City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, it's 6 o'clock. I call this meeting of Sagon City Council to order. Please rise for the pledges. I aliance 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. I aliance to the Texas one state one and indivisible.

Thank you. Please be seated. One easy invocation for that. Reverend Ramon Smith, Sagalong United Methodist Church. Welcome, sir. Thank you for having us. Would you please join me for a word of prayer? Gracious and loving God, we pause at the beginning of this meeting to remember that all wisdom, all authority, and all life itself are gifts from you. We give you thanks for the city of Sagenol, for its neighbors and schools, for its families and elders, for its churches, for those who live, work, and serve here each day. Pour out your spirit upon our mayor, city council members, city staff, and all who participate in this work. Give them hearts shaped by love, minds open to truth, and wills committed to justice and mercy. We pray that all we do here will lead us to do no harm, to do good, to stay in love with you as we seek not our own interests but the flourishing of the whole community. Where there's division, bring understanding. Where there's weariness, bring renewal. Where difficult decisions must be made, grant courage rooted in compassion. May the work of the city council reflect not only what is lawful, but what is right. Not only what is efficient, but what is faithful to the trust placed in them by the people of this city. We entrust this meeting, the life of this community into your gracious care,

oh God, believing that you are already a work ahead of us, we offer this prayer in humility and hope in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let the people of God say, "Amen." Amen.

Thank you, Reverend. appreciate it. Uh item D is audit participation. That's covered on the agenda uh on the screen. If you want to speak on any item that is listed on the agenda, please uh pick up a former there by the police chief. Uh unless we have let's see, we have one uh public hearing. So I will call folks. You don't need to put in for the public hearing. I'll call for speakers at the appropriate time for that. But all who here can speak on any item that is on the agenda. Moving forward to the consent agenda. I've had a request to pull 2F. So we will discuss we will look at 2 a action regarding minutes of December 16th action regarding ordinance 20261 appointment of municipal court judge. 2 C action regarding Tarant County hazmat re resolution. 2D action regarding original first responders organization agreement with city of Fort Worth. 2 action regarding business associate agreement with city of Fort Worth. And 2G action regarding Independence Day fireworks show. Any questions, comments on those items? If not, I'll entertain a motion.

Mayor, I make a motion. We may make a motion we approve items 2 A, 2 B, 2 C, 2 D, 2 E, and 2G of the consent agenda. And I second. Valerie second. Okay, please cast your votes. Motion passes. Let the record reflect we have a quorum. Full house. Thanks for coming, folks, and uh happy new year. So, we're going to 2G action regarding the Switchyard Cinco de Mayo Festival. Is Erica here? Oh, Erica. Um, will you come up and just I think there's a couple questions about that. So, come up briefly. Maybe just give us a quick synopsis what you're thinking for the Cinco de Mayo.

Sounds good. Hello. Um, so the single deio festival would land on actual single deo. Uh, we have amazing food trucks and um right now we have five food trucks signed up. um words. Um I've blanked out on everything on this. I apologize. Um basically, we're gonna have a mariachi band and I wanted to have more stuff as well. And that's why I went before parks board the other day to see if they could help sponsor adding more activities and stuff like that. And yes,

sure. Any questions for Erica? Mary, go ahead. Um, sounds like a lot of fun. Um, but [clears throat] I looked at the calendar and I believe it's on a city council meeting night. I just found that out today. Oh, so is that date locked in or I was hoping that we would have this actually on Cinco de Mayo. Um, it was going to be like a concert in the park. Instead of it being like on a Thursday, have it on Tuesday. And so, I mean, theoretically, we could, I guess, possibly move. I don't It's fine. I just didn't know if you realized. And

yeah, we wouldn't be able to. None of us would be able to be there. But yeah, that's okay. Yeah. Any other questions for Erica? We could cancel the meeting. We could cancel the meeting. That's right. We and and I'm all for counseling meetings, but unfortunat I think we have quite a few things we need to do on that. Well, it's it's May, so maybe we can a month before. Let's discuss it. But always move the date to we could we have that option. You're right. Yeah. I don't know. It'd probably be cheaper for us to move the council meeting than it would to sinko or make it more sense to Well, yeah. I mean, single day is May 5th by definition. So, yeah. And it's on taco Tuesday, which does not happen all the time.

No, you're right. It's it's synced up in Yeah. And Erica mentioned that to me earlier. So yeah. So so let's we'll discuss maybe. But any other questions for Erica? I'll entertain a motion for this 2F. Mayor, I make a motion we approve item 2F of the consent agenda. Brack second.

Me. Please cast your votes. All right, motion passes. Thank you, Erica. Cool. Appreciate it. Awesome. [clears throat] All right, so that is we're three recognitions, presentations. Gibb Gabe, excuse [clears throat] me, Gabe, what do we have? Yeah, Mayor and Council couple uh recognitions tonight. I think Chief Spears has the first one for our building official.

Thank you, sir. Uh good evening, Mayor and Council. Just want to take a brief moment to again recognize Chris Dy on his recent promotion to the chief building official. As you know, that's a key position in our department. Chris did a great job as a deputy building official. Uh utmost confidence he'll excel in the in the building official position. And I wanted to give Chris an opportunity if he wanted to. I'm kind of springing this on him. So, he didn't know if he wanted to come up and say anything. And I know we have the esteemed Larry again here with us tonight, our retired building official. He may have a few words. We did have a VIP in the audience. I saw Larry was here, so we appreciate him coming back and, you know, putting up the golf clubs for at least a couple hours. Chris, you want to say anything? You don't have to. It's up to you, bud. Yeah. All right.

Good evening, Mayor and Council, all the staff, and all the people here tonight. Uh, I'm honored to be the next building official. Uh, and hopefully that I can supersede all your expectations and have this career for the next 20 plus years that I'm going to be here as it is. So, well, you're going to try to beat him, aren't you? That's a that's that's a tough one. [laughter] A lot of shoe to fill there. But, uh, no, thank you for this opportunity. I appreciate that. Congratulations. Welcome. We look forward to it.

Thank you, Chris. [applause] I think public works has the next presentation. [clears throat] Mayor, council, good evening. Um, before we get started, I want to publicly apologize because the employee that we're recognizing tonight thinks he came to speak potentially. Uh, did not know we were recognizing him tonight. So, Bill, I apologize. [laughter]

So, it is with great pleasure and honor tonight um to speak about Mr. Bill Hurst. Um when Bill speaks in a room, we all get silent. We listen. That's the respect he demands in a room. Um he is one of the most loyal um committed consistently committed employee. I have to put it in Bill's ear every once in a while. Bill, you might want to take off a day. Relax. Get away. He's very committed to what he does. Um any project you see around the city, Bill's involved in it. Uh just recently, uh completed up the Nullles project. Um it's a beautiful, beautiful project and that's because of Bill's persistence of staying on the contractors to do what is right. It may not always go as quick as we want it, but that's because Bill holds standards that are above all the rest of the cities around. Just being honest. Bill does an amazing job. So, Bill, if you don't mind coming up here, we would like to award you tonight with an honor that we've never done in public works. So, Bill's going to be the first recipient of this award. But Bill, on behalf of public works, the city of Sagenol, the community you serve, we are honoring you with the 2025 employee public work public works employee of the year. So, [applause] [applause]

you're more than welcome to speak if you [clears throat] I [laughter] don't know that. Mayor, council members, my my peers here, this is a great wonderful honor. I didn't see it coming. Uh it this is really special. Uh I thank y'all for giving me the opportunity to be here for as long as I have been. Uh but this is really this will be a special place for me. Thank you very much. Thank you. Congratulations. [applause] You need a picture. [laughter]

And I can't believe y'all pulled that on. Bill, didn't he didn't even know it. Y'all really snuck up on him.

We need to get out of the way. Five years. Bill, how long have you been here?

Bill. Bill, how long have you been here? Five years. Okay. I thought it was longer than that. Thank you. Gabe, anything else?

Okay. All right. We're going to call an audible on 3B and 3C. We're going to move those to below five. So, below 5B. Reason being, uh, we don't need Brenn for those two. We need Bren for the others. And I want to send Bren home and not pay him anymore. So, we're going to send him home a little early. So, we'll do 3B, 3C after we complete all five, all everything in five. So, that means we're going to 4 A. So, at 6:13, we're in a public hearing. Consideration action regarding amendment to zoning ordinance appendix A zoning section 86 subsection D relating to carports. Chief Doug Spears.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh with the vote of the council gave some direction to staff to try to come up with uh some uh revisions to the existing carport ordinance to allow some flexibility for those rare circumstances or situations where staff has zero flexibility and the government officials have zero flexibility. staff did that working with the attorney, some of the council members involved. That went to PNZ uh last week for a vote. Unfortunately, that was denied five five uh or 4 to one, excuse me, after a long discussion. So, that's back before you tonight. I sent an email out to everybody, including P&Z and council members kind of explaining the premise behind it. I think what's presented and I'll say like I did in the P&Z meeting staff is is uh moot on the point. We're not for against just trying to to work on a reasonable uh revision to the ordinance to uh get us where I think everybody wants to be. I think we've done that. Uh it doesn't cause really any concerns with an SU. Each one is is gauged independently. Uh given you some discretion to do that. That's a safeguard. The SUP fee will go back to the 750 cost. So there's there's a significant hurdle if somebody really wanted to do that. But that's that's kind of kind of where it's at with that. I'll answer any questions.

Questions for Chief Spears. And then C could I clarify? Go ahead, Brent. Since we have a pause, uh, since this was recommended for denial by PNZ, and I've visited with several of you, but not everyone. Um, that triggers the city's own regulation that requires a supermajority vote of 75% of the entire council to override it. 75% of a seven member board is five and a quarter council members. And so we have to round up unfortunately um so that if if there is a motion to approve and it receives two or more no votes then it will fail to override the recommendation for

Mayor. Sorry, one clarification.

Yes, sir. The revisions to the ordinance specifically address the ability to build a carport over this 600 foot maximum threshold because today that is the maximum threshold. You couldn't build a residential carport beyond that uh square footage and also allowing you to encroach in the sideyard setback for those rare circumstances where it may be appropriate to do that. Now, there are some preventing things that would uh override that if there's an easement on that sideyard that they wanted to encroach into. you wouldn't be able to do that. If there was another building within 10 foot of that uh area you're wanting to build that, you wouldn't be able to do that either. But the revision in here specifically addresses only those two things. The ability to go beyond the 600 square ft or encroach into the sideyard setback. That's the only change to the existing ordinance. Sorry, I didn't clarify that.

Other [clears throat] questions for Chief Chief Spears or any other questions for staff? So [clears throat] under this proposed change then are we eliminating the 600 square foot requirement regardless of an SUP or is it only if they have an SU that they could go bigger than that 600 today you by right you could go through the building permit process and build a carport up to 600 square f feet. Anything beyond that requires an SUP. Okay.

And the for the SUP that goes to PNZ first. You have to explain the reason why gives them some discretion. and they vote on it and then it comes to you. Same thing if they denied it, it would take a supermajority to do that to override that vote, but they are they would come with a recommendation from P&Z to you to ultimately make that decision. And I would say uh in my opinion, it's going to be a rare circumstance when this does happen, but there are some circumstances out there that somebody would probably approach an SUP to be able to do that. And I know one exists today. Council, other questions for staff. I'm gonna have some questions about the citizens.

You want to hear that first before you ask your question? Okay. Anybody else have questions before we have a listen to comments? Council. Okay. I've got a whole list of stuff, a whole list of folks. So, let's start with Deborah Thomas.

Hello. [clears throat] Hello, Mayor and Council. I am back. Um, I'm still against the changes even with the SUP. I don't think that is in the best interest of the city. Um, at the PNZ meeting, Chief Spears said that there did have to be separation of 10 feet between structures. And the attorney at that meeting explained that if if one property owner encroached on that 10-t separation, it puts more of the burden of that separation on the other property owner. I don't think that's fair. I think it should be down the middle. The [clears throat] previous ordinance before we started changing it was a five- foot setback. They took the 10t separation, divided it in half, put each five foot on each side. That has changed, which is now the setback according to the zoning. Um, but reasonably speaking, fair to everyone in the city is to have it even between the two properties. And I don't think it's right for one first come first serve to be able to make that encroachment and automatically put the burden on the other property owner. It it's I just don't think there's room for that. There's There's not a need for that.

Thank you. Thank you, Deborah. Uh next we have Annne Lawson. [clears throat]

Hello. Oh, it's a little off. Um, sorry to read. Uh, my name is Ann Lawson. I reside at 1056 Iron Horse Drive, and I appreciate the opportunity that I get to speak with you about the policies that directly impact the citizens of Sagenol. Tonight, I'm asking you consider thoughtful mod these thoughtful modifications to our carport or ordinance. Uh, changes that maintain safety and aesthetics while giving some homeowners flexibility they need. You are considering updates to carport guidelines regarding size and sideyard setback requirements and we need to strike a balance between reasonable oversight and practical homeowner needs. These proposed changes allows the opportunity to submit a specific use permit for consideration uh for a homeowner can make to exceed the size and setback requirements uh in the sideyards. Currently, this 600 square f feet limit often forces homeowners to compromise on functionality or abandon improvement projects altogether. For example, building a standard twocar car park garage with a covered walkway to their front door can easily exceed 600 square ft at times. Uh families nowadays usually uh own larger vehicles. They have trucks and SUVs that require more space to accommodate them safely. And carports may need to be slightly wider than usual to provide space not only for parking these vehicles but also to allow comfort exiting and entering their vehicles. By allowing a larger carport which go underos considerational review, we empower homeowners to design functional spaces without unnecessary hardships. And if we start imposing rigid limits with carport sizes and other what would stop other accessessor structures uh

backyard patios, um sheds, patios, whatever. Uh where does this stop? uh mun municipalities need to strike effective balances to ensure safety and aesthetics while offering clarity and flexibility in my opinion and these frameworks protect neighborhoods while respecting homeowners freedom. It is important to note that um other ordinances already limit the total covered area on a single family zone lot that they can no longer be no more than 50% of the lot size. So this means homeowners already have a cap on how much of their property that can be covered, ensuring that even if they do have get a can build a larger carport, the overall lot coverage remains controlled and compliant.

[clears throat]

I'm in support of council to introduce provisions for these larger bills and relax setback requirements under these conditional plan reviews following our established process for exemptions that maintain design standards to preserve the character of the neighborhoods that they go up in. Uh these steps would help us avoid regulatory creep and maintain sensible oversight. And just to close up, I'm going to say balancing permit requirements with homeowner flexibility ensures we protect community standards without creating unnecessary hardships or complex complexities for our residents. So, I'm asking that you adopt thoughtful modifi these thoughtful modifications that serve both civic needs and common sense. And I thank you for your time.

Thank you, ma'am. Next, I have William Herrell. Honorable mayor and council, I'd like to take the speech that she just got through doing and to make that request. I'm one of the ones trying to ask to get the carports bigger. Okay. I had a big carport. Carports started coming apart. I didn't want to wreck up the neighborhood on anybody's homes or anything like that. Unbeknownst to me, the people that wanted to rebuild it or or fix it was the only way to do it was take it down and start back over because it was worn out. Period. Okay. Had I known if I'd left a pole up, something like that, and I still have mountings in the into the ground there where the carport poles were at. Had I known if I left that up, I could have built another carport all the way around it and we wouldn't be here today. Okay? But I went around to all my neighbors, not all of them. I didn't get to get to all of them. And they signed statements saying, you know, your carport has been a landmark here on Opal Street for 30 years. Okay. People had come over, we had talked, we'd sit up underneath the carport, drink iced tea, and have a good time. Okay. I when I took this down, it it just eliminated me from being able to enjoy life out in the front. Okay. The only enjoyment I get now is playing with my corgi with broom. If you come around there around 4:30, 5 o'clock, we're out there playing broom with a corgi. So, I'd really appreciate y'all considering it. Thank you. Thanks, sir. That's the only ones I have. I do have some uh that we received folks that won't be able to be here. Do I need to

read all these into the record or what would you what should I do? If you can read the names and the address. Okay. Because I'm looking at them. The statements are exactly the same. So, chat GPT wrote this. Uh, so they're but they're all the same. Um, I will read the um maybe you could read one then and just read the names of all these.

I'll read one. I I I wish people would write their own instead of doing chat GPT, but you know, that's where we are. Uh, this is from this from William Harrell. I know this is I'm sorry, this is Kenneth Jean Hill. I'm in support of carport ordinance change allows flexibility for the exceptions that properties may require carports outside the current allowances which would allow the reconstruction of numerous carpets located. I believe that the refreshed carport would be stronger and safer than the previous carports that were located at that desired lo residence. Also adding it would create additional beautifification in the neighborhood by showing modernization through appearance and materials that would be used. This Kenneth Gene Hillen of 605 open. Uh same statement from Raymond Swingler. Oh, Reagan Swingler uh at 612 Pinto. Again, same statement from Karen Swingler. Fen Swingler Harold at 717 Opal. Uh Jimmy Water, no WFford. Wford, I believe, at 613 Opal. Ben Herman at 800 Opal. Uh Melissa Lenor at 800 Opal. Uh Urban Ba Banda at 618 Pinto. Selena Horta Herta at 617 Pinto. Michael R. Han at 709 Opal. Jim Clement at 617 Opal. Frank Clemens at 609 Opal. Miguel uh Ruiz maybe. I really can't read it. Miguel at 508 Reosa. Oops.

[clears throat]

Uh Ma Machel Hoodie Michael M. No, it's it's MAC Michelle. Ah, thank you. Michelle Hoodie. Thank you. 625 Pinto. Fred Hoodie at 625 Pinto. [cough] This is Casey uh Slothower. I really can't read their right. But Casey Slotau 513 Opal. Derek Scay 608 Opal, Linda Plymens 609 Opal. And again, all these are exactly the same statement I already read. Uh Sana Indicott at 608 Opal, and Connie Slatherber, Slat Halo, is that how you pronounce that? Slot Halber 513 Opal and Sean Schmard Schmard at 520 Riadosa. That's all.

All of those report, they were all the same exact statement that I read. Exactly the same. Yes, sir. And that was pro. There's not a box to check pro on here, but for the statement, then yes. For the statement, yes, it is. Uh, is there anyone else that wants to speak in the audience wants to speak on this item that has not filled out one? You can speak now. You can fill out one later. If anybody else here that's in attendance wants to speak. Okay. Well, thank y'all. So, um, now you want you want to talk to him, Nikki. Mr. Mayor. Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Chris, come on.

You don't have to fill out a form, brother. Just come on up. I'd like to welcome our chief building official to the microphone. So I just want to Mayor Cel I just want to go back on the point that Deborah had made that during that PNZ meeting we had discussed as far as building that structure if let's just hypothetically say you have a 5ft setback um you would not be able be able to build that carport up to the property line and then put that 10-ft burden on the neighboring property because they only have five foot. Now you could you wouldn't approve the SU for the neighbor. That's how that would happen. Correct. So you you can do that. That's the mechanism that they would be able to build.

They wouldn't be able to build within 10 foot of the other structure through they would have to get an SUP if they went in that encroachment. I guess if they were not within 10 ft still within their property line that could be a concern even if the neighboring property is 5 foot from the property line. Yeah. They didn't encroach into the five foot, but they were them in 10,

right? But if but if they're build whenever they were platted or plotted, they have a 5-ft build line. Say it was a a 50 foot lot and they did a 10% back in the day back in the 80s7s, they did a 10%, right? So if that I guess for lack of better discussion, say like Barc subdivision, they're an HOA, I believe, but like the Barc subdivision, they all have 5- foot side yard setbacks. So if y'all been to the Barc subdivision, you'all understand what I'm saying. that carport hypothetically would not be able to get built up to the property line without putting the other property in in danger of a fire setback. Is that correct?

That's correct. Okay. Now, on a 7 and 1/2t sideyard setback, which is a typical SF2 SF3 zoning regulation, they they have a 7 and 1/2 ft. So, they have 2 and 1/2t to play. So they could encroach by the ordinance or by the new SUP. They could encroach two and a half ft, but they would have to still maintain that 10-ft separation between structure to structure. So I just want to make sure that I'm pretty clear on that definition. Okay,

that's accurate. Um, now another another statement that was made is that a twocar garage, which I want you to visualize your garage if you have one. Those garages are typically 380 to 400 square ft for a two-car garage. A typical parking space by our ordinance is 9 ft by 18 foot requirement. So typically, hypothetically, you can have a threecar garage and build a threecar carport and still maintain under that 600 foot threshold. So the ordinance that we have today stands in line with even if you have a twocar and you want to build it up to your walkway for access, you can do that. Um there's nothing against our ordinance that says that you can't have that walkway as long as it's within that 600 foot roofed area. But I just want to be very clear that if we allow these enlargements and these encroachments that the next neighbor is possibly going to have a burden for for the next availability. So if they want to be able to build a carport and say they have two driveways that are lined up with each other, they [snorts] won't be able to to build that. So again, it comes first come first serve, right? So just want to be very clear on that. And I think that's been mentioned before, but I just want to make sure that I'm clear.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Couple other pieces of information because there's two critical components to that. Building into the sideyard setback is not a normal practice uh for our area and I think staff did research on that. We're not aware [clears throat] of any city in the metroplex that allows you to get into that setback build. So, that seems to be the most controversial piece or the concerning piece. So, that could be separated out if you wanted to extend an SUP to build the carport beyond 600 ft. the amendment could include that and not into the sideyard setback or vice versa, whichever way you wanted to go. So, it's not a one-sizefits-all. There's two really two considerations and those could be divided out and we can adjust the amendment if necessary, too.

Could we also as part of the SUP process require I know like sometimes in commercial business they can have an agreement between neighbors. Is there something that we could put in the SUP process that says that we have to have a statement from the neighbor that they are okay with being the last of the first come first serve? Well, the SUP process gets advertised and theoretically that's the notice that the surrounding community and they get to come to a public hearing and state their opinion on it. Basically, approval denial for y'all's information for on your decision. You could add that as an upfront requirement prior to the So, I I would recommend that that be added into the ordinance. precondition to applying for the SCP in the first place. Okay.

So, Sean, your question really is there's two folks. If the one neighbor I'm building my car for the one neighbor, if he's okay with it, right, that takes away some of the burden. If he's not okay with it, that's a whole separate conversation. That's sort of what you're saying. Okay. And I completely agree with that. That makes a lot of sense. So, in the question, Valerie, go ahead. Um, if in the SU would it say that they would have to have a survey, a upto-date survey, so they know exactly where it is and make sure that where the property line is. Yeah, the property line. And it will probably have to have a drainage survey also so they don't drain anything off in the neighbor's yard, which leads to if the building if they're building a carport and it overhangs past the cement and it doesn't have a gutter or something, then they're going to put drainage on that other person. Is that going to be [snorts]

there's verbiage in there for that leaving the discretion to the building official? Some of those will be known where the property line is. If the if the property line is 5T over and they're only encroaching into a foot, that makes common sense that they're not close to the property line or encroaching on it. If a drainage issue in the uh opinion of the building official, if one exists, one it could be created or compound in an existing one, then they can require those. That's part of that SUP process. But to leave it to the building official because I don't know that every one of them need to go get a survey or a drainage study, right? So that's why it's written in that fashion and it left to the discretion of building official to make that call.

And the other question I mean the other thing comment I need to make was also most people when they build houses they put their electric electrical and their plumbing down that side where they're going to put that cement. So the homeowner needs to be aware that if it's something goes wrong, they're going to have to dig it up and it's not the city. If there's an easement along that that would prevent them from being able to do that. So part of that SUP process is you're going to get feedback from staff and they can say whether hopefully before the SUP was submitted they submit for a building permit. They get feedback from staff to say there's an easement. This is not even something that would be considered. Right. So under this you cannot build on an easement. There's correct no situation where we can build on an easement. Right.

I don't know that there's no situation. I'll defer to the building department or that. Right. So the the owner of the easement is the dominant estate owner of that strip of land. Okay. And so if you're going to impede their use in any way, they have the right but not the obligation to object to that independent. I see. Okay. So yeah. Val, are you done? Valerie, I'm sorry. I'm done. Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Yeah. So to get on this to to to walk through this the uh the proposal does have things in it. It actually says that the structure has to have guttering. It also it also gives a flexibility to the city that if they go out there and evaluate and if they if there's any discrepancy between where the property line is that that the person requesting that has to pay to have where the uh boundary is and also too if there's any concern of drainage they have to have a drainage study done. So all of that is already in there

and that's the drain is determined by the city officials. By the city official. Okay. Yeah. And they it was worded it was originally worded stronger than that and the city things came back and said well can we ease that up and make it make it flexible. We don't want to cost the citizens because it is quite expensive to get what's called a wet stamp uh engineering uh stamp. It probably end up costing an extra Yeah, about $400 or $500, maybe more than that if if they don't write it up themselves.

Um, so that that was the reason that was I won't say compromised on, but the city city recommended that to hey, let's make it to where if we feel there is one that they have to get it. The second thing is to pass this doesn't automatically give any citizen the right. What it's doing is giving the city the flexibility to where if there's an exception, a special circumstance where a citizen has a good case to go outside those boundaries, it can be seen by P&Z and then by council council here to uh take that into conception. So it doesn't mean that everybody can they have to apply for it and and it can still be rejected right now. Um it's my understanding that there is about somewhere around 600 car ports what what you call it what you call out of compliance or not out of compliance. I forget what they call it where they're not in compliance. And so just like the one gentleman who got up here and and ran into this his carport has been there for 30ome years. The carport was there when he bought the house

and due to age and storms in Texas, the he uh the carport became damaged. He went to get it fixed back and the contractor that he hired said, "Oo, this is more than we thought. It's unsafe. You need to take it down." So, they took it down. Then he proceeded to go to get the permit. The problem is is the where his carport used to be for the last 30 years now violates this process, violates the new ordinance. And while yeah, he may be the catalyst that brought this on and raised it up, he's by no mean the only one. Like I say, there's roughly 600 others. And if you'd been any citizen out there had had [snorts] a carport and had looked at it and or anything like that and you'd been there for 30 years and you did something like this then uh you know you'd be upset too. And so to me this gives the city the flexibility to look at each case on a casebyase basis and determine whether or not it's the right thing to do for the citizen and for the city of Sagno. So that that's why this was brought up. It's it's it's been bounced around. I know that we've had we've had this carport ordinance up probably three or four times and I I've heard people say, "Well, it's been enough." Well, I'll tell you what, it's been enough when we get it right. And we should keep adjusting any ordinance until we do get it right. And if it isn't right, then to me, it's council's responsibility to listen to the citizens and to listen to the professionals and to try to come up with a I don't want you want to call it a compromise, but a a medium, a happy medium that meets everybody's minimum criteria. One of the big concerns also was fire. Okay. Is this going to hinder

if there's a fire or if there's an emergency for the our emergency medical people to get in there? And Doug, can you address that? Sure. That's primarily that 10-ft separation. Yeah.

Uh carports are are a challenge just in general, anything for fire departments. It's something we try to avoid getting under, right, for collapse. That includes houses and stuff like that, too. So, uh, if they encroach into the sideyard, that sometimes means that we're going to have to go into that carport to access the back of the house, but with 10 foot separation, theoretically, we could go around that the other person's yard, which we encroach into other people's yards in most emergency, fighting fires and stuff like that. This is not overly burdensome to the fire department in your consideration. So, that that point is really out for for this. It's not that big a concern or else I would be saying so.

Yeah. Thank you. So this doesn't give everybody cause blanch to build whatever they want. What it does is it gives the citizen the ability if they have a special circumstance to bring it to their city and to their elected officials to to make a consideration. doesn't even mean that it will pass P&Z and it definitely doesn't mean that it would pass counsel, but at least they get to plead their case. And right now, there's no way. And I personally, as a citizen, have a problem when I don't have the ability to plead my case to the city or to whatever entity it is. And so, that's why I 100% support it. That's why I I help uh work with the city and and the fire department stuff to get this worded, changed it, modified it. That's how come we ended up with the SUP because that gives it the flexibility for us to at least take the consideration and say yes or no and it gives the citizen the ability to at least they're hurt.

So with that, thank you Mr. L. Got Sean. You want to go? Um so when I was researching this I saw um there is an ordinance for a I don't know how to say this word port kosher. Uh yeah port koscher. Okay. So what is the difference between that and a carport? If you could no I would have to look that up maybe

because the wide the ordinance is it says section 8.3 subsection B uh port kosher may be may project into the required sideyard provided every part of such is enclosed except for necessary structural supports. So if he this this gentleman here decided that he didn't want to build a carport but he wanted to build that it sounds like it would be allowed. I don't know. I need to go study that definition that normally when I think of porticochet that means there's a detached building and that attaches those two buildings and you drive through that. That that's what I see in my head. Yeah. And it's it's attached to those buildings, right? That's what I see in my head when you think porticochet. That's why I was asking what the definition was because I had not heard that. [laughter]

Yeah. I'd have to go back and look that up. So sorry I wasn't prepared for that. But it in my mind I think that's what that is. It's two separate buildings are attached. Right. Cuz that that suggests that there's another building on the other side and if you're encroaching into the sidey guard setback, I don't know where that other building. Right. So just like a porticochet is typically what you have like at a funeral home or like what's up the street here at the assisted living facility where they have that pull in to do awning. Okay. It's not necessarily a carport. It's more of a drive up drop off type situation. Yeah. All right, mayor, you have a question.

Um, I just have some comments. I do not approve of these recommendations. I don't think we need to be watering down our ordinances for just a handful of situations that may occur. Uh, we've already improved, if you want to say that that's improving. We've made this more flexible twice already for our residents. At one time, we only allowed carports in a very select area of Sagena. These were the older homes that have onecar garages. And it it came up that they didn't citizens didn't think it was fair for it to only be allowed in one section of the city. which I tended to agree with that. So, we redid that ordinance to allow them to occur throughout the city with a specific use permit. And then we got complaints that that was burdensome to the residents to have to require a specific use permit. So, then we changed it to eliminate that. So, I think we've really done enough to make this ordinance pleasing to the overwhelming majority of the residents. I think it's a mistake to allow encroachment on sideyards, period. I don't think that's a good uh good thing to start allowing. Also, the ability to make them larger, I believe, is a huge mistake. I mentioned this in a prior meeting that we in the neighborhood I live in. It's not on my street, but it's in our

neighborhood. Very recently, a very beautiful carport was built that matches our ordinance, of course. And even though it uses nice materials, it's well built, it's welld designed, in the 600 square foot requirement, it still overpowers that house. And if we allow larger carports, I just don't think it would be aesthetically pleasing for our city to have these monstrous carports, you know, popping up all over the city. So, I think the ordinance as it is written is very fair to all of the residents. If there's a situation where a property owner's property does not allow them to meet the requirements of our ordinance because of the layout of their property, they then have the ability to go to the board of adjustment. And if the board of adjustment agrees that it is impossible for them to meet the requirements of the ordinance, then they would uh call that a hardship and they would allow allow the carport to be built as close to the requirements as they could. I also want to point out that probably seven or eight years ago, we uh put in place an overlay district for Sageno Boulevard. And in those rules that we set forth, we said that if a property has 50% or more damage done to it through a fire or a storm or something like that, they now

will have to follow the uh overlay district rules. Well, it's kind of the same way. If you have an older carport that was built perhaps without a permit a long time ago, may not have even had a permit and it was not built according to our ordinance. Then if that has to be torn down or is damaged by a storm or a fire, my belief is that then that should be rebuilt according to the ordinance as it exists today. And I think we've bent over backwards to be reasonable with our residents. So I would be opposed to approving this.

Thank you, Mary. So I' I'd like to address a couple things there. One is it is extremely hard to get something uh through the committee that she mentioned. Uh there are strict rules that you have to actually show and prove that you have a extreme hardship of uh of cost. Uh we actually did attempt to go through that and uh did didn't make it. Uh, I've got my own personal beliefs of that committee and why it's there and the expense it has and how it inflicts pain upon the citizens. So, with that, that's not really a viable solution. It sounds good, but when you dig into it, the board of adjustments, it they're won't work. Like I say, they they hide behind that they you have to prove that you have a mon extremely monetary fund. They then listen and then they vote and you don't under you don't get you don't get no reason why you failed or anything. I like this. The reason I like it going to an SU is because every one of us is an elected official. Every one of you all elected us and you should be able to bring it to to me something like this to your officials and you know that's it. I'm I lean very libertarian on this stuff and I think that uh within reason uh the citizens of Sagnal should be able to do with their land as long as it ain't infringing upon a hardship and an SU allows that SU when there's an SUP. The reason it's so expensive on the person applying for the SU is we have to by law then send it out to is it 200 feet? 200 feet. So their neighbors get an actual letter. We also have to post it in the Fort Worth Star Telegram. I

think that's what we post in. And to give everybody a chance so their neighbors actually get an email from the city to say, "Hey, this guy over here is thinking about doing this. You're his neighbor, his or her neighbor. Do you agree with it?" And then when it comes to us, believe me, if the neighbor disagrees with it, he's probably not going to make it through. Okay? So this whole thing of it's it's not uh it first come first serve that that's not that's not the case. The SU requires that it go out that everybody get within 200 feet. So definitely their neighbors get in get a letter and it's also published and anybody in Sagenol can come and just like here and say I disagree with this for this reason. Okay. So it it isn't the thing of oh you know they're just going to put it in there and I'm a neighbor and I'm not going to have any say so whatsoever. There is there is checks and balances and again this to me this this strikes a a good balance and as far as you're right like I said at the beginning she we we have modified it but it needs to be modified again because it's not it's not inducive to to balancing the right balance between the between the citizens.

So with that bra heard from you what you got? Yeah. Uh so just a quick point of clarification, uh the 50% coverage rule is not going to or that's going to be in play regardless. You you cannot exceed the 50% uh even with an SUP. Correct. In this circumstance, [laughter] a conversation was um actually I guess with Larry I think. Um that yes, we discussed that and I just wanted to make sure that that's still in place so that you don't roof the entire front and backyard.

Right. Okay. And then um I I kind of like the idea of if you're going to have an encroachment before you even apply for that SUP, you have to have the neighbor sign off on it. Um, I think that's a a good way to um not force the the homeowner to be out $750 and then find out halfway through the process that no, this is this isn't going to go because I don't even agree with this.

Whoever makes if if a motion's brought to the table when the mayor calls it and whoever makes that motion, maybe it's you, I don't know whether you're for it or against it, make that as an amendment. I think that's perfectly acceptable. Uh I did have one. Brea, [clears throat] are you done? Yeah. Okay, go ahead.

So, um regarding the parking, when was the last time, when was that implemented? Um I'm just curious because I'm thinking about like my garage and it was built, the house was built in the 60s and the washer and dryer in there and I know that I had a truck that was a small truck. It was an S10 and it was like 17 and 12 ft and if I parked it in the garage I would not be able to do laundry. I'd be tossing clothes over the hood. Um so that 9 by 18 I don't know when that was put in place but it's possible that now with today's cars in residential area that that you know you park two under a carport or three under a carport you won't be able to open the doors.

I think he was just using that for reference the commercial parking parking spot that's the minimum requirement for a driveway. I think there's some recommended specs, but I don't think there's anything that's hard and fast to tell you how long or how wide it has to be,

right? It's just for for, you know, everyone's consideration that that vehicles nowadays are bigger. Um, you know, I was looking at Ford Rangers and the newer Ford Rangers are almost 4 foot longer than the older Ford Rangers. And so, anybody who gets a newer car nowadays is going to struggle to park it underneath, you know, a carport that if it's limited to that 600 square foot and they want to have three cars. I I know I was doing the math in that 9 by8 times three it was like 456 feet but I I would imagine that if somebody's going to build a threec car they're going to build it a little bit bigger so they have space to get in and out like Ann was saying you know access to get in and out of their car. So um I know when I moved here the neighbor across the street has a huge carport. I think um on national night out um you guys have all been and seen how big that that carport is across the street from me. And it was it was nice when I moved in. Um he had we had block parties and we still use it now. Um so it's nice to have for sure. And he doesn't have a garage anymore because uh his house was a smaller size so he had the garage converted. That's common in the neighborhood.

Mayor Pro Tim, we haven't heard from you. What you got? Um I fully support the SU. Um I I think the current ordinance is just too strict. Um, I disagree with what Mary said about the that one carport that's over there on Greenbryer. I think it actually looks nice. It looks a lot better than the monstrosity metal building they built attached to the house across from it. And uh, I fully support this. I mean, this way we still if if it's something that's not going to be safe, we still have the ability to deny it. Valerie, you have anything else you want to add? No, not really.

Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Um, you know, initially I was not in support of this initially. I'm not a not for any particular reason. I was just had concerns. Um, I like the SUP as a an as a a process. I like that as a giving an option to folks to look at. So, I appreciate the one-off on that. Uh, that gives me a lot more comfort. Um, if we add something on this, as you mentioned, to to get approval from the neighbor that's uh affected or impacted, we add that allowance, I think I'd be able to support it in that case, whatever that set wording is. Um, I really leave that to the attorney to make that fine. But in in that case, I think I'd be able to I'd be okay with it. I like the guardrails of an SU. So, any anybody else I want to wrap this up. Anybody else? Anybody else want to speak? All in, all done. Anybody else? Everybody good? Otherwise, staff, we good? Doug, you good? All right. Then at 656, I take us out of a public hearing. I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we approve with adding an amendment to the SUP process that before they apply, they have to get permission from the neighbor to proceed to apply for the SUP. Supply the city with written consent. supply the city with written consent of the immediately adjacent close to state. Yes. With the Yes. With as council said. Okay. There you go. Have a second. Nick second. All right. Please cast your votes. All right. Six to one. Motion passes. That's a super majority.

All right. Let's move forward, folks. Thank you for everybody's hard work on this, too. All right. We [clears throat] are at 5A consideration action regarding resolution 20261 calling a general election to elect the officers offices of city council place 4 and city council place 6 to be held on May 2nd. City secretary. Thank you Vega.

Thank you. Um as you know it's election season and in your packet you would have seen uh resolution 20261 which is calling the general election. This year we have two uh positions that are up for election. council place four and six currently held by Mr. Stlair and Mrs. Copeland. And also in that resolution, it states that uh we'll be using Tarant County election services to assist us with that. And so early voting will be from April the 20th and it'll go through the 28th and then they'll also assist us on election day as well. Um it will actually take place at our new library senior center. Um, and then it also states that in the event that if necessary, if we need a runoff election, that that will be June 13th as the election day.

So, election day voting May 2nd will be at the library. Correct. What about early voting? We have any idea there at the library as well? Sure. Yes. I'm glad glad to have it back in the city. I've gotten a lot of complaints from folks when it's not in the city. So, I'm glad we're having that back in the city. That's a good thing. Yes. Any other questions for Vicki on this, folks? No. Then I'll entertain a motion. May I make a motion? We approve it as stated. Thank you, Valer. Have a second. Make a second. Let electioneering begin. Motion passes. Thank you, Vicki. All right. 5B. Consideration action regarding award bid award bid for the remodel of the old library. Jared Kersy, assistant director of public works.

[clears throat]

Mayor, council, good evening. Um, here tonight uh on staff recommendation to award a contract to uh MSF Hospitality for the remodel of the uh Keater building and the upgrades to city hall connecting corridor as well. Um just to give a a little bit of backtrack history, we had 12 total bid proposals come in. uh MSF uh hospitality came in with the the uh best bid to include everything that we were wanting. Um so we uh we checked all the references. They came back very positive feedback. Um I visited a location where they had done work um on a grocery store here in the DFW area. They remodeled a grocery store. It was just did really good work. Very impressed with their work. Um, so tonight, um, like I said, we we want to recommend, uh, awarding them the contract. Um, this contract is not to exceed 2,573,1589. Um the funding for this project will come from the general fund balance at1,94,136.99 and the enterprise fund at 669, $2110. Um so I am happy to address uh any questions that you may have. We also in the audience have uh Wes and Joe from MSF Hospitality. Um they're willing to answer any questions you may have as well. Council questions for Jared.

Uh when would the Assuming this passes tonight, how long before y'all can move in? So, um in in their proposal, um we we hope to sign the contract as soon as possible, but they're projecting to start in February. Um they did give us a 257day uh schedule project line um to finish a little over nine months, nine and a half months. somewhere from there. So, does this bid does this just include the remodeling? Are we going to have to additional costs for furniture and storage and all that stuff?

We we may have to buy a few small furniture items. Uh most most everyone in the city already had desk and furniturees and we decided to go that route. Just use use what we already had. Um but but it did cover it did cover some furnishings. Yes, mayor and council. Yes, sir.

Just want to add one uh note. So, we have been planning for this for quite a while. We have cash on hand as uh Mr. Kery noted in both the the general fund and the utility fund proportional based on the staff that'll be there. Uh at the conclusion of the project, we'll be above our fund balance minimum, but we're drawing our our fund balance down significantly. I think it makes sense given the timeliness and need for the project. We have available funds. As I mentioned, something you might consider, we we will talk in a future item about uh issuing certificates of obligation. Uh this will greatly reduce our capacity for one-time requests. So, if the council desires at some point in the year to issue cos, we could issue a portion to kind of offset and then just hold some cash in the general fund. Uh but again the bids were competitive. I think we how many plan holders we have? We had more than biders. It was like 20.

Yeah, it was it was around 17 18 total. Yeah. So a great response from the market. Uh it it appears um they check out and think we're ready to move forward. Other questions, council? So this uh project is going to include the the Ed Keater building a connector and some of city hall. Yes. Once we connect the two buildings, it will be required to sprinkler this building. So, that was a part of the upgrade here to a fire sprinkler. Okay. But all of that is included in Yes, that's all included. Yes, that's probably a good thing to do anyhow. Makes sense. Yeah, [laughter] chief agrees.

These heated discussions won't set it off now, will it? I said these heated discussions we have won't set it off now, will it? Any other questions for Jared or the uh the builder? I mean, uh this is something that's got to be done. I mean, we our public works is kind of scattered out. The building they're in over there is pretty rough shape, too. Uh we've done our due diligence and, you know, getting bids and stuff. So, yeah, I think it's time to pull the trigger.

Any other questions? If not, I'll entertain a motion. Mayor, I make a motion we approve item 5B for the rehidal of the old library. Second.

Motion passes. Thank you guys. Good luck, guys. Thank you. See you in 257 days. Look forward to it. All right. Thank you guys. That was nine months from today, right? [laughter] Tell them they're on the clock. There you go. All right. All right. So, we're going to circle back to 3B, the bond workshop. Gabe, how do you want to kick this one off?

Yeah, mayor and council, um, found a kind of a pertinent quote, uh, Mark Twain, um, history doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes. So, if you'll remember, um, a little over five years ago, or maybe six years ago, in fact, Council Member St. Clair was on a bond committee. We uh established a citizen bond committee to look at projects. Uh they made a recommendation to the council and then COVID hit. So we delayed that bond election until the following year in 21. And then voters approved 67.5 million. We call it the ABCs of Sagenov. Um and we are as you all know well down the road in delivering all those projects um on time and and within our budget. So three years ago I think we started having this same discussion on projects. We had uh intended to bring something to voters last year was the decision of the council that time to pause. The specific issue was to take another look at cost estimates for a uh future animal shelter facility. Uh so we've done that. We engaged a second architect as you're aware. What I'd like to do if it's agricultural to you is maybe start with some of the places where there might be agreement based on my conversations with y'all. So number one, if it's your desire to have a bond election in May, we have to call that election on or before February 13th. Uh Mr. Randy Nuome is the most superstitious person I've ever met. We can't be calling an election on February 13th. It also would require a special meeting, which I think would be unnecessary. So the reality is after much discussion uh we'd like to get your feedbacks feedback on um projects if any you'd like to bring to voters and then you would call that election at our next meeting our first February meeting. So the only work that's that's yet to be

done is our bond council would draft the language which is pretty standard. We would plug in the amounts and uh the election would be called it be brought to voters in May. All right. So, following the timeline, if we decide on what what projects and dollar amounts tonight to go [clears throat] on the bond thing, then bond councils could do their work between now and then, and that would all be ready for the next meeting, February. Yep. The first meeting in Feb, right? We'd have a similar action like you you February 3rd. Yeah, that's correct. The similar action uh would be to call the bond election and it would have those specific propositions and the amounts. Um, so I'm assuming before we call the the bond election, we have to have that wording, the verbiage done by bond council. Is that correct?

It's fairly generic and and and simple really the the big lift is the dollar amounts. Sure. Um, so

we had talked about some uh public safety related concerns specifically for the fire department. So um we have a ladder truck that's in need of replacement within the next few years. They're very costly pieces of equipment. Uh both our city and other cities are looking at uh bond financing to fund these trucks because there's no reasonable way any city can save up within the operating budget each year to make a $2 million purchase. So we sent you the information for $2 million for a ladder truck. The the um delivery and preparation times approximately three years or a little longer. It takes a long time for these uh apparatus to be fabricated. We also included because it's approximately 25 years old now um renovations to station 2. So Chief Spears outlined a number of repairs just based on its age. Uh I think some bay replacements, roof replacement, some interior work because the facility is about 25 years old. All total that's approximately 3.5 million. Um, our last bond election beforehand, the council chose to issue certificates of obligation for public safety, not bring a project to voters. That's how we uh funded our our fire station. I think the rationale was sound that everybody expects the fire department to show up and police to show up. Uh, so it was funded in that manner. That three and a half million, I've sent you a number of scenarios uh for debt issuance. That's basically what we would look at. Another issue that's come up in discussions with y'all is uh the potential availability of land should we pursue a future animal shelter facility. One of the options the first architect animal arts looked at was building um an animal shelter on the

existing footprint. So the total public works campus is about 5 acres. It's got uh problems that are common to many places in Sagon. Drainage, limited parking. We've got a cell phone tower that really impedes buildable space. It It's kind of difficult. Um because of that, we've identified a a potential piece of property and had talks with um the owner, Mr. Ag Hollenstein. So, this property is approximately 5 acres. It's at the corner of um Jarvis and excuse me, Minton and Defile Road. Uh and Mr. Hollenstein has indicated to Randy and Lee that he would honor um a fair market appraisal that was done over a year ago and agreed upon price in uh part of the transaction would be an exchange of city-owned land that he owns everything around it. It's about 1.1 acres on um Bailey Bos frontage. So, he really wants that frontage and then we potentially need some piece of property for a new facility or future facility needs. You remember when we did our last bond, we were in kind of the same exact straits with the fire station. Property owner at the time, Miss Beerling down Maroy had a big track for sale and she said, "Hey, we're going to the city can have um the first ride, but I'm not going to wait." And it was good timing. We were able to purchase that property on the corner of Amber and and Maroy because shortly thereafter the the other parcels were sold which is now the addition of senior living and the um nursing care facility there at Maroy and Nolles. So a few of you have mentioned to me could we purchase the property and then if we if we need it we use it if not we could sell it on the open market.

The answer is yes. The way we would do that is issue cos purchase the property then we kind of control our destiny. Again, Mr. Hollenstein has indicated he intends to honor the fair market appraisal from over a year ago probably until this summer. Uh [clears throat] Randy and Lee have had the discussions with him because he's from what we understand he's intending to sell that track in the the near future. So that's where we are. um the largest uh item that we may potentially bring to voters, the same as the last bond. So last uh in 21 we brought um approximately 37.5 million to voters to reconstruct two streets. Those two streets were a good portion of where we are now on Mroy and Nolles. So Nolles is pretty much completely finished. We're down to the um as you're aware the phases of macaroy here where we'll get into construction here in 26. We find ourselves in kind of the same scenario. We have two major corridors that are in need of reconstruction. That would be east east from Sagenol Boulevard to Blue Mound and Industrial from Sagenol Blue uh Sagenol Boulevard to Bluemound. Um, I couldn't tell you when those roadways were constructed, but they are the the lowest I believe they're the two lowest pavement condition um index streets in our city. And I think when they were built 50 plus years ago, they just weren't designed to handle the the volume and the uh the loads of traffic that they they handle now. So, it's uh it's time. They need attention. You all get complaints about them as we do. All total that's

approximately 38 million. I got one question from council member about our next I believe our next lowest rated street if we use the pavement condition as our guide would be um park center. So park center big wide street drainage issues because it's flat. We've identified that and I think in the future we would look to do small sections with street maintenance funds as we can as we can afford it. So a section at a time this year uh we slated with our street maintenance funds to start work on opal which I think does that include water and sewer?

That's our sump program. Sump [clears throat] remind me the acronym I forget all the time. Streets utility maintenance program.

Okay. Maintenance program. MP. Okay. So, uh the council member that asked me that we we do have a plan, although it's going to take time for Park Center. Um streets are super expensive and um every city everywhere has street projects to the tunes of millions or tens of millions of dollars. So we don't find ourselves in a situation different than our neighbors in Fort Worth or or really anywhere short of, you know, maybe a subdivisions that are just built. So with that, I'd like to ask you order of operations here. Once upon a time, I wanted to be a math teacher till I was placed in a second grade classroom and I lost my will to live. But one, would you like to hold a bond election in May? That answer is yes.

Yes. Okay. Um two, as we've outlined and I haven't heard any uh feedback otherwise, the public safety related issuance for certificates of obligation if that's agreeable to the council. It's approximately three and a half million. Uh Chief Spears could give you details if you'd like. I just want to point out that you only had two verbal yeses on that. Uh, so I I think that I have a lot more questions. Um, because we're looking at potential projects over the next five years or so. Sure.

Um, and I've heard mention, but I haven't heard you mention it tonight, um, some things about like the police station, uh, potentially needing some work and then the rec center. Um, you know, what future plans we have for the depot. So, I just want to make sure that we if we're going to do this that we have all the information that we have.

Sure. Happy to address that. So, [clears throat] on the recreation center, the um staff went to the parks board. The replacement for the roof at the recreation center is between two and 300,000. Parks board reviewed that. They're recommending and will bring at some point a contract with the city council for action to use existing uh bond funds from 21 to accomplish that. Um I wasn't at the meeting. Was there any other commentary on that? You know, I think everybody would recognize that's a you know, a nice building that the city invested in 20ome years ago. It's aged out. It needs major replacement. The um police department is a little um based on its age. It's 20ome years old. I know council member Feligi had mentioned we need to expand. It was built to have an expansion wing and Chief Rexdale uh reminded me that when it was built, this is far before my time. The thought was to have a combined uh police and fire complex. So, but it was built with expansion in mind. I'm glad that we have separate campuses because dogs and cats don't get along. So, um,

you're not going to say who that is, right? Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. But it worked out. Um, that's something that last year, you know, we haven't had an architect look at that or I believe, and I could be wrong, I think the architect that designed that facility might have been. Do you remember that designed PD? Does anybody know? it it doesn't really matter. But if if this was a I would say that would be premature to bring to voters because we haven't done an assessment. We haven't done the homework like we have. But it's a good point. I mean, it's not to bring it to voters now. It's just planning out our funds for the next 5 to 10 years. Sure.

And where we're at. And the other question I have is do we have any bonds that we're we're going to be paying off? Yes. So we won't in our existing tax rate we won't have any capacity until about 2034 which means any proposition that goes to voters is a tax rate increase. The legislature has changed as they change every um session where you know it's very clear I would think that every bond proposition is a tax rate increase that would be in the language should you choose to adopt. So, so I mean I' I've asked for this multiple times and I'll ask for it again here is a a breakdown of of not just bonds but anything any any capex,

right? Okay. Any anything that's going to impact our citizens tax rate over the next five plus years. So all of this stuff goes on there and then we should say, "Okay, this is what it's going to cost." And if it's going to raise the citizens taxes, I'd like to see over here in column C, right, exactly how much it's going to raise. And if we get to say 2030 and something drops off, we can say, "Okay, well, this dropped off." So good. I have to have that sure

at where I'm at now being a the citizens voted me in to be a steward of of their money to make absolutely sure because I am I am worried that if I look at each one of these independently it you know it's only $100 here it's only $150 there you add all that up and all of a sudden in five six years I've done whack me because I voted fort has done went and cost the citizens of Sagnol's taxes to go up $1,000. Yeah. You know, they I'm killing them by a thousand cuts. Sure.

So, that's why you hear me and other council members asking for, you know, either you or somebody underneath you to sit down and write all of that down and say, "These are all the things." You know, like I say, if it's a debt of obligation, it should go on there. If it's anything that's going to raise I mean that's big like that. Yeah. So I can address that right now. Yeah. Well, no. I prefer to have it and write it in a sheet so I can look at it. I I don't want to have to sit here and write it down in myself. I'm

I understand. I'll talk through it. I've sent um tax rate um scenarios from our financial adviser based on what was relayed to me. Now y'all are aware we paused uh anticipated bond last year. Um what would impact the tax rate as of right now would be uh certificate of obligation issuance for the police uh excuse me the fire department which is a ladder truck and the um renovations to um station two. That would be the most minimal tax rate impact. It would be

about $24 a year. Okay. Uh, if we proceed with the 38 million for the the two projects, do you expect me to sit here and write all this down and then add it up or No, I sent you an email. Okay. Okay. And what I'm trying to get to is if you want to have uh a bond election, we either need to do it or we need to pick a number and y'all tell us. Okay. So the in five years do I think the uh police department is the priority that competes with these other um facilities? I do not. If that's your priority, you tell me and we'll get a assessment and

I don't think it is. That's I'm asking you what you what you and your directors Yeah. think the priority should be and what it's going to cost us over the next That's right.

five plus years. So, we needed to take care of the ladder truck and station two renovations. $24, let's say, for the average homeowner. The um recreation center roof is within existing fund funding with existing bond funds. So, that is money we already have. That's between two and 300,000. Any money we have left over, we'll just keep rolling forward and doing park improvement projects. I have no uh within five years I think that would be a separate bond to do an expansion on the police department because I think other facilities are the priority. Um we get in the biggest potential proposition which was the same as last year. Um 38 million on a home value 266,000. Now, this is average is $1972 a month and that is $236 a year. Should voters approve that 38 million? Um, now we wouldn't issue all of that at once, right? We issue it in kind of batches when we need it. That's a little under 20 bucks a month.

And that's that's to be clear, that's street project. That's Mroy and Industrial. East Maroy and Industrial. Correct. So that's East Mroy and Industrial. So that's that's what would be on that. That's correct. And uh that for the street projects. So last bond it was similar in that we had two major street projects um Nolles and uh West Maroy that totaled about 37 and a half. So, so what about the other phase of West Mroy the between Nolles [clears throat] and Old Decar? Right. That's a good point. Central Parks, uh, Park Central. Earlier you said we'd pay for that out that we just burn our fund down.

Yeah. I think that we would use street maintenance funds, cash flow it as we do over time, just do it in bite-sized sections after Opal is reconstructed. Is that correct? It may be a block at a time. You know, we're not going to be and that that would be with no impact to the tax rate. Correct. That that's what we're saying with those the Opal sales tax sales tax funded. Yeah. Opal and Park Center would be done with no impact to the tax rate. Correct. That's our our sump program. But each Maroy and industrial would be on the bond election. They would be have a tax rate impact that we just mentioned. So, I sort of want to keep it on those real quick because I think

the roads, the streets are so important and I want to make sure everybody's okay with that. Uh, putting that on a bond this spring, macro and industrial at roughly $38 million. We've seen the breakdown and that's, you know, Gabe mentioned the tax rate impact, but I think those two are the two we want to focus on. As Trent said, those are the two worst graded streets in the city. So, that's a pretty So, what about West Mroy, the other section? The [clears throat] reason why West Mroy is not uh being designed for construction is the council chose to redirect that bond money to um Mroy from the boulevard to was it Burlington.

Burlington uh to get that under design because the railroad right or Spring sorry about that. Yeah. So, we're still going to need to do it at some point at some point. It's falling apart. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the reality is every street in the city at some point will need major maintenance. Yeah. But I mean, I'm I'm looking at So, so, so we got these two we put on the bottom. Okay. Then we got others. That's uh like you said, Central Park. Okay. How parks parks. So, I look I look

I shouldn't have to be done. You all should be looking five 10 years. What's the roads next roads and how are we going to pay for them? And if we can't pay for them, if we're going to have to say we don't do another bond because we got this and we're going to do a debt of obligation, then I want to know that. I want to know, okay, in three years we're going to do this one and we're going right now we're expecting to do that as a debt of obligation because a debt of obligation in my mind looking at numbers is no different than a bond. It's raising the citizens thing. I want to calculate that in so I can say you're inc. And I absolutely 100% agree with the mayor. Roads are the biggest thing.

Yeah. So five years is really simple. Uh let's say we take 38 million for East Maroy and industrial and voters approved. Within 5 years it'd be our our goal to have design and construction completed. And that would be from Sagenol Boulevard to Blue Mountain for both streets. How do I get How do I get u hold on you mean I lost when you have dyslexia and you look up um Maroy Industrial Central Park and the rest of the other one we said fixed.

Yeah, that's right. So, Mroy, the section we're at now, except for West Mroy, we already have bond funds issued to reconstruct. You all participated, or not all of you, but most of you in the design um meeting we had to talk about the medians, that sort of thing. We've got money. That's that's going to happen. We haven't um bid yet, but we will. What's our ballpark time to bidize? This spring.

So, we're going to advertise this spring. that's already in the tax rate from our 21 bond to reconstruct Maroy Nolles to the boulevard. The council chose to redirect money uh from West Maroy because East Maroy from the boulevard to Spring Hollow is terrible. It's really bad. It was the right thing to do, right? I completely agree. The other rub there uh to to move that up a year is the approval process with the railroads and text dot is I think we're looking is it three years to

two to three years to get through review and that's not we're on their schedule much like the bridge was was delayed because of you know external to the cities. So, Mroy and design, we already have the money. If voters approve, um, we would have design and construction for, uh, the rest of Maroy to Blue Mountain as well as industrial. One thing I didn't mention, street projects anger and infuriate people, uh, including council member Stlair, but the, uh, I I hater the, uh, on Blue Mound at Fuel City is terrible. Thankfully, that's not a city project. It's a texttop project, but that has begun. Um, I think it's 400 feet. Is it 400 feet from

600?

600 feet. that's under construction now from Blue Mound to the west. So the if we take a bond, voters approve, we would reconstruct the balance. The good news with East Macko, I didn't mention this, but I've mentioned this in the past is that um from Spring Hollow back to Blue Mound is all within the boundaries of the Turpps. So that is money we could use to pay bonds that would not impact the tax rate as a tourist grows in value and it is that could be money we don't you know there'd be no tax rate impact. Uh the other projects that are part of the sump program again five years we're looking at two uh multiple fiscal year phases of opal. Is that trend is that opal is two or three years? two

two years after that um park center which again we're using pavement condition as the the guide would be next up to bat. Does that answer the question? After that we would probably do well actually we'll have our uh pavement condition assessment done probably in the next few months. We'll kind of know where we are and that may it's not going to change the works. There's still going to be that that sounds to me like plenty of five years worth of work. It's Yeah, maybe more. But yeah, what I want to my big thing is make sure that our I

I'm trying to remember back to the last time we I thought we had three big roads that were listed as critical. Okay. And then we had some some others right underneath it. And I just want to make sure that when we do this bond that we also take in account if we only do two of the three critical roads where this this third critical one's got to be fixed somehow. Yeah. You know, we can't wait another 10 15 years. I mean, yeah, I think Hampshire was on that list if I remember correctly somewhere.

So, I I I just want to I just want it laid out to where I can, okay, the bond's going to fix these two. it's going to cost this much and here's what we expect over time it to cost in taxes to the citizen. Well, we got these other roads and here's how they're going to be fixed, you know, and if it's a debt of obligation or if it's something like that, it needs to be put in there and if it's going to be in three years, we'll do this one and and just laid out so that I can see it and understand it. Now, we said park center will not be done. Park center and opal will not be done with uh taxable money with with bonds. It'll be it'll be be done with money we already have. Yes. As it'll take time. It'll be a slower process, right?

So, where I'm looking at it, industrial is the worst. We're doing that on the the bond. Macroy, East Macroy second. Doing those two on the bond. Those are the worst. Okay. I think the third one was Park Center if I Yeah. Correct. And that one we can do without bond. And then close behind that is Hampshire. What's it? We can do that with Slowly or Opal. I'm sorry. Well, what about the rest of macaroy? How do we get the rest of macaroy done? The far west. Yep. Yeah, the far west piece I don't think graded out as uh poorly as the other Yeah, but that was done before Tricon was running those trucks through there. That [clears throat] thing's falling apart.

Yeah. Well, we'll have updated PCI probably within the next few months. I mean, I just want to for the road, as you can see, I just want to understand. Okay, here's what we got to do. And okay, we're doing these underneath the bond, but these others have also got to be done. And they're either going to cost they're going to cost the city something. We either we either can cover it under the budget we got and and out over time or we're going to have to do some type of obligation. Sure.

You know, my my thought and Gabe asked me about this. My thought was I don't like doing any roads with cos. I like taking that to voters. Um, if we can do it with cash, even better. That's that's of course the best. But so I I'm I'm if you if you ask me what do I want on the bond, if I can only have one thing, it would be roads and it would be micro industrial. I would go nothing else, those two. That would take a huge step toward our transportation in the city. Okay. So then I guess my question back to to you and your your staff would be uh we got the two that's you earmarked for the those are the worst. Yeah.

Then we got some others that we can we can pay out of our pocket over time. Are there any other roads out there that that's that's in bad shape or coming into bad shape that we're either not going to pay out of our pocket or we're going to have to roll it back into the bond or we're just going to tell the citizens they got to live with it. Yeah. I I was just the honest reality is our city or any city there's not enough cash or political will to reconstruct every street. Yeah, I agree. You know, we're just trying to take a logical approach of worst first and main corridors. As far as PCI, I don't know after

industrial, East Maroy, and Park Center. What? Well, we had we had West Maroy, East Maroy, and Industrial originally were the three streets that we were targeting. We're getting those three. That's what we want to do. Okay. Yeah. The next one, Opal, which we're going to attack with street maintenance as well as with park center and you utilize our sump or sump program. I found the email, the one where he ranked them critical, high and low.

There were three that are um ranked critical. It was macroy 2A, macroy 2B, and industrial phase one. The other high options we had were industrial phase 2, Opal Park Center, and then macroy phase 4, which is the west macro that's remaining. So, we're everything is lining up well, but you're remembering three criticals because we broke them into phases. Okay. Yeah, it's a good not corridors. So, have we gotten any preliminary TAD numbers yet? No, preliminary TAD numbers. we won't have a certified ro that

and that was kind of my concern is you know if we're looking at borrowing money to do these things or or you know to go to the voters for a tax rate increase this might be something that that you might know what happens if we overextend ourselves and we do a bigger bond than maybe we should have we were trying to be good stewards we're trying to be responsible we do a bigger bond then but we couldn't see it coming and then all of a sudden a big sales tax contributor leaves or tad roles come in and they're a lot lower than they used to be or the government, state government says, "Oh, we're not doing property tax anymore and now it's a whole different entity." How do we what do we do then?

Yeah, it it's a it's a good question and I'm sure people ask you this. So the um the projections on the tax rate that I sent to you from our financial advisor is based on the following that we have growth of 2% which in the past 10 to 15 years is something we've seen from 2027 to 2030 and then no growth after that. So 2% is less than inflation u with new value plus existing value. I think that's reasonable. I would add that last year um or maybe our last meeting, I can't quite remember, Mark presented and we initially told voters back in 21 that we could increase potentially would increase the tax rate up to 13 cents and I think we ended up at 8. Is that correct? On our bond we went up 8 cents. [snorts]

It it was less than the estimate. So we have prepared like a World War II scenario for you. The worst case based on known values. The check valve for the council is let's say we like you mentioned we had a a major property taxpayer leave or some catastrophe. Uh we just wouldn't issue the debt, right? So if voters approved, they'd say, "Okay, we authorize you." But the council still has to move forward with the sale and we actually go through

and we don't we don't sell it all at once either. We sell it. you execute and then the following year it it it's going to put more strain on our budget to try to pay those debts if the following year after we issue the debt something happens and a major taxpayer leaves or you know and plus we're looking at we're we're pretty much built out I don't know how much more residential development is is occurring um you know it's just that's that's what I'm looking at is I'm looking at some point we got to we got to slow down I think.

Um so we're just trying to and that's why Nick is asking for and and Paul I think too as much information as we can get because we got to be smart and we got to we got to think about what we're doing and how much this is going to cost us in the future. And I understand that maybe the city doesn't issue those if something happens, but we're giving you the green light to do so. So it it just I just want to make sure that we're being smart, being being conservative and as as we can be. Um but making sure that we take care of the things that are important like roads.

Yeah, absolutely. And and short of issuing bonds, there's no way we can reconstruct these poor conditioned streets. So that that would be the trade-off. And then we're also in a scenario, y'all are aware, although it's been some time, but that some of these streets are in a condition where it doesn't make sense to put a whole lot of money into them because they need to be reconstructed. So if you said, "Hey, we just want to cash fund and put a $500,000 patch. Is that being responsible when we know that some in the future?" No. But, you know, it's worth pointing out that we just approved for a remodel over here that we were paying cash for, right?

And then we talk about a $2 million ladder truck, but we can't pay cash for it. That's correct. And so, if we're looking at the two of those, I would probably say safety is more important. So, to me, you know, I I just it's hard for me to swallow that we can't pay cash for things. And I get it that we're restricted and now we've we've depleted those reserves more or less because we voted to do it. Um well save.

Yeah. It's not that so much. If you think of it, the state allows us to take three and a half% more each year. The reality is to do the exact same thing. Our costs go up. And that's not because we're poor stewards. We've our staffing per capita in my entire time here has declined. We're doing more with less. The reality is we can't save up for big projects. They just would never happen. Um well, I guess we could. If we were to save up within our operating budget for reconstruction, it's going to look like the face of the moon on East Maroy. Now, whether that's politically feasible for you as elected officials, that's on you. But you're going to get the the complaints. There's not

Well, to be to be fair, I'm not talking about a $38 million road project, right? It's it's the other items that that I'm thinking about, you know, looking at a grand grand picture. Um, you know, and we talk about about staffing and, you know, I I I know the police department has said that they they could do use with more staffing. Fire every department could use with more staffing, right? But that's not something we bond funding. I I understand, but it's just it's the whole picture that all puts a constraint on our budget, our operating budget every year. And if we're adding more debt, it costs to service that debt, which is going to be a strain. So,

but that's not in the operating budget, right? So, there's two parts to the tax rate. The on andm is the stuff, the people, and the ongoing contracts. The INS is the debt service. It all taxpayer funded. Absolutely. Yeah.

So, it all increases taxes. When we talk about average numbers, I understand that the average for a 266k house might be 236 a year on that 38 million, right? But that's an average. If people if there's a larger number of people who have been contesting their taxes, then by just the nature of how that process works, the people who might have a $266,000 house, but they bought it two years ago, they're going to have a higher tax rate if the person before them didn't contest their taxes. So now they're paying a lot more. So I'm just saying that we got to be careful. That's all.

No, I I and I don't envy y'all's position because everybody wants more stuff and they don't want to pay for it. Our average um assessed value for this budget year we're in was like 252. So the 266 that Andrew had shown is a little higher than average, but there's some higher, substantially higher, there's some less. So most every new probably our our newer subdivisions are probably higher than that 266 and some of the existing neighborhoods are below that. But yeah, absolutely. I want to circle this back to streets. So, we're still talking about streets. So, the TUR, how much how much is that going to bring this down?

So, the TUR as it stands today has uh 200 what is it? Maybe 250,000, Kim, in the balance. Yeah, it it's not a huge amount. Although that's growing each year, it could probably handle a couple million in capacity. is falcon within that tur.

That's where it starts. Yeah. From there all the way back to bluebound. So as the value in the tur grows um you could either issue less debt for streets or we if bonds were issued we would pay it back with tur money which would have the net effect of lowering the the tax. So if the turds projections ended up being coming in higher, we could redirect that money to like say the West Mroy or other stuff as long as it's a streets project. No, it could only be within the boundary of the turfs. So no, but I mean the if we approve $38 million for for streets. Yep. Bonds. Yeah, you could.

Yeah. Okay. and and if the desire of the council would be to you know go back outside of industrial or or East Mroy which are the worst to go back to West Mroy we certainly can do that we've just done this pavement condition as a way to to take an objective look at where we're going to put up I'm going to [cough and clears throat] go with fixing the roads on which the experts over here can put it together using actual you know quantitative data Yeah, I just my big thing is just getting it all down and saying, "Okay, this road, this road, and then okay, we got these other roads that's going to have to be fixed, let's say, in the next

five, six years. How are they getting funded?" Right? Yeah. The last thing I want to do is approve a a multi-level bond. Okay? So, ABC a new ABC bond. and then two years from now be sitting here saying, "Boy, I we got to spend we got to figure out some way to take an obligation or something to fix these other roads that we didn't think about." Yeah. Or that we did think about, but we didn't put it in the what's it going to cost citizens? Yeah. I think you want to make sure that

Yeah. everything that's going to impact the citizens from a debt moving forward at least for the next you know like I say five 10 years it's you know roads like that or whatever it is is got to be done we we got to fix our I I agree we we got to maintain our buildings and when buildings get 20 some years old just like our houses they got to have a facelift right and uh to me that's why you see bringing up the police department It's 25 years old, right? We can't sit here and pretend that it's not in the next six, give or take a couple years going to have to have a facelift.

Sure. And and we've It's a great point. We've already put several hundred,000 in the police department with the roof replacement, um, painting, and Yeah. was huge. Yeah. Uh we did a minor renovation when dispatch and I think that the two streets the main streets I think we can assume they're not going to get better. Yeah. Right now the other

you know I guess we'll know soon whenever the new PCI comes out you know maybe number three or number four how much they've deteriorated. But I promise you East Maroy is not getting better. Industrial is not. They're just they get the tar beat out every day [snorts] with truck traffic. I think Gabe, I think one thing we need to point out is, you know, everything we've been concentrating on lately has been all of our railroads that go through town, main travel roads, perimeter roads, um, which were in bad bad condition. Uh, those are roads that are, you know, truck traffic, concrete trucks, construction equipment, everything up and down those roads, tearing them pieces, which leaves us with just industrial East Maroy. And out here, back out here, we've had Wagner Robertson, which was reconstructed by developer over there, which was on our program that we knew we was going to have to fix. Um, and we're fixing to do North Ocar. Once all that's done, then everything that we'll be working on, and all of those are concrete roads, every one of them. And anything left will be mostly residential streets, which we get a lot of help from the county. They're more equipped to come in and do the asphalt uh roads and rebuild them for us at a way cheaper price. I think once we have the new assessment done, we can go back and look and see just exactly where we're at, where we need to start heading.

So the the corner of Woodrest and Moy, it's it's destroyed. So is Triricon going to fix that? Yes. Bill's already he's already talked to them and they're well aware they have fixed all that. Good. All right. So, I'm going to circle back. So, I think we have agreement. Yes, we want to call a bond election in May. And yes, we want streets on. I think we have agreement on that. And I think we have agreement. Yes, we want streets. 38 million for East Meroy and industrial. Is that is that is everybody okay with that? Anybody not okay with that? $38 million being on a bond election in May to fix the phases of macro we talked about and industrial Okay, thumbs up. That's 38 million. Great. And honestly, if you told me that's all I could spend, I would be happy with that because I think that's the worst thing we have. Uh those roads, that's the biggest complaint I get is is streets. Absolutely. Well, traffic, but streets

and those two are terrible. And we have uh objective data showing that. So, the other stuff we talked about can be done slowly over time with uh with cash. So, I like that, too. Okay. Any other comments on streets before we move on? Comments, concerns on streets. I think we're good on streets. Okay. The other two options we have from the bond committee for the bond election are parks and then facility being an animal shelter. Uh I want to go to parks next. So in the last bond election, if memory served me, we put $4 million for parks. Is that correct? That's four million. Thank you. Thank you, Bra. So four million. And with that, we've done a lot. We've actually done a lot. [cough]

As you mentioned, [clears throat] they still have a little money left over to do some things. The parks board has been very good with that money. I like how that turned out. I would love to put another four, five, six million, I don't know, whatever is appropriate on this bond election as well to start taking off taking small bites of our parks over town. What does the council feel about that? What What parks specifically?

So, I'm going off of the um just as a discussion point. Y'all [clears throat] could decide whatever you'd like, but the recommendation from the uh bond committee, which went through the parks board ranking, was William Houston would receive attention next. Um that could be a base baseball field and parking or a playground replacement at William Houston. If I can back up and maybe uh council member Sinclair can help me. So with our 4 million we have replaced uh we've expanded at the switchyard um parking and pavilions. We have replaced the two playgrounds at Highland Station Park. Believe we used some bond funds to do the bridge.

Yep. Um connector to Topeka or whatever that street was. Walk a bridge. Not a bridge. Yeah. Sorry. Water crossing. Amen. Water crossing. Water crossing. [laughter] Uh, I remember whenever we did our little ribbon cutting, if you remember, it was kind of warm and we had popsicles. My youngest was like coated. My my wife was really upset. That was kind of fun. Um, most recently, we uh finished Opal Joe Jennings. It's open and seeing a lot of traction. We're within a month or so of Schwingler. The parks board has indicated they want to use some money left for rec center roof replacement. We should have a little bit after that. And I maybe Randy knows what the park

we also did the uh new lighting at the the field we had. Oh, that's right. New lighting. Did we do stansions at the to expand the switchy yard? Did we do additional ones of those? I thought at one point we had looked at that, too. And we haven't we haven't talking about the electrical. Yeah, the water and electrical. That's what we're looking at is still doing those as well. And then the playground on the by the dog park. Dog park. Yeah. And the mobile restroom. Oh. Oh, that's right. Mobile. Yeah, that's right. The mobile restroom and the storage facility that's going to be put down at the switch yard.

I absolutely support rolling in, you know, a an amount for five to six million to increase to for our parks. Good. But I will say that I would require some better details on how what we're going to spend. I think we did a good job, but I I want some hard I' I've got a question on that. As far as specifics for the bond, can we just say and and I don't know the answer to this. Can we say, you know, X million for parks and let the parks board sort of break that up or do we need to put more specifics in the language of the bond? That's that's my question.

The way we did it last time was kind of a blanket amount, do the most with that 4 million. We could do it the same or you could say I mean depending on the dollar amount, William Houston is probably next up to bat. Uh in addition to the I think we've got the playgrounds at Willow Creek, the smaller ones and al so all of our playground replacements as you're aware would include accessible surfacing the rubberized surfacing um and covers and shade shades which we hadn't done. Everything to a te has appreciated. I think that's the standard. No, it's a good idea.

So one of I heard a lot of comments on the last bond of okay we got this money what's it going to be used for? And I do think we need to [clears throat] at least roughly break it down with it. And the other thing we got to consider is we've got that money, that land over in Beltill. Um what are we going to do with it? You know, we're going to put soccer fields in, you know, playgrounds, whatever. But that's something we got to look at because that area is developing out now. I think we need to figure with the old right now. Get it fixed. That would I couldn't hear you back. I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you. What' you say? I think we ought to finish up what we're doing with the before we build the great big new one and built mill, you know.

And I think that was the general consensus of the parks board to rehab or renovate the existing before a new park, but we could do anything. Hey, I see a former parksport alumni. Come on. You want to talk, Thomas? The man, [clears throat] the myth, the legend, Thomas Weaver. Ladies and gentlemen,

ah, no. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for allowing me to speak. I don't have anything prepared, so this will either go great or be a disaster, but we'll find out together. Um, little background. Yes, I was previously on uh the parks board. I am not currently, so I'm not speaking on their behalf at all or anything that they are planning. I also served on the bond committee last year uh to these things. And so to uh Nikki and Paul's points about wanting more information and what are we doing, I would just encourage everybody and and remind you that you know whenever we had the council and board meeting of the the minds to kind of go over the master plan. The master plan is where we start and it's where we finish, right, with with all these projects. The $4 million that we had whenever you were on the on the board with us. Um, yes, it was incredible the amount of things we were able to find to do. Part of that was part of that $4 million was also developing the park's master plan. So if you're going to take 4 million, you know, last last bond, 5 million this time, if you're looking ahead, I I think something like that as opposed to to roads because roads to the to the roads portion, if I can speak a little bit on that, we got we got far enough down the line of the ones that need immediate attention. You start getting into ones that have problems, but they don't need the immediate attention. They don't need the bond money right now. It'd be hard to justify, right? But the the the parks, we got a plan now. It's all in the plan, but it's not all going to be done immediately. So, you start looking at where do we want right with those. So, just a reminder on on that. And if you have any questions before I sit back down that you think I might be helpful for, go ahead.

We do miss you on the parks board, by the way. So, have fun. Thank you. Thank you. No, but that's a great point about the the the master plan for the park. That's why we did it, right? That's why we spent money. We we we spent money from the last bond to have a plan so that whenever we do have bonds or whenever the city staff has to go get grants that the can be used for park development that we have it because those grants are also very dependent on where does this fit in your master plan. So, so I think it would be helpful if we do put this out to a bond is get a really good summary of what we did with that $4 million so people know that we're frugal with it and we got our bang for our buck.

Absolutely. And I think it's a it was one of the concerns was um there was the mention of a ball field um at William Houston and I know that that that cost had been compared to some some construction costs of other ball fields in the area. And so people were concerned about how much that would cost and so I would that's I think why the concern about just giving a car launch number just flat number of you know spend it as you would like as you would please. Um so I think that's just we're just cautious of that. So, what I would say, and I may ask Thomas while he's here, is um

William Houston Park, a baseball field that would be brand new. It may be easiest to show and and tell uh residents that we finish out playgrounds because those are pretty simple. We would still have two at Willow Creek Park, the smaller ones, the one by the basketball and then the one by the ball field. Yes, we'd have one in Highland Station. There's a small [clears throat] Sagewood. Um, and then we'd have a playground uh facility at William Houston that needs to be upgraded. So, to your point, and it it's a big scary number, that ball field, because the drainage and the turf and all that, that that would just be my thought because people see those playgrounds, they get immediate use. And famous last words, they're relatively quick projects, like less than a year. So just

to the best of my memory, the biggest obstacle with William Houston Park was the fact that the just the the land there is it like like your like your yard like my yard, right? Like uh they're going to you can do you can put band-aids on them and they're never really going to have a wound that heals because it needs to be really done. And whether it's a baseball field that's there or whether it's just redone to be a usable park that doesn't twist ankles, right? Regardless of what it ends up being, the biggest part of it is getting it completely, you know, just how many we're talking 18 in 24 in

soil amendment quite a bit. Probably has to go to the Khichi, right? Right below it.

Yeah. So, even if you were to look at it from the standpoint of, hey, before we can paint anything on this canvas, we've got to have it prep, like that's where it starts. And if that can be $5 million, I'm not telling you what to do. But it's just that's what I would encourage y'all to think about with this is going to be different than last time because last time we didn't have the master plan. They said you want $4 million. What are you going to spend it on? We don't know. [laughter] Um, that's why we had to figure it out and also get the plan. Now that you have the plan, anybody at any time can go. I don't know. Is it online yet? I know that that was something that we had worked on. Is the master plan online?

Okay. Sorry to put you on the spot there, Trenton. Uh, but you know, anybody could go and look at it at any time and see where we're at with initial cost at the time that the plan was put together. But then, okay, well, we want to see these numbers get updated. if we do $5 million, here's a list of things that are on the plan that can get done. Let's get updated numbers. Um, parks, I'm a big fan of I'm a big fan of recreation as well. Um, and so that's why I want I came tonight to to be helpful if I could because when you're talking about streets and when you're talking about taking care of animals, that's all very good. And people will say, I'll throw money behind that. and you know you're I want my tax dollars being spent. It's a little bit harder whenever it's something like a park or a playground or a place that's for emotional benefit, right? Being outside, being engaged, be exercising, you know, getting getting that. And so it's a little bit more difficult and I think you got to be a little bit more precise with your we're going to spend this money this way on this project if it when in reference to parks, right? because we got 4 million last time, we're getting 5 million this time. We got the pond project, which is, you know, a really cool one. It's my favorite one that's on the project, but we never get to it if we're constantly trying to take chunks and not have a plan.

So, what if we put in six million? Well, I was going to say I'm good with six. Yeah, I was going to say the we also kind of glazed over the fire department one. Um, right. So, were we talking about including that in this as well? My thought would be we do not put the fire department, the fire truck on this bond. Okay. We talk about that later this year. Can't put the fire truck in a bond because a bond's a 20-year payoff and uh state rules would not allow you to put something in a bond that it's end of life is before the payoff. So, um you you could bring it to voters. Thank you. You're good.

Thank you, Thomas. Appreciate it, buddy. Uh, the COS that are recommended and why cities are bringing CO is that the the council um makes a determination can issue. Again, we kind of established that residents expect public safety. Uh, so that would be that'd be a CO that would be So, just to simplify, we're just going to CO that possibly vote on it. Possibly. Poss. That's right. And then and then so we're just talking about part the council would approve that to the point of the amortization the debt would be amortized over the useful life of the apparatus I believe is it 15 years

front line 15 yeah so Andrew when he did [clears throat] uh tax rate impact it's based on the useful life of the asset okay so then yes I yeah six

bra what do you think um before And I'll start by saying I'm I'm not against 6 million, but I would like for us to approach it just a a little bit differently. Um I would like for us to get a list of projects from the park board of what their recommendation is and kind of let them sort of guide the ship on the total amount. Um, that way we can write it into the language. The parks board looks at it, they go, "These are the projects that we have as the priority." Or if we want to go off of what they recommended to the bond committee, um, put it together that way instead of us coming up with a number and saying, "Okay, we're going to throw 6 million."

I mean, they could easily come up with stuff for more than that. But I'm like I'm thinking if we give them six million okay prioritize what you want this from the list from the parks plan what you want to do with the $6 million.

I just want to make sure that we're not just okay 6 million. Yeah. Parks can definitely use that amount. But is the difference between five and 6 million uh significant enough to make sure that we're getting the projects that are the priority taken [clears throat] care of? Or will 5 million take care of those priority projects and the 6 million is more fluff? I I think we need to be cautious about going after any fluff right now. Um, and so I'm I'm not saying I'm against 6 million at all. Please don't misunderstand me. Um, I just want to make sure that it's been reviewed and looked at and that this is a calculated step forward. We need to do this. So, let's do it in this manner.

We could just say that we're agreeable on right now and then at the next meeting when we have to vote on it, have more information from some details. Yeah. Yes. Well, I'd like to look at the I confess I have not looked at the parks master plan in a while. I'd like to look at that. You know, I think we all should. We should brings up a great point. That's that's why we spent that money through the plan to give us with the numbers that were in that parks plan. I think we can sharpen our pencil a whole lot more than what was in there. I think the numbers were very overinflated. The ball diamond was a prime prime example of that.

So, and then the other thing is I always bring it up grants. I mean, you look at the project that Halum City did with that uh lake that they put in. That was all done with grant funds. Um Flower Mound's doing a big parks project. A whole bunch of that's done with with grant funding and we've got to start pursuing that. Stretch our money even further. Oh, that'd be great. I I definitely agree with them looking at that master per. But also too, we asked citizens, this was one with what they want us to look at. And I I remember distinctly in the top three was they wanted their trails connected together. So that that's something that would have to be looked at. That's a good point. Very good point.

I do agree. We need to go back, look at that, look at our master plan, and then ask the parks team. Take those two and then come up with, you know, your your list, your wish list. Mayor, I haven't heard from you. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I'm all in favor of improving our parks, you know, whenever we can. And I think our parks board does a great job of prioritizing. I think we'll come up with some good projects. Valerie, you have anything you want to add? No, I think y'all covered that. All right. So, I think so as a straw man, we're looking at 6 million uh pending details from master plan and the parks board. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Are we okay with that? Yeah.

Gabe, is that significant? Is that specific enough direction for staff? Yeah. I would just tell you that by the time you're going to have to call the election February 3rd, we're not going to be able to I guess we could have a a special called parks meeting, parks board meeting if you'd like. Is that the consensus? Do do we do we need a parks board meeting or do we need to just pull the parks board members? What what's the best way to go about that? And I I don't know. I'm asking who's our who's our liaison? Ain't that you? [snorts] There you go. Dump it on him. [laughter] I mean, honestly, I'm happy with Brack talking to the parks board folks, Adele and the team. And why don't you get us an order that they want? Yeah. You've got the experience, so you can call them. You got it.

All right. So, we're 10. We're putting six million as a as a as a a strong man, right? Placeholder. Good point. And then Penny more details. Everybody okay with that? Yes.

Okay. So, that's streets for 38 million, parks for sixth. Now, we have one more facility and that's an animal shelter. Um, how do we want to go about the animal shelter discussion? I've got people that want to talk about that and I will get to them. Uh, the folks in the audience, I promise. Um, where should we begin on animal shelter? This is a been a complicated um passionate subject. U I I think we all can agree that we need a new animal shelter. I don't think that's a a concern. Anybody out there listening that hasn't been to our animal facility, I encourage you to go to the animal facility, look at it, and see why we need a new one. Uh and and in part, the reason we need a new one is for our employees who have been working under, I would say, borderline unsafe and certainly unpleasant conditions for several years based on how the the facility is, how cramped it is, how crowded it is, how un just the ventilation, everything. So, that's a big part of my concern for a new animal facility is that uh to get something that we can uh be proud of for our our animal shelter staff to work in and be proud of as a city and also something that will last. The one thing I will push for with animal facility is something that built that will last. I don't want something that we have to redo in five or 10 years as other cities have done. I want something that will outlive us. That's my whole goal with this. The number, you know, I'm pretty flexible on. So, I think if we if we do that, if we keep that in mind, we're going through these discussions, I think we can be very productive uh and sit on something that the council can be get behind. Uh I don't want to put a number out there that council is not comfortable with. Uh we may have to do some compromising and that's okay. Uh not everybody's not going to get what they want, but we can get something that we can live with that the city will be proud of that also will work uh and will work for our staff and our employees. Uh let's also remember that this is a band-aid. the city is. We collect we clean up the trash as far as animals are. Animal shelter, animal stray animals. We We're not the cause of this. We're fixing it. Uh if we had better, more responsible pet owners, there wouldn't be so many stray animals. I've

said that before. And you know, I fear no matter how big an animal facility we build, 30 days after it's open, it'll be full because of poor uh animal owners. Uh and I want I wish I had an answer for that. I wish I could say, you know, we'll put some this money toward education, towards something. I don't have a good answer for that. Uh to have less uh less stray animals. Um that that's a problem. And it's not just our city. I've talked to other cities as well. Fort Worth is they've got stuff on their bond this year because they need more animal facilities and they're also renovating some. So, it's a it's not germanine just to sag. It's it's a widespread issue and I wish we had better answers for that. So, be going with that. Uh let's start about discussing about an animal shelter. We've seen the stuff from quorum. They presented several times about what our options are. Uh animal shelters as you've seen are not cheap. Uh but we do have some flexibility in what we can put forth. I want to put forth something that the voters can live with their voters are happy with and that will work for the city. So

where can we stop? Gabe, you want to go ahead

here? Just before you deliberate deliberate or discuss um ask for a number of scenarios. [clears throat] So, uh, animal shelter, the the term, the financing term would be 25 years because if voters approved, it'd be a brand new building. Um, we have estimates tax rate impacts anywhere from 12 million up to 21 million. Uh, if you recall the last meeting, there's a lot of discussion about the costs. Uh, these amounts should the we bring you desire to bring anything to voters would be all in. that includes uh land costs, that includes um design cost uh and actual construction. So, if you pick 15 million, that's all in. We don't go a penny above. That's the not to exceed uh budget. There was a lot of discussion because these these numbers are big just like any city facility. I think that with two architects, we have a reasonable range of per square footage cost. Uh we also have a good idea of the costs for uh getting a site to to build a groundup facility. So um trying to think if there were there was a mention of whether utilities could be extended to the site we've talked about 100% and absolutely we can get utilities to that site off the file. uh electricity, of course, water, sewer, uh and then um uh internet service, whatever. So, yeah.

Now, there was one thing and that I I forgot to mention was the land itself. Our previous estimates, we had rolled the land into this bond. Uh there's been discussions and a possibility. Do we want to break out the land purchase separately uh as a separate CO and put the animal shelter facility, the building on the bond?

What do y'all think about that? I think that it taken what I've heard up till now that it isn't really feasible to we don't have any other land that the city currently owns. It's feasible to build an animal shelter and the risk of losing this piece of property. Okay, if the like I said I'm going on trust here that what I've been told is true. Okay. And I have no reason to think anybody's lied to me on it or or give me false statements. Then I think that we need to head hedge our bets and get that property before it gets sold. So do it at a co not on the bond.

Do it but prior to the Yeah. And it's it's really a to me it's it's a it's a it's a low risk because the property value isn't going to go down and if in something happens and we end up say figuring out a way to build it on property we already have we can just turn around and sell the property. So to me it's a good good backup. What does the rest council think what is the amount for the land now? because there was numbers that it bounced from 600,000 to 900,000 and

well it's [clears throat] always been uh the difference between the swap of the properties based on the valuations that were done a year ago like Gabe earlier mentioned. So that's $690,000 difference. And the landowner wants cash plus the swap of the property and that's in line with what [clears throat] the property's uh value. Yes. Estimate. That's what it appraised at. Correct. Appraisal value. And that that was for the full five acres.

It's five acres. Five acres. Okay. So, so I had sent in a question about we because one of the questions that was asked was if all of this falls through, it doesn't get voted up or whatever that we would be limited to only being able to be build in that location and I always thought that that was not an option. Um, so the question is that I have is what about the public works facility that's there and is there a possibility to combine those two lots and the animal arts? You said earlier tonight that that was to rebuild in the existing location. Um, was that to use the existing lot as it is or was that to expand to where public works is?

Yeah. Pedro, could you uh pull that USB up and find the uh screenshot that says uh that doesn't say property in in the title. Let's see if you can pull that up. So [clears throat and cough] we we uh talk about the the total piece of property where the public works and animal shelter exists today that the city owns is slightly over 5 acres. The animal shelter footprint between the building, all of the little out buildings, and the parking area is roughly.7 acres. There's another8 acres or so uh to the east of that that is separated from the larger piece by an easement that goes to the cell tower that's in the back of the property on the north end of the property. So barring some negotiation with the owner in person in control of that cell tower, you cannot build across that. Um and that so that extra little part um is in question as to how it could be how it could play into a larger facility. So, you you would have to uh bulldoze the existing um public works building to be able to expand to put any of these proposed footprints on it. the current square footage that is occupied on that building. Even if you condensed it down, would probably take

uh would expand beyond the confines of the current.7 acres that it sits on. So, it would have to be considerably smaller or probably somewhere in the neighborhood of no more than 6,000 square feet, which is a little more than what we have today when you add up all of those little out buildings and sheds and all that stuff. Is this for the animal shelter or for the animal shelter? So, not including public works. Pardon me? Not including public works. No. Well, it would I think you'd you'd have a hard you would have a hard time putting a building on there without expanding U across the the existing pro, right? But I'm saying

why couldn't it be why couldn't it be two separate buildings? Like you can show the dogs have offices and then have the kennels and everything separated out some. And I know public works some of those offices are moving when this gets done. They are, but the the road the the field crews still need a place to operate out of.

Sure. um with um some office space, some you know they need like shower facilities, restroom facilities, that sort of thing. Um so you couldn't just do away with the the public works building. It would need to be and it and it is in poor shape right now. you know, it was flooded a couple years ago and from a the freeze and so it's u been put kind of put back together. Um, one of the other things to consider is all the equipment that gets stored over there and in the far west side of that property is the uh maintenance facility for all the vehicles. Pretty sizable uh structure. Um there's some sheds and places that they store stuff under the keep it out of the rain and the sun over in that area. Um there could be some less uh you know less space used with by parking after the admin comes over here, but you still need um and if we could pull that. You finding that at all? Did you say screenshot? It could be in it could be in a folder that says uh bond committee or something else or bond projects or project. [clears throat] Anyway, the when you look at the when you look at the aerial photograph, you realize that moving all that equipment around in that area, whether you're deploying it onto a trailer or whether you're parking it against the fence, it takes a more it takes more land. So, the it takes a lot of that space that that looks like it's open and unused. It

takes a lot of that space to move all that equipment back and forth and and uh get it ready to deploy [clears throat] out to wherever they're going to go with it. Um so you couldn't do a whole lot of lot more building over on the left hand side of it, the east side of it. So you see the the open area over to the right and up in the top of that is a little number. that number up there, that that lot up there, that parcel up there, the city does not own. Um, only the smaller portion down there or the lower portion. And right now, it's being used by the company next door and public works to store some materials on pretty much. That's another consideration on the public works. Uh the operational side of that is they need to keep uh dirt, asphalt, rock, stuff like that over there.

Um so you'd be taking that area away. The animal shelter is the next spark spot to you know to the west and it's just if you look the one kind of almost square building

and the structures behind it with the green space to the west of it, that's the animal shelter area. And then the next building over is the public works building. And then you have covered parking uh and a few more little bit more office space over in there. It's public works. So you to rebuild. So that little the the spot on on the animal shelter side there is about a little under 4,000 square feet. a larger spot, a little under 4,000 square feet of the existing original or not original but main building that they're operating out of now that has the kennels. And again to expand that and still have parking and storage space if it especially the storage space was not included under the roof um the air or the big biggest portion of it would would take up a lot of that area there. It'd be difficult to not not expand over into the the area that the public works has now.

Yeah. I don't I don't that wasn't really my suggestion. I I was I was suggesting that, you know, if the public works building is in bad shape that we build a separate smaller building somewhere else on the property, you know, be it further back or or what have you. And that may may mean that that covered parking gets moved or relocated and then expanding the animal shelter to the west side. Um and if the concern is that you're talking about that lot to the right um to the east side there, that is the one where there's an easement. Is there a small strip of easement or is it the whole So you can see the easement on that photograph. It's just Yeah, it's right there. So yeah. So no, we can't build. That's actually a driveway that goes to the cell tower. We can't build on that. That's what that means, right?

Correct. We couldn't build like they talked about earlier. You couldn't build across it or on top of it without renegotiating the access to that cell tower. Well, and that was going to be my next question is is I mean that lot goes all the way to the other to the other building there almost. And so could we negotiate to change the easement to drive that direction and over go north on the east side and then west across? Yeah, you you could I mean you you could approach the owner with uh creating a new new drive that is like sort of L-shaped over to their out the outside of the perimeter of that city property.

Yeah. Just the the thought was I basically was what I understood was that it was not possible and I I the more I look at it and then what brought it up was the email that we got was that what if this all falls through. I just don't want to vote on something if I if I am not educated enough to make a decision on all of the options and I feel like this might could be an option. So I mean I so and I agree it's an option. Um, the other things to consider is the demolition of all of that, all the existing buildings and then housing the animals while it's under construction.

That's that really realistically would take probably at least a year. So, those are additional expenses that we don't have an estimate on that we haven't considered in any of those. Yeah. And I talked to Fort Worth. they had done something similar and they had built like temporary um structures to do that to well they and yeah and they and they had the land to do it on too right but if we were to negotiate to have the the easement moved I mean that's we're getting quite a bit of connected space then and if [clears throat] I don't know I mean I'm just this is again it's just I it's more information that now I'm thinking I'm like okay what's what are our options?

Yeah. So, and and one of the reasons that it was ruled out initially, um it all of the things that we've already discussed, but also both needs assessments said that they recommended you needed two to at least two to three acres in order to build rebuild a new facility, right? So,

so if you take that lot plus a larger portion, the lot that the animal shelter currently sits on, plus the majority of that lot that's next to it and possibly a small portion of the public works building if it gets knocked down, would that suffice of that two acres? you you could squeeze two acres into that that so again that that the major portion of that rectangle over to the railroad tracks edge there including the spot that we uh store the materials on that's all just barely over 58.

So So here here's what I'm I'm worried about on this. So, so, so one, Randy, I I would need to hear from Randy and his team. What can show me this area that you need to keep? In other words, it's going to start inflicting major pain on our public works guys. You know, we start encroaching in it cuz like you said, yeah, we can go over and take that space, but that's where they put their dirt and that's where they put their things like,

right? So, I'm I'm trying what I don't want to do. It's almost like you need to take this and Randy needs to take that and start drawing. Okay, we need this space and then what's left and if we let's say we tear both of those buildings down, well, we're going to have to build another building back for the people who work there. It don't have to be as big, of course, because a lot of public works is coming over here, but there's still a sizable group of people over there. And what kind of building would we need to build them? And how do we pay for that building? Yeah. Well, you know, do you add it into, you know, that's that's what I'm looking at is, you know, doing a a one bond for all of that.

Yeah. So, a couple other pieces with both consultants. One was getting access to it and getting people to come and look at the animals and adopt them out so we don't have so many sitting there. And this this location didn't do it. The other thing is is the um the other piece of property that we're looking at at some point could also provide emergency access because right now if a train derails, which when I understand happens quite frequently, those people can't get in and out of there and heaven forbid there's a fire and we can't get a fire truck in there. I mean, it's not going to be good for the city. Yeah. So, I I I really think we need to look at buying that piece of property.

That road is a key component buying that piece of property for public safety. I hear spot on. I think I mean I'm not opposed to buying the property and we don't we don't have to use all that property also for the animal shelter. I mean if we need to get some conx boxes or stuff to store Christmas stuff or whatever we need. We can also use part of that property for the Yeah, I'm that's why I'm for buying the piece of property now because I'm hedging my bets because I can turn around and sell it in a year or two if if I end up not using it. Right. So, so I just do not want us to kick the can down the road here because we know that property is going to sell. I guess my my one question and I I mentioned to Gabe earlier. So, let's say we buy that property.

Mhm. And either we don't need it or the bond doesn't pass or whatever. We send that property in in two years we sell it for a profit. We bought it with CO money. Can we take that profit? What's the arbitrage rule there? And I don't know that. I don't know. That's my question for bond counselor for somebody else. What could we do with if if we make a profit hypothetically saying we make a profit? Can we Is that legal? Can we do that? Uh so I think we would have to pay make an art arbitrage payment if that were the case. Um

which oddly enough we're in that situation with our existing bond because if you'll recall when we uh issued our notes for theation the interest rate was like 1.6% 6% and then shortly thereafter they went up. So the the idea is municipal bonds are taxexempt but you don't issue them to make money off of. They're tax exempt because investors buy them and the interest income from the bonds is uh not tax. So it's an investment. But we're looking at doing

I'm not 100% sure about that, mayor. I think if the intent when we purchase it is for a city facility and then it later changes, I don't know that we're penalized. Okay. Because our intent would be a facilities facility. It would not be an investment. It's not we're not doing that. It's it's to put a city facility on. But what if something changes? That's my only question. I'm I'm not opposed to buying the land now. Of obligation versus a bond. The certificate of obligation is not going to fall under those requirements of the bond with the investors.

It carries the same credit. It's just that the city council approves that amount as instead of going to voters functions the same way. One thing I would mention, I think Lee and and Randy met with AG, u I think he was agreeable in some long-term plan to have a connecting road

uh between Defile and uh Jarvis. Um and I think he said he may be interested in dedicating the right of way if we got to the point where we could commit to that. You may recall this was less than six months ago probably. I think I sent an estimate from Trent that was about off the top of my head I think it was a million and a half just as a connector. Again, that's a public safety need because as uh Mayor Prom noted, there's times where those folks are locked out. So having a connector between those two could be

and I think what we said we would put that on the master thoroughfare plan. We'd put that on the master plan. We would not commit to doing it today. We got to find the money. So that would not be a today problem. it would be in the future and I don't know how far in the future but yes we want to do it because it is a safety need if we buy that land but the question is when and it would not be anytime soon so and I think the the land owner is okay with that just long as we have a pledge to yes we will do it in the future just I can't tell you when I mean even if it's just a dirt road for now it's better than nothing and that's true too but and Paul I'm going to step back will you take Sure.

Okay. So,

yeah, I mean, so again, back to the amounts, if you want to talk about the amounts, uh, one thing in the tax rate analysis that Andrew provided, the term for animal shelter facility would be 25 years. So, at the lowest end requested was for an estimate was 12 million. At that 266,000 that we talked about with streets, the impact would be $6740 annually. That's for 12 million. Again, 12 million is all in. That includes uh design and construction turnkey. The next estimate would be 15 million all in at an average home value of 22 266,000. That is $8387 um per year. About uh 16 $17 increase from the 12 million 125. The high end is 21 million and that annual cost for home value of 266,000 is $116 per year. So that that's our range.

So we got I'll call them A, B, and C. So I know when we did that I I want to ask for asked for the m the Moscow model and and that's supposed to help you. It's supposed to help people like me differentiate between these three. which ones it is. The problem is is when the Moscow model was done, everything was either critical or mustave. So if every single thing on there was critical or mustave and we ripped a little bit out to get to B and then a lot out or a little bit out to get to B and then a lot out to get to C. I I'm now now struggling. Somebody's going to have to explain to me uh the difference between because we we've said originally when we did it, we did the they did the Moscow model. They said we absolutely got to have the I'll call it the 21 me. Okay. And uh and everything's critical or must have. So now we've done when B we ripped out I think it was 10 cages or 10 10 dog areas which to me that is the most important part of an animal shelter. Okay. Uh what does that do to us uh for that animal shelter? How how you know you know uh the criticality of it and then when we get all the way down to 12 million we've ripped a lot of stuff out of it. So, so somebody's gonna have to explain that to them because we we are are are we you know there's there's things that what we say cut fat out and then there's what we cut to the bone. Well, no. Okay. Now, we're taking appendages off and it almost you know I I just like I say all the data they said like I say they they hung hard and solid on that Moscow. every every single bit they had done cut everything they could out and every single thing was

absolutely critical. So the last thing I want to have is spend let's $15 million of this taxpayers money and then two years from now come back and say boy we we need now to to add on to this animal shelter and everybody knows a remodel is more expensive than an original buildout. So, I'm not saying I'm against the 12 million. I I like that 12 million number just because it's 12 million, not 21 million. But I also from from a thing looking at the past data and stuff, how how did we make that decision of what to take out? So, so the numbers were just for tax rate impact purposes.

Okay. You know, I was asked what would this that you know, okay, the you know, I don't know that we got into excruciating detail, but if you were at the lower end, you're you're cutting the facility in half or close to it. So, all the uh as you mentioned, the cages are the most important, but the training areas, the common areas, the adoption rooms, that's all going to fit a budget.

Yeah. Well, and what corn presented before was a reduction in number uh of each of cat and dog facil space or kennels whatever you call them I don't know a reduction in those she she so you know was this much before and we cut it down to this much to get down to the numbers so that's what you would lose you lose some some capacity

yeah I I might just add to that just just recall that the the Moscow model was worked through by the advisory board um and uh some staff members. So, in one of the the biggest advantages to building a new shelter is to be able to have the features in a new shelter that we don't have now. And they're very lengthy and they're really very important to the overall operation and to the public. So that's why it turned out that almost everything in there was a mustave or or an a definitely considered to be a need. Um the the cutting like Gabe said, the the fir the first cut that you see in the in the green shade for to get to option two was finding one of the most expensive features in the whole place which is the dog kennels. um both in construction and equipment and materials that that's that's per square foot one of the higher parts or the highest part of that whole building and you would not get to those options the option two and three without cutting part of the dog kennels out without I mean and unless you significantly just hacked off like half the building. So when you get to the option three, um it included the training room, the dog kennels, which the training room is the largest space other than the dog kennels that's in the shelter. So uh quorum cut that out to just to reduce make an immediate impact to to square footage. Then the third option cuts out a good deal of the storage space which

could be supplemented with an out building like we do now, a shipping crate, a cheaper version of something there. However, you're talking about again [clears throat] impedance to the workflow causing more staff time to do certain things if that storage is off underneath not underneath the same roof. Um, there was a little bit of of room up front that was cut out in the lobby area which included a cat room and a get one of the get to know rooms that was up there realistically for not not only just to to have a additional space but for aesthetic purposes as well to make it an inviting uh cheerful place for people to walk into which is one of the issues that we don't obviously don't have Yeah.

So to to go from 21 million to 15 million, we removed 10 dog campers. I remember that. Okay. And did we get the revised numbers? Because I know there was a lot of questions regarding the numbers. Yes. The the last version that I sent you is the correct one. And she did make a an escalation mistake on the table on one of them. Then to get from the 15 million down to 12 million, did we remove more than those 10 dog kennels? Yes. So, how many dog more dog kennels did it remove inside? It it it removed the training room and then some additional I'm sorry. It removed the train the same dog kennels in option from one to two

and the training room which was also one to two and then from 2 to three it was it was the training room the dog kennels and some additional space. Okay. So I remember in to going from 15 million to 12 million, we also lost some of the outside kennels where the dogs could could run around. The wreck yards were reduced. Yes. The size of the wreck yards reduced. So and they weren't they weren't eliminated. They were just reduced. Right. Right. They were reduced. Do does does the 12 million give us the ability to move the dogs from inside all the dogs that we have currently that would have inside kennels out to the outside kennels so they can clean them? Yes.

Or they they So that would still be the case. We can move them all out, clean them all at one time. Okay. Gotcha. Brack. Yeah. I just want to make a a point of clarification. Lee, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but um the three options were all presented in 2025. Reality is we're not going to build a facility in 2025.

So, I think we need to start referring to this in 2027 because we we need to make sure that we're including the cost of what it's going to cost us to get it built. we don't need to approve a bond for $15 million when we're all thinking in our heads that it's a $15 million facility, but it's going to cost us 17 by the time we get to construction. So, um we we can't afford to come back on dollars. Whatever we get approved, we we've got to be able to build it for that. Um I I want to reiterate a couple of things, too. I'm gonna use a go ahead soap box for a minute. Go ahead.

Um, one, we we have to have a new animal shelter.

I I don't think there's an option on the table for repairing or uh tearing down. I I think we we have to have a new animal shelter and it needs to be on a different piece of property. Um, the shelter that we build needs to last foreseeably for 30 to 40 years. Um, we don't need to be involved in building a building that's going to patchwork us all the way to 10 or 15 years and let some future council have to deal with it. We we need to go ahead and bite the bullet. We need to take care of it. Um, we can't delay any longer in calling for a bond election for this facility. We need to go ahead and call for it. Um the current shelter is in complete inadequate uh to our needs. Um we need to get something on the ground as quickly as possible. All that being said, we have to do something that is palatable to voters. We we cannot extend overextend on what we do. So, with all of those things considered, um I think we need to figure out uh the amount that we come to on the agreement needs to be in 2027 because of that. Uh I think we can uh reasonably assume that we're we could get a building built by 2027 uh or get it built for that that dollar amount. we need to include uh the 700,000 for the purchase of the property of the land. Uh whether we do that through a certificate of obligation beforehand or whatever, it's still a cost that we're [snorts] going to incur for the animal shelter. So, we need to include that in in the bond consideration amount. Uh even if we handle it differently, um I I think it

needs to be an all-in price. we need to include the soft costs and everything else. Um, so I don't want us to get too distracted with calling it a $21 million facility because reality is that $21 million facility in 2027 is going to run Well, let me go to one. I have numbers in front of me um on so the the $12 million facility is actually 12,970. So it's 13 million. Uh in $27 with the land purchase, it's actually 152. So the the bottom dollar we're talking about is actually 15 153 is is the the bottom dollar that we're actually discussing if we're using the 2027 table. And that that changes our discussion a little bit because we can be talking about a $12 million facility, but the reality is is that we don't have a number that shows that that is going to be a facility that we could actually build um that services our needs.

Sure. And mayor, council, council member, it's a great point. The reality is whatever voters approve, that's our hard budget and all our design decisions are made to that end, not to exceed. No different than across the street. We had a fixed dollar amount. If we if the council wanted to do certificate [clears throat] of obligation for the land, we would not take that approximately 700,000 to voters part of the proposition. It is part of the total cost. So, we would have But it's a good point. I mean, construction costs are escalating and I think we our library in today's dollars would be something like $40 million. So, and that's just three or four years.

Mary, go ahead. [clears throat] So, I do have a question, but I have several comments also. So, that figure of 20,750,000 was the latest figure you gave us, Lee. Is that correct for the optimal optimal build? Yes. And and also was was that for a 20 27 build? It was but it does not include the bond the land.

Sorry. The 20 Yeah, the 20 the option one 2027 cost including cost escalations is about $21 million. So that is slightly less. That is not including the land. Sir, that is so these numbers you gave us was a 2027.

That's 20. Yeah, you can look at that little table that's out to the right of the each of those cost projections. uh and it has the cost escalation numbers on it by year from from the 20 from the current through 2028. And so um also I was looking at the charts that we got from our financial advisor and uh

I got it up right here. They were using a 26 mill uh $266,000 home as one of the options. And our average home price as of this fiscal year is $253,230. That would reduce it a little bit. I'm not a I can't do that math in my head. [clears throat] Um, also the $21 million on their chart would be a $967 monthly tax. Uh, hey guys, can we keep up? One meeting here, please. Let's listen to Mary has the floor.

U, so should I start over?

No, no, keep you're going. Keep going. Um, a [clears throat] $21 million facility would be 960, I'm sorry, $9.67 cents a month. A 15 million would be $6.99 a month. That is a difference of $268 a month. That is not worth arguing over in my opinion. I think our voters want an animal shelter. Many of them have come before us and have sent us emails to say they are willing to pay what it takes to build a facility that will meet our needs. I agree with Nick. We don't want to lowball this thing and build something insufficient. And if building the optimum facility only would cost to it would be less than two $2.68 a month based on an average home price in Sagenol. [clears throat] The average home price in Sagenol is 253230 not 266. And I even wonder if we could make the the length of that payout be a longer time period. It we're going to build a 40-year building hopefully. So could we not make that payout rate be 30 to 35 years? That would even reduce it more. We would probably pay it off before that. But I also do believe that that $700,000 cost for the land should be purchased

right now and that should be taken off of the amount of the bond because it won't be part of the bond. So what they're voting on is the amount of the bond. So that's another $700,000 that could be taken off of that 21 million. So the the amount per month would probably be closer to $210. You know, I can't do that math in my head, but we have several areas where that chart those numbers can be reduced. And like I said, the difference between building a facility that we can all be proud of that will meet all of the requirements, the necessities. These when we use the word need, it's kind of a it's not forceful enough. They are needs, but they are requirements and they are necessities. So, you know, we owe that to our animals, our animal population. We owe it to our very dedicated, very knowledgeable, very hardworking staff, and we owe it to our residents to give them a facility they can be proud of. And for $2 a month extra, I think we would be making a huge mistake not to go for the optimum build.

And I agree with Nick. We don't want to go low and then have to sink more money into it later or just accept the fact that it's not adequate. We would have those two choices. Thank you, Mary. Hey, we we've got some folks that want to speak on this and they've been very patient and I appreciate y'all. Uh it is getting late, but I will let y'all go now while we're So, I've got some folks that wanted to speak. Um Tabitha Oconor.

Well, thank you for staying late. Hi, I'm Tabitha and I'm glad to be able to talk to you tonight. Um, I have been very intimately acquainted with the shelter for about four years now. And we've been talking about a new shelter that entire time and it hasn't gotten any better. And I know that you know that because I'm hearing you say it over and over. Um, we have to put it on the ballot.

I wonder if there's a way to market it the way that Mary's talking. The difference between a $15 million shelter and a $20 million shelter is $2.50 a month. Now, I get it. There are families that that's going to be a problem for. It's going to be a problem either way. But if we can market it so that people understand the difference and really how little a difference it is, I think that we have a better chance of getting it to pass. Um, I' I've heard a couple of remarks tonight about the staff. Um, we we talk a lot about the inadequacy for the animals, but the staff gives everything they have day after day in a space that we all agree is not adequate for the animals in their care.

Tabitha, I'm sorry. Go, guys, we we got to stop talking. We We got to stop this. We We got to listen to her, please. Everybody, [snorts] let's listen to one person at a time. I'm sorry, ma'am. continue.

Caring for animals whose health, physical and mental, declines the longer they stay in cold concrete and metal cages takes a toll on the staff as well. Choosing animals for code red lists is heartbreaking. Interacting with angry citizens who expect a kennel to magically appear so they can surrender their pet instead of upholding the commitment they made to an animal wears on our staff. These are things that we have to consider as we're deciding how many kennels we're going to provide. Um, I know that there's been a lot of discussion about the number of people in the city and how big the shelter is and we're a comparable size city. Why do we need so many more kennels? Does that take into account the regulations that they have? Our council recently approved a change in the way that we allow people to have animals. Instead of three dogs and two cats or three cats and two dogs, now we can all have five dogs and not get them fixed and have puppies and have more dogs. Is that something that's been considered? When we're talking about those population limits, we have to talk about the population of the animals that we're allowed to have in our homes versus the number of people that we have that can have animals. That makes a big difference in those numbers as well. Um, I know that you know that we have to do this. We just need to figure out how to market it the way that Mary's people see $20 million and they go We have to market it so that they understand the difference in their tax rate and what they're going to benefit from with that with just that little bit more.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. All right. Next, uh Judy Deler. [snorts] [clears throat] Welcome.

Good evening. Thank you. Uh, my name is Judy Deler and I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I've been a member of the animal shelter advisory board since 2022 and I currently serve as vice chair on that board. I participated in the original workshop with animal arts I believe is the name and uh that was round 22 23. Uh the that assessment was press presented to the council and you listened but you took no action. I served on the most recent bond committee. We presented those recommendations. The animal shelter was at the top of the list and I believe Adele came in and said that we needed to go with the $18 million listing. Again, you listed you listened and took no action. Uh I've now attended several of these assessments, these needs assessments, and uh quorum was the last one. They presented it to the animal shelter board and I believe they presented it here twice. You listened but took no action. Several of you had voiced that we need a new one, but no one has stepped up to say now it's time to do it. The citizens need to take this on and look at it. We had the uh Mroy I'm sorry you can't hear me. We had the the meeting, the town hall meeting at the new library senior center for the Mroy. We need to do that. And like she said, put out there what we're going to have, how much it's going to cost everybody. But don't let this die. This has got to go on the bond. We've got to get it going. And I agree with Councilman Lawson who said, "Listen to the citizens and listen to the professionals." We've had two different professional companies come in and tell us what we need. And we had the workers, the guys, the girls

that are actually out there doing this job 247 and they need some some relief. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Joe Stout.

Uh, thank you. I'm Joe Stout. I'm chair of the animal shelter advisory committee and I'm also the animal welfare representative on on the committee. You've heard from me several times uh two previous speakers I I said made very good points u in your discussion some very good points were made. So I'm really not going to go and go through everything again. I something struck me tonight though when we were hearing the uh the invocation which I by the way I thought was really really good really moving. There were some words there that I wrote down. He uh he mentioned well he he mentioned that this body has to make some difficult decisions and I know that you all you know certainly you're influenced by some of the stuff you see on social media and there's probably been a very handful of people that have been you know saying some things that have been critical about this process and and uh but I know you probably have to take pay attention to that but but something that that the uh the pastor said tonight that I really liked is he said he hoped that you all would make decisions with courage rooted in compassion and when you're talking about this subject I can't there's no way that I can I know for you all it's going to take a lot of courage you do need that courage but compassion is is a big part of what this is all about of treating the animals right beyond it being a critical city service for health and safety disease control reuniting lost pets with their rightful owners. Uh rabies prevention. There's so many reasons why you do need an animal shelter. Streets are important, but you do need to have a state-of-the-art animal shelter. Thank you.

Thank you, Joe. Appreciate that. All right. Good. I want to get a little citizen impact. Uh anyone else here wish to speak? You certainly can at this time. I don't want to leave anybody out. All right. All right. So, council, you've heard from that. Any uh any more thoughts, council? I I Let's see. Who have we not heard from? We I have one. Go ahead, Val. Sure.

Okay. So, the bond is good and everything. Nobody here says that we don't want a new animal shelter. We don't. We do. We have to have one. Okay. But what you need need to understand marketing. When they start marketing it, people are going to think that $253 isn't very much. But then you got if they pass everything else, you got to add all that together. And that's what the citizens look at. So we have to make it to where they can understand it and where we can spend it and get something that we want. And that's a hard thing for the city to do. And so I just want to make sure you understand that all that gets added together and it comes out a bigger number than $2.50.

Thank you. M Mary, you go ahead. Um, I want to make an analogy, but also the $2.68 I was making it clear that that's just the difference between the optimum shelter. Yes. And [clears throat] a lower one. It's Yes,

I understand the whole bond thing would cost more than that. Um, but like I came up with this analogy that might seem a little extreme, but let's [snorts] say fixing Mroy where the train tracks are. Everybody wants that done. But let's say that we decided we didn't want to spend that much money that that will cost. So, let's just fix three of the train tracks and let the other two stay rickety. To me, that's that's what we would be doing if we did not build an optimum animal shelter and went for the one that was really not going to meet our needs at all. You've got to do it right. You've got to do it 40-year building. You've got to do it where all of the needs are met. You can't only just think about the dollar amount. And like I said, the dollar amount between the great one and the not so great one is negligible.

Thank you, Mayor Sean. [clears throat]

So, um, I've been been to a lot of animal shelters. I've been to a lot of meetings with citizens. that we've sat here and listened to several presentations and you know [clears throat] the the comment was made to me after the last presentation from quorum that you know had she come in and and had said you know 15 million or 13 million or whatever that we probably would have said you know as this person said us together in this conversation well maybe that is what it costs. um when we had a meeting where she presented to us, she told us, and when I say us, I it was me and Lee and I think Nick. Um and there was one dollar figure that was that was out and it was preliminary dollar figure. Every time since then that I have seen her, the number has gone up and it's not gone up to your point by a percentage like you mentioned in the last meeting, which I know since has been corrected. Um, but it it it doesn't build trust. Um, you know, I talk to citizens who tell me that if it was over $10 million, they're not going to vote for it. I'm not saying that that's the number that I'm choosing, but I do have to take into consideration that there's a limit to how much the citizens are willing to spend. Um, I don't think that if we built a $10 million shelter that was brand new or even $12 million that anyone at the animal shelter would be upset that they're getting a brand new building. So, I have to consider all of that. And I also have to consider Mary's point that it's minor dollars when we talk about how large it has to be. Um, so for me it's if we're going to stick on a dollar figure, I mean that's I I'm going to try to get it as low as I can because that's the number. And I'm not saying we

short change it, but I'm saying that we've also done really really well. And when I say we, I mean staff really. It's not we. We're just figureheads. Um, but the staff has done a great job managing bond funds. And so I really believe that despite the estimates that were provided from potentially possibly untrustworthy sources, um remember that these are salespeople. Uh whether they're trustworthy or not, they're still salespeople. So they're still pitching to try to win a contract in the end. Um and I know that that it was a contract to um do the estimate, right? Um but the

mayor and council, I I just want to address that. I'm sympathetic to your comments. If you're going to try to uh disparage disparage the architect, we asked them, y'all asked them to do a job, which was to examine an analysis that another architect did. Okay. They basically confirmed the number at a per square footage basis. That number's high. I was talking with council member Lawson. We did that because the there was so much sticker shock with the first number. But to say or insinuate that they did something untrustworthy or dishonest or didn't do their job, that's just not correct, sir. I I mean, okay.

And based on bids in the market, one of one of the interesting comments from citizens and I get it big dollar amounts very emotional. chat GPT told me X that does nothing for anybody in this room right that's that's an absence of thinking so what we have done is taken a professional approach and brought you the information for you to make a decision and ultimately as you've alluded to you pick a dollar amount that you feel you can get behind and that um residents could get by right and support

but I take exception because that's a shot across the bow at staff as well that staff would allow something that's inappropriate by consult. It's not correct. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. So, let Sean Yeah. Let Sean finish.

Yeah. So, um you know, again, my opinion is my opinion. Um you know, I I'm certainly I'm sympathetic to staff. I This is a tough job and it we're making it tougher. Absolutely. I and I I appreciate that and and it's not something that I'm taking lightly when I speak it. Um I don't want to take up too much more time because we are here late, but I just wanted to express how I was feeling. Um and ultimately if the number is not something that I agree with, then I will vote no. Um so that's just my opinion. So yeah, go ahead, Paul.

Kind of go along with what what Valerie said. I I ran the numbers with the $24 a year for the um certificate of obligation for the fire truck and the fire station, the the roads, and then 5 million for parks and using a figure of 15 million for the animal shelter. That's $24.16 a month for a taxpayer that's paying on a home value of 266,000. What' you say? $24 and 266 is our average is our for the whole thing for everything. Oh, for everything. $24 a month. Oh, a month. And that's 266 is our average home home value. Yep.

Okay. And you said $24 and then $19.72 and then $25. Here's what I wanted. That was peace meal. I know I'm confused. It was peace meal for different things. So, oh, I'm working off the spreadsheet and then the numbers that we got for the fire station. We can do that. That's a That's a good exercise. So, um, again, 266 is not the average value, but it's close enough for discussion we've had this evening.

So, are we going on record? So, let's say $2,400. We're going on record to say that everything we need to do over the next six years, all expenses, all that's going to do, all added up, is only going to raise the average citizen in Sagenol maximum after six years us buying all this stuff, remodeling all these uh $24 things is $288 a year. It'd be $469 a year.

It's how much? $4669 if you did the um the uh public safety certificates of obligations. The um 38 million in streets, 21 million for animal shelter did not have it as the original cost estimate 5 million for park. So it would be slightly higher than that gets fire station 2 renovated. That gets the rec center, whatever we need to do done to it. It gets the library redone. Complete the rec center. That's Yes. Yeah, that that's at 21. I thought you said 15. I used the $15 million figure when I did.

So 15 million. Here's what I've got. 23659. Again, this was sent to you for the streets. That's annually. You got 84 uh8387 about $84 for 15 million animal shelter. The 5 million for parks would be 29.86 and then approximately 24 million for three and a half uh three and a half million for five. So what what's the total number? I think that's what everybody's looking for. What's the total number? Yeah. Is that what Kim just said? The 40

that that was the 21 million animal shelter. So the total number would be uh 37432. Now that doesn't include the land acquisition which would be about another you said 600

say 384 probably. Yeah, the land acquisition was 700,000, but we would add that to the certificate of obligation. Instead of three and a half, that'd be 4.2. So, I think for the sake of a discussion, all in after everything was issued within five years, annual cost of say 385. That's with 15 million for the animal. That's with a $15 million annual shelter. Sure.

Yes, ma'am. Go ahead, Mary. Um, and also as has been mentioned before, the money, the bond money would not all be borrowed at once. So it would not impact the taxpayer that whole amount in the first year. That's great. So it would be spread out. Eventually the the rollup cost would be 385. Yeah. So we don't have anything come off you said until when? 20 what? 2034. Now, we have things coming off. We just don't have enough debt capacity until 2034. We have we pay off bonds every so often, but yeah.

So, let me ask this. I know you said you hadn't thought of the fire department, but I mean the police department, but it it's there. It's going to have to be ex I mean, it's 25 years old, right? It something's going to have to eventually be done with it. So, are we saying that we are not going to do anything with the fire to I'm sorry, fire? police station. Police station until after 2034 or is that included into the two numbers you got here? No, that's not included. So then we're saying that we're not going to do anything at that police department until after 2034 when we have we can do it. Yeah, it's not included in this. So, and we've also done no

I understand not included, but we're not we're saying we're not going to be able to do anything to that. police department until after 2034. It would be later than that because when you issue this um almost $70 million in new debt, then the 2034 is going to get absorbed in the next 25 years. So based on this, you're looking at maybe the next big decrease being around 2039. 2039. Okay. And that yeah, that wouldn't be an expansion. We've done some significant maintenance like we mentioned the roof and some interior remodeling design.

Yeah.

Go ahead, Mary. Uh one other thought is over a period of years we will be borrowing this money like I just mentioned but also our revenue has you know a good chance of increasing during that time period. So I mean our revenue based on sales tax new property etc. can allay some of that cost also not only spreading over years but having the probability of uh increased revenue to the city are

the sales tax and property tax. So is our operational costs are going to go up. So it's kind of a wash.

Well, and we let's [clears throat] remember we always budget very conservatively. We forecast very conservatively. That's why as as Kim mentioned the 2021 bond, we did not take as much bond debt capacity and much tax rate increase as we were allowed. We took less because we budgeted so conservately. The same with the Bailey Bosle bond from 2012. We only used h about half the debt capacity that we needed for that uh based on budgeting. So I would view this as the worst case 384 a year is the worst case scenario for this. Will it be better? I hope so. I can't tell you that. But I can tell you this. it will be no worse than this. Uh we we that's when we get those the budget awards everywhere. We're very conservative how we budget uh and and what's the money and we don't expand staff very much either. We're probably short staffed on certain areas that we should be uh because we're trying to watch the dollars. Uh and as long as we have Kim Quinn over there, she will lose sleep over this. Uh but she will keep us straight and narrow and keep us very well uh sound financially.

So go ahead. Mayor and council, if I could just and I know I think by my notes we've got two things we're going to come back to. Again, we don't need to make a decision tonight. It appears there's agreement for 3.5 million for the fire department, 700,000 for land acquisition. Is that correct? That'd be $4.2 million that council would issue. And that's that's cos that's not a bond election. That's correct. Okay. 4.2 million. So I'm I'm writing that down. Is is that accurately represent everyone's feelings?

Yes. Okay. And the 38 million would be for Mroy and industrial. Um that would go to voters. The caveat I think we had discussed is once we get our updated uh pavement condition um assessment, we may come back and look at West Maroy. So if West Mroy is worse than Park Center, then we would probably make some recommendations to y'all to change that up. Correct. Is that fair? But that would be non uh that would not be a bond bond impact. Correct.

But as far as bonds or or at least as as far as agreement is now the 4.2 million fire department plus land acquisition, 38 million streets. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. So all were and and then park. We said parks, right? And I think we're going to come back for some dollar amount. Brack is gonna we we we put six million as a placeholder. Okay. But that's so no more than six million, but it could be less depending on when we come back to the parks. Yeah. Okay. I'm I'm assuming I just spoke. Is everybody okay with the parks that Yeah. parks number? Okay. Yeah. Pinning details. The multi-million dollar question is the animal shelter which

we we the number that we we're banting around is 15. Well, I mean, here here's the thing. All right. I think everybody on council agrees that we need to have a bond for animal shelter. The pro I'm sitting here writing numbers down trying to figure out and I'm trying to figure out, well, do we go with option A, option B, and option C

and be damned if I don't have enough data. I can't make my decision. I nobody if if I go with well, now the new numbers, the 14.6 6 million. What's the business case for that versus the 19 million? And I never did get the number for the last one because I know it ain't 20 million. I know you said 20 million, but that's a 2025 number. So, what's the 2027 number for the allin?

So, I I appreciate Council Member St. Clair's thinking. The reality is we're fighting inflation when we build, but what we're bringing to voters is some fixed dollar amount and we're going to design within that fixed dollar amount. To council member uh Morrison's point, there's sensitivity to price. I feel like you and I, we have a a in the market a reasonable estimate per square foot of what a facility costs. So, if we pick some amount, these questions, your questions, I can't answer, but they're going to be answered in the design process.

Here, here's I deal with this all time. I dealt with this all week last week at my job trying to figure out having to come up with business cases to justify my 2020 my budget this year, right? Same thing. If you don't, if somehow I can't make a differentiation between these three and what it's going to get me or not, then I'll just go with the I'll do like my bosses do me at work. I'll just vote the lowest number, which the lowest number I got so far today is 12 million and that's I'll I'll I'll suck her right in there and that's all I'll vote for. Sure. So, either help me get to these higher numbers or I'll vote for the 12 million.

Yeah. I mean, again, Council I think Council Member Morrison did a good job. Let's say the the magic number is 12 million. Let's say voters approve it. We deduct out the site related prep costs. whatever building is built and designed with that money is much better than what we have now. Council member Morrison mentioned that and and that's an honest reality. It's likely not um based on the assessment meets our space needs, but it's better. So if we get into what's 12 million versus 14 million, you've got somebody asked toque or somebody put 12 million versus 14 million on your So the 12 million was based on the debt.

Now we haven't designed a $12 million facility. If voters approve, we would net out the land cost, which y'all have said we want to acquire that. Um, so what is our site prep cost is about with design and and uh grading. Was it 2 million or so? Yeah, I thought it was like 2.3. Yeah, what I remember. So, we're talking 10 million. One of the numbers that sticks out to me in these numbers that was provided for Lee is these design contingencies. And Brack, you may be able to shed some more light on that. There's $2 million in there for that. Is that normal for design? Well, it's a design contingency, so it's an additional

amount.

So, we we talked about that. It in my opinion, I think the 20% uh contingency in that is a little high. Um I think that would but what she was trying to do was illustrate what it would take to cover everything you could possibly not think of that might come up. Um, I really think those cost assessments are very spot-on in terms of being comprehensive when you look at everything they've listed on the description part of the page of the cost estimate page. Um, she's got design contingency at 20%, contractor fee and profit at 15%. Both of those numbers are probably a little bit high. So you but again she's trying to make sure that we don't get caught going with a certain number and coming back two years from now and going oops we don't have quite enough to do that.

All right so in the middle of this I had a last minute request to speak. I bet he was watching at home and came up here. So Benjamin come on up. We appreciate you making the trip up here buddy. You did drive the speed limit coming here. I

I did have to stop myself a couple of times. I said, "Oh, I'm passing by the police station." Um, so, [laughter] um, look, uh, I know y'all are at long meetings and I know sometimes y'all can generalize things, but, um, myself and Sabbon and several residents that spoke on the animal control shelter did not use chat GPT. I know it was a generalization. I used Quorum's own information, much of which that they presented to y'all was not correct. Um, from the price per square footage uh discrepancy, those kind of things. Um, I know y'all have been working on this for a long time. I I think maybe what um Councilman Morrison was maybe trying to get at was like it's not necessarily quorum or animal arts. It's the numbers of intake that they were given. Um, I think if you looked over a 10, 15 year history of the animal control shelter, there's es and valleys, peaks and flows, maybe when they got the numbers, there was a peak. Um, and then one other thing that I heard was the average home value of 266. My neighborhood, I think the lowest is probably about 360. So, I know y'all are taking that into account, but there's lots of neighborhoods like Creekwood and others where, you know, this the bottom is 400. So, some of the numbers are going to be two two and a half times. Just wanted to put that out there. Thank you so much for your time. Thank y'all. Hey, thanks for coming up here, man. Appreciate you making the trip. No, I and and I I I give Benjamin a hard time. He is very passionate and I appreciate your passion for the city. I really do. Thank you for for caring because a lot of folks don't. So, you do and I appreciate that. Okay, go ahead. [snorts]

Benjamin and I are friends. We disagree on this subject and I'm still your friend. So, I would respectfully say to Benjamin that yes, you are correct. Your neighborhood is more expensive, right?

But there are neighborhoods that are less expensive also. All right. So, back to the question at hand. Where are we on an animal shelter? I know we we've had asked a few questions. Do we want to stick on a straw man tonight? Get some more information finalized next time. Where do we think we are? We we've talked about a lot. We got a lot of information out there. We've got some data, some numbers. I'm happy where we are with the streets and with the parks. Uh so, the the question on the table is an animal shelter. Um and as Valerie said, we all agree we need one. Just the question is how big and how much. Honestly, if if whatever number we give to staff, they can work with they can they will design whatever we number we end up with. The question is what do we want to what are we comfortable going with it? What do we think voters will approve? That's a huge question. You mentioned that and that's a very valid question. Uh I don't want to put something out there that will fail. That would be bad. Uh but the question is where where do we think that number lies and do we have you know a consensus on the council as to what we can stick with.

So to me it will be better.

No and and you're right. You're absolutely right. So, I mean, I sat in here thinking I'm just going to have to set a meeting up with Lee and stuff and just sit in a room with him and try to go through this and try to come up with, you know, like I said, business which one of these options one through C I think's the best fit for the city because I can't figure that out right here right now. Um I think everybody here on council agrees that we need to do something and I guess worst case scen we come back in the next meeting and if we can't figure it out we start voting till one you know you bring up okay let's bring up the you know do we get one to pass that's whatever the the uh creme de la creme is and if that don't have enough votes then you go to B and then you go to C. Well, um, my comment earlier was meant to be taken, um, I meant it as a compliment that that I do think that the city does spend bond, the staff does spend bond money well. Um, so every time that we have something that comes in under budget. So I think for me to your point, I think that we do need to come back and look at this at next meeting and have a firmer number, but I think if it's somewhere between 12 and 15, it's something that I think would pass.

All right. So I've got a question about that. What do we need from bond council by the next meeting? I mean, can we fill in a number at the next meeting or do we need to do some before that? How would that work? We can fill in the next meeting. Let's let Kim Kim, do you have a response? Yes, sir. We can have the um the ordinance [clears throat] drafted with um specifically what the the different propositions are and then leave that number blank so we can have the information say this is for an animal shelter blah blah blah costing whatever that number is. Yes. So, we can do that. Okay. I I don't want us to be hanging out there waiting on bond counsel, but sounds like we can can put a number at that point. Do you want to pull the council and and get an idea what our numbers are? Let's let Mary speak first. Okay, Mary, one more thing.

Okay. I think these are my last two comments and they're short. [snorts] We don't quibble about the price of the street improvements. We accept that figure. Oh, this is how much it's going to cost. Okay, actually I have three points. So why do we not accept what our professionals are telling us? Why do we not just blindly accept that like we blindly accept the cost of the streets? I think we should blindly accept the cost of the streets. Professionals have made those decisions. We're not professionals. That's one point. I've already forgotten my third one. But my second one is here's how I believe voters vote on bond elections. There's three groups. One, I am voting against every bond election that is ever suggested because I don't want my taxes to go up one penny. That's one group of voters. They will come out purposely to vote against a bond election. No matter what it is, it's very difficult for bond elections to pass nowadays. We've seen that in many city elections. Most of them don't pass. Is this really I'm trying not to make noise with this microphone. Uh so the second group of voters, they look at everything very carefully. They may even make decisions based on how it affects them.

They they're an animal lover. They see the horrible conditions. They don't care what the cost is. They're gonna vote no because they've never had an animal. They don't need an animal shelter. They don't want their taxes to go up. Or they're gonna vote yes. Most of our voters are not even going to know. We've been having these discussions about the price. Okay. The third group of bond voters, of which I am a member, are the people who typically will vote for every bond election that any city proposes because they trust the city. They know these are needs. They vote for what is good for the city, not necessarily their own lifyle. So, the animal shelter cost is not going to make a voter vote against it or for it. They're going to accept whatever price we put on there and they're either going to vote for it or against it. They are not going to say, in my opinion, well, hm, they're putting a $15 million price on this. Well, if it was 135, I'd vote for it, but not 15. They're not going to say 20 million. No. If it was 18 and a half, I'd go for it, but not 20. That's not how they're going to make that decision. And they're not even going to, most of them even know about these discussions. They don't come to the meetings. They don't watch the meetings. They're going to look at the price.

price may not even be a factor in their decision. It only might be, oh, do I want a new animal shelter or not? Oh, do I want these roads fixed or not? Oh, do I want the parks improved? I don't have any kids. I'm not saying that about myself. I'm saying potential voter. I don't want the parks improved. I don't care about them. So you see, these are the things that people think of when they're going to vote on a bond. So I think we owe it to everybody to do this correctly. And it's either going to pass or not pass. It won't fail because of the price tag in my opinion.

You think of your third point? Did you think of your third point or not? Okay, we'll come back to you. Uh, one thing I want to remind folks that we've done in the past with bond and we'll do this time. We will have town halls. We will have educational town halls. Not where we're selling this. We're just saying here's the facts. Here's why we need it. Here's why the numbers are. We will have multiples of those. Um, and and staff cannot be a proponent. They cannot say you have to vote. They can say here's the facts. We as council can say you should vote for because of this, this, and this. So, we will have information. We'll, as you mentioned, we will get the information out there. We will work very hard to do that. that once we get this stone then we can get that process going to get the information out there and say this is why we need it. We'll show pictures of our current animal shelter say this is what we're conditions are because you a lot of people have not been there. So we will do that. That's that's on us. That's on the city. That will be a lot of time and effort between now and the election. Back to the point at hand. Paul, you mentioned the number.

Yep. You want to start? I'll start. Go for it. Go up to 15 million. 15. Nikki 12. 12. Valerie 15. I'm 15. Brack 14. 14. Okay. I'm 12. 12. 20. I'm writing these down. Hold on. 1 2 3 4 5 20. Okay. I have 15 12 15 14 12 20. That's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. That's correct. Right. I believe I got that correct. Okay.

That being said, if I if I get data and business and case to say that, hey, we really need this and like I'll set a meeting with Lee and go over it. My number could change. That's that's right now. All I got is a number on here and they're like saying, "Well, you give us a number and we'll build it."

Okay, [snorts] then I'm going to give you the lowest number I can and you will be the best animal shelter. I'm Yeah, I'm not holding you to number two to We won't hold you to this, but this is one to get the information out there and get the the conversation going. So, all right. I think we've beaten this horse pretty good tonight. A lot of good discussion. I appreciate all the data from folks. I think we've got some some action items between now and then. Is there any other information that staff needs to make this work between now and then? Do we have everything we need? Kim, do you have everything you need to get the B bond council going? Okay. All right. So, we're moving on to uh we still have 3C work plan workshop. Gabe,

mayor and council, I'll keep this really quick. So, for those in the crowd listening and as a reminder, the city council establishes priorities for the year through adopting a work plan. This done by resolution uh asking for no action tonight just to be thinking about projects. I sent you all a email um and I'm sure this was the first thing on your mind. Wednesday, December 31st, New Year's Eve at 10:19 a.m. So, I'm sure you um

at your New Year's Eve party were discussing this. I'm not going to, unless you'd like me to go through in much detail the 2025 projects because we've made good progress. I will focus on um I'm just kind of going to kind of roll through the projects that y'all have told me are a priority for uh 26. I'd like to open it up if there's any others we need to add and then the end result is we'll bring this to the council as a resolution to be adopted by y'all and then we report out community garden committee. I think that was um uh the members we solicited recently and were approved like the last meeting or so. We talked about the um cost associated with the relocation of the depot building. I think and I don't need an answer right now but I think everybody was kind of of the opinion to to leave it where it is. Although it does need a substantial amount of uh renovation work, I hope this is my um I'm I may tear up, but I hope we have some clarity.

If I ever see this carports on the agenda again, I will be a happy man. So, hallelujah. Thank you. And I think we've got a great path forward. Thank you all for your action. Uh this was something we just didn't get to. our employee personnel manual update recommended we carry this forward. Um I think we've got Melanie still here. I think we've got some draft policy documents from TML. We're planning on getting together and and that may be one of our first projects we knock out in 26. Can we get some dates or something? Because this is car I'm scratching my head how we didn't get this done last year. U employee personnel manual. I mean, if it needs to be updated, it needs to be updated. Yeah, I agree. Maybe the

it's not something maybe the three iteration of carports or the teen iterations of our bond election. That could be. But I promise you we can knock it out pretty quickly. Okay. So, can we put on there to get it done by end of Q1 or you want like a you want like quarters on all these? Is that what you're saying? Like Q1, Q2, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It it's pretty simple. Uh so this would be a project we didn't move forward with. The mayor touched on this briefly. Staff's role with a bond election is to provide information. We don't advocate. Uh we would hold probably town hall meetings, some site visits, uh put together a mailer, a video, all things we've done in the past, uh assuming the an election is called. So that's going to be carried over.

Should that be bonds and certificates of obligation or just No, absolutely. All um debt. Yeah, capital debt. Yeah, I think that's good. um special events committee. So that's uh transitioned over to Wreck. I was excited to hear about the um Cinco de Mayo um event. Even more excited to hear y'all consider cancelling a meeting. I mean you all have made my evening. Um so is that one? Is it is this done?

This Yeah, it's pretty well complete. Um as we always do, sorry. Uh we rehash we go over our events every year. So I think we'll um we'll review with the committees over the you know improvement for uh the parade. Uh training grain was was good having it back at Willow Creek Park. We'll probably tweak some things and um continue having fun. So, our the former fire station, our friends at MAD, their architect is coming, I think, sometime this week, right?

Uh tomorrow to walk the site again. The hiccup is drainage. So, I think we're close. They've told us they want to uh submit for permits within the next month. So, we're we're close. I want to see dirt moving. I'm not happy till dirt moves. I want pronto. I want dirt like let's say into Q1, I want to see some damn dirt moving. I say I don't understand the drainage problem. We don't have any drainage there. [laughter] That's right. If you'll recall the last meeting, they did change the drive-thru to accommodate the council's desire, which which changed the plan. So, they've been responsive to y'all. We never seen the new one. Yeah, I think they're still working on it. So, so have they signed the agreement yet or are we still waiting on that?

No, it hasn't been executed, but we're waiting. They want to I think the decision point is how much of the building is salvageable based on the drainage. That's where we are. Uh the good news is I believe that this group is well capitalized and funded. They're rocking and rolling with the project in Benbrook and they've also started in North Richmond Hills. Well, that don't make me I'm like the mayor. When are we getting out shovel and throwing dirt? Yeah. [laughter] You can start that tomorrow, can't we? Let's get out there. I got a hard hat and a shovel. Yeah. give you some

some sledgehammers. We can do some demo. So, uh, friend of a parks, this would be a carryover project. My understanding is this was discussed briefly with the parks board. Uh, I think they're interested in the idea, want to hear more. Um, I think this is a good idea and a common function in other cities to have a a nonprofit arm uh that could potentially augment, you know, parks projects. So would recommend we we bring that forward. Uh should we create a nonprofit in the future, that would be an entity separate from the city. So much like our um our 501c3 with the animal shelter, it's separate yet still helps out the the function. Uh this the idea was to have a nonprofit review, do a citywide tree assessment. We didn't make progress on this other than we have planted our our trees that the council member Lawson sort of spearheaded that a few years ago to replant a certain amount of trees each year. Uh there was and this came from council member Lawson desire to to look at offering some sort of incentive or enticement to homeowners to remove or relocate trees that are going to damage our pavement. I think this is wellreceived. tree uh tree roots pop and buckle sidewalk and break up curbs. I think this be a

We also talked about Paul and I and Nick too about um potentially adding it to the ship program. Sure. I think that Yeah. because of the the egret problem maybe a provision in there for people to get a little money back.

No, that'd be timely uh to trim up trees. Um the ship program I we were talking earlier. I don't know why it hasn't really caught on. I don't know if it's a marketing thing or I know we've had a couple projects. So maybe we just need to get some videos or so as I say kind of a carrot carrot stick thing. Some of these neighborhoods who built who's put tons of trees in that easement area and is tearing up the sidewalks. You know, we tell them we're not replacing those sidewalks or if we replace them and you don't solve the root cause problem, which is trees, we'll bill you back the cost. I mean, you know, so we give them something of, hey, we'll help you get rid of the trees, but I just hate to see our citizens money being spent on fixing or replacing sidewalks that in two years are going to be tore up again due to those same trees. Yeah, it's a good point. Barry,

um my reason for putting this on the plan was to actually just have an assessment. We may, you know, this nonprofit knows how many trees is appropriate for this square footage of I mean this area that you have in your city or Sure. And it may be I think it would be good for us to know how do we stand Do we have enough trees, right? Or do we not? And if we find that we don't, maybe we can put in some kind of program to add one or two to the parks every year or something like that. I just wanted to find out what the benchmark

how we are doing with our trees.

Yeah, I I that helps frame it better. I think we can we can get some information. Uh this is something we'll finish uh potentially the next meeting. We did an RFQ for engineering services. We intend to come back and have a presentation. Randy and Jared Kerzy uh Dixa is also going to present about the result of that. Um Trent reminded me that the last time the city engineer contract was um was advertised or revisited, I think it was like 2015. So before my time, we were probably due. We did a similar uh function with our internal auditor a few years ago. It was just time and we can uh there's some some misconceptions I think we can address at that time. You know, does the city engineer have a blank check? No. Um this would also cover our contracting consultants like our city attorney. So a lot of our costs related to our consultants are are driven by activity we can't control. Open records request would be a great example. It takes legal staff time review. When we get development applications, we have to review them. As you're aware, there's a development on the east side. We've had 15 submitts and each time we've reviewed that's cost us money. We can't say no, we're not going to review it. So, um, that being said, I do think our engineering costs minus any bond projects voters would approve, they're going to be on the decline because as less land is available for development, we have less, you know, development related projects. So, we'll fuss and discuss that at a future meeting.

We had talked about that is that a lot of people had a misunderstanding of how that even worked. putting together some uh training videos and stuff and put them out there on the internet. Is that could that be rolled into that?

Yeah, I think so. And I think when we discuss it next time, plus the we've got submittals from engineering firms, there's a group that will be evaluating that. I think it'd be a good time to kind of explain. So, yeah. And also probably timely if we're considering a bond because if that's a misconception you've heard, it's a misconception that's out there or that you know an architect gets a cut or something. No, it's a fixed cost, you know, so timely. Um, this next item is pretty well complete. If you remember a few meetings back, uh, Louisa and Maria presented. I had one update from Louisa. So, um, they were able to negotiate a reduction in the cost to the new system with Tyler Technologies. So, it's about a $3,500 savings each year. And then we hope to implement that or begin implementation about June of 2026, which is a month before the uh contract with the current vendor expires. So, we're making good progress on that. If you remember uh that Maria and Louisa did a very comprehensive evaluation and and um

so so what is there to do with this? We you all going to picked it. Yeah. So the implementation with the new software implementation. That's right. Yeah. I was going to say yeah it's a Tyler technology project and instead of 21,000 which is what we brought to you it's sounds like it's reduced to about 17 a little under 175. There's a onetime cost to implement, but it's always good to to save a little little change. And I think it'll be an improvement. This is to bring I guess bring it before I guess the contract's up in 2026. 2026. So it would come before council and we would then adopt the new Okay.

Are are y'all confident that you can get going in one month on the new software? start. Okay. Yeah. So part of that is they they they have assistance in that transition because we had a meeting with Lisa and remember Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's there's assistance in the transition. So they're going to help us implement that and I think it's I mean I know a month is tight but I think it's possible. Even wellexecuted transitions on systems I'll be impressed.

Hey, when they said it to me, I'm like, "Okay." Project ideas um in addition to the ones we've already discussed, and these came from y'all, uh were to update and standardize welcome or gateway monument signs around the city limits. generally. Um, our economic development plan was adopted in 2016, so we're coming up on 10 years. Probably needs a fresh set of eyes to look at that. Um, Fort Worth recently uh reviewed a a dedicated street maintenance fee, so a monthly fee um for street improvements. This is something that again with the limitations related to uh providing public infrastructure and our limitations with property tax something we we might consider. Not saying we would do it. Um Randy has has explained to you in the past if you'll remember we just we can't we don't have the capacity to staff up and and hire a streets crew. Uh if we had another dedicated funding source, this may be another uh means to keep doing you know general street maintenance work. We didn't mention it in the bond, but any savings we had in bonds, we could also roll to sidewalks, which you'll recall in the past couple years, we've done a lot of good sidewalk work. And in fact, when we do Ultator North here started next month, that's a large reason why that project bumped to the top. It's going to have a sidewalk so kids can uh cross safely going to the new Wayside School. Um, next project hotel uh market feasibility study to recruit a hotel that's better in quality than our existing hotels. Um, recreation aquatic center um looking at program offerings and updating fees as applicable. So, my understanding is we

have a little bit of an issue with low deposit fees. uh it doesn't necessarily discourage people from uh they basically block it and so we may look at upping our deposit fees so that people follow through uh because otherwise we're sort of hurting ourselves with with rentable space. um reuse and and renovation the depot. Um the good news there is that we can use hotel occupancy tax for that purpose. So long that it's used for certain purposes like a visitor um

visitor center. Yeah. Tourism or a convention center. I don't think we'd have a convention center. I had one other project idea would and we've done this in the past successfully as far as targeted code enforcement to address our hotels. Every few years we seem to need to remind them to keep them up to code. Um a few years ago, maybe three years ago, we we talked about a nuisance abatement based on criminal activity. We didn't quite meet the threshold I think because it was related to uh prostitution related arrests which we we didn't meet that requirement. Uh but there is a lot of unfortunately criminal activity in some of the existing hotels. So you know that's something we can take a look at

and that that was my idea and I brought it in late and I apologize late but if people ask me how is crime in Sagon I say it's very good except I can tell you where it happens and I want to see what we can do to eliminate that. reduce it a little. I know, I know I'm asking a lot and there's [clears throat] legal questions involved. That's why I'm not going to get too many details, but I want us to at least look at that and see what our options are.

So, from the nuisance side of things, we don't meet the requirement for it. And it's more drug manufacturing, prostitution, illegal gambling, and we catch a lot of folks out of there with warrants, felony warrants, stolen vehicles. those don't qualify under the nuisance requirements to to put a address under notice or take any legal action on them through the courts. It's uh so we spend an awful lot of time at three or four locations here on the outskirts of town that drive a lot of arrest. Unfortunately, it doesn't meet that nuisance requirement, but we do make a lot of arrest. In those arrests, we do seize considerable amount of narcotics, but again, it's not a distribution. It's user level. So, it doesn't qualify under that nuisance level to take the legal action through the courts to get properties closed down or force some other kind of action.

I appreciate it. I And we may want to bring Bren in as well. I don't want to get too details, but I'm to the point where I'm I'm want some other options, see what we can do if if necessary, shut them shut these folks down if they don't clean their act up. I'm I'm embarrassed to have that in our city. I would never tell a friend to stay in one of those places. No. And that's so if I if I'm not confident then why do we have it here? Why are we allowing that to happen? So I don't have answers for that but that's my question. What can we do? So

So I know I I we've had a problem with gambling [clears throat] on right on the skirts. you know, those little gambling machines. And I know this that finally got its way through court. And I just I guess about eight, nine months ago, I seen where it came out where they said that that would be now cities would be able to basically rule those get rid of those. So, it it really depends on how the device is operated. If it's uh toys and trinkets, things of that nature, it doesn't qualify. There has to be monetary value to it. more than what your play level is. So you put in a quarter, it can't be worth more than a quarter typically.

When you get into even the claw machines that have the stuffed animals, I mean, by technicality under law, that could qualify as a gambling device because your prize is bigger than what your investment is. Not anything the DA is going to be willing to take. That's that's considered a game. Um, but what we've run into in the past is you start seizing machines or things of that nature, the cost for storage until time of trial far outweighs any benefit that you get. So, we handle that through citations uh when we can prove up the the cases [clears throat] on that. But the majority of gaming machines that you might find here in town at service stations and things of that nature, they don't offer any kind of monetary value to the prize that comes out of it. So, you may get a voucher for something and that's that's classified a little differently under the law if it's a voucher versus an actual prize. So, a lot of coupons come out of them. I'm sure that if you are a habitual user and they know who you are, things might change a little bit. But when we're in, you know, they're not given any kind of awards or prizes that would violate the gambling statutes. Uh so I don't have any don't have anything further. That's the project list. Again, the goal would be to uh have at the next meeting or or maybe our following council meeting an adopted resolution with the projects and then we'll get to work. So if there's Yeah.

No. Okay. Um so we had talked before that um you know perhaps that that this needs to have a little bit more detail. Sure. So I would I would definitely like to see a little bit more detail and specifically to to Councilman Lawson's point dates. Sure. You know and and keep in mind that those dates I I see this as kind of like goals. Right. Right. Um so they you know we need to make them specific but they need to be achievable. Um, and of course if you need to move them or whatever, but but um I don't feel like

I get enough updates on these. Um, so it just kind of concerns me. I I know I wrote down three carryovers from last year. There was one that um I think that we had I didn't hear it mentioned and maybe it was something that was already canceled, but the the lighting project um decorative lighting project. Yeah, that that was bust that well it was pretty well finished. The way we we left that is when the uh water tower on Jarvis when we paint that again we would include lighting as part of the project. So it's essentially finished. Okay. Yeah. And the way we report is uh is basically monthly. Now these projects aren't necessarily linear. You know it doesn't go from

10% to 15%. Sometimes it's nothing and then you know action or we knock one one out pretty quickly. Yeah. What we had talked about before is you sending out basically once a month in your weekly report giving us an update on it and then report to council quarterly. Sure. And we've been a little laxed on that so if we can get back on track that would be great. Yeah. Happy to do that. Yeah. For Gabe.

And then I had mentioned to you and you we had talked about that you thought maybe it might be something to look into the um cyber security audit risk assessment. Um, and potentially I think when I was reading through the contract with uh I works that there's something in there where once a year they may they may look at that. Um, so just just research that and then you know I'd like to see more info about that because I know we've been attacked before. Yeah, we have. So I want to make sure that we're doing everything that we can to you know mitigate vulnerabilities and reduce those if we can and you know secure our our citizens data. Uh, it's a good one. We can add that.

Well, I know they're sending out uh emails because I got one the other day and I sent it to Craig as a fishing thing and he sent back and told me it was from the uh company checking to see if I would click Oh, seriously? Really? Oh, that's sneaky. Yeah. Yeah. And we we have a service dark trace, so they're, you know, assessing um threats and I think we could get our consultant out to present, but Oh, that's good. It's It's probably time to take a look at it. That's a good addition.

All right. And I'll mention that people have gotten from before emails from somebody pertaining to me me asking for a gift card. I will never ever send you that email ever. I will never ask you for money. I ask for money. I will call you and ask you. I'll show up at your door, but I will never send you an email asking that. So, please, if that comes, it is not for me. I have to say, I got one of those that was informing me that my student loans were past. Okay. Shame on you, Mary. [laughter] All right. Anything else for Gabe? All right. We don't have an executive session. So, at or I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. I make a motion we adjourn. Bra second. Valerie. Second.

Let me know what you think. I will. I've got some fresh bags I made yesterday. Fresh bag. Okay. At 9:56 we are journed. Thank y'all.