City Council - Regular Meeting

early on Saturday morning. Hopefully didn't eat all the tacos. I'm not going to get more. Um before we get kicked off uh with our strate planning session. Um we saw a lot of activity coming in the building this morning and I think this is the first time many of you have been over here when this building is active and what really goes on here throughout the week and weekends is going on. So, wanted to take a brief moment to just kind of share uh here and have Officer Palmo come up and and kind of tell us uh what we've got going on with the academy and what you saw going on this morning and what we've got going on with our current class. So, Officer Palmo, good morning. How is everyone today?

Good. Well, thank y'all for coming out on this beautiful Saturday morning over our facility. Uh the law enforcement training center is a outstanding place to be able to have this uh type of a meeting and as you guys have seen there's been a lot of folks coming in and out. Uh this morning we have our run with the recruiter event that's being held over between the other building. It'll be right over out back right. Um so you'll see some folks in PT gear coming in and out. Our recruiting folks are all over there working hard to be able to get some uh familiarization with our course. So that way when they come out to test for us in February, they're aware of what those physical standards are uh for them to be able to get over to get through our hiring process and give us more applicants. So it's a uh a great thing that that they're getting to be able to push out over to the community um and get us some uh some insight with our our applicants coming in. So, inside of our training center right now, um we have our next paraline police academy class, which is class 7, which just started up 3 weeks ago. Um inside that we have nine different agencies represented, including us. We have 27 cadets total inside of that. So, um Harland, Lee City, Brazoria County are common ones that we always have, but we've been um been very successful with other agencies coming over to us with the interest of having their training done here. So, we now have West University that's uh over here for the first time and they put seven cadets over with us. Uh Friendswood just returned. They gave us one last class. We're up to five from them now. So, um we have South Houston that they returned back over to us. Uh Deer Park actually sent us over two cadets on this one. That's their first time over with us. So, um Webster is another returning one that come back over. We've had them a couple times before. So, we have a lot of agencies represented with us um that are hidden. Uh we actually have another one from Harris County Precinct 2 which is is unique. We've never had a constable service um be able to sponsor a cadet into our agency before. So uh it's great. Like I said, we're 3 weeks

into it. Um this cadet class is doing amazing. We actually started with 27. We're still there. Uh which is very very good for this class cuz normally we have had at least one or two drop if not starting to fail out by this point. So um this class is is doing phenomenal. Um, but we got a long road ahead of us still. We're still about 25 weeks away from graduation. So, um, you guys get an opportunity if anybody wants to come by and never see what goes on over the building when the cadets are here, you can always stop by, right? Um, this building is very different when you see, you know, a whole bunch of police cadets running around and doing their PT and and happen to be able to, you know, exist in this building with me. So, um, it's it's a fun time. So toward that again guys, thank you all for coming out and looking forward to your retreat.

Well, good morning. Of course, my warm per welcome. The right side of the room. The right side.

All right. Well, good morning. Delighted to be with you today. Just a note about what the officer was sharing with you. You know, I I have clients all over the country. I do a lot of work on succession planning. And what we've seen in the last dec especially the last decade in public safety in general is you have to build your own minor leagues. And this facility obviously is a result of that acknowledgement that building your own minor leagues, your own farm system, pick your favorite expression. Some of us in this room are seasoned enough. That's code for old to remember when you would post an opening in police and fire and you'd have to cut it off at 200 300 candidates. Anybody remember those days? And now um most cities in the around across the country struggle to get double digits on applicants and then getting them to show up for the interview is a whole another story. Getting them to pass a background check and the wash out rate. So I think this you're going to be in doing this probably for the foreseeable future where you're building your own minor leagues. Obviously other jurisdictions see that this is an asset they can leverage and they're local. So, it's it's also kind of a a different way to raise your status in the area that you're a source to help develop law enforcement professionals throughout the region in some respects throughout even a larger region. But I just wanted to kind of tip my hat that and this did not come because people um it was easy. You chose to do this because you saw it as a priority in the community. And I think for some people uh there's always some people in the community who think why do we need that? They question legitimacy of that. Obviously, as elected officials, you're always trying to kind of look ahead, which is sort of the backdrop of today. So, just for those that weren't able to join us yesterday afternoon, we had an afternoon session with the council. Did a little bit of focus on some trends and what's going on, looking at the benefits. I'm going to share that with you as well. We talked a little bit about group stuff. I don't call it team building because people's eyes glaze over, but we spent a little bit of time on the group and changes on the horizon. And we reviewed the agenda as well for today. So, it was pretty tight, concise, clear, compelling conversation today. Obviously, the opportunity here is to look into the future and um I brought my crystal ball,

so I'll be busting that out pretty soon. I'm just kidding. But we're trying to make sure the backdrop of these sessions, if you've attended these before, just as a good reminder, is you're really toggling between being proactive and responsive. And the proactive side sometimes is not always top of mind in local government. You have to be responsive because people just like last weekend with the freeze which we'll discuss you know time is not always an ally you have to in some respects not just react you have to respond and obviously being prepared is a mindset for organizations I would contend that we spend a lot of time in local government on skill set understandably and I think it's is just as important talk about mindset what do you bring to it um and I would just ask this question on a light-hearted note how many of you have children, right? How many of you with children would agree that our kids pick up their bad habits from our spouses? Raise your hand if you agree with that. Try not to break your arm. Raise your hand on camera.

This is being documented. How many of you with children realize they've turned into your parents? My son who's 20, who may be watching, used to ask me when he was younger, "Did you do this as a teenager?" I'm like, "Those records are sealed." But it's weird that that sense of humility and I think uh some people in every community think they're in elected office and there's the old saying public policy is made by those who show up. So I think for you as elected officials there's a big difference between campaigning and governing is there not?

There's a big difference between uh giving and parenting advice when you have a dog and actually having a child at home. Is there not? I'm just using that as kind of a light-hearted way. So here some of with among council you have some real seasoned elected officials those that are fairly new. It's a steep learning curve and these issues in parland like all committees don't wait till you figure them out. They just keep banging on the door. What are you going to do about transportation? What are you going to do about water? What are you going to do about amenities? Pardon me. So that's sort of the backdrop of today is not just react and respond but also what's on the horizon. Pardon me. I would contend the best days for Parland are in front of it. They're just not a guarantee. So, a word I would encourage you to keep in mind throughout today's session is what's the potential? What's the potential for this community? I think that inspires people. We don't use that word a lot. I think it's a it galvanizes us. It catalyzes us. How many of you live by the principle that you leave a place better than you found it? Right? I mean, that's a lifelong virtue, is it not? We're never sort of done with that, right?

And I think that's a noble pursuit. Sometimes things get in the way of course, but I think having that as a collective mindset helps you continually be successful and impactful to the residents who volunteer to live in Caroline. I'm just sharing that as a as opening remarks. So So you should have the materials in front of you. We're going to start off with what we started we started doing this last year. It's kind of a nice way to review the whole concept of what do you want to be remembered for? I know mayor and council don't don't uh don't choose to serve because of the great paying benefits. That was sarcasm. Yes,

you get lots of calls from people. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? Don't do this. Don't do that. But something along your uh life got you thinking about, I'd like to be in public office. And I would contend that especially in today's world, not easy choices for people to make in public office. We're seeing burnout at an all-time high. For a number of reasons, people are choosing not to be in elected office. So, I I give you a lot of credit. It takes some level of courage to be able to withstand that heat. um and because of uh just the challenges that sometimes people can confront you with. But I just like to ask the mayor and council, whoever wants to volunteer to share with the group, what do you want to be remembered for? What gives you a sense when you woke up this morning and you're getting ready to come here today and you're thinking about today's sessions and you're thinking about your role in council. I know you're all super busy people kind of carving up your time, partitioning your time among many different demands on you. I hope that you're enjoying this experience being on council that you find replenishment with your colleagues. That's especially important today. But what do you want to be remembered for? And I'll just ask for volunteers for mayor and counsel. Mayor, thank you. I'll start. Um, it's an easy question to answer because I get asked the question a lot. So, um, I' I've told people the last several years that what I really want to be known for as as the mayor of the city, uh, is a next generational American. uh somebody who uh looked forward enough to make sure that the generations coming behind us uh don't have to deal with the problems that we kick the can down the road for. So many governments just kick the can, kick the can and till they're out of office cuz they don't want to make a hard decision to do that. Um and I'm proud of I'm I'm proud of the city that we have this council. the council's just preceding specifically with with with all of the capital investment, water and wastewater. Um, you know, when

you're talking over a half a billion dollars in capital investment, uh, so easily we could have tried to figure out how to kick that can and do something different. Uh, some of it staring us down the road. And as I tell people, the next generation will have its own problems because every generation does. Why do we want to add to that? So, let's let's be the adult in the room and and deal with the problems that we have. And yeah, they cost money, but we have to figure out how to do that. So, there you go. Thanks, R. Yes, council.

I'll go next. So, kind of on that line, um long-term sustainability is important. Uh great place to live 20, 30 years from now. Roads, infrastructure, drainage, roads. Uh so, uh that's very important to me. So, thank you. How many times you say roads? I said twice. I just say a few more. I am poor.

I I think what we've done for Oldtown is something to be proud of. And um we've done something great for Independence Park. I don't know how much I'm supposed to say about that, but um the parks uh making Parland um more beautiful, I don't know, more green keeping some, you know, some green space. Um and I and Oldtown I'm very excited about. Okay. And I think that's um something

great. Thank you. We've done that. I'm proud of wonderful. Thanks for sharing. Other volunteers. I I will. Thank you.

I I I think probably the primary thing that I' I'd like to be remembered for with being in council is being able to demonstrate that you can be in elected office and still operate with values and integrity and and bring trustworthy leadership. I know nationally and and across large swats of our country at this point, people believe that everybody in government is corrupt corrupt and crooked and you know there's there's got to be something going on behind the veil and you know I'm proud to be part of this council and and I think everybody here operates in that manner and so that's what I'd like to be remembered for. Uh very shortly after I got on council, I was I was told that that this group from some some of our longtime residents is is one of the best councils that they have seen help lead this community and and I think that's that's fantastic. So if I can do my part to help move that forward, that's what I'd like to

Great. Thank you. Thank other volunteers. Yes, council. uh being in the service business uh and being one of the uh folks that kind of said we'd like to have customer service in the city uh help the citizens when they have issues with the city and and uh take care of uh take care of their responses and and address their issues. Great.

Yes, council. Um, I mean, I think we we sit here and and for me, you look up and you see a report one day that says, "Hey, you're the number one best place to live in the state and third in the nation." And like that's um that's because of of staff and the councils before us. And I think continuing that legacy, focusing on um public safety and the infrastructure balanced with the the budgetary constraint. Um if we tax everybody out of house and home and and tax the business to death, might be the best place in the world to live and nobody can afford to be there. So I think it's that continuing struggle um taking care of today but looking to the future.

Yes.

Thank you. Yes. For me, um, I'm the newest member on council and it's such a pleasure and an honor to be here and sit beside uh, great people. For me, I believe it's all about people. Um, it's all about relationships. It's all about getting to know and listen to people. U, bridging that gap between confusion or people that just simply don't know how government works and being able to bridge that. Uh, I'd like to, you know, be remembered, you know, for someone that, you know, maybe united, uh, brought unity into the city, uh, you know, to better prepare the next generation, um, you know, to to want to live here. Uh and then you know for me and those that know me uh a man of you know that's faith driven uh known for his integrity loves to serve been serving you know for many years um and just continue driving the city forward you know just loving on people staff city staff the residents of Caroland listening you know driving it around people and then of course yes there's a lot of great uh categories that members of council mentioned that are just as important But, you know, just really doing it from the heart and remembering that we are here to be the voice of the people. Um, and so that's that's my legacy. What I want people to remember of me.

Yeah. Thank you. What else?

Um, I don't know. I I think sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be remembered because it's seven of us plus maker. I don't think one person who really doesn't you can't do anything by yourself, right? Uh I think it's a team effort. So I think as a group I hope we're remembered as being proactive. Uh that's the word we've been using in our business this year. Uh be proactive. Don't wait to be reactive. Uh there are going to be situations where we are as a group going to have to react. But I think as a group if we plan ahead and we're kind of aligned with the same thought and processes and agreeing to what the best solution is and we work towards it together I think it's a group effort. So I don't think as an individual I want to be remembered but as a group I want to be remembered that hey they're proactive.

Yeah. Well thank you all for sharing that. We tapped everybody. Obviously, there's a lot of similarity between all of you about the sense of service, the impact, kind of the shared responsibility, a sense of humility that your contributions may go unnoticed to people. I think I could say with a fairly high degree of confidence that all of us in this room, staff, council, myself included, we're all kind of nerdy about government, right? We sort of see things that other people don't notice. And I think what we we recognize about local government, some of the items you you mentioned, they're invisible to the general public, yet at the same time, they're the backbone of their life. They're highly dependent upon it. And that's part of the opportunity I think you're continually having in these types of sessions is to the mayor's point and to some of the other points is you're always trying to look at things that are not always so outward facing. You know, water and sewer are literally under the ground.

Yeah.

People don't always notice that. And people are always very uh all of us tend to be a little selfish about streets and roads. So what are you fixing my street? That sort of notion. My community fill in the blank. I have a I'm a big believer that communities have self-esteem. And when you drive through them, you get a sense. What's the rideway feel like? Doesn't have to look fancy, but is it wellmaintained? Do people does it make does it clean? The beautifification, the aesthetics, all of that. It gives a feel. I think that's more qualitative than quantitative. And I think as we all can appreciate, local government plays a role in that pursuit. You know, it's the old saying when the city is trying to require somebody to comply with the code enforcement and they don't do it themselves, it looks hypocritical. But I think that's a fair characterization. One of the items that many of you mentioned, and I hear this a lot, um, especially in Texas, when I'm here in Texas, I have a lot of clients in Texas, you all talk a lot about character. And I think one of the words that we starting to resurface which is a little bit to some people it's a little corny but I think it's a source of strength for people and that's a sense of pride. If we have the belief that people want to be proud of the work they do whether it's elected officials, staff or just members of the public they want to be proud of their community. They want to be proud to fill in the blank. Sometimes they that gets lost things get in the way of that. But pride is not only a pursuit but I think it's also a source of energy for people. people draw positive emotional energy that will that notion of leaving a place better than you found it. Something we discussed yesterday that I want to set up as we go into this today is the whole notion of and many of you kind of alluded to this the ro which is a return on experience. Government is an experience provider. I would also contend that everybody in here and all members of your staff and for that matter everybody in local government fundamentally your role is to be a community builder staff you know if you join an organization I might be a police officer I might be in community development I may be an accountant and the employees ask what's my role here I think their

role is to be a community builder now let's talk about your responsibilities in that pursuit but the city is a an experienced provider keeping in mind that some of your employees have to tell the public no fair enough you're both an advocate and a regulator. You are a regulatory agency about some some aspects of what you deliver. Some of your employees see people in their worst day. It's a pretty unique portfolio that's hard to compare to any other industry I would contend in the country that has such a vast portfolio and a role. And as you look at the subjects for today, some of them are about to reinforce your role as a regulator to ensure we talked about some of that yesterday. Water, you know, people, well, I just want the water. Well, in order to provide the quality of water and meet certain standards, um you're going to have to com you you going to have to raise your level of threshold in order to meet those standards, which means you have to reinvest. You all get that. Sometimes the public doesn't always get that. And I would offer to you as we transition into today's discussion that really strategic planning is a riskmanagement strategy. It's community insurance. Better be prepared for a future that doesn't happen than not for one that does. And I see this all the time and I would offer to you and I think I've been doing this almost 24 years that I think one of the primary differentiators between communities that pursue their potential intentionally and those that don't do this. You can I've seen cities with bigger budgets but money masks problems. Some cities saying well we just have more money. We could do this. Well, if you're not really prudent and thoughtful and deliberate about what you invest the money on in order to get that return to deliver better experience. More money doesn't always translate to better outcomes. Just like more staffing doesn't always translate to better performance. So, some people might say, well, you know, why are you doing this? And I, as I've shared with you the last years, this is like your annual visit to the gym. So, hopefully you have on your sneakers and I'm your fitness trainer. This is how you stay in shape. You don't let things linger before you know it. Oh my gosh, you got to rehabilitate. So, this isn't deficit closing. This is to capitalize on your strengths of you have

many. And if you simply come out of today's session reaffirming the initiatives already underway, there's value in that because not only is that going to drive future agenda items on council meetings so it pops in June or October and you go, why is that on the agenda and it's easy, it helps Trent and the staff to res or re re to help you kind of reconsider that the reason that's on the council agenda is because it was established in the strategic plan. that wasn't just some sort of wild hair that Trent had and said, "Let's put it on the agenda." But it also helps you, I think, feel more confident. And I see that a lot with elected officials, their level of confidence, which I think comes from being competent. And the more you're able to, we talked about this yesterday. The more you're able to do this strategic planning, the more proficient you become, the more confident you feel, the more confident you're going to be, and the the better you're going to be able to project into the future. I've worked with some cities that have never done this and they're at a different level of sophistication. You're well seasoned. This is a fairly welloiled machine. Not to take your foot off the gas, but you're at a different stage than a lot of communities. So, I always compare to communities. Don't compare yourself to each other because you have no idea how long you've been doing. I'm just sharing that with you. I think this is part of your DNA of decision-m. It is a guide, right? It shouldn't be a straight jacket. So I hope that gives you some sense as we go into this discussion and as I shared with you all during these presession phone calls if these issues were easily solved you would have already done it. Some of the items that may come up today you might be scratching your head and that's okay. It gets a little messy and I just want to remind you before we get into this some of you kind of alluded to this. There's two different ways of thinking at least. There is one way of thinking which is convergent. There's an issue, there's an opportunity, there's a By the way, spell check applies to the balance of the day. Convergent, you get to the answer, right? And another way of thinking, not better or worse, just different.

There's an issue. There's an opportunity. There's challenge. This is divergent. Here's an answer. Here's an answer. Here's an answer. Here's an answer. Engineers in the room, raise your hand. Any engineers in the room? Put away your slide rule. Raise your hand. Come on board. You're the only engineer. Finance people. I know we have some finance people in the room. Raise your hand. Engineers and finance people hang out together. You know why? Cuz they like a high degree of precision. When you ask an engineer, is that bridge going to hold? You don't want the engineer to say, I think it will. When you ask a finance person, did we close on time? What's our general fund cash reserves? I think it's this.

I will. You want to hire your that serves them well, right? Divergent thinking. Never ask an attorney a yes or no question. Correct? HR people raise your hand. Never ask an HR person a yes or no question. Planners, never ask a planner yes or no question because what's their response? It depends. And to some of you, it drives you prick. Just give me an answer. And I see councils struggle because they don't acknowledge these differences. Sometimes this serves you well, but not all the time. And I would offer you, most public policy discussions are in this realm. You're trying to find the best for the most. What's most suitable? And I've seen a lot of cities waste a lot of time looking for the perfect solution.

Yeah. And time is not always an ally. So, let's do another report. Let's get another consultant from further away. I live in Maine, so that's pretty far away. So, good from further away. I'm just sharing that with you. I think being conscious to say there are some things you want a high degree of precision about closing books, awarding a contract maybe for a certain role, responsibility or project. But when you get into some public policy discussions, and I think this is where council members sometimes get frustrated because they they land on their answer as though it's the solitary solution and that there's a lot of others. Now, that's liberating. It's also a little bit unsettling because some people think I want to know the right answer and the public sometimes has the right answer or so they think. Right?

So many of the topics I think we're going to explore today are in this realm. I hope this just helps you reflect and get comfortable. Doesn't mean that you're wishy-washy. It just means most of what you're dealing with is very contextual and as you said, mayor, you inherited the decisions from your predecessors and your successors are going to inherit your decisions. And some people like to play armchair quarterback, right? Well, why' they do this or why did they do that? I think giving them some credit and some benefit of the doubt

that they tried to do the best with what they had at the time they had it, there was always some level of uncertainty just like you have, you have some level of uncertainty, but you don't allow the uncertainty uh to sort of deny you the opportunity to pursue the decision. As I shared yesterday, and then we'll get into this. Some communities are kind of pregnant, which is biologically impossible. They have their foot on the gas and the brake at the same time. And then they wonder why they're not making progress. They're paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake. Mistakes are bad, but what's worse is a culture that doesn't tolerate them. A great way not to make mistakes don't try anything new. Is there always somebody in the public who's going to light you up to say, "Why'd you do that? What a waste of money. What a waste of time." And I think being able to withstand that those concerns and not let that derail you acknowledge without endorsing is critical especially in today's world because there's so many different things going on. As we get into it, I prepared um with better penmanship what you discussed yesterday as a backdrop as we started today. You may recall yesterday I asked what are the benefits of good government? What's happening in paralleland as a result of the decisions made by mayor and council that are uh executed by by tre staff in no particular order. Mayor and council came up with response to the freeze that you have last weekend. You like your stone come up to Maine. you want to say it's like five below uh successor planning your executive positions you're having some turnover successor planning is really a kind of organizational insurance it's about continuity of operations because when people leave the organization what do they take with them

besides office supplies what else do people take with them tacid knowledge I I would offer you can replace credentials it's hard to replace the pair I'd there's a lot of tacid knowledge

in people's heads it's often not chronicled and I use the example teaching somebody to ride a bike or drive a car. Most of that is tacid knowledge. You don't give your 5-year-old, "Here's a manual, go ride your bike." I know that sounds ridiculous. And I think in government and staff, I think would would reaffirm this. Much of what they do is based on their interpretation. It's not always about policy. It's about principles and experience and expertise. Very t very contextual. We also talked about the water and wastewater treatment plant. Maybe next year we can have a session about the wastewater treatment plant. There seem to be a lot of energy about the waste water. I'm just teasing about that. There's an interesting discussion staff yesterday about that. We can do the waste water treatment. We'll do the water plant.

Yeah. Not the not the wast. Okay.

As I had the utilities director tell me long ago in Galaxy far away when I was in city management. The wastewater treatment plant was the rotating salad bar. I'll leave it at that. He had an interesting sense of humor. Talks about drainage. Literally, people don't notice that until their backyard floods. Then why don't we have drainage? And that's an ongoing concern for a lot of communities. If anything, that's an area that's becoming even more hotly contested because people think, why do I have to pay for drainage in another part of the community where I don't directly benefit, right? And I think how you not that threat is an ongoing kind of a political conversation. public safety. So many dimensions of that both with police and fire, your community outreach, all the different impacts you're having through the deployment of services, safety and security, which is less about I would say it's less about quantification and more about people's interpretation. As we know, people don't base their opinion on facts, they base it on feelings, what was online, what their neighbors are saying. So you're always in the realm of what's your role in public safety and what you're doing. Streets and roads. So, streets and roads. I don't know who brought that up, but it came up once or twice. I'm not sure what the overunder is today by FanDuel on streets and roads, but I think it's pretty hot. I just was just trying to give a shout of like rename customer service. By the way, let me just pause here. One of the things that I think you all is one of your key ingredients. I work with a lot of councils and some they don't want to be in the same room with each other. I've done them where it's people have got up, walked out. I mean, if there's a lot of acrimony, I would offer that humor is the lubricant to good group relations. Being able to laugh at yourself, right? We all make We're all kind of have our idiosyncrasies. I'm sure we can get your loved ones on the phone right now and find out what they are. But I think that humor helps. What you do is seriously important, but I think the humor helps

turn down the temperature. So be mindful of that as a as a priority that you continually foster that with relationships. And I got a feel we're going to have to be separating youth here sometime today. But I I some of you been on groups before where there's you cut the tension with a knife,

whatever it might be. if you're a faith-based organization or a nonprofit or a council or whatever group and you you just um I had this saying that the hallmark of a well-run group is conversations happen in the room not in the hallway. Too many conversations happen in the hallway. Trust is absent and trust is fragile. Uh customer service was mentioned yesterday, you are a servicecentric organization. You're demand based organization. So what you're delivering and how you're delivering it, the hiring and onboarding of the organization, what you're how you're feeling, how you're bringing people into the organization, being more discerning, being more selective. And I shared this light-hearted comment yesterday, hiring is like dating. You get what you look for. So never marry the bad date. And I think sometimes we overestimate what you're going to be able to do cuz who's the only person on the planet you can change?

Yourself.

Yourself. But I think sometimes we overestimate I'll change sh I'll change how's that go. So I think being more selective is going to allow you to be have it's going to narrow the pool of candidates but the people that you hire into the organization are likely going to be more successful sooner because they're that there's an alignment of fit. Uh and then placemaking had a good conversation yesterday about placemaking. what people in some respects are craving a sense of community a communal experience. My own estimate my own estimate I have nothing to base this on except pardon me trends but I think the next thing to go by the boards are movie theaters even though AMC just reported high numbers. Yeah, you're reporting high numbers cuz you're raising ticket prices. I'm not sure you're getting more people in the door but we have a whole generation of people that really don't go to movie theaters. They don't they don't many of us grew up going to movie theaters a communal experience but we have people coming of age especially postco they don't know what it's like to have that communal experience we see live sports live theater still booming which is wonderful and I think communities we talked yesterday about the library and what that's doing to create sense of place I think you're going to continually see those opportunities and I mentioned some of us were at the West Caroline Library on Thursday and as you just walk through the facility and I bet if we went two or three consecutive days we'd see the same people, young people studying, young kids in there for programming, older people there to just to kind of socialize and network with other people. It's a gathering place. And I think that's where libraries, as we talked about yesterday, just the whole group understands they're probably going to be even more pivotal, creating a sense of and celebrations. I always find it disappointing when city's budgets get tight. The first thing they lack are events. And I think that's where residents gather kind of replenish their own self-esteem. Plus, it allows you to go out and mingle with people they may not always see. Whether it's fireworks or an Easter egg hunt or

Halloween fest, those events give people a sense that our community is thriving. Our best days are in front of it. I think it's restorative to a lot of people. I'm just sharing that with you as a point of view. So, these are the benefits of good government. And I would offer just to reinforce what we talked about yesterday. These are also fragile. These are not automatic. Achieving these outcomes are the result of decisions you make and the staff executes. And that some respects what you're trying to do today to make sure that you're successful by choice, not by chance. Hard to replicate serendipity. So you want to be successful by choice. So anything else to add to this? Maybe occurred to you last night or maybe as I'm walking through this this morning. Other benefits of good government. And I would open this up to the entire room.

Yeah, I would add culture creation. culture creation. Okay. And you know, I I seem to be hearing a lot more that the interaction with the city of Parland, whether it be from residents or from the development world, especially from people who haven't been around for a while and then kind of show back up is night and day of what it used to be. It used to be very difficult to get anything done. Used to be very difficult to get answers to things. And that has a lot to do with the the culture that's been created within the organization led by CMO's office. But uh I think that's been a huge change in the community.

Good. Yeah. A lot of governments are very rule centric and I think what you're seeing here you're very resultentric. That's a shift in mindset. So any other want to share? Um I think last year Victor and his team rolled out like the new financial reporting. If you look at your Thursday packet and look at the financials. Um, but I think that that was a great tool for for us to look at to see where we are um with our budget um quarterly. So, I think that's a new format and I appreciate that. Still looking for the net balance, but it's easy in finance to get lost in numbers. Part of that's the narrative, right? What's the story? Yes,

I was going to say transparency. I think we've done a we continue to do a great job. Some of it is part of some of the titles that are up there, our customer experience, the ways that we're interacting with our public. It all equals, you know, better communication, transparency, getting the information out there. But I I believe I know that in the past, last year, transparency was something that was brought up. I want to bring it up again because we are, you know, heading, we're doing great things with that and I uh I look forward to seeing that continue. Yeah. for response to the freeze. I think response to any big thing like that is emergency response is is good.

Yeah. Specifically on that one Clint brought it up and it was we've made investments into uh certain things for our for our own resiliency for our own buildings for our own uh things of that nature. And so seeing the response to this last one we were ready everything was working. Unfortunately, it didn't get to where it needed to be, but I think that was Yeah, I know trying to say, but then Yeah. But then in general, uh, just going back to Peter, his team, and and how it doesn't matter what comes along the way, being prepared. We're prepared, right?

Uh, I don't want to jinx it by saying we're prepared, you know, for anything, but that's the mindset, and that's where you have to be. Yeah. barrel wasn't that long ago and and was was a lot and the response to that was very good. Very good. Awesome. So I just the response the freeze student I think it needs to be more broad perhaps and those events as people in public safety and those you might remember this too because they do an act after action review a delta plus

which is incredible kind of lessons learned all that whole concept while it's fresh and then you re re you apply what did we not anticipate what are we going to do differently the next time. It's about contingency planning and I think that's really what you're trying to do. Build up muscle memory, but it's not random. Just throwing resources at it and hoping for the hope and faith aren't a strategy. They may be part of our belief system, but they're not a strategy. And a lot of governments think somehow people will just figure it out or be patient, fill in the blank. But I think that's where sometimes government I would offer to you that's where sometimes government uh doesn't take a victory lap and it should to remind people the reason that you were less impacted is because of the resources we put in place that will be well executed because all they have to do is drive to neighboring city and see how that didn't happen. Did that happen on purpose or did that happen on accident? I would contend that happened on purpose cuz people didn't plan. I'm not saying they wanted to things not go well, but if they didn't plan for it, that was by design. Not doing it is a choice. So, I think to your point, mayor, it's and just to the other points, uh, and sometimes the public doesn't always see that. What are you spending time on fill in the blank? That may never happen, but when it does, where you need it like right now.

Honest honestly, the the less and I hate to this is kind of a dichotomy of thinking here for a second, but really and truly if if the people apparently really don't see the government working, that's not a bad thing. That that means there's not a problem. That means things are running welloiled. things are, you know, outside of a police car going down the street or fire truck going down the street. If they're really not seeing us, we're getting things done and everything is working and and and is efficient that to me that's the optimal level. Yeah. I think those silent services I I would agree with you in principle. The challenge we have in today's world is people understand the value of those, right?

That somehow that just sort of happened and who's paying for it. No. And that that's where the dichotomy. We've got to tell our story. And sometimes to tell our story, something's got to be in front of you, a truck, a person, whatever, right? They have to see us, right? Um and so cuz their attention gets drawn, the public's attention gets drawn from, you know, thousands of different directions.

Yeah. And some contend that we now live in an attention economy. And how do you get in front of people that about things that are a little bit invisible? And unless you don't market that and the impact of that, it just kind of goes side. So when it's not there, people don't notice it till it's not there. If I don't understand the value, it's improving my quality of life. Then it's not hard to get rid of. Then when they get rid of it, then people go, "Oh, I didn't know that." So I think your connected community is an ongoing concern about telling people, tell them what you told them and tell them again through many different channels to reinforce that value proposition so people understand. I would go back to these are at risk. These are not automatic. So if you want to maintain that lifestyle, it's not just yet your neighborhood and you know the new Trader Joe's. Everybody wants a Trader Joe's by the way.

We heard it today. I'm sure you did. Yeah, it is. Did you just say from his books and their I don't know if Trader Joe's knows how important it is, but I don't care where I go in this country, every city wants to trade. It's like a signature business in their community. It's very fun to shop,

but their lifestyle is also impacted not just by their recreational and their their shopping patterns and their home patterns, but it's also their safety and all those other dimensions. All right. Well, let me move on here and I'm going to move you should have your hand out there in front of you. I'm going to look on page four, the present and the future. We're now going to look out. There's fads and there's trends. Fads are hiccups. Trends portend change. So, I'm going to share with you my point of view. Then, I'm going to ask mayor, council, and staff to share. What do they see cooking out in the community? What do they hear from their colleagues? What do they see in the region? We can't fix the trends, but it's important to acknowledge the trends because within those trends are both constraints as well as opportunities. Sometimes government is shocked by well when did that happen? Well, it's always occurring. Nobody paid attention to it. So, starting in the middle, you may remember this from past sessions, VUA stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Or another day that ends in Y. Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Starting at the top, politics and citizen activism. Is that increasing or decreasing in parallel? In person, online, what do you notice? More people getting involved. Fewer people getting involved. More people checking out. More people checking in.

Fewer people actually getting involved. You see the number Facebook warriors, but fewer people actually getting involved. That's what I see. Okay. Well, until something hits their backyard. I mean, it's it's the same. I don't know what's going on until, you know, it affects me directly. Um, so Emism is is still alive and well. Very much so.

Um, you know, which which I Um, I I would I would dare say I think we do a fair fairly good job of informing and and getting in front of enough people uh than where we used to be. So, we do have some people who stay engaged. They just don't show up to meetings and that and and again, that's okay. That's their preference. Uh, but there's I think there's more people engaged with what's going on because you can see it in Facebook. You can see it in social media where a question gets asked and answered and there's no one from the city or on council or anybody else that's answering the question. The public are answering the question with if you would have seen this, if you would have read this, if you would have done this, you would know the answer to that. So there's people watching getting educated and seeing it and and and I think that's through our own social media channels and others. um and where we sit back and it gets handled by the public.

Good and with with the right answer, right? But I mean what I was I guess what I really specifically meant it seems like fewer people are running for our own city of uh city um spaces that are of rollers. What do you see about volunteerism here in the community for boards and commissions? Is the pool getting larger or smaller? Actually larger. That's good. become recent. That's good. Because we had some efforts behind it. Yeah. I mean, part of that you have to do by design that volunteers means something totally different to younger people. Yeah. And a lot of communities have suffered that fate where they they sort of neglect. I would contend that boards and commissions, you need succession planning approaches to that group as well.

Yeah. I mean, one of our last, you know, with with seven or eight applicants, you know, couple positions because of that, you know, we weren't going necessarily, you know, calling people and saying you're hired. It was, you know, people actively looking for that's wonderful. And I think that goes back to the University of Maryland and those types of things. That's part of that design. Absolutely. Is is ultimately we'll have a staple of people boards and commissions. Yeah. Those graduates and ambassadors are kind of a feeder. Some of them will be okay some of them might not but it's a good opportunity. Um going clockwise the mistrust of institutions does that increase or decrease or increase.

Yeah I'm think people make these broad sweeping generalizations about government as though it's one entity and other entities as well. A little bit of mistrust. We're seeing some backlash against corporate America. Yeah. So it's not just government as an institution. large large organizations or institutions, universities, you fill in the blank. This mistrust has been continuing for decades. There's hiccups, but it continues. The evolving economy, what direction is that going? Yes. Right. Depends on who you talk to.

Yes. And so I'd say that, you know, in my world and in my business world, it's very uncertain, very ambiguous. You don't all of the traditional markers of the Fed does this, this happens, and aren't happening. So it's it's rather confusing. It's not a typical economy right now.

Yeah. I think when you if you you know, economists, Harry Truman had this famous quote about economists when he was in office. He said, "I'm looking for a one-armed economist because they always say on the other hand." So, not to be insensitive about that, but what we're finding from economists, leading economists, is I think they're as puzzled as anybody about, especially postco people's spending habits. I think they saw what it might stall. I I'm on airplanes every week. Every flight is full. People are still traveling for recreation and business. So the airline industry in some respects is booming in that sense. We're not seeing a hic and that's usually one of the first things that is an indicator is people stop the discretionary spending going on vacation

but at the same time the last you know GDP increase is 4%. Yeah. That I mean when you hit those numbers it's roaring to your point at least it should be. Right. Right. I'll I'll say this a little controversial. I can't back it up but I'm going to say this. Um I I think it I think at some level there's a manipulation of the actual economy. Oh okay. Depending on who's in office, depending on various things. I think there's a manipulation of the actual economy and it goes back to but yet our sales tax is increasing.

Yeah. So it if if it was really in the toilet sales tax wouldn't be increasing. There goes that distrust in government. Y that could be also the same thing as AMC. Costs have gone through the roof. Yes. So keep that in mind. I mean sales tax are they're not increasing like they used to double digits. But they're also based on the fact that everything across the board in the last 5 years I mean if you look at it comp compounding is through the roof.

Yeah. But inflation this last year was 2%. So, but again, I'm I'm just I'm just saying are there are there markers? I'm my my point is everybody says there's uncertainty in the market that the economy is tanking on but the markers don't show that right the economic form which is why I go back to it feels as though there's a there's a manipulation of the whole thing to your point the forum I was at on Monday said that costs are still up 43% over pre-COVID numbers.

Sure. And so, you know, have we really adjusted our lifestyle to that dramatic of an increase in cost in such a short window of time? But yeah, it go also goes back to feelings over facts, right? The data is there that says everything should be great, but the people don't feel that way. So why, right? Distress the government part of that. But historically, you know, sales tax increases over time have been modest increases, three, four, five% year-over-year. Um, and yeah, we we saw big increases at one point because we actually got credit for uh the, you know, state law changing where you you get your sales tax where the where the package comes, you know, in the mail or or Amazon and everything else. That changed the narrative of sales tax. But then once that became normalized, we've gone back to two, three, four, you know, 5% increases in sales tax.

Yeah. And we're starting, I'm not sure about Texas, so pardon me for not knowing, but many more and more states are now taxing streaming,

streaming services, Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, that's now a source of revenue, sales tax. So that's changing the economy. Uh shifting demographics, you know, 60% of the US workforce is now under the age of 40. And to young people, it's life, work, balance. We talked about some of this yesterday about the community. Is it getting younger? Is it getting older? Young people have different appetites in some respects. They're Yimi people. They want it in their backyard. They want more walkability. They want more sidewalks. They want What am I doing after work? Things are closer, higher density. I'm generalizing. I would say every young person. What was it we heard from? Were you there with me with Sharon last year when they talked about that it's the demographics of the workforce right now are the most diverse they've ever been that we have seven generations in the workforce.

Yeah, I was going to say the number of generations first ever workforce is all time. So retirees are actually coming back into the workforce. They're living longer and they don't want to just sit around and they're running out of money so they're coming. So so some of that experience is actually coming back. Well, when you think about demographics too beyond the labels, let's ponder this for a moment. Babies born today may never drive a car because of the rise of autonomous vehicles. People under 20 will never write an email. How many of you have kids that are under 20? And they like, why do they email me? My son's 20. Like, why don't they just text me? So, people under 20. People under 35, at least under 30, will never write a check. You take a young person to open a bank account, they get a debit card, which they immediately load in their Apple wallet.

Yeah. So when you say we're going to take checks, again, I'm continually amazed how many governments still take checks and they don't take Apple Pay. What year is it? Because to young people, they don't, it's not that they don't want to. And gosh, don't ask them to write the checking cursor. Their head will explode. Yeah. You see, if you're listening, I just read it. And I know this seems as a shocker. I've said this before, but just for a little shock value to remind us that if you can bank on your phone, when are you going to be able to vote on your phone?

It's terrible. the young people, they're going to say, "Why do I have to wait in line and what's the mail?" Right? And West Virginia, the first state in the union to use blockchain to allow overseas armed at armed force bases overseas to West Virginia residents to vote in local elections. West Virginia, not exactly the bastion of forward thinking sort of technology delivery using B. I'm just sharing that with them. And if you ask young people again, if you can bank on your phone, like I'm just sharing that as a kind of demographics because as young people sit in those positions of responsible authority, they're not going to say why. They're going to say why not.

It's just a natural. I mean, their phone is an appendage. They're fluent in technology. So to them, it's not that big. They're used to living with invisibility. Well, Patrick, the whole the whole change of technology is going to continue and and that's we need to be up to date on that because the 10 year olds today, 20 years from now will be 30 years old and and and so where's that going to look like? What is that going to look like? I went to a tech stock conference about uh 15 years ago now and and the whole emphasis was the future of transportation the future and one of the sessions that I went to they actually had a focus group of 10 year olds you know and who aren't driving right but when you're 30 so 20 years so that focus group will be 30 5 years from now and and talked about what do you want to see in your transportation in your vehicles and everything else. And it it's happening today. The autonomous vehicle driving itself um social media and your your vehicle is a part of your social media. Um and everything else it what that focus group talked about 15 years ago is happening.

Yeah. I read cars all the time on my business trips and cars are now mobile devices. Yeah. And she said, "Because who's designing cars?" Younger people. You know, some of us in this room were thrilled when we got power steering. Anybody remember that? Yeah. Anybody learn to drive on a manual stick shift? No power steering, no power brakes, the steering wheels about like this. And the first place your dad took you was on a hill. Yeah. Anybody remember those days? Didn't last very long. No.

And speaking of that, more and more young people are waiting to get their driver's license till they're 17, till they're 18, till they're 19. How many of you in this room when you turned 16 that day you went to the DMV and got your driver's license suddenly? Young people today I saw some of my son's friends he was he got his a lot of his friends put it off put it off put somebody else would drive. So we're seeing you know these demographics are not just about kind of the goofy things but it's also their lifestyle and what they bring to the table. I shared with you yesterday I have client a lot of clients in California and one of my clients there is this five member council city of about 60,000 in LA area and uh all five members of the council are under the age of 40 and the youngest is 22 and and so they're just not better or worse it's just different they look at things through a different lens because we're all a product of the times in which we grew up just sharing that with you right so as as this community turns as the council starts to turn you might start to see some different topics It's different approaches to kind of dispel the notion we've always done it that way which can be a real choke point for communities because comfort can breed complacency. We're all creatures of comfort. So um the service delivery to to the point I'm sure as the staff would contend when they go to a state or national conference. I went to ICMA last fall the international city county management association. It was in Tampa. Some of you were there. You know you go over to the exhibit hall TML or TCMA or you know the alphabet soup. Most of the vendors are software sales, which is a big change. It used to be engineering and having equipment. I would say now 80% of their vendors in those exhibit halls are selling software, which tells you they see money on the table. And there's there's an app for that. No matter what you're doing, there's some sort of app. So, and to the public, some of them say, "Why do I have to come down to city hall? Can I do this online?" You know, what's the city's e-commerce strategy? I was in Denton a couple years ago working with their council and they were

talking about you saying uh be more business friendly. Sound familiar? I've never met a contractor that got a permit fast enough. Have you? No. Never.

So, it's always the permitting process, architects, planners, all that, right? Just that whole ecosystem. And one of the things they started digging into was they were looking at the zip codes of visitors to their community development website. And what they were finding is they were getting zip codes from around the world which told them that they need to be open all the time because they got people on totally different time zones looking to invest in that. They can't wait till somebody's in the office. I'm just sharing that with you. So I really thought it was transformative in their approach about the content and the delivery of information and services on that website. Whether it was permitting, plans review, FAQs, any of that. They really tried to help them go, "Oh, I don't think it was a revelation as much was as much as it was a realization to say we've known this antidotally, but when we look at the data, it's compelling that if they don't reinvent their value proposition, they may lose out on investments, those sorts of not to be dramatic, but so service delivery is definitely changing in community development. We know in law enforcement now, body cameras can transcribe them what they're seeing to reports. We talked last year about drones for fire service when we were in this room. all this different technology, pardon me, and with all due respect to the people in IT, your AI strategy is not going to come out of it. They're busy dealing with ransomware and cyber security. You're going to start to see AI come from within departments. How are they leveraging it? And it's sexy right now, but you're still in the people business cuz last time I checked there's a watermade break. Yeah, you can't send an app out there at 2:00 in the morning. So, in some respects, a local government is going to be a trend setter here. You cannot look to the tech industry. Because nobody from Google or Alphabet or Apple is getting up at 3 in the morning to go out for a call for service, are they? They're logging in at home. So local government very much manual. I'm just sharing that with you. Very manual labor business. You got to send people out. So AI will be a supplement. Now I would contend it won't be a substitute because you're

still in a physical delivery service business. you're going to see a a water man or water repair where the where the repair where the maintenance worker accesses information more quicker about that line because it's going to be on an app or on his phone, but he's still going to have to get in the ditch and clear out the line. I'm just sharing that with you so when people go, "Oh," and it's kind of sexy, but I think it's it's not going to be a substitute. It's going to be a supplement. Yeah. I hope that resonates with you just in how you think about the portfolio of what you do because I imagine there'll be the public who will say, "Why are you hiring people in those jobs? They ask you to replace it." We're still in the people business. You're still in the manual labor business. And I think to the public, I think that's where you say, "Don't you want a live person dealing with that?"

Yeah. Ask your phone to clean out the uh the storm, right? Flush fire hygi. Yeah. See if that works. Okay.

Or the freeze. What did AI do there? Yeah. Last time I checked, I didn't see it's salt in the street, right? Right. So, and it's not to to convince people. I think it's to inform them that it's a tool, but it's not a substitute. Legislation legal, as any city attorney would tell you, one thing you never want to make is case law. No, you don't want to be the default. And some of what you're doing is heavily regulated by the feds or the state. So, let me go back to yesterday year and bring up a nostalgic phrase that's starting to gather steam through no credit of my own, and that's the term unfunded mandates. Some of us in this room remember that was all vogue in the '9s. We used to use it all the time in city government. And some of what you're doing is a pass through through the feds, through the state, and to the public. They think, why are my rates going up? Well, we got to comply with higher standards, right? I'm just sharing that with you. So that unfunded mandates was a phrase that caught fire and then it sort of dissolved. Maybe it's time to return that back to the to the lexic. We are as a as a as a launch plan kind of thing. We we we do. Yeah. And then um last but not least, social media. If Facebook was a country, it' be the world's third largest. China, India, Facebook.

So what time is it? Right. It's exploding. Yeah, it is kind of unsettling and with the with the convergence of social media and AI, um it's anybody's ball game. We're living in somewhat respects uncharted times. Now, at the same time, as I have this ongoing debate with my 20-year-old son who's a sophomore in college, and like Mark Twain said famously, when Mark Twain was 15, my dad didn't know very much, but by the time I turned 30, my dad learned a lot. So, we're in that process of transitioning. So I talked to Max May and he says, "Dad, AI is going to change everything." I'm like, "Well, you know, people said that about the radio. Then they said that about television." Until I was 9 years old, my name was changed the channel. Anybody the remote channels we had in our house? And then you bust that off and use a pair of pliers. Anybody read somehow we survived? And then my my dad talking to me about being on the telephone. What are you on the phone? So long for

for the avocado green. What were the colors? There was like three colors all handheld. Yellow. Yellow. There was three colors. Then there was then television, right? All that's happening. Then came the internet. Anybody remember the super information highway. Remember that's when it was first called in the late 90s and 200. The young people thinking and that noise to get on it. Yeah. The dialogues. Dialup machine. Yeah. Like a fax machine. I had a client asked me the other day, "What's your fax number?" And I said, "What year is it there?"

So the internet and it was transformative. Fair enough.

The internet was transformative. We learned we were we're human beings. We're highly adaptable. We learned how to optimize and maximize and navigate and maneuver. AI is very sexy. The five stocks that are driving Wall Street are AI connected. So we know that huge investment but if we overreact I think then it just frightens people. I think it's how do you leverage that and social media is part of that I would say that ecosystem in some respects and there's a term in marketing called spray and prey where you send it out to everybody and hope somebody reads it. and more and more businesses definitely and more and more governments are transitioning to instead of mass marketing they're going to microtargeting for the third year in a row I think it was 2025 more money was spent on web ads than TV ads and we just going to see that will be trendy now the only TV ads we remember are the Super Bowl ads right yeah

how about those Texas so the Super Bowl ads I just had to get my dig there a little bit throwing stuff I I'm ass sure clear distance here. So what do you notice?

What are you hearing from businesses? These are my version as we discuss this. We can't fix the trends, but what else are you noticing? What are you reading? What are you hearing? What are you watching? What are you hearing from neighbors? How about business owners? What are business owners in paraly sharing? Used to be they can't find anybody to work. First time we've seen most of our lives where businesses are not closing because they can't find somebody. They're open 12 to 8 Monday through Friday because they don't want people to work. They can't find people and they don't want to pay overtime. So, they're closed on the weekends. I'm just using that as an example. We've never really seen that. I I think from our connect program, we we hear we hear kind of the same things uh routinely through the business community. And I'm talking about kind of the the the primary uh employers, you know, the business. Um and and workforce development training is is a key for all of them. Um finding people who are employable is still very difficult. um they they all at some level um have attention to AI and how it's affecting their business, how it's going to affect their workforce, how it's going to affect um all of that. Um I will say because we ask the question often from the city's perspective, what where and how are we helpful, impediment, you know, all those kind of things. and we really don't get much um the city's not really being an impediment or anything of that nature for most of them.

There's always going to be the one off where there's something that that goes on. Um and then power distribution in some of our some of our um larger folks out in in lower Kirby power distribution is a is a huge deal because if they have a glitch in power it could cost billions. So those types of things are very sensitive which to me like data centers and others I I'm not sold on that's what we've got to have or those types of things. And so I'm I'm a little leery on the long-term effect of these data centers and everything else. So, um, I lived in the Phoenix area for a long time and had a lot of clients there. And not that long ago, the city of Chandler, fairly hype, rapidly growing suburb in South Phoenix, about a quarter million people, had a chance to put a server farm um, in Chandler, I don't even know remember the number of square feet, employ about five people, consume a ton of water, and they said no for a variety of reasons beyond the property tax, which was they were going to get huge rebates, so what's the point? they were not going to be a large employer. They were going to consume a lot of water and the impact on their budget was going to be not in a positive way. So I think to your point, we're seeing that more and more around the country around data centers. People are questioning the impact it has on many different factors.

Well, I I question the second generation of the database center. What's what's that building going to be? Yeah. What's at least you know a strip center can be repurposed? Yeah. Turn over. What's this mega center going to be? Good point. Other interpretations what you're hearing from businesses or residents or maybe if you travel for business or you've got clients in the area or the region maybe just what's percolating? I think there's concerns

like this nervousness and anxiety like postco you had the influx of all the capital. Everything was on fire. Let's get this if you can breathe and pass a drug test we'll hire you. And now it it's just everybody seems to be sitting back a little bit waiting to to see which which direction we're headed next. Okay. Um at least for more the the small to midsize business. Um kind of this anxiousness on where are we headed. Yeah.

I agree. I think that you know the unknown inflation what's happening with that costs of the shipping containers coming across what is that doing to the goods you know there's a lot of businesses that are trying to forecast uh I know with my company that's it's forecasting it's looking ahead it's looking at costs how are we going to and to member Carbone's point you know there is that anxieties there is that uncertainties trying to figure out taking a deep breath, you know, as far as trying to navigate what the manufacturers or wherever the goods are coming from. You know, what are they saying?

Yeah, it's an interesting um situation we're in, right? There seems to be a lot of ambiguity and we know markets don't like that. Businesses don't like that. Kind of is another choke point. If in doubt, I'm good. It's kind of managing risk thoughtfully. and what uh private business Shell was actually the company years ago that coined this phrase and they were sort of a leader in the industry because they're a multinational company dealing with all sorts of things as we know well and I mentioned this in passing yesterday and it's not apples to apples but the concept of scenario planning contingency planning governments tend that's not always their strong suit you all have flirted with that the last few years kind of what's plan B not to be a doom and gloomer but to also understand that the growth whether it's the budget on the revenue side or the a volatility of the economy or the aggressiveness of the state and whatever they're trying to do is trying to say what are our scenarios what how will we handle that you do that on emergency planning a hurricane we're going to do this uh uh ice storm you're going to do that that's a little bit more of an event-based so there's it happens you respond what we're seeing across the country and I think you all are indicating that is it's more of a process-based mindset which is a little bit of a stretch for all of because we can't live with uh a high degree of uncertainty. We found that out in co at some point we need some certainty.

I was that's what I was going to say. CO I think um as much as there was a lot of negative or there's a lot of sadness cuz you know lives were lost and so forth. But as far as from a business standpoint or economic standpoint, it was a reboot for the whole world. There was a lot of reboot. A lot of a lot of companies had to that were affected immediately. Had to change the their dynamics to try to find ways to counter their loss. Uh when you think of the restaurant industry and hospitality and you can't sit at the dining and so they had to do drive-throughs and you know pickups and so forth. I mean that's just one example how they had to pivot. But when you speak to them today, they are actually booming because they got creative because they sat around in a table and said, "Okay, let's brainstorm because this is what we're facing and how are we going to counter it? Cash is king." People start looking hanging on to their monies, you know, trying to figure out not going into further debt. So, I think that co was a big part of that as well.

Yeah. Yeah, on a personal note, you know, March of 2020, um, I had more cancellations in a week than I'd had in the previous 18 years I've been in business. And I'm self-employed, so every day's a track meet. And I did the opposite of what most small businesses do. I increased my investment on advertising and marketing cuz it's not hard to not know about a business when you don't hear about. That was the time you needed.

Well, it allowed me to sort of do different marketing. Kind of went back in my laboratory. What am I going to do? My service lines, how do I maintain relationships? Much of my business is built on relationships. I'm just saying on a personal level gave us all a chance to kind of work on things, not just at things. And the basis of today's session is you're working on the community, not just at it. And I think a lot of communities found out in some respects a little bit begrudgingly, oh, there's value in doing these things. I think it gets back to though that notion of forecasting and scenario and saying if this happens, this is what we're going to do. What are we going to do here? What if we see a hiccup absent a fiscal crisis? Because that's usually when government does it. Hey, we see on the and by the way, I'm starting to hear that from clients more in the west who are contacting me about they're starting to see structural budget deficits. I have a client in the LA area facing a $25 million general fund structural deficit. Um, and so they're trying to figure how do they climb out? It didn't happen overnight. I'm just sharing that with you. And so they're trying to be not they're trying to deal with it. Say what do we do structurally? Tough tough decisions they're going to have to make about many different things. But back to the point, mayor, it's trying to be more of a longer time horizon, not overcommit. Easy to say, but then some of that times you just inherit that. But I imagine when I'm with them next month, um they're going to have some really tough decisions to make that are they may not have a lot of experience in making, you know, it's not. And so most governments when a budget get when they look on the horizon, oh my gosh, then there's the emotional impact. Oh my gosh, we're going to have to do things.

But then as soon as the it clears, we're good. and they go back to business as usual and then they build up things and they so I think to your credit it's trying to be disciplined not get over your skis pick your favorite idiom expression but I think it's that forecast

well and that I think Laney brought this up yesterday about placemaking that seems to be a trend that keeps coming up as well that people we hear the term walkability a lot people are looking for things to do in the community, diverse things to do in the community where they can walk around and get a cup of coffee and have dinner and maybe go watch their younger kids play or something like that. To your point about the old town and some of the efforts we're putting in there, that that seems to be a recurring theme from the public that if you want to do entertainment type stuff, you have to leave Fairly to do it. Um and so looking at that that place placem forecasting to say what areas do we have left and that's where our our uh whole town revitalization plan is is will come into play as we continue to push that out you know and on the topic of the the oldtown plan when we started that people got really excited about it and we're very excited about it has great opportunities how do we build in that we actually follow through with those things, get the education out to the community why there's value in it that the RO on all of that placement because it's going to cost money. I had that question asked uh last night.

Last night

to me and you know this is you know we we we could have a revitalization plan for this is this is now the second or third one you know and so what's different right that was that was the that was the question ultimately and I said well number one I said the amount of people we engaged in the process was off the charts different than anything we had done before. Secondly, we actually now have some infrastructure in place, drainage and those types of things that we didn't have 20 years ago versus today. So, we can actually now kind of move forward. But I said most importantly, this is an actionable actually actionable plan. And you'll see on Monday night the the 9th uh of you know an item to to move some design and and creative design, those types of things like the Grand Link. And I so I talked about it and I said so it's a plan that we have said we're not going to put it on the shelf. We're going to act on it. And it's not an overnight plan. I I did caution that you're not going to see it like a green field where it just gets built. Uh but the most important thing is we got to act on it. And so they were very pleased to hear kind of what we're doing. I even talked about 518 you know the oneway fair versus you walnut those I said radical change big time you know coming lots of decisions down the line but I said the council is committed to having action items and and checking those off to get it to get it to happen. Well, that's part of it. Having having the political wherewithal to keep Yeah. And not just have a good idea.

And I said, "We've got to find the right private partners 100%." You know, tax. I said that's that's that's a key component. So, it's got to be a market for them. You know, I'm going to put up that to you. The public private partnerships obviously is trending. You're not always the sole financeier or the operator, right?

You know, I'm on the road a lot. One of the beautiful things with my wife, we'll celebrate 26 years next month that she does for me. She's so benevolent and generous. Archie Kristen, if you're listening or watching, that yesterday, um, she sent me some pictures of things that she'd like for me to get for her Valentine's Day. She's so helpful. You know, sometimes when I get home, the catalog's on my pillow with the pages open, the items marked, and the colors selected. So, thanks, Kristen. Or I get the email. So, she sent me a picture yesterday just in case you were thinking of something while you're on the road. I'm just like, I love you, Chris. Thank you so much. So, I went to after a recession yesterday, I went to Macy's over there by BJ's. It's a ghost town. And I look around and we know conventional retail, most of development now is lifestyle centers. It's about restaurants, coffee shops, that traditional retail, as we've all seen, no big surprise. And I look around Macy's and I just think, how do they cover all this overhead? Now, I'm there at 5:00 on a it's a Friday afternoon, but I just think about as a small business, I just think, man, there's a lot of inventory here. I don't see a lot of foot traffic and that's not a surprise to anybody in here. We know that traditional retail, I would guess I'm not the only person in this room that spend most if not all their money for holiday shopping online.

And when we start to talk about the consequence of that, obviously you talk about Oldtown. Oldtown's not going to be. So the people who think where's the five and dime store, what year is it? Yeah.

Where's the roller ring? They're not coming back. It's a lifestyle, sir. It's more about restaurants. We go into restaurants now any time of day. I went into Cava the other. I was in San Antonio last week down Fairs Ranch. I wanted to come at 9:30 at night. It's full of people. 9:30, you know, I had a late meeting with council. A lot of young people just hanging out in there. I'm just sharing that with you that we see a rise in restaurants and people hanging out, but we definitely see a trend against conventional retail. And I think that's where sometimes members of the public are fickle and they say we want to kind of they wax nostalgic about traditional retail. But you're, as you all know, you're subject to market forces. So you want to subsidize retail. There's lots of stories out there where the government subsidized retail and didn't see the great return on it, but they were sort of forced to do that for fill in the blank. So I think as you look at old towns, you're discussing that again just that notion of placem and retail and you all have a good I'm just sharing that with you as an antecdote trying to jump to that.

As Patrick said, you talk about the business community there in that that page. You know, I I think what you just said is a threat, right? I mean, what's going to happen to some of the big box if and when? Right now, we we keep getting reports that the town center is is doing well as far as their portfolio is concerned, but I you know, every Monday that that that passes by and bases and Dillards is not on the chopping block, you know, and and and if that were to happen, what happens to that whole center? And now it it it's not ours. it's in private hands, but you know what is their plan B or C or D? Um, you know, that were to happen. And so that's a threat,

you know, to our local economy if and when something like that happens. Buster main event. No, you're you're exactly right. I mean, it turned into an entertainment. Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah. We're seeing more and more destination entertainment centers, recreation, uh, dining again. And we have two generations coming of age that don't even understand conventional retail.

Well, it even goes to zoning. Uh it goes to land use and and comprehensive planning. Um if if you're a city that that's experiencing massive growth like Iowa Colony Mel and the like, uh you know, my my thoughts to them is, you know, I wouldn't necessarily plan lots of big box retail. You're going to have some grocerers because that's that's going to be there. And I said, I I wouldn't necessarily plan for just thousands of acres of big box retail. It's not going to happen. Yes. Patrick, yesterday you mentioned uh you're seeing some EDC's focusing on residential that helps drive retail. Retail. Yeah. Now that Matt's in the room, can you hit hit on that?

Yeah. I was just sharing yesterday that, you know, the old the conventional wisdom is that retail chases rooftops. And for generations, local governments did not have as part of their economic development strategy residential development. They left it to the market. They did zoning, but that was about it. And for a variety of reasons, more cities are now being more intentional, whether it's about vertical growth, multif family zoning, because they know depend depending on the type of housing goes in, it's going to generate a certain retailer. Some that they may want, some that they may not want. So they're trying to look at residential development no different than commercial and industrial land for economic development. I'm just sharing that as a trend. I don't think the city shocked, but for a long time that was not part of their strategy. They left it to the market, but they're trying to be more conscious to say, "What kind of retailers do we want coming to that part of town?" Because we know they're going to follow. It's an algorithm. They're going to look at discretionary spending, traffic patterns, and if you get a certain high density zoning, guess what kind of retailers you're going to get?

I think in some ways, um, with with the, uh, Smith Range Road and funding the the bid dollars through EDC, it it's not a direct inducement, but it it's it's the emphasis to make that happen. So, you know, EDC's been involved in that one a little bit. Just I just thought of that one as as one were there um because that was the natural to figure out that donnut hole a little bit. And I think maybe, you know, not now, but having that intentional discussion to say, okay, if everybody wants a Trader Joe's or this or that, absent the the city stepping in and incentivizing it, which I don't think makes sense, what can we do, not incentivizing residential, but at least, okay, if if we want this type of place here, what does supporting residential look like? And is our UDC and zoning and everything set up to get us?

Yeah, I think like for example, uh the the support would be allowing power or whatever to to make that happen. Not necessarily cash reduces, but allowing something in our rules that as a result of that doesn't matter. And if you want a trade with Joe, you're going to have to be higher density, right? And I would share that trending across the country and has the last few years is higher density and vertical growth. for a number of reasons. That's what payline town center told us for that apartment complex south of so the point here was just trying to force out you know we'll come back to these

yes so those are in C4 and C5 I would say of our economic development strategic plan what we're talking about here yeah I think if you look at the broad overall look at Oldtown you know there was infrastructure money put into that by EDC that supported you know Sullivan um I think fruits of that take a long time to to ripen with all the other stuff we got planned in Oldtown, but also what we're looking at in the uh PCD building. So, I think we got bits and pieces of that, but absolutely I think we got to take probably a broader, more specific look at it. Well, I I think we'll hear the trader co comment, you know, with BCD and it's got to be intensity and you know, but yeah,

and that's the balancing act on councils cuz all the current residents want these certain set of amenities and stores and everything, but nobody wants multif family in their backyard and it's how how do we navigate that, right? Um and what's coming down,

right? Yeah. Well, the intent here was to flush out these trends. We can't fix them. Um, I think it reminds us that there are some things that are happening despite your best intentions. They're driven by the market or habits or many different factors, demographics within these are both opportunities and constraints. And I think that's where we want to be mindful as we look at this strategic plan to not have this should reduce your blind spots. Say that sounds like a really good idea. If we do this, is it going to be supported? And I say in a very light-hearted way, and this is an easy call. I'm not going down or anything to say this. Uh, cities don't build tennis courts anymore. They build pickle ball courts. And I'm married to a pickle ball player. My advice is don't get between a pickleball player and their paddle. This is serious business. Right, Kristen? As well as we're seeing more and more cities build um at like Fort Worth building cricket fields.

We have one and more and more. Right. That's that's requirements. But we're also finally saying before we take a break, we're also seeing a split among seniors. And if you've been in this business long enough, like some of us have, I remember before senior centers and they came out as boomers started to retire and they would show up at council meetings when I was in city management saying, "I don't want to go to the community center. Too many young people there. We need our own place to go play peanuckle and cribage and shuffle board and commiserate." Right. Patrick has an active poker. Right. There you go. But now as we see younger boomers, we got we got that. But his young

we're seeing as younger boomers retire, they want to go to their parents senior center and is passive. They want to go to some place that's an active lifestyle center where there's some, you know, wine tasting, maybe some speed dating and some guest speakers. They're more active. So, I think it just reminds us that when you look at the community, it's not resonance, it's demographics, whether they're little people and their appetites, middle-aged people in their appetites, or older people, their not better or worse, but I think the city obviously plays a critical role in addressing some of those, not solely, but partnering. I see more and more cities partnering with YMCA to essentially serve as their pseudo rec center.

I've seen that in places cuz they've got just different roles. It's like, well, they already have a rec center. Do we need our own? Why don't we just sort of partner with them? I'm just sharing that with you. I'm not saying here, but trying to think of that public private partnership to say who are the nonprofits or private business where we can work. I have a client in my hometown, Kansas City, coach Chiefs, where the city actually partners with Planet Fitness to give them a subsidy to give the residents a subsidy to go to Planet Fitness cuz the city's not that large enough to have their own. I'm just sharing that with you. I thought that was clever and pretty creative to say, well, instead of building our own, why don't we just partner with somebody that's already doing it, get our residents a reduced rate, and we're putting money on the table. But now people, they just want to go work out. Does it really matter? It's a city facility. So, on that note, why don't we go? We're a little uh we're about the schedule. I know we've been sitting a while, but why don't we go and take a break? I got 9:55. Be back at 10:00 and we have to wait before, right? Can we go and take a break?

Okay. So, we go to take a break, but the mic will still be on until right time Hey, as long as he gets there, gets checked in. So, I have

Okay. liked and I figured, you know, because I've been to Texas so many times, I've been visiting Texas for over 20 years with CL for clients that I'm starting to dip into the traditional Texas breakfast. So, when in Rome, and you're still the only state I know that call them breakfast tacos, but I'm in California, they just say, "What's wrong with those Texans?" Anyway, Much to your chagrin, I will share this with you. Much to your for some of you, much to your chagrin, te cities in Texas and California have a lot in common. I don't want to hear that.

Yeah, you do.

Not not ideologically, but what you both your states, which I think are unique in this country, what you share in common is you swing for the fences a lot. I've known some states, you know, my I lived in Arizona for 20 years. They're thrilled when an exit ramp opens. They don't swing for the fences. In Northeast, where I live now, much different. Not better or worse, just different. But you all swing for you try to do things that um when people say you can't do them, you try to do them. California does the same thing. They're trying to be somewhat bold, pragmatic, bold, and then when things don't turn out, get back in the batter, dust yourself off, and get back. I've seen some places, they don't get they don't even know where the stadium is. They're overly cautious, and then they wonder why they're not able to kind of move their community forward. I'm just sharing that with you. So, I'm sure that made made your day that I could. Well, let me refer now to the handout. We're going to just reaffirm as we do every year about the strategic priorities and in no particular order. These are trusted government. Trent went through these yesterday, but we just want to reaffirm these to make sure they're still in place. I'm going to go through them and then come back to them. There's trusted government, strong economy, safe community, sustainable infrastructure, resilient finances, and connected community. Sometimes elected officials will ask me, "Well, how long do these strategic priorities stay in place?" My response is, "As long as you think they're relevant." Most communities have five or six, so you're right in a good spot there. There's no expert, no expiration date on these. They're fairly conventional. They're all about word smithing. Most cities have something similar. I think it's manageable that you have six, right? Six.

I think it's good that you don't number them. Just you know cosmetic thing because when you number them the public interprets that's the most important priority. We just have this habit of one two. I'm just sharing that. So, so if you say do we need to update them? Most councils reaffirm them. Maybe they a little word smithing unless there's tremendous turnover on council then they may go back into the laboratory and say let's revisit them. But there's no particular expiration date much like a vision and a mission. Some of those are just long-standing. I'm just sharing that with you that um there there's no guarantee. There's no expiration date. And if you feel as though they're still good and solid, we just touch base and move on. No discussion. Everybody good? We want to make sure. So, okay, that was good. Now, what we want to do the balance of the of the day and we have time frames on here just to make sure we're moving along here. Keeping in mind that um some of you on the diversity of your background is a source of strength. I know some of you as council members are already there with the solution and others are still in the conceptual stage. You know, you're still asking questions because of just whatever your point of view is. I have seen many times where councils make the best decisions when they learn how to collaborate and exercise empathy and patience because some of these topics you're already there. They're right in your wheelhouse. Let's rock and roll. Let's get going. And I think always a challenge among counselors is to allow somebody to ask questions which may seem really rudimentary. That's sometimes a really good fresh set of eyes can really can can be beneficial because sometimes people don't know what they don't know and that's healthy for groups to go, "Oh, I hadn't seen that. That's a good point. What does that really mean? What are we doing? What does that obligate us to do?" And I think one of your strengths before we get into this list and mayor, you you you echoed this earlier where I see some

council struggle is um you're not hesitant to make decisions that your successors will have to inherit. You'd be surprised how many council members only want to make decisions that are going to be start and finish within their own term operationally, organizationally, financially. And time is not always an ally. So, I always try to encourage those elected officials, it was handed to you from your predecessors, these things don't wait or they they they should wait. So, I think to your to your credit as a governing body, you're always looking on a longer time horizon. You know, it's the old adage, it's hard to have a 5-year plan on four-year election cycles. You may have heard that before. And I think that's a strength of this group that you don't allow the term to dictate whether or not you decide to proceed. I'm just sharing the

I think that goes back to to Rush's comment earlier about the legacy. It's not any one of our legacies. It's it's the council, right? And I think it's as council, the the seven or eight of us that make the decision that's for the long haul. Now, the votes may change over time. I don't know that to to me, keeping that in mind is is supporting having the disagreement, having the discussion, and then that's that's where we're going.

Excellent point. I mean, I think as you all can probably would probably agree when you talk to the public, they talk about you as an entity. What's the council thinking? Why' they do that? They tend not to sort of pull one person and when you leave the council chambers, you know, you sort of whether or not you supported it or not, you're part of that where I see sometimes fissures happen among council members is where the classic people want their cake and eat it too. they voted against something and then they're out there sort of beating a drum trying to sort of throw uh gasoline on the situation with their colleagues and then they wonder why they have poor relationships with their colleagues. It's like people are not immune to feeling as though they're being sort of outed in a way politically when it just gave somebody some political points because again the public looks at you as council and there's always people I'm sure the day after council meeting you get calls from certain council members that echo chamber what'd you do that for why'd you vote with her why'd you vote with him and being able to withstand that and not lose your sense of your own compass I think is a testament to your to your character and to your to your role as a professional elected official so what we want to do for some of you painst taking slowly is we want to go through this list. Make sure you're still supportive. I know Trent has some ideas and I'm sharing with what I shared with him, what I heard from you all prior to today's session. So, there might be some new wrinkles that come up here. We're not trying to quote unquote boil the ocean today. So, we're not trying to project plan and solve it. We're trying to flush out, reaffirm. If there's some particular dimensions to some of these items that you want and the staff to get a sense of, that's healthy. At the same time, there's always that caveat that one elected official doesn't make a policy, right? And they have to be disciplined about that. Um, sometimes people fall in love with their own ideas, right? And there's also a difference between operational subjects and policy subjects. My guess is we're going to go back and forth about those. Operational, which are transactional, service delivery. Sometimes that's what people bring up. That's cool. But we may put that in the parking lot or Trent may talk to you

about offline about that because it's an operational or service delivery. We're trying to stay on more policy macro issues here which sometimes is a little bit more um harder to get your arms around. Sometimes it's just harder to get your arms around for some people cuz they're not there yet. So I'm going to start on page five about trusted government. I'm just going to walk through this. I know you can read, but I'm just going to read it out loud as you're processing this and then go through those items. delivering transparent, highquality and accessible city services by developing cuttingedge solutions, engaging with the community, and continuously improving our capabilities. And there's one through one through 1.5. The inter and by the way, when I touch on something here, I would ask Trent and Chad and Victor, if there's an item that you really want to pull out or you want a member of your staff to discuss, please feel free to interrupt me and do that because on my remember, I'm a flashlight in a mirror today. I'm not the subject matter expert on the content. The interconnected historical data. That was 1.1. 1.2 proactive accessible communication that is intentional and consistent. These are sort of principles. Correct. Yeah. 1.3 provide quarterly reports as was mentioned earlier to the audit committee on progress of internal control reviews. Then 1.4 develop and implement a citywide framework for ethical artificial intelligence use that aligns with city of paraline values and operational goals. Trent touched on that a little bit yesterday. And then 1.5, monitor, assess, and respond to state legislative actions that preempt local authority, ensuring paraline's ability to govern effectively and advocate for community specific needs. Item A, develop internal protocols and external engagement strategies to address multifamily housing proposals and SB840's implications for local zoning authority. So, you start to see some objectives on here, some action steps. Yeah. thoughts about that?

Sound good? Could I just go ahead? Could I just make an observation? Um, and you just hit on 1.1 and 1.2 are overall goals, aspirations, not actions. And all the rest are actual deliverable actions, things that will happen. I just wonder whether we need to rethink 1.1 and 1.2. So how would 1.3 be better under strong economy? No. Okay. Thank you. Audits that functioning trusted how we how we

but strong on one economy. I'm sorry I meant the other ones. The other one resilient finance. Sorry.

So one one and one two I think it's good to call them out. I think it's good to have I mean we've got to make sure that we're not in silos with historical data and we're and we're proactive on all this. Where would we put those? I agree with you. They're kind of aspirational. They're not specific milestones. So, not to jump too much around what you got in front of you, but if we go to the memo that was provided that's in the back of the packet kind of uh this is page three of the memo 39 to 45. We start the memo by kind of saying these are the milestones that we have completed and then on these ongoing efforts um some of these things we wanted to categorize as kind of built into our

Yeah. daily operations and and normal uh reports and processes that we do. I think that's where Victor was getting interconnected historical data, proactive, accessible communication that's intentional and consistent that we want to kind of count those as those are built in. They're continuous efforts and not necessarily future milestones. And that's kind of how we had them in the memo. We kind of colorcoded everything. Yep. So would we just list them as continual? I don't know what the word is. Ongoing efforts. How you describing those? Ongoing ongoing.

So we don't, you know, we don't set them aside and forget them. make sure those threats are still part of our ongoing efforts, but really the future focus is on the remaining um u milestones that either are new or are, you know, continuing from previous set milestones, which would be the green and blue. Well, the blue Okay. I think to your point, Victor, 1.1 and 1.2 are more kind of ideological drivers of the strategic priority than they are tangent goals.

Yes. So, making sure I understand what we're doing. Are we trying these these bullet points underneath each strategic priority? Are we trying to get to where every one of those are tangible goals? Yeah, those are intended to be milestones. So really a general direction and some time frame we want to get that accomplished within. Um and I think so get trying to get to where they're more they are all more milestones and some of those more aspirational ones just those especially the ones we feel like we've got built into the way the organization operates that take those off the actual milestone list.

Yes. So, so one one if I recall uh that hit here two years ago, uh or last year, one or the other. And it was really a a comment about um things happen over time and and we need to make sure that that we're capturing historical data, historical mindset because that may be something that happened 5 years ago or 10 years ago or a decision and data from there is what's still driving you know some conversation or you know project or whatever today and I think the conversation was with people coming in and out staff coming in and out council coming in and out h how do we have that as part of the framework of why are we doing this

right and it goes back to that so so from a goal standpoint rather than an ideology standpoint it's establishing protocols and right or establishing controls and infrastructure to maintain historical right so the things we've done is in our Thursday package memos, uh, providing links back, you know, not just saying, hey, where there was a memo four years ago about this, but actually linking back to that memo, providing that kind of linkage of previous decisions back through uh agenda request and things like that. So So the controls and the infrastructure are there, why not take it off? That's that's where I was getting with this. We're really doing it. Yeah, you built that in. So I think as a milestone, it's like it's completed.

Yeah. It's just the vagueness of the language doesn't really let you say done. Right. Exactly. So, we've really done it and we ongoing doing it. I agree with you. Shouldn't even be on here. It's a practice that we're doing now. So, and pretty common in strategic plans, things are on the list and when they're completed, if it's a project or if it's a point of view or a protocol, at some point things come off the list. Come off the list. Yeah. they just doesn't mean they're less important, but it may be you've operationalized it in a way about how you're doing business and so or a project has been finished. That's easier. But

right, uh I will say on 1.4A probably should add SB15 to that list as well. Five, huh? 1.5. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at the memo. Yeah. Why don't we focus our attention on the memo because I think this is better information.

Sorry, got the memo and went there. We we need to add SP15 to that. So, it's not just SB840 and the multif family side, but if you'll recall the SB15 is the tiny lot bill that we got raised from, you know, 90,000 in populations 150. So, it will affect us from 150 in population. And so we need to keep building in what our strategies are uh for that. Under 1.4 you said. Yeah. So in the memo page three uh 1.4A mentions 840.

We need to also talk about SB15. That was the time lot. Thank you. because there's some things for example the one over off of uh Mard Road that was denied seven 8 acres uh John's SP15 we don't even see that it'll it'll let it happen before we jump so sorry you know how linear I am are we are we striking 1.1 and getting that off the list

so I'm fine with it I just we didn't we But I think it's something if we if we it didn't resolve if we processed it into our way of thinking then it's there. I mean we we accomplished the goal. Yeah. I mean those that was I think he was here and we came up with those. We came in. Are we putting it somewhere else or we're just removing it? Yeah. It's accomplished and it's happening through our operational procedure. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. I didn't want to SB15. You're good. I just

We just need to make sure that and maybe that's 1.4B. Yeah. And and you're restating it, but we just need to have something about SB15 and what our strategy is, how, what, and where. What's what's going to be the reaction to it? how do we respond, react and everything else when that happens. Does does there need along this topic? Does there need to be a larger conversation about um council's physical engagement in Austin as we know Austin is going to come for local control more and more and more and more rather than just relying on

I guess the question is is that under trusted government is that where does that fall in our goals? But I mean I think yes the more engaged we are I mean the the different profile that we we've brought Joel to and and everything else our engagement in Austin during session is far different today than it was you know two three sessions and prior. So yeah I agree with that. So I don't I mean obviously these got passed despite our efforts to you know but I think that goes back to the elected official and the

the interest in what they carried or not carried right but you don't have to physically be in Austin per se council members as your connection to your elected official John Brad senator elected official but if we made regular trips to Austin and spoke and get some of this stuff. Well, we made record trips. We made record phone calls. We made emails. We made text messages. We we reached out and said, "This is a bad bill." And and while we didn't get it to 200 or 250, we did get it from some time. Yeah.

Because had it not happened, we would have already been under it. Oh god. So I think the milestone you have to talk about those and then it's really the operational plan and the discussion we have going forward that's going to set you what those specific things we're going to action coming out of that are obviously one of them is going to be that engagement I think I kind of answered my own question when I reread the distribution of trust so just in the sense that it's more local this is more local based not external

so you know we we didn't have a lot of time to to react other than we don't like the bill and we don't like certain things we we we were able to throw together, you know, very quickly and and take it to Austin with with us and that is here's how much we did this specifically for SB15. I don't know that we did it for SB840, but we did it for SB15. Here's the amount of acreage that's zoned residential that's 5 acres or more unplatted. That was the, if you'll recall, that was the uh uh the nuts and bolts of it. And so here's what that would translate to with the number of residential units if 100% of that went to a 20 foot lot. Um and we've got those memos and we've got all that stuff. What we didn't really have the opportunity to do just because of the timing. So this is something to gear up towards the next legislative session. And here's the here's what could happen if this goes into effect. and in our community. We've got to we got to have ongoing education of the legislators, the the the hit to water and sewer, the hit to roads, the hit to uh police and fire personnel, so forth and so on. The question is, do they care?

They passed their deal and they moved on. And one thing to to help with the influence is that we have other cities that are similar to us in similar situations uh instead of just us by ourselves, right? Because we've got to have a coalition coordination there where we coalition and we need to target all those. I mean I know specifically in our area I mean link city can't stand either one of these bills. I can I can tell you through uh prior to me being elected and just speaking at council, I had people from all over the country reach out to me about short-term rentals and he used

and there's one lady up in Irving that is about as smart as can be. And we had a bill come down uh that she wanted to help get squashed and she asked me how well I knew Ed. And so I mean that activism uh helps amongst just outside of us. But I but I think in addition to just monitoring and understanding what the legislature is doing here because that's what the goal is. I think both 840 and S SB15 there may need to be something and I don't know if it falls under trusted government or strong economy or infrastructure exactly where it falls but we need to be proactive in knowing what that's going to look like physically on the ground and how that's going to affect us and how do we prepare for that. I I give you some I don't mind if this is on tape or not, but I remember getting with Lawrence and Darren and saying, "Okay, do we proactively reszone every uh commercial business piece of property back to SD?" So, it's not zoned and just effectively cut it off. That's radical. I'm just saying that's a that's a radical move. But what can we do to position our cities so it's not just coming in by right and we have a say in what's going on?

It's not far off from what some other cities actually have done that we're over the 150. So I'm I'm just and and fortunately we've had some cities, you know, do some of that. But so and should that be a goal that we look into and position ourselves on a defensive defensive posture so we understand, you know, or not understand so we protect our city from these. But I and I would also go in we're talking about two bills at the micro level. Um and Patrick said the micro the macro. Um, we don't know what's going to come at us next in legislative session. So, it needs to be something more than just these two.

That's why I'm saying both of these. Should we have another goal somewhere in here where we're devising a plan for us to combat both of these? Yeah. No, I'm saying these two, but what else is going to be coming? Because there going to be something coming. Well, these two could write they they could change the numbers. Anyway, Yeah, they're going to be tied together. So, if we could, they can keep them in one. And I know they touch multiple strategic priorities, but but I think what I'm getting is, yeah, we we want to have the advocacy, we want to have that, but we also need to do this deep deeper dive into the true impacts of these things. And now that it's done, what's going

like we did last time was saying, hey, if if SB15 went instead of, you know, a,000 additional units, we're going to have I think it was 7. It was ridiculous. 29,000. 29,000 additional units. We can take that next step and say we don't have the water for that. We don't have the waste water capacity. That's kind of Yeah. Um we can take those next steps and and and pro so that we have that data and information to provide to our state legislators and folks that are going to advocate alongside us. Um those sort of things. So I think that's kind of what I would

maybe rather rather than 14A to to I think where you're going in your brain. Correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe rather than it say develop internal protocols, external engagement yada yada and SB40's implications and SB15's implications more a matter of developing internal protocols and external engagement strategies as well as um infrastructure predictions for affordability control coming from the state. Yeah, because I mean who knows what what other bills are they going to throw at us. Yeah, but I think also we didn't know these two were coming at us this past session. Yeah, I think we want to ignore the bills, but the implications of those generically those types of bills, something that's more

I think also knowing and understanding best practices of what cities over 150 have been doing so we get an idea of what that looks like. Have there been any court challenges to it? Well,

how's the how's the legislature going to react to those next session? Because they're going to close off some of those some of those loopholes or step aides. I think we considered um they those some of those have been done. The legislature is going to be close off. So, are there other options as well? What's the next step? What's the next I mean, I think yesterday we talked about looking at fees, right? Impact fees on on whether it's traffic or whether it's on uh tapping fees. I think that's a big cost. I mean, obviously, we were talking about if we had the water capacity or sewer capacity, but I think maybe just making it financially, you know, beneficial for the city to, you know, recoup some of these costs if they're coming and letting them pay for it. And I think yesterday you guys said was 50% is being covered by

residents. So, the impact fee is for water and sewer. The max that you can charge is 50% of the of the impact, not 100%. So I guess with the new addition of the sewer plant and I guess the uh water treatment plant, have we up those speeds? Have we calculated what the new cost would be? And we did we did it two years ago. Yeah. that and they that they would have incorporated the cost we knew at the time for those and that's a fiveyear you can't do you can future cost and so to your point though um

so built into those fees were anticipated you know development coming in and so for example if an apartment comes in they're going to pay a different impact fee than a housing going to come in because it's based on meter size now so They're going to pay 50% of the cost of that new plan. Yeah. I mean, I guess I I don't know how the traffic impact would work, but obviously a traffic impact fee would be consider I would say consider that

if that's on the table, if that's something we can put on the table. So, things like a goal and milestone, we want to have something in there. You know, what are the strategies to thwart these efforts by the state? um whether it be uh regulatory based on water capacity some sort of fee structure um alongside yeah gathering what are the impacts on public safety and the cost associated with that. I mean, it's really kind of look at all the different strategies and options for insulating ourselves and and once we go the impact feed route, I think, you know, Matt want to make may want to weigh in on some of this is we're going to impact some of the development of new business coming to town that we want. And so we let's make sure we the unintended consequences come. How do we deal with that? We have lower Kirby where we've got 2 million square feet that's still looks like it's coming well 2 million plus PCD and everything else. What does that look like if we do road type?

We've got a structure out there for handling that and getting reimbursed for that. What does that look like on top of it? So, that's an I where you're headed with it. I think it's something we ought to have a conversation, but we should also know what the downside is. I think we also have leverages to pull to say the incentive packages we give right on rebates on city taxes or whether we pay for their impact fees. So we do have some other leverages for businesses that we do want right. I mean I think the thing is we want to balance out residence versus commercial and uh I mean I think that's we just have to figure out some other levers to pull

but we also have to think about stuff we talked about earlier but with what the community is asking for with that entertainment that walkability that outdoor lifestyle you know why isn't that here now right I mean it's not that we have a small population why isn't it here now is are we going to focus on being only a rooftop community or what what to Tony's point earlier if that's the goal we're trying to get to. I know we're off of trusting government trends looking at another shut up and so if if we're trying to get to that goal because that's what the community is asking for what type of residential infrastructure we have to create to get there. So we have to be careful with that balance to your point. How how do we balance all of those things? And that's a tricky thing to consider going going back to this point that we're talking about. It's really looking at how do we insulate ourselves from the reduction of local control period. It's not just in in relation to housing,

right? It may be in relation to setting our tax rate, right? It may be in relation to how we can manage drainage and how we can handle CEDOs, bond, all this kind of stuff. bond elections, you know, all those kinds of co policies. Yeah. All of them.

And I think that as we are navigating through all this, putting it together, you know, figuring out what's going to be best, what methods, what, you know, I think that there's also the component of communication to the public, you know, that, you know, how what does that look like? You know, educating the public, you know, is that is that a responsibility of ours? Is that a responsibility of a developer that wants to come in, you know, to get that information out there, you know, it's just it's just there's a little bit more to it. It's not just yes, we have to figure it out as a government body, but communicating it because I don't know how much the public knows about, you know, what's coming down the pipeline.

Yeah, they don't. They don't. And which is one of the reasons why after that one zone change that we denied over there on the card while people were still in the room cuz SB15 was working its way through the legislature. I brought it up and said if that passes and we're in the correct bracket you're not even here they can automatically get right and so this is kind of radical. You know, again, I think sometimes you have to be that way. But can we put a requirement on anyone who builds under 84 SB15? And part of your local conditions, you got to have a sign up that says this development's brought to you by the state legislature under SB15 or SBA4. I like that

and your local government did not approve or uh even have action on this. So, I put up here just listen to all of you just this is very sketch. This is this is a really rough sketch of what you I was trying to hear what I heard the goal was right so don't hold me to this establish and implement strategies to address andor mitigate impacts from potential state legislation and I just put down financial operational infrastructure public education that would seem to be kind of an overarching goal and then you have action steps much like you talked about so as we see in the strategic plan it's not only the what we also get into the how

I I think that's what we're certainly getting into. But this is a um this is a major undertaking, not just for staff, obviously all of you. And my guess is you're going to be in this business for the foreseeable future. It's not a hiccup. By the way, this is trendy. Yeah.

I was in North Dakota over the summer. They're dealing with it. My home state, Missouri is dealing with it. California's been dealing with it since the 70s. So they're very custom. Talk about best practices. This is a time to talk to some cities or some of your colleagues through the National League of Cities or other outlets, not just TML. How have they dealt with it in other states? I'm just sharing that with you, right? How do they how does some city deal with it in another state that's dealing with it? Not to say that what they cut and paste or plug and play, but it's not that unique about what's happening across the country. And the next thing we were talking yesterday is property tax. I mean, it's already this isn't a matter of if, it's when. and we're seeing that on the ballot this fall. Florida's putting it on the ballot. Missouri's talking about it. Um it's they've already put it on the ballot. Some states it was voted down, but they're still coming back. So, I think just this gives it's a point of emphasis. And this is probably where you're going to be partnering with not only elected officials or partner with staff, but also other cities, TML, other entities, maybe private business, res citizen groups. You can bring a lot of attention to this if you're intentional about it as opposed to oh yeah. So I think a lot of cities take a passive role. It's one thing for Trent or the staff to show up at a hearing. It's a whole another thing when elected officials show up. You walk in the room, you have a different level of gravity. You just do you're an elected official. I'm just sharing that with you. Right. So uh it's never convenient.

No. Right. It's never convenient. Have somebody

I guess on the trust of government uh think about it from a citizen standpoint, but let's go think about it from the the developer on Magnolia and the Moto Medis development. And I I I think they'd probably laugh at us when they say trusted government when they they spent however much to get to the final one or or second vote. And so I I think we've got to dig into the multifamily discussion so we can give them some clarity so that they can trust because if if any developer was watching some of that process, apparently it's not businessfriendly at all, right? We'll string you along till till the very end. Yeah.

I didn't string anyone along. I wasn't for that development period. Yeah. No, I mean council is a body. We we strum along to the very end and that's not building trust I'd say on either side. Um but would you say that's hypocrisy? I mean people came and showed up that they didn't want your community was engaged, right? They were falling asleep the first wheel but as soon as they found out some people actually came and said, "Hey, I didn't hear about this till yesterday." So the developer wasn't that Hold on. The developer wasn't that trustworthy either. He didn't really go out there and communicate with the the residents like he said. So, it's a two-way street. Had you had one citizen that was out of town until last week,

but you had 108 people show up, I believe, for for the uh one on Magnolia, right? I mean, they had time to come up and kind of understand what the project was about and people organized. So, you can't say the council was not trustworthy. No, I'm saying that the process in general if if if we would have notified them up front 18 even if there was 50 that showed up up front that would have saved staff who knows how many hours that would have saved the developer who knows how many tens or hundreds of thousands through the process. I think that would be much more fair than going all the way to the final.

So then let's spread our notice for apartments to more than 200 ft. So to me that the milestone is examine the process and see if there's a way that we can address those type of things

and when and when. So back to your point you know we we have a workshop you know early early you know on the in the process no one gets notified. So, so then the question is what catchment area do we do we notify and how does that look you know showing up for the workshop so they're engaged from day one cuz even people who are showing up at the last minute were spouting things about the development that just simply wasn't in the development. It was what they thought or maybe heard or you know eighthand information about something not firsthand. And so if they're invited to the table from day one, there might be a different outcome and a different look on the on the back end. But it also goes back to Tony's point. If we truly believe that we want to give you a cheap note, we we need to follow through with that and have a process in order to do that. I mean, you you build other communities and you don't want to go out on the hook any further than you have to go to. And if you can get a cheap no, you you'd rather fold your tent and move on down to the next community. U but if we're going to go past a certain level, not to say that we make that decision there because you you can't. It's in the final details. But that's your point. How trusted are we that once we've gone through a a certain point?

I mean, transparency is extremely important, but if you already have four yeses and two nos, there's no guarantee that you're going to get that true. I mean, at the end of the day, I get that. No, I get that. So there there's a risk on their end. Absolutely. There is there's a risk that one there was it was 42 and then it went 24. Yeah. I was think Yeah. But I mean I would say on the flip side when you look at what happened on Nap Road, I think the process worked there, right? We had 32 nos or more than that from citizens and the council was stuck with it because again council thought, hey, this was a good project and we we didn't string them along, right? So, I mean there's also good examples. I'm not apartment is a hot topic.

It is. And that's why I go back to information. I mean to your point uh member Carbone is that you know if we bring the public in early at the workshop and so forth but also somewhere along the way if it's the developer if it's the city someone bringing in SB u you know Senate Bill 40 or or you know if it's a multif family you know and educating them that okay this is what's coming down the pipeline this is what it looks like today you know the setback's going to be this way the the quality of the material and the overall look could be this way, but in four years from now when the census comes through and we are at 150, we're not going to have that choice, nor will it come to us because it's by right and as long as it's a commercial piece of property, they're going to be able to build it, you know, and so that education is where I think is a big part of this. So that, you know, regardless of what the outcome of the council's decision at the time, I think that we need to make sure that the public in whatever radius we're talking about is aware that in addition to what is being proposed there is let's pause for a second and know what's coming down the pipeline in four years.

But mayor said mayor mentioned the what was coming. I think I did and then another council member Clint did. So if you said it was spoken of three times, they don't it it's not going to change their mind. Well, they may not hear that, but that was uh correct me if I'm wrong. Was that first hearing? No, second. Was it second hearing? Okay. So that's so that's the first time they heard it. No, it was mentioned in the first hearing.

Okay. So that's why I'm saying even if we were to talk about first hearing and second hearing, that's still a twoe period of time that that the residents were made aware to those that were watching to those that were present. And my thing is is that it should be to member Carbone's part is it needs to go further further back I think at the workshop and so forth. So to that point and and I don't I don't disagree with uh engaging the public earlier and engaging the public as in every way that we can but let's say we the rule of thumb that if we have been followed is set by the state it's 200 ft. That's what we follow. We follow that. We want to make it 500 ft. What happens when people that are 3,000 ft away show up

or 6 miles away on the other side of town show up? Right? So it can't just be about that. We also have to understand that yes, you're you're right. Multi multif family, we all hear about multif family is a hot topic. No question about it. It is a hot topic. But we have people in our community that their their answer to that question is just I don't want anything that's and I'll and I'll get a 100 people to show up and say no to whatever is developing.

That's what happened in that book. So from a, you know, high level perspective, I mean, some of the things we're trying to struggle with here is kind of balance between the people in the room that are affected or maybe are affected, um, and the other 135,000 people in our community and what is the best for the city for that particular zoning case. And I know y'all are the ones that put in the hot seat. You got to actually vote when those people are in the room. And that's what what what what's that's the hardest part about this. Um, but trying to balance that versus what is the best for the city long term, right? And I think looking at some of these looking at some of these potential process changes, educational changes help that. But again, I think there we're always going to have the people impacted.

Yeah. What? We got nimies and go through your

Oh, okay. Yeah, there's we know nimi people not in my backyard. Then there's cave people, citizens against virtually everything. banana people build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything and no not on planet earth. So let me interject here for a moment and kind of build on if you would just bear with me for a second because I'm seeing this around the state and kind of the microcosm around the country but in Texas it's particularly unique because you know it is Texas. So we talk about land use as the centerpiece. That's kind of fundamentally what we're talking about, right? And what we know or what you all uh sort of espouse is property rights. Taxes is a strong property rights that probably an understatement. Then you have um local government. Fair enough. Then you have um community standards. Depend on who you ask, they're different. What am I missing here? This collision doesn't

the state over the state. There we go.

So I think you and I'm just showing this that who tends to have the most prominent voice. Well, in Texas, what I've gathered from 20 years working here um is property rights tends to be sort of the king of all this. I'm going to do what I want when I want however I want. If people next to me don't like it, that's too bad. I was in Pharaoh's Ranch last week, which is a suburb about 10,000 people just north of San Antonio. If you know where that where you know Far's Ranch right there off I think it's uh 10. I had never been there before. And I'm driving from the San Antonio airport and I get there and you it's continuous. And then I I had a community we had community meetings. I moved here for the rural atmosphere. Have you gone outside on I 10? It's not really rural anymore. maybe when you first moved there.

And they're in three counties. So, you think their point of view is not diluted? It really is. And they have over 60 HOAs. Imagine that. 60 HOAs who essentially quasi governmental agencies. We think cities are restrictive. HOAs are a lot more restrictive. I'm just sharing with you. But at those public meetings we had last week, there was a big discussion between property rights, the local government, community standards, and the state government. This this is a this is capitalist. Yeah. And and Pat, you throw in the middle of that, there's market forces. Yes. There's the market

that are that are happening out there with affordability and and all of that. And so you take the property rights when they can't get what they need. They go over to the state government and put pressure, put a lot of money into it, everything else. And the state government comes up with a decision based on market forces and forces the local government to do what they want them to do. and then a local community is no longer able to say this is what we want to be when we grow up. Well, and I I would put on the table too um and listening to all of you and I've heard this conversation many times throughout my practice, the years I've been in practice and being in city government, I don't think I've ever been to a public hearing where somebody was for something. Have you?

Yeah. Who packs typically? Who typically packs the room on public hearings? Yes. People who don't want something. Is it any is it any um surprise that you end up getting kind of shoved into a corner from and then as soon as the item is over they leave? Yep. So I would offer to you and I shared this with you last year but just as a reminder not only there four types of citizens now I'm going to amend that to the three types right cuz this gets it right what you're talking about. There's your fans. Anybody remember this from last year?

There's your fickle and there's your frustrated. And frustrated are two camps. There's cynics and skeptics. Skeptics drive change. Cynics. Some people are miserable and they like it. They think the best days for Parland are behind it. Which of these three groups do you hear from the most? The fans, the pickle, or the frustrated? Frustrated. Easy. All day long. You listen to them. Why get up?

Right. Why have a meeting for whatever reason? Right. I'm not saying their concerns are not legitimate, but they sort of this is done deal. don't have. I think skeptics are cautious optimists. I believe you. I'm just not sure it's going to happen. That's okay. I think that helps public policy hold you all accountable. But cynics tend to sometime, it's the old adage, public policy is made by those who show up. Of these three groups, ironically, the group that gets neglected are these people. Correct? No one enlists them. They're busy running their lives, raising their kids, going sitting at a commute, going to an event. They don't understand these things are at risk. The benefits of good government are at risk because you have people over here, I'm generalizing here, that want to turn government into a vending machine. I don't want to pay for what I get. You hard to build a community with a vending machine mentality. This did not come through because you're trying to do things on the cheap and easy. Fair enough.

So, I think when you're in that public policy debates here, how do you even list the fans? You have people that love this community. They're third generation or they moved here with their family or started a business here. These are people often left out. I think to transport point you're always trying to balance the people that are squeaky wheel with trying to interpret how about the rest of the group. So I I'm just encouraging you to think about strategically how do you enlist these people in public policy discussions because I would doubt and I would doubt anybody calls somebody to come down to support an issue. But we know that online it's just full of graffiti and gossip man they're full of their stuff in the ballot box. Show up. Show up. show up. Even on social media, I was I've done this with communities. We'll often do put things out online on Facebook and one of the caveats I always advise clients, don't have people rank things. We just want their comments. So, we do a word cloud. You have people rank it, they start stuffing the battle box. 80 people said we need a pool. It was one person who said it 80 times, but then you get all the well 80 people wanted. I'm just sharing that with you that people know how to game the system. And I think these some of the people exactly know how to game. It's a strategy. The challenge is local government doesn't really have a strategy and you're left to who shows up

and I think we live in unique times where unless you enlist the fans to help them understand what's at risk which is this then I think they they may not show up.

Yeah. So Patrick I think u not necessarily in a in a particular zoning case but in general we we do enlist fans we do that through like the parent prosperity plan uh you know 2.0 versus even the one before uh our 2020 plan and all of that you know the and comprehensive plan and the various things where you know you have uh maybe not 80,000 you know comments are in front of people with the old town site but where you may have you know several hundred people three four 500 people that participate the process and they generally they like what this community is about. Those are your fans. they get they get put into those situations as part of our overall planning and then sometimes we forget what the nuts and bolts of you know the prosperity plan and everything else that we've adopted says when we're in the middle of the zoning fight well I would say you have you know the ambassadors and the graduates are your city university

how about calling them and saying you know what we got a really contentious item on the agenda tomorrow night we really need to have a balanced point of view from people that get it from a different point of view I know there's some level of risk but they're often not tapped and they may be watching at home or they may not even know. So again, public policy tends to get tilted and then I think it puts you all in a corner where you're trying to counter it. I think that you're that's that's challenging and I'm I'm not unless you sort of have a strategic approach to counter that, you're going to be left to the to the vices of people who want to stuff the ballot box and show up and storm the council, put their name on a petition. Most people don't even read the petition. They just put their name on and then show up. You had something council member Russia.

No, I was just I was just going to follow up on what was being said and and you know I'm just going to conclude because we're we're beating this up quite a bit is you know um when I when I speak about information to the public um that's not a catchall. Everyone's going to be um agreeing to it after they know what's coming down from the state. No one's saying that. But I think it is important that we do our part as a city or a developer or whatever to make sure that they're aware what's going on. At the end of the day, if the efforts are in place and the efforts were said to the residents within a certain radius or if those efforts were shown, then I think and I'll speak for myself that now I know that the residents were told I'm going to look at the broader picture of not only those that are opposed or those that are in favor, but I'm looking at what's best for the city of Periland moving forward. And but at the end of the day, the information was provided uh to them so that they're aware that we make a decision today. If it's if we're opposing something that it could, you know, make a big change in four years.

Yeah. And I'm just coming back to the point you brought up. So this is a not a subtle difference, but I think it's of magnitude, right? Public information. Most governments do a really good job of informing the public. I'm not sure they do a very good job of educating the public. There's information, education, and knowledge and wisdom. And I think when you start educating the public, then you have a a story to tell. Now you're shaping the story. You're not just saying here's here here show up, but you're actually articulating the impact of that legislation. That's a that's a different story than saying that guess what this I'm just sharing that with you that that's a marketing approach and not just here you go. Um show up. So yes, ma'am.

Oh, did you have some? Uh I was just going to say um Fernandez appreciate some of that and you know and I more just say the obvious piece of it taking someone from enimism to even open-minded in the time frame the public process gets like I don't like to speak absolutes but it's almost impossible. And so I do appreciate just the comment about you know if we can show that we've done a certain thing you know we're going to vote for the community but taking you from not at the table at all to a guess in even from a workshop to the second vote is just a few months. Yeah. Suffice to say, and I I would encourage you, we talked a little bit about this yesterday, this this as a kind of a launch pad, the things you got into the zoning and all that, think of this as a process-based approach, not an event-based approach. While you may change your the uh the outreach for public notification from 200 to 5, whatever, right? That's an event, but it stems from a process. It means it's an ongoing concern. You're always doing this. It's a priority. You're never done with it. I think that's where government sometimes strugg Yeah. And you're never going to be done with it. It's an ongoing concern, which means it's going to consume a certain amount of staff time to do that. It's not just, oh, by the way, make sure you do that.

And I think that's Tony's point to begin with. It's going to we want to turn this into a process change, not just an event.

So, I think we've got enough to get something written up to make sure it meets that and then we'll we'll start working through that. That may be all we do this next year. There's a lot there's a lot in that and I'm kidding. Hey Patrick, I wanted to just back up real quick in the memo just to kind of knock out just confirm the completed milestones. We put this memo out. We really haven't discussed it. Um so on the first page of the memo, we've got 11 milestones that we completed over this past year. It was the um the agenda information or the agenda item request modifications. Uh we completed those. Uh we're providing quarterly reports to the audit committee on our internal control reviews. Under strong economy, we completed the Oldtown master plan. Uh we completed the 518 corridor study with HAC. Uh next page is safe community. Uh we completed unified dispatch feasibility study findings. Uh we did the uh we we got the development of the gun range and driving track uh underway with the land acquisition completed. Um evaluating and considering um the incident management team certification pay implementation. We evaluated did not implement uh sustainable infrastructure uh evaluate the productivity of the drainage maintenance plan that was shared at the March 24th uh 2025 CIP update series on drains and transportation. We'll provide another update uh but there's no changes recommended at this time uh on that on for that team. And then resilient finances uh implemented recommended changes in finance staffing established the office of management and budget and the performance management an analyst and then under connected community um the customer service assessment report was completed and we implemented the Cisco call center application uh and that roll out has occurred. Um so in addition to completing those particular milestones, we also have multiple action items uh that came out of last year's strategic planning session that didn't rise to the level of an actual milestone. Um so we call them action

items. Um so of the 11, nine of those are complete or two of them are still in progress. Uh so those under trusted government uh we had a memo uh outlining the proposed modifications to the AIR 65th north report on fire department operations study was shared in February under safe community. The real-time crime center results and benefits was shared in a memo in March. We conducted the initial meet confer process with PPOA and was approved in June and we have have established quarterly meetings with professional firefighters association as well as PPOA and have those set ongoing under infrastructure. Um we uh detailed the street rehabilitation efforts at the last uh CIP update on that. Uh covered the methodology of pothole repairs. uh did an evaluation and recommendation for how to fully fund the needs of the infrastructure fund. Um so, you know, trying to get that from where we were. The FY26 budget included uh an additional I think it was $800,000 to get us 2.6 million with a plan to add another half million annually till we get to that 6 million. More if we can, more if Ma can talk y'all into more. um resilient finances a workshop on procurement initiatives was conducted regular council meeting in February and then connected community these are the two ongoing ones so exploring transit options for the elderly disabled and non-emergency medical transports so we've got Joel taking a look at that we've just it's it hasn't been a priority to this point and then uh explore the role of nonprofit and other organizations in service delivery and we've really delved into that as far as emergency response with mayor helping lead that effort along with Peter and his team and we're going to look at that uh across the organization as well. So that's really ongoing. So that now gets us kind of where we jumped into a minute ago uh on the uh what we called ongoing efforts that we want to pull out of the

milestones and the blue the new milestones uh or some of these are not blue and they're just ongoing milestones. So um I think we got through the trusted government one so ready to go strong economy.

Thanks. That's going to something easy. The economy that was sarcastic see obviously and thanks for sharing that. Lots going on. Things continue to be high volume. Remember that some of these are not substitutes. They're supplements. So when you look at um on page four uh the first one was 2.1 attract new investments from businesses driving increased sales and property tax. 2.2 2 was driving future growth through redevelopment and reinvestment in older areas of the community. 2.3 is engaging employers and education partners on workforce issues, increasing the number of residents who work in paral. I'm just reading these as you process this. 2.4 Continue work with governmental partners to secure state and federal funding. Going on to the next page. 2.5 Continue to focus on the priorities outlined in the comp plan and the paraline prosperity plan. 2.6 continue the process. update the UBC and 2.7 continue to nurture sports tourism initiatives including tournament recruitment, tournament servicing, and sports facility improvements.

So, so again on these, we've colorcoded these to the ones that we feel are kind of baked into the way we do business, but continue to be priorities, but don't necessarily be need to be milestones as we move forward. And then the ones that are that are still in uh black text, uh those would continue uh along with adding the ones in blue. And we just kind of want to go through and confirm all that and see if there's anything else that we that we want to tweak or add as well. I know you talked about under 2.2 item C that's come up I think every year I've worked with you all about Oldtown. So that's in the throws implementation items from the Oldtown master plan including the Oldtown Broadway realignment and Grand Link conceptual plan lot to that involves a lot obviously more than two more than one sentence obligates a lot of departments to a lot of different things a lot of moving parts to that so and then 2.3 engage engaging employers and education partners what we want to try to do on these is you're processing them is are which of these items if anything do you want to at least have a discussion to consider uh accelerating sooner faster? What's the time frame on some of these? Do you have an appetite? If you want to move it sooner or faster, uh it may be restricted because of funding, timing, engineering, what have you. If there's an item, as Trent mentioned, if there's an item that's not on this list that you might want to discuss, Tony, what you brought up earlier about um go ahead designing our residential around the business that we're trying to bring to the community. Would that fall here somewhere?

Somewhere maybe under 25 426.

Yeah. 25 and 26 because ultimately if we're doing the UDC some of that could be or do you update I hate to say it but do you do a brief update to the content? I don't know what that looks like but not with necessarily going back through consultants and everything else to your point they dubtail together. Yeah, if it was an update to the comp plan put it as a milestone 25 to look at how are we aligning our residential strategy with our business recruitment strategy. trying to look at Matt.

I'm just thought he had anything to add. I think you know residential probably doesn't mean single family, but I think obviously we have a whole section under permanent prosperity about infill and redevelopment. That's based on the same conversation we're having right now. I think

do we maybe pull that piece forward out of the paragine prosperity plan and maybe like C4 and C5 C4 is encourage multif family and compact residential uses on in redevelopment sites and C5 is active residential developments of many that will allow period we talked about today you know is the compact residential something I mean we we tal we've talked about it but do We know what that looks like. Compact res legislation wants us to have, right? And and how do we how do we shape that what we want versus just Yeah. what what's in that bill,

what and where. Yeah. And I think part of that what council member Carbone is getting at is then does that align well with our um strategy for attracting businesses and um potential uh different retail than we have today? How how does that part of that strategy is it aligned with that the way we want it to be? And if and if not, what is that? And what what does that look like? How do you get moving forward? Yeah. How do you how do you action that? So, I don't know.

To me, the question maybe for Matt, I'll ask Matt this on the spot. You don't have to answer, but it's kind of, you know, if we want if if you know to attract um you know, if we wanted to attract Fortune 500 headquarters, you know, what do we need from a housing mix? I I personally never have a company that's ever complained to me that we don't have the housing mix. I mean, I don't I don't think that's ever a concern because we're a newer community. We have great housing. I mean, I know some of our employers have expressed concern that there's places that there, you know, employees can't afford, but the good thing is if you live in a big metropolitan area, we go 15 minutes down the road and you know, I mean, so there is a we don't we don't capture it all right in our city. I think that's definitely a a concern, but um I think we we just, you know, we have so much housing in our community that we have older housing, newer housing. So,

and was there anything like in our retail study that said, "Hey, if you want this kind of retail, rooftops, you know, rooftops and higher incomes, I think it's a lot of the things we talk about Trader Joe's and stuff like that. They they want higher income people." But, um so we need to rooftops without losing the higher income. We talked to Joe the other day. They want to know how many apartments we have coming because how many what apartments? Okay. Yeah. Where? Uh what kind of retail was it? It was it was a higherend retailer that you would want. Um

we're above uh 288. Yeah. So um but that that's density. I think you're a lot of retailers. I do want density. I do think if if PCB is successful on their residential mix, even you know the the uh the multif family but also the higher income dense you know type product that they're want to bring in. I think you will see some of the retailers that you're talking about restaurants and those types of things that will that will tailor that. So I think that goes along and obviously they're going to have an ask. It's no different. Why is all our retail at 288 and 518? Why is it not? I mean, I think we first everybody sat around this room 30 years ago and thought our retail was all going to be at, you know, 288 and 08 and that didn't happen. And then I think everybody thought I mean, the reason Kelsey said where Kelsey is is because that was supposed to be where all the grocery store retail was. Everybody thought it was going to go to Shadow Creek Parkway. We we missed that too. And then it all the retailers chose to be at Broadway because and I think if you looked at where development patterns were at that time, there were more stuff in that Broadway corridor than there was in those corridors up there. And you could see the writing on the wall. So that's why they all chose Broadway. We thought in this room that they were all going to choose.

Fair. Yeah. Fair. And I think something else that we're missing and I hate to put this on the table, but the demographics north of us have hindered that site. um in the in the long term. Um but hopefully with with PCD and some of the other things that that will change but but the demographics in order to go below have changed a lot but there's been a lot of infield there a lot of new residential wasn't there 20 years but if you go back 20 years when the two were competing the two sites were competing you just had a better demographic mix at Broadway than you did at Bel.

But at the same time I mean that demographic is moving further south. If you're looking at Morgana, you got a new target just announced, I think, coming at Highway 6 and 288. You got, you know, In and Out coming there. I know it's not a big deal, but in a big deal,

right? Uh, but they chose Highway 6, right? I mean, they're choosing Manuel over Parland on the west side. It was shocking what Patrick said at 5:00, the town center. I'm assuming you were walking around town center. I mean, I live next to the town center. I know some of you do. It's not the best place to be. I would I tell my wife not to go there after the evening. We don't go there because of the demographics and the apartments and most of the times we get these reports from the PD apartments are the cause or ends up somehow related to an apartment on the west side and that's the reality. So I know we were talking about economic development and you know strongs the west side is a little bit unique than Colin is a little bit unique than Parkway. It's it's the demographics the the you know if you if you were to ask I guess PD to kind of give me a hot spot of where the calls are is probably going to be on the west side. But I also tell you I mean we've got one grocery store that brings in 60,000 people a month. You know what I mean? So the volume of humans that we have in that area is just not comparable to anywhere else in the city. And it's good for us. We need to keep that many humans coming to that. If you look at all the retail we have there, you look at those demographics we talked about in the statement when I gave the PDC report. I mean it's phenomenal the amount of humans that are coming to that and I'll also chey places

cheap guns here. And you'll say when you look at DAX, you know, the highest call volume is going to be in the Broadway 288 area. But number two, but number two is Broadway. And I bet if you divided it by visitors, it's the safest place in the city. Safest place in the city because of if you you got to consider how many people are actually there. Uh and not just compare it to an intersection where two people live on a corner somewhere in town. And I and I'll also say if you actually look at the call volume and and people who are coming and and committing criminal activity in our community, I would dare say 75 plus% of them live north of us. Sure.

So the apartments in city are not the ones that are driving the the crime. It it it's our proximity to the the people north of of the Well, I mean, I'll tell you what was interesting to me, Mayor. Last year, I think the PD and the fire department pulled a top 30 report of their call volume. And I would say majority of them were apartment addresses besides HCA hospital. Uh I think that and Bies, which was shocking. Bies was on there and then uh it was a lot of apartments and that that that was a top 30. Yeah. But you had to look at the calls. They weren't necessarily calls for criminal activity.

Well, calls are calls, right? I mean you you you yourself said each time a police responds I believe it's what 700 bucks that's what we roughly calculated

but most of most of them in that last one we got email was domestic is used so if you sit there and go back to Matt's argument put on their percentage versus you know in a residential area I guarantee you're getting domestic disputes as well. Well, in a public venue, we talked about a, you know, a firearm went off and and we were thinking somebody was being, you know, crazy. Yeah. Guy was cleaning his gun, it went off. That could have happened in a trailer, could happen in a house, could have happened anywhere. That was just him not thinking clearly. So, we have to analyze more than just the numbers that are there. 70% uh or have a large number of that number was just false alarms on brand new alarms and you know so

so let's come back to the economy right there's several initiatives underway some ongoing concerns a few new wrinkles you have a very aggressive strategy here

well so on the economy 2.5 is comprehensive plan and continue to focus on priorities outlined in the comprehensive plan and the paral prosperity plan and C4 one of the priorities literally is encourage multif family and compact residential. So we have it in our prosperity plan that the development community is looking at saying this is what the city has said they want to encourage in their community. They're bringing it and then we're saying no. So to the trusted government side of the equation, regardless of whether the radius was was communicated or whatever, it it is communicated out to the public. The public was involved in the creation of the prosperity plan. It's communicated out on the public on a regular basis. It's available for everybody and that the community is seeing that. But then when it actually comes up, even though we have it in our plan, we're saying no, no, no, no, no. So we we have a problem there that we need to resolve and and that's part of the reason that we're we're doing this. So

right, left hand aren't having enough. Correct. So, do we need to put a goal under 2.5 that we need to revisit the prosperity plan and see if that has changed or are we responding to a small group of the the nymphies in the community and not listening to the to the silent majority so to speak which goes back to Patrick's plan that we need to engage figure out a different communication strategy to involve more people I understand all that but we it it does feel like we're we're beating our heads against the wall because we're saying one thing and then we're doing another and and and that's not right for our staff, that's not right for our community, that's not right for us on council. Sure.

And I think C4 also though and I, you know, because I always question you tell you just don't read the headline is, you know, and then go down in it. And I think what C4 was talking about was mixeduse projects. It definitely does doesn't talk about like every multif family project we should be approving. It's I'm not saying that.

Yeah. No, and I know you're not. I know you're not, but I just want to make sure uh you know it says continue to ensure resident components of high quality respect to design construction that talks about you know it connects to active transportation trails, sidewalks and all those things. So it's talking about building quality spaces, not just apartments for apartments sake by any means. It's pretty common in cities that they have these planning devices that aren't synchronized because they're adopted at different stages. So I think to your point it's a good time I'm just adjusting this to pause and say what are we unintentionally doing for sending mixed signals and the development community wants what they want predictable signals. So if you're saying one thing and you're doing another you're sort of inviting people in to do certain things then you might be saying then you wonder why people get upset because they're spending time and again that's not uncommon a lot of cities do that because they're not adopting the documents simultaneously they do them at different times. So there's the UDC, then there's the comp plan, then there's apparel and prosperity, then there's the market, then there's what's going on. Then there's the local economy, right? And we all know about those documents. They're giving you direction. Their their their longevity of those documents really is up to the people on council, the validity, the legitimacy, the exercise. I've seen many times where councils overly rely on documents as substitutes for judgments, their direction. You're you're to interpret that. But sometimes what you get in those is conflicting information based on what was driving the creation of it to begin with. That's that's not a bad thing. It's just trying to go back and say how do we synchronize this? What is the most prominent? And again, if I was a developer and I talked to the mayor and I said, what document should I look at to really give me a sense of what is going to be acceptable development? What would you say? I may get eight different answers asking eight different people that I'm just sharing that true

um because people are operating from a different premise. And then I go to the city manager who may give me a different version. So is it any and then sometimes I know this is shocking developers play one council member off the other. I know you're shocked at that. So they love they love friction because then it's a leverage point especially those that you may not want here. I'm not talking about a lot of developers but some that go answer shopping and they go well see that you didn't say it all the time here. So and then they have their attorney flipping that and all of a sudden you're on the defense. In the paral prosperity plan, it mentions multif family housings, but Matt, isn't it specific areas?

Well, it's it's under the it's under the infill and you know, redevelopment section. You know, obviously we don't have the land anymore if we're going to continue to see growth in our community. We don't have the place where someone's going to do 600 acres and put in single family subdivisions on 60 70 foot lots. I mean, those days are behind us. was really trying to recognize. I think the struggle we're having here today is what how do we go back in and as as we become more dense, we're going to get more and more pressure for people to come in, put more and more units on smaller and smaller lots. I mean, you look what's happened to the 610 thing and it's it's going to keep spurting down our way because there's going to be millions of more people moving to our metropolitan area and you can look at look at I always look at Sheny Crest, those big lots that were developed 30 years ago, you know, that that that are 50 years ago now. I mean that you know well 50 more years we're even going to be denser and denser. So I think that's the struggle and that's the infill and redevelopment is trying to address that cuz we talked a lot about this in the Maryland prosperity like we're talking about it here today.

So I have a question for staff. So what is the purpose of the national community survey that goes out to the residents and I don't see that in here and their top priorities is not affordable housing. It's not uh apartments. It's economy, mobility, community design, utility, safety. Um, so where is that plan in in this strategic plan? I mean, what is the purpose of that if we're not listening to our community?

Well, I think I mean, valid point. I think the purpose of that is to, you know, see where we are benchmarked versus other communities and hear from our community what what uh their priorities are. And I think, you know, traffic's always one of them. Um, crime is usually one of them. But they also think we do a great job with public safety. Um, we typically see out of that. So, you know, I I think some of those things are infused in the overall strategic plans. Um, if there's specific things out of that we think we need to enchant in there, I think that's council to take those take that information and work that into what we I mean, I think we should. I mean, strategies and priorities,

pardon me. I think we should if we are using we're going and doing a survey every year to our community, but then we're not even using that plan. like we don't even look at it. Like we just we we review it and then that's it. And and I I will say, you know, all of our departments get that that survey and they're looking at that and so we'll see budgetary requests that come through on on things like traffic's an issue. So do we need to u we've changed out our you know our traffic signal software. We're working through change down our traffic signal detection software that impacts addressing some of those traffic. So we do see things that come through our budgetary requests that that are based on information coming I was I don't know that we ignore it.

I would say ignore it. Yeah. I I mean I don't saying it's not reflected in the strategic plan and but I and I think if you pulled the the city and yeah and you you pulled the world you know they they want less multif family development. They they would tell you that everybody wants to live on an acre and, you know, have a 6,000 7,000 foot house and they want to pay, you know, a grand a month for it. And so, you know, and and and so, you know, there there's that. And then there's the reality of it. And so, but but I think if we truly believe in in market forces and those types of things, I believe that every piece of property has its day of court

and that's not going to be reflective in a national survey. it's not going to be reflective in in in certain types of survey. And so like go back to Magnolia. Um you know, you could put on 15 acres, you could put, you know, retail there. Will it even go? We don't want a bunch of empty retail. How many times have I heard Laney say that? We don't want it. We don't want empty retail. Um and the market is saying retail is not going to go there. So, are are we just telling that land owner, "Sorry, you're going to have to pay taxes in perpetuity on this piece of property that's empty because we're not going to let you develop anything."

And Mon, to your point, I think definitely let's let's talk about that when we get to to number six. Um, for sure to to loop it in there. But that survey does consistently come back with they want more entertainment, they want this placemaking and all that. And that's the the balancing act with density. And are they saying I want multif family? No. You ask anybody, it's no multif family. But do they want some of the benefits that come with the higher density? Yes. And that's um that's going to be the bigger discussion to figure out where is that appropriate, where is that appropriate, and how we handle it. And what I I'm it's going to be a horrible 2 3 10 hour workshop, but then at least we've had the discussion and we can point both citizens and developers and say, "Hey, we don't have a perfect uh perfect direction for you, but our plan says this. Go listen and here's here's the thought process." and and so that there's a not a not a a sightsp specific so your nimbies aren't going to be there and let's generally speak and they might hear that there's seven absolutely no votes for multifamily or they might hear well we like we like these attributes we don't like garden style we want kind of this base set of amenities and we want it in this parts of town I think that's the the fair trusted piece Because if we come out of that and say we never want it on Magnolia, well, sweet. Let's let's say that now and be done and and be clear to everybody.

So, just to give some historical perspective, if I might, just real quick, um, having done this a long time for a lot of different cities and some of you've been in government most of your career, sessions like this, ex strategic plans were revolved around one thing, economic development, job creation, sales tax generation, property valuation, everything else was sort of secondary. Then what started happening about 10 or 12 years ago is cities started talking more about transportation transit uh widening transport not that that was a new item but that was usually taking care of the budget now all of a sudden they start talking about transportation and then they after that they started talking more about housing housing is nothing new it's been around at least a decade co didn't invent it and just start highlighted it and what council members and maybe you started hearing you started hearing from employers this I can't find people and if I find them they can't afford afford to live here and if they can't afford to live here they can't afford to get here and I would say just to offer a contrasting point of view you know who wants multif family housing employers do your service industry does hospitality industry does food service does because they can't find people then those people in those places typically aren't single family homes so where do they live I'm just sharing that with you so then it gets to transportation housing it's all part of that same ecosystem and I to I get your point I'm not taking issue with that but I think when you start to look at the economy And when you start to look at employers and all that, depending on who you ask, you get a different answer. And I think sometimes those retailers and service industry people, they're not they're not paying attention to public policy. They're not showing they may not be residents. They're they're an operator. They may be relying on a land owner. I'm just sharing with you that point of view. Really depends on who you ask. So, mayor, you had something. Go ahead.

I just want the survey. We're talking about what percentage of our population participated in this survey. No, no, you'd have to ask that. I mean, it it it doesn't go to all citizens and then they uh get us a whatever response we get, they put a statistical representation on that of what the margin of error is. So, it's like any survey. It's it it doesn't really matter how many people fill it out. is whether you get a percentage that's enough to give a representation of the community uh by getting people across the community and then putting a margin of error on that as to what that is for each of the responses. Josh, is that Yeah, what we get?

Yeah, that's exactly right. And u the the reason the justification for that survey the way that it's done with the National Research Center uh is that it's a perfectly randomized double blind standard. Right? So, uh, we map out the city or they map out the city and then, uh, at random choose addresses that get the survey, right? So, they're not going to know, it's not going to be skewed by, um, you know, who's in the social media group or who attends council meeting or so forth and so on. uh the the response rate uh and this is something that we pay attention to regularly and and try to adjust uh or we're trying to make sure that we're optimizing uh is I mean really solely based on who's willing to take the time to to return that survey. Uh and it's still typically over 10%. Uh but they also have all of the uh responses from uh all the communities around the state and around the country that they can use to weight the responses so that we get the raw data plus uh the demographically um and u and demographically optimized responses.

When you say 10% you mean 10% of people they send it to respond or 10% of our residents? 10% of the people they send it to respond. But I mean it's a statistically valid and you can have high confidence in the data. I'm just trying to get clarification. Yeah,

typically it's 95% um confidence in the in the data they have and and anything that's lower than that they'll make sure to point out that they uh in in you know previous years when u if they struggle to hit that number we know that while the survey is going on then we either add um uh additional uh addresses to it or find another way to promote it. There's that piece of it. This the the um anonymized piece and then as a value ad, there is a version of the survey that anybody can take, right? When we promote that, it's just the open-ended. Uh it's not included in the in the waiting that they do for what they present to you all because that one's skewed by how we're promoted,

right? But we offer that to anybody. Um, and that gives us a another perspective on all of those facets of uh the community. Very very thorough answer. Yeah. So, uh, appreciate under strong economy and and and thinking through like entertainment venues, people want certain things. Okay. U and where we're positioned in the greater Houston area marketplace uh in some ways is to our detriment because for example you might have uh it's not a Don Busters I forget what's over at main event

main event or even the one that's at Bay Brook you've got those two sitting right there and then you go over to 5969 and you've got some venues over there and we're in between the two the question is does the market strong enough where they'll come and locate here Right. Uh, and I think that's part of our problem sometimes, but I' I've often wondered, uh, Matt, how long has it been? I know we did the retail analysis. Did we do a gap analysis as a part of that as well? Like what gaps are missing? If so, what and how do we fill those gaps?

It did. I but I'd tell you that, you know, doing gap analysis when you're in the metropolitan area of 8 million is really really challenging because we may have a big gap here for high-end expensive vehicles. Well, that you can drive, you know, 20 minutes in every direction and find all those, but but like I said, we talk about entertainment venues,

but general but general commercial and stuff, you know, we do we have a great surplus of many areas and that's the nature of 28. So, it just make it just makes me wonder. I mean, we talk about what the residents want, but if there's if if there if the market was here, it would be here. And that's what I go back to. And that's what Tony's going back to. In order to create the market or solidify the market, we need X.

Well, it's the old Henry Ford comment. He said, "If I'd ask people what they wanted, they just said faster horses, right?" So, people are fickle. They want access. Um, I don't think most people look at city boundaries as where they start and stop, whether they're shopping or entertaining. That's the benefit of being a metropolitan area. You don't have to fill every need. Um, I've worked a lot of rural communities. If they don't provide it, it's not done. What whatever it might be. So, I think some of that is on balance. Some of that's just I want closer proximity to doing those things, but they're going to find it somewhere else. And I think for you to your point, mayor, is try to be mindful, not reactionary, and say, "Well, we better have I will tell you several years ago, the whole trend, and I saw in greater Phoenix and other cities, every city wanted a performing arts center. It was like a status symbol, heavily subsidized. No one knew how to market it. They built it. And then all the the promoters did was go shopping. Where am I going to get the best deals?" Chandler, Scottsdale, Tempe, fill in the major metropolitan a lot of cities. Um, yeah, we don't need as a status thing or a splash pad, which is a lot different. Rec centers are like that. Just a lot of those public facilities, you're saying how are those needs to be met? But let me pause here because I know you've been sitting a while. So, I'm going to go ahead and call time for lunch.

So, it's 11:50. Lunch should be here shortly. Let's reconvene at 12:35. Can we do that? And at lunch, please have some u an epiphany so we can wrap up strong economy as soon as you come back. So, I'm looking for a consensus, less deliberation because we are trying to have you out of here at 2:30. And the way we're going, we may be here for dinner. We didn't order dinner, right? So, you may have to pen for yourself some leftovers. Anyway, be back at 12:35 if you need to leave. Thank you. I don't even know. You say 12:45. 12:35.

12:30. We're going to get started. So based on the lunch, we've got some we've got maps coming up for everybody. Maybe recess, go outside, dodgeball, and come in and have a snack. Take a nap. Remember all those nouns you bought. How many of you like think I saw a beam online said how to take a nap? Sit down in the chair. That's all you think. I'm killing time while we're waiting on people. What what's the score? Uh last I saw 54 to 33. It was a 7 to 33.

Oh, we are. Okay. What are we watching? Um basketball. I know you haven't talked about the cheese much this year. What's What's going on? I didn't know. I didn't follow. That's a good one. Yeah. I they're so busy polishing the Super Bowl. You know, I'd say you guys know what that's about that you never even I just have two letters for you. Are you ready? Why is that? Are you ready? And you might want to lend him these your glasses. CJ, I'll just leave it at that.

Or maybe is respectfully called a deer in the headlights. I don't know. But I do live 2 hours north of Boston, so Boston is going crazy now. It's a little easier. I'm killing time while we wait. It is easier to cheer for the Patriots now that they fire check. Any Patriots fans in here? I know we have some. You're a Patriots fan. Why did you live up there? No, my husband's family does. My husband's family does and we're up there all the time. Where abouts? Um they live in Silsbury, Massachusetts. Okay. Boston. All right. Any any other New Englanders up here? Anybody want to visit New England? Great place to visit in the fall. Fall foliage. Mhm. Anybody get some chada and lobster all that?

Is it what? In the fall. You said in the fall. Is that the best time? Oh, absolutely. It's like 10 below right now. So, it's pretty bitterly cold.

That makes me want to go to - 10. You said - 10. Yeah, it's very me. Staying at home. I'll tell you what, I'll text you in the middle of July and say, "What's the humidity?" Yeah.

I lived in Phoenix for 20 years. People say, "It's a dry heat." My response was, "Stick your head in the oven 120°. It's hot. It's like walking on the surface of the sun." All right. So, hopefully you had an epiphany at lunch. By the way, by the way, this low carb, low cal low carb, low carb, low sugar dessert is fabulous. guaranteed not to add to your waistline. So, it seems as though the discussion on strong economy, we were close to finishing. Hint hint. Um, it sounds like you've sort of saturated the conversation about outreach. I think Trent and the staff have heard you clearly that they want to bring and I'm sure we'll get back into that at connected community. But part of what I'm trying to do is not um know when to move on. And it seems like we're ready to move on. Is that fair? I'll interpret silence as affirmation. So, okay, good. I'm going to move on um to number three. This is on page five of your memo. The safe community, pardon me, several initiatives under fire develop staff/e equipment plans, the large apparatus replacement. This came up a lot during my presession phone calls. Item C, um, C1, exploration of the cost of emergency response outside of, uh, Caroline city limits.

Again, I think just about all of you mentioned that to me about subsidizing that, the cost for that service, mutual aid, all those sorts of things, looking into it.

Yeah, exactly. Evaluating it. What's the impact of that? What's the cost of that? So, that's going to be done. uh the effectiveness of coverage uh study due to changes in the projected coverage area all that so again you're pardon me try to be mindful of your service demands pardon no surprise to anybody in here moving on to the next I know it's going to move if you want to pause we can go back to it but I'm just going to keep kind of the discussion moving police expansion of the automated license plate uh reader mayor you mentioned some of that yesterday about flock and and the license plate reader then emergency management Uh item B, continuation of training drills, always being prepared, practicing, doing mock disasters, all those sorts of things. You're going to play like you practice, that sort of concept, building muscle memory, how you deploy resources. It shouldn't be like clockwork, so it's not random and crazy. It's stressful enough to deal with those issues without thinking who's doing what and when do you do it. So, a lot going on in the world of public safety. It's an ongoing concern. Police, fire, emergency management.

Yeah, I did mention uh previously I would be curious to see moving forward what is the the ratio of officers on the street compared to population versus what it was in 2020. Oh, okay. I know population exploded. Okay. You know, that was one of the four times our population went bonkers here in the city. And have we resourced PD enough? I know chief's never going to say, "Don't give me more officers." Um, but I am curious what that ratio looks like and how are we how are we maintaining that priority? Okay. From a bodies on the street perspective, you want to share anything?

I didn't completely hear the question. Uh it was what what is the ratio of officers we have on the street to population versus 20 years ago when our last kind of major explosion hit? Like did our population go crazy and and we didn't recover PD was not resourced enough to keep up and maintain that levels or are we at similar levels? I know we've added officers. Just curious what that looks like.

I I would think we're a little low lower than 20 years ago because to the roads and everything. I think we're about 1.35 now. It's pretty close. Double check that we go back historically 20 years ago. I think we're around 1.6 1.65 something like that about 2 years 1.6 per thousand residents or Yes. So, so we can provide that over time. And then, you know, we also want to probably put that somewhat in context of 100% the things we've done with uh the crime reduction teams or DA DAX, what do we call them now? Crime uh the crime reduction unit.

Um block uh drone programs. Those kind of things are kind of like a lot of things we spent money on that also make us effective, right, in the way we do that. So it's looking just straight at the numbers isn't just the whole is the whole picture is the isn't the whole picture is my point.

True. And to that point, looking straight at numbers, I I I know from talking to other council members at different times, all of us see the running of red lights con seems like it's a constant thing at this point. And I know that there was kind of an experiment on how do we change behavior, but maybe that's something we can look at under safe community as well. Are there are there other things we can do? or there increased penalties through the municipal court that we can add to that equation. I'd rather see if we can find a proactive way to cut down on what that that's happening before the data starts saying accidents are going through. So here's what's something uh kind of interesting. Uh Chad remind me two years ago I guess it was I'd asked you know is there a way we can do some kind of a special task force on uh red light running concentrate on a couple of areas and and kind of be no nonsense. I mean every single one that's there ticking every single one you know the whole thing and they did I you know I can't remember the numbers but it was upwards you know 160 170 tickets written and zero change

zero change or modification in behavior zero right so that's why I wonder apparently the penalty is not bad enough for writing you tickets and you still don't care right so is there something else we can do can we increase that I mean I don't I just hate to start seeing our our traffic data start going up on accidents and deaths and intersections because we can't stop it from happening. And I don't want to be a well, we're just like everybody else. But what I agree but what I what I hear it doesn't matter what jurisdiction you're in. People running their lights everywhere.

And and so maybe it goes back to a state thing. Maybe it goes back to I don't know if we max out state penalties or not at the municipal level. I don't I don't know what that looks like, but I know ours are relatively high. Correct prices. Yeah, I mean we're we've been on the kind of higher side and I think it goes back to Patrick's statement. Whose behavior can you control?

I think we can wrap all that kind of information up in similar memo so that we can determine if there's anything action budget wise. So quick question has uh so back you know investment I use flock as a as an overall I know that's a brand name you know the investment that's there have we seen I know it's led to uh catching people and those types of things does flock have numbers out there holistically on is it helping anything on reducing theft reducing certain things is the system working to reduce not this catch.

Measuring prevention is always really hard. Um it's a lot easier to know and understand capture uh because you actually have something you can point to. It's hard to say whether or not somebody came in or not, right? Um crime rates kind of go up and down a lot of times with the economy and other things going on in society. Um there probably knows more about plot than anybody. Have you seen anything from plot from that? nothing as far as that they can put a finger on saying that we prevented this. I mean like

on the flip side, what we can do is tell you that, you know, we've recovered what over a million dollars and stolen vehicles and things like that. And um you we do know from experience that people steal vehicles and then use the stolen vehicles to come to break into homes and so forth. So, um, we know that we, you know, we can put numbers on crime solved because of our tips directly related to flock and things like that, but it's it's hard to say what it necessarily

that's same thing with, you know, you could add 10 cops on the streets and if crime went down the next year, is that because you added 10 cops or is it just cuz maybe the economy was really good and people were didn't feel the need to go out and commit theft as much or, you know, whatever the case is. So, it's it's really hard to correlate those things sometimes. When it comes to technology, it's more reactive.

It's more catching the crooks afterwards. And that's one thing I talk about with with my department is we have a lot of technology for reaction. What we can't forget and pay attention to is the prevention side of it. And there's a lot that goes into that also. And you know, obviously you walk up to a business and there's a camera right as you're walking up. hope that that has a certain level of, you know, prevention that makes you go, "Well, maybe I shouldn't do it because this camera is going to catch." But again, you don't know as a business that did you prevent a theft that day because you had a good camera right there. What we do know though is that the and I'm going to still use the same terminology, flock camera system, the ALPRs um are effective. Yeah,

they are effective. And I think that as technology continues, I think that we just need to uh be mindful of continuing to fund that throughout this large city. Um so that that way I call it the controllables. I mean we can't control someone's behavior and we can you know yes we have a traffic unit that does a fantastic job throughout the city focusing on areas that you know that they're being drawn to. Um but is the answer to um to your point is you know adding 10 more you know people I don't know if that's the answer but what we can do is just continue to be that proactive uh front uh and and make sure that we are continuing to grow the the flock program uh throughout the city in places that we feel is is necessary um so that in to your point the arrests get out there and before you know it, they just, hey, let's not go to Parland. Let's

those reputations and so forth. And, you know, PD has, I think, identified additional locations that they know they've got some weak spots that they they need additional spot cameras. And so, you know, even if it uh, you know, something that we can do over years, adding a few here and there, definitely a beneficial thing. Um, quite frankly, the the 3P, the private public partnerships, that actually has worked out really well. Um, we've we've been able Yeah. through the HOAs. We had quite, you know, quite a few cameras put up in the city simply through that that program. I don't think enough took advantage of it personally, but you know, at least some did and at least it got us some extra cameras out there. Overall, I think we've done a fantastic job on the public safety side. I think that, you know, uh, Patrick, you've said several times during this meeting, you know, about gas and brake and, you know, keeping the gas pressed. And I think that we as a city uh you know understand the importance of public safety and on both the the police and fire and EMS side and it shows with our accomplishments and stuff like that. But I just you know encourage council to just remember you know that just as much as we've accomplished so are other cities trying to do their things to attract um more personnel. And so we need to be in the forefront and always paying close attention to that. Um just being observant. That's all I'm saying. uh because they're hungry, too. The cities are hungry and so we need to continue to attract and uh and so anyways, I I like what we've accomplished and I just want us to make sure we're keeping that gas pedal fresh.

Yeah. And I will say just just in recent months with everything that's going on, you know, outside of community, um the the comments that I get across the county, people throughout Missouri County know and and are appreciative of we are the front line of defense of criminal activity coming into Missouri County from the north. Um, obviously we have other ways that that they come in, but uh there's a lot of appreciation for what we do up here day in and day out. Uh, we may not see it, we may not hear it, but but there is a ton of appreciation across the county for what we do. Uh, so it's not going unnoticed.

Yeah. And even on the fire EMS side, I mean, there's there's a lot of great progress that we've made um, you know, with the apparatuses and, you know, getting stuff in the pipeline. And again, you know, keeping that gas pressed, you know, uh I liked some of the comments that were made yesterday by Trent and and some others at the retirement party. Uh speaking about the accomplishments of where we are today and then making sure that we're continuing to move forward uh so that we don't get behind. You know, we're playing catch-up as we as we stand here. We're still trying to um to catch up. But

yeah, I bring it up just simply because, you know, I mean, part of the reason my wife and I moved here over 20 years ago was because Parland has such a reputation of being a great and safe community. So, as we continue to grow, are we resourcing what we need to do to maintain that? Yeah, we'll get a little quick. And I think it reminds us, we flirted with this a little bit yesterday, but one of the subjects I see often misunderstood, so let's kind of set the record straight. Your brand is not your logo. Your brand is your reputation.

And you have lots of brands. You have a brand as a place to recreate. You have a brand as a place to invest. You have a brand as a place to live. You have a brand as an employer. And you're influencing that brand. But it's also being sort of interpreted by people based on their own value proposition. If there's an area that government struggles with is the concept of branding. Just sharing that with you. How you market that recognizing you have lots of different brand. You your brand to the development community is different than your brand of residents because they're looking at it through different factors. So just a point of reference. So unless there's anything else I want to move on. Yes. Go ahead.

On fire. I know we got a lot to look at already, but continue to look at um how we can deliver uh deliver the service maybe in in more cost effective ways. Instead of rolling a $2 million ladder truck to a cardiac event, does it make sense to have some smaller squads or I not and I know as much as much as I appreciate the the the retirements and the the the traditions of the fire service. I know they they're going to hate hearing that, but I don't I don't know that it makes sense to to roll all the big apparatus all the time. And as we look at our standards of coverage and how we're serving outside the ETJ, um I think that's something to consider. And also talking with the the chief um the other night, I wasn't aware, but there's other um transportation options out there. Um so that you don't just call 911 to go to the hospital. There's what Uber some sort of Uber team and and other private ambulance service that um to to keep our medics out staying in service, you know, how we communicate that to the residents.

Okay.

I would also ask, you know, I don't know if you guys don't know this, but at times I see a fender bender and our fire apparatus is out there. I don't know what the cost is to just some of these minor accidents. I mean, I get it that they're dispatched, but how do you kind of bring that cost down to say, "Look, not every time there's a need for a a fire to be on site." I'll add a little something to that. And then, um, Chief Johnson, if you want to chime in, but a lot of times when the 911 comes in, you know, they're dispatching based on what they are told. And so it's not until units arrive on scene to be able to say, "Okay, we can disregard or because some of it is manpower, some of it is, you know, other reasons." So, um, Chief, if you want to, you know, elaborate a little bit about what he was mentioning.

Yeah. So, when they when anybody calls 911, you have two sets of dispatch cards. You have a EMD dispatch card and EFD dispatch card. And what that means is it gives you a list of questions the dispatcher is going to ask the caller. And so when they go through, they say, "I need fire EMS for an MVA." Right? There's a bad accident is what they'll say or whatever the case. The dispatch will start to ask questions and it starts with what we call an alpha letter A and it goes all the way to omega O, right? And so as they ask questions, the way that those questions are answered is what kicks it to a determinant which then determines what units we send to a fire or to an MBA or to an EMS call. of determinants are built within the fire department with dispatch and what we feel is necessary for each call type. And so if you do have a fender vendor, more than likely someone described it as a horrific accident at the intersection of Old Chocolate and Broadway and there's people laying all over the ground. And so we'll send, you know, two or three units and then once the first unit gets there and assesses and they can disregard down to one heavy apparatus for blocking and then a medic unit for transport. So that happens on every time that they call 911. You have to go down these questions and there there are certified questions on national standard that every dispatcher in America ask for each call type.

A key part of that is the safety of our personnel when we're on roads like 518 um or the freeway or other major roadways is that they're they may be out there when there's not any major injuries, but they're blocking blocking Yes, sir. the traffic from from where our personnel are are operating. So, it really comes down to the person answering the questions on this end of the phone, not the dispatcher, but however they're answering those because clearly the dispatcher is not on sign, but I think you make it's just a fender bender, right? You don't be rolling a million half dollar piece of apparatus when you know,

and the hard part is when the call comes in, how did it come in? What was said? And then once the the professionals are arriving to go, okay, there's no bodies laying around, everything is okay, disregard, disregard, you know, and that's and if it's not being disregarded or if there's, you know, things that we could do better or the command staff making sure that disregards are being done, you know, that's that's that would be another, you know, something to look into. But a lot of it is just the way the call comes in. Do do we bill the I guess insurance company for the I know for the ambulances we do. What about an accident case? Do we bill the auto insurance for them?

It's it's the same. They get an ambulance fee uh for us checking them out. Yes, sir. We have a billing uh company, third party company that handles that for us. And so whether it's a refusal or transport there, the way we fill out the report, they get that report and then they send the bill to the to the nation. What's what's the collection on that?

What's the percentage of collection when you build it out? Percentage of collection or how much dollar? Yeah. Percentage of collection of total collection sits around 33 to 35%. Uh which puts us above the national average. Um cities uh such as Katie, I'll use it as an example because I I used to work there. They're sitting around 20 24 28%. Um, so we actually have a higher collection rate than most. I guess how would we be able to pursue more of it to make it 50% let's say. Is it because they don't have the insurance

or is it that they don't have enough insurance? I'm just curious. Right. I and I'd have to look further into that for you uh to be honest to figure out where the where some of the shortfalls are. um sometimes cuz they don't have insurance and sometimes they just it's refusal to pay and so then you have to go through other avenues which our third party company takes care of. We can put some of that together in a memo and just what the collection rate is. What's the total amount of collections? What are some strategies to try to drive that up and what are the what are the obstacles to drive that up? put I believe you asked how much is something I believe like an ambulance ride. Um it's around 250 if I remember correctly.

Yeah. Yeah. Just Okay. I think you have a transport. Tren, I'm going to defer to you on this about the fire service calls and looking at cost for service and just the nature of calls and that whole composite of that do you think? Yeah, I think you know we I would kind of lump that into what we're looking at here and just we can expand on that and put some windows together. Okay. um you know definitely um about that you know looking at different service models for response for transport the cost of those different things

it would be I mean to tell us why we got Purdue Brandon that does that type of stuff on the what's it property tax side that'll chase that down I wonder if there's somebody that does that yeah I think does all that chasing and part of it is how hard you want to chase it down right so if you've got a resident who maybe their insurance doesn't cover it. Do we really want the city going after a resident for something that they partially paid for through their taxes already, which is an emergency service, right? I mean, when you call for law enforcement, we don't charge, you know, every time law enforcement goes out there. So, there's kind of that also. So, generally speaking, I think what we collect is what we get from the insurance companies. So, just thought

I get plenty of emails, people asking that question of pay taxes. So why am I why am I having effect? Yeah. No, I understand the question. And we do charge the Medicare rate, right? As far as I understand.

Yeah. I mean, there's an answer to that. There's taxes paid for us to have all this kind of our fixed cost and then when we roll, there's cost portion of that gets paid for collections put together. All right. So, I'm going to move on to sustainable infrastructure. Pardon me. There's a lot on obviously underway on that for streets and sidewalks, the neighborhood revitalization under that and moving on to the next water sewer. We talked about some of that yesterday, the master plans, the planning, the expansion, both facilities, the motor pool, your fleet facilities, pardon me, the city facilities, it drainage. So there's a lot both the literal infrastructure of the community kind of curve and gutter or curve to curve and then what's underneath there and then you have the it and your rolling stock in your city facilities a lot of community a lot of city assets I should say so it's your strategy in reinvesting in those you replace them and these are all different funding sources as you well know we talked a little bit about that yesterday water enterprise funds general funds to the public it's just taxes so they don't always see it that way differentiate Some of this is just kind of the backbone.

Yeah. So under sustainable in infrastructure and I don't mon you want to start on roads or you want to Well, okay. So in 2015 I think the recommended study was to invest 3.7 million. 2024 is 5.9. So we're now investing 28. So what is the plan to continue to invest? like what strategy these are unrestricted funds I call them unrestricted funds that we can utilize to increase that um so I would really like to look at like the bigger picture how do we continue to increase um that capital into roads

so to to that point as long as it remains a priority of the council uh our our goal would be to add a minimum of about a half million dollars a year in the budget and then as we go through the budget process you know we've got sometimes there's hard decisions and this last year we were able to this last year we put 800,000 we did we think you know we'll start with budget with a baseline of that added to it we'll go from there one thing I wanted to throw out just for discussion on this topic is you know right the number keeps getting bigger and we're chasing the number we're chasing a dollar amount and you know the more I thought about that I wonder should we be chasing a dollar amount or should we be chasing a desired BCI So

because so the dollar amount translates to a PCI. I understand that. So that so that that dollar amount translates to keeping our PCI where it is at the time that's I understand. So that so that's a PCI of like 70 I think it was when they ran it. Right. Is that what we want or do we want a PCI of 80? 76. Okay. Right. So so that that's what I'm talking about. I understand that that the dollar that the report calls for says this will get you to this PCI. My question is do is that the PCI we want?

But at the end of the day, we're on a six-year roll. How how much more are we going to degrade PCI? Because each year you add your saving some but you're going to still degrade. I understand that's not my my point is do we want to target a PCI of say 80 because that's going to change that number altogether which gives a different direction to what we do with our budget dollars. Right. Yeah. So that's that's what I'm getting at. Do we need to have a bigger discussion about what are we trying to get to versus what we're trying to maintain? So, so in the in the midst of this, uh there is a uh there is our capital improvement program, specifically drainage in the bond program. Okay.

Uh what I I would like to see is an analysis of the bond program, the drainage project because every I say every almost every single drainage project has a road component to it, right? Some cases it's a complete rebuild, four-lane boulevard and everything else. So, it would be interesting to know what dollar amount is in that $105 million that's actually going to be roadways rebuilding, resurfacing, and everything else, which is going to drive the PCI or at least keep it keep it going. That's outside of the the the 26 or 28 that we're trying to do. And because I I think that's going to help us quote get caught up a little bit. But but what's the dollar amount out of the 105? Is it is it $5 million or is it $25 million? Is it $30 million? What's the number that's built into the CPI or the capital improvement program uh that's going to help us do that because it helps tell the story. Yes, we're doing the ongoing maintenance. We're adding to this, but we're also spending money here and we're going to see the benefits of that. I

I agree. We're spending the dollars. I guess my mindset is should we be chasing a dollar or a PCI number? Yeah, because if we want a higher PCI for the community, better road conditions overall. I then that 5 million might be seven. I'm going to answer it this way. I We're so far behind.

Mhm. I I think I think we have to to to chase our tail to get somewhat caught up where we're keeping the PCI level before we can have the conversation that we're going to increase it. To me, I I mean, we we can have that, but then the next thing we're going to go is instead of instead of 5 million or almost $6 million a year, we need 10

to increase it to here. Then we have to look back at is that even realistic? And so so what I'm looking at is stuff that's already on the books, not the not the 28 or 3 million a year, the other stuff that's on the books should have a positive effect to our PCI because the number of roads it touches is huge. And so that in and of itself over the next four years should either keep our PCI level or should increase it a little bit. And so I don't know, but I mean they should be able to take the dashboard and say this road here, which is red, is going to go to a a green on this date when we complete this this project. That should give us an overall PCI. We should be able to anticipate that.

Yeah, I' I'd love to see that analysis. I mean, at the same time, obviously, this road over here that's orange is going to become red while this red is becoming green. So you have that. I'd love to see that analysis as well because that comes to the talk track in the in the story that we tell to the to the residents, right? You know, what are we doing about this? Well, it's not just asphalt this and and and doing that. We also have in our capital improvements program, here's what we're doing with these roads on the back end of these drainage projects. It goes into the whole equation. So, there's a lot going on. All we see is the the asphalt repair.

Your approach is the right approach. And I think back, you know, backing up to the last time we did our PCI study and the first time we did it and the interim one we did, that was always the discussion is here's the here's the data. Here's the results. Do we want to maintain where we are? Do we want to try to increase that? Do we are we okay with it falling? And we so we've had those conversations about not in the last couple of years. And the and and the results of those from council's direction has been let's let's maintain what let's try to get to maintaining what we have. So let's get to that level first. But I think you know that that is where you start is what what is the level of service we want to have on those roads. what do we want to have for PCI on our roads and is it what it is today or do we ultimately want to increase that

and so with I think we've had those conversations that's the right approach and the past direction has been let's get there let's get here first and then we'll go uh look at be going beyond that

and and even in how you know future bond programs and the like uh may be out there but I give you an example of veterans road you know veterans there's not going to be any new growth for veterans to build out, right? So, and I don't know exactly what is in our long-term capital plan for veterans. Does it need to go to four lanes or does does it stay at two? If it stays at two, if our long-term plan is to go concrete, curb, and gutter, is that necessary? You know, it it may be that the open ditch is fine because the drainage system works, but maybe we redo the street concrete. Now all of a sudden, we're not having to apply asphalt every seven years and and our PCI is going up and it's relatively stable and we're not having to maintain that street for 30 years. And so, you know, with relative maintenance, I'm talking, you know, regular things. So, and then what does that cost versus because 50% of your cost to redu road is in drainage and and if we're not having to touch the drainage do the roadway, what does that look like? Yeah. And then and then a lot of those asphalt roads um we could convert to concrete which I know we want to do in our in our in our capital improvement program over time but I think most of them are going from what they are now to curb gutter. Is that necessary? Yeah. It's not necessary. Why spend the dollars on it? I get that. I I guess ultimately it's I think we all agree that we need to continually and intentionally increase funding in roads, right? But are we chasing a dollar figure or are we chasing a quality of growth figure? I guess it's ultimately the question and you you kind of answered that saying in the past it's been let's just get to whatever average is. So if we're already on the same page

and moving forward conceptually with we want to continue funding roads, it it kind of takes the how are we funding the police department conversation into question. right now. Let's give staff a target to aim at for the next 15, 20 years instead of just average. We've got that. I don't want to beat a dead horse either, but Joseph, you keep trying to say something. I just I just want to get a Can we get what we're spending annually through uh the EDC through uh $15 million road and sidewalk bond that we passed in? Can we get a number for what we're spending per year?

Yeah, I think we can bundle that up with what we're spending from the drainage bond on streets. That's what I'm saying. The 15 million add to the EDC. Yeah, the EDC and then the 2.8 just so that we can see what are we actually spending per year. Uh because I mean that 5.9 is what they were saying at I don't remember 72 PCI or 74 whatever it was. 74. Okay. Um, so at any rate, that's

yeah, there's some nuances in that number as well because what I recall that was kind of what you need for your your annual, you know, maintenance program projects. Um, and so as you convert some of those, does that go down? And when you convert the concrete curve, gutter, um, you're adding stuff to what I'm as but I mean that's what we're that's the comprehensive package of what we're doing. Yep, that is what we're doing. But we just need to know what it is. And we should be able to convert that to a PCI anticipation. So we agree we're going to increase roads the budget. Yes. Okay. So would you be

Well, no. I mean would you be open to I think what is it 20% that we're taking EDC's funds. Mhm. upping it to 30 and letting them focus on the roads that have businesses and so you can justify and use our funds for more residential. I I would be open for what we need to find out is identify the roads through the city that because we can only do it with certain roads you can't do. Sure. That's what I'm saying. like if there is a and Matt get together and and come up with we've had this conversation before we kind we're bringing two roads next Monday night and map and then industrial

what I recall is that while the you know average over 5 years when we first kicked this off was about 20 that some of the stuff we added to the plan and are in the works right now we're probably $7 million yeah we never drunk 5 years ago, four years ago, it would be $70 million. So, we're probably pushing that 25 to 30% already, but we can put that. Well, thank you, Matt. But I would but I would say most of our asphalt reconstruction and redo is in residential areas now.

Good. And y'all just keep in mind too that um when we did present the PCI report back to you guys and where we landed on this $5 million number that to keep us to 74 that we did have in that in that presentation the different levels that was PCI score based and and the cost associated with each one and that's how we counted it. You guys landed on, hey, let's we're comfortable at the 74 at this comfortable at this number at this cost because each one of them had a cost associated with whether we increase to 80 and the dollar amounts increased or we dropped it down. I'm trying to find where is it?

We'll get it. We'll get it to you. It's in the it's it's a chart and it may have been in the CIP update series that had the charts and everything associated with the the cost. Trying to find it on our website. Good luck. It's probably there. Anything about the water, sewer, water system, facilities,

it Yeah. So, I'm going to go out on a limb here. I haven't I just realized I haven't spoken to anybody about this. So, apologies to my to my colleagues on this one.

But it's only as I'm looking at it, I'm thinking I have never been terribly comfortable that it and the internal service funds generally fit within sustainable infrastructure. Then I think so where do they fit because there's nowhere else. And also look and see there's not really much reference to anything related to people as in the staff in this to anything has to do with HR. Where do we put all that? I'm just wondering do we need to rethink the resilient finance priority and widen that to be about the organization. So I suggest a resilient organization which will include not just budget and finance but include issues related to it and all the other various support mechanism mechanisms within the organization that are there to make all the other things happen but and and I want you it's only it's an epiphany I guess I'm just sitting here looking at this

well at the end of the day an internal service fund is part of your resilient financing. So in in the context of the funding thereof but but they do more than just manage money right um and that's where I'm thinking maybe we need to broaden the resilient finance one to be about the organization and the general support to the organization I don't know I'm just throwing out I don't know tren I know we've never talked about it

I mean I I kind of see the benefits of looking at your internal services internal service bonds and kind of your internal services of finance department, HR, things like that being more part of your if it may fit better under resilient finance and then if you wanted to tweak council wanted to tweak the way that was really couched in the resilient organization, you could have that. But then there there's certain projects whether it's an IT project or um you know something with facilities or whatever that's certainly under infrastructure cuz our buildings and all those kind of things are part of our infrastructure. So I think it can be and and the reality is everything touches everything.

Yep. Actually there's very little that just fits in only one place but I just look at and think is there a better way to describe all of those activities that are more about supporting everything else the you know the foundation stones as a opposed to the pillars that are the actual outward focused activities that's where

I mean when I'm looking at infrastructure here I'm thinking about them spending money to do the fiber and and that's the way I look at it right or upgrading their equipment to keep infrastructure going. So, I mean, you're right, everything touches everything. But in in this case, when we're talking about infrastructure, I'm thinking about, hey, they need the, you know, whether they're buying new switches or laptops or putting in fiber, that's the way I look at it. So, I mean,

I I I get what you're saying, though. I almost wonder rather than rather than mess with projects or sustainable infrastructure because there is physical infrastructure to it, servers, mainframes, all that. Are we actually talking about a potentially seventh strategic priority of having of your of the culture of our organization and and what we're trying to build culturally which touches all the people that that's the people part of it. Okay. Yeah.

You see what I'm saying? I I I do I I I see that I I'd hesitate to add something else in and I'm not particularly hung up about I get I get the point about it's part of infrastructure in the widest sense. I just think for people out there bluntly as a citizen I don't really care what it you're running or what your computers are. I don't care if I care about my poor and sewer on my roads and my drainage. I'm not as to my mind.

Well, maybe we don't maybe we don't make a seventh category. Maybe it's the you know I'm obviously we're spitballing but maybe the culture of the organization lands under trusted government because if you have a high quality culture, right? That's then that helps build trust within the within the organization and within the community and and we're working towards that already. to that excellent efforts have been I don't think I don't think you moved it I think you address it both it goes back to what what Riy and I just said and that is the projects the nuts and bolts of fiber the nuts and bolts of service the nuts and bolts of a roof replacement or AC replacement at this building

goes under infrastructure correct but the other component may be trusted government the people piece correct I don't want to take us down a rabbit hole here. It's just my hang up. Hang up. It's just my hang up. And I may be wrong, but I I just I wanted to express that. You always have a motive. So, um, no, I will say that what's absent in the strategic plan, we've talked about this before, is there's no focus on you as an employer. I mean, there's a lot about resources and operational. And if anything's trending postco, it is uh there's usually a pillar on organizational excellence, organizational performance where you talk about your people, those sorts of recruitment, retention, compensation,

those sorts of go. Now, one thing we never have addressed, and for I guess anybody outside Laney and Tony, I uh we did have a consultant come before us and Daniel can probably fill in what the $25 million was, but uh he told us we need to spend $25 million on it. That was right when it came. Okay. Yeah. No, I remember that. So I I don't know if that was upgrades, if that was maintenance, if that was getting, but I do remember because I was shocked servers, software.

Yeah, I'd say Dan can fill in the gaps. It was it's a lot of things we're doing. It was also looking at do we need to replace some of our major platforms like the records management system and PD the ERP system our overall ERP system things like that as well and it was also a people plan as well which we've been able to like I said I don't remember the numbers and both of them but I just remember the 25 million caught my

it was significant it is both like Trent said people and all the uh technology that goes into sustaining the the city as a whole. Um the reality is uh we've been able to kind of push some of that down the road. Um because like the records management system um that's not getting sunseted as was originally anticipated. Um but you're going to have that pro uh that software. You're also going to have um potentially a new ERP. We're at I think year 10 now. Um, so we can continue on it for a period of time that hasn't been sunseted, but it's really planning for those future costs that are going to eventually come and if you don't have the funding ahead of time, it's going to be hard to pull um, you know, $4.5 million out of thin air. So,

no, I just remember there were big parts. So,

yeah. So, back to um the infrastructure, any appetite to shuffle that out or expedite it or add new add new initiatives to this. Okay, we can always come back to it. So, I'm just going to keep moving here. Moving on to the next page. Uh number five, resilient finance. I'm sorry, resilient finances. There's continued development of the internal service funds, the mid-range 3 to 5 years financial planning. I would share with you, and I'm sure you've heard this from staff, on 5.3, the initial draft for the mid-range financial planning, uh, most cities that have done that find it to be incredibly beneficial because it gets you out of the annual time frame on budgets and really start to look down the barrel. Um, not to speak to finance cuz that's not my role, but what most cities find, and I'm sure you're hearing this from staff, you can project at a fair level of 78 expenses cuz when 78% of your general fund or wages, run the CPI, you can sort of run that out almost in a linear obviously here in Texas, um, the revenue side is a little bit more suspect. So when you start to do that 3 to 5 years, I'm sure you're finding out, it starts to give you a sense of how do you prepare yourself for things where the lines may cross and that's not something you want to have. I'm just sharing that with you when you look at that financial plan. Uh number 5.4, the review the fund balance policy. Some of you brought that up. And five, develop a strategic level overview of funding for IT for internal service funds, IT facilities, and fleet. Most cities are continually focusing on that. It's a little bit about about moving money around, but it also, as was mentioned, it secures for people those functions are not coming in with their hat in their hands saying, "I need more money." You essentially have a structural financing process that you're putting money aside. Um, so you're not

um sort of trying to justify it based on its merits. And I think you've all seen all three of those, especially it. Uh it's only getting more expensive. And you're mission critical on it. It's hard to imagine uh the technology. I would imagine just about every employee touches a keypad at some point during the day. So everybody's depending on the public dependent upon yourself. Thoughts about resilient finances, the fund balance policy, the financial the financial planning internal service funds. So, a couple of things I would like to last year, I guess, uh, one of the questions that was brought up that staff wasn't directed to do a no new revenue tax rate. Okay. So, one of the things I would like this council to discuss is giving staff direction on, hey, here's the no new revenue tax budget. And again, I I don't know if there's appetite among the other council members, but

I'd say I I've already got that direction in my goals. So, okay. Appropriate to do it here, but it's it's it's you're going to get that this next year.

Okay. Um the other thing I would I would ask is I think you Patrick, you said expenditures are pretty forward. you know, you know, I think ours is 68% is on labor and the remaining 32 is on everything else. What I would challenge the staff is to say, give us your budget on the expenditure side before the appraisal review brings you the values. And the reason I would challenge them is to say, "Put down all your cost. Tell us ahead what we are preparing for. Don't wait till the values come in and manipulate the rate and then they plug things in because everybody's waiting on, hey, let's see what the value comes in.

If the values are high, we don't do that. We we don't I haven't seen the expenditures before. I'm I'm challenging you. Give me the expenditures. Give me your budget. just the expenditures. That's what we give you. We give you the budget with the expenditures and then we include the revenue. I have not seen the full budget until after the appraisal review board has given you a certified value. We've had those budgets for months by that point, gone through them with the department, scrubbing them. But I'm talking about from council point of view.

I mean, we have to present you a budget that's got a revenue source that supports that budget. But let us have that budget before you do that. Why can you not let us look at that budget expenditure budget what you guys are looking at? Even if it's a draft copy, in essence, you get that because you get the budget presented. You also see all the things that hit the cutting room floor. Okay. Again, see I I No, I take your point. I I see what you're saying. I I I take your point. I think we could I think we could articulate that. So, I understand at least. I don't know if anyone else does. Rachel, it's a it's it's about timing, is it not? Sure.

I mean, it's it's I I I think I think understanding what you're making, I think then it just comes down to timing of when we could realistically get something and the degree of detail you would be looking for. Well, but there's more than one version of the budget. There's what departments submit, then how those are edited by the manager's office. Right. Right. I mean, that's a normal process. I'm just trying.

But the process sometimes is waiting till the appraisal comes in, the valuations are certified. If the budget is already done, don't worry about the appraisal. Let's council start looking into this and being prepared for it. If you guys are confident that the budget is here because we know we want to take a lip a victory lap and say look we reduce the tax rate but the taxes have gone up because the valuations have gone up right so even your tax rate may go down from 65 to60 your valuations have shot up my point is give me everything you want you give your budget however you want. If you want extra personnel, it is my job. Then if I had to go to a taxpayer and said, I've approved the expenditures and I agree with the expenditures, I agree, we'll have to raise the tax rate if the valuation doesn't come in. That's on council then because they accept it. But don't put the, you know, put the pressure on council to say, hey, these are what we want. Don't worry about what the valuation comes in. I I don't know how you said I don't know how I can make a decision on what I'm okay with without knowing what the revenue

you have to trust the expendit do you trust that you got to review the expenditures whether you agree to spend that money it doesn't m if you want to spend $8 million on roads then you have to stand by it right you have to if you don't this is where you're going to have to come in and actually do homework to say you know what we're going to cut this expenditure before you know what the valuation is

let me ask let me ask let me ask let me ask a question to staff on the process Okay. Um, coming out of this meeting and then coming out of the April early input budget session, the the real formal budget process, I mean, we're doing budget year round, but I mean the formal budget process for next year gets started. Yes. So, the individual departments and and and the like are putting together their their expenditures and wish list of what they're looking to do over the next budget year. So, and then somewhere in the background, we're getting updates from the appraisal districts. We don't just get a certified role. We get that, but we've also had some preliminary like coming out of April. We have a preliminary role. Uh we know and it's subject to people who are fighting their appraisals and the and the like. So, we have both of those fairly early. So, I'll say this. When the when the certified roll comes in, does the expenditure number go up or go down from the budget?

It usually goes down. The numbers we get in April are usually significantly higher than the numbers that we get in July. Um, there are other factors uh such as tax protests. So, even your current year property taxes can impact what we think about what the next year's property taxes will do. Um, we do have the departmental budget and the general consensus on what we would like to fund. We could potentially do that in July, but it seems like that's potentially another budget version that we would be presenting in addition to the ny revenue rate budget and our proposed budget which we of course can do. Um, but that is additional material and versions of the budget that would have to be digested. But but I think that to answer the question, generally speaking, expenditures go down to fit the the um certified appraised roles in the three count. Generally speaking, we are cutting things to get to that where that is. And then obviously we have the worksheet revenue and everything else involved in it. It would be unlikely for the if we were just trying to maintain our existing property tax rate that we would have to cut existing services at that point. What we would be looking at cutting is additional money the streets the different salary increases potentially some of the uh service level increases we would be adding to the budget. Um if we were trying to go to that no new revenue rate then we would be probably looking at service level reductions. I mean, but those are

maybe I can understand your question. Help me understand your question. Are you saying you want all of the expenses to the city presented to council? No revenue source, just here's the expenses we think we're going to have for next year. Council, approve this list and then we'll come back to you and say, "Well, here's what the tax rate has to be to fit that number." And if we do that and they come back and say, "Well, to fit the number council said yes to, we've got to go to 70 cents." And you think council's not going to go, "Yeah, we're not doing that." So, so council better understand the budget properly, right? Like again, you have to go through the budget. How you

But there's no way you can know what the tax revenue is going to be until the tax valuations are set. Hold on. Hold on. So, if if we let's just say easy numbers, we approve an expense budget of $2 million. Then the apprais' love it if it only cost 2 million to run our city, right? Um, but we approve that number and then the valuations come out from the appraisal district and that says to get to 2 million we've got to raise the tax rate 10%. No one on council is going to vote for a 10% tax rate. So, we're going to revisit the entire process again because everybody's going to want to cut. So, I don't I don't I'm trying to get there with you. I just don't understand. So, let let me flip the script on that one.

If you passed $10 million budget last year Mhm. and they give you a $200 million budget because that's their wish list that comes in there, right? Hopefully, you will say, "There's no way I'm going to approve this budget." Hopefully, we have the sense to say, "No, we're doubling the budget." Sure. If they come in and they say, "Hey, we want a budget to be $120 million." They go up 10 million. We go through line by line and we say, "Hey, yeah, you know what? The numbers are valid or no, we don't like this. We need to cut somewhere." and we bring it down to 118. You went up approximately 7% up. Correct. You with me so far? I think so.

Realistically, our appraisal value is not going to be dramatically more than five maybe 6% the value up or down. Would you agree with that? Mine goes up 10% almost to the dollar, but you get cap. But not everybody's does. You mean that?

Right. So the valuation as a whole in the city does not go up. My point to you is you're not going to have this dramatic swing, right? So the and then we can certainly have a no new revenue tax rate if we focus on the expenditures, not worrying about what the appraisal. We know we're going to stay within the lines. You're not going to go swinging way to the right or to the left. You're going to stay within what the last year's budget was. You're going to take it and you're going to say, "Hey, what made sense? where can we find some dollars? Because again, by the time the revenue comes in, then you can say, you know what, look, we we went through the expenditures. It may go up a penny, it may go down two pennies. I don't know, but it's not going to be a dramatic swing, but at least you have the time to go through that budget. When we get it in July, we're already starting to vote. It's a 300page plus budget. Why not get it in April to at least start understanding if they're already starting to work all year round? You should know like, hey, we're we have the appetite to do a 5% of home pay

or we don't we don't vote on it in July. We start You're not going to vote on it workshop in July.

Yeah. So, is that what we do starting in July? So, aren't aren't we aren't we council approving I mean in about six weeks we'll get today's work and then we approve that this is what we want to see given a a relative dollar amount and this is the work plan we're going through and setting the direction and the different components that these folks will then go and set their budgets towards. So, we're already doing that. It's in this work product. We don't have the cost yet. You know, it's got to come back to us in a in the form of what does exactly does it cost us here, here, and here. But we're setting the direction of what we want to see as far as goals and directions, that's what this is. And so whether it comes in in April, where it comes in in June or July or even in August, the the budget is based on this that we're doing. So, I mean, I understand where you're coming from on on what you're wanting to see. I don't know that it changes anything with what the council's doing and what I see. I I'll just say I think it's busy work for these guys. I I I mean, is your fear that the revenue is driving the budget, not the expansion?

Absolutely. Yes. But if you I sorry, if you are giving us direction that the cap is the no new revenue rate, then we're done, folks. That's the budget you'll get. Well, I'm certainly not giving you that direction. What I can say on the revenue rate is if you set it at that, we can always vote to add. But to sit there and say take this, take that, I can tell you I ran into a lot of resistance. In the three and a half years that I've been here, I've been told that if you go in and you cut it, it's up to you to do it. I'm met with resistance. So, you're saying you're not in favor of no new revenue tax?

No, I said have a no new revenue rate. If we want to add to it, we can, right? Not here's our budget and take that. Yeah. I guess Trent mentioned earlier that that's your goal. We've already given it to them as so we're not I don't know that it was delivered just a revenue budget but it was one that is practical practically can be implemented. Yes. Y'all are making my job really easy as far as budget goes.

Well, I mean not not a not a hey here's here's this that covers everything budget and oh by the way no new revenues going to scratch uh three new officers and all the streets. I I think the bill you flip it. Here's the no new revenue. If we want to add 300 officers, it costs this. If we want to add a million dollars of street, it cost this on the tax rate.

Correct. I think that's the that's the difference from years past. It was here's everything. If you want to cut the rate, you get your marker out and you scratch it. I think the the the direction this year was let's start with a baseline of no new revenue and then let's have a discussion on going up from there and if we start there then we know what our no new revenue rate expenditures expenditures are now so that that gives us our baseline today

but I would also tell you let's make sure in our expenditures we're not undercutting things that we want and patting things that we may not have it, right? So, you got to dig through that expenditures and go line by line trying to figure out, hey, is this the right number, right? But the line item budget is really categorical. The to the mayor's point, the department directors are presenting you a budget based on your priorities. So, the dollar figures are a reflection of the priorities that they're bringing back to you. Fair enough. Yes.

Yeah. And so that to go line by line I think in a way that's what the benefit of today's session is is and I haven't heard anything come off the list not uncommon. So the budget's going to reflect the priorities which is probably going to be do more of what you're doing and also add a few things. So the expenses are going to reflect the priorities. If you want to change the budget then change the level of priorities. I'm just sh I know I'm simplifying that. That's not easy to do.

The bigger problem at this point is when you don't have a dollar amount attached to it. You can sit there and say, "Yeah, I'm a kid in a candy store and I want every damn popsicle that's in there." And then all of a sudden the parent gets stabbed and says, "No, put that one back. Put that one back. Put this one back." That's what the problem with that approach is. So it it's Yes, we can sit here and say we want everything under the sun, but without having a dollar amount today, it's kind of hard to push back. I mean, you guys never get everything under the sun. That's all I get. why I'm presenting is something based on what we understand as the priorities.

Um I mean and I go back to you know the whole the whole goal is no new revenue is I mean we're really sitting there saying all the things that cost us more to do next year. We're not going to pay for those. We're going to have to cut other things or absorb it within our current budget too.

Exactly. You you can find cuts. I mean and and and if that's what it needs to be that's what it needs to be. I mean, right now, uh, I I can tell you we didn't want to have a discussion on vehicles. Um, and I guarantee you that bought right, that last purchase was probably $50,2 $50,000 too high. That's 10% right there. I was told the government standard on estate, I don't even know what quantity purchasing is. And we went to go buy 55 tough books. And we say 135 just because I have a phone call. How many other purchases are out there that are like that? Can you tell me?

Because I think it boils down to how do we resource our pursing for? Well, at the end of the day, I can't tell you all the different things we purchase and where we can save. I I I know how to buy vehicles. And when it got to tough books, I just looked online and I got within a hundred bucks. And then Daniel came back and and through me asking the question, we got 135 in two weeks. Yeah, I understand that.

And and I don't know how many else is out there. It opens the question of what else are we spending that we shouldn't be spending. I don't know that number, but I guarantee it's there. Well, the hard part of that city's confront about looking at their budget is not so much some of what you talked about today, but some of the things we didn't talk about today, which is the nature of this are core services. That's where a lot of your budget goes to is maintaining keeping the lights on. I would say 80 to 90% of staff time and wages are devoted to core services. That's where you that starts to cut at the and that's those are really difficult discussions

you decide what you're no longer going to do as a core service. Right. I mean, because who's delivering that? You are a labor intensive service provider. So, if you're going to say we're no longer going to provide, let's just say, for example, because you're no longer going to operate this and of course I'm just throwing that out there. You're going to do you're going to shutter this. Okay. Well, who's involved in operating this? Okay. What are those people going to do now? I'm just throwing that out there. Again, I don't mean to be insensitive about that, but those are hard policy decisions as you all know very well. And I would push back just a little bit just from my own vantage point. And I hope you're seeing this in the spirit I offer. You all are seasoned veterans of budgets. You've been through this process several times. I can't imagine that what you get on the revenue side is that different than what you've got in previous years. There is continuity there, is there not? So with a little variation, so to say, we're not sure what the budget's going to be until we get the assessed valuation with how much variance is there that you don't already have at least maybe a 90°% certainty about what you're going what's going to come. I'm just asking you that question.

That's what I'm saying. in April when they get that role, primary role, they know it's going to come down by X and they can look over year-over-year and see what that is. So, they're going to have some with some relative certainty, you know, a range of where that role is going to be. And keep in mind, we also have new value coming on that that we actually get to take advantage of that

in in and how that that doesn't count against your revenue. So I want I want to be clear on a couple things. What what you said a second ago that about the non new revenue budget I did not understand that was the direction that we gave in Trent was build a no new revenue budget and then add to that. My understanding was we said tell us what the no new revenue budget is and tell us the budget that meets the priorities that we called for not start here and then build two separate budgets and present it to us. If they're changing that, then that's a conversation that we need to have. I also wonder what is magical about no new revenue. Thank you. What What does that do for our city? That that's a that's a number that the legislature threw out there that has been used as a hammer against local elected officials who are more concerned about saying I get new no new revenue than they are about saying I properly funded my community. And so in in my opinion, I don't think no new revenue is the target, nor should it be our target. I think effectively having the lowest pro possible tax rate to properly fund our community based on the priorities that we establish as a council, that needs to be our target. If that number comes in under no new revenue, awesome. If that number is over no new revenue, great. But I don't want to pigeon hole our staff into this budget that says, "Well, you got to hit this magical number." I don't understand. I I don't understand how that became the priority for communities. Not effectively fund your drainage, your streets, your police, your EMS, your capital improvement programs, not any of that. Hit no revenue. And if you don't, you're not you're not representing your city well. I don't understand how that's become the narrative. I don't think it's a narrative. See, I I I don't think it's a narrative. I I I think the point is

that's the exact reason I want the expenditures before even the revenue comes in. It doesn't matter. You're exactly right. The no new revenue should not be a target. If we can get it lower, as low as this can go, great. But we should as a as a group sit down and look at this budget and have time to say, "Hey, these are our priorities." Adding additional assistant city manager may not be a priority. We don't need it today. We are one of the highest taxing cities, right? You saw that article yesterday. We were shared we're the number one city in on Texas, third in the nation. Great. But when it comes to taxing, we're also one of the highest. It's also a skewed article. So then every article can be skewed. Like you can't pick you can't just cherry pick what you like, right? Like either you accept it.

No, but you have to put all the variables in place. Everything has variables. I get it. So the point is that's why the expenditures are important to say let's get those in front of us. Let let us all seven plus the mayor agree on what we want to spend money on and how much we want to spend. And if the valuations come in higher then it's great. If it doesn't then you accept it. Isn't that I'm really not trying to I'm really not trying to argue with you. I'm trying to understand isn't that why we started last year why we workshopped starting in July instead of it hitting us in late August. I mean that what you're talking about. So we had how how many how many budget workshops did we have before we actually started voting on numbers?

We got the nonp Yeah, we got the nonpropy tax backed funds EDC visit pairland watered sewer and the like done before the role came out. That way from a time perspective that was done. Then when the uh certified role of the rest of the budget came out, we had more time to discuss the budget and at least three of those budget workshops we got done with hours to spare. No other questions, no other comments were being made.

What when what am I missing? I mean, we we did four workshops on the budget, but what did we not have in those workshops? We didn't know where the rate was going to be in the sense where we could cut, right? I guess for me now because they never prepared a no new revenue budget. So I'm just saying if there's appetite, great. So I want because I was told last year no one mentioned that that was important. Yeah, I think we all agreed we want both. Okay.

We want the budget that says here this meets the priorities that you asked for. Here's no revenue. Well, I think the way it was actually put was we want you to deliver a no revenue rate budget. If that is the budget that you're recommending, then then great. If that's not the budget you're recommending, have both. Correct? Yeah. So, have a baseline of building your revenue that is realistic, that is, you know, funds maybe not all of our priorities, but funds our core services. And then here's the other which which we should see that. Um does that does that get you where you need or or we look

I mean we I mean we again I want a full no new revenue budget without saying hey we're just going to cut the police and the fire. Don't throw the public service under the bus. Go through the budget and you know cut out things. And maybe as a as a council we need to say what are your priorities as seven of us plus the mayor. It's a low fruit and what's the most important out of your priorities, right? Let's go through that and say this is not going to happen. We're not going to agree to it. So, what are some of the ideas you're going to give Trent today to say, "Hey, these things, yeah, it's important to us, but it's not on our top priority right now." So, that goes back to what Patrick said. So far, we haven't cut anything off the priority. So, if our budget's too high, that's what we're here for, right?

Yeah. Right. Okay. I do understand the need for no new revenue in some ways for from maybe there's some cities who needed a target or a goal if you will. Um I mean maybe no new revenue is the worksheet and the way it is maybe that's not ideal but having a a goal for all the cities uh does make sense in some way. I'm not saying knowing revenue is ideal. You're saying for the state to set a goal does make sense.

And I do want to address the article you're talking about. It's an all-in rate. It adds school, county, hospital district, port fees, uh, everything else to that. It's not just the city tax rate. So, anybody reading that article did not read the article. You read a headline and you didn't read the article. The article itself talks about you have to add in all these other things to it. Uh if you take Harris County portion of our city completely out of our city, we fall hundreds of spots in the list. But it depends what side of town you live on. If you live on the west side, you have mud tax and the city tax. I have a mud tax. I do too. And I live on the east side. I do too.

Well, on the west side, the tax is a lot higher than the east, probably. I I haven't looked at your there's a there's a mud in in in Shatter Creek that's now not 8 cents or nent it would it would probably be more in the valuation than it is in because homes are newer is numbers can be manipulation headlines can be put out there unless you read the article and actually understand the article there are different tax rates or different tax um obligations throughout the city. If you have no life, you have a better tax situation than without it.

Um, and if you're in Harris County, you've got a hospital tax, you've got a port tax, you've got Santo tax. If you're in Shadow Creek, you've got Alvin College tax. If you're in Parland, you don't. So, all of that adds up to it. But I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you take the Harris County portion of our city completely away that that being in the top 10 drops to like number 180 on the list. I know that for a fact because we've run the analysis. So again, all of that's relative. The city tax rate itself though is not in the top 10 highest tax rate in the nation. Period. There's four cities in Rosoria County alone that have a higher tax rate than the city of Parland. I can go across the state of Texas and give you 20 cities across the state of Texas that are our same size that have a higher tax rate than ours. So when when we spout those things, it's wrong. That article is wrong on the way it's putting it. It's putting the whole city together and averaging all of those different tax rates from all those different entities. and they're attributing it to parland. That's not right. The article itself even says this is an all-in tax rate, meaning school, county, blah, blah, blah.

All right, let me bring it back here. We're trying to be mindful of the time. We still have one category. So, after all that's been Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I was just going to say, Trent, do you have direction of how many budgets because I'm not in favor in providing three budgets to to council and putting that much extra work upon the staff. So I guess I I just want to narrow it down before you move on. We're here. How many budgets are we?

So I've got one that just gives all the expenditures based on priorities and whatever the tax rate is. The tax rate is and we've got a no new revenue thing. what we normally do which is take all those factors into account recommend a budget that we think meets all the needs as well as takes a look at the you know how what we can't afford what we can't afford what needs to be potentially deferred and those sort of things. Um yeah, with with the constraints that have been put on us, you know, with the state, not just no new revenue, but but the uh the voter approved rate. Um you know, even going to the voter approved rate doesn't really hadn't covered inflation for the last handful of years. So, um that's where I think we struggle with. Obviously, we're going to have to go back and really examine, you know, what we've done and and where we need to potentially cut and things like that to uh to come into that no new revenue budget. So I and and then I do I think I do want to clarify whether we're looking at uh actually saying here's the no new revenue budget, here's some things that can be added back to it or whether we do have a uh a recommended budget, but here's some very practical ways to get to know new revenue. So my question is is where do where which one do we want him to do? I mean, what's what's the what's the census here so we can move on? Because like I said, three budgets. I'm not in favor for the for them for the staff to do everybody staff to do that much extra work when I I just want clarity of what council wants, what what we want as a group. above the direction was two budgets, a no new revenue and then

but but no new revenue where we then add or a you know that's that's where he's a little hung up right now and that's where we need when we get the budget you're saying you want to look at two and not be able what the no new revenue rate before has been here's our budget and here's what you scratch okay so now the reverse verse is here's no new revenue. Here's what you can add. It's the reverse of what we've been given the last two. And if we want to do that that as one of the budgets

because I can tell you the resistance of getting there and putting it there. Um then at that point it's the person that puts it there and that's the way it's always been explained. And if y'all are not happy with that, it's much better to say here's the baseline. Go up. Well, that's what here's here's the budget and go down. Member Carbone, isn't that what you were suggesting? Have that base and we add to it? That's what

is that what you you know that's what I thought. So, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that one. You know, I just don't want three different ones, you know, for whatever purposes. I I guess in my mind the frustrations in prior years from if you want to say the no new revenue camp is you get the the recommended budget and then at the the end of the slide deck here's here's the five things you can cut and can I pause and say this isn't a us versus staff like this all there always things that are very very very hard to cut and very hard to put in front of a council and say Yes, cut that.

But I can tell you from from council's perspective, it looks like here's the the ideal city budget and then the to get to your no new revenue revenue for Mona, we're going to cut streets and for we're going to cut police. And I think what what I've heard is let's start with a no new revenue and then let's add on from there and let's let's have the the constructive debate as to what we're going to bring on top of the no new revenue instead of starting up here

and and cutting. I think from a practical standpoint. So, we can do that. Sure. From a maybe it's more of a procedural standpoint when we get to that first, you know, setting the max tax rate. That's where we'll have to it'll be key that we don't get in there and we just set that max task or tax rate at the at the noon revenue rate because at that point then there's no added. Wow. So, we'll have to unless there's four votes. If there's four votes at that point, Sure. I'd rather set it then than wait until the second reading and then we're sure we're left with that show.

But if there's, you know, things that are going to be debated over as to whether we want to do more streets or whether there's other things that are that are priorities um or whatever we have in the budget for PD and we want to add two more um all those sort of things. We've got to make sure we give ourselves that leeway at that point procedurally. Make sure I heard that right. If you you said if we set the max tax rate at no new revenue, it didn't matter if we got four votes, six or seven. If we set that, that's it. It's done. Yeah. Once you set it, it's from that point to adopt. You can't revisit. We have to give ourselves breathing room if we're going to approach it. We have to be careful, but we also have to give staff a good indication.

Sure. Right. All those workshops. No, before that cuz staff could hear, oh, we'll go up to 80 cents and they can take that one way and say, oh, we can go up to 80 cents. But it that's not give them the delusion that that council's go up to 80 cents. That's no problem. I mean, I think from a from a we we would look at it very practically like we do with the budgets we presented in the past and and present a max tax rate somewhere in and based on the same principles we've come up with the tax rates in the past years.

Yeah. But I think that having that harder discussion earlier to set that max tax rate because if if there is four votes to set the max tax rate to no new revenue, let's hash it out then and give everybody the clear guidance that is your catch. Because what what happens in years past is you give give a few pennies over and we've run down this path and then pull it back arbitrarily at the end. And I don't think that's fair to to staff to citizens anybody. We we don't have the conversation on this max tax rate till close to the end anyway. Right.

That's not in the beginning of the workshop. I thought it was in the beginning tax rate is in August. It's it's the fir is it the first meeting after we even actually have the values and present that general fund budget. Yes. I want to say it's August 7th but I'm probably wronged in September. It'll be August 10th. So Tony to your point what you said about hey let's start out here and then have the I guess subsidies to add back in right. Let's not make sure the subsidies are things that council wants like roads and and then they'll add this back. So make sure

if roads don't fit in the no new revenue then they don't roads. No well find something else. That's I'm going to tell you right now find somewhere else. Okay? So don't use that as a fireback to say oh well we're going to cut roads back down from 800,000 from last year's budget to we don't count just we don't approach. I'm just saying. I'm just saying because last year the answer I was given, hey, no one told you. So, I'm just telling you now. Yes. Like we approach it in a in a manipulative way and we don't. I'm just telling you so you know. So, we're very clear on that.

It wasn't a manipulative way. The day that she asked the question uh in an agenda meeting, what can we cut? And your response was roast. That was an immediate response. um that there was no no mean intellection whatsoever. It was immediate response. So it the way I took it was you were taking a jab at her notation. I mean I I didn't take no jab. I just you know historically roads has been it's a big chunk of money and it's it's been well that's our biggest complaint that we have.

Understand? I I can tell you from the person that pays the bills, the biggest complaint we have, whether it's talking with somebody, whether it's social media is a road. Y and through the years, for whatever reason, just like not raising water rate, then all of a sudden we're faced with 16 17% increases. Now we're looking at taking care of roads. Yeah. And I mean that that's what it is, right? But if she goes and puts 5 million to roads next year, we're not hitting any revenue. But that properly fun. We're not saying five. We're not saying go to five. I understand.

Sorry. Without wishing to prolong the agony here or taking us take us down another rabbit hole. We will come back in April with the early budget input session. We hear what you're saying and we are not disagreeing with any of it. We get it completely. We get it. I would say to you, however, when we do come back to you with a budget that shows what it would look like to go to the new revenue rate, I cannot guarantee that will not include hard choices we have had to make that actually are about cutting something. I cannot tell you we will not have to do that. We hear what you're saying, but remember we are locked into a meeting to fair agreement with PD so they get the pay raise they get. Our colleagues in the fire service are about to go through a process with the voters to get civil service. I I think it would be difficult for us to resist a reasonable pay to them that is not unrelated to that to PD. That's a huge part of the general fund already locked in. Our room for maneuver and that's the point Trenton has been trying to make when he referred to some of the other things we've added money to like streets. Our room for maneuver is severely limited. That's just the truth. We're not arguing with you about it and we're not trying to be awkward about it. We're just telling you that is what we're dealing with. But we've heard what you've got to say. We will take that on board and we will bring you back a budget that's based on the new revenue rate. But that may come with some costs.

And to follow on that, one of the things we're working on that we want to bring to you in the early budget input session is really how does that break down between here's, you know, personnel, the benefits, all of kind of the locked in fixed costs, which is uh utilities for all of our facilities, maintaining all of our facilities, paying for the street lights, paying the appraisal district, all these things that are that are essentially fixed cost. often we'll get down to, you know, here's the things that are a lot more flexible. And so that's where we can start looking at the hard calling questions on what do where do we prioritize and where do we cut and where do we how do we get to that one last thing before you move on. Sorry if I cut you on the 5.3 where the develop a mid-range three to five year uh financial planning. Can we get a true understanding of Shadow Creek Tars that uh that's going to be done in 3 years and what kind of impact that can have?

Yeah. On our finances. Yeah. So, um and I I know I've been told it's 10 cents, you know, that our tax rate could go down as much as 10 cents. So I think it's important to keep that in mind on this council for the next 10 three years when that does collapse to see how we can

impact our finances. So just to make sure we get what you're asking for set a true understanding of it. So we we've run scenarios the last couple years as if it had ended that year to see how it would impact at that juncture. Um so trying to use that as give us a sense of what it looks like at that point. But, you know, a lot of that depends on values, where we are at that point, things like that. So, I mean, are you looking have you updated it anytime soon? Uh, we updated it after last year when we finished the tax rate worksheet for our actual budget. We reran it as it deters ended last year. Okay.

So, are you really is is it a focus on how much is do we expect the tax rate to drop or change? Yeah. And I guess what's the plan for it, right? Are we going to take that money straight and net or are we going to sell bonds and and try to build this uh training center that we have purchased land on? I mean are it's a big number, right? I mean today's tax rate is at what 603 63. Are we going to go down? Let's assume if it was 60 in 3 years, are we going to go down to 50 cents? Probably.

But again, you can't just pop that. You can't just take that and do something with it. It It's still all tied in with the tax rate workshop sheet and the no new revenue and the voter approved rate that year. That'll change that year as well. So So real real quick to to help with this, we've run it the last two scenarios. We've run these scenarios the last two years.

Um and and running it we'll run it again this year. Correct. So are we it's hard to see a trend with two but to your point we might have an idea especially at the end of this year. I think we get that data now but then we get the data at the end of this year when we run it again based on if it was this year are we seeing a trend seeing something that's interesting fact last year the overall value for the city went up more than the overall value for the tours. So that means the shadow green tourists did not increase as much as the remainder of the city. So that

was that overall value or value increases because there's not a lot of construction going on increase. That's correct. The value correct that was the point. The point more activity was going on outside of the tur inside. Was the evaluation just pure evaluation changes different from Chatter Creek from the rest of the city? I do not remember that there was any big disparity increases. I know you're not not new construction. I didn't I think I think probably Fort Ben County portion of it probably

we've seen it more flat a little bit more in the in theory county side more akin to what the rest of the city. Yeah. Can can can we have this discussion like after budget once we have the scenario like a a deep dive workshop so we can start talking about let's say it is a 10-cent drop you know the no new revenue and the the voter approved rate is still going to be locked in

but does it make sense for another bond package timed the same way so that the voters are are still getting a a a large tax decrease, but soaked up with maybe street projects and some other things, it um so that we can we can attack some of these other strategic goals, but do it in a way that the taxpayer gets relief at that time and we're able to to move the ball on these.

Yeah, cuz the big drop, Victor, is on the debt service side. And so that makes a lot of sense. Um, I know we've we've done our last couple of bond programs saying, "Hey, we'll examine whether we do another one in about 5 years." That may lend us towards saying, "Okay, let's let's wait another couple of years or something." Yeah. And or do a much smaller one before we do a larger one. And I know one of the concerns have been, you know, we can't really, it's hard to take a hit on the M side. And I I think that's the question to also ask and then get answered in these scenarios. Are we seeing it primarily on the debt service or are we are we also seeing any impact on the M side?

So So in the health has been artificially down so many years service that all right let me try to we've got about 15 minutes left trying to get you out of here on time. The final one connected community. Um, speaking of the bond program, the Hickory Sports Plex, phase two, there fundraising efforts. I'm just identifying those items in blue. The train depot renovation phase two, the cultural arts master plan. Anything on there you want to discuss? Move forward. Pump the brakes. Yes. No. Anybody good? We're good.

I I do. Sorry. Since uh the the new acquisition we did uh do we have a plan for it, mayor, or are we just the new park that we bought across from Independence? Oh, I think I think most of the plan is to leave it as an Are we going to build trails or anything? Carrie, are we working on a new park? We are in our in our 2025 master plan update. They're doing some conceptuals for us that will include um connection from Independence Park into that property and then um potentially all the way up some of the school district's property through the back side of the library. Our goal with that is natural land with trails that meander through there.

Okay. Hey, can I ask because I've heard trails before and my thought of a trail is a a trail maybe the the grass is beat down. Sometimes when we talk about, you know, the the 80% matching fund trails that stand near a roadway out there. So, when you're saying trails, which which trail we talking about? Most of the trails that you'll see in that area, our goal is to keep them more naturalized type trails. You may have some for ADA compliance and accessibility, some um connections that are concrete, but mostly in that area, we're looking at keeping it natural. Okay. What about are you going to see is something going to happen with the pond? The one in Independence Park,

um part of Independence Park phase 2 project that'll be turned into an amenity late. Any questions on the item that items that are in the queue? Yeah, on on the 23, you sent us an update recently on the 23 program. We're we're on task to get everything started within the 5 windows. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Discussion.

Anything else on those items?

All right. So a summary will a summary will be prepared from today and circulated for your review. Good discussions as I've shared with you on the phone. No big surprise if these issues are easily solved. You would have already done it. So there's some level of complexity to these. The story continues. You obviously have opportunities how you're going to flush this out. Find some common ground about how you're going to work through this. I would just encourage you on the budget. It's easy to get lost in the numbers. The numbers are a reflection of the priorities. So if you want to change the numbers, it's no different than what you spend on your checkbook. You want the what you spend in your, as we all do, our checkbook's a reflection of what we consider a priority. Government's the same thing. It's just as Victor said very delicately. Some of these are just tough decisions and governments um across the country struggle with that because that you're a demand. Remember, government is a demand-based organization. And in a growing community, demand continues to go up. Even to maintain the current level of services at the level they're delivered, it costs more, right? Because on the other side of for a number of reasons. So it's that's sometimes a tough side. So

yeah, I throw one suggestion out there real quick. Start going back to what Victor brought up earlier. Under trusted government, should we consider adding a 1.5 that says focus on recruiting and training and retention of high quality team members to improve organizational effectiveness and build a desired culture? Can we put it in the revised draft and then ask council to describe that? Can you send that to to Megan? That sound good? Yeah. So, give people some time to process it.

Trent, on here it says um park phase 2 um fundraising efforts that was park phase 2 included in that bond um yes. So, invest park phase 2 is in the 2023 bond and we've got these fundraising supplement. Final comments before we wrap up. I hope you found today's uh process beneficial. It's some of this is about discovery, giving the opportunity to reflect and ruminate and discover how you're trying to continually build a stronger community. So, thanks for the opportunity. Enjoy the balance of your day. Appreciate you. All right.