City Council - Regular Meeting

What time did Carl say he was going to show up?

Hello?

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the City Council meeting. It's 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 16, 2026, and we have a quorum. All right, we'll go ahead and move on to the invocation with Lieutenant Dinklage.

Lord God, I thank you for this day, and I thank you, God, for all the blessings you've bestowed upon our city and for the men and women who serve our city faithfully. I pray, Lord, that all of our decisions will be in furtherance of your will. Lord, I ask for your wisdom and guidance to be with our council as they govern our city. And I thank you, Lord, for Jesus Christ. And it's in his name I pray. Amen.

Thanks, Lieutenant Denny.

Appreciate it. I can get it for you.

All right, we'll go ahead and move into open session. Public comments. The City Council welcomes citizen participation and comments at all council meetings. Citizens' comments are limited to three minutes out of respect for everyone's time. The council is not permitted to respond to any of your comments. The Texas Open Meetings Act requires that the topics of discussion and deliberation be posted on the agenda no less than three business days in advance of the council meeting. If your comment relates to a topic that is on the agenda, the council will discuss the topic on the agenda at the time the topic is discussed and deliberated. Do we have any public comments?

Good evening, council. My name is Kyle Mooring. I'm a resident of Mount Vernon, Texas. For nearly a year, I have reported the city's records management failures. For nearly a year, the response has been to go after the person reporting them. I documented the exposure of social security numbers and sexual assault forensic exam records on the city's OpenGov portal. I documented a full unredacted police report from an active federal case released through the city's own production. And I documented a no record certification signed under penalty of perjury by city secretary Candace Webster stating that a good faith search found nothing responsive across 25 items except my own email reporting the problem. The city did not fix these things. On May 28th, its outside attorney pointed a criminal statute at me. Texas Government Code 552.352 for reporting a record the city itself released. Then it went further. On May 29th, four days before I last stood here, the city's outside counsel, Lee Rehm, emailed Titus County District Attorney Charles Bailey, copying Attorney Austin Beck, asking to discuss issues raised regarding Kyle Mooring. Consider the irony. They turned to the same district attorney who evaded my request to meet and review my complaints and whom the Attorney General found to have committed apparent Public Information Act violations of his own. The same district attorney who concluded he found no violation by the city while he himself held records the city still denies possessing. This is also the prosecutor I'd asked weeks earlier to step aside from a case involving child grooming allegations his own office advised police to file. A case in which the person who signed the form to drop it was at that same time a defendant his office was prosecuting. He dismissed my request in 10 minutes telling me he represents the state of Texas and has no conflict. And on Easter morning at about 1.46 AM, that district attorney forwarded me a production containing unredacted social security numbers, driver's license numbers, CPS history, and information identifying minors. Those records came from the city's own police records manager, April Nip, the same official who had told me the records did not exist. So the city pointed a criminal statute at the reporter over records it released, then turned to a prosecutor who had produced unredacted confidential records himself, shifting the focus from the city's records failures to the person who reported them. And after I spoke here on June 2nd, the city's own video of that meeting was quietly made unlisted and replaced with a separate copy. That is the pattern. I report failures, the city protects itself, calls my persistence a vendetta, and turns on the reporter. James Baldwin warned, ignorance allied with power is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. And that is what this record shows. A city claiming it has no records of investigation or remediation while using attorneys and prosecutorial channels against the person who reported the failures. And let me be blunt, this council found time to spend months on an ethics investigation into Council Member Tafoya that ended with no discipline. It found time to dismiss Mayor Lyon's ethics complaint concerning himself while using that discussion to criticize Council Member Tafoya again. But for seven months I have placed records, notices, and documented concerns directly before you, and my formal ethics complaints have still not been put to a public vote. So I renew two requests. Place my formal ethics complaints back on the agenda for a public vote, and authorize an independent outside audit of the city's records, practices, and internal controls. Thank you.

Anyone from the public like to speak? You can just state your name and where you are, county or city, doesn't matter.

Greetings to you all. I really wish Mr. Hinton was here tonight, but I'm sure you'll pass the message along to him. I came before you tonight to commend your brilliant marketing strategy of making each council meeting reminiscent of the 1940s cliffhanger serial picture shows. I particularly enjoyed the episode of two weeks ago when you left me on the edge of my seat wondering if we've got a town troublemaker, a poltergeist prankster, a rogue raccoon, a problematic possum, or an overly ambitious aperture. I was on the edge of my seat, riveted. I was about to find out why the window kept being found open when the feed ended mid-sentence. All my anticipation deflating faster than Patriots football. It was all I could do not to jump in my car and rush down here demanding answers. In conclusion, I have two requests for you tonight. Please fix the feed ending too soon. And please, when Mr. Hinton returns, have him finish the window episode so those of us at home that missed the end of the story would be able to hear it. Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate it. All right. Any more comments? All right. Let's go ahead. We're going to move from the consent agenda. We're going to put number one in the regular agenda. Consider approval of the June 2, 2026 meeting. Is there a motion to approve the item?

I make a motion that we approve the June 2, 2026 meeting minutes as shown.

I second. All right. Madam Secretary, can we take a vote, please?

Yes.

Aye.

Aye.

All right. vote passed unanimously. We'll go ahead and move to item number two, monthly financial report for month end May 31st, 2026. And it's our interim finance director, Elliot.

Thank you. Mr. Manager, Mayor, Council, thank you. We've got our May 20th, a year today in the state financial. So on that very first slide following this slide, we have our general fund revenue. And we are at, in a comparison to budget, an actual 12.3 million year to date. That is at 77.5% above the target on a straight line of 67. And it's also up a million dollars over the time last year. And on the next slide, we have property tax collection We're down 3.3% in comparison to budget and about $214,000 overall. For sales tax for May, we are at 9.23% in comparison to budget and in comparison to last year at the same time, 8.74%. So all positive revenues for the general fund. For general fund expenditures, We are up at 63.2% of 2% from this time last year. There was a month-to-date loss, but overall, the year-to-date is positive fund balance trend. And on the next slide, we're going to talk about our utility fund. Year-to-date revenues are 66.5%, and that's almost neutral to 66.8% last year. And we also anticipate summer increase. On the utility fund expenditure, it's at 72% almost, and right along the lines of where we were last year at 71%. There is a year-to-date loss, but it is less than this time last year. And it also is showing that we made the major portion of our debt service payment. So most of our principal and interest was all in May. So that really was painting that picture. And then sales tax collection for the month of June, still positive but down from last month at an overall 8.57% to budget and above last year's 7.95%. Are there any questions? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. April. Yes, so we did an adjustment last month. The accounting is always on a cash basis. And then year end, we do an accrual basis for audit. And when it came to our attention that the property taxes were on an accrual basis monthly, we made a correction there, causing the negative. You'll see that April has a zero. And so we trued that up to get it back on a cash basis for the appropriate way to account for it. Negatives, I don't either. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

I appreciate it.

All right. And we are going to move on to item number three, presentation and discussion of financial report presentation by the city financial advisor, Hilltop Security, and that's going to be our finance director, Elliot. We'll introduce Jim.

Jim Sabonis. Actually, I'll go ahead and introduce him. We have Jim Sabonis here this evening from Hilltop Security. We appreciate him making the trip to be here. We have, the staff has been working with him. He has quite a few slides, as you see in your presentation. It's this one here. Each of you should have this in front of you. So I'll relinquish the rest.

Thank you, Rob. Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, citizens of Mount Pleasant. My name is Jim Sabonis. I'm a Managing Director of Hilltop Securities. I'm fortunate to represent the city as financial advisor, and I've worked with many cities here in Texas and some throughout the nation. Rob challenged me a number of months ago to try to provide an overview of the financial condition prior to you going through your actual budget to understand what's taking place and provide some background information that will help you as you develop your strategy going forward. We go to the next page, two pages, one more page. This is a long presentation. I'm going to go through it quickly because I just really want to talk about the high-level items. And in an overview, and I actually was putting the overview together, thinking about it. And one thing I have to say, and I have to compliment you, Mayor, Council Members, you, Administration of the City, you run an efficiency. Your tax rate is among the lowest of your territory. And from an overall debt perspective, it's really a dichotomy. your actual ad lorum INS debt tax rate and the amount of debt is very low. On the other hand, we have a significant amount of utility debt, some actual revenue bonds, some of it self-support INS debt. It's significantly higher than our payroll. And you've done that, been an efficient government, in spite of the challenges of actually a very flat or low growth in tax process value and actually a decrease in sales tax over the last three years. You know, when I looked at this, it's fascinating. My mother-in-law actually grew up and was raised in Mount Vernon. My grandmother lives there now. I mean, my wife's grandmother lived there, so I'm very familiar with the area. And it was kind of stunning to me that when I look at the last 10 years, the actual population growth is almost 300 people actually added to the city at that time. Right now, our taxable success value hit 1.8 million. It barely went up last year. Our sales tax hit $6.4 million. It's actually less than it was three years ago. Our per capita value is about $111 million per capita. It's kind of in the middle of the area. But what's taking place is with increased cost inflation, we've had some challenges in the general performance. Actually, our current $20 million 25 audit report shows the fourth year in a row that our general fund revenue went down. As a result, because of rising expenses, we've seen drawdown in your fund balance. And you're going to see, we're going to talk a little bit about your fund balance because I think that's a big issue. It's actually at the end of 25 with 3.5 million, about 24% of your annual revenue went down from about 33% the year before. On the outstanding debt, We show about $104 million outstanding at the end of 2025. $6,500 per capita. But when you look at that debt, you take out the utility. On just the INS side, it's only $1,390. Only 1.15% of your capital value. So we haven't invested a lot in general infrastructure. We have significant investment in our utilities. On the total... ad-horm tax rates, 36.61 cents. It's low, and we picked out, I picked out just some peer cities I'm familiar with, I had information for, and it's lower than anybody else in that peer group. On the bond ratings, we currently have an A plus negative by S&P and a B double A one by Moody's, and it's declined, it's declined for two reasons. On one, we've had some unevenness and significant drawdowns in our general fund balance, resulting because we've had operational loss potential. So I'm going to talk about the economic statistics, and this is interesting. Interesting because how statistics work, but a little bit uneven here, but more importantly, just what they say. You know, in 2016, the databases said we had approximately 15,947 people that live in town. Our current estimate is 16,295. an increase of just 348, pretty unique in that situation. And the taxable assessed value, our growth has actually slowed significantly. When you look at the 10-year average, we grew at about $91 million per year. Over the last five years, because of 23 and 22, we have a high average, $130 million per year. But when you start looking at 2024, we only grew 98 million, excuse me, 78 million, then 100 million. This last year, we only grew 29 million. Now, two things impacted last year, and it's happened to a lot of cities, is that our last legislative session, the legislature passed some new statutes that limit the amount of ad valorem tax that small business pay on personal property. And I think every entity's had a record year in the number of protests they've had. But we only grew by 1.6% over that last year. And inflation rate, if you look at the last few years, it's been significantly higher than that. On the sales tax, it actually shows a little bit more of a problem. We see steady growth in sales tax. Again, 21, 20, we're over double-digit growth. We dropped down to under 5% growth in 22. We actually have a decline in 23 and a very slight increase in 2025. So actually 2025 has less sales tax growth than we had in 2023, which is an important issue because when you look at a city's overall economy, what I've seen in my history is that cities reach build-out or near build-out sales tax is a way that they can actually grow revenue and promote more cost efficiency for the residents. So when you look at this now, this kind of starts to look at sales tax per capita here. What's interesting about this, and I'll use this to compare some, this is our annual sales tax, the technical sales value per capita. This is important because it also relates to how efficient you run your city. Currently, we're at $111,000 per capita in adworm value. And above here is U.S. governments nationwide for Moody's. And you can see that via AA rating, on average, they had 163,000. On every city all across America, they averaged 155,000. And in a rating you're looking at about 97,000 so our value represents where we are in in our rating we have the a negative outlook and we dropped down from the a to the B double a because of our cash balance but per capita. kind of about average. I will say that what hurts us is our sales tax, which is a fascinating thing that I know Rob and I've talked a lot about, is that our per capita is $403 per capita on sales tax, and that's low compared to our peer group. And that's a real important issue because, again, cities try to take the burden off taxpayers. The biggest issue I've seen, and I've seen strategic plans with a number of cities, is to increase sales tax. So let's look at our peer groups, because I think this is interesting. I picked up these cities because I thought some of these would be comparable, focused on generally East Texas and cities that I'm familiar with. And you can see that I've got them listed on what their actual population is, their tax list value, their sales tax. But what I really think that ties it together is comparing us against their taxable value per capita and their annual sales tax per capita. And so when I look at this, the real issue I see is that, I mean, I want to focus on, and I'll come up to the very end of the presentation, is annual sales tax per capita. We are coming at $403 per capita, and you can see that we're below average and towards the lower end of that. That puts a burden on the citizens because now you have to fund your government by ad valorem taxes. And I also want to say that, you know, I'm fortunate to actually represent Commerce. And when I put them in statistically, they're unique because they have Texas A&M, East Texas there. And there's not a lot of sales tax-driven companies. because the students go to school, everything's done at the school, and unfortunately on weekends when they go to commuter school, there's not a lot of weekend activity, something we've worked with them on before. Also, when you look at their taxable value per capita, I kind of put them as the outlier because a lot of the property in the community is owned by non-profits between the university and some religious institutions. So they have their challenges. But the real important thing is that when you look at them, and I'll come up later, you're going to see that the cities that have the lowest sales tax per capita and the lowest assessed value per capita consistently have the highest tax rates. Commerce is at 80 cents right now. So the reason this is important is you can look at not how big you are, it's how dense your economics are for your community. And with the key, per valley, per square, per capita sales tax is a real indicator of what the tax rates are going to be. But in spite of that, and this is actually a fascinating thing to me, is how efficient your government is. We're below average in our sales tax, and we're below average, and we're at kind of the average in ad valorem, but we have a very low tax rate. Right now, we're at 36.61 cents, and it's gone up a couple pennies over the last couple years, but it's kind of consistent where we've been in the last few years on our overall tax rate. When you look at that tax rate, The real unique thing, and of all things I've noticed, this is one that's going to stick out the most, is how low your M&O tax rate is. We have an M&O tax rate of only 28.28 cents, slightly higher than the last couple years. But when you think about this, our growth rate has slowed in tax process value. Actually, sales tax is declining. And we've only gone up slightly in our M&O tax rate. This tells me this city must be budgeting very efficiently. This is a challenge. On the I&S side, we have an 8.3 cent tax rate, slightly up over the last few years, but overall, you're going to look at, when I look at these other cities, you're going to see their average I&S tax rate component, the tax rate, it's significantly higher. When you look at the peer cities here, this is, it kind of gives you a feel for where you are, how efficient you are, that when you look at our community here, We have a very low M&O tax rate, we have a very low INAS tax rate, and our total tax rate is the lowest of all these communities. And it's fascinating because, again, we would skew, our tax rates are lower than cities that have much more sales tax per capita and higher taxable success value per capita. So to me, when I look at this page, this is the one thing that tells me your city is really running on an efficient budget basis. You know, our ratings have been challenged, and we've actually been decreased the last couple years. And the reason we've been decreased is because of our general fund performance. As you can see, the green actually represents our revenues that we've received in the general fund. This is the fourth year in a row that it's 2025 that it went down, yet same time, over that timeframe, for three of those years we've gone up, and even in the year 2025 when we increased our expenses, it's above what our revenues are. As a result, we've significantly drawn down our fund balance in the general fund, which is the big issue. When it comes to credit, five credit criteria that people, that rating agencies look at, they look at your economy, your management, your debt burden, but the two things that are most important and by far carry the biggest weight with the rating agencies is the ability for a city to consistently budget positive conservatively and positive results from its general fund and the amount of cash that we have on reserve fund and what the rating sees have talked about is that we had these unexpected drawdowns and as a result our fund balance has been reduced so Our current fund balance at the end of 25 shows about 24% fund balance basis. If you look at Moody's mediums for cities, all governments in the United States have on average about 54%. Our 24% that we have is slightly above the BAA rating, which is where we actually are rated by them. But it's below the A rating where S&P actually has us now. And you can see that's a good part. At the same time, and I've spent time talking to Rob and your staff about this, you know, I believe that a city runs what's best for the citizens and best for its strategy, and it comes up the rating has. But when the question becomes, like, what happened to our rating, it's really a combination, the compound effect of unbalanced drawdowns. and in some of those fund balance drawdowns being unexpected, especially after years where we'd actually meet with the rating agencies and talk to them and indicate that we're gonna increase our fund balance. And when they see the results, they've gone down. Outstanding debt, this is the area, I know it's been a lot of focus by the city. And when you look at the total INS debt outstanding, this is a combined amount of both the general fund general improvements and utility improvement, it's pretty high. We have, at the end of 2026, we'll end up with $102 million outstanding, of which it results about $6.2 thousand per capita per person. But the unique part about it is when I look at your debt, it's really burdened by your utility. as this exactly shows in green, the INS part of your debt, double-barrel pledge of INS taxes and net revenues to your system is almost, uh... eighty-one million or just under five thousand dollars per person and then we have some revenue bonds that we've issued uh... to the texas water development board twelve million outstanding or another seven hundred thirty six so when you look at at what's outstanding it combines to be about ninety three million of your hundred and two million dollar debt over about five point seven five thousand seven hundred twelve dollars of per person. Now on your INS step, and this is kind of fascinating, is that that's not actually a big burden. When you look at the burden you have, we do have $21 million outstanding. As I indicated, it's about 1.2% of your value, which is very low. On average, cities have approximately 2.5% of their value outstanding with growing fast, growing cities having a higher number, mature cities going to the lower end. And when we look at this on a per capita basis, it's $1,292. Below here is actually an excerpt from S&P's rating methodology. And you can see that we would fall into two clutches, and two would be very strong, indicating between $500 and $1,500 per capita debt outstanding. So it's the unique thing of when you look at us compared to other cities, on overall debt per capita, we're second highest in this group besides Greenville. Greenville has an electric utility and a water and sewer utility that they fund some of their debt with. But on a net general obligation debt, we're almost the lowest in this process, towards the lower end of that process, indicating, again, most of our debt is on the utility side, not on the INS side. So when it comes to the bond ratings, This is actually a record of our bond ratings. And we've actually been, over the last few years, we've actually been in the A plus, A2, A1 rating. But what happened was that in our ratings, in the rating reports, I'll go through in a minute, we've actually been downgraded to Moody's to a BAA1 rating. And we're under negative outlook by standard force with a bus with expectation that they're going to review us at any time. And anytime I think blend it eventually be downgraded why, why is that. That they indicate in summary that you know our economy is not growing actually had very small increase in value, I think the sales tax. We've had challenges in our budget performance. Reserves have been drawn down. They're below our formal target and below the average of our peers, and we have a significant amount of utility debt. I think that, as I've indicated to Rob, that the rating agencies go through a standard review process for those that are on CreditWatch, and it's time for us probably to be reviewed by them And I think at that time we could be downgraded. At S&P, they actually reflect the same things that we have. excuse me, yes, you're talking about the Moody's report. I actually have a copy in the presentation in the appendix. It's the last one we have by Moody's, and it's when they actually downgraded us to BAA1. And from their perspective, BAA1 is about where we have on fund balance, and I think if we maintain where we are, we would be there. And it's important because we're an investment grade at BAA1. Of course, they actually have us here. in their situation, we're on negative outlook. And again, I think that if they apply their standard rating, we'll go to a triple B category equal to our BAA1. But again, it's investment grade rating. They point to the same exact issues that we have is really the amount of cash we have in budget. So when I think about this from a summary perspective, The city is forced to deal with issues that not every Texas city, a lot of cities are trying to grow too fast in how they're working. But when it comes to the five credit factors that you have as a city, overall, our debt picture on the INS side is not high. Actually, we have a limited amount of the INS debt. And when we have these ratings related to our general obligation fund, Now, we do have significant water and sewer funds, and as long as we continue to self-support it, it wouldn't be a negative impact on us. In general, management, financial policies and procedures are good. In our economy, it's been slow, not a positive or negative, but the issue with COVID is consistent, inability to consistently have positive outcomes. cash flow from our operations, and we've drawn down our fund balance. Now, when I talked to Rob before, I've dealt with lots of cities that have gone through financial situations, and over the years I've actually been brought in to help a number of cities. And traditionally what you would see is where a city has a negative or gets downgraded, we try to put a multi-year plan together to say, let's conservatively budget the let's generate cash, and over a multi-year time frame, try to get our cash balances back to a target that we have in place. And right now we're below our own city target process. But the challenge that you face, and it's an interesting challenge, is that over the last couple years, and I know from working with the staff, the city expected to grow. It didn't expect to become smaller. And so you're faced with growing costs across the board, inflation impacting you, and at the same time, our economy constraining a lot of it. So at the same time, I tell you, the citizens have to be proud and thankful, I think, of what you as leaders have done for the city. You've got a very efficient tax rate. The last thing I would say is that while we've been downgraded, one thing that's important is that we are an investment great. there's probably not a business in this county that has an investment grade by itself. It's hard to get rating. It shows the strength of city's credit ratings itself. And the difference between the ratings is not that significant. Between a BAA one and an A rating, it might be 10 basis points, 12 basis points. Very small difference because we're still considered credit. We're rating, and then between an A and a AA, it might just be five basis points. So you're really talking about It sounds terrible that we got downgraded, but we are an investment grade rating. We sold our debt. We have tremendous appetite by investors. How do we sell it? We have numerous investors. But again, the question is, where do you stabilize at this time? And it's a difficult issue. As you go into budget, it's going to be, I think it's going to be a tough situation because, again, based on your trends, if those trends continue, it'll be hard to keep your tax rate so low. And it's important to make decisions now because as you've drawn down your fund balance, now we only have 20%. You know, one time we were at over 40%, but as we've come down, and what I would recommend to you is work with Rob and with your entire management team because the worst thing you might be is to be in a situation where you've drawn down fund balance and then you come forward and say, next year, As we reduce our cash balance, how do we make it up for it as we go forward? You know, I had one client that was brought in to help a city that had, and I'll use the example where they had $3 million of unrestricted cash. They budgeted one-year $1 million drawdown. They budgeted second-year $1 million drawdown. They had $1 million. In the third year, they budgeted $800,000 drawdown. And the question that the rating agency asked, but I really talked to them about this was, what happens in our next budget year? We already have a budget that is $800,000 short, but we only end up with $200,000 at the end of the year. What are you gonna do? You don't wanna be in that position where that becomes a real challenge. So, again, you know, this is a really unique situation because when I read this, it really made me think through your city and the years I've worked with it. Your city's done a lot. In spite of our economy, you've actually got a very low tax rate and become very efficient for your city. And I don't know how much more efficient you can be than a city your size. So, yeah, at the same time, there's a challenge at the end. That's kind of an overview of what I observed from your city. That concludes my comments here.

I've actually got copies of the last two rating reports and the criteria from the rating sheets with indicated indexes for different ratings and the national average in the back. If I've answered any questions, I'll provide an additional question.

When I read this report, I was waiting for the second wave, where the good stuff was, but there wasn't.

Well, you know, again, as your advisor, I think there is good stuff here. And where I see the good stuff is you maintain, you know, I know we've broadened on our fund balance, but we have a very low tax rate. You know, the East Texas communities we've talked about, we have the lowest tax rate by far. Again, we work with a lot of those, and it's unusual. Let me go back to this page and make sure I've got it.

Well, last year I did a search for like the 30, for the top 30, and the only one that was below us was Tyler. So, but one of the questions I have, and I'm putting the finance director on the spot here, is I was wondering what we collected last year and then this year, what the difference was, or maybe 2024 to 2026. Because I know a lot of people are talking about with the property taxes, the appraisal is basically taking care of our of that increase, right? They're getting hit with the increase on the appraisal, and then they're getting hit again with the tax. I mean, and I'm not an accountant or anything like that, but that's the questions that we get.

No, I understand. In fact, I have this general rule that I talk to people, my younger junior bankers, And I believe in myself, my family's experts through the Netflix. And the general rule of thumb is no matter where you live, you think your tax rate's too high and it should be low. It doesn't matter if you live in a city with a 33 cent tax rate or a city with an 80 cent tax rate. You don't want to pay, nobody wants to pay more in taxes. But again, I look at this column here, and again, from my perspective, it really stunningly, when I look at it, we actually have, you know, an MNO rate of 28 cents. And when you look at this, By far, the majority of these cities have higher MNO tax rates. And the ones that are higher are probably a combination of two things. One is they have more sales tax per capita, or they're bigger cities and become more efficient. But your city is very, very efficient from that perspective. And again, we have a pretty low INF tax rate compared to most cities. So the good news is you're doing well. In spite of your challenge, and to me, that's what I would summarize, is the city's been challenged by a slow overall economic growth. In response, your council has been efficient and kept the tax rate down. And it's cost a little bit on your ratings, but that's what the city has been . So I do see they're good. Again, it'd be different if our tax rate was 80 cents and we had those economies, I'm on the high side, but we're on the low side.

Come on up. Yeah. If you have a fail and you're saying that there's a connection between, correct? Okay, well, I don't think Texas, I think they combined Texas.

Doesn't, doesn't, doesn't property tax, if we have, we spend less on property tax, we spend more on sales tax?

No, I, actually, I don't think that happens, because you can't expect, the city can't change the sales tax rate, but, let's say we, tax rate, and the economy, whether it's better, But what I do think is, though, I don't think it can affect the sale tax directly. Economic development, there's no business that have sale tax, but it can change the rate. We were at maximum rate before. On the other hand, the sale tax is more. What happens to the city is that you have a budget We can't change our sales tactics. We can't change our sales tactics. We can't change our sales tactics.

I agree. The economic development will raise the tax rate.

And I use an example. I'm working with other cities that are on state highways or national highways. Big things that people are looking for. You can have names of cities. I've talked to a lot of cities that get home people to come in. Ultimately, you'll see that they generate a sales tax. They generate a sales tax. And when other cities I've seen over the years, I've worked with my health care here, as you can see, the city is mature. And they talk about how do we diversify our revenue stream so that the citizens don't have to pay for it. Always folks that do not have to pay for it.

Excuse me. Right here. Can you please speak into the microphone? They cannot hear you online.

Am I supposed to get closer? Yes, while you're talking. So you're saying basically that our property taxes have to go up to make the sales tax go up? No. Okay. That's what I was wondering. No, no. What I'm saying is that... Is it a volume thing?

EDC, more businesses, more volume, more sales tax?

Exactly. Exactly.

What I'm saying is that, let's say, we have a general fund budget of $100, and we get $30 in sales tax, and we're going to have to let the average tax go up.

our tax rate that we have, but we can't force, we can't actually say we want more sales tax.

I was just wondering, because you seem to be putting them, them adding to each other.

What I mean by that is that, again, I think if we look at this group of cities, the ones that have tremendous correlation between cities that have I can use a real-life number of the cities in the

northern part of the Metroplex on the I-75 corridor coming out of Dallas and Plano and Allen. You know, I had one city, for instance, they finally get, you know, for years they've been hoping a Walmart comes, Walmart comes to the Home Depot, they open that center.

They generate so much sales tax, and that year they had the overall average tax was about $5,000. So, because the amount of sales tax they generate, they can use that to make their budget.

On the other hand, you know, I've seen, I've had a client of mine where Walmart was on one side of the highway and they had received a incentive program from the city and they approached the city across from them. The incentive program ran out over 10 years and they just moved across the highway. They lost the sales tax and value it and actually that retail center almost went

So with the businesses that we've added this year for 2026, our sales tax is looking pretty promising, right? It has improved, yes.

And then we've got the people that we're moving in, Academy and all of that business. That seems like a promising thing also.

Yeah, Academy is actually the type of business that you need to come in. Yeah, it's growing.

Well, I wanted to say that we have visitors tonight. that are from our main street community. And obviously that is something that the city of Mount Pleasant needs to make sure that we all work together to get the local retail sales tax up. And that's where the downtown merchants, the main street, that's gonna help. Now these are smaller businesses, they're not academy. And I own a small business and I can tell you that my sales tax is not like it was in 2013. I'm following with where you're going.

And I've spoken with your staff before, and I work with some cities right now where a number of my cities vary so much to where the highway went on the outskirts of the historical downtown. And during my career, I worked in this business before Walmart became such a powerhouse. I saw what Walmart did. to some of the cities, you can take some of the, go back to Metroplex and what they've done, some of the cities and others, yet at the same time, from a crash perspective, there's a number of my communities that are on the edge of growth, and your staff talked about putting a tour together, and again, kind of catch 22, you want them to come in, you'd like them to be on the highway, and the question is how do you help your downtown take advantage of it. We've done tax increment reinvestment zones that actually capture downtown and the frontage roads on the highway. Part of the plan would be to do a portion of the increment that comes both on abnormal sales tax from those businesses to revitalize downtown. A number of cities are doing that right now and using that to fund main street type objectives. Again,

So when Moody's and S&P, when they do this new rating, are they going to be grabbing data from 26 also?

They'll ask for... We don't have a 26 audit yet. We already have our numbers right. I'm surprised we haven't talked to... one of the rating agencies yet. But what I do think is that they would look at your most current year. And they also look at what our projections are. And I've already talked to Rob, you know, kind of starting off strategy, as you go with the budget, you know, what, more importantly, how your city wants to go forward and manage its finances. But I think it would be the best job managing finances would be the best position. I explained to him, I don't want to mention, but I was called in to help, asked to help Central Texas City that went through some very difficult times, challenges with staff, significant drawdown on balance, unexpected, some lawsuits. And when we approached our agency, we prepared a multi-year plan to say, we had a difficult year, a lot of unexpected things, financial controls are in place now, we have a new plan, and maintain our rating and give us time to go forward. And over that time, I've showed where they exceeded what they expected and their three year plan to get back to where they were prior to having the challenges far exceeded by where they are right now. And it goes forward. But again, when that city developed a plan, it was developed a plan to run the city and have the city run the most efficiently. But what that plan does is support and maintain your rating.

I have one more question. I think I heard you say earlier that our reserves are not where they should be. What do you think they should be?

Well, I don't think it's not where they should be. Two things about a reserve. One is what do you think, what does your management think from and talk to you about the appropriate level of reserve? And how does that reserve slot into the rating process? I would say I would defer to your senior management to tell you what they think your reserves are going to be. At the same time, I'll tell you that at the 20% level, it's not going to get us to an A rate. We're at a triple B and B double A. But at the same time, that is an investment rate. I will also say that having two high reserves is not going to help you either. The question is, what is the right reserve policy for you? And then they explain that. For us, it's intriguing because one thing I think that is unique about our city is because so much of our revenues come from ad valorem, we don't need as much reserves as someone that has an outlet mall in the town that has to worry about what their sales tax would be, a little vulnerability of a major manufacturer moving that could take it away. You have to look at what the... revenues that you come in and what the potential volatility is. And to me, knowing the way I understand your city, we really don't have a concentration in a major sales tax producer. We rely on sales tax. I think we don't need as high of a reserve as a couple of my cities that depend on some big retailers or businesses. We have to be a little bit careful about that process. But again, I defer to them. You know, our perspective, it's both drawing down reserves that we, and this is a unique part, our policy believes our reserves are below that you have right now. And so we've already indicated, you've already indicated, here's what we think it is, but we're below that, and we haven't tried to get back to that level. but I think that during this budget process, I've spoken to Rob, and I think it's a huge part of the thing is what is the appropriate level, and then decide how you, if you defect. Because I think you're slightly over 22% as of 2025, and that might be appropriate, but then you might want to change your policy to reflect with it.

We've worked very hard the last couple years to bring our reserves up to where they are now. Very hard. So I'm proud of our city that we all had to get in.

No, and again, if you're a 20%, we're talking 60 days, I actually think that's probably a good position. But your policy indicates that you should have more. And I think maybe that policy is more dated. and then actually consistently staying at that level will actually get you back to where you should. Does that make sense?

Councilman Higgins?

Thank you. I will say, look, I read through the Moody's report and the other one on just some of the cliff notes, right, on things we need to do. I know with Greg, because that's when we first came on council, Greg, Attempted or at least put it on a list. I'll say it that way whether they got all executed or not So I guess you know the reserve policies in here sixteen point seven. I think we were at 22 Maybe it's come down to 20, but then I guess Rob just unfortunately looking at you. There's a handful of policies that identified and so Are those on your radar, I guess? Okay. And then, you know, like, are we going to try to tackle those as part of the budget? Or some of these look a little, like a long-term capital plan looks a little bigger than that.

Yes, to answer your question in two parts. Yes, they are on the radar, but some of them will not happen in a year. Some of them are part of it.

Awesome. Thanks, Rob.

Any more questions, discussions?

I have one question. First of all, I'd like to say thank you for coming in, for putting this information together, and for presenting. It's a lot of information. It's a lot to absorb. But my question to you would be, not so much for myself, but the council, but considering our current financial situation, what strategy or strategies do you have the most confidence in us moving forward to move us in the right direction outside of these policies that the council made in the first

Rob, I'm glad you asked me that question because you asked me two weeks ago to be prepared for that question, and I've spent more time thinking about that than all the other clients I work with because I think it's the most important issue we face. And what I see here is I think, let me tell you what I think. I think a city that runs bare bones efficient right now on the operating side, you know, your tax rate, It's low. I don't know. I'm not involved in personnel and actual operating decisions, but it seems to me that you run a very efficient process, probably not. So I think you have to look and say, what do we do on a revenue side? And I've been through this and observed and participated with other clients where they can step back and say, we'd like to grow, add more tax. We'd like to grow sales tax. for the pure reason to reduce potentially or control the cost that our citizens pay right now. And also that economic development can help provide quality of life. And each city is a little different. I'm fortunate to represent South Lake Texas, it's got more retail than it has, but also represent much in Texas, which surprisingly is one of the most economic successful communities And I've worked with Everett. You go back seven or eight years ago, I made a presentation to them that they were similar in position like you are. And they said, what can we do? And they really pushed towards having an industrial park that they bought land, gave incentives. And they've actually grown by a couple billion now. They were actually less than a billion when it started. They're almost three billion right now. They've actually reduced their tax rate, built a new city hall, senior center, community center, and they had no assets to provide any benefit to the city seat, and then now they have assets for people building homes. So to me, I think you have business leaders here that are now in both areas are successful, and I think that like any business, getting a blue-rimmed community of citizens together and saying, what can we be? You know, there's things, you know, I have cities that want to be Southlake or they want to have big industrial parks, but maybe they can, maybe they can't. What can you do? What do you think you can do and both invest and promote in the asset to help you be on a competitive basis? Because the bottom line is competition. I see my cities competing all the time for business relocation, retail facilities, and I think you'd have to sit there and say, what can we do, and let's focus an effort to make ourselves attractive to those businesses and to those type, hopefully, residents coming in place. And me, I don't know exactly what it could be. I can say that when I drive down the highway, I'm always surprised the lack of major retail we have on our, major highway going through town compared to some of the other canoes you have. And I think that that's an opportunity for you. I think that, again, I love East Texas. Spend a lot of time out here. Got to do what my mom, my wife, and her mom want when we come out this way. And I love East Texas. I mean, I think it's a great place for the opportunity for residential. But I think that you'd have to say what evaluated the practical things that you believe that you can be competitive and focus and effort on investing and actually attracting those type of businesses. Me, I don't know what it would be, but I think the process is really to evaluate yourself and say, what can we do? I can actually use an example of a city that's southwest of Fort Worth that I represent. They had an industrial park and for years they weren't successful. They actually did a study and they realized that Nobody wanted to have an especially shingle manufacturer or a manufacturer of chemicals. And they realized they didn't really have any natural advantages, except that they could have an industrial park kind of shielded from the rest of the community that attracted the businesses that others maybe didn't want. And unfortunately, they've got a battery manufacturer there. They've got people that do heavy, very specialized mineral and gas production. You know, especially if they have major, major businesses that have pre-sit. And to them as well, being open-minded and saying, these businesses, some people just say we don't want them, but we'll take them, but we'll control where they are so they don't impact our city. We'll make sure we have the systems in place to control and pre-treat any waste they have. And they really don't own their city, but they're there. I use an example of a city that's kind of unique It's surprising, I'm fortunate to work in Red Oak, Texas. Red Oak has a south part of Dallas Metroplex in Ellis County. Challenging growth. They actually were an early believer in data centers. Not everybody likes data centers. Their data centers are 100% brick enclosed, fully fenced, and have minimum grass distances from the building to the fence. And they've actually had four started, they increased to almost $3 billion in value with minimum impact on the city because it's an industrial park and land they bought. But again, they focused, they wanted to do that, but they controlled it, put it where it should be. They're fully enclosed and controlled. And so to me it's kind of understanding what could you have here and once you do that, how do you attract them, how do you deal with those people? It's gotta be a process that I think gotta be led by your community leaders who know the community and supported by the city, the county, school district, everyone get together and try to make sure that you provide an environment to attract them and again, Each community has to decide what they can and what they want to be and how they go forward.

I don't really have any other questions. I just want to thank you again for sending all of that very detailed information. I would encourage the council and public who did not catch 100% of the things that Jim said tonight is recorded. So I know I will be going back and watching. I would encourage There's a lot of information. We've got this handout. It's recorded. So let's see those resources. Thank you.

And thank you. Again, I'm committed to the city anyway, both in budget or in your economic efforts. We can follow up. Hopefully we can discuss them.

I and my team are here to help. All right. Thanks again, Jim. We appreciate it.

Yes, we will make it.

We will reprint it.

That was on purpose, babe. They know you. You got the right packet. All right. All right, cool. All right, let's go ahead and move on to number five. Discuss and consider a word of bid and authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with H.H. Howard and Sons Incorporated relating to the Southwest Site Development and Drainage Improvement Projects, Phase 2 project.

Mayor, you skipped number four.

Oh, did I really? I do that all the time, don't I? Okay. Presentation a discussion of possible creation of downtown zoning district specified boundaries use and development standards and this is our development services director Good evening mayor council

tonight we have a number of guests that are here as well in support they may or may not feel led to speak but they were here to answer questions and they are very supportive of this entire endeavor we've been talking about this for quite some time Probably at least a year year and a half fact that this city does not have Dedicated downtown zoning we have zoning districts in downtown But it doesn't have its own and so the districts that we do have are the same, have the same standards for landscaping, the way the building looks and is designed and the kind of uses that you would find any other place in the city along the interstate or on one of our highways. And so because downtown is so unique and we have such a special downtown in particular, I will tell you that this entire presentation is not Mount Pleasant. It reflects a trip that I took recently to a very successful Main Street community in another state that is similar in size and background to ours actually. That way you won't focus on what you're seeing so much as just the general content of the slides. So currently, just to kind of recap, this is a portion of what our downtown area looks like. The white area in the middle is what's called the Central Business District, or CB, zoning, and it's 16 blocks around the courthouse. It doesn't really have... Any uses, it doesn't have parking, it doesn't have any kind of regulations at all. Primarily, there's really no room in that area. There are no places to park. And so it was done a long time ago when zoning first came in. All the other colors inside that pink outline are the various zoning districts that exist all for commercial or non-residential districts that occur all across the city that have their own standards. So what we're proposing is an actual dedicated downtown zoning district that is specific and special to it and that will enhance it moving forward. So what can it help with? Well, having those kinds of very predictable requirements that can be found in the zoning code enhance growth because it allows entrepreneurs that are attracted to downtown that want to invest in downtown, it takes special business person to recognize and have the kind of business acumen and vibrancy that is kind of the hallmark of a modern Texas downtown in the 21st century. It encourages business activity from people that are homegrown. They see that it's predictable that they can maybe start their new business in a space downtown. It does improve design over time, although I will give a shout out to the city had the foresight to be in the Main Street program years ago, and one of your esteemed council people had a lot to do with that, actually. And so they, with the State Historic Commission, have done a lot to improve the design in downtowns all across the state. In addition, there was a historic preservation district created and regulations and an ordinance that also helped. And overall, of course, what we want is to protect the character of our downtown to keep it very I guess welcoming and have a vitality for years to come. So the vision is the vibrancy, cohesiveness, purposeful and an identity for the entire area on the left is a map and the dark blue on that map is the vision from the comprehensive plan that was done I guess three three years ago now that was their idea of what a downtown district should encompass was never formed other than it was in the future land use plan is that would make sense to that group that was involved with that. The area with the pink border is the Main Street boundary. That is just the Main Street organization. It works with the city and it is based in Austin through the State Historic Commission. The different colors are all the different zonings and many of them are also in downtown as I mentioned. So what do we do with where the downtown is? Where do we start? Because you have to have a start in order to have a finish and a vision. So this group here, our Main Street and Historic Preservation Group, many of them are board members and have served for years tirelessly in the trenches, I might add. we've been studying this for months to try and force my passion is planning and the fact we don't have a zoning district and all the protections and advantages to having a dedicated zoning district are very important as a planner but also from the standpoint of helping and growing our downtown and Main Street and preserving their historic character. They have worked pretty hard to try and understand and come up to speed with where we need to be. So on the left, the area in green, that entire area has been identified by the groups. the group here as potential possibility for a downtown zoning district now I will say that that is not necessarily what they want right this minute tonight it is more for the next 30 years but they're of course in planning you're not planning for now you're planning for the future The area in pink, it's faint, but that is the current main street boundary we just looked at. So you can see that this pretty much enlarges it. And you can see some of the streets that are on there. So right now it basically runs from 8th Street down to Arizona, north to south. And then on the side, it goes on the railroad on one side, and I think it's Johnson on the other. use that right. Anyway the area on the right is that same map I just showed you so you kind of get some scale of what the pink actually is when you look at the blocks there. So that the question is larger you go larger do you go smaller more compact or do you blend to start. So to just kind of go back to basics. A zoning district boundary is important because it's a zone, just like the general retail zone or the multifamily zone or the single family zone, it's a zoning district, but because it's very cohesive in one place, it doesn't occur anywhere else, whereas the other zonings are all hopscotched all over town. So the uses and development standards, though, for a zoning district will be imposed on that zoning district. So that would include parking, the materials. You can regulate materials downtown because it's in a historic district. Currently, the area in white, the Central Business District, doesn't have any of those requirements for a good reason, because there are no places to park, so you couldn't put parking requirements on new businesses or revitalized, repurposed businesses. So the Main Street Group is proposing a larger expansion, I just showed you, to eventually allow flexibility the areas to primarily to the west and to the north and stream south but the west and the north are primarily residential but they are being gradually taking would have the ability to be taken over by small businesses where you would have some kind of organic commercial activity because of the uniqueness of downtown you don't do this in neighborhoods all over the city but you do allow a live work play kind of environment where somebody could actually have their business on the bottom and live on the top and that or have a small tea house in what was a house remodel it and keep that vibrancy going That is what people yearn for. It is the way our cities were designed back in the 19th century. And so being able to promote and have that walkability and that just kind of general feel is what a lot of people are looking for, both to invest their money and to this is tourism and to kind of capitalize on the ball games that they come to or the concerts that they attend. They come and they spend their time and their money and they socialize in our little restaurant. for the initial downtown zoning, I personally am recommending a more moderate district simply because of the amount of time that crafting all of those regulations to try and work in protections for the people who live in those areas that we would expand to, but also allow the flexibility. We are very, very busy with the lots and lots of businesses that are expanding so we have local businesses that we are working with every day we have people doing flatting we've got new subdivisions we've got all kinds of things and it's just a very small department the amount of time to actually try and write the regulations that would be that would do the big larger green area justice would probably be would mean that the downtown district would be delayed and I I really stress that I think I'd like to have it now rather than later and But there would be relaxed parking and setbacks that would be phased in in that area. So you could have your downtown district created. But with that, the larger vision of where you want to go and then as it organically. kind of works together and get some of those ideas brought forward on protections to allow the flexibility to protect the people that live next door to the businesses. There's a lot of nuances involved in that. I would recommend that we do it in stages. I know that everybody's eager to get started, though, so I'm just... Also another idea that they had was a corridor, which is actually zoning because you can't regulate uses, but you can regulate some of the aesthetics. So a corridor that comes from the interstate down particularly from 16th, but all the way down into downtown on both sides would eventually be something that we work towards again, but that's kind of a peripheral. It doesn't really affect the downtown zoning district itself. kind of recap so uses are one thing that zoning can regulate so Main Street does take care of the way things look with the historic preservation now of the downtown character somebody wants to remodel a building they need to have their design approved by this group and it has to meet building code of course but it also has a certain number of things that needs to be approved However, the one thing that Main Street and historic preservation cannot do by law is use zoning can. So when you have the kind of uses for retail, entertainment, hospitality, dining, services, artisans, people blowing glass and crafting beer and making jewelry and those small grocery that would serve the people that would have some of the smaller kind of apartments maybe above some of the businesses. That business model is very successful in a lot of cities. We don't have a way to protect that or even set it up right now. And so this zoning is very important because uses is the only way you can regulate them. So just basically to carefully select the ones that you want, that doesn't mean that all the uses aren't great in other parts of the city. But downtown, you're trying to do a vision and kind of an ambiance, if you will. So that means some uses would be preferred over others. And to get that economic activity that we just heard about. So the minimum size required, in my professional opinion, should match the existing shaded historic district boundary. And I just discovered this last night. We do have historic preservation ordinance that was passed in 2013. And in that ordinance, it very carefully called out every block, every city block that was to be in it. and the Main Street boundary that has been given in our zoning map and everywhere else be the Main Street boundary and I assumed that it was also historic preservation boundary but I mapped it I was trying to get ready for this to have the minimum size which I think should be the historic District boundary and so I went and started Mapping it and coloring blocks on the map and found out that it actually goes all the way to the cemetery And it's a little bigger. It also goes up to town Which isn't really reflected in some of the maps you've seen before so I apologize for that But I just discovered it last night I think it's critical to protect the entire downtown and especially the historic piece. So I would recommend that no matter if you feel strongly and very, I want to make it larger and green, which is fine. I support that too. It's just that the timeframe is... but that the smallest would be the boundary that you see there outlined with the pink shading because that corresponds to what our ordinance says is the historic preservation district. We didn't know it and so there's some properties in there that haven't been had oversight but We're going to address that soon. This allows for the predictable development standards that I talked about, the entrepreneurs want to see, for either new construction, expansion, or renovation. The corridor on the right side, that is the vision of these wonderful folks here to my left. And the blue is the corridor that they had envisioned in the future, along with the green area that could and probably should have an overlay, particularly on the west and to the north, where the primary... primarily residential areas still occur but could actually be a nice kind of mom-and-pop you know tea houses and small restaurants and coffee shops and those kind of small businesses go well in areas like that and don't impact the residents they are planned property this allows for the additional flexibility I talked about to So just imagine the possibilities with that kind of zoning and to attract the money and the vibrancy. These wonderful people are here for questions. I'll turn the floor over to them. I don't want to put them on the spot, but they've done a great job. Thank you.

Lynn, before you walk off, question for you on your ask on the sizing, which one we approve based on your workload you have today. so are you are you trying to say that we approve you know you're recommending a smaller map right the the smaller footprint so you can get the initial zoning down for just the strictly downtown businesses based on you know the questions that have come up in the last few months which i know this has kind of directed some of that um and then phase two right start expanding that out is that really what you're saying

That would be my recommendation because we need the overall downtown zoning district now. And those, because the existing area is built, we know what we want, what works in a downtown. The other would be more of an overlay.

Because it's mixed-use type, historical and mixed-use all put together.

Right.

Yeah. Okay, so then the second question is, let's say we all just have to have the big one. What kind of timeframe are you looking at if your team had to commit to that in terms of delay?

It would probably take until, just because of the drafting and the amount of discussion that has not occurred. So those kind of questions of what to do with various places that are fortunes that are being read

A large amount of discovery, so six months to a year.

Some of the sausage making on those things, yeah, we need to be discussed with the public and particularly the stakeholders here to my left.

Makes sense. All right. Thanks, Lynn.

Hey, one quick question, kind of piggybacking off Jonathan. And I'm looking at you. So I couldn't tell in the green, the big green, where it started and where it ended. So my question is, did by any chance it take in Delwood Park?

No. It stopped just to the north of Ferguson. And actually that piece that goes down Fort Ferguson. That's textile property. I'm longing anybody is But yeah, they went just to Ferguson here And I think it was trying to make sure that there was that it's a corridor So the whole point I guess is is to have the entrance in from the south and from the north which is we had looked at the corridor to try and make it more, you know, and when I say more beautiful, it's over time. So the existing property owners don't have any burden. They don't have anything to do, but when properties change hands or some people want to expand their businesses or change their uses, then they have small incremental change that over time improves the overall look coming in and the same idea was what and these people can probably speak very eloquently because they've been here many of them in their whole lives and I've only been here not even two years so that's why they had this vision I supported that Because they know way more than I do about the character. But the whole point is, as over time as things are redeveloped, that can be enhanced to kind of promote and bring in... ambience that we're looking for and it's the same thing with the redevelop residential we're not suggesting that we just stop residential but it can be a mix of uses and our zoning districts now in the city do not allow that so without it all of that yellow that you saw on the map or surrounding it is residential strictly residential cannot have a business even if it's a cute house and somebody has a great idea without that zoning. So, you know, I'm not proposing to forget about that, but because that is kind of its own nuance to how we're going to, how would you craft that overlay to blend into the downtown and keep the character without causing too much, you know, turmoil, I guess, for lack of a better word on an existing district. So,

So you're just wanting to overlay the downtown district over the current historical district?

The residential pieces primarily to the west or to the left of the pink boundary and slightly to the north if they got up towards where it says larger. That's the area that would need particular construction. Yeah, it would have a residential character, which is all residential now. Right. But it would also have some additional flexibility, but they'd have to be real careful because you don't want to burden the people that just want to live there.

Right.

Yeah.

And I would say this, and you and I have discussed the corridor options and cleaning that up and some of the other things that we need to clean up. So I totally, totally support it. I'm so glad that they're looking to keep our downtown as good as it can be and better in the future. But I will say this, when you start bringing it in a residential area and changing that zoning, I am really nervous about that because people move into residential areas for a reason. So you would really need to notify everyone in public hearing because I know how we value our residential neighborhoods. So that would be my only concern. But other than that, you've got all my support, but that is a big concern for me.

All right.

All right.

I would just like to thank the members of the Main Street Board, not just for being here tonight, but for all the work that you put into it. I think this is very much a labor of love. Like Lynn said, most of you have been born and raised here, and you want to see the downtown area revitalized. Why are we doing this? And it goes back to three things. It's preserve, protect, and promote. We heard Jim during the financial report talk about the sales tax, tourism, and tax increment reinvestment zones. Our downtown area is the living room of our city, and right now our living room needs to be remodeled. We need to do more than put a new couch in and change the carpet. We need to do some major upgrading. This allows for that. We can take some money that may come from a TERS, which we know is about to attempt to be created, funnel that money into downtown and possibly use that to help pay for fire presences. A portion of that. So setting this district up gives us a lot of opportunities. It opens the door and sets us on the road to revitalization. This is just a discussion tonight. We will come back and we'll bring it to council for a vote. But we wanted your feedback. We wanted your input as we continue to move forward. So thank you again to the board. Thank you again to Lynn for working with us.

Thank you all. That's a lot of work behind the scenes that no one ever gets to see. I don't really know Jason. So yeah, does anybody have anything they want to say? Right in the middle.

The big one with the microphone.

All right. I think the thing that's near and dear to most of our hearts is just there is you know a little bit of urgency with with passing the downtown district just from the standpoint of the uses you know I and Lynn touched on it a little bit but you know there's uses that there are certain businesses that make money but whether or not they're appropriate for downtown right next to MPMA or right next to Nardello's or, you know, right next to some of the walkable businesses where we want families and we want tourists walking. I think that's, you know, to that protect, you know, that Rob was talking about, that's kind of near and dear to all of our hearts is we want to protect our downtown, we want to promote it, we want it to be, you know, we want it to be revitalized, but if we're not careful and we move something down there or somebody comes in with something that is, you know, in my opinion, inappropriate for downtown, you know, that it could be detrimental to our downtown. So I think just having that in the back of your minds that there is a sense of urgency, you know, because I think Lynn gets met with a lot of, you know, businesses coming into town and they want to put something in downtown. And if there's no uses, we have no way to regulate that at all. And not that we want to be regulators, but we do want to be careful about how our living room looks.

I think the phrase that we use is we want to make sure that anything that comes in specifically into downtown adds value.

And like Lynn had on her slide, we want to enhance growth, not deter the right growth.

I know whenever I moved here, I thought it was really strange the way that the downtown was laid out. It's probably different than probably any downtown that I've seen with the way that the buildings and the businesses were set up. So I'm looking forward to it. So just let us know what we need to do.

Thank you, guys.

All right, you bet. Thanks for coming out. All right, we good?

Hello, everyone. It's a pleasure for me to be here. I just wanted to say there's three things that are kind of the same but different at the same time. We talked about historic district. Main Street and downtown area, which they might look, they might sound kind of the same thing. They might belong one to each other. They're not. So we are part of Main Street. We will kind of take care of a few things which doesn't have anything to do with downtown and history preservation. Now, what we're discussing today is specifically proposing an area for the downtown, which is trying to bring vitality to that area, the proposed area, which is, like Lynn said, is just in the long term. It's to try to create that area or just try to prepare for the future. Why for the future? We have kids, we will have grandkids, and they will be entrepreneurs probably, hopefully, for the city, hopefully for themselves. And instead of having our kids moving to Dallas, different cities, different states, why don't we get this area prepared for our kids? And that's what we kind of visualize into the future and try to see if we can help the city and prepare our kids for what's coming. And I know we might have that concern also. We have that discussion in the residential area, which is right now is pretty restricted just to be residential area, which is great. But also at the same time, and I do in the business that I am, which is in the construction and floor plans business, I've seen new kids trying to do haircuts at their homes. And actually they do live in that area right there right now. So I'm kind of visualizing already some kids that they want to start their own business at the age of 13 years old. And What they're going to do right now, they're going to do haircuts in the laundry or in the living room or somewhere else inside the house. So I'm kind of excited about the downtown area in that portion of the city because I know with all the talent that we're getting from the schools that we have here, I know this could be a great opportunity for our kids just to stay here and grow their own families here. So I invite you to be open to the proposal. I invite you to look about this proposal for the future. Just like Lynn said, it's not going to happen in a couple of months. It will not even happen in a couple of years probably. but we're looking to the future. And I just really hope that we can make this happen for the city, for our kids, for our grandkids.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Press it one more time.

One more time. There you go.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I've been working with this group for probably five, six months. We met and it was a group that had a lot of the backgrounds were good with it. Bankers, investors, real estate agents, brokers. business owners, people that own businesses in the Main Street District. So it was a good blend. We thought about different possibilities. And the larger map that it was shown today, we envisioned that for the next 30, 40 years. It's not for the next 10 years. So we were thinking, okay, how old are our kids going to be in 40 years? And about 400 young adults graduated high school a couple weeks ago. Those 400 kids represent, in the future, possibly 400 families, if they don't marry together. But are they going to go to different schools in other states? Possibly. They're going to go to different cities. When they come back, what kind of Mount Blessing do we want them to come back to? I often hear them say, well, there's nothing to do in Mount Pleasant. Probably some of you have heard that. I've heard it a hundred times when they say there's nothing to do in Mount Pleasant. So this larger area represents that future for those kids that just graduated, possibly my kids. Because they're little right now. But in 40 years from now, they're going to be 41, 42 years old. And so imagine, we will not be here. This is not for us. So when we make a decision, don't just look at the current situation. I know we have to always see things at hand, what's in front of us. But the future is not so far away. Time goes fast. If you look back and you say, oh, my God, it's been already 20 years. And you can't believe you look back, it's been 10 years. So I just say this to say that don't limit yourself. just based on current situations, those can be dealt with. And I'm sure you guys are very smart. You guys have the talent. You actually have the passion because you're here. You can be somewhere else right now, but you're here. You love the city. You love my place. And I'm sure when I look at you, I look at faces that love this town just like we do. So just think about the future for the next 30, 40 years. Don't limit yourself because of current situation. Because these kids are going to be back, hopefully, and they're going to stay. And I think about my kids. I'm like, if they go and graduate in another town, I want them to come back home. I want them to come back to Mount Pleasant. I don't want them to go say, hey, mom, I think I like this better than Mount Pleasant. Because there's a lot of things to do here. So that's the heart behind this. It's what place do we want our kids to come back to? What place do we want those 400 students that just graduated a couple weeks ago? What kind of place? As leaders, it's our responsibility. And so what are we going to do? And I'm going to leave the stage with that question.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you don't have to talk us into it. We're on board. and we appreciate all of it. Any more discussion? All right, let's go ahead and move on to item number seven, discuss and consider award a bid to the authorized. Bye. Item number five, discuss and consider award a bid to authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with H.H. Howard and Sons Incorporated relating to the Southwest Site Development and Drainage Improvement Project Phase 2 project.

Mayor, council, and city manager, we opened bids on May the 27th, if y'all remember, and it was for the, we've got a wild name here, Southwest Site Development. development and drainage improvement project. And I want to remind everybody that what it, in essence, is is 15 new future building sites for hangars at the airport. And you say, why do we need that? Because just look around. Mount Pleasant's growing, and so is the airport. This also includes 800 more foot feet of taxiway We had five bids, and the low bid was submitted by H&H Hired Sons out of Dangerfield, and the amount was $688,042. The amazing thing about it, the next closest bid was nearly $71,000 higher, so it was a really good bid there. And also the engineer's estimate on this job was they were $45,000 cheaper than that. So it was really good for us. And I want to remind everybody that this is an infrastructure grant money, and this is going to wind up this infrastructure grant money. But on this, if you all remember our previous phase one, we had 90-10 funds and 95-5 funds. This one is all 95-5. So it's costing us a nickel on the dollar to do what we're doing, and that's really good for us. So I guess our recommendation is to award the bid to H.H. Howard & Sons of Dangerfield, Texas for $688,000.40.

Paul, quick question, sir. Yes, sir. This is just dirt work, just looking through the bid, right, for this one? It's not the actual buildings. This is just the dirt work?

This is the dirt work, the asphalt for the factory way and drainage. Okay.

And also, like I say, you always do such a great job of being a good steward of the money here and always trying to find it under a rock every year. So good job with that, too. Thank you. All right, any discussion? Get a motion? I'll make a motion to award bid to H&H Howard and Sons Incorporated in the amount of $688,042.

Mayor?

Yeah, I got you. I thought that was on something else. So we have Candace that's going to read the motion.

The motion is to award the bid to H&H Howard & Sons Incorporated in the amount of $688,042 and authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute the agreement related to the project.

Did we get a first?

A first that.

Second. Second.

All right. Madam Secretary, can you get a vote, please?

Council Member Corbel? Yes. Council Member Faulkner? Aye. Council Member Hageman?

Aye. All right. Passed unanimously. We appreciate it. Thank you. All right, we'll go ahead and move on to item number six. Discuss and consider the international agreement for the city of Mount Pleasant to operate, maintain, and train for use of self-contained breathing apparatuses. Fill station provided by Titus County, Texas. And this is going to be our city manager.

Mayor, Council, this item was on the last regular meeting agenda. If you recall, we tabled it due to an edit and some minor edits in the agreement that had already been approved by Commissioner's Court. So what we didn't want to do is have two different agreements that were signed. So we tabled that. This agreement involves a piece of equipment that the county has purchased and is not using it and they're willing to let the city utilize and maintain it. And I'm going to ask Chief McRae to come forward and give us a brief discussion of that piece of equipment and how it will be used. Chief?

Mayor, Council. Yes, this piece of equipment is one that when the county thought they were going to start their own fire department, they purchased it along with some other stuff, and it's been sitting in storage since they didn't start their own fire department. It'll give us a compressor at the station, too, to be able to fill the breathing apparatus and cylinders. It'll be a good addition to the department once we get it. We are adding money to the budget this year to... The Texas Fire Commission requires us to have the air tested in all of our breathing apparatus, compressors, four times a year, so we're willing to increase our budget a little bit to comply with the rules for the Texas Fire Commission. Other than that, it would be a great asset.

And we're going to be able to help, I guess, voluntary firemen. Are they going to be, I guess, where they fill their tanks or...

Just like we are now, we fill all the brief apparatus for the county VFDs. We fill it out of Central. It's been another place to do it. If this one's down, the one in Central is the original equipment for the station. A little bit less wear and tear on it, but some over on the other one.

Any questions?

Thank you. And just to bring out, this agreement is not part of the overall fire contract with the county. The staff would recommend the council approve the interlocal agreement between the cities.

So I do have a question, not really for you, Chief. Last meeting, we decided that we were going to table it because the commissioners had not voted on it. And so I watched the commissioners' meeting last week, and they tabled. And so the only thing that I could find or that other people found is that it was voted on in February of 25. So I thought they were going to re-vote on it, but they tabled it, and they should have voted on it first before asking us.

The miscommunication, I think, was part city and county, but we wanted to make sure the agreement that they signed in 2025 had changed in the last month. So there have been minor edits. Rather than us bring an agreement that was different, have it approved, and then not go back to them. Now there's two different agreements in place. We tabled it. They tabled it. We brought it back. We're going to get you guys to consider to pass. And then once it's passed, we'll go back.

And this now mirrors the county. It's the same agreement. That's what it was all about.

There were very minor edits that I don't believe.

Discussion? Question? We appreciate it. Madam Secretary, you can get a vote.

I'd like to make a motion that we enter into the interlocal agreement for the city of Mount Pleasant to operate, maintain, train, for use of the self-contained breathing apparatus, bill station provided by Titus County, Texas, contingent on the Commissioner's Court of the Union.

All right, get a second?

I'll second.

Madam Secretary, can we get a vote, please? Aye.

Aye. Yes.

All right. Approved. item number seven discuss and consider the preliminary plat of gear creek phase two on 19.09 acres being as proposed 31 lot residential subdivision of a portion of property id 341269 in single family one sf1 district zoning district lying in the john or abstract 423 track 3902 TR1 and TR2 described in Instruments 2021-2383 in the Real Property Records of Titus County, Texas, and situated in the west of Deer Park Estates, Block APP-2026-03. And this is going to be Director Barrett.

Thank you, Mayor. Sorry for that. When flint and plats come forward, sometimes they get a little convoluted with the descriptions. So this is a preliminary plat for a subdivision that was developed in the county many years ago. Mr. Capstaff again purchased the property mining company had it and then decided to resell it and I'm ripe for redevelopment there are 31 lots that he's proposing to create but there are two streets that are already there they had some concrete that had been Gently used but would remain private because they just Not really was cost prohibitive to bring them up to cities modern standards. However, they're functional and the entire Subdivision is owned single-family one already and but the lots are much larger and They're right at half an acre. New water and sewer lines were permitted and installed inside that subdivision and they will be dedicated to the city at the final flat stage. just kind of orient you where we are on the left is overall area and yellow shows phase two phase one is already developed from a previous It, too, was an older part of the subdivision, and the street was existing, and it's already got homes built. Deer Park Lane was renamed, and this subdivision will dedicate a strip of land along it, along the boundary to widen that street. And you can see, again, the general area on the map we're talking about. Here is what the preliminary plot looks like. Pretty much everything is described previously. You can see there are pretty large lots and the two streets do take access from Deer Park Lane that curves around. The plat is basically, preliminary plat is malady in this case. Once it's approved, it will be moving forward for a final plat once the city has inspected and actually said that it will accept the utilities that are out there. So city staff is recommending approval based on the suitability of development with the conditions that the roadway and drainage areas are privately owned and will be maintained by homeowners associated versus most subdivisions that the streets are also infrastructure that the city takes over. The Planning and Zoning Commission voted on June 9th at their meeting unanimously to recommend approval of this plan as well. Mr. Capps is here if you have any questions.

Questions? Discussions?

Is that phase one and phase two? It's phase two.

All right. Can I get a motion? I'll make a motion to approve PP 2026-03, Proclamatory Plat of Deer Park, phase two, as presented by staff. Second.

Second.

Madam Secretary, do the vote, please.

Aye.

Yes.

I appreciate it Steve thanks for the development all right

Awesome. Great.

Okay, let's move on to item number eight, discuss and consider ordinance 2026-15, prohibiting the use of groundwater from beneath designated properties at former Dorchester Refinery site located at 1723 West 1st Street in Mount Pleasant in supporting of municipal setting designation certified or certificate. by the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality and declaring a penalty for violation.

Mayor, Council, several months ago, I was contacted by a representative of Total Energy's Petrochemicals and Refining USA, Inc., about the old Dorchester refinery property located at 1723 West 1st, about the creation of a municipal setting designation with Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCA. After working with the group and collecting information and learning more about the process, and also EDC has been involved as far as they've made the introduction, and they've also helped bridge a few gaps with information. The decision was made to bring this forward to council. We have Russell David with NSAFE here tonight, and I'm going to ask him to come to the podium here shortly and give us a presentation. We also have Mr. Keith Linton with Total Energy's who is here online, but he was not able to make it due to flooding in his area. But I'll ask Mr. David to come forward, and he will provide a more specific presentation. And I'm sure you may have some questions for him that he is much better suited to answer than I am.

Mr. David, thank you. Mayor? Council? Thank you for having me. So what I'm going to do, we're going to walk through what a municipal designation is. It is a pretty common process that's been heard around the state. We'll look at the property that we're talking about and walk through a couple of specific properties. Just a general location of the property located east, I mean west of downtown in a Yeah, and it is currently vacant. If you zoom in a little bit, that's better. So the property is currently vacant. I don't know if anybody's familiar, but at one point in time, that entire property was occupied by refineries. And since that time, decades of remedial action, investigation, and cleaning up occurred on the property. It's currently vacant, and actually, we'll see a photo here and a few slides. It's kind of a pretty property, though. What is a municipal setting designation or MSD? It's a statute that was passed in 2003 by the state of Texas with the finding that restriction of access to affected groundwater protects human health. So in cases where remediation is not feasible or we've done as much as we can, the state has a tool that we can use to restrict the pathway or use of groundwater. So the MSD establishes a public state process for protecting human health while also keeping properties anchored up to safety. Approval of MSD provides protection through a restriction of groundwater access and use. That's going to be the purpose of the ordinance to restrict the use of groundwater to a particular depth. and it only applies to the MSD property. That's an important part to understand, that the ordinance and the restrictions that we're putting on the MSD only applies within those boundaries. It doesn't apply to anybody else. No, ma'am. The only setbacks that we'll talk about is going to be debt in the graph. So as part of this process, the city, the host city will review the information and the application, and then it will be sent to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. And then as part of that application process, there are a number of steps that we go through in order to satisfy the state and the notice requirements that we have. So wherever the city, wherever the MSC is located, we're required to get support from the city. We're required the same support within half a mile of the MSP property, but that's located. And then to the owners and operators of any groundwater wells within a five-mile radius of the property. And that's going to be beneficial groundwater use. So, for instance, like heat loops or geothermal wells are not included in that. More beneficial groundwater use. And then to any retail public utility that owns or operates a groundwater supply well, so someone selling water from the groundwater, then we'll have to notify them as well. Not all of these apply in this case, but that is the general process. Just kind of laid out. We're kind of in step one at this point. Hopefully we can move on after tonight. But preparation of the MSD information and ordinance, that's what we've been doing with Mr. Vine and with the help of others. And then after the city council approves the ordinance, they will take all that information and then start notifying the respective public and well owners. And then once the TCQ certifies the MSD, and then we can use that to gain closure of the site from the regulatory program that has been with the volunteer cleanup program with the TCQ. And then that certificate is recorded in the real property. So just to reiterate again, the MSD restriction is for this property only and will restrict the use of shallow groundwater for potable purposes down to a depth of 100 feet. So just to reiterate, we're restricting anybody from drilling a well and accessing the groundwater within 100 feet and up on that property specifically. It does not restrict the use of deeper groundwater on the site or any wells outside of the MSP factory. And then, like I said at the start, this process is pretty common. It's been done many times in the state, even in the area, including cities like Longview, Kilgore, Marshall, Tyler, and Greenville. So the former Dorchester Refinery operated the site from the 1930s all the way to 1984. And then in 2007, Total Energy, who is the current owner, entered the property into the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Voluntary Cleanup Program. And then this is a self-directed program for remediation under the Texas Risk Reduction Program. And then, as I said before, this is a current view of the property. There's no activities occurring on it. It's sitting dormant and ready to be reused. And we're hoping that this process will help facilitate that. Just some history as far as the involvement in the BCP, the Voluntary Cleanup Program, with the . This site's been under regulatory view in the BCP for almost two decades now. The work focused at the start on securing the former refinery, completing investigations, and characterization of soil and groundwater conditions. Starting in 2013, there was major cleanup activities that occurred, demolition and abatement of structures and removal of the infrastructure that was on site, as well as treatment and processing of impacted soil and additional soil and groundwater assessment that have led to us getting to this point. Starting in 2019, the park was graded and it's been stabilized and seeded. And then we've gone through all the steps that we need to to get to this point to request an MST. And then just some more information about the groundwater specifically that we're restricting. The shallow groundwater is generally limited to the top 40 feet. It's underlain by an impermeable bedrock that inhibits that water from migrating down further. The shallow groundwater is not desirable. It's sometimes referred to as a shallow perch groundwater, just kind of sitting on top of the rock. And it's not part of an actual groundwater formation. The MSC will assist in gaining closure from the BCP by formally restricting the shallow groundwater being used as drainage water. Any questions?

This is all zoned commercial, right? I believe so. Any questions?

I do. And I was hoping, I don't see Aaron here.

He's right behind, directly behind him.

Okay. So, if we vote in this ordinance 2026-15, but at some point, we hope that that property will be used again And we might have to provide the water. It's already there, so we don't have, this wouldn't affect anything that we're doing. We're good.

I'll add, one of the things during this process is they, correct me if I'm wrong, the city provides a letter that we will provide water to anyone who's on that property. And if we can, Tri-Sud could provide water. And you also received a letter from Tri-Sud to that effect. All right.

Is there a motion?

I'm going to ask a tough question, and I haven't prepared you for this. Could you talk specifically to what chemicals or chemical may be there and what extent, what levels we have currently there just for the public so they know what we're dealing with?

Right. Probably Keith could probably speak to more about the historical levels, and I can speak more generally. This was a former refiner, correct? So BOCs and PH were confirmed in the past. They've all been documented to below action levels. currently. And then there's an emergent chemical that you guys might have heard of called PFOS, or polyfluoroalkali substances. They were detected back in 2002. Most of those plumes have been delineated on site, but they've been documented not to be leaving the property. And that's the reason that we're trying to restrict that groundwater impact.

And that's not widespread, right? That's just in a small area where they used to load it and unload it or whatever?

I believe so. Okay.

And Keith, I know you're online. If you have anything you'd like to add, please feel free to jump in.

Thank you, council members and Mayor, Mr. Vine, and Russell, thanks for the presentation. And you can hear me, right? Good. Yeah, I mean, as to the question of the chemicals, it's PFAS. The groundwater at the site is actually remarkably clean for a former refinery. That's what I've done my whole career is work these types of jobs. And it's really not grossly contaminated at all. It has part per billion, part per trillion levels, very low levels. But the analytical technology now is capable of detecting this stuff at these very low levels and It has the potential to drag out, even though we've done, our company over the last 20 years has done tens of millions of dollars of work to get the above ground portion of this property and the soil cleaned up. We have this subsurface issue now, which has the potential to prolong the cleanup for many years. And the legislature has provided this particular tool here to you know, achieve the economic development objectives plus, you know, attain the environmental cleanup standards.

Thank you, Keith. And also, Kevin Carter, EBC director, is online if there's anything that you would like to add.

Yeah, we appreciate Keith and his team doing this. We feel that the voluntary cleanup makes that site more attractive. for a prospective business that may want to come on that piece of property. It's an attractive piece of property with the rail right there. 100 acres, it's inside the city limits. It's already zoned industrial, so we feel it's a very marketable piece of property, especially with the certified cleanup. VOLUNTARY CLEANUP. SO WE APPRECIATE KEITH AND HIS TEAM AND THE WORK THAT TOTAL'S DONE, AND WE CERTAINLY APPRECIATE WORKING WITH YOU, KEITH.

LIKEWISE. THANK YOU, KEVIN.

READY FOR A VOTE?

I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO ordinance number 2026 15 second second Madam Secretary can we get a vote please hi hi yes all right pass unanimously thanks guys we appreciate it thank you

All right, go ahead and move on to item number nine, discussion and direction from the City Council on next steps to consider possible development of the city pool. And this is our Councilman Hickman.

All right. Sorry, I don't want to be left out. So I know the poll's been brought up. I ran on it first term, mentioned it the second term for when I was elected. We have been actively, my wife and I, raising money. We have, I would say, a little bit to go, but we have raised a significant amount, a little under $200,000 here in the last few months. So we're still actively working on the funding piece. But that being said, without a plan, right, we could raise all the money we want, and we don't really know what that means. So just to let the other council members know, I've been talking with Rob, nothing crazy, but just letting them know, hey, he set me straight and said, I kind of need some things. And so what I committed to and what I commit to the council, and I think we discuss in a month, now rob um that i'll provide uh and and present a presentation that kind of effectively provides a business plan um if i get creative enough i'll throw a couple scenarios in there just mainly for uh the public and y'all to kind of hey if this happens that happens you know if we get swim teams in here you know Not rosy, you know, plus to minus on what's the worst case, what's the best case type scenario. So that's really what I'm looking to bring here to see if that's something we want to discuss as a council and want to commit resources to moving the ball forward. Obviously, as stated, my wife and I and lots of folks in the community, so thank you all that have given. We're working hard to get something for these kids to do. We had a pool here before I lived here. but I remember seeing it every time I visited, and I remember when it imploded. And I know they can be a cost, but at the same time, sometimes not every benefit is tangible in dollars and cents. So anyway, like I said, I have some homework to finish up and present to council, but I appreciate y'all's time today, and I'm going to go back to my seat, unless y'all have questions for me.

Don't know if we have like a swim team in Mount Pleasant. We do.

They've mentioned it to me about this pool thing a few times.

Where do they have to go for their meetings?

They have to go to Longview or Tyler. Typically they have to travel.

Yeah, so both my girls were in swimming and water polo and traveled to all kinds of different cities and I mean the revenue I know it costs right I mean it's gonna cost it may even be whatever but it does bring other revenue into the city and people see the city do we have water pillow no that that that would be like getting football with no field right Yeah, about 1,800 calories a game. Yeah, it's intense.

I would like to see it work. Obviously, you know, I love my memories of the park. I love growing up at Delwood, and I know it's going to be expensive, but there have been so many people that have mentioned this through the years. I'd like this to

And I will say this, you know, I did de Hale originally, well, not originally, you know, Dallas area, but I lived in Richardson. That town was built by TI, for those that don't know, and they built every neighborhood with its own school, which wasn't very, you know, nowadays that doesn't make a lot of sense, and every neighborhood had a pool. Somehow the city, you know, they talked about closing them, but they built a new, you know, what do you call it, aqua center or whatever, while I was still there. And I'm pretty good friends with the guy that runs a lot of that. So that's, I'm gonna lay on some real numbers, not just chat GPT in this thing. So there should be some tangible data from a, you know, it's a bigger city, but they have a lot of, you know, they have like eight swimming pools. So at least can kind of break it down on their cost structure and should be able to provide a pretty decent model for everyone to at least chew on.

Yeah, I mean, it's a huge quality of life thing if there was any way that we could make it work. I mean, that's huge.

I'm going to make an honest effort at it. We appreciate it. All right. Thanks, everyone.

All right. So can we go ahead and get a – oh, there's no vote. All right. Any discussion?

Mayor, this is not an action item, so you're just providing direction. Okay. On next steps.

All right. All right.

and I would say if there is any direction my two cents would be to push this until the you know what July to give myself a timeline and I will discuss with you in the city manager if any delays or anything comes up but that would be the target to for me to present again and then a decision could be made at that point

They really haven't been meeting, but about a year and a half ago, we tried. Delwood Park Association. Garrett was there. We've had some people that came and saw the presentation of what was happening. Because there's a lot of old families that live there, and they want to see the park again.

know revitalized and so it might be a good idea for you to reach out some of those names and get their feedback too agreed and i was at that meeting as well um i thought gary did a great job by the way but uh i was at that meeting and and then some of the feedback i think that came after so i've been garrett and i've been talking just on and off that since we do have a project that's been discussed for that area so it all kind of played together

Good evening. I figured I'd say something if it's going to go in a park somewhere. So one of the major things is the commitment on not just producing the pool, but we have to pay for it and maintain it. Just keep in mind that's going to be around $300,000 up. So those are real numbers. They're not fake. We have to remember that that's what we're signing up for. It would be awesome for the community, but it's also a major burden. And there is opportunities for grants, things like that. That's the direction we want to go. But they're going to be partial. The aquatic side grants are much less than like a park.

So Garrett, maybe people respond besides me. This is from my memory. To Delwood Park, we had to pay a fee to get in. And there was also a snack bar. and so it was maintained and we were very young and sometimes even if we didn't go swimming and we were all very young hanging out the park we would eat at the snap bar so i don't know what it would be to run and but there were mostly teenagers that were lifeguarding and that ran the snap bar i mean it just

Yeah, so when they did have the pool, the lifeguards would take turns doing snack bars, taking money at the gate. I don't know if everybody saw the presentation of the pool, and I gave a couple of conceptual designs and prices. We could get a cheaper pool, but they all have something in common, which is you have to build a pool house. have to build and the pool houses that they have designed have a concession stand restroom bath house the whole whole nine i'll be of any help to y'all on these

And regardless of how red or black them numbers look, I'll still be bringing it here just so we can all have an idea. And I'm really talking the revenue side. And I'll get them, if you have better cost numbers, I'll pull those off you. But Gary's done a great job on the cost side, and really I'm trying to provide the revenue on does this make sense.

Get creative. I'll get all that presentation to you.

Thanks, Gary. I appreciate it, buddy. All right. Item number 10, city manager's report.

Mayor, council, IT replaced one of our projectors earlier this week. If you are listening on social media or on YouTube, we know we are having some issues with our audio. We did take some actions to correct some of our audio issues. We're still working to figure out what those bugs are. But we are working on it. So your messages, I got a text message early tonight that I have difficulty hearing. So we are working on that. In the meantime, until we get that fixed, we encourage you to come out here and join us. And first, we are working hard on their budget. I would like to suggest a budget workshop for the city council on July 7th. Before our regular council meeting, we can go over our strategic planning and hope that we will have some preliminary numbers for you, and ACM Webster will be reaching out to you to confirm your availability. Our very own library director, Luke Guerrero, has been appointed to the Systemed Act Advisory Board for the State of Texas. That is a big deal. That is a big deal. What this board does is they recommend revisions to minimum accreditation standards for public libraries all over Texas. They review local library accreditation appeals, and they provide weigh-in on state grant programs. So to have our own library director represent the city of Mount Pleasant at a state board is pretty awesome, so congratulations. Tri-Sud has an extended I'm having a difficult time speaking this evening, has extended an invitation to all council members for an event this Thursday from 11 to 1 at their building on West 16th. They are celebrating 60 years of operation. Utility Director Aaron Marshall and I have met with Price at a few different times, had very, very productive meetings, very positive meetings, how we can work together, not just now but also in the future. And I would anticipate by the fall coming back with either an MOU or an interlocal agreement that the city and tri-city can work together for a water study and possibly a business plan. I think they're progressing well, so I would encourage you to attend that event Thursday. Earlier today, the city secretary and I received a letter from Councilmember Melanie Tafoya indicating that at this time due to her husband's career, and her family beginning a new chapter elsewhere. She is resigning from her position on the city council. I've discussed this matter with City Attorney Lee Rehm, and since this will be on the next council agenda, since it's not on tonight's agenda, I obviously talked about it, but I wanted to make that clear. Now, end of report.

Thank you, Ralph. I appreciate it. All right. Do we have any council comments limited to announcing upcoming events, recent council member activities, or requested agenda items be added to the upcoming meeting?

I do. I know it's sensitive, so I don't know how to handle it. But I would like an update from Pilgrims on what they were working on. And I know that we were hoping to have a meeting so that we could hear what's happening with them. And I've also heard that they have been doing some construction and some new stuff. So I would like that to be on an agenda or an update. I've had some people call me wanting to know what's going on, and I don't know.

It's an expansion of their wastewater treatments to help treat the water to hopefully reduce the smell. That's the big project.

Yeah, and there is a lot of stuff going on out there. I mean, it would be nice to have some sort of update on it, but I know they're working on several things, and there's things in the budget to help with that stuff. So, yeah, it'd be pretty cool, yeah, if we can get some sort of update. Debbie? You good? You good? All right, I just want to make some community announcements. On June 20th, Oakland Park, we're going to host the Juneteenth celebration from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., featuring a parade, line dancing, bounce houses, train rides, children, food, and some craft vendors. And on July 3rd, the Pines RV and Cabin Resort will host a red, white, and bags from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. with food trucks and a cornhole tournament. and then July 6th, that's the day before our next meeting. That's why I put it in here from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. The David Beards Catfish up here, RISE Resourceful Impact and Scholarships, or Scholastics Education will host a free community feed where you go up there and basically just get some free food, and it starts, yeah, from 4 to 7. So everyone's invited, and it's just, they talk about, I like resources supporting education, career readiness, and basic community needs. Oh, and one last thing. There's early sign-up for the Texas, the Everything Texas Ranch Run for September 19th. You can sign up for that starting now. So 1K, 5K, 15K. I did? Yeah. It was eye-opening. They do have a lot of support. I think that we're going to just work on getting more and more. Rob actually showed up also.

Did the chief end up being able to get there?

Yeah, so we went out there, and over 80 animals is what was spayed and neutered. But they're basically – the reason that they're doing that is because when the animals are getting dumped in the county and in the city, we're trying to prevent, like, cat colonies and all these dogs running around and stuff like that. So the more we can pick up – like, they had – They did have several cats that they had picked up that this lady said was around the house. She actually brought all of them up there, and then they get fixed, and then they get, you know, like the cities do, they'll nip their little ear, so then animal control will know whenever they do see them that they're fixed. So hopefully this program will grow substantially, and maybe they can start covering other things. I did find out, though, that we have our $25,000 program, Is it a grant or is it just inside of the salary? It's built into our budget. Yeah, it's built into our budget to where whenever people get animals from our shelter that they get the certificate to get their animals fixed. That's it for me. Oh, go ahead.

One other item is on our desk here is the community services in northeast Texas. I have an event on June 24th. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. over on 1705 Industrial Road. So I think the MOM building. Providing lunch and RSVP by the 17th. I don't know if we're going to put that online. And it'll be posted online if y'all are interested. Here's the flyer.

that's the new mom building done.

Correct. Yeah. You have community services, purple heart and then MLM.

Yeah. So that's a pretty cool VA resource center that has a lot of stuff combined into that one thing along with American Legion. So if you're, you're a veteran and you need any kind of resources, you can reach out to those guys. And they said, whatever it is, they're willing to help you with it. So I thought that was pretty cool.

That opened almost a month ago, maybe three weeks, something like that.

So, uh, Yeah, go ahead.

I'd like to make a comment about the Juneteenth festival that will be happening this Saturday or next Saturday. There's been a lot of divide in our community, in our nation, and I have been involved with the Juneteenth group, the TCCA, for many years, and I would invite everybody on both sides to go out, get to know each other, enjoy each other, share a hug, and let's show that we're a little bit better than everybody else.

Do you remember that? Yeah, I went last year and got to meet Vincent and Bobby, right? It was a great bunch of people, and there was a lot of stuff going on. There's this little train that actually goes around and pulls the kids around.

Yeah, go ahead.

All right, we'll go ahead and move into executive session at 826. We'll be back in 15 minutes. No, I'm just joking. I'm sorry. I'm just jumping the gun. Executive session pursuant to Open Meetings Act, Chapter 551, Texas Government Code. The City Council will recess into executive session to discuss the following. Consultation with attorney, Texas Government Code 551.071. In personal matters, Texas Government Code 551.074. Discuss and consider the approval of Main Street Board appointments. Consultation with attorney, Texas Government Code 551.071. Legal consultation regarding parties' rights and responsibilities pursuant to the interlocal agreement for fire protection services between the City of Mount Pleasant and Titus County. We'll do that. All right, reconvening. All right, reconvening 907. We have item number 11, discuss and consider appointment to the Main Street Board to replace a vacancy. Discussion? Do we have a motion?

I make a motion for an appointment to the Main Street Board of Barry Jones to replace a vacancy. I second.

Madam Secretary, can we get a vote, please? Yes.

Aye. Yes.

Aye.

All right, it passed unanimously. Item number 12, I'm gonna go ahead and get the person that is making the motion to read it out so we can get it exactly right. So do I have a motion for item number 12?

I make a motion to direct the city manager to proceed with discussion in executive session.

I second. Madam Secretary, would you vote, please?

Yes. Aye.

Aye. Aye. All right, passed unanimously. Any other discussion? 908, adjourn.