City Council - workshop

Good morning, everyone. We will now call this meeting to order. Ms. Rebecca, if you'll take roll.

Thank you, Ms. Rebecca. We will move into Item 1, which is the presentation on the Capital Improvement Program and potential adjustments to the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget.

Well, Jeff, I have to commend you. That was very eloquently initiated. Thank you for that presentation. Council Member Scott?

Two quick things. I know I can look this up, so this is a very lazy question. The main library, when is that project scheduled to be completed? Is there a lifeline here?

So, yeah, that's just idle curiosity. I was riding by it the other day with some friends and they were very excited to see it.

So end of this calendar year, a couple months. I think it's going to be a beautiful addition. I think the changes in front certainly look, So I hope we'll have some sort of celebration. All right, that's number one. Number two, what, the JFK Causeway that was on the 2020? What's that project?

Come to San Jacinto's Holley office. I can show you firsthand what happens when you start renovating. So, yeah, no issue there.

And so their plans, are we proceeding with that?

Oh, I'm sorry. You're talking on the... It would be the east side, right?

Is there some... Can you send me... Something to go look at, so I don't have to bug you. Send you some drawings of what's going to go. I originally thought you were talking about the ramp on the Flower Bluff side. No, no, no. Now I realize, then I started thinking, oh, we're talking about the ramps on and off. And now I realize, then I thought we were talking about the west side. of the intercoastal waterway. But now I think I realize we're talking about the east side, the island side, where we have the marinas. Is that? Correct.

They had a master plan where they called it the village. I remember some of this because it was always flooding. park out there?

Got it. Okay, if you can just tell me, steer me in the right direction on whatever.

Okay, last thing. This is an ongoing peeve of mine, Peter, and it's in the grand scheme of things. I'm almost embarrassed to bring it up, but when Carol and I travel through airports, there's always a paved area around from the parking lots the walkways from the parking lot to the terminal and the one exception is Corpus Christi the parking lot to the terminal is just pure asphalt which is fine right but there ought to be a smooth walkway for all the people that park out there and that are pulling luggage and so I saw one of your slides we have three or four or five projects so just Is someone

That's all I have. Thanks. Great. Appreciate all you've done.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Jeff, out of the plan, the CIP plan, 72% of it is paid for through revenue bonds. Yeah, that's correct. A lot of this is going to be done through utilities, borrowing money from the utility for utility projects. But there are some things that I wanted to ask that are separate from that. Like, for example, in the 2024 bond, we had $1.5 million set aside for trails for the south side kind of thing. Where is that in the CIP?

Is it under streets? Is it under stormwater? Is it under parks? I'm pretty sure it's under streets. So I was looking under stormwater. Page 186. It's along the drainage channels, and then I thought, well, it's not there. Maybe it'd be under parks. But it's under streets. Which one is it?

Well, I mean, it still falls under public works. It's just... Well, I mean, what we're talking about is along the drainage channels. So if I was confused where it was, you know, the general public's probably not going to know where it's at.

Okay, so I'm looking at that page. It's it everything is done prior, but I don't think we've actually Construction this year. Are you gonna have it done by the end of September? Yeah, so that's encumbering money so it's just the encumbering money in the actual yeah, we're using some some of our IDIQ contracts and Okay, because, you know, if you look at it this way, it seems like it was done in the previous year, not this year, or this coming year where the actual construction is going to be. So the money, you've got it encumbered but not spent.

Okay. The other question I have for you is, like in the water plan, you know, you have Sunrise Beach, the boat ramp. Yeah. That for – I think it's 1. – 1.1 million? Sounds about right. 1.2 million, excuse me. And I'm curious, you know, a lot of things that we talk about here is needs versus wants, right? Seems like to me that's very much a want, right? So can you please justify the expenditure?

I don't know. For a project that costs $1.2 million, I don't know if we increase the rates or we get enough rates to account for that kind of expenditure.

Okay. The warehouse... Camille, go ahead and answer. You want to answer the question.

Okay. You have another project here, warehouse facility from ground storage tank that's going to cost, I guess, ultimately about $5 million. This is a storage tank that, I guess, was replaced by the elevated storage tank on Holly? On Holly Road, yes, sir. So you have the old ground... a storage tank that's sitting there.

So just to be clear on the project, you're going to make this tank, you're going to leave the tank there, create some sort of opening and provide power, HVAC or whatever?

Okay. Okay, so that's it. Jeff, another question. The seawall that's on the backside of the, in between the museums, It's not real clear as to which project that is.

Because you have one that's E16319 that is flood wall upgrades to the science museum, but that doesn't look like the other. And then you have another one 27030 that looks like it's like a total seawall plan, but doesn't really specify. In the past, we used to have a project specifically for that section of the seawall.

No, and it's part of their park kind of improvement for the area where the bridge was.

Okay, can we kind of specify that in the CIP in terms of what that looks like? Because, I mean, it's not reflecting what we're doing. I mean, what we have, what I'm seeing here doesn't reflect any of that. No, no, I know, but it doesn't reflect what that project is. Oh, okay.

The description isn't good. So if the situation with the port has changed, we're going to be combining some fundings and some efforts let's reflect that in the in the cip okay i mean just look at that on the same page uh with regards to that um i am a little concerned that you know a lot of this is debt spending from um you know i want to make sure we're scrubbing this to it's it's really the the NEEDS VERSUS THE WANTS ON SOME OF THESE, AND THERE'S PROBABLY SOME MORE EXAMPLES, BUT I'VE ONLY GOT LIKE 40 SECONDS LEFT. SO I'D LIKE TO TRY AND MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE DOING THIS. AND I'LL GET WITH YOU

OKAY. I DON'T SEE ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, JEFF. I BELIEVE THAT TAKES US INTO THE SECOND HALF OF OUR PRESENTATION.

So this next portion is going to basically recap everything we received in feedback from our community input sessions, throughout the council feedback from the workshops, and how we have ways to incorporate that, such as abatements, streets, those types of things.

Thank you, Amy. I really do appreciate and have to commend you, Peter, and the entire team for taking what we really walked away with all of these workshops as top priorities from the entire council, which is those abatement funds, being able to put some funding into our residential street program, and... There's some great options here. Of course, we understand with more expenditures means we have to move things around. But finding that funding through the Housing Finance Corporation for the demolitions, looking at on page 44, I did wanna notice that on the impact to service for option 2144,

Okay. Well, I just can't say enough how much I appreciate the priority put on these items. Councilwoman Campos?

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Well, I'm glad that... The city is listening to its residents. I can tell that by the issues that were brought up that we are trying to meet that or come up with a good plan. I'm not sure if I still, I mean, the parks eliminating the, how many times? I mean, we already, especially when it rains. I mean, we're, I believe we're still expecting more rain. I believe in September and October is when it.

Okay, so what happens when, because we already had people complaining when it was raining. And if we cut down a crew, what do we do then?

It's either fees or taxes, and apparently the taxes, we just are flat.

Okay. I mean, I'm glad that we are getting at least some options trying to figure out how, but I'm like you. I think the community enrichment fee might be That's the one that would give us the most, the 1.2. And that other option, number one, the Corpus Christi Housing and Finance Corporation, that's 600,000. Anyway, but that will give us something to think about. What about, is that gonna hurt? I know the... I've been excited about the glass program, the Crush, whatever happened with that program. I hope that's still in the works.

Just so that, because people want to do their part, and I believe we can still, I think, make some money, right?

And how much is that, the proposed glass crusher that you were –

That's what I thought you said, like less than $200,000.

And that's what I thought, too. I thought that we were moving in that direction. So we just need more space. Okay. And so as long as we're not going to forget it, and we're still looking at maybe $200,000 for the cost of that. For the equipment. But that's not the issue. It's the space.

All right. Well, thank you. Thank you for the update.

Well, this is disappointing to me. It looks to me like we have targeted the residents instead of some other things that we could probably do. What are you charging right now for the vacant building fees?

Okay. I know this bothers some of you, but this does not bother me greatly on that one because I think until we get some kind of incentive for people to sell or take care of them, nothing's going to change with all the buildings. The others, Unity Enrichment, I'm so against both of those, the rest of that page. I think our residents pay enough right now, and they shouldn't be charged anything else. I don't think you should reduce on 44. The only one on there that I see, is that recycling program. I don't have a problem with that because I don't think bukus of people use it. I think we're proba

Yeah, so it's foolish to continue a program where you're losing money. It's just stupid.

And eliminate the litter critter? No way. Our city's dirty enough as it is, and we need to clean it up. And to do that, you may find more garbage in the yard. I think that's craziness. The one-time funding, I was okay with that, to clean up the structures, because I think we have to do that. We've got to put that as a priority, is cleaning up our city. I think we do. But I think we should partner with the county on that and try and get a program where we're working together. Because we may clean up the inside, but when you come into the city of Corpus Christi, you know, you see tires, mattress

Peter, I get that, but right now if we're in a budget cut, those are not priorities is all I'm saying. I know that's not popular. Alan will probably shoot me for that, but that's okay. That is something that doesn't have to be done right now if we're this short on funds. I'm not saying don't do it, but do it next year. If I may? The following.

I don't think this is an addition of funds. It's a shuffle. It's a reallocation. So no funds have been added. No funds are going to be added?

Okay. And adjust transfer to street maintenance? Yes.

I just don't think that we need to add residence fees to any more resident fees. We've got to look somewhere else. I think that's a bad move.

But what about the senior citizen, you're going to reduce one?

Okay. And you did a good job. I know you're trying to find everything you can, but I just don't want to increase the fees for any citizen.

Okay. Um, It is terrible to introduce these kind of things like a vacant building because, I mean, any time you put in something like this, there's a lot of issues you have with it, right? For example, the short-term rental registration fee that we do now doesn't cover the cost of the program, of the bureaucracy associated with it. so when you create something like this you have to hire somebody to manage it you have to have a program that to to run it you there's a whole set of cost to it that you're not accounting for through just putting a fee out there for this and then what constitute con

And she can come up and answer it, but you're not talking about the bureaucracy and cost associated with doing a program like this. So it's not just revenue. You've got to have factor in cost. Okay. But this is not something we decide the week before we vote on a budget. Well, I know that because you tried to include it in the historical building.

Okay, so I'm, you know, we can't nickel and dime people to death here with, and trying to figure out other ways to pay for stuff because we don't want to put on the mantle of like, oh, we didn't raise taxes. Okay, this whole thing about, you know, and we try to do it all the time, street user fee, you know, this fee here, that fee there, you know, and then we say we didn't raise taxes. Well, yeah, we did, just in a different manner. The community enrichment fee was just god awful. Okay, utility bills should be for utility bills. Shouldn't be for all kind of other stuff that we're trying to add

Okay, when was the last time you did it?

Right. Okay, so, I mean, and I got to say, Phillip's predecessor came to this podium and said, we are losing money on this recycling program. Right. Now, I understand it's kind of one of those things where, oh, we've got to recycle and save the earth kind of thing. But, I mean, if we're losing $1.2 million a year, what other ramifications does it have? How much does it add cost to our solid waste collection? That's all that costs. maybe Philip can answer that question. Can we do an alternate form to like, you know, some cities will have drop-off places to drop off your recycling, right?

And they would have it in various spots throughout the city. As a matter of fact, one of them had a deal with their school district where they had drop-off centers at their school district or at the school locations or something along those lines. Have we looked at alternatives for recycling that will save us money? I mean, what I hate that this is the last meeting before we have to vote on it the first time next week before some of these things come up.

Okay, so to my point, there's a lot of other things that we have to unbundle here besides just saying, okay, we're going to limit its $1.2 million in savings. Okay, if we're going to really realistically look at that, we need to have some options to do that. So it doesn't have to be, you know, we could do this mid-year, right? You can go back, do an analysis, say, okay, if we do it this way where we have collection points, it's going to cost this much. We're going to save this much. If we eliminate it completely, this is what it looks like. And have a very informed decision about something lik

I want to take a quick second and just say All of us in this room acknowledge that when there's new initiatives and new desires for programming, there has got to be trade-offs. So acknowledging at the beginning of this meeting that this team has gone to work to bring options does not mean that this team has come to this council and tied our hands. We're the policy makers. We give direction and we vote up and down. and respect needs to go both ways. There's about 30 professionals sitting in this room who have put a lot of time in these options and they need to be acknowledged for such. They've

Thank you. I just want to still ask a little bit more about the recycling, only because what is the most products that you get that is being recycled that is either... I'm assuming it's plastic, but I could be wrong. I don't know.

I mean, because you do make money from your cardboard and your aluminum, and there is, I think, a mixed success with glass. The only thing that I have an issue with is, of course, the plastics that we just see everywhere, and I would say, yeah, that's trash. I mean, I don't think we're we're able to recycle that. So I feel like if we could just not include plastic in the recycling, because we're not recycling it. It's a false, you know, sense of that you're doing something, but in fact, you're not. So I'm just making, I'm just trying to make sure that we, there is a valid reason for continuing

So, how do you go about this? So, hey, do we make money on solid waste? No, we don't. That's silly. Yeah. Point is, we don't we don't make money on anything we do. It's just whether it's a break even or not. That's the cost of services. My point is, I guess you're telling me that the the cost for recycling exceeds that the amount of money we're putting in through the budget.

What was that? Does recycling have subsidies involved? Like the government? Yeah, like the city. No. So we started recycling saying we're going to put a dollar in and we're going to be able to sell the recycling for two, so we're going to make a dollar.

And then one day we can't sell the product. that we're getting in, so we're losing money.

Do cities generally subsidize recycling? Yes, they do nowadays because the sale of the commodities is less now.

And we are unable to sell the plastic that we recycle? Yeah, we resell it. Let's talk this through. Let's talk this through. Have Phillip come up.

Interesting. Why did ours flip? What happened that flipped the model?

I get it. I mean, I don't think it's anybody's fault. I'm just fascinated that it went from.

We are, the Scott family are big recyclers. That's a big deal to me. I get the math. It just needs some time to come to terms with the math. I think it would be, I think you had an interesting comment that we, And not everybody recycles, right? So I guess if we eliminate recycling, they go, you know, whatever. I don't recycle anyhow. I don't have the blue can. We have two blue cans. We have two blue cans. I do think that would be kind of a weird experience to go, hey, we're not going to pick it up. We're going to need your blue can. And I hear what you're saying, that you might have to put bac

Well, you know, that doesn't even start with the damage. Not my house, personally. No, I'm just saying. I mean, that hurts my feelings.

Not to mention the damage on the streets. Okay, I got it. I'm a big recycler, but I also get the math. I just need time to come to terms with it. My sense is, and then I have a question. To me, this is the canary, that sound we hear, is the canary in the mine. We need to grow. Whatever reason, our fault, your fault, people's fault, China's fault, whatever reason, our economy is not growing at a rate that we need it to to fund the services that we want to provide the citizens, and I think whoever's here in the future needs to keep that thought in our decision-making, because we need to grow. So

But you're saying if you want to do what you all want us to do, you all need to find $1.2 million?

I missed that part. I thought it was already 600 to the good. So if we do the six, it's one six, 600 we can get out of the housing corp. So we're still looking at either a million dollars in additional income or reductions in services.

Okay. And you need an answer by noon? Does that mean I've got an hour and 45 minutes? Can I get some lunch before I have to give you my final answer?

I sure can't. It's a frustration that we're out of time. Put in a pickle here on a Tuesday.

Thank you. I tell people I'm in a constant state of consternation, and I think this morning is added to that, and I want to thank you for your added consternation. But I get that it's in our direction. It's not your fault. No worries.

I think they were talking about your house, Mark. You know, it's funny. When you start talking about money, it really gets testy, doesn't it, even though it's not our money. And I appreciate what y'all have done. This is the way it is every year. You're at the 11th hour. This is nothing new. You just get used to it. Do I like it? No. But I don't fault y'all for that. On that vacant building fee, you said you brought it up last year. Did you get with the realtors last year?

So what was their problem, the realtors? What was their big problem with it?

Okay. Have you looked at what other cities are doing about vacant properties?

Okay. I'm just not seeing what the big issue is here with this. This actually really doesn't bother me. This one doesn't. Okay, thank you. And as far as the recycling goes, I like this idea. Why couldn't you come by once a week or maybe every other week with your regular day and put out another garbage, the garbage can for things like that? I recycle too, but I don't need it every week. So, I mean, I thought that was a good idea. And that's a huge savings. I just don't think you continue. We wouldn't in our homes continue with an expense like that that was costing us money. Once a month what?

And I don't fill mine up every week. There's only two of us, so I don't know what Mark and them are eating over there to have two of them. So anyway, okay. And thank you for what y'all are doing. I know it's hard. I'm just not for increasing anything on the citizens. I think that's a bad move. I think we can find some other areas to do that. That's my, I'm not mad at y'all for waiting until the last minute because we do this every time. It just is what it is, Gil. You'll get over it. Okay, thank you.

Okay. Mark, did you say you were constantly constipated? Sorry, just a moment of levity there. No. No. but it just the the wording the verbiage you used um sorry i couldn't resist um okay um what i'm concerned about is i don't want to make a decision on something that's complex and needs to be understood thoroughly right property registration with for vacant buildings or for any building is a significant decision, right? Because it's not just the, there's bureaucracy associated with it, and that costs money, right? You know, I don't want, I want less government, not more government, right? The

Councilman Hernandez. If ever we need to call on someone to think through every granular detail, you're definitely at the top of that list. So perhaps, do you want to put your light on?

I wanted to ask one last thing. The suggestions from the employees that are doing the work every day and see things that we may not see from the top down, but they see from the bottom up, I'd love to see what that looks like, what recommendations they made, because I think there's value in that that we don't appreciate as much. I really want to see what they have to say about what can be done better or what can be reduced or how can they save money. I think there's a lot of good things that they can provide.

You know, you can summarize it. You can summarize it, but, you know, I think we should really look at the value of the people that are working here that see things that we don't always see because we're looking at it every day.

Councilman, have you ever heard the phrase voluntold? Perhaps if you have any time tomorrow, since we're trying to pass this on Tuesday, so we have essentially Friday and Monday business hours, perhaps you, suggestion, perhaps you can meet with our teams and look at some of these granular details behind that registration fee and and see how if we could make that a possible solution since i know you familiar with the feedback from the realtors association just a suggestion okay i don't see any other comments okay and i believe that concludes the presentation yes ma'am thank you thank you amy th