City Council - workshop

Good afternoon. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is five o'clock. I'm going to call to order the Pflugerville City Council work session on Tuesday, July 14th, 2026. As part of that call to order, I want to mention council members have passed out some gifts. Those gifts for you are also for me because notepads, post-its, your personalized stationery. I want to make sure that we can operate as efficiently and effectively as possible so I do ask that you feel free to take notes as we go through some of these presentations and let's give the presenters the opportunity to present as we accumulate our thoughts and try not to interrupt or speak over anyone as we go through the process. With that I do have item two on our agenda which is public comment. I've received one Note for public comment, it did include a couple of items. Mr. Les Wall, do you wish to speak now or with each item?

What's your pleasure on that?

You're welcome to come forward now if you'd like.

I won't interrupt much. I'll go ahead and speak now.

All right. Let me read the legalese as you're walking up here. A member of the public may address city council regarding an item that is on the agenda. Comments must be relevant to the agenda item. Citizens wishing to speak during a work session shall submit a completed speaker request form to the city secretary before the work session begins. Each speaker is limited to three minutes. You're welcome to come forward, and you'll have three minutes to tell us all about it.

Get my glasses on. Here we go. First off, I don't think I'm gonna say anything y'all probably haven't already heard or thought of at least, but since you're on the 26 and 27 budget and you put fireworks on there, yes sir, I'm here. The one thing I am thankful for is the budget last year was smaller than it was the year before. when we look at $859 million versus $783 million, that's a step in the right direction for those of us that have to feed that animal, call it a budget. The big disappointment, and again, social media has blown up, and if you haven't read it, don't read it. The city council has not been treated very kindly by social media. But fireworks run $60,000, $65,000 a year. And for some reason, If I throw the number 21 out and you're 20 years old, that's probably a pretty important number. I'm 21. If you've been married 49 years, I'm sure your spouse is going to remind you 50 is next year. 250 was an important year for many people in this nation. And for whatever reason, we missed the fireworks. The question that I would like to get answered, and I'm not asking it for right now, but who first figured out or found out that we weren't going to have fireworks? When was that time found out? If it was not in the budget from the beginning, it seemed to have been kept a pretty quiet secret for most of the media and most of the merchants. They were expecting it. And my family usually come together to Pflugerville. We go to our church. Our church had planned hot dogs. We were going to have the volleyball pit, the Frisbees, that and so forth, like we do every year. And, well, we had to cancel it. You know what? No fireworks. Okay, that's fine. We just killed the meeting. Killed the hot dogs, killed the kids. But from that particular standpoint, I don't understand why we waited so late to make an announcement. Had there not been money for that, here's a couple of suggestions for this year. How about a GoFundMe page? I'm sure there's enough patriots in this town that I'm sure we can scrape up $60,000. And if not that, how about the businesses we've given abatements to tax-wise for the last decade or so, have them put in $2,000 or $3,000 apiece. That'll get your $60,000. Now, I know on a $783 million budget, $60,000 is more or less a rounding error. But I kind of have to wonder, which outside consulting fee was missed in our budget? Which employees' benefit and salary was missed in our budget? I doubt many of those were missed, but this one was. I'm not here for a pound of flesh because, again, social media has beat you guys up enough on this. But it's kind of disappointing that we did miss the celebration. We're not going to have another 250. 251? Okay, it's another number. But, again, if you don't think the money is there to fund it, I'm with you. Our taxes, and you know, as you all have already said, I am done. I thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Walts. That'll bring us to item 3A on our agenda. That is to conduct a presentation on the Capital Improvement Bond Committee recommendation. I'll turn it over.

I will kick us off, Mayor.

All right. Emily, thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight we'll walk through a bond committee process that we've been working on since your retreat that you had in January. And so tonight we have a panel of experts before us, including our bond committee chair, Christine Bailey. I want to thank the bond committee members. They were incredibly helpful and beneficial through this process for staff and getting us to this point this evening. So really appreciate the effort and time that they put into meeting with us over the last several months. So tonight we'll recap that process. We'll go through the community survey that was conducted during that time. We'll go over the project overviews. Transportation has been removed from the bond proposals. We found that through our regular budgeting process, as Matt has highlighted, through the capital improvement discussions we've had over the last several months. So tonight you'll hear from Parks, Animal Shelter, and our downtown parking proposal. We'll talk about the financial impacts of that. We'll get the bond committee recommendation, and then we'll provide you with next steps. We're not asking for council's action tonight, but to provide you information on this committee. WSB, Ang, and Ryan have been our consultant team for this and have been with us every step of the way and appreciate all their efforts with us and will walk us through the first steps of the process.

Hi, I'm Ang Points. Again, thank you for the opportunity to walk through this process with you all and your amazing Bond Advisory Committee. So I'll just jump right in. So we've been through four meetings with the BAC and they've been very intentional, they've been very thorough, and at times very long, and they've been thrown a ton of information So it's our job tonight is to explain to you where we have landed. So to tell you what they have been through, they received very thorough presentations on a lot of projects. We did start off with transportation. So they received a presentation of transportation projects. They received information about parts projects. And like Emily said, the animal shelter, their facilities, and your downtown parking. They evaluated each and every project based on a set of criteria because we wanted to make sure every project was on like a set playing field. And so they looked at every single project and we deliberated and talked about, one, does the projects align with the city's strategic plan? strategic goals, all of your master plans. And then two, how feasible and reasonable and how confident are they in any one of these projects? How confident are we in the actual scope of the project, the timing and the risks that we're accepting? Third, they looked at how it benefits the stakeholders and also how the stakeholders would see these projects as a benefit. And then four, they looked at equity and safety. They looked at it across the city. Are there any safety benefits? Did it help address that compliance issue? Things of that nature. And the committee also then evaluated the projects and as a whole, as the whole 2026 potential bond project. election and their financial impact. So we looked at the impact to city taxes and we looked at the impact overall as a homeowner. So you'll be privy to that information today. And I want you all to know that the first meeting we started out with a $184 million bond program. And we dwindle it down to 117. And then tonight we're showing you a proposed 2026 bond election totaling $87.4 million. We took the idea to the public. That was the next step. That's that public engagement. We did that in between some of the meetings. And Ryan's going to recap that for you and tell you what we asked and what they said. And then we brought those survey results and the things that we heard at the public engagement events back to the committee. And that really helped form their final recommendation. So that was our last meeting with the BAC in March. here tonight. We have helped compile their information and your chairwoman, Chris, is going to present that to you tonight. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Ryan and talk to you about their mission and vision and kind of where they started.

Thanks, Ange. Hi, everyone. Ryan Earp. I'm Director of Public Engagement at WSB. I had the privilege to help facilitate the meetings with the Bond Advisory Committee. And I think back to our very first meeting where we, as a group, we set the vision and mission for the Advisory Committee. So at the very beginning of this process, we asked a simple but powerful question. What do I want to see? What emerged wasn't just a list of projects. It was a shared vision for how this community makes big, long-term decisions together. window over there, all the bond advisory committee members got yellow sticky notes. They wrote down what they want to see. And what emerged from that were really three key themes. The first one was fiscally responsible. We want to see a bond program that is fiscally responsible. We want to see a bond program that is inclusive and transparent. And finally, number three, we want to see a bond program that has long-term strategic growth and is putting the future of Pflugerville first. From there, we took those vision pieces and developed a mission statement, and I'll read that to you tonight. The mission of the Bond Advisory Committee is to recommend a 2026 bond program that reflects the community's priorities through an inclusive, transparent, and fiscally responsible process that strengthens and improves city services. Their work aims to set a community vision for the future and ensure that recommended projects serve the needs of Pflugerville and support the long-term well-being of the city and its residents. So each meeting, we came back to that, the vision and the mission, and set that as a guiding compass for our work. As I mentioned, we consistently return to those priorities. And I will say, Chris and the entire committee met the process head on with integrity, with thoughtful deliberation, and in doing so help to shape a bond program that delivers community-centered outcomes. Let's go to this survey. So one of the things I want to cover tonight is what we took from the community survey. But before we do that, I just wanted to kind of outline some of the work that led up to that. We took a holistic approach to outreaching and engagement working with city communications staff. and city staff to make sure that word got out to community members about this process and the program. So you might have seen newsletters, the key to the city, our weekly council updates, promoting the survey and promoting our progress. We utilized digital promotion on the city website and Facebook posts to help let the community know about the survey and where we were going to be participating in opportunities for public input. We did host a series of kind of in-person engagement events. We attended the Slice of Pflugerville event on April 25th, coffee and fuel event on May 2nd, and music in the park on May 8th. And we brought information forward to community members about the bond program and listened to what the community priorities were. So during that process, we had a community survey open just under a month, April 17th through May 11th. And during that short period of time, we had 357 total responses. One of the things that's important to note up front is that this wasn't a scientific survey. It was a convenient survey or a random survey, meaning participants weren't selected through probability-based representative methods. If it was in front of them and they wanted to participate, they did. But during that time, 357 total responses, that's a fantastic response rate in, again, just under a month. So key themes, really quickly. First one was a strong connection and engagement from respondents. As I mentioned, getting that total number of survey responses in a short period of time was a fantastic start. Number two, transportation projects ranked the highest. But as we learned through the process, there were some different funding sources for transportation projects. But second, a close second, was parks and trails and recreation. And as you'll see, all options received strong support when evaluated independently. Number three, there was a broad recognition that investment is needed. A majority of respondents expressed confidence that Pflugerville needs to make new investments to keep up with growth. There was some mix when the topic of voting or property tax was introduced to that, but any mix or variance in support can be connected to a need for more information before making a decision. number four again parks trails and recreation are we're not only supported but if you look at the open responses opportunities to where respondents had the ability to write comments they mentioned that parks trails and recreation are viewed as core quality of life infrastructure for the city and number five also from the open comments affordability costs transparency are central to trust All right. So a breakdown. So in a series of questions, we break it down here for you. We ask participants to share their level of support for particular project buckets. So you'll see there at the top, downtown parking. We have our animal facility, parks, and transportation. There's a big bold line in the middle representing the 50% mark. So you'll see strongly support in blue and somewhat support in orange. Moving to neutral in green, somewhat oppose and strongly oppose. the level of support there for all of the projects, but particularly parks, recreation, and trails. All right, regarding the topic of investing, the question was asked, how confident are you that Pflugerville needs to make new investments to keep up with growth? 45.1% were very confident in that need. 15.13% were somewhat confident 10.92% were neutral, 12.32% were not very confident, and 14.57% were not very confident at all. Next question, how supportive are you of the city investing in improvements? 40.9% were very supportive, 29.9% were somewhat supportive, 6.4% were neutral, 11.4% were somewhat opposed, and 9.8% We're very opposed. And then again, when I talked about that mix, when we introduced language such as voting or property taxes, we did see a little bit of mix. And this is on the right hand side of the screen here, you'll see that mix. So how likely are you to vote in support of a bond program? So very likely was 23.25, somewhat likely was 24.65, neutral was at 10%, somewhat unlikely was 12.04, and very unlikely is 28.57.

Okay. So, you were about to hear a briefing on every single project, but I just wanted to give you a visual of where all those are. You obviously know where all these parks are, but I think it really does help to see things on the geographic part of the city. So you're going to see projects in three buckets, parks, pause, and downtown core parking, and that is going to total $87.4 million. All of these projects are going to be in the South Pflugerville area, except for the two, I would say citywide buckets. That's the citywide trails in the land and right-of-way acquisition or easement acquisition funding buckets within the parks. And then there is only one project specifically in the east, And that is going to be the 1849 park phase three. And now, Jeff.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. So we'll go through these pretty quickly because you've heard quite a bit about these projects over the last couple months through the CIP discussions. The first is destination play at Bowles Park. This is phase two. Phase one was part of the 2020 bond. I do want to note this was a key priority, this destination type play amenity. for the 2023 Parks, Rec and Open Space Master Plan. It's also important to note that with this facility really anywhere, but particularly at Bowles Park, parking, restroom, and pretty considerable civil work are needed. And so the $5 million we have currently would provide those and probably a medium-sized playground. And so we are recommending additional investment so that we can see the economic impact on the area that we've discussed quite a bit over the last couple months. The all-abilities play, the community gathering space, and the amenities for all ages obviously needs larger investment than what we have currently.

And Dr. Ritchie, can you explain to us what those last two pictures are because that doesn't look like Pflugerville to me.

You bet. You bet. We don't have the Destination Play amenity quite yet.

Well, and we don't have any skyscrapers either. That's true. Quite yet.

Yes. That's also, that's the next project. In your dreams. So the one on the left is Alliance Children's Garden, which is close to downtown. And so the, downtown Austin, sorry. Okay. And so the design team that we have working on destination play actually designed Alliance Children's Gardens and worked on that thing through construction. If you've been out there, you've seen sort of the immersive play that we've talked about over the last couple months. It's a lot further into this destination play space than a simple playground, pavilion, and restroom that you might see.

Do you have a sense of what the budget is for the Austin space?

from that park yes yeah so it was somewhere around 10 million 10 years ago or a little more at this point so in that one does that include land acquisition cost or the city already that was parkland already yeah I would that I know it was parkland previously to go any deeper than that so adjusting for inflation to build that same thing today would be

15 million, 20 million?

Yeah, right around where we are. And we did talk to them about this. They didn't quite have to do, it's close to floodplain, it's not in floodplain. Some of our areas within Bowles, really all of our parks are close to floodplain. And so that's the civil work I mentioned. We've got some additional things we've got to do to prep that site, add additional parking, upgrade the restroom, things like that. They did not have to do that. And so the picture on the right is, we've referenced this park a couple times as well. This is downtown Cary Park in Cary, North Carolina. And so they have a ton of amenities for families, for kids, things like that. But the reason I use this photo is they also have a Bark Bar. And so that is a dog park bar. I'm not saying we need to do that in Destinations Play, but it's sort of opening us up to the sort of creativity that we can see in this project if we are thinking past, again, just the traditional... playground, you know, pavilion, restroom kind of concept for this destination type community. Because we really want this to be a space for adults to gather, seniors to gather, you know, young professionals to find a place. And so we're getting creative with this design team to see what we can do to engage not just kids, to be honest, not just families.

Now I know that the city of Houston has something similar to that in their park that they have next to their convention center, and they do have a dog park there, and they have a bar. I'm wondering if that is compatible with a Play for All Abilities park, or if that needs to be a separate element.

Yeah, so that park is, you know, pretty... I've been there, and it is... developed essentially for tourism, you know, and folks that are going there. So that one makes a ton more sense. Downtown Cary Park is that facility right there is right next to a playground. And so you find ways to... That's not what I asked.

It's a play-for-all abilities playground as opposed to a regular playground. That's right. You have different people there, and they're going to have different needs. I see the idea of a dog park slash bar as being congruent with the Downtown East project, for instance. I'm not clear that that would be appropriate to have next to a play for all abilities park.

To be clear, we are not... saying we should have a bar. We're just saying we want to think about ways to engage adults as well.

So I appreciate that. I think in the future, yeah, let's not have that as one of the vision images. You bet. I think that's causing us to get wrapped around the axle. But why don't you keep telling us about this plan?

That's all I have for that one.

All right.

1849 Park Phase 3, so this project includes three additional fields. This is a larger baseball field, a 300-foot fence that's larger than the three that we've got out there currently, a softball field that's the same size as what we have, and then a Miracle League field, which is, again, tailored towards kids with special needs. It's a different type of surfacing. You can be in a wheelchair on it. You can also play t-ball games on it as well, so it serves multi-purpose. some additional pickleball courts there. And then the northern portion, this is finishing out 1849, includes tennis courts, and then it includes largely natural areas. So you'll have trails, you'll have nature play, nature education, and things like that.

Jeff, where, okay, I'm trying to think, because I was on the original committee over a decade ago. Where are we on the phases? Because, are we on the timeline? I mean, because I remember it seemed like Phase 3 was something that was going to be pretty far out there to actually ultimately come to fruition. And has it altered significantly from the original thought of it?

I think we're close to the timeline. I don't remember the exact timeline, but I remember when I first got here seven years ago that we thought build-out would be, you know, when you're a director and you're trying to get a sense of what the park system is, I thought the build-out of 1849 Park would be in the first seven or ten years. of my time, and so I'm seven years now, so ten years, this is probably close to that timeline.

And if I remember correctly, too, in looking through this, because I was not here during those conversations, there was potential for there to be four phases for 1849.

Well, we had the amphitheater. I remember Verner Jean was quite adamant about having an amphitheater so we could have kids out there from schools and do that.

You know, with the way that that's grown out there, we obviously have some work to do. This is an old master plan that we're still working off of, so we would have to go through and sort of re-engage on that. Our thought initially, before we jump into this, is that would turn more into like an educational amphitheater, like a nature amphitheater you might see at a state park, you know, to tell that sort of story. Horse culture gathering.

Yeah, and so we still have some of those amenities. Give me a quick idea. How much land at 1849 is developed? How much does this develop and how much is remaining? So I can understand this is phase three. Are there eight more phases? Is there one more phase?

No, this will be build out.

This is build out.

It's about 300 acres total. You've got about 80 already completed with phase one. And then we did another 40 or... Yeah, 30. 30 with Phase 2. So this is the last half of that. Now, not all of it's developed as far as program space. You're not going to see as many ball fields.

Because you had the recent figure. We're going to see trails and more nature walk and amenities towards the creek. But this recommendation gets us to build out. This is build out. Okay. That's what I need to know. Thank you.

So what's driving the cost on here when there's only the other phases? We had soccer fields and football fields. We had some Baseball fields, you know, and this seems to be the largest. I know there's inflation, but this also seems to be the largest. But I'm just looking at like maybe the least intensive amount. I'm guessing inflation.

There's some program stuff too. There are some courts and...

There is, yeah. And so those three fields are going to be not quite, because there's not as much grading, but about three quarters of as expensive as phase two was, which is the three fields. So that's a good portion. But then you've also got tennis courts, pickleball courts, and some other things that we're going to have to put parking in, restrooms. lessons learned we can't share the parking that's already there from no because those are going to be on the northern side so you're going to have to cross the creek so there will be some trails and things that go across that creek but that's going to be along melbourne lane

And so I don't think we're going to want to park there to get to those courts.

These fields are south of the existing fields. So those are between the existing baseball fields and the soccer fields, that concept for those three. Because with the topography on the northern portion of this, I know there was some early plans to put some ball fields out there.

You simply can't. Let's be clear so the public understands that. The vision we had back in 2014 for this and how this would phase in, had to deviate because once we ultimately went out there, to the Mayor's point, some parts weren't just as developed as we thought we were, so we had to change the orientation. We had to add parking because we started to realize how people actually go out there and how they naturally go out there as opposed to parking on the grass.

Which has been huge. The addition of that parking at football has helped tremendously and then finishing out the soccer parking. But yeah, I mean, you go out to Phase 2 right now, you can see the great... change that they had to deal with to put those fields in. And it makes for a beautiful facility. It also makes for an expensive facility. So there's less grading for these. There's less opportunity for ball fields on the northern portion of this property, the 18.9 property.

You wouldn't want them that close to a neighborhood anyways, you know, in some ways, just the lights and all the play and the lights being as close to the neighborhood. So you'll see less activation like tennis courts, but they're not hitting a bat with a ball that could go over a fence and into a property line or things like that.

Reunion Park, we've talked about quite a bit. This is gathering space and play space within the HCA. We've got an opportunity here to provide a community amenity while also telling the history and the story of that space. Citywide trail improvements, this is utilizing the Mobility Master Plan to plan out the next five to six years of trail connections, trail gaps, things like that. And we have an engineer that has helped us provide that list of projects for the next five to six years. So this would follow the prioritization of the Mobility Master Plan.

Now, are all those trails within the city limits?

No. Now, the ones... So this does not fully fund finishing out the mobility master plan, obviously. That's a heavy, heavy lift. There are some trails similar to what you saw earlier this year or last year when we moved forward with our engineering for the trails for this fiscal year that are connecting ETJ to city limits or are right outside of city limits. City Council will have the ability to... reprioritize those trails. We are basing our prioritization on the Mobility Master Plan. When we get to each year, if we want to shift priority and put a trail within city limits on there instead of one that's in the ETJ, we certainly have the ability to do that.

So from a bond perspective, this is a request for $10 million for trail improvements, not for specific trail extensions or improvements? We would have the flexibility if this were to pass to identify the trails that... Every year you have the opportunity to identify which trails you would like us to prioritize.

However, the dollar amount being requested is based on specific trails that are outside the city limits that would be in the county.

Um, some of them, I'd have to look at how many of them there are. I think there's three or four over the next five or six years. But like I said, if we move trails up, this is not funding the prioritization list from the mobility master plan. I think there's probably plenty of gaps within the city.

That's right. I'm not concerned about having too much.

Well, I'd like to have them identified. If we are saying 10 million of that, when I looked at things, there was a couple of questions. It seemed like it was about 4.5 million of those could possibly be outside city limits for areas that do not pay for the property taxes that would pay to build those trails.

So you're saying 40% of that request is for...

I asked questions, and based on the name or specific thing listed in the list that we were sent, that was the number that I guesstimated with the information I had available.

But the reality of the situation is to what Councilman Coffin said is that we have a list... but that list can deviate each year based on what we'd like to actually ultimately fill out the gap on. So we're not married to that per se.

What I'm hearing is that what it sounds like we would prefer is a budget that is based on trails that are within city limits. Now, I have every expectation that we could easily spend three times that much money on trails in city limits. So what I think I'm asking and what I'm Council is asking as well is can you bring us back an estimate based on city limit trails?

Yeah, absolutely.

Because that sounds like a reasonable amount of money to invest in our trail system. I just want to make sure that we're investing in our trail system.

And I think that something that we need to consider in terms of how we deal with mobility master plan and building roads and trails generally is is the limitations that the legislature has put on us in terms of our ability to annex areas that are outside the city. So whereas it might have made a lot of sense 20 years ago to say, well, we're going to build this trail that's outside the city for 400 feet for connectivity purposes, even though it's in Travis County, because we're going to be able to annex them three years from now, and then they'll pay the property taxes and that'll work out. That is no longer the case. The legislature has put a variety of... taxation and government limits on cities that we did not have to deal with as part of the planning process previously. I'm not certain that all of these effects were understood and incorporated in the 2020 plans, the plans that came up in 2020. And I'd like to make sure that in the future we are building for people who are paying for it. And, you know, we don't need to make our city financial problems worse by subsidizing people who are not paying taxes to the city.

So this is where I slightly disagree with you on. First of all, I wouldn't say 20 years. I would say three. Secondly, I would say that, you know, what I did over the last... Our siesta for five weeks, whatever you want to call it right there, was just ride my bike. And ride my bike all over town specifically to try to better understand. Because it's one thing to drive. It's another thing to actually ride your bike on the trails and all around and just see how things are operating, how people are getting from places to places. In particular, to me, what I became really cognizant of, is thinking of these kids in these schools, how they were getting to schools, and then seeing these gaps. I may not have let some of our developer friends know where I'm seeing gaps. And then like, hey, listen, you probably need to fix that going from that. And I wouldn't say that they're not, I mean, you're talking about VORM. So that's what, I would say that specifically. I'd say, listen, these folks are paying at VORM. These are the things that should be going toward that. The way our community has been, and just like you said, the legislature has disallowed it. That's why I keep talking about my frustration is likely we're going to have Pflugerville too. Like McKinney had that place we went to in McKinney where it was just amazing. But yeah, that's never going to be in McKinney. And so how do we go ahead and operate so we're not deviating off of our ideas or concepts? Part of that is making sure that we incentivize who our developers are saying, hey, listen, we have a robust trail system. We want you to have connections to our trail system right there. I like that. I like that we're saying, hey, listen, if you're going to build here, you build onto that as well. So I wouldn't necessarily dismiss entirely that, hey, listen, these folks over here are Sorry, we're not gonna have our money. We're gonna go from that as well, but I do understand the fact if we're we're saying that we're paying You're saying close to 50% of this is you know is what we're paying here That's it. Yeah, that's it. That's a different discussion, right? so I agree to an extent but I don't want to just throw out the baby at the bathwater because of given how the Ledges as part of my French continue to screw cities over and over again.

Well, I I think we all agree we want to invest in our trail system, so I would just say let's get a $10 million list of trails in our city.

I feel like that should be easy enough to do. Shane?

Yeah, I just wanted to provide a little context. We as city employees, we as city leadership see borders a lot that sometimes our residents don't. There's plenty of people inside the city limits that don't realize there are people outside the city limits and vice versa. There's people outside the city limits that think very much. until they vote or until they pay their tax bill, that they think they're a city resident. And so working through the mobility mask plan process, a lot of the connections outside of city limits was trying to connect Pflugerville to Austin, Pflugerville to Round Rock, Pflugerville to Hutto, which has been something we hear a lot from residents, that they want to connect to these other things. That's what you saw drive that in the mobility master plan. That's why you saw ETJ connections as connections sometimes to other cities. And we're working off the mobility master plan because it's a master plan that was citizen-led and approved by council. Once again, we can take $12 million of... Trails outside of the city limits, and you all say, no, not on one of them. We want all 12 million focused inside. We can do that. But the reason the mobility master plan had external trails, the trails in our ETJ, we have about 70, I think we're at 70 now, 70 miles of trails in our city limits, and they connect to 10 miles of trails outside. There's 10 miles of our ETJ that connect to us. I'm sure the citizens would love 70 miles outside of our connecting, and I'm sure they'd love for the city residents to pay for it, so they don't have to pay for it at all. I get that, right? I understand that completely. I think, just contextually, people are in that room thinking, I'd love to connect to Austin without having to get on a road. I'd love to connect to Round Rock without getting on a road, which is what drove... those decisions.

And remember specifically, I mean, you're not going to bring it up, I'll bring it up, Travis County Parks Foundation and explicitly talking about how, wow, okay, we're getting to a point where Pflugerville, because I was able to ride my bike all the way down to Manor, which is now you have that connectivity into Austin, you can just keep going and the whole concept is to go through, you know, down to San Antonio. Yeah, right there from that. And, I mean, we do get accolades for looking at that. But I can understand what they're saying because you're trying to balance that with the reality of the situation. It's not going to get better from a budgeting standpoint. It's just not.

So we can partner with the county, right? That's an opportunity that we have?

I don't know how well we do it, but yeah, we can try.

I mean, we are in Travis County. We are Travis County taxpayers. We have to advocate. So, I mean, but that's an opportunity. Working with the developers, I'm going to be optimistic about that, right? Sure. It's something we should ask for every year. right? The counties have parks and bonds, uh, I mean, parks, park bonds that should also incorporate the area inside and at the city limits as well as the ETJ. So, um, you know, I agree with the vision to connect, but I think we also need to include all of our partners in that project because I don't think we have to do it alone. Sure.

I agree. And I think that, uh, It's not just the cities that didn't immediately respond to the restrictions the legislature put us on. I think the counties maybe have been a little slow on that too. And the counties traditionally have let cities handle these kind of things. And cities have been happy to do that because they're like, fine, we'll build this trail. We're going to annex that guy in three years. We've got a cost recovery idea. At this point, it's a zero cost recovery. And, you know, we can't afford to just go around giving out. Handouts. I'd love to have a flying horse. Why would you like to be paying for my flying horse? All right.

I think we're a bit off topic. What's our next project here? It's flying horses, actually.

Yeah.

We'll add that to the next one. So citywide parks and trails, land acquisitions, trail access, and easements. We have to purchase land for trails or purchase easements. Park acquisition to develop using development dollars. So as we receive funds from new development, we may purchase land so that we can use those development dollars we receive to create amenities where we might be short on some. And the reunion park property as well. And we used 1849 in this photo as an example here because in 2014, was it 2014 bond? Yeah, that bond. When 1849 Park land became available, we did not have land acquisition in that bond, and so money was pulled from the Lake Pflugerville project to purchase the property. There was plans to use Randig Tract as athletic facility, and that was not feasible. And so, in looking elsewhere, found 1849, but we had to take from one project to use for another because we didn't have those funds available, so... It's important to have this here one for trails. We know we're going to spend this money on trails and potentially parkland acquisition, but There are opportunities that come our way that we want to be prepared for as What is the allocation between parks and trails in your mind at this budget? Probably depends how much that reunion park would go for yeah, that's going to be the first one because that's the facility that we know we're purchasing using these funds and I mean, it really depends. We do, you know, we are starting to develop some funds from Parkland Dedication that we, you know, could purchase property to develop. And so it could be half and half. It could be, you know, we may get lucky with some development and we've received some trail connections without having to go purchase property. Without knowing specifically, I would say probably 50-50. But again, those opportunities... Just like 1849, then that Flickr property became available when we weren't necessarily prepared for that. We may be looking at something in that area similar to that.

I think the last park acquisition we had was the 2020 Bond, and I think we spent about half of that on or close to that on the purchase of where the rec center is and the rest of that. Ultimately, there might have been another land acquisition or two, a small easement purchase, but... as well, and then I think ultimately it was helping with overages.

I think this is something, right, where you want some powder for opportunistic things that come up as well, right? To your point about 1849, etc., right?

I think we also need to be strategic about, in our new developments, about how often we allow fee and lieu instead of land. You can't get the land back. Yes, you can use the money to go develop something, but there's a number of neighborhoods around the city that have no parkland near their neighborhoods. So I just want to make sure that we also remember that when we're... It's going through the administrative process.

Doesn't that conversation come all the way around now?

Absolutely. I think the fee-in-lieu conversation is probably something we need to have related to our development code. Ensuring that the fee-in-lieu is accurate in terms of the cost to acquire additional land. And potentially in a way that... ensures that developers have an incentive to actually include parkland in their development.

As well as making sure that they're financially sustainable going into the future, that we can take on those costs. Absolutely. Right, exactly.

Yeah, I just hear it's like, well, it's a lot less expensive to get the fee than to do the land, but you can't take that. fee to go buy that same amount of land elsewhere to then you know like accumulate a different you know several different neighborhoods into one but that's what the fees are supposed to be for so um and we're working on that with the udc update so you'll see some thank you information it's been a while that was a different economy well i think the the parks strategy has changed as well right five ten years ago it was pocket parks and neighborhood parks versus a more

dollar-efficient larger regional park system.

And to your point, Councilman Rogers, we're looking at that more closely about where our limitations are and where we can afford these things in the future. So it is going to be focused more on larger community parks that we can more easily put onto our M&O.

But don't forget those undeveloped parks. That's what I was about to tell you.

You said it's changed, but I'm sitting next to someone. I don't know if it has changed.

Well, I mean, the goal that has been about... I'm just repeating what I've heard from our parks department. I mean, I understand. No, pocket parks may be... somewhat more expensive when you add them all together but our our goal and one of the things that we've been proud of is how close you are to a trail or a park and how much value it adds to that neighborhood and to those homes and people come here and they look at that you know I mean I had to work many many years to have a walkable park and trail and so I hope that you know going forward we we will just that that will just be part of the norm but there are still neighborhoods who have land or you know and that hasn't been developed and I don't want to forget that so I know that I'll just keep reminding you I still laugh when I go by the Melanie Ryan Memorial Park over in Highland Park It's an amazing park.

It is an amazing park.

We got it on 0.2 acres and it serves the community very well.

With a great trail connection. Exactly. It's got a nice putter. What's our next item?

Hold on. I want to compliment the parks people because I think they have done a fabulous job with the pocket parks. In fact, I was talking to a developer earlier this week about a new development they want to put in and whether they were going to do contribution in lieu or whether they were going to provide a pocket park. And it's an area that doesn't have a nearby park. So I expressed to them that that might be something that they want to come back and talk to Parks and Rec about specifically, but also the development team. But I want to call out again the very excellent work, Shane, that you and Jeff have done over many years to make sure that we have shade structures on every single one of the parks. I think the 100% coverage of shade structures is something to be very, very proud of. And I really appreciate your work on that. And Councilwoman Ryan, I want to thank you for getting that kick started all these many, many years ago.

Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. You may see us bragging about it on a shirt in the future.

Yes. That was 2011. First grants.

I think that's it.

All right. Could I ask a quick question? Sort of at the macro level, looking at the timelines, I'm curious to hear the rationale for asking for dollars this year on a couple of these where we're not even intending to start design for a couple of years. I understand things like land acquisition for Reunion Park, etc., but I'm just curious about how you landed on this year asking for those dollars when it wouldn't even kick off until... 28 or 29.

Do you mean in FY27? Like in the next fiscal year?

Yeah, before FY27, yeah.

Yeah, so on these slides, I believe these are calendar years that these are referencing.

Yeah, these are calendar year dates. But really, by the time voters would, if you allow it to move forward and voters approve in November, you would not be issuing debt until early 2027 at best. And during that time, the staff can be planning and And then some of your studies and some of your planning items, some of your big master plans and your public engagement could start in calendar year 2027.

And my understanding of this, it is a program. And we tend to go out for bonds every five to six years. So anything within the next six years is what we would include on this program, right? Yes.

We wouldn't issue the bonds all at one time.

No, we'd issue them as we need them, but we'd need to get the authorization for the next five or six years all at once.

That's what we're looking at. And we have two more projects, and then we've got some, we can show some of the depth. We have some slides related to kind of how that looks towards the end of the presentation.

Thank you.

So Rhonda, you want to talk about the animal shelter?

Yes, good evening, Mayor and Council. We are coming forward with the bond request for $20.6 million for a new animal shelter facility. We're currently located in the Gatlinburg neighborhood at the old public works facility. Much of our facilities are old public works garages that were converted into animal holding space. And we have the one building that has incoming dogs only in it. We converted one of the buildings, one of the old garages into an adoption building in 2015. with the intention of that being a temporary use building for dog adoption for two years, thinking we'd have a bond in 2015 and build a new shelter, but that bond did not pass. That building has very small kennels that are half the size of our kennels that are in our intake building that should be really double the size for long-term housing. Lots of issues with our facilities. Those old metal buildings get lots of leaks. The dog adoption building sits in And it did originally. It sat in a floodplain. Half of the building was in the floodplain when they modeled it into usage for animal housing because we didn't have much for options back then. And so we've been battling some flooding issues for a few years. Not all the time, not in every rain, but in very heavy rains where we get a lot of rain at once, we've taken in water in that building. Lots of various just breakages with water lines and gas lines and mold and termites, all kinds of facilities issues. We've put a heavy burden on our facilities department trying to keep us functioning. But our biggest challenge is space. When that building, the new dog intake building opened, we actually lost four kennels. So we have four kennels less than we started with before we built the new building.

Rhonda, do we have a number in the remediation efforts? What do you mean? Like, you were talking about, like, the issues regarding mold, saturation, all those other things. As far as cost? Yes.

You know, I've asked facilities about that, and they've given me a list of, like, I think we had close to 300 facilities tickets in a two-year period. But as far as exact cost on everything spent, I don't have that. That's not through our department.

Director McClendon, are you preparing for flooding this week?

We are. We're always hoping we don't have it. We've got sandbags at that building, the front and back of the building, trying to block water from coming in.

Based on your past experience, do you think that that sort of thing is a serious issue coming up this week, given the weather forecasting?

If we got 10 to 15 inches of rain, it would be a serious issue. If we have a couple of inches of rain throughout a day, we'll be okay. But if we take on a lot of water, I mean, that's the dog adoption building sitting there with flooding. The city has done things to try and mitigate that issue out there, digging a big, deep ditch along the back side of the adoption building to divert water. The biggest problem is all of the paved areas slant towards the building, and the building sits lower. So sandbags are kind of blocking everything, trying to keep water from coming in now. Their public works is looking at how to fix that issue. Regardless of whether we get a bond or not, this is going to be an ongoing problem until we would move anyway. So they're looking at ways that they can resolve that so we're not going to have the water come into the building.

You mentioned the ditch that's been put in place. Is there any way to improve that this week before the...

That ditch is in good shape and there was a pipe that was coming from the street through somebody's yard that spilled into the shelter grounds right behind that building. They took that and turned it and that has got water flowing the right direction. So that has helped. The problem is still if we get a lot of rain at once, everything from the parking lot and from all the areas just flow to it. So we'll respond and deal with it. There is drainage inside the building too that slowly drains. We've taken probably two to three inches inside before, not more than that. And the kennels inside are also about 12 inches off the ground. So we've not had where dogs are standing in water.

And that creates other problems as well, right? Absolutely. That they are so high off the ground. So it avoids flooding, but actually makes it a lot more difficult on staff and the animals.

And just so that we can get a sense of when it floods over there, when you guys have a flood, obviously there are floods in other parts of town as well, right? Can you give us a sense, if Railroad Avenue is flooding, are you guys having flooding?

Which avenue?

Railroad Avenue.

Maybe. Sometimes they'll get a good bit of rain over there. And you won't? And it's not hitting our area.

Okay.

It really varies. There will be some areas of town that are really hit, and people are expecting us to have had a lot of rain, and we've hardly had any. So it just depends on every storm if our spot is a dump location where it gets it. Because it's not, it's the rainfall, the rapid rainfall is the issue. Today, we've had rainfall out there. No issues at all because it's been steady or slow rain. It's only in very heavy downpours.

So it's the rainfall on the site, not necessarily the creek and the rainfall draining through the city?

So the creek did flood in 2019. There was a Memorial Day flood, I believe, that year. The creek came over its banks and flooded, and our outside kennels flooded. Dog adoption building took on water then. Not a lot. I mean, it drained out, but some of our other buildings took on too. Not the intake building. That was completely out of the flood areas.

And I think I've heard you mention before as well that your staff is pretty confident that the site is essentially irredeemable, right?

Well, so a lot, I think there's like eight acres of land out there, but the vast majority of it is in that flood zone, and you shouldn't build through that. And then there's still the old water treatment system facility that's underground, that starts at ground level and goes underground next to our intake building. They took out like a quarter of that building, a quarter of that racetrack when they Thank you. when they built that building, but three-fourths of it still remains in the area that's not in the flood zone. And then there were things underground, like they spent a couple of hundred thousand dollars extra on removing clarifying tanks they didn't know were underground on the site that the building was being put in. Because it's a, I want to say the Public Works was out there late 60s, 70s, 80s, and we don't have any of the old... No schematics out there.

Right. Could you give me an idea of the $20.6 million? What does that look like?

So that's estimated to be an 18,600 square foot building that would house dogs, cats, an exotics room, staff... areas, training areas, probably some kind of a courtyard meet-and-greet areas and play yards for dogs like we currently have.

And is that at the current site or is that at a different site?

That proposed site is the rec center location that the rec center is currently in that they would...

Is that a remodel or is that a demo and rebuild?

That estimate is for demo and put in. We have not gone into any type of design. There's always a possibility they could use a little bit of that building without knocking everything down. Animal shelters are very specifically purpose-built for animal housing. Those garages, they have kennels that sit on top of concrete and have individual drains that go into little pipes. It's highly inefficient. It takes twice as long to clean each of those kennels that it does in the other building that has kennels that are twice the size. because it's made to be a temporary fix or an isolation type of caging. So in a properly built shelter, you have slanted floors that when an animal relieves itself, that slants to the grains. If you take a building that has an existing slab, Now you've got the challenge that you don't have the pipe sizes that are appropriate.

So what I heard, that $20.6 million builds, you said, an 18,000-square-foot facility? 18,600, yes. And that would be on an existing site? Yes. With the demolition costs of that existing site? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

My question is this, is that, as you articulated, you said we haven't gone through schematics yet. what would we need?

As far as design?

Yeah. Cause, cause it means that's my concern is because it's okay. That's a, that's a pretty robust number. You definitely made it. You, you talked about the, yeah, we all are. Well, most of us, some of us remember the 2015 conversation about the animal shelter. Um, Is there a way to get some more concrete details to make sure that that actually is going to be something that's going to cost that, that's what it's going to look at, what it's actually going to give? Because my only concern is that if you're going for redevelopment as opposed to a development, there may be hiccups along the way, as you conveyed, trying to redevelop that site. And so I don't know how much homework... You do this for a living, so I trust you. It's me on this. But just trying to get some more detail on it.

So looking at cities that were our size, expected population, like around 120,000 people in, say... 15 to 20 year growth period. Looking at shelters, you don't want to build a shelter that, oh, you're going to fill up today. You want to build one that you're not going to have to keep spending money on over and over for an expansion every five years.

Director McClendon, I want to make sure that I heard you right. You're saying you expect us to have a population of 120,000 people in 15 years?

20 years.

20 years from now, you expect our population to be 50,000 larger than it is today?

I'm sorry?

You expect our population to be 50,000 larger than it is today in 20 years?

I am just going off of what the consultant set it up on. They went up on population estimates. And then looking at cities that were 100,000 to 125,000 people, they looked at Midland, Odessa area, and Pearland, I believe.

Do they share one?

They don't. Really? Just Odessa.

Wow. Midland and Odessa don't share anything. No.

And you said Pearland? Pearland's shelter. So not just looking at the population, but also looking at expected animal intakes.

And that's what I was going to say. You have to go off of that. Yeah, because you can't just go off of the population. Right, because... Exactly.

One city that's... I came from a city a third of this size that takes in eight times the number of animals that we do. So you really have to make your estimates based on what you think your kindling and animal housing needs are. You're looking at population, but primarily you're looking at what you're expected... from real numbers of what we've had at the shelter over time and then growth. And then things that we've done to mitigate trying to keep our numbers from going up.

I was about to say, and we know all too well, there's a lot of people around us who no longer take in animals.

It's a very difficult situation because people show up and call our shelter all day, every day, trying to turn in animals that are from out of jurisdiction. And we don't accept. So, you know, word gets out and people start lying and saying they live in South Austin and I found this dog and own pecan.

I was going to say, too, that we also have to look at social things as well. I imagine during the pandemic, more people went and got pets as emotional pets as well. Right. And some of us got to. So, yes, we're looking at population, but, you know, every house doesn't have a pet, and some of us have several.

Right. So you also look at your number of households currently and base number. You can figure out about how many animals you have in town, dogs and cats, based on average number of pets per household. National statistics, I would say our area is probably above national averages on pet ownership, but we just use the national statistics.

Maybe because we're empty nesting.

I hear a lot of interesting conversation down here. I'm saying maybe.

So I have a question. I don't know the answer to this, but our neighboring county to the north, Williamson County, they have a county-wide solution for animal shelters.

They have a regional shelter.

Yeah, regional. And so I just wanted to understand what have we explored with options like that? What are the pros and cons, if you can share?

This past year, well, I am not sure exactly what year Williamson County opened up their regional shelter, but they went in with all the unincorporated areas of Williamson County, Leander, Cedar Park, Round Rock, and Hutto, all contracting. Well, they're not contracting. They're all partners where they all pay for the cost of running and operating the shelter regionally. But the shelter is located in Georgetown. Georgetown had their own shelter. This past year, Georgetown wanted to join that shelter. They're in Williamson County. They had to have all of the partners all vote to agree to take them. But they weren't just going to take them. They gave a $15 million bond that passed to give them money to build a building on the facility to take in Georgetown's animals, not for administrative areas, just for additional animal housing because Williamson County didn't have space for that. So if you were going to enter some kind of partnership, you're still looking at millions and millions of dollars to enter to be able to They're not going to take it. Shelters are expensive. They're not going to just take it and pay for it and their people subsidize for taking your animals. So Travis County already contracts to Austin Animal Center, and I believe they're the only contracting agency that Austin takes in from. Years ago, they accepted animals from Lakeway and Bee Cave and Manor, a lot of the smaller cities surrounding Austin. But they cut that off because they have not had space. They have pretty much had very either closed or limited intake since 2020. If you watch on the lost and found pages for Austin and Pflugerville, people outside of Pflugerville city limits that find animals and have to turn them in there. there's a three to six week wait to turn in a stray and they don't accept them unless they are seriously injured and not going to survive or seriously underage and not going to survive. Otherwise, when you go in, they turn you away and say, we don't have space, try another place. If you push it and you ask for an appointment, you'll get an appointment, but it's going to be a long wait and either the animal stays running loose until that appointment running the streets or that person trying to turn in the animal has to hold on to it themselves at their own expense and wait on an appointment that may or may not come depending on if they've made space to get them in. So Austin has also had several years now of public scrutiny and They've hired consultants and had gone in and really looked at their sheltering system. They are severely understaffed. They don't have enough space to handle. They've had complaints from not properly housing, poor standards of care.

Rhonda, what I'm hearing is that if we were to partner with an entity, it probably wouldn't be that one. I don't know who it might be. Or it would cost us more than building our own in order to subsidize that. That's right.

And then your residents have to travel to another city to go pick up a pet or to turn in a pet. Or your officers do, and then you're taking them off of your... You know, we have just a few officers. It gets more expensive real quick. Yeah, so you're going to have to increase your staffing just to be able to drive back and forth to another shelter.

There's compounding expenses.

Yes, there are. And Rhonda, I think, you know... I have been fully convinced for quite some time that you'd need a new animal shelter. I, I, every time I've been out there to volunteer, it's like bless all of you for what you go through out there. I mean, I know I saw an update. I think that HVAC died twice last week. Um, and so you all are dealing with that year round, uh, as my understanding. Um, I think that PAWS has, uh, you know, our community has a very soft spot for PAWS. Um, I think it's a, a thing that our residents really value and appreciate. I also want to give you all just unlimited credit for our survival rate, which I believe exceeds our neighbors who have no kill laws on the books. We do better than them and we're not officially no kill. And so as much as you all are doing with so little and with such a poor environment for staff, volunteers, and the animals. I mean, I'm fully convinced you need one. I think that the conversation should be more about is this the right location? Is this large enough to be a shelter that we can continue to grow into? And is the design what we're really needing? And then how do we make that case to our residents? Because I don't think that they are, the vast majority of people are not aware of the conditions out there. And council has seen pictures, right? We've seen pictures of the mold. We've seen the flooding. We've seen all those things. And I hate to show the community just how bad it is, but it is really bad. And I think that's the biggest part of making the case if we want to potentially go for bond money on this project.

I think the hard part is that in the 2015 discussion, people were made acutely aware of the conditions out there. And 11 years later, they haven't improved. And the citizens spoke back. I remember Jeff Coleman. Let's not even get into it.

We did make investments in there. We made a couple million dollars in investments to improve it. But it is time for an overhaul.

We've increased staffing a good deal over time too. And we're out of space. We're out of space for people. We're out of space for animals. And We're dangerously close numerous times every year of, all right, we're at that last kennel. If it fills up, do we close intake or do we euthanize for space? One or the other has to happen.

So we've never made that decision yet?

We have not. We've been probably four weeks ago, we were down to one kennel. I mean... With limited space, one day can make all the change where, oh, you had space and now you took in eight, nine animals that just filled up all of your kennels and you're out of space because you're limited in what you've got to begin with.

So, Rhonda, are you confident that this request fulfills our needs for the next several years?

I am. Right. If inflation goes crazy, then this might not be the right number. But currently, I believe that is right. Thank you.

So I agree that we need new facilities for the ones that were not renovated or built like we did build some in 2018. I just haven't received enough information to understand the possibilities of going up, building a second story, addressing the drainage issues, addressing the parking lot issues. you know in order to and then also I wasn't sure if I understood what City Council's long-term plan was when they approved that in whatever it was 2017 of okay we're gonna build the intake building what's what's the next step and then what what happened with that next step so they basically had

Nothing formally ever presented, but the mayor and council then had allotted some money to build that intake building and then thought in a couple of years they could do an adoption building, an office space, and then a few years after that do a bridge from Conn to the shelter that would give an entrance.

I forgot about that. Yeah, a Conn Street entrance. Okay.

That was looked at by a consultant too, and the cost was going to be very close to what building a new facility was going to be. With putting some extra money in there for dealing with all of that underground infrastructure you have to remove, but there's also the possibility that it could go over that like it did before, and it could actually meet or exceed what a building at a different location would be. As far as a second story, you could, I'm sure most buildings are built where you can go in and remodel and put a second story up, but you can't put dog kennels upstairs where you have wash down areas that have properly sloped, efficient... efficiently done um you want all of your your dog areas downstairs you want all of your wash down areas downstairs cats really should have some limited wash down areas too because if you've got a ringworm outbreak or an upper respiratory outbreak you need to be in disinfecting walls and everything's spraying down and that doesn't go well on doing um um upstairs, depending on water capacity that's having to pass through that. So it's always recommended that all of your animal areas go downstairs. You could probably put an exotic area upstairs and some office space, but you're still going to have to build out on a first story area the majority of your shelter area.

So Rhonda, did I hear you correctly? The consultant considered redevelopment of the current parcel and it comes close or exceeds the ask here for new construction? Yes. Can you make sure we get a copy of that report? We can.

And then the other question I had, because I do have a concern about demolishing the recreation center. Do we have an understanding of the value of that recreation center and other options of how it could be utilized? Because when we had the meeting with the Pflugerville ISD, there was comments about the necessity for indoor basketball and other places. So I'd like more information about that.

I think for purposes of this discussion, I'd like to know if there are other sites contemplated that don't demolish the existing facility.

So they proposed a third option would be land acquisition. I don't know that the city identified appropriate-sized land that was already existing to put a shelter there. besides the rec center location. How much land do you need?

I'm sorry? How much land do you need? Probably at least three acres. Well, there's an area just a little south of you on Emanuel that is, if we call it blighted, that might be something that we...

Are you talking about the area that we approved a putt application for, or are you talking about a... Yeah, I am. That's 10 acres with development pressure.

Well, I ain't seen any shovels turn in.

Didn't we just approve that? Yeah, that was like at our last meeting.

I know. It's been a long time that nothing has happened over there.

That's true, but what we're saying is that we just did it last week. That's true. You're right.

Plans change all the time, don't they?

They do, but when you have entitlements, that increases the property costs.

Who were the consultants on this?

Park Hill.

We also talked with another consultant not on costs, though, just on

On design?

Like if you were to remodel type things.

Okay. Three acre land acquisition.

So in that $20 million or $21 million, do we have a more detailed breakout about demo, you know, this, that? Yes, they presented that to us. And that would be in the report that you can send? Yes.

Now, if we're not looking at that particular spot on Emanuel, there are some other spots on Emanuel south of Wells Branch that might be greenfield that we might be able to acquire annex into the city and give us an opportunity to build to suit from scratch without destroying any of the previous existing city infrastructure. I'd like to take a look at that possibility.

To his point, I do know somebody who's an entity that's interested in what we're doing with that facility.

The last proposed project is our downtown core public parking improvements. This is a proposal to primarily focus on acquisition of property for the future construction of a parking garage. It includes acquisition of property, the design of A surface parking lot and the design and design and construction of a surface parking lot and then the design of a parking structure Parking structure would not be constructed at this time. But as we see downtown Grow and we are hopeful that the downtown East project will serve as a catalyst to offer Redevelopment for the downtown core. It's been a priority in off the feedback that we've received related to downtown when we focus on That in our resident surveys, it was part of the downtown action plan. And so this request to be included on the bond is $5.15 million and includes those components. This helps really serve as a support to have more businesses locate in downtown when they don't have to put individual parking lots on the parcels in downtown. When we met with Verdunity initially, probably around 2019, and looked at the fiscal analysis for downtown and then follow-up conversations with them, our highest property values are in downtown. And that's in large part because those properties can be filled with businesses from lot line to lot line. And that surface or community parking lot can be provided to serve all the businesses in that location. I know in previous DIP conversations that you all have had, one of the comments that has come up is, well, we're building a new parking structure in downtown East, and that is true. That parking structure is being constructed to support phase one. It does have a number of parking spaces, but I would note that it's a little under half a mile from that parking structure to the downtown core. So if you walked from that parking structure to where City Hall exists today, it's about half a mile, which can be a walkable distance. But if you think about walking through Target and you walked wall to wall from grocery to home goods, five times that would be about that distance. So we also have to make it enjoyable as well. And so- Trying to encourage that walkability and also having enough spaces to support businesses both in the core as well as downtown east is important. And so that was where this proposal came from. That was a catalyst to provide that on this bond program. We know land values are only going up and so in order to kind of get ahead of that. It's to secure that parcel. Be ready for when the time is right to build that parking structure when that need is there. We are hearing some concerns from businesses in downtown that during, even not on event nights, but you've got all kinds of activity going on down there. People would be parking on private property, which are now getting towed. And so we're seeing more and more of that. We also hear about concerns about parking in front of homes. in certain areas too. And so trying to look at that more closely and providing a community parking location is why this is included as a recommended project in the 2026 bond.

How much land does that contemplate acquiring?

It contemplates acquiring a block. Kind of look at the core and about a block of probably about an acre or so of property in the downtown core.

Now I have a question because it says contemplated for a parking garage to come later, but in the CIP the rest of the money is in 2028. So I'm just wondering how are we going to get the money in 2028 if that is actually the turnaround time and when we would be expecting to put in?

A parking garage. The parking garage, I believe, in the CIP should have slid until that last year. Initially, we would put in surface parking, kind of build up to that, and then design that parking lot with the future ability to go vertical with a parking structure. The CIP should be reflective of looking at acquisition, parking, construction, surface parking. That could also include maximizing our rights-of-way for where we could put on-street parking as well. with a garage not contemplated until that 2030, 2031 timeframe, if needed. As we analyze the CIP on an annual basis, that could certainly move as we see how development reacts to our downtown area.

I'm looking at the new draft that was on this agenda, and it's still in 2028. The garage? Mm-hmm.

Okay.

You know, I think my biggest... question slash concern here and I shared this as part of the CIP conversations as well one I think waiting another four or five years for just a surface parking lot seems really excessive I also am not convinced that we can't well y'all know my opinion that we should just knock down the existing city hall and use that temporarily as a surface lot because it's going to be redeveloped And we've been told by our market consultants that that's five to 10 years plus away by the time the market's going to be ready.

Why not knock down Delta?

How much parking would that give, though?

Could also be that one. I don't know that it's been considered.

We also have a substantial amount of land downtown already.

I'm 100% on board with you there. I think we do need the existing buildings to be redeveloped if we have a holding purpose in between. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think David mentioned the other property that we acquired along Pecan Street. I feel that that's not an appropriate space for a parking lot. You already heard.

There's already parking around it that's being used as a parking lot. If we knock down that building, we pick up a few more parking spaces. It's not a long-term solution, but we're talking about an inexpensive interim solution.

It's not going to be inexpensive. It's...

More spaces is better than less spaces.

We're going to talk to some of our... That's funny you say that. Some people may have a legal easement and agreement over there regarding parking.

I think we've exhausted the conversation on that. What do we have here?

Happy to go to the financial component. Tracy and Ange.

okay so given all of these timelines and all of these costs it was important for us to put both those on timelines so I call this a cost resource resource loaded schedule and we do this exercise because of a couple reasons so one debt is issued over time if if you all are approved and send it into the November ballot and if voters approve one two or all three of the propositions, this graph shows all three. So debt is issued over time as needed, and the whole idea and goal of that is the balancing of the tax rate over time. Secondly, we wanted to look at this, and you're not necessarily seeing the background data, you've seen it in the previous slides, but all of those dollars that are tied to the timeline, we want to see when the public would actually see dirt turning um because we know that that's important um for to ask of your stakeholders to have that investment and for them to see dirt turning especially like over this entire timeline and starting as quickly as possible and the other reason why we do this is we want to make sure all of the construction is not hitting all at the same time um for various reasons like part of it is can your staff even handle um all the inspection and all the permitting and things of that nature And then we also want to put a realistic schedule to this to say, hey, can we actually spend these dollars over five years? And the idea is to keep ourselves collectively accountable to that. So that's why we do this. So we feel like there is a really healthy, gradual spend over time. You're seeing a lot of your dollars being spent really in the middle of this time frame, which is also very normal. So I just wanted to show you this for your awareness.

So I have another question because there is the cost to build and finance. There's also the cost to run and operate. So I know in the past bond proposals say, well, this is the cost to build it. But the M&O is a big component as well. So have we analyzed what the M&O is going to be on these projects? And are we going to disclose that to the public as well?

Yes. Yes. And these projects come directly from your CIP as well. And in each of those CIP write-ups, those MNOs have been evaluated as part of that.

They've been broken out. Have they changed? That's a great question.

also they're listed you know individually right but but then getting a sum total of all of these would be important for disclosure to the total by parks animal shelter yeah yeah well i imagine we're going to get to that conversation here in a minute as to how these would be listed as propositions i imagine this isn't one big proposition it's not that's right i imagine that Those figures would need to be broken out by propositions.

You're about to sit down. Great segue. There you go. So they would be three propositions. And Ms. Chris is going to talk you through the proposition A, B, and C and that priority. But for this purpose, downtown parking, that $5.1 million. And we laid out each of them in what the medium taxable homestead value would see. and their increase annually, and then we broke that down monthly. So you all can read it, I know, but downtown for parking would have a $10.99 annual increase, and that is less than a dollar a month. Parks, which is your largest proposition, that's going to have your largest impact, obviously, $131.70 annually, a little less than $11 a month. And the Paz Shelter, $44 annually, $3.60 monthly. And then overall, if all three propositions do pass and they go to the election in this manner, and caveat that, you know, we talked a little bit about the pause and maybe some different land, it would not be a horrible idea to increase the pause amount a little bit to account for that. You don't have to use the dollars, but if you think that new land is You want that pause facility to be on land to be acquired. We need to take that into account.

What will we base that on now? would you base it on yeah it's a great question that is something we have not discussed it's just i mean it sounds like if there's any fungibility here um obviously there's a fixed cost with the parking there's a fixed pause well i thought there was a fixed possible pause but now we're telling otherwise um but parks is the only one that allows for any sort of flexibility whatsoever if we want to play around with that happening from there um and I know we say monthly, but are citizens charged monthly or are they charged annually?

No, it's charged annually. We bill annually. I just want to find that tangibility. That's the only reason.

That's the lawyer in me because I'm like, wait a minute. But to be fair, many people do escrow. And if they escrow, they are paying monthly. They're seeing the expense monthly.

It adds to their rental or it adds to their mortgage payment. Yeah. Yeah.

Showing both was feedback we received from the committee, and so we thought it was important to have here.

I think that is important.

So I do want us to look at that overall number here, and we show it here as well. So we did a comparison. Again, this is what's driving the number we're reporting on the annual increase. So comparing to the FY26 to the estimated FY27, and I really want to keep that in mind. This is an estimated number. the median taxable homestead value is projected to go down. If we assume the current tax rate, that .5350, and I do want you all to know this is not AngPoints calculating this. We did consult RBC Capital Market, your financial advisor, to do this. If you look only on the city taxes paid on average, that is the annual increase. of that $186.68. That is an almost 8% increase on city taxes. We also want to make sure we're putting this in perspective. As homeowners, we don't just pay city taxes. We have a lot of taxing entities, and it is a 1.9% increase to that median homestead value.

So another question I have, and it may not be for you, maybe for Tracy, is do we have any additional new debt or borrowings that are going to be happening that will add to that debt rate beyond, you know, not just this proposed bond in the next few years and what impact that will have?

So, I mean, we don't have any in 2027 other than, I mean, we cleaned the CIP and we were only including this bond debt in that year. I mean... there's a possibility there could be a future debt, depending on what is approved and the projects that need future debt funded.

Thank you.

Okay, with that, we'll give it to Ms. Bailey. You'll walk through the committee's recommendation.

Thank you. First of all, good evening, Mayor and Council. I want to begin by expressing my sincere appreciation to every member of the Bond Committee. I think there are a few people maybe back here in the audience as well. It's hard to tell. I think that the group was very dedicated. They spent many hours reviewing materials. They asked a lot of hard questions. And there was a lot of engagement on a variety of topics. And I'm going to kind of share some observations, and then we'll talk specifics on this slide. I'm grateful to kind of learn different perspectives, and I feel like the conversations overall were very thoughtful, very candid, and everyone was really focused on thinking not just from a personal perspective, but about the community overall. And I also want to express appreciation to city staff, Emily, and all the other folks They were very gracious. And one thing that was definitely a takeaway is you have staff here who are immensely dedicated and working very hard and very passionate about what their interests are and what they brought here. And the consultants, WSB, were also wonderful to work with as well. So I would, if you look overall at the votes from the committee, it's pretty clear to see that the recommendation may not have been an easy one to read. And when I look at this and I look back at the community survey, I think there are very common themes between two of them, which I thought was an interesting tie-in. So much like that survey result, our committee had a wide range of opinions on it. People really did have mixed feelings about whether a bond election was the right step. The vote clearly was not unanimous, and I want to openly acknowledge that, because I think it does reflect the seriousness by which everyone thought about and walked through this process. And this wasn't a judgment on any of the information that was presented, but there were some themes that emerged. So, some key concerns were related to affordability and timing. I think all of us were very mindful of financial pressures residents are already facing. and questioning whether or not that's the right moment to introduce new debt obligations. There were also some questions that came up about strategic direction, specifically whether or not these projects really represent where the city is sitting in terms of long-term growth. There were some comments and discussions about, you know, we're working off of older master plans or other plans, and has the world shifted enough to whether or not that might be a policy discussion that needs to be had at a greater level. And I think that there was a very marked kind of concern about having a strong desire for greater transparency in the decision making process, especially for projects where cost estimates are timely, felt, kind of somewhat speculative. And I know that's part of the nature of it. You're having to balance what's the needs of the community, also looking at investments and many of the costs until you go out and do it. You're not going to be able to nail that down. But being able to give residents a feeling, kind of a little more idea into the deliberation to help them gain some comfort level on it. And like I said, these concerns did not come from a place of opposition, but from a genuine desire to make sure the community understands the implications of the bond program. And I want to maybe elaborate just for a moment on the transparency, communication, and community trust. And I will say it seems like people are feeling disconnected from how decisions are being made and communicated. I know y'all have an agenda item on this later. I'm not going to go into 4th of July fireworks. But I do think there is a lesson learned there. Not because of the decision itself, but because of how the communication unfolded. Not only did it catch people off guard, it left a lot of people very unsure about who was involved and how the decision was reached. And to me, what stood out more than any of that was the response afterwards. You know, there were some people... It related to staff and council where there were no comments being made. Some people may have expressed frustration or trying to distance or even like trying to, you know, point fingers and so forth, or maybe just hoping the subject will go away. And I just want to share that from a community perspective, that kind of mixed response does not build confidence. It creates uncertainty about who's leading, how decisions are coordinated, and whether everyone is aligned. And so I would say if the city wants to move forward with a bond election, rebuilding that trust is going to be essential. Public needs to feel confident, not just in the projects, but in the process and the leadership behind them. That means clear communication, unified messaging, and collective ownership of decisions, even if they are difficult ones. And without that, it's going to be hard to ask citizens and voters to support a major investment in the city's process. Now, I do want to kind of provide a little balance because the committee ultimately decided to move forward with this. And I think that there are, I don't want to downplay the fact that there are projects here that have merit. And I absolutely believe that there's enormous community support. like for the PAWS shelter, the animal shelter, I think Reunion Park for the all ability, the destination play, and even for businesses who are worried about the parking situation. So those kind of topics, it wasn't, the committee didn't necessarily think they didn't have value, but there's a lot for people to take into consideration. And I would say it would be regrettable if communication and transparency concerns overshadow the merits of anything you decide to move forward. Because despite any reservations, the committee ultimately voted to move forward with the recommendation. And a lot of that was rooted in our role to evaluate the projects, the process, surface concerns, and allow you as council, as elected officials, to make a decision whether or not the voters will weigh in on this. And so we recognize we may not have reached full consensus, but we wanted to make sure you had a clear idea of the recommendations and a record of what was discussed. And I want to emphasize that the committee definitely approached the work with integrity, openness, and a shared commitment to Pflugerville's future. And in terms of the, you know, I know You know, reference the order of the recommended propositions. That was an interesting conclusion to our last meeting when folks talked about... That was an interesting interview. It was. And you know what? And I will tell you, we could have flipped all three of them.

You need to watch it.

You did?

Oh, I watched it.

Yeah, and I think towards the end, we may have been, I think we were three and a half hours into our meeting, so people were ready to just...

I mean, what I do appreciate is that you get everyone, it's important for everyone to have their voice heard, which I did appreciate. And then ultimately, what conclusions came from that, but I thought that that was a really, really good, interesting dynamic. And just like you said, as you articulate, is that If they don't see the unification on us on these specific issues, well, then that's just going to go and dwell into all sorts of different issues or concerns right there as well. You need to make sure everyone's on the same page when it comes to making sure that we are actually productive and restored with the funds of our citizens.

Yes. Yeah, and so there was a discussion, do you start with the smallest dollar amount and you move up in terms of? You know, we got into how do we think people would vote, and some people were like, well, if they pick the first one, they'll be okay picking the second and the third. I think Shane had said Parks has been under a variety of places, and, you know, it's clearly a favorite. And we also thought Paws Animal Shelter was, you know, I know there are a lot of animal lovers in town that it doesn't matter where it is on the list who are going to feel strongly about that. So, if you're wondering about the order, there was a lot of, we were trying to estimate guesstimate how people would respond. But again, I thank you for the opportunity and happy to answer any questions. Otherwise, I think Emily's wrapping it up.

Chair Bailey, I want to thank you for serving and leading this committee. And I want to thank you for your comments about communication and transparency. I think those are absolutely core values for Pflugerville, for our citizens. And I really appreciate the fact that you have made that an integral part of your leadership on this committee. Let me ask you, because frankly I'm surprised at the votes, why was the Parks Project vote so close? Do you have a sense of why it nearly was voted down?

Yes. I think part of that is that there's a bit of speculative nature to some of it. And so I will say, even for myself coming on to this committee, it's a lot of information to process and to get through and understand. And I do not get a sense that people were not supportive of the idea of doing it. We had a couple members who did basically, when you see the kind of two people basically said no on all of them and but they also acknowledged that it's not that they didn't think there was value in it so really there was kind of like maybe one vote in play and that really had to do with maybe not feeling like we had all of the information to be able to get a firm idea on it. So it wasn't so much a value-related, but things like, well, when would this happen, or where exactly would some of these improvements take place? And I think that's part of that. It's a difficult... place to be because you're asking a committee in a short period of time to absorb an enormous amount of information and try to figure out if they can make a decision on it. I know I struggled with that. And at one point I remember asking Emily, I said, remind me what the goal is here. Like I am not here to say that what Shane and Jeff, did you do your job right? That should be part of that process. But my job is, did you bring sufficient information for me to move forward? And so I think that was probably where some of the struggle was.

So there was a concern among a number of members that there was not sufficient information for that. So that's important to know for the fall in the event that we... We approve this. There needs to be a lot more information put out about what the benefits are of the parks project.

Yes, and I think, you know, staff and everyone was very responsive. And even from meeting to meeting, people would take that input and take it back. And I kind of feel like, I almost feel like if we'd had another meeting where they could have brought some more of that information back, you probably wouldn't have seen the same. But it's just, it was a limit. It was a limit on how much we could absorb and how much we could respond to. And if you do plan on moving forward, keep in mind, people want... They want a little more, you know.

Transparency.

1849 was probably the better of those two.

Yes. I don't know about transparency as much as, just like you said, data information, things to adjust. Understand the story, how that fits into tapestry.

Yeah, understanding the due process. I mean, I'm a big believer, and I say this in my day job all the time, you're not going to get people to agree with you all the time. Sometimes making people happy isn't the goal. Sometimes it's making sure people understand a process and they understand due diligence. They understand that there was something independent and objective that brought you to it. And to that extent, it's not going to be every, you know, you don't want to debate every line item and every dollar amount, but making sure people understand. what it covers, what it doesn't, what's involved, even like the timing of when somebody would expect to see that debt.

I wanted to thank you. And I also wanted to make a suggestion that possibly we lengthen the five weeks. I mean, it's not enough time, possibly. And so you all have done amazing work. I value the fact that you want more information. You want to be more thorough. So maybe an easy fix is just to extend the time.

Yeah, I think even if you added one preliminary meeting, because we jumped into reviewing and evaluating. Like, I think at some point when they were asking us to vote, we were all like, wait, we're voting already on something? Right, heard and received. And we didn't even understand the process of how we got to. So it was four meetings. Perfect. Maybe add one fifth meeting that kind of gives people, kind of front loads what the process is, would be helpful.

Thank you. And I appreciate that you all... we're willing to be vocal and have those conversations as well. I think I recall in the very first meeting, almost immediately folks said, hey, we got to have more information on XYZ and staff went and got that for you. So understand that probably maybe still wasn't enough for some folks, but I do commend you all for asking for what you thought you needed to evaluate these.

So I do have a question about feedback from members who weren't able to attend the meeting, because as I understand it, it was rescheduled and not on the original schedule. Was there any feedback from other members? Because we did have 15 people on the committee originally, and there's nine represented in this vote.

It was one meeting, just to provide some clarification, it was one meeting that had been rescheduled due to lack of a quorum at the scheduled meeting. And so that's what provided some of the challenge, I think, for that particular meeting day.

I would say, I think that, I think there were people who never came to the meetings. And I don't, I don't mean that in a, you know, you were, you know, you just blew it off. But I think If you're going to appoint people to committees, let them know what the dates are, the time frame, and get a commitment from them. Because I think there were people who just weren't able to attend, and so they weren't there during the process. But the people who were there were consistently there. We had a couple people, like I missed one meeting because I was out of town at a conference, and a couple people were sick. And it just so happened the night we needed a quorum, we were one shy. And, you know, it just was, we had a couple people who had already said they were under the weather. And so I think your quorum could have been a different number that you were dividing into if you had confirmed who really was able to commit to that time.

Do you think this vote reflects the full concept, concerns, issues, ideas of the committee, or just those who were able to make those meetings? Good question.

You know, I don't want to speak for other people, but I will say listening to the comments throughout the meeting, so there were some people who were there on the last meeting, but the questions and comments they had were very consistent with the rest of the group.

Okay.

Right?

So it didn't deviate. There's nothing that needed to be heard or that was heard that was different from folks who may have not made the other meetings.

You know, again, it's that whole, the challenge you have is if people weren't able to come not knowing why they weren't able to come. And I know that there were some people who had been there earlier who voiced questions and asked and participated and what they were talking about was very consistent with the other members. And I also think, although it's not a scientific, I appreciate you pointing out it's not a scientific survey, the fact if you look back at the same questions and concerns the committee was coming up with and having is very representative of that community survey. And so they blend nicely.

All right.

Okay.

Then with that, just kind of the next steps. We're here tonight to talk about the committee's recommendations. We'll work on some community engagement, putting all that information together over the next a month or so, and on August 11th, we'll ask for council to consider posting this on the November ballot. So with that, we'll bring that item back. If there are no other questions, Mayor, that concludes our presentation.

All right. Thank you. Thank you again for all the work, especially Ms. Bailey. Thank you for chairing that committee. Thank you for helping facilitate it as well. And, of course, Steph, thank you for the effort that you put in to getting all that information and building all those scenarios. I know it's a lot of work to get to this point. Thank you all for that very much.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

With that, it's 6.53. I don't think we have time to tackle any of the other items on our work session agenda. This all does repeat on our regular agenda, so we will have one of those nice long meetings later on. But at this point, I'm going to ask we will reconvene for a regular session at 7 o'clock.

At this point, we are adjourned.