City Council - Special Meeting

Okay, we ready? All right, it is six o'clock and I'll open this meeting with the Mount Vernon City Council. We do have a quorum present. Craig is going to lead us on our invocation. Please bow with me for prayer. Father God, we just thank you for your your grace and your wisdom and just uh ask you to grant us wisdom as we make decisions that impact the lives of those who live in this community and the future of this community. Father, we just thank you that you love us and that we have confidence in your guidance. And I just pray that you would bless this time and this uh this meeting now in your son's name. Amen. Amen. Please join for a pledge algiance to the flag of the republic which stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all. All right. Before we get going here, we have a little bit of special information to share. It's a very special day. Big day. It's big number day. Big number. But today is a is Councilman Kase's birthday. And at this moment, we would like to say happy birthday. There's your scepter, your highness. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. You're about as red as that crown. Wait, we got we have some camera footage from out on the square. I dismiss. Hey, they said there'd be no They said there'd be no Kings Day. I think we got all all

So, actually, Kathy, can we do this right now? Take a little break. We got cake and ice cream in the side room for every Hey Harold, and if you're here visiting, lucky you. A little lucky charm made the announcement about 7:45 this morning. I don't know who on earth would have thought of something like this. Yeah, that's a pretty dress. Go get some cake. You're always You're welcome.

Appcate it. Hallelujah. What are you doing?

Oh yeah.

I can't hear you. Apparently,

We're going to raise a motion that you wear that crown. Kathy, tell me when we're ready. All right, we will reconvene this meeting. It's 6:15 due due to motion to approve the consent agenda if the council has had the time to review. I'm not going to read all that. Make a motion. Motion from Mark. I'll second. Second from Mary. All in favor? I. All right. Report on items of community interest. Do we have anything that anybody like to share tonight? Other than Harold's birthday, I can't think of anything. That was it. You did kind of turn over a new leaf on your birthday. About time. Kathy, can you scroll it up a little bit? All right. All right, we don't have anybody signed up for citizen participation tonight and um our public hearing. It is 6:16 and I'll open our public hearing. The purpose of this hearing is to hear evidence for or against the city of Mount Vernon's intent to establishment of a line of credit with the Alliance Bank not to exceed $750,000 and secured by the city CDs and to be used for capital improvements authorized by the city council and authorize the city administrator to ex execute all necessary documents. This is recognizing we got a lot of money in CDs and instead of just cashing them in, interest rates real cheap, too. But anyway, we don't have that's all right. That's all we have, too. So, I'll I'll close it. Right. So, 617 I'll close the public hearing.

Okay. We can go We'll do that at item three though, right? So, item two will consider and act upon approval of the interlocal tax agreement with Franklin County for tax collection. This is this is just we need a motion to break the motion from Mark. Second from Harold. All in favor? All right. Okay. So, here's where we decided to set up a letter of credit with the bank. That's our rate is real cheap. Yes, sir. 2%. It's it's at 2%. U told me that you get give it to us 2% for at least the first year. Um we have about 900 based on our first quarter. We actually have more than that uh in our CDs, $94,000 to secure at that rate. We also have a debt fund balance of $760,000. Um which actually exceeds what we were asking for in the line of credit. Um by establishing moving these uh obligations into a line of credit, we can actually consider them to be debt and there or use our debt service money to pay for them, which we haven't been able to use before. And we've been tapping into the general fund and the utility fund to just pay them as we go. Uh these are all projects that the council approved last year. We're just trying to get them done. Uh biggest one here is probably the water meters and uh the raw water intake pump. Uh the water meters, as y'all are aware by now, uh we were told they were going to come in, that project was going to come in around 490, $500,000, but the actual cost was 738,000 because they ended up finding anotherund Yeah. 100 or so meters beyond that. And there were also more additional costs

related to the software. So that's really kind of that tapped into the general fund quite a bit this year. uh on that. So um once the line of credit is established, we'll get with the bank. We'll look at these internally and see which is the best course of action on what to pay when. So um we I've been told by Jeff that he could probably have the line of credit set up for us within 48 hours upon council approval. Good to have a cheap rate, too. our CDs get to stay in place and kind of a wash a lot of flexibility to keep things moving forward not having to tack the brakes. Absolutely. We need we would need a motion from the council to approve that. A motion from Harold, second from Mark. All in favor can we discuss it or Oh yeah. I would just my my first question is okay I have two two here for the 447 and the 80 for that from government capital. Right. So, did we just pay the difference out of the general fund for the we didn't borrow? Right. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure that the notes I had were correct. So, so when we draw down on the line of credit, then we could we could pay on the higher interest on we could pay that offers. Yes. As we draw on the line of credit, we could pay on the higher interest rate. That's that is one of the things that we probably really consider doing because it's five and a half% versus 2% on the line of credit. So, 2%'s only good for a year. So, really want to use it all in case he goes up on it.

You said that makes the most sense to me. Now we have outstanding we have the other big one is the uh uh that we have outstanding is the um raw water intake pumps. Uh we have 167 still remaining on that and uh that's going to have to be paid for you probably within the next 30 60 days. U so we'll so we're going to have to use that for that. Um the others the um um we just want the flexibility to be able to pay them if we can't afford to do it out of the u utility fund or the general fund. You know, we're going to try to use cash that we have before we borrow. Obviously, Let's do have a vote that we had a motion in a second here. All in favor? I Okay, so we're discussion items now. These are uh council, you have a list of the capital requests for all of the departments. And what I would instead of going through these in detail, what I'm going to suggest is that y'all look at these, see if you have any questions on any of these requests and then let me know and we'll schedule a workshop and have the department directors come in. But I can tell you all these requests from uh my review and I think internally our review u they're much less than they were last year and they're they're all needed. They're all very reasonable requests. Um, uh, probably I guess the

biggest ones, uh, came out of the fire department, uh, and maybe the animal shelter three ways. And hopefully the fire department will also have some split on that, too. So, in case y'all had any questions that you wanted to ask right now, I'll be happy to try to field them or or you can look at it and then just get back with you get back with me and we get whoever's needs to be here here. Well, we do that at the next meeting. The department heads come next. Yeah, come next. Some of these were like build something like the fence. Did they get more than one quote on those? And that was the best quote or did they get one quote? They got one quote just as a budget figure and then before we if it's, you know, before we go out, we'll get bids on it. So if we approve 60,000 for the fence and it comes in at 45, we're only going to spend 45. So, we're patting them a little bit more. And the bid on that fence is to completely enclose the maintenance department to completely secure it. Right now, anybody can walk into it at any time and take whatever they want to take. So,

We did a lot here in this current fiscal year and the request should be lighter this year. We took a big step this last year I've done but we'll be the needs are definitely much more modest. fire department before the slab over there. I think y'all seen that. circul,000 28,000 Are they just asking for $5,200? All they're asking for So Paul's and the city don't have to approve. If we wanted to spend $100,000, they just have to pay. We have to we have to manage it. And everything that they're asking for there is stuff that is absolutely necessary. emergency generator. If the power goes out, if you don't have it, you have a bunch of dead animals. Uh also on the ventilation, um there's some health issues that are associated with what we do before we didn't have this many animals. and we had a window air conditioner and it probably was never if it was had ever been inspected by

it would have never passed inspection. They inspected it here what a month ago or so. Who's that? We just got so much money. We need to spend state health services, zerological division. Do they pay us monthly or how often do they reimburse? It's going to take I don't know exactly what the balance is, but I know that they probably have over a quart million. They keep getting more donation and they're getting more donations. They own the building. They own the building. So why would they generator because we run it and there's probably there's a very good chance that we will end up building it anyway. So, if you're looking at this quote, they got three quotes for this this ventilation thing. They got CNS refrigeration 28,000, Lowe's 7500, Home Depot 6,800. Yeah, the 28,000 is the generator.

Well, it says that the CNS refrigeration is all inclusive. It will be a propane unit and may not be propane. So, what does that mean? Well, number one is the ventilators. Okay. I'm looking at the generator. The thing that I see there is that they're different wattages. We're going to have we're going to have Kelly Bulan come out there and tell us exactly what we're going to need to be able to carry the ventilation for the animal shelter. And again, these were just preliminary budget figures. Start looking at this. I would say these others are more home type of generators. We'll get new bids by the time we have here. We'll have Chad do it. I believe that is actually just us building it. That's just materials.

It's August. This is what we want to do with these quotes is to look at some things. Make sure And you know, another thing I want to point out is that this interlocal agreement that we have with the county on the animal shelter, the budget that was prepared was basically a an estimate because we had no idea what the operational costs were going to be. And all all three parties agreed that this is where going to go for the first year. And then, you know, once we had a year behind us, then we could actually get more accurate um more accurate amounts. We have a better idea what the budget's going to actually be. And so far, we've only been into this budget for three months now. So, and we've just started bringing on another some personnel. So, we're just now kind of starting to get a feel of what our monthly expenditures are looking like. and they have actually pause has actually done a lot of capital improvements um uh that we did not pay for even even since we've been operating the shelter. So they have kicked in. They've kic they've actually kicked in. They've kicked in quite a bit more. So we'll be looking at this in more detail next couple years. It's not something we're obviously acting on. It's just

policy that they had many people 70. Yes. They bought the building. They bought the building and they said then they went through kind of a a funding drop off before the building was open because they had the building for a year and then but they started to see according to speaking with John Richmond they're starting to see larger checks coming in and they're actively engaged. We're not having to do any of the fundraising. that's theirs and they have been actively engaged in doing that. But maybe maybe it'd be great for them to come to a meeting and kind of give Well, I just and and give an accounting for where they're at as far as I just somebody mentioned that's a big shelf and we're a small town and we got a lot of stuff we got to pay for and this heated really super duper quick. But I know it's like a lot of different things that once you own it, you own it and then you can't ever get rid of it. And so that's just my concern. We got a lot of things we got to pay for. And I don't want to keep on about it. That's just that's my We've got pets. I I get it. I'm not anti pet, but we've got water. We've got sewer. We've got so much stuff we've got to be taken care of. It's it's Let me say this. The apart from the capital costs, our budget for that animal shelter is no more than the budget that we had for this animal shelter. Okay? We're not putting another dime into it until we end up owning it. That's my concern. Well, and that's

that's down the road. That's that's what that's that could be way down the road. And Um, so right and the county's in is in this, you know, if pause ever drops out, it's going to have to be a 50-50 thing with Pause drops out. I mean, we can't even get the county. I'm I'm just opening up every can of worm in my can tonight. But I mean, it's like legitimate. Yeah, but I mean it's like we're we can't we're still trying to figure out the fire department. Okay. Do we want to take care of 20 or have a fire department. Do we want to I mean that's how I'm looking at this. I understand is that you know we're not Dallas. We're I understand Vernon and we're you know we're borrowing money everywhere we can to get the things done we need to get done. And so that's just good points. You didn't wear your crown, so you can't talk. Hush. He has the husher. The shusher. I have one more point of uh interest for y'all. Uh it as it relates to infrastructure. Uh I've had a series of calls with engineers and text dot regarding the um the ramps the 146 and 147 and um the engineers have actually talked to text dot and text dot is um agreeable to start looking at what it would actually cost uh to go ahead and move those ramps back and reconfigure the ramps. And um but they indicate to the engineers and we I just had a call this morning on that

that when they did that it would go to a one way everybody else is doing frontage road from 37 you know it's one mile difference I would be okay with that I don't know everybody else feels but it's like but we should have a proposal on what it'll total cost the total cost that engineers estimate um probably within the next three or four months but they pay for all that right They pay it depends on when you want it done. If we pay a portion of it, like if we paid for the engineering, that thing would be shovel ready and take start could start bidding on it. Move it higher on the priority. So what are we looking $60,000 in engineering? I have no idea. It's probably going to be more than that. But the whole project when Brad and I were there, they were talking just it could be two to four million. Yeah. For two ramps. Well, absolutely it is. But the problem I mean should do something because you have to like do this and after you broke your neck that's kind of hard to do. Well, somebody's going to get killed. It's a dangerous spot, but it also opens up a lot more property for economic. Yeah, sure. Because it'll move the ramp on the uh westbound side almost p back almost to Lowe's and it would open up all that property. So, so you mean you would be one way all the way to Lowe's and then one way all the way back. could be. It's not uncommon for businesses to chip in. Possibly. You'd still have Wait a minute. So, the first exit is the one where Dairy Queen is. The next exit is is Love and Dukes and then the next exit. So, I mean, you could be awesome. You could go around like between these places, right? Yeah. You don't have to drive from, you know, Dairy Queen all the way down to Lowe's to get on the oneway to come back. No, I mean, there still be

Yeah. And we'd have new signals there at the spur on both sides. We get another traffic light. Another traffic light. We may be Dallas before too long. Yeah. too many. And um the plan here is actually to u talk to some of the lithium companies about they're increasing the truck traffic. Also, possibly talk to Dukes because it's going to help them. Well, that brings up a point. Where are we at on we've been talking about the you know, we're getting all the ordinances ready and things and impact fees and stuff. Where are we at on those that were able to do some of that where where we get some help paying for some of the stuff they're impacting on the impact days? The legislature, your elected officials have just put significant restrictions on what we can charge for impact. Really? So, we're having we're going to have to go back and look at that. That was one of the things that they addressed this last legislative session that the governor just signed into law yesterday. Um, additionally, there are also uh some changes that they did with regard to uh zoning and uh actually also providing um also um petitioning for deanexation. If a city can't get water and sew sewer to an annexed area um within six month period of time, they can petition for So, what's the zoning changes after we've done all this work? The zoning changes we'll be able to adopt with some slight changes in our

current zoning ordinance, but a lot of them have to do with manufactured housing. You have to have actually all cities are required to have a within the city limits that is for manufactured housing. They also have one um uh there is one they call the mother-in-law house. Uh basically allowing um a another more than one pro one building being on property and uh they have really micromanaged a lot of the city things. They are also doing um there's a big push, it didn't pass, but there was a big push on putting an expenditure cap on cities, meaning that you you your budget could only increase by uh inflation and um um and um your population. What's behind all of this in your mind? I mean, we've we've I've opened every other candle worm tonight, so go ahead. What do you think? State control. Well, politically it is. It was spurred on uh by pure politics. You have larger cities in Texas that are democratically controlled. And you have a very conservative element that's leading the Texas legislature. and they want to punish Houston, they want to punish Dallas, they want to punish San Antonio, but in doing so, um, because these larger cities have said, you know, we we want our zoning to look like this and you can't do that here or we have tree ordinance, we don't want you to do that here, and, you know, all those types of things. We we want

you we we need these impact fees to be able to grow. So, the legislators just said, "No, we're going to take control over that. And they they're not that bright, Mark. And some of them they do, but most of them they don't. I mean, most of them they don't. You know, one of another one that they pass it doesn't it doesn't uh impact um existing contracts, but effective September 1st um contracted employee, city manager, whoever, um, their severance cannot be more than 20 weeks. Well, this sounds great, you know, except when you have a young guy that moves from El Paso to become city manager in Marshall, Texas, half a state, you know, an entire state away, and he gets a crazy council the second year that he's there, and he's moved his family over there. Well, Marshall just has history. Okay. And um and he gets fired after he's moved his family and he only has that period of time to do. I mean, and I use that as an example. That's how they're micromanaging. They're micromanaging and our state legislature and state senator are leading the charge on that. Well, it sounds like welcome to the corporate world. That's the way

So, you know, thank you for the kind of crazy. That's all for tonight. We have any other discussion around those long. It wasn't long. Not bad at all. No, I appreciate y'all being here. We didn't we didn't need to have a meeting and happy birthday, Harold. Glad glad to have you, sir. Appreciate it, Kathy. Thank you. Have a little fun there with you. Need a motion to adjourn. Let Harald do it. I didn't see Harold. We have a motion to We got We got a We got a gifts from the animal shelter that we're going to give you. First of all, I gota say my dogs never felt air conditioning. I just miss all in favor. I make a motion. We just missed. Did somebody with the crown? I need that, please. We definitely happy birthday. Thank you. Question.