City Council - Packet - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Tonight's invocation will be given by Rabbi Mendel Marisol of Shabbat Round Rock. Rabbi, thank you for coming.

Thank you for having me. Almighty God, we ask your blessing tonight upon the city of Round Rock, its residents, and the leaders gathered here. The Torah teaches that every human being is created in the image of God. Every person has value. Every person has purpose. Every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. As we approach Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, we enter a season of reflection and renewal, a time to look back at the year that has passed and consider what we can do better, and to look ahead with hope and renewed commitment to add goodness to the world around us. The Rebbe taught that each of us has a responsibility to make our corner of the world better, to build a society rooted in goodness and kindness, justice and morality, and respect for one another. Those entrusted with leadership have a unique opportunity and responsibility to help make that happen. Tomorrow, our nation marks September 11th. Remember the precious lives that were lost, the families who continued to carry that loss, and the extraordinary courage of the first responders and ordinary citizens who ran towards others in their moment of the greatest need. May their memory remind us of the strength that comes from when we stand together, of our responsibility to answer darkness by bringing more light into the world. Grant our mayor, city council, and all who serve our city with wisdom to make good decisions, the courage to stand for what is right, and the compassion to hear and understand the people they represent. May Round Rock continue to be a city where families can flourish, neighbors care for one another, and people of every background are treated with dignity and respect. As we enter a new year, may it be a year of blessing, a year of peace, health, prosperity, kindness, and great life for our community, our country, and our world. May God bless this council, bless all those who serve our community, and bless the city of Grand Rock. Amen.

Thank you, Rabbi. Appreciate you. I'll call 6 o'clock City Councilman in order, and please call the roll.

Mayor Morgan.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery. Here. Council Member Lee. Here. Council Member Flores. Here. Council Member Fleming. Council Member Ortega.

Here. Council Member Stephens. Here. And Council Member Fleming will be joining us, or try to join us a little bit later, but she is at a gold out game for Cedar Ridge in honor of her late son that she lost to childhood brain cancer, so... All right. If everyone will stand with me for the pledges, if you're able.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one indivisible. Citizen communication. Any citizen wish to speak during citizen communication regarding item on or off the agenda may do so after completing the required registration card. All comments must be no more than three minutes in length per section 2-26B5 of the Round Rock Code of Ordinances 2018 edition. Any comments regarding items not on the post agenda may not be discussed or respond to by the city council per state law. So when I call your name, please come up. State your name for the record and your address. Peter Orr.

One picture is worth a thousand words. And I only have three minutes, so I brought a picture with me. Council, my name is Peter Orr. I live at 1516 Ashwood Court. And I'm here to talk about the Transportation Department and the very poor job that they do in overseeing the construction projects here in the city of Round Rock. This picture is of Greenlawn Boulevard. during the street maintenance program. And you'll see that there is no traffic safety in place. There's one road work ahead sign. But you'll notice that there are several loaders here loading dump trucks in the middle of the street. There's also construction trucks, construction trailers. The crew was around 30 members with no safety. traffic safety in place at all. This is a very dangerous situation. I contacted the Transportation Department about this, but they ignored the problem. Not only that, but the Transportation Department also failed to do their job in other ways. There was no very minimal inspection reports on this project. There was no pre-construction meeting. There was only three progress meetings on this $8 million project. Three progress meetings. No concrete pre-pour inspections. No pre-pour inspections. No inspections on the asphalt placement. This is appalling. The director, Michael Thane, would not take any action to rectify these situations. The city provided a staging area for the contractor. It appears that the construction crew used that staging area for drinking beer. Council, later this evening, you will vote to increase taxes again. The Transportation Department budget is many millions of dollars. How much of that could be saved if we had a department that was professionally run? Why doesn't the Transportation Department keep accurate reports and thorough inspections? And in fact, the Transportation Department does not take any pictures of the construction while it's ongoing. The performance of the Transportation Department is sub-mediocre. Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. OK. That's all I have to say. Oh, OK. But we need improvement. We need a citizen oversight committee, something along the lines of the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. We need a Department of City Efficiency, DOCE. You can use that if you want to. We need a Department of City Efficiency.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Orr. All right, Mitchell Snyder.

What is this? A pen? No, it's a system. What is this? A little toy Round Rock Police Department car? No, it's a system. Rabbi, I want to thank you for your words. And hopefully I can echo some of them about judgment and looking forward and peace and prosperity. And I want to use this time to thank some of my mentors that I've known throughout the years. Excuse me. Dr. Mahmoud Abbas Saleh of Texas Southern University, chemistry professor. His mentor was Bruce Ames. If you ever look up the Ames test, A-M-E-S, it's a toxicological evaluation for cancer mutagenetic properties. But Dr. Salley was great. One time my dad's father, he died, and I had to leave and go tell him, hey, give me time off. My grandfather died. And he looks at me and says, that's fine. Everybody dies. You're going to die. I'm going to die. We all die. And it was just a nice reframe of a really sad situation. And he used to get mad at us for not doing work right or for leaving a mess or for doing whatever. And he would often tell us he would pretend to be mad. But one time he was dying in the hospital. He had a blood clot and also internal bleeding. So it's kind of a hard thing to balance where your arteries are clogging, but you're trying to get them moving with things like that. So we all go to the hospital and we go see him. And he's saying, hey, did you do that thing I asked you? And all of a sudden, we start hearing the instruments start beeping like he's dying. So he was actually very mad at us a lot of times. Dr. Kevin Anthony was an assistant. I want to send this video to him and tell him thank you for everything that he did for me. Coach Jared Mars, he swam with Michael Phelps. And I got to play basketball with him. And he was just excellent. Coach Alberto Rodriguez, wrestling coach, real great guy. If you want to be champion, poon. Coach Scotty Juarez, one time we were sparring, and I'm scared of him. And so he says, punch me. So I hit him. And he says, punch me again. I hit him. And he says, now we're fighting. Dr. President, TSU President Ligia Crumpton, Joel Williams. If you look up the name Joel Williams and Tom Brady, he made a media story out of nothing. It was really beautiful. And then finally, Oak Summers, Dirty Folks, Chicago man, author. He taught me that it's okay to be afraid, but you have to face your fears and push forward.

Thank you. All right, I have one more, but it's on item F4. But who's Alana Harrison? Do you want to speak when we get to that item? That's fine. Okay. All right, I don't have any other cards on anything not on the agenda. All right. C1, consider proclaiming September 12, 2026 as Fiesta Amistad Day in the city of Round Rock. David, would you come on up to the microphone? I'll read this and then let you say a few words. Whereas the Round Rock El Amistad Club, a vibrant and dedicated community organization, has been a pillar of strength and support for our community, particularly for our students, through scholarships and charitable initiatives and a commitment to giving back through numerous fundraising events and community outreach programs that uplift and inspire future generations, and whereas Fiesta Amistad A major fundraising event stands as a shining example of dedication to our community's betterment, offering a platform for celebration, unity, and charitable giving. Now, therefore, I, Craig Morgan, and the rest of the Round Rock City Council do hereby proclaim September 12, 2026 as Fiesta Amistad Day in our great city. This day serves to recognize the outstanding contributions of the Round Rock El Amistad Club and its members to our community. We applaud their efforts in empowering and supporting our students, and in promoting a sense of togetherness that truly embodies the spirit of Round Rock. I call upon all residents of Round Rock to support the noble endeavors of the Round Rock El Amistad Club and join in celebrating Fiesta Amistad Day on September 12, 2026 at Preet Plaza, not Centennial Plaza. Together, we can shape a brighter future for our students and our community. Proclaim this 10th day of September 2026. Mayor Craig Morgan, City of Round Rock. David.

Thank you, Mayor. If I may, I'd like to thank the Roanoke City Council. I'd like to thank the opportunity that you often have always offered help and assistance to the city. I am humbled to stand before you in front of you. I see the example of great leadership to the community, and I hope to be as good as a leader to this club as you are to the community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. David. All right. Staff presentations. Consider presentation department update from the Parks and Rec Department. Come on down, Rick.

You know, the team in the back heard you say the S word. And they quickly said that you said the S word. So we don't use that. Brooks just told you. I did.

I said something wrong. Shocker.

No, you say a lot more right than you do wrong. This is one of those deals that leads me into where we're going. We're going to talk about the Parks and Recreation team. We always try and make sure we emphasize the word team and not the the other word that a lot of people like to use, because a lot of this stuff doesn't happen. I was telling some of the folks in the back, this is kind of going to be a long presentation, so dig in, sit back, enjoy yourself, get your popcorn ready, because we did a lot this year, and we're going to start off by showing you guys some of the stuff that we did and really the impact of some of the bond projects that we put out there and how we've really transitioned to Old Settlers Park. And you're going to find out just from listening to some of the folks about what they think about that transition is. So let's get started. What does Parks and Rec mean to you?

Maybe it's a peaceful walk in nature. Maybe it's the place where your kids learn to swim. Maybe it's where your wellness journey began. Maybe it's where you create memories with your children. Maybe it's game day. Maybe it's much needed time with family and friends. Maybe it's being a part of your community. Over the past year, Round Rock showed us just how much can happen when a community has places to connect and belong.

But now with the expansion, we had 3,000 runners out there, and we had plenty of space. So it's been a great upgrade for the turkey trot.

So to be able to have access to old cellars and it be free and accessible, it's a low-cost thing to do to bring your kids on the weekends or during the week after school.

The drama playground, it's just huge, and there's a lot of space to run around and just express yourself.

Places to move. Places to create memories.

I love the expansions. I loved it before. I love the expansions, but my house loves it even more.

So now there's so much more shade, so much more room. But she likes the bigger wave pool while she still likes the smaller one. So it's kind of the best of both worlds.

I mean, what's there not to like? Look at this place, and it's so affordable. We love Rockin' River.

I mean, some kids may not know that a big trash truck is a big truck to them, but it also serves a purpose. But it's fun. You incorporate it into a playscape, so it's fun to be. But then it brings a learning element to it, too.

Places for everyone to be an athlete.

If you look at the partnership that we have with the city, this is really the cornerstone of it. We will provide a program that is centered on values, and we use soccer as a vehicle for that. Actually, a few years ago when we started, we were about 300 kids in the recreational side, and Galaxy was about 150, 200 players. And within just a few years, the leagues have grown tremendously. So the recreational leagues is approaching about 1,000 kids at the moment, and Galaxy is actually approaching about 500 players. So that has been a real growth.

And while we celebrate all the positive and memorable experiences of the past year, we also look forward to the exciting things to come as we continue investing in creating community-centered recreational spaces for our residents.

One of the city's main priority was to have safety for runners and walkers inside the Old Settlers Park. And with the expansion and the sidewalks and the tunnel and then the pedestrian bridge that goes over Harrah Parkway, it's very safe for runners, great for walkers. Everyone stays off the road.

The cross-country improvements at Old Settlers Park have been absolutely amazing. From our coaches to spectators to athletes, it's just been overall an incredible improvement with the cross-country course. Being able to hear that from our coaches and our ADs throughout the state to where they pull up and they are able to see with their own eyes a difference that old settlers and incredible people at Round Rock Parks and Rec have made to that course. So one of the things, and it's a pretty cool story that we have, is there's a wall of champions now at the cross-country state meet. And we actually had somebody that was coming to run at our state track and field meet, and the kid wanted to stop there in Round Rock just to be able to see if his name was up on that wall of champions. And sure enough, whenever he was able to get over there at Old Settlers, he was able to see his name and just hearing the joy from that conversation with the coach and that young man i just think it goes to show that it's not just something that is uh for old settlers you know the park doing that but they're doing something specifically for the student athletes and knowing that if there's anything that we ever need, that they are absolutely on top of things to making sure that everything runs as smooth as it's supposed to run. And so I think that that's been the joy, really, from year to year, is not only seeing the course improvements, but the improvement of our relationship and continuing to develop that. And we talk not only during the meet, but also outside of it, about little things that we can continue to improve on. And so I think overall, that's been fantastic. Brought me the most joy is being able to develop those relationships with those incredible people at Round Rock Spark and Red.

Thank you, Round Rock, for another incredible year creating memories, connecting with each other, and demonstrating that everyone truly is an athlete.

So as you can see, we've got a lot of stuff going on. and it's really built around a lot of the bond elections, some of the projects that we have coming, repair and replacement program, and you're going to see just a few more of these slides about how we continue to impact things, how we continue to lead the area, not just here in Round Rock, not just in Central Texas, but Texas and the nation and the way we're doing some of the programs that we're doing. When you look at the impact already from the Lakeview area, you go back and look that in the short time that we've been open, we've had over you know, 240-something thousand people that just go out there on a regular basis and stay there. When you look at, you know, about 52% of those are people that don't even have a Round Rock address that use us as a destination just because of the park system and the way we put things together here in Round Rock. You see the way that we've had to change a little bit in the way we do business. We have to reallocate some of our rangers just to spend time at Lakeview because we have that many people out there on a regular basis to deal with the peak usage and the different issues that we have going on out there. Some of those you guys know about, and those may be the parking lot, and that we close those down just because we've had such a mass influx of people that just continue to utilize that space. So we're going to have to make some adjustments to that. The facilities themselves as both of the pavilions, we really haven't opened those to the public to just really start renting them out because we've just had so much traffic. And then to be able to rent those out and have events on top of those, on top of just the regular traffic that we have there. When you look at the number of events from the opening event where we had over 4,200 people out there for the first time just to be able to take a look at it, and it was that many people that wanted to be out there and a lot of people that really didn't understand the traffic flow that said, hey, I'm going to stay away from it. But I think people are starting to become accustomed to it. You look at the light at the lake and you look at over the two nights to have almost 30,000 people out there to come enjoy the holiday season and do the things that that environment has created, exactly what we wanted to, building community, making sure that we had that social cohesion and connection. And then to look at something like the Joanne Land. And I know we got a lot of flack when we took down the original because it was that beloved playground. But we replaced it with something that we told you was going to be even greater. And I think the community has really gravitated towards it. And you go out there all the time, and it's just jam-packed with kids anytime it's not blazing hot. But you look at that picture there to your left, and you see all those kids just enjoying that structure. Then you look at other events like Juneteenth that continue to be mainstays in the community and how they come out and have a really good time. frontier days and you go out and we know that we had just in that area right under 40,000 people. And then just to think about what else is happening throughout that park and just the reception that we've had to the events that we put on. And then when we talked about the stage and how we wanted to utilize that area and that we didn't really need to bring in big concerts and all the other stuff, that we could do the things that we wanted to do, but we could also do the things that impacted community. And when you look at things like Memorial Day, who would think that you'd have 2,700 people show up for Memorial Day dedication and just honoring people? You look at the Texas luau with 3,700 people showing up. You look at the family pizza night. And that was throughout the summer, just that people got to come and congregate in our social spaces to build community and memories with their families. Then we get to start talking about, hey, what's next? What's coming in the next phase? And we think this time next summer or as we get past this summer, you're going to see that we continue to lead the nation in how we provide services for the community. This is going to be that footprint, and this footprint is going to be one that we anticipate just thousands and thousands of visitors. You really look that we're going to have our part administrative office based out in the park where we know 90% of the things that we do happen geographically there, and then we spread out to the other parks that we have. But when you look at the athletic performance center, the new track, the synthetic fields for those growing leagues and things that we have, the apex fields, and then having the avenues to get across there safely with the bridge and the tunnel so that we don't have to impact our residents and run them across the road. This is kind of what that looks like now. And you'll see to the right your athletic performance center, the track in the back, and then our administrative offices. What you see in the brown over there just to the left of our office is going to be the Aeronasium. And that's going to be a really cool place. And it's going to be something that complements all of those spaces. You look at the synthetic fields as they're under construction, and we're hoping to really continue that movement and get through those here pretty quickly. And this is what the Athletic Performance Center is going to look like. And it was built to be a complement to CMRC to make sure that CMRC stays and maintains that reputation in our community as a special place. And this one's just going to be a little bit different. And it's going to have a little different focus. It's really and this is going to be an important you know door to us because this is going to be the connection to the Rock and River As you saw we had over 117,000 people in 77 days visit our pools this summer We hope to up that number by letting people come through this this APC to go and still utilize the Rock and River more than we've ever utilized it before This is what that entryway is going to look like going into the new APC. We think it's going to be a really cool facility for those in our community. This is what that gymnasium is going to look like. We're only going to have one gymnasium in this facility to start, but it's made to expand out that we know we can add two additional gymnasiums in the future. And then this is the gateway to the Parks and Recreation office that's going to be right next door. We get the economy of scale of being able to not have to duplicate the administrative functions by having it next door, and they can come back and forth to go through these facilities. And these are just some of the layout pictures of that new Parks and Recreation home. For a guy who's been in a home that now we've kind of got boxes stacked everywhere and people stacked on top of each other, have a little bit of space, I'm excited about that. Who would say he's excited about an administrative building? And this is going to be that Aeronasium. So days when it's 100 degrees, it's probably going to be 90 or in the high 80s in this environment. It's going to have drop-down batting cages for baseball, softball. We're going to have a synthetic turf field underneath there. We're going to have a basketball court underneath there. So we're able to do things and play into the night, and you'll see the lights there. So it's going to be a really important space for us.

Hi, guys. I'm Gabby Thomas, three-time Olympic gold medalist for Team USA Track and Field. And I couldn't be more excited about the APC Amtrak coming to Rob Rock. For me personally, Round Rock is where I began my career. It's where I took my first steps on the track as a professional runner. It's where my dreams truly came true. A track like this isn't just for professional athletes like me. It's also for just everyone in the community. Outside of being an athlete, I also have a background in public health, and I know how important it is to invest in communities and to invest in health and active lifestyle and bringing people together. So it really does mean a lot to me from that point of view, but especially as an athlete. I cannot wait to see this space filled with people, filled with families, filled with young athletes with hopes and dreams and athletes like myself. And I think it will be an incredible opportunity for the community. And I just want to say thank you to the council and everyone who's a part of bringing this project together. It means so much to me, and I know it'll mean a lot to the community of Round Rock.

My name is Justin Faulkner, and I run track at City Ridge High School. I'm really excited about the track because it gives me a chance to just do a workout whenever I'm free. I don't have to do it specifically for a school or a club. It'll definitely give me plenty of opportunity just to workout because, you know, most schools lock off their tracks. I'm really excited to get to do all my workouts, not just have to run on the road by myself.

I tell you, the track and everything we're putting together is going to be a special place. And when we get to mirror Olympic champions with young men like this and give them the opportunity to train and see what it takes to have that dedication to move forward, this is going to be a really special place. To add to that, you know we've added physical therapy to our department. We're leading the country in the way we have changed and restructured fitness in this country. And in doing that, I will tell you that this program has taken off, and it is taking off at lightning speed. We have intentionally kept these guys at about 30% of their capacity to see patients here in our community. Of that 30%, they're already over 92% at being booked with people coming in and just wanting to see them. and figure out how to stay healthy. The mantra that we're really pushing is from eight months to 80, we want to keep you moving. We want healthy folks in our community throughout life, whether they're on our trail systems, in our rec centers, or participating in our fitness programs. So when you look at this, this is really that impact that they've made in a short amount of time. And we know that impact is going to continue to change, and it's going to continue to get better because of some of the partnerships that we're pushing. Some of the things that we really are proud to talk about is how we've integrated them into all aspects of what we do and the fitness here in this community. Not only are they at the Baca Center and working on balance classes and making sure and retraining our fitness team so that they understand how to do those assessments to help people as they age to stay vertical. And that's a really big deal. When you start talking about aging, you lose muscle mass. And when you lose that mobility and you start falling, you start having serious problems. We want to make sure you maintain that muscle mass so when you do fall, you can get back up. And it may not sound like an important concept, but it's an extremely important concept. So these are some of the things that we're doing with our teams. And you look at that personal training, how we've integrated them, and now we can have somebody see one of our PTs, go to one of our fitness classes, and not have to pay the cost to deal with PT. We're trying to cut those avenues in half so that we've reduced that system and we've made it more affordable for the residents here in Round Rock. And I think we're doing some really good work. And I heard just today from somebody else that other people in the country are talking about how we have changed it already. And that's what we want to be about. Then you start talking about on top of that, we've been working with Texas State even before we implemented this program to talk about how we were going to go do this and what it looks like. The two PTs that we have now are collaborating with Texas State very closely. And we've got additional meetings coming up. They have moved their physical therapy department to Round Rock, and we anticipate a lot of those students coming over to our facilities and helping us with our citizens here in the community. And once again, giving that back to the citizens and members of our facilities at an affordable rate. Our PTs have also been guest lecturers over at Texas State to really talk about how that integration works. So yet, we're giving back to Texas State as they're giving back to us. So it's a reciprocal project and a reciprocal program for us. And then when you start just talking about how we can work together, our fitness team is working with them. And then they have a bio lab that we really anticipate working with a lot of our athletes in some of the bio labs to really figure out how we do things a little bit safer and a little bit smarter and really work with, you know, some of our youth leagues. And you'll hear about that here right now.

I am Tammy Moon with the Round Rock Sertoma Girls Softball League. I've been here 13 years. So we've seen huge growth in our community and our families coming to the area. So we are very excited about what's coming because we have had the physical therapist come out. And our families were very excited to be able to ask questions, get some guidance on how to deal with ailments or how to better strengthen condition themselves. We have been sharing with them about the new facility and what it may offer, and the excitement and the buzz is out there.

I'm Darryl Qualls. I'm the president of Round Rock Baseball League. For the last 16 years I've been involved with Round Rock Baseball League, I've seen tremendous growth over the years, not only in the rec ball section, but the select ball section as well. And with more of the growth in the area and all the opportunities that are coming with Old Settlers Park, With the new facilities, there's batting cages and physical therapists coming. The community is just doing such a great thing for all the youth kids out here in the community.

So with that, as you can tell, we've tried to integrate it into everything that we've done. Now it's time to talk a little bit about some of the recognition and the achievements, and those are just things that you kind of get used to over time as you push through. I won't go through all of these in the essence of time, but when you really start looking at the Lakeview Pavilion and all the other things that we've done, You go back and you look at the repair and replacement program that continues to pay dividends that we put in place years and years ago, and we continue to support that with what we've done at Rock Hollow and Green Hill, how we've resurfaced basketball and tennis courts, how we've added lights. And if you've ever gone to the basketball courts at Old Settlers at night and somebody's always on them, we just added lights to the cricket field. So you will continue to see that. And then, of course, you know, Round Rock's best. We ended up with, you know, eight first-place finishes in Round Rock's best as a Parks and Recreation Department. So it's just those things that we continue to see pay dividends for what we do as a department, as a city, and as a mayor and council. Ben, it's always good to really talk about the team a little bit. And you see some of them in the back back there. And that's where the rubber really hits the road with those folks in the back. I get to dream up these stupid ideas. And they get to go do them. And then they pay dividends for us, we hope. But years ago, we couldn't find a journeyman electrician. And we created our own program. We now have three journeyman electrician in our department. This is going to be a very similar program with the aquatics maintenance tech development team. And we struggled with how we were growing as an aquatics division. We took these guys, and now we're going to grow these two young men. Tony and Isaac are up for the challenge. They've already got their CPOs. They're going to get their pump certifications. And then we're going to also make sure that these guys get journeyman electrician certifications as well. They're going to be very valuable to us as a department, and we're growing them internally. So that dedication to our team wouldn't happen without HR helping us out with that and really helping us push the way and foster a way to get that done. So as a city, we're finding creative ways to build the talent that we need. And then you go back, and you guys got to see Justin just a little bit ago. But Justin also runs for us. He also works for us. And that's the kind of commitment that we want, is that we have a kid that is not only one of our local kids at our high school, but he's one of the local kids that works in our community, in our department. And then he's one of the local kids that benefits because he finished, as you look at that, seventh and ninth this last year at the JOs. And then little stuff like Thor's Hammer. We spent $200 or $300, and we did that, and that was a great campaign, and we won a state award. And I guarantee you Thor's Hammer is probably popping up on trail systems all around the Central Texas and Texas area now. You know, Play for All has been a mainstay for us. And we won another award for the Unbirthday Party. And that goes back to those kids with disabilities that are at the park that may sometimes not get invited to a birthday party. And we do an event out there called the Unbirthday Party with Casey Circle. And that's been another just great way to show that we're invested in our residents and our community. And then, of course, what can I say about our aquatics team? When you start talking about a well-trained team, and we've got some of our aquatics folks back there, that for the fourth year in a row, they've won the state championship as the best aquatics team in the state of Texas. So we're very, very proud of that. And then our next level program. We are always trying to build our bench strength internally. These five individuals went through our year-long program of how we teach them budgeting programming and everything that's everything about all the departments within Parks and Recreation. And these are the five graduates from this year's program and team. And then, of course, our All-American team. And those are the folks that do go above and beyond to do something that they have to be recognized for. And I typically get these as an email from a citizen or somebody in the community that says, hey, they helped me with this, or they came to my rescue, or they did these things. And a couple of those on the front row are from our utility department as well. So they have helped us out. And when somebody shoots me that email or that letter that says, hey, I think this person went above and beyond, then that's how you get considered for the team. So with that, that is how we've built the connection and how we've made a place where people belong. With that, I would ask that you please thank my team in the back. Like I said, they get it done, I get in the way. Have them stand up. You guys, please stand up.

So what people may not know, you know, Gabby Thomas was on there. I actually beat Michael Tinsley in a race. Hold on. I'm going to help you out a little bit.

We cut the ribbon at the trail.

I'm going to help you out a little bit.

So he might want to rematch now out at the new track. No, no, no. You didn't just beat him.

You smoked him. OK, thank you. All right. I see him back there. Any comments or questions? Council Member Stevens.

Thank you. I get to start. I mean, Rick, you know, I think the world of you. I think the world of your department. I think that was the longest video that we've ever seen. And it's just because, wow, you know, you think Parks and Rec and you think amazing parks. But just everything that you do from the special events, Play for All, obviously Old Settlers Park. I was out there today. Kudos to y'all. I was out at the Flog Plaza and just even taking that on when a couple of us came to y'all several years ago and said, hey, let's do something for the veterans. And what I love about you, Rick, is that you don't do it like... 10% or 50% or 80% or even 100%. You do it like 200% everything that you do. I saw the cross-country course. There is a team right across the highway that hopes to be on that podium sometime in the next year or two. They'd love to have their name on that plaque. But my dad will say it too. We travel all around for cross-country. And when you say you're from Round Rock, there is not another... course in the state i would say there's not another parks and rec department in the state there's not another park like old settlers in the state in the country and so keep doing what you do i didn't even mention the trails trails are beautiful too but keep doing what you do thank you Huge heart for what you do and what your staff does. Every time I come out there, y'all are just amazing to be around. So, yeah, thank y'all again for putting in the work every day. Thank you for making us look good. I promise I was not paid for this ad. I'm just a huge, huge fan. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Appreciate it. Council Member Ortega.

Rick, this slide is actually superb. It shows the commitment of the Parks and Rec in doing everything right, using our dollars correctly, and providing the ability for everyone to come and enjoy, because it is not that expensive. We may have the best program in Central Texas, And I mean this even with Austin. So if I'm wrong about Austin, somebody correct me. But I think we are the best. Not only that, what's so impressive is that not only HR or every department within the city takes pride in their employees to encourage them to move forward, get a certificate, because they become valuable asset to the city. And that is what makes us so proud, or myself so proud, of Round Rock and how things are managed. To you, to your staff, kudos, because you deserve every single bit of it. And if you still get in the way, hopefully they will put you in the right direction. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Anybody else over on this side? Mayor Pro Tem.

Councilmember Stephens and Councilmember Ortega said everything, but I just want to personally thank you guys for what you do. What you do is really appreciated by everybody, so thank you.

Councilmember Flores? Rick, thank you to you and your team for... Yeah. For everything that you guys do, I hope you know that I'm big fans of yours. And I hope to come back one day as a team member and work with Park and Rec. We got you. And help them with the parking or something. But the way you interact with the citizens, the residents, you make everybody feel welcome. You're always encouraging and helping them do stuff. throw great parties, you have great facilities, you have just good programs all over. And so that is a representation of us as a city. And so I think it bodes well for not just Central Texas, but Texas, right? And so people are looking to you on what you're doing and how innovative you're being. And so it's much appreciated. I know that when y'all go to those national conferences, Round Rock has spoken very highly. So anyway, thank you for all you do.

Thank you. Council Member Lee.

I just want to say thank you to you and your team as well. The Parks and Rec team, I'm obviously pretty shy, but my daughter is as well. But the Parks and Rec team has got Got my daughter finally talking to some adults. We appreciate y'all in the community, and it's a great place for us to grow as a family.

Thank you. Yeah, if the team could get her to talk to me, she won't talk to the mayor. No, I just want to say thank you as well. I mean, there's not much I can add to everything. I think this picture, to Council Member Ortega's point, It emulates what you want in a park system. And as I've done some interviews on Ode Settlers Park, you're building memories here. These are families that are getting to build memories with their children, grandparents building memories with their grandchildren. And as long as I've been up here just to see the progression and where everything is headed, it's amazing. And look, people want to live in a place that has good quality parks and trails. Whether we like it or not, we're adopting a tax rate tonight. And, you know, there's some argument made that, you know, values are where they are because you have a safe city and a place to do things that your family can without going all the way to Austin or wherever. And so congratulations to you, your team. Tell Michael I'll be ready for the rematch. Don't do it. Okay.

Well, he would beat me this time.

You smoked him. He would beat me this time.

So anyway, thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Yeah. This is your chance to scatter. It's all I'm going to say. Gordon, it's great seeing you, man. You take care of your health. All right. Read the consent agenda. All items listed under the consent agenda are considered to be routine by the city council and be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless requested by a council member in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. Anybody have any questions or items they want? All right. I'll read the consent. E1, consider approval minutes from the August 27, 2026 city council meeting. E2, consider resolution authorizing the city manager to execute contracts for Pre-approved budget items in the maximum amount of $350,000. E3, consider a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute an agreement with Progressive Commercial Aquatics LLC for the purchase of swimming pool chemicals, supplies, and equipment. E4, consider a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute an agreement with Sunbelt Pools, Inc. for the purchase of swimming pool chemicals, supplies, and equipment. E5, consider a resolution authorizing the city manager to issue a purchase order to American Material Handling, Inc. for the purchase of an articulating Aerial boom lift, E6, considered an ordinance amending chapter 44, article 6, sections 44-149 and 44-151 code of ordinances regarding environmental services fees. Second reading, E7, considered an ordinance. Hold on a second.

OK.

I think we're going to pull E7 just because we have a speaker here with regards to that. And so we'll take it up when we take up the other stuff. So I will ask for a motion to adopt the consent items E1 through E6. So moved.

Second.

Motion made by Councilmember Ortega, seconded by Councilmember Lee. Any other discussion? And please, public council.

Councilmember Lee? Yes. Councilmember Flores?

Yes.

Councilmember Ortega?

Yes.

Councilmember Stephens? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery? Yes. Mayor Morgan?

Yes. All right. F1, consider a resolution. Authorize the mayor to execute an interlocal agreement for fire protection and emergency services with the Williamson County Emergency Services District number 9.

Evening, Mayor and Council.

Good evening.

This interlocal agreement is between the city of Round Rock and ESD 9. Until the May 2025 election, ESD 9 only collected property tax and agreed to pay the three departments that provide service to the area, Round Rock, San Bastion, Leander, a minimum of 90% of the collector revenue. With the SD-9 now able to collect up to 2% in sales tax, this new agreement remains the same as receiving a minimum of 90% in collected property tax, but now adds an additional minimum of 90% collected in sales tax. In this fiscal year, we projected $4.8 million will be collected in property tax and estimate an additional $3 million will be collected in sales tax. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Questions from the Chief? You entertain a motion to adopt the resolution? So moved.

Second.

Motion made by Council Member Ortega, seconded by Council Member Stephens. Any other discussion? And please poll the council.

Council Member Ortega?

Yes.

Council Member Stephens? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery?

Yes.

Council Member Lee? Yes. Mayor Morgan?

Yes. Thank you all. Thank you, Chief. F2, consider a resolution to authorize the mayor to issue a contract with Ratliff Hardscape LTD for the 2026 CDBG sidewalk project on Parkside Circle.

Michael. Good evening, mayor and council. Good evening. This is a construction contract for new sidewalks on Parkside Circle. If we can pull up the map. Here we go. This is a CDBG-funded project, HUD entitlement. We had eight bidders on this project, and the low bidder was $203,000. We received $300,000 from HUD for a grant to do projects in the city. Our estimate for this project was around $250,000. But because of the competition, we did receive a low bid of $203,000. We do receive money each year for this program. money that we do not spend with this project. Joe Bream's group will do home improvements around the city and other projects so that we utilize this money each year. So this is on Parkside Circle, the location. Here's Green Lawn. Here's Gattis School Road. As you head north on Green Lawn, it's the area in blue. There are no sidewalks there today. We'll be adding a sidewalk on one side of the street It's about 1,135 feet, and it'll be a four-foot wide sidewalk. So I recommend approval of this contract to put in new sidewalks along this location using HUD grant money. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Questions? Chancellor Ortega. Is that sidewalks on one side only or both sides?

We're just going to put a new sidewalk on one side. One side? Yes, sir.

And the residents will be notified by you? All right. And I believe I asked at one point how long this takes. I just don't remember. How long will this?

Yeah, this project, it's small. I would just estimate somewhere between four to six months.

All right.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Entertain a motion to adopt the resolution? So moved. Second. Motion made by Council Member Flores, second by Council Member Ortega. Any other discussion? And please poll the council.

Council Member Ortega?

Yes.

Council Member Stephens? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery? Yes. Council Member Lee? Yes. Council Member Flores?

Yes.

Mayor Morgan?

Yes. F3, consider a resolution authorizing Mayor to execute supplemental contract number three with Plumber Associates Inc. for the Brushy Creek East Regional Wastewire Treatment Plant Expansion to 40 MGD project.

This is our regional wastewater plant off Highway 79 right here. We are under design for the next expansion that will take the capacity from 30 million gallons a day to 40 million gallons a day before we use a supplemental contract with our engineered plumber associates for $149,000. Round Rock is about 60% of this cost. The other portion will be paid by our partners, Cedar Park, Leander, and Austin. But there's a couple more tasks that we need to add to their scope including looking at the floodplain along the south side. That is a TCQ regulation that we need to look at that to make sure there's no critical infrastructure that will be impacted by any flooding. And there's a couple other things that we're going to look at at the project. So I recommend approval of this supplemental contract with Plummer for the $149,000. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions? I'm going to tell you most of the resolution. So move.

Second.

Motion made by Council Member Ortega, second by the Mayor Pro Tem. Any other discussion? And please poll the council.

Council Member Stephens? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery? Yes. Council Member Lee?

Yes.

Council Member Flores?

Yes.

Council Member Ortega?

Yes.

Mayor Morgan?

Yes. Thank you, Michael. Yes. All right. We'll go to F5. because we want to do the F4 needs to go after all the other stuff. So F5, consider resolution to determine that patent construction LLC provides the best value for the city for the Heritage Trail East project and authorizing the Mayor to execute a standard form of agreement.

Rick? I'm back, Mayor and Council. This one is one that I'm really excited about. And we talked just a little bit about that earlier. that the Heritage Trail project, I want to make sure I have a map there for everybody. But this resolution allows us to enter into contract with Patton. It's going to be for the Heritage Trail East Gap Project. Patton Construction has worked with us before. They came in and finished up the Heritage Trail West section. This one's going to be in the amount of $6,591,000. And what it does is close the gap from Mays to Georgetown Street. And when you really look at this, this is going to be the section. Right now it ends on this side. We're going to have a bridge that goes under. It's going to come under Main Street or Maze. And it's going to run on the north side of the creek. And then it will go all the way over and then go underneath Georgetown and connect with the existing trail that we have. We had nine bidders for this project. This is kind of what the a look at that property today looks like. And this is looking from Veterans Park. So we're going to run through this wooded area of trees. This is property that the city already owns. This property was actually provided for us by the Henna family. And so we're excited to run this across and get this all the way. Shortly afterwards, we're going to have a bridge that comes over from here to here. That really ties into downtown. I've got a couple examples of what that bridge is going to look like. That bridge is going to be in another project that comes a couple of months after this one. So it's really going to create that iconic structure here in our community that really gives us another sense of place and guidance into downtown. So with this project being done, and I'll show you a nighttime view. of how that bridge is going to look. So really, we are going to have our basically east-west section of the trail system complete once we finish this. The only other gap is the gap that the county is working on. Then we will be able to use this as a system to go all the way from Round Rock to Cedar Park Leander. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions? Mayor Pro Tem.

Rick, will there be a walking path on the south side of the creek around after Veterans Park over to Georgetown Street?

There will not. So really what we're working on right now is this north side will give us that ability, and you will stay on the north side. There's going to be a bridge just on the west side of Mays. You will take that bridge. That will connect to the existing trail that we have so that you have safe passage. What we are now starting to really look at is this bridge is going to tie us to downtown, is really looking at how the sidewalks, and we finish up those gaps. We've already been working with Michael's team. as well as city administration to really look at how do we make sure that we have safe passage to the library, to Preet Plaza, to City Hall, as well as Tower Park, and that's where the water tower is now, so how we tie all those things together. You're going to hear a little bit more about that from Tim coming up next.

Council Member Ortega.

Along this trail and only this particular part of the trail, especially towards the downtown area, Are we going to have some lights out there also for those who walk there just as dust comes about?

We really don't light the trails. And there are going to be certain sections that we look at. Right now, especially with the bridge, we're going to light the bridge because it's that structure. You want to make sure that you see where you're going going across. But typically, Veterans Park, Memorial Park, we have small lights. But on the trail system per se, we have not. And that's been by design because we really want people to get off the trail system as it gets darker. We're going to have to make some conceptions as we really talk about how we're getting people into downtown. And those are going to be the things that, you know, as a leadership team, the city administration, myself, and Michael's team are really going to have to talk about.

All right. Thank you.

Any other questions? I entertain a motion to adopt the resolution.

So moved.

Second. Motion made by Council Member Stephens, seconded by Council Member Ortega. Any other discussion? And please, public council.

Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery? Yes. Council Member Lee? Yes. Council Member Flores?

Yes.

Council Member Ortega?

Yes.

Council Member Stephens? Yes. Mayor Morgan?

Yes. And Todd was here from Patton. Thanks, Todd, for being here. Did I forget about Todd? Todd's my favorite. You did. We got you taken care of. You've had the whole night to yourself.

I know. For those that don't know, Todd used to work for the city, so he's going to give me grief any chance he gets.

All right. Let's go to G1, considering ordinance readoption and amendment of Parks and Rec. Master plan update, playbook 2030, building a connected community. Add the Round Rock Trails plan. First reading.

All right. I got a little grief earlier from Michael. It's usually the Michael Thain show, but I guess it's the Parks and Rec show tonight. This is really presenting all the information from the update for the trails plan. And I'm excited to bring Tim up. He'll tell you a little bit about himself. But if you don't know anything about RVI, RVI is probably one of the best parks and recreation firms out there when it really talks about consulting, professional services, and those kind of things. We were actually really fortunate because Tim is probably a longtime resident. I won't put the years out there. but a resident of Central Texas. And he spent a lot of those years living in Round Rock. And so he knows Round Rock better than anybody else that we could have probably put on this project. One of the other things I want to make sure that you know is we put an executive summary at each one of your diocese. And with that executive summary, we also sent you the link for the overall master plan. That's an extensive document. We didn't want to print it and give it to you, but you have access to it. This executive summary definitely can tell you all those things. I'm going to let Tim do the presentation, and then we'll be happy to answer any questions if you have them.

Good evening, Tim.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. I want to thank you for the opportunity to talk about two things that I really like to talk about. That's trails and Round Rock. So again, like Rick mentioned, I'm Tim Bargener. I'm Senior Vice President of Public Markets for RBI Planning and Landscape Architecture. I've had the privilege of working with Round Rock for a really long time. In fact, I can actually say I was there in the room when the idea of the Brushy Creek Regional Trail was pitched. That's a long time ago. I've lived here for about 35 years, the first half of that tenure of living here in Round Rock. I lived and worked right here, right here in Round Rock, just a few blocks from here. My kids went to school here. My son graduated with Rick's son. So I've been here a good while. I now live right up the road. But I've spent most of my career here working in Round Rock, Central Texas, throughout the South. But today, I lead RBI's public sector practice nationally. So this project. And Round Rock means more to me than just another master plan. I've watched Round Rock invest in its parks, its trails, its recreation system for years. And right now, I think the city is at a really interesting point. Tonight, I want to briefly show you where the plan takes the trails network holistically. But more importantly, I want to talk about what that investment now allows Round Rock to do next. So trails absolutely matter when it comes to recreation and health. And those are still foundational elements. But increasingly, communities across the country are really recognizing trails as infrastructure. They connect neighborhoods and destinations. They support active transportation. They're protecting natural systems and creating economic value and basically strengthening your communities. When Round Rock continues, With Round Rock continuing to grow to almost 200,000 people by 2040, residents here, the trail system is going to become a more important part of how the city maintains the quality that the residents here have come to expect in Round Rock. When we kicked off the project, we wanted to hear from the community and our process focused on both in-person and online opportunities for feedback. And that feedback was really pretty consistent. People wanted better connectivity. They wanted safer crossings, shade, nature, amenities, and accessibilities. But more than anything, people want the trails to function as a system. They didn't want simply to be a collection of individual trail segments. So that feedback became an important filter for the recommendations that are going to follow here. That led us to the vision that you see here, a world-class interconnected trail network supporting recreation, health, prosperity, and transportation, while highlighting Round Rock's natural and cultural resources. And I'm going to emphasize the word interconnected here. The next generation of the system is not simply about adding the miles. It's about connecting destinations, improving the experience, and getting more value from the investments that we've already made here in Round Rock, right? So I'm going to move fairly quickly as we go through these next few maps. We did a very detailed citywide analysis and identified priorities in each of the three drainage corridors, as well as each quadrant of the city. So I want you to see that the entire city is being considered and evaluated. But I don't want to spend a lot of your time tonight walking you through every line on every map. The important takeaway here is that we now have a current comprehensive citywide framework that's going to tell us where the gaps are, where the connections need to be made, and where future investments can have the greatest impact. Brushy Creek is the first corridor that I want to talk about. And obviously, it's clearly the primary backbone of the system. The priorities here with Brushy Creek are closing critical gaps, improving the crossings, and connecting major destinations like downtown to Veterans Park, even Old Settlers Park. And as those remaining gaps begin to close, which Rick identified earlier in his presentation, two really key gaps that are closing here, Brushy Creek is going to become that true east to west spine that it was intended to be right through the heart of Round Rock. That's where the conversation begins to change from simply building trails to leveraging the trails as an organizing framework for the city. Chandler Creek Corridor. The Chandler Creek extends, that corridor extends the network north and east, connecting the neighborhoods, parks, green belts, and major destinations. The priorities here are connectivity, safer crossings, and completing links to the larger system. The Dry Creek corridor, right? This creek performs a similar role, but to the south and the east, particularly connecting neighborhoods, employment centers, and emerging destinations in this area. Again, the emphasis is closing the gaps and making difficult roadway crossings safer and more intuitive. In the northeast quadrant, I'm going to shift to the bigger zoom out here, we're in the northeast quadrant of Round Rock. The opportunity really here is to make sure that the trail network grows with the city. So as development continues to occur, trails need to be incorporated early into neighborhoods, drainage corridors, and future infrastructure, rather than added as an afterthought. We get to Northwest Round Rock. That quadrant has excellent parks and green belts, as you can see here, with the addition of Southwest Regional Park to County Park. But the opportunity here is really connecting those assets together. New growth also gives the city opportunities to establish the connections before the development makes them more difficult or more expensive. The southwest Round Rock trails. In the southwest quadrant, a little more constrained. It's kind of built out, so we need more focus on priorities that are about strategic connections, safer on-street facilities, and better access to existing parks and trails. And lastly, the southeastern Round Rock Quadrant is about connecting the parks and neighborhoods back into the larger system and improving a few key crossings and trailhead opportunities. So collectively, these maps give the city a pretty detailed long-range roadmap. Now, I want to shift into something that I think is one of the most exciting opportunities that's come out of this work. So up to this point, we've talked about the trail as infrastructure. But once a community begins to create that truly connected trail network, something else really starts to happen. People begin using those corridors not just for recreation or fun, but to get somewhere. They're going downtown. They're going to parks. They're going to restaurants, events, work, neighborhoods, even schools. That movement has economic value. Nationally, we're seeing cities treat major trail corridors almost the same way we historically thought about transportation corridors. Where people move, activity is going to follow. Where activity follows, there's an opportunity for investment. Round Rock's already made the hard investment here. You have Brushy Creek. You have Heritage Trail we just got done talking about. You've got downtown, which is becoming something amazing. And you've got major parks and significant recreational destinations and more kind of in the works. So the question now becomes, how do we get more community and economic value from that investment without losing the natural character that makes that trail special? So what is trail-oriented development, also affectionately referred to in some circles as a trod? The simplest way I can describe what this is is think traditionally land use has organized itself around streets and cars. What land use occurs on the street is based on the number of people going up and down the street. Well, a trod asked, what happens when we organize certain places around a trail and that the people moving along it? All right? Buildings face the trail instead of turning their backs on it. Restaurants and gathering spaces start to connect directly to it, and people arrive to it by bike or by walking or jogging or some other active mode of movement along that trail. So that trail becomes part of the place rather than being behind the place, which is an important thing to think about. What I want to emphasize is we're talking about select locations. We're not talking about developing every linear foot of a corridor. So this matters to us. Why? This matters to Round Rock because, as I mentioned earlier, I touched on earlier, Round Rock is unusually well positioned for this. You already have a strong trail culture. We already have a great downtown and growing. You already have major recreation sports destinations, and you're making significant investments, those hard investments, in closing the remaining gaps. And it's not just you. Other parties adjacent to you or within the county are helping to close those gaps. Those things are happening. We need to capture that momentum. So a trod is not about creating the demand from scratch. It's about capturing that activity that already exists and giving people reasons to stop, to gather, to spend time, to spend money, to support local businesses. So done correctly, it's also going to reinforce neighborhoods and create places that ultimately become distinctly Round Rock. I'm going to walk through three case studies really quick because I think they're relevant, and I think some of y'all have been to these, which I'm hearing, and that's awesome because there's some incredible experiences. So I'm going to talk a little bit about one. The first one is the Katy Trail in Dallas. This is a great example, and the trail itself is significant, as you know. It helped to catalyze more than about a billion dollars in surrounding economic development. Those numbers really aren't the story, though. The story here is the Katy Ice House. I don't know if any of y'all been there when you went. It's a really cool, successful story. Somebody there recognized thousands of people were moving along this trail every day and created a business designed to face and interact with that trail. It became a destination in its own right in July of 25 alone That ice house generated more than $830,000 in alcohol sales alone, right? Think about that. That's a lot. So this is just one business built around access to a trail. And what I find particularly interesting is that Dallas is now reinvesting again in the Katy Trail because that first generation of investment proved so valuable. This is the lesson for us in Round Rock. When a great trail becomes a destination and a transportation spine, it can create economic opportunity far beyond the trail itself. The next one I'm going to talk about is the Beltline in Atlanta. I think some of y'all have probably been here as well. It's an amazing example. Atlanta took this to a much larger scale. They converted a former industrial and rail infrastructure site into a trail and public space network by 25. Development along that corridor was estimated roughly $9 billion, which is more than 10 times the public investment for that project at that time. But again, what makes this tangible is something like the Ponce City Market. So I'm pointing this out as well. That project physically addresses the Beltline. It has restaurants, shops, housing, offices, And the entrances face the trail and has outdoor spaces all facing the trail. It's just oriented that way. The trail delivers the people to the development, and the development adds activity, safety, and energy to the trail, but they reinforce one another. So you go to the Ponce City Market, you end up going on the trail. If you're on the trail, you're going to end up at Ponce City Market. Atlanta also demonstrated something really important. This is another key takeaway from this project. So this doesn't happen all at once. This project reflects this. It happens incrementally and through infrastructure, through partnerships, through policy, and through private investment. The last one I'm going to talk about is the Indianapolis Cultural Trail. It gives us a great model. This is a 10-mile urban trail. It connects neighborhoods and cultural districts. Businesses along the trail reported significant increases in revenue. Property values also went up dramatically, and developers invested a ton of money, hundreds of millions of dollars along that corridor. The story I'm going to talk to here is Chili Water Brewing, which I apologize for the granulated picture. I might have had a beer or two when I took that. Chili Water Brewing, they provide bicycles. which is interesting. They have free air pumps. They have direct connections to the trail because they understand their customers are bicyclists and pedestrians. That sounds simple, but it's exactly the point. The trail isn't merely beside the business. It became part of the business model. It was the whole focus of that business model. So the larger lesson here across all three of these little case studies that I'm showing is really remarkably consistent. The trail investment came first, then thoughtful policy, and then private investment followed. So what does this mean for us in Round Rock? It doesn't mean importing Atlanta, Dallas, or Indy, or anything like that. It means establishing some basic principles so development along key portions of the trail reinforces the experience we want here in Round Rock. Buildings need to address the trail. Entrances and windows should face it. Parking should not dominate the trail edge by any means. There should be comfort elements like shade, seating, lighting, wayfinding, water, and cool gathering spaces. Importantly, if people are arriving by bicycle, we really need to think about securing bicycle parking. Simple things, bike parking, racks, potential lockers, or even other support facilities needed to support that focus here. The details matter because they tell the trail user two things. One, you belong here. And two, this was designed for you. Consistency matters. When you cross the bridge, I'm going to give you an example. When you cross the bridge, this future bridge at the Heritage Trail coming over into downtown, you should feel like this is one connected Round Rock experience, unique to Round Rock. So we're not recommending, like I mentioned before, we're not recommending Brushy Creek Corridor become an entire development along the corridor. We looked for areas or strategic places where the conditions already make sense. We looked at trail access. We looked for roads. We looked at existing infrastructure, walkability, underutilized parcels, and nearby destinations. That led us to primarily around four or five areas here. Heritage Trail, Georgetown Street, Heritage Center Circle, May Street, and Kinneyport, a little further east. The downtown Brushy Creek area is particularly compelling because several investments are clearly beginning to converge there. As the trail gaps begin to close and those new connections come online, significantly more people will have direct access into downtown. And this is, I'm telling you, the minute we get these next couple of gaps closed, the number of people coming into downtown through this trail is going to go way up. That's exactly the moment when we need to think intentionally about what happens at the trail edge rather than allowing it to happen accidentally. All right. None of this happened simply because we drew it on a map. The cities that have been successful doing this, and not a lot, but the ones that have, have paired their trail investment with implementation tools specifically for this focus. For Round Rock, that could include a trod or a trail-oriented development overlay district. It could include trail frontage standards, development agreements, and incentives for the kind of development the city wants here. It could include density or parking flexibility in exchange for public trail connections or better public spaces. And there are even opportunities to explore 4B funding and other tools strategically to support infrastructure. The important thing here is that Round Rock gets ahead of the market and establishes the expectations before redevelopment occurs. The way private investment helps build the community vision, that way private development helps build the vision rather than the city having to retrofit it later. So I'm going to leave you with this. Hopefully I get a last slide here. I'm going to leave you with this. Round Rock has already done a lot. We've invested in our parks. We've got sports, recreation trails at a level I would say most communities in Texas and around the country haven't. We're far ahead. This plan gives us the roadmap to complete the network, close the remaining gaps, improve safety, connect more residents to those destinations. But I think there's even a bigger opportunity in front of us right now. As Brushy Creek becomes a continuous spine and continues directly into downtown, Round Rock has an opportunity to move into the next evolution of what a trail system can be. It's a transportation system. It's a recreation system. It's a natural system. It's a community gathering system. And in the right locations, it's an economic development platform. Places like Dallas, Atlanta, Indy, they show us what's possible. But Round Rock doesn't need to become any of those places. I would not want that in my dying days. That's not who we are. The opportunity is to take those lessons to do it the Round Rock way, to preserve the character of the Brushy Creek while creating places and connections that are distinctly ours. And frankly, a few of the communities in this region aren't even talking about this. So Round Rock has an opportunity here to get out in front like we do, right? So that's why I'm excited about this plan, and I appreciate the opportunity again to have been part of something special in Round Rock. With that, I'll answer any questions. Did I beat Rick?

I don't know. It was pretty close. Okay. Any questions over here? Council Member Flores?

Thank you for that presentation. I'm thinking the fact with your new roles as a national director that you get to see all the really cool things that are being done across the country and perhaps bring us some of those ideals and unique things that are happening elsewhere. I hope so. I was curious with regards to the comments on the economic development. Outside of an ice house or a brewery, has anybody else, how else have communities monetized that trail system?

Well, for one, they tend to be more mixed use. They try to capitalize on synergistic uses along that trail, much like you'd see private development at critical road intersections. Not quite at that scale, because they're looking at the volumes of people moving up and down the trail. But you'll get some pretty, I mean, another good one was the Ponce City Market. It was a crazy mixed use. They even had offices in there, but it was in an urban environment. So downtown area could be really cool eventually. And again, one thing we learned from Atlanta is these things take time. They're incremental. So we kind of have to step into it as the volume increases. As the traffic increases on the road, your uses along the road start to take on differently.

And as we make these connections going forward, the planning that we're doing, we're making the connections, and the trods are going in, how are you planning or how do we need to plan for the mixture of someone that wants to use that trail passively and somebody that wants to ride a bike or electric scooter or something? And how do we solve for that in the future?

Yeah, trail conflicts, those are good problems to have. It means you've got a lot of people using your trail in a lot of different ways. But those conflicts ultimately might look at the width that you have. There could be that you ultimately expand the trail to a separate corridor for different uses. You could have bikes and then hikers on one side, bikers on the other. You could even do, you know, if we wanted to get off into electric type access, you could probably have a lane for that. But it's planning ahead. I know when we talked about the Brushy Creek Trail a long time ago in the first phase, going between Round Rock and Cedar Park, that ultimately the number of people at some point going along that trail was going to be so significant that we might need to double the corridor. Hadn't happened yet, but it's still possible. there's enough space there if we needed to do a parallel access.

And then my last question, has anybody put together like a transportation company, like, you know, it's a bicycle, but it puts you, like, a little, you know, the tricycle where somebody rides and somebody rides, you know, pedals and somebody rises. Anybody put something like that together?

I'm trying to understand what you're asking. Is there a business where? Yeah, I think there's all kinds of business. A lot of them, if I'm understanding your question.

Just like Uber for trail system or something like that, where you pick up and they're taking you to your destination downtown or something.

Absolutely. The guys downtown right now are doing the, you can have two or three people can sit, and then they use an e-bike to kind of move you down. You have taxiways, basically. Rickshaw, I guess, was the term I was trying to think. Electric rickshaw. But yeah, there are businesses. And you can go downtown, not that you want to, but you could go to downtown Austin in any event when it's crowded. And you'll see a lot of those moving around.

I get that. But are they doing it on the trail system? Sure.

They actually use part of the trail system in Austin.

Thank you. Mm-hmm. Any other questions over here? Questions over here? Council Member Stephens.

Yeah, just thank you for the presentation. I was surprised to see how many existing trails we already have in our community. Good problems to have. I think our residents probably need a regular, I know I need a regular reminder of what we already have here to connect to the future possibilities. What the 4B funding, can you touch on that just a little bit?

About the number of trails that we have?

No, no. I'm sorry. I pivoted. So talking about the trod and this slide that's up right now, explore 4B funding. Is that federal funding?

There's different types of development assistance that you could seek for.

Okay. Yeah. All different kinds. Okay.

Yeah. You can even find private investment dollars that would be, you know, H&R Block type grants and things like that. Okay. They come in smaller increments, but yeah.

So just other alternative funding opportunities for this. Okay.

This is how old school Tim is because it's now type B funding.

Now you're speaking my language. All right.

Thank you for correcting me.

I appreciate that. That makes a whole lot more sense to me. So thank you. Yeah.

Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Tim. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rick. All right. I'll entertain a motion to adopt the ordinance.

So moved.

Second. Motion made by Council Member Stephens, second by Council Member Ortega. Any other discussion? And please poll the council.

Council Member Lee. Yes. Council Member Flores.

Yes.

Council Member Ortega.

Yes.

Council Member Stephens. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery.

Yes.

Mayor Morgan.

Yes. I entertain a motion to dispense with a second reading. So moved. Second. Motion made by Council Member Flores, second by Council Member Lee. Any other discussion? And please poll the council.

Council Member Flores?

Yes.

Council Member Ortega?

Yes.

Council Member Stephens? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery?

Yes.

Council Member Lee?

Yes.

Mayor Morgan?

Yes. All right. G2. G2, consider public testimony regarding an ordinance adopting the fiscal year 2027 annual budget for the city of Round Rock. Second reading.

Good evening.

Good evening, Kevin.

Items G2 and G3 are the second readings of our fiscal year 2027 proposed budget and our 2026 tax year proposed property tax rate. The total proposed budget is $684.1 million. The general fund portion is $199.4 million. The general fund is the city's largest operating fund, funds most of the day-to-day operations of the city, public safety, parks and recreation, as you heard a lot about tonight, library, et cetera. The utility fund portion is $141.8 million. Fifty-two-and-a-half new FTEs, or full-time equivalents, are proposed. Forty-eight in the general fund for public safety, operations and maintenance at bond facilities that are opening, as well as a few positions for transportation department. Other funds are four-and-a-half FTEs across our Hotel Acme tax, multipurpose complex, and our utility funds. Proposed tax rate, which we'll have a few more slides that come, is 42.3 cents. This chart shows the total $684.1 million by proposed use of funds. So you can see that the budget includes $298 million for the community investment program. These are investments in the city's roads, utility system, trail system, connections, completion of our wastewater treatment plan expansion project, and other projects approved with our 2023 voter approved general obligation bonds. It includes $15 million for Parks and Recreation Department, library, and our sports tourism departments, really that recreation, culture, and sports. $99 million for public safety for the Round Rock Police Department and the Round Rock Fire Department. And $46 million is included in the budget for the operations of our water, wastewater, stormwater operations. Also included in the proposed budget is our five-year community improvement plan. So again, this is not just for fiscal year 2027, but that year and four years thereafter. $927.7 million is planned for investments in our water, wastewater, transportation, stormwater, and other departments as shown in this. Of this $927.7 million, 54% is proposed to be cash funded. 44% is proposed to be debt funded with a little bit of a balance coming for the contribution of partners for the Brushy Creek Regional Wastewater System for that large wastewater treatment plant expansion project. Our proposed property tax rate is 42.3 cents. You can see the various rates down here. I did want to point out that this is an increase of 3.8 cents over our no new revenue rate of 38.5 cents. Again, that's a proposed increase of 3.8 cents, or 9.8%. The allocation or purpose of that increase, 0.9 cents, is for public safety. That's 24 new positions across the Round Rock Police Department and Round Rock Fire Department. Half a cent is for operations and maintenance of the voter-approved bond projects. That is largely the multi-purpose complex expansion scheduled to open in fiscal year 2027, as long as the athletic performance center, also scheduled to open in fiscal year 2027. And then 2.4 cents of the increase is for debt for those voter-approved bond projects. We're delivering to the voters what was promised as part of the bonds. And we are going to pay debt service in the upcoming year, necessitating that increase of the tax rate. Our median residential taxable property value for the year is $370,288. That'll give a median annual tax bill based on that proposed rate of 42.3 cents of $1,566, breaks down to $131 a month. The amount of the increase over that no new revenue rate is $11.64 a month, or $140 for the year. This slide gives the taxable properties and revenues. So if we look at the number of parcels across the city, of which we have about 44,000 parcels, 92% of them are residential single-family homes. 8% of them are commercial or multifamily properties. When we look at our taxable value in revenues, 48% of our taxable value comes from those single-family residential homes, and 52% of the value comes from those commercial properties. So having that unique blend Round Rock has of commercial properties, it lessens the burden on our residential homeowners for taxes, and that 52% of our property tax revenues will come from those commercial properties. Note at the bottom, single-family homes pay only 18% of the general fund revenues needed to fund those city services.

Not to interrupt you, but 18% is what the residential property taxes were for the general fund revenue. So we're almost at $200 million. So if my math is correct, that's about $40 million in property tax, which doesn't even cover our fire department's cost of budget. Go ahead.

So just a reminder where we are in the timeline. We have this, again, the proposed budget and proposed property tax rate on the council agenda for final consideration tonight. Council started seeing these really back in July. It's been a pleasure walking all through the budget over the last several months, culminating in consideration tonight. The budget and tax information has been available on the city's website, also on social media. The taxpayer websites have been out there. It's been running on our public access television channel. And we've had it in hard copy available at the Round Rock Public Library. Happy to answer any questions you may have. As a reminder, there's public hearings on both the budget item and the tax rate item. For the tax rate item, there is specific motion language required by state law, which is included in the agenda packet.

Any questions? All right. This is a public hearing on G2. I'm going to go ahead and open up the public hearing. I'm going to let our speaker speak on this before we go to all the other stuff. So Ms. Harrison, thank you for your patience. And thank you for being here. And I know you spoke. You had also wanted to speak on the water rate increase. So usually we give three minutes. I'll give you a little extra time for both.

I appreciate that. And I brought some visual aids, if you don't mind.

Okay. Well, you're on.

All right. I wanted to thank you all for hearing me out today. I know it's already been a long meeting. I just wanted to bring another opinion to the table over what we've seen from these presentations over the last couple of meetings. So I started here by bringing, oh, I forgot to say my name and my address. I'm sorry. You're all right. My name is Alana Harrison, and I live at 1024 Chad Loop. So I started here by pulling up the 10 closest to population cities to Round Rock. You'll see there's a little bit of a difference there, but it's all very variable. And also pulling some information about the 2026 adopted city tax rate and where we fall in with our peers there. So you'll see right now we do fall right in the middle of the pack to similar sized cities. And residents are paying a competitive and reasonable tax rate. The proposed increase could increase the tax burden for some homeowners. In the most recent presentation, estimated increase of approximately $166 per household. But after crunching some numbers, that estimate is assuming that those homeowners are able to successfully contest their property values each year with the lower assessments that we're seeing. That assumption does not reflect the reality of every Round Rock resident. Our community does include elderly and disabled residents, working families, and residents who cannot afford to take time away from work to navigate the property tax protest process. For households already struggling to make ends meet, another increase in cost of living can have a meaningful impact. Round Rock also has an opportunity to examine how much additional revenue could be generated from commercial properties before increasing the burden on homeowners. If Round Rock's 10 largest commercial taxpayers had paid the full municipal property tax rate without negotiated Chapter 380 rebates or other incentives, their fiscal year 2025 city property tax liability would have been approximately $7.23 million. My proposal on this is that Round Rock maintain the no new revenue residential property tax rate that's already been agreed upon while increasing the amount of revenue available for city projects by reviewing and reducing chapter 380 rebates and other commercial incentives where appropriate. This approach would allow the city continue to invest in necessary infrastructure and services while limiting the immediate additional burden placed on residential taxpayers. Pivoting into water rates, I wanted to ask here, did the city evaluate whether a more equitable commercial rate structure could generate some or all of the required revenue? Round Rock currently uses a tiered water pricing structure for residential customers, but commercial customers generally pay a uniform volumetric rate. A member of the council, I believe Ms. Fleming, asked last time if she was seeing it correctly that a residential customer would be paying over $100 more for the same water uses as a commercial customer, and the answer was yes. That raises an important policy question. Could the same conservation principles used for residential customers also be applied to high volume commercial water users? High volume commercial water use. How much additional annual water revenue could Round Rock collect if very high volume commercial customers were subject to the same tiered pricing principle currently being applied to residential customers? You can see my graph there and some numbers. Using only publicly available information, we can start by looking at two of Round Rock's largest commercial water users, Kalahari and Dell. This initial comparison demonstrates that applying higher rates to very high volume commercial consumption could shift a meaningful portion of the water revenue burden away from ordinary residents, customers, and towards customers using substantially larger volumes of water. My proposal here is a tiered commercial water rate. Other cities are already using tiered or other cities in our area are already using tiered water systems. For example, Kyle uses a tiered system, applies both to residential and commercial customers. And San Antonio is using an escalating rate structure for business customers when their consumption exceeds their established normal usage. Round Rock should consider a similar approach. I propose that Round Rock adopt a tiered commercial water rate structure that better reflects the amount of water consumed by each customer. The city already has evidence that a tiered residential pricing can encourage conservation. According to the city's own recent presentation, the percentage of residential customers reaching the highest water tier usage has declined, while overall water consumption has remained relatively stable despite significant population growth. If tiered pricing can encourage conservation among residential customers, the same principles should be considered for commercial customers. A tiered commercial structure could encourage conservation among high volume commercial users, ensure that customers placing the highest demand on the water system pay a greater share of the associated cost, and protect lower volume commercial customers when unnecessary increases. also reducing pressure to increase rates on ordinary residential customers, and creating another potential source of revenue for the city's long-term water and infrastructure needs. Thank you.

All right. We may have some questions for you since you put all this together and have a conversation. So first of all, thank you for, again, your patience. Thank you for the time to put all this together.

Thank you.

I appreciate that. So I know that, you know, for me, a lot of people, you know, it'd be nice to adopt the no new revenue rate. Right. But even like In cases this year, no new revenue rate has actually climbed in some places because values actually have decreased. So in Round Rock, a lot of people think that we have so much development that it actually adds a large bucket of money for new growth. So this year, it was about $1.9 million. So we have agreements with our police department and our fire department that involves pay raises on an annual basis. Those are negotiated between the unions and the city management, and they get brought here. Those payments next year are going to be $3 million. So the no new revenue rate doesn't even cover the cost of our agreements that we already have in place. Plus with the new fire stations and the new police officers, you're adding another $3 or $4 million just for their staffing, not really all the other stuff with it. And so another thing that really makes it tough this year is we did have a bond project that was passed. by the voters. And the largest portion of that increase is really to debt. Now, the other thing is, and I don't know if you saw it in his presentation, we cash fund a lot of our projects so it doesn't ever go to the voters. And so that's probably over to the tune of over $100 million that since I've been up here in the last 10 years, not because of me, I'm just saying, principles and stuff. It's been over $100 million, which to the tax rate would be a lot of pennies. And so there are things that I do find we're not going to be able to change the the water rate system tonight. But I do find it interesting to have that discussion with the rest of the council members moving forward for next year just to see what is to your deal. Just out of curiosity, where did you get the gallons per use? Did you do an open record request? Or how did you figure that out?

A lot of Googling, city documents, et cetera.

That's a good tool.

Yes.

Yeah. And so, you know, and another thing is that, you know, usually we have been, you know, look, none of us, you know, trust me, none of us up here like to, you know, have tax increases. I mean, you know, it's just the cost. Everything has increased. We had someone talk to us the other day about water, an eight-mile line, pipeline that costs $20 million. 25 years ago has now cost $150 million. And so with our water rates, what we've been lucky to do is sell water to our sister cities that don't have water to pay off debt to help keep the water rates. Those are definitely some of the lowest in Texas for 10,000 gallons and all that. But I do find it interesting. The commercial, and I can promise you that I will make sure that we look at that, as Council Member Fleming asked the question, just to understand if that's still a good practice. And so thank you for bringing the examples for us to be able to kind of look at and all that. The other thing is because of the commercial, and all that, the 18% is all that comes from residential property taxes. So not even enough to cover the fire department. You see what I'm saying? So that's where we kind of have to battle and try to figure out, well, do we continue to grow or do we cut? And I don't know about you, but I don't use every service the city offers. I haven't been on a trail. I mean, you heard all the stuff about the trails tonight. I've been to the rec center, the library, and I walk in it. And so I don't use all those services either. And so we do try up here to make sure we keep that burden down as low as possible. But I think the question really is, do we want to be the cheapest city? Because cheap is... maybe doesn't provide all the potential services that you're able to do. You know what I mean? And so just out of curiosity, if there was one thing that you, you know, it looks like you did a lot of homework, so I'm going to ask you.

Appreciate it.

If there's one thing that you think we should cut out of the budget to lower that, out of that point, you know, the debts, we got to do that. That's what we have to do. But out of the general fund stuff, is there something that you see that we're really just, in your mind, in your opinion, is that you think we're a little bit too fat?

Extraneous. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, I think that most of what's in the budget is important. When we're talking about growth, like as you scale and as a city grows like Round Rock is so quickly, Things are important, like the police department funding, our parks and rec funding, all these things that we're discussing. My biggest argument that I had to make here was that we are giving these tax rebates to commercial customers. And I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I think there is untapped funds there that if we renegotiated that or looked at the rate of refund that we were giving them... we could find some extra funds and maybe save our residents some money just because it is a really tough economy right now. And I know a lot of people are struggling and that's what's a hard pill to swallow for me.

Yeah. And, and we, we, we, we definitely, I mean, we really do agree with you that on the sense of just the kind of cost of everything for, for everybody, you know, and, you know, the, the, the, the, The rebates and the stuff that we've agreed to, I mean, you know, we violate that, and there's stuff that can come back and then cost us more money.

And this is honestly really more to just put a different opinion out here in front of you all. Like, I know that a lot of these decisions can't be made right now in this moment, right? But I think it's important to have these discussions and talk about varying opinions because it can open doors.

And, you know, you're very intelligent. I mean, this is very well thought out. And we have a program that I think you'd be great at if you wanted to go through it, ultimately, is our university program. And it's a six to eight, 11-week deal on a Monday night. From 6 to 8, they serve you food. And you get to learn everything that the departments do and kind of how those things all come about. And so if you have any interest in that, there's a fall and a spring class. The current fall class has already started, but the next spring, you ought to look at that. Because this really is, you know, I've been up here 15 years and no one's ever brought me this.

Wow.

That's what I'm just saying. 15 years. And you did it. And you can tell it was very thought out. And I think we're all appreciative of it. And so definitely, I really would like for you to consider that. And we all come and speak, so you'll get to meet us one-on-one. You're more than welcome to email all of us to come sit down with you one-on-one and talk also on stuff. So does anyone have any other questions for Council Member Ortega?

I want to say what the mayor had just said, but I'm not going to do that because he's eloquently has said it. I'm also impressed with what you've done here. Most people come to us or in any organization, not necessarily government, and they have an issue they want to see that can get resolved, but they never implement any ideas to get there. You have. Joe's in the back. He runs the program that the mayor just spoke about. Please sign up for it because, like he said, somebody who took the time to put this together and put it well deserves to learn more about our city. And I think you're the perfect candidate for it.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone have any questions for?

Yeah.

I would just say, too, These decisions are hard, right? And they don't just come about in a month or two months or three months. I think something else that you would learn is how we strategically plan, how we begin that in December. And here we are almost to October. It's taken that long of a time. But that is something else that you would learn is how that process goes, about how the staff goes about fulfilling the direction that we have for the city and how they go about, I think Kevin said it, like we started the actual budgeting process in July. So it does take a long time, but to the mayor's point, there is a lot to learn. I don't think that a single person has sat up here after going through that program and said, That was a waste of my time. I didn't learn anything. On the contrary, here, I didn't know that. I didn't realize that. And it's a good place, too, for you to be able to provide your feedback in real time. So to the mayor's point, it's definitely a worthy project or program if you have the ability and time to do it.

Thank you. Any other questions or comment? Yeah, again, I don't want to beat the dead horse, but you know, thank you for, you know, because we do look, you know, I've been up here the longest, so I've got the most gray hair. It, you know, sometimes you, you know, you're around it 24-7, and you may not be able to see things from, you know, and so just your thoughtfulness and your willingness to try to present solutions and not just coming up here and

Complaining.

Complaining and yelling at us. That'll go a lot further in life if more would do that stuff. But again, I just want to say thank you for this. And like I said, any of us would always, anytime if you've got an idea or something, if you just ping our email, I bet you'll get people that will sit down with you and talk to you. And definitely consider problem because we need people like you to be able to understand it and then be able to also give us the, and that's what's happened out of that university. There are ideas that have come out of those things that do help. And, you know, hopefully next year we, you know, if sales tax continues to do well, there's things that we do to buy down more debt where you don't have it and other cities are going to have to raise theirs too. Trust me, there's other cities about to go out for a lot more debt than we have that This will all start to equate back down.

OK? Thank you again for your time.

I appreciate all of your time as well. Thank you all.

Thank you.

All right. Anybody else wishing to speak on this? All right. Public hearing's closed. I will entertain a motion to adopt on G2. Consider public testimony regarding ordinance adopted in the 2027 annual budget for the city of Round Rock. So I entertain a motion to adopt that ordinance. So moved.

Second.

I have a motion by Council Member Ortega, second by Council Member Stephens. Any other discussion? And please poll the council. Council Member Ortega?

Yes. Council Member Stephens? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery?

Yes.

Council Member Lee?

Yes.

Council Member Flores? Yes. Council Member Fleming? Yes. Mayor Morgan?

Yes. This does take the language per the state. Oh, yeah. Okay. Consider public testimony regarding an ordinance adopting the 2026 property tax rate for the city of Round Rock. Second reading. This is a public hearing. I'll open this one up. Anybody wishing to speak? All right. Public hearing is closed. I entertain a motion to adopt this ordinance.

I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of the tax rate of 0.423000, which is effectively a 9.8% increase in the tax rate.

I have a motion by the Mayor Pro Tem. I have a second.

Second.

Motion made by the Mayor Pro Tem, seconded by Council Member Stevens. Any other discussion? And please poll the council. Council Member Stevens.

Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery. Yes. Council Member Lee.

Yes.

Council Member Flores?

Yes.

Council Member Fleming? Yes. Council Member Ortega?

Yes.

Mayor Morgan?

Yes. F4, consider ratifying the property tax increase reflected in the fiscal year 2027 budget. Can I obtain a motion to adopt that resolution? So moved.

Second.

Motion made by Council Member Ortega, second by Council Member Stephens. Any other discussion? And please poll the council.

Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery?

Yes. Council Member Lee.

Yes.

Council Member Flores. Yes. Council Member Fleming.

Yes.

Council Member Ortega. Yes. Council Member Stephens. Yes. Mayor Morgan.

Yes. E7, considered an ordinance amended Chapter 44, Article 2, Section 44-32, 44-33, and 44-34 Code of Ordinances regarding water rates, reuse water rates, and sewer rates. Second reading. I entertain a motion to adopt that ordinance. So move.

Second.

Motion made by Council Member Ortega. Second by the Mayor Pro Tem. Any other discussion? And please vote the council.

Council Member Lee.

Yes.

Council Member Flores. Yes. Council Member Fleming. Yes. Council Member Ortega. Yes. Council Member Stephens. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery. Yes. Mayor Morgan. Yes.

Why don't we pull one this way? All right. H1 and I1 has been tabled. J1, consider the council's approval of the mayor's appointments of the president, vice president, and secretary of the Round Rock Transportation Economic Development Corporation. As I mentioned, I'll make that motion to approve and appoint Council Member Flores as the president, Jessica Mosman as the vice president, and Michelle Sherwood as the Secretary of the Transportation Economic Development Corporation. So I made the motion. Do I have a second?

Second.

Motion made by the mayor, second by the Mayor Pro Tem. Any other discussion? And please vote the council.

Council Member Fleming?

Yes.

Council Member Ortega? Yes. Council Member Stephens? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Montgomery? Councilmember Lee.

Yes.

Councilmember Flores. Yes. Mayor Morgan.

Yes. All right. Council comments regarding items of community interest. Mayor Pro Tem.

Good night, Ron Rock.

Councilmember Stephens.

Yeah, I don't see Rick anymore. I don't see Rick anymore, but I will say I did visit Flag Plaza at Yonder's Point today, so I'd recommend anybody... that has time in the next day or so while they're still there to go see the flags that have been put up and remember 9-11 and the 25th anniversary is tomorrow. Good night, Round Rock.

Council Member Tega. Yes, just a reminder that LMSDOT is this Saturday, so please come out, enjoy yourselves out here. I know that's UT Ohio game. Believe me, I'm going to miss it as well, but maybe somebody out here will have a TV. Good night, Round Rock.

There's a lot of businesses up and down this street that will have a TV. Council Member Fleming.

I apologize for being late tonight, but I did want to get here at least at the end. So I'm happy to serve. I'm proud to be a part of this. Good night, Round Rock.

Council Member Flores. Good night, Round Rock. Council Member Lee. Good night, Round Rock. And I will say good night, Round Rock. We stand adjourned at 8.02.