City Council - Regular Meeting

So, this is an important meeting for council retreat March 21st, 2026. Uh, as a as a as a council where we're going as staff uh all working together to make this the best place for our community uh to live uh to raise a family, to work, to play. This is the foundation on which their success is built on. Uh so, it's a it's a big day for us. This is an exciting opportunity for sure. Thank you.

Thanks. So, a little bit about me. My name is Robert Hannah. Um, I'm 25 years in city management. I just retired last year actually from the city of Aly where I spent my last 10 years in public service. And now I'm the president of strategic services for Zact. And uh we are a full service consultancy that got about 320 clients across the state of Texas. We've got some clients in California and Washington and Utah and working on trying to get some clients in Oklahoma and Kansas too. But so we're growing. One of the things that really motivates us because we're all retired city managers and CFOs is local government, right? And so when you think about the role of local government, you think about government in general, you've got that three layer cake, right? You've got the local level, the state level, the federal level. Well, how many of y'all ever walked to Austin and or Washington DC and had three minutes in front of Congress or the state legislature? Anybody raise your hand? Right? You got three minutes. That's good. I've never had President Trump return my call. Maybe y'all have. My point is is that when you dial 911, right, the Marine Corps doesn't show up. Y'all show up. Members of your community show up to help one another on a daily basis. Local government is that layer of government that most touches our lives. It's where we are married. It's where we are buried. It's where we raise our kids. It's where we define who we are as a person. It's at the local level. And your role as an elected official in all of that or a staff member or even a citizen is to help your community to help Odessa be the best version of itself. And you can't do that individually. You can't do that as the mayor. You can't do that as a single council member, right? You can't do that as a city manager. You have to do it as a team because the city council members and the mayor, they don't have any power, right? Individually, you guys don't have any

power. When you come together as that governing body, you have all of the governing authority. The citizens have the power to wield as a council. And if you're not speaking with one voice, if you don't know which direction you're moving towards, you probably will never get there. Right? Cynica was a stoic philosopher and a Roman senator and he said, "If you don't know which port you're moving, you're you're sailing to, no wind is the right way." Right? And so, think about governance. Think about what y'all doing on a daily basis. If you don't know where you're going, how in the heck are you ever going to get there? Right? Stephen Cubby said it better. Begin with the end in mind. Right? And so what we're going to try to do today is simply these three things. You want to figure out our mission or our core purpose. What is the why? What is our why? Our core values. Aaron said it best. They are the compass points. They guide us in what we say, think, or do. They set the baseline for the culture of the organization. These are Frankly, from a culture standpoint, this is exactly where it comes from. Some of the most important things we've ever did. And then we're going to talk talk about strategic goals. Okay? So, from a strategic goal standpoint, these are big pictures. We talked a lot, the council members I was able to get a hold of talked a lot about utility infrastructure. We talked a lot about plants and infrastructure facilities that need to be updated. There's obviously big ticket price tags and all that. But it's more than just a project, right? We're talking about big areas, right? So maybe it is infrastructure, but it's more than just a sewer plan. Maybe it's, you know, governance, but it's more than just we need to work better together, right? There's there's strategies involved in all that. Some of that will get through today. Some of that, frankly, is a work in progress. When I

visit with the staff and Aaron's team, some of that stuff will get better defined. But that's our our goal for today. That's what we're trying to accomplish. Um, any questions on that before we kind of dive in? Yep. So, I was going to ask if we could have at least the city council guys could at least have two or three minutes to say what we want to get out of this deal. I think that's a great sure. So, I'll start. I don't mind. you.

So, one of the deals why I'm here is I see my district get ignored a lot of times. And so, one of the things that I want to present today is is to place in each district at least $5 million of money placed in each district to be spent on what we see in our our district that need to be fixed. But we need to see water lines, whatever it is, we need we're we're we're the feet on the ground. And so if we already know what it is, but every time we come to council, we bring our our list and what we want and we vote on it like council. We're not going out here just trying to spend $5 million in our neighborhood. Uh one example was and I loved it. We planted trees in our big park which have nothing but dead trees in it. So that park now is becoming alive again. Not just for the trees but because the community showed up to plant trees. There were guys from your district, your district, all of them showed up. What I saw was unity. So how do we get unity? My side of town is the oldest side of town besides the south side. We There are a lot of things that are happening. We're fixing West County Road. I do see that, but it took four years to get somebody to fix the deadline road. It took four years to replace the water lines that are 70 years old. Here's where we're suffering at where it's great to have growth, but if you don't take care of what's not grow, we could grow if we had the infrastructure fixed where we could

grow. Uh, that's what I'm saying. There's stuff there that we could do. We got a whole side over here, west of here. All of this needs to grow. There's room for stores. There's room for growth on the west side and stop buying Midland County and start doing Ether County and bringing this in. We've given enough money to Midland County and that's my my that's where I'm seeing that at right now. We've given enough money to Midland County. It's time to start growing our stuff on this side of town. We're willing to to run new water lines. We're willing to run new stuff to do that. We push everything that way instead of pushing it this way. There's stuff on this side of town that can grow. And there's another 50,000 people that live in the county over here. And there's another 50,000 that live south of here that would come and spend their money here. So that's a 100,000 people spending their money, guys. You average $300 at the grocery store, that's a h 100,000. Do the math. So that's what I'm saying. The growth could happen, but we need to get out of this mindset of everything needs to go midland. Everything needs to go mid. We need to get back into the mindset that we're going to look at the other sides of town. We got a whole section of I20 down through there that needs to grow on the south side. A whole section. That's What was the average that they said come by there every day? 60,000 people.

And if you had that sitting there, that's not including the people from out of town. That's usually just the locals going to work. Imagine what's coming through this town that we're not counting that stop right off of I20. If we have a place for them to stop, they'll stop. But right now, they bypass us to go east. We need them to stop here. So, we need to give them something to beautify. So the $5 million that I'm asking for each district that helps us to grow our areas that includes all of y'all. So I don't know about what we do with you

5 million each not you. So well actually I agree with that and when we brought this up about having this meeting and you sit there because we had a lot of trouble when we come in as city council there's a lot of we didn't have a base to do anything nobody ever really sit and say hey what do you want in your district I mean me and Cal talk very well we talk of course you can sit in this window and look right Something's got to be done

downtown to that interstate. Something's got to be done. We got to quit spending our money back. Yes, that's a growing area. I agree. But it's going to grow. The magic has already happened over there. We people over here pay taxes, too. So, we have to spend some tax dollars over there. Me and talk. Let's start looking for some land over some blocks we can buy down. And I'm not talking about the neighborhood. I'm talking about economic development to make sure we don't let this become a ghost town over here. This is getting ghostly over here. And I agree with and I have asked that maybe we could get 5 million is a lot, but hey, maybe I can take a million, two million. I see maybe I'm going to build a pretty fence alone state there so you don't see so much of you when you coming down the state, you know. So, I agree with that and I think everybody here knows what I want or would like to see done. We got to start doing. If the mayor is going to put a 50ft jack rabbit up, we need to beautify that so people will get off and they can get off and get a sandwich or they can get some fuel and come down and see the if if it's not pretty. And I'm telling you people that I say it all the time. I'm going to be quiet. Get in your car and just ride. I drove to Dallas last weekend. Every city is just it lit up. It slit up. Their main street is lit up. You get that. There's nothing out there. Everybody's building something new on the interstate. Yes. 191. I'm going to tell you something. 191 is spinning up. You don't have no choice. And I'm like, Mr. paint. That's that's the northwest. If you don't want to come southwest, we can start building homes over there. We can build home. If you build them,

the people are going to come because they need and sometime that's what you do. You get to the bigger cities, they got all newer communities around the older community. So that that's uh northwest that's southwest when you start developing neighborhoods in. Uh, and I agree with that and I and I've also talked to the mayor to and still trying to get somebody to explain to me. I I really believe we need to go from a a to a B where we can get ODC to help us a lot more than what they're doing. You know, that way they don't have an excuse to say, "Well, we can't do this. We can't do that." We got to change things where Odessa used to do. Odessa should have never got like this. downtown should have never got like like it is now. I really truly believe it should have never got this way. It don't have to look old. It should have never got this way. And I hope we can continue. I hope we get another four years with the congress so we can continue making this look a lot better. Uh that's my main thing. We got to make that interstate gold in order people come see your rabbit and I really truly believe that. So that's my input on that. I agree with Mr. Hay a little bit. I take the five years a little, but I'll take it if you give it to me. But uh we we see things we want to see in our neighborhoods that we can get. I lost a $5 million project and it shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have happened because if you want something in your neighborhood, you want something in your neighborhood. I'm going to vote for you cuz that's what you want in your neighborhood. I lost a $5 million project. It should have never happened. That would have kept turning that community around, started growing. So, I I'm still a little upset at that. But we got to start moving along and helping each

other. And that's what the mayor said. We we won. Let's just let's just get together and stay one. I think we're a great group. We're a great group. And I'm still learning. I think the mayor is still learning. A lot of them still learn. But we got to change the way Odessa used to do business. We have got to change the way we do city council or highway. We got to got to come up with a plan like that. He's got it back on the board. Got to come up with a goal. I don't think the city had goals in 20 years. I'm so glad the finance department and I didn't know it went back to 2017. I knew it went back some years, but when it said 2017, my god, 2017. So, but it was no goals. I don't think it was no goals. People didn't have any. And that's what we got to do. We got to have goals. So, I I agree with Mr. Hay and I just really think we got and I think we going to work on dam. We going to start moving. Let's just continue moving and but we got to stay out of the cab. I agree with that. Let's see if we can move it around. Keep some of the money in the county to help Et.

Oh, you go. Okay.

I guess I'd use the opportunity to say, let me preface this way. It's a little It's a little awkward saying this. As far as the council goes and the decisions that come upon our plate, uh what comes on the agenda, what doesn't, what I'm trying to get at is I think everyone agree would love to work on fun things. You know, let me give a couple examples of fun things, the things that excite me. Sports complex, the tallest Jack Rabbit in the area. You know, these are fun things and They're good. But the reason I'm saying that is if anything said at the time that we're gathered together would be we have to consider and prioritize infrastructure, roads, sewer, water that I know public works has their plans, water has their plans, you know, every everything is I think planned and allocated and budgeting, but um infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure, we just can't ignore it. And that is not that that's not an exciting thing to get behind. It's something that has been, let's just say, the can has been kicked down the road, kicked down the road, kicked down the road. And I would like to be more assured as a council person that we do have those plans set up because we can't do the whole thing all at once. The material plant in particular, you know, is is is a concern of mine and I know there's a lot of money that's going into it, but it is still a little bit of a bandaid, you know. So the main thing that I would just say for the council,

infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure, we just can't ignore it. So I'd like to add to that this we need to quit being reactive and being proactive in this is what he's really trying to say. We we're still reacting. We have a sewer line or water line that bust. We knew it was bad to start with, but yet we made no plans to fix it. We just let it go until now it becomes a problem. Now we gota we got to jump through hoops and do stuff. We need to be proactive. And that's what I was saying about the five man. I'm proactive in my district if I can help fix that because you allocated that money. So now I can I can say hey I need this project done. I've got this set aside for this district. I don't think fine is too much to ask for every district. I just don't think it's too much because the money is going to get spent and it's going to be on projects that we don't want to wait on anymore. We don't want to wait until it becomes a major problem. We want to do it before it becomes a major problem. Let's see what I did. I brought with me the list of uh goals and priorities that we had at the last retreat we had right in here. and we're repeating a lot of the things that we agreed on as a council at that time. I agree that um we want our legacy for this group will be that we have behind goals that hopefully some of us some of you will continue working on for the years to come and set some kind of foundation for whoever becomes mayor whoever becomes

the future council people. Uh but like you mentioned uh Mr. Haney and you as well, Mr. Mitchell, we've got to look out for our own district, but at the same time um how do we incorporate it that it involves every district, the whole city and so what you said Mr. uh uh Canel is is very true. Um the infrastructure is something that we need to leave in good shape for our future citizens. Most importantly, the water the water system. Um I don't want I'll be I'll be gone from this world. But I wouldn't want to know that we leave all that behind for my great grandkids, my great grandkids to have to deal with. And that's what I think you all are saying since 2017. Was that the year or 19?

178 is the last time audit on time.

Yeah. I mean, these kinds of things, uh, we're behind. We We now need to catch up. And I agree that it's going to take all of us working collectively together. I think we have in our city manager someone that that uh has an open door. I'm glad Craig, you and I have an opportunity to meet with him once a month and bring to him the very things that we're talking about in here right now. But at the end of the day, it's it's his responsibility to oversee all the departments that make that that make those things happen. Not I mean it'll be through our encouragement me as a city councilor for district three right now if you were to ask me what do you see in district three that needs betterment that you could use $5 million for and make it better. As I drive around I see the the condition of the streets. I see the condition of people's yards trashy. Lots of weeds. They're not taking good care of them. But I also understand understand that some of those homes within our district are beat up because of the hell that we've had over the years. People, not everyone is in the same socioeconomic category that I belong in. I can afford to rebuild my home on the outside or the inside or whatever, but a lot of our people can't. Maybe we need to come up with $5 million to help take care of it.

That's that's what you're saying. That's what I'm saying. Okay. I may have just repeated a lot of what you were thinking.

I just live in a a neighborhood that people are making the adjustments. They're fixing their stuff. There's still some that want to fix. So, if they had a little help, they would pay the money back. Go outrageous and say, "You got two years paying this back." But they would do it. And they're they're they love the neighborhood. Our neighborhoods are great. The problem is we have everything falling down around us because of we can't they can't afford to do it. Most of the people that live in my neighborhood or they work at the restaurants, they work at different places, minimum wage jobs, uh but they are the lifeblood of this city. And so when I remind them, you are our life. Without you, we don't exist. So, that was some of the stuff that I talked to my neighbors about. We fixed one house already. We did that. That's okay. We're going about to do a second one because it's about to fall down around this lady. And that's okay. Now, that's two. That's not including everybody else that's in there that would pay us back. But this is what I'm saying. I have $5 million that that I could allocate something for and it would it would do more than it would pick up the spirits in my neighborhood. It would pick up spirits in this town. And that's what we're here to do, guys. We're here to pick up the spirits. We're here to help the poor, the needy. That's what we're supposed to be doing. As as a Christian, that's what I try to do. I cut their grass. I'll do whatever it takes. I help them out. I'm limited on how much time I have, too. But I just want to say, guys, we came as servants here, and we need to act like servants of this city.

I guess I'm coming from a totally different perspective.

I don't have to worry about growth on my side. That's where it's all happening. Not my fault, not anybody's fault. That's where the developers want to go. Developers don't have big enough tracks of land on this side of town. They don't have don't have pipelines and stuff underneath them that cause way a whole lot extra cost. So the land's a lot cheaper, you know, where they're trying to go. Don't like going to middle county either. But we've got to satisfy the needs of the people moving in here. Where they come from, none of us know. You know, I've been on this council for six years. And so to start with, I encourage each one of you that are going up for elected this next year. I've got two more years to serve. And I pray that you guys all identify somebody in your district. I think it's your obligation to run for your spot that's likeminded that so we have some consistency on the council. I got on the council. It's fair to define different a whole different uh attitude. Uh they thought there was a lot of theft from city hall thought there was a lot of people on the take and it turns out the regime that got in there and I don't have the hard evidence but I know there was a lot of there was a lot of good old boy stuff going on. Heard enough whispering in the corners to know that that was happening. Uh, so when I got on council, the thing that and my my see my whole goal is the whole city. I I don't really care about district two because district 2 is taking care of itself. There's not much I have to do except fix complaints when they pop up. What I'm trying to do is do the right thing for the whole city. For instance, when I got on council, I got absolutely

run over by a freight train about flow certificates of obligation for this water treatment plant and back in 2020. The and if you don't know the story, I'm going to tell it to you because you need to know it. The history is important. U the powers that be at that point in time, the the Javier Hovs C what do you call them? C crustles.

Crustles. Yeah. You know they they think everything needs to go back to the citizens for a f where you spend the night. And there in lies a philosophical problem. Uh and I said this in council many times. I guess I misunderstood my job description when I was elected district two. I thought my job was to sit through those meetings with engineers and architects. uh and staff and to figure out a what project needed to be taken care of and b what was it going to cost and c how we going to fund it. So we're sitting there with a broken right after CO with a broken water treatment plant. You go down any minute. A lot of people don't know that. Uh some people would sign disclosure for us to go look at it. I won't name anybody. Uh but I got to see it before it was torn up. And we had those old green electric boxes with the black buttons that are about this big, you know. That's how old the electrical system was. That takes in my mind that takes it back to when I was a kid back in the 40s and 50s. And that's what I remember as a kid. And I walked in and I saw that and I went, "Holy smokes, where do you guys get parts from? We own them. If we find some, we got to go cannibalize them on some other plant somewhere where we can find them." So that got me concerned. Then I learned from doing some digging that the plant almost failed. Nobody admitted it. It was covered up. Plant almost failed. And uh thank goodness we had a bunch of good folks out there working hard. They kept the water plant up up and running so people would have water. So here we come and trying to make a decision and

in the fall of that year 2020 or 2021 I guess uh we had a decision to make. They the mayor and the other people wanted to take the $100 million to the voters in May uh that year and let them vote on the water treatment plan. Well, that's being a lifelong citizen. I've had eight decades, but I got probably five or six getting close of ownership in the city through family. Knowing what I know about the city, a I knew would never pass, period. Even if it was on the ballot by itself, but the school district had already decided to float a $300 million bond. that ensured the fact that both of them were going to fail. That was lack of communication between the two entities. That was a failure of our current mayor at that time. So that was a real problem. So if we had taken it to the voters in May and when it failed, we'd have to wait three more years to float the certificates of obligation. Rest of council didn't care about that. That's what the big fight was over. Are you willing to take that chance for the citizens of Odessa? Not your district, not your district or your district, the city. I wasn't willing to take that chance. So I bowed my head and said, "No, but hell no. It's not the right thing to do." Fortunately, I had at that time before the next election I had. It's kind of like where y'all are now. You fix things to go off, get council changed and I was able to two, you know, three other votes be able to float the certificates of obligation because had we not done that, it would have been three more years before we could even consider certificates of

obligation. So, here we are right now as we speak and sit here. That plant's finishing. It's taken six years. I know West County Road taken four. I've watched the water plant for six years. Just one project that I wanted done six years ago just now getting finished. So it takes it's a law process and that's the whole the whole point. But again, I'm back to what's right for the citizens of Odessa. You know, I fight for things like and you know, a road think we got to have roads and I'm trying to be proactive, but I've been yelling for six years that Yukon Road is a problem. It goes from Who's West? your west. It goes from It goes from 302 west all the way now to the air force. It's a major third. I've been screaming about it for six years. I can see it. See what was happening. I'm not clear of the wind or anything else. It's just my common sense says arel everything in between is developable. Sorry. Understand I'm on drugs. So if I start talking funny or floating around like a butterfly, that's the drugs for my back. So I apologize. I don't stink like a boat. But anyway, so and all the growth and the homes being built and the influx of people on that side of town, that road grows in importance every day. I don't pick it. You don't pick it. You don't pick it. The people pick it. The developers pick it. So, do we do reactive or proactive things? I think we do proactive, but right now after six years, we're getting

into the reactive phase because it's not slowing down. Not slowing down one bit. So, I know there's at least 15,000 homes coming off board in the next five years. at least 15 miles on the middle part of the town to the east and northeast. So that's where I come from is what's best for the city. What's best for all districts where the growth things happen the developers pretty much do that. Now if you can find 100 acres they don't want to develop three acres. They want to develop 100 acres or 200 acres or 500 acres. They're not looking for little projects. They They have economies of scale. So they kind of drive that train in my opinion and certainly staff certainly point them to those whatever side of town there is that kind of whether it's northeast, south or west doesn't matter. You know, we can certainly proactive and point them in the right direction. But so that's where I that's where I come from and and I'm fixing to go off and I won't get to see half the things I wanted done. I've got another year I've had I've had more fun on this job the last year than I' I've ever had in six years. It's been it's been rough and I think I'm a better man for it. I think it taught me a lot of temperance and a lot of patience. But I love the city of Odessa. It's my home. My home for you know many many years. Unlike the Hind the know my side of the family is a Henderson Henderson drug in that side of the family. A lot of y'all don't know that but that's helpful back my family. So it goes back a long ways also. So I'm this is home and I want to see it better for my grandkids and for all your grandid. So that's kind of

where I come from. So that's enough of that. Greg

well not Having a single district, I feel like my role is to support all the districts as well in listening to everybody's comments and thoughts and desires. My wish, what I've wanted to get out of today is really the strategic plan, the master planning of of where to go. But what I have said about today is I'm tired of playing whack-a-ole. I want a plan that we can follow. Aaron and I have talked about um truly being able to focus on what the priorities of the council are. And it's hard to do when there are seven of us with seven different ideas. Even though we we tend to align and and you can throw overarching priorities like infrastructure at it, but when we can truly align on on three to five strategic initiatives, focus our energy there, I think that's going to really help move us forward. I want to challenge us all to think bigger. You know, I hear about development on the west side, development on the east side, development on the south side. I want those developments master plan. I keep saying I don't understand how any of this is a surprise. shouldn't be a surprise. We should know 20 years from now where everything is going, where every road is going to be, where every pipe is going to be laid. We should be able to master plan those things and understand the conversations that need to be had. The reason all the developments in Midland County is because of the sales tax. The the retail is never going to go into Ectctor County because we split the

difference. We have to half the sales tax. It goes in middle county, you get 100% of it. Why would we want it in extra county? You want 100% of that sales tax or 50% of the sales tax. I'd rather have 100% of it. So, the conversation with the county needs to be had. We need to hash out that. It's not the ESD, but the assistance district. We need to settle that uh where it's not every single time that's up in the air. I want to challenge all of us to push our ODC representatives. ODC hadn't

function properly. You talk about a type B, but there are things a type A can do. Talk about growing our economy. I saw yesterday Chick-fil-A is building a 58 million50 to$80 million distribution center in love. That's a a Taipei Corporation, Love Economic Development Association, Lita. I was just in DC with John Osborne who runs that. They're building a big rail switching yard, something we need. He's happy to visit with us. We can't get ODC to being scared of their shadow. So, you know, these are conversations that could be had today that that our appointments on ODC. We need to be having these conversations. So, that that's you you will not get another grocery store here if we don't have food warehousing, cold storage, distribution.

Midland's building one right now. Well, we should have been building We should have been doing this. Where did they build it at? Right off of I20. Where should we be building ours at? Right off of I20.

Should have, should have, should have. But without pushing these conversations, I don't know where they go. Uh Eddie, you and I have had great conversations about how to build out the corridor. We've extended the grants and infrastructure. They're too hard to get. Again, another conversation with ODC. I would love uh again to kind of embrace the things we already have. You talk about improving neighborhoods, improving the houses. We've restructured the CDBG grants. I'm excited about that. I attended the session to listen about how those grants will happen. That's dollars that we have, but we can't give them to to nonprofits to build playgrounds. We need to use those to help our neighborhoods improve. We need to find those tools like the neighborhood empowerment zones to bring those incentives to those neighborhoods to help them by, hey, we're going to knock off half of your property tax so that you can make those improvements to your homes. Give them a rebate for five years to help recoup those costs. Those are tools that we have. I want to find those tools and use them. The the code enforcement help, we're having that conversation Tuesday. I think that's going to go a long way by impaneling the um ordinance board and policy board that Mr. Parker brought up. So, I think we've got things coming up that that will be super helpful. Um, you look at these developments, master planning. My buddy in Houston, they work for a developer that that comes in and master plans, these developments where they're building the water, the sewer, the schools, the the pad sites for grocery, retail. They do it through a a municipal utility district and that goes back onto the homeowner where they're paying all of that infrastructure cost up front. people out there do that. Just like

you're saying, you drive into any one of these Austin, Houston, San Antonio, those communities outside, they all have a water tower, they all have schools, they all have grocery stores. We can attract that, too. Beautifying, bringing people in for the rabbit. I think we've got great things coming, but I think we need this master plan to tie it all together. I think today is the bow that ties it all together, that helps us move forward as a group. I I love the idea of functioning as a group. That's what I want to learn today is is better working together as a group and uh better understanding the the different roles that we all play and really just putting these plans together so that we all do understand our roles and and function better in the as our little cogs in the machines so that that it works efficiently and and we get towards that future. Thank you everyone from from my perspective first of all agree with everything you basically said you can't disagree right everything you said is righteous uh by way of background I was never involved in the city represented the city but I wasn't really involved in going to city council involved in planning I wasn't involved in anything I had a happy little life I was very And then I didn't like the direction the sea was going. I felt it was like a ship in the ocean without a rudder. It wasn't like it was bad. It was just didn't go anywhere. It wasn't there was no focus and it just seemed like it was we weren't making headway. And so I ran for mayor without doing a whole lot of research.

Then we get elected mayor and there was from my perspective very little orientation to to know what my role was what what cities can do and can't do right what what we can accomplish what all I mean I've learned so much in the last 18 months it's almost blowed my mind and I'm still learn I don't know all this stuff I'm still learning uh what our roles are but I think what I as I sit here today And I look back over the last I'm gonna say 10 years, could be longer, it just feels like the city was on autopilot. I wanted to before we jump into these goals and we'll get into the stuff on the board. Um, I wanted to spend

Are you trying to hand this up?

30 to 45 minutes, maybe maybe an hour on roles and responsibilities specifically in relationship to the council manager, former governor. Okay. And so, uh, this is just healthy governance in general. Uh, and most people don't talk about this stuff very often because you're busy doing what you're doing, right? But the council manager former government was I mean the history of it is pretty clear. It was started in Stockton, Virginia. I think that's right Virginia something like that. And uh that was the first form of it. And it was created to put a professional manager over the day-to-day administration of the city at the time. This was during the graph system and you know people would get elected and all of a sudden their buddy would get a job and you know Joe who'd been there for 30 years did a great job. He got fired because Bill just wanted to get that new you know he needed to get that salary or whatever. So that's not so much our problem with government anymore. Uh thankfully we've moved beyond all that laws protect and prevent that. But what we do find is citizens run elected office and they win just like y'all did. But as you said, mayor, what do you know about government, right? What do you know about running a city? You know all you need to know about living in one, right? But you don't necessarily know the nuts and bolts of running a city, which is why you hire that city manager to do that. Your challenge is that as soon as you get elected, everybody thinks you're an immediate expert and and they why don't you know that? Why don't why do you know that? You know, so what I wanted to do is spend a little bit of time

all the answers

talking about the roles and responsibilities and what good governance structure looks like in a council manager or former government specifically for the city of Odessa. So this is this is y'all, right? This is your universe as a city council. You represent the people residents of of Odessa, right? There you are. But you notice that it doesn't say district 1 2 3 4 at large mayor, right? It says city council because as I mentioned earlier, you guys don't have any individual authority. You have influence. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you're not important people at all. You have influence. Your power of government authority only when you hit that gave and you convene that meeting, right? Otherwise, you can't do a darn thing. There's some exceptions. the mayor's emergency powers in times of emergency stuff, but those are not those are few. And then these are the people you get to work with. You appoint the boards and commissions. You have your city attorney, your city manager, your city secretary, and you have the municipal court judge. These are your employees, right? These are the people that you get to engage with on a daily, regular basis. And most of the time, your engagement is going to be here. It's going to be here and it's going to be here. Most councils I've seen, maybe they'll do an annual review on the municipal judge, but most people leave the judge alone. They just, you know, that's that's incredible. They don't have that level of governance. That's amazing. And then the city manager, this is all city manager responsible for everything else. Really everything else. And so he's got assistants and deputies

to help because as Aaron will tell you, it is too big of a job for one person, right? It's just too much to encompass. You can't know it all. You're not supposed to. He's busy, frankly, serving y'all's needs as elected officials, trying to put this organization towards the direction you say you want to go in. He's got very competent and capable people to help him with the day-to-day management, conducting those things. In a perfect world, this is how it works. Okay. So, when talk about roles and responsibilities, one of the things that that is hard for new elected officials, really for any elected official, is to know where that line is of engagement because they want an answer. They want results. They want outcomes. They want to represent the people that they that elected them. And they're trying to it's not that they're coming from a place of badness. are coming from a place of goodness, right? How do we do that? How do we take that energy and focus it in the constraints and the realities of the council manager for the government? And the short answer is as an elected official, all of your questions needed to be going towards this guy. We're dealing these people, right? City management level that needs to be where your focus is at. It's not I hate using the words appropriate or inappropriate because it sounds like there's a moral compunction to it and there's not right. It's poor governments to go beyond that level for a couple reasons. One, when y'all call a director or a solid waste employee, you stop on the side of the road and ask somebody a question in a city shirt, you don't necessarily know this, but you put the fear of God in them because you're the talk. Doesn't get any better, right? You're at the top of the food chain.

When he enters the room, they already get a little Twitter painting because he's the city manager, right? So, when y'all come in, it's even worse. So, you may feel like, hey, I'm kind of a happy golucky guy. You may feel like you're happy guy. People love you. You like to love on people, right? I know that about you just in the five minutes we met each other. But that employee doesn't always feel that way. That department head doesn't always feel that way. mayor call. I got to stop what I'm doing and do this right now. Meanwhile, he's trying to run an organization and he's got all these things going and he doesn't know that interaction has happened and you've just derailed hours worth of work or what the productivity was supposed to be. So, if we're going to trust the manager to run the day-to-day administration of the city as a council, we have we have to do that. And I mentioned earlier, you have to hold them accountable, right? If y'all as a council come together and say, "We want ABC123 and you're asking him questions and he's not delivering on that. Well, y'all know how to handle that. There's an executive session, right? That's how it gets done. Chris, thanks for your time, sir.

I apologize. Nope. Appreciate you, sir.

Um, so what I wanted to do is just spend a little bit of time. I think you understand the right where I'm heading with that. spend a little bit of time and game this out a little bit. So, we have the city council and we have council member, right? All of y'all make, like I said, you make up the council, each of your individuals. So, think of something that we have a question on or we have a desire to dig more on and what may be a council activity versus a council member activity. You know, a good example of that is the agenda stuff. How does stuff get on the agenda? If a council member wants these things looked at, right, and they call the city manager and say, "I want ABC123, how is the manager supposed to know that that's what his boss, the city council, wants done versus just one individual council member?" Right? That's there's a dynamic tension there to use that word again. But it's the reality of it. And in fairness to the council manager from our government, really the whole council ought to be directed the work product of the manager in the organization. So are there are there conflict points you all can see here that we need to spend time talking about

yeah absolutely

you get the concept right? Yes. Okay. All right. from a standpoint of sorry. So even to send an email department head to me that would be good governance practice would say that if you have an email to send to somebody on staff it goes to the manager or one of his assistants or correct? Yeah.

And the again the reason why is because now they know what the top dogs of the organization want to see. they can direct that work product and they can make sure that also everything else is going on at the same time. It's not so much about it's not about power, it's about good governance, right? Um, you know, if the president of the United States called Goomer Pow, you know, private first class United States Marine Corps, the whole system is upside down tops of turbo at that point in time, right? And so there's a reason why there's that chain and it's we all have a role to play within that chain and we just have to follow that. Does that does that make sense?

Absolutely. And I I think we learned it because when we first got in, we didn't have that. Now we have it with Aaron and his team. We struggle to have anybody direct us our first six, seven, eight months. Even though Mr. Morton came in, he wouldn't really make no decisions. He kind of guide us, right? But I think we learning that that we have how we need to do things with Aaron and his team. So you you speak it right what we learned.

Oh and I think this discussion really important. Let me write this down. Really important to the elected because again we just a unique time but but there was four of us elected. One had already served or three that were brand new and just didn't have I mean had some idea but honestly you don't know what you don't know. you don't know and so trying to kind of have that orientation to say look you need to understand this right now so you need new new every two years half of us are up for re-election so you need to be prepared when I say the city needs to be prepared educate a new council member of these kind of things so they get it right initially right so they don't go off track on it

all it does is cause Yeah. Let me ask this. Interesting. You should bring that up. Is there a a possibility that for example like by what month do I need to submit if I plan to run again for this committee open in July August? Okay. Uh, and when is it that other candidates that want to vive for the position, they also have to same goes July 21st or something to about August 21st.

Okay. So once those people are identified as to who's going to be running for these positions that are available, why couldn't this council have an orientation of those candidates for this very thing that we're talking about right now and letting them know, you know, this is what this is what you're going to be expected to.

Yeah. So so that's a great question and I think when we get the next phase of this is these are our focus here. We're going to talk about goals. So council orientation, council candidate orientation distinct things 100%. So a great city attorney, Tom Akins, he was a West Texas boy actually might have been a des Midland. He was my city attorney in Dennis and he would always tell the council that whenever we had this conflict point, he would say, "Look, I'm sorry you didn't read the job description, but this is the job, you know, and it's not a county commissioner. If you wanted to be the guy, right?

No, you don't. You don't. It's another tough. But but there's a difference between the two. And for better or worse, this is the form of government we have because the citizens of Odessa.

They adopted this right back in 45. They adopted this thing and it's been amended. I think we're flipping through it. 85 may have been the last time amendment. So there's questions about needing to have charter charter revisions or not. That's a whole other topic y'all can figure out on your own. But the point is is that this really is your constitution, right? And and we all get upset when we think the federal government isn't following the constitution. It would be great if the citizens understood this document as much as they thought they understood the constitution too and they held us all accountable to it. They don't, but we do and we should. Does that make sense?

Yes. The other thing I'd say is sometimes council members can feel like, well, I don't feel like I'm doing my job if I can't get down to the organization, right? So again, look at this, right? You've got everything in your hands. You control the entire organization because you've got the people who are running the thing on a day-to-day basis. So if if there's I'm going to pick on public works, not because you guys are doing a bad job, but if there's something going wrong in public works, right, you engage the city manager who then fixes that issue, but they've got to know the feedback. You're the touch point for the organization. People talk to us all the time through social media and that sort of stuff, but they also call y'all and say, "What the heck is going on?" Right? Aaron and his team need to know that so they can then translate that into excellent service. Right? One of the things that governments don't always do is they don't always have a good internal communication process. And good governance demands that we do that. And this is why this is so important. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm preaching now. I don't want to be I'm sorry. Okay.

Okay. Um, does anybody want to say anything on that before the next topic?

Okay. you're talking about everything going through. Anyway, one of the little things I'd like to throw out to them, uh, but I guess this is the right time to talk about communications is the other the other optic the other evening you were out called Tim and we had a SWAT team and helicopters and drones and this house over my district. Did you get a call?

30 seconds. You know, I had no idea what's going on. I should have got a call. In my opinion, I should have got a call. He said, "Hey, be aware." You know, it was a false call, but it didn't matter. I got a call for him. I knew better for any thought that I don't think it should have been that way. PD I think PD should have notified all his staff or at least him. notifies them and hours. I was I was telling you it was kind of embarrassing when I said got no idea what you're talking about. So what time when when do you remember what time you got the call?

About 6 about 6 p.m. So 6:30. So and I'll just say this. Yes. So that happened to be the day I was out for a medical procedure.

Right. So what to correct that problem I told Chief Cotton and again because this city is too big right so the charter was put in place in 1945 I think the people things change okay so the way that changes in my mind is now we have a city management office right the city manager two a deputy an assistant and a chief of staff now Gerky and even Cotton know to let Tina and Jill also know anything that comes to me needs to go to them also in case I don't uh so that they can then take that and disseminate it back to uh everybody on the council. So for instance and I and and what I've told the chief and Cotton is when something happens at a high level let us know in a text format something that you are also comfortable with if it got out to the entire public right so it's at that high level so at 6:00 that happened at 7 o'clock 7:15 Matt Davidson called me but again I'm out on blue still right So he needed to know to have called those two. So that's my fault. But I will say this, between 6:00 and 7:15 in an incident like that, nobody even myself might not be able to know. And here's the point. If there's birds in the sky and something's happening, if I call Chief Gerky right there that say, "What's happening?" I need to trust that he's handling the situation. And he is handling the situation because if I'm taking him away from doing his job, all of a sudden I put residents in danger. And so sometimes what has to happen is that person who's calling you immediately to say, "Hey, I don't know the answer to that, but I

will find out as quickly as I can, but I guarantee you that Chief Gerky's got it under control." Well, of course. I know exactly what I did. Yeah. My point is Gery's got people under him. Sure. He's got the He's got some this person answer because there's people in me that can disseminate that kind of important information to the council so the council knows there's an accident going on to that because when we don't send we send that everybody listen that says serious

yeah we got drones going we got helicopters going that was all DPS He has basically I understand but it fell back on me or fell back on Cindy and yeah and I said that again that's my fault but I think to to correct it moving forward like I told Cotton and Girky I said anything that comes to me also send to Jill. Yeah, sure. Well, that stand Yeah, there was a there was by my house. I mean, we got calls. It's okay. I'm just saying right now, city staff. It's between midnight and 7 a.m. My phone is off. I am not You need me to get me? Because I'm telling you,

right, midnight to 7 a.m. quiet time. So, if the world falls apart and you need me, I went home because I open my phone. Yes. I think that it raises an interesting point that perhaps we should establish some ground rules about communication and preferences. Yeah. And and how to be communicated with and and now you're talking, right? Yeah. Now that hasn't been done. And so that's a good group chat thing to do, right? Y

how we got I think we got small with Richard. He let us know even if it was a water line break cuz that was we was having water line breaks every week and he made sure we all knew if it was an accident everything's under control. So if anybody needs no this is what happened. I'm saying I'm I'm taking it to the next level. I'm not saying a waterline break. You know that that is not life or death. When you start putting SWAT teams on the streets uh and and helicopters in the air and that kind of thing, people really get concerned. Yeah.

Because we have had we have had an active shooter situation. So this rule even though it's been many years ago, it's still on people's minds and that's the first thing they think here go again. So anyway, I just No, I think that's a very valid point. But I think that as rare and and unusual as is for SWAT to go out. I haven't heard about it. Is that something the council needs to know after the fact that that you you understand it's in your districts having in your neighborhood, but like you're saying, Monday that you know what what kind of updates do we want? What do we want to know about it? We started the bimonthly reports. They were fairly repetitive. Aaron and I and Council Member Bosque has discussed that, you know, perhaps they were busy work and, you know, maybe something more substantive. I don't I don't know.

I don't know. I see our role as policy makers. I don't need to know all that stuff to make. I don't think that's our job. It's not our role. If you need to go, just send a text to all three of them. Every time I have an email, send all three of them and you get somebody will respond. But to me, we we make policy. We make the big decisions. We don't go get in the weeds with what's doing it. Doesn't matter. It's not I just don't think that's our role. But that's just my my perception of what happened a block from my house. It is a little

I just say I just say within a council in this district then you know that that kind of a situation is going on. I don't want to know about waterline break. I'm with you on that. I you know my level I'm policy maker up here but still you know people people expect us to know what's going on in the city especially at that level. I think

one of the things that that let me start this conversation and do it this way is that there are best practices that you'll find in good government municipalities. Okay? And and the first is if it goes to one of y'all, it goes to all of right. So, so one email if if if Aaron sends an email to the mayor, the whole council gets that protects him. It protects y'all so that information is that way. But that means you guys have to commit. You're not responding to them back because all of a sudden you just violated state law, right? That's right.

But why couldn't it be BCC? So we couldn't respond. It because a lot of them were texts. That was a text that we got. Okay. Yeah. So he said so the the whether it's BCC or CC or whatever if y'all do respond you even if you're responding through a BCC you are dialoguing and even though it's not on the same email chain you violated the law and that that's just that's how it's that's been interpreted. It's correct. The new statute does exactly say that.

Yep. So the the best thing is when y'all get an email from Eric or even a c collect the information, get it to the right staff member to address it. You can send an email to the citizens saying, "Sent this to so and so and they'll get in contact with you." That's good customer service, right? But don't send an email to each other at all. It's going to you end up you end up potentially because you may know that you sent it to Eddie, but he doesn't know that Eddie didn't know you sent it or Greg already heard about it. So now all of a sudden, and it's I wish it wasn't that way. State legis doesn't hold himself on state standards. Same sh.

I wouldn't look good with pin stripes. I mean either would you just leave me out. I'll wait till I see it on Facebook. Oh yeah. Well is bad news about Facebook.

I'm going to call that everybody sees the same information. Okay. When it comes to these these things because look, you raised a good point. It's point. It's difficult because we live in a world that's that's not so so black and white, right? Can Can y'all agree that if the information is knowable, it doesn't put officer safety at risk? And it's done, it's it's known timely that Aaron's going to disseminate that to give you an understanding not just to your district, but the entire council. Hey, police are going to take an action just you might hear about, right? If it's officer safety is checked, the police chief agrees with it, Aaron agrees with the messaging, it's going to go out to y'all in a text or some whatever y'all use, whatever that that mean is. And if it doesn't, it's because those really important criteria work met. And not everything not every time a swap rolls is that they they plan necessarily. You know, if you got some nerdy well with a kid locked up the gun on its head, you're going to roll the swat and you may not have time to notify everybody the way protocol says because you got life safety going on at time. We all understand those, right? And part of it just giving grace to one another to be able to do that. But if we can agree to that, I think that might solve that problem. Is that fair? Um when it your charter I think says whenever two council members want something count two council members for the manager can put something on the agenda right and so the reason why that's done that way is because again if one council member keeps saying I want to see this this this whatever I'll put it some point I had a council member

that wanted me to cut 10% across the budget he said it's just it's 10 10 10 pennies out out of a dollar.

I don't really understand what you're actually saying, right? So I said, "Look, I will do the exercise. I will go through that exercise, but you have to have counsel direction to do it and I'm not putting on the agenda unless you bring me someone else to puts it on the agenda." So he called his buddy and all of a sudden it was on the agenda just like it's supposed to work the way the charter says. And we went to the council and the council said, "Actually, we'd like to see that exercise." I was like, "Damn it." But that's how it works. That's how governance works. So, you know what I did? I did the best freaking job anybody's ever done on showing what's the cost impact, service impact of cutting 10%. Because they didn't want to touch public safety.

Well, you know what we didn't have anymore? You didn't have a functioning street department. We didn't have a functioning public works.

Yeah. Exactly. We didn't have any of those things. That's where the 10% all the Correct. And so they they all saw that and they said, "Well, we can't do that." Just like any adult would that exercise actually resulted in good outcomes even though sometimes you have to go through that. That's what governance is about, right? Uh my point in all that is that there is a process and even though we may not get the outcome we want right away, the outcome does come about. And so it's important we follow that charter to follow that process. So, if you want to see something on the agenda, get another council member to say, "Hey, let's put that on the agenda." Work with your city attorney and manager. Maybe there's an opportunity to have a future agenda item section and y'all can I want to see this coming on the agenda. I want to see this coming on the agenda. You can't necessarily deliberate about that because it's not been posted, but you could say, I would like to have an opportunity to talk as a council about whatever, right? And then that can go on the agenda and y'all can have a quick agenda item and mayor you could say I'd like a motion if we're going to entertain this or not and if you just get if it dies for lack of a second you know you're not talking about it right again it's clunky but there's a reason why that's the process does that make sense I'm just going to say follow I think Craig that gets to your points about let's talk about communication and stuff. I think if not if we miss something say it.

Well, I just I I think certainly the disseminating everything to everyone. But I I do fall in the in the boat, I think, on this end of I don't miss the email about every water break and every fender bender and every Yeah. I don't I don't miss that. As in you don't want to see it.

Not that I don't want to. I find it interesting. I I But I don't miss it. You don't get You don't get a text at 8:30 at night. No, in fact, I I really did not like the texts. You know, we would get texts at all hours about fatalities and this that and the other. And I just I didn't understand why we needed that. Yeah. I guess it really comes down to a city management perspective as well as a city council perspective. How much info do you want, right? How much do you want to send it? How much do we want? and and it's a it's a dynamic tension again that we want the good stuff but we don't want I mean

well I don't I don't want to run the city I don't want to do all that stuff that that y'all know because it's not but if the water plant goes if the water plant goes down we got to go and we don't have water I want to know yeah I think that rises to the right it's up here it's not down here it's got to be I don't want to say catastrophic but it's got to be there's a gra it's that solid it's not It's not a computer program, right? It's not binary. You have a very thoughtful thinking individual here. If if he thinks you need to know when you get the information that goes out and if he misses it one day, maybe it should go out. You'll say, "Hey, we'd like to know about those things in the future."

And I think that that's kind of what I'm saying. I think you've done a very good job of disseminating the information of that rises level you guys need to know and that doesn't. I I've heard. So what I try and do is do I feel like you're gonna get a call about it? So that's so when I hear something and again if I had been with it that day drugs, you know what I mean? So if I if I'd been with it that day, that would have gone out to all of you. That was it was a very side of town that people see it. And it was a big response. I mean, it was a lot.

Crazy. Crazy enough, that didn't even make the news, right? Which we do have. You know, we're like, right, right. We are the news. And I and I use that as an example of if if if you were to lift Odessa up and put it next to Austin or Dallas or Fort Worth or Houston as a suburb, nothing we do would make the news. nothing.

But because we are on an island and all the media is actually in Odessa, not in Midland, we get more news than even Midland does because it's the low angle fruit because they got to fill a story by whatever by 3:00 and they're calling us saying, "Hey, but again, nothing really nothing we do here, nothing that happens Odessa would be newsworthy if we were attached to a a large city like a Dallas and Fort Worth and Austin, a Houston And I want to say this is when we came aboard, I was getting a lot of calls about water leaks cuz we were having a lot of well people had a chance to call someone especially in my district. They didn't have nobody the last three or four years to call. Hey, what's going on? We got a water leak on this corner and this corner. So we were getting a lot of calls and I was making, hey, do you know about a water leak? So that could have led to some of it, but people were happy they had somebody to call once we came aboard. So we were getting a lot of information from Richard at that time.

Yeah. You know, another great reason that's a great example, Eddie, is is that that information flows back to the manager's office because if there if we're getting an abundance of calls in a certain part of town because of water leaks, he needs to know that so we can start educating the population on what's going on, why, you know, so it all it's all integrated and related. Okay. Uh, yeah. See, I made that mistake last week cuz I didn't tell y'all about the apartment. See, I knew about the apartment, but I thought it was going to get solved and it didn't. So, then I came to you about the apartment complex. Well, is it anything you can do? So, we got to solve it.

Yeah, but we got it solved in 24 hours.

Okay. So, the the these are focus areas. Okay. And that parking lot is just a catalog of list that y'all talked about. You talked about 44B. You've talked about $5 million for your district. You talked about, you know, Ectctor County. You've talked about um continuity of governance and aligning boards, council priorities, um putting the core values visibly throughout the organization. Some of that's all governance, right? Some of these things when you talk about we need to be focused on our wastewater treatment plant, right? Okay. Well, that's clearly infrastructure, right? So, what I want y'all to do is um you got sticky pads here, right? Pink and orange. Pink and orange. You get pink and orange. So, but I want you to think about each of these categories and if something bleeds over, don't get so hung up on the category, right? If there's something that you want the city to be doing or you think we ought to be doing or should be doing, this is where we're going to start talking about our goals, right? So, this is this should not necessarily be a laundry list of I don't know if you have these roads or not, Fifth Street now, right? whatever whatever you we got to fix that intersection. That's less helpful, right? What's more helpful is we have to have a road maintenance plan that is fundable and achievable, right? At your level, that's what we need at his level. He needs fifth, right? Does that make sense? So, I want you to focus and think about larger larger pictures. Sometimes in order to get that larger picture, you have to say larger treat always larger. That's okay, right? But don't it's less helpful if we just get a

catalog of capital infrastructure improvements. It's less helpful if you want to see the organization focus on public safety. You know, let's put it up there. If you need a new police department headquarters, right, that's a big expense. Something like that would be be helpful. Um, another way of saying that would be adequately funding police, making sure the tools and resources they need to do their jobs, making sure they have the capital expenditure they need to to operate safely in the environments they have to operate in. You understand where I'm going with that? It's a nuanced approach. But what I don't want is my new sheet, right? That's let's like I'm speaking to each one on a separate page.

Yes. Each one on a separate page. And then what you're going to do so you know what what what the outcome is here. You're going to go stick this on whatever category this is. Okay. And then we're going to start refining them and getting them into some more structure. So you just you just you don't want you just want the topic. Say that again. You're saying you want the subject or the like waste water treatment plant. Yeah. That could be a topic. Correct. Yes. And that go infrastructure office.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I understand. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. There's two there. So blessed.

What's in there? Is that He's calling me from my restaurant some go ahead walk up the last one to pick them belong. Serious.