, no line items, no finances, and they just want y'all's approval. I think that there needs to be more details in this information because it's the taxpayers that's paying this. And I think that we should be privy to all these contracts, see what the contracts are, and have there been any bids to see if there's anybody that's willing to outbid their cost. And I just wanna have some transparency here because we deserve it. We're the taxpayers and there's millions of dollars that are going to so many companies rapidly. It's nonstop every month, hundreds. hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars. And I think that we deserve that transparency. Thank you.

Mayor, if I may, that information is actually in our agenda report that is online and transparent and available for anyone to read. So that kind of information is available on these agenda reports. We're very transparent. It's part of the packet, isn't it? Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. It's in the detail of the agenda report.

So there's an agenda packet tab. And that's available online.

That's available online. Okay, the next time I'll come with it. But could we not, as a courtesy, I mean, could they not as a courtesy bring us that information to show other people? Just in case nobody else is able to get on the line and get it? I mean, is that too much to ask for?

You can actually go online and read the packet.

No, I know I can.

Okay.

But for the people that are viewing and listening right now, or that happened.

If you have a question, you can ask one of your council members to send that information to you and they'd be happy to do that. I'm in the E2J zone. Or we'd be happy to do that for you.

But yeah, I can send that to somebody. Okay.

I just had one more question for Mr. Milotic that I thought of when I was asking Mike over here. How does this relate to our striping machine? We have a striping machine, right? Does this do other work?

Yes, on the public work side, now again, on the Transportation and Construction Services Department, theirs has mainly been for traffic calming projects that they've worked, I think sometimes, or I think they presented to council. On the city, on the public work side of it, we use our striping rig that we bought about three years ago. That's mainly used for stop bars, and we use that for crosswalks. but for our long lines, we have to use our striping contracts. So like for instance, the work that was done downtown on the plaza, that was done through one of these striping contracts.

Okay, makes sense. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

And I would like to say thank you for the striping downtown around the plaza. It looks great. I've been asking for that since, I don't know, five years ago. So anyway, it was awesome.

And not to belittle this, but just I do have to say this. That is a TxDOT roadway that the city has, along with other things the city's done. And again, nothing against TxDOT, but that is something that's not necessarily the city's responsibility, but the city... saw the need and took care of it.

Yeah, and I appreciate that because the downtown, well, we want to improve the walking, right? And so that definitely improves the walking and the safety ability for the downtown residents. So I guess you got in an arm wrestling match with someone from TxDOT and we won.

They let us do it. We asked them if we could do it and they said go for it. We paid for it. Yes, sir. Yes.

Council Member Lebowski.

I just want to say thank you.

Motion to approve.

Oh, do we?

No, we have to open up.

Right now, I'm gonna open up to the citizens on the floor if anyone wants to step up behind the podium and speak on this item. All right, I'm gonna close citizen comment time. I'm gonna entertain a motion.

Motion to approve. I'll second.

So we got Councilmember Edwards firsted, and then Councilmember Capizzi, not Capizzi, Lebowski. Seconded it. All in favor, raise your hands. All not, oh, okay. You got it. So it's unanimous and the item has passed. Oh, I'm sorry.

The agenda is adopted.

That's the good language. Okay, right now when I'm moving down, the only thing I see is,

Item J.

Approval of the resolution recommended by the New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation for giving, didn't we just do this? The New Braunfels, oh, National Airport Loan Remaining Balance, $644,770 pursuant to 501.103 of the Texas Local Government Code. I believe I pulled this one.

Mayor, I pulled this one.

Okay, okay.

I have a resident, she's still here. She would like to ask some questions. Her name is Miss Tiffany Kelly. She is a resident of District 4.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Spradley and Council and Mayor. I ask that this item be pulled from the consent agenda because as I read the full packet, I noticed that, forgive me as I pull this up, In reviewing the complete packet, it states that the original loan was $1.2 million. That's a sizable loan, 1.2, and the Economic Development Corp is asking that we forgive 644,000 and change of that existing loan. That's concerning in and of itself, but what's extra concerning is buried in the packet It states that the original $1.2 million loan that was given to the airport in 2019 was granted without any loan documentation. This raises a huge red flag for me as a citizen. It raises a red flag as to what the EDC is doing. If this loan was granted without loan documentation, what other loans are out there that are similarly granted without sufficient documentation? I've never entered into a loan when I've lended money, nor when I've asked for a loan that wasn't clearly documented. And so what is the EDC doing? I would ask several things. Specifically, why was this loan not formally documented at the time it was made? Who authorized proceeding without a written agreement? Second, what internal controls, if any, govern how the New Braunfels Act EDC extends loans of tax revenue to other entities? And thirdly, are there other activities active or are there other active or past EDC loans that similarly lack formal documentation? I, as a citizen, would like to see an audit of all the EDC loans to make sure that there are proper documents in place and that there are future controls to prevent future loans from being made without proper documentation. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Spradley, I'm happy to answer those questions if you would like. Okay, so the EDC and the city did execute a performance agreement in 2015 when the project expenditure was approved. When we stated in the agenda memo about specific loan documentation, the loan repayment was not explicitly outlined in that performance agreement, but it was included in the NBEDC agenda. and the City of Council agenda memos at the time that expenditure was considered by both entities. Those memos along with the minutes of both of those meetings were part of what was used by our city's finance team to structure the repayment plan. In 2019, the project was nearing completion. The EDC referenced the repayment again, repayment of those funds at that time. Those actions, the minutes, the memos, and, of course, the on-time repayment of that loan all show that there are internal controls in place to make sure that that loan was repaid. The EDC is a component unit of the city. The New Braunfels National Airport is an enterprise fund of the city. So an enterprise fund owed a debt to a component unit of the city. The EDC has recently gone through a strategic planning process where they identified four strategic priorities that we've talked about. previously. One of those is business retention and expansion. It is the belief of the Economic Development Corporation that the New Braunfels National Airport plays a very important role for recruiting businesses to this city to have high paying jobs. So they feel like it is in the best interest of the New Braunfels National Airport to forgive the remainder of that loan. They have been making payments annually on time. equates to about $129,000 annually. We have $53 million worth of unfunded projects at the airport that are outlined in the airport master plan. In addition to that, because the airport has grown significantly, we have a safety issue out there and we need to hire additional employees. And the forgiveness of this loan allows us to hire two additional full-time employees that will help provide relief for the employees that are out there and ensure that they are able to do their jobs in the safest manner. Also ensure safety for aircraft and our clients and citizens that are out there as well. As far as internal controls are concerned, as I mentioned, the repayment of the loans, the documents that we have in place are all evidence of the fact that internal controls are in place to catch things like this. In addition, because the Economic Development Corporation is a component unit of the city, they undergo, they are part of our annual comprehensive audit. So it is audited annually.

And I was a member of the audit committee last year, and I don't remember any, I don't know what you call it, negative impact. Findings. Yeah, I don't remember anything about the airport in it at all. In fact, I think we got good marks.

What was this loan initially, Mike? You said?

2015. 2015? Repayment started in 2019 as the, construction project came to an end.

Seven, eight years ago, something like that. And then so the $600,000 in, if not paid back, would then be used toward, the intent is to use it toward the $53 million worth of construction projects that are outstanding still at the airport?

Yes, sir, the immediate plan is to hire two full-time employees to ensure that we have safe operations at the airport. In addition, it can go towards some of those unfunded projects as well. I think there's a misunderstanding that because there's been an increase in revenue at the airport that that creates a surplus. And that's just not the case because costs, of course, increase as well. The largest source of revenue at the airport is the sale of fuel. You have to purchase the fuel to sell the fuel. So as fuel sales increase, so do fuel purchases.

Okay, well, I know, as we've talked about before, too, there's some, the taxiway needs to work out there, the airport road around the perimeter out there. There are some projects that are in desperate need of some attention out there. Yes, sir.

Go ahead.

This giving away of money to everybody that's supposed to be in an enterprise mode is just the wrong philosophy. I would not be opposed to restructuring the loan and re-amortizing it over an additional 30 years or something like that. I think we need to look at other financial flexibilities and tools. that can reduce the debt load in the immediate sense that their payments can be lowered. Because I'm quite sure that their employees are not gonna cost them as much as what we can reduce their payment through amortization. And on the subject of safety, I had brought to your attention, and we're probably gonna have to put it on a different agenda item, Jeff, about the pilot that called me with the noise in the air. He's an Air Force pilot, but it's also been brought to my attention there's some directional issues that may exist on the runway. And I know that we can't discuss it now, I don't think we can, but I think it gives merit to we need to do a little review of that. Because I need to understand why a United States Air Force pilot would be telling me this if that condition didn't exist. So should we put that on another agenda?

I would recommend that you put that on another agenda.

But as for the debt, I think amortization of a rescheduled loan would be my recommendation. In desire.

I have a question. Is this like a separate bucket issue? I mean, we're looking at a loan in a legal sense. I've loaned an entity money to get it back, and it's repaying to it. But is it one of those situations, we had it in the school district, where you're actually borrowing money from associated groups and it's still the same taxpayer dollars just coming back to you a different way. So if you take the EDC dollars as revenue coming from sales tax and other issues, it's loaned over to the airport, which is in an enterprise fund. And because they're in separate funds, it has to be transacted a certain way. And because of it, we have to create this paper mirage, so to say. And then the money can go back to be reused for something else. But if the EDC was going to give us the money for a grant anyway, they'd be able to take something up. It's almost like a shell game.

I think I can answer that question.

Well, I mean, sometimes it's a maneuver that's necessitated because of the different buckets. I'm just trying to see if it's the case because if it is, then forgiving the loan is not an issue because it was something we were going to put into it. It may simplify paperwork.

This is I think really just a question, a policy question about whether the city should continue to carry an internal accounting obligation from one city controlled entity to another. The EDC recommended that the loan balance be forgiven to the airport. The airport does not receive property or sales tax revenues from really any entity unless the Economic Development Corporation makes an investment into it. So it is an enterprise fund and it does operate and fund itself through the provisions of goods and services. So occasionally we do visit with the EDC to identify if there's a significant capital need that's needed out at the airport or some kind of large capital expense that is needed, but the airport is for at least a decade now has been self-sufficient from an operational perspective, but they still do need assistance with kind of some of the larger infrastructure. So that was really the context and the conversation that was had with the Economic Development Corporation when they were discussing the forgiveness of this loan. The $129,000 in annual cash flow that it would free up, which is about a third of the overall debt service that the airport is making overall, can be put to use and deployed back into airport operations, as Jordan mentioned, either for the expansion of staff shore up some of the staffing issues that we have, as well as to reinvest back into projects such as Council Member Carter mentioned. I don't know specifically about what that issue is, Council Member Carter, but if you're talking about pavement markings, there's a plan, there's a desire to restripe the airfield for about $100,000 to address those, but those are the kinds of projects that we've identified. So I think I answered that question.

So Ms. Jewell, if this doesn't pass, the plan would be if we wanna hire two employees, it's gonna have to come out of the general fund, right?

No, I mean, we would ideally fund that through the enterprise fund, through increased revenues generated.

It has to be self-sufficient. The airport is self-sufficient. Correct. And it shouldn't touch the general fund.

Correct.

And so this is one of the ways to not touch the general fund. Correct. And to be self-sufficient. And the EDC has given its permission.

Yes, the EDC recommends forgiveness.