City Council - Special Meeting

Good evening. I need... Yes, there we go. There's enough council members. We've got them in the room. We've got them in the room. Thank you. I'm going to call to order this Pflugerville City Council special joint meeting at 6.01 p.m. on May 19, 2026. I want to welcome our Charter Review Commission. Mr. Chair, do you need to call to order?

I will call to order the...

charter review commission at 601 as well all right thank you and the first item on our agenda is of course public comment is there anyone from the public wishing to make a public comment at this time moving on we will open the items related to our charter review joint special meeting presentation of charter review commission report of findings and recommendations before we do that I want to just extend my gratitude to the Charter Review Commission. I know there have been some late nights, probably some drawn-out, hopefully not tedious conversations, but well-informed conversations, I'm sure. This is good governance. This is our governing document, and I appreciate each and every one of you for taking the time and putting in the effort to make this happen, and thank you for being with us here tonight. All right, this is good. So who's who's doing our presentation?

Bill up you got a presentation on your side Presentation of Charter Commission report and findings of recommendation. I'll start us off. First of all on behalf of commission. I'd like to thank Council for your nominations for putting us here. I think you assembled an excellent body representative of our community and and we are all grateful to serve in this capacity. Similarly, on a personal note, I want to thank all the members. We did put in a lot of late nights. I know I set the cap at 10 p.m., and we ran right up to 10 p.m. most evenings. So I appreciate your hard work. I appreciate the research that you put in before we came and got together. And I just want to, on behalf of the community, thank you for your work. that's it oh and I also would like to thank our city attorney and our city secretary who were also shoulder to shoulder with us answering newbie questions that we had because you know we don't know everything and Mike and Trista were instrumental in helping us develop what we're presenting to you here today so thank y'all That said, you will notice there was a neat letter. I'm not going to read through the review there. But the summary of proposed amendments, there are 19 in total. And rather than exhaustively going through those... I will announce that maybe half or more of them, as our attorneys on the dais may say, are de minimis in nature. That is, they don't impact city governance per se. They're just merely updating either a legal requirement, referencing state law, or some typos and whatnot. And so I'm going to move forward to Amendment 4 regarding the new section. Let me just move my page. Let me get back to page 7. 203, in terms of artificial intelligence protections. We had a lot of discussion on this. And in fact, at the end, we will have one of our items as a recommendation. This particular amendment to the charter is more general in terms of if passed by our community, it gives a requirement on council, if you will, to create an artificial intelligence policy. And I know that there was already a lunch and learn yesterday, and I'm grateful to see that the council has already had events, of course, and working towards that. Because we all recognize the importance in terms of our autonomy as citizens and our personal and civil rights. And so this particular amendment just asks that city council shall love that legal work. Shall adopt protections governing the collection, use, retention, and oversight of data, facial recognition, and surveillance technologies. And more on there relating to that.

May I ask you a question? Sure. First of all, I was curious about why you started here, and I was under the impression we were going to go through each one of them. Is this where it starts? Yes. Or are you not going through each one of these?

Amendment 1, 2, and 3, I believe, are here. You're saying those are all clean up?

Yeah, those are clean up.

They're minor things. And so I'm going to skip around. If I skip one that you or anyone else thinks is of significance, please stop me. I'm more than happy to circle back to it.

All right, and I'm just asking this because I believe we only do this every five years, so I want to make sure that we are going through this like a fine-tooth comb.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you. How dare you capitalize CNM and 1.02?

That was one of those 1005, 1006 meetings. Deliberated at length on proper camel case and whatnot. But yes, a lot of the ones that I'm skipping over, I am assuming are minimal. If you see one that's not, please let me know, and we'll come back to it. And so that's the... basis of Amendment 4 is not really articulating a full-fledged AI policy or surveillance policy, simply directing counsel to develop and adopt one on your own.

I'm curious on that one. You put this under the powers of the city section. Is there anywhere else in the charter that it requires the city to or the city council to draft a policy like this? Is this a new ground?

I defer to our city attorney who's more knowledgeable about the contents. I can't think of one off the top of my head.

I can think of one off the top of my head. Ethics policy.

Okay. Good call.

There you go. All right. So at least one. Now where is the ethics policy in the charter?

I don't know. This didn't feel like the right place to me.

David, it's your favorite part of the charter. I know.

So I believe we put this in Article 2 because it's under...

city surveillance and city, it's not, this isn't something specifically that council does, but it's something that the citizens are asking council to put out on staff.

So, yeah, I mean, and like I said, what I love about this is that I'm coming here completely blind. I have not been involved in any of your discussions or reviewed it or anything else discussed with that. I think it's – I don't want to put words in your mouth, but my impression is that the evolution of how the city has gone, or cities in general, or municipalities, have to involve something that actually has a policy or guidance when it comes to the use of artificial intelligence. And what you're trying to do is trying to say that that's something on the forefront of y'all's minds regarding to do that. So the question becomes, from our standpoint – Because, I mean, it's a pretty small clip, but is that something that we put in our charter, or is that something that we have regarding our own guidance to make sure we enforce on? Which, I mean, I get it. I mean, it's something that you're proposing right there as well.

Your question, whether or not council adopts a general AI policy or a point-by-point specific this, this, this, is up to you all. Provided, of course, this is approved by the voters. Yeah.

So when I think about this AI at first, the first thing that comes to my mind is staff, right? City staff. And then my question would be around like what does that look like for city council members with AI? Like what was your thought behind that as well? I can see for staff, but how about this body?

Yes, so to that point, we're following up at the end with a recommendation on some more specificity in terms of what we would like to see. And when I say we, it may not necessarily be coming directly from me or any single member, but it's all of our voices together. And the recommendation contains some more specificity. This is just a direction to council to establish a policy to bring to a higher level of awareness that this is something that, again, if approved, the citizens think is important in terms of surveillance and our civil liberties.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. Explanation. Okay.

Okay. Is there anything else? No. Okay. Moving on to Amendment 5. This one's pretty straightforward. Recognizing the work that you all do and establishing that not only are you reimbursed for your expenses, but that you receive, the mayor receives $750 per month as council pay and that council members receive $500 per month. This was, I think one member articulated this would cover daycare if you have children that need watching or pet sitting or whatever. And so not a high and lofty salary, just something, recognition in terms of the price of gas going up and whatnot.

So, and I want to be clear, so you have that in there as proposed in language, but when we have the list on page... Five. That's what you have consensus on from the council as a whole?

Page five. So these are the recommendations, sir. So those are separate from amendments. So what I'm going through now are amendments that must be approved and put on the ballot. We'll get into the recommendations at the end. Does that help?

No. So these are their proposals.

This is the summary, and then the other ones are the details.

Look at page four. Well, even then, no. These are the items that they voted on and have to go on a ballot, and this is the recommendation of things that they think we should think about but do not go into.

My apologies. I'm going through Appendix A or whatever, this summary of proposed amendments that's on page four.

Page four. I'm curious in your... Roman numeral four? Yeah. In your long and drawn-out conversation regarding compensation, I'm curious, I don't know if this is relevant. This is probably not relevant until now, probably until later, but is that a 1099? Is that W-2? Do I owe self-employment tax on that?

That's beyond the concept and purview of this body. Okay. That's an exercise left to the reader.

And the way it is drafted, it is the mayor's authorized to receive. So is that... Does that assume that the individual holding the position can reject that payment? Absolutely. Was that the intention?

The intention was that, yes, that you would have the ability to accept this. You could accept it and donate it. I mean... Again, this body doesn't want to be specific and tell you how to disperse funds that are available to you. Okay. I like authorized to receive. All right. Thank you. Yes, sir.

So I have a question about that because, you know, maybe this is more towards the attorney. I've seen conversations about even if you're authorized to receive it and you choose not to, you still may be taxed on receiving it whether or not you actually drew... the payment. So, I mean, I think those, I'm curious about the details of whether this is, you know, salary W-2 or independent contractor 1099, because that changes the taxability of it. And then also, if someone were to reject it, would they still be taxed?

That sounds like a tax law question.

Yeah. But it's my understanding, because in the previous city, they were paid $25 a meeting And it was my understanding that when they declined the payment, they were still taxed on that money. But we'll confirm that.

All right. Any other questions on that item?

The IRS wants their payroll taxes. That's right.

Well, if it's not payroll taxes, it's self-employment taxes.

Which is still to the IRS as self-employment payroll taxes. But it would have to be...

Submitted, it would have to be reported under a 1099. So I don't know if the city would still be required to report 1099 revenue that was not accepted. So obviously, we're not in the wheel. That's something we can worry about in several months.

I'm going to set a cap at 10 o'clock for our board.

All right. On to your next recommendation. Excuse me. Your next proposed amendment, Jim.

Amendment 6, section 305, talks about where a council member, with the support of a second council member, can request that the mayor add an agenda item. This appends to that, that that agenda item must appear on a meeting agenda within 60 days.

Curious why you chose 60 days? I think you know that our usual pattern had been just when they're to council members Do it the mayor would put it on the next agenda.

I'm curious why you chose the 60-day That's always the debt that often happens Yeah, but then there's sometimes that the item may be as we used to say in the IT world bigger than a breadbox and it may require some research from staff or whatnot and Maybe in the middle of budget season or maybe before Deutchenfest or I don't know when. And so we felt like, you know, we threw a dart at the dartboard and 60 days was a term that we all agreed upon. There might be a cap.

There might be a winter storm or something like that that makes it impractical to add a new. Okay. That makes good sense.

Or it could simply be a lengthy agenda. We've seen that. I will say it hasn't always been the next agenda. Sometimes it's been the agenda after that. In order to...

Within 30 days.

I don't think we've ever exceeded that.

I don't think this council has.

And again, this is just intended as a guardrail. I'm sure that the council if we looked at all of the meeting agenda item requests that have come through In less than 60 days this I think the intent here is just to make sure that the That the mayor couldn't forever postpone adding something. I'm going to add it next time or whatever. I think that's me.

And this is in reference to one council member? Correct. Oh, two. I'd say consent of two.

Consent of two. It's interesting. Other places I've seen the rights of two council members is not necessarily to add something to the agenda, but to call a special meeting for a purpose. Which effectively turns into the same thing because, yes, if I were to fail to comply with that, I don't know how you would compel me other than to call a special meeting for the purpose.

He's giving ideas. That's going down a rabbit hole, and now you're getting into enforcement of something that may or may not be approved.

Well, it's never been an issue so far. Exactly, sir.

Anything else on Amendment 6? No. I'm skipping 7, 8, and 9. Moving on to 10. All right. And I just wanted to make sure we're clear here. The charter had some old language in it talking about three votes in the affirmative to move something forward. Since the charter revision where we added a sixth seat and gave the mayor the vote, it now takes four. votes, even if one member is absent, it takes four. And so the requiring three votes language is removed, and it just must be a majority vote.

So that's not entirely accurate, but where is that? I'm sorry. It's in Section 315D.

Okay.

Because in the scenario that there are five members present still reaching a quorum, a vote of three of those members would be an affirmative vote. passing of the resolution you're saying that would not be a valid scenario i am not saying that well you're saying it now requires four it does not i'm not requiring four i'm not requiring any i'm just saying i'm just striking the striking the calling out gotcha okay so just a majority vote is sufficient exactly there's just a red line there gotcha no i appreciate that thank you

Anything else? I just want to be clear on that.

So if there was four people in a quorum, then it would require three votes? Yes. So three votes was the minimum anyway.

Three would be a majority. But if you had three votes for it and four against it, I don't know if you're in a confusing scenario where it... There you go. That's your scenario.

Receive three votes. Mayor, can I weigh in here? Yes, please. This is exactly why I think this section needs to be changed. Okay. At least clarified, because when I looked at it the first time, I mean, I know what affirmative votes means, but could it be if you only have five and it passes three to two? There's three affirmative votes, but it seems like, to me, one, it ought to be like a super majority. And the second thing is, there's a couple of issues, too. So you adopted on first reading... And it becomes effective on first reading. And we know what that means, right? We can legally waive around that ordinance as law. But then it comes back for second reading. What if someone comes to the podium and says, hey, I would like you to change this? I think it just sets it up for perhaps some issues. And that's what I caught. I've never seen this provision before. I don't... get out and survey charters all over the state or anywhere else for that matter. But I just think this subsection D should take some council review and consideration over the next few weeks.

Is there a particular direction that you recommend? Because I do believe two readings is... is frequently appropriate to ensure that the public has input into the process. I agree as well.

I just think if you have two readings, you ought to do two readings. Now, the second one, and I don't have a problem with this, you can go on the consent agenda if it's been overwhelmingly supported on first reading, or you can remove it off the consent agenda. But I think if it's going to be two readings, it ought to be two readings, that you shouldn't be able to bypass the second reading or make it less formal, if you will, by three affirmative votes.

That's my opinion. And so if you read the preamble to be effective date in the ordinance, it says every ordinance shall be effective upon adoption or at any later time specified in the ordinance. And so the effect of this is to give council sort of an emergency bypass, as we discovered during COVID and winter storm Uri. Sometimes we need to act more quickly. And this merely gives you a workaround to get there. It doesn't necessarily open Pandora's box if you think that something's going to have more conversation or more impact or more public speaking on the second reading. You certainly are within your power to delay the effective date of that ordinance.

Indeed, indeed. In a more recent example, we passed an ordinance last week regarding rules and policies for the lake and we had to say we would not be able to enforce those over memorial day weekend had it not been affected on first yeah we're going to say that explicitly does that help no right

No, I agree with that.

I've been doing it a while.

It is uncommon. I'm going to use that word. I don't have the data in front of me. But years ago, prior to the ability of the Internet, et cetera, two readings on ordinances were common because of the way that you notified the public through newspaper was the only way you notified. I have never worked in a city. I've worked in seven except for this one. that requires two readings. That was a very archaic way of doing business, to be real frank. I have not, the cities that I speak with do not do two readings. Just throwing it out there, because we've always done it, is not necessarily the right way to do it. You could always do one reading and then delay an action if needed. But the reason, just giving the history, the reason of two readings was whenever we did newspaper postings and people got word of mouth to get it. Now we email it to you every week. You get a key to the city. You know the agenda for the following week, et cetera. It's just a different way we do business. I have zero opinion in the matter. I'm just letting you know that it's not common.

Yeah, I guess, I mean, I hear where you're coming from on that. My concern is that if there is something that's controversial, that we do let people have a chance. Because, I mean, that's the problem, right? Is that, like, we try our best. I mean, maybe some people out there, three people online who are watching disagree. I feel like the staff does a really good job of trying to let the public know what's coming up. But oftentimes we get feedback after some action has been taken, and it's like, hey, wait a minute, you know, did we get a discussion? I like to clean up. I think the cleanup makes sense.

I think, to your point, Councilman McTier, this business about electric motors on a boat is something that we've gotten on the lake, something we've gotten an unusual amount of feedback about, and I think that most people were completely unaware of it when we acted on it the first time. So, you know, we do have, on rare occasions... the unusual amount of feedback that makes a second reading appropriate. But I agree with the city manager's point that it's old fashioned and generally not something that the citizens are particularly worked up about. But every once in a while, we step on a toe we didn't realize was there. And this gives us an opportunity to respond to that public feedback.

But to be clear, this change doesn't change that policy.

Right.

I just didn't know if it was considered.

But she's letting us know. Well, because this.

This change, but you're saying we should consider more discussion, but this change does not make that.

This is a provision that allows for an ordinance to be effective on first reading, even though there's a second reading of it. Yeah. So then the question is, should we even bother with a second reading if we're going to allow ordinances to be effective on first reading?

Right.

Or should we allow ordinances to be effective on first reading if we have a second?

It's the delay of development projects. There's many reasons, actually, that I can talk about the development community that doesn't support the two ordinances. You're talking in some months, if you miss a meeting at Christmas, you're talking two months for the government to make a decision. For me, it's about effectiveness and speed. For the one-offs, I would say routine business would be the one. So maybe through this you could make that decision.

Would there be a way, maybe, if we were to rephrase it, where it could be, you know, second reading isn't required if it is defined as being a one reading item and passes?

But doesn't this already allow, it may become effective after first reading provided the motion so specified. So if we wanted to specify that it would be first reading, we have the option to do it.

But every ordinance still requires a second reading.

But that could be on the consent agenda.

It could be, or it could.

change at the second reading and require a third and invalidate the enforcement that we've taken in the interim do you need that tool in the toolbox is what you need or how do we create consistency and predictability well I mean I don't think we haven't I mean for sure it's like you know with that as well but the reality is do you need that in 2026 do you need that that's the question to be asked I mean I like the change I think it's good

I think we can discuss that some more, but I don't think we need to.

Well, my attorney has some input.

Well, since Serena opened the door on this, here's another issue for two readings of an ordinance. You all currently have in the charter two ordinances required to convey property, which includes easements and leases. I think that's onerous. Well, I don't think it. I know that's onerous. And because I'll get folks, I'll get Public Works in my office that says, hey, this has already been delayed, and you're telling me it's going to take another month to go through two readings of an ordinance. I think that's another issue, ancillary to this one, that you all ought to take a look at.

Is that someone that we could say this is effective on first reading?

How do you convey property on first reading if you have to have a second reading? Right, right. You can't close until after the third reading.

I just think a conveyance should go to council in some instances, and maybe not easements or leases if you give the city manager authority under some policy, but certainly not every conveyance ought to go to council as an ordinance that requires two readings. That's my personal opinion.

But that's in 3.14 currently, so that would require... That would.

I thought now's the time to kind of bring up that issue.

All right. I think we've got more to talk about, but we'll move on with your provisions. Thank you.

And I appreciate y'all's conversations back and forth. I look around at my members, and I see a lot of smiling faces because we've had some of the same conversations.

You guys are charter nerds like us. We love it. Keep going.

Skipping 11, moving on to 12. 12.

I just have a real quick question on 11.

Fire away, sir.

Number four. You changed it from council to mayor. What was the thinking behind that? My only concern is in the future if we have... Oh, get buddy, buddy. I get it. I get it.

So I think that might be one that I actually proposed, and the reason I proposed it is because I read it and I realized that there are times that the city manager won't be able to make it to a meeting, but won't be able to ask us permission at a meeting before. Excused by the council means by an affirmative vote of the council.

I guess my only worry would be hypothetically, just so you all see that we're at ends with each other and...

No, you can't.

No, it's not excused. I think Serena's done a good job of letting us know. We're talking about a future mayor and a future city mayor. I was going to finish mine. I'm sorry. I think Serena's done a good job of, hey, listen, I'm out of town for this, but I'm going to let us know. I mean, that's...

That's the other scenario. Can the city manager notify us that they will be absent from a meeting? Is there a number? Why would we require essentially an affirmative vote of council to excuse the city manager?

Like I said, I don't disagree with that. But that's the way it's written now. Have you ever been at an end with your mayor? I've never. Well, you have a city council member. If they had been a mayor.

There are certainly other city managers and other mayors where they have been at loggerheads and that sort of thing. While petty would not be beyond the realm of possibility. So I understand Cesar's concern that if only the mayor can excuse the city manager, but she really has a good reason to go out of town. the city manager maybe should be able to go to the council and say, look, the mayor told me no.

Should that be by the mayor or council then?

Serena just made a great comment. I don't work for the mayor, I work for the council. It is the council. So I guess if it were that necessary, she could just ask us all.

Well, aren't there any sort of provisions for general like employment? She's sick. She has to get a vote from the councils and not go through. I mean, two weeks in advance. Yeah, I mean, I didn't know.

Yeah.

So, I mean, there has to, you know, I thought that was all city council meetings. So I think it's more I don't know. I kind of see it as like, well, you're required to be there. But there should be simple employee things that don't have to go to the council meetings. But other things may need to go to council.

Which is why I thought that was a good way to provide the flexibility. But you do make the point.

If the mayor said no, I think a city manager, we all know, regardless of me or someone else in this chair, I do not work for

one individual. That's very clear. And so if he said, you have to be here, I would say, that's neat. Get three votes. And so I would still be absent. So I think we could argue all these points and be here for 20 hours. I don't think this one's the big one.

Thanks for the clarification.

I mean, is this needed at all then?

At all, no.

I mean, the... I feel like it's cleanup of the charter because right now... Well, that's what I wonder if number four just gets stricken completely, maybe.

Do we want to have this hammer in there for some reason?

No, because everybody won't be like Serena. Yeah.

I think we need an expectation that they'll be attending all city council meetings, but I think... That could be also in the contract and the agreement with the employee, not a...

Not a charter. The charter, I fear, I look at this, and I'll be real frank if I may, is many of these are really policy. When I think about a charter, you're looking like if you're running a church or a nonprofit or a business and it's the bylaws. How we make the sausage is through ordinances and resolutions. I have been in a city that did 20-odd some charter amendments. It is a nightmare to explain this to the public. And if you have one item in here that people get riled up about as voters, they will then vote no on everything else. They see pay to a council member. That's it. They get nothing, right? I do have concerns, because I've been through one of these big charter reviews, is should some of this, and I can share with you my opinions on what should be policy. So you have bylaws, which are the charter, and then you have You don't bind future councils. We do it every meeting, I'm aware. We bind councils to future ideas of this what-if story. Maybe allow those elected officials to manage how they make the sausage. And the bylaws is this overarching how we govern. To me, this is a governance document, not a what are we going to do with this city manager sick document. That is not at all. what the direction of a charter should be.

But I think that's... There's not a but. And I think that's a different discussion. Your discussion right here is that you went ahead and said that quantitatively the amount of things that are being proposed are... Okay, you have concerns about that. That's a different discussion than what we were talking about regarding effective action regarding that specific policy. Now, I think... That's always been the rub in general. And it's not y'all. I mean, this is, I mean, when we advise, when the clients are advising policies and everything else, I'm like, okay, do you really want that as a policy or your bylaws or vice versa? That's a struggle everyone has with that. So maybe what we should do, because she's throwing me daggers, like, we need to move. I know, 7.30, I know that's the day. I'm great. No, I'm not talking, I'm talking to my boss over there. You know, let's look through that, and let's have that in the back of our minds with that. It's about, like, okay, do we really need that in the charter, or is there a policy effectiveness that we can actually get through on that?

If I may, there's also the part of the charter that does not allow you. I've asked this question to hundreds of cities, actually. There is part of the charter that no other city I can find has, which is that no matter as much as I'm looking at this crowd, I love some of you people in this crowd. Why are you bringing this up?

Why are you bringing this up right now?

I like them a lot. Anyways, the way the charter is written is that you must adopt what they decide. If we want to talk about future committees, I don't know if one day they're going to put jacuzzis in every house or whatever it is. So every other charter in the state of Texas that I've ever seen allows for the council to take the recommendations and then create the ballot language. Our charter demands that whatever this body says, we do. So maybe they didn't have all of the information possible while they deliberated. I have a great deal of faith in your chairman, of course, with many years. But I also have concern of maybe a future one or even some of these. A Duke council can add to the amendments, may not take away.

So I want to be clear to y'all. This is not a, she is not, this is not the first time she brought, she has brought this up. Yes. The entire, the entire time. You haven't taken action. Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't remember. That was COVID time. But, yeah, it has nothing to do with y'all. This is like a policy decision.

You do this when times are good, not when they're bad. You do this whenever we're not at odds. We're just saying that maybe some could be policy, some not. Would you mind considering that and then come back to us at a meeting to say, you know what, actually, that would be a great resolution or ordinance allowing flexibility in the future of city council members to make changes. The way it's written now, we could walk away today and you say, absolutely not, we're not changing anything, and you must do these 20, or you must do these on the ballot. We could do that. I hope that we're all civil enough to say maybe there's some room for a haircut.

My only concern would be that if we, and again, I advocated for what you're saying. My only concern would be that we're taking the voice out of the people. So if the council is doing things that the people don't like, this is the people's chance. to change the charter and force council to do certain things?

Well, I would, if we were to consider something like that to provide flexibility for council, I would then ask for a supermajority vote to override a recommendation from the charter review, like 75% or something, so that it's not just a clear majority, it's a supermajority. Because I agree with Cesar that we... gave the task to the people, and this is what they deliberated on.

And they're appointed by all of us.

They are, and we are elected by them.

So you're represented. You're represented by the nature of your work.

I think we've diverged a little bit. Let's get back on track.

I'm going to take a move and address my group here, because we are here to recommend these amendments. This item if you have it in front of you, it's a very short item It says attend all city council meetings and then the unless excused part I think the intent of this is to make sure that the city manager attends the meetings the city manager is not a at the meeting. Typically the deputy city manager is appointed to take over in the role of city manager. So someone is attending in the role of city manager. And then I believe, just guessing, that if we had a city manager that habitually missed council meetings, council would have an executive session item to talk about the city manager. With that said, I wonder if I can get a motion to amend our proposed amendment so that instead of saying attend all city council meetings unless blah blah blah, we strike that whole part unless and we just say attend all city council meetings.

I would probably discourage any adjustments to what we've already done. Why is that? Because there was so much deep thought in every single thing that's on here.

I agree.

So I would probably just keep it. And the concept is just to, you don't want to, it seems like a knee-jerk response. And I think at this point, through the months that we've met, hours that we've met each month, keep it as it is. And either they accept it or they don't. So I'm still looking to see if anyone...

I understand that, and I may disagree with it, but I understand your point, and Jolly, I think, agrees with you in some way. I'm just looking to see if anyone wants to make that motion.

Could you repeat the change?

So the idea would be that the amendment that we are recommending is to strike the words, unless excused by the council. Yeah. So that the intention is still that the city manager is required to attend all meetings, council meetings, We're just taking away the process for excusing and whatever. I've got a hand over here first.

If you take away the unless excused by the mayor, it makes it hard to attend all city council meetings, period. But unless she delegates the deputy, I mean, there's a flexibility per park. Right.

And so there was a time when we had a city attorney that was a group, right? It was a law firm. And so anyone that was designated from there would be this acting city attorney. And so I believe that there would always be a city manager present, whether that was a specific person or someone filling that office, right? And to your point about the unless excused, Every one of these provisions that are requirements of the city manager, none of them have a less excused honor. Which, again, if the city manager were failing to perform in their duties, council would call them to task.

I just think maybe, and this is just me thinking, is the or designee inherently included in this if we take that out? Attend all city council meetings. unless a designee, is that going to cover that for the city manager?

Mike, is that redundant to put that in there? If we just had it say attend all city council meetings, is that... You could put that in there.

I'll go back to what Serena said. I think this is more appropriate for a contract. That's my first thought. Second thought is... I appreciate what you're doing, and I think Council appreciates that too. I get the sense, could be wrong, I read rooms wrong sometimes, that they're going to send you all back for a meeting to consider some of these issues, and you may want to consider it then after you get a couple weeks thinking about it. My point is instead of going around the room and trying to figure out what the amendment looks like. On the fly. Yeah.

Yeah. That's my... On the fly, to that point. Everything...

So our next agenda item is action regarding council direction to the Charter Review Commission. So we may say, hey, go back and think about these things. Take another meeting. I don't think you need to make that decision tonight. And there may be much more wordsmithing that could make it better as opposed to make it... Not now.

If there was something small that we could address here and forestall having another meeting, I was attempting to go that route.

I have no doubt. I applaud your optimism. What's number 12?

I'm not hearing a motion from this group, so we'll move on.

I don't want to come back for it.

You know, week 12, right? Amendment 12.

I have this thought that I think it actually already is in our employment agreement. Probably. In which case, this would be completely duplicative, especially if it's already there. So, I mean, someone could

I guess it would require that you have it in your... employment agreement because you could choose to not have it. I don't know.

Why would we not say that the city manager has to show up to do work? It seems redundant whether it's there or not. I'm sorry. Jolly, I saw you raising your hand.

I just want to make a point and I've made this point in one of our sessions that we had. We're pointing a situation to one that and I believe the council understood when I was talking about it then when I see something like this this is not just towards one individual it should be towards the whole council and it should be within the contract not necessarily in a charter it should be a bylaw for each one of you individuals I hope I didn't say that rudely But for everybody that's on the council, not just directed towards one individual. Even though we know she's a city manager and she holds a big place in our city, I think it should be directed at the group as a whole. That's all I wanted to say.

And I believe there is a... Can council members lose their seat if they miss three consecutive meetings?

Yeah, three in a row.

Unexcused.

No, there's no one that's excused. There's no one that's excused. It is a shall, as I recall. Item 12. Double check.

Jim, you raised your hand before I called on Ercho. Okay, very good. Item 12. Item 12 addresses the residency of the city manager. We discussed that our current municipal... Judge. Sorry, Judge. Thank you. We did discuss the city manager, and the city manager is still required to live within the city limits. How come not the judge? But the judge, we discussed that, and we recognize that our current municipal judge is also the municipal judge in BK's, and would be difficult for... that person to maintain dual residencies. But they don't have that provision. Yeah, but they don't have that provision. So we felt like we should take that out of our charter.

How big is BK?

Again, if you hire that person and require that they live here, the charter wouldn't prevent you from doing that in a contract.

I mean, I guess, yeah. Fair point. The other side of that, right, is that you would potentially have an expanded pool of qualified people versus finding someone who's willing to be a municipal judge inside the city limits of Pflugerville.

I think we've talked about this before.

Yeah, we have. We have a number of candidates who don't reside in the city of Pflugerville.

Yeah, we've talked about this for years.

Okay. What are the pros and cons? A municipal judge is a part-time job, not like the city manager, which is a full-time job. You can't say that. You cannot say that.

Not your favorite.

Are we good with this item?

I have thoughts about it, but someone's trying to influence what's going on here, given her viewpoints and perspectives.

Let's go. Item 13.

Skipping 13 and 14.

Trist is happy with 13?

Moving to 15 and 15 unless there's objection. And as well, if anyone from the CRC wishes me to expand on any of the items that I'm skipping over, please throw something at me. Gently. Okay. Charlie. Yes, sir. Item 15 and 16 talks about petitions. I think Section 703. Lowering the threshold? Yeah. Is dropping it from 15 to 10%. We discussed 5%. And we settled on 10, understanding the growing... growing number of qualified voters with registered voters within the city limits. And so we settled on 10. I would... I have concerns.

Could I ask you to maybe give us a little bit of what you all... Qualified registered voters. A little preview of what you all discussed or how you landed on that number. Yeah, I know.

I know a lot. I would not want him to speak. Does anybody want to talk directly to the reasons why we settled on 10?

I think Terry. Terry.

He's not sure. I'll give you a little bit of the, like right now there's currently one situation as relates to ACC, right? And so I forget the number that is the exact number it needed. Something like that. will reduce the number of signed voters to get it back on the ballot. ACC is 5%. ACC is for the ISD. It's for the ISD, but something, I think the number is the same. The ACC is 5%.

It's 5%.

5%. So now we actually are coming closer to...

The interesting thing about that is that they don't actually need the petition. They don't have to petition. That board can also do the same thing that they do via petition.

To get it back on the ballot, though.

It's outside the scope of this meeting. It is. So that's the 5%.

This has been 15%.

But you see the gap. There's 15% versus 5% in that kind of situation.

Isn't that true also of the city that if we wanted to put something on the ballot, we could choose to put this on the ballot? But this is the voice of the people of whether they want to put something on the ballot. And I've looked into this like over 15 years ago. This was one of my suggestions because it's such a high barrier that it makes it virtually impossible as if it was prohibited. And 5% is a general rule that I've seen in a lot of petition requirements. So 10% is even higher.

You said a virtual barrier. So has this never been successful? Because, I mean, that's what I mean. And I would say that so in our state, in Texas, we do not have anything that we can do by referendum that can be added regarding our state. Constitution or anything else about the hospital, period. And so I would love to get the history behind what referendums have. have not been successful. I don't know. I guess what we could get is a successful one to see what that actually looks like and when that was and what the population of the city was.

But maybe they never attempted it because the bar was so high because right now at 42,000 registered voters, which is a similar one, 15% would be 6,300, which can be more people that vote in an election.

That was the point I was going to make. I believe that's a higher number than actually voted in the last election.

Craig has a comment. I wanted to know that number. That makes a big difference.

I'm sorry, what was that number? He said 6,300. 6,300. I mean, that's more than was in the runoff, but not the general.

The runoff is rather unique. And you know the runoff is always going to be substantial. Yeah, that was record numbers for a runoff.

It was also record numbers.

How many did you say, Melody?

42,000. I'm just going off my memory.

They're about 45. That makes it higher.

You don't call that election, you step down. The task of getting 10%. But this is a petition to add something to.

This is not the recall.

That's still 15%, right? This is adding to initiative that people want on the ballot.

Now we should make the recall like 2%.

Oh, never mind. This one says 10%. It is a referendum. So be mindful. It is something that's a referendum initiative and a minor referendum. So the main concept is we need to lower the number. And it was mixed at first, but the eyes said yes.

Yeah. I'm going to give you credit. So that's all. No, I've already said it. I mean, literally, when you're asking for something specifically to be denoted and changed, like I said, in Texas, we don't even have that. We don't have that period. If you're asking for something specifically to be changed in your city, I don't think that having 15% is an infinitesimal barrier to stop people from actually getting something that's significantly changed on that. Now, we're not talking about recalls. We're talking about actually changing something physically that's actually done with the city. Now, I also want to get more information on it. So, I want to hear, okay, what has been successful, what has been out of there. Hopefully, you have some information.

Yeah, the other part of it, it's not just the numbers, but as soon as you get your first signature, 8 o'clock starts, and you have a certain number of time. The shot clock. How long? Six months. You think it's like...

180 days. Yeah, I was going to say two months, something like that.

I'm not going to hold you to it. It's a matter of the time constraints within it from the moment you get your first signature that also made a bigger difference of needing to bring that threshold down. Because 15% in... 10 years versus trying to get in half a year whenever it takes a while to get your initiative going to get those signatures. That was the main, it's that percentage versus the time frame.

Mike, so, yeah, and Mike, I know you made a note about trying to see what successful work firms we have. Can you also get the shot clock and see when the shot clock starts?

But for reference, if we look in the recall petition up here, 10% is required for a petition for recall, but 15% is required for an initiative or referendum. So there's disparity.

We can lower the recall to 3% if you want. Well, to some degree that makes sense. A recall petition is replacing a single member, whereas this petition is changing something across the city.

You are literally changing something. Bringing it to the vote of the people.

Bringing it to the vote. Yeah, but you are changing something substantially.

I'm showing that half of home rule cities have a threshold 20% or higher. Buda at 20%. Austin's only 5%, but Austin's got a whole lot of people in it, right?

Yeah, they're at a million, but they do have a 5% threshold.

Buda at 20%, I mean, Snyder at 25%.

And the percent has to go along with what the population count is, so the small...

That makes sense.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's a Herculean effort, I think. Without money.

So maybe the question becomes, are we able to change the shot clock?

I don't think so.

That's the question.

We haven't addressed that. That would be for five years from now.

All right. With that, I think we've... We've concluded. What's your next?

We also struck that the petitions must be signed by ink or indelible pencil.

Oh, I got one of that. It's a pencil that can't be erased.

We struck that part, so I don't know if we want to leave that.

I don't know. I like my permanent pencils. I don't know. Is it one of those NASA pencils?

So is state law more restrictive? Yeah.

No.

No. No.

No.

It doesn't. It has to be a permanent mark. Okay, item 16.

As council member pointed out, if signatures are struck from a petition, there is an opportunity to make redress to get more. We extended that time from two to four weeks. I like that.

Part of that is if there's one signature struck on one page, the entire page has to be redone. So none of those count.

That's why I've got...

I've seen petitions with partial... One bad signature throws off a whole page?

Is that something specific to us? I don't... I feel like David would know.

No, I was about to say...

I recently had an opportunity to litigate that question.

But it didn't cut it.

Well, you litigated in front of the wrong people. Oh, God! I feel like you didn't get all the way to that point, though.

Nobody on the other side raised that issue. No one raised that.

Yeah, no, I'm with you. I don't think that's the case. And that was item 16.

Item 17.

Moving on to amendment 17. Some issues around the budget. I'm looking for clarification. My first point will be to Trista and Mike. If you will look at 903B.11, where we amended the language there, that first A should be capitalized. I'm trying to save the next charter commission from having to do that. I apologize, I missed two meetings of this board, and I missed this particular meeting where a lot of this was discussed. The I guess in 903A, the subject was content. We changed the name of that to development, and section B is content. And then we added some verbiage there in terms of including shall provide a complete financial plan of all city funds and activities, shall be arranged to show comparative figures for current fiscal year's adopted budget, year-to-date actual budget, income and expenditures, and estimated year end results. We recognize that a lot of this is already done by staff, and I guess this is just sort of codifying it to make sure that it moves forward in that way.

Yeah, my only question to you was, okay, isn't this already being done? Does it have to be enunciated here? Or is that something that we can actually put in policy?

And it strikes me, yeah, that's what I was going to say. It strikes me as policy because different councils may have different expectations.

They might want something different.

They might want 10 years.

They might want three. And then when I see she'll provide a complete financial plan of all city funds and activities, I'm like, wait a minute.

That's a budget, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm like, hmm. Isn't that what?

But that's why. Okay. Interesting. Again, I apologize. I missed that meeting. I can't give you any specific information. Does anybody here want to talk about this particular amendment?

I would ask, this would be one that is common in cities to be policy resolution so that a council can be flexible to detail this is the sausage making. So to a five-year financial, of course we do these things. I wonder what a voter would think when they hit the ballot box because they go, oh, I can't believe you don't do those things. Now we must make them do those things. That's what happens in a ballot box. So I understand the phrase to codify, but that doesn't make sense to me as voters going to the ballot box and going, You're kidding me. They don't tell us about revenues. They don't tell us about impact fees. My government is terrible. And then to be real frank, what if you have a bond election on the same ballot? And the average voter, as much as I see the people in this room are very educated voters, I just question going to the ballot box and going, that is exactly what they all think. It's kind of like when you get a Christmas card and someone's missing out of the picture. And you go, I wonder what happened to them. What kind of Christmas cards are you getting? I can tell you that story.

2014.

I fear that this signals a message that is not true, because you're exactly right. We already do it. I would strongly suggest that this be an ordinance resolution, not at the ballot box.

I think much of this is required by our audit as well. That's an additional level of...

I don't think the audit oversees how we prepare budget. But you do as counsel, and you can provide specific... If you want us to put it on pink paper, you can do that. If you want it to be however you want it... The average citizen making a ballot decision is very different than this, is my opinion. Carol?

I just want the council to realize that a lot of our meetings revolved around what actually belongs in a charter and what should be a policy. There was a lot of discussion here exactly on that topic. There were voices, including my own, that said this is policy. Whatever a charter is, to me it's the Constitution. It's that guiding document. It is not how to do your job. And I did like your analogy of how to make a sausage. But, you know, so this did pass out of the council. But I do want you to know there were people who were very aware that the problem between charter and policy really guided a lot of our discussions.

So I'm curious about that, and Carol, I'm not sure if this is a question to you or probably to the whole body. Did you find that you frequently came to a consensus and a compromise, or did you find that there were frequently split votes on the Charter Review Commission?

Well, I can speak on that. I think as a so we the one thing that we got we try to do here is regardless of how we felt at the time of the vote, we we we support the vote. All right. And so at the end of the day, there's opposition to multiple sides. And I'm trying not to speak on my part. on even this specific issue and so at the end of the day the discussion boiled down to is this too much for the staff to do? Meaning is it anything extra that the staff is doing? The additional conversation also centered around What is the standard? Is there a standard that we must follow from a state level? And I believe we recalled that as well. And so as it relates to these discussions, we wanted to not be on an island of how the city of Pflugerville does business, but yet to follow a standard. And I think we had discussions about even whether this is a unique request from individuals or whether it's something that's useful to the majority. And so that's where the discussion is. How we end up landing on this one to be an amendment did come down to the vote. And as it relates to some of the conversation, also mayor-wise, is were some of these things shot down in previous meetings and then resurrected again? Yes. We did have, in one certain meeting, we did have citizen testimony in one of our meetings. And that helped this discussion move forward for clarity perspective. So hopefully that gives a little granular detail of all that was kind of discussed. But we still had a vote, and the vote made it. Which citizen testimony are you referring to? The council member, Melody Ryan.

So she was present during the discussion. She was present at that.

She was the only citizen that made public testimony during her time. Now, admittedly, I'll stay corrected. There was a session where we also had a member of staff to come in that same meeting as well. Because we wanted to make sure that both sides of the discussion at the expert level were in the room to make a discussion. Because we just want to make sure that we try to present as many truths to guide our footsteps as best. So without emotion, that's the discussion.

All right.

17 so 17 moving on to 18.

Thank you. It was it.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I was at 08 adding a mental appending this section Reads about capital project public reporting system it says that the city shall maintain a publicly accessible online reporting system for major capital projects and Upon the completion of the capital project, the city shall maintain a final closeout report. The city shall retain such reports for not less than five years after project completion. Again, I was missing from the conversation on this item. If anyone here would like to talk about that. The tone is the same.

I believe we had, as far as on, as far as staff, I believe it was someone on budget that was in budget here with us, and I believe some of it was also to basically codifying the standard that was a state standard which was FOR THE FINANCIAL ACRONYM THAT'S THE STANDARD IN CASE THAT STANDARD DECIDES THAT IT GETS CHANGED, THAT WAS THE MINIMUM. THAT WAS THE BASIS OF SOME OF THESE BUDGET-TYPE DECISIONS ALSO.

I think this is another one where we have a whole website that all it has on it is information about our capital projects and the current status and stuff like that.

I mean, you did say Codify. Sounds like we're doing it already, but yeah, go ahead.

That's what I was about to say, because I know we got our CIP. The question is, we have our CIP website, which we try to go ahead and do it.

I know, I know.

I'm looking at your eyes, Serena. Yeah, so again, I think this might be something that we're looking more at policy than codification on.

If I may, Chairman, it's fact. You said you weren't at the meeting. I keep hearing the phrase that we're codifying what we're doing. If y'all could imagine, maybe I should have come. You can imagine the amount of work we do in a given day. 512 employees, 15 departments, however many thousands of people that live here. We're beyond resident. It's beyond borders of city limits. It's business owners, et cetera. Can you imagine if I asked you to codify everything that we do? Provide a vacancy report for employees, codify this. I really could come up with 500 things in the next week to tell you that you could codify. The purpose of a charter is not to codify what we're doing. It is to provide governance direction. I really fear this has become a conversation of what do you already do, so let's make them keep doing it. That's why you have a council. I do have great concern also if I hear that we won't change what we've done because we've always made a decision. I hope that your committee would be open to the conversation of professionals that have done this for a very long time that understand charters very well. We've been a budget award winning for over 30 years. This is nothing new to us. This is standard that we exceed every year and can prove it with a plaques on the wall. So to say to codify what we're doing gives me pause to the voter. I'm going to go back to the voter is in the ballot box and reads you have to do a CIP. My first thought is they don't They don't tell us what the CIP is.

And the CIP is in every budget.

Online.

And also now online.

Goes to P&Z. I understand. So let me ask this question.

The CIP is required by charter. So some of these things are required by charter and were put into the charter and have some components that are not done and some components that are done. So if it's in the charter, you want to align the charter with what you want. And so if it's in the charter and you're not doing it, then that's our constitution. So we should amend it.

We need to figure out why and we need to hold ourselves accountable. I'm sorry, were there things you said that are in the charter that we're not doing?

Yes.

And have those been recommended to be changed?

Yes, that was one of the things in the charter. It said actual income and expenditures. We don't report those. We report projected expenditures.

It said actual and estimated.

Yeah, we're not doing actuals right now. The last budget did not have actuals today.

So we do estimated but not actuals.

Exactly. So those are just some small things.

I hold you there. No, we absolutely do actuals and estimates.

For the current year.

We do actuals through Q3 and estimates for the rest. That's why it's a projected. It is a combination of actuals and estimates.

No, in the budget it's just the projected.

It says projected because it's a combination of actuals and estimates. That's what projected is, is a combination of actuals and estimates. So we do that. We very clearly do that. I want to be clear. If there's something in the charter that we're not doing, we need to know about it.

Okay, so you're saying actual and estimated is one term in consideration, not actual and estimated?

actuals and estimates, that's how you create a projection.

Well, that was part of the conversation.

I'm reading our budget right now. FY24 actuals for the FY... Yes, we do actuals.

No, it was for the current year.

The current year is not over yet, so obviously we won't have a full year of actuals. We do this appropriately. That's why it's actuals and estimates. Pardon me, I'm sorry.

This is the way it was read.

I just want to make sure we're clear on that.

I have a quick comment or is there Jim so we're we're looking at all this and and there's some like getting the vibe that there's several folks up there that really are against any of the changes in the annual budget that's not okay so some of them are okay we're fighting against just a few of them then I think the real conversation... So I'm just trying to figure out what we get that argument and then there's the but but I'm having a hard time drawing a line Somewhere on some of these changes versus what's already in the Charter and like what we're proposing added Like where do you draw the line because I can make the argument that all of this section is policy right and yet It's in the Charter

So I think to your point, Jim, I think, well, Jim, you posed the question, so I want to be able to make sure you get feedback on that. The question, it consistently, you've heard me say that already in this meeting, that is a consistently push and pull regarding what should be in somebody's bylaws, what should be in the operating policy procedures of any given business, analogous to what we do at the city. So the question becomes here is that you bring up the point, the astute point, that, hey, wait a minute, You got a lot of stuff in here that you're saying should be policy. It shouldn't be in your actual, you know, your constitution, bylaws, whatever we call it. And yet I'm reading things that are analogous to it in here. Well, that's been something that we've had a conversation about. I mean, this is my third one. We've had this conversation about for... So that's... 15 years. Good Lord. It's 10 years. 0-5-10. 0-5-10. My question is this. My statement to you is that quite literally, we have gone through this before and we've, and I feel like every single time we get a chance, we keep pulling more and more out of it. That's like, okay, that should really be policy. This should not be in here for that. So you're just making it more apparent to me that, you know, like I said, I want to stay completely out of it. Cause I felt like when I was, when I was in your seat, like I did not like council members coming in, telling us what to do, et cetera, et cetera. Cause this is our whole point. This is citizen led. Let's see what happens with this. Um, but yeah, You're right. Some of this stuff shouldn't be in here. I don't know why. Melody is brought up. She's right. It's in here. Why is this in here? But I know that prior councils, because of just the way the city was through the years, they just kind of thought, this is the way we do business. And so how do you deal with the evolution of a city to get to the point where you're able to go ahead and extrapolate these things? I mean, we used to have conversations about what trucks we used to buy. like it's it's we were so we could afford exactly like i mean it was i mean the story was we'd vote on on pavement repair and then we'd adjourn the meeting and go fill the bottles yeah yeah i mean that was way back in the county yes i mean so i appreciate your comment because it just reminded me it's like yeah you're right and shouldn't have been here so i will say i mean there are definitely some things that are policy when we when we get into i'm gonna say um

Just real quick. Loose language. The budget shall be presented in a format that allows a meaningful comparison of trends in revenues, expenditures, staffing levels, and long-term obligations. How do we define a meaningful comparison of trends? What is meaningful? The budget provides us with a financial picture of the health of the city and the future prospects, but that allows a meaningful comparison. That That is very clearly subjective. And I think that worries me a little bit. I also worry, I mean, we've got number six here. We struck all anticipated revenues from itemized sources other than tax levy to itemized revenue from all significant sources and then an enumerated list of significant sources. Why not all anticipated revenue? Why is it itemized revenue only from significant sources now?

And what are they? So you're against all the changes, Doug?

Not all the changes. The title from A makes sense. You shall provide a complete financial plan of all city funds. I don't know. I might be against all of them because I feel like that's kind of redundant.

So are you against, let me just read one, a proposed change. It says the budget shall begin with clear general summary of the contents. That's what I'm saying. Are you any less against it than you are the entire section?

The budget shall begin with a clear...

I think that's already in there. That's how we started things.

So this is the challenge, right?

You guys didn't tell us seven months ago that you wanted us to strip out a bunch of stuff that was policy, right? I don't know that you need to. I think you're about to send us back with the grounds of that to go re-look at everything.

No. Jim, I think the question I have is, I guess this will be for Attorney Mike. Whenever a situation like this comes up, you have amendments from the Charter Commission, and there appears to be blatant opposition from the council. Mm-hmm. How does that work?

We are required to put your recommendations on the ballot, or your proposed amendments on the ballot.

So don't go back to X, Y, Z for rediscussion.

Yeah, I mean, we can say, hey, we would really prefer you not make us do this. But if you make the decision, it's up to you.

We appoint you to do that, and we're bound by your decisions. So at best, we as a commission can say, hey, let's revisit this.

You're welcome to, right? Yeah, and I think that, Jim... The tenor of your voice tells me the frustration.

I just don't want to cry.

But what I'm saying to you is that we're not making an environment.

These are our recommendations. Take it or leave it.

No, I'm laughing because he's like, I don't want to come back. I feel him. I think that that's the ultimate trump card from you all, right? Is that, hey, listen, we looked at this. This is what you're here with. We still want to go move forward with this. And I think that's fine. Because the whole point of this is to give some feedback at the end of this. And you're right. We did not give any guidance specifically with that stuff. And like I said, I feel like every time we go through this, we're always pulling out stuff where we're like, why is this here? We need to go ahead and get that organized from that. But I also understand Serena's point that if we give a whole list to people to vote on, and it's not like this November is not going to be busy already.

If you trigger them one place, they're going to shoot. That's the point we're making. If you trigger them one place, they're just going to sit there everywhere.

I will say what I'm looking for is substantive changes that improve the citizens' interaction with the city, right? I don't know. In that budget one, I'm just not seeing a whole lot of substance. Now, obviously, there are some things in there that were established long ago that maybe are too specific, but it's already in there, right? The changes don't feel substantive enough to merit bothering with the change. But we'll see where we go from there. Gem number 19?

Thank you, sir.

We got 10 minutes.

We got 10 minutes.

I'm done. Doug, I won't talk anymore. I can hold my breath for 10 minutes.

Thank you for your feedback.

He can hold his breath for 10 minutes?

I guess 19 is... We'll need two more.

One more.

Just basic. Whatever. And then 20.

Item 19 addresses how the public can participate in meetings.

No, sorry. 19 is legalese.

20 is what you're talking about. That's what I mean.

Yeah, 19 says Public Information Act. We're fine. 19 add new section 1105. What do you have? I have a new section 1101.

I think we have a revised one that says 20.

I've got the same one that Jim has.

Yeah, I thought originally you said 19.

I don't have 20 items. I have 19 items.

Oh, that's right. Well, so...

Well, 20 is your section. Just real quick. Oh, it's the first.

19 changes Open Records Act to Public Information Act.

That's it.

So go on with your 19. That's my 20. Apparently, David's 19. I think they made a change.

Yes, I have this.

The printed out one that we have in front of us is the same one that Jim has.

Sorry? Let's get a quick report from our city secretary.

Everyone has the same printed copy. The summary page is just missing an item. Right.

So 19 is the provision, excuse me, 1101 about public records, and it's just a name change to remove...

more specifics about the government code and then 20 is the substantive new provision 1105 public participation I see it now it didn't make the summary and the reason why we want to change that with the government code is because what if the actual code itself so it makes much more sense well actually it doesn't and that's actually the only one that I have a beef with is the taking out the government code and substituting the public information act

All right, explain why.

We think of it as the Public Information Act. In the other part, we think of it as the Open Meetings Act. And that's how we refer to it colloquially. That is not how it is identified in the statute.

So what if the statute...

The statute does not actually say that the short title of this is the Public Information Act or the short title is the... is the Open Meetings Act. I've got both of those right here.

So wait, just to be clear, what you're saying is that the nomenclature of this specific act isn't reflected in the actual language within the statute. So consequently, even though what we're concerned about is referring to a statute that might be struck out, we would still not be able to actually refer to the respective law.

Which is different from, by the way, the local government code section, where it says this subtitle may be cited as the Local Government Records Act. So that is actually the way it is in the state statute.

The other one is just not. Okay. So, David, I think the main problem here, if my information is accurate, so this says the Texas Open Records Act, Chapter 552 of the government code, but the Open Records Act is Chapter 551, and the Public Information Act is 552. So it conflicts with itself.

That's a good catch, but... Regardless, it's not called the Open Meetings Act or the Public Information Act in the statute. Okay, we are aggressively agreeing. We just need to look at it. No, no, no. The names aren't in the statute. So, yeah, we just flipped the 551 and the 552. That's fine. But you're correct about that, Doug. That's a good catch. Yeah.

So then let's just look at that. That's fine. That makes perfect sense. He's right. That makes perfect sense.

So what are we saying?

He's saying specifically the nomenclature for this, the Public Information Act, does not exist within the actual applicable statute. Doug just made a point that the applicable statute referenced here is not the applicable statute. So consequently, what we need to do is have something that's actually reflective of the language of the statute itself.

So what I heard... Well, no, so what I heard is that we want to amend that to Texas Public Information Act and leave Chapter 552 of the government code. Well, what he's saying, though, is that... That should be public information, not open records, correct?

Do we need to lawyer this ourselves, or should we defer this to the city attorney to...

If we want to include public information in records, we can, but they need to flip. But if we just say public information... or Open Meetings Act, there is no... That's not good enough.

No, I'm with you. We're agreeing on that. Everyone's agreeing with you, David. Aggressively agreeing. Everyone's agreeing with you. We just need to understand how to fix it. I'm going to leave that to Mike. Thank you, Jonathan, for pointing that out, that we don't need to legalize that.

We may have lawyers on council, but we don't have to lawyer ourselves.

So let's move on to item 20. I like this. Go.

Okay, so... That's funny.

Yeah, it's funny.

Courtney also had a lot of animated discussion. Animated? Referring back to the days of COVID when people weren't able to participate and emails, there was one request that emails should be read into the public record. I think we avoided that and just said that they must be included as part of the minutes. remote participation. A lot of folks are unable to attend personally, and so we thought it would be beneficial to require through the charter a mechanism for people to participate remotely. And then we put some guardrails on that as well in terms of of registration requirements, time limits, and measures to ensure that all participants can be heard. You're right. The ESD previously played their voicemail.

Sorry, I can't hear anybody. So we were... There are some concerns about that. So in particular, remote participation?

So we were trying not to... Be prescriptive. In terms of saying by landline, by cell phone, by Zoom, by whatever. We're trying to be vague just to make sure that there was a way.

So this specifically says live telephone. Yeah. And I go back to during COVID times, we took public comment remotely. I remember in particular the ESD meeting, watching one of their meetings online. They had a voicemail box and they just hit, you know, play my messages.

That's literally what we were just talking about.

Right, but that's not live telephone. Somehow connecting a live telephone into the system in order to, I mean, that's a technology leap. Yeah, that's investment.

Travis County did do that during COVID because I spoke live. You spoke live?

They just hold the phone up to the microphone?

No, no, you called in and- We do. I think you do. Yeah, no, I'm just- No, no, no, no. I'm just providing an example.

No, no, no. To be fair to Mel, that's literally what happened. That happens right now. Sure. Is that you can call in and they have- They still do it? Yeah, they still do it.

I think this is a good idea. I think the way it's written really feels very onerous and expensive. especially the live elements. Like, I don't know, maybe there is a way that we could come up with someone to send recordings or something.

You know, again, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. Travis County does it with Zoom. They have an applicable Zoom link, and people come in when they want to speak on a specific issue. They do that. Now, do we want to go down that path? I don't know. But what I'm saying is that, you know, even if we're talking about also having a...

What do we call that line?

Help line? Like, you know, 3-1-1? Yeah, 3-1, like someone, hey, I'm calling about this, blah, blah, blah, here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make it part of the record. I know people do it. You don't need to play it at meetings.

I mean, I worry a little bit. I don't know if anyone's familiar with Chad Kroger.

Yeah, Chad goes deep. Yeah. You got Chad Kroger. I kept trying to be like, guys, Chad goes deep.

In San Francisco, you've got a singing person, a guy who shows up and sings for three minutes at every council meeting.

So be it. We talked about that.

We talked about that.

We could only be so lucky.

I know. I've invited him. I want to bring Greg this. Greg, what you got? So this is the government. There will be those times. Mm-hmm. I've seen some nice TikToks of dudes doing some silly stuff. But we never want the good to be outweighed by the bad. That's the first thing. We want to make sure that every single person, whether they are physically here or not physically here, has the opportunity to voice their opinion. Because we're in 2026. I'm not sure about you all, but we do this thing called FaceTime all day, every day. We have this same existence. I'm going to repeat it one more time. This same existence that people are online right now, all they have to do is simply add a feature to this existing software. And we now, yes, Serena.

No, we've checked on it.

We absolutely.

It's not an option in the software package.

You have to pay. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So what she's saying is that within the software that we have right now. You just have to pay for an extra feature.

Yeah, it's not a button.

You just have to add a simple feature to this existing software. That's a fact. That's not a question. I already checked. What's the software package? That's what I'm saying. All this is is video chat.

You told me you checked.

Even if you switch this to StreamYard, even if you switch this to Zoom, this is no different than any regular conference space meeting. What's the cost? That I don't know. That I don't know. I don't know. I'm just going with features. I didn't check the price because when you talk about cost, sometimes it goes into per city, per person, and we don't know what this will fall under. But this is just simply bringing us into 2026 so that people can be able to participate and have equal value in their voice. Whether they're physically here, they can't. Like, for example, I couldn't even attend the charter session Because I had to speak in Jackson, Mississippi at my alma mater. That's crazy. That's crazy. I could see it. But I couldn't participate. And so that's all we're asking. That's simply all we're asking. And this is what it says. Be mindful. I know you all were mentioning a telephone. Be mindful. It says our internet-based product. Please, please don't major in the minors, guys. But that's the holistic component of what this is. We're bringing us to 2026. This is a charter.

that's outdated before they had telephones and before they had internet so now we're just simply doing something that has internet and success so my my my my suggestion is this is that i i i'm with jonathan i like the idea i think it's very prescriptive regarding what to do with that um greg i'd be interested in hearing okay you said that you you you're aware of what our what our software is, and you're saying that we can go ahead and add that to the software. You can send us an email tonight that shows specifically what our software is and how you can add that function, I'd be curious about that. And more importantly, some that are cheaper than this one. Well, no, remember, don't move the use of our software.

The reason I brought the price up because there was always, it's going to be so much more of a heavy lift and it's going to be so more expensive. It's not. This is basic stuff that we have. What I'm saying is that I'm very curious to hear that.

Everything I don't understand is easy, right?

It should be easy to do. We'll have to investigate that. I'm more interested, Mike, this is a question for you. This talks about remote participation by the public. What Greg just mentioned was he mentioned participating in the Charter Review Commission remotely. First of all, I don't know that that's allowed under Texas law. It is.

You can do that.

Posting is different. Availability, two-way capabilities.

There's some technology components. We would need to add quite a bit. The ESD does it. Travis County does it. Actually, to be fair, other people have asked. They're like, what do you mean you can't be? You can't zoom into your meeting. I was like, well, we can't for our technology purposes. And let's be, again, I want to make sure we're clear. I want to say this publicly so we hear about this. These are things we looked into, and then we also are looking at our new city hall. So we're saying, okay, what can be functions with our new city hall that we're going to pay for as opposed to something that's short-term for us to be able to do that as well? So why in the interim do something with that as well? Okay. I want to make sure that's clear.

But this would be an election in November, and by the time it would be effective, we would be in the news.

And that's why Serena said what she said. So, that's fine.

But I think that's, I mean, if you're introducing technology to a conference space that doesn't have two-way communication... You are already in 2000.

This ring. Yeah. You are already in 2000.

So if you introduce any software. There is no software. And I know how well versed, I mean, so for people who don't know, he did this for a living for a long, long time. So he's the first to know about this stuff.

So I am curious, is there, this does list? Administrative rules City Council may adopt them and enforce rules and procedures necessary to implement the section, including technical requirements, deadlines and standards of decorum. One of the things that worries me in this and and I I hope it's not a straw man, but it's the filibuster. It's the minutes. Yeah, can I? Yeah, I can get three minutes, but if I can, you know, get on Fiverr and hire 10,000 people to record a three minute video. You're never getting anything done again.

That did come up in the discussion.

Let me address that. So that came in the discussion. When it's live, I have the discretion of saying two minutes or one minute.

If you have a certain number of people signed up to speak, don't you have the discretion to limit it to one minute or two minutes like they do with the school district?

I do, but not if it's prerecorded. Yeah, yeah. So to answer that question.

We're talking about live.

Well, but he's going through. Mayor Weiss, I'll address that. So, of course, that came up. The Navy always comes up first for the good. So, essentially, we likened it to an experience that I just had. Tickets for the Obama presidential thing. You get in line, and after a certain amount of time, the line is closed. And so, that's the same. And you state that up front so that after so long,

We allot one hour for public comments.

And that's the piece that we're asking you all to go back and say, hey, you make the decision on those items, whether it's the time limit, whether it's the... Because you could definitely cut off, like I remember, I recall helping to name General Marshall Middle School. And there's a certain time, there's a certain amount per testimony, and you had a certain cutoff.

So to his point, wait, wait, I want to make sure we're clear about this. So on the board of directors of the State Bar of Texas, this is what we do, is that we say you have to go ahead, if you're doing public comment, you have to do it by a certain time the day before. And then you'll get sent a Zoom link that morning. And then you're given your, we give two minutes for people to say something. And then after that, we move on from there.

And the cool thing about the software, you can cut them off immediately as two. There's no, it's two colon zero zero.

To the mayor's point, I don't think this specifies playing pre-recorded.

I was about to ask that.

I don't see that included in here. That wasn't our intent.

But it says live.

Our goal was to do live.

The public to participate by remote connections. Yeah. Our intent is to do live. Including live phone. Our intent is 100% to do live.

It also says we can adopt reasonable procedures to govern the participation.

But to what the mayor was saying specifically is that including means it doesn't preclude something else. It just says this must be included by the term including. But it also says we can do the procedures. That's what I'm saying. And I think going back to what John... Let's go back to what we just said. is that this is a good idea, let's try to massage and see what's feasible and what makes sense.

And the standard, like I said, the standard could be what you all decide because we, as a commission, didn't go through everything, StreamYard, Zoom, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so the committee that could put that together, we trust the IT team of the city, whoever is doing the multimedia conference room best, right? And so they got to get the best cameras, whether it's Logitech, whether it's Bravo, whatever the case may be. You choose that based on price, bids, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Maintenance that's not something we did in our space, but the collective is just to bring us the 2026 So that's that's good.

That's so in the spirit of making this something that voters understand and Simplifying the task of administer again Would you be interested open to the idea of saying 11.05? Just ending that proposal with the word communication and then allowing the council and the staff to do everything else so we read remote participation by the public to the extent permitted by state law the city shall allow members of the public to participate in meetings by remote communication period and then we just implement that so you just strike everything after communication there Yeah, so we will figure out some way to allow remote participation. And that might change as the technology changes over time. And that way people who are mobility limited, disabled, people who are working remotely or they're traveling. They're in Mississippi that week, but they have an agenda item they really want to talk about.

They're in Alabama. We sure as hell don't allow it.

We'll be able to do it in some remote participation way that is feasible with whatever the technology is in 2027 or 2028.

I don't think we need to solution it tonight.

I certainly think that's something that this committee would be willing to talk about.

I think we've had a good conversation about concerns.

Given the optimistic notion that we'll have another meeting.

Jim is giving you dagger eyes. We discussed this in depth.

That's the main thing. We discussed live, non-live, recorded, not at all. And we landed on live. So kind of going back to the same messaging I said before, we spent countless hours. This was actually multiple meetings, by the way. And so we landed on live. Once again, just to bring it

Saying the city needs to do it feels a lot more charterish than defining a bunch of technologies.

Except for the fact, if you say, well, if the intent, and I'm open to the different options, but they specifically included live. because they wanted live participation. And so that's different than recording something in advance. And so if you cut it off at that point, then we can say, well, it's too expensive to do live. And so you're not going to do it.

Yeah. And for the record, that's some of the reasons why you can't buy a lot of these things.

And I think that would be awesome. But also, what if we don't have the money? And I'm not saying we would have that situation, but the city of Austin is spending $30 million right now redoing their broadcast. And now you could argue that's way more than it should be. That's what it costs.

I'm going to say, yeah, I hate it when people... It's way more than it feels like it should be. But that's how much it costs. I feel like we fall in the Jeff Marsh...

But I'm going to go back to that Travis County is doing it.

Everybody's doing it.

And so I'm unsure. I don't know that it's a large amount of money. And I guess you have to balance whether you want public participation and you want to open it up.

And I think that's a great rule for the charter to say, hey, we want people to be able to participate in it. I don't think you should. And if the intent is live, really noted.

And Council Member Endez, we specifically went through many discussions about live. And all we're simply doing is bringing us to today's language and today's technology. I'll give you a perfect example. This last weekend, last week we honored some guys giving them a $40,000 scholarship. I announced it on my phone for free. Face to see their reaction. That technology is on my phone, people. And it's no different than what we do. We have cameras that exist that follows my voice. I think we understand that. I don't know. Some people do.

How simple this is. So there is something I'm looking for in the charter because there's something we do, and this was always something I was very proud of, right? We say citizens may speak on any item on the agenda before we take a vote. You don't have to. The state came along and now says that we do. The state then codified that and makes cities do that. Before we take a vote on anything, we have to have the opportunity for citizens to speak. I almost want to mirror that language for what you're saying here. Give citizens the opportunity. That's the goal. That's the framework. The way we do it, again, feels like policy, feels like implementation. If what we want to do is have the ability for remote participation, then let's just say that. Yeah, we specifically call out remote and live only because we're trying to transform.

And you ask for something, Mayor, of something substantial, this is something substantial.

Let me say one last thing on this, and I think we can probably move on because I think we all understand what everybody's trying to say. I think my... other reticence with calling out live specifically, and I get it, and I agree, we should do that. I can certainly imagine a scenario where we can't do that from day one after this passes. And we may have to step into and figure out the email thing, or figure out, we may have to do something, right? You're right, they're not defining a timeline. But if it is shall, then somebody can immediately complain about the fact that we're not doing live on day one. And going back to Councilmember Rogers' point, I think defining some of these these things is probably more than what is needed in the charter.

I'm not worried about a legal challenge on that. I mean, whatever you're going to go to, you're going to see a reasonable standard. I mean, you get nuanced suits on that one. I mean, let's be clear.

You can communicate any implementation delays, and I think the citizens will understand as long as you're moving towards.

Yeah, well, any judge. I mean, there is something that y'all didn't remove from the charter here where it says, for every budget adopted after the 1997-1998 fiscal year budget... So there is some enabling language in there that says, as of this date.

Well, we didn't worry about that. We worry about remote access. And like I say, at the end of the day, it's like the other piece that you will find, and this is an aha moment, it's actually easier to do live than recorded.

It could be. All right. We're all good on that part. I think we've got some recommendations to go through, Jim.

Yes, sir. And so moving on from Appendix A or whatever it is to B, proposed recommendations. We have six proposed recommendations. And I asked for volunteers, really, to... to represent these. I made a list of names somewhere, but I left that list at home. So, recommendation one, who took that one?

That was me and Urcha.

Okay. Greg and Urcha. And do y'all want to?

Yeah, we'll combine.

Okay.

I'll read it as is. The council adopted an official policy with procedures for contacting impacted landowners within the city's extraterritorial jurisdictions wind infrastructure projects with impact these properties and uh... i'll give a little peace not go back to first for this list is only words is like uh... there's always a discussion about whether somebody gets annexing itself e t j well there's always a conversation of what the lines are uh... i feel like There has to be some level, and not just me, but the collective, so there has to be some collective education about that for our citizens. Because even simple things like whether I can vote on an issue, whether this impacts me because I'm in an ETJ, I shouldn't find out that when I go to the poll only. And we've got to accept the fact that that's not an issue. that's not an automatic thing that people know about. Um, and so whenever, especially when it's going to impact their space, their living, their roads, uh, we need to make sure that there's, uh, some version of, uh, public knowledge, public form, make it bold and pretty justice, be just as bold for sending messages in the email or, or on the website, the bold print in a newsletter or whatever that goes to our office. Um,

Mayor and Council, the biggest concern here was being transparent and communicating with those citizens in the UTJ when a project impacts them. Whether it's a road project for a connecting street or a utility project or a street closure. or traffic flow. That was the main thing is to let them know how that impacts them. Oh, I can't go this way anymore because there's work done on this street. It's not in the ETJ, but it impacts how I get out of the ETJ or into the ETJ. That was the biggest thing is how do we communicate with them and let them know what's happening, how it impacts them, and what they can do.

Okay. I think where I get confused, so what you've described I don't think it's something, how do we notify our citizens, our residents of those very same things?

You send a letter to people within 500 feet and sometimes it's not enough.

True, but not of a road closure. No, we do that as of like a zoning change, a development agreement, something along those lines. Yeah, we send notifications of 500 feet and we don't send those to the ETJ. So, I mean, we could be talking about a couple hundred dollars in postage extra. In those scenarios, but when it comes to infrastructure projects, road closures, we're announcing that on the website. We're announcing that through the newsletters.

People can sign up to get key to the city. They get every week. They can sign up. There's a whole lot of ways to engage where we're not. We don't mail our current residents road closures.

I use road closures maybe in error, but Anything that impacts them significantly.

If someone's within 500 feet of a change, and if they were in the city, we would send them a letter. But if they're in the ETJ, we would not send them a letter.

No, actually, I believe we do send them.

Okay, I just wanted to clarify.

But if they're in Round Rock, 311 rounds.

I will double check.

Yeah, because I mean, I feel like we don't because... I don't think we do.

We've erred on the side of caution. The state says X, we do more.

Well, and the state says 200 feet and we do 500. So we already try to extend.

Yeah, but the question becomes if we're at that borderline, like say Cameron Road, right? Like if somebody lives in the ETJ is compared to that as well. But I think going back to what Doug's saying is that our software doesn't preclude anybody right now from not signing up from there. So if you're living in the ETJ, how you become cognizant of what's going on with the city is by signing up for the text messages and everything else that goes with that. The question moving forward, and Greg, that's your question, which I don't really know a good answer to that because most people will not know or understand that they live in an ETJ until the one year comes up when they're paying their taxes. And then after that, another time when they vote. Those are the times that they're going to find that out. And we've said this for years, is that it's frustrating that people who are, I know, we're having this conversation in public again.

The number of people who told me they voted for me that live in the ETJ is like, no, you didn't, but that's cool.

And for us, that should be happening with whoever the broker is and whoever's selling these homes. Because literally, yeah, but that's not happening. So we've had this discussion for years. It may be happening.

They may just be overwhelmed with everything going on in my home that they don't understand all of these. I had no idea about all this stuff when I came and moved here.

So I have a great idea of a way that we could take that. What's that? State law would allow us to have non-voting members on some of our boards and commissions.