City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the City of Pearland City Council regular meeting on June 22nd, 2026 at 6.30 p.m. I will now call the meeting to order at 6.30 p.m. As a point of privilege, I just want to recognize Chief Harris and Chief Dunham, the new police chief and the new fire chief for the City of Pearland in the room today. This is their first official city council meeting, so please do take it easy on them. So at this point, I do want to start with a prayer and then the pledge. I'll lead the pledge. But I do want to recognize also that we just celebrated Juneteenth. And Pearland continues to be the community of choice. And we have, as a resident, the pastor of Reedy Chapel. And if you're not familiar, Reedy Chapel is the site after the enslaved people were notified that those peoples marched back to church. And she is the pastor of that church. She's a Pearland resident. And I've asked her to give the invocation tonight as we stand up for the invocation. And then I'll lead the pledge and the Texas pledge.

If she could, she can go to the podium in the back.

Let us all come together under the Creator that has created us all. We come this evening, Lord, asking you that you will come in this room, that your presence will be here, that we will feel you, that we will do what it is that needs to be done in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for the turnout. We thank you for those that have come. Now we ask you to combine our minds and our hearts together, that we might act and be and do the thing in the will that you will have us to do. Bless us all, Lord, in Pearland, that we might come together in unity on one accord. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen. Amen.

And her name was Pastor Lynette Patterson. I apologize. Now moving on to roll call and certification quorum. We do have all council members present except for Mayor Pro Tem Chavarria. And then next portion, Moving on to citizens' comments, and at this particular time, I'd like to hand it over to Councilmember Byrum to facilitate this part of the citizens' comments.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We do have a number of comments this evening, so I will call your name, and if we can make sure and keep the podium area clear so people can make it in and out, I would appreciate it. So I'll call your name one at a time. Make it up to the podium, state your name for the record, and you'll have three minutes to speak. And we'll start with a Naftali Arroyo. Go to the podium there in the back. If you would, state your name for the record, and you have three minutes.

My name is Neftalia Arroyo. Good evening to everybody. I am a contractor. I work in Massey Oaks subdivision. And there was a big conflict in there, and we haven't been paid. The vendors, the suppliers haven't been paid. So I asked the mayor before for investigation for this case because I consider that was a very corrupt case, including the land, including the subcontractors and the contractors. So I need to help me to figure out how to pay everybody. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, sir. Appreciate that. Lois Summers.

Well, good evening. Can you tell I've been about town? But I am the Massey of the Massey Oaks Ranch.

Can you please state your name for the record, ma'am? Lois Summers. Okay, thank you, ma'am.

And I was the owner for 100 years of my family of Massey Oaks Ranch. I sold it. My developer had to have off-site improvements. $20 million jumped to $42 million. The buyers bought the debt. They were paid. They had a settlement. I was waiting four months afterward to get wire transfer. I got a list of the creditors, and Mr. Aurora is correct. His name was not on that menu. All those roads, all those entries, all the access to those homes, the extension of Harki, all of that, all of that. He paid for it. And I'm standing here with you because I lived that for 13 years. My roots are 116 years in this town. My grandfather laid the seeds that this town is built upon. The integrity that that name represents deserves an investigation for what Mr. Rarrow claims. And as my eyes are blue and I stand in Texas here, that is the gospel. Thank you very much. And for those residents that live in Massey Oaks, I hope you come to love her as our family did. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

All right. Jim Johnson, you'll make your way to the podium. And Lieutenant Shah, you'll be next.

Jim Johnson. I don't need my address anymore. I'll be brief. Mayor and members of city council know you have a very busy meeting tonight. So again, I'll be brief. My name is Jim Johnson. I serve as the president and CEO with the Pearland Chamber of Commerce. I want to personally invite each of you to join us for the Pearland Chamber's second annual 2026 Water Symposium on Thursday, August 27th from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Alvin ISD's Liberty Alumni Hall. This symposium brings together business leaders, community partners, elected officials, and regional experts for an important conversation about one of the most critical issues facing Pearland and the greater region, water. As Pearland continues to grow, and so does Brazoria County, water is not just an infrastructure issue. It impacts economic development, future housing, public safety, quality of life, and the ability to plan reasonably for the next generation, responsibility for the next generation. The event gives us a chance to hear from experts, better understand the challenges ahead, and have the kind of regional conversation that helps communities like ours stay prepared and proactive. We know your schedules are full, but we would honor to have you attend again on August 27th. Whether you can stay for the full program to hear about the fight over water, have a conversation on desalination, the water impact on things like ag, chemical plants, and data centers, we appreciate and hope you can stop by. Your participation would mean a great deal. Thank you again for your service. On behalf of the Pearland Chamber, thank you for all you do.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Schaaf and Alfred Henry, you'll be next.

May I request for the five minutes since I'm speaking on behalf of the group? Absolutely. Thank you.

Will you state the name of the organization? All right.

So this is Rutan Shah. I'm speaking on behalf of America 250, a celebration by Indian Americans. Honorable Mayor, distinguished member of city councils and other civil officers, thank you for the time this evening. As a dedicated community servant who has spent years working to enrich our local community, I'm incredibly proud to stand before you. I'm here to invite you to a historic milestone taking place right in our backyard. On Saturday, June 27th, our beautiful Independence Park will host a landmark celebration as America 250, celebrated by Indians who originated Americans. And together, we want to honor America 250, making two and a half centuries of American independence, freedom, and innovation. This is far more than a festival. It is a moment of profound gratitude. It is a time to look back at the 250 years journey of the world's oldest democracy while celebrating the deep, unbreakable bond it shares with India, the world's largest democracy. For generations, Indian Americans have helped shape American dream. But as we celebrate this historic milestone, we aren't just looking back. We are looking forward. We are actively reshaping the future of next 250 years. We see it in our youth, the next generation of scientists, public servants, leaders who are blending the rich heritage of their roots with the fierce innovative spirits of America to write the next chapter of American nation. Yet as we climb higher, we never forget the ground beneath our feet. This event is a deeply personal mission to give back. Pearland is just not where we live. It is our home. It is our heart, filled with gratitude for it. We owe an immense debt of thanks for the warmth, brotherhood, and sisterhood that Pearland community has extended to the Indian American diaspora. You have welcomed our families, embraced our culture, protected us, and provided a nurturing environment where our children can thrive. To see the true soul of Pearland, you only have to look at how we survived together. Remember Hurricane Beryl? which left us in the darkness. The walls completely came down. My neighbor came together without a second thought, sharing power generators, cooking meals, and keeping watch over another. In that hardship, a beautiful bond was forged. Today, our kids, our best buddies grew up together, growing up together in the warmth that shared this humanity. That is the America we love. That is the America we love. And that is the parallel we cherish. And this celebration is our way pouring that love and appreciation back into the city that gave us a home. Because of this partnership, our event is drawing a massive multi-state attention. This weekend, over 2,000 visitors are expected to come to Pearly. Many are traveling from the neighboring states, booking our local hotels and supporting our businesses. Just to highlight the few key features of our event, we will be in partnership with Pearland Exchange Club. We'll have a feature of powerful 26 US flag display. We'll hold a special segment dedicated to honoring our veterans who protected our freedom alongside 250 community leaders who drive this progress. A powerful demonstration of cross-cultural unity that puts a vibrant national spotlight on Pearland's inclusive spirit. mayor and council members and other civil officers. You have fostered a city that truly defines what it means to be a community. As we say a heartful thank you to United States for inviting to be part of its grand story, we want to say an equally large and deeply emotional thank you to Pearland. We would be deeply honored to have you all join to be a guest of honor this Saturday. Let's stand together at Independence Park, celebrate 250 years of America's greatness, and honor the incredible bond we share to shape the next 250 years together. Thank you, and I'm looking forward to see you all today.

Thank you, sir. Alfred Henry. One more time, Alfred Henry. Chief McCune, would you see if Alfred Henry is out there, please? All right, moving on. I'm going to try Concepcion Gonzalez Nemoes. Did I get that even remotely right?

I'm here.

Okay, state your name, sir, and you have three minutes to speak.

Yes, my name is Concepcion Gonzalez. I represent Sky Black Rentals. We work at Massey Oak job site. We provide, we supply equipment for the Harkin Road sanitary sewer and water line project in Perlin, Texas. Following the completion of the work, substantial rental balances remain unpaid, which lead to issue a formal demand letter and pursue collection of forts. At that time, the outstanding balance included amounts owned by both Rivera Yale Construction and Arroyo Utility and Concrete. Since then, I am pleased to report that that debt related to Ribera YAL construction has been resolved and paid in full. However, the balance owed by Arroyo Utility and Concrete remains outstanding. Since the original demand, which was issued by Sky Black, has continued collection efforts against Arroyo and CPNV, pursuing all appropriate avenues, to recover the funds for equipment and services provided to the project. Our position has remained consistent. Sky Black's fulfilled its obligation to supply the equipment necessary to support work and entitled to payment for those services. We have maintained detailed documentation and have continued professionally and diligently through this process. As of today, the main issue is unpaired balance associated with Arroyo utility and concrete. We will continue pursuing recovery until the matter is fully resolved. I came here to ask for help. get that money in our account. We're a small company and we have been unpaid since 2022. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Next on our general comments is Tenille Warren Phillips. Ma'am, real quick, if I can ask you a quick question. Did you want to speak in general comments or did you want to speak on new business item number two?

General comments.

Okay. Okay. Please state your name. You got three minutes. Thank you. Thank you.

good evening my name is dr tenille warren phillips and i am a resident of pearland i'm here tonight regarding the challenge to mayor wilt's serving on regional boards just days ago we celebrated juneteenth a reminder that the rights representation and equal treatment have often required advocacy when they should have been given It is troubling that the opportunities historically afforded to Pearland mayors are now being questioned when it comes to Mayor Wilts. The voters of Pearland elected Mayor Wilts with confidence in his leadership, judgment, and ability to represent the city. When I cast my vote, I expected that he would be afforded the same opportunities and access that prior mayors received, including service on regional boards. The question of whether he is qualified has already been answered by the voters of Pearland. I fully support Mayor Wiltz representing our city, not only locally, but also on regional boards where important decisions affecting Pearland are made. I also support Mayor Wiltz facilitating a community town hall on housing affordability and other issues impacting residents. Pearland families continue to face increasing cost of living and residents deserve an opportunity for meaningful engagement and dialogue with their elected leaders. The issue is bigger than one appointment. It is about fairness, consistency, and respecting the will of the voters. The voters of Pearland are watching. We are also in the lobby observing. We are engaged. We are informed and participating. We will remember who represents the will of the voters and who works to ensure that every elected official is afforded the same opportunities to serve the community that they were chosen to represent. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am, and Ruby Sanders.

Hello, my name is Ruby Sanders. I've been a long-time resident here. I'm very concerned that we have made the city elections partisan, Democrat, Republican, or independent. They're not supposed to be either. We want to elect the person that's best for Pearland. And I think we want a community to be united. And we want to be united. And that's why many of us moved to Pearland and we stayed in Pearland. But when I hear people saying, I might move out if we don't stay united, that bothers me. Because we have kept the community feeling from the time we were 1,600 people to now we're 200,000 people. So I want us to think that we are working together to be the best Pearland. We want to be Pearland. We don't want to be Friendswood. We don't want to be Houston. We don't want to be Clear Lake. We don't want to be anybody else. We want to be the best Pearland we can be and be the best city in Missouri County.

Thank you for those comments, I'm just gonna say, and congratulations on the inaugural pair award. So I just wanted to take that point of failure, so thank you.

Thank you, ma'am, and that does it for public comments. Next comments are on new business item number two.

So moving on to consent agenda. Are there any items that need to be removed? So consent agenda, A through K. A through K minus F. Council Member Koza, would you take this section form, please?

Thank you, Mayor. Consideration and possible action. Consent agenda items A through K with the exception of F. So moved.

Second.

Motion was made by Councilmember Koza to present A through K minus F. Second by Councilmember Cade. Any questions? No questions? Okay. None. Can I have a vote, Madam Secretary?

Member Koza?

Aye.

Member Echols?

Aye.

Member Byrum?

Aye.

Member Cade? Aye. Member Fernandez?

Aye.

Member Patel? Aye. The motion passes six to zero.

Council Member Koza, would you mind presenting item F?

Certainly, Mayor. Consideration of possible action resolution number R2026-88, so moved.

Okay.

Motion was made by Council Member Koza.

Mayor, if I may interrupt, I believe there's a representative of Gulf Crest who is here, but okay. Wanted to make sure he was able to make it in the chambers, because I think he was in the lobby earlier. Sure. It looks like he's here, though. Thank you, sir.

Absolutely, thank you for that, for that point of clarification. So a motion was made by Councilmember Koza, seconded by Councilmember Cade. Would you like to lead the discussion, Councilmember?

Staff report. Staff report first? Sure. Thank you, Mayor. So this item is a stormwater maintenance agreement between the City of Pearland and Gulf Crest Country Club. So basically what we're working through here is that we've got our public drainage system that drains many of the roads throughout the subdivision. It outfalls on the Country Club property. There never has been a easement, a public easement across that. So water outfalls into that area and then reenters the public drainage system as it makes its way to eventually outfall into Clear Creek. So what this agreement does, the golf course is going to provide at no cost a public easement. across that area so that the city can repair and do regular maintenance on that portion of the drainage system and restore it to its original capacity whenever needed and also provides us the access to that area as well. So with that we recommend approval. Thank you.

Perfect. Any other discussion? Council Member Cate.

I pulled it just because I wanted, I was curious about the $2,000 a year. Annual maintenance costs. Well, and I wanted to hear you explain it also.

Sure. So I think that's just an estimate over time as far as maintaining the open ditch section of this, like we do all of our other open ditch sections across the city. So when we need to, and as you're well aware, we've got a drainage program that examines and inspects all of our enclosed as well as our open ditch drainage systems over a 10 year cycle to maintain that. So I think they just average that out over time. And we do have some repairs on some of the existing inlet structures that we do need to make out there that will work into our drainage maintenance program.

So real quickly, the gentleman that was here from Gulf Crest. Yes. Could you provide some context? Is that possible?

Disagreement is with Gulf Crest Country Club, and he's a representative from Gulf Crest, so.

I just wanna make sure. That's good, okay. Please state your name.

Rene Rangel. I'm the general manager of Gulf Crest Country Club.

Any additional comments you want to?

No, I think they cover it all. We were just looking for a better plan, a defined plan to give the city access and to maintain that stormwater drain more than anything and define each role from the Gulf Crest along with the city to maintain that at a high level.

And I just want to make sure, just for general purpose, so if that stormwater drain is not maintained, there's a high potential for flooding or outflow in that area, is that correct?

I think like any of our drainage infrastructure, if not maintained over time, it increases the possibility of flooding. And so this gives us the ability to restore that to its original capacity.

So there's an initial cost for a maintenance overhaul and then maintenance, preventive maintenance thereafter. Is that correct? Yes, sir.

Okay.

Any other questions for the committee? Okay, seeing no further questions, let's move on to the vote. Madam Secretary?

Member Koza?

Aye.

Member Echols? Abstain. Member Byrum?

Aye.

Member Cade? Aye. Member Fernandez?

Aye.

Member Patel? Aye. The motion passes five to zero.

Thank you. Councilmember?

Thank you, Mayor. For public hearing number one and new business item number one, I'll be recusing myself from these two line items as it poses a conflict of interest that I have with the applicant. Pursuant to section 2.77 , as in Charles, of the Parallel Code of Ordinances, I have filed an affidavit with the city secretary's office, and so I'll be stepping out. Thank you.

Before we move forward, I'll give you a chance to step out. At this particular time, I will now open this public hearing on a request by Rise Group Management, LLC, applicant on behalf of Jason Ridenbaugh, owner, for approval of a zone change of an area of land approximately 280 feet by approximately 245 feet, being a portion of the 1.098 acre tract, and 0.90 acre track two further described below from general business to general commercial district. And staff, would you be able to update us on this report?

Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Mayor. So the purpose of this request is to unify the zoning of these two properties. As you can see on the bottom right corner, the current situation is that the zoning is split between these two properties. And so no development is proposed at this time. However, the applicant would like to rezone a portion of the property that is currently general business to general commercial to allow for additional uses to be permitted within the existing buildings. A legal ad was posted in the Pearland News Reporter. Public notices were sent to 11 property owners within 200 feet, and a notification sign was placed on the property by the applicant. And as of today, we have received no public comments in support or against. Looking at the area to the north is undeveloped. To the south, we have an automotive tire shop and some more undeveloped parcels. To the east is also undeveloped, and to the west is another automotive shop. Looking at the future land use plan, this area is designated as the commercial center. And staff finds that the requested general commercial zoning district met all four of the established criteria for a zone change, and therefore staff recommends approval of the proposed change. The Planning and Zoning Commission held their regular meeting on June 1st and voted 5-0 to recommend approval of the request. And that concludes staff report. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Is the applicant here? Please, if you wouldn't mind, do you have a presentation? No, sir. Is there any additional information you'd like to add?

No, I think they did a great job of describing it. I'm here if you have any questions, though.

Okay, and is there anyone from the public like to comment or speak? Okay. Yeah, state your name, please. Jason Ridenbaugh. Thank you. Okay. If there's nobody else want to speak on this issue, I'd like to close this public hearing. Councilmember Echols, could you present new business item?

Consideration possible action. First reading of the ordinance number 2000M-284. So moved. Second.

Motion was made by Councilmember Echols, second by Councilmember Byrum. Is there a staff? Good? Nothing? Anybody have questions? Questions here? I'll just move over. Koza?

Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Ridenbaugh, could you go back to the podium, please? It shows right here that the majority of the property is GB with a small sliver GC. Normally when we have these type zone changes, as far as this goes, we have tenants that are looking to move in that fit in a GC instead of a GB. Do you have tenants currently set for this that you're trying to get moved in, or what is the impetus for going to GC? Because the majority of the property's GB instead of GC.

We have not been able to sign a few leases because of the zoning. GC is a little bit more of a broad, it encompasses more broad use. And you've got retail, the first, the front two buildings are retail. The back building is more kind of flex, where it's contractors all the way to, we just signed a lease with a lady that she delivers coffee to corporations here in Pearland. So it's a real broad use that uses those warehouses. They're really called flex spaces now. And we feel the general commercial zoning better fits that. So it will make it easier for us to sign leases with tenants that want to do business there. But it also, I think it'll reduce the amount of work necessary because It's zoned as GB, but if somebody needs that, they have to put a request in to you or to the zoning commission to get a variance or get a change, right? And so it'll eliminate, I think, a lot of that if it's just GC.

So what type businesses have you currently had that were not able to sign a lease? Because normally what you'd do is you'd file, you were close, you'd file what's called a CEP, a Conditional Use Permit. that would go before our Planning and Zoning Commission. Then once it passed through there, whether passed or failed, then it would come to Council for a final vote. With that being said, general commercial, a lot of A lot of folks through the years, we've had people complain about general commercial because it is broader, like you stated, and it gives more rights without impact to the neighborhood and surrounding people that are in the area. So could you tell us what businesses that you've not been able to sign a lease with because of a GB?

I think it was more they didn't want to go through the process of getting a variance. I think they had to get a variance in order to get approval, I think.

It's a CUP, a conditional. CUP, correct. Yes, sir. And that basically, what it does is it allows the community to be able to say, do we want that business or not, with a GB versus a GC zoning. That's why I was just curious to know what businesses were unable to be able to come through the process.

I think it was a... There was a flooring company that installed floors, and then I believe the other one was some kind of a contractor, electrical, or I think it was an electrician.

Okay, and so are they going to lease the front space from you with the back space being a warehouse?

No, sir, it's usually two different tenants. The front building is really just ideal for small retail tenants. I suppose somebody that needed some storage could rent one of the warehouse spaces in the back, but currently we don't have anybody We don't have anybody in the retail that's leasing space in the back.

If there is any warehouse space, it has to be M1 because that's where your zoning for storage and warehousing resides in M1.

Yeah, correct, and that's one of the reasons we wanted the zone change because most, to fit that description, you've got a portion that's warehouse and a portion that's some office, right? Most of these businesses, they want a small reception area, a restroom, and then a warehouse.

and you can only do that in the gc we couldn't do that you can't you can't warehouse in gc i just want to make sure you understand warehousing is only available in m1 m1 yes sir mr koza if i may office warehouse is permitted use within the general commercial zoning office warehouse but what happens if somebody comes in with just a warehousing so the required floor plan that would come to staff would showcase 25 of the floor area dedicated to office space

And if it was just straight warehouse, it would be by CUP.

Exactly. That's what I want to make sure that he understood, that just a straight warehouse would not be, you know, okay to just have a straight warehouse.

Oh, with no office or restroom? I understand. No, none of those are built. They're all built out with office and restroom in them.

But, I mean, it's got to be a combination. That's what I'm just wanting to make sure you understand. I got you, yes, sir. Because you won't be able to. The only place you can have a straight warehouse is an M1. So that's what I just wanted to make sure that you understood. Yes, sir. Because the next problem you'd run into is if you've got somebody saying, hey, I want to lease space to store stuff. and you went to try and do that, then you'd run into you can't do that without an office.

Correct.

I understand. I just want to make sure that you're clear with that. If it is to be converted over to all GC, that situation would still cause you to have to go through a CEP.

So there still has to be an office used to it is what you're saying, right?

Yes, sir. 25% is what she stated, and that's what the rule is. So I just want to make sure that you understand.

And that's, I would say, probably 95% of the people that look at leasing space from me. That's what they need.

Okay. I just want to be clear because the next thing you'd be frustrated in the fact that you'd come back and go, hey, why can't I have just a warehouse? So I just want to make sure that you're aware of that situation. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Patel.

Thank you, Mayor. How much of that building is empty right now?

Mr. Fernandez operates Cop Stop. He's the largest tenant there. My understanding is he, well, he's leaving at the end of next month. So at that point, we'll have 7,000 square feet available.

Okay. And I guess you said you've had tenants. You don't have a tenant specifically that needs this GC, correct? You don't have one that you're signing a lease that you're attentive on the change?

No, sir.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Ready for a question? Madam Secretary, call for the vote.

Member Echols?

Yes.

Member Byrum?

Aye.

Sorry, what was that?

Aye.

Member Cade?

Aye.

Member Patel? Aye. Member Koza?

Aye.

The motion passes 5-0. Thank you.

All right. No, thank you. I'll now open public hearing number two as the second of two required community development block grant public hearings on the city's fiscal year 2027 HUD program, HUD program year 2026 CDBG annual action plan. Staff?

Mr. Hardy's gonna walk us through the presentation tonight.

Thank you, Trent. Mayor and Council, this is the second of two required public hearings that HUD asked us to provide the community and the public during the planning process involving our Community Development Block Grant Program. As we mentioned in the last public hearing, HUD will be allocating $541,571 to the city of Pearland in what is FY25 for the city, which is HUD's program year 2026. In the public hearing, there are some regulatory requirements that state that we have to provide the public with certain information during our planning process. In this slide presentation, we'll do just that. So, within those regulations, 24 CFR 570 is really the wheelhouse of regulations that kind of dictate how we manage ourselves with regard to HUD entitlement jurisdiction funds. And as a CDBG entitlement jurisdiction, we attempt to make sure the public and our stakeholders are well informed about the process of planning for CDBG funds. And this public hearing will do that. I think the most important thing is that we provide the public with the amount of funds that are going to be received, the range of activities that are possible for us to use those funds. We want to make sure we are meeting HUD national objectives with the funds and acknowledging any activities that will result in displacement. None of our activities planned forward have any impact on displacement when it comes to Pearland residents. So just to give a little background on the program and how we came to be a HUD entitlement jurisdiction entity. Of course, it's regulated through and created through the HUD Act that was passed in 1974. And when cities become a population of 50,000 and over, They can become a HUD entitlement jurisdiction, and that simply means that they will receive an allocation of formula-created allotments of CDBG funds on an annual basis based on a formula for determining that amount. The program allows for about 24 spending categories. It's a very flexible spending program, and basically the program parameters allow us to fund efforts to improve housing, social services, redevelopment activities, and as well as infrastructure improvements in the community. Talked about HUD national objectives. They're basically three. The program must either remove slum and blight, meet a local urgent need, which would come in the form of a natural disaster or something community-wide that would be catastrophic and require efforts to address a response to those kinds of problems, and or serve low to moderate income residents in the community. The latter is really where Pearland's program focus is. So we help individuals and or households that are at or below the 80% metropolitan statistical area income or do business in areas that are comprised of 51% or more low to moderate income. It's important for us to acknowledge that Pearland is what's regarded as an exception criteria entitlement jurisdiction because we don't have a census tract that is comprised of 51% or more low to moderate income. We're allowed to meet that requirement at 42.5%. So we get a little bit of a break in that regard. I want to share with the community and our stakeholders that the program is really designed to address problems versus issues. Of course, our community has both, like any other community, but these funds are really to be directed at addressing specific tangible difficulties that require solutions instead of things that we know that might require attention, discussion, management, or debate. We really want to be getting at the heart of the problems in the community that these funds are designed to speak to. This slide kind of gives an idea of how the funds actually come down. They come directly from HUD. We are a recipient of pass-through funds that come through the state of Texas, through other sources, but this program is really focusing on the money that we get directly from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. And once we receive it, based on our action plan parameters, we can distribute the funds to subrecipient entities, contractors, and directly to beneficiaries in the community. The bottom portion of the slide really provides a depiction of what formula characteristic we fall in. HUD gives money out based on a couple of formulas. Formula A is where Pearland fits in. And that's because we're a fairly new city, if you will, in the context of what we look like in comparison to other cities across the nation. And we have less pre-1940s housing. So we would fall in that Formula A category. Your older East Coast cities might fall in the Category B. This slide just kind of gives a historical depiction of our funding allocations since our entitlement. And if you'll notice, the red bars are really an indication of program years that have been closed out because we have exhausted all those funds. But the latter years, we still have some availability in our balance of available funds with HUD. And most of those dollars are allocated for projects already that are pending. We do have a few small opportunities to be flexible and reallocate to unprogrammed expenditures. But for right now, we're going to consider those program years that are closed out and or in the process of closing out. The last one, that whole bar is green because we just received our HUD grant agreement about a month ago, actually. So they were late due to the government shutdown. And we were also subject to a timeliness workout plan that required HUD to approve our grant agreement very late. So now we have those funds and we're starting to activate the projects that are associated with the use of these dollars. and all we've got about, including the current program year, $1.7 million in active funds. This slide kind of gives a depiction of how long-term planning takes place within the Community Development Block Grant Program. We're currently in the fourth consolidated plan, five-year plan cycles. And next year will actually be the last year of that fourth consolidated plan. And we will begin to plan for the fifth set of five-year consolidated plan activities. So this 5,000, 541, 5,400, excuse me, $541,571 allocation is going to be the last of our current five-year program. So when we put the action plan together, HUD requires that we do an extensive assessment of the community. We're looking at existing local housing, economic factors, analyzing local conditions when it comes to our infrastructure, our social service agencies, the public facilities that the public may have access to and that might be dilapidated, need attention. Those are areas that we need to know about. And we also look at homeless issues in the community and any nonprofit agencies that might benefit from some organizational development work. An example of that was early in this five-year plan period, the mental health services area was one that really commanded a lot of attention as far as the public's rating of what type of work we should be doing. The local agency did not have a lot of organizational development characteristics. So we were able to invest in helping to build that agency's proficiency for delivering community development block grant funds. And they're one of our better subrecipients, if you will. So they've done a great deal of good work in that regard. So just to kind of give an idea of how we can also invest in organizations in the community and help them build up their capability for managing these funds. And overall, we want to be addressing the medium to high priorities, and those come from the survey work and the community assessments we do during the onset of our five-year planning process. So I wanted to take some time just based on, you know, Council's previous questions and concerns about homeless issues in Pearland. You know, every year with our action plan development process, we do look at this carefully. We look at it extensively during the five-year consolidated plan process. So the action plan years give us an opportunity to kind of update that. But it's really at the five-year consolidated plan level that HUD expects us to do a lot of that work. And what we look at is pretty much the standard for most communities that have concerns about this. We want to be looking at the point in time data, our PIT data, the Texas Homeless Network information that's provided statewide. And we also, in some cases, have to do self-assessments. we're really in that self-assessment category. And that's unfortunately because our statistical characteristics of homelessness are so low that they don't show up in the point in time count. The Texas Homeless Network does not have a lot of information about what's going on in Pearland. and even at the county level. So I think some of this work really has to take place through windshield surveys, the people going out, seeing what they see in the community and identifying families or individuals that may not have a shelter. So that's one aspect of the community assessment. The other, we look at what's called community housing affordability strategy data. That comes directly from HUD. It looks at the income distribution by owners and renters, looks at housing problems in the community, and the cost burdens associated with renters and homeowners. And lastly, when we're putting these action plans together and our five year consolidated plans, we're looking at census data and consolidated plan survey results. We do a community survey. Josh Lee's office helps us with that. So POCO will go out and open that up so that we can get information directly from residents. And those three things really kind of help us put together our action plan. And, again, we try to focus on the medium to high priorities that come out of that survey data and those other data points. So, again, I talked about the homelessness observations in Pearland. You know, again, we don't have a lot of readily available data in the point in time system. The homeless management information system is very similar. So, again, we're doing that self-assessment. And I think what we're really relying on statistically is the population percentage-based data assessment, because that's the only real numerical characteristic that we can rely on to kind of settle in on what Pearland looks like. And fortunately, we don't have a big concern. And the way we look at that from a statistical standpoint is based on the three counties that Pearland is located in. their homeless populations and just, again, statistically pare down what Pearland's ownership of those elements that would statistically reside in Pearland and what they look like. And they amount to about 22 individuals. Another thing we kind of pay attention to is the social vulnerability index, which for Brazoria County is medium to high. So on the alternate side, we want to look at the number of beds and shelter facilities that are available in the county. And this table just kind of gives an idea of what those look like. Our bed count is obviously capable of handling the issues that exist in the county. So with 160 of those beds compared to the 60 homeless individuals that are in Brazoria County, I think we're at ample capacity there. So to kind of bring that discussion home, these are questions that I think we want to be asking as we enter into the five-year consolidated planning process. Number one, going back to problems versus issues, is this a problem or is it an issue? Should we develop programs that combat homelessness in Pearland? Is it something that the Community Development Block Grant Program should be responsible for? Or is this something that's more appropriate for a community-based organization or citizens to take up as an issue? And those other questions. So those are things that we'll continue to look at as we get into next year's more robust planning process. Some of the CHAS data I mentioned, I won't go through all these, but these are the kinds of data points that come out of that. I think they speak very favorably to where Pearland is when it comes to cost burdens, when it comes to the housing-related issues that people face, such as incomplete facilities in their homes, more than one person residing in a room, and the housing cost burdens greater than 50 percent. Seventy-one percent of our population has none of these. which is a really good thing. And then, of course, we're looking at the census data, and these are just some census data points that are of interest when we're putting our program together. We have a very high median household income level, $118,000, compared to the state, $78,000. Pearland does well in that regard as well. So wrapping the kind of data point discussion up, this goes back to our five-year consolidated plan data. The surveys produced information, again, from the public that kind of gave us an idea of what types of social service programs we should be looking at. And again, as I mentioned, mental health services came back fairly high, senior meal services, rental assistance, and our home repair program. And those are all four things that the city's action plan continues to invest in.

Thank you.

So one of the things that we want to make sure the community is aware of is the qualification basis for participating in the CDBG program. The median family income for Pearland is $126,000. The regulations state that we can help community, individuals in the community, households that are 80% or less of that metropolitan statistical area income. So if you look at the chart, a family of four can make as much as $100,000 or more and still qualify for participation in the program. We want to really be focusing on that very low to extremely low income limit. And so the darker shaded box is really kind of where our efforts kind of hone in on to reach those that are in need the most. So I talked a little bit about area benefit projects. So we've got a map that depicts the census block groups in Pearland that are eligible for us to place infrastructure improvements, sidewalks, things that area residents can benefit from. And this is all based again on the 42.5% minimum moderate, low to moderate income household percentage in those census block groups. So this map, the shaded blue areas kind of give us an idea of where we can put those kinds of projects. And this slide just basically gives the actual data for those block groups and the percentage of low to moderate income residents that reside in those block groups. This is what we use to map the area. HUD gives us some categorical spending limits for our action plan. We're only able to spend a total of 15% of our allocation on social services. We can spend as high as 20% of the allocation on program administration and the rest of the funds can go to facility infrastructure improvements or housing related activities. So getting to what everybody really wants to know, how would we propose to spend the money? I think we want to max out the social services allocations. And based on the five-year consolidated plan and the continuing work that's been done where mental health services and rental assistance are concerned, we want to continue that. Meal delivery to seniors is also important. However, we have an ongoing allocation of remaining COVID funds that is going to Actions of Brazoria to continue to do their services in Pearland. But for right now, we're going to just put a $0 amount placeholder in the action plan just in case they exhaust those funds. And we have an opportunity where a subrecipient might not spend all of their money And we can allocate assistance to that agency to kind of help them continue their work. We want to continue the single family residential owner occupied home repair program. That's been very productive for the community. It's given us an opportunity to help seniors in particular with minor repairs to their homes that they generally can't afford to do. And I think we've seen some success in that program, helping us to spend down the annual allocation a lot faster than other work that we've tried to get done in the community. Another thing that we've talked about that wasn't originally in this depiction of how we plan to spend money, but we put it in the slide because historically it's also had some good value and we thought we would revisit it, would be the code enforcement investments. Many years ago, we had code enforcement as part of the CDBG program. And during COVID, it kind of fell off. We'd like to recommend bringing that back and providing support for our officers that are out in the field doing work, particularly in the target areas. So those blue areas in the map that I showed earlier are the areas we'd really like to have remuneration come back to the city for our efforts addressing housing issues in that part of town. And of course, you know, we need the program administration resources to make sure that we've got the staffing, professional development, other resources, consultancy that help us manage the program. And I would want to urge us to understand that it's more than just the annual allocation that's at stake. We've got some available funds from prior years that we need to manage and provide oversight and administration for. So those dollars help us to manage that $1.7 million that's still out there that we need to provide that oversight for. So with those considerations, we would ask for counsel and the public support for this proposed spending plan. Lastly, I just want to kind of cover the schedule. We opened the public comment period June the 18th last week with public notice in the reporter news. So that kicked off our 30-day planning process with regard to comments. Tonight's public hearing allows public comment, but people can also send us email. They can mail us public comment. They can call, but preferably in writing. I think that's the best way to make sure that we receive information from the public about CDBG and what we do with the funds. That program comment period will end July the 17th. and we intend to come back to council immediately thereafter to put the action plan before council and get to HUD by August the 14th. Statutory requirements say we have to get it to HUD before the 16th, which is 45 days prior to the end of our fiscal year. So with that said, pass the balance back to mayor and council. Thank you.

Thank you for that robust report. Is there anyone in the audience today that would like to comment or speak to this particular item? Okay. All right, any questions? Council? Council Member Koza.

Thank you, Mayor. First off, everybody that's here, we normally don't have this pack the house, so Joel Hardy has always been our government guy, whether we're seeking money or getting funds like this to help our community. So, Joel, thank you very much for the... report you just gave you you do a fantastic job for the city of Pearland. One thing I'd like to clarify that make sure everybody understands on the code enforcement aspect that is in order to assist citizens that have code violations not to penalize citizens.

Absolutely, I mean, I think the marriage of the code enforcement and housing rehab program give us an opportunity to address those as well. So if there's something an officer identifies that somebody just says, hey, I can't deal with this, I don't have the resources, We make sure they have access to information about the housing rehab program. And that's helped us work those two aspects of the effort cooperatively. But again, the city's practice of issuing citations for things that are important continues. These resources just help to offset the costs associated with eligible area benefit activity that takes place within those target areas. So the city's practices would continue to prevail, but we just try to make sure they know about the housing rehab program as well so we're not citing somebody for something we can help them with other funds if they're eligible.

Exactly, exactly. And that's what I just want to clarify so the folks here, because we know we don't have this large a crowd and just want to make sure that they understood.

Sure, we're not getting paid to go out and punish people. We want to help and help the community.

So thank you very much.

Any additional questions? Council Member Patel.

Thank you, Mayor. Joel, I believe it's slide 15. It says Pearland portion. I'm assuming that's a population of 115,000.

Are we talking homeless?

No, sir. I hope we don't have 115,000. It's, yep, right there. Is that the population that I'm assuming you guys calculated?

That's the population estimate for the Brazoria County portion of Pearland.

Okay, next to it it says Pearland. So is that Pearland population of 115? Yes. In Brazoria County. Okay, so it's not including Harris County.

Not including Harris. It's not including Fort Bend. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Fair enough.

And this is old, not old census data, but it's the most recent, decennial census data.

I was hoping you would say it's recent, but okay. It's recent. It's 2020. And then there is a map you showed with the blue, I believe it is slide 20. Yes, sir, right there. Business Center Drive, that's mostly apartments. So are you guys gonna be able to send code enforcements there as well? Or is this for individual homes when you said we're gonna have code enforcement?

I think the city's standards would prevail over how they handle code enforcement duties. So I would defer to community development and their standards of practice. But if there's a business owner that's not compliant with our code, requirements?

Well, I mean, I'm talking about apartments.

I'm not sure we would I look, I look for Vance, I'm not sure that that's the impetus of the program. It's really more single family or occupied property.

Just because I don't remember seeing, that's all businesses there, so I don't know how it made it in the map.

So it made it in the map because that's an eligible block group for us to produce an area benefit project. So if we could, if there was a sidewalk or something like that that made sense, or some other type of infrastructure improvement that we could afford, it could legitimately exist in that block group because of the income level that comes out of the census data there.

Okay.

So this is just a depiction of what is available to us as far as where we can put area benefit. It doesn't say that this is where we have to do business. Okay. And code would ultimately determine how they deploy themselves when it comes to priority or problem areas that are eligible for us to activate resources.

Thank you, sir.

And just to be clear, there are multiple facets of where these funds could be used other than just code enforcement that would be able to be utilized, such as mental health services and other such. Is that correct as well?

Correct. Yeah, we do what's prioritized from the response we get from the community and the community assessment.

And then I had another question real quick before I pass it on to Councilmember Cade. So you said notices were put out in the reporter that that's kind of what has been the precedent thus far. Yes. And so is that the only print that notices are put out?

Or is that just a subset? I mean, the council agenda itself has published, you know, provides that. But, you know, honestly, you know, we...

act on the basic requirements that hud expects us to so the reason i ask is would it preclude us from putting in other publications and the reason i ask is we just had a council meeting that we amended i guess the charter to uh to utilize the same methods that the state uses so would this prevent us from doing that or would this Be just as a separate.

So what I would recommend is when we're doing our five year consolidated plan process, you know, we pursue more robust ventures like that. We're late in the five year current five year planning process. And a lot of those priority determinations have already been made back in 2022. And the reason we don't want to and I'm not saying we should keep the public informed, but I think we're already in a cycle of allocation that meets those priorities. And HUD expects us to meet long term goals and objectives. So the potential for that to change is very limited. So I think we meet the requirements and utilize that approach to making sure that HUD can approve the action plan that we we present.

Sure, and I just want to make sure that we're successful. That's what I'm asking because I know, to my knowledge, the reporter is limited into the scope in which it delivers its viewers. And so if we want to make sure we maximize, let's just look at other ways to make sure we disseminate the information. If we are to maintain some kind of compliance in print, let's at least explore other opportunities where the multitude and masses of Pearland receives those print documents. That's really the concern.

Sure, we just want to manage in accordance with the allocation, we have a small amount of money. And there's really not, you know, a lot of variety of opportunities that exist to vary from that five year planning process. So I would just say we want to be as reasonable and, you know, coordinated with the amount of funds that are available for this. Absolutely. And I see it's a province.

Yes, sir. I was just going to suggest that the city has an official newspaper for publications that is compliant with state law. We can overpublish, but it doesn't meet the minimum requirements because you have to do it with the city's awarded publication. And are the reported news outlet that we have, whatever that is. Newspaper of official record. So yeah, newspaper of official, thank you, newspaper of official record. So we have that, and that changes from time to time. You have to meet certain minimum qualifications, and when that contract comes up for renewal, we could absolutely look at something else. But if we over-publish, we can't rely on that over-publication to meet the minimum standard if we have an official. In other words, we can't exclude the official newspaper. So if you have to choose $800 to publish here or here, it's gotta be the one that's the official newspaper.

Yeah, no, and I want to make it clear that I'm not advocating one particular publisher or another.

I just want to make sure that we're- As much publication as possible is what I'm hearing from you. That's exactly it. Thank you.

Are there any other additional comments?

That's okay.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Walts. I, Joel, I think it's slide 22 maybe, maybe where the social services are listed. Yeah, right there. How do you select those?

So that, good question. So, of course, the five-year consolidated plan process helps us to identify the priorities. But we, and at that time, we will go out for applications. But the interesting thing is Pearland really has very little in the form of nonprofit organizations that have the capability and solvency to be able to carry out these programs. They're all cost reimbursement. And we're looking for legitimate 501 agencies that have the viability to do the work. And that's just not, you know, something that proliferates in our community. If you go to IRS website, you might see thousands. But there are really about six or seven that make sense for, you know, legitimacy purposes.

So they do have to apply.

early on in the five-year consolidated plan process, but we don't wanna depart from what we've started because HUD's expecting us to have a multi-year impact on the work. So we continue them as they meet the identified goals and objectives.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

Any other questions? Seeing none, I will now close this public hearing. Thank you, Joel, for that presentation. Councilmember Byrum, can you present new business item number two, please?

Certainly, Mr. Mayor. Consideration possible action resolution number R2026-105, so moved. Second.

Motion was made by Councilmember Byrum, second by Councilmember Fernandez. And there are noted public comments, so I'll turn this over to Councilmember Byrum to facilitate as well.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just to remind everybody, again, when you're called to the podium, please state your name. And you have three minutes to speak. And I appreciate everybody being here this evening. First up will be Adrian Bell, followed by Mateo Tobin.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Adrienne Bell, and I am a proud resident of Pearland. I'm here tonight to ask the Council to appoint Mayor Quentin Wilts to fill the vacant, unexpired terms on the Houston-Galveston Area Council 2026 General Assembly, the Houston-Galveston Area Council 2026 Board of Directors, and Houston-Galveston 2026 Transportation Policy Council. Just a few weeks ago, the voters of Pearland elected a mayor to represent our city. When Pearland sits at regional tables where transportation, infrastructure, economic development, and long-term planning discussions are held, it makes absolute sense that our highest elected official should be the person speaking on behalf of Pearland. These appointments are opportunities for Pearland to have a strong voice in regional decisions that affect our roads, our mobility, our growth, and our quality of life. The mayor was elected citywide and carries a mandate from the voters to represent Pearland's interest. The mayor should not have to pass a litmus test from council. He already passed ours. The voters of Pearland elected him to represent this city, and I ask that you honor that choice by appointing Mayor Quentin Wilts to these positions. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Matteo Tobin. After that will be Mercedes Sanchez.

I'll be brief because some of the points were already made. My name is Mateo M. Tobin, and I live in Southdown. It's good to see on the dais some of my friends, Landy Cade, Tommy Echols, and Quinn Wiltz, of course. I did some research about the Houston-Galveston Area Council and the board and its Transportation Policy Council. And I'm not going to bore you and the rest of y'all with that. But I also researched to see how the membership is chosen for that. And Pearland has historically and typically selected its mayor to serve on these bodies. Longtime former mayor Tom Reed represented Home Rule City there for decades. And former mayor Kevin Cole, who I saw here tonight, continued doing that during his tenure. The last board meeting that he attended was April 21st, 2026, and our alternate, Clint Byram, then serving as mayor pro tem, attended the May 19th meeting. When council originally passed resolution number R 2025-187 last October, they may not have known that Kevin Cole would file to run for Brazoria County Judge 15 days later. Otherwise, council may have considered other arrangements as to who our representative delegates and alternates should be for these bodies. With respect for your honors, I ask two things tonight. That council maintain the upright, noble tradition Pearland has long held of sending, if they are so willing, our mayor and mayor pro tem to serve as our representative, delegates, and alternates to these regional bodies. The second thing, if I may have your honor's indulgence to approach the dais and ask my friend and mayor, Gwynne Wiltz, to autograph my copy of the Houston Chronicle Pearland Journal, dated May 13, 2026.

Thank you, sir. Mercedes Sanchez. And after that will be Demetria Watson.

Hi, hello, good evening, mayors and members of the council. My name is Mercedes Sanchez. I am the Executive Director of Government and Community Relations for Commissioner Adrian Garcia with Harris County Precinct 2. Commissioner Garcia, I'm here tonight on his behalf. Commissioner Garcia sent his apologies for not being able to be here in person today. But he did ask me to come and convey his support for Mayor Wills to serve on both the HGAC and the Transportation Policy Council. At this time, I would like to read Commissioner Garcia's letter into the record. And I did submit a copy for each one of you. Honorable members of the Pearland City Council, I am writing to respectfully encourage the City Council to appoint Mayor Quentin Wills to represent the City of Pearland on the Houston-Galveston Area Council and to the Transportation Policy Council. As a current TPC member representing Harris County Precinct 2, I have the privilege of serving alongside former Pearland Mayor Kevin Cole and witnessed firsthand the value that mayors bring to regional transportation discussion. It has long been customary for cities to be represented on the TPC by their mayor, ensuring that the community's chief elected official has a direct voice in shaping transportation policy and investment decisions. Regional collaboration is essential as we work to address growing infrastructure and mobility needs across the Houston-Galveston region. In Precinct 2, we're home to critical economic engines, such as the Port of Houston and NASA. And I have found that having mayors at the table strengthens partnership, it improves coordination, and it helps secure resources that benefits communities throughout the region. Mayor Wiltz brings significant professional and leadership experience to the role. His background in managing complex projects, budgets, and strategic initiatives combined with his commitment to public service would provide a valuable perspective to the council transportation planning efforts. I respectfully ask the Pearland City Council to appoint Mayor Wilts to serve on HGAC and to the Transportation Policy Council so that Pearland may continue to have strong executive level representation in the regional decisions that will shape the future of transportation and infrastructure in our region. Sincerely, Adrienne Garcia, Harris County Commissioner, Precinct 2. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Hello, my name is Demetria Watson. I'm a resident of Pearland. I'm here to support, first of all, greetings to the mayor and also city council members and everyone here. I'm here to support the idea of our mayor being on these councils, the Houston-Galveston Area Council 26th General Assembly, the Houston-Galveston Area Council 26th Board of Directors, and the Houston-Galveston 2026 Transportation Policy Council. And the reason that I think we should go forward with our mayor and the pro tem being on these councils is because it has always been this way. It has been this way for how many years? I think about 30. And our mayor is qualified. Our mayor has experience. Why would we change now? I strongly urge you to continue as we have done historically for these positions. I see no reason to change. And I thank you very much for your time. Thank you, ma'am.

Next, we have Monica Morgan. And then Deborah Bruce.

Good evening, my name's Monica Morgan, resident of Paraland, originally a resident of Alvin, born and raised, but always a resident of Brazoria County, and pleased to be here this evening to speak on item 10.2, and in support of the appointment of Quentin Wiltz, our mayor, to the Texas Houston-Galveston Area Council General Assembly, the Houston-Galveston Area Council Board of Directors, and Houston-Galveston 2026 Transportation Policy Council. And let's think about why. He not only just recently won an election, he's lived in this community for 20 years. He's committed himself to the community for 20 years, serving in various capacities, boards, councils, other significant things that always showed the community that he cared about the people. He was destined to assume this role and was committed to making a difference in people's lives. We felt it every time he ran for office. When I block walked speaking to hundreds of residents, This is the man they wanted to represent the city of Pearland. Now, at this time, this is where they see the future of Pearland going. He has the vision, the capacity, the credentials. He has an executive MBA from the University of Houston. I was an HR director at the University of Houston. That is no joke. That program is for the exceptional of the exceptional leaders of CEO level people. and he is bringing his skills, talents, time, treasure to bring Pearland to the next level. It is the future of Pearland that we see in him and it is who we want representing us on these boards. This is his role, it is his time, and we want him representing us on these councils. Thank you very much, have a good evening.

Ms. Bruce? Yes, my name is Deborah Bruce and I appreciate the council in advance for listening. I have five sentences. I fully support the mayor being on all of the regional boards, and I feel that there's no room for political poise or partisan politics. Everybody in this room knows there's more than enough of that at the state and national levels. And one last sentence, or two maybe. Fair is fair. He is highly qualified, and he needs to be on those boards. That's it.

Travis Spiegelhauer, is that right? All right, make your way to the podium, and then Lernette Patterson will be next.

Hello, my name is Travis Spiegelhauer, resident of Pearland. Good evening. First, I would like to acknowledge a post I made online that was incorrect in my understanding of how the current vacancies would be filled. With that, I recognize that that post and the aftermath of it has created additional tensions for the mayor, the former mayor, members of council. I do sincerely apologize for that. That mistake was my own. That said, there is a very important vote tonight on how these regional vacancies will be filled. These decisions will shape the city's representation for transportation, economic development, and so many other issues at a regional level. Today the council will decide whether a majority of people who voted to elect Quentin Welts as the mayor is a qualification for him to represent us. Today we will see if his work on city boards, the chamber, his educational background, his work within various non-profit organizations in the city are seen as relevant qualifications to further that case. You may also hear statements in support of choosing someone else other than the mayor to represent the city. Regardless of these arguments, this would be a significant divergence from past practice and demands a strong justification from council. Ultimately, the decision today resides with council. These are important votes and clearly many people here are passionate today. I wish you well in making that choice. Thank you, sir.

Good evening, my name is Learnette Patterson. I am a resident of Pearland, Texas, where I am proud to say that I live. And I will not prolong the time here. It has already been stated by many of the persons that have come before me what our desire is. Our desire is to have Mayor Quentin Wilts represent Pearland in whatever capacity Pearland needs to be represented in. We voted for him. We understand his intelligence. We understand his credentials. And the people of Pearland voted to have him represent us, not for a city council to determine whether he should or should not sit on any council or board. We stand united, as you can see tonight, that we want Quentin Wiltz to represent Pearland on these particular councils. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, ma'am. I'm going to try. Liliana Snap? Leilana. Not even close. Sorry. You state your name correctly so I don't butcher it for the record. And you have three minutes.

My name is Leilani Snapp, and my husband and I have lived in Pearland for just over 20 years. I'm embarrassed to say that this is my first city council meeting, but seeing all these people here makes me really excited about the future that we can have if everybody continues to come to these meetings. To the point, though, I just want to reiterate what everyone else has said, that we voted for Mayor Wilts, and we voted for him to be our representation on these boards. And he has shown in the past to have a great love for the city and And really, he has all the qualifications. And I think that we all trust that he would make us proud as part of these boards. And any other decision would really be a break in the trust that the citizens and the voters have, I believe, in the system. That's it.

And last one is Eugene Degus. Degus? Say again.

Good evening, I'm Eugene DeGois, resident of Pearland for almost 20 years now, and I want to speak also in support of Quentin Wilts as being a representative on the area councils where the mayor has typically been present as a representative of Pearland. He was elected, he has the qualifications, and if he fails to meet the obligations of those positions that he's been appointed to. I'm sure the voters on the next term will make their determination on that also. but also I'd like to say that if the city council, in terms of the priorities that the mayor would establish, if they impede him in his progress towards those goals, that the voters will have the opportunity to report on them also.

That's it for public comments.

Hold on, thank you. One second, one second. So if I could have some order, if I could have some order please, some order please. So at this particular time, I'd like to turn it over to staff to give us some context behind the appointments and maybe some additional information as well.

thank you mayor in may htac contacted the city regarding our positions on the tpc and at the same time you know we were examining our positions on both the primary and alternates with the board of directors as well as the general assembly and identified one of the things that was identified on the general assembly is that our alternates were not tied to the primary seats and we had one vacant primary seat so there was a need to determine which alternate would potentially be elevated to that seat. So with those two things occurring, determined we needed to get council input on how we move forward. So I'll turn it over to mayor and council.

Thank you for that. I think who would like to speak first? Is there someone who wants to speak first? Council member? Absolutely. Council member Kate?

Mayor, in looking at the board of directors, I just want, To be sure, there are six mayors, seven county judges, 15 council members, seven county commissioners, and two school board members. So they're not all mayors, just to make it clear.

Just to be clear.

Recognize. I just want to say that there's more. That's not an opinion. That's not an opinion.

Please, please, please.

That's a fact.

One second. There is decorum, and people have had an opportunity to speak. And so with that, it is now council's time to deliberate and discuss. At this same moment, we shouldn't respond to comments in the forum. So let's have the discussion here.

That was a fact, and... If it's a bad feeling to know that we're all sitting here, this is something we've all given a lot of our time to do, and we have people it feels a little bit threatening saying, we're watching you, we're watching you, we're watching you over and over again. And I'm saying, and if, seriously? Y'all had your turn, so now it's our turn to talk. That's it, Mayor. All the residents here, all I wanted to say was it's not all mayors on the Board of Directors. It's not inherent that the mayor assumes that role. I don't know, Mayor. I've got more to say. Let me think about it for a minute.

Absolutely. Next. Cosmo Patel.

Thank you, Mayor. First of all, thank you for everybody coming today. I wish there was this much passion when we talk about budgets. Mayor Wilts, I understand your concern for putting this on the agenda.

One clarification. I didn't put this on the agenda. It's a requirement.

Sorry. Okay. I apologize. I understand this item was on the agenda. And I want some, if you could go to page 14, please, of the, or if you can start on page actually, sorry. Page six, please. So I think it's important what Councilwoman Miss Cade was talking about. If you can scroll down slowly, and we can look at who serves on this board. And I think as council, we gotta make a decision on what's best for our city. I know there's a lot of noise tonight about doing the right thing, but the right thing to me is what's best for the city of Pearland. We have a process. The process was, if you continue to go down, all the way to page, let's see, the bylaws, off this commission, section two, it tells us that our city gets one representative, if you can please expand it if possible, one representative and one alternative. And the term starts on January 1st. It starts on January 1st. So we had the fortune, I know in the past, that noises, we've always appointed mayors. And Mayor Reed, who I admired a lot, served on this city 30 plus years. He was a mayor for 30 years. Mayor Cole, when I moved here, like many of you, 20 years ago, was a city council member. He was a council member for a very long time. And I will tell you Mayor Cole knows more about this city than all of us put together. And Mayor Cole was elected by this council because it was the easiest decision because of his experience and knowledge of this city. I understand Mayor Wilts wants the same privilege and he should, but I think it is time that needs to be proven of what you can do for this community. And I think it is important, I think it's important on council today, I understand that is a very hard decision. I think it's important that we do what's best for City of Pearland long term. When you look at this information, I will tell you they very clearly state that in case there is a absence for any reason, your alternative will serve and finish out the term. Let the process work. Don't every time you think the process needs to change, we can't change just to fit somebody's schedule. It doesn't work that way. So I will tell you what I actually spent some time in trying to understand of how many people are on that board. I believe there's 37 members. That board is 37 members. It is 14 council members, six mayors. Mayor of Houston doesn't serve on that. Judge Hidalgo doesn't serve on that board. We have eight commissioners, we have seven judges, and two trustees. I know you guys want Mayor Quilts on there, and I get it, but there is a process. I understand there's a lot of passion behind this, And I appreciate that, and I hope your passion continues. But when I sit in this chair, I have to understand what's best for the community. I am not here to listen to the noise. I get it. Neither way, people are going to be upset. Whatever decision we make, they're going to be upset. And just because A mayor has been elected, and that's what the people elected the mayor for. It doesn't mean he automatically gets seats everywhere. It does not mean that. I apologize, but that is the fact. And I understand that it's not going to make people happy. Mayor Wiltz has been on the seat for six weeks. I've been here for three years, and I still feel lost. So I apologize. But don't think just because you have a title of a mayor, you're a proven leader. I'm sorry, you're not.

I'm sorry, the side comments. So two things. First, I would really appreciate Council Member Patel that you stop denigrating the comments and the feedback from the residents here that voted for all of us as noise. That's the first thing. Because we always advocate for people to show up for us in this forum and always speak, and they have. They signed up, they spent their time and their effort to voice their concerns, not noise. Because you may disagree with it, it is not noise, it is valid concerns. So I would ask that you learn how to interpret that going forward. Council Member Cade, what I wanted was resident feedback. So the background comment of this is what you wanted, what I wanted is the same thing everyone else wants, and that's active, engaged citizenry. That's everyone.

Mayor Wills, if that's true, you should have put it on other social media sites than just Hold on, stop, stop.

Stop, stop, stop, stop. Here's the thing. Here's the thing that we continue to see. People telling me what to do. Stop. Please stop. Please, please, please. And so I think we should be respectful that we all are different and that we don't communicate the same way. That's the understanding. That is the change. So, City Manager, Mr. Epperson, please. If you could clarify, you went through that we're going through this appointment, but could you also state the vacancies that exist so we understand what we're trying to fill?

I might be able to help with that. Absolutely. Thank you.

I think we should be respectful that we all are different and that we don't communicate the same way.

It's an echo of truth.

Thank you.

So by operation of law, this is what we would have with our HGAC appointments. In the General Assembly, we had two positions and two alternates. As you can see, neither of those positions nor those alternates are labeled as position one or position two. For the HGAC General Assembly, we need council's decision whether to put Joseph Koza in the vacant position where the mayor was. I'm sorry, we don't know if Joseph Koza is the alternate that was supposed to fill Kevin Cole's spot, or we don't know if Laney Cade is supposed to fill Kevin Cole's spot, because those two things are not identified. So that's gonna be, that's gonna be the first thing that needs to happen. When that happens, we create a vacancy in whichever one moves up to one of these two alternate positions. So again, if you look at the operation of law, if one of these two people move into this person, the other one is still an alternate, and then we have a vacancy that's actually here. For the HGAC Board of Directors, Kevin Cole was there, Clint Byram was the second person. The alternate by operation of law would be Clint Byrum. And then for the second position, the HGAC Board of Director bylaws say that one of your two General Assembly positions has to fill that spot. So, the only people who would be qualified to fill the HGAC Board of Director spots would have to be a representative from the HGAC General Assembly. And then on the Transportation Policy Council, again, Kevin Cole was in the primary spot. Trent Epperson, I apologize for that misspelling there. Trent Epperson, and that didn't get better. I'll try not to fixate on that.

Lawrence, while you're correcting names. Yes, sir, I see Coz is misspelled as well. Thank you.

Yes, sir. I'll work on that in just a second. So, Trent Epperson moves to the, by operation of law, Trent Epperson would move to the primary position at the representative spot, and then we would have to name an alternate to the Transportation Policy Council. So, that's how it's set up based on the bylaws and council's actions. in order to prevent a situation like this where we don't know whether it's going to be Joseph Koza, let me try to get to that now because it's so glaring. Apologize for misspelling your name as well, sir. And I did it multiple times, that makes it so compounding. One of the things that I would recommend in the future is for the General Assembly identify the position position one and position two, and then the representative for position one and the alternate for position one, similarly for the position two. And then again, your board of directors has to come from one of those two people who's a representative. And then I think all of these would be up for consideration and discussion in October. Of course, that's what would happen by operation of law. If Council deemed that it was appropriate to reseat other people, that would mean that they're de-seating some people. Traditionally you would not deseat somebody, but that would be in Council's prerogative to deseat somebody at the same time that they seat somebody else.

So just to make sure I understand, the positions that are here rotate into new positions based on their alternate or current position status?

Yes, sir.

And then at this particular time, at this particular meeting, we can by either voice or declarative, determine who those future positions are or select an entire slate of people to finish out this year's term. Is that correct?

Yes, sir.

Thank you. I just want to make sure that we're clear on what we can and cannot do at this particular meeting.

And I don't believe that we would have come, staff would not have come to you had we had the alternates identified for those positions. But anytime, it is always the council's prerogative who sits on these boards.

Absolutely, because it's based on our conversation. I know we had this. It's the body or the government, and the government would be the council.

Yes, sir. According to all the bylaws, I believe it says entity is the word that they use. Entity, yes. They do that because school boards have people on it, county courts have people on it, and municipalities have people on it. So being comprehensive, they're not going to say city council because it could be the commissioner's court or it could be ISD boards, I don't remember all of their titles. Spoken like a lawyer. You know, they normally call them trustees, but I don't remember what the presiding person's title is.

It tries to be all-encompassing, and so I appreciate you making the clarification, providing this information, and allowing us to put you on the spot to go through this, so thank you for that. Yes, sir. Any additional, Council Member Koza, yes.

Thank you, Mayor. I asked former Council, or excuse me, Mayor, Councilmember and Mayor Kevin Cole to come and kind of shed some light on the process that he went through to be put on HGAC. So I'd like to have ex-member Mayor Kevin Cole.

Is it possible to do that? I'm just asking. I'm not objecting. I'm just, I want to make sure that we're within the decorum.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Yes, Kevin Cole, former mayor of the city of Pearland. And Mr. Koza, would you just kind of restate what you're looking for there?

So when you were appointed to HGAC, I'm assuming that was approximately six years ago, give or take. because that's how long you were mayor, maybe a month or so after. So could you kind of go through the process? Because prior to this, our previous mayor, Member Patel, held the office in the 40-year range. There were about one and a half, maybe two terms that Vic Coppinger filled in between for Mayor Reed. So when I went looking for any information for Mayor Reed, we did not have recorded meetings. We did not have the ability, or I didn't have the ability to find any information to see how that was handled. And currently, Mayor Cole is the only person that has any experience. And I wasn't elected. I've been here four years, and I'm, if you want to call it the most senior, most tenured, whatever you want to call it. member up here as far as on council, I wasn't here when Mayor Cole was appointed or elected to that position. So I asked him to come and speak about how, what, and kind of give us a feel for how it worked.

Yeah, so thank you for that. So obviously the election in 2020 was in November. It wasn't in May because of the COVID outbreak, which did put an election of officers or nomination of officers to go on to HGAC right at the end of the year, beginning in January. unlike middle of the year, you know, having to wait to maybe, you know, start a new term several months later. So, one of the first things that we had to do, obviously, with Mayor Reid coming off of both Transportation Policy Council and the HGAC Board, is to note, real quick, the HGAC Board, by bylaws of the HGAC, is required to be an elected official. So all board members, 100% of those are elected officials. Transportation Policy Council, not necessarily the case because there's appointed people, there's people from TxDOT and the like that sit on those. Some councils, or excuse me, some counties have their county engineer on there as an example. So an appointed position, not necessarily elected positions. So as we move forward, obviously Mayor Reed had to come off because he's no longer an elected official, so he can't be on that board. Therefore, how, what, and where do we do this? As a new incoming mayor, I certainly knew through this process that being on any board or HJC, my title didn't allow me to automatically be on that board. It is a vote of the council who goes on that board, and then it's just a matter of the council deciding who do they want to put up and be a part of that. So I can't speak to how Mayor Reed, you know, 30-plus years before I got involved, went on to HGAC. I'm sure it was a vote of that council as well, and that's how he got picked, and he stayed on that board for many, many years. So amongst the council, when I walked in as mayor in November of 2020, I actually had, at that point in time, had more experience as a council member and in the area than any of my council. In fact, I think it was Tony Carbone had about seven years experience as a council member, and I had nine years experience as a council member. We had several council members who said, I simply don't want it because I don't want the time and I can't devote the time because of business and other things and jobs. And so, I left it up to the council and they appointed me as the representative. And I'm trying to remember my initial alternate might have been Tony Carbone as Mayor Pro Tem coming in. So, because I know we elected Mayor Pro Tem shortly after when I was elected. That's how it was done, and then since that time, I just stayed on as the representative. Transportation Policy Council, with Trent in that particular position. Transportation Policy Council is a lot different from HGAC. There's a super amount of technical information that goes through that. How does the funding cycle work? How do you get, you know, The particular projects get picked to be put into that. One of the things that Trent brings to the table, the reason why I had him as my alternate, was he served on the TAC, which is a, I wouldn't say lower board, but it's all technical officials from around the region. He grew to be the chairman of that particular board and certainly understands the call for projects and how that cycle works. It is an alphabet soup that if you're not aware of, wrapping your head around it is quite difficult in getting there. So I had him as my backup on TPC because of the knowledge that he has of the HGAC and the Transportation Policy Council and how that works.

All right, thank you very much.

Council Member Koza, do you have a comment?

Yes, sir, could you let the chamber know that when we call somebody up, it's not a three-minute time period, because I've been sitting here listening to people jabber in my ear about their sideshow, and it's unappreciated.

I respect, it is tight in here. And so I didn't hear what they were saying, right? So as best you can, please, no heckling or anything like that. We're trying to have a productive conversation. and end on not just a discussion, but a way that we can all move this city forward the best way we can. So I do realize, thank you, Mayor Cole, for the background. And so just a point of clarity, when we talk about experience, Mayor Cole admitted just now himself that he didn't possess the experience to serve as the head of the primary on TPC. He had a backup who had the technical knowledge to serve alongside him in that position. So I appreciate him being up there to qualify that.

And I appreciate that as well. Yes. But his council elected him. Hold on. Sorry. It's being recorded right now. Is his council elected? Absolutely. No one is debating that. That's what we're here to do.

Absolutely. No one is debating that.

Is to have council elect.

Absolutely. That's why it's a resolution. I think we all understand that.

Each and every one of us up here were elected also. No one's debating that. No one's debating that, Councilmember. But people have stated that you were elected for an agenda. Each one of us were elected as well. And so respectfully, each one of us have a voice and a vote.

So thank you. And you're very welcome. And it is noted that each one of us represents the entire community. The entire community. That is correct. And so I believe no other agenda item, to my knowledge, sitting on this dais, have we had the amount of participation and engagement that we've had on any issue.

Yes, sir, it has.

You want to see one?

I don't want to see one. I'm observing one. You made a comment. You made a comment. And when Bell Vita gets riled up, we have had this many folks in chambers. And if you don't think so, you need to roll back about four years ago when we had a gentleman standing up in the back and fell because the amount of people that were in here and he passed out. Point taken. Thank you, council member.

Any other council members that would like to present some information on this discussion? Thank you. Council Member Fernandez.

Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to thank everybody for being here. When we speak about unity, when we speak about coming together as one city, we do need to remember that it is one. And part of that is communication. And I want to focus a little bit about communication, Mayor, that my first question is, or first I'll start with a comment. So on June 13th, Saturday, June 13th, my phone started blowing up because of a, I guess a Juneteenth event that took place at Town Center. and I saw great social media posts about your birthday, and I saw a cake, and I saw a lot of good things. But at that, I heard from those that reached out that you made comments that you do not have a council that supports you. And I guess my question, and I don't know if that's accurate, Okay, yeah, I don't know if it's accurate or not, but that's what I heard. And so my mind went straight to why hasn't he reached out to me? Because I, from day one, have shared with you over lunch, breaking bread, we've had great conversations about how I have said, all along that I would be willing to assist you in any way that I can. So when I heard that comment, I'm sitting here going, why has he not reached out to me to share with me his interests on HGAC or any of the appointments? So before I move on, can you touch upon that comment or those comments that I had received while you were speaking to the audience at Town Center?

I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you, Councilman Fernandez. knowing that this would be a particular resolution or item on the agenda, I was hesitant to contact multiple council members to be in violation of the Open Meetings Act because we are voting on this issue. So I didn't want to violate that. So I was limited in who I could talk to and what I could say. And so respectfully, you know we've had these conversations and I would have picked up the phone. I just was restricted by what I can communicate and who I could talk to. So that's one. The second thing was, it was my birthday and I wish I would have seen you there. But it's all good, next year, next year. But what I said was in reference to a conversation that was had with the city manager. And so I'll clarify. In discussing what would come up as a resolution or potential resolution or consideration about these board positions, Mr. Epperson mentioned to me that his willingness to serve on the board. And I noticed he was an alternate. And I indicated to him my willingness to not only fill the primary position, but also other positions, as have previous mayors for 20 plus years. And so his response to me was, we'll see what council has to say about that. Since then, I've had a conversation with Mr. Epperson, and he has indicated to me his willingness to serve in any capacity. So I want to make that clear as well. So the comments you heard at the June 13th meeting was in response to the conversation and the point of essentially challenge that I don't have any experience to serve on this board. And if I'm speaking out of turn, Mr. Epperson, please, by all means, clarify.

I don't recall saying you didn't have any experience to serve on the board, but that I did have a lot of experience with HGAC and the different capacities I've served there and the different committees I've chaired.

So thank you for clarifying. You mentioned that... One second.

Also, so just to know, I also consulted with the city attorney, Mr. Provence, to have an executive session to discuss But he also noted that that is not in accordance of state law or an executive session to be called to discuss said item. So just know the willingness to have the conversation amongst my peers was put forward. I was just restricted by what I could and could not do by the law that we all have to abide by. So for sure.

OK, a couple of things that I wanted to just, a couple points that I want to talk about. Number one, with all due respect to the conversation with Trent, Trent's not going to vote for you. It will be the council. And the reason I say that is because when I got that phone call started to come in on Saturday, I will tell you, I was disappointed. I was like, oh my goodness, why hasn't he reached out to me? So two days later, a flyer went out through social media that was sponsored by the NAACP. And when I saw that go out, and it said, call to action, and obviously people were concerned, and, you know, we have a room full of concerned residents. But this whole time, I'm sitting there going, why haven't you reached out to the council? Now, to address the quorum that you're talking about, you know, that you have the right to speak to a couple people, right? So my question, because we are in a public meeting, did you speak to some counsel? And even though it may not have been me, that's fine, but did you speak to counsel? And I'm speaking of... you know, the 13th, the 14th, the 15th, because then it went to social media, you know, it went out. And my concern is that why did it reach at that level when I didn't even know about it? Now, you mentioned that you knew about this topic And so you knew through the conversations with our city manager, Trent Epperson, that I'll address it to council. And so you made, I don't wanna say an assumption, but you said to yourself, okay, I'm gonna address it to the people and let's get the people to voice an opinion, which I'm fine with. I'm okay with that part. Why didn't you speak to counsel? So my next question, did you speak to question? Did you speak to counsel? And the reason I'm asking the question, people in the audience and those online, is that leadership, all of us, and you guys that have leadership roles, communication matters. I just don't want to be thrown under the bus when I thought I was lending a helping hand.

I think just now, and with all due respect, I hoped I clarified why I didn't. And I did speak within the guidelines to a council member.

So what? Multiple. Within the guidelines. Okay, so within the quorum.

Okay, so. Not the quorum. Within the guidelines.

I mean, not a quorum, yes. Okay, I understand. But you spoke to members of council.

Yes.

on the 13th or 14th or 15th before we even received the agenda on that Tuesday?

Absolutely.

You did?

Yes. Okay. I did. And my, the communication that I provided to them was this, simple. I didn't advocate for a one or two positions per se. My comment and communication to them, and this is privy, so I hope that they respect me bringing this forward because you asked if I spoke to them. Sure. And my conversation was this. Every single person up here endorsed the other candidate. Every single person publicly endorsed the other candidate. That candidate is not here. And the conversation was, with each one of you, outside of any particular agenda item, the comments were said, and I want to make sure this is public because people are here. Every single person on this diet said to me, We want to see you succeed. Those were the words that came out of every single council member's mouth. We want to see you succeed. Why? Because if you succeed, we succeed, the city succeeds. That is great. I appreciated that knowing that coming into this, this would be difficult for me because of the simple fact that none of y'all wanted me here. So hold on, stop, wait up. None of y'all... None of y'all wanted to vote for me to be in this position. I'll put it like that. I'll reframe. And so having that clarity in conversation with all of you, it was refreshing. However, I was limited in what I could say and who I could talk to. It's a simple fact. And the one thing that I did say is that all I ask as the mayor, all I ask as the mayor is that I'm not asking for anything more, but I'm definitely not asking for anything less in order for me to fulfill the role and the job that the people have elected me to do, period. That's all I ask for. And we have a 20-plus year precedent A 20-plus year precedent of mayors fulfilling these roles. And for some reason, for some reason, especially when you put it to the voters, you have to imagine that knowing that precedent, when they go to vote, that's what's in their mind. Everything that our mayors have been afforded, that's what they're voting on. We've already settled the election. We've already, and it's precedent, 20 plus years of precedent. And for some reason, for some reason, maybe it's my smile, right? Cosimo Fernandez. Maybe it's my smile. Please, please, we have to have a productive conversation. Please. And I really appreciate the support and the willingness of people to be here. But I want to say this. I'm not asking for anything more. As the mayor of this city, duly elected, But I'm definitely not asking for anything less.

So my question to you, Mayor, is what has council done, or let me just say me, what have I done to make you feel that I'm not supportive?

I don't think, Councilman Fernandez, that you should take the conversations as pointed.

I'm just asking the first question. I've got more to it, but I'm just asking that question. Have I done or said something to you that would make you feel that I'm not supportive?

Absolutely not. I never said that. Absolutely. Sure.

So then the next question that I have is, you've said a lot about the election. To date, six weeks, We're supposed to know how much of you when you don't speak to us. Just hear me out. Six weeks. So when you made the comment, and very, very strong comment, that no one voted for you on council.

I said endorsements.

Okay. You're talking about endorsements? Endorsements. Okay, okay. So you made that comment. Obviously, at that time... We knew more of Tony Carbone than we did of Quentin Wiltz. With that said, the public spoke. The public spoke. And they're speaking now. What I'm saying is, why don't you give us the opportunity, because it's only been six weeks, to get to know you more so that there's no judgment so immediately towards us.

Councilman Fernandez, I appreciate the comments. I'm not asking for an opportunity here on resolution to get to know our council members. That's not what I'm asking. What I'm asking for...

There's a lot that has been spoken to today pertaining to this agenda that all revolves around the HGAC, from qualifications to, you know, speaking about endorsements and who voted and who didn't. I'm just speaking about when I started the conversation, I spoke about unity. I spoke about leadership. I'm talking about giving us or giving counsel the opportunity to get to know you. I believe that A narrative is written, and when you take that narrative, maybe it's spun, or you spin it, and now people come running, and I'm just trying to understand why the spin is made when we haven't even, what have we done to make you feel that we're not supportive?

No, so miscommunication. There's no spin. It's clear that through the conversations and the comments, perhaps you can prove me wrong when I'm on the board. But, however, it seems like inference is leading the conversation that the people up here do not want me on these boards. So we can clear it right now. Councilman Fernandez, would you care to see me as mayor in the primary position on all these boards?

Great, great question. And here's my answer to that. Why did we get it approached today? Why is it even in front of us today?

No, but Councilman Fernandez, I just told you. Because it's a resolution. I've tried.

I've tried. Why is it here today when we technically have until October?

Please, please. It's here today because in conversations, I've already indicated my willingness to be in these roles. The public has gotten the information based on the prior election and the precedent set that I would be on these boards and positions in these roles. Anything otherwise would be a miscommunication from this point back to the public on what they're asking from all of us elected representing every single person in this city customer patel thank you thank you mayor um so you're willing to serve on all boards mayor let's not make it so hold on so i mean so here so let's be clear let's be clear Mr. Provence, would you mind putting up the slide again so that we're all speaking the same language about the same positions? Communication from this point.

There's that echo of truth again.

And I do ask for patience, this is only new business, item number two. So please, patience.

Was it this slide, sir?

That's exactly it. And so, to be clear, To be clear, here is what I'm asking as the mayor, which I believe has the precedent that's been set by every mayor, regardless of term dropouts or invalidations. Position one, board of directors, Quinton Wiltz. Transportation Policy Council, position one, Quinton Wiltz. And I believe the requirement is that you have to be on the General Assembly to serve on the Board of Directors. So any position will do on the General Assembly.

No, sir, it has to be, well, it has to be position one or two. It can't be either the two alternates.

But when I say position, I didn't mean alternate. I meant position one or two. Yes, sir. So hopefully in this particular setting, because I couldn't do so, otherwise based on what we're talking about. My willingness is to serve as every mayor before me for 20 plus years. Position one, where former mayor Kevin Cole sits. Position one, where former mayor Kevin Cole sits. Position one, where former mayor Kevin Cole sits. That's all I'm asking for. I just want to say this as well. Unlock this computer. Ms. Provence, who's the Vice Chair of the HCA Board of Directors? I saw it pulled up before. Someone was scrolling through it. I don't have that information. I saw someone flipping through.

And that would be a council member.

And the board member underneath him?

That would be Stacy Adams, commissioner.

Nope, for sure. Got it. Got that. So my ask is simple, though. I just want to serve on these boards. But to the point, hold on. So I've got two letters that I'll submit to you all after I read them. The first one is from Harris County Precinct Board Commissioner Leslie Briones. support for Mayor Quinton Wills to serve on HJC and TPC. Dear members of the City Council, I'm honored to offer my strong support for the appointment of Mayor Quinton Wills to serve on the Houston-Galveston Area Council Board of Directors and the Transportation Policy Council. As a member of the HCA Board of Directors and Vice Chair of TPC, I've seen the value of leaders who bring a collaborative approach and a commitment to regional problem solving. Mayor Wills possesses both qualities and would be a strong representative for Pearland and the region as a whole. Pearland is one of the Houston region's fastest growing communities, making its perspective critical to regional discussions. Appointing Mayor Wiltz would ensure the interest and priority of Pearland's residents and businesses are represented as regional policies and investments are developed. In addition to his role as mayor, Mayor Wiltz brings significant experience working on major infrastructure projects and navigating complex stakeholder partnerships. His professional background and commitment to public service positioned him well to contribute to HGAC's mission of advancing regional collaboration. His participation would help advance solutions that support sustainable growth and long-term prosperity across the region. I'm confident Mayor Wilts will be an effective member of both the HCA Board of Directors and the Transportation Policy Council, and I respectfully encourage your support of his appointment. Sincerely, Leslie Briones, Commissioner, Harris County Precinct 4. One more. Dear members, dear council members, it is my honor and privilege to wholeheartedly recommend Mayor Quinton Wilts to represent the city of Pearland on the Houston-Galveston Area Council's Board of Directors and the Transportation Policy Council. As you're well aware, as leaders of one of the fastest growing communities in Texas, Pearland residents depend on a transportation network that is safe, reliable, and efficient. Regional partnerships are key to building and shaping the future of the Houston-Galveston area, ensuring that our transportation network continues to support economic development throughout the region and improving the quality of life for all constituents. Toward those shared goals, Mayor Wiltz will serve you and your constituents well on HCSE's board and Transportation Policy Council. Mayor Wiltz brings over 15 years of professional experience with large scale infrastructure development, stakeholder engagement, project execution, and risk management. He fully understands the complex logistics that are required to move people, goods, and resources efficiently and safely. He also knows meaningful progress can only be achieved through collaboration among local governments, transportation agencies, business leaders, and community stakeholders. Most importantly, Mayor Wiltz is committed to serving and representing the city of Pearland and the people who call it home. I recommend Mayor Wiltz and encourage you to support his appointments to both HGAC's Board of Directors and the Transportation Policy Council. Sincerely, Rodney Ellis, Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner. So when we're talking up here and we're talking about my qualifications and experience on councils, I do want to make a point of clarification that we always conflate years on council with experience. That's not always the case. Truly, I'm not taking anything away from anybody sitting up here Your experience and your commitment to this community is extremely valuable, and it is value. However, when we're talking about serving the community as a whole in the region, I would put anyone's experience against mine. Not serving on council, but qualifications, and we often conflate qualifications with experience. And that is what is at stake here. Absolutely, Councilmember Koza.

Whenever you're done. Are you finished? I'm finished, Councilmember Cole, yes. Okay. Thank you for the floor. Do you remember on May 15th when you and I went to have coffee with Preacher Barnett? Yes, sir. Do you remember the insults you threw at me?

What did I say, Councilmember? Let me just ask, before we continue, what does that, how is that relevant to the conversation?

It has to do with respect. It has to do with respect. Here we go with the respect one. No, sir. You're sitting here. I let you speak. I'm asking a question. I don't. You asked a question. I told you I don't know what you're talking about. Council Member Cade was there. She heard every word you said. What did I say, Council Member? You attacked my family and my position in this community. Don't, don't. Council Member. No, you're shaking your head. Council Member, I don't. It's about respect, sir. Council Member, I don't know what you're talking about. Do you realize that Rodney Ellis, do you realize that Rodney?

Council Member, I don't know what you're talking about. And it's not, Council Member, that is not relevant at all to the pertaining to this conversation.

Do you want to know why I wouldn't vote for you? I came into this relationship with an open mind. And when you sit there and attack me and demean me, you do not build consensus, sir. And then on top of it, Rodney Ellis was removed from the HGAC board for his inability to act right. You can know that Adrian Garcia and Commissioner Briones replaced Lena Hidalgo and Rodney Ellis for lack of respect for the entity. So that right there is when you sit there and ask, no, I'm just sitting here saying, I gave you the floor and now you want to back up. Please, please, please, please, please. Allow him to finish.

Please, please stop. That's all I got. I wholeheartedly reject any type of personal attacks on you or your family. I've talked to them, and it has no relevancy at all to this conversation and my qualifications to serve the entire community in the region on these boards. You have to earn everyone's vote, sir. Sir, please stop. Please stop. Please stop. I think what he's referring to is his vote. His vote. And I want to make that point of clarification. He's referring to his vote. But you've done it to others. You're referring to your vote. Thank you, sir. Council Member Cade.

Yes, Mayor. I may not have voted for you, but the minute you got here, I treated you well. I welcomed you. I tried everything to, I mean, is that right or wrong?

No, council member, please.

So you're saying that we're not supportive.

Council member, council member. That is discouraging. Council member, council member. I'm not saying that none of you all have had an outward approach to me after the election. That is not what I'm talking about.

You didn't vote for me either.

Councilmember, please.

I mean, just saying, it's true. Councilmember, Councilmember, Councilmember. No, let me finish, Mayor.

Well, you just made a point of clarification, and our votes are private as citizens. You don't know who I voted for. I said endorsement, so let's stop conflating. Okay.

My, um, it wasn't retaliatory. I'm just saying. My point is this. You saying that, um... talking about council instead of with council is not uniting. It's just not. And especially when I hear that, and I know that, I mean, I really have grown to like you, I thought that we were.

Council member, please, please, please. There's nothing. Council member, please, outside of this. No, no, no, what I'm saying.

Why are we even trying to talk?

No, no, no, I'm just saying, I'm not trying to make this conversation personal. I'm trying to keep it relevant.

It is, parts of it are personal because of things that you've said. You've said about council.

Please stop.

So I'm asking you, how could I be more supportive?

By electing me to the board. Councilmember, please stop, hold on.

Since you've been elected, how could I, how have I not been supportive? Because you said that before we've even talked about who we were gonna elect to the board.

Councilmember, we are here and we have many items.

You have no idea who I was gonna vote for.

I never said that. No one was attacking anyone, however, Well, I apologize if that's how you felt, but Council Member Patel.

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, this issue is very passionate and obviously long and drawn out. I move that we table this until October, keep the appointments as they are, and we'll make that decision, and we can discuss this further in October. Second.

Second.

we have a motion on the floor to table the appointments to october by council member patel and second by council member cosa do we have somebody in every position right now laurence will you pull that back up please i'm sorry mr provins will you pull that back

If Council does not take action today on the HGAC General Assembly, we would only have one person. We would still have the voting member for the HGAC Board of Directors, but we would not have an alternate, and we would still have a position on the Transportation Policy Council, but we would not have an alternate.

Last month, we didn't have a, we, Caroline didn't get a vote because Nobody can go to the meeting, isn't that right? And I think we need to take action on something, at least that part.

To take action on that part, because it would be on the HJC Board of Directors, pursuant to the HJC bylaws, you would have to have a person, I'm going to call it in position one spot, even though they're not labeled. And again, staff doesn't know who that should be, whether the intent when you made the vote in October was for either yourself or Councilmember Koza to be the alternate for position one that was held by then-Mayor Kevin Cole.

Was that clarification? Okay. So, for the sake of, yes, Council Member Barham, yes sir.

For clarification, I believe the General Assembly has already met for this year, they just meet once a year, is that correct? Mayor Cole is indicating that yes, they've met for this year. Yeah. It's obviously a heated issue, clearly. And we've been talking about this for, what, an hour and a half now? I get it. I hear where you're coming from. I hear where citizens are coming from. I hear where council's coming from. Correct me if I'm wrong, Lawrence, but we typically make these, well maybe, would be, I don't know, somebody. We typically appoint boards and commissions in October at the beginning of our fiscal year, correct?

Not all boards and commissions. It would depend on which board and commission it is. These HJC appointments are traditionally filled in October of each year. Okay, so. But that's based on HJC's I don't know if they call it fiscal year or if they're operating year. So it's not based on our schedule.

Okay, so sticking with HGAC, we would typically make appointments in October, be consistent with HGAC's processes. We made those appointments in October of last year with primaries and alternates. The point of alternates is to fulfill roles when the primaries no longer fulfill those roles. That's the entire purpose of an alternate. And I've been hesitant to talk about this.

Mayor, I'd like to have a point of order because we had a motion and a second. I think there needs to be a call to vote.

No, there's discussion, Councilmember.

Lawrence, could you clarify on that?

Yes, sir. A motion to postpone would actually be debatable. So, whether it be a motion to postpone indefinitely or whether it be a motion to postpone to a definite time period, that is a debatable motion. Thank you.

Thank you for the clarification, Member Koza. I appreciate that. The reason I've been hesitant to talk about it is because, or to comment on this, is because I'm the alternate. So at the moment, I sit on the HGAC board. And it seems somewhat self-serving to comment, but I'm also a member of city council. I'm a member of city council first. citizens of Pearland elected me to represent them, as well as everybody on this dais. So to the point, the reason I'm bringing it up now is to the point of the motion. I think it has nothing to do with the Office of the Mayor, and has everything to do with the processes we already have in place. and we have positions filling all of the needed seats. So, let the positions fill out the terms as were appointed in October of last year, and let's address this in October of this year under our normal processes. That's not anything having to do with you. And I think that's what's gotten lost in this whole conversation is, It's not about the prior mayors have held those positions, yes, but not by virtue of being the mayor. By virtue of who they were and their councils, yes, their councils chose to put them in those positions. Were they a council member? They may have been put in those positions. We don't know because none of us were sitting at that dais. What I am asking the citizens who have elected all of us to be here, all of us, all eight of us, is to trust the process, trust the entire council, let us finish what we already have in place, and let's address this in October under normal business.

So just, there's a motion on the floor to postpone. Council Member Patel, is it specifically for October or just to a later date?

Postpone until October, Mayor.

October. And the requirement to fill the vacancies are what date, Mr. Provost?

I don't have a date certain. I just know that it's traditionally in October of each year.

And the reason I'm asking the question is so that I'm not against us postponing it. I'm going to say that and put that out there. What I'm trying to be is just proactive so we don't wait till the last minute again and be forced so that we won't have substantive conversations about how and what these positions or how they will be filled. So just for the record, as it stands, there are no more meetings. HGAC, TPC?

There's no more General Assembly meetings. There would be, so we appoint in October, the new slate would take effect in January. So that's the normal process of appointing the board members to the HJC board. So by virtue of postponing to October under our normal business, then I would continue to hold my board position as our alternate, now moved into the board position through the end of the calendar year, and the new slate would take effect in January. Same thing with TPC. Now.

TPC has an alternate.

Correct, the alternate goes into the position and would continue to serve in that position through the end of the year.

Could we do anything without an alternate for TPC? I'm asking Mr. Provost, sorry, I apologize.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understood the question.

What we're commenting is just clarity on before we take up a vote on this postponing. I'm trying to understand what happens to the TPC with no alternate being that Mr. Epperson will now fill the primary position.

He would continue to serve in the capacity as the primary, essentially.

And so if for whatever reason he's unable, then we just have a vacancy for that vote.

A vacancy for that meeting. I don't know if there's a vote that happens at that meeting. I'm not familiar with their day-to-day.

I'm just understanding the context.

And I think it's also worth noting for the general public to understand how the HJC works. These are public meetings at HJC, just like this. So any member can continue to go to those meetings. So I mentioned that to say that If the vote goes the direction of postponing to October and Mr. Epperson maintains as the position on TPC and I maintain the position on HJC, there's nothing preventing yourself or any other member of council from attending those meetings and getting up to speed, theoretically, until we get into new order of business. Make sense?

It does. And I just want to make sure. And no one's debating.

I hear the murmurs, guys. Y'all got to understand, this is not taking shots at Mayor Wills. And I hear, no, it's not. It's not. No, it's not. Please, please. What we are trying to do.

I want to say this real quick. Councilmember Byram has given us the utmost respect in being quiet in his position, and he is trying to convey his thoughts in this discussion, and I think they are relevant. So I just ask that y'all please give him the respect and consideration to do so.

Thank you, sir. I think we're all trying to do what we believe to be in the best interest of our city and set our whole city up for long-term success, including council, including the mayor. And I think the correct step to take at this juncture is what Member Patel motioned as we postponed to October, do all this under our normal order of business, and we continue to operate in the best interest of our city.

So, Councilmember Cade.

I said I do worry about not having an alternate for the transportation. Does it matter?

Mayor. Councilmember Koza.

Thank you. Trent, for all practical purposes, there's six more meetings left in the year. So, Trent, are you available for those last six meetings?

I'd have to check the specific dates for all those, but I don't have anything planned for being out any particular Friday, so I could likely work around those.

Okay. I see Commissioner Adams here in the audience. Could you tell us when those dates are? Do you know when those dates are? Yes, sir. Could you go to the podium?

Yeah, it's typically the, I think, fourth Friday of every month.

Commissioner Adams, could you go to the podium so that we could hear? What did you, okay, Mayor Cole also.

There you go. That's what I wanted somebody to confirm. Since I'm not on TPC, I'm just on the main board.

Okay, so it's the fourth Friday. Could you look at your calendar real quick and let us know?

And just for one point of additional clarification for Councilmember Byron, thank you. I do want to say thank you for your poise and patience throughout this process. I think the point of contention is, as you finish your statement, is that you mentioned to let the process play out with the best interest of the city. And I think that's the point of contention is that what is the best interest for the city at this point, given the public comments, my willingness to serve, and our ability to discuss back and forth. So respectfully, while I'm making the comments, I want to make a declarative point here that I do agree. I think there's much conversation to be had. I appreciate the comments from the public. Obviously, I've already indicated my willingness to serve in a public forum, not violating any meeting acts, which is what I had hoped for. I would have respectfully I appreciate the opportunity to converse with every single council member about the qualifications that I had and the reasons why the people elected me in this position with the thought that I'd be on these boards. So for the sake of time and moving this discussion forward, for the other business that we do have at hand to continue to operate the city, I would respectfully ask that we end the discussion to call for the vote. And currently, the motion on the floor is to postpone the appointments for HGAC member at large, HGAC board directors, and TPC to a later date, as indicated by Councilman Patel in October. would we know what that date is as of this point? And I do wanna come back to Mr. Epperson if you would like to finish the comment about availability, if you so choose.

Sure, it appears that the Fridays that those meetings should occur, that I'm available. I believe the November and the December ones will be on the third Friday due to the holidays, and I'm available those as well. All right, thank you.

And again, we are about to vote to postpone this meeting, the appointment, sorry, the postponed, not the whole meeting, let me clarify, to postpone the appointment, postpone the appointment for October to a later date to be determined, and the current positions will be filled throughout the remaining portion of their terms.

It appears, to follow up on your question, Mayor Walz, it appears that the first meetings would be February 20th. Again, we don't wait until February 20th. We get it done in October. So if we wanted to do that, whether that be the first meeting in October or the second, makes no difference to me as the guy who normally writes resolutions. You know, we'll go through those files and it'll be one of those two.

I just want to make sure that we don't have any ambiguity. Councilman Patel, would you be, again, for clarification for the motion on the floor?

Yes, sir, that'll be fine.

First or second?

So we can do it on the second meeting?

I think some of that's gonna be determined by when HGAC asks for those appointments, because they typically ask, and then we would put it on the next board meeting, the next council meeting.

Then the motion could be postponed until we get the notification or request, whatever you want to call it, from HGAC, whether it be the first or second.

So it would be a move to amend the motion? Is that necessary?

I think that we're just clarifying which date and time in October. Okay. Yep.

Yeah. Mayor, let me re-clarify my, I'd like to postpone this until the second meeting of October, and I will second that as well.

Motion made by Councilman Patel, second by Coza. Councilman Coza, sorry.

No worries.

Question? Having no questions, Madam Secretary, would you please, please, please call for the vote?

Member Patel? Aye. Member Koza?

Aye.

Member Echols? Aye. Member Byrum?

Aye.

Member Cade? Aye. Member Fernandez?

Aye.

The motion passes 6-0.

Mayor, out of essence and respect of everybody's time, can we move item number 8? to have a next discussion.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

So, Councilmember Patel, would you move that item to the floor, please?

Yes, Mayor. One second.

Let's recess for 10 minutes, please.

My bro, huh?

And I think we were, Council Member Patel, could you, what was the next item?

Yes, Mayor, with your permission, I'd like to discuss item number eight, but it seems like the crowd left, but we'll still talk about it if that's okay with you.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Mayor.

So item, I believe it was moved by Council Member Patel and seconded by?

No, we hadn't actually put it on the table yet. Got it. It's just a discussion item, though?

It would be at the mayor's discretion, unless there's an objection, in which case it would require a vote.

No, we're good. Let's put it. It's just a discussion item, right? We don't have to put anything. Okay. We can just go.

The floor is now open for discussion. Mayor. Staff, report, please. Yes.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Council. So after our last discussion on UDC and multifamily and those subjects, there was a desire to move forward with a forum. So staff developed the outlined agenda attached to this item, and it's a forum for multifamily housing and Pearland based on input from that meeting from the city council. It's focused on education of what the current law is, a panel discussion with legislators, potential impacts in Pearland if we were subject to the new law today. A panel discussion with legal experts, planning professionals, school districts for the impacts on the schools and impacts on crime with the police department. plus a public input and question period. So, we basically plan to use the discussion from that forum, the questions, the inputs, and everything that's heard there from the public and everyone that's participating as part of our future UDC and multifamily discussions that the council still will have in the future regarding the UDC updates. So, looking forward to your input, and if you want, I can run briefly through the draft here and then turn it over for discussion. So, we ran it through AI to come up with a wonderful title called Multifamily Housing in Pearland, State Law and Local Impact, Understanding Texas Housing Policy and What It Means for Our Community. So we looked at some dates in August and coordinated with school district to try to get a location. We were trying for Dawson High School. They did not have availability there, but did have availability at Barry Miller Junior High on August 4th. So that's just a proposed date at this point. We would have a welcome and state the purpose of the meeting with Mayor Wilts. Just go over the purpose of the workshop, overview of the format, and expectations for public participation. We would then roll into an overview of Chapter 218, so as we discussed it last time, we talked a lot about Senate Bill 15 and Senate Bill 840. Those, once they are passed, they become law, and the part of the law that they affected and changed is Chapter 218, so that's why we're talking 218 here. So an overview of 218 and the recent changes. And we would have a representative from Texas Municipal League here to help explain that. And they would basically cover what was changed, how it impacts municipalities and their authority, and where it's applicable. And then we would move into a legislative panel discussion, and we invited the president of our Chamber of Commerce, Jim Johnson, to participate. He was gracious enough to say he would participate. And then we listed out all of our representatives and state senators, state representatives and senators that cover some portion or a large portion of Pearland. The only one on here that does not actually cover Pearland is Senator Joan Huffman, but she was mentioned a couple of times by different council members as somebody To invite so we would invite all these we do not have any commitments out of anyone at this point But but would make those invites once we solidify Where we're going with this and discussion topics or questions is just why statewide action was necessary What outcomes did they expect? those sort of questions and just kind of get the perspective of the legislature and what they kind of expect moving forward and We would then have a brief presentation from city staff on the potential impacts in Pearland. So basically looking as if these laws did apply to us or at the point they would apply to us, what areas potentially would be affected, maps, acreage, unit estimates. And then potential population estimates based off different development. Percentage of those areas developing as multifamily. and then relate that back to our master planning we always look at from a standpoint of water, wastewater, transportation. And then we would have a local impacts and community perspective panel. I volunteered to moderate that one. And our potential participants would be a representative from TML, a legal expert, planning professionals, and then we would invite a representative from our two major school districts, as well as the chief of police. And again, that would be a discussion on what authority remains to cities, how communities, other communities currently subject to these changes have responded and what they think the effectiveness of that will be. And then impacts on future growth in schools and future growth with public safety services. And then reserve some time for public questions and comments. We would have a QR code where people could submit questions. And then we would also have an open microphone as well. And then just a quick closing remarks that we will also have an ability for people to continue submitting questions. Obviously taking all this input and discussion and then using that for our future discussions on multifamily and the UDC. So welcome everybody's input to get this finalized so we can start working towards putting it together. Thank you.

Thank you. I do have some questions. So I know there's been some comments in the past, and even online, about our ability to garner public input in these open forums because lack of resident support. They don't show up, we don't show up, or that's a valid concern as we've done this in the past. I want to first say, This is, I think, extremely helpful, the way this is, the content is provided to us and presented. There's, I think, opportunities to improve. One being, if we summarize the sections, and I think if you look at it in terms of output versus input, there's 75 percent of this that is output as far as pushing information. And I think, for me, the objective is to engage and get input. In the last sessions, we saw there were several opportunities where people wanted to comment or express. Some of those perhaps may have been valid, some invalid. But what I would like to see is maybe a counterbalance. If we offer output for 20 minutes, and we request input, or at least 10, maybe 30, or 30, 60, or whatever it is, but more opportunity for input from the public. I don't think the format should be just straight pushing information and then wait until the end, hoping people will stay, and then say, hey, what's your questions? So case in point. So my point is, in saying this, in providing some input, is that if we could find a way, I don't have a solution. I think all the information is pertinent. But if we could find a way to intertwine some sort of community engagement between these conversations, I think it would not only make it productive, but I think people would be willing to not only participate, but to share it. And so even if some of the information with respect to the TML legal experts and professionals, if there's a way we can compartmentalize or push this information out to supplement these forums online so people can digest it in chunks so that they come prepared. and they understand the information we're giving them, as opposed to just having one setting where we're giving all this information to people without a flow of them being able to comment or engage or participate. So really, that's... and then I appreciate you putting me at the beginning to welcome and the end to fill the brunt of all the questions that are coming. But either way, however you want to do it, I'm good with it, but I do appreciate staff's work to put this together to help us, I would just ask my comments that we just intertwine more opportunities for engagement from the public as we move through it and figure out ways to make these information topics digestible online through other media so people are prepared. Council Member Byron, sorry, thank you. That's okay, no problem.

The original intent behind proposing this in the first place was information dissemination, and it's kind of grown and gotten legs, and I think that's good. I think input is good. I'd like to offer an alternative to your thoughts as I've thought about this. I personally think that one thing that's missing that I don't want to try to figure out how to input into this meeting on top of what we already have slated, because this is a good two-hour meeting at this point already, and not tonight, this agenda is probably a solid two hours by the time we get through it, is ultimately as these State laws come into effect and projects are continued to be brought to the dais by developers. Council has to ultimately vote on those things. And council doesn't have an opportunity in this structure to have any interaction with the public. And again, I don't want to even try to figure out how to put council in the mix of all of this, because now we've got a four hour meeting. And you're going to lose people's attention at that point. So the alternative that I would like to suggest is I think it is very, very important that we get public comments, is if you scroll up to the top of this page in the mayor's welcome, all the way to the top. Expectations for public participation is one of the bullet points. I think it would be wise on our part to communicate at that point that we have this QR code available throughout the entire evening, make that readily available throughout the room. People can scan it, have that, whatever that form looks like, they can scan it as many times as they want, explain to them how to use it, and get questions all throughout the night as these different topics are presented. And maybe also have the open mic at the end just so people can come up and ask additional questions off the top of their head. But explaining that we're not going to have a back and forth at the end of all of this massive amount of information. Because it is a lot. It's a lot for us to digest and we deal with it on a consistent basis, much less the general public that may very likely hear it for the first time. So set the expectation with the public that you're gonna have the opportunity to ask these questions, have staff amalgamate all of those questions that we receive, whether they're live or through the QR code. and then schedule a council workshop where we can go back and forth with the citizens. We've had a chance to actually receive their questions, digest them, answer them, and be able to come in and go, okay, well, we had this question, here's the answer to it. We had this question, here's the answer to it. And have a workshop environment after the forum where we get to have that dialogue. It gives the public the opportunity to digest it and also gives us the opportunity to digest their questions and answer them more holistically. So that would be the only change that I would propose to this, is just set that expectation at the beginning and have that closing part at the end, but not have the back and forth questions, because we're not going to be able to answer everything at that point in time, and we don't know what all is going to be asked. So that's an alternative to what you're suggesting. I would also like to state that, yes, we're gonna talk about SB 840 and SB 15. I would like, if council agrees, to ask these legal representatives on how these laws affect us to also discuss how HB 2127 affects us with these laws. And I won't go into a lot of detail, but for the common vernacular, that's called the Death Star Bill. And it's a preemption bill from the state that they've listed all kinds of stuff where they preempt the city. And how does that bill tie in with these other bills? I think that's important for people to understand. And finally, also to ask that they speak to what the current interim charges are. and how those apply to these bills as well. I know that on the House side, SB 840 and SB 15 are specifically called out in the interim charges. I've not looked at the Senate's interim charges. They're a little more difficult to find, but they are out there. So those are my suggestions. I like the format overall. I think it's a great dissemination of information. I just think we can make a couple of tweaks and make it more effective overall.

Council Member Echols.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. To the staff, I like this forum. I like how it's set up. And I don't want to reiterate everything that Councilman Byrum has just stated. The only thing that I have a question on is the 30-minute question and answer. Because state legislators, they may be there, they may not. The questions that come in, they may be questions that has a lot of technical things to it that we may need to decipher. I love the idea of the QR code and putting the questions there. During the presentation by the the legal experts by our legislators. If there's a QR code that Mr. Johnson gets some of these questions coming in, and maybe in his questioning and interviewing, he can direct those technical questions to the legislators as they are. I think if we allow that 30 minutes, that 30 minutes will go past and people will leave frustrated because we don't have the answers. So, I'd like a workshop meeting afterwards at the dais or wherever where we can communicate back and forth to our constituents through our residents, I think there will be a lot of frustration because we don't have the answers. I mean, we're just getting the information ourself that night. And so, when the questions come in, I see a lot of frustration on the citizen's part and also on my part not having the answer for the constituents because these are what the state has mandated with 840 and with 15. I mean, those are deal breakers to us that are the stewards of our city. So I would just rather have something positive. And Mayor Wilts, if somebody has a question, yes or no question that we may be able to answer, I don't have a problem with that. But you go into a question and answer, and some resident comes up with some big technical question that we don't know the answer to, I see people leaving frustrated. And so, but I like the format. I like everything it is. It's just that question and answer, when you leave question and answers up, people will leave frustrated and irritable because they feel like their questions didn't get answered. We don't have the answer to yet. I mean, sometimes we don't have the answer.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Council Member Cousins.

Thank you, Mayor. I agree with Councilmember Byram and his suggestions to alter the plan and I'd be in support.

Councilmember Patel.

Thank you, Mayor. I think Councilmember Byram made a good point about this being too long that we're going to lose the And I think part of my, and please correct me if I'm wrong, and Mayor, you're right, that this should be a listening session. That was my original understanding when we kind of proposed this, to kind of go and educate the citizens, but also to listen to them. I think listening, or watching this agenda, it's a lot of talking going on from our side, but very little time for conversation. And one of the things I would say, I think we also kind of mentioned was to kind of spread this out over a couple of days and maybe do a smaller sessions where people can make it. I think one day at 6pm when you're work on a Tuesday, when you're working in Houston, Try to make it back here in an hour. And I think that's, people are gonna be turned off. And I would ask Mayor that we consider kind of having a smaller listening sessions, taking those inputs, and then carrying it up to the larger conversation like this one. And I think also maybe having a couple of locations, having one on the west side, or sorry, I apologize, west end, in the center of town, and also one in the east end. I think it will just give somebody an opportunity if they can't make one meeting to at least show up to another meeting. I know it's a lot of work on the staff, but I want to give this process a fair chance. And we're not certainly telling you to invite all the legislators. I think as council members, we should be able to attend these things and listening and of course not have a quorum, but it was more of explaining from our perspective and also listening to the constituents' concern. And I think once they have that opportunity, then we can also say, hey, there is an opportunity on you know, a certain date on a larger scale where you can actually talk to your elected officials in Texas, Austin. So I think it will give somebody a lot more opportunity to kind of express themselves to us. And then also we can make it a point to say, okay, we hear you. Now there's also an opportunity for you to let the senators and representatives in Austin hear you. And so that's my thought, and I think the process is long. I think you have a lot of panelists. But I think there should also be, and I think you mentioned it on what are things, I guess there's some noise, uh what are some things that we can do to slow this down or what can we do to uh what are some things the city can do by changing zoning or whatnot but i think those are all conversations we need to have and kind of be educated on ourselves thank you mayor you're welcome and before i go to councilman fernandez i just want to echo um perhaps to your point if and again i'm not talking about the sequence or the content but

If we got residents' comments in an open session, it may allow us to shorten the conversation because we understand exactly what they're asking us for. Because there's a lot of information here, so we're assuming that all this information is relevant to the people that it's impacting. So if we have these discussions on the first side, perhaps it would help us to understand what information, personnel, and people we need to involve to move forward with constructive conversation and decision making within the things that are going to impact us. Cosmo Fernandez.

Thank you, Mayor. My comments, you know, I think that we can do both. What Member Byram said and, Mayor, what you said. I think that, you know, this is what I believe one of many, you know, town hall meetings, communications with the public. I think this is a good start. I think we're going to learn a lot with this one. And I do like the idea of allowing them to speak a little bit more per section or, you know, or per area. Now, that means that we may have to condense it on the bottom end. We may have to fill it out. But I do, you know, I think that you know, to Member Byrum's and Koza's and even some of the stuff that Member Patel said, you know, I do think that we can find a balance. And I think we try this, or try something similar to this, and then I think that we're going to get a lot of feedback. i think we're going to get feedback and i think it's going to come very quickly and it's going to result into something else a workshop or something i think you're going to get mayor a lot of response remarks maybe people that want more information council members i think we're going to get phone calls also of people saying you know hey i think that you know i like what y'all did but i think i need more further information about something specific so that's why i think that a balance of of everything that we're talking about is good. I think it's really good. I can get behind allowing people to speak a little bit more often because obviously if we wait to the very end, people could have so much to say because we didn't allow them to kind of interject within the... within the town hall meeting. So my comments is that I think we can do a little bit of both. I think that we start with what we have, what the city proposed. I think we can, you know, put in a little bit of comments, whoever's commentate, whoever is... moderating thank you um you know each section then we can go into a maybe a a a brief question a q a um and then we're always being mindful of time because to to y'all's point people are going to check out if we're not careful but we learn from it i think the best the biggest part to this the takeaway is that when it's all said and done what are we learning from it what is the people saying And then I think it's going to create more. I think it's going to happen because there's so much information. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I do want to point out and we talked a little bit about this a while back having multiple sessions and all that kind of stuff. And I think that's great. I think there's been other things, you know, Old Town site workshops, things like that, where we went on listening tours, and heard from the community. And I think that's great to do. If we want to do that before the forum, if we want to do that after the forum, whatever makes the most sense. I understand that we've gotten a lot of emails from citizens. about multifamily and its impact, so I think we have a good idea of what information needs to be shared. I hear your point. At the same time, they don't know what they don't know. There's questions they don't know to ask because they don't even know what the legislature's doing. So putting some of that information out there. I say all that to say the state reps and the senators have been pretty clear they've committed to one of these. So we can't sit up here and say we're gonna schedule two, three, four of them and expect them to show up, all of them, because they've committed to one. The ones that have committed, now I understand staff hasn't talked to them I have, and I believe Member Koza has as well. So I just want to make sure we respect that, that we don't set them up for something that they're not going to be able to come through on. So if we want to schedule multiple additional things as a council, I'm all for it. And Member Echols, to your comment about having the follow-up workshop, I don't know that I would want to do it at the dais. I think the follow-up workshop or shops is exactly what Member Patel is talking about. We can spread those out across the community at different events. We can engage with people in that type of form. The dais, this entire space can be a little intimidating for people and hard to get to. And it's hot. It is warm at times. I think getting out in the community works a whole lot better with this kind of stuff as well. It's a little, it drops people's defenses and makes it a little more able for us to communicate.

Appreciate the feedback. Council Member Cade, any item for discussion?

Make sure we get all customers input. I can maybe summarize what I heard and see if we get some nodding heads and we'll put this back together and get it back in front of you. So what I heard was instead of like a long 30 minutes at the end Q&A deal, break that into like each of the panel sections so that you can have the the brief introduction, the panel, and then there's a, we can stop and the moderator can help facilitate questions up to a certain point. And let me back up. So, I think one of the things we need to do is when people, you know, come, get them to register, tell them, you know, if your questions get answered tonight, great. If there's going to be questions that we won't have anyone here that can answer tonight, we may have to go do some research, but We've got, you know, their contact information, and we can always follow back up with the entirety of the questions and anything that's left over with everybody that's there as well. But breaking the questions into the two major segments of the forum.

Council Member Barr. Thank you, sir. We have in attendance this evening moderator extraordinaire, Mr. Jim Johnson. Can I get you to go to the podium real quick, buddy? I know how you hate to speak.

How did he get that title of moderator for this thing? There is another moderator proposed.

Jim has moderated everything I've ever attended in the city of Pearland, I believe. That's why I say that.

Jim Johnson.

Thank you, sir.

I have to say my name, Jim Johnson.

Jim Johnson, there you go. Do you have any thoughts on this as one of the people that we're calling on to help facilitate this and what you've heard us say?

I am happy to assist the city council and mayor in their goals to bring the community together to discuss an important topic. If I was looking at your format, the only feedback I'd provide is if you do get all seven or eight legislators to attend, you have allocated 30 minutes. for seven to eight state legislators to answer questions, provide feedback. If we can get through introductions in 30 minutes of their name and their overview of the topic, that would make me truly a moderator extraordinaire. I understand trying to get as much feedback in that timeframe, i think if it was the seven of you and the mayor and i asked your opinion on housing as an opening statement could we get through that in 30 minutes so to your point council member byram that's my only feedback on it but happy to serve council provide feedback and help us get through a very important topic and make sure our residents as well as our businesses. I haven't heard that comment made up. And as the largest business association, we would want to ensure those business owners who might not be residents of Pearland, but pay property taxes, employ many of our folks, have the opportunity to attend, because housing is not only a community conversation, but a workforce and a business conversation as well, and we want to make sure that they are prevalent and have the opportunity to attend as well.

Thank you, Jim. That's an excellent point. that leads us to breaking this into two events, and one is a legislative event where we have TML and our legislators and that kind of stuff come in, and then the second one is our city-specific stuff.

I think maybe if we settle on a date, we can reach out to all the legislators and see what kind of commitment we get, and if we get most of them wanting to participate, we could make that, call that audible. Yes, sir.

Sorry. Sorry, Council Member Byron. We could split the, if we're going to do two meetings, we could split the legislatures we're inviting down the middle, invite half or one half of them.

Just to be clear, we're not, we're, see i hear that there's a willingness to do two councilman patel mentioned that there should be more so there's no real alignment as to one two and so i don't want to give the wrong impression that we're doing two one being the state and then the other being local, because, again, there's multiple opportunities where we feel, myself and Kazimir Patel, that people need to be heard, and the way it's set up Like I mentioned, there's 90 minutes of output and presentations and panels and closing, and only 30 minutes of people to provide some form of input. And I do understand that none of us want to be caught off guard with a question, and we want to be able to provide residents with some form of answer. but there still has to be an opportunity, whether or not we can answer people's questions, that they feel like they are heard, and that we understand and we're going to listen to them. So, however we come or land on whatever we're going to do,

at the very least it has to be where people feel like they're in a position where they're heard regardless if we have the answer or not councilman patel thank you mayor very well said um that was my point i think we need to kind of break these groups up i'm not talking about bringing uh state representatives together every meeting i'm not talking about bringing anybody else except maybe the mayor, two council members, and maybe one or two city, and just listen. Listen to what the residents had to say, because I think they have a lot to say. They obviously have contacted us and said, just like tonight, a lot of residents had a lot to say, And I think what we need to do is take that listening session and then elevate it to the next level to have, and kind of narrow it down on our conversation before we have a big meeting with all of our state representatives to stay focused. Because Mr. Johnson is correct. You give them this opportunity, this will become a campaign opportunity. And so I think That's the point is really we need to listen to our residents. I think we need to have smaller settings, more opportunities for them to show up. I think whether it's online also to open up the portal to say, hey, you can log in, we'll live stream it. So I think there has to be ample of opportunity for residents to be heard.

One second, so Mr. Provost, I noticed that sometimes when we attend, we as council attend events in the public, would it be possible ahead of time when we schedule these that we make a notice that there is an event of a possible quorum because What I want or do not want to imply is that because people live on certain sides of town or certain ends of town that no council members would be able to attend. Whether or not they live in an area or not, I think it's important for all council members to hear the residents no matter where they live. So I want to make sure that all council members are able to attend to hear the feedback of all the residents that vote for every single person up here.

If it's a notice of possible quorum, that's traditionally going to be for social events or for educational opportunities. And what I mean by that would be conferences like attending TML or pinning ceremonies for fire people or for police people or those types of things. Sometimes that's what you traditionally say a notice of possible quorum for. So if they're just going there to listen, I believe that We would have to look and see. We would have to know ahead of time, because I think when you talk about a municipal issue, assuming that we're there, it's our workshop, we're organizing it, I think the Attorney General is gonna say, that's an open meeting.

And the reason I say this is because I want my colleagues to understand is that I never wanna give residents any impression that because council members aren't present, they aren't listening or don't wanna hear what residents have to say. So we need to be really careful because I believe every person up here dutifully wants to serve every resident. And so I want to make sure that every opportunity that we have to engage the public, every city council member has an opportunity to attend. Council Member Byron.

So I'll try to maybe bring clarity, because I think we're starting to talk about two different things. Again, the original proposal of this thing was an educational environment. I agree we need to have a listening environment as well. Maybe what we need to do is push this particular thing past August and schedule maybe December or something and schedule some of those listening workshops between now and then. That would allow us to be a little more targeted with the larger forum. It would allow us to give more direct information from the people from TML and our legislators and those kind of things, be a little more targeted in what they come and talk about. Also, I don't have a problem with that at all. I just want to kind of, we're talking about two different things and it was never the intent to mash them both into one event because we run into these types of challenges that we're running into, right? The other thing I want to bring clarity to was, I wasn't suggesting that we have two different events. I think Mr. Epperson's point is well taken. Let's reach out and get actual firm commitments from the legislators, find out how many we're dealing with. If it ends up being three instead of eight, we might be fine with doing one, but if all eight say yes, I wanna be there, yes, I wanna talk about this, then we can revisit the structure and look if we need to split it.

Thank you. I think if we reach out, we gotta give a specific date, so I don't know if that, So we could reach out with this August 4th date, see what kind of commitments we get, reformat based on that or go with a similar format to this if there's not that many that are gonna participate and then change up the way we're gonna take input, make sure we're able to respond and provide answers to everything. And then I think as we said last time, we do this and then we take the next steps from there. What do we do beyond that?

Yeah, you've got a date and time. I would agree with Member Patel if we could back that up to 6.30 instead of 6.00. Essentially makes that a little bit easier. My wife does work in downtown, and she tries her best, and it's virtually impossible, even when she catches the HIV. So 6.30, I think, would make sense. So you've got a date and time. I don't think it's critical. that the listening sessions happen before or after, I think it's critical that they happen. And if we've already got a date and time and location that we know works, then we can just move forward with that with the legislators and go from there. And again, we can amalgamate all of the questions that come in throughout the evening and get better answers to them in the subsequent workshop.

And then I did hear a mention of live streaming this meeting, so we'll have to see what we can do technology, from a technology standpoint, hosting at some other place. Josh says he's acting like he can make it happen, so there's a commitment.

Yeah, it's not out of the realm of possibility.

Let us explore that. We'll bring that back.

It usually means cost. I believe in you, Josh. I believe in you.

All right, so Council Member Echols.

Okay, I think we have a consensus on August 4th. I think if we continue beating this dead horse, the staff is going to think they need to go back and resubmit something. I think we as a council We need to ratify this and let staff know this is what we want, where we can get this done. I think as we keep on kicking this can down, we're going to have more and more of our citizens not real happy that they feel like we're just, it's not important to us because we keep on kicking the can down. So I would say, staff, let's go with the fourth. Let's go with this format. Let's see how many legislatures we can get there. Let's see how many of the professionals, TML, and the attorneys or whatever that can help us circumvents 840, if that's what we can do. So I move that we go ahead and present the fourth as a prospective date and go on with it.

So this is just discussion. There was no opportunity to move or decide. This was a discussion brought forward, so I want to make sure that that's clear. And then the second, Council Member Patel.

Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Echols, I hear you. We can probably kill this dead horse multiple times, but I think the point is we've got to give opportunity to the constituents. One meeting during, I guess, right before school starts or during vacation is going to be hard. So let's think about that. And just having one meeting in about, I guess, six more weeks, it's gonna be difficult to try and line up all these people. I think the idea of what Council Member Byram said is let's push this big meeting at the back, end of the year. In the meantime, let's start having these listening sessions that we talked about. That was the whole point. that we don't need to go to a big meeting now, because in six weeks, trying to get all these people to commit, it's gonna be difficult. Schools being out, it's gonna be difficult for parents. Working parents, it's gonna be difficult. So I think it's better we do a smaller sessions and get the word out, and then come up once we hear about what is important to these guys, what we've heard, what we gathered, and then kind of cherry pick who needs to be there. Because right now we're casting a net. We are literally trying to gather everything in that ocean to bring in. And I think it's going to be a lot longer than two hours. I can assure you that. We can't even decide on the agenda right now.

all valid points of discussion i appreciate the input uh mr everson do you feel like you have enough information to at least put something or move forward with uh continuing to process this that's a maybe so with all due respect to councilmember patel i'll reiterate what i think i heard from the majority which is

Not to preclude that there won't be future listening sessions or anything like that, but 6-30, August 4th, we cast, or we make the invites to our legislators that are listed here. If we have most or all of them respond, they can be there. That may modify what we do in this first meeting to really be more of a focus just on that legislative piece. If it's just two, three of them that want to participate and attend, then we would go ahead with the other panel as well. We would break the sessions out to have the input questions for each panel and then have a mechanism to make sure people can register and if there's anything we can't answer or there's additional questions we can't get to that those do get answered and we are able to share that out with everybody. Not just the ones that want to participate in this particular meeting but for everybody that's interested in this subject moving forward. And then we look at what do we do next.

i think i i would i would ask that we do it the opposite i say we have smaller meetings and then you go to the big one because if people can't make it on the big ones we're going to come back here and say oh no one came what was the point i agree and and respectfully and i think because we have these conversations

The whole, in my opinion, I'll preface, in my opinion, the issue at hand is how we are dealing with multifamily and high density area developments. A part of that A part of that, not when I say we dealing with the public, the feedback that we're hearing, and a part of that is the specific issue with the Senate bill. So what, like Councilman Patel, I want to make sure that the people that we're listening to were able to capture some of that feedback into this and not just this narrow scope. And respectfully, if there is a motivation to have a Senate bill discussion, We don't need city resources to do that. Those representatives can go to their constituents and have those conversations because collectively we're trying to solve a broader context and a broader issue of multifamily identity developments in Pearland and how that's going to affect all of us, our quality of life, the financial burdens, the impact to businesses and residents. And I think we can have that conversation based on the professionals and everybody here. I think we'd have that. I just really want to emphasize gathering input from residents. There are a number of residents that want to be heard.

I agree, Mayor. I know, I agree. And I think that's what this purpose was, is to be listening. And I think we need to listen first before we start shoving down information down their throats.

Councilmember Echols, yes, sir.

with all due respect member patel we have heard we have over a hundred emails of people just blanketing no more apartments doesn't matter if it's in center town east town west town we've gotten over a hundred emails of people we don't want any more apartments we already know what the people want and i as a Councilman, I want to hear what they want. But yet, do they really want that when something else possibly can come? That's what it is. It's education to that 110 that's already said they don't want any more apartments. So I feel like it's very beneficial for us to have meetings, because if we kick the can down the road, we're not going to get any legislators, because they're going to be right in the heap of election. And you're not going to get a legislator to come and talk anything derogatory or that's this volatile in the middle of the election. November's an election. September, early election or early voting. We need to get this done before the election, and that's just my opinion. And we have over 110, the last time I counted, of emails that simply said, no more apartments. It's an education. apartments, or do you want something that we can't control, that they can do by right?

And the more we kick the can down, just the madder people are going to get, I believe.

And all due respect, Member Patel, that's just, I think if we kick the can down anymore, it will be more and more situation where the public loses confidence in this council.

I appreciate that. Sorry. I appreciate that, Member Echols. And I think trying to get that many people, that's only 100 emails. So you can only imagine how many other people probably haven't turned in an email. But I think how do you get them all to come on one day? It's difficult to listen to your legislator, to try to bring everybody who has concerns to listen to it. That's the point. How do you give them a fair opportunity on a specific day, on one day that you're going to pick? You say, what's important to the legislature? It doesn't matter what's important to your constituents, but what's important to... And I get it. You want to strike while the iron is hot. November is still far. I am pretty sure in the election year, most of these representatives will show up in October. Between now and October, I think we have opportunity to have a smaller settings where we can say we gave ample of opportunity for you guys to show up. My point is, I don't want to be heard later to say, oh, you only pick one day. We didn't have, I couldn't come. I was out of town. I was on vacation. My kid's out of school. That's why, hey, we have several different time slots for you guys to come in in person and tell us what you think. And then we're going to have an opportunity for you to tell your legislator what you think. I think that's the right approach. I think, now again, it's my personal opinion. But I'm okay if I'm the only one who thinks that.

You're not. Councilmember Byron, yes, sir. And then last comment, respectfully. Oh, sorry. Okay, all right.

No, I just, again, I want to reiterate, it's not a question of not wanting to hear from the public. I don't think, correction, I know that the listening tour part of this whole conversation needs to be counseled. That needs to be us out in the community hearing from people, not the legislators, not the legal experts from TML, not those other people listed in here. Again, back when... You're great at remembering dates. What's the date that we proposed this in the first place?

March? Are you talking to have a conversation?

When we originally proposed this forum to begin with.

Yeah, it was in... May? was when the last apartment complex came through here. So that was approximately give or take a month to six weeks.

I proposed that forum at that meeting And I said when I proposed it and council approved it unanimously that this was to be an educational environment to get this information out to the community. We've turned it into something different. And I think we need to keep the two things separate because of what we said with the original intent behind this thing was to, give the public all of the information surrounding it, not just pieces of it, and then let them digest it and let's come back and have those listening tours. That's why I think it's different because there is a lot of information that we have that they don't. There's some information we don't have that we will get from this forum, which is why it is intended originally to be an educational environment and then we can come back. These people can go on with their lives because they've provided us with the information that we need and we come back as a body and engage with our community now that we all have the same information.

Just a point of clarification, did we cast a vote the last time or was it a discussion item?

It was a discussion, and I think there was consensus, and that's what this is based on, is that consensus. So that's how this was developed, so this was to bring that back. There's still consensus, and if there's any tweaks to it.

And we had a discussion item that came back to expand beyond what remember Byram said, and that we had consensus on, to change everything. Now, one thing, whether you're wanting to do this, don't want to do it, whatever, Mayor Cole, when he had town halls, the first town hall that he had had very good attendance. The second one he had had less. The third one he had was even less. ended up going to a podcast, if you want to call that, where he had talk of the town once a quarter. Through that, there was commentary with Josh and the mayor about whatever the topic might be. And so through that, there was a, you know, you can't get somewhere at five o'clock, you can't get somewhere at eight o'clock, whatever time you're out of town, whatever it is. In today's society, everybody's got their phone. And through those, he had pretty good engagement. Would that be a true statement, Josh?

Engagement's hard to define. You know, one of the reasons for migrating to a digital format from the in-person format was because of the lack of attendance and the amount of resources applied to it. What we found in the digital format was that we were getting quite a few regular attendees. But one of my observations is that inevitably we were answering the same questions over and over again. So it didn't seem like we were always making a lot of progress in terms of improving the engagement. So that's the double-edged sword of that particular format. Now, I mean, I've always said if you want to create engagement, tell people you'll change their trash days and everybody will come out of the woodwork for that. Right. So depending on the topic, it could change. And actually, the first talk of the town we did was at Barry Miller, and it was related to to the to 3230 to the water plan that we were working on at the time. And so it's difficult to say if the engagement is driven off of just the topic or the appetite for engaging with your elected officials and the competing priorities and everything around that. So I think that there are benefits to a number of different ways to conduct this, but each one has its drawbacks and has its challenges.

So, I'm sorry, I don't want to.

Oh, go ahead.

Oh, no, my question is, so if there's, it seems like a consensus up here to talk about this specific issue, with all due respect, what's stopping council members getting together with their representatives to address this issue in their own forum or town hall as opposed to bringing it through the city?

You could do that. The only problem is what I got feedback in is there's one meeting that the folks that I've talked to, Because of the campaign, they are in right now, and no disrespect to what Member Patel had, up until November, they've got a lot to do. From raising money, from getting their message out there, from going around the district, you know, whatever issues they have that they're talking about. I mean, not necessarily in Pearland because we have zoning, but data centers for the county and the ETJ are a big issue. And I know that's been through the ringer left and right. But when you have cities with zoning that can control it, it's no big deal. But with that being said, the reason that I was in favor of one meeting for information, if it's recorded and archived like we have our council meetings, the information's there. And with that being said, what I liked about Member Byrum's original comment is if we had this one informational session and then we followed up with a workshop if that's what you want to have or you know whatever it is we don't have to worry about the the uh oma laws and the quorums uh having that we can give that and then from there if it needs to be spread further you know like i said mayor cole would have these once a quarter and you know From my perspective, if you want to have one week, one month, that's irrelevant for gathering information or having questions that we could bring back to a workshop. So, you know, that, from my perspective, trying to get however many legislators do, you know, accept, just trying to get them to show up on one day would be hard enough. um you know and and you start putting multiple will most of them that i talked to or said hey i'm in for one and that's what i can do so you know from there whatever it might be you know i'm fine with but we got to be kind of cognizant of dragging it out or uh the informational and however we collect questions to be able to respond back you know however we want to do it whether it's a discussion hiding in a council meeting, a workshop before or after, you know, whatever, however that would be handled. I'd be fine with that.

Would it be possible, since we have seven elected officials listed here, maybe we give them three dates to pick from and see which ones can pick, and if we can get two or three on a date, the next two or three on a different date, we can spread it out. And again, I think it will give more opportunities for more people to show up on a different date.

The problem that I see with that is you're going to get mixed messages. Because you're going to have two state reps or two senators, whatever the configuration is, you're going to have one message here, one message there. And through the process, by having them all at one, or as many as we can get in one, then they're going to be able to discuss it amongst themselves with a cohesive message. Because if you start getting out there and have this group say that and another group say that, where are we at? I mean, look how long we've been going on here.

Yeah, and I think that's a valid point, Member Koza. I guess the other option would be, since there's not a lot of interaction, what does it stop just not to have them on a panel, record this and upload it, and then have these listening sessions and kind of have that conversation with them to say, this is what your legislator's thinking, right?

Well, I mean, that's what I was saying, by having one meeting with whoever we can get, and it's archived so that it's there. And then however many listing or whatever you want to call it from that, I'm fine with. That doesn't matter. But you're going to run into the way our city attorney said, you can't have all these meetings everywhere with all of us.

So then let's just do this. Can you pull up your agenda again? Why not get rid of the police and the fire and Pearland ISD and not just focus on the, sorry, go up? Focus just on a meeting with your elected officials. Narrow the scope down just for them because those are the ones we're all talking about here today. It's the most difficult thing to bring them.

You can do that. The only problem that I would have within the ISD is we've heard numerous comments about what apartments do or don't do to the school system. The reason if they are interested in being there, whether it be elected officials or your superintendent, it's so that they can have the impact. I've only heard, and I know you attend the chamber's luncheons, every time that Dr. Berger has spoken, he has said that our incoming kindergartners are less likely than our outgoing seniors. What that means is it's shrinking. Our school district is shrinking. So when somebody comes up and says, hey, this is gonna flood the school district, we're not in their space. So by having them, they can answer that question. We got an email this week from a school board member talking very similar to that. and he had a location wrong, he had sent in an email saying, I was against it, but once I found out where it was, I'm for it. Because the impact that he thought was where it was in proximity to a school, and he stated in that email that the school district is shrinking.

One second, one second.

So just, we need to narrow this down to figure out so they can provide some guidance.

No, and I understand, Mayor, and I apologize. And I guess I'm trying to look at it this way. A couple of things, Member Koza. As much as I'd like the school district, that's not my concern, right? That's not my concern. My concern is, as a city member, I'm focused on the city budgets, right? My concern is, not just the school alone, but again, from the data that was shared by the city, is the crime rate, right? You're not only hearing about the school being overcrowded when these 110 emails we got, we're hearing about traffic, we're hearing about crime in them, we're hearing people are just tired of certain areas overloaded with apartments because it's impacting their quality of life. So, I think if we get, if we're going to really listen to them, then let's, this can get out of hand. But this was supposed to be, I believe, member Barham said, it was an educational. So, educational of what the law is, not what the needs of the schools are, not anything else. So, that's what I'm saying. Let's focus on the educational piece, and then we can go and bring in this other on a different time. Because I think if we focus on, assuming you wrote eight people here, if four of them show up, I'm pretty sure Mays Middleton will be hard to get. If you can get five of them and just give them the form to say, this is what our constituents are saying, you need to educate them. Forget everybody else for now. Let's just do that. You can archive it, invite whoever you want, and then we can take that piece and we can add the school, we can add the police chief, we can add everybody else. And I think that will kind of work out in everybody's favor. We get the listening session. We get different inputs. And the education piece, hey, if you didn't get to hear it, it's archived. Go listen to the state representatives. I think that might be a better fit. I don't know what your thoughts are.

No, I can understand that, and I can appreciate that.

I want to move on, so I'm going to give you this.

Yes, no, I appreciate it. I don't disagree with that. I'm perfectly fine with breaking the legislative side out from the city side. We can add the city stuff in when we do our workshop afterwards. I would say let's make sure we still bring EML, Rick Ramirez, and Bill Longley because they give a lot of context from a legal perspective. So I would keep, if we're going to break this apart, I would keep those first two things.

You're saying that in with the legislators?

Correct. Yeah. Okay. Keep TML, keep the legislators, have that, leave everything else. We can push that to our workshop that we do later.

And I think this will give us more time to kind of let our constituents speak at the end too, right? So, I'm okay with that as well.

And also allow the public to speak instead of the comments that Mayor, you know, you brought up. Balance it. Balance it even more. So, I think that we can bring all this together and hopefully we've given a little bit of direction where you now go with some, you know, go somewhere with this.

uh mr epperson your posture indicates that you are well versed in everything we have presented to you i i think that helps um not to prolong it but i think you know

It does leave out any education in this particular forum of how it actually affects us locally. And I get that we can do that in the next one. I just want to make sure that's pointed out. But what I heard there at the end, and I don't know if we got enough of everybody on board, but is that this really is going to turn into more of a, Overview of the recent changes in state law, working with TML on that piece of it, then a panel discussion with whoever we can get from the legislator standpoint. We would go ahead and probably just stick TML on that panel as well, and then go directly into the public input question portion of it. And that would wrap it up, set the stage for what the future is workshop-wise, future forums, future listening sessions. We'll figure those out. after this initial one.

Let's not judge the success. Let's move forward. Let's not judge the success on the first ones, but let's continue to move forward.

Got it. We'll reach out to the legislatures and reformulate the agenda and push that back out.

and we do new business three through seven.

Council member. Council member Koza, could you present the next, new business item number three?

Certainly, Mayor, consideration possible action resolution number R2026-106, so moved. Second.

Motion was made by Council Member Koza, seconded by Council Member Byrum. Can we have a staff report?

Yes, Mayor. So I believe everyone is aware that our Pearland Professional Firefighters Association put forth a petition to start the meet and confer process. So the resolution in front of you is a recognition of the PPFA as the bargaining agent for our firefighters. for that meet and confer process. We just went through this process with the Police Association a couple years ago, so we do recommend approval. And there is a presentation that Lawrence can walk through if so desired, but in light of what time it is, I think we're all well-versed in this.

Mayor Wilts has stepped out, so he asked me to fill in for him while he stepped out is Council, is there any need for Lawrence to walk through the presentation? I'm seeing no. So Madam Secretary, we can call for the vote.

Member Koza?

Aye.

Member Echols?

Aye.

Member Byron?

Aye.

Member Cade? Aye. Member Fernandez?

Aye.

Member Patel?

Aye.

Motion passes six to zero.

Thank you. Member Echols, would you put new business item number four on the table, please?