Remarks by D. Lee Edwards
48 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 2
- Play at 30:49
“Okay, and a lot of times when we start to look at tiering, I'm not saying this is the case, I don't know the whole story, but a lot of times we want to talk about tiering or offset because we're looking at the very upper echelon and going, wow, that distance is getting there, and so there's a public perceptive of it. that we got the bulk of the people are here and then we got a few. You see it in the school district, some school districts have a clause in there that the superintendent has to make 20,000 more than the athletic director because they want a winning season, a winning team. So I…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 47:16
“Chair, how do we handle overlap? So we put the posting in, but we still have somebody in position. So then we have transitional time. How's that factored in the budget?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 52:15
“What do we do in the case of a market reset? So we're sitting here, everything's static and normal. But we had a situation here a few years ago with the planning department in certain areas where we weren't competitive anymore because the market shifted on us. Not just the free market, but even our neighboring sister cities We're having a hard time finding quality people. So how do you factor that in the budget to protect what you're going? Or is it something you just have to come back to us to break the budget?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 58:34
“In that regard, I think in conversation with the chief, rallies, special events, and others that require greater presence not only in fire, safety, paramedics, and police. Are we looking at new fees and charges in there to offset and at least pay for some of this over time and things?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:05:37
“basically in the budgeting cycle. These types of funds and so on are part of our protection period, and also if we come out a little ahead, we have some going toward the future with things that we have put off. Or during the year, if our revenue stream is better because of sales tax and fees, that we now open up the door to what we had unfunded so we can reset the category. Is that not right?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:09:50
“School districts at one time looked at technology at some sources for leasing some of their tech because the obsolescence issues was getting ahead of their acquisition amortization. Do we do any leasing on some of our technology and is there any savings? I'm not sure there is.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:15:31
“I think part of our issue when we start talking about these outside consultants becomes a situation of what we use them for. So council drives some of that. Fire or police want to substantiate, well, what's our call time? What's our response? What are we getting done? Where are we going? So we have to hire an outside consultant because we don't, I'm not saying we don't trust our leadership, but we want an independent party saying that we look good because the public wants us to look good so there's a cost that we add to our budget and then when we start to look i will just use the civic…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:32:03
“Are you saying there's a trend in the public side that people are staying on the company retirement insurance longer and avoiding Medicare, Medicaid or Medicare because the premiums less? than it is if they get A and B and Plan G. I know several people that says, I made a mistake taking my Medicare and going to that. I should have stayed in the company plan, which has an effect on us long term. Are you seeing that?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:33:11
“I've seen numbers where it's $200 or $300 a month difference by staying into the system instead of getting off of it, taking into the Fed system because the plan G is what gets them kicked because of whatever they're getting in a retirement check plus their Medicare and their Social Security benefit. So it'll be something we have to look at. I know several corporations we deal with on their retirement plans totally different now than what their regular staff deal is and that it's reduced services or so on. So it shifts into something that says, we want you to take your Medicare and we'll make…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:50:32
“Just a couple of things. What breaks do you have in for the infamous federal fourth quarter flush? Meaning just before the end of the year, the last quarter, if they haven't spent their budget, they start spending rapidly and not necessarily in tune with what's going on. We see it in a lot of government contracts in certain areas. and what do we do to make sure our budgets don't all of a sudden spend because we didn't need it, but now we're gonna spend it so we don't hurt our budget for next year?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:52:06
“Last question from me is, have we identified departments that are having the hardest time filling positions because our scale may be on the brink of being out of sync?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:53:32
“That's why it's so important for us to retain the reserves because if we have to make adjustments on it, we don't break our back with it because of it. And I know it gets competitive or we have a loss in a department. Now we're trying to fill against the free market and it just creates havoc for us. And so I want to thank you for all you did. Everything you did, there were no bad questions tonight. The presentation from the mayor, all of those were things that are reasonable, logical, straight down the line, timing. I've always felt that the budget process is very compressed. It's not on your…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:11:06
“Robert, you came from San Angelo at Mathis, right?”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 1:11:17
“So you had to deal with... the Air Force there, and then also you had Mitsubishi MU-2 test field for a good length of time, wasn't that right?”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 1:11:36
“But you had Del Rio was running touch-and-goes and bomb runs out of Del Rio, out of... I can't remember that, Laughlin.”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 1:11:52
“Yeah, would be in your airspace there. So you've accommodated military airspace numerous times in the locations you've been in.”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 1:21:04
“And just for the audience, is that a vacation? I mean, if we take a look at it and we worry about the drug issue, you got Canyon Lake Airport that can take I guess a small layer on that. It's a difficult landing because of that swell, but there's, then you have Zuul, that's not too far back on smaller aircraft. The Seguin Airport everybody's talking about is the auxiliary airfield, which they use for touch and go with several training issues. And Seguin has a secondary airport. Then there's, I guess Zuul, that's south, down toward 1518. And then there's, I don't know, three approved. Yeah,…”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 2:21:57
“I just have some additional comments. Nice presentation on it. I've been doing research on this to try to make sure how we can put certain constraints in. So some additional things I would like to see in addition to what you've laid is that The first is not in the recharge. It's sensitive enough it shouldn't be in the recharge at all. We should be able to restrict it there with the help of the Edwards. Distance from residential development greater than 20 homes. I would recommend a quarter mile if it can be done. We may have a constraint that it could only be a thousand. But I want to include…”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 2:29:55
“One additional thing, Mayor. Matthew, for us to have impact in the ETJ, it would be in our LDO where we would have effect there as far as sight, distance, footprint. Would we have any ability to help the ETJ? And if so, how?”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 2:30:36
“Next question would be, would it be possible to have interlocal agreement between us and the utilities that the utilities have an established policy that would not drain from capacity? So example, Clear Springs, Springs Hill, Green Valley, MBU we have some direct influence on. But those three water supplies that if they're operating with inside our jurisdiction though, it's in their CCN, Is there something to make sure that they wouldn't have a negative impact on the water ability to supply and them to be able to stay in compliance with SB2? So that's a legal question probably that we need to…”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 2:47:36
“In addition to include any items that we mentioned tonight and their legality to make sure within whatever we come back is defensible and within legal parameters.”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 3:04:26
“A motion to move to date certain September 14th. So...”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 3:42:15
“I mean, that's really strong. I mean, if you took a look at just, if you were running a kind of comparison against seven-year Treasury, I mean, we're a point and a quarter below in that, and it shows why it's so important to keep that reserve account up, because it really positions us with the AA rating to be able to have a lower cost of borrowing. So our fiscal responsibility that we've used has been very successful for us in these bond issuances.”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026