City Council - Regular Meeting

all right here we go what time is it 602 does that look right all right uh so now i'm going from here this i'm learning so you guys got to bear with me here something about announcing minutes times no angie do we have a quorum i think so all right and uh and then Mark said he would lead us in invocation, please.

Heavenly Father, just think of this wonderful community in which we live. Think of the rain that we've had.

I pledge allegiance to the flag,

As a council, if they have any questions on the minutes, let me ask the council for a motion to approve the minutes.

All right, on the consent agenda here, I need to ask the council here, I guess, do we approve the minutes? And I have a motion to approve the minutes.

Second.

All right, motion approved. All right, second up is the consideration. What?

we have a second so we need a vote yes oh yeah what he said so we have a second everyone say aye

bear with me i promise in about the second year i'll get all this all right second consent agenda consider resolution 2613 updating signatures at alliance bank

Mayor, before we move to this item, I would ask our finance director to give us a little brief update on our financial situation. I felt like it would be appropriate since we're going to be changing some signatories. I want it to be fully transparent to everybody where we are. So, Andrew, would you please give us a brief update on where we are?

In March, we had revenues of $211,044.15, and our year-to-date revenues are $2,415,758.88, with a remaining budget balance of $1,562,572.12. $2,236,710.07 with 42,000, 42,000, Are we going to get a copy of those? Angie, can you make sure that his mic is on? Sorry. Yes, I didn't realize that, sorry. So here we have the utility fund. We budgeted revenue in the utility fund of $2,498,987. In the month of March, we had revenues of $184,905.12. And our total revenues in the utility fund year to date are $1,146,280.38. leaving remaining budget of $1,352,706.62 for 45.87% year-to-date. And our total expenditures in the utility fund, we budgeted for $2,482,001 for the year. For the month of March, we had expenditures of $119,443.87. And a year-to-date actual expenditures of $737,129. leaving a remaining budget of $1,744,871.56, a 29.7% year-to-date budget. So for the year, we budgeted a revenue of $16,986. And in the month of March, we had $65,461.25 of revenues that exceeded expenditures and a total year-to-date of $409,150.75. Could you go into the trash? So our beginning balance in the operating fund cash account was $1,297,498.11. We had $437,169.49 of increases, and we had $394,119.29 versus decreases for an ending balance in the operating bank account of $1,340,548.31. In total, all of our bank accounts had a beginning balance of $3,111,833.79. The total increases of $445,191.64 and decreases in total of $396,119.29 for a total ending balance of $3,160,906.14. Any questions? I have one. The INS money from the taxes, those haven't been transferred out of the operating account? They have not. They have not. Yes, that is my intention to do that.

Is that coming April?

It has not been done yet, no. So it would be something that I'm trying to get done in this month.

Is there a place where we can go to look at this information?

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a good evening. All right. The third agenda item, we're going to move down to items to be considered.

We need to go ahead and do number two and go ahead and ask for a motion.

Okay. All right, so number two. Do I have a motion? Yes.

This is about adding the mayor to the signature cards at Alliance Bank.

well the the motion would be for updating the signatories at alliance bank on resolution 26.3 i think what she's saying is i'll make a motion that we approve it with the removal of rebecca elliott and i make that motion do a second

you can call for a vote. Okay, can I get a vote?

Second.

Aye. Oh, aye. So we're going to move the third consent agenda item down to item to be considered. The next one will be the report on items of community interest. Anybody got that right?

Yes.

She should have a list. Did anybody sign up?

mayor council members and members of the mountain community thank you for opportunity to speak tonight this evening we have a privilege of recognizing two firefighters whose actions directly contribute to saving a life here in mount vernon and in the city the life safety award is reserved for moments when training, courage, and decisive action come together exactly at the right time. What began as a routine lift assist quickly became a life-threatening emergency. Upon arrival, two firefighters found the patient unresponsive and not breathing and without a pulse. Without hesitation, they immediately notified dispatch and began CPR. The rapid assessment and immediate intervention sustained the patient until the ambulance crew arrived. and continue their advanced life-saving procedures. Their actions reflect the highest standards of the fire and EMS service of readiness, professionalism, and unwavering commitment to protecting life. So I'm now going to turn this over to the shift captain of Hopkins County EMS here in Franklin County is Matt Downs.

So I will say, as first responders, it is our job to do what we do. And we're really bad at recognizing one another, but when Blake came to me with this idea, I was like, yeah, we need to do that. We need to recognize these guys, because it did make a difference. It did make an impact. So I'd like to call up Assistant Chief Josh Tucker. And we also have one for Carson Boland, but he couldn't be here tonight. Carson's on shift in Ball Spring.

Anything else on the portal community interest? All right. Up next is citizen participation. we do that uh i need to read this here the texas open meetings act prohibits the council from responding to any comments other than to refer to a matter to future agenda to an existing policy or to make a statement of factual information claims against the city council or employees as well as individual personnel are not appropriate for the citizens to make a comment on citizens' participation. All right, on to the next part. Here we go. Items to be considered. So we're going to pull down number three there. Consider interlocal agreement with Franklin County Tax Assessment for end collection. Ladies? She's kind of good. We've got Franklin Tax Assessment on there.

We've kind of redone some things. Can we step you up to the mic? As my understanding with one slight collection change, this is the same agreement that we've had with Franklin County for forever.

Council, Wade Dent is on the phone. Wade, can you hear me?

Yes. Hi, everybody. Sorry for the background noise. I'll shut that off here real quick. Would you like to just briefly explain the requested changes to the interlocal agreement? Yeah, so it's just an update of the interlocals that we've been operating on for some time with a couple of exceptions. The main difference that you'll notice is that the way it's been in the past is the revenue would be collected at the tax office and then distributed to the entities. And then the law firm, you would then get an invoice for the additional penalty portion, what you're going to call the attorney's fees. Excuse me. All this does is change the it skips out that third step. So basically, the revenue comes in, the city gets the entire amount that they're due, but then the tax office would pay the attorney's fees directly out of the collected amounts. So it's net the same. It's just saving about 60 days for the back and forth of the invoicing and everything.

I have a question for you.

I'm sure you're fine.

I'm gonna hold that as well and I'll cut the treasurer's amount so you're no longer gonna get those two bills.

That'll be paid automatically. It'll be deducted from what our checks are. Does everybody understand that?

Is that the 1%? Yes. So it's two different things that I bill.

I bill for the treasurer. for the collections of y'all's collection for the current delinquent, and then I bill for the delinquent tax attorney. I send those to the city and y'all approve them. We're gonna no longer do that. I'm gonna keep that to cut out of y'all's collection, cut the treasurer check, and then send the delinquent tax attorney their money to Tyler to cut out the billing. It's going straight across the board for every entity I collect.

Yes, yeah, it should be much more streamlined and easier to understand because all you're going to get, you're going to get a good clean check with the revenue portion only so that it's not cluttered up with all of these deductions.

And we'll get a statement that shows the deductions for the billing.

You'll get one that's going to show where I took the 1% out of the current and the billing plan and where I took their attorney fees out.

Sounds great.

I'll send that out with what I collected Well, y'all get paid weekly.

So, but at the end of the month, I can't take that out weekly.

Sure.

It's going to be over a 30-day period.

So I'll send it like that, showing what I paid the treasurer and then what I paid him. And that'll save us that time from the processing payment. Yeah.

Save us money.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Excellent.

in the agreement that the dates in item 10, the dates need to be changed. Because it says beginning effective May 1st, 2026, and shall continue in full force in effect through April 30th, 2026.

Or behind, because I had to get my court to approve this, and then I had to shoot my contracts out.

The contract's expired, basically, so it's got to go back in effect on May 1st. because that's the normal contract date.

Right, but it's April 30th, 2026. It has to be 2027. Okay, I'll fix that. I mean, yeah, that's the only thing I saw.

Otherwise, it still applies.

Yeah, you have no contract.

Right, you're right.

Any other questions?

Okay, bye guys, thank y'all.

So we have a motion to move ahead with this

i'll make a motion to accept the interlocal agreement with the franklin county tax assessor assessor with item 10 the date being changed in item 10 to april 30th 2027. i'll second that

Consider resolution number 2612, appointing a mayor pro chem. We talked about this earlier.

Angie, do you want to explain to local government And Mayor Pro Tem's responsibilities are basically to preside over this meeting in the absence of the mayor, period.

So I nominate Mark.

I'll second that.

Call for a vote. Aye.

Aye.

item number five yes yeah consider ordinance to number 2602 changing the day of regular council meeting this is just basically so it doesn't interfere with school board meeting uh we'd like to try to change this to the first thursday of every month uh just for that reason to so we have a lot of people from uh come up and ask about because it does involve getting intertwined with the school board meeting so that's really all this is here so uh got a motion to do that

to me the first thursday is not good for us because financials are always going to be late okay there's no way they'll have financials ready the first thursday well i'm sorry i didn't mean that the second it says first thursday and we had already voted on this and all of us had agreed on the second monday of every month

i understand that but that's what we're trying to not because i believe the school board meeting is also on the second monday of the month so it's the only reason we're trying to move it so it doesn't conflict with that so people want to come to this go to this and go to the school board meeting can the school board change their meeting yeah because some of us work at night we've had this discussion once yes i mean it's just

we thought thursdays are not good because people have kids that play ball monday is just a more open day that there's not something going on

Thank you.

So right now the school board and the city council on the same day. So all we're trying to do is change it so they don't conflict with each other. So this is something we need to put away for later and come back and look at it again.

I don't know.

We're on the second Monday right now, correct? Yes. We're on the second Monday. So is the first Monday a problem?

Well, the first Monday's a problem because financials. We're always going to be behind on financials if we try to do it the first, either the first Monday or first Thursday.

That's why we agreed on the second because the financials would be up to date.

So second or third Monday...

That's the reason we're talking about it.

Yeah, they're on the same day.

Let's do that. Let's get with the school.

Let's table that until later. Get with the school. And then if none of them give me a real high five, we're going with what I want.

I'm kidding.

all right so on that we're going to come back to that we're going to table that one do i have a motion to table it till later we're going to table it until later and then we'll talk i'll talk with craig and we'll get figured out is that right sounds good are we motioning nope all right we're not motioning all right the next one uh all right so the next i'd like to cover the next two right here pretty quick i'd like for you to discuss go over them please okay and tell them what's all about and uh and then we'll try to cover them both at the same time please okay item number six oh wait no we got to go to uh here first is that correct because he wants to talk about seven so yeah if we're going to talk about him at the same time i don't think he's here Oh, okay, then he's not doing it. All right, so, okay, then Craig's gonna go ahead and talk to both of these about the same time.

Okay, proposed ordinance number 2603 regarding the city secretary is basically codifying the putting in writing what the city council did last august the city council last august chose to move the city secretary's position underneath the city administrator's position as with every other please let us conduct our business here thank you put it under the city administrators position that and this is basically just putting this in writing okay that's all it's doing and it's basically striking the City Council still appoints the city administrator City Council still appoints a municipal judge and the only thing that they do not do under this change is appoint the city secretary Item number seven is officially codifying the creation of the office of the city administrator. The city of Mount Vernon has had a city administrator for over 20 years. And unfortunately, previous city secretaries, previous administrations never actually created that position in writing. But we have had and paid a city administrator for the city of Mount Vernon for at least the last 20 years. This is not a new position. We're not creating a new position. It's an existing position that has been on the books in every budget for at least the last 20 years. It's probably closer to 30 years. But, again, what we're doing is we're going through the city ordinances. We're finding that many of the city ordinances have not been updated. And we have city secretary now that's taking the time to make sure that all those city ordinances are not only updated, but they are in complete compliance with the Texas local government code for type A general law cities, which the city of Mount Vernon is. And this basically is just establishing the office. The position's already there, has been there. It's just establishing the office in writing. And these have been referred to our city attorney for review. And that's the background that I have. Angie, you want to add anything to that?

all right so uh concerning what craig has said i have been in touch with uh stan the city attorney and he has uh advised that we go ahead and table these two items for a later date until they can be better understood uh and he can go through them a little better and we can come back to it probably the next meeting and when we get a little more information on on them before moving forward so i would like

we're going to do that like a motion or i had i had some comments on that if that's okay um this this is our current org chart right yes ma'am and i would just like to be consistent in if we're calling it city secretary or city clerk is it the same thing okay because i mean the org chart says city clerk this says city secretary so i if stan's gonna look at it i just I think we're using the terms interchangeably, city manager, city administrator. So if that can be consistent. So our org chart is city administrator. because the the ordinance it just needs to have the right administrator is a little vague so i would kind of like stan to sign off on that because i looked at other cities and there it's just more in depth of what they're you know there's a bond in there there's other things so i agree and i think this where all this started from was that

and they just got we just moved them around in other positions and as they continued to move they just got overwhelmed yeah and these ordinances were never updated with what the new positions were and to your point craig all we're doing is going in and now it's kind of like giving everybody a job been a lot of things that just lack of knowing what needs to be done. They just weren't done. So we're just trying to get them done. Absolutely.

And on that note, still on on the one where we're removing the city secretary to to reflect the organization chart do we the chief of police is under the city administrator but on here in the ordinance it's showing it to be in a point of position so are we changing that craig that'll need to be changed

The council will continue to appoint the chief of police until otherwise, until we determine. Yeah. We're not going anywhere.

Yeah.

So then our org chart needs to...

if they should be, then what is going to happen with those positions? They'll just keep and not have a title change or?

Well, no, the what we've been trying to do great, correct me if I'm wrong, what we've been trying to do is to get the job descriptions and org chart and everything lined up to how it's been for the past 20 years. They just they would just move people around and never update organization charts and you know, hope so and so's gone, we'll just give it to so and so, they'll do it. And so you ended up with a lot of mixed roles within positions that didn't match what the description said they were doing. So what we're trying to do is get like an org chart put together that okay, you know, here's the mayor at the top and the city council and then below them is these and then below so you have an organizational chart

Yes she was.

Disregard the sign.

But I don't understand, so it's all an act to get a current org chart that y'all don't know who reports to who?

No, that's not it.

We're trying to get an ordinance in place that reflects our org chart.

And we're trying to get our ordinances consistent

We're trying to get the ordinance to reflect the org chart. The ordinance has never been in place for a city administrator. We've had a city administrator for 20, 30 years, and there's never been an ordinance.

We've been paying him someone in that position for 20 years. There's been three that I know of before him. That's why

Yes.

That's exactly correct.

There's a lot of things that haven't been done. And that's what we're trying to do. The sewer pipes, the water towers, the fire trucks, you name it. And that's what we're trying to do is get all of this stuff.

as much as you can make sense of it and it just didn't it never made sense to me and that's why i got involved in the first place it just didn't make sense and so you know

What do you mean we don't have money for a water tower? What are you doing with it? None of it makes sense.

Are we tabling this for an interview?

Yes. They're still sitting there, but have them see if they can get their understanding a little better.

Table basically to clean up the language.

There you go. So yes, we're going to go ahead and table six and seven to a later date. All right.

I'll add one last thing to that. I don't think that a lot of people knew that all of this was here. It was just they were just getting things done. I don't think it was like I neglected anything because a lot of this you got to learn as you go. And I just don't think they knew that they needed to do this. It's just a Steve doing this, let

we've always had

All right, we'll get to all that cleared up. Whether the type city we have, some are called city administrators, some are called, it's all depending on the type city.

There's never been two positions.

I don't think there's ever been two positions. That's why I was just making sure.

This all has to be made according to the Texas law.

Yes.

Right.

That's right. All right. Everybody good? All right. Item number eight is considered proposal from Pate Dawson for professional services. All right. Craig is going to take this one also.

I'm going to I have some help out there in the audience. I'm going to call on in just a minute to help us with this. Council, as you're aware, the Franklin County Industrial Foundation and the Mount Vernon Economic Development Corporation in the city of Mount Vernon have participated in a joint effort on previous occasions for engineering and planning services for what we refer to as a north corridor housing project as well as the lake project. We have included those in our strategic plan as the next priorities for housing development within the community. which the council has approved. They're in the land use plan. We have also, the EDC and the Industrial Foundation have actually purchased property in that area. The city owns all the property around the lake. That would be considered in this, and it is at a point now to where we feel like if we're going to get housing, we need to go ahead and take the next step forward, and that would be actually doing land planning services for those particular areas. Now we've been presented with a land planning proposal from Pate Dawson, also known as KSA engineers. And when I say we, I mean the city of Mount Vernon, the Mount Vernon Economic Development and the Franklin County Industrial Foundation. Each of these entities have been presented with this, and each of these are asked to consider participation in the cost of these proposals. The total cost for the proposed planning services, correct me if I'm wrong for this, but it's about 45,000 total in. everything in. And as we have done things with the Industrial Foundation and the EDC in the past, this would be a cost share which would have a budgetary impact on the city and each of the other entities of approximately $15,000. The end product of this, and I don't want to steal the thunder of the guys that are here, but the end product of this is to that we could take to the next level, and that would mean present to housing developers, commercial developers, and say, okay, here, this is what this could look like. Would you be interested in partnering with the city and our partners in building some houses for us? Because if you remember a year ago or a year and a half ago, we conducted a housing study which showed at that time that the city could absorb about 70 houses immediately. And then following that, about another 30 houses per year. That did not include the development. That was prior to the possibility of lithium even being discovered or even being a thing here, prior to geoframe, prior to standard lithium, prior to the expansion of Dukes and some of the other economic development activities. So it's getting to a point where our biggest need right now is housing. So I have, we have in our audience now Apprentice Reeves, who has some Mount Vernon connections, and Apprentice is in charge of land planning services for Pape Dawson. Is that your official capacity? Come on up. And tell us about your hometown connections, and of course you have Lanny back here too.

Yes, thank you everybody for allowing me to speak today. Been in and around Mount Vernon for a long time. My stepmom is Lily Bush Reeves, who does Mount Vernon Optic Herald. And then Nathan Reeves, my dad, has been a part of Rotary for forever. So he's actually apprentice the first, I'm apprentice the second. So had a little bit of my stepbrother, William Bush, graduated from Mount Vernon High School. I myself grew up in Paris, not too far away from here. been in the area for quite some time. Pate Dawson is essentially KSA. We're the parent company of KSA. We purchased them about a year, year and a half ago. And what it does, it allows KSA to have a lot more services they can provide. We do everything from land planning, to traffic, to highways, to illumination, to siding, anything including planning, all the way to complete construction inspection. And so what we've done is we've put a proposal together to coordinate with the city and be a partner with the city to say we know development's going to come, one way or the other. And we can either be proactive and plan it and schedule it the way we want the development to come, or option B, let the developers come in, do whatever they want to, and then you wind up possibly not getting the type housing you want, not getting the type of revenue you want from the tax base. You wind up not getting what the city wants. And Mount Vernon's taken great pride in their community and some of the amenities, and this is just another step to help with that. Much like we've done with the water lines, the wastewater lines, the waste treatment plants. It's just more services we can provide for the city.

Any questions? Give us an example of what the end product might look like. Would it look like, you know, show where the housing would be in?

Yes, we'll have some renderings, we'll show the lot sizes, we'll show the schematic of what would be, say, commercial for hospitals, what would be mixed use, what would be single family, and we would do that in coordination with the city and with the council. And then we present different proposals and renderings of what this would look like. And once the city has a consensus of what they want, we would then plot it that way to present to developers to say, hey, look, if you want to come in here, here's what you're going to get. You're going to get these size lots. You're going to get this size use. Are you interested or not? So then it puts the power in the city's hands versus the developer's hands who can sometimes switch gears after approval.

if i'm not mistaken this this is the next step of a lot of what we've been working for to get you know we've seen these plans they had one 15 years ago they couldn't do anything with it because they didn't have the infrastructure for it and so we've you know we've got the water taken care of we got the sewer taken care of and now it's allowing us to be able to you know we're not going to waste money on something that's not practical to do now And the zoning is where the housing, where we want it to be versus, you know, what you were talking about. That would be what this would be. Housing over here and then a warehouse right across the street. Exactly.

We would plant it and zone it to where the city would have input. Okay, this is going to be single family just for these lots. This is going to be mixed use.

I'm just kind of getting everybody up to speed. This is like the next, this isn't something new. We've been building to this. It's going to be pretty cool.

Yeah.

And we'll have different renderings. We'll present one and we'll get input. If y'all don't like it, if you want some things changed, it'll be an iterative process to make sure the end product is exactly what y'all want. And it's something that's allotted and ready to go to the next step, which is to start talking to developers, of which we have several we deal with on a regular basis because PayPal itself is in nine different states.

I don't think that will be an issue.

yeah like that yeah you will have no problem trying to get somebody in here to want to build for you it's just a matter of said there's lots of people living out of mount vernon that come here so i mean i think we got the data to back that up as well so the school has 100 employees that live outside that don't live here so so with your approval we'd like to partner with y'all on this and to help y'all develop this property.

And what I would ask from the council that contingent on the approval of the EDC and the Industrial Foundation, the city would agree to commit to this proposal.

And we did try to skinny the fees down as much as possible because we do work for the city quite a bit with the water, the wastewater lines, the KSA. for the lake that was for both that was the 75 acre lake track and the 250 acres track that's everything all together all that that was around 30 000 it was around 31 5 for the 250 acre plot and then i believe it was around 13 or 14 for the 75 acres

and things like that sometime in the future.

Yes, because with the lake, there's going to be certain parts of the lake without getting into heavy engineering. There's some of it that's not, you're just not going to be able to build houses on. So at that point, you'd want to take amenities to it. You'd want to do boat ramps, kayak ramps, some sort of boardwalks, some things that you could do in the flood-prone areas. to increase the standard of living, to increase... That was on the south side, right? Correct, on the south side, yeah, where it comes around, where it buttons around to the south. Yeah, that area, there's some of it that's just... If you build in there, you're going to be FEMA insurance out the wazoo. You're just not going to be able to do anything substantial in there. Yes, that is the intent, is the area that cannot be responsibly developed.

And didn't we already apply for a grant on that, but then we had to redo it, or we have to reapply for it?

The grants that we applied for were for Little Creek, the first one, the second one, and then that was going to be the third one we applied for. Okay.

Have we started on that, or we're going to start on it?

We're going to start on that.

Okay.

Any other questions? Engineering or otherwise?

Anybody who wants to build can build we're just saying here. This is your lot sizes.

whether it be 30 block, quarter acre lot.

We can help.

They can help. They can help. You're not required to do anything. You can do anybody you want. We're just saying if you need help, we have some. If not, don't be diff. Local builders want to build it. But if we have, say, 450 houses, sometimes that's hard for some developers.

Maybe it isn't. You're going to do this and make your lots available to buy, correct? Correct.

And this is the city's lots. We're just plotting it. The city can sell it to whoever they want to sell it to. Because technically the city owns the land. We don't own the land. We're just helping y'all lay out lot sizes. Do you want half acre lots? Do you want three quarter acre lots?

Do you want some streetlets?

Where we're going to have to put the corridor plan? Where we're going to have green spaces for? Because not everybody wants to look at everybody's houses. Some people want a greenbelt through there. Things like that. To help y'all design it the way you want it to be. Versus the developers.

So have this been taken for that?

We don't, we, cities cannot take bids for professional services by law. It's restricted. We can't take bids for attorneys. We can't take bids for CPAs. We can't take bids. How do you know if it's there? Well, we look at the VEST process the lowest bid for any kind of professional services. And that's across the board, whether you're an architect, landscape architect, engineer, attorney, you know, anybody.

to bring in their developers from not this area, that's cutting out my husband.

I don't think you understand that. We just said we weren't going to do that. All they're doing is doing the design of how it will look.

But that cuts out what another developer could come in and do.

No, it doesn't. It just says that that developer, you or husband or any other developer that came in there has to follow the specifications that have been designed and approved.

it has to have single in these it's it's it's developing the rules for someone like your husband to come in and say i want to buy these 10 lots and i'm going to build houses on these 10 lots and then the city ends in the package that says this is your regulations on what you can and can't do with those 10 lots and that prevents developers from just coming in here buying a big

you know, not using good construction standards, all those types of things. I mean, it protects the citizens and it also protects the integrity of the city. We can retain the historic charm of the city if we do this. The last one we looked at.

big piece of property. There were green spaces in it. So there's like, you know, little locks for picnic tables and throwing frisbees. No houses will be on those spaces. Then there was spaces for like, so many 1600 square foot houses spaces for so many 2500 square foot houses. And then there was like, I don't remember 10 plots for like 3000 plus or something like it's it's It's a community. It's a mixture of homes within that space. And if I remember right, there was only two ways to get in. Right. One was off the service road and one was off the 37th. Absolutely. So that's kind of what we're looking at doing something to, I mean, y'all are driving around town. There's streets without curbs. There's this, there's that. We're trying to create something like, we don't want it all at the same. And that's why you go is one like another. But I mean, that's what we're trying to do. And we're not even close to being done.

So in the meantime, what do we do with the broken curbs and sewers?

You know how much that stuff costs?

I know it's expensive.

I live on a street that's not curved. But when we first got into this, we had over 150 manholes city employees couldn't go into. They were collapsing on themselves. I mean, the list just goes on and on. I don't want to get into that. The thing is, it takes the time I'm 80 years old, somebody will have it all done. But you're never going to have it all done. But we can't touch the potholes in the streets until we fix the pipe, because back when they designed the city before, there weren't easements. So all the utilities are under the street. And so... Well, maybe yours have already been done. I don't know.

No, they haven't.

We'll have to look that up. But I'm just saying that...

I talked to the developer. I talked to the construction guy. I asked him if there was...

I thought we've had all of the water lines done. Some of the sewer line may not need to be replaced. Some of the sewer line... Okay, I don't know your particular... I don't know. I'm just saying that it's a...

Well, and this is also why we went ahead and we did the grants and we got the $9 million to help pay for it. Other than that, it would have been taken on by the taxpayers, so it took time for that.

I'm just saying, but that's gonna generate additional tax dollars to be able to do something different, maybe.

One of the things that has happened, a way a lot of cities have handled this with this process is as the developers, say they wanna buy five or 10 or 15 lots to develop, it's their right to buy. The city can say, okay, but you've gotta provide the roadway for it. And the developer builds the roadway for you, so it's no cost to the city, which is how this would happen, ideally, and how I would suggest for the city to do it. The developers will gladly pay for it, and they'll just put that in the price of the house. It may cost the houses to go up another $1,500, but the city's not paying for that. The people buying the house are paying for that, and that's typically the way it's done to help. So it's no cost to the city, and that's how we would try, or to the citizens, because obviously y'all don't want to pay for something else. That's true.

What does that mean?

What's that?

What does it mean?

For everything, it's $45,000 total.

And that's spread between three different entities.

No, $45,000 wouldn't touch the design fee for a sewer line. Contractors will say a lot of things. I was a contractor for 12.

the three entities is the Industrial Foundation the EDC in the city each each board votes on it and then yeah so I'm pretty sure that all this they'll have on the city. It's a very cheap price for anything.

Is this lithium situation part of your consideration?

No, no. We started these before the lithium thing ever came about. I know, and now it's emerged, and when we do that, I mean, I don't know.

I mean, you hope they don't put up man camps on the 250-acre plot. I come from an area I've relocated recently to Longview from Abilene where they've completely ruined it with data.

There's 2,000-acre man camps going up everywhere. We've got the zoning we have now. They can't do things like that, but I mean... I don't know. Are we going to go down rabbit trails today?

I think we need to go ahead and move forward on it.

Okay. I don't mean that disrespect. It's a great question.

We would be happy to go into detail with what we know about the lithium.

Without trying to start something, the solar farms, the lithium, it's coming, and there is nothing we can do about it. if we tax the roads for them then we tax the roads for his trucking company we tax the roads for his milk route we tax the roads I mean it's just it's Texas law a man can woman whoever can do whatever they want with their land and there's nothing you can do and these people have already been in Austin five years even prior to even stepping foot here before we even know two Do we have any other questions on that?

I don't know. I don't know. I kind of want a work meeting on this just so that we can.

I think this is the next step in the meeting we had in December. It is. And so to get the next step, I think this is what we have to do, correct? If we're going to keep moving forward. I'll make

number nine is the consideration of appointing a municipal judge we are going to table that one for a later date also

when someone gets a ticket, they come up and make arrangements for payment up here if they want to call for the only time you use them as a municipal judge is if there's a trial.

The process that is existent when we had a municipal judge has not changed. The only difference is is that is that right now we can't hold a trial because we do not have a municipal judge preside over a trial. If you get a traffic ticket, you come to City Hall and you either pay it or you can make arrangements through the payment arrangement process that we have, or you can take a defensive driving course so you don't have to make payments on it. If they don't want to pay it, then it goes to a trial. Well, we haven't had that situation. We have not had that situation up to this point.

That's hilarious.

We have been working on trying to find, excuse me? No warrant will be issued for your arrest. Okay, going back to your question, going back to your question, okay, we have been trying to locate someone that will serve as a municipal judge for the last six months. We have been unsuccessful up to this point in trying to find someone to do that. It is a top priority. Previous counsel tried to do it. We couldn't come up with anybody. We have to find somebody. It's a top priority, and as soon as we get one done, we will.

Is there a defined role for the municipal judge?

The defined role is to preside over a trial.

Well, meaning, though, is there... for a municipal judge? Yes.

Well, it's codified in our ordinances. We have a position for a municipal judge. We don't have a job description for them. There's never a job description for a municipal judge, to my knowledge.

I just think the more that we can tell them

Hopefully, we'll have this item resolved by the July meeting.

Number 10, consider resolution number 2614, authorizing employment to the Architects Council of Governments Board of Directors.

We haven't had a member of that board in the past. They reached out to us and asked us to participate as a board member. It's either a council member, city manager, or the mayor. A lot of times it's the mayor.

Isn't it a collective cities that get together and kind of go over what they've...

It's a planning organization. The Council of Governments provides grants for everything from public safety to transportation. They run TRACS, Rural Transportation Services. They do 911 services. They do a lot of different grants, and it is comprised primarily and city mayors, council members, or city managers. And basically it's just a planning organization.

But we've never participated?

We've never participated. Not since I've been here, we haven't participated.

I believe, didn't Brad used to go to those meetings?

Not since I've been here. That's all I can speak to.

I believe he did, and he said that it was actually no benefit to it, but I don't know.

It's usually during the day. It's usually over lunch. The office for the architects council governments, and basically it includes Hopkins County east to Dexter County. It includes Miller County in Arkansas, and then down south through Cass County, Marion County, and back up. It doesn't include Wood County. It doesn't include Smith County. They're under different council governments. It's a regional planning organization, and they usually meet monthly. The board usually meets monthly.

so next up is discussion items uh mayor city council council and city administrator reports uh the first one up is the main street Angie, can I ask a favor? Can you bring up the

Okay, there's a lot of rumors going around about, and I thank you, Ken, for being here. Thank you for being here. I had a good conversation with Ken this morning about that. There's a lot of rumors going around about the Mount Vernon Main Street program, and the reason that this is on the agenda is basically to inform the council of the status of our Main Street program. and provide the council an opportunity to consider what we want that Main Street program to be in the future. This is the Texas Main Street program. The Texas Main Street program is under the Texas Historic Commission. The purpose, the intended purpose of the Main Street program is basically two-fold, historic preservation and economic development in historically preserved downtown areas the when i first got here this the city of mount vernon main street program was under probation with the historic commission you have levels of accreditation uh you're if you're probation you're uh fixing to get kicked out uh the next one is an affiliate member And then the next one is a credentialed or accredited member of the Main Street program. That is the highest level. I think at one time in the past, Mount Vernon was at the highest level. I've been here for three and a half years. When I got here, we were on probation. and we brought in Miss Cassidy Wesson as the Main Street director, and she brought us up to the affiliate level. There's specific requirements for the Main Street program. Would you scroll down a little bit? Keep going, keep going. and then click on about the Main Street program. And there's four basic, there's a four point test for the Main Street program. And each of these has to do with either historic preservation, okay, basically making sure that older buildings in the downtown area don't get torn down. and then also economic development in those, revitalizing those buildings so that we can put active, vibrant businesses in those buildings. The purpose has never been to hold events. The Main Street program is not an event program. it has never been an event program it is all about historic preservation and providing uh technical expertise and incentives if the city has the money to make incentives for historic preservation and for business operations in the downtown area mount vernon has done an astounding job in its downtown area all the buildings that we have around the square are occupied there are some that are occupied that maybe are not occupied to the level that they could be not all of them are occupied by tax producing revenue generating businesses but they're all occupied and they're all in good shape there's been a lot of private investment from a lot of private uh developers in the downtown area that has made a huge impact on the economic status of the downtown area. But again, I think there's some confusion during the last few years of that Main Street was really about events. It's not supposed to be about events. It never has been. But it kind of morphed into that and uh but it's really about bringing businesses in now the uh the discussion item was placed on the agenda to give the council an opportunity cassidy has moved on to a different part of the city operations but basically just to give the council the opportunity to determine whether the council wanted to to maintain or move from an affiliate level to a fully accredited level, which would require some changes in our Main Street program, and one of those big changes not moving away from events doesn't mean the city can't support events that the key club is doing or that the chamber is doing or any other entity that's doing, or we want to maintain just an affiliate level and kind of keep things the way that they were. This was a council decision, and this is what this was on the agenda for. So where we are with that, at this point in time is that we do not have a Main Street director. We did not want to move forward in getting another Main Street director until the council had the opportunity to examine what kind of affiliation do you want with the Texas Main Street program. Frankly, most of the job of the Main Street director is filing reports with the Texas Main Street program. and trying to bring economic activity to the downtown area. We have a lot of economic activity in our downtown area. We have a tremendous amount of economic activity in our downtown area. And what I mean by that, I'm talking about brick and mortar economic activity. So this, all we were doing by having this as a discussion item is saying, we would like the council to have all the information that the Texas Main Street program can share. And I'm actually, I've contacted them, sent them an email, and asked them to send somebody, come up here to talk to the council about this. It'd be a public meeting, anybody can come. Or if the council wants to, they can say, yes, we want to continue to have a Main Street program, but we may also want to have a tourism program. And that's another option. We can look at what that would cost and give that to the council as we get into the next budget cycle, which is starting right now. The budget has to be passed by the end of September. The other option was in the interim, it's an interim option, is to take some of the money that we're saving from the salary that is now being paid to Cassidy through the animal shelter, take some of those savings, set aside those savings, and use those savings to hire a part-time code enforcement officer that can be proactive Right now we have two senior level staff members, our wastewater treatment plant director and our public works director, that are spending a portion of their time doing code enforcement. They don't have time to do proactive code enforcement. If you call and you say you have a code problem with your neighbor, they go out there and take care of it. We don't have anybody that can actually go through the city and say that needs to be changed or we need to take care of that. So those are the options that, this is why we put this on the agenda, just for discussion, no action tonight. These are not action items. These are discussion items that are being presented to the council for their consideration as we move into the budget, this next budget cycle, which we're of the Main Street program, despite what the virtual world make-believe says, that has never been intended. So it's just redefining what does it look like now? What does it look like? Let's bring it to where it's supposed to be. And what is best fit for our city in 2026? That's it. Council's decision. Can I please say something? Certainly. The only Main Street event that we've had is the Springfest event. Well, the vendor market is not really a Main Street event. It was actually managed by the Main Street manager because nobody else would manage it.

But every time we asked for funding, they would say, well, that's under Main Street Alliance, and there's no funds for that.

I don't know what I don't know who said what I really don't but you know the farmers market can stand independently of that the another if the Chamber of Commerce wants to if the Key Club wants to do spring event as well as a fall event yes gay I'm looking at you If the chamber wants to do it, that's fine. The role of the city is to support those. We will support those.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Thank you.

The farmer's market?

Yes, the vendor market.

That was a Main Street event that we probably should not. It should have always been a separate vendor market that the city supported with allowing you to use the park or wherever. That's what it should have been. It's really not appropriate for accreditation of a true Texas Main Street program.

Does it have to be a nonprofit organization or the Chamber?

It would probably to use it. I would have to check on that. But I'm going to guess for using public facilities, it would have to be a nonprofit. And there would have to be some kind of written agreement, you know, to protect to protect the city and to protect the nonprofit. I mean, no Courtney, right now, the farmers market is going to continue the vendor market can continue all right and as far as I'm concerned we'll work out some kind of agreement on the fly okay you know we're we're we don't want that to stop we don't want that to stop Frankie Frankie

so my concern was and thank you for letting me speak um my concern was the fact that mount vernon has been a main street city for 34 years and there are several of us in the building that have been a part of that i was on the first board and served several years on that There are currently 89 cities in the state of Texas that are Main Street cities. It's a very prestigious award, and I feel like that it helps us in advertising. If we're not using that advertising, we should be. Also, we were a Texas treasurer city. which is also, it came through Main Street. Our city sidewalks are also a part of our being a Main Street city. We might have been able to have gotten those done without Main Street, but I don't know that for sure. Probably wouldn't, it probably gave us more points on our application because we were a Main Street city. Possibly even the parks boards, the park boards, grants that you've gotten so far. We've probably gotten some points over on those grant applications because we were a main street city. And so I hate to see that drop. There are several of us that worked on it for years that would be happy to get involved again to some degree.

You record that, right? No.

So I do just want you to think about it long and hard before we do just let it drop. And if there are other levels that we can go to, the way I was looking at it, the accreditation is the highest one that you can get. And I'm thinking those others, you might go to those to get to the accreditation. But maybe if we can work something out with Texas Main Street, then maybe that would be the thing to do. So I'd be, I would really like to attend any meeting if you get a Main Street person from Austin here. I'd like to be here and be a part of that, and I'm sure that I can bring about six or seven of my friends with me.

Will they serve on the board?

I don't know about serving on the board.

Because that, frankly, has been one of the big struggles that we've had.

We haven't been able to get somebody.

People are more than willing to serve on the board.

The main street board has nine slots so three people are really truly representative of the entirety of what the main street board.

Do you have a main street board right now?

No we don't.

We actually have four members. We have four members so we're almost to the nine.

No we don't. Thank you.

Okay.

All right. Number 12. Angie, you're up on this one. This is talking with Tex Dodd about the road closure for the country fest.

So this is basically the snow update. I can tell you that I anticipate and then we have to, I have to present that to council. Council actually has to be the one that makes the request to TxTOC. There is an insurance form that TxTOC will require from any organization.

And that's closing 67?

No, that's closing 37.

That's closing 37, probably right here. That way, people who still want to access the glove factory, so we're trying to get it closed right down here. And then telling the trucks, basically putting a sign up there that says no through, making the trucks drive to Winsboro, wherever they want to get to from here. So we don't have to come through town. That's more so, I guess, rerouting the trucks more than anything so they don't get stuck down here, correct? And the last thing is...

You can.

And can't they go ahead and submit a letter anytime and then they don't know the dates, right? You know, the dates, the country, yeah, the dates and the hours. That way, we would have it on record. And we notify y'all when you all wanted to be here for the council's action on that'd be okay. But that would

I put it on the agenda and table, but if not, that way you can get it done.

Okay.

Get us a letter as soon as you can, ladies.

and then 13 school safety zone for rutherford street which is probably a good idea anyway uh craig i think this is yours but i think they're talking about taking rutherford from like miller miller miller all the way down to 37 and making basically out of school zone you know because that's where the elementary yeah yeah to make it because that's where a lot of the drop-off is right now for a middle school anyway is off of right off rutherford so

The superintendent-elect reached out to me about a week ago, two weeks ago, with this, and we referred this to our public works director, who has gotten with KSA on this. engineer to help develop the plans we want to make sure that we do a school safety zone in accordance with you know the state standards textile standards even though it's on a city street and as you pointed out there's a ton of kids that walk now that they've rerouted entry into the middle school junior high school there's a bunch of kids that are walking through that neighborhood bunch of kids on bicycles we want to make sure they're safe and this would include flashing lights and also possibly some more heavy enforcement initially we'd like to have it well underway by the beginning of school year that's our hope so it's on a fast track and i just sent uh superintendent a a sample letter today that he needs to get back to us requesting you know where he wants the lights to be and all that so anything you need from the council at this point no i I think it's a great idea. I've been down there and observed it with Jason, and there's a ton of kids that walk and ride bikes. I was encouraged to see that, actually. Ideally, there would be sidewalks. All right.

I would have a motion to adjourn.

Motion. So it is a good answer. Thank you.