City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, council, honored guests. It is uh 6:00 on January 13, 2026, and I will call to order uh the work session for the Flugerville City Council. Uh tonight on our regular agenda, we have item 2 a, discussion regarding the city's policy on calculating and publishing population estimates. We have our GIS manager, Sven Griffin, uh, and planning and development services director, Ashley Bailey, here to teach us all about population. Take it away.

Awesome. Thank you so much again for the record, Ashley Bailey, Planning and Development Services Director. And just to go over the high level on the population estimates, you can see here um, population growth and assumptions from 2019 up to 2025. It looks like dwelling units um or certificates of occupancy once those are issued times 2.85 persons per household. That is from the 2020 census. That is our gold standard of what we use when we're getting those numbers to extrapolate out what we believe our population estimates will be. Um so with that in 2025 in October we had 29,683 dwelling units. And then if you multiply that by your 2.85 85. Um, you get 84,597.

And And what's your source for dwelling units? Dwelling units, we do those based on the actual certificates of occupancy that the city has issued. I believe we went back to 2010, I want to say. Yes, we do have data going all the way back uh to the time we've issued the CO or they were annexed. And if it were annexed, that information then winds up coming from the census or I'm sorry, from TCAT. uh the appraisal district they'll provide us the year that was constructed. So in that case we'll use the year. That sounds like pretty accurate data. It is. There has been. So do you have the dwelling units by type versus single family versus multif family? It's single family versus multif family.

So you do have it like this is the total with both but do you have it individually? We have there is data where we break it out up to a time period where we break out if it's a multif family or single family. At some point around 2018 the decision made to start tracking them independently but when we do the calculation they are summed together and and why would we sum it together? The uh the 2.85 number is that a uh a blended number? Yes it is a blended number.

Okay. So for the calculation used to um estimate our population, you can see just the method um methodology of dwelling units multiplied for that people. So again it is the multif family plus the single family that we have for the certificates of occupancy. Um and we've used that since 2008. The only variable that we have is what changes on the persons per dwelling which you can see in that centennial which again it's the gold standard. That's what we always go back to. In 2010, the people per household was 2.96 and now in 2020 it says 2.85. So the census has the persons per household declining slightly. Interesting.

Um what we use our population estimates for definitely bragging rights always. Um, and then the other is just the general growth trends for the area and to show where we are in line with others in central Texas and really just giving um and being able to narrate and tell Flugerville story of where we started and where we are right now and where we think we're headed and what we need to plan for.

Um, could you tell me so if we're using these for for bragging rights? Um, [clears throat] does this conform with the calculations that other cities around us use? Do they do they use the same methodology? for the most part. I believe when um staff had questioned other and got in touch with other cities and there are a few that are not breaking out multif family versus single family, they're just going all the way across the board. I think ours are likely a little bit more accurate because of the work that goes into the CEO of multif family versus single family. Um I know that some cities are still using a vacancy rate. We actually run numbers based on vacancy rate and not um and no vacancy rate because your vacancy rate can be very elastic and so sometimes it could be accurate and sometimes it might not be. Um, so most other cities are also running their numbers the exact same as we are based on their certificates of occupation.

It sounds like you're you're you're more detailed than um some folks may be in regards to how the actual application computation would be here. I believe so. After seeing um Sven's numbers, I believe that we are a lot more detail oriented than other cities. Um certainly even cities that I've worked in. So here's David. All right. And then um what was I what was I going to say? So in terms of vacancy rates, vacancy rates tend to be much more elastic in the in the multif family, right? So that would seem like it would shift really quickly over time. It could.

All right. I I did ask them to run just a different model. Council member um Rogers asked me to run a a different variable. So we did that. Um and Sven if you want to provide that information or I have it. Right. Um so round up basically being a a just a little short of a or a little over a thousand difference. If we added in a 7% vacancy for apartments and a 3% vacancy for single family, what would that what's that variable based on?

I believe Councilman Rogers provided that vacancy rate. Uh actually uh uh I had suggested a 10% vacancy rate but at the mayor suggestion I've reduced that to a 7% vacancy rate. Um the uh uh official number from the census for all of uh Flugerville uh is 5.03% vacancy. as you could apply that across uh but the uh vacancy rate uh for apartments uh in the uh Austin metro area is variously reported uh and I believe it was about 10% at the metro area and the mayor suggested that we might have a lower vacancy rate in

Flugerville accepted that suggest specifically those numbers we did 3% on single family and 7% on multif family so that does equal that to that 10% that you requested So, are you able to provide what the units were that breakout that you used in that calculation? I do not have that in front of me. No, I'd have to go back and pull that. Can Can you clarify that question a little bit more for me? What do you mean what do you mean by units? What do you What do you ask? Sorry. Single family versus multifamily. There was a different rate applied to single family, a different rate applied to multifamily. So, I was just wondering what the units were for multif family and what the units were for single family out of the number that you provided.

I'd have to go back and look at the count. I don't have that memorized. And what's the uh what's the total number of housing units that you have for the city? Yeah, couple slides back. We can go back. Um, as of October 2025, we have 29,683 is what we counted for our dwelling units. And then, u multiply that by our 2.85 85 from the 2020 census of uh persons per household, you get that 84,597 number. And what was interesting about that, David, is that they in fact they articulated that they went ahead and actually looked at other computations not only around the region, but what the industry standard is and ours is actually more meticulous given the fact that we actually denote which ones we're doing regarding multif family as opposed to single family units as well.

There is a discrepancy between what the census believes we have and what we believe we have. um six seven years ago when we were talking to the census. Thank you. Um uh we uh provided our data and they said you can't have that many units and so the question then became well what do we do to rectify this? They said well you can move your units around inside the city but that's your only alleviation. Um so we had to go

can you explain that because that how can they tell you you can't have that many units? I can't 100% explain it, but I can [laughter] tell you I can tell you where variables I I can tell you where variables come into play. So, there's a time period before the census starts canvasing that we're going through and we're checking all our addresses, we provide all those addresses to the Census Bureau. Between the time they get those addresses, however many more addresses we put out there, there's that gap. So when they're field verifying, okay,

they're only going to have they're only going to verify what we give them. So if we address another thousand units between and this is a multi-year period leading up to the canvasing and and and we've got to remember during that time period in particular, we had some quite dramatic explosive growth before that right there. And they also changed their methodology. It used to be back in the day cuz I'm old enough to say that um there was a lot more actual doortodoor count and now we're introducing we're doing sampling, right? So now we're going to do our sampling or the nice word of saying our best guess

based on this statistic we came up with. Um so there's variables in there. So when the census says we'll make up a number, Sven has 27,000 dwelling units and I say no, I have 29,000 dwelling units and they say we can't help you. So we're we're going to be different. Now the the source of our data being cos I imagine we're also provided 911 addressing data. Yes, we we do our own addressing and then we turn that addressing over to county front door or is that uh center parcel the the addresses that that's actually on top of the house. Okay. No, we we have we do have street segments. That's a whole another set.

We have by street segment, but for when we're doing unit counts, we're doing address on top of house or a point on top of a apartment dwelling. So, one point for each building and the It's got 32 units in it. It's It's one point, but 32 units with that same point. Uh and then uh things like granny flats. Um do we do we count those as separate dwellings or are those just part of the main parcel? No, it's part of the main parcel. So if it's a single family house, 2.85. If it's a onebedroom, 2.85. It's a five bedroom, 2.85. If it's a five bedroomedroom with a granny flatout back, 2.85.

2.85. So we can't aren't necessarily trying to cook the books cuz we're just doing it as well, right? I mean, the census the census doesn't break out that there's so many people per room. They say there's 2.5 people per dwelling unit. They don't tell me if it's an apartment. They don't tell me if it's a duplex, a triplex, single family. They just say on average you have 2.8. So even though the Mateo family has five people, correct? It's 2.85. Right. Interesting. Uh and then when we have things like uh assisted living facilities, um retirement communities,

those get counted. We [clears throat] have made an effort to count those and and they do get baked into our number, but the when we were doing them at one point, we're looking at 230. So you get one person per bed, right? Because you can't have two people in an assisted living facility. Um so 230 would be like one count. Oh. Um, so yeah, I mean that's not moving your dial much. I mean, since we're already talking statistical variability to to do assisted living, you're not really not gaining anything. Yeah, it's uh not going to move the needle. No.

Well, certainly uh having the the number of dwelling units uh so dramatically higher than what the census uh thinks we have would explain a lot of variation. Uh but the 2.85 85 number. Um that is uh according to the census uh data that I looked at today uh that is not the number that the census believes that is the appropriate multiplier for fluville. Depends what table you're looking at. a as of today uh it was 2.70 uh and uh you multiply by 2.70 uh times that number of housing units end up with 76,137 people. Is that a one-year estimate? A 5year estimate?

I'm sorry. Is that a one or a fiveyear estimate? Is that a what? A one or a fiveyear census estimate? There's two estimates and a centennial. it. This is the uh 2019 through 2023 number. Good idea. So, Sen, can you can you can you break that down for us because you said it it depends on what table you're looking at,

right? Census puts out today, they put out three tables. There used to be four tables. So, depending what time period you're looking at, you'll get a one year, a threeear, which is now retired, or a 5year. And then the Centennial. Centennial is a statistical gold standard and what pretty much everybody sticks with. um you'll get the one-year. The one-year gets used a lot. So if you Google and you see a number, that's usually your one-year. Um that one has the greatest variability. So that's their small sample size. Interesting.

Which means you have your greatest variability. So if you actually take their variability and you add it to our number, then we're still in range because they might be like plus or minus 2,000. Well, if we're plus or minus 2,000 now, we're kind of still in the same ballpark. And then fiveyear is a better statistical sample. That's the 5-year number. Yeah, that's the that's the one that but now it's an old fiveyear number. 2019 through 2023. I mean, we're on we know that household size is shrinking. So if anything that 2.7 would be a generous number. We don't necessarily know that the house I don't know that it's shrinking because especially with the number of five bedroomedroom units that we

1980 we had less then we went more more then down next year more down I don't know I would be guessing how many people really in the house. Well so so on that on that one year and the fiveyear number um are you familiar with the standard deviation on those? No but they do report them. Okay. Yeah. this usually and I get why I do the same thing. It says 1.7. I can remember 1.7, but if you ask me what's the variable on either side, well, now I have two more numbers I have to remember. I don't want to do that. I have a question. Go ahead.

Probably off point, but so thank you for the information about like if I was to Google where that number comes from. Um, I'm curious to know where does the number come from on the population sign that we put in the city? That comes from us. And and how often? That I don't know. I'd have to ask the sign shop. I've been watching the sign. We can get someone to change a sign. Each time we print one, right? I was just curious. Yeah. And and I think that goes to probably your next slide there. What do we use population? I think that's probably the key part. Yeah, that one. Uh bragging rights. Bragging rights.

Bragging rights. And you're saying that is comparable to that is the same methodology that the cities around us use. It's comparable. I would say in the interest of transparency, you know, a key component of transparency is consistency. That we're consistently reporting the number using the same methodology and using that same meth methodology in the same way that our neighbor cities use it.

There there's also there's also a value into keeping the same methodology and not changing it if you're going back and looking at what you did in the past because now I'm not mixing apples to oranges. I'm trying to keep them as the same apple and you know hopefully not a Granny Smith and a crab apple. I'm trying to do two Granny Smiths. Um there there's that value. Um I'm a big proponent to because we're not really gaining much by adding in a vacancy rate and we're not really gaining much by chasing the latest census number. Um using the example earlier a thousand thousand people. I mean, even if it was 5,000, we're not really changing anything because again, this number's not really driving anything,

right? So, so obviously you say bragging rights there. Um, I'm a big fan when it comes to statistics and metrics of relevancy. What what what do we not use it for? I mean, what what else is there that is on your next slide? Sorry, it may have been open when I got here. Yes, but I think this is our website. This one keeps going. Mine keeps popping back up. It's the glitter slide. It just keeps popping back up. Yeah.

Um so we can discuss this a little bit. So when we're doing any infrastructure studies, revenue projections, permitting forecast, things like that, we go back to the gold standard. We go back to the census numbers um to ensure so if we're looking at a text number, we're going back to that census number. If we're applying even our GIS licensing, I believe is based on the census number. [clears throat] It's not that license is not based on our estimate. It's based on So let's be clear when you say the census number the number that's actually articulated by the federal government. It is the 2020. Yeah. This decent detective.

So and that's consistent with what the industry practice is and utilization on that. So even though there may be some quibbles regarding what we're using, you know, our own internal interpretation of the numbers are, we keep a consistent standard as to what we apply and utilize when it comes to important things like infrastructure studies, revenue projections, and permitting forecast. So um I sent Serena uh some information this afternoon that I was hoping to share today. I don't know if I I just received it. Sorry. Um would you like us to pull it up? Yes. Is it is it relevant to how we calculate? Yes, [clears throat] absolutely. All right. Yeah. So, I I have

We're in meetings every I just saw it at 3:30 is hard for us to do on a council day. Do we have a copy? I'm not I'm not sure that we'll be able to pull it up, but can you at least uh tell us what we're talking about? Oh, there it is. What are we talking about? Can I Can I email it to Trista? Yes. We're Yes. If the mayor directs. I'm sorry. Wait. What are we What are we What are we looking at? Do we have a copy? I I emailed it. No, no, no. Do we have a physical copy? That's not the I I had emailed it earlier this afternoon and asked if it was possible to get a physical copy as well as um have it presented during the just read it. I'm just [clears throat]

Well, this synopsis is um we're not all using the same method. Who's we? [clears throat] The city of Flugerville and neighboring cities. I put a lot of time into that. So, can we um review the the information on the city council member requested agenda item? Okay. Okay. I'm confused. Okay. You said you've put a lot of information lot into making this presentation that that I But you just sent it today. I was wait I was waiting for some people just to to review it. Uh or I mean I was I sent it to David to review and then I sent it earlier this afternoon.

And do do we have that Trista? Can we get that on screen? There's two. There's two uh one one was PowerPoint and one was a PDF. Okay. So just to make it easier for printing [clears throat]

and while I'll fill a buster while she's doing this. So David, you said that we're all not using the same numbers and you said we internal in the city or with our neighbors. The the cities in the area are not all using the same methodology. Yeah, they had mentioned Georgetown, Round Rock, Leander, Cedar Park. So, I have a they had mentioned logical progression through through um I I've been um interested in this um for several months because I saw many different times where different um population information was uh put out into the public through news media. Um and so population the estimate. What do you mean by the city's reported population?

Hold on. All right. I I'm going to I'm going to take exception to this right now because this is this is your presentation right now. It's being broadcast across the city and the first line here is uh it contradicts what we heard moments ago. Um right here you say the city's reported population used for planning, forecasting and policy decisions, infrastructure, timing, service demand that earlier you told us that the population number is not used for those things. So I want to make it very clear as we move forward. I don't want us to be presenting false information to the public and this is very concerning that I'm seeing this on the screen now.

So could you clarify your statement there? Well, I didn't have this information before. So, um, this is my So, this is your opinion and and based on the information we've received tonight, it's it's not it's hold on a second. Are you telling me that the the population number we have is never used for planning? That's literally what we just talked about. We literally just the numbers that we have we generate internally are never used for planning. Is that is that what we're hearing? That that's literally what they just told us. They I you know I'd like to I'd like to hear it from them. I I mean having not used on the presentation.

Okay. All right. So So the number shows up in documents, right? So we'll just pick on a doc. We'll say the the comprehensive plan population 80,000 whatever the number is. Are we using 80,000 for planning? It's just a number in the document as a point of reference, right? Now, if you're talking population forecast, that's a whole another ball of wax. Okay. So, the 20 the 20 uh uh 40 Aspire plan when it originally came out uh suggested we were going to have 137,000 people at the end of this decade. That's forecasting. That's [snorts] that's so it it's the the reported population is used for forecasting.

I believe that was based on the census, but I would I can go back and double check how they did that math. I'm sorry. Say again. I can go back and check how they did the math. I believe it was based on the census. It was extrapolated from the census number given from the federal government. So we were we were forecasting a doubling of population doubling from what the census number was in 2020 to 2030. I can go back and double check. Okay. So we weren't we weren't using the the 74,000 internal number. No to forecast to 137. No. Are we certain about that? What plan are we talking about in 2020? Talking about the the fire plan. I'm not really

2020. Did that go out to the DJ? I don't know. I would have to our internal city number and the census number did not match. Is that correct? Correct. In 2020, our numbers did not match. The 2020 census did not have the same number of dwelling units that we had for uh certificates of occupancy. Okay. And then when we forecasted for that that we were going to have 137 people by the end of this decade, were we starting with our number or were we starting with the census number?

Again, I will have to double check how the forecasting was done because um Sven just said something important. It could have also included the ETJ, so the full buildout, not just city limits. And our numbers are typically city limits. So I'll have to double check that with our third party as well. I want to say that kind of number sounds like it has an ETJ factor to me, but it wasn't. Okay. The the the the 137,000 number was an in the city limits projection which has been backed off. I nobody nobody believes that we're getting to 137,000 people by the end of this decade. But that was the original projection that was made in 2020.

So, um can we go to the next slide? Um so this in looking at population estimate methodology. Um this was uh my stated goal is to produce a defensible repeatable population estimate that reflects current housing conditions for use in general planning and policy within the city limits. It's not related to any water wastewater CCNN. um the formula that appears to be used um in many of the other cities and this is you know using uh what I found um is that it's the units um segregated by segmented by housing type times the occupancy rate segmented by housing type and persons per household segmented by housing type. And the reason for this approach is because over a decade from 2030 to 20 I'm sorry 2020 to 2030 for example your housing mix your occupancy rate and your household size can change dramatically depending on what is happening with growth and building.

Who uses that formula? Let me um So may I I I have a I have a a a table showing what some other cities use. Well, I mean, because you're making a recom So, here's my here's my concern and um I I'd like to just get

Well, let's that's that's my concern. So, my concern is this is that you you went into great detail to go ahead and make an idea and a presentation, which is great. Waited for him to go ahead and look at the data, the viewpoints to actually give feedback on it. You give it to them the day before. So, it hasn't been vetted regarding staff or anybody else for us to be cognizant of it. And then we're present we're presented right now which we're supposed to have our two executive sessions which I guess is we know we're going on this um on this as if this is something that should be e either is presented as a rebuttal

or presented well no actually no let's be clear you are definitely rebutting what they've got to say because you're preventing information that you're saying that these are this is my recommendation formula which is not the formula that's being used right now. So that is a rebuttal. Um this is for discussion. Well it's a rebuttal. I mean you can you can you can you can you can name it all you all you how you want it. I wanted to I wanted to provide some information for discussion. But my concern my concern my concern is that present the information. My my concern is just like I said when I literally saw that right off the top I was like wait a minute they already said that they're not utilizing it for this specific information.

Let's take this to the let's take this to the next slide so we can we can move forward a little bit. I do have concerns because you have occupancy rate uh by type and persons per household by type but I have heard that those numbers are not something that is statistically significantly available. So let's let's see what you have on your next slide. Sure. I have a slide with sources as well. Um yeah so if you go to the next slide okay so the reason that the this question had come up is the observed variants

from the US census bureau um which they have the American community survey for 2024 is stating that flugerville has 66 you know so let's just call it 67,000 and then the city reported population is 82,000 for the same date the 2024 is through that 1231. Do do they do they also provide the number of housing units in the ACS? Yes. How many housing units do they have? Um they had well oh I have it right there in the next um thing. So the so that was a significant variant. So I started asking questions to try to understand what is possible was 3,000 units different. Yeah difference.

So there was a percent var 16,000 units. So that's significant to say why why is this information coming out in the public and and this other information coming out in the public and it's causing questions. People were questioning I just questioned it um because it's a large variance. So it is a 23.4. So half of that variance um starting in 2022 through 2024 um I when I looked at the details um of what was available to me is due to housing units and it needs to be explored further um you know I asked information this is you know the first time tonight that we're hearing more Florida by who? three months. Well, I don't know what the difference is. And so that was going to staff.

So So you're you're asking staff to explore this. No, I'm just saying it needs to be explored further if we want to. Well, you if we want to um we'll need to discuss relevance. Um that's not my recommendation. I So my next point is the other half of a variance is due to differences in assumptions for occupancy and average persons per household. And so why were why I wanted to address it and and I believe why David had expressed that he wanted to address it is because 15 to 23% change affects the story on how fast we're growing and and can influ and can influence major decisions. So I just wanted to look in the details. Um, some things.

Wait, wait. So, real quick, uh, you say it's affecting how fast we're growing, but a lower denominator would actually make the growth projection percentage higher, wouldn't it? I said it can affect the story of how we're how fast we're growing. So, sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. When you said it can influence decisions, Wow. Oh [laughter] because what because what we were told is that we when we are making decisions uh significant policy decisions regarding planning and uation those other aspects we go back to the census number. So if we have our number that's

but the census number was 65,000 and our number that we're using was 74,000 using for what for in in in our budget in our financial report using for what for what relevance well there's um I was told it doesn't affect I mean it doesn'tffect for um ratios when you say anything per capita

the the population number is that per capita number that we're using when we're reporting to the public revenue per capita, debt per capita, expense per capita, other things that are related to that. So it it does affect transparency if that number is significantly different. So it also matters if our methodology is different from that of neighboring cities because if if if Hutto's methodology is dramatically different than our methodology and we're reporting that we have a better number per capita than theirs is uh or Round Rock or Austin whatever. um but we're using a different formula to calculate the number of people we have then the per capita comparison is wrong. Might be better, might be worse, but it's definitely not the same because we're we have we have a different number of people calculation formula. If we are going to do the do this and be the only one out there, we no longer can compare apples to apples because we're not counting people the same way the other people are counting people.

Wait, hold on, hold on to that to that point. Are we comparing points in time or are we comparing trends? It could be we're because if we're comparing trends and we change our methodology then that is we can retroactively fix our our numbers and then we fix I'm sorry Jonathan you had

and maybe I'm just getting a little bit confused on some of this but I think that based on the presentation we saw a few minutes ago that population number and that methodology is really our communications number if you will. And so I I want to go back to the question of to what end or what outcome would a different number be used for? If that makes sense. In other words, the relevance if there is a Yeah. Yeah. saying [clears throat] it slightly different way for my brain as opposed to Doug brain. Uh, and um, and so I guess that's where I'm trying to wrap my head around is um, I think different numbers are are surely used for different purposes depending on what it is we're trying to do, what a given project is, if it's the strategic plan, whatever. Um, and so is there I think it's a question for you, Melody. Is there a particular use case or example maybe of something where you think it's a material difference that would make sense to change a methodology for a particular project or because communication the communication number is PR right it's what goes on

so well so I think over time it depending on our assumptions that we use in the formula and depending on the the housing conditions and the and the market conditions that change. It could change our trend if we're using a blended rate versus um a segmented rate. And so I wanted to just um understand how how it was um happening, look at some of the the details that I received from, you know, the other methodologies that other expand expand on that more because Okay. So, I'd like to I'd like to go through this, show this information, and then um then yeah, let's keep moving it forward. [laughter]

So, from my understanding of what I was told prior to today was that the current formula on the right provided by the city um was uh that we had the actual formula was we had 82,222. We had 2.85 persons per household. We said all of our units are 100% occupied and that was what we got. And so I from there I calculated we must have 28,800. So you were told Wait, she's shaking her head. Even if we said 100% occupied. I don't we just you don't use an occupancy rate because the number is So yeah, but that's not saying 100% occupied. That's saying we're not using an occupancy rate.

No, we said we weren't using We didn't say we were using 100%. Well, not using an occupancy rate is saying that you're using a number of one. 2.85* No, that's not saying that. That's saying we're not including that as a variable. So, the effective formula though is 2.85* 28,000. It assumes the elasticity in 2.85 that you don't use an occupancy percentage.

So, we let's use an example of the elasticity of the vacancy rate. So, we build two apartment complexes this year, right? So, we'll say it's 1,000 units total. I don't know how fast that's going to fill up, but if I did a sample that day and the census came out and said, "We're going to do our sample. Here's your number. You have a se you have 70% occupancy rate." Okay, this is a scenario, right? Not real numbers. I mean, you're going to constantly be chasing that variable around as units fill up. It's just it was it was it was at the in 2008 when that conversation which a similar conversation happened then the decision was made not to include that because it just added too much elasticity.

Sure. So, but effectively the formula is the same, right? Because Sure. Let's move forward. Okay. [laughter] I I mean Okay. No reason.

Yeah. So um in this example with recommended components um so I didn't I just had to calculate 28,850 based on the 82,000 divided by the 2.85. So um the 28,882 that I have is from a TCAD report. Um and that had information [clears throat] about single family versus multif family and mobile home. And so those were the the number of units that was in the TCAD um data. The um occupancy rate um is from the US census. They produce a quarterly uh occupancy rate for uh housing and a separate one for rental. Um that is for all of the 75 largest metropolitan areas in the US. So the solution on that is is the metropolitan area.

Yeah. is the Austin metropolitan area. So, so this is an example. Um, and then the persons per household in the 2024 the information on the 2024 census website has a breakout of owner um occupied persons per household and rental um occupied persons per household. Now there and there's some nuance in there but for simplicity sake I just used that you know did the owner for the single family the renter for the multif family and so when you had those three components segmented by type using the occupancy rates from the US census using the persons per household from the US census the American community survey um then the number for the generally the same you know it's 32 units different it was 74,200 right used a used a metropolitan service area number for occupancy which is not going to have an appropriate resolution to our city. Um you said you had more details. Is that the next slide?

Wait can wait. I'm sorry. So this this is an example and so that's why I wanted to have a discussion and get more detail. But it's an it's an example with a 9.7% assumption and a 1.5 uh% assumption on single family which does not seem relevant for FL. Kimberly, you had a mayor, if I may. Um, I I am feeling a little bit uncomfortable right now, and let me express why. We have the slides that she presented up on the slide for everyone to see. And just like we had a gentleman in here taking pictures of that, it it this could go out as potentially as

has gone out. It is going out. I feel concerned with that. All of us are sitting here city council with this up up here and it's her opinion right now while we discuss it. I just don't know if I feel comfortable with this being up on the slide. I would and plus with the way my bif focals are set up with all of this detail. I definitely would have preferred to have this in hard copy. I apologize for missing this if this went out at 3:30. I don't know when it went out to me,

but today is a work day for me and I prepare for city council in advance and so I don't feel comfortable receiving this information and having it up on the screen at this time in this particular way. We've ne in my I've never had this happen before. So I feel that this is something we need to discuss. Um cuz this I don't know if I feel comfortable with this continuing to happen like this, especially just seeing it for the first time. I do want to uh allow Miss Ryan to get through this, but if you'd go to your next slide, is that how many slides do you have left? Um 37. No, there's 11. Um yeah, could you tell me how many are remaining?

Um I I don't know. Um two or three. Okay, let's let's quickly get through this. I do appreciate that it's not watermark. I would much in the future appreciate that you watermarked it with your your own opinion if you're planning to I I don't know that we'll do this again, but let's Okay. Well, because we haven't done anything like this before and I'm not I'm understanding the concerns from my council members. Um okay,

quickly what do we have here? So this is just um the the discussion that I already had about the differences in um methodology um you know the vacancy the persons per household and the unit type seg segmentation. So um one of one of the reasons that segmenting it by housing type is that in uh practice there are typically less people per household in rental units or multif family that h that are smaller. What's your basis for that assumption? Um, the US census I believe Sven, didn't you tell us the US census does not give us a person's per household it by type

in a statistically significant way? Not by building type. And so my assumption is you're probably looking at a one-year ACS. So I've also looked at the five years. So either way, not our goal standard. Not our goal standard. Statistically significant. there's a lot more variability in there. So, it's more volatile. It would not be my first choice in data. Um, they break there. I don't have every table that they produce memorized. I do know that there's information on on renter occupancy rates and owner occupancy rates, but but that's not family or single family.

That's across the board again. So there's going to be residential houses mixed in with the apartment units. So it's not something I could tease out.

Well, and if we're if we're talking if we're multiplying by the number of housing units we have, you know, we have a brand new apartment complex comes up, we get a great inven uh example, a thousand new units, but we don't have a thousand new occupied units right away. So, I mean, you know, any any any anything we have where we're changing the number year by year has volatility. Uh, but the the if we're having a bunch of apartment complexes go up, we will have a larger than usual vacancy rate when they first go up. That's, you know, one of the things that we have seen. If you look at the 5-year trend, uh you see that we had very low vacancy rates in in two uh 2022. Um and we're now back up uh with with the vacancy rates now about what they were precoid

because we're making assumptions. I just apartment complex at under 5%. Can we talk a moment about the persons per household because we keep throwing around that there's a multif family single family and I I heard rental and owner occupied which is different than

right so the census says all these numbers are true all these numbers are true right there's statistical variability on both sides right statistical variability in one year 5year centennial all the numbers are true statistically speaking so when we use the average of 2.85. That's still correct. Could we break it out by Could we attempt to break it out by renter versus owner? Sure. The average for the area is still 2.85 at that point in time in 2020, but in the last and we're still using 2020 because it's statistically the gold standard with the least variability.

So, so let me let me clarify here real quick. So, as I understand, Melody, your your recommendation at this point in time, if if I can summarize, is to move from using the 2020 standard to using the from the the census the 10-year standard to the one-year standard. Uh, so can you go to my next slide? Uh, so this was just more detailed which we've already talked about. So, the next the next slide. So this was a comparison of of information that I received from different cities and the different methodology that they're using. So [clears throat] Georgetown so most of this methodology is from Georgetown. Um that's what they're using. Some of the other cities are using portions of it.

So Georgetown matched their population to the US census in 2020. We did not. We we we kept it at 74 instead of matching it to the 65,000. Um, in Georgetown they they segment their single family and multifamily and they add them into the population count. They have a monthly um number. I don't know how often our um department does it, but they have a monthly one and they add the units into the the unit count four months after the CO to allow Okay. I'm confused. You said you said that we don't match our our population under the census in 2020. We we did not. We did not cuz we disagreed on dwelling accounts

because we have 2,000 3,000 more. We have about 3,000 units. So when I So when I had the TCAD information that they have yearbuilt and um and I have a source at the last um page of this presentation um when I compared the units in the US census from 2020 to the TCAD numbers that said we're built as of 2020 um our our unit number was fairly close and it was the same thing in 2021. it was in 2022 to 2024 where we had that big variance that that I noticed. So, I'm just bringing this forward at for discussion purposes.

Right. So, so for discussion, I'm I'm seeing your column there for uh your source. Uh the source being the Georgetown is the only one that doesn't use the 2020 census. So, comparison cities, you're saying that's the uh that's the one difference out of the out of the ones that um provided me with information. Um yeah. So then so Georgetown and they had a whole presentation on this I I apparently with their city council because they provided me with that presentation of where they were discussing this um especially if you have rapid growth and have getting a handle on what your population is.

So they add the the cos or the unit counts four months after it's issued to allow time for the the unit to actually become occupied. Um and so they started with the US population and then they added new units and then they do segment their [laughter] occupancy rate by single family and multif family and they use the US census quarterly MSA report and then the persons per household they segment it by single family and multif family and they they use the um the the US census the American community survey for 2024. Now, Flugerville has used the American Community Survey in our U Aspire 2040 plan. Um, we did use that in in population. I saw it on one of the pages. Happy to to provide that. Um, and then here's the the other thing. Round Rock, Leander. Um, Round Rock and Leander adjusted their population to the match the census. Um, you know, uh, Leander is using units. Um Georgetown and Round Rock start with the census and add new units whereas Leander use the total units. Um and uh Round Rock and Leander are using a blended um occupancy rate from the US census and Flugerville to to my understanding we are not using the vacancy rate that was in the US census which was about 5%. Um and so and Cedar Park does um segment their occupancy rate and their units by single family and multif family and persons per household. So there's various different standards in this in this general area about how population is calculated. So um so I just wanted to bring this up as a source of discussion to um consider whether we should be using a occupancy rate or if we should be segmenting the information.

Do you have a do you have another slide? Um or is that the end? Mhm.

It's just a Yeah, this is a just a recap about what the value or what I perceive the value of um segmenting and using um real vacancy and current household size as our housing mix changes and we add more multifamily. So, we've gone from generally about an 8020 split in 2020 to um almost the 7030 split between single family and multif family. And so a a change in housing mix does have an impact on that average person per household. And the five-year census, you know, which is an average of the last 5 years and all of the years since 2020, the average household has been going down and it's going down to 2.7, which is stat, you know, that that does

to be clear, it's going down in a less statistically significant way. Well, the five-year is more is an average over the last five years. So, I think there's less statistical variance in the five-year report. Well, but it's still sampling. Yeah, it's sampling versus counting. So, our most statistically significant number is the 2020 census, right? That's the most times they've actually gone out and physically touched something. I understand I understand that. But the point is that if we are having that we could have a a quote unquote more accurate number. Yeah. Uh could you take us to the next slide? This was just the the presentation of my sources and

next I'd like to get this to a point where we're off the screen. Thank you. Um so so my concerns here are uh Jonathan you put it in a good way. How did you put it? Oh I don't know if I can recall basically to to what end or do we believe that we need to have a more accurate number if that's the supposition? you you put pros and cons, but the pros were we would have a more accurate number. Um, and so my question is what is the relevance of that more accurate number and how much is it worth? Well,

well, I mean, sorry, as a CPA, accuracy is is a [laughter] the gold standard. Obviously, you're going to have some variation, but um we know that there is not 100% occupancy. We we know that to be true. There's there's homes on the market in in the census. They But they already said they already said but they already said they're not using that. We agree. No, I'm I'm No, I'm They're using one. They're using a a multiple of one. They're using They're using They're saying no vacancy. But Sen said that in fact you [clears throat] that is not a But again, I'm sorry. You're you're going you're going back to a more accurate number so that we

for what benefit? so that we understand the trends of our growth, the impact of the different housing mix as we grow over time when we you know when we're considering different um projects. We understand the the impact our services um all of our different departments um look at population as how many people are we going to serve whether it's it's parks or police or library those the number of people that are are living here in the city have an impact on all of our services.

I've heard that that is not the number that we use for for uh planning for those services. I heard that the 74,000 number is the number that were used for

to be clear, I cannot provide the number being proposed because I don't know what single family units are rentals. We can assume 100% apartments are rentals. I have no idea about single family. So I have no way to apply that variable. that would just mean that the the number would be higher but not as you know if we don't use rental you know obviously there there's a lot of nuances that you can go into but there there are differences in our methodology between different cities um and so there there is a a vacancy rate that is provided in the 2020 US census and so I think that it is relevant to use that it is relevant to know how our population changes based on how our housing mixes.

That vacancy rate is segregated by rental and owner occupied or or by there's there's a global global average. Yeah. And again,

so let me Sven, I hate to cut you off there, but let me uh pose the question to council. We have heard uh this um uh item that was requested for discussion by by Melody and David. uh the based on the information that this council has heard uh what I'm looking for this evening is whether or not uh we need to have a discussion and action item to change our methodology in the future if there is relevance and desire to uh act on any of this discussion tonight. So I would ask the council um since we are in work session this would be direction not action uh whether or not we want to continue this conversation and make any consideration in the future. So I'm asking that

before we make that decision I'd like to answer Jonathan's question which I've been trying to answer now for 20 minutes. Um why does why does this matter and it's about apples to apples and it's about our presentation to the outside world. Okay. If Hutto says they're growing at 5%. We didn't have Hu on the screen, so I don't necessarily have an evaluation of

Round Rock, Leander, Cedar Park, whatever. They say we're growing at 5%. And we say we're growing at 10%. But we're not using the same method for counting the number of people. We're using a different method that makes the number of people we have appear larger than it actually is. So, we're cheating

when we make our presentation to the outside world if we are giving them numbers that are using a very different formula from what everybody else is. And no, make no mistake, we are using a very different formula because we do not true up to the census and everybody else did that. So, we're saying that our starting number is 15% higher than what the census says it is. And everybody else says their census, their starting number is what the census says. We are not using apples to apples. And by the way, if you're somebody from the outside who's come looking at where they're going to do business and you look at census numbers and you go, "Okay, well, this is how big how big they are." And then you go to Flugerville and they're like, "Oh, no, the census is wrong by 15%." But nobody else in the area says that. What does that do to the credibility of the of of the city of Flugerville? From an outsers's point of view, it makes us look like we're not being straight up

and we should be straight up. So, so David, I I appreciate your your conversation on relevancy. I'm going to tell you that from a numbers perspective, it's counterproductive. And the reason I say that counterproductive to be accurate in your numbers, is that what you're saying? No, I'm saying it's counterproductive in terms of growth trends as you're arguing because a growth trend is going to be a percentage of growth and if we start with a larger number, our growth trend percentage is going to be smaller. If we reduce that denominator, it's going to look like we're growing faster unless we actually adjust to the average persons per household through the 5year census.

But that is a statistically in less significant value. So, I take the conversation I'm sorry. I will take the conversation back to the council.

Um, hey, hey, look at that. We do have, um, if you go to your screen, you have the option. Uh, I'd be asking for a motion from the council on whether or not we want to continue this conversation and consider the changes that Melody has discussed tonight. So, I think my my biggest question or where my brain is right now on that is um I think it if we were to do anything else with this, we would need to be sure to separate out the do we have projects or programs that are using a population number and do we believe that there is incremental value for the effort to make it presumably did you hear your word?

Did you hear your own word? Incremental. That's my problem. We literally had the slide and uh the mayor's much nicer than me. Um we don't use that number that number that quote unquote variety number for infrastructure studies. We don't use that number for revenue projections. We don't use that number for permitting forecast. So what I would So I I guess I guess and the statements of the witnesses not consistent.

That is that is great that you're talking. That's my turn. So, one of the things so one of the things that I would I would like to say if he because he's arguing the he's arguing the opposite. So, he and him and Melody, frankly, are are the opposite. They're saying that this is actually being used in gerine ways that actually are substantially impacting how we do business. I would love to know where outside of bragging rights as we articulate so well, this is being wait outside of bragging rights, if we're going to have any homework, do that. outside of bragging rights, where else could we use this number that's being developed for that as well? Because if you're telling me in these main areas that we're not using it over here, um to Jonathan's point, it's incremental at best right there. Well, I can understand what David's saying about accuracy. I understand what you're saying Melia about accuracy but if it's if it's nothing that's hurting or or sorry not hurting impacting significantly how we do business then okay we have a number that sure make do whatever you want calculations

so but you did say industry standard was important and there are var various industry you know that's part of the problem right because I mean because no but we're not we're not an industry standard there no no no no let's not be clear let's be clear It's not that we're not an industry standard is that there's various different ways to actually get to the industry standard as you convey to us regarding the different tables that are available to us and why you don't use the one-year why the 5year is better than the one-year but why the centennial is the actual standard that we utilize for that that we have used for that. So at this point at this point Melody I would ask if you have a motion. Um I I know but I want I want to I want us to take action on whether or not we continue

this discussion and this comes up again or if this is the end of the discussion on the topic perhaps direction or consensus. Yes. For consensus and yes right and and we can take a vote for that. Correct. Well you can you can pull the we can we can pull yes but but I wouldn't use the word motion.

Okay. So, I do want to point out that transparency when we use per capita numbers, when we do put it into our financial statements that we're evaluated on, when we put it into our budget, when we tell the people what is the debt per capita, this absolutely does affect that number. And so my my my recommendation is that we give this further consideration that that to to staff to to um address the the different methodologies of Round Rock and Leander and the the neighboring cities where they are using segmentation and they are using the vacancy rate from the 2020 census which was five around 5% for Flugerville. Um so

all right I I I appreciate that. I'd like to hear from the council now. Um, Caesar. Uh, mayor, I'm fine with the current methodology. However, if you would like to have a work session in the future, I'd support that. But for now, I'm fine with the current methodology. Kimberly. Um, I echo Caesar. Okay. Jonathan. Yeah, I'm okay with that. I just I'll make one more comment, too, because we're talking about economic development and and, uh, development community. I PCDC, I believe they purchase a number from somewhere or at least the ones that they publish on the website. And so, again, I would just that's yet another different number. There there are various numbers for for different purposes. Uh Melody, I I would like to have further discuss. Of course, I want to have further discussion about it. I'd like [laughter] an accurate number.

I feel comfortable if you want to go ahead and have a lunch and learn on this. Sure. But I feel I feel comfortable with where we're at. Um so that will uh bring this item to the close. Uh I apologize for my naivity. I expected us to be able to get through a couple other items. We will [laughter] adjourn our work session, take approximately a 3minut uh recess before we convene our regular session this evening. Um thank you all for uh sitting around and witnessing this. Uh we will be back in just a few moments. As of this moment, work session is closed. Thank you all for coming. Thank you.

It worked. All right, we'll get our our final council member up here on the day. [laughter] Look at you call up.

All right. Uh good evening everyone. Uh the time is 7:08. I'd like to call to order uh this January 13th regular council meeting. Uh at this point, I would like to first of all recognize the people in the room. I want to take a moment to recognize our uh knowledgeable and our dedicated staff who are here uh late this evening either to provide support or to uh educate us on many items. Uh, I'd like to thank our um uh our committed uh vendors and consultants who I know are here who are doing great work or hoping to do great work for us following this agenda. And of course uh we could not do this all we do this all for the citizens who are here with us this evening. Uh thank you for taking an interest and showing up. Uh, as I call this meeting to order, I would ask that you please rise and join me uh in our uh pledge to the US flag, our Texas pledge. F. And if you'll remain standing for a moment of silence.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I aliance to the Texas. One state under God. One and indivisible. Thank you all. You may be seated. Uh this takes us to the portion of our agenda that is reserved for public comment. Uh I need to read this to inform you what's going to happen, but generally we get to hear from you, but we don't get to respond because it's an item that's not posted on the agenda. So, in accordance with the Texas Attorney General Opinion, any public comment that is made on an item that is not on the published final agenda will only be heard by council, no formal action, discussion, deliberation, or comment will be made by the city council. Each person providing public comment will be limited to 3 minutes. I have three people who have uh signed up and I will ask for any others following. Uh I will begin with Rachel Lee. if you would come forward, uh, bring yourself to the podium and we would love to hear from you.

Hi. Um, my name is Rachel Lee and I'm speaking tonight in order to advocate for and hopefully gain maybe some clarity regarding a potential road project. I am a resident of Parkway Drive and it is a residential street, but it doesn't actually belong to a specific neighborhood here in Flugerville. Um the street is home to many families with kids, but unfortunately we do not have sidewalks. In addition to this, the road is in pretty rough shape. It's had a lot of repairs over the years and it's left it pretty bumpy. There's no curbs, so the sides kind of disintegrate. As you can imagine, all of these things together, this road's bumpy. Cars are kind of veering to avoid any of these bumps. The sides are crumbling. There's no sidewalks. There's kids. Um it brings a real a real safety concern. Um a couple years ago, actually maybe like a year and a half ago, we received some notice that there was potentially going to be a project to put sidewalks there, but we haven't actually heard anything about that since. We've reached out to some people um in the city government, but haven't really received any kind of update. Um, so my purpose here tonight is just to advocate for this project, put a face to something that I think is really important and to speak up for my street and to hopefully speak up for some of these kids and families. I want them to stay safe um and to I know not tonight because it's not on the agenda, but maybe at some point get some clarity um on timelines for this project. Thank you guys so much for being here. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you for speaking up on this item. Uh, I imagine there may be some folks uh from staff who may take pull you aside here in a moment to discuss your concerns. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, this is that neighborhood's kind of been my my hobby horse over the last five years in indeed. I believe we do have some CDBG projects in I I just uh hope that uh that staff can inform her about everything that uh that the city has been doing in that neighborhood uh for the CDBG projects as you point out

uh for the lights and this the roads and the and the uh the the water and the creeks and all of the things over there. But it's definitely something that the city has been aware of and in fact uh former mayor Gonzalez uh met with the folks uh over there right before they were annexed back in 2008. I don't know if we he he mentioned that to you or not, but I know that that was that is something that has long been on the on the city radar. Of course, that neighborhood was developed before it was in the city, so it didn't it wasn't developed to city specs at the time. Thank you. That's important background, I think.

Thank you for that factual information that we are allowed to cons uh produce. [laughter] You're welcome, Mr. Mayor.

The next uh speaker we have tonight will be uh Mr. uh Craig Renicki. Uh Craig, if you'd come forward, come to the podium. Uh you'll hear the beep for the three minutes. U what do you have to tell us? Uh good evening and uh good evening. Congratulations, Mayor Doug Weiss and uh Jonathan Kaufman. Uh glad to see that y'all y'all have made it and hopefully we'll get to join hands and continue to work. I am Craig Riniki. I am the secretary of of Strong Towns Flugerville. We're a very new organization. Um um and I'm Yeah. And Flugerville proudly calls uh calls Texas the the trail capital of Texas. And that's that's something very much worth celebrating. I'm very happy about that happening uh about getting that designation. Um they connect our they connect our they connect our parks, neighborhoods and our families. They reflect our values and our health, access, quality of life, but they don't exist in isolation. They truly live up uh to truly to live up to the title. We also need to safe streets to allow people of all ages and abilities to reach those trails and use them. Having trails, there is a lot of disconnection between some of them and I know we're working on a lot of those things. Um uh that connection matters even more in light of the recent fatal crash in the in the community. Uh there the tragedies there was a crash on uh FM685. There was a fatality there and it's a matter of that these kinds of tragedies are not just there. It's it happens all over the place where uh where it just ensures that it shows that we need to h plan that we need to have uh really good plans to have safer streets um to to have make sure we have preventable loss

uh design and make sure that we're designing streets for safety and for everyone. Um the strong is focused on practical communitydriven action. Uh we've adop we've adopted the Gillerin Creek and are hosting a cleanup on January 31st. It's going to be a frigid fun time. If anyone wants to join us, we're going to be we'll be doing some clean up on the river. Um cuz we care about the public. We want to make sure that it's a place for everyone. Again, um um uh we're also proud that we've built a bench, a handmade bench that we're going to be presenting to the rec center. It's got been decorated and painted and sealed and ready to be able to put out there. Um we we're all about giving back to the community and um and our focuses are with starting small, listening to residents and building the flutter and building flutterville that works for everyone whether you're driving, biking, walking or pushing a stroller. Um, we're very much in a car- centric world where everything goes around cars and by doing that we ignore we [clears throat] ignore our elderly who are no longer able to be able to drive and we ignore the youth that don't have that ability to get out. Having those trails definitely helps to work a lot of that. We just make sure that all those things are connected. Um, if anyone wants to learn more about Strongtown, strongsp.org. Uh we are finishing up our nonprofit status. Thank you so much and congratulations to start of a great new year.

Thank you. Thank you Craig. Thank you for uh sharing your comments with us tonight. Uh I have one more person signed up that is uh Chelsea Berquette. Chelsea, you chose to speak on a topic that is on our consent agenda. So I'd ask you make those comments now if you would. Okay. uh in case that item doesn't get pulled, we'd love to have you uh um have the opportunity to make those comments.

Great. All right. Well, my name is Chelsea Burquette and um I'd first like to begin by thanking the city council and the mayor for your time and your commitment to serving this community and your leadership within this community. I'm here today to voice very strong support for agenda item 4F, which is on the consent agenda, approving a letter of understanding with the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. Um, it is my privilege to serve this community as a board member of the Flugerville Parks Foundation and previously as a member of the Flugerville Parks and Recreation Commission. Over the years, expanding native plantings and restoring natural ecosystems has been a consistent priority at parks foundation meetings, commission meetings, and also there was a specialized subcommittee from the commission as well focused on pollinators. We see tremendous opportunity to protect the environment, strengthen our ecosystem, and support the pollinators that sustain it. The parks foundation is aligned with the parks the flugerville parks department and the belief that flugerville must do more to create pollinator pathways and native habitats. A partnership with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center brings the scientific expertise, guidance, and credibility needed to implement these efforts thoughtfully and intentionally. Today, we ask that the council not only approve this letter on the consent agenda, but also to visibly support the work that will follow. Transitioning to native landscapes requires planning, intensive communication, and also community education. There will be moments when residents may assume that areas are being neglected. So when that when they're actually in fact being intentionally unmode or undergoing some level of habitat re um restoration for this program succeed we must use our collective voices to answer questions share benefits and help the public understand the purpose and value. This partnership with the Wildflower Center lays the foundation for this effort, helping us tell the story while

creating meaningful environmental and financial benefits from thriving pollinator ecosystems to reducing long-term maintenance costs for um um taxpayers within the community. So, please approve this item and uh please help carry this message forward. Flugerville is ready to lead by example and this is a powerful step towards a greener, healthy future for our city and its residents. So once again, thank you for your time and I look forward to hopefully not hearing many comments on this, but if there is, I look forward to hearing it. Thank you.

Thank you, Chelsea. I appreciate your your comments on that. Uh those are the uh uh the three people who signed up for public comment. I'll ask at this time, is there anyone else in the audience wishing to uh take three minutes to address the council? Seeing none, we'll move forward to item four on our agenda. Item four is our consent agenda. Uh the consent agenda are items that may be acted upon in one motion. Uh from my perspective, council, these are items that are generally um non-controversial or have been reviewed in previous work sessions, previous uh workshops, uh or are uh inactions of previously approved items such as through our budget or our um uh master plans. Uh which is why they are included on the consent agenda. At this point, I would ask if there are any items on the consent agenda that council wishes to pull.

4B. Hearing 4 B is in Baker. Any other items? Council Chris, I'd ask you at this point, could you read the consent agenda for us? Yes, sir. Item 4B has been removed from the consent agenda. 4 A is approving an ordinance on first and final reading with a caption reading an ordinance of the city of Flugerville, Texas, adopting the first amendment to the FY26 budget for the city of Flugerville and providing an effective date. Again, item 4B has been pulled from the consent agenda. All remaining items may be acted upon in a single motion. Move to approve. Second.

I have a motion from David and a second from Rudy, I believe. I get to hit this button. Yeah. All votes are in. The consent agenda passes unanimously. Thank you for those items. Uh any of those uh in the audience here who were here for the consent agenda. Right now would be an opportune time to sneak out. Uh but we will continue with our [laughter] meeting. What if they want to hang out? Yes. You're welcome to stay and and witness the excitement that is our our council meeting. This meeting is just getting good.

Oh, [laughter] it only gets better from here. Indeed. It looks like a few people took the invitation. [laughter]

I want to make sure everyone understands where we are. Um so that brings us to item five on our agenda. Uh item 5 A is to conduct a public hearing and consider approving the first reading of an ordinance with caption reading and ordinance of the city of Flugerville, Texas, amending ordinance number 123-15-02-24 of the city of Flugerville, Texas as amended by reszoning lot 2C of the lot 2 Flugerville Industrial Park replat consisting of approximately 2.01 01 acres located along the east side of Weiss Lane generally southeast of the Kelly Lane and Weiss Lane intersection from Light Industrial Liist to General Business 1 GB1 district in the city of Flugerville, Travis County, Texas to be known as the PFL Weiss Investments LLC resoning 2025-00477 providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances providing for severability and providing for an effective date. Uh, with that, I believe our planning development services director, Ashley Bailey, will be providing us with a presentation.

Don't forget to breathe, mayor.

Good evening again, Mayor and Council. Um, again, the item before you tonight is a resoning. Um, this is um, you can see on here, it's the track marked with a star. It is on the east side of Weiss. It's just north of Aventura Way or Hidden Lake Crossing. It's kind of just across the street from where Kinder House Daycare is. um and just south of the Texico that you may all be familiar with. There we go. Um so you can see in 2006 the this property was annexed and zoned as part of a larger development and it was zoned as agricultural conservation. Um in 2008 Flugerville Industrial um park plat created four lots. It was then reszoned to light industrial and then a repplat created lot 2C. Um the general business district or GB1 district uh accommodates a full range of retail and office uses with um citywide and even regional trade area. Of course we all know the Weiss area. Um so example uses you could have personal services, restaurant, daycare, financial institutions or banks. This is part of the Blackland Prairie District um which was really to promote efficient development formats, encourage neighborhood mixed use, promote housing diversity and also maintain some of the agriculture. So you can see here it is just that small little pinkish red portion where the flood plane is um that was carved out. Um neighborhood retail, office, commercial, um new uses and building types. So you could have mixeduse neighborhood scale, community scale, a neighborhood office in commercial. You could even have a neighborhood shopping center, civic, recreation. With that, I will um let you know this is a downzoning essentially from light industrial um to that GB1 district because we've going from industrial to that commercial district. Um so the recommendation is to approve this on the first reading approve the first reading of this ordinance, excuse me, regarding the PFL Weiss Investments LLC reszoning. This does support the economic and business development as well as the residential and no development goals of the 2026 to 2030 strategic plan. Planning Commission

recommended approval 6 to zero on December 1st. um last year. So with that, it is also a public hearing. All right. Uh Miss Bailey, I' I'd ask uh reszoning from LI to GB1. That's generally considered a I'm going to say a decrease in zoning a uh a less intense use. That is correct. All right. Thank you. Uh council, do you have any questions for Miss Bailey? Uh is it this is the one directly north of the Shell station? Is that correct? So this is actually directly north of

there's really nothing in it. It's not the Texico is north and then there's an intervening tract. Then there would be this tract and then to the south is the commercial track that has taken a very long time. It used to have a monastery sign up. It has taken a very long time to develop. Gotcha. Okay. Uh any other questions? Uh council members. This is a public hearing. At this point, I would ask if there is anyone from the public wishing to speak on this item. I have uh one person who has indicated please come up to the podium. Uh if you would state your name uh and begin your comments.

Good evening. Um thank you for having me. My name is Sarah Norman. I'm the applicant. Um thank you for your help tonight. I just wanted to let you guys know I'm here in case there are any questions I could answer. Oh, certainly. Thank you. Thank you for uh thank you for that. Why the down zoning? We um so we own the three buildings behind uh we

CB Capital, PFL Weiss Investments. Thank you for coming to our groundbreaking. We appreciate your support. Um we over the years we bought the property in 2022 I want to say um when we did the repl and made lot 2C its own um individual lot and just noticing um over over that time how the neighborhood has developed. We think GB1 is a more appropriate use to serve the neighboring community that surrounds us. Thank you council. Any other questions for the applicant at this time? [clears throat] No. Uh, anyone else from the public wishing to uh provide comment on this resoning?

Mayor, I'll motion to close public comment. Second. All right. I have a motion from uh Council Member Ruiz and a second from either Jonathan or Kimberly. Do paper rock scissors. [laughter] Oh, Kimberly. Too late. The [clears throat] slides. That's it. Uh and the uh public comment is closed. Now I would ask if there is a um move to operation. Second.

I have a motion from David and a second from Jonathan. Uh motion passes unanimously. Uh thank you, uh Miss Bailey. Uh I think you're going to stick around as I read this next item. Uh that will move us to item 5B. Conduct public hearing and consider approving the first reading of an ordinance with a caption reading an ordinance of the city of Fugleville, Texas, amending ordinance number 123-15-02-24 of the city of Fugerville as amended uh by reszoning lot 6, Warner Heights addition considering consisting of approximately 2.78 acres from agricultural development reserve uh to single family estate district in the city of Flutterville uh Travis County, Texas to be known as the 604 K lane K lane reszoning re 2025-00467 providing for a repeal of conflicting ordinances providing for severability and providing an effective date Bailey.

Thank you again mayor and council. So you can see from this map again with the yellow star on [clears throat] here um it is just really directly south of here. K lane is just a small little culde-sac um just right south of the Justice Center Drive um with mostly the larger estate size lots. So what you have here outlined then again in yellow is going to be the subject lot. It is going to be two inside. Um you may just be used to seeing K lane because you'll pass by HTO. Um but there are several lots back in that little neighborhood. So what you can see here is 1995 the city lot an annexation. There was a petition for a reasonzoning at that time to agricultural development reserve. Um that is actually um a in the UDC but also it's a supposed to be a 3 acre lot size. So this is a legally non-conforming lot because it's not quite at that 3 acres that you can see from the staff report. Uh the proposed resoning at this time is to look at single family estate which is still a larger lot size at half an acre. Um and this is just sub three acres. So conceivably they would get about two lots based on lot width and access for driveways. So again single family estig is intended to address larger lot single family development with lots larger than 1/ half of an acre. Residential uses are allowed. So you could have an accessory dwelling unit or ADU. You could have a single family home to detach. You could have some non-residential uses as far as a golf course or country club. It's a little small for that. Um some government facilities possibly a park or playground. um a church or a place of worship or

put a pitch and put there could be a mini mini golf place. Maybe Peter Pan could open an annex up here.

A single very mini mini golf. You do have some conditional use abilities as far as an amenity center or utilities. Also unlikely or specific use you could do um either a private or perial school. Uh the land use goal for the 2040 um Aspire plan is to provide home ownership opportunities that encourage res residents of diverse backgrounds and housing preferences to make Flugerville home. This does help with that goal because we would be able to then see this lot platted and potentially add at least one more home to that area. So the recommendation is to approve the first reading of this ordinance regarding 604K Lane. Planning and zoning commission recommended approval 6 to0 on December 1st of 25. and we may have some residents here to speak at the public hearing. There were some concerns at PNZ about traffic on Kane, specifically related to 685 and being able to exit their street.

All right. Uh Miss Bailey, uh if I may kick it off with one question, would this lot have any access from Justice Center Drive? So, they could because they do have rightway over there, but they would have to get the right-of-way permit from the city. If that's how they chose to replat it, that would be a bridge that we would cross at that point. I would say more likely it would be off of Kane just because the residential nature and Justice Center being really more of a commercial um even though it is a public street. It is really more of a commercial public street. Okay. Thank you. Uh council members and questions uh for Miss Bailey at this point in time. I had a question. So this zoning allows lots that are at least a half an half acre is the minimum. [clears throat]

Yes. So, but you said there's only two, but this lot size would allow for more than two halfacre lots. Correct. It could, although with the lot size and the driveway separations, it's unlikely that it would be able to develop into more lots. I mean, just hard math, 2.7, you could get a few halfacre lots. Um, what you're going to look at more is the access, the um lot widths, and just being able to fit all of that in there. Um, that would be a little bit more difficult um to be able to fit all that in there. You can see just one to the westish northwestish of this lot. That one was also separated into two. Um and I can also disclose the applicant um for this had said that they just want to split it into two.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions from council? All right. At this point uh in time, we we do have a public hearing. So I would ask if there is anyone from the public wishing to uh make comment on this item. This is your opportunity if you'd like to comment on the item. I see no one rising. Move to close the public hearing. Second.

Have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. Uh motion to close is successful. Uh, at this time I would ask uh, council members if you have further questions or if you would like to make a motion on approving this resoning. So moved. Second. I have a motion from Rudy and a second from David. As long as we get a pitch and put [laughter] No, it has to be Peter P.

All right, the reasoning is approved. Thank you, Miss Bailey. Uh that uh takes us to the next section of our agenda that is the regular agenda. Uh item 6A is discuss and consider an action to approve the appointment of a public utility and engineering director. I believe you do have a uh council members, you may have a resume at your seat. Uh Miss Brandin, would you uh clue us in?

Sure. In accordance to the charter, the council does approve my appointment for department heads, and I will consider this a department head. um that we are looking to place Matt Recctor as the public utility and engineering director and as he makes his way to the podium I'll talk about him. Um he most recently served as the city engineer and the executive director of development and infrastructure for our neighboring city of Huau and previously as a public works director for the city of Taylor. Uh he worked in the private sector and a project manager and land development team led by MWM Design Group and Half Associates. He is also a United States Marine Corps veteran. He worked as an engineer as with the US Army Corps of Engineers. He holds a masterers of science and engineering uh management and a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology. In his free time, you will find him um working out in the gym, reading leadership and management books for some odd reason, outside playing with his grandson, cooking with his wife, or playing a lively game of paintball. Don't mess with him. uh with his three adult sons. I welcome to um hopefully our team Matt Recctor and um you're welcome to ask him very kind questions.

Mr. Recctor, thank you for joining us here this [laughter] evening. Uh I would ask if council has any questions for such an esteemed individual. What do you see as the uh challenges over the next couple of years for um

opportunities? Well, good evening, mayor and council. Um thank you for having me here. I think the biggest challenge, and I don't I don't know that this is going to come a surprise to anybody in central Texas. I think one of the biggest challenges that we have to face is is water. Um I I've said this in in multiple venues, so I I don't think it's any super big secret. We like to believe that we are living in the Midwest or the Northeast, and we are not. simply we are in an arid region and water is at a premium and we are running out of sources and we're running out of infrastructure and we are one of the fastest growing regions in Texas. So the two things are diametrically opposed. So I think that's one of the biggest challenges. Um I have been a proponent of looking at alternatives uh such as uh zeroscaping green infrastructure those kind of things to reduce water consumption. I've also been a big proponent, especially in my current role in in HUD, of trying to facilitate looking at things like uh direct portable reuse or other alternatives to add water back to the system. Um, and so I think I think that's one of the biggest challenges that we're going to face, especially as as the water water is not going to get any cheaper. That's just I mean that's just reality unless we can find some magic source. And so we have to figure out how to balance all the thing to keep things basically at a status quo. It's kind of what what I think my challenge

so Matt to your point um you know and I think the the um you've heard a lot from TCQ and LC regarding the subject in central Texas saying that um we need to look for other ways to discover water sources while at the same time conserve. and you've seen how um not only varied but intentional the the Flugerville plant is regarding you know the various different options to make sure that uh we do actually provide you know accessibility to water for our citizens of the future right there as well. Is that something that you took you looked at and took in consideration as you were looking to see um moving in from another high growth city to another grow high growth city here? Are you talking about the Flugerville plan in particular?

Um, I didn't really like dig deep into what the differences are between Huddle and Flugerville. Um, I I know that it's a problem facing our region in general. I've talked to Manville, I've talked to Bar, I've talked to EPCO Recharge, I've talked to Hut, I've talked to Georgetown, I've talked to all the different cities. Everybody's doing the same thing. And so, it's not something that I really dug into. is just kind of me looking [clears throat] at the situation saying I think these are the best possible solutions out there and then trying to figure out if there's any alternatives that I'm overlooking.

So, uh let me pick up on Rudy's question because I do think that there are some some substantial differences between Hutto and Flugerville in terms of how we're we're dealing with with water. Uh obviously Flugerillas has uh approved a a very very large uh water investment where we're bringing all this water from uh the lower Colorado River up here. We're looking at the possibility of uh bringing some water down from uh up north from the neighboring river uh basin. Um and I know that Hutto uh is having some concerns right now about their growth of their water uh supply. Um, what are your thoughts about uh uh local not not regional but hyper local very local uh cooperation uh with water uh and what Flugerville can do from an engineering standpoint um with our friends in Hutau and uh and Mayor uh assuming that we have uh more water and more wastewater uh capacity than we can use locally. How can we um engineer to uh assist our neighbors who may not have sufficient capacity at this time? So [laughter] this this is something that I was actually this is why I was really a big proponent of trying to get to DPR direct portable reuse while I was in HUD because I saw that as a potential for Hu to change the situation to change the conversation because if you could get to that pos that position where you're in Huau specifically right they have three different water suppliers they have their own CCN they have Jonah water and they have Manville All of that water is then treated by HUD's wastewater treatment plant. And so my stance was if you can get to a direct

portable reuse situation, then you're effectively getting donations, if you will, from other water providers for free that you're then converting back into usable water that you can sell back to your residents or you could sell to other provider, other municipalities, other suds, uh, special utility districts or or water supply corporations. Um you guys are in Fugerville, you're you're actually ahead of us because you are you're already doing some uh reuse system. It's already built into the system and we got the approval from the um state on that.

And so, you know, I was actually without you guys knowing it, I was actually trying to race and I was [laughter] just behind the curve. Um and so I I think that's something that Flugerville has that Huau doesn't is that you're already out in front of that. And so if you could get to that solution, especially with you having the extra sources of water, then then you could get to a position where now you are using that direct portable reuse type situation to then turn around and sell water to your neighbors, which puts you in a better uh financial position, especially given how large our CCN is, right?

And and what what do you uh think of in terms of the timetable uh for moving forward with that sort of thing? Uh well it's not a quick process right because um there's a lot of public outreach that has to go into that process because you know just the communication with the public and getting them to understand a lot of people when they start hearing the concept of direct portable reuse DPR sounds a little scary at first right

there's some real intimidations there so it's a lot of education a lot of working through the public a lot of go going through TCQ and jumping through all those hoops to get them on board and get them to support whatever it is that you end up whatever your actual engineering solution ends up being the location all that kind of stuff. So um typically what I've heard ballpark to get to this type of solution is is 8 to 10 years. Now what I will tell you is my history in Hutto is everybody told me that things would take long time to get anywhere and I compressed all of those timelines and I was able to move a lot of things very rapidly and so um because I come at things with somewhat of a private mentality, private sector mentality and somewhat of a federal government mentality as well as a city mentality, I'm able to bring all of those together and try to find ways to compress timelines and and move things a little bit faster than a lot of typical city engineers would.

How long were you uh in the private sector? Most recently, I was in the private sector for about four and a half years. And that was immediately before working for Hutto. Before I went back to working for And you were at Hutto for four years. I've been at Hut for three years. Okay. Yes, sir. And you were at Hutto before the private sector as well. That's correct.

Mr. director. I I'm I'm really excited about how um candid you're you're being with your expectations and how excited you seem about the opportunity. Many people would find it rather daunting. Uh but you seem to be ready to face it headon, which I imagine also goes back to your experience as a Marine. Um I would ask council members, do we have any other uh questions for Mr. Um, I was just going to add a while ago it said you're a Marine. So, I was about to make a crayon joke because I was Navy, but I looked up and I recognized you and I don't know if you know this, but back in 2002, we were literally neighbors. Laugh and Terra. Oh, really?

I was just Yeah, I was stationed out there and so it's I'm looking at your resume and I bring that up because I'm looking at your resume and I I hate it when people say I'm proud of you, but man, I'm proud of you. You've come a long way. Thank you. And so, you know, congratulations. Thank you. Appreciate that. Uh Kimberly Jonathan, any uh questions? Kimberly would like to make a motion. Go for it. Oh, he's got big shoes to fill. He does. He does.

So [laughter] So my question was, you know, are you excited and do you love talking about water? Does it make you giddy? You know, [laughter] do you dream about it? Things like that. Uh I I would not say that I dream about it, [laughter] but uh I do tend to geek out on In fact, when I was doing my interview, I took it into a very big rabbit hole of talking about water and waste water, and I was like, "Oh, wait. There's not just engineers in the room. We have to bring it back to perfect." Um with that being said, I'd like to make a motion to approve uh Matthew Rector for the position of uh public utility and engineering director. Second. Okay. All right, Tristie, you can pick one of the seconds.

We welcome you. Thank you. Uh, you are approved unanimously. Welcome to Flugerville. Thank you. Stay happy. [applause]

We have a uh another appointment to approve. Item 6B is discuss and consider action to approve the appointment of an assistant city manager. Uh, I believe we also have a second resume in front of us. Uh, Miss Greenland.

Sure. As Miss Roberts makes her way, I want to introduce Floel Roberts. And as the candidate for the assistant city manager position, bringing you more than 15 years of cross functional local government experience. She comes to the city of Flugerville from the city of Port Arthur, Texas. Be um before leading public works. Floels Floel served as Port Arthur's drainage and traffic engineer. She holds a masters of business business administration from Vanderbilt University, a master of engineering and a bachelor of science and civil engineering with a minor in mathemat mathematics both from Southern University. She has completed the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government senior executive um in state and local government program and earned the certificate um the certified public manager certificate in Texas. Outside of public service, she loves spending time with her family and friends, enjoying cultural activities, traveling, reading, volunteering, and watching the New Orleans Saints. So, [laughter]

we welcome. I hear a fellow Hud. All right. All right. Uh, Flo, am I am I saying that correctly? Yes, sir. Thank you, Flo. Thank you for uh for being here with us tonight. Um, I'm excited for the opportunity that uh that you're bringing to us. Um, do I have any questions uh from council? She's a southern bride. That's all I need. I'm going to ask the same question. What opportunities and challenges do you see for Flugerville in the next two years in your role?

Um, I'd have to say the the growth. There's a lot of growth in the area and so is ensuring that the infrastructure um aligns with the amount of grow growth that that we're seeing in the area. Um so infrastructure and growth but growth first then infrastructure if that makes sense. Thank you. Uh tell us about your capstone at the University of Houston.

So um to let everyone know my capstone was reviewing and and um changing the culture within the department of public works uh at the city of Port Arthur. So when I came into my position, um I sat down with the superintendent and asked them, okay, well, how would you describe the culture in the department? I heard things. Of course, I had already been working for the city of Port Arthur for a couple of years. Um, but I wanted to hear their perspective. And so they immediately told me, "Oh, it's not very good. It's toxic." It's what? Toxic.

Toxic. You were told that the the department of public works culture at Port Arthur was toxic. It was toxic. So, what does that mean? So, I asked, well, why why do you consider why do you say it's toxic? Um, and so I was told, well, you know, we have a a lot of citizens who are talking who speak ill of us. Can you can you hear me? I hear you. I'm having a little trouble. Uh, you have a lot of citizens who don't like the Department of Public Works. No. Um they had issues with the infrastructure and the maintenance of the infrastructure. Okay.

Um and so they also felt as though they didn't receive support um not solely from the community but also from uh council. And so I made it my mission um one of my missions to okay let's let's change this because you at the end of the day you really want employees to like where they come in to work

because that affects their work product um and of course that affects the overall community. So, I continued speaking with staff to to get a better understanding of what what could I do to assist them to to make their jobs easier. So, I would meet with management. I would also um meet with several council members and try to understand because there there there was a lack of communication um between the department and those who had negative thoughts and comments. And once and and and there are some community members who are a little more vocal than than others in ex in in expressing their

always true.

Yeah. their their their their um disappointments. In speaking with them, I realized for instance with the community members, I realized that there were some some matters that they did not have a full understanding of. And so because they did not have a full understanding of it, if you don't if you don't know what's going on, you're going to draw your own conclusions and you're going to run with that conclusion unless you have someone there to explain what's going on and to correct it. So I would often meet with various community members. um continued meeting with staff, met with council members, heard their complaints, um and I made sure staff lived up to um and and addressed whatever the complaints were and lived up to the expectations. Was it difficult? Yes.

[laughter] Um, but it's it's changing a mindset both within the department and externally and forming those relationships and showing where no, we are making an effort. No, we're not perfect,

but we will do whatever we can to ensure that we're we're meeting your expectations to the best of our abilities. Um so there were we started receiving a after some time we started receiving um compliments from community members. So I didn't keep that to myself. We have a bulletin board. So whenever someone calls in um sends an email, everyone is notified of what these comments are. Yes, we hear the negative comments, but oftentimes we don't hear those positive ones, and it's imperative that that staff knows the positive stuff that's being said. Um, I also realized that uh our facilities weren't the best. You know, public works, you know, you're in the field and so you're like, "Oh, they're they're rarely here." you know, they're they're dealing with all this mud and and um trash and and so they don't they don't really need the top facilities like you may see at a city hall. No, these people still need to come into an environment that is conducive for for them to work. Um so we completed renovations uh at our public works facility. It's we call it our operations center. And so it now feels like a place where where people want to come in and perform their job to the best of their ability. They're happy to come in to work and that's the type of employee that you want. So I hope I answered your question.

Well, let me summarize what I think I heard and you tell me if I got it right. Okay. And and I think I' I've got a followup. Okay. Okay. So there were a lot of communications issues around the department. Yes, sir. People in the department [clears throat] uh not getting information in and information not getting out to members of the community and council members and and other stakeholders in the community. And you worked to improve that communications. Yes, sir. There was also a morale problem associated with the fact that there was a substandard facility that they were working on. I I I I trust that you know about the the very large investment we're making in public works facility here.

Yes sir. Hopefully we won't have that particular problem here. Um, were there other engineering or operational changes that were part of your your capstone about changing the the culture at the Department of Public Works? Were there other were there other things about how the department worked after you had, pardon my repeating myself, worked on this project for a significant period of time? And I'm sorry, can you repeat your question?

Were there other engineering or operational changes that uh you made within the department of public works aside from the communications and the facilities change?

Yes. So there were there were some operational changes. Um so not a whole lot of standard operating procedures um were in effect. Um so I did streamline some of those. Um I ensured that we worked better with other departments. Um often times we'll have departments that are working in silos. Um and so while the department accomplished its goals uh by working in a silo, it still did not accomplish all that it could have um in working with other departments. So you know that is uh ensuring that we're communicating because we we we review permits. So that's ensuring that we're reviewing these permits in conjunction with not only the development services department but also the police department because they are also affected and they need to know this information. Um we are in a an um a heavily industrial area. So for instance we have a lot of um large industrial equipment um that are going to the prochemical uh companies in our area. And so we have to coordinate with text. Um I'm I'm const I'm constantly talking to to text um our the BMont district um and also in our uh area office and our police department and ensuring that all entities that are affected um are on one accord. Um that previously had not been done. So there were some operational activities that that changed. It's it's still ongoing. Um, but we're it's it's it's improved a lot.

Now, I noticed that you had uh Department of Homeland Security uh public trust uh contractor uh certification. Is that related to uh the work you were doing in in Port Arthur, the the with the prochemical industry? That was prior to Port Arthur. Oh, okay. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh council members, any other questions for Flozel? I make a motion. Yes, sir. I have a motion approved for Zel, our new assistant city manager. Second. Second. Uh, I have a motion for Rudy in a couple of seconds.

Just don't show up to the Longhorn game tomorrow. Always. [laughter] That's easy. Quite a few. [laughter] So, we would like to unanimously welcome you to here. Thank you so much. I look [applause] forward to working with you.

All right. That moves us [clears throat] along to item 6 C. 6C is discuss and consider action to approve an ordinance on second reading with the caption reading an ordinance of the city of Flugerville, Texas, amending the city of Flugerville Code of Ordinances, title 3 administration, chapter 31, departments, boards, and commissions to amend section 31.61 31.62 62 31.63 to transition the equity commission to an equity advisor advisory board to amend section 31.66 to amend board meeting requirements to amend section 31.76 to amend duties of the board and to amend section section 31.65 for consistency providing for this ordinance uh shall be cumulative and repealing all ordinances in conflict providing for severability and declaring an effective date. Uh, I believe we have Assistant City Manager Emily Baron uh here to speak on the topic.

Yeah, thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I think there are more more words in that caption than there are in in the couple of slides I'll show you here. Um, the on my first day [laughter]

uh this particular item is just is to adjust the equity commission to become the equity advisory board. As you all know, this was established in 2020 and and we've struggled to really kind of find actionable items for them um from a commission. It's been a lot of um learning and growing in that regard. Lots of listening sessions and and meeting with the community, but really being able to define those actionable items, which um our board members are are really well suited to to address. And so um these amendments really help to clarify some of their responsibilities by establish establishing what we would term as equity initiatives. We will work with the um equity advisory board um over their first couple of meetings this year to define what that looks like. Um the idea being that um the council staff or a community member could bring forward a certain initiative. For example, um currently we have an equity com um commissioner working uh with the planning and zoning commission, members of the park parks and recreation on the unified development code update. And so it's a very um it's an item that we're working on. We think it's very important to have that lens as well. And so it's those types of initiatives um and others is defined um as they're brought forward by council again staff or the community um that will help them define their role a little bit more clearly. It's not about removal of the equity commission, just providing better um goals and alignment for what we need um for Flugerville. And so we're trying to streamline that. Um we also I think there's some uh adjustments to renaming the board from commission to advisory board. That's just really it could stay commission. It was really just to say, hey, there's been some changes here um and they'll be an advisory board. We're updating the structure u meaning it's going from seven members to five. We spent the last year with five members. Um I think this might be the first time we might have more applicants um than

than spots for equity commission. Um their membership and responsibilities, they'll instead of requirement meetings, they'll meet as needed. And so if they need to meet once a month, twice a month, every other month, that would be established as they look at those particular initiatives. and they'll um review those initiatives, recommend actions to strengthen our city policies, programs, and com promote community awareness. And so with that, our uh recommendation is to approve the changes um to the ordinance as presented on second reading. You all um did approve this on first reading. Um thank I just have one question. um ma'am

why do you feel the need for them to meet on an as needed basis and do we not have enough issues around this that they could meet on a more consistent basis? Can you give me a little bit more about that? I I I guess I'm my concern is if you don't have anyone that's on fire and excited about it, there could be periods um where where nothing's happening with the equity advisory board and or commission. and I really pride ourselves on the fact that we have one. So I I just want to make sure that doesn't go away yet. We're working

certainly. And so it was to be less prescriptive so that the commission could better define that. And so for example, when we were working on the listening sessions, there were periods during the summer where they were focused on that. We didn't they didn't need to meet as as often. And so um but for example, like working on the UDC, they'll they'll that representative will meet with that group several times and several months in a row. And so it was really to gauge for flexibility on the items that come forward. Um and certainly we'll establish those at the beginning of every year as we do with other commissions that have that flexibility in in their meeting schedule.

Emily, is it possible to have the default be they meet once a month and then after that just you know if it's not necessary just go ahead and cancel the meeting. Certainly we could do that. um that that that's always that's always an option if we if we establish it. It's also just trying to be mindful of of their their schedules as well and kind of what what to anticipate

because I think that that would address what the mayor prot saying and I mean especially I think I mean she put it best now more than ever given everything going on right now. Um, and I appreciate you looking at this and trying to use this as as utilizing this this committee and these folks and the manner necessary to go make sure that we do have that lens that reflects everybody in the community, you know, from there just like it's the base that it was formed for. Yeah, I think this is a really exciting reboot and gives them even more um influence and uh and ability to to make change. So, I think it's great. I know this is the second re reading um but uh still still supportive. Absolutely.

It it's just very important that we're you know uh that we're very clear about the narrative because some may have the indication that we're we're ending the equity commission. I want to make sure that everyone understands that the issues are still the same. It's still important to us. It's so important to us that we've decided to take a look at the equity commission and revamp it. And so I just want to make sure everyone knows who's watching this on replay that it's we're doing this because it is important to us. Yes, ma'am. I think it gets them even more involved. Yeah. And to that note, can we actually present this out to the public right now and say what is the difference between calling it an equity commission? you may have touched on a little bit, but

they may want to that's actually a different [clears throat] certainly we can do that this this passes and we can we can adjust that and then we'll we'll revamp their website and we can we can help promote the the advisory board on what their their goals are and and that'll be especially important after we work with with the board their their first couple of meetings to establish kind of how do you file how do you submit an initiative or things like that perspective I think what I'm what I'm asking is what's the difference between an equity commission and an equity advisory board. It it was to draw more attention to it to to that there was a change and they support they wanted this came from that board to want that name changed. So to be clear to the to what council member Wu is saying

um it the the functioning of the board will not change from what it's currently has from there. This allows for more electricity, right? um as an advisory board as compared to a a commission also outside of the required meeting dates and times. I believe there's also a difference in the composition of the appointees. It's the number it's the number of appointees and then really defining that they're looking at equity initiatives and then what they look for when they review those initiatives. who who can present who can present topics or ideas to them outside of the five like those initiatives can come from council, from staff or from the community.

Yeah. Any member of the public can come to the meetings and say, "Hey, you got a threem minute open mic. Here's my idea." Yeah. So you had um said that they would meet or as a need to meet arises. And so my question was who determines the need to meet if there's not a prescribed cadence. That's why I say we do once right in there. I believe I was the idea the idea was that staff would work with the chair

to to to define that cadence is and the commission or the board as a whole if there are certain items that they're looking at having conversations with them about when do you when do you think we'll be ready for your review and analysis of whatever it might be or are you needing to participate in other meetings like the planning and zoning commission meeting or something like that to to gain that knowledge and provide that input. And so it would be initially with the chair and then ultimately um with the board as a whole. We can certainly change I mean adding it to once a month and then having that better start. We can absolutely do that. I think that way helps.

I I would just note that with that particular change I believe and I'll check Stan can uh correct me if I'm wrong but I think would trigger a third reading um of the item because we're at second reading. Can that third reading be on consent unless some interesting people pull it? Yes, sir. Okay. Uh tell me again how many appointees fill this board or this five. Okay. And that's been we've had a we've had I think we've had we had seven available. We've had consistent attendance by five and and appointments by five

since this transitions from a commission to the board. Um, and I imagine there are some individuals who are midterm. Do their terms roll over? Do we need to reappoint individuals who are um still in the middle of their term on the commission to this board? We those would stay the same. Good question. How often is the commission meeting currently? Like on average like the

They meet monthly. They meet monthly. There have been several times that we've canceled a meeting whether it was because well a couple times we didn't have a quorum or they were they were working on a task or um other issues but it's monthly typically towards the end of the year they've wrapped up their summary which is a report that you all got they won't meet in December so what would the reading need to look like if it it's it's still scheduled every month but they have the flexibility based on the needs of this commission or this body that they don't need to have a meeting that month. What would that look like?

Just like we do now, we would Jennifer Coffee, she she's our staff liaison to the equity commission and she would reach out to the chair and and have that conversation about do we don't have staff doesn't have any items to present. Are there any items you would like to discuss? If the commission or the board doesn't have any, then we would cancel the meeting. Okay. I think to that note, I'd like to make sure or find a way to ensure that we do they there is a quorum every month if they do meet. Um I think that's a problem that we've that they have been having yum quite a bit and so we need to ensure that we put the right people on the board

so they when when there's been difficulty finding a quorum is that known in advance or it's known when people don't show up and everyone else and staff are there. Um just just because I would have to look back what I recall from attending it's probably been a mix. I think we've shown up sometimes and there's not been a quorum. Um I would say over the last half year or so that's gotten much better. Um but there has been many times where we we didn't have a quorum. That also helps kind of with the reducing the number where you have to have three me three members make up the quorum out of five

which I think is again um is on us regarding who we actually put on here. And just like you said, um there's people championing at the bit to actually be on here right there as well. And those are the type of folks we need involved here. So that's what I actually kind of wondered is whether or not this potentially changes and to have maybe a couple of alternates like if we truly have a cornucopia of people that are interested in joining. I understand the quorum piece that and the struggles there, but um that may be something that we consider. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.

All right. Uh council, do we have uh as mentioned this was approved on first reading uh on I believe on November 25th. Um it was postponed on the December 9th meeting. So we are here tonight uh for consideration on second read. Move to approve. Have a motion from John. Second. I have a second from Caesar. And can I clarify this is approved as presented? So this is uh that would be the question is there are there amendments to the approval

with the I guess yeah with the friendly the friendly amendment um that has default to a monthly meeting and then council does necessary. Uh do you both accept that amendment? I do. Yeah. All right. [laughter] Yes. When the amendment is brought at the second reading, it does have to be brought back for a third. It will be brought to a third. Um that does complicate the next item on our agenda, but we will work through it. Yeah, we'll tell those people to you got to come next. All right. Uh motion passes unanimously. [laughter]

That does bring us to item 16. uh to discuss and consider action regarding appointments to the equity advisory board. Um the uh I believe we have five seats on the equity advisory board. Can we make these appointments since they we do require a third reading? I don't see why not. Okay. How many uh people do we have that are number 36? We have one, I believe, who has a continuing term. Correct. One who has a continuing term. Uh we have which means uh assuming we're keeping the one, we don't need to take action on that one. Correct. All right. So, we have five applicants in four seats.

Correct. All right. Uh I will ask the applicants to come forward if they are in attendance and introduce themselves. Uh first on my list is April Casani. Is April here? April, thank you for being here tonight. April, uh, if you would introduce yourself, tell us why you want to be on this commission. Sure. Um, advisory board.

Yeah. Whatever we're calling it. Uh, so good evening, mayor, city council, uh, members of the public and staff. Um, my name is April Casani. My pronouns are she, her, seeking appointment to the equity body. Um, a neighbor, a daughter, a sister, a feral auntie, a friend, a wife of an immigrant, a mom to an active and brilliant 16-month-old. Uh I'm a dog mom, a cat steward, proud bisexual or survivor of childhood poverty and adulthood uh domestic violence, neurode divergent, and I've been in public service for 16 years. I've hold a bachelor's in a master's in public administration and I'm also a proud union member of ASP 1624. Um I in my current role I work in municipal equity and inclusion. and I facilitate uh facilitate training sessions with staff um trying to normalize conversations related to race and other equity issues. And uh in as part of that work, part of it is uncovering uh those disparities as we're talking and seeing how we can break them and fix them as we put them back together. [snorts] Um I see my approach to equity is race centered. It's rooted in history. Uh it acknowledges intersectionality. It's community led rather than community informed. Um and I owe tremendous amount of thanks to a lot of my black and brown friends and colleagues who helped me um understand both my my place and my responsibility in this work. Um and so yeah, as Flugerville continues to grow, I hope that we can kind of keep an eye

on um preventing some of the displacement that I have seen in my own hometown. Um honoring some of the culture and some of the communities that have been here for a long time. Uh but also welcoming um relative newcomers like myself. I've only been in Flutterville just short of four years. Um so yeah, so the work here is strange time to do equity work. um trying to continue to do it in whatever language and term and body that we do it right. Um the I think the I'm interested in this conversation that I heard and I'm promising to me that there will be a third reading. Um I think changing anything right now is poor timing. um from a public perception standpoint um from somebody that was trying to learn about this change and the iteration and kind of like watching the um commission meetings that had occurred watching some of the conversation on the dascese about it. Um I'm not sure that I understand the justification especially given like our um particular point in time in history but um you know uh would be very open to other perspectives on that. Uh so I'll I'll I'll leave it at that. I'm happy to answer any questions and I just want to thank you all for your service to our community.

Thank you so much uh for being here. Um the issue is that it hasn't been working in its current current form. Hear that and that is the need for the change and we love and care about it so much that we have to look at it and make some changes to it. That's that's that's why it's not working. They're not sometimes they're not even having meetings. How effective is that? Yeah, I understand. All right. Uh council members, any questions for Missing? Sure. Why? That's uh relevant to the equity commission, but I'll let the mayor

run the meeting. part of what she just told us is her her selling point. She told you she told you what she wanted you to know. She told you she was neurode divergent and I went looked it up. So I mean okay I would I tell me about tell us about your experience as a neurode divergent individual. I mean I'm trying to ask about her. David, do you even know what that means? Yes, I know what that means. Okay. Well then have a little respect for somebody who admits that in public. April, thank you for for being here with us tonight and I appreciate you sharing the aspects of your experience. I would ask if there are any relevant questions from council about uh experiences and um plans for and goals for the equity commission.

So I was going to ask about what are your thoughts about the opportunities and challenges um with the equity advisory board or commission over the next two years that you would like to address? That's a much more appropriate question specifically to food rebell.

Sure. Appreciate the question. Um I think that uh what I'm hearing is that the the challenge is the engagement. Uh I think that we have a lot of community members that are very interested in the things that were happening here. Um but they don't necessarily uh have the time, energy, resources, understanding of what we're doing to plug in. And I think that's part of the work of folks that are equity-minded is talking about who's like who doesn't have the time to be here tonight

and trying to figure out how to engage them um and it sounds like some of that like is is is happening with those listening sessions. So um lot to praise um as far as what's already happening as well. Thank you. Other questions? Uh I'll pull Kim and make a quick statement. And I I could tell by your application that you have a lot of passion for the work and put a lot of thought and thoughtfulness in in the way that you answered it. So I really appreciate that. Welcome. Thanks so much. Thank you, Mrs. It's always nice to have a SME involved in the things that we do. All right. Our uh next individual, I I hope I don't butcher your name too much. Uh Clarissa

Facil Facilia. Yes. All right, that was my second chance. I was going to go for facilities. Don't worry, I got you. Hi. What's up, Rudy? Um, I believe you currently serve on the equity commission and you are here for reappointment. Uh, tell us uh about yourself and why you want to be reappointed.

Yes. So, um, I have been a resident of Hugo for nearly 10 years. Time passed by fast. Um, I had originally wanted to join the equity commission because I have been doing that work um, in the corporate world for a while and I'm a member of this community and so being a part of volunteering and giving back just seems kind of a natural function. Um, I will say that um, in the term the first term that I have for the equity commission uh, with full transparency you probably can go back to our initial discussion when I first got appointed. I'm always kind of waiting to see how we're going to treat these type of organizations and departments because I have been around long enough to see that a lot of times this is just used as a check the box a pretty little thing that we have.

Yeah. To say that we have right to say like oh look we are equity we're focusing on equity but we use that word but we don't even know what it actually means. Mhm.

Um the the individuals that initially um shared their insight um Craig and Rachel were speaking to equitable points. This is what we do every day, day in and day out. Um that gets lost in the sauce when people are taking these terms and using them as buzzwords to either weaponize or victimize or demonize somebody. But what we do every day is to make sure that citizens get what they need and living in a reality that not everyone starts at the same place. And so what I have been, it's funny that we are changing um not just the name. I don't want everybody to get obsessed with the name. It originally was called a task force and we had talks about that. It's important about we focusing on what the work that we're doing. And the reason why we don't have a lot of meetings is because we need work. This is the reason why when Emily had talked to us about this, I was interested cuz I was going to bounce out after this term because we were still doing the listening tour and raising up information and like I'll keep it a being. I love speaking with the citizens cuz they need to have an opportunity to raise their voice, but what are we doing to close that gap? And if we're saying when we've been pulling these reports of like, well, some of the things that the the citizens are saying, we're already doing, that's great. But how are we closing the gap on that? How are we making sure that the community is engaged to know that the work that we are doing is speaking to us, listening to them? Otherwise, we're going to see what we've been seeing these past two years, which is us struggling, all of the commissioners struggling to like get people to come to like give us their insight. Because after a while, you get fatigued. Like, how many times do I have to show up and share what's really going on to not actually see any change in that space? So, when we're moving to

being advisory board, that's exactly what I want us to do. We're not just sitting around like the May tag man, you know, we're still listening to the citizens, but we're also looking into policies, programs. When y'all know when y'all close your budget and y'all know the kind of actions and programs that you're going to be doing, fit our board inside that just like it was for UDC. You know, I got tapped and said, "Can you be a part of that advisory board?" So, you have someone who has an equitable lens. I love that. We need to do more of that. And then you'll see us actually being productive month after month, working on initiatives with y'all side by side. That is the reason why I wanted to do this work. Like doing the listening tours are great. I want us to continue to do that because the feedback from the citizens is that they appreciate that arm that they do have an opportunity for them to come and meet us. And we still have wanting to do something more equitable in how we operate which is initially we had the listening tour to have to be forced to be in person. We're still you know post pandemic not everyone's going to feel safe doing that. Not everybody has transportation to get to where we're having these meetings. So we enabled a survey for people to be online and be able to give our feedback cuz I don't care how they give us the feedback. We should be making it easier for our citizens to give us that feedback and then do right by them, but actually taking action on what they're saying over and over again. I'll stop there for a second. Do you think it would be helpful for there to be um presentations uh by the commission uh with the city council on a more consistent basis and or because so we can share ideas and and and feedback so you can have more action? How could we be more supportive? Because we don't want to lose you. You're on fire. That's

what I'm up here saying. I'm like, is she the chair? Is she the president? You want to be Anyway, um do you do you find that that would be more helpful? Or we have a work session together? How can we get on one accord and aligned, not just changing the name and all of these things? How can we start working?

Yeah, I love that you you mentioned that. I would I would love us to be more plugged into your working sessions sharing what some of the things that projects that y'all are working on using us as sounding boards. That's what we're here for. Um the people that want to be part of this board believes in fairness and making sure that the community gets what they need. That's all equity means. Um and so you need that skill set. Not everybody has it. Like it takes a lot of emotional intelligence to have an equitable mindset. And we live in a world where a lot of people just don't have that. That's not a that's not a thing to them. Some people, you know, have more different journeys than others. But when you have those group of people that actually have that skill set, utilize them. You're getting it for free, right? So you might as well utilize us. And we'll be your sounding board. We'll tell you like some of our feedback, what we've have. We just want to be able to have skin in the game cuz I've seen advisory boards also be something that we put recommendations and you're like, "Yeah, thanks." You know, it's like we also want to be taken seriously. And the only way we'll do that is if we actually cross-pollinate information and like so we can know what's going on. And like because we have these listening tours, we are also ambassadors of sharing the information that y'all are sharing with us on these programs, like the movement and the progress that we're making.

Thank you. So, I wanted I appreciate all of the insight that you provided. um like logistically what would be the top two um goals that you would have in this next year about everything that you've learned and what you think could bring action towards um the goals that what the equity commission has been working on.

Yeah. So the first thing I would make sure that our board is actually operating equitably meaning the way we work is also being equity. Obviously, you got to practice what you preach. And so, how we conduct our meetings, how do we bring people in, how do we keep people engaged, how do we educate, we are definitely open to educate and that's another area and arm that y'all can utilize us for. And so, I would say like one is how do we improve engagement? this is a good opportunity um like Jonathan said for a reboot in how we're talking about the equity advisory board and what benefits that we do offer so we're not just this shiny toy in the corner but actually in the field doing work um [clears throat] and I would say that in terms of you know us being plugged into the most pertinent programs that you've been getting the feedback from the citizens are saying, you know, they're talking a lot about traffic. It it never fails. Most time I can flip a coin and know that when I'm having a a listening tour, someone's going to mention traffic. Um, how how do how do we help with that? Like how do we help get information on the ground? How do we also use like our lenses to say like how do how are we hedging off the path from citizens of worrying about is their area going to be neglected? Who's not being heard? Those are the things that how you fill out the gaps. So I think in these first these next year, we definitely need to figure out like how we operate. And then like even for something as simple when we're doing the listening tours, we need bilingual uh flyers. That was a miss for us, right? That's what I'm talking about. We need to learn how to operate with equity first and then we can start seeing

further of like how do we get into these different programs? How do we, you know, look to see, you know, who's this system benefit, who and who could possibly neglect, how do we get the data to back that up, and then how can we help support y'all make the right decisions for the community? Thank you, council. Any other questions for Clarissa? Uh, Claro, you you mentioned uh bilingual flyers uh and obviously the the the the second language that comes up immediately to mind is the Vietnamese. Yeah, Vietnamese is Spanish.

So maybe triilingual uh flyers because we have a significant Vietnamese community in this town. We definitely do. Uh and now the last time uh I saw the IST uh stats there were something like 20 different languages spoken uh in the Flugerville IST uh by people at homes. Uh but obviously we

uh you know we can do a lot online with simultaneous translation in multiple languages but physical flyers it's very difficult to print that up in 20 languages or something like that. What are the what are the areas that uh that you think we need to concentrate on in terms of uh people who are not uh English speakers first? Uh and how can uh your experience and how can your comm your uh commission or board uh help us to uh uh to target that?

Yeah, I'm glad you asked that. So, first thing is looking at our demographics and we have that data, right? knowing like has a majority of our demographics in different areas in the neighborhood. Just like when we were going to promote the um actual listening tour, knowing these different neighborhoods and like that's how I got caught out there of like I don't have the right tools to communicate this. And I bet dollars to donuts when it comes to us being able to communicate out of what it is we're doing in the listening tour, like the the incoming channels are getting missed because we're not communicating out to all the folks in those demographics that are part of our community. Two, when we actually do make some of those changes, how are we communicating out so those people representative of those same communities actually know what we're doing? So, I would say that one, we might not, and you know, we can cut it so many different ways. You don't necessarily have to have a flyer that represents all of the languages. You do need to hit the ones that are usually neglected the most. That is what you do in equit equitable work. Who is the most vulnerable? Who are the ones who typically get left behind? And how can we prioritize prioritize those communities to get them what they need? And then we start back evening out the playing field. Does that make sense?

Because that's what it's about. So do you have any sense of uh where linguistically we should we should be focusing? No, definitely Vietnamese and Spanish and that's it. That's where we should stop or No, that's what we start first. Okay. because those communities are are neglected more than other Well, definitely when it comes to communication. Yes. Council, any other uh questions for Clarissa. Uh I thank you for your time.

Um we'll be back with you shortly, I'm sure. Uh I'd like to call our next uh applicant, Leslie Lions. Are you with us here tonight? Makes it easy though. Do we have Alfred Gomez?

We have four spots. Alfred, thank you for uh being here with us this evening. Would you introduce yourself uh and let us know why you want to be on the equity advisory board?

Sure thing. Uh hi, thanks for having me here today. My name is Alfred Gomez. Uh I'm relatively new to Flugerville. I kind of bring like a fresh perspective. Uh moved here in uh 2024. Uh I'm a first-time homeowner, a uh PF 101 graduate. Uh I actually learned about the the commission through uh Catherine and uh and Clo here actually. I kind of like learned through Osmosis on kind of what they do and some improvements to to kind of be done over here. Uh I'm super excited about the opportunity. Uh, in my day-to-day I, uh, I work for a couple based in Waco, uh, that has a company called Magnolia, Chip and Joanna Games from Fixer. I develop and create new TV shows for them. So, kind of in my my day-to-day state, I'm thinking about things like representation, making sure that folks are represented both in front and behind the camera, making sure that it just reflects real life. I think it's like the perfect opportunity to kind of like put that skill set within my community here. Uh, again, I kind of bring like that fresh new perspective. I'm relatively young. Uh, I don't see many many folks like me and kind of like my street making the move from Austin as kind of like a single homeowner. So, I'm hoping that I could kind of like bring that lens to to different things and different topics that we would talk about. Uh, I'm also super excited. I'm super fired up about the uh the ability to kind of like get our hand in the city being able to uh to make a difference here. happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Alfred. Uh, council members, do we have any questions for Alfred? I'm going to hit you up with the same question. What do you feel are the um biggest opportunities or challenges in Flugerville for the equity advisory board over the next two years?

I mean, I totally agree with the the kind of buzzword of like being able to plug in. I think we should really be opening opportunity for communication both back and forth with advisory board with city council making sure that people's voices are being heard. Uh these days in the time that we live in the internet is an amazing tool. Uh utilizing things like discussion boards, online forums, meeting over Zoom rather than requiring folks to be able to be in a physical space uh for meeting would definitely be number one. And then as like a number two, I definitely agree with Chloe here that in terms of communication, we are such a diverse community here and I think it's super important for us to be able to communicate with folks and kind of their language of need.

Thank you.

Uh Alfred, I'm very impressed with your uh the communications background and obviously that's a huge part of uh what is important for this uh this board to do, communicating in a in a two-way fashion. Um, and I note that uh uh I just discovered uh today uh that you are one of the smallest minorities you're representative of one of the smallest minorities in Flugerville which is single men who own a house that is uh according to the United States Census that is less than 1 and a half% of the population of Flugerville. So thank you for representing that very very tiny minority.

Thank you. I'm very proud. [laughter] David, any any questions in there? No questions. I I think he answered all of the questions with his uh his uh resume and his application about his very considerable communications expertise. Uh council members, any other questions for Alfred? Uh thank you for uh for introducing yourself. Thank you very much. We will move to uh well the uh the next candidate uh applicant we have is uh Claudia Torres Jiannis. I don't believe I saw Oh, there's Claudia. Who is she? Why don't you um introduce yourself to the the council?

Good evening, Mayor Weiss, council members. Congratulations, Jonathan. It's first time I'm up here um with him on the dis. Um my name is Claudia Torres Yanes and I have been a member of this commission since 2001. Um so four years, four full years and I've been through various iterations and transitions and I think one of the challenges um that I would voice um through my experience on the commission. Part of it is the um lack of continuity if you will um as the makeup of the commission changes um especially when we have you know attendance and lack of quorum certainly doesn't help um but um I have been a resident of Flugerville since 2001 so 25 years um I'm no longer the young person on the commission I'm quite feeling old now after following that young gentleman But um yeah, I'm a mother of three. All three of my kids graduated from Flugerville schools. Um I work in the fintech industry. Um I'm a dog mom. I'm fostering a dog right now. That's kind of new for me. Um

wait, Flugerville schools. Do you have any role in Flugerville schools?

Yes. So in May I did join um the board of trustees of Flugerville ISD. So, I have um I'm getting a lot of insight um on our public education system and and schools here in in our community. So, I bring that background. Um I'm um completely 100% bilingual, espanol, English is my second language. Um I learned English in pre kindergarten. I got the benefit of pre kindergarten. Um graduated from UT Austin with a master's in accounting in 1998. I started my career in the semiconductor industry in uh Motorola uh finance and accounting. I did that for about 10 years and my professional professional life now I do have a full-time job. Um I work in human resources uh for a fintech company. Um work remote, work from home. And um if you look at my attendance, I I don't think I've been the reason for the lack of a quorum. [laughter] Although I do occasionally have business travel. Um, I think it's been rare that I've I've had to miss um a scheduled meeting. And most often than not, we are asked if we have a conflict or we're going to be unable to attend so that the uh members of of this body um know in advance whether we're going to be able to have a meeting or not. So, I would add that. Um let's see what else about myself. Um I did uh achieve a certified public accountant license in Texas. I'm not a practicing CPA. Um, so I don't want to portray myself as such, but I did meet the credentials. Um, I still am licensed, although I I usually get the pass on CPE because I'm not a practicing um, accountant. I don't it's not required for the job that I do in my my professional life right now. Um, and I um I considered whether to reapply to be honest because I'm just like all of the challenges that you heard up here. I'

I've also um seen them and struggled a bit. Um but at the end of the day, I still feel that this is very important because of how I've seen uh a commitment to inclusion and helping people achieve their full potential still matters. That's still the community that um I want to see in the future here for my children and their children. And I don't want to see this uh body uh lose um momentum, lose its ability to make any progress while I share in the frustration about you know what what have we accomplished because sometimes it feels like you know we don't have a lot to show. But um I reject that. Um I know just from my uh participation on the commission and and the network that I've been able to establish with with different leaders um you know that we have made progress. Um we've impacted programming and I would like to see that continue with parks and wreck and like the music selection that comes to Deutschenfest for example or voter empowerment in our community. I think we all know voter turnout is um very disappointing. Um and so uh we've been able to get voter registration um at various cities events um nonpartisan and just in an effort to get folks to register to vote and to be knowledgeable about election dates and participate because at the end of the day that's the best way uh regardless of your background um to make your voice heard and and make an impact in in your community. So, those are two areas that are uh super important um to me and in making this community welcoming and inclusive and the type of community that uh attracted me 25 years ago.

Audi, thank you for introducing yourself to us again. Uh council members, do we have any questions or uh do you need council member Ryan to repeat her question? [laughter] Well, I think you you did answer it. Um your the top two goals are are those um do you believe there actions can be taken in this next year to really move those goals forward?

Oh, absolutely. Um I I don't even think it's that difficult and like I've said, it's already begun. Um so, it's just a matter of building on what we've done. Um, another item that I didn't speak to that, um, I would consider also super important and where progress has been made because, um, you could look at your June agenda. There was a city proclamation for, um, I think it was gun safety awareness month. Um, you know, again, um, gun violence affects all communities sadly, and as our community grows, you know, we might expect to see more of that. So that is an an area of education and opportunity for us to ensure the public knows and that we highlight the need for secure storage for example of of guns so that um you know people that are either a danger to themselves or to others um you know we we can be protected and that people are being responsible gun owners. Um that is another um area I think is super important and fits within the area of public safety and and wellness that is easy um to educate the public on

a serious issue that a lot of people um have gotten behind. So I appreciate you carrying that. Council members, any other questions for Claudia?

All right. I thank you for being here with us tonight. Uh, I'll ask one last time if uh Leslie Lions is in attendance. Um, it's not required that you attend when you submit an application, but I think it is highly advantageous. I would ask council members if anyone is familiar with Leslie if you would like to speak on her behalf. This is an item to appoint uh four members to the equity advisory board. Uh, would you entertain a motion, Mayor? I would

uh motion to approve Alfred, April, Cares, and Claudia to fill the um four positions on the equity whatever we're calling it. I second that. I have a motion from Rudy and a second from Kimberly. Do we need to specify specific terms? So, only because one of the terms will end December 31st, 2026, and the other three will end 2027. Okay. Um, Claudia, you okay with coming back? Yeah. Okay, we'll put we'll make her that uh Claudia in the the short term and the other three in the two-year term.

Not like she doesn't have another position she's doing all the time. We we have acceptance from your second I just want to um empower um this body. This is this is a reboot. This is a reset. And so, um, take off running. Um, and we want to see you often. We want to hear from you. We want to know what you're doing. And we want to know before proactively ways that we can support you in the mission. We We have to have this. Thank you.

And I do want to I do want to point out since you mentioned that, I have appreciated through the years um the members coming up and having conversations with that um with councils um and staff regarding these things. So, we appreciate that. Continue the good work.

Absolutely. This is a a board that uh can provide us with uh uh the ability to have those uncomfortable conversations that allow us to grow. Uh there are many different ways those can happen. I was thinking earlier uh today, I don't know if this is an idea, but uh we had a zoning case that uh uh the property was in peach outlined in blue with a yellow star. I have no idea if that is suitable for those of uh the public who are color blind. Um so make sure we're thinking about our um individuals with disabilities as well. Those are the things that I don't know enough about and I rely on you to educate me so that we can all make great decisions together. Um and uh council members, you have a vote in front of you. Mang, I hear everyone can see everything in burnt orange. So, [laughter]

no one needs to see any other colors. That's That's what you're telling me. All right. Uh we have a 61 vote for those uh four individuals. Uh thank you and welcome to the equity advisory board. Uh we look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Uh that will take us to item 6E. discuss and consider action to authorize the Flugerville Community Development Corporation to provide community engagement grant to the parks and recreation department or the city of Flugerville [clears throat] to improve the infrastructure of the Wells Point Park utilizing $1,516,850 of fund balance dollars from PCDC to fund the project. We have PCDC Executive Director Jerry Jones here to present. Uh Mr. Jones,

good evening. Uh, mayor and council, I believe I'm going to go against policy and say happy new year even though it's already almost February. Um, the the parks and recreation department of the city of Flugerville submitted a community engagement grant application for the Wells Point Park for the PCDC board's review. The park and recreation department provided a presentation to the um PCDC board of directors. The board held a public hearing and approved the project and expenditures and authorized the executive director to move forward to the city council for approval. This is an authorized EDC project under Texas Local Government Code section 505152 uh for the amount of 1 million516,850. These are for improvements to the restrooms, the field lights, and also lightning detection. Um we do have a very shy applicant uh here to talk about parks if you have any questions, which is our parks director, Shane. He's not.

And Mr. Jones, if I may ask, what was the uh the vote at the PCDC meeting? It was unanimously supported. Unanimously supported. Thank you. Council members, do we have any questions for Mr. Jones or for Mr. M? I'd like to ask Mr. My question or two. And this is regarding the uh parks project. It is. Shane, it's great to see you this evening. Thank you all Council. First, I want to know if you've seen this great news. I haven't.

On the front of the community impact today, what does it say? [laughter] Did I win an award? Pretty sure that wasn't on the agenda, but yes. See what we've got. Oh, this is great. Uh and uh Mr. Rogers, your question. The uh the question I have is uh how much of the the uh the money is being spent on lights versus how much is being sent spent on field rehab versus how much is being spent on improvements to the uh the restroom areas.

Yeah. So um I'm getting to that. So we we have about 600,000 or so for a restroom, about 900,000 for lights, and then we have a little around 200 not not sorry not 200,000 21,000 for lightning detection. 20 only 21,000 for the fields themselves. Just the lightning lightning fields for the light lightning protection. Lightning detection. Sorry. Okay. Okay. Lightning the lights is right around 900,000. Okay. So none of this is actually for the rehab of the fields. that's that's coming out of the parks and recck budget.

So, we have rehabbed the field. So, um in 2024, we did about 100 almost 100,000 in perimeter fence improvements. And then in 2023 and 2024, we we split the fields in half. So, we did fields 1 2 and three. Um summer of 2023 for about 240,000. And then 230,000 we did fields 4 through 10. It sounds like those are a different set of fields and they are, but it's really about the same amount of real estate. It's just four through 10 or they have smaller Yeah, we've broken that up into smaller fields. Yeah. Is that adequate for those fields? I know I hear that those soccer players run up and down those fields a lot and they get a lot of use.

Well, so as somebody who goes out there and coaches out there twice a week, I've got to say that um the [clears throat] light improvements will be significant. Um we have the generators that have been I guess grandfathered in for a better life term. Yeah. [laughter] We've allowed to be out there from that. So it's made of difference. Um the fields mainten I I mean we used to talk about 1849 and say okay we're talking about equity you know what what are we doing for the other areas from there. It is astounding to see how much of a significant improvement um since we um renegotiated our agreement, you know, with the folks out there and improved those fields. Those fields are phenomenal. They really are. They're in great shape.

So, you're in you're in good shape for funding for the fields themselves. We're doing great for the field itself that that Well, that's that's old. Yeah. Not surprised.

24 years old. So, y'all support with the general fund dollars with what we're doing as far as um the chemical and the mowing and maintenance of that is ongoing after we did the field improvements that we did in 2023 and 2024. So, we've been peacemailing this together for sure in some ways, but to do a facility like this um from scratch would have cost us a lot more so far than about 1.1 million and another 1.5 here. So, um, we've been very fortunate to be working with PCDC, um, to get some of the support for these improvements. So, I I remember when I was on PCDC in the dark ages, we we would give the about $100,000 a year. So, you're getting a whole lot more than that from Yeah, I appreciate PCDC.

I'm glad you're not on the board anymore. I think actually I think the last year I think we only uh we only voted $89,000 from parks department last year. Yeah. Um [laughter] but um so I just want to make sure that this PCDC grant this is for a a one-time improvement. This is not for uh for continuous program usage things like that. This is going to be lights, lightning detection, rehab on the the on the the bathrooms and then no further obligation by PCDC to do anything else related to this project

for this park. at least what we've identified at this time. And I think it's important to point out so that we we believe this park is an economic driver. Um it over the last year had 97 different zip codes represented as far as what we were able to track through Placer. Five of those were out of the state representing more than 500 attendees and we had 21,000 users either go to Stonehill directly before or directly after they were at this park. So, it's an econ it's an economic driver as far as a park and we feel it just aligns directly with what uh the 4B funds are used for. Yeah. It's not um you think it is. It is. Yeah.

And it's it's fascinating where um Flugerville soccer fields utilization in the region itself where where this is in this is one of those OG parks that people are cognizant of. um have been greatly impressed with its utilization, its revitalization for better lack of term, and where it sits in the city. It has easy access to all sorts of different areas for us um to have folks go ahead and patronize our other areas, our businesses. So, that park is almost 40 years old now, right? Yeah. Yeah. I believe the field itself, it hasn't 80 I thought it was 88, but maybe it was 86.

So, 38 years old. [cough] What [clears throat] we're tracking is [laughter] we haven't we haven't done an improvement minus the ones I just mentioned. We haven't done an improvement in 24 years from from our what we were able to track back. So it's it's been a long time coming for that part. Council members, any other questions on Thank you very much. Enjoy that the newspaper as this is uh this is an item for action. I will accept a motion. Motion approves. Six 6E. Second.

All right. Okay. motion in a second on 6E like screw people. There we go. [laughter]

There we go. Uh motion passes unanimously. Uh Jerry, don't go far. I won't. Our next item is 6F. [clears throat] to discuss and consider action to approve a professional services agreement with Jones Lang Lasowl uh Incorporated, that's JLL, for $397,350 to provide owners representative representative services associated with project Nexus and authorize the Flugerville Community Development Corporation Board to approve the executive director to execute the same. Mr. Jones,

again, mayor and council, uh good evening. Uh between June and September of 2025, the PCDC conducted a rigorous selection process for the project nexus owners representative. A joint committee reviewed six national firms and ultimately selected Jones Lang Las JLL. The P the PCDC board unanimously approved this recommendation and the city council uh subsequently authorized negotiations with the council's um with the council's authorization. It was requested that PCDC and city staff uh specifically the executive director and city and assistant city manager Baron collaborate to finalize the terms of the scope of service for the agreement. Both the executive director and assistant city manager Baron have reached an agreement on the scope of services positioning JLL to support project Nexus officially pending city council's approval. We also have with us tonight uh James Burrky who is the senior vice president and national lead uh for JLL civic development advisory team as well as Sylvia Klein who is the senior vice president uh for their market plan uh advisory service lead here as well along with their team and I'll have them come up and they can introduce their other team members. Hello ladies and gentlemen. Um, James Berky, do we do we know if we have any slides available or if not we can cover it.

Okay. Um, and let me let me say um the slides were supposed to be submitted. Uh, I was unavailable attending to a family concern which is why those slides were not provided. So, um, we have slides. We got Well, I got a good team then, I guess. Uh, that was definitely saved [laughter] by Trista once again. You better help your southern friend. If Lisa is listening, I'm sorry. Uh, [laughter] thank you.

Well, thank you, Mr. Jones. Much appreciated. Um, and thank you, council members, uh, very much for having us here today. Uh, we are thankful to be here. Um, and we understand that Project Nexus is uh a really important uh unique opportunity to advance the core goals of the city, PCDC, and the community. Um, I'd like to make a couple introductions if if I can. We want to uh make sure that you all know who we are. Uh hopefully you'll we'll be seeing each other quite a bit over a period of time um and to be able to answer any questions that you might have uh from the get-go. Uh first of all um I'll go in order of the slide. We've got Sean Blanquist right here um in front of us. Uh Sean will be acting as the day-to-day project lead for the project. He's uh one of our best project managers nationally. Uh and his background is in the private sector working in construction and pre-development uh for a global uh development firm. Um is myself. I lead our civic reinvestment and housing practice across the country for Jones Langal. Uh we have Sylvia Klene who you'll hear from more in a second. Um she will lead um all things related to the master planning and market coordination, how that how different development elements may relate to um uh a real estate plan and roll out. Um Steve Garvin also is here tonight. Um Steve is um resides out of our Austin office um deeply connected to the market here in central Texas um and is involved in um a whole slew of different uh activities both from the public side and understanding a lot of our private sector actors in this region and how they might interplay with the project nexus project. Um, and then Nina Ferrell, who couldn't make it here tonight, is also based at Austin and

she's, for lack of a better uh term, she's attached to the hip to Steve. So, um, you have a kind of double resources when it when it comes to both of them. Oh, and I don't want to forget Jack. Jack is also based out of Central Texas. Um, and um, his claim to fame is that he uh had when he was in college or when he was in high school, he went uh swimming in Lake Flugville. [laughter] Uh real quick in terms of who we uh who we are um again like I said uh JL is a it's a it's a global firm. It's second largest real estate services firm in the world. Um but we pride ourselves in having a deep local knowledge that connects to that global platform. So the fact that we've been involved in we're currently assigned uh on several different assignments with the city of Austin for example. Um we're working on a similar strategy uh in terms of a a large redevelopment project uh there. It's 125 acres from which I'm uh taking executive leadership on that assignment on behalf of the city um as well as uh in San Marcos and with the Texas state. So we're deeply connected to this region for 30 plus years um and very much currently. um our broad platform of capabilities. Obviously, I want to uh emphasize that because I think it's important to be able to connect whatever happens in this project to what's really going on in the investment community and developers uh that may be proposing in different elements of the project as we get towards that phase and shoot for that.

So, that's why you know I've got to say please I was very I mean I think a lot of us are very well aware of your work um and the reputation of this industry. Um, in fact, what is it special about Flugerville and this specific project that really intrigues y'all that you're saying, "Hey, wait a minute. We want to make a four-way here make an difference on what this actually, I guess, reached to its potentials and capabilities." So, what's special about this project compared to like say we work with the city of Austin, city of Atlanta, city of Chicago, city of Seattle. Uh, why city of Flutterville? Y'all saw something here in particular. What is it? It's a fair um question. Do you mind?

Yes, please. I'll let you answer first. [laughter] I get to

get excited. He gets excited. You know, honestly, I I think our teams as we partner more and more, we love these opportunities where you can find a distinct location and make it a distinct location. So, this place is different than everywhere else we've been. And a lot of a lot of the joy behind that is we get to keep this place different, right? You're not Austin. You're not California. You're not Atlanta. You're Flickerville. So, how do we keep who you are at your core here? And the places where we find organizations that think that same way are just really exciting because it lets us bring, you know, we're going to bring our national expertise. We'll bring the global platform. We'll bring all of that. But what's most important is you all right here, the people that are listening online, the people who aren't in this room, making sure their voices are heard and fed in so that this place stays this place. Yeah, I I honestly like the challenge uh working in smaller communities. We do work in a lot of smaller cities by comparison to those large ones. Um and there's a lot of advantage of creating an identity. Um being able to pull from authentic place, an authentic kind of history and understand that a place like this is growing. Um for example, the city of SeaTac is half your size. You have 20ome languages in the school district. they have 44, right? And they're trying to understand who are we? How do we make sense in this large metropolitan area? We're one of the only minority majority cities in the in the state of Washington, right? Um but for them, we've been able to work towards this um international sort of nexus that creates a kind of a downtown that they've never had. You you have one, they they don't. um that really is about creating an identity that they've never been able to have but at the same time very authentic to them. And so for us, we like to look at this and say, okay, how do we bring the real estate piece,

all the math, the perform all I love all of you all who love Excel spreadsheets as much as we do. Um, but also that what's the human outcome of that? What is the impact on kind of actual day-to-day life? Um, and there's more of that in a community this size, right? Because we may be able to have really big impact on like six square blocks in Atlanta, but that's only six square blocks of Atlanta, right? And in Flugerville, if you're working on a project like Project Nexus, um you really are creating a face and a whole set of experiences people are going to have for generations. So, are the three of you based out of Chicago? No. Um I uh am based out of Los Angeles. Okay.

Um realist my wife says I actually live on a plane, but [laughter] but uh but I'm based out of Los Angeles. So, kind of in the southeast, so I'm based out of Atlanta, but I do have team members that are here local. So we're leveraging them to really when we talk about the community engagement arm to make sure that they are here as close as possible and are getting to be that boots on the ground for us. And then of course I know James as he introduced other people we have team members that are Austin. We have team members that are you know all living in Lake [laughter] we're trying to keep them out of the water this Yeah. So you can see we're kind of split half and half right. We got very national piece, but then also a a deeply local piece.

So, what input or support do you need from the city council to help this project be successful? I'll be back to answer that question more fully. Um, do you do you want my little note from the piece of paper?

I have a Well, the thing is that's that could either be a short answer or a very long answer. Um, well, that that's a good one. We for starters we would like to engage with um Miss Fusilier and the the equity team. I think that would be a really good opportunity for us to get connected to a lot of the kind of stakeholder input around you know as we're talking about the authentic elements of place. Um really understanding kind of that grassroots piece. Um, I also think that it will be good for us to um get we would like to be able to pull you aside in a non-quorum uh type situations where we could have some level of ad hoc or one-on-one conversations to understand what you already know about the community and this project in order to um be able to at the very front end get some really good insight. But I think this in our experience this is a long process, right? It takes several years to go from community input um to get a a lot of a lot of times we get through a lot of really cool ideas that don't pencil. And so then there becomes a lot of kind of uh workshopping about how do we get what we do want even though we don't get everything we want and how do we make these priorities before we go out to market. Um and that will be something that we'll need some leadership input on. Um and probably patience, right? One of the things that um a lot of projects nationally are running into these days is construction costs are really high. Labor is there's a lot less labor than there was uh previously and the cost of materials has has gone up. So what that means is a lot of the things we're trying to do on a just raw does it pencil for development um they have impacts and so that that means we have more hard decisions than we've had previously. And so I would say that that's one of the things where your leadership will become really important.

Yeah. If if you don't mind, if I can double down on the thought around the equity group. I'll say group knowing that you haven't quite named them yet. Um really when we talk about community engagement, it is all about meeting people where they are and that from what we heard today, they're already doing so much of that work. So piggybacking on some of that good work, making sure that we are being equitable in how we are engaging with the community is so important because that's how you gain consensus and make sure we don't miss anyone. So I I just I had sorry I had to piggyback on it. Just it's so important.

So you um you mentioned a couple of things that I wanted to touch on. Um vision versus reality. So there people have different visions, you know, going into this about what it could be and you're help you're here to help us see what could be the reality. So um you know, how do you deal with that when the vi the reality isn't going to fit with the vision or as you said being patient? It may not fit with the vision for a certain amount of years.

Yeah. There, you know, we really start with an a holistic approach. I flipped to our quick approach slide to walk through what that looks like because that's a challenge that we are dealing with with every client we have today, whether it's public sector or non-public. It's just the nature of the business of real estate. And it really starts with defining what your strategy, vision, and goals are. And making sure we have clear go and no go for you all and for this community. What are you going to say yes to? What are you absolutely not going to say yes to? Defining those parameters is really important. And that's when we then go to the market, talk through really the analysis around demand, what is feasible on the site, how does it all fit and come together. And that's where we're at that point, we can go back to that list of criteria and make sure you're still getting your yeses out of it. There might be some compromises, but at least we're hitting the priorities as we move forward. So, it's a it's kind of a step-by-step process. We go forward a couple steps, we might take one step back. We keep going forward a couple steps, we take another step back. That's why that patience is so important to make sure that strategy is always aligning with the market and the demand and making the whole thing successful.

Yeah. And I'll add a little bit um of granularity to that. So, one of the ways that we approach that in practice is that upfront we'll define uh with the city and PCDC what are what are the criteria for success? Like what are our objectives here? And then every time we have to make decisions, we rank it against those things. So instead of being like, hey, somebody said we needed a conference center and I really want to put it here, right? Like does that actually fit with the objectives that have been outlied outlined in consensus with really a number of stakeholders across the board and we've been able to come to agreement on that? And if it's not in alignment, we need to figure out do we miss something or maybe there's another location for that conference center making up a situation, right? or maybe it does or maybe it works squarely with it. And then we we kind of work through that um on that kind of much more objective basis of saying what are our goals? How does it fit? And this is all written, signed, agreed to well ahead of time so that there's kind of there's no reimagination of what the project uh group all all want and so we're all pulling together in the same direction.

Obviously you guys are working in a lot of different markets, a lot of different legal environments. Um, who is your local person who makes sure that you're on board with the limitations of uh Texas economic development law? We're not lawyers. Um, so I'm not going to make the argument that we go through a legal process. I assume you have lawyers engaged to handle this sort of thing.

Uh, we will we are not going to be overseeing any lawyers as part of the scope of this work. Um however um we typically work handinhand with um the a legal council of the individual cities that we work with andor development uh agencies um and we do have a lot of experience um not not I don't lead the Texas office but we have several hundred people who work out of the Austin office and and other Texas offices who do have a lot of deep experience working in development. uh under um not only that specific component of Texas law, but all of Texas law as it relates to real estate development. So, uh we will rely on them to make sure that we're starting off right on the right track with all of that. Um, as we get farther down the line, uh, when we get to actual executable elements that may require additional legal, uh, review, um, we'll work through we'll typically work that through with the city or or any sponsoring agency to make sure that that is in compliance.

Councilman, uh, the entire agreement has been reviewed by uh, our um, our attorney. uh he continues to be a part of this process as well. I'm I'm not concerned about this agreement, but I'm concerned about what what we we envision and making sure that what we envision is something that is in line with the our statutory limitations. So, I I've got no problems with with you guys. I just want to make sure we're buttoning this up and we don't get we don't get sideways anywhere.

Yeah. Our attorney has been literally a part of what can and cannot be done throughout this entire process and has advised us according to state law on what could be done from the perspective of the uh PCDC. So, it's not even up to them. They can say that we could put a roller derby uh throughout the entire 50 something acres. The attorneys going to look over at us and say, "You guys can do that if y'all want to wear [snorts] orange suits with stripes." because everybody's going to jail. So, uh, we, our attorney is wellversed in that and has corrected some of the things that I've seen from previous emails up to this present day as it relates to the law that we have to abide by.

All right. I want to make sure we we we got our our P's and Q's watched on that. All right. Thank you, council. Any other questions related to this agreement?

I love the energy. I love the answers. Um, the enthusiasm is real. Um, it's it's amazing. I mean, like I said, your your your reputation precedes you and um to hear the the ability to leverage your national um connections with your local aspects right here is going to make something very unique and special here in Kville. And it's speaks volumes trying to figure out how to leverage the assets we have here in the community which the most important ones are the citizens here and how to incorporate them in what you're doing. I am absolutely excited that you are here process.

I'm sorry. I'm excited that that you are here. I was excited to see that you had put in on this project and I was especially excited to hear your enthusiasm uh for how big of an impact this project will make uh within our city. I think you understand the assignment here. Very excited to hopefully bring you on board if I uh can entertain a motion. So moved. Second. I have a motion from Rudy and a second from David. Thank you for traveling here. Thank you all. Thank you. I did live in Los Angeles for a time. So it's a big city, very different from here. [laughter] It's a nice non-stop flight, right? Exactly. It's true. That airport.

No.

Motion passes. unanimously. Uh that brings us to item 6G. Uh this is to discuss and consider action to approve a resolution titled a resolution of the city of Flugerville, Texas, approving a right ofway license and maintenance agreement with Lakeside Meadows, Flugerville Master Community, Inc., a Texas nonprofit corporation uh for Lakeside Meadows phases six and seven pursuant to the Flenderville Code of Ordinances Chapter 96 right ofway management division five right ofway licenses I don't think that's just a B numeral five we'll go with it uh looks like we've got uh Gordon Haw here our engineering manager

um mayor and members of the council it's great to be with you here here this evening this is to approve a resolution uh for a license agreement that would authorize the city manager to exe execute the agreement. Um the developer of the Lakeside Meadows 6 and 7 will be building three streets to the local standards uh that conform to the city's requirements for 50 ft of rideway. And then the remainder of the streets in the subdivision which are denoted as alleys will be dedicated as public rideway but will have less than 50 ft of rideway at least 25 ft minimum to allow sufficient access for emergency vehicles, refuge vehicles in the public. The product that's in this uh phases six and seven is an attached single family home. And within those alleys, the um the lency desires to do stamped and colored asphaltic pavement. And they also would like to have landscape irrigation and decorative crosswalks at specific locations within the subdivision. And because it is city rideway and those are non those are enhanced infrastructure, a license agreement is required to allow them to put those improvements in city rideway but on the other hand makes them responsible for the maintenance. So they're responsible for a period of not less than 30 years. And this uh diagram shows that three of the streets are local streets in accordance with city of Flugerville standards and the rest of them are alleys providing access to the individual homes which are the attached single family homes. Do you have

questions about this license agreement? So Gordon, as I understand it, this allows the developer to uh go a little above and beyond as long as they're willing to maintain it, and it gets to stay there as long as they're willing to maintain it. And if they decide not to, they've got to return it to city standards. Yes. The requirement of the agreement is uh they're obligated to maintain it for 30 years, and if they uh at the end of those 30 years, if they don't want to keep maintaining it, they're required to return it to our standards. All right? So in 206. [clears throat and laughter] That's right. Council members, any any questions on this side?

After the 30 years, does it is it just continuing until someone terminates it or how does that work? It they do have the option to renew it. The term of the agreement is 30 years and they could renew it at that point. Uh that is their first opportunity to terminate the agreement. They don't have that option before that period of time. So yeah, that's correct. But even if they uh were returning it back uh to city standard, the width is never going to be That is correct. Isn't that Isn't that an ongoing problem for traffic?

That would be the one part of it that could not be turned back over. You know, decorative concrete or pavers or something of that nature can be returned to asphalt, which is more typical for local streets. But the width would be an ongoing issue. So Gordon, to that point, um we have some very interesting streets in Highland Park and um the the size and the the width that we're talking about here is not analogous to the streets in that area, is it?

I'm not familiar with your subdivision, but it's certainly not analogous to standard city public streets. These would be 25 foot wide right away. So, but what if I understood correctly, [clears throat] they would always have to maintain that because they could never Exactly. turn it back to city requirements. It's just other concrete pavers and um well, their only option at the end of the 30 years is to renew it

or to return it to asphalt, at which time the city could take over it, but that wouldn't change the width. What's the renewal option? Is it like it would it be determined at that time? How many year? Is it like another 30 years or is it would it be determined at that time? It would be determined at that time, but it certainly could be 30 additional years. And at that time it would be with the the HOA most likely. Yes. Generally, you're going to want a long term. the parties intend to be bound for a long term

um because that duty is placed on the property owners association to maintain. So I'm just curious um what is it about concrete pavers that is less desirable than asphalt that we would if they didn't want to maintain it they would have to return it to that state. Well, I would say it is more desirable from an aesthetic standpoint. Absolutely. Okay. [laughter] But it is less desirable from a maintenance cost and [snorts and clears throat] that there in lies the city's interest. And so they're I mean I think I just wanted to be clear to the mayor's point. If they're willing to go ahead to do it, put it normal,

it's going to be nicer, but it's going to cost more to maintain those pavers. You know, if it turns into cobblestone, they got to fix it. Um and and we don't want to be paying to maintain that. It would certainly be inequitable with the rest of the uh the maintenance across the city. Absolutely. Can we do we have an example of the product? You you mentioned the product a specific project. No, I'm so sorry. You mentioned the product. What What are What are they pavers? I I think you're probably familiar with the the bricks. Yeah, that is one option. I didn't know if you slide with that. Okay. Yeah, you can use stamp. You can use favors. We're not talking about We're not talking about hexagons here.

No, this is currently existing in the phase two and three section like side meadows. So, it's the exact same thing that's already been um installed in uh sections two and three, but it's just being installed in new phases six and seven. Okay. So, do we we already have the same agreement with two and three? Correct. Right. Yeah. with the amount of decorative elements in that phase is much less than in this space, but it does exist. Who's the developer?

Uh we are DRB group. We're I'm out of Austin here. Uh we're formerly known as Brightland Homes. Um so we are the single family residential developer for phases two and three and six and seven. This is an attached town home product that's going to be going in this section. Um and we're currently still under development. um working with the engineering team um through approvals for the horizontal construction. Right now, when you say attached town homes, how many town homes do you are going to be attached? Um there's four there's a forplex and a sixlex. Okay. These are uh owned or leased units. These are um you can buy them. They're not going to be build or rent. It's um sale for sale to owners. Thank you.

We're we're very missing middle building equity. Yeah. I mean, that's how it got started. Yeah. Literally. On that note, uh, council, do I have any motions? Motion to approve 6G thing as approved. 6G thing. All right, I've got a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I'll second from Jonathan.

Was presented. Excuse me. That is uh 61 approved. Thank you. And looking forward to the enhanced product. Thank you. There is no 67. I heard that. [laughter] That brings us to item 6H. Discuss and consider action to approve a resolution nominating a candidate for the board of directors of the Travis Central Appraisal District. Uh Trista, can you provide us an an overview?

Yes. So, TCAD received two resignations from their board. So, there are now uh more openings. I know we just did this, so we are doing it again. if council feels so inclined to make a nomination. Um, as last time, each taxing entity can make up to two nominations and then the ballot will come back at a future meeting. I understand they may be having trouble with meeting quorum as well with their um it [clears throat] sounds their resations. Wait, are we trying to say that the the state may have put more um rules and obligations on them and they may not want to deal with that? That's interesting. That's weird.

Do we have any insight on whether these these are not the newly appointed members? These are were No, these I don't know which ones. So, what I know is that these terms have uh end December 31st of 2027. So, they're not Yeah. Oh, well. And normally terms are how long? I am not sure. I think two or three years. Yeah, it could be. So, if it's two years, it would be a new one. Would you accept your nominations? Uh, I would accept nominations. Would you like Elizabeth Mononttoya? Yeah. All right. Would you like to do that in the form of a motion? Yes, sir. May I uh I'd like to make a motion that we nominate Elizabeth Mononttoya. Second. I have uh three seconds, I think.

Three seconds. [laughter] David Kim and myself for certain. Are there two there's two positions? [clears throat] Okay. Uh that passes unanimously. Do we intend to make a second uh nomination? We mentioned someone named Melody Ryan before. I politely declined. I think I think we're going to have from my perspective, I don't want to split the votes for Elizabeth because it's so hard for we're going to have a hard enough time getting one. Let's not let's not be greedy.

Uh we will leave that be. That takes us to item 6. I discuss and consider action to approve a resolution regarding financial reporting in connection with the annual budget, bond funded projects, capital improvement projects, and escrow and impact fee funds. Uh this was a item requested uh by council members uh I believe um Miss Ryan, Mr. Rogers. To be clear, uh the agenda item I requested was the quarterly financial work session that on September 23rd, five individuals on council head expressed um interest in having a quarterly financial work session that we had uh indicated [clears throat] was going to begin on the second meeting in November. And so that was my request. Um, this item had been discussed at a previous meeting to be postponed until January because it had, well, I had intended that we were going to have a financial work session to look at the reports that the staff said that they were working on in regards to um, bond projects and CIP and escrow and impact fees. So, we could see what type of um, reporting that they had along with the the financial statements for September, which I believe is currently um, undergoing the audit. So that was my request was uh to have the quarterly work session um and to have the first one to start. So um the you know so while I still would like to see these um reports I was hoping to have the actual discussion of the quarterly um reports and and status of those areas um for September of 2025. In my review of the meeting minutes, uh it seemed as though action was taken to postpone the discussion of whether or not uh to direct staff to create those reports. Uh I believe staff has been

working on other reports as well as a dashboard. Uh and the question before us to my understanding would be if we are satisfied with the reports that are available and have been provided or if there are more reports necessary to be created to be presented at a a future date. Um we haven't done quarterly financials um in this meeting. We provide those for you also online are quarterly. We are adding to that and I sent you some information today. We're adding to that many newer items that have been requested by council member Ryan and you will see those um posted online um as soon as they're finished for Q1.

What's our uh our ETA on those reports on that? When is that going to be posted?

It's every quarter um of January. So the so I don't know if this is the appropriate time to talk about it but the the uh goal of the financial the quarterly financial work session is to take a look at those reports and have a discussion um about where are we with our bond funded projects um what have we achieved what what is um upcoming in the next quarter or um two quarters where are we with our capital improvement projects and to just to give an update of where we are um so that we can have a a you know a quick update Just like we have asked about some other items where we like to get feedback from the the public. This is also giving the public feedback about where we are with specific projects. What's you know what what have we achieved with you know the 2018 bond or the 2020 bond or the 2015. I'm not sure like what is left to to complete. And this would just be that opportunity to review um what is available um for the quarter including the the balance sheet which we typically only see um in an audit once a year. So you know what is our cash position? What's our outstanding you know debt? Just those types of things. So we could have the reports we get the reports from PCDC um in those fashions. Um the the reports that we get um in our weeklies are uh very abbreviated. They it doesn't include all of the departments or even all of the funds. And so this would just be uh something just a little bit more comprehensive and that we could have an opportunity to ask questions and that the public could see those as well. Serena, correct me if I'm wrong, but part of uh what I'm hearing council member Ryan speak about, we were already looking at developing that into a dashboard and um and that was going to be based on um the reports and the data that you already have available that

you're and not not making new work, but work that is actually been congratul Oh no, let me be very clear that was new work. We did we did create a dashboard for CIP. What we're doing for the quarterly financials that we've been working on for 3 months is to add the escrow the CIP and the bond information to the quarterly and to be more transparent is to place that those online. So we finished that in January. We place it online. So yes, we've added quite a bit um [clears throat] to that reporting and the first time it's a lot easier to measure going forwards than it is going backwards. That's what I was about to add. So we started doing that at the request and that's been a quarter and so we'll be able to provide that at the first quarter.

And and we're expecting that uh first quarter obviously it is January but uh by the end of the month we expect that to be posted online. Okay.

Okay. So again, um I appreciate that the the reports will be available, but the other goal is just to have um some additional context or color or to have opportunities to ask questions. um you know just I don't know 30 45 minutes however however long just to have to to review those in advance and and have um an opportunity to ask whatever questions we have rather than um you know just it's great to have it online but just wanted to have like an actual conversation about some of these things and an opportunity for the um the public to hear the the updates. Um, [clears throat] so,

so, um, are we looking at then the, uh, the possibility of we get the report, it'll be available online at the end of January. We're looking at putting this in as a work session item in the first or second week of February. Well, I was going to say, you know, I I, you know, Yeah, I guess I'm the second youngest here now. Oh my gosh, I've been here for way too long [laughter] now. Um, but we correct me if I'm wrong. Don't we get updates? Is it quarterly every every thirds or something like that on the CIP and we do not every Yeah.

I have not seen any reports any quarterly reports for the be beyond the the finan the whatever month end is a quarter end we get um that financial report. I'll check when the last CIP quarterly. I'm also missing the top five people over there at the moment. So the CIP quarterly may not happen this month. So like additionally like our our quarterly reports. It doesn't include the capital improvement. No, you're talking quarterly financial financial. Yeah, the financial talking quarterly CIP. Did you are you saying that you're missing five staff members?

Well, the top four of public work. So kind of my CIP entire team at the moment. So, um, it just may be I may not be exactly on time on the CIP quarterly to be real frank. We'll do our best. Well, that's the hazard of craning people up so badly that so well that they start February. They all leave in Moss and take over another city. So, so let's let's Yeah, let's let's go ahead and

why don't we get I mean, my suggestion would be this. um they're going to get us a report at the end of the month and we can have a discussion about um based on whatever you see in that report. We can [snorts] have a discussion about if we want [clears throat] to have these meet. I know David you proposed February or something like that as well, but let's just see if there have the meeting before we have the report.

Well, we we had discussed in in September to I had the discussion was about a subcommittee that would be meet quarterly and five people had said that they were interested in the information. And so we had said actually it was Doug's suggestion well this sounds more like a quarterly financial work session that we should start and everyone agreed that it should be that it was going to be the second meeting in November. So whenever it's appropriate to have that um I think it's good to have a regular check-in on our financials. We have you know a billion dollars in our CIP you know $2 billion in our in our debt. And so it's just you know good opportunity to give updates to the public about what where the status is. Um we, you know, we get discussions as things come up, but it's a good time to look at everything as a whole. What have we accomplished? Um and to have that communication with with the the public, you know, to the the point of the the items that they talked about, you know, what what are the street projects that are working, you know, or I mean in in progress or give updates about what what we have done and what we're looking at doing and um just, you know, big picture updates on that information.

That's more than financials, though. You're asking for more than just financial. Well, I heard a financial update and a CIP update. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds to me like an entire update on everything that's happening with the city. Well, some of that information can be gleaned from from those reports and then it might be, you know, have an opportunity to ask questions. So, I heard what you you said in particular after let's see when appropriate. So, then let's wait for the report to come out. Then let's let's have that conversation. If it's only a couple weeks away, then I'm sorry. Sorry, couldn't hear. I said if it's only a couple weeks away for the financials anyway. Yeah, we can take a look at it. Let's get those financial let's figure out if we have questions that uh and then we can schedule.

Shall we schedule a a work session for the February 10th uh council meeting? Is not ready. I I was going to say no, we're ready. It's it's a very it's a change to what y'all done and what we've done in the past. I want to make sure this is coming from council. I'm not about to put my staff up for a Spanish Inquisition is what I'm not willing to do. I don't think it was suggested to do that. It was just to to get an update um of the status of what

So the suggestion has been made that the report will be coming out in a few weeks. Let's look at the let's look at the report and then based on that we can have a discussion about when we're going to schedule a conversation about it. So, we need to have it another item on the agenda to have the discussion about when we're going to schedule it or we could perhaps look at it at the second meeting in February. Well, I mean, I trust the mayor to be able to work that with staff and come back to us and set it up whenever the mayor finds it appropriate to talk about. Okay. Because we already do our CF, so you're just adding on top of that. So, I think yeah, work for staff. Yeah, let's get those documents in front of uh council and we can see if there are questions that arise.

I agree. All right. Anything else on uh item 6 I? That takes us to item 6J, review representation and discuss and consider action to appoint three representatives to the Capital Area Council of Governments General Assembly. Uh our current representation is myself, uh Council Member Ruiz, and Council Member Rogers. Well, mayor, since you're going to be the chair elect on there, I think you'd want to be on there. I I would uh certainly appreciate uh staying uh although that does mean I have to get up early and drive down uh south. Who else? You should go for the clean air. I I'd like to go ahead and move over from the clean air to

Well, so clean clean air you're that's later on. I know we'll be there in a minute. Just saying that later. [laughter] I'm jumping ahead. Would you would you like to remain on the general assembly? Yes, sir. All right. Um and uh Mr. Rogers, you're currently on the General Assembly. Uh that's that's a that that seems like a fine place for me. I'm happy to stay there. All right. Is there anyone else who would uh like to join the Capcog General Assembly? All right. Well, then uh I will entertain a motion. Mayor, I move to approve yourself uh Council Member Ruiz and Council Member Rogers as our three representatives on Capco General Assembly. Second.

Motion approved unanimously. That takes us to item 6K. uh review representation and discussing consider action to approve a resolution designating a city of Flutterville city council representative to the capital area Metropolitan Planning Organization also known as Campo Transportation Policy Board. Uh currently that is uh Mr. Mate. Uh I am currently the alternate. I don't think there's a much of a need for an alternate uh since Mr. Mateer is I believe uh already elected as chair. Uh so I would certainly uh expect us to uh renew Mr. Matear's uh appointment. Would you like to stay on as an alternate?

I'm I'm curious if there is anyone else who would like to be be an alternate on I mean sounds like interested in [laughter] not attending the meetings as Rudy is. I'd be interested in being alternate. Awesome. Any anyone else interested in being an alternate? I think that's fine. I think it'll be a great experience for Jonathan. I will uh uh move that we appoint uh reappoint uh Council Member Mate as our primary and uh Council Member Kaufman as our alternate. Second.

Uh motion passes unanimously. Uh that takes us to item 6L. Keep it moving, baby. discuss and consider action to approve a resolution appointing a city of Flugerville representative to the Central Texas Clean Air Coalition uh of the Capital Area Council of Governments. I believe this does need to be someone who is uh currently on the general assembly. Mr. Ruiz, do you want to [laughter] do you want to continue? We can appoint Mr. Noting He really did do it to himself. He really did do it to himself. What's that? You did it to yourself. [laughter] I didn't realize. It's only a quarterly uh meeting, right?

Wow. You don't care about clean air. That's all right, too. [laughter] You don't care about the the environmental grants that are available to the city through that. Well, I forward them all to you anyway. [laughter] So, sure. Would you like to would you be willing to continue? Yes, I would. All right. It's a two-year commitment, correct? It has been. Wow. I'm not sure. We're going to make it now. Yes. It was Campo. Yes. Capcog. Yeah. And but before Campo was also correct. Yeah. So, let's Hey, so you're you're good. Yeah, sure. Okay. Let's do it.

So, I'm sorry to clarify, this is a two-year commitment. The Campo is a two-year commitment. And what about Capcog? Uh Capcog is honestly uh with the uh amendments that I was in charge of to the bylaws for Capcog, it's as appointed. Uh but typically on the calendar year annually. Okay. And Campo is is annually as well, isn't it? Or is it a two-year term? I feel like we do it every year. I Yes, I believe the clean air is the only one that's specific. Clean Air is the only the only two-year

it's chair. So that means you have to be on the the campo next year. So, so to give you some insight, uh, based on the way the Capcog bylaws are written, if we were to remove you from the general assembly, you would lose eligibility for a clean air and we would be forced to reappoint. Okay. Yeah. And they've been emailing me demanding a or requesting a that's to appoint somebody. So, yeah, I'm on all the email. All right. I I move to appoint uh Council Member Ruiz to the Clean Air Coalition. They just keep pulling me back. [laughter] Second. Second. had a I I heard a second from Kimberly. [clears throat]

Oh, all right. I'm already crossed it off. [laughter] With a 61 vote, you are appointed. He He has no choice. So when I change my vote, too, [laughter] he knows never again volunteer yourself. Uh maybe we're we're moving on to item 6M. Review representation and discuss and consider action to approve a resolution appointing a city council legislative committee. Our current representation on our city council legislative subcommittee are David Rogers, Melody Ryan, and Rudy Mate. Who would like to serve on our legislative committee?

Well, I'd like to reup. I would really like to be on this committee. I think uh within the off seasonason it's going to be important imperative to be out there making connections and since I'm already going to be a cutcog might as well might as well take on on one addition if y'all have me I'm I I'm not interested in in being on the committee again. I'm sorry I couldn't hear Oh, I'm I'm uh declining participation for the next year. Got you. I'll be on it again. You'll keep doing it, Rudy. Yeah. Kim, Jonathan, I got a lot of desires work out of me. So, all right. So, that is three people who have expressed interest on the committee.

I heard I have a uh a motion in a second. Um and just confirming we want to leave three people on there. That's good. All right. Here you go. That motion passes unanimously. That is correct. Uh moving on to item 6N. Review representation and discuss and consider action to approve a resolution appointing a city council public safety subcommittee that is currently uh uh filled by uh myself and Mr. Mate. I'd be interested in joining. All right. Anyone else interested in serving on that?

Kim, you did it before. You did it so well. You want to do it again? What do you want to say? No. I heard it. Well, I I'll uh I'll serve with Jonathan.

Is there a sidebar? Clearly, there's still I'll stay on it. Uh Rudy has volunteered to uh stay on there as well. So, I will move we appoint Jonathan and Rudy to the uh public safety subcommittee.

Second. There we go. 61 that uh we have our public safety subcommittee. Uh that brings us to item 6. Uh discuss and consider action to approve a resolution approving the mayor's nomination and appointments for the city of Flugerville tax increment reinvestment zone number one uh board of directors. And I'm trying to remember because I do have a a blank here. I have uh Mr. uh Matthew uh Fster and was I reappointing someone as well?

Uh Derell Daryl Houston is the other member who's currently on Daryl I believe did confirm he was willing to continue to serve. Is he? Okay. Sounds fair to me. He didn't say no in his message to me. What were the names? Daryl. Darl Houston and um Matthew remember the gentleman Matthew Faircher he had a whole bunch of I am creating an additional vacancy on the board of adjustment. Uh he had applied for PCDC but was given the consolation prize. Okay. He's the one who spoke about all these economic developments. But he's the one who is familiar with the Los Angeles area. Um I remember now. Yes. Thank you. And I think he will be a incredible benefit. So it's one reappoint and one new person. Correct.

That sounds good to me. Now there's going to be a vacancy onction. Which board? Board of adjustments. Board of adjustments. Your board. The most important board. I have a motion from Caesar. I will make a second. Okay. Got three seconds to choose from. There we go.

David, I'm waiting on you. Oh. And motion passes uh 6. Uh that takes us to ironic 60 passes 60. Uh that brings us to item 6P. Uh discussing consider action to approve a resolution approving the mayor's nomination for the chair of reinvestment zone number one uh the TUR board for a one-year term. Uh, and my nomination is to reappoint the existing chair, Mr. Michael Martin. Okay. Some moved. Second. [clears throat]

Second. [clears throat] Motion passes unanimously. Uh that brings us to item 6Q that is discuss and consider action regarding the city of Ferville code of conduct for elected and appointed officials. Uh this was an item requested uh by council by Mr. Rogers and Miss Ryan. Uh and I believe there may be someone else with additional uh recommendations. Um Mr. Rogers says

uh you could take one and pass that down. Um, so we had uh a number of advertisements that went out in the last uh um election session uh where someone who was uh elected official of the city of Flugerville was endorsing somebody else who was running for office uh in direct violation of our uh code of conduct uh paragraph 21 uh which currently reads when endorsing or opposing a fully ballot initiative or a city of flu roll candidate members will not use their titles nor use a city meeting or event as a forum to endorse or oppose a city of blue ballot initiative or a city of fluil candidate except for oneself and of course that the person used his title uh that was repeated in the advertising um we had this same kurluffle uh in 2021 uh where was a different candidate uh and a different endorser doing the exact same thing. Um, and you know, we all agreed at that time that that's not what we're supposed to do, but we didn't take any enforcement action. Uh, but we did say, well, maybe we need to look at rewriting uh uh that rule. Uh, I made a suggestion that we rewrite that back in September uh September 17th. And uh I'm trying to take one and pass these along. Um I would suggest again uh if we're not going to follow the rule that we change the rule. Uh, and I'm going to make the the suggestion that we make the exact same uh revision uh to uh paragraph 21 that I suggested uh on

September 17th uh which is that the new rule will say when endorsing or opposing a City of Flugerville ballot initiative or a City of Flugville candidate members will not represent that their personal opinion is that of the city of Flugerville or the body unless such endorsement has been publicly and openly discussed and voted on. So under the new rule, what happened in 2021 and what happened in the last ele uh election campaign would be perfectly fine. Uh I think it should be perfectly fine. I think the uh the current rule is constitutionally defective. Um, so, uh, I suggest, uh, that we revise, uh, paragraph 21 of their code of conduct, uh, to match the the new, uh, uh, revision, which I suggested, uh, on uh, September 17th. Um, and, uh, I think this will help us to avoid uh, these kinds of issues in the future. um which you know frankly does the rule as it is doesn't serve a useful purpose and it's just a a gotcha tool and we don't need to have it the way it is. So that's my recommendation and um I'd be happy to uh take any questions about that. the bite still isn't there irregardless of how you write it. If it's not enforced or enforceable, then what's the point of changing it?

Exactly. So why do we have the rule in the first place? Let's take the rule out.

Well, the the the the rule as it is allows the the body to censure the person who violated the rule. Okay. It's which is just a it's it's a a public slap on the wrist for no good reason. This the rule in place is about limiting your first amendment right to endorse other people who are running for office or to endorse or oppose ballot measures. Everybody has that right under the first amendment. All this is, as it's written now, is just a an a a a device to chill free expression. It's a bad rule. It never should have been adopted in the first place. This is a way to undo that pernitious harm and to restore fully our free speech rights to endorse or oppose candidates and ballot measures. So, I just have a clarifi clarifying question about what is the the legal rule about city council members um having an opinion on something that's on the ballot that's a city of Flutterville initiative. I I was under the impression that we were not supposed to have an opinion about that at all if it was something that was a a ballot initiative for the the city. So

those are Texas Ethics Commission rules having to do uh with ballot initiatives and in the scope of using, you know, public assets resources. U so that's a whole different body. Uh this self-imposed rule, you know, you are the government, you're a local governmental entity. Um and you know, your free speech, it's it's up to this body to determine those rules. So, if I understood you correctly, we individually we are not allowed to oppose or support a city of Flugerville ballot initiative using public funds, but we could do so using no funds at all or let's

I just want to I just want to be clear on that title. Yeah. Yeah. That So, you're right. That's that's that's a great way to put it right there as well for um the utilization of public funds to advocate for specific things regarding items that we've had for GEO bonds etc. those aspects. However, for endorsement or something like that as well, it's that's just us limiting ourselves on that. Now, go ahead.

Well, I guess my my thought is is that every time I go out, I'm Kimberly Holiday, but you really can't separate me from Mayor Pro Tim. I'm still Kimberly Holiday, right? Even if I don't say it, that's still who I am. If someone was to take a video of me somewhere, um, and I just and I'm I'm presenting myself as Kimberly Holiday, they could easily go repost that and say, "Mayor Pro Tim, Kimberly Holiday said this." So my question is or or my thought is every time we are showing up as elected officials, we're still I feel representing the city of Flugerville in some way and we need to be very um cognizant of that.

Absolutely. Because y'all are on social media. Absolutely. But here's here's your personal page, but you're still David Rogers city council member,

right? So um and uh you know in this particular example uh this is an advertisement by somebody using their title who has a not particularly unusual name. There might very well be two people in the city of Louisville who have that name. If if there's a an endorsement out there by David Rogers, is it me or is it the guy who's a judge in Midland? I don't know. But if you put the title on there, I cannot believe you're using that example. [laughter] It's a great example.

But that's up to you. You can use that example. So, okay. I disagree with pernitious harm because I actually I'm quite aware and acutely aware what I know you're smiling, too. When he said I was like pernitious, I was like, you come on now. Um, but fine. I mean, y'all I mean, Kimberly put it back. It's It's essentially legal fiction to an extent. I don't see any issues. I I don't I don't want to be labor I I thought to be frank with you, I thought you were going to belabor a point that I thought was unnecessary, particularly given um our previous mayor, our current mayor about that. If that's not the issue right here, you want to go ahead [clears throat] and say that and say it doesn't represent this. I know. quick fix. I am literally helping you get to the finish line. [laughter] I very much appreciate that.

Thank you, Mr. Mr. McCar. Then that's fine. I'm for that. That's okay. So, I wanted to um muddy the waters a little bit. Wait, we got more. No, don't be sorry. Do it. [laughter] So, and this is something we can take up at a later time, but I wanted to take the opportunity to say it since this was on the agenda now. Um, I've done a bit of work in trying to think through how to clean up our ethics and and um code of conduct in general. Um, and I'll share a print that I brought

uh to make it more clear and I think that it is um you know norms are not rules and I think if we're all going to be held to a a good standard then we should write those things down. Um, I also think today the ethics code applies to both appointees and council members and I think it may be prudent to separate those out that wasn't clear. Uh, I would not off the top of my head. Rudy, I I can pull up the the the Oh, we know. Oh, we know. We know. We were live. You remembered you remembered. That's why I was curious about it. I was wondering if it's just the same along the same lines.

Um, yes. So I think there some of the uh pieces that I was looking at and thinking through were u respectful content and civility um advocacy and representation which sort of touches on um you know the the sort of official stance of the board as a whole as opposed to when we're talk more about the respectful I'm I'm trying to understand that you brought that the first one you brought up.

Sure. Yeah. I I think you know the way I was going about it was essentially that both on the dis and off um acting professionally and respectful in in all official and public settings um and you know not engaging in not that I think this is a problem but I think it's worth putting on paper not engaging in threatening behavior harassment etc. Um I think it is a is a fair rule to uh to hold all of the to each other. So, so you're are you saying that currently you don't believe that's reflective in the the the standards that we have in place right now? That's right. Okay. Okay. I won't hurt you.

Yeah. [laughter] Wouldn't expect it out of any of us. And you know, and generally, right, there was also um I don't know when the last time someone tried to light up a cigarette on the DAS, but that is a explicit rule in the current I'm not saying it wouldn't couldn't happen. want to know. It's been a long [laughter] change.

So, I guess all that to say ahead of us, um, if we're going to look at changing um the ethics and code of conduct, it may well be worthwhile um looking at some of some more substantive changes. Not I hate to say substantive, but cleaning it up, giving it a refresh to things that may make sense. And then I think ultimately I'd love to see us basically come up with a um a rules or procedures package of some sort of how we're going to handle um things like uh staff time and um and topics like that as well and what we expect that to do which I think is separate from the chartermandated rules which is really

basically Robert's rules and some other procedural things of actually having meetings. what I'm imagining is more of a council um practices almost um uh set of of rules that we can hold ourselves by, right? How do we define um the intake process for things that we want to pay attention to? How do we um engage with the the city manager on prioritization and um and those sorts of things? I I believe a lot of that is called out in our rules of order and procedure. Um, do do you have a copy of that document or do we need to Yeah, I went through it and I think it that's not necessarily the um

is it not exact as exhaustive as you would like it to be? I it really just so my interpretation of that was that it really just talks about conducting the meeting and I'm thinking more broadly of how we operate and do business as a council. So, separate from the actual legal charter stuff that's in the same window. Uh, do you have a document you'd like to distribute? Yeah, I was going to share it with you all and and happy to bring it up another time. I just thought he'd take advantage of the fact that we had something about ethics and it's not

while he's passing that around. I mean, my question would always be like, who determines who gets to decide as the judge whether or not I'm I'm being kind or not? We do. That's that's the whole because that's my interpretation may be different from yours. Some of the things that I hear are just flatout crazy, right? [clears throat] But, you know, that's just my opinion, but and because I tell you that I don't care for your opinion, um, doesn't make me disrespectful, right? Um, hurt my feelings by you just saying that. [laughter] So, I just want to know who's who's the judge of that.

No, no, no, no. to answer your question, we we are that's the whole point. That's literally the point. I'll give one later from but I mean that's the point and we can Oh, I do have I I think I think I think this is probably Jonathan you're have his name [laughter] the slides earlier. I have to do an AI compare but I bet this is a lot like what I came up with last fall. Yeah, that's also the same. Yeah. So, we did have a lunch and learn on this topic and we um did not take action on a number of items. So, we we literally dug through it. So, let's uh part of it. I don't think we talked about

I'm I'm perfectly happy to to dive back into those waters. Uh and I'll be happy to share Jonathan what came up before. Obviously, the people who are the other people who are here went through that uh that [laughter] dive last fall. Yes, we did. So, mayor, if you entertain Well, well, actually, no, this is you. Figure out what you want.

Uh, [laughter] so uh my motion uh would be uh to uh revise the uh current code of conduct to replace the current paragraph 21 with the revised paragraph 21, which reads as follows. And you guys all have copies of this uh personal public advocacy. When endorsing or opposing a city of Flugerville ballot initiative or a city of Flugerville candidate, members will not represent that their personal opinion is that of the city of Flugerville or the body unless such endorsement has been publicly and openly discussed and voted on.

Perfectly fine. [clears throat] Second. All right. All right, I've got a second from Rudy. A question on that. Uh, further discussion, Melody. Yes. Um, going to Kim's point, how are we how is it def I don't know. I'm just curious like what's an example of expressing a personal opinion that's not of the city or is there wording that you would need to say to specifically say this is not [laughter] I mean, but not everything is going to be to lend itself to a statement of in my opinion. No, you just say you just say I'm for that. Exactly. Yeah. And you don't say the city of Flugerville is for that. I'm for that. I and me and not we and us.

Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to be clear because do does there have to be a specific disclosure that it is not representative, you know, or is it just the absence of a great question on your city council page? Some sometimes sometimes people do that. They will they will say that just you know full disclosure this is my opinion everything but I mean as long as you're not saying we you're fine. But I'm sorry I I didn't hear what you said. I was saying um there's probably a fine line here too because we all have social media pages. So I would be very careful about what it is you're posting from your city council page.

Yeah. I I'm saying again y'all let's as long as not weing us you have in your page. But if you post it from your city council page, then you are representing city council. And if that's not the case, then we need to make clear. I I don't I don't I don't think when you when you post it on your city council page, you're necessarily representing city council. Now, you have you're representing your state, but you're not representing city. You're not necessarily represent. I don't understand. But okay, lawyer. [laughter] So this is example. You're not saying we took the we are going to take this. Then why not post it on what? Then post it from your personal page. Why would you have to do it from your city council page? Because that's a different audience. Yeah.

Yeah. But this is the exact reason I asked the question. Even if it's not real, you have to put this is my opinion. Such as if you put that the facilities commission spearheads something and they really don't spearhead something. That is an opinion. That is not fact. Except it is. [laughter] It's not. Well, that's your opinion. In in your opinion, again, I eyes's and me's, not we and uses. We do have the question for just a point. I just y'all do have social media in your code of conduct. There's actually a specific spot. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Okay. So, just to be clear, because there were different opinions expressed on this question, it's never been resolved. What? it will never be resolved because everybody has their own opinion. And then and then I'm trying to be very clear because I like to follow the rules. But but also again and here's the part to what Caesar saying and what Kim specifically gave an example of. We're the ultimate arbiters of that. So that's why it never unless we decide this guy listen this.

And let me say that I I did think about that when I uh when I wrote this. So I said members will not represent that their personal opinion is that of the city of Flugerville or the body. So if if I were to say well uh the opinion of uh the um of the city of Flugerville is is that the Hutau needs to go to war with Taylor. That would be stating that that's the opinion of the city of Flugerville. But if I say, "Well, the the the Hutau Hippos need to go to Taylor and they need to beat their football team." That's just me. That's not the city of Plurville.

I think we should strike the that on the second line. We have to represent members will not represent their personal opinion is that of the city. Too many that I would think as an attorney you would have got that, but you know, you would have got that people. Come on. [laughter] Not an and/or. I'm okay with it. Oh, will you stop [laughter] or I'm just jerking my chain. All right. He knows how I am about that. Oh, but would you [laughter] David? Would you accept that? Just acceptance. [laughter] We already have the motion before us and and is on your device in front of you. Um,

so this is just for this one. Just for this one. This one. All right, [clears throat] we can talk about Jonathan's making us have another lunch and learn once again. Thank you, Jonathan. I appreciate your your attention to ethics issues. I'm waiting on two people. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought Okay. All right. Your screen unresponsive. Okay, there we go.

All right. Uh, that passed unanimously. I would uh ask the uh the council, you know, Jonathan did uh seems to put a lot of time into his opinions here. Uh would it be [clears throat] appropriate for us to task uh two or three council members with reviewing and uh providing a report back to council on what would be appropriate for a potential uh reddraft? Sounds like Jonathan and David. [laughter] He said they can compare. Okay. I think we did uh recommend that in the past. Right. Correct.

Well, I was just asking if he'll get the grammar correct. You want to [laughter] be on that subcommittee. He said to David and and Jonathan. All right. Merry Christmas. So, I'm going to I'm going to move that we task David and Jonathan with reviewing and providing a revised copy back to us within 6 weeks. Yes. And we will discuss 60 days. We will discuss again in another future lunch. There was two dates thrown up. 6 weeks and 60 days. Uhoh. You better get it right for her. I'm going right. I think [laughter] we can do it in six weeks. We can definitely do it in 60 days. But shorter is usually more possible.

I mean, if I give you 60 days, you're not going to get around to it. [laughter] You know, these size jokes that you're making at Jonathan's expense, I just don't think they're appropriate. [laughter] Oh, Lord. Okay. All right. So, so, so I made that motion. Second the motion. I have a second from David. Thank you. What is this one? This is this is to tell David and Jonathan to make us a six weeks suggestions. Now, um to add some clarity, is this going to come back um on regular council agenda? Are we going to be doing lunch and learn? Lunch and learn just like we did last time because it's going to be work. I'm I'm expecting workshop. Yeah, workshop. That's why. So, I'm sorry. Is that work session? Okay.

Work session. Work session or lunch and learn? Work session. Okay. All right. Oh, wait. I'm waiting for me. Okay, I'm writing it down.

Motion passes unanimously. Uh that takes us uh I do need to skip back real quick to uh item 4B from the uh consent agenda. Pulled from the consent agenda. Uh we need to have a um like to get some staff members out of here if we could. Uh that was 4B. uh approving the second amendment to the interlocal cooperation agreement between the city of Flutterville and Travis County for the East Fluterville Parkway/Jessie BS roadway improvement project addressing detention pond responsibilities and additional construction phase funding and authorizing the city manager to execute the same. Uh who's on point for this? I think this was called by Melody. What? Yeah.

What is your question on this item? Um, so I had emailed a question about the percentage um, breakout between city of Flutterville and Travis County because the written um, percentages did not align with the dollar amounts and I was told that the summary was incorrect. It was supposed to be 42.75% within the city and 57 and then assuming 57.25% [clears throat] within Travis County, but that is also listed in the agreement. And so, so you're just trying to get clarity on what the percentage. Yeah. So, I wanted to make sure what the percentage is and if it if it was stated incorrectly, then I asking if the agreement needed to be

the agreement is correct. We apologize about that mixup. The agreement is correct. Can you confirm yes or no? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So, then my original question,

we were wrong. The agreement is correct. So my original question from the email was um the dollar amount for the Travis County was 58% of the total cost. And so I was trying to understand why they have 58% of the total cost when the when it was stated that it's 42.75% of the cost. um the numbers that you're referring to, I'm sorry, uh the 58%, the 42% I'm rounding, those were referring originally to how much of the project was in each each group. Um just happens by [clears throat] coincidence that the the money that is being allocated to each one is around 58 and 42%. But there is just a coincidence. the the piece that's in Travis County is costing a lot more because each site is paying for exactly what's going on in their part of the roadway and it just happens to be the 58% 50 calculated here it's a

58.43%. So So if I'm understanding correctly, you're saying that even though 58% of the project is in the city, 58% of the cost is in the county. Yes. and and it was a rather coincidental fact that it was roughly the same percentage but reversed. Right. And the and also what's driving up the cost on the county's part is they're paying us a 5% management fee for doing the inspection and bidding the project.

Sounds like on top of that they're they're adding 12% uh to their piece of the pie just in case we have any overruns or we had have to do any change orders. that we would have to go to to their uh commissioner's court. Thank you for that. Uh Melody, is that a satisfactory uh response? Yes, I just wanted to be clear on that. Thank you. Melody, would you prefer to make a motion? Oh, I motion we approve for I have a motion in a second. I just heard approve. Thank you. I really thought we'd be 105.

Uh motion passes unanimously. Mayor, is it is it possible to open 6R and 6T together? We can go in executive session. Well, we'll also uh so I I'm being informed we want to adjourn to executive session under which uh provision? You can um um uh consultation with attorney. Can we can we open consultation with attorney? Yes. 6R is also related to 6T. Yeah. So, Those can be taken up together.

Uh so with 6R discussing consider action regarding council member request for multiple items included but not limited to filing information related to utility rate and debt reports, capital improvement plan reports, population calculation, water usage, and quarterly financials. We will be adjourning to executive session for consultation with legal counsel. Uh I'll also be opening item 6T, executive session consultation with legal counsel regarding special access rights pursuant to section 551.071 071 of the Texas Government Code. Uh as well as executive session item 6U, discussion and personnel matters pursuant to section 551.074 of the Texas Government Code regarding the city attorney. Uh with that, we are in executive session. Uh my current expectation is that we'll come out to take action on 6U, but other than that, well, we'll see what happens. Is there

You're going to the retreat or I already got it. And that's such that's that documents the kindergarteners. What time did I convene executive session? 10:17. Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me? We've been in there that long. Can't forget that.

Did you understand a word I said? Cuz I sure as hell don't remember what I said. It's 11:44. We're back from executive session and no action was taken. I do not believe there are any items remaining on the agenda. Council, any items I have neglected? There could be one. It is 11:44 and we are ajourned. There we go.