City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the City of Montgomery City Council meeting for June 9th, 2026. It is exactly 6 p.m. I'd like to call this meeting to order. With that, Ms. Bevan, we have everyone present. We have a quorum except Mr. Olson. He will not be present this evening. I'd like to ask that all of you turn your phones off or on vibrate or silent so that we are not disturbed here in this business meeting. And if you please stand for the invocation by Mr. Donaldson and then the Pledge of Allegiance.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. On the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one

So this is on your agenda is the citizens' comments, and we do have one comment. So I would like for Mr. Dalton to come to the podium for a slice of the moment. Should he be going to speak? You're thrilled to hear him speak.

Good evening, I'm Robbie Johnson, Slice Amish here in Montgomery. We just felt we wanted to stop by tonight, first of all, to tell you briefly how the first Lone Star Market went this past Saturday, and to thank the city for the beautiful plaque that we got that they presented to us. It was a pretty amazing event. So our goal of what we're doing, I'm going to be very brief, as the city continues to build, get better with McGowan Street, our goal is to make this first market Saturday full to capacity. And if you can believe it, I can see it's going to happen. We're getting so much interest from people all over that saw this happening. They're just really thrilled to be a part of it. So we really appreciate all the city has done to help us with this. We're really excited about it. I'll have Debbie come up. We're so proud to have her with us. She's the brains of the operation, but no, she's got the life back there, Barbara. But she can briefly tell you quicker than I can what we accomplished for that event, and we'll just continue to keep building. Debbie?

So we doubled in size this month. We were able to typically run 20, 25 vendors. We had... 20 regular vendors and almost 20 additional new vendors. We've created a baked goods area, so all of those people who make their baked goods and produce all those yummy goodies we all want, they actually have a designated spot. We've got signs that will direct people into our baked goods area. We had a little bit of an issue with the rain, but that didn't stop anybody. We just tromped around in the rain. Next month, I've already got for the July, our typical July market, I have already 30 vendors signed up, and we'll have additional vendors on top of that that will be our, what we consider Freedom Fest type vendors, which are not our regulars, but will bring... that many more people. We probably doubled the number of people visiting the market Saturday. And that was just with the little bit of marketing that we did. So we're going to, you know, obviously we'll expand our marketing. Amish, Slice Amish is amazing when it comes to our marketing. So... expect much bigger things. Everybody's coming out of the woodwork interested in being part of the market. So I'm really excited that we can do this for the community. And I hope the community will come out and just embrace what we're doing and buy all the baked goods. And buy all the stuff. So everybody wants to come back as a vendor. So both of y'all smile and enthusiasm tells us everything we need to know.

So good job. Thank you. All right, next item on your agenda is presentation number five. Proclamation honoring 2026 Lakers softball team. I'll start with Carter here, and some girls, come on up.

We've got a proclamation from the library.

A proclamation on our Lake Creek softball team. Whereas the 2026 Lake Creek softball team made school history by winning the state championship title for the fourth time in five years. And whereas the Lions take title with 40-1 record as UIL 5A Division II softball championship. And whereas on Friday, May 29, 2026, the team triumphed in a Burlington 6-5 win against Brewer High School for an in-state championship title. Whereas the student-athletes of the Lake Creek softball team have also excelled in the classroom, balancing rigorous academic responsibilities with the demands of championship-level athletics. And whereas the Lions have served visual models for younger athletes in the community, inspiring the next generation to pursue excellence in sports, academics, and character. And whereas this remarkable season further cements Lake Creek High School as a powerhouse in the Texas high school softball, introduced to the proud athletic tradition, of Montgomery, Texas, and whereas this extraordinary accomplishment is a testament to the team's resilience, dedication, and unity, as well as the unwavering support, leadership, education, and support. And whereas the accomplishments of the 2026 Lake Creek softball team have brought immense pride to their school, their families, alumni, and this whole entire community. Now, therefore, I, Sarah Cudgman, Mayor of the City of Montgomery, Texas, do hereby honor and recognize the 2026 Lake Creek Softball Team for their success in the UIL 5A Division II Softball State Champions. The City of Montgomery City Council. I encourage all residents to join us in recognizing and celebrating the outstanding achievements of these student athletes. In the witness whereof, I have here unto, set my hand upon the official seal of the city of Montgomery, Texas, to be affixed this ninth day of June, 2022. Again, congratulations. I am here to do an investigation and discussion regarding the public and the district. Are you here with June? I'm here with June.

She's fine. I have her phone. For the record, my name is James Gailey with U.S. Capital Advisors, representing the city as your financial advisor. Happy to be here this evening. I'll give you a little intro.

Give me a start. For the council, I invite in here, you know, we've had discussions. He's our advisor, and what I wanted him to do is just touch on how FITs work, how the responsibilities of the city are with the FIT, how this affects us, how it does not affect, you know, the kind of basics of it. We're looking at putting a workshop together with the developer that wants to put this bid in. We've already created the bid legally, so this is just a discussion for your application of how bids work and what we might see in the future.

I have a question. The bid that was approved a few years ago, that development agreement has expired. Does the bid expire due to that development agreement expire?

The development agreement didn't actually expire. It is the escrow agreement that expired. But they're asking for changes to the development agreement, so we also can look at changes in the development agreement. And we have already established a new escrow, so we're covering that face already.

Thank you.

Well, I'm happy to speak however you like. I can kind of briefly go through the presentation, some of this information you may already be familiar with.

So I think Mr. Glazier's truly new to council and just to set the table so that we all get the same message. If you would mind just kind of explaining on 30,000, but what it is, what is it, why is it advantageous to one, the city, two, the residents, three, the developer? And what kind of impact it will have on the community and all those entities?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, a public improvement district, a PID, is just a tool available to cities and counties just for development. So an advantage of a public improvement district is that it's a designated area within a political subdivision. And assessments can be levied on the individual lots within the district. So those assessments, they're tied to the lots tied to the property. So that revenue can be used to fund improvements that directly benefit the homeowners or the landowners within the district. So it's a way to facilitate development without charging the rest of your residents. So anybody, any people in the city of Montgomery that live outside of the district, they're not impacted, their taxes aren't going up as a result of this. So it's a way to put the, for the people who are benefiting from the improvements to fund those improvements.

Yeah, so the group, so for instance, this development, when they collect those taxes, they basically, that improvements, that money goes back into those improvements and not spread across the city, nor do the residents of the city carry any burden of that to individuals in particular.

Only within that district, the people who own property within that district are paying those assessments.

And these people are aware of this, buying this property that's exposed, or not just buying it, right?

That's exactly correct.

You're touching on something that sometimes it may not be as, you know, with a neon sign disclosed, but and dispose that upfront. Is it similar to Melrose?

I mean, almost for local schools or I don't know if you're familiar with Melrose. It's just an added taxation for certain communities to pay for schools, but it sounds like we're paying additional taxes for roads or whatever infrastructure for this district.

Yes, so those assessments can be used to fund... large number of a wide variety of different kinds of improvements that second page shows what those are landscape zones amenities signage roads utility infrastructure sidewalks things like that transportation so it's a pretty pretty broad scale of uh items that can be financed

I think so. That's an excellent question.

It's a very real concern that could affect some marketability of houses that are going on for sale. It's kind of like an extra tax. It's a subordinate profit tax.

So we have, there's a development outside the city limits that some of us probably watched. We created homes, I have five personal apartments that purchased homes from there, and they bought for $465,000. the mud tax that's not disclosed, how all that worked. And then the next year, they went from $2,400 a month to over $1,000 because of all the taxes coming out of it. And the mud increased. And so it pressed them out of their home. And now their home is worth less than it was when they purchased it, which is not an ideal situation at all. So the reason I bring that up is Because I see, I'm your kid, and I see that scenario, and I'm like, oh gosh, we need to provide that scenario for additional residents in our city that purchase a home in this district.

at least in this specific case, at least the documents that we have now, the maximum assessment per property is $2,000 a year, just to give you a...

So that means it can go up $2,000 a year, or that's all it takes?

And for how long is that? Is that a time period, or is it... usually set up in 30 years, but that's why it's spread out over such a long period of time. It depends a lot on the cost of what those improvements are. This particular development is water, sewer, roads, and a lift station, and that may be being built now by the developer. So this is where our development agreement is gonna be important to know exactly what the dollar amount is.

I brought up an excellent point that with the difference between a MUD and this public improvement district is a MUD is a competing political subdivision, right on your boundaries. But the public improvement district is part of the control by the city. So I think the city council wants to pick board members. We do. Okay. I believe so.

We're not voted on by the MUDs? I don't believe that.

Okay. Okay. We don't necessarily have to have a bid committee. I mean, because we're small, we can do that through city council. But what you generally have is a representative party that represents us in bid to control some of that.

So an advantage for the city is we're having... the money, the taxes are additional taxes for the people that live there, so it's not on the city. I'm just saying this just for clarification.

Yeah, I mean, use the proper terminology because that's where it's a little fuzzy in there.

It's really an assessment, not a tax. Okay. That's true terminology for it, and... We don't have a lot of controls, but what we do have controls over is the total dollar amount of the project.

If this developer is building it in stages, and they don't have to take out a huge amount of debts all at once, they don't have to pay for any debt they haven't taken out. So if they set a cap on the assessments, it's an assessment of $2,000 divided by 12. It's what they're adding into their standard tax bills.

The city's not responsible for it. And if you want to know the reality of it,

all the infrastructure and create this big debt, your market slows down, they can't get enough house ops to pay the debt, they end up going bankrupt, the property sits there until somebody else buys it and then they kind of get into that. That's really the risk. I'm not saying that's gonna happen here, but I mean that, but it's again, not the responsibility of the city.

But it has happened.

Yeah, it does happen. And is that assessment? going to be $2,000 a year to build up a bank or is it going to be, how is that communicated to the?

That is in the agreement that was set up originally. Now we're going to reassess that.

We're also working with engineers to get new pricing on everything that they want to do. So the dollars are going to look different than two years ago. So there's some calculations that I think you guys are working on that now.

I didn't mean to interrupt.

an imperfect analogy, but it's kind of like a homeowners association. Everybody's paying into this pool, but if you're not in a homeowners association, you're not going to do it. But the dues from the HOA go to pay for maintenance and things like that. So, again, it's not affecting anybody outside of the district. So is it...

If I lived in the mid, I would want to have... It's really the council

The council's role in this is issuing the debt and creating the bonds, setting those kind of things. Really management over how this debt is structured, what the payment setups are going to be, you know, if it's a 30-year. That's really the only part of how much of what the developer can do what they want to do. And in this case, you know, at least what I see, we're talking about real, unstructured roads, water, sewer, nothing else that I've seen.

And so, if I'm hearing you correctly, the city owns these roads, right? And then the roads are levels. This district will pay for the levels to not come out of the general fund or the fund committee? No.

done and we are built out and we take the roads of the city then they can become our biggest problem it's it's really a financial tool to build the roads in the first place very similar to what muds do with you know it's just a financing tool that they're using to rather than like a 380 agreement or any of those tools they all kind of work similar

Mr. Gilley, is it your opinion that PEDs work, don't work, dangerous? How would you describe them? Well, I think it's like anything else. There's

they're the only people who are bearing the burden of those improvements. It puts a little bit of the risk on the developer, because typically the developer is the one who owns the lots, so they have a motivation to, they're paying those assessments, so they have a motivation to run those houses after they're sold. So it kind of lights a little bit of a fire. I think the risks are discussed that could there could be a marketability issue. Somebody says, well, I don't want to pay city taxes, counties who will weigh in mud, or I guess it wouldn't be mud necessarily, but, and there's pit assessment. So part of that is we, the city needs to scrutinize the proposed assessment, and there's something in the financial analysis, we look at a tax rate equivalent, so what that assessment would be as a dollar tax, and the city tax, county tax, school, and then that tax rate, if that's $1.50 or $2.75 per hundred, is that outside of the market for the area? That's something that's kind of a metric you use to look at to say, well, is this going to be a successful development? a large part of it is that you really want to make sure that you're comfortable with the developer. If there's a lot of due diligence and research into their operations, how confident are you that they'll follow through with what they say and can deliver?

Yeah, and I think we could probably push it into the literature, but effectively Is that our job there?

No. That's where the problem lies. Yeah, I mean, we can put something in the back and say, make sure you...

Any kind of district like that, the taxable district has to be disclosed. It has to be disclosed. I don't know.

People sign things when there's 99 pages, and it's e-signature, and then up next, it's real easy, and you're tired, and it's just usually placed up at the bottom.

And you've got to be like, you've never had that before. You also have to make it impossible to be done. You can't just be off the ground.

You have to be in red first thing you want. You can't change that. Other checkboards, cool stickers, and then those, like, circle on it.

I suppose another kind of a safety valve on pay is if the paper to issue revenue bonds, the special assessment revenue bonds to funds need to get those, get the bond proceeds. So the way it would work is that the and the developer inspects the work and once the developer is satisfied they submit a draw request to the trustee and then the city inspector will go out and inspect the work and make sure that it's done to your satisfaction and only then until you approve and until the pit approves this person to fund then the developer will be reimbursed for those put a check on the developer, make sure that they're doing their job, doing what they said they could do. Dan, do you have any questions?

I don't have any questions. It's a legal procedure recognized by the state of Texas. I don't see any problem with that. The only question I might have is the possibility of fraud from people that are buying that don't know what they're getting into. But that's not our concern. Well, yeah, I know, but that's just bad business practice, but we don't have anything to do with that. And as long as this is a legal procedure, A procedure recognized by the state of Texas, I don't have any problem with it. You know, we passed it last year. We discussed this last year. And our position, as far as I know, hasn't changed. I'm kind of surprised we're talking about it, really.

Do they have a list of what they're going to spend the money? You're saying streets and water and that.

Yes, there's a part of the process of this PID petition. There's a service and assessment plan documented. It's kind of a legal framework of the governing document of the PID. It lays out what's to be done, what improvements, how costs are allocated. It's a very lengthy document that It goes into great detail about what the PID is going to look like, what the developer is expected to do, what the city is expected to do, what the PID is expected to do. So yes, that process is a long, long negotiation developing that document.

Grant, do we have any other residential PIDs in the city limits?

No.

I thought that subdivision that Chris Cheatham started asked for a kid, but he never, he doesn't own the subdivision now. So, you know. You know, just the commercial part of it.

It was a 380. Yeah. This was the one that's going from 105 to the most.

At least not so far enough.

He asked for a kid at one time. It says bond transcripts submitted to Texas Attorney General for approval. So that's just like the city has to do.

Yeah, the bond issue process, that's correct. It's a similar process to when the city issues debt. It's a little bit different. It's just trying to find an investor who's interested in purchasing the bonds. We adopted on the transcript being prepared to show the legal proceedings and bond issuance consent to the Texas Attorney General for approval. Texas AG does have to approve all types of government benefits.

The city has the oversight. Is the city responsible?

In the bond issuance process? Yes. I think the city would certainly be involved in the bond issuance process. Certainly members of the city staff and city attorney. The PID administrator, that's been an important role in the process. The PID administrator basically is on your side of the table. They run the ins and outs of the PID. They have their intimately knowledgeable about the legal requirements, very specialized field. They manage the assessment collections. They determine what the assessments are. They have coordinators.

Yeah, just sorry.

Oh, of course.

She was texting me, so she may have been excited, but I think they're leaning towards that footprint. So it would actually be not a proper revenue bond. Thank you for the infrastructure and actually the feedback after the background. here directly back to the developer through the city uh it's a process i don't know if there's a different process that you have questions on but i do think that's the way they're leaning but there's nothing that don't have any sense of me which they are going to go something still to be in there but that's

And just for my clarification, if it was a bond, is that a bond with the developer, or is that a bond with the city back-fronting that?

It would be a bond issued by the Public Improvement District, and it's a non-recourse bond with the city. So the city, it's a bond issued by a political subdivision, a purchase bond. to, and then back on the offering documents, it says in capital letters, you know, this is solely an obligation to the district, nobody, not the city, county, Texas, state, nobody has any obligation to pay this

I just had on the assessment side, I think another question came up earlier. You took that equivalent assessment on the $450,000 loan. It's roughly half of what a mud tax would be. Of the tax rate that's in town. That's it. Not all mud taxes, but obviously as property values go up, as mud taxes go up, the rate usually stays the same. The assessment's the same, no matter what the tax is. So if there's a comparison chart working, looking at about, you know,

Excellent point. As he was alluding to, assessment stays the same as home prices, home values go up. As a percentage of the total cost, total taxes and assessments, this percentage is going to go down over the life of the home.

So then in 30 years, if it's paid back, does the PID go away or does it perpetuate too many?

I believe the PID can be dissolved after 30 years.

Or is it like a mud? They say they can be dissolved, but they can't ever dissolve.

I think with a mud, the city could take it over by taking it on the debt, but I believe that the PID, typically they are dissolved. Okay. 30 years is as long as somebody remembers to do that.

Put it in your notes. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming to see me. Thank you.

Okay. The issue I have is with the discussion of

I'm not going to change the minutes. I'm not asking for that. I just want to point out why I don't like paraphrasing the minutes. Because it says in here, the places that last suitable for the thoughts were estimated approximately 3,200 each with an expected lifespan of about a year. I distinctly heard that these flags would last anywhere from three to four months, and I calculated that in my own hand. Otherwise, I'm fine with the minutes.

All those in favor of accepting the city council meeting minutes of May 26, 2026, ask for a moment to say aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. The ayes have it. The motion carries. Approved by the city council meeting minutes of May 26, 2026. Consideration must relax on the exception to the engineer's recommendation or work to complete the construction of the system. Remain in focus, please, and continue to review the total project.

Good evening, Mary and Kelsey. So important to us today is the agenda item for our recommendations. The scope of this project is to complete one waterline, waterline from C.B. Stewart and Buffalo Springs along 105, closing that loop to service BCS Capital, and then on C.B. Stewart from approximately south intersection of Clever and C.B. Stewart, all the way to the intersection of C.B. Stewart and Buffalo Springs, and then on Buffalo Springs, closing the loop from Lone Star Parkway to approximately the northern boundary of Home Depot. And then also with that, the closing of the loop of Abner Lane to Buffalo Springs as well. So all in all, the water line project would be closing a lot of critical loops within the city, particularly along that Buffalo Springs, CB Stewart, and 105 corridor. That is the water line component. The sanitary sewer component is a little bit more simple. Extension along 105, again, from CB Stewart to Buffalo Springs. This is to service the business development, multi-family, and commercial, commercial being along the frontage of 105. to give you all kind of an idea of what the scope of the project is. We received bids for this project on June 4th at 2 p.m., received a total of 10 bids ranging from $107,000 to approximately $1.4 million. Our estimates around the 90% completion of our design set came in about 1.4, or 1.2, excuse me, construction costs. So we came in right about the middle of what bids were actually receiving that. The low bid was from ARS Construction LLC in the amount of $807,000.96. 150 calendar days for substantial completion. For reference, ARS Construction is based out of Houston, founded in 2023. We have not worked with this contractor before, but we have reached out for references. They do not have any local projects. Their closest projects are in the Dallas, Prosby, and Fort Bend area. But when we reached out to their references, they had no issue with the contractor, no stating of substantial change orders that changed the entire scope of the project, no serious delays in terms of getting on site, completing the project. Several of the references cited that they finished contracts under the contractor's amount, so finishing ahead of schedule, which is always a good thing. And upon looking over that and recognizing that The next low bid from IH&J Construction at $933,000, that's about a $126,000 difference. We saw that there was no real significant reason to go with the second low bid and skip the low bid. As a reminder, this project is being funded by BCS Capital for the portion of Waterline and San Jose Store along 105, and the Waterline from North Lacombe Depot to Longstar Parkway, and then closing the loop on Abner and the actual crossing along CV Stewart. And then the portion of Waterline is being funded by the Church of Montgomery is approximately from their frontage along CB Stewart. And then this tiny sliver on the last reserve of the Buffalo Springs Estates is funded by the city. And so that pro rata share is broken down, not in this document, but all parties have been privy to this information. So once we get confirmation and acceptance of The recommendation of the board, we will be issuing, along with city staff, the request for a deposit on the construction-based services of the project. Does BCS want any say in this, or is this... They've been given the bids... we haven't heard anything back from them. But again, we will confirm that they have no issue with this before we execute any contracts. And it is important to know that no contract can be executed with this until we have receipt of deposits from city staff confirming that deposits from these entities being the Church of Montgomery and DCS have been received. So in their acknowledgement of the bid would be receipt of that deposit.

The general discussion with PCS is about time. Because if you look at the first two bidders, that $120,000, I think it's 90 days and $150,000. And so, you know, in development, time means a lot. And so that was a discussion. But based on their overall development timeline, it's not worth the additional $120,000 for saving potentially that 60 days.

And again, can they check me that? So contract allows for a change order of no more than 20% of the total contract amount before it has to be remit. So effectively, if we receive a change order in the amount of

$16,000. We would have to, or $160,000, excuse me. We would have to stop the project, re-bid, and re-identify scope and contract. No. So they've been founded for approximately about three years now. And, you know, the grand scheme of things, that isn't a lot of time in terms of days. But in terms of projects, we see contractors go for 10, 15 projects a year. So based on the recommendations and references provided, we don't have a concern with them being new to the game and not knowing what they're doing.

Have they done this scope or size?

They have done similar utility extension projects, water line in the Houston and Cross Beach area. So again, knowing that this is more or less the same, you're adding in San Jose sewer in the abandonment of the station 12, which is on that hard corner of CB Stewart and 105. It's a small visitation, so there's not a lot of actual work that needs to be done with that. So no real concern from that standpoint as far as scope goes.

All those in favor of accepting the engineer's recommendation of ARS

Construction LLC as presented, say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay. The ayes have it. The motion carries and we will accept ARS as the engineer's recommendation. Thank you. Number nine on your agenda. Consideration of possible action authorizing the mayor to sign the ESPRO agreement by and between the City of Montgomery and Heritage Place 3, development number 2606. Mr. White.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. What we have in front of you is the ESPRO agreement that starts the Heritage Place 3 project. So this does establish the ESPRO account for Mr. Cheatham to allow the city engineer to go ahead. and move forward with the feasibility study. It's following your typical process, and this particular project is just a continuation of the greatest place one, which is next to Pond Street, 105. This takes it all the way to Louisa, where the Bar A Barbecue is. So it would be kind of identical or similar building next to it. I believe it's a three-story building. roughly totaling 19 plus 20,000 square feet. They have a site plan including a new agenda packet from ALJ. So we'll be working with WGA slightly on the utility availability just because they have all the calculations capacities. So we'll run that through them so we can bring this report to you. We'll cover all the other typical

Is that building footprint the same as, it's not the same that's already there. It's a little bit different. But it looks like it.

And he will be doing a different architectural theme, but it's the same theme where he's taking buildings from historic areas of Texas and bringing them to the collection.

and then doing . There'll be a lot of coordination.

I think the idea is to continue that corridor along, coordinate with the tech stop to try to get favors all the way to 105, continue that walkability path, bringing that all the way to Louisa. We'll take a look at the Louisa improvements and see if improvements may be needed. That's a pretty narrow street and how it ties into the commercial between on and Louisa. Just kind of generally a little bit more traffic. There's a hole there, but we'll take a look at all that.

The initial site plan does show parking along the visa, so we're not done working with them.

That's something that you would recommend or not. Drainage there is not great, and so I do think that they achieved their parking without that additional parking, but it's something that we'll look at with them just to see if there's a variance we can bring in front of you. i do think that they are going to take a little bit of property on the existing permits in the south which will require a small rezoning as well to be able to just continue that existing parking lot due west question okay

It says here, whereas the city policy requires the developer to establish a national fund with the city to reimburse the city for engineering costs, legal fees, consulting fees, and administrative expenses. Now, I could be getting this out of order, but all I see in here is the engineering costs. Where is the administrative costs? or is it not due yet? What's due?

No, when they create it, they estimate the whole thing. There's not a lot of costs on this one. That's why it's pretty simplistic. I mean, he has that. I think that right now...

The feasibility study typically would identify another deposit that would be issued that could talk about intact fees, additional trade fees for plane reviews. attorney fees, the development agreement that's needed, any other staff that would be needed is all going to be identified in that feasibility study. So that additional deposit would be made prior to actually starting the plan review process and development process. This is just a feasibility section.

Exactly.

Yes, it is. It will. This is just the beginning, you know, to get started. So I think $6,000 set.

Correct. And the reason is that after Jonathan goes to the feasibility study, have a better idea of what all is going to go in it, with Louisa improvements, et cetera, to give a number that's more, right now it's kind of a pie-in-the-sky number. So once we have a realistic number after the feasibility, they would be required to put that additional deposit up before additional steps are taken by the city.

And we identified our study to be $5,000 to $6,000, so we have about $1,000 of extra funds if we need something from the EPA or the city's or something like that during the specific study period. So we have a slight excess.

They've made it a deposit. They've already issued out the deposit.

The $6,000 deposit is an issue.

Is this going to be focused on medical or retail or what's the focus?

I think it's got a lot of interest in that, but certainly you may be able to have an anchor come as medical and some of the other ones may be something different. How many parking spots are they adding? It is a large amount.

He's also got a couple parking space on itself. I want to say it was well over 100, near 200, but I haven't done this.

How many do you know on it? It is about 20,000.

That's good work. So the amount that...

you will be asking for is the $6,000. The first page said $5,000.

Yeah, so our fees are $5,000 to cover the study, so there will be $1,000 excess that will remain in that escrow account for any other kind of fees. And then before the development actually proceeds with flats, land reviews, anything else, additional costs would have to be made to cover the rest of the escrow for the main portion of the project.

Thank you.

I think the motion that we accept.

Motion by Ms. Fox that we accept item number nine as presented. Thank you, Mr. Donaldson. All those in favor of accepting item number nine as presented, say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, say nay. If you guys have the motion to hear it, we will accept item number nine as presented.

I thought I'd touch on a couple of fun things, Maggie, and then touch on the budget at the end. Hopefully that's not terrible. But right now with the Garrett House, the Raymond Pullen House, talked to Mr. Cheatham today, and we have established August 1st we will start lifting that house. It's going to take a couple of weeks to get it up. We have a structural engineering in place. as we go before we move it over there. Also, the engineer will look at the cherries building, the piers, and the concrete, and all the different things. So it's on schedule, and it looks like after about two weeks, it should be over. So everything's on schedule, I think.

Yeah.

No, this is just my little project. Well, they did help me find the structural engineer.

Dudley Engineers? They're based out of College Station?

Yeah. And they're just going to help us get some sort of report because when we go back to the E, you know, what's necessary, period.

You know, if something's broken or eaten by bugs or other problems that women might find it.

But so far it looks pretty good. We've already hammered under it and everything. They spray boned it one time for insulation, so it's really kind of hard to see. We'll see how that goes.

But we'll report back between now and August 1st.

We should be prepared.

So August 1st is when you're prepared to do it?

Yeah, we'll start backing it up. It'll take about two weeks.

They'll also start doing the lot leveling over there and getting that all prepared. So is that when y'all did the, the, uh, y'all were checking the house, uh, saw this event?

Yes. All of that is going to start happening on Monday. The structural engineers will be here on Monday and they'll start looking at some of those. Sherry has come out and started looking at that foundation as they process through that.

So there was nothing wrong with the soil testing or anything that they did?

Nothing so far. We don't see any issues. There is some drainage concerns there and the way that drainage is, but Zach and those guys are working on that a little bit because once we have parking and parking on the sides, we're going to address those.

That movement is already on budget. I mean, I know it's too early to tell anything, but...

That is an approved project by the EDC. And the project right now is set at $80,000.

It's about $50,000 to move it. The other $30,000 is for this engineering stuff and any unseen things that we might run into.

So it should cover the project completely.

Yeah, I thought it was $85,000, but that's okay. $80,000 is good.

The other thing I wanted to touch on, the same kind of area, working with Zach, we've been trying to get McGowan Street ready for bid. It looks like in July we're trying to get a, we haven't got the workshop set yet. Did we do that?

Yes.

We did?

Yes.

Okay. What is it?

I'm looking for it. It's July the 9th.

Okay, July 9th, I have a special meeting with the downtown people, council, EDC, you know, anybody that wants to come or can come on vacations and different things. So it's really for us to have an opportunity to use the engineers and myself to communicate what this is going to look like, what the disruptions are going to be, because... We're trying to get the bids out end of August, start construction in October, and construction time will go pretty fast, but we'll kind of see that once we get the bids in and go through that whole process.

How are you going to get the word out about that meeting?

We're going to work with the downtown people. I know that's why Kimberly was kind of working on it, helping us get the right people over here and make sure they get here.

Yes. Is it at the community center? It's going to be in here. Yes. Basically the agenda, I mean we haven't really said it yet, but basically

these guys to walk them through the project, listen to questions. We're going to have the landscape people here, you know, talking about the different trees and the different things. So, you know, it's really an opportunity to let them understand what the process is going to look like, how it's going to disrupt tourism during the time. You know, construction is never comfortable, nice and nice, but, you know, I'm sure some of them have seen that before.

process updating those and get them work, be fine. We'll bring that to them, let them, you know, tell us, you know, how they're feeling, what they, you know, if they see anything. So, you know, because after that meeting, it's going to go pretty fast.

Getting and everything else. And the last thing, we are working on budget and I'll let Mary Ann tell you all about that. You're gonna see some new things as we go through the budget. And I really want your feedback on these things. We go through this budget in a process. We start with the departments. The first thing we do is we go to the department, hey, what do we need, what are we doing? We go to these guys and we ask them, CIP projects, which we already touched on. So we're gonna lay that out for you. We're gonna tell you each project, how we're paying for it. You know, I know some of you had asked for different things, like the big debt we just took out, how we're gonna pay for that for the first few years. And Marianne is laying that out for you. So we're putting some descriptions in there that we go with all these line items. These line items don't really mean a lot this early in the process because we're finagling all the time, you know? So we're trying to put more descriptions in there so you can kind of follow along what each department, and you'll have the opportunity to talk to the departments and ask questions and why do you need that, why do you consider that, and this is the opportunity to have that dialogue as we work further into it. And the second... budget meeting. It'll be a lot with Zach and them with the CIP. We looked at the big CIP out to 20 years. We're going to define that. Really, we only function within one year, maybe looking out to two. So we want to look at what it's going to cost us this year that we're budgeting for, because we can put that in the budget, move that money, and spend it for capital like it's supposed to be. in which they've already done. It shows how these assessments are basically going to pay for what we're doing so far. Down the road, are we going to have to spend some money out of the fund itself? Yes, most likely. But right now, the assessments and different things we're collecting, it's pretty much be able to pay for that. Also, we have a large amount of money right now because we brought all the bonds in. We're collecting interest, so you figure that's added into. And Marianne has worked through that, so I'll I won't step on your toes, but I just wanted to give you some information, what you're going to be seeing, and we hope that you will say, hey, I don't like this, I like this, you know, a lot more of this, a lot more information, because that tells us we're really making the right things.

So I was going to ask you, so is the preliminary budget going to be on the website or just the finalized budget?

The proposed budget will be, the proposed budget just as always will be put up in August.

So we're working towards that. So typically we just had like the Excel spreadsheet and you could see everything, but now it goes in a tree, right? Drop down and then you drill down and then you drill down further. Or is that... The proposed budget doesn't go that deep.

So the proposed budget, the way that we did it last year is the same way that it's always been as far as the proposed goes. It has been that Excel worksheet. It hasn't been all fancy and all that. The fancy piece comes in when, and it's not necessarily a drill down. They have the ability to drill into it more, but that clear-cut piece is what gives you the actual, like, budget book in the final process.

It's getting closer. It is close. It is a close thing.

I'm sorry. I hate to interrupt that right now.

And I hate to interrupt all the time.

I don't know what you're saying.

Honestly, some of the discussions we'll have going through the budget, not that I wrote this down, it's just when you said that, you know, conversation we've been having is IT, and we discussed it a little bit last year, and, you know, we're using a third party now, and the option of that is potentially having IT, you know, a IT person in-house, and have somebody that can really spend their time on these websites and work with the departments because that's really a piece we kind of miss and you know we have different departments working on parts of it but we don't really have dedicated people working on IT here and as we add more cameras as we move to the new building and we're just going to be adding more and more so it's thoughts we're thinking through how to manage the website how to build these things

All right. Kimberly, where'd she go? You are... Oh, there you are.

All right.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. We have a report in front of you. Just a couple of notes. Tomorrow night is the graduation of our 6th Annual Citizens Police Academy. It starts at 6 p.m. You guys are invited. After all, you're part of that. You can, well, no, don't bring him back, but he was coming out. We'll have dinner for you. It's right here at the Pizza Shack, starting at 6 p.m. We'll be giving out awards for these people who came through the cabin. You know, we had anywhere from like 14 people. And we were talking, we were grouping around and we were talking to some of the people as we've been going to different communities here. Out of this class here, I think we only had one or two people. The rest of these people are coming out of the woodlands, I know, yeah, wood forests. And so we'll be recruiting a little bit more here, right here within our community. We send it out, but people seem to be surprised that, oh, you guys are doing it. Yeah, we're doing that stuff. But it's been a really good class. And tomorrow night, 6 p.m., you guys can come out, have dinner. with us and meet some of the people who went to that class. Also, Thursday night will be two of our recruits who graduated from the academy. So they're graduating from the academy in the college station. So we'll be out there at their graduation. They've successfully completed that. It's been a hard four or five months, but they've done what they can. On the last note, our drone operators have been recruited to FIFA. They're going to be doing some drone work for them on the 17th, 18th, the 23rd, the 24th. They'll be working in the division, whether we're looking for prostitution and trafficking. our drone guys to come out and they'll be taking care of that.

And he's not in town?

Yeah, so they've done, yeah, we're right in that area where everything's going on. Because you have people, when things like that happen, they start flying, prostitutes, and there's human trafficking. And so they'll be up with their drones, help them secure that part of the area. So they've done real well in that area, so.

Will they get paid for that by that organization?

No, ma'am. They won't get paid for that by that organization. They're letting them to volunteer. What they're doing is they're bringing a lot of specialized services. They're letting them volunteer for those services. And so they're doing it here. They'll be on the days off. It's going to be real good for their experience and also to get more use of the city of Long Island. So you guys have any questions? If not, thank you. Thank you, Chief.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. You have the citations for the court were 122, and the collections revenue was $26,000.

$327.21. Do you have any questions for this report? Thank you, have a great day.

Yes, ma'am, thank you. All right, next is the Economic Development Monthly Report.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. You may recall last month I talked to you a little bit about sales tax being down, sales tax is back up. 3.2% ahead of last fiscal year today. So we're doing well on the regular portion of those sales tax dollars. I also mentioned last month that we had some recovery of some large outstanding amounts on our agent report for the utilities. So that's reflected in this report as well. If you have any questions about anything in particular. As Brent touched on, we will be looking at things a little bit differently when we have the workshop next week. So instead of looking at those general items that you always have, the same thing, telephone, printing and office supplies, like those kind of things don't typically change, right? We're pretty consistent year after year on that. So really what we want to focus on in the workshop is those things that are different.

And so that's what we have in more of a dialogue on that next week at the workshop.

and then as we continue to work on some of the things I mentioned last year where we talk about how we're trying to allocate expenditures more proportionally across departments based on whether to make sense in the computer world to look at expenses based on the number of individuals in a department and looking at all of those things across the board. So we're still working on that, still working on revenue. As you know, we will not have property tax information until the beginning of August. So... and all those fun things. Any questions?

You keep saying next week on a workshop. Yes. Workshop is on Monday.

Was the calendar sent out to them?

Yes, Monday.

You'll be conducting that or is that, you'll be doing the meetings?

We will all be doing the meetings. All department heads will be here as well to talk about what their asks are. I think there will probably be some presentations as well about some of the things that they're looking at so you can glimpse it.

not just numbers, but what it actually becomes. Could y'all get it? Did you get it, Cheryl? Thank you.

Good evening, mayor, council members. Quite a few project updates for you. Brent has already hit on some of them, so he's really one of them. But the designs for the north and south blocks, changes where we will not be including the parking lot on the north lot there are currently the two signs one in the north lot one in the south lot we're going to update those just so the public is more aware of what we're going to actually be doing those are the old plans we're working we have the designs for the engineers we're going to have the our sign makers get all of those updated so we have accurate representations posted in downtown for what we're going to be doing There is a public meeting to discuss the downtown improvements project with the community as well as any interested board and council members. So the EDC board and the council are being invited to this meeting. We've posted it in case we have a quorum. Everyone doesn't need to be there if you would like to. We welcome you for sure. It's more of a public-facing meeting so we can explain what we're going to be doing in downtown to McAllen Street with the downtown businesses in the public. I've had a couple of people want to be invited specifically to that meeting from Ms. Fox. So I have notes on that. If there's anyone specific, please let me know and I'll get direct invites to them. I have I plan to send an email to all of you tomorrow and the board with the date and time of the meeting. I'll email all of our downtown businesses. I have a master list of their email addresses just so they're all on that email and that way they can attend. It'll be here on Thursday, July 9th at 6 p.m. A draft of the chapter 3A, the economic development and incentive guidelines and application has been completed. It's been submitted to the attorneys for review. My hope is to have this in front of both the council and the board, hopefully by August. This will help protect us as we move forward. We have to have good guidelines. I also have a draft of our business improvement grant program guidelines along with an application that has been sent to the attorneys for review. This will be a business improvement grant program that the Economic Development Corporation will fund. I hope to have this in front of the MBC in July for approval. This will include different things such as facade improvements, landscape improvements, And it also includes an application. And it's a general business improvement grant. So it's not solely targeting downtown, but more so anyone in the city that meets the requirements. The MEDC still has ownership of the 213 Prairie Street property, and we are exploring potential alternative uses for the property if it doesn't sell in the coming months, and I hope to present that to the board in July. And the entryway finding and park signs are expected to be installed in August. The company will be here this Friday, and we're going to finalize some things with them, and then the next round of wayfinding signs will be installed in the fall.

Any questions?

So we are currently scheduled to have the park signs and the entryway signs done in August. The issue we're having is because