City Council - Regular Meeting

Evening.

Good evening. If everybody wants to find a seat, we'll go ahead and get started a little tardy on our regularly scheduled meeting. Okay. We're gonna call this Monday, 05/11/2026 regular city council meeting to order. Missus Wilkinson, will you please call roll?

Council member Carter? Here. Council member Capizzi?

Here.

Council member Edwards? Here. Mayor Pro Temps Bradley?

Here.

Council member Lebowski? Here. Council member Ryan? Here. And mayor Leonard?

Here. We have a quorum and council member Capizia is gonna lead us in the invocation followed by the pledges.

Heavenly father, we come before you tonight as a community that is seeking to find a unified path forward. Help us to be an example as leaders, neighbors, and parents in how we speak, how we listen, and how we treat one another. Give us wisdom, humility, and calm hearts, and help us bring back together as neighbors. Help bring us back together as neighbors, as fellow citizens, and as a community that cares deeply about this city and one another. Lord, remind us that even disagreement, we are still one community. We ask these things in your name. Amen.

Okay, we get to celebrate Historic Preservation Month. If you're here for Historic Preservation Month, please come on down. Thank you for your willingness to stick around so long. So whereas the National Trust for Historic Preservation established the month of May as Historic Preservation Month in 1973 to promote historic places for the purpose of instilling community pride, promoting heritage, tourism, and showcasing social and economic benefits of historical preservation. And whereas historic preservation is relevant for communities across the nation both urban and rural and for Americans of all ages, all walks of life and all ethnic backgrounds.

And whereas, local historic preservation is an effective tool for managing growth and sustainable development, revitalizing neighborhoods, fostering local pride and maintaining community character while enhancing livability. And whereas the city of New Braunfels recognizes and gives thanks to our dedicated historic property and business owners, local preservation groups and organizations and everyone who continuously champions historic preservation in our community. Now therefore be it resolved that I, Neil Leonardz, mayor of the city in New Braunfels, Texas hereby proclaim May 2026 as historic preservation month. Who am I presenting to?

I'll keep it short and sweet since it's 08:30. Yes, May is preservation month and I want to thank all of my friends up here who are advocates those that couldn't be here. We have some really great events happening this month. Actually this weekend, Friday and Saturday, several museums are offering free admission and the McKenna's actually open on Wednesday from four to seven p. M. And we have our music at the mural on Saturday, May 23 from nine to eleven a. M. In our downtown area. We'll be at three different murals. Just come on down. There'll be directions on where to go. And if you go to our website, that'll be a full calendar so newbrownfulls.gov/historic. Thank you.

Thanks

Katie. Photo op, why don't we center under the seal? Thank you. Now I get to do one more celebration. We have a presentation and recognition of the New Braunfels National Airport being named the 2026 National Regional Airport of the Year by the Texas Aviation Advisory Committee.

Mr. Jewell.

Mayor, members of council, we wanted to take the opportunity tonight to recognize the New Braunfels National Airport which last month at the Texas Aviation Conference was named the National Airport of the Year for the State of Texas. The Aviation Advisory Committee is a group of industry stakeholders that provide consultation and expertise to the Texas Department of Transportation on aviation matters throughout the state. And this recognition, this award really represents years of strategic planning, infrastructure investments as well as the dedication and commitment of our fantastic airport staff led by Doctor. Robert Lee and the rest of the team here. It also relies on the vision and the commitment of our elected officials, members of our airport advisory board, our tenants, the pilots, the businesses and the rest of the community stakeholders that believe deeply in the future of the airport and its place in the region.

New Braunfels National has undergone a pretty substantial transformation in the last few years whether it's runway rehabilitation, pavement reconstruction, the installation of security, fencing, all of these investments represent platforms and commitments to the next generation of corporate and aviation activity really in this entire region. But our airport is so much more than a local airfield. It's a gateway to business investment. It's a platform for medical transport, for emergency response, for business investment and job creation. And we want to recognize that this award is really much more than just infrastructure really represents a commitment to the vision and the commitment to proactive planning and positioning the airport as a driver of economic growth in our region.

So with that, I wanted to take this opportunity to recognize the airport and its staff for this great achievement. We're very proud of where the airport has come and look forward to what's next. Thank you.

Congratulations. Congratulations. Well thanks everybody for sticking around as long as you did tonight. I've got a statement I've prepared right before we go into citizens communication that I wanna read. I do wanna acknowledge something plainly and sincerely.

Many people in our community are frustrated, confused, upset about the events surrounding the election. I understand that. Trust in local government matters deeply. And whenever questions arise around our election process, people have every right to expect answers, transparency, and accountability. As mayor, I'd like to take that responsibility seriously.

I also wanna say this directly to the hardworking employees of the city of New Braunfels, our firefighters, our police officers, librarians, park employees, utility crews, and so many others who serve our community every day. The confusion surrounding this election should not diminish the tremendous work that you do for the city. You deserve leadership that restores confidence and steadfastness in this moment with honesty and professionalism. As I wrote in a recent public letter, the city attorney's office failed to proactively identify and address a conflict between the city charter and the Texas constitution before this election occurred. That should have happened but it did not.

And as mayor, I I follow the legal advice of the city attorney who like many others including myself missed the problem in our nearly thirty year old charter. That mistake has now shaken public confidence and I understand why people are upset about it. But tonight, I also want to clarify exactly what the issue is and what it is not. Under the Texas constitution, cities like New Braunfels elect their mayors by majority vote. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, a runoff election is required between the top two candidates.

And when a city charter conflicts with the constitution, the constitution governs. The reality of this, our city charter has been inconsistent with state constitutional requirements for nearly thirty years. But until now, every mayoral election during that period resulted in a majority winner, so the conflict was never tested. This election was different. No candidate received a majority of the vote and because of that the constitution requires a runoff election.

The bottom line is simple, we're having a runoff because we're following the Texas constitution and because the people's voice at the ballot box must be fully heard under the law. I know passions are very high. I know there are political opponents of mine who strongly disagree with how this unfolded. I respect their rights to advocate for their position. But I believe we must separate frustration over how the situation arose from the legal obligation we now have to follow.

The constitution still stands and we must uphold it. The people of New Braunfels voice will prevail completely, fairly, and under the rule of law. And I wanna say something important tonight in the spirit of fairness and transparency. My own opponent publicly stated and I'll quote, a runoff is required by Texas constitutional law. I appreciate him saying that because regardless of political differences, it reflects an understanding that this moment is bigger than any one candidate.

It is about respecting the rule of law and respecting the electoral process itself. Neither my opponent nor I won this election. The voters of New Braunfels will decide it in a runoff election and I'm a candidate in that runoff. That is how our constitutional system works and whether the outcome ultimately benefits me or not, I believe the process must be followed faithfully and fairly. And I also recognize that trust must be rebuilt and rebuilding trust requires more than words.

That's why I as mayor will be pushing our city to call for an independent legal review into how this ordinance and charter conflict came to exist and remain unresolved for so long. That review should be conducted by outside counsel with no prior relationship to the city or administration. I will recuse myself from any involvement in that review and I will support making its findings public to the people of New Braunfels cause that's the right thing to do. But I also do not want tonight to become a night where neighbors stop seeing one other's neighbors. We're still one community.

We all care deeply about New Braunfels even when emotions run high and disagreements are sharp. We should still treat each other with decency and respect. So to everyone who came to speak tonight, thank you for preparing for participating in your local government. Thank you for caring enough to be here. We will listen respectfully to what you have to say and I ask that we all extend that same respect to one another as we move through this process.

We're about to open citizens communication and that is a time for the citizens to address City Council on items that are not on this agenda. If you're here to address city council about the election, we have two items, the canvassing of the election and the the runoff order that are coming up as agenda items. So we'd ask that you wait until the appropriate time to speak to those items. We do ask that you please address counsel during the relevant agenda items rather than during citizens communication if you're here for those specific issues. And with that we will open citizens communication to anybody who would like to address counsel on items that are not on this agenda.

If you'd like to address counsel, please step up to the podium, state your name, whether you're a resident, non resident or live in the ETJ.

Good evening. It's been a long one. My name is Julie King, and I've been a property owner here in New Braunfels since 2009. I'm here tonight to talk about process and transparency in the light of an item that's going to come up on the agenda for its last and final reading, item 2C. I'm here to address what I perceive to be the city's flawed and nontransparent process of reviewing and approving new projects like Dittlinger Mill.

I will not talk in detail about it except to refer about the process. This is not just about rezoning. By way of background, and I researched this, this is in our city strategic plan. It is economic mobility objective number four. And it speaks to the development and the encouragement of developments like that provide additional workforce, and you can see the rest.

And I would call your attention to the bottom questions. The city has a stated policy to involve the public in this, and they conducted that kind of research. So with that in mind, I'm going to cut to the chase. I have a couple of questions just to address way of personal background. I have spent forty years in commercial real estate.

I'm not opposed to redevelopment. In fact, I live in a multi use development that's about a stone's throw from here, where I served as the POA president for five years. I've also served on the Dry Comal Creek Planning Board. So I've been to a few city council meetings. And my topic sentence is not just about rezoning. It's about the process. And what I would say is, because of my background, I know how to read a plat. I know how to read a site plan. And most importantly, I know how to read pricing notes. I attended the March planning commission or committee hearing when this issue was first brought up before it was brought to city council's attention for its first and second readings.

And I would say that the presenter at the time shared no site plan, said it wasn't available, no renderings at all. And the picture at the top of this is actually a screen grab that I pulled from the video, which I would encourage you to go back and look at. So I would tell you the current roadmap Can I was

ask you a question? Is this about item 2C

on Yes, I'm talking about the process. Would you just indulge me just a minute? I'm not speaking up to the process. I just want to tell you that I personally witnessed the process which I believe is flawed. Am I permitted to continue? Okay. I'm not going to speak about this except in general. Since there was no site plan shared, there was nothing there at the time. It caused me to look at things just for the edification of everyone here. Purple is the mill.

The yellow square is I'll get to later. And I will tell you that that's caution. This has never been shared publicly at all. This is the first time it was ever shared was at the meeting of City Council on the twenty sixth when it passed. I would just tell you in terms of transparency, the chairperson of the Planning Commission, when asked a question about the height of the buildings by a resident said, I'm not really sure.

What do you think is the highest building? And the person said, well it's the courthouse, it's 80 feet. Well when you look in the fine print for the pricing notes for the project, provided they meet a setback, they can build a building that's as tall as 120 feet in the project. Let me just do a simple math problem. And that is, if I looked at a 500 car parking garage, and I made the following deducts 100 spaces for the hotel, 100 spaces for the general public for retail, 100 spaces for an office component.

Then I was plugged going, well, 200 what's the other 200 parking spaces for? Well, they're for squares. The yellow squares, what are those? Well, those are high rise residential buildings that could be built if they meet the setback requirement. I would only bring this to your attention, and will close with that's my math problem. I don't think we've had full disclosure to the public. I think this has been intentionally, to be honest, very discreet. When you show a rendering that shows people that are six feet tall and don't show what the full scope of this project is, I think the citizens will be the last to know. And to me, that's a flawed process. And I would tell you, I'm going to close with, who is Mary Sager, Doctor.

Mary, and why does it matter? Well, Doctor. Mary has been a fifty year resident of the historic neighborhood that abuts this particular project. And she had curious questions about what was going to be built closest to her home. Mrs. King. And the chairperson at the time redirected her to the other end of the property. She came again last Monday and asked the same question. And really, there was given no answer.

Mrs. King, I'm sorry. Your time is up.

She said the city's sneaky.

I have an article that I would like to read about the history of how we got to plurality. I can read it now or I can wait until we get to the item on the agenda that talks about the election. Which would you If

you're here to talk about the election either the canvassing or the call for a runoff, those items are posted agenda items. So this is only for things that are not on the agenda.

Okay, so then I'll wait for that. Thank you.

Thank you. Jim Holster, resident. I've been following the housing authority actually for almost seven years now. And the reason I've done that is because I used to service clients in there, and I know some history. And actually, I'm probably only one in the room that's actually been in one of those rooms that's described as 450 square feet like the size of garage. Of course, the apartments out here that were approved on next to I 35, the old hotel, they're the same size. Size. But, and the city advocated for that approval. Okay. Alright.

Now, as you notice, this is a, in this depiction here, this is a four story building. The building across the way is a five story plus building and has elevators in it. The city is working to approve a project over here in District 3. Mister Edwards knows about it. And it's gonna be a three story building.

And so, the residents over there, there's not gonna be any elevators in it because the developer said the city doesn't require elevators. And so, the elderly people over there, I guess they're gonna have to learn how to get up those stairs. Performance history, past and present audits and media. Reported by the New Braunfels Herald, because you all like to hear about these things, because you may have not been aware of it, especially new on the council. 2018, the city appoints a deceased member to the housing authority board.

Been dead for six months. So that just showed you there's not much attention to that item. 2019, 2000 linked to the the stories linked to the king rats in the walls at Laurel Plaza and Mold. 2020, Laurel Plaza residents talk about living in a culture of fear. Mister Edwards should know about that because he's their representative.

Board members, one of your board members, you all just recently approved, said this. This is a building of older residents who have nothing more to do than sit around and think of problems, these are elderly people, and making trouble for people. Then they get into the communal areas such as a library or dining room, they listen and they eavesdrop and they stir the pot. This will happen anywhere you have people who have no life. They love to start trouble. That's in the Herald. You all wanna look it up? Now, this is another performance problem here. This is the other housing authority building in town. This sign says no dumping and violators will be prosecuted.

A few months ago, I went by there, drove by there for four weeks, and the city, the streets were full of garbage like this. After I presented at council, one council member told me the next day, you all got out there right away and picked up all the trash in the neighborhood. So this public opportunity does work. What is the deal for the new building out here in Mr. Edwards district, my district?

What is the deal for developers in the ISD, Comal County and the city? Who knows? Well, this is a, what they call a, I guess, a term sheet, which will give you some of the data, but you need a full presentation on it. There's money being made by the city off the elderly people, but they won't be able to live there. Who who will conduct oversight for the new housing authority on building out here on 1801 Loop 337? It's a private development. Answer, mayor and the housing authority board. Voters, can voters remove the housing authority board? No. But they can remove the mayor if things go bad.

Contrast to the sound management practice and control taken by the city of Seguin. Now look at here, city of Seguin set up their own public facilities corporation. And guess who the board members are? Wanna take a guess? It's their city council. They're responsible and they can be removed by the voters. Now, over here, no nobody can be removed. They can do whatever they want to. Now, target demographic, there. And I'll just tell you this, we need to take a visit over to Seguin and see what they're doing before proceed. We need to help those elderly that have been ignored for many years now. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, if I may just make some comment about Mr. Mr. Alvarez did actually provide a presentation to this council actually not long ago. I just don't recall the meeting but it was at a workshop that our residents can actually view online.

Thank you. Yes, Thank you for that clarification. No, you cannot, sir.

And so they had to cancel.

Mr. Holster, I'm speaking about the president's

You're out of order, Holster. Mr. Holster.

My name is Randy Henson. I'm a citizen of New Braunfels and I'm also a pastor. We've we've this happened last time. We've spoken before. I'm not going to talk about the election.

What I do wanna talk about is that I think you're the impression that you just solved the problem here, and I don't think that's what happened whenever you you fired miss Acevedo. I think that's just exacerbated the problem that the fingers are always being pointed in other directions when that's not the problem. Bro, I I promise you, I pray for you every single day because and I pray for all of you guys by name every day because the the position that you're in is a very difficult position. But, Neil, you have lost the people. Yes.

You you've lost the respect of the people, and I don't know firing her wasn't going to please, let me finish. Please, don't clap. Don't clap. Please, let me finish. I think that you think you're solving the problem by doing that, but that's not solving the problem. And a lot of people are saying, you should just concede the race. I don't think that was ever going to happen. I don't even think it ever crossed your mind. But I think the people have spoken. And one of the worst if you were to win the runoff, I promise you I'm going to pray for you every single day for that entire time, too. But I think that would be one of the worst things to happen because the people have already spoken, and they don't they don't respect you as our leader anymore. That's all I

had to say.

You spoke about confusion.

Ma'am?

My name is Sister Sandoval, lifelong resident of New Braunfels, Texas, born and raised here. And you spoke earlier about confusion. The confusion, if there is any, it's not among the citizens. It's what's happening right here. We saw it with our own eyes. What was happening behind closed doors came out. It's been exposed. A woman got fired. Another woman was not allowed. A councilwoman for District 5 was not allowed to speak. Another gentleman cut in and sounded like he was going to speak. Others spoke. She wasn't allowed to speak. Whatever y'all did to vote, you fired her. Okay.

But the confusion is not from the citizens, the taxpayers, no matter how old we are, no matter if we live in a housing project or live off of Walnut Street paying taxes, it doesn't matter. We're not confused. The confusion starts right there. Don't look away. It starts right there. Don't roll your eyes. Don't start looking at your phone. Don't do any of that. That's a thing of the past. You've been exposed. You've been exposed. We know who you are. And pastor Randy prays for you. You know, I am too. You have to have a fear of God.

You've been exposed and others with him also. And whoever is pulling your strings are going to be exposed. It's just time to stop it. It's not our fault. No matter how old or how young we are, it is not our fault. Please council members do not speak about us like that. My gosh, we're the ones who support your businesses. We're the ones who pay even what? The $7,500 a meeting that you make, plus also used you as an attorney before. You don't remember me.

I remember you. And there's others that I can talk to about you. But you've already exposed yourselves, and it's just so horrible what we saw. It's horrible. You let whoever you want to talk, and you don't listen. Get those ears open. Get them open, and then shut that mouth that's going to not speak the facts and the truth as you also and do what's right. You speak so much of doing of what's right, and you're not. You speak so ugly of the elderly. Look at what are you getting any younger?

You're not. So it's enough of that. Have respect for the people. We voted, and we didn't vote you in. You didn't make it.

Angela Allen, I'm a resident here. I want to bring up something that just happened because I've seen it happen here before, so I feel like it's a pattern. When you guys are when you are discussing an action plan and only a few of you have been able to speak and not all of the council has been able to speak, I believe that you guys need to look at the charter to see if there's anything in there since we're gonna do I would assume we're gonna do a whole review of it anyways. Is there anything in the charter that corollary relates to this issue of a council person making a motion and a second and voting on that action before every council member has had the right to speak. I would like a full review of that.

And if there isn't anything in there, I don't know if you all are familiar with Robert's Rules of Order, but in Texas especially, and in throughout The United States, councils, all kinds of organizations, they adopt this Robert's Rules of Order because it's the right thing to do. It's a fair and due process, and it also gives respect to your other councilmen that you guys should give more respect to than anyone in this room. And when you cut off each other and you don't allow people to speak, before everybody before anybody makes a motion or a second and votes on something, your city council your fellow council person could give value to something. They could and you need to listen to them. Guys, you want us to respect each other out here.

It starts with y'all first. Y'all have to do that among each other. What we just witnessed, it literally made me wanna cry because it wasn't right and it wasn't fair. Mary Anne had something to say. April may have wanted to say something too.

You guys, I am highly recommending you start respecting one another, but at the very least, we can't trust that anymore because this is a pattern I've seen. You did it with a thoroughfare plan when someone jumped in front of Carter when miss Carter had things to say. But before she could even present her statements or ask her questions, District 2, mister Kapizi, you jumped right in front of her. And so it's a pattern. I'm asking that you give a review a full review of the charter as to what it currently says right now, and, hopefully, we'll have enough votes to amend the charter to where this will not continue to happen.

It should not be allowed to happen, and you guys should respect one another and let everybody say something before you jump in front of anybody to make a motion for action. Thank you.

Is this the right level or not? I'm trying to see this best level. Can you everybody hear me? All right, go ahead. So my name is Steven Hogue. I am a City Of New Braunfels resident. Also, I'm a former City of New Braunfels employee. This is my first council meeting and commissioning meeting ever because I didn't want to lose friends. The politics, which I'm a minor in folks, we always like politics. And it divides families, it divides friends, divides churches, neighbors, anything else.

I'm not even going to reason why I brought Zion from the city, unless you all want to know the truth. All right, is this little screen thing on? I don't know. Thank you. Thank you.

That is the city of Roswell's remote work policy. All the pages I printed off. When I used to work here, was a refuse collector on a garbage on a trash truck in the Department of Public Works. It is not fair for cops, firefighters, EMS, parks and recs employees, public works employees, and anybody else who does not have their job to work from home. And I told that to Rebecca Meyer and, oh gosh, what's the assistant human director, human resource director, and Caitlin Crome, and several others.

It is not fair. I don't work here anymore, but I'll tell you this, as a resident who's been here since 2012, it's a bunch of crap. Not everybody gets a chance to work from home. I had to deal with people in HR who had to come up here because it wasn't their day of the week to be home. Unless it's for family emergencies or sick or whatever, something like that, that's fine.

Just because it's Tuesday and you get your day off because you don't want to come up here and deal with angry citizens or employees or anything else, it's stupid. I used to work at the recycle center at Sometimes. And one of the things that I had to tell a lie to every person, and

I hated every bit of it,

why are we telling people we recycle styrofoam when it actually goes to the landfill? And when I complained and told Chandra, you know, Mel or whatever her last name is, I was told by the city manager, Robert Mendoza, we're not making any changes. That was very frustrating to sit there and tell lies. I hate lies with a passion. Hold on a second please, be quiet, I'm not talking.

I did not appreciate that at all when I was trying to tell them, why are we sitting there and lying to our people here?

This is

another city lie, corruption, hesitant, weak, slow leadership, and resistant to change. It is time to fire Robert Camancho and put somebody in who has the balls and the backbone to stand up to people and do the right thing and do integrity. Integrity is doing the right thing. It's honesty. It's putting people as a group together and also respecting people as individuals.

What we do not do at the city in the Brussels. If you haven't been here, behind where it says, one city, one team, after I've seen this, I usually joke when I was here, was one city, no team. And as I speak tonight is no city, no team, and people can do whatever they want. I'm sick and tired of it. And another thing is, get rid of the transgender books.

Well, hold on me a second. I'll start over. So when I hurt myself at the trash truck, I hurt myself and I had the opportunity to work at the City of New Brunswick Library on Common Street. I saw LGBTQ books libraries in the children's section and the teenage section.

Sir, I'm sorry. Your time is up.

Ms. Matney, can we address the books that he was mentioning about the children's section, please?

I can address, we have been through quite an extensive process. We had several requests reconsideration for various titles. We went through a lengthy process with both our library advisory board and a subcommittee that was established to review any of the requests ation that

were

submitted. We did move one book from I believe it was from the the teen section to the adult section, I believe. I would have to check that. We have not had a request for reconsideration in quite some time. We've made some changes to our collection services processes as far as ordering of books.

But specifically there's no books of that nature in the children's section.

No sir

there are.

Is my question. No sir. Thank you.

Well I have a comment. Well. You're gonna let him talk and bring up a point

but now

not me. Do you have a problem with women?

No. Yes.

Point of point of order. Let's we're we're

trying keep things on track. 100%. This is citizens communication. If if you've got questions about that, we can take them up later. But let's get through citizens communication. We're already way behind schedule.

Can I have a point of order?

Yes. One

councilman was to speak. Am I allowed to

I did a readdress.

At this

point, we're not supposed to have discussions, but we can bring up factual information.

That's what I was trying to bring out is factual information that those books are not literally in the children's section.

That was it. So depending on what your Councilmember Carter, depending on what you're asking or mentioning.

We can certainly get a report on that another time, but let's get through citizens communication and move on with our agenda for tonight. We have anybody else? Hi,

Katie Nelson, resident of New Braunfels. Since it was brought up that has been a big concern of mine and we don't have to discuss it at this moment. But I would like to know if they are there. I would go myself. I will.

Because in being told that it's my responsibility as a parent to maybe not let my child have those explicit books, I shouldn't I have a nine year old and a five year old little girl, and I shouldn't have to monitor what they're looking at in a children's children's section. So I will gladly go because we we took a break from the library in all honesty because I didn't feel comfortable going there. And I don't feel like they should be in school. So I appreciate y'all's time in that matter, and I will do my own research. And I really hope that those aren't available for my child to look at because no child should see some of the images that are in those books. And I appreciate y'all's time.

Stacy Clifford. I'm a resident in New Braunfels. I just wanna quickly bring up that my house was not properly inspected when I bought it, and an occupancy permit was issued. I was told that the city doesn't properly staff the office to actually do the inspections. I drove up to my house. I bought from out of state. I had somebody else go by and look at it. They did not do a good job. I saw code violations driving up to my house. I have some experience in building, some very large clients in building, and this is gonna to piss people off.

I have a family member who owns a development company. Sorry. But I saw code violations from the street. There was missing flashing. The flashing they used was wrong.

An expansion joint was not completed, and the windows were installed incorrectly. Now, since we're talking about this city not properly enforcing laws or knowing laws, I think maybe that should be addressed. I think that allowing large builders who I think allowing large builders to build and then issue occupancy permits without doing an actual inspection, maybe if we did that, it might slow things down a bit. I know that we, as citizens, are looking for ways to better control this out of control stuff that's going on. And when I say out of control, I have a little bit of knowledge on how this works, how developers help pay for the infrastructure.

And now that we've gotten ourselves into this huge problem from prior administrations doing things that maybe they weren't really understanding how that worked. And I get now that we're screwed. But you can at least send somebody out to do the inspections and enforce the laws of this city and properly staff the department. I'm asking you to please do that because I'm out thousands of dollars that I'm either gonna have to sue the builder or this city to get back. Well, how about both?

How about both? And I just I I am a little frustrated with this city and have been for a while, which is why Neil is getting voted out. We need to do a better job. Thank you.

This is my third time to address this issue in front of this council. Between June

What's your name, ma'am?

Oh, sorry. Cheryl Fuller. I'm a resident of this city. Between June and August '24, my business was entered repeatedly by a thief who not only stole $65,000 worth of goods that I had to get the sheriff to make a phone call to the police department to even get a detective assigned to. This person also got into my iMac, my 22 inch very expensive computer, accessed all of my credit information, stole the titles to my vehicles, my birth certificate, etcetera, etcetera.

The woman has happily been shopping ever since. Any account in which I had a credit card parked like walmart.com or target.com, she's been shopping at. She went to Wells Fargo and got a $55,000 loan in my name. Well, no one at the police department cares. Additionally, this has been an ongoing issue.

As recently as last August, I noticed some mysterious charges under a $100 in my bank account debit charges. I didn't do any of those. I called the bank security service. They moved all my money over to a new account. I had already gone down and got a debit card when I did this transfer for the main account.

I had well over a $160,000 in an overdraft money market account to feed into whatever was was short in my checking account. I told them at that time I do not want a debit card for the second account. I just use that to pay my employees with. There's no reason for a debit card. Well, they sent one anyway.

I was out of town on medical care and this woman steals it from my mailbox. I assume she goes to Kohl's, charges $5 to see if it's a valid card. She sets up a PIN number for this, then she goes to The Woodlands and proceeds to clean out that account, and it is starting to dip into my savings account. When I noticed this, call the bank put a halt to this. Here's the crux of the matter.

I spend hours filling out the form online for the police department and when I hit submit, oops, that page has floated away or down the river or whatever BS y'all have involved with that. I had finally got an email from some little twit with the police department, a female detective who says, well, that's not our jurisdiction. Those thefts didn't happen here because they were in the Woodlands. What about the original theft out of my mailbox? Now I know that since this city does not have an effective police department, we have no detectives to do anything.

Nothing. Oh, let me back up. The woman copied my spare key to my car that I left at the business and stole my car a few months later. Did the city of New Braunfels do anything about that? They know who she is. They don't care. This has been an ongoing attack at me. And you know what the city does? I get tickets because I was forced to sell my property in Green. You know, I saved Green from the wrecking ball.

I did the development plan. I did all the research to get it listed on the national register. I wrote the deed restrictions, defended them in court, brought all the media to cover the lawsuit, and organized a music festival four days into the trial to pay the legal fees. Brought all the media back for that. Do you think I get any respect from this city? I can't even get a police report. What do you have to say about that, Neil? Because she tried to have me arrested and thrown out of the conservative Republicans when I accosted you about the false statements that there is no crime in New Braunfels. I'm not the only one that has suffered this. I I was standing at Walmart, ladies buying all this stuff, and she says, what do I need to know about this city?

I said, well, there's high theft rate. You wouldn't believe the crowd that formed around me with all the other people saying, yeah, but don't expect the police to do anything. I've had the same problem. Multiple people. Why aren't you patting yourselves on the back about what a great safe city this is? It is not. It is not. And in retaliation, I get harassed about, oh, they don't like this stuff that I've set up for a yard sale covered with tarps in my carport. I get tickets and have to go to court again and again and again over this bullshit. Oh, excuse me. Bad word. You know about this, don't you, miss Lebowski? I've discussed this with you two different times.

Ma'am, your time is up.

Thank you.

Seeing no one else, we'll close Citizens Communication. Next item up is 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. There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a council member or citizens request 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 an item. Missus Wilkinson have any items been pulled?

No, sir.

Counsel, any items you wanna pull? Okay. Tonight, we're taking up action items A through E and resolutions starting with approval of a resolution giving consent to issuance of contract revenue bonds, water, sewer, and drainage facilities, series twenty twenty six by Comal County Water Improvement District number three, Master District. Approval of a resolution in support of obtaining National Register of Historic Places designation for the Dittlinger Family Residential Historic District including 372 Magazine Avenue and 581 West Call Street. Approval of resolution supporting the submission of project to the U.

Department of Transportation Safe Streets and Roads for all grant and approval of resolution supporting the submission of a project to the U. S. Department of Transportation Railroad Crossing Elimination Grant Program. As well as ordinances beginning with approval of the first reading of an ordinance amending section 86 dash eight, glass containers prohibited in park areas and on rivers, lakes and streams. Section 80 six-ten prohibition of alcoholic beverages in city parks and city owned property Section 80 six-twelve prohibition of sale or advertising of goods, wares or services in city parks Section 80 six-seventeen, San Antonio Street Bridge Safety Zone and Section 80 six-ninety seven, Land A Park miniature golf and paddle boat fees of the New Braunfels Code of Ordinances to match department policy.

Approval of the second and final reading of an ordinance amending chapter one thirty eight of the city New Braunfels Code of Ordinances related to this the New Braunfels Police Department rotation list system for incident management tows and updating fees charged by tow companies to the vehicle owners. Approval of the second and final reading of an ordinance requested by Monica Mason on behalf of Brett Bear to rezone approximately 0.2 of an acre out of the City Block Subdivision 5068 Lot 5 from R3 Multi Family District to R3 SUP Multi Family District with a special use permit to allow for short term rental of a residence currently addressed at 226 North Liberty Avenue and approval of the second final reading of an ordinance requested by Nicholas Vargas to rezone approximately 0.25 of an acre out of City Block Subdivision 1073 Lot 11 from C3 Commercial District to C3 SUP Commercial District with special use permit to allow short term rental of residents currently addressed at 182 Perryman Street.

Make a motion to approve.

Second. I'll second.

Council member Carter moves, excuse me, council member Ryan moves for approval. Council member Edwards seconds. Mrs. Wilkinson will you please call roll.

Council member Carter. Aye. Council member Capizi.

Aye.

Council member Edwards. Aye. Mayor Pro Tems Bradley.

Aye.

Council member Lebowski. Aye. Council member Ryan. Aye. And mayor Leonard.

Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Next up is discuss and consider the approval of an ordinance declaring the canvas and results of the general election held on 05/02/2026 to elect two council members and a mayor of New Braunfels City Council containing a savings clause declaring an effective date upon one reading. Mrs. Wilkinson.

Good evening. Gail Wilkinson, City Secretary's office. I'll read the results of the May second, twenty twenty six election into the record and make a statement concerning the ordering ordinance. For candidates for city council mayor, there were 7,495 votes cast in this election. We had Jonathan Frazier with 126 votes at 1.68%, Neil Leonard with 2,866 votes at 38.24% and Michael Alexander French with 3,680 votes at 49.1%.

There was no person receiving the majority of votes. A runoff election will be required for the two candidates Michael French and Neil Leonard who received the highest and second highest number of votes in the May second twenty twenty six general election. For candidates for city council district five council member there were 1,007 votes cast in this election. We had mayor, we had Mary Ann Lebowski with five ten votes, 50.65%. We had Chase Taylor with four ninety seven votes, 49.35%.

The person receiving the majority of them ones are And received eight twenty three votes with 10.98%. For candidates for Council District 6 council member there were eleven twenty nine votes cast in this election. We had Nikki Shaw with five eleven votes at 45.26%. We had April Ryan with three seventy two votes at 32.95% and we had Stephen Vogus with two forty six votes at 21.79%. There was no person receiving the majority of the votes.

A runoff election that will be required for the two candidates Nikki Shaw and April Ryan who received the highest and the second highest number of votes in May in the May second twenty twenty six general election.

Any questions for Mrs. Wilkinson? Okay, we'll open this item to public hearing. If anybody would like to speak to this item, please step up to the podium, state your name, whether you're non resident, or live in the ETJ. And please just take note that any action we take on this is merely ministerial that the state constitution controls, and we don't have any options on the action we take here.

David Warmke, District 5. I'm always a little different place than most people. I'm asking to say some good things about the election. The process we have that the county runs with the three different ways of counting that we reconciled was tested with a recount, and it came out exactly the same as before. There is a great system in place in the city on the website.

The results were posted very quickly in my like 11:00 or maybe 09:00. You knew the results of the election. I want to compliment the website of the city for getting that out quick and our county and all the people that that volunteer to make it work. But it's really a good system. It's getting a lot of mud thrown on it now for reasons that are not really related to the vote.

But one comment, I went and I tried to look back to the two thousand three elections and I realized that Guadalupe County is not archived. And so if there were some way you could I know for this election, you'll show the Guadalupe County on the bottom, you added the two together. Enlist enough, it was actually you got 300 votes and and Prince got 700 votes, exactly the round number, which is kind of an interesting thing in Guadalupe County. But if you could add that, that'd be really good. Thank you. God bless you.

My name is Richard Kelsheimer. I'm a resident as well as a concerned citizen. I'm speaking regarding the outcome of the May second twenty twenty six mayoral election and the city's recent announcement of the required runoff. I've been attending most of the city council meetings, many of the advisory board meetings and city council workshops for the past two to three years. I have agreed with some of the decisions that city council has made, and I've also disagreed with some of them.

But I've always tried to be supportive and also regardless of what my personal views are. According to the unofficial election results, Michael French did receive a 49.18% of the vote, a clear and substantial amount of votes required, and while Mayor Leonard's received 38.25%. Under the city charter, as it existed and was communicated to candidates and voters, prior to the election, the candidate with the most votes was to win the mayoral race. The people of New Braunfels have clearly expressed their preference. While I understand the city has identified a conflict between the city charter and the Texas constitution regarding the majority vote requirement.

This legal issue was not disclosed to the public or to the candidates until after the ballots had been cast, and I understand why that happened. The responsibility for the oversight does lie with the city and the leadership thereof, and all of you are part of that leadership, in my personal opinion. Not changing the rules after election has created confusion, frustration, and a loss of trust in the local government. At this moment, the will of the voters is very evident. Michael French is the choice of the electorate for ahead of any other candidate in the interest of respecting the democratic process and the voice of the New Braunfels citizens in order to restore public confidence and avoid further division in our community, I'm respectfully requesting that you, the mayor, publicly acknowledge that the people have spoken, and that as a man of an integrity, you would concede the race to Michael French, step down and support a smooth and immediate transition of leadership rather than discuss and consider the approval of an ordinance to continue forward with a runoff in the mayoral election that was not contemplated or communicated before the election would only stain your legacy, your personal legacy, and create more strife and division within this community of New Braunfels, Texas.

There's a tremendous amount of expense that's involved in this. And today, I did find out, based on conversations that I heard, that even if you did step down and allowed Michael French to take that, he would then be in a runoff with miss Allen. And if she didn't agree to run, then it would go down to the next person. But I think as a matter of practice and as a matter of integrity, that you should, in fact, take that and know that the people have voted and stepped down and not run-in the race or the runoff that has to happen. Thank you very much.

Mr. Mayor, just as a reminder, we do have Mr. Zeck with a presentation here and actually speak to the conflict between the charter and the Texas constitution, the requirement for a runoff. So whenever you're prepared, you can certainly do that when you're ready.

Sure, go ahead and actually

This might address the

Yeah. Mr. Zek, do you want to go ahead and go ahead. I'm sorry, we skipped over you.

I'm sorry?

I'm sorry, we skipped over you.

Oh, no, it's quite all right. I made an assumption it would be on the next one, that's alright. I've put together a presentation here that gives a brief history of Article 11, Section 11 of the Texas Constitution, which is the section of the constitution that's currently an issue right now. And I've also included in this a brief history of the city of New Braunfels charter and the structural changes associated with the composition of the governing body from a historical perspective. So I don't know, do I touch this? I don't even know. Okay, here we go. Very good, all right. So what are we talking about? We're talking about Article 11, Section 11 of the Texas Constitution.

Why are we talking about this? Because we've recently had an election whereby we have council members with three year terms and one of the neither of the none of the candidates reached a majority vote. And article 11, section 11, the constitution has three principles associated with it. We're gonna go through each of those briefly. First, I wanna give a brief history of the Texas constitution in general with respect to municipalities in the state of Texas.

I'm a little bit of a nerd with respect to local government in the state of Texas, and I think it's important to understand what the Texas constitution said before 1958. In 1876, the Texas constitution was adopted within the Texas constitution. Article 11, section four authorized cities of 10,000 or few to be chartered under the general laws of the state. And section five reserved charters for larger cities, cities over 10,000, to be created by special acts of the legislature. And the term limits are generally two years as a result of the adoption of the Texas constitution.

In nineteen o nine, section four was amended to lower the general population cap from 10,000 to 5,000, narrowing the field of cities chartered under the general law alone. I'd like to just talk about just briefly reference I'm trying to keep this short, Mayor, but just briefly say what I explain what I mean by chartered under the general laws of the state of Texas. So in so what this essentially did was it's most cities were chartered by a special act of the legislature, even before the 1876 constitution, when we were a republic. And the legislature got a little tired of having to incorporate cities all the time. So they created the general laws of the state.

They adopted statutes, and they said, if you'd like to incorporate and you're 10,000 or fewer, you follow the general laws. If you're 10,000 or greater, you have to text come to the Texas legislature and ask to be incorporated, and we will incorporate you. In nineteen o nine, they lowered that from 10,000 to 5,000. In 1912, the voters approved the Home Rule amendment, rewriting section five to let cities of more than 5,000 adopt their own charters by local vote, which replaced the special act regime that was in place up until that point. What that meant was that all cities under 5,000 or less in population looked to the general laws of the state of Texas in order to incorporate as cities, and all other cities could adopt a home rule charter.

Finally, in the 1950s, growing Texas cities discovered that two year council rotations was disruptive. Council members would be elected to council. They'd spend a year and a half figuring out what it meant to get elected for council, and then they'd have to run again. And so there was some pressure put on the legislature to allow for terms longer than three years. That happened in 1958.

So in 1958, section 11 was added to the Texas constitution. That original section, the voters approved authorizing cities to extend terms of elected officials and municipalities above two years, but not more than four years. So they could have a term of three years, they could technically have a term of two years and six months if they choose, but I don't know of a Texas city that does that. It's three years or four years. But only on two conditions.

The first condition was that all members of the governing body must be elected by a true majority. No plurality wins if you have a three year term or a four year term. Condition two was that vacancies cannot be filled by appointment. A special election must be held in a city with council terms of three years or more within one hundred and twenty days. This provision, requiring a majority vote for councils with terms of three years or more, has been in the Texas Constitution since 1958.

There was another election in 2001 to amend that section, and what happened in that election is we amended section 11 to reference article 16, section 65 b, constitutional resign to run provision. The constitutional resign to run provision was applicable to county officials and I believe state officials. It was not applicable to municipal officials. So this election in 2001 changed that. It said that if there is a council member or mayor serving a term of longer than two years, you automatically resign your position if you announce your candidacy for another office of profit or trust, trust if more than one year and thirty days remain on the term.

That was the amendment in 2001. In 2013, the Texas constitution was amended again. The issue was because of the requirement to hold a special election with one hundred and twenty days of a vacancy occurring if you have three or four year terms, was that cities were finding out that vacancies were occurring with, let's say, six months left in the term, with the general election coming up in the next six months, and that count cities were having to hold a special election within one hundred and twenty days. So they ended up having to hold a special election to fill a vacancy that otherwise would have been filled within six months. And so a proposition was placed before the voters of the state of Texas, and that proposition passed, and that added a new subsection C to Article 11, Section 11, authorizing home rule cities to adopt language to fill a vacancy when the length of the term is twelve months or less.

And that amendment passed in 2013. So Section 11 today has three sections. Subsection A allows us to set up terms greater than three years. It accepts civil service, and it now we now have an automatic resign to run provision for municipal elect elected officials. Section b is the majority vote that's been in place since 1958, and section c is the filled by special election with one hundred and twenty days, also been in place since 1958.

But now home rule cities can amend their charter to authorize the filling of that vacancy if there is less than twelve months remaining on the term. So that's the history of that particular provision of the Texas constitution. Now just a brief history of New Braunfels charter. Some of these things that I knew that I'm about to talk to you about because I am a charter nerd, and some of them I didn't, so it was a little fascinating for me to go through this and discover this. This is going to go through each major restructuring of the New Braunfels Governing Body from incorporation in 1846.

Yes, I know that we say that we were founded in 1845, but the special act of the legislature that created the charter was not adopted until 1846. And it's going to take us through the 1995 district based council that governs our city today. There's four eras, and we're going to go through each of them briefly. In 1846, the Texas legislature, incorporated by special act of the Texas legislature, the City of New Braunfels, effective upon a vote of the residents. This is really cool to me because the city because prior to this, no other city, the residents of the proposed incorporated area, were given the right to vote on the incorporation.

The Texas legislature just adopted legislation and said you are incorporated. New Braunfels is the very first city in the state of Texas where the residents were given the opportunity to vote on the incorporation of its community. We were about 1,700 population at the time. Believe it or not, we were the fourth largest city in the state of Texas in 1846. We had a structure of a mayor and eight aldermen, all elected at large, all for two year terms.

The next major change was in 1944, where we went from an alderman form of government to a commission form of government. Interesting historical note for those that care, the very first city in the entire United States to adopt a commission form of government was Galveston. Why did Galveston create a commission form of government? A hurricane. That's why they created a commission form of government.

Galveston was wiped off the map in 1900, and they needed a form of government that would help them in effectively putting their community back together, they created and adopted a commission form of government. It consists of a mayor and two commissioners. The terms were two years. Side note, very few cities are commission forms of government anymore. Turns out, it's pretty easy to corrupt a commissioned form of government when you got two guys in charge of 15 different things.

So not many of them are left. But I did not know this, we were a commissioned form of government in 1944 all the way through 1971. In 1971, we changed from a commission form of government by this is all by election, by the way, amendments to our charter we changed to a seven member council, and at this point, in 1971, we adopted three year terms. So this is when we first adopted three year terms. The structure was seven council members, and the mayor was not elected at large.

The mayor was appointed amongst the seven council members. So from '19 and we have the three year terms, population about 1,700. So from 1971 until 1995, large. The mayor was appointed amongst the seven council members who were elected at large. And then in 1995, population about 27,000.

We changed that structure of government. And, oh, by the way, between 1971 and 1995, there were multiple attempts to amend the charter to have an at large elected mayor, and they failed. I think there was probably two where there was an attempt to make those changes, and they failed at the ballot. But they were approved in 1995. The structure, which is the structure we have in today, we have six city council members elected by district.

We have a mayor elected at large. Our charter says, and this has been in our charter since 1995, that a majority vote is required for a runoff for the top two candidates in a district race, but in the male race, it calls for plurality. It does not say plurality in the charter. It says whoever receives the most votes, which is a plurality. And you only have a runoff if there happens to be a tie.

So where does the constitutional question come in? A city that has lengthened its non civil service officers' terms above two years must, and that is the language in the constitution, must elect all members of its governing body, including the mayor, by majority vote of the qualified voters. Our current charter, four dot o five, article four, states that council district seats are decided by majority vote, but the mayor is elected by the most votes or otherwise known as a plurality. That's the current situation. So the constitutional question is easily answered with respect to the law.

So article 11, section five says, the adoption or amendment of charters is subject to such limitations as may be prescribed by the legislature, and no charter or any ordinance passed under said charter shall contain any provision inconsistent, and that's the word in the constitution, this is a quote, with the constitution of the state. The Texas attorney general has opined that Article 11, Section 11 b, requires a municipality that has lengthened its non civil service officers' terms to fill a vacancy by majority qualified voters at a special election. Critically, what the AG said is that the constitutional requirement prevails over an inconsistent charter provision, which is what we have. We have a Texas constitution that says that council members with three year terms or greater must receive a majority of the vote, and a charter provision that says that they only need to receive the most votes. That is inconsistent.

And that's it. Happy to answer any questions if you happen to have any.

Any questions for Mr. Zeck?

Mr. Zeck, thank you for the presentation. Do you mind going through the order of presidents if the current mayor was to succeed, how would play out?

I'm going to give you my opinion, because I don't think it's ever it hasn't happened, and I haven't seen any cases. But based on the language in in the Texas constitution, in order to be elected to a three year term, you must receive a majority vote. That's what the constitution says. You must elect by majority vote. So my position is that if an individual has not received a majority vote and the individual if and the individual who has the next most votes decides not to participate in the runoff, then the next closest person would then participate in runoff.

Because even though next closest person decides to withdraw from the race, that person who had the most votes still didn't get the most votes, didn't get the majority votes. They still didn't receive the majority vote, and that's what the constitution requires. If that third assuming there's just three people, if that third person dies or decides not to participate in the runoff, that person remaining still has not received the majority votes. So the logical conclusion would be, because you have a vacancy in the office and nobody received majority votes, you would have to order a special election and hold another election to fill the office. Thank you.

Any other questions? All right, thank you Mr. Zeck. We'll let our public hearing commence where we left off.

Good evening, council members. My name is Kristen Carden, and I have I'm a resident here in New Braunfels, and I have been here for over twenty years. Let me start by saying thank you for doing the hard things. I know that was hard for everybody, and I appreciate the time and the effort that you guys put in every day to this community. I'll get into a little bit more of that in a minute.

As I mentioned, I've been here over twenty years, and I started serving the city in one way, shape, or form not long after moving here in 2005. And I really haven't stopped since. Over the last few months with the current election and then most specifically in the last few days into this runoff, some of the behavior that I have seen from citizens of this town is truly appalling and truly to me what I find embarrassing. The truth is you would think that the Texas constitution personally offended them. Here's the reality.

The law says if nobody gets over 50%, you have a runoff. It's not complicated. It may be inconvenient to some people politically, but inconvenience does not invalidate election law. I keep hearing people say, well, the Charter said this or that's just how we've always done it. Okay.

But the constitution supersedes the charter. This is how our city, state, and nation work. I understand people being upset the mistake wasn't caught sooner. I understand demanding competence and accountability from city government. These are fair concerns, but there is a huge difference between demanding accountability and trying to whip people into a frenzy because your preferred candidate didn't win outright.

We've seen the attacks, of course, on social media. We've seen them tonight. 've seen them on the dais. Some of these online activities specifically behave as though compromise, patience, and basic civility are signs of weakness. Everything is outrage, Everything is accusations. Everything is yelling. The answer is simple. Hold the runoff, follow the law, and let the people vote. This is the democratic process. I also want to say this.

The the constant hospice hospicility. Hostility sorry. I work in hospice, so I'm used to saying that word. Hostility is poisoning communities all across America, and I don't want it poisoning New Braunfels too. I love this town too much, and I love it because of the people like yourselves and the people who came before you that created the amazing place that it is today.

I don't think we're screwed. I think we live here because we love this place and people move here and live, work, and play here because it's an amazing town and because of people like you that put all of your time and effort into creating it. I thank you again, as I mentioned, for listening to truth, for standing for the entire community. I can't tell you how many people that I've spoken to personally since all of this stuff started going down that had one personal issue with a permit not going through when they wanted or not being responded to for an email quickly enough. And that was their one personal issue that they took to social media or to loud voices that think they're actually informed and went with that.

And some of them voted because of that, because of their own personal issues. They're not looking at the entire community and what is great for each and every one of us. It's never going to make everybody happy. And never nobody's going to get that one thing that they're pissed off about from 2004 fixed now. But what we can do is go forward. And what we can do is work together and support one another. Thank you.

Am I good? So my name is Shane. I am a resident. I am

What's your last name, Shane?

Is it a requirement? Yes. Okay. Shane Slattery, resident of New Braunfels. We've heard from a ton of different people. But I'm gonna read this off because I typed it up so that I didn't miss a single thing. The citizens of New Braunfels have lost their faith, trust, and confidence in that door alarm as well. But they've lost their faith, trust, and confidence in your ability to lead this city with integrity and transparency. That's not an opinion. That's a verdict the voters already delivered once.

And I have a feeling they're prepared to do it again. The June runoff exists because the community looked at what you offered and said no. Outside money, unanswered questions, a campaign bankrolled by interests that don't live here and don't answer to anyone who does. The people saw it clearly even if you didn't want them to. But the election is only part of the story. A mayor leads. He doesn't rule. And the way you even addressed your own council members tonight and cut them off after your crony said, I start a motion, when you knew other people had questions, was out of

line. That

moment told us everything about you, if we didn't already know. In case you've forgotten, and that goes for everyone up there, you don't run this city, we do. And you answer to us, not the other way around. My prayer is that the citizens of New Braunfels wake up and show up and vote you out because we know that you do not have the integrity to concede the runoff yourself. Thank you.

Mayor and counsel, Larry Lane, resident. Mayor, may I direct a question to mister Zeck in the with the hope that I don't incur any legal costs. Mister Zeck, regarding our charter clause, which is in conflict with the state constitution, can that be fixed with a simple magisterial edit or must we vote on a new charter clause to govern our elections? That's my only question, sir. I'll take my answer from the back. Thank you.

Because I'm a lawyer, I'm going to give you a nuanced answer. No, you cannot change your charter other than by an amendment by election. So in order to amend the charter to change it from plurality to majority, you'll need to have an election and it would go on the ballot. However, it's in there, but it's unenforceable. So I wouldn't recommend it, obviously, but you shouldn't keep it in there for another thirty years. We should probably have an election and take it out. Does that answer? I hope that answers the question.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Penny Pierboom, and I have lived in New Braunfels for seventeen years. This is my first foray into politics. I can assure you it's something I've I've stayed away from because it consumes me. And when I heard all the rhetoric lately and all the it made me concerned and it made me go searching for facts and and I learned some things.

And so I came here tonight one sec, one sec. I came here tonight because frankly I'm troubled by the direction some of this public discourse has taken over last week. Look, people have every right to be frustrated about how this happened. I'm just as frustrated. This is not an outcome anybody would have wanted.

The city absolutely should have caught this conflict in the charter years ago and accountability matters. But what concerns me far more is watching people act like the Texas constitution itself is somehow optional because they don't like the outcome. It's not optional. The constitution says a candidate has to receive a majority vote and no one did. So now we have a runoff. That's not corruption. That's not a conspiracy. That's the law. And we've got to move past how it happened because we don't have a choice. Some folks online seem to think if they shout fraud loudly enough, reality changes.

It doesn't. Social media outrage does not override the Texas constitution. It just causes more confusion and anxiety. Volume doesn't equal value. Criticism doesn't equal contribution.

Noise doesn't equal nuance, and anger is not evidence. What's what's disappointing is seeing this my way or no way mentality infect local politics. If your candidate didn't win outright, then then turn out and vote again. That's how elections work in a constitutional republic. You don't get to try to delegitimatize the process simply because the rules became inconvenient for you, inconvenient for your side this time.

And let me say respectfully, some people appear more interested in carrying pitchforks than actually listening to what the law requires. They've already decided the answer they want, and anything short of that becomes corrupt in their minds. That's not healthy for the city. We can disagree politically without tearing apart the legitimacy of our institutions every time things don't go our way. We can be adults.

We can be neighbors. We can respect the law even when it frustrates us. And mayor Leonard, I want to personally commend you for continuing to lead through what I know cannot be an easy situation. Leadership is not just about standing strong when things are popular or comfortable. Sometimes leadership means following through on your responsibility even when the pressure is intense and the criticism is loud.

I support you in continuing to uphold the Texas constitution and allowing this process to move forward lawfully, respectfully, and transparently for the people of this city. And frankly, my greatest concern is not that we are are having a runoff. My concern is that not enough people voted, and the faith of our city was not with the majority of even those that did vote, which is exactly why runoff elections exist. I appreciate your acknowledgment of the mistakes that were made. I appreciate accountability being taken, and I appreciate hearing a reminder tonight that this election has not yet been decided.

The voters will decide in the runoff. That is exactly what should happen. Our constitution does not bend at the convenience of political emotion. It certainly does not bend to Facebook comment sections. Let's lower the temperature a little bit. Let's stop screaming at each other. Let's stop treating fellow citizens like enemies, and let's go have the election the lawful way at the ballot box. Thank you.

Angela Allen. I'm a resident here in New Braunfels, Texas. So I need clarification on a few things. Gail, when you mentioned, and I so I want it clear. When you mentioned first seeing in the charter the most votes, was that in January? Because you gave two timelines. You gave a timeline in January and then you also gave another timeline in March. Is that right?

When I noticed that the 2023 order, which I produced, had a majority. That's when I went and asked Val because I noticed it was inconsistent with what was noted in the charter, which is the most number of votes.

When did that first happen?

That was in January when I talked to her

about Okay. So was it at the so were you the one who actually wrote the election order?

Yes.

Okay. So seeing that it was in '23, a majority, which was a mistake versus the charter, and you corrected it. Right?

Yes.

Okay. You corrected the election order, and it and so it was a change.

Yes.

Did you tell anyone at all about what you had found?

I spoke to Val, who was illegal.

Okay. But but she gave testimony that y'all didn't go into depth there. But other than Vow, you being the city secretary, being in charge of the elections

I did not tell anyone else. Why? Because Point I

of order, please. The discussion is approval of the ordinance declaring the canvas of the results of the general election. It's not putting our city secretary

Okay. So do I go to do I talk during this one or the next one? Because I have questions as to why did why did we

What questions have nothing to do with discussion item a or b if you're asking the city secretary about what's already previously happened? We're trying to move forward to what's on the actual agenda.

I think it's important to determine the runoff based on who actually had the knowledge of beforehand because the question isn't the constitutional law. We all get that. Right? We just have heard it for two hours now. The Texas constitution says that this race must be won by majority vote. No one is arguing that.

And so that's what we need to move forward on.

But understood. But I but where is where this.

That's what needs to

Where is the due diligence in understanding why such an important change and a mistake was caught, but yet it was not told to even our current mayor?

Already addressed that in executive session? This is not that.

I think that's exactly why our city attorney is no longer with us.

Those questions have not been asked in a public. And and that those questions have not

that down.

Okay. So I wanna note, I believe a full investigation needs to happen because those questions need to be asked and those questions need

to be answered.

Already had addressed that he's gonna have an investigation, but that has nothing to do with item a. Discussion considered approval of an ordinance declaring the canvas of the results of general election held on May 2 and elect two council members and the mayor of New Braunfels. That's what we're talking about specifically.

Understood.

The other stuff was from the executive session.

So we can't ask questions that relate into determining whether or not ethically a runoff should happen based on the evidence?

We discussed that in full detail even with the outside attorney.

Okay. Just note that that timeline needs to be discussed and also who was told about any of that needs to be discussed. It's important. And we're gonna do we're gonna do Okay.

The mayor's already

My next question is going back to the gentleman that is outside counsel. When you you gave that great presentation, and I may have missed it, but when when did the constitution change? You didn't give a timeline. No. The the rule that says it has to be a majority vote.

1958.

It chain it it's always been that since 1958. But yet our charter said plurality in 1995. And yet you served as city staff for how long?

She's going down it again. And

you didn't catch it at that time? Okay. That's all I have to say.

Good evening. One of the questions that I have

What's your name, ma'am?

I'm sorry. Tracy Byrne. And I'm a resident of New Braunfels. We've looked at a lot of information that's been presented tonight about how the city charter says one thing and the constitution says the other. However, we've never really discussed how the terms of the plurality vote ended up in the charter in the first place.

That was not really addressed, not according to some of the research that's been done. And I'd like to at least be able to read this so that it can be addressed one way or another. Much has been said about the plurality method for choosing the at large mayor position and how it conflicts with the Texas state constitution. But in 1995, the city officials were aware of that, yet they still created the ballot item that was passed by the New Braunfels residents by a two to one margin on 05/06/1995, electing future mayors using the plurality method. With some research, it's necessary to go back to twelve or thirteen years before 1995.

In 1982, the city of New Braunfels, the city's charter review committee, recommended using the plurality method to elect the three at large seats because it is most cost effective and provides a strong defense against discrimination of the majority method as noted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, the city attorney at that time, John Chun, found the plurality method to be in violation of Texas law, so they used the majority method to decide the election. As a result, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a lawsuit in the federal court alleging that using the majority method for selecting the at large seats was discriminatory and in violation of the Voter Rights Act. The lawsuit was settled in November 1983, changing the voter method back to plurality for the at large seats. Because the lawsuit was filed in federal court, the settlement agreement was signed by a US district court judge moving the city's process of electing the three at large council seats under the jurisdiction of federal law, which superseded any Texas or local laws.

In 1994 and 1995, the time frame an election to change the charter was being discussed. The city attorney was now Jacqueline Chin oh, sorry, Jacqueline Colm. A pending lawsuit was prepared causing a vote to change the charter allowing all New Braunfels citizens to vote for mayor. At this time, the Texas was still under the Federal Department of Justice's direct jurisdiction to ensure compliance with section five of the VRA, which is the Voters Rights Act, for any city charter changes, redistricting and use of specific voting methods, plurality or majority Creating a ballot measure ensuring the method of electing the mayor followed correct legal terms, they had to consider the lawsuit from 1983, potential violations of the Voter Rights Act, the Texas constitution, and yet remained aware of the Department of Justice required preapproval to charter changes per section five of the Voter Rights

Act.

So in 1995, the decision was made to create the polarity voting system for the at large mayor. And that remained, according to the information we provided tonight, in place all of this time. So I think that there needs to be more research and consideration when determining the current situation stating that the Charter conflicts with the Texas constitution or does it conflict with our federal law as well? I adamantly request that the city staff and the council for the sake of the residents of New Braunfels both current and future Do whatever it takes to make a 100% sure that you've got this right before we do a runoff.

Council, mayor. My name is Destin Singleton. I am a resident of District 3. I'll be brief since it is after 10PM. I'm a parent and a business person in this community, and I'm here tonight because I believe most of us want the same thing. We want this city to work. We want it to work well. We want a thriving economy with jobs and housing. We want it to be a place where our kids, yeah, they might leave to go away to school, but they we want them to come back. They're the backbone of this community.

So it's super clear. The Texas constitution requires a majority vote. No one got it. So we have a runoff. Super simple. That isn't a failure of this system. That's this system working and working really well. So the frustration, it's absolutely fair. There's a big difference between frustration and this very negative rhetoric that turns every mistake into a conspiracy and every request for calm into evidence of wrongdoing. That's just not the case.

That thinking doesn't protect our democracy. It actually erodes it. This loud and disruptive voices are a small majority of our community. Most of us are exhausted by the noise. We want solutions, not conflict. Water, growth, public safety, economic opportunity, those aren't ideological issues. Those are New Braunfels issues, and we have to work together. And we're only going to solve them together. And this is exactly how democracy works. We go campaign.

We knock on doors. We make your case. And what is not acceptable is harassing people or showing up here as if the constitution should be set aside because the outcome was not what we wanted. I appreciate all of you doing the hard, hard things. I mean, we've all been in this room.

This has been a difficult day. It's been a difficult week, couple of weeks. But right now, we have to move forward together, and we have real challenges ahead. These problems require the the reasonable majority of people, and I appeal to every single one of my neighbors, the reasonable majority to show up. Those that didn't show up, what was it, 17% that showed up? And I hope that is who shows up on June 9 to June 13. And I want those people to show up in these chambers for years to come. Thank you.

Seeing no one else, close

public hearing. Discussion? Mayor, if I may, I do have some remarks before you all take action on this. Out of respect for everyone, I don't want to have my back towards anyone, so I'm just going to go ahead and make my brief remarks from my chair. Before I do, I do want to publicly thank Val Acevedo for her service to this organization. I was here as Assistant City Manager when we hired Val. And so she has been good to work with and no one should ever question her professionalism, her dedication or her integrity. I also want to thank Nathan Brown, Senior Assistant City Attorney for helping us through the remainder of this meeting.

To the

mayor and city council, Mr. French, supporters of each candidate and to my fellow residents and staff members. You heard an explanation of the laws and the conflict between our charter and the state constitution and the facts about how we got here. We understand that not recognizing that conflict between the charter and the constitution has caused significant frustration, anger, mistrust and distress in our community and for that we are deeply and sincerely sorry. While this is extremely regrettable it is not a result of deceit, deception or dishonesty.

The outcome is being felt by the community, the candidates, the council and this entire organization that I'm proud to serve. To the staff, I'm very proud of, I've been with the city now for eighteen years and I'm extremely proud of serving with all the public servants that are in this organization. They're extremely dedicated, they're professional, experienced and this is the best organization that I've ever worked for working with the best people I've ever worked for. So thank you very much for all of that. We understand that this has caused mistrust and anger.

Public trust once lost is restored. It does not return with a single promise or press release and we recognize that it will take time for the city to regain it and we are committed to taking these steps to do that. And with that, Mayor we're certainly will work with you all to initiate an independent review and we'll fully cooperate with whoever ultimately is assigned that task. With that, I'm done.

Thank you Mr. Camerino. Any discussion?

I think it's pretty straightforward. I have a motion to approve item A.

I'll second.

Mayor Pro Tem Spradley moves for approval. Council member Kapizi seconds. Mrs. Wilkinson will you please call roll. Council member Carter.

I'd actually like to amend that proposed motion. Can I do that? I would like to add that this would be approved with the commitment to amend the charter. I'm sorry. From all aspects.

Member Carter, I may have been mistaken. Didn't realize there was a second.

Who moved? Mayor Pro Tem Spradley.

Okay, was there

a second? Council Member Capizi.

Okay, I'm sorry, they have to take that motion first. So it may very well just proceed. For future instances, if you're a second, you can amend the motion at that point.

Okay. Then no.

Member

Edwards. Aye. Mayor Pro Temps Bradley.

Aye.

Council Member Lebowski. Aye. Council Member Ryan. Aye. Mayor Leonard.

Aye. Motion carries. And mayor we are certainly committed to bringing an item before this council to initiate that charter review with the charter review committee.

Thank you sir. Next item is discuss and consider the approval of an ordinance ordering a runoff election to be held in the city of New Braunfels on 06/13/2026 to elect a council member for City Council District 6 and the mayoral seat and established early voting locations and polling places election and making provisions for the conduct of the election declaring an effective date upon one reading. Mrs. Wilkinson.

Yes Gail Wilkinson, City Secretary's office. This is simply an item that requires a motion to or to not consider ordering a runoff.

Okay, thank you. And are there any other presentations on this? And again this is ministerial act so we're bound by the constitution But we will open this to public hearing. If anybody would like to speak to this item, please step up to the podium, state your name, whether you're a resident, nonresident, or live in the ETJ.

David Warmke, District 5. Mister mayor, Neil, the last election when you were elected, you and I had a very frank conversation in Benny's Box Office when you were first running. I thought it was really good. And it was election with about the same number of votes as here. I think maybe within a 100 or so. And I really was disappointed that there was no turnout for that because there were some real viable candidates options. And I wrote a song called I call it New Braunfels. It's kind of a lament song, and you allowed me to play that here. And I thank you for That was that was a really nice thing to do, and I always remember that. And you're at a point now, you got a thousand less votes, and I don't think chamber members forgot to vote.

You're down 49 to 38 with 11% with Allen.

One key point of order here. We're we're just talking about discussing consider approval ordinance

Yeah. Talking about the runoff. Yeah. It's runoff. I'm just suggesting that you do some real leadership and just step down and make things better. This is not gonna get worse. This is gonna get worse. Not get better.

Anything to do with this ordinance?

Well, it it does.

Asking him to step down.

Yeah. It's an opportunity to speak on the ordinance, but just about it. Think about doing the right thing. There is redemption and grace. Thank you.

Seeing no one else, we'll close public hearing. Any discussion?

I just have a question for Mr. Brown. Have you reviewed this?

No, I have not reviewed this item. I'm sorry. The second item, item B.

I would like it reviewed by attorney

This item is standard and frankly is required by the state constitution that you all call this runoff election Did you review it? As Sir? Did you review it? I did review it. Okay. But we can certainly turn to Mr. Zek if you have any questions about whether the council should act upon this or not.

Think it would be helpful maybe for the entire public not to belabor the fact, but can you clarify what are our liabilities

in regards

Sure. Of Come explain that it's a minister elect.

Ordering an election for a runoff.

The comes the

act. It is a requirement of this body to order the runoff.

Any other discussion?

I still want the point addressed about the Voting Rights Act at the federal level. And I believe that that needs to be incorporated into this review to make sure that we take due time and and research everything. Because I have yet to receive the entire record of what has happened with this charter, you know, until I see all of those notes, I'm not gonna be convinced that there this wasn't done for cause. I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying it's wrong because I'm not an expert.

But if there was rationale and if there was some DOJ weigh in, know somebody needs to be making some calls to get them involved as well.

I must approve this item.

I second.

Mayor Pro Temps Bradley moves for approval. Council Member Lebowski seconds. Mrs. Wilkinson will you please call roll.

Council Member Carter. Nay. Council Member Capizi.

Aye.

Council Member Edwards.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Temps Bradley. Aye. Council member Lebowski. Aye. Council member Ryan.

Carries. Next item is discuss and consider approval of the second and final reading of an ordinance requested by Killen Griffin Fairmont plc on behalf of Farmers Mutual Fire, Leslie Lamers and Tom Tomlinson, Melvin Nolte junior, Chad l Nolte, Sandra j Nolte, Coalmount Properties LLC, and Q Dream LLC to rezone approximately 2.112 acres out of city Blocks 20042007 And 2014 from C2 General Business District, M1 Light Industrial District, and M1SUP Light Industrial District with a special use permit for short term rental to MUBSUP High Intensity Mixed Use District with a special use permit currently addressed at 342352 And 353 East Bridge Street, 343 And 353 East Mill Street, 218232266 And 288 North Market Avenue and 309 And 351 East San Antonio Street. And before I turn it over, I am gonna recuse myself and to squash all the crazy conspiracy theories. I have a second time submitted my affidavit of abstention stating that I represent one of the property owners that has sold a property to the development and I'm not involved in the development or with the developer in any way. So that should quash all the concerns about conspiracies.

Mayor Pro Tem council, good evening. Jordan Matney, deputy city manager. This is for the second reading of the rezoning of an item for the Dittlinger Mill. I presented this at our last city council meeting, but I'd like to go through the presentation again. To begin, I would like to provide a brief history of the Dittlinger or the ADM Mill.

The Dittlinger dates all the way back to 1890 when construction first began on the site. This the property was known as the Dittlinger Mill for many years and produced flour and seed. It was purchased by Archer's Daniel Midland, which goes by ADM, and then operated for over a hundred and thirty years combined and closed in March 2023. This is why sometimes you hear it referred to Dittlinger, sometimes you hear it referred to as ADM. This rezoning opportunity is for redevelopment of what has formerly been a heavy industrial use in our downtown.

It creates real opportunities for us to have significant floodplain preservation, which is important to our community. Of course, we do have two rivers flowing through our community. This property, Tube Shoot Park is in the center of this property. Prince Salms Park is across the river. Henman Island Park is across the river as well.

And then, of course, increases access to the Como River. As I mentioned, it converts heavy industrial use to a new mixed use development, which will, of course, increase the value and also will increase the increment in TERS number three where this property is located. Here, you can see the properties that we are discussing today. The properties are located along Market Avenue, West of East San Antonio Street. The request this evening is to rezone these properties to the same as a previous rezoning for the abutting properties.

So it will move forward the overall redevelopment of the Dittlinger Mill property. Property. These properties are located less than a quarter mile from the from Main Plaza, and the adjacent properties include, of course, the vacant mill, the Prince Salms Inn, some short term rentals, offices, twenty twenty half of second twenty four, as I have mentioned, the previous, what you see in orange on the first slide, was rezoned from heavy industrial use to MUB with a special use overlay to allow mixed uses. Those mixed uses include hotel, residential, restaurants, retail, offices, and parking facilities. I think it's important for us to understand what the current zoning and what the the proposed zoning will allow.

So you can see here some of the allowed uses within the current zoning manufacturing. Things include things items included in m one zoning or machine shops, manufacturing plants, auto repair, metal fabrication shops, tire sales, outside storage yards. Those are not items that are compatible with the redevelopment of downtown. Here you can see some of the uses that are allowed in MUB with the overlaying special use permit. You can see hotel, residential, quality of life amenities, recreational amenities, retail, and restaurants.

We mailed notice to 27 property owners within 200 feet of this property as required by state law. Eight responses have been sent in in favor with one in opposition. As I reviewed at our previous meeting, I do want to go over the policy alignment for this project. This project aligns with policies The the original policy that I'm gonna reference is the downtown implementation plan, which was adopted in 2010, all the way up to our most recently adopted strategic plan. So I'm not gonna go over all of these.

Each of these slides are gonna highlight each of the areas where this project aligns with plans that have been adopted by the city council, but I do wanna highlight a few. So for envision New Braunfels, which is our comprehensive plan, incentivizing infill development and redevelopment, implementing downtown improvements to include a hotel, additional residential, revitalize the core of New Braunfels, and enhance local recreational venues. You will see with the applicant's presentation some preservation of open space on this property outside of current parkland. So they are reserving a significant amount of the property as open space and floodplain preservation. Continuing with Envision New Braunfels, I wanted to highlight the enhancement of a sense of place through unique unique spaces, encouraging thoughtful mixed use projects that blend in with the character and design of the community.

So, again, this is an opportunity to extend the character of downtown into what was previously a heavy industrial use. Locating parking on un underutilized parcels citywide and within core attraction corridors. Our land use fiscal analysis, which has been adopted as part of our comprehensive plan update to highlight a few, providing a mix of uses and building types in a more walkable context, prioritize infill projects that add people in buildings and areas with existing infrastructure. So when we look at this project, we have existing roadways. We have existing utilities.

Police and fire already service this area. And increased tax revenue without significant significant impacts on services and infrastructure costs. Our strategic plan, which was adopted in 2024, we provided an update very recently to the city council to highlight a couple of the initiatives outlined in the strategic plan, incentivize mixed use developments and redevelopments in targeted locations. Of course, downtown is one of those. Beautification and streetscape enhancements, protecting historic structures, preserving and increasing green space and tree canopy, and protecting natural resources, and reconnecting the community by mitigating highways and waterways.

The downtown implementation plan, which was adopted in 2010 and we have been working towards implementation of for many years to highlight just a few, identifying large industrial lots in downtown as a barrier to revitalization. Of course, this project aligns with that perfectly. Infill development with pedestrian oriented businesses and the suggestion of a pedestrian bridge over the Comal River. So this is something that we've been talking about for many, many years. As you'll see from the applicant's presentation, this is an opportunity to move forward pedestrian bridge.

The New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation recently adopted four strategic priorities. This project aligns with two of those, enhancing sense of place and planning and infrastructure. And before I hand it over to the applicant, I did want to cover just a couple of things really quickly. I know from the last meeting, there was a question about a planning commissioner and a recusal from this item. That planning commissioner did sign an affidavit declaring that he was going to recuse because of his part ownership in a property.

That affidavit was signed and turned in prior to the meeting, and that individual removed himself from the dais prior to the presentation of this item. So before staff started to present, he recused himself from the item and removed himself from the chambers, and he returned after that item was complete and voted on. I also want to address a couple of things that have come up about transparency or about making sure that we have information out for the public. What you are discussing tonight is simply a land use issue. Case.

So the applicant is not required to provide a site plan. They are providing you with a site plan and renderings. As far as city staff is concerned, when we talk about this project, we have talked about this project extensively outside of a rezoning case. This is a project that we have known for many years is going to be tremendously important to the redevelopment of downtown. When ADM closed and moved out of downtown, we knew that it was an opportunity to change a heavy industrial use in our downtown in into a more mixed use environment, a more walkable environment to extend the character of downtown all the way to the Comal River and then activate those areas that are already city park land.

This project has been talked about extensively for several years. We highlighted this project in our our excuse me, our State of the City. Our State of the City update was provided no less than 15 times throughout this community to various groups. Anybody who asked, we presented the State of the city. It's also available on our website as well. We also provided updates on the Dittlinger redevelopment during our strategic planning process. We have also had some presentations at the Economic Corporation as well. So I just wanted to provide that additional information. I am happy to answer any questions. If you don't have any questions for me, then I'll turn it over to the applicant.

Thank you, miss Matney. Does council have any questions? Thank you. The developer?

Hi, good evening counsel. Ashley Fairmont with Killen Griffin and Fairmont. Nice to see you all again. Thank you Jordan for the presentation. I I know we gave the presentation last time and it's late, but I will hit the highlights if it's okay with you all.

As Jordan mentioned, the Dittlinger Mill closed several years ago. It was in operation for a hundred and thirty seven years. The goal here is to adaptively reuse the existing structures and create a really a sense of community and place that will serve existing residents of New Braunfels, people who want to visit New Braunfels, and provide just a mixture of uses and really a destination where people will wanna go. Again, in 2024, we rezoned nine acres. That was the the main portion, and we're able to acquire additional 2.2 acres, and that's why we're here tonight is to rezone and give one comprehensive zoning to the entire project area.

I just some I'm sure you all are familiar, but some pictures of the existing mill. And, again, our rezoning request is to take those industrial properties and turn them to mixed use and then the commercial at the corner. Really, the goal here, as I mentioned, is to create somewhere where people want to live, work, visit, shop, and really take what is a vacant mill and industrial property and create a space that is a tax generator for the city, ad valorem taxes, sales taxes, and then also is activating open space and park space, and again creating this destination for people to visit. Here is just a plan that we shared last time. This is an area kind of the buildable areas are in black.

The striped areas are existing structures that will remain and be incorporated into the project, including the mill building, warehouse, tanks, the silos as well. And then just some renderings that we shared last time of kind of the vision of this area and these large pedestrian spaces. The goal is to have people walk through this area and really be outside, have people sitting outside eating, living, working, and kind of creating this active space where people always are and businesses want to be. Here's some more of the open space. And then here is a a site plan, a use plan that we shared as well.

As Jordan mentioned, zoning is very early on in the process. As soon as we know if the rezoning is approved and what is the whole project area, the project will be obviously designed in great detail, go through all of the public processes with the city in terms of engineering, but this can give you an idea of commercial, office, residential, reuse of buildings, as well as the city park, the floodplain, and what will remain open space and really create kind of community space, outdoor space, and then also the parking garage, which is very important to this project and we believe important to downtown as well. And then I I won't go through these in detail again. I know I did last time, but as part of the MUB, we are also adding the SUP. So not only are we taking away the industrial zoning, but we are adding more restrictions on the mixed use zoning.

So there's restriction against 87 of the uses that are in the mixed use zoning district. There are requirements for parking and parking garages and how everything fronts on the street. You know, again, creating that pedestrian experience with the setback, compatibility setbacks next to residential properties, and then some additional requirements as well that we've worked with city city staff on. So with that, I'm happy to go into more detail or answer any questions that you all may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Paramount. Anyone council have questions for her? Thank you. Thank you. So at this time, I'm going open it up for public comment. If you don't mind if you have public comments, just form a small line.

I've got the presentation.

Thank you.

ADM mill redevelopment. This is the second time this has been addressed. December 2004. There's a presentation with a lot of details, and I used it in a January presentation. A lot more details than we have now. So I've got presentation tonight. It has part of that and some new stuff. Let me get into it quickly. Massive secretive LLC abound. Conflicts of interest abound.

Insidious step by step acquisitions, which is interesting. It's not all done at one time. This meeting last week, two weeks ago, lots of pretty photographs, lots of priority things, not really any real meat. Smoke and mirrors. You know, there used to be a lot of presentations like this. A year or so ago, there weren't. I would usually call them out and you get presentations with real data. So here's some real data from December. Here's what you saw today. This is what you saw last December.

Now this is a bigger scale, and it also has some statistics on what's going to be there, the square footage of restaurants, hotel, retail. When you add it all that all up, it's about 800,000 square feet of development, less 200,000 square feet of parking garage. That's a lot downtown. I think it's a great idea, but this is way, way, way too much. So over the top.

There's this one interesting filing about traffic. It is inconsistent with the TIA work ship qualities that was presented. Restaurant and silo events are missing. Shopping plaza retail honestly highly different. Please update and include the submittal with scoping.

I don't know if that's been done or not. So here's what was submitted back in December. Notice the bottom line down there, 12,500 trips per day of traffic. It was huge. To give you an idea, it is a length of cars, 26.5 miles, 54.45 miles long.

If you started out on 07/25, went to Seguin, came over back 46, went down to 725 again on on Seguin, back 46 and come back, that would almost get it. You have to do a little bit of extra going to the Cypress bin. Over 18 parcels of land, five by the former mayor. This is my first I had a that the wrong one got pulled. But if you go to look at traffic counts on the state of Texas, the traffic count as of 2020 on San Antonio Street was 2,000, projected to be 3,000 now.

Now we're adding 12,500, and that is a giant increase. Barca Rosa Barca by Creekside, Barca Rosa Road, you know what I'm saying, my lips are dry. 7,000 cars a day there. I'm talking about adding almost twice that. It's a huge amount of traffic, and I don't see that's been addressed.

There are LLCs abounding, partnerships, a land around conflict of interest, planning commission, refuel, mayor recusal. I did a little map to look at it, and the things you see in green are basically parts that they've already done in light green. The things you see in lighter colors are all LLCs. There are a lot of them there. There are a lot of questions.

They could all be fine, but there's a lot of questions that need to be addressed. 8,800,000 square foot development on nine and a half acres with floodplain on about essentially 2,200 square feet of land. It's gotta be very vertical. This is huge. It's too much. 12,500 cars that they added in downtown. That's nuts. Absolutely nuts. LLCs are getting in the game. Safety leaders, mayor planning commission recusals.

It's the same old game that's been played here. None of us are good. Let's wait. Let's wait. Have a newly elected mayor look at this and look at it with a clean bill of health. There have been a lot of LLCs here. I noticed the Alligator Park, that there was an issue with LLC there. We need to make this clean. Thank you. God bless

letting me come up.

Again, my name's Julie King. I'm a resident. I talked about procedure and process before, and I'm going to go for the ask right away. I want you to defer this and take it off the agenda until we have time to get more information. He did a great job on this presentation comparing what the nine acres looked like to what it looks like now.

And I will say, having gone to that planning committee meeting, that the person who asked for that was told by the presenter that it was not available. And if she had additional questions about it, she should talk to her office privately or offline. When someone responds in that fashion, I don't consider that sharing until it came to the whole greater council last week. And we clearly know what the objectives are. They've been defined under a variety of different things. And I look at it as not a zero sum game. It's not an industrial

paper to be shown? You want that to be shown?

Yes.

Can you

show that, please?

Clearly what says it's on here is this is a part of the strategic plan, and shame on the public for not reading it or possibly attending the public forums. What I'm going to say is it's a zero sum game. It's not industrial blighted area versus this density. There has to be a middle ground. And visually, what I put up on the last slide earlier, what 10 stories of residential looks like, permanently change the waterfront.

It will permanently impact those that live in the adjacent historic neighborhood. And yes, they sent out letters, and I won't keep us long here tonight, but the EDC's involved, of course, because they're the ones who've designed the incentives. And the developer clearly knew about these going into it. That's one of the objectives is to include variants for height restrictions, density limits, parking minimums, that kind of thing. Someone asked, is the parking going to be for visitors free?

The applicant could not respond at the time. These are questions this is the biggest project in the fourteen years I've lived here to push it through at this session when we're all tired, I don't really think it's fair to the citizens. And so I would appreciate I'm requesting that this be pulled from tonight's agenda and be put on an agenda later when instead of showing renderings at grade level of pedestrians, we show what 10 stories looks like. And I don't think the citizens of New Braunfels, once it goes to staff, we will never see it again. It doesn't face any public scrutiny after this last and final reading.

It's there for a reason. If you've been listening to the citizens who've been freaking out about growth, we're not noisy. I mean, that's a recurring theme. Here's a chance to take your time and represent the citizens and listen to their concerns about the implications and the unintended consequences if this program of this magnitude goes goes forward. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening everyone. My name is Jonathan Alorda. I'm a city resident. I just have some quick remarks about this. I guess there's two sides to every coin.

When I go downtown, I really enjoy it but I run out of space to walk through pretty quickly. There's just really not that much to see. So an extension to that, that right now we get when we have to drive thirty, forty five minutes to another city to go do, I think would be quite welcome. I think there are some things that we should consider when thinking of projects like these. I know there's a lot of concern about traffic but at a certain point you have to decide on whether you're going to let car dependency continue to strangle developments that people can spend time on.

You can either build a place for people or you can build a place for cars. And if you build a place for cars you run out of space really quickly and it's honestly just not that fun. So I don't know the particulars, I think there's some concerns about how many stories buildings are, things like that. But generally speaking, what else would you do with a place like this? It's been years now and I think those renderings are a good sign of good things to come.

There is an old rail line on there, maybe there's a chance to do like a rails to trail grant. So that can be an opportunity. And yeah, I just think there's I love the city and I've lived here for combined over ten years and I'm not dissing on downtown but it is really tiny. There's not really a whole lot to do. And if you want people to be able to spend more time there and there'll be more opportunities for local business and innovation and entrepreneurialism and people who want to stay here and expand businesses they've started and things like food trucks and stuff like that, they've got to have a place where they can actually take their growing business and maybe this is a good opportunity for that.

Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else?

Angela Allen, I'm a resident here in New Braunfels. And I have a few questions to Ashley Fairmont. As far as the two and a half acres, I don't know where Ashley my question is, is the rezoning that we're talking about right now, the two and a half acres, is that where the parking garage is gonna be?

Ms. Allen, if you don't mind just ask your questions and when you're done with the questions I'll have her come Okay. Up and answer

So my question is where exactly is the parking garage gonna be? Is it on the nine acres that it's already been approved or is it on this two acres that we're approving today? And my concern is just the height. And so I had already asked to clarify the height, and I believe it was told that it would be around 80 feet tall, 72 feet actually tall. And I asked, well, what is the tallest other structure in that in downtown area that we have?

What's the tallest point that we currently have right now? And I was told the county courthouse at 80 feet. So my question is is right now the way it's zoned, what's the height restriction right now? And then what is the height restriction of the new zoning? And I agree with Julie King. It's not a no. Right? This this I mean, this looks very nice. My concern is that when we when we blanket zone, because that's what you're gonna do without a PD. If there if it is allowed to be, let's say, a 120 feet tall, are y'all okay with that?

Or would you rather see something eighty feet tall or seventy feet tall? I mean, you have to review every detail of a project. And and if and if you don't have those details and you blanket zone in, then when they come back with the renderings and the final approval, if the zoning allows what it allows, to my understanding, I've heard this all, our hands are tied at that point. So what I'm asking you to do is I'm asking you to get into the details right now of the zoning. And if you're not okay with what this MUBs, SUP, high intensity mixed use district with a special use permit, what it all allows. If you're not okay with any part of that, I'm asking for you to ask the applicant to come back with a PD.

Thank you. Anybody else? Anybody else going once? Going twice? Okay I'm gonna close the public comment. Ms. Furman if you don't mind coming up and answering her questions, please.

Let me

I don't know if I can control it anymore, but in response, yes, the parking garage will be located on a portion of the two acres that we're considering tonight.

Can you turn to that slide to show

working. Sorry.

There we go.

So you see on this exhibit here, it's Number 7. That's where the parking garage would be. The idea being to serve this project, but also provide parking for downtown. And so that that is the goal of the parking area. Regarding height, I'm not familiar with the height of the courthouse, the the existing stacks on the property. I don't have the exact height for those. I I think they're over a 100 feet. So those are are also existing height on the property itself. The existing zoning well, the existing zoning, industrial zoning allows allows for a 120 feet in height. Correct.

Chris, correct me if I'm wrong. And then the MUB also allows for a 120 feet in height, but we do have a height restriction adjacent to residential. So that's part of the SUP conditions is that the height would be stepped up next to the residential properties.

So you said the existing zoning does currently allow for 120 feet? So we could have a 120 foot industrial factories, buildings

Yes.

Heavy haul trucks running through downtown. If we did absolutely nothing and left it exactly like it is right now.

The the two acres acres that considering Yes, sir.

Okay. Any more questions? Thank you. Any discussion at council?

I have a question. This is a straight SUP except for its high density. It's not a type two.

I'm gonna defer to Christopher on that one.

Yeah, the Bronfels has these types, two different types of SUPs you're familiar with. A type two requires a site plan, type one does not. But there's

a list of conditions the applicant included. So it's not

a straight zoning if you will. It is an SUP with

a list of conditions that are included.

Okay. So we have some additional things tied into it because of the structure, correct?

I'm sorry, can you repeat that? Wait, it's

not a straight zoning because because we have some additional items listed in

here. Including the

removal of

allowed uses. So it's

almost a two Okay. Kind of, sort

I would like to see us given the magnitude of this project suspend this until after the runoff. Uh-huh. Because I don't wanna see to that city council what has technically been done to all of us. We've dealt with the cards that we we've we've handled the cards that were dealt. This is a major impact.

I think it's a beautiful thing in many ways, but the high density factor I think needs to be reviewed and considered further. I mean there's traffic implications, there's policing implications, there's fire department. I mean, there's all kinds of implications that I think we would be best served to defer until next month.

Project. I really do like the project. I I think it's gonna I think it's something that would bring bring a lot of life to downtown. New that's I

to

forward. And I mean I think would motion do to approval. That.

I will second.

I want a motion to approval.

So we

have a motion for approval and we have a second. And we need a roll call vote.

Yes. Council Member Carter. Nay. Council Member Capizzi.

Aye.

Council Member Edwards. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Spradley. Aye. Council Member Lebowski. Aye. Council Member Ryan. Aye.

Mr. Camarino, I'm back. So with it getting as late as it is, item E is that something we could take up at another week?

We can sir, we can actually place that item on the May 18 agenda then any action that comes from the approval of that plan then we can bring forward to you all then on May 22.

I'm sorry, I skipped item D.

Yes,

So we'll go to item D and then we'll discuss rescheduling E. So our next item is to discuss and consider approval of the second and final reading of an ordinance requested by John Holler to rezone approximately 1.5 acres out of the Baystone Subdivision Lots 1 And 2 from R2AH single family and two family airport hazard Overlay District and R2 Ah SEP single family and two family airport hazard Overlay District with a special use permit for multi family use to C1 Ah neighborhood Business airport hazard Overlay District currently addressed at 222 And 224 Alvis Lane. Mr. Simont.

Good evening mayor Leonard and council members, Matthew Simont with neighborhood and community planning. This is the second reading of this requested rezoning which is to allow for the intended development of an assisted living facility on property that is approximately one third of a mile Northeast of the intersection of Highway 46 And Alvis Lane. The this agenda item is before you and on the individual agenda tonight is because the city's council vote to approve the first reading was five to two. Here's a current location of the property with current land uses. Notices were mailed to 28 owners of property within 200 feet and we received six objection.

Thank you.

Any questions for Mr. Sumant?

All

right, is the applicant here to add anything?

Yes sir, my name is John Holler, I'm a non resident. Wanna move forward with the development. We're excited about it. It's going to be a big improvement to the neighborhood we think. It's going to add some style and structure in the neighborhood. If you've seen Alba Street, some of the old houses and the things that we tore down, they were pretty dilapidated, rat infested and we think this is going be a nice good facility. It's a boutique kind of a facility in that it's small enough that it's going to have not a lot of movement in and out of it but yet it's going to be a nice place to go to. So we're excited about the project.

Any questions for Mr. Holler? Thank you, sir. We'll open this to public hearing. If anybody would like to speak to this item, step up to the podium, state your name, whether you're a resident, non resident or live in the ETJ.

Seeing none, we'll close public hearing.

I'll make a motion to approve.

Second. Council Member Ryan moves for approval. Mayor Pro Tems Bradley seconds. Mrs. Wilkinson will you please call roll?

Yes. Council Member Carter? Nay. Council Member Capizzi? Aye. Council Member Edwards? Aye. Mayor Pro Temps Bradley?

Aye.

Council Member Lebowski? Nay. Council Member Ryan?

Item E, discuss and consider the approval of the downtown parking revenue reinvestment annual plan as recommended by the New Braunfels Downtown Board.

I would like to make a motion to postpone this item to another meeting. Can we do that in lieu of getting into all

that? I'll second.

Just to clarify, are we moving to postpone to a date certain or indefinite?

We can actually put this on the May 18 agenda. So

just to clarify the motion is to postpone until May 18 and the second is Motion. Same motion?

Correct. Okay.

So we have a motion and a second to postpone this item until May 18. And do we need a roll call for No, All in favor raise your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. And now we will move on to our NBU items. Is it okay if I read all five captions and present them all at once?

So tonight we're gonna discuss and consider approval of an ordinance authorizing the issuance City Of New Braunfels, Texas utility system revenue and refunding bonds series 20 '26 pledging the net revenues of the city's waterworks, sanitary sewer, and electrical light and power systems to the payment of the principal and of the interest on solid on said bonds, enacting provisions incident and related to the issuance, payment, security, sale, and delivery of said bonds, establishing procedures for the sale and delivery of said bonds, delegating matters related to the sale and issuance of said bonds to an authorized city and systems officials and providing an effective date, discuss and consider approval of an ordinance authorizing the issuance of the City Of New Braunfels, Texas utility system revenue bonds, taxable taxable series twenty twenty '6 a Texas water development board drinking water state revolving fund lead service line replacement program pledging the net revenue revenues of the city's waterworks, sanitary sewer and electric light and power systems to the payment of the principal of an interest on said bonds, specifying the terms and conditions of such bonds, resolving other matters incident related to the issuance, payment, security, sale and delivery of said bonds including the approval and execution of a payment agent, registrar agreement and an escrow agreement and providing an effective date discussing consider the approval of a resolution related to the principal forgiveness agreement with the Texas Water Development Board in the amount of $510,000 in resolving other matters incident and related thereto.

Discussing consider approval of an ordinance authorizing the issuance of City Of New Braunfels, Texas utility system revenue commercial paper notes Series twenty twenty six A and Series twenty twenty six B in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $125,000,000 to provide interim financing to pay project costs for eligible project for the city's utility system, approving and authorizing the execution of agreements to be entered into in connection with the commercial paper notes and resolving other matters incident and related thereto. Discuss and consider approval of a resolution authorizing an application Texas Water Development Board's water supply and infrastructure grant program and resolving other matters incident related thereto. Missus Williams.

Mister mayor, members of council, I will do my best to be very brief so that we can wrap things up. So with me here tonight, just for your awareness, we have our financial advisor, Duane Westerman, with SAMCO and our bond counsel, Stephanie Leiby. So I also have several members of our team here with us tonight. We have an acronym slide included in your deck, so that is there for you. I'm gonna go through each of the items in the same order that the mayor called called them.

Them. So the first is our 2026 tax exempt bond issuance. So what we're asking the city council for tonight is approval of a parameters ordinance to issue bonds in accordance with these parameters, A max par of 355,100,000 to include reserve and capitalized interest options, max interest rate at 6%, a max maturity date of 07/01/2060. And as a note, we will only refund in the event that we are able to achieve a net present value savings of at least 2% on outstanding Series 2015, 2016, and or 2018. So this ordinance applies only to these issuances listed here.

We will be refunding our commercial paper program. This is something we come to you every year to do. The total amount of that refunding will be 75,000,000. We will be doing a new money issuance of 175. We have some funds for reserve fund and capitalized interest. We also have three refunding series that we have considered refunding. At this point in time, it looks as though we will only be refunding these series twenty eighteen because it is a series on which we were able to garner more than that 2% net present value savings. Questions on this one? Okay. I'm gonna try to go run.

We're we're all tired. Next is the Texas Water Development lead service line replacement program. So MBU applied for this program and awarded actually two different loans from the Texas Water Development Board. So this is listed as two items on your agenda. I am presenting it as one item because together it becomes one.

There's a $490,000 zero interest loan for which we have issued taxable private placement notes or will be with your approval, and then a $510,000 principal forgiveness that we'll receive from the Texas Water Development Board. There will be a second issuance for lead service line replacement that we'll be bringing to you before the thirty first of thirty first of August twenty twenty seven, and we do anticipate to start this project in October '27. Questions on Texas Water Development Board? Okay, moving on. We're making record time y'all.

Okay, commercial paper program. So NBU has had a commercial paper program. Commercial paper is short term notes that we issue to pay for large construction projects and then refund into longer term debt. So we've had this program in place since 2019. The current capacity is at 75,000,000 with a term expiring in three years.

We have been able to negotiate to increase the capacity of this this program to $125,000,000 For reference, our total CIP from 2019 was approximately $123,000,000 We're up to about $289,000,000 now. We were able to keep our current terms which are better terms now than we would be able to garner if we were to go back to the marketplace rather than just renegotiating our 2019. And this will execute a new three year term agreement with us. And when we place this we are paying at about five basis points. So we're in really really good shape on this program and very grateful that we were able to renegotiate.

Questions on commercial paper? Okay. The last item that we are asking the council to approve is an application to the Texas Water Development Board for water supply and infrastructure grant for a grant application. So house bill 500 in the last session gave about 1,032,000,000 from the state legislature to the Texas Water Development Board to supply or to provide funds for water supply projects. And so we do actually have two projects that are shovel ready that meet the requirements of the grant, and we are requesting just to have your approval to allow us to apply.

The application will be due on 07/31. This program actually just opened up several weeks ago. It's brand new to the Texas Water Development Board, brand new to us. This is a 100% grant funding. They'll have a review period during the summer of twenty six and then get comments back in fall of twenty six with project completion in August 2031. So this is for two water tank rehab projects. Again, they're shovel ready. It's not to exceed $6,000,000 but as we are looking at diversifying revenue sources as we move forward, this was a great opportunity for us to dip our toe in the water and get moving with Texas Water Development Board on the grant side. Questions?

Any questions for Ms. Williams? Okay. All right. We'll open this to public hearing. If anybody would like to speak to this item, please step up to the podium, state your name, whether you're a resident, non resident or live in the ETJ. Seeing none, we'll close public hearing. And we'll take up the first one.

Is that item F?

Item F, discuss consider approval of an ordinance authorizing the issuance of City Of New Braunfels Texas utility systems revenue and refunding bond series twenty twenty six pledging the net revenues of the city's waterworks, sanitary sewer and electric light and power systems to the payment of the principal of an interest on said bonds, enacting provisions incident and related to the issuance, payment, security, sale and delivery of said bonds, establishing procedures for the sale delivery of said bonds, delegating matters related to the sale and issuance of said bonds to authorize city and systems officials in providing an effective date.

Motion to approve.

I'll second.

Council Member Edwards moves for approval. Council member Ryan seconds. Mrs. Wilkinson, will you please call roll?

Yes. Council member Capizi?

Aye.

Council member Edwards? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Spradley? Aye. Council member Lebowski? Aye. Council member Ryan? Aye. And council member Carter? Aye.

And aye. Motion carries unanimously.

Sorry mayor.

Next

item, discuss and consider approval of an ordinance authorizing the issuance of City Of New Braunfels, Texas utility system revenue bonds taxable series 2026 A Texas Water Development Board drinking water state revolving fund lead service line replacement program pledging the net revenues of the city's waterworks, sanitary sewer and electric light and power systems to the payment of the principal of an interest on said bonds specifying the terms and conditions of said bonds resolving other matters incident related to the issuance, payment, security, sale and delivery of said bonds including the approval and execution of a payment agent, registrar agreement and an escrow agreement and providing an effective date.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Council member Edwards moves for approval. Council member Capizi seconds. Missus Wilkinson will you please call roll.

Council member Edwards. Aye. Mayor Pro Tems Bradley. Aye. Council member Lebowski. Aye. Council member Ryan. Aye. Council

sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Council Member Capizzi?

Aye.

I'm Thank you. Motion Council member. Carries unanimously. Next item, discuss and consider approval of a resolution relating to the principal forgiveness agreement with the Texas Water Development Board in the amount of $510,000 and resolving other matters incident related thereto. Motion to approve.

I'll second.

Council Member Edwards moves for approval. Council Member Capizi seconds. Mrs. Wilkinson, will you please call roll?

It's just a show

of hands. Okay. All in favor raise your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. Next item, discuss and consider approval of an ordinance authorizing the issuance of City Of New Braunfels Texas Utility systems revenue commercial paper notes series twenty twenty six a and series twenty twenty six b in an aggregate principal amount of not to exceed $125,000,000 to provide interim financing to pay project costs for eligible project for the city's utility system approving and authorizing the execution of agreements to be entered into in connection with the commercial paper notes and resolving other matters incident related thereto.

Much to approve.

Second. Mayor Pro Tem Spradley moves for approval. Council Member Edwards seconds. Mrs. Wilkinson will you please call roll.

Yes sir. Mayor Pro Tem Spradley. Aye. Council Member Lebowski. Aye. Council Member Ryan. Aye. Council Member Aye.

Aye.

Member. Aye. And Mayor.

Aye. Motion carries unanimously. And finally, and consider approval of a resolution authorizing Texas Water Development Board's Water Supply and Infrastructure Grant Program and resolving other matters incident related thereto. I motion for approval.

Second.

Council Member Lebowski moves for approval. Council Member Edwards seconds. All in favor raise your right hand. Motion carries unanimously and with that

we're