City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, we're opening the city council meeting. It's 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026. We do have a quorum and the invitations.

All right, Holly.

Thank you, Holly.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to gather in service to this community. Please grant us the wisdom to make decisions as we seek to do what's best for the city of Mount Pleasant. Please bless this council, our employees, our first responders, and the citizens of Mount Pleasant. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Pleasure to lead you.

all right we're going into open session public comments the City Council welcome citizen participation and comments at all council meetings citizens comments are limited to three minutes out of respect for everyone's time council is not permitted to respond to your comments the Texas Open Meetings Act requires that the topics of discussion deliberation be posted on the agenda not less than three business days in advance of the council meetings If your comments relate to the topic that is on the agenda, the council will discuss the topic on the agenda at that time that the topic is discussed and deliberated.

My name is Kyle Mooring, Mount Vernon, Texas. Good evening, council. My name is Kyle Mooring. I live in Mount Vernon, Texas. When public officials talk about integrity, the test is not the slogan. The test is the record. On December 3, 2025, I sat across from city manager Rob Vine. He told me, my integrity is all I have. Once it's gone, it's gone. He said, I'm not going to change my name to defendant. And he gave me his motto, do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. Those are the words. Here's the record. On the city's OpenGov transparency portal, over 600 social security number entries, at least 20 distinct social security numbers, including at least one apparently associated with current city personnel, and about 35 sexual assault forensic exam payment records containing victim-identifying personal information, including dates of birth and exam dates, one apparently involving a 13-year-old. In a record production, the city also released Schneider Electric banking information and customer level water meter and lead service line records with account data addresses, GPS coordinates, meter readings, and work orders. And the city released a full unredacted Mount Pleasant Police Department report connected to an active federal case, including information concerning minors. On May 27, 2026, the city certified to the state in the sworn no record certification that it had no responsive records showing investigation, remediation, or even contact with OpenGov. The only record it found was my email reporting what had happened to the city. Based on the city's pattern, I anticipated this response, protect itself, minimize the problem, and shift the burden onto the person who reported it. That is why I had already taken it upon myself to notify OpenGov, Schneider Electric, the US Department of Justice, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other appropriate regulatory and oversight authorities. The city should have done that. It had not. When I notified this council about the unredacted police report, the response was not an apology. The city's outside attorney, Austin Beck, invoked Texas government code 552.352 against me, a criminal statute carrying a possible fine and up to six months in jail. The city released the record, I reported it, then the city pointed a criminal statute at the reporter. Tonight, the city's OpenGov financial transparency portal is still down, and the SharePoint link that the city provided for the records I paid to receive remains inaccessible. Thomas Paine warned, a body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody. That is the issue before you tonight, not personality, not politics, accountability. So again, I request that my formal ethics complaints be placed back before this council for a public vote. And again, I request an outside investigation and independent audit into the city's internal controls or the lack thereof. Those are the right things. This is the right time.

Thank you.

Does anybody have anything to say? All right, we're good. Let's go ahead and move on to item number one, consider approval of May 19th, 2026 meeting minutes. Get a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from May 19th, 2026.

I second.

Madam Secretary, would you be to vote, please?

Yes. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, motion passed unanimously. We'll move on to item number two. Discuss and consider adding one position to a pre-positioned list by adding another water plant operator for the Lake Bob Sandlin LBS water plant. And this is our utility director, Marshall.

Good evening. So tonight I was going to bring up adding a new position. We were going to wait until budget to introduce this, but I believe... maybe a month or two, well, it's been more than that. A few councils ago, we discussed a filter project that we're gonna move forward with. It's still in a process of being put together, so it's not ready to go, but one of our filters at our plant has gone down. So we decided to try to move this up ahead because of our weekend. We shut down our LBS plant on the weekends because it just never was turned on, or in that process of doing it. But doing that, when we turn it off, we lose five million gallons a day on the weekend. for no reason. So with us losing that one filter, we're already losing three million gallons a day, no matter what happens. So instead of us losing that amount on a weekend basis, especially during the summer, we decided we needed to go ahead and just move ahead with this and add permission to create this position. The benefits are astounding that we never have done it. I mean, we lose 13 million gallons a year just because we turn it off. We have to flush everything every time we turn it off. So if we turn that around and sell that, that's a profit. and then the new lbs plant is actually more efficient than the old one so it would lower the cost of us not having to run the older plant as much we can lessen it on our chemicals and our energy so it would balance itself out with with these from what i remember um you were saying that we're basically going to be making money off of adding another position right Just the water loss alone would pay for two positions, but we only need one. That's what I was thinking. Okay. Any discussion?

And, Council, I would add, too, that this is already budgeted for.

Yes. Yes, this would not change my budget whatsoever.

So this will allow us to not have to shut that down ever again? We'll have it 24-7?

24-7 until we decide we don't want it to be that way, but there's no reason for it not to be that way.

Um... What's going on with the filter? I know you said something about a filter project as well. I mean, obviously we need disposition because no one's manning that facility. Just curious.

So the filters we have on the old plant from the 70s, we were going to upgrade to an air scour system. The base of it cracked a couple weeks ago. So now it has to be 100% rebuilt on at least one of the filters to even do the project. But we lost the whole filter itself because of

No, that's fine. Just make sure we kind of touched on it, and then we talked about it. Just folks paying attention, making sure we kind of heard the whole story.

That project actually hasn't come in front of the public. It was just discussed, but it hasn't actually been finalized. I know.

I'm just marrying the position.

Yeah. That's all. You're good. Thanks, sir.

And that is a project that will be funded by a bond, and it's about to go out for RFP.

next month it should be just the filter breaking kind of put a little right snag in it so we have to see what that forward a little bit i talked to rob about this uh last week and when you see what we can say and we always wondered when it was built well we didn't open it up four hours a day, seven days a week, just like the one up here. But anyway, I was impressed with the numbers, and I appreciate what you've done with it to show the need for it, and I'm all for it.

Yes, ma'am. All right, we have a motion? I make a motion to approve adding another water plant operator to the approved position list.

I second that motion.

Madam Secretary, can you get a vote, please?

Aye. Aye.

Yes.

Aye. Motion was unanimous. Let's go ahead and move on to item number three. Call the public hearing for the city unsafe building abatement code found in chapter 150 of the code of ordinances and to consider order 26-002, a declaration of dilapidated structure at 1007 West Pecan Street within the city of Mount Pleasant, Texas. Find it to be dilapidated and or deteriorated and damaged so as to require repair rehabilitation or demolition providing a time within which the owner should rehabilitate repair or demolish the structure and to consider ordering a city abatement and subsequent lien on dilapidated structure at 1007 west pecan oaklawn edition block 4 lot 1 and start mr rankle

Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers. So we've got a couple of substandard structures I want to bring for you tonight. Just to kind of let everybody know, the process that we go through, it's dictated by our city ordinance, Chapter 150, as well as State Statute 214. Properties are identified by staff as unsafe, dilapidated, dangerous. Owners are notified. If we don't receive any kind of response from the owners, then it does come before city council hearing. At this time, then we do ask council to make a decision to either grant us permission to demolish the structure or agreed upon plan by the property owner. And if it's not demolished in 30 days, the city has the right to do so. And we will recoup the money through a lien if the bill is not paid. And so the first two, actually, I just want to kind of bring to your attention, this is 1206 Rambo. I know Debbie's really familiar with this property, but we sent out notices to them kind of to go through the same process, but it actually transferred ownership and the new owner demolished it. So that property is now gone. We also had another issue here at 111 Hubbard. Actually, police chief brought this one to me. They were having an issue with vagrants and trespassers and that sort of thing, and we ended up sending them a notice, they sold it, and also to demolish that property. So I just wanted to kind of bring those to your attention. As far as this goes, 1007 West Pecan, uh... actually this morning i just found out about ten o'clock that the owner of the property sold the property to a new owner she came in and met with me this morning uh... they did pull a permit to put in new windows and they are going to rehabilitate the property and so she's here if you want to talk to her as well as the existing uh... the owner that was that had sold her the property and so if you guys want to give it an extension or order demolished that's up to you but she's here to explain her situation.

All right, any more discussion? We'll go ahead and open the hearing.

Hello, I'm sorry, I'm over here translator. She's saying that she's only coming here alone because her husband is a truck driver. He couldn't come. But she's the one she's the new owner and she's going to be starting to work on the house.

Okay. So y'all are one in the extension?

Yes.

Any discussion?

How much time? Can you ask her how much time is she planning to need to get it up to the standard?

What's the maximum amount y'all can give her?

What's the normal amount y'all give?

typically so far we've given 90 days do it and that's to at least get the exterior up obviously they can take longer but to get the exterior cleaned up new windows put in roof if need be and get it painted and then they can work on the interior as as they have time yeah and i just i think if if we see progress on all of that stuff then everybody's going to be reasonable all right

So is that possible for her to be able to get that much done in 90 days?

He says she's going to do it in 90 days.

She's positive that she'll do it in 90 days.

Well, yeah, that's the interior. She doesn't speak English, so she probably didn't hear all that.

Well, I actually was here with her this morning, and I translated for her.

So you don't want to do 90 days and then have them come back after 90 days?

Well, I just asked John, and as long as she's working on it, you know, there's going to be...

longer than 90 days so we would love to see it brought it's beautiful out and so we would love to see it done right and so i think report back to mr john

All right, so we'll go ahead and close the hearing and make a motion.

I make a motion to extend by 90 days for the new owner to put work on 1007 West Pecan Street. We would circle back in 90 days to see all progress. I'll get a second.

I second, and I want to say good luck, and I can't wait to see the connection.

All right, Madam Secretary, you get to vote, please. Aye.

Yes.

Aye. The motion passed unanimously. We'll go ahead and move on to item number four, hold a public hearing for the city unsafe building abatement code. found in chapter 150 of the code of ordinances and to consider order 26-003 declaration of dilapidated structures at 702 circle drive within the city of Mount Pleasant Texas find it dilapidated and or deteriorated and damaged so as to require repair rehabilitation or delimit demolition providing a time within which the owner should rehabilitate repair or demolish such structure and to consider ordering city abatement and subsequent lien of the dilapidated structure at 702 Circle Drive Mineral Springs addition aka Red Springs block 15 lot 8

All right, on this particular property, I don't know how long it's been vacant. One of our code officers, Daniel, has been here a long time. He says it's been vacant as long as he can remember, but I know they haven't had water service since 2022, and they're about five years behind on taxes. And so I sent out letters. It's in an estate. It was in Wiley Roy C. Jr., our senior estate. I didn't get a response for anybody, but as you can see, the house is pretty much dilapidated. The windows are all busted out. That's how I got a picture of the interior of the house. But I don't think it's worth saving or even possible to possibly save this one. So I'm asking the council allow us to demolish the house in 30 days if not done so by the property owner.

Any discussion?

have you been in touch with the property owners they know we're doing this or no nobody reached out to me it's in an estate and so I don't know if he was deceased and there's no next of kin I mean I tried to get a hold of I didn't see anybody I went down to the tax rolls there's nobody on the tax rolls and so I just sent it ended up going to the same address which obviously nobody's been there for a decade or so all right thanks so with that John is like does it take a longer period of time for us to actually be able to move on that property no if you guys go ahead and issue the demo i'll send the notice out today saying that you've issued the demo that they need to do it in 30 days if they don't then we'll go ahead and move forward in 30 days and get it cleaned up all right anything else go ahead and close the hearing i get a motion

i'll make a motion that we declare uh the structure at 702 circles substandard and order it to be demolished by the owner within 30 days and to authorize abatement by the city after that time according to the teachers in the city ordinance and state faculty second second i'm secretary can you vote please aye aye yes

All right, motion passed unanimously. Let's go ahead and move on to item number five, discuss and consider approving a government lease purchase agreement between the city of Mount Pleasant and American National Leasing Company for lease purchase of vehicles. And this is our police chief.

Evening, council, mayor. Mr. Vines, so I'll introduce you to Eric Reid who is Vice President with American National Leasing Company. We have been looking for several months now a way to improve our fleet situation and an affordable option and we believe we have found a good option for you. In your packet there is a copy of a brochure from American National Leasing as well as a contract that we've entered into upon purchase of vehicles and that contract, just as a side note, can either be entered into for a particular vehicle or multiple vehicles at once. So I'll let Mr. Reid give you a good brief rundown.

Good evening. Again, I'm with American National Leasing. We are based out of Wichita Falls. For right around 30 years, we have primarily dealt with governmental agencies. And so our primary focus is cities, counties, school districts, hospital districts, things of that nature. working with vehicles heavy equipment so with cities we do public works we do police fire and then city vehicles as well as heavy equipment our program is very very simple I would like to say and so we don't have a lot of the a la carte charges, a lot of the different stipulations. And so with us, it is what we call a lease purchase, a governmental lease purchase. And so because of that, the city is on the title from day one as the owner. We are simply a lien holder. Therefore, there are no mileage restrictions. There are no maintenance requirements. You only have the dock fee and the interest is all that there is. uh so at the end of the term we typically on a vehicle will do three four or five years uh at the end of the term there's just a one dollar buyout and then it's yours it's an asset to the city uh it's something that you can keep for a few years especially if it's got low hours low miles and then we can help you with an exit strategy to unload it if you wanted to trade it in down the road on something else And I just made a couple of notes here. Some of the agencies that we work with in the area, Mount Vernon ISD, Hopkins County, Cass County, City of Pittsburgh and City of Jefferson.

And that's just right here in the local area.

We help agencies across the state of Texas. like, say, have for 30 years. So just wanted to come in and introduce myself to you. Again, in your packet there is a brochure, a blank contract, so you have kind of how the verbiage and language is read, and then also be able to answer any questions that you may have.

Hi, Juan.

Go ahead. Thank you.

Just a couple tidbits real quick. So in listening to Mr. Reid, a couple things. It's a leasing company, but it's really a purchase is what it is. It's a purchase with a, we're about two points lower than our current lease program, that interest rate. And like you mentioned, that docket is $150, I think. which covers the initial dock fee the fees are much lower than we currently are under as he said they can sell the car using their I guess pool of resources but we because we're the owners we can also sell the car upon when we decide we're done with that equipment or vehicle, I guess. And so we did have Lee review the contract. There was one piece of language she just had a question about. They very quickly sent me a memo clarifying that, the intent, and so she has been satisfied with it. So go ahead.

Okay, you said within five years there's a $1 buyout.

Yes, sir.

That means $1 and it belongs to us. Yes, sir. We pay you no more money.

That's correct.

Okay.

Yep. yeah we can do three four or five on vehicles and also it's important to note if the city wanted to pay them off early that is an option and there's no repayment early repayment penalty so you know sometimes we'll have cities especially if they're anticipating revenue from a project they can go ahead and do say a four-year deal and then year two go in and just pay it off And so one other thing that is in the contract that you'll see, but let's say that you don't have it in the budget right now, but you're needing a vehicle, needing equipment, you've added an officer, whatever the case may be, we can go ahead and get that vehicle in service, get it upfitted, and then our first payments are always 12 months deferred. So you have a year to get that first payment.

Yeah, so we're going to own more of our vehicles. And something Rob mentioned to me that I thought was really nice is we're actually going to be able to keep these vehicles around. With the low mileage, low hours, or low use, we can move into departments that aren't critical response or anything like that. So we'll hopefully be able to keep some around for seven, ten years or whatever. Rob?

So I have a question. Yes, ma'am. I'm assuming Mark is sitting behind me. so are you going to buy

our lease agreement that i wasn't sure how we know so those vehicles under that contract with the current lease program actually belong to the lease company even if we pay them off we continue to pay a management fee and they eventually go back and they sell them at their through their dealership pool we cannot sell them they are not our vehicle so we will make a plan to slowly back out

I'll defer to Mr. Vine. If it pleases the council, but staff recommends that we do.

Okay, Rob and Mark. What's your interest rate?

uh... point three we shopped interest rates we went to our local banks and we've tried to keep the locals if we can get as good a deal so they based their rates on uh... the current rates under the federal's uh... and i have not shopped local banks to see if those rates but this program is a little bit different where they're uh... we we we look for a line of they they grant us a line of credit to purchase vehicles and It's a program where we continue to do that. So they already have the contract written up that they do with government agencies. And so it's kind of their specialty. And I can tell you that points lower than what we're currently paying.

I'm not trying to derail your project. I just want to know.

One of the things I'll bring out, too, and you may just be about to mention this, Greg, correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a one-time opportunity to refinance.

That's correct.

If the interest rate drops.

Yeah, so if the interest rate, let's say that you're in the middle of a five-year term, you do have a one-time option to refinance to a lower term. We do want to reprice everything that we have with the city instead of doing one thing at a time. We do want to reprice it across the board, but that's at no charge as well. Just the 150 dock.

Okay.

If we elect to use the one-year deferred, does that increase our interest rate?

It doesn't change. In fact, I would say 95% of the deals that we do, say if we contract something in June, the first payment is due in June of next year. You have the ability to put money down if you want to. It's not a requirement. For instance, on law enforcement, fire department, things that do require an up-fit, let's say a public works truck needs a bed or something like that, we will allow all of the up-fit into the deal. Crazy, but we've seen up-fits be more than the vehicles. It can happen. And so one other thing when we talk keeping things local, We obviously have a large fleet dealers, a large amount of those that we work with, but we're happy to work with any dealer. So if you have a local dealership, you have a local upfitter, anybody that you want to work with, we're happy to do that.

Is this a tax-exempt loan? It is. It is? Okay.

Yep. So just looking at the contract, curious,

this gonna be set up like a master service agreement and then you have multiple contracts underneath I'm just I'm asking that because you're gonna have multiple cars or typically do and in chief reference that I can go in and get more or less what we call pre-approval because we're owned by bank located in a bank We want to get pre-approval before we move forward. And so essentially what we did is kind of got a ballpark idea of the number of vehicles that we were looking at for the first wave. And it was right around that 500 mark, a little lower. So I just went in and got a pre-approval for 500. But we can contract per vehicle. And typically, it's obviously easier if we put multiple vehicles on a contract. But if one's totaled, something happens, you decide you want to sell one of those, then we just have to go in and get a payoff and divide it amongst the number of units that are remaining. So I typically will get with the auditor or whoever I need to to make sure everybody's on the same page. But each VIN can have its own contract, and that's very easily done. Typically, we will get the paperwork done on however many vehicles we're looking at at that time and then send it for DocuSign, whatever we need to do on that. But it's not a big deal at all. We don't do like one master service agreement for all of them. But like, for instance, if the chief was wanting three vehicles that were similar in price, similar in vehicle, we could put those three on one contract.

Yeah, I'm following you. You kind of explained it out. I was like, well, if we're doing this long term, at some point, which contract do we have car 12 on? That's kind of where my head was at.

We do have some that want one contract per vehicle, so they can reference that particular lease number.

I'm not getting in the weeds on that. I'll let Chief do what he needs to do there. I just was curious on the management side. The other thing, and you It's really on us here, not y'all on the maintenance of these vehicles. Are we just going to go to the dealerships until, I know we have a maintenance department, so how are we managing that?

The way we kind of currently stuff is your oil changes and stuff is all done in-house. Any warranty work we take to the dealership while those vehicles are under warranty. after they're under warranty um we have a couple mechanics and we and and they may repair some of it um depending on their how busy they are and if they're comfortable with it or they may send it to a dealership as well for repairs after the warranty is up but so a lot of it's done in-house but not when they're under warranty they usually send them out for warranty repair yeah that yeah so we're on the same page okay cool thanks mark

Is our interest rate based on our bond rating? No, it is not.

No, it's the same rate for all of our governmental agencies. Okay.

Any more discussion?

Chief, I appreciate the effort.

All right. We had a motion?

I make the motion that we approve the leasing contract with American National Leasing Company.

I second the motion.

Madam Secretary, do you have a vote, please?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Yes.

All right, motion passed unanimously. Move on to item number six, discuss and consider an interlocal agreement for the city of Mount Pleasant to operate, maintain, and train for use of self-contained breathing apparatus, fill station provided by Titus County, Texas. And this is going to be our attorney and our fire chief.

Actually, Mayor, I'll go ahead and jump in on this. We are going to ask that council tables this particular item. And the reason being is that the agreement that is in our packet that is signed by the judge is a different agreement that we had sent to them. So we're going to make sure that we have the correct agreement, send it back to the commissioner of court, ask them to approve it, send it back to us, and we will have this on the very next agenda.

item that's quick is beginning but it would be our recommendation you get a motion i'll make a motion that we table the scba fill station at this time i'll second that madam secretary please yes aye aye aye all right

motion passed unanimously let's go ahead and move on to item number seven and this is the city manager's report mayor council uh just a few quick things uh budget meetings and preparation efforts continue as we move closer into the budget season uh notice i might have a little bit more gray hair than i had last week we are getting it down into the weeds i think one of the things i will acknowledge chief and his efforts tonight and aaron also played a part in bringing the that agreement with with our uh the vehicles we are changing things for the better as we can so I've sent to each of you department heads and council members a five-year horizon strategic planning survey as soon as I get all those back I will pilot information and I'll be presenting that to you at an upcoming budget workshop a few of you and a few staff members over the weekend received some emails about a dog I just wanted to touch base on that the information information that as Falls travels very quickly This information made it all the way to Norway. The email came back and said that we had a dog in our shelter. No effort was taken to rescue this dog or adopt a dog and was put down basically because that's the only option we gave him. That's not accurate. Talk to staff. Talk to chief. The dog picture was posted on our Facebook page as we do with all of our animals. The dog was dog aggressive. It wasn't adopted. rescue efforts or rescue efforts were made to be with rescue organizations once they've learned the dog was dog aggressive which means they did not play well with other dogs they decided not to rescue the animals so unfortunately because of the time that we did have that animal staff did make every effort they could to adopt the dog so I just wanted to address that

false information with accurate information rob and the one thing you told me right before you came out here yeah i just want to make sure that everybody understands where did they get the picture from from our facebook page okay from the facebook page so it was put out there and i'm we're looking into other things making sure that we're doing everything right and it is I mean for Rob and for all of us we're making sure we're doing the right things for the community and for the animals so some stuff and make sure everything's being done right lastly I would say congratulations to the Mount Pleasant Rodeo Association and to Prefix they had two very successful events this last weekend 62nd annual Mount Pleasant Rodeo and the Prefix branch opened

the economic impact that both of these events have on our community and not only that but it brings people here and then when they leave they talk about how great we are how my pleasant is welcoming to them you see trucks you see horse trailers everywhere for a full week it's in both events i was able to go to both some of both events really enjoyed it but well the city is already talking to the rodeo association about how we can help make the rodeo even better

just wanted to say that about those events they've been coordinators thank you what you do and for the rodeo that 250th anniversary there is I believe there is something planned all right so council comments limited council well actually we're moving removing the executive discussion The one thing we had in the executive session, we're gonna go ahead and move it out to the public meeting, and that is, Discussion and actions on ethic complaint filed against Mayor Wesley Lyon II. So basically I put this item in here because I wanted to make sure that there weren't, you know, what do I need to do? I know I divulged closed session details. I felt like it was necessary and I'm ready to accept whatever, whatever there is, whatever repercussions are. So discussion?

I disagree, Mayor. You did not break any ethics. Ethics was already broken. You went in and defended the truth. So I say we drop it right now, over and done with. You did nothing wrong.

I wasn't here for that meeting, but I'll just kind of refer to Lee based on the information. I'm assuming we're part of that meeting. What does that look like from your perspective?

Council, so two things. First, the mayor does have the right to have the discussion of the deliberation about this in open session, but the council has the right to have legal advice in closed session. So that piece is still available to you if you decide to exercise that. terms of the provision that's an issue it would concern section 34.03 C which is disclosed disclosed information that could adversely affect the property government or affairs of the city or directly or indirectly use any information gained by reason of his or her official position or employment for his or her own personal gain or benefit or for the private interest of others and so it's really for council to decide whether or not you believe that um the mayor's I believe we're talking about his uh his uh public post on Facebook is that correct that's correct that's really for council to decide is whether or not you believe uh or you consider that that disclosure uh violated that section of the ethics ethics code and it's so it's really for you to decide how you see that thank you i would like to say that um

our mayor did not divulge things from our executive meeting first it seems like that was like it happened once and we did it again so according to our charter I'm looking at Ms. Lee there wasn't anything that we could do we couldn't find we couldn't do anything when we were finding miss Melanie Knight-Tafoya that she had been guilty and so I'm kind of like Carl it's like let's just drop it let's go on there's not anything else that can be done and I think as I look at my cohorts up here let's just not let's just keep our mouth shut and not do it again

try to live by the rules that they've given us to live by I agree but I want to thank Wesley Lyon for standing up you can only get kicked so many times before you want to fight back but I will say what he did was it was understandable he defended his counsel and he did speak the truth and far as benefit no one benefited from anything during all of that the mayor certainly didn't benefit but I admire anyone who will stand up and say yep I did it and here I am you deal with me and I appreciate that very much and as far as I'm concerned I'm done with it all right is there a motion that we need to make

I make a motion that we don't take any action.

OK. Second. I second. Madam Secretary, take a vote, please.

Yes. Aye.

Aye. Just because I wasn't here for any of this, I'm going to abstain from this vote. I just don't know.

all right it was three to one and motion passed so we don't have to go into executive session and we do want to do the council comments limited announcements of upcoming events recent council member activities or requests to agenda items for upcoming meeting two minutes for council I've got two comments neither one are going to be popular I'm sure

but I would like us to I know we've talked about this for the last couple of years about charter amendments I would like in the next maybe month or two that we make a decision bring it before the council as to how we're going to do that if we're going to have a group or whatever but we do need to address that and the second thing is as Kelly and I have met with the finance people and we've met with directors and everybody else over the new budget it's not going to be an easy sale one way or the other it's going to be a difficult budget but we did look at things and we asked questions about what the benefits are that we have here in the city that maybe not all the other cities have and we talked about insurance we talked about the benefits we talked about tml we talked about everything one thing that we didn't bring up that i would like to have the council and the manager and directors kind of chew on a little bit is possibly maybe looking at alternative ways of work if it's a i know that we've done it before i know it was done when i was here i know that one of the departments are doing it now is maybe a four and a half day work week or maybe moving hours around or rotating schedules so that it will be at least one incentive that we can use if it's agreeable to everybody. And I'm sure some people will be happy about it, maybe not everybody, but even if we give it a test run, pull the facts from other cities, just see if it's a viable solution to at least help in any way, to help the employees and to help the city.

It's a good idea. We used to have summer hours at a couple of different companies that I worked at. And basically, that's what it was, I think, half day Friday. And then another one, you actually would, in the summertime, you would work your extra hours through the week to make up for your time. And then you would have every other Friday off. That was pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what we did. So, yeah. Anybody else? Yes.

I would like to say, I said this before, we had a budget workshop. And because this is a light agenda, I wanted to say it from here. Two years ago, well, I'm fixing to start my second term. So two years ago when I got elected, Jonathan and Carl and I, we had a mass exodus. And when we had this mass exodus, we found ourselves literally within the first two weeks of our term missing five directors, no city manager, and we were looking at each other saying, okay, we're going to have to learn quick. And in the last two years or a year and a half, I've watched you guys step up. Most of you guys were working in other departments or maybe you were not in a director position and you were given that opportunity to step up. And you guys knew, as we knew, the mess that it was in. And so when I see people that are willing and have the backbone to step into a situation that it's a mess, it is so admirable this day and age for people to say, I can take that on. And I'm so proud of all of our directors for doing that. It has been hard for us as council people to take it on, and I know that it's been hard for you guys taking it on and learning as you go. So I know a lot of you when you stepped into these positions might not have had tenure. Y'all might not have had years and years of all this training and stuff. But what I'm seeing and I'm hearing is that you guys are getting the training. You guys are trying to step into those positions and be the best you can be. And because we all went through it together two years ago, Now y'all might not feel this way, but I really feel akin to you guys. And the reason I do is because we all pulled together. My team up here, I'll add Debbie, she came later. But I mean, it's been, it's been rocky. And we've learned a lot. And knowing what you guys are doing, and we've all done it together. I really think that Mount Pleasant has an amazing team. I think the citizens of Mount Pleasant are so, so fortunate to have you guys here as part of the family that we are. I think every one of you dig in and take care of each other. And I'm serious. I just want you to know you rock. And we are fortunate to have you. And keep going, and I look forward to the next two years working with you all.

All right. Well, looks like somebody did a lot of work putting this nice summer fun 2026 pamphlet together for the public library. So if you don't know what's going on at our library, I would recommend you get one of these. Looks like there's a lot of fun planned for all ages. So just great job.

Thanks, Lupe. That's what I was going to say is that I hear a lot of stuff on Facebook that the kids don't have anything to do, don't have anywhere to go, and this is just filled with stuff. So as a community, I want to say thank you. It's awesome. All right, we have anything else?

And just to add, I did believe I read something in there about the celebratory. Y'all are doing something trying to celebrate the 250-year anniversary of America, you want to add to that? Because I only saw one line.

So we are partnering with DAR, so Daughters of American Revolution. They're going to be doing a program for us about talking about the women from Titus County or that have ties to Titus County with this chapter for America 250. And we're going to do a couple other little things, but that's going to be the highlight of what we're doing at the library for America 250.

How's the participation been?

Great. We had this past Saturday was our summer kickoff at Caldwell Park. So we had bubble mania. And we handed out over 200 daily bars from Dairy Queen. And we had a great turnout. So it's been it kicked off well, and we've been feeling it the rest of this week. So awesome. Thank you. Thank you.

Anything else? I have a shout out to the police department. Yesterday evening, my wife had me going to a house she has listed to check some breaker boxes. It's a house that's been vacant for a year. Open the door, go in, there's a window open in the house. Close the window, going through the house with the breaker box, I come out the back, through the patio, and the window is open. Somebody's in that house, right? And I've been in houses before I didn't expect to be in there, and it's not pleasant. So we call the police, and we had Officer Palma, Burns, Gandia, and Marilyn. They came, they were very polite, they were very nice, they checked the house out, they were very professional. They even helped me find the breaker box. All right, so, I believe it was Officer Palma went and closed the door the window we were in the kitchen and she saw the window