City Council - Regular Meeting

Keeping the world healthy and making the plants and trees healthy. That's right. That's great. Good job, guys. Okay.

Zach, so is there a thing? So you said it's the above ground tanks, and I think that's – Good reason for that, but I want to see your answer why we're going with above-ground tanks versus... Well, I mean, safety.

Awesome. Less risk, too. Yes. Well, I appreciate you all looking at that. So thank you very much. I asked you last time when we awarded this thing to bring us more of these, so I'm waiting for that. Thank you.

They appreciate the work on there. I do want to clarify one thing is on this awardment. So like four street, for instance, is not striped. So the chip seal project, this is separate from the people that did the striping.

So with the final payment, will that, you know, so they'll still come back?

That's what I want to make sure was that by paying them on the striping was going to be a different deal with them on 4th Street.

I mean I really want the public to understand that we wholeheartedly want to recycle that is something that we don't want not to do. But on the other hand we also want to look at the usage and I do agree with a lot of some of the comments that we're seeing with the confusion with not understanding how to do the recycling and things like that I do think that was a hindrance on it but for me my opinion is is that We do a time frame on it if we look at it yearly and see if the usage goes up. And then we also look at the cost of the recycling not being done correctly because that was one of the bi

So can you give them the prices, if somebody give us the prices of what we're being charged because it's not done correctly?

And so we did have a lot of that. So for me personally, I am willing to keep the recycling, but I do want it to be evaluated. And if we do not see positive returns and people participating, it is something that we have to look at if it's costing the whole city more money. That's my opinion on it. Thank you, Ms. Moore.

I mean, we've talked about this at the last couple of meetings, recycling. It's not that we don't want to do recycling. It's the numbers we talked about. We have a dilemma here where we have 12% of our – population that's actually using this service, and we're asking the 88% to pay. I think the numbers were it's a cost of about $250,000. Is that accurate? Yes, sir. And so I don't think we – nobody wants to stop this, but, I mean, we also need to understand that we've got people out here that are paying for a service and they're not using it. and that's a tough decision for us. I do think we ec

John? Yeah. And so, you know, a lot of people have spoken and to me it does seem like it is a lack of communication, lack of education on the sense of it and not all the credit to the city staff. They've done an amazing job of getting the word out there. There's only so much we can do. And I think that we're to the point where the, we got to give it time to let the community. go out and be the ambassadors. We have the thing crew. We have those things that are going there. We can continue. It's going to be a continuous education. We're not going to ever get that part nailed down. But we need to

In order to recycle successfully, we're going to have to have a solid plan in place. I mean, we can throw around ideas all night. But until we have something concrete on this is how we're going to do it, stick to it and abide by it, we're going to find ourselves in the same place next year. You know, we give six months, give it a year, we're going to be in the same place if we don't get something solid in place. We want communication. We've seen our communication. You say we're not getting enough communication. We're running out of options. You know, we've got social media, we've got news, we'

This is a solid plan. I echo what Brandon said. We've been here. We've talked about this. there's no you know for the right or wrong answer we don't have a good plan and so what is going to be the plan can we can we have a um can we look at this in a year and see if there's improvement and then we decide to evaluate a yes or no tonight um and i look at some people talk about the history of recycling here but um you know it's tough to make a decision like this but the numbers Or pretty simple. I mean, 12% of our people are paying $250,000 or $80 a person. It's really hard for me to vote yes to

I don't, you know, when I talked earlier about the tough decision, I don't want to appreciate the efforts of people coming here tonight, but I also appreciate the efforts of the city and things that you've done over your time in here in the city council. I just, it's a tough decision, but it's also, I think it's also not just an emotional decision. We have to do what's best for everyone.

The only thing that I would say is that I do feel like if we are going to end it, that we do need to say, hey, this is when we're going to set this time frame. When are we ending it? You know what I'm saying? Because the community, it might not be just a few people in here now, but there are other people that are not here that are speaking that same tone as to saying that they didn't have enough time, they wasn't aware. I don't I don't watch all those things. I don't know all these things. So are we going to the churches? It's like you have to think about it as when we're out here campaigning

And I do think this is a community led effort. I mean, the city's been leading this and trying to do this. It's a community led effort. It's clear that the communication is there, that it's not there as far as understanding and getting the word out on when trash recycle days is going to be. And so I just think it's premature to cancel it early. We do have National Night Out coming up, which is a great way to get out there, to get to the neighbors, to talk to them, to promote recycling, to do the things we're talking about. Every single person that's here that wants to do this should become a B

I mean, you know what I'm saying? Can we set a time limit? You know, it's like this is where we're at. that we didn't see the increase. We're at the point that this is the time to make a decision. This is the time to give them time to recycle. If they're not, then it ends. And we owe it to the city to come up with a good plan, a good solid plan to keep it. I mean, we can't terminate something without something to replace it or say, hey, we're just not going to do recycling. I mean, it just makes sense to me. We have to give it time.

I would like to go over the fees because I did notice I didn't know that there were that they did come up with fees for them to be able to rent out a green pool and Stamper Park pool. So I would like is john here? Or anybody from parks?

I just want you to go over the fees and how it works and because it had like staffing salaries, $50 fee and all of that.

so is that 500 with the with the two hour minimum or is that what yes that is that's the two hour minimum and that includes the lifeguards as well as our fee okay that's what i wanted to clarify yes ma'am thank you thank you miss moore any other conversation on fees yes city yes i noticed we got ronald down here anyway in our full addendum

Oh, well, I got, I already kind of told you what I was going to ask or whatever. So this is question specifically because I was looking and the reason why it's not coming up till today is because I just got the information just so that we can clarify that. So I was looking this will be year 2 of the sense of grant or whatever and I was looking at some of the the fees and we're not necessarily fees but the allocation and so this will be a part of this budget is that correct. Okay, so my question is On the community health paramedic, the salary of like $123,000, is that one paramedic? Yes, ma'am

Okay, so the salary is increasing in the three within because year one it was different, year two, and year three.

okay I mean I was just confused on that because I was trying to see because I know that is part of the is being allocated the pay is being allocated out of the grant Chris and so that that's all we need for this program and this program specifically is one community health paramedic a project director and a community nurse PRM as needed okay um

So you're kind of bridging them all together?

Okay. I mean, I just wanted clarification on that because I kind of didn't understand why we would only need those three people, but You're saying that y'all kind of bund all the grants together? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Perfect. Thank you.

We've had AI since Laura's been here. The amount of recall you have on all the grants you write and all the things you do, That just amazes me. So, yeah, we appreciate you so much on all the knowledge you have. History nerd. Thank you, Laura.

I have a question. Oh, yes, ma'am. So is the action item... From Sydney, is that not going to be included in the budget? No, ma'am.

Because that will be for this year? This year. This fiscal year.

Move to approve the budget if everybody's finished.

Yeah. So is that time for the ratification? I move to ratify the property tax revenue increase reflected in the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget.

Well, I just, I mean, can you get the numbers of how many employees do we have that are?

And so I think we did a really good job, spent a lot of time on our pay analysis. and we had a good plan in place for that. I would even say that if I was an employee that was making that, I would have hoped that we could have maybe given them more money then rather than $500 now that's a one-time fee. I know we put a lot of this in place. I thought we had a good discussion, a lot of good discussion about this at the time. I think hopefully moving forward, I agree with Mr. Allen that we do need to retain and pay these people, and they have They contribute so much, these 33% of our employees. B

Um, for one, I want everybody to understand that when you work for a government entity, everything is public. This is the citizens money. This is taxpayers money that the citizens are your boss. So anytime that I ask questions or do anything, it's not to point anybody out or say somebody is making this or that. It's just to point out the problems and to be transparent with the citizens and you know, that are essentially the bosses of this city. They run this city. We work for the city. So when I look at the numbers and I bring that thing up, we're talking about retention, and this is just a co

So I mentioned this last time in the meeting, so I don't want to harp in too much on it. So the you know, I'm opposed to doing the one time pay because I value all the employees for what they're doing. The money here, like we're talking about, is not To me, I don't see it as a retention. We have the ability to pay because we have year-end savings. If we didn't have that, we wouldn't be having this discussion. And so it's really that we have the capacity to do it, and the capacity to spend is not rationale to spend. And so for me, we got to look at what end does this satisfy. So a one-time paym

I'm sorry to kind of jump in a little bit. Sure. Do you mind explaining to people the gap, so the net to the city is such a large amount. So the benefit of a distribution center, I just want you to kind of highlight that.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And we should all, as a community, understand the point of destination. I mean, we're providing the infrastructure, the safety, all the components to be able to deliver the product. Schools. And therefore, we should be the ones that receive the sales tax on that. That's correct. So just be mindful of that. And I appreciate all the fight that you're doing on that. Everybody else that does the fight to keep that point of destination here.

So on the community note, thank you so much, Wayne. I apologize.

four million dollars four four thousand two hundred twenty eight jobs I may be getting ahead of myself a little bit with the other resolutions but with these new projects do you have an estimation on new job creations with those no no sir well I can get that I don't have it on the slide but it's one of the projects that we're working on is very significant very good and what we continue to see too is that

Wayne, first off, congratulations for you and your team, the board, and the staff on a record year. So amazing job. The only question I hear is the ending fund balance. What's the target or what's the comfortable amount that you want to have in there, if any? I don't know.

Okay. Because where it's at, you're comfortable with that as far as?

You've got to spend money to make money. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Also want to say, I think that that area is not only appreciate that this would be an initiate of other opportunities that can grow in that area also.

Yes, ma'am. I think I have a slide there. There she is. So I had a great conversation with the Pine Tree ISD superintendent, a friend of mine, Steve Cluxton, and reflection on the last eight years in that district as far as academic growth. And I'm just happy that he actually showed me that Pine Tree, when compared to other schools, their relative performance in eight straight years of improvement and there's over 1,200 school districts in Texas and Pine Tree ISD is the only school that has improved for eight consecutive cycles eight consecutive years really appreciate all the hard work that g

No, no. Miss Moore. I don't have anything. I don't mind supporting Pine Tree. Mr. Smith.

All right. We got this Saturday, we have the sickle cell warrior of Texas. Kickball tournament, it's in the honor of Derrick Rosenberg. He's recently lost his life with a lifetime fight for sickle cell. He was a proud Lobo supporter. He's one of the guys that you would hear hollering on the megaphone at a Lobo game, you know, barking through the megaphone. He was full of life. He had a great life, and they wanted him. You can come out Saturday and donate blood, have vendors out, have vendor booths, food. DJ, kickball tournament as well. You can still sign up for this kickball tournament the da

Yes, Mayor. I have the annual town hall coming up for District 4. Everybody's welcome, though. But come out at 6 p.m. Thursday, October 15th. It's at Jack's Natural Foods. So I am changing, and it has been the East Texas Builders Association. But I wanted to switch and highlight one of the great businesses we have in District 4 and in Longview. So come there, 310-3110 Neely Way. at LongviewTexas.gov to see more information about it. But come out. We're going to talk about, you know, what we've done in the past year, what we're looking at in the next year. Meet your neighbors. Meet your communi