City Council - Regular Meeting

Prayer and pledges. And Chaplain Moore, why don't you come up and lead for us, please?

Please join me in our pledges. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee. Texas, one state, one. Please join me in prayer. Praise the Lord. Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised. Lord Jesus, we come before you this morning with praise on our lips. You are the good shepherd. You invite us to partner with you in your good works. Today we lift up to you our city, both our citizens and our leaders. We lift up this meeting and ask for your wisdom and guidance that we may reflect your light as we discuss the business of this community. Please fill us with the fruit of your spirit so that we may discern your will and walk in your way. We lift up those who tirelessly serve this community, our elected leaders, first responders, law enforcement officers, firefighters, health care workers, educators, public servants, and volunteers. We ask for your strength and protection. Thank you, Jesus, that you call us beloved. Thank you that you invite us to walk with you. We give you this day and this meeting. We pray these things in your name, Jesus. Amen.

All right, with no proclamations... This morning we'll go ahead and move into public comment. Members of the public may raise issues or concerns not listed on the regular agenda during this time. To participate, please sign in with the city clerk prior to the beginning of the meeting. Speakers will be called in the order they are signed in. When speaking, citizens must speak from the podium, address all comments to the dais, begin by stating your name, your address, or your single member district number, and limit your remarks to three minutes or less. Heather, let's start.

Okay.

Ginger Moore.

Ginger.

Ginger.

Good morning, all of you on the City Council. I have been busy listening to the two-hour economic development meeting last Wednesday, and then I attended the planning committee yesterday. The economic development, they had a Fort Worth consultant that was in there giving ideas on the 7,700 potential acreage for the business area, which is potentially one-third of San Angelo's area. So I had issues with that, but I also was positive on the playground that they wanted to redo, the Kids Kingdom, and I was also positive on the area for the exterior going into Mexico. The bridge will be open in a year or so, so the railway was a good project, I thought. But the other had issues with the amount of water it was going to use, the potential for another data center. We already are having controversy on one, so I don't know what we do on two. We also have controversy on the amount of water, the sewage. It is connected or right next to part of our Contra River. I do know that the new highway, the interstate is going to come by there. I do know that they want businesses, and some of the businesses I didn't have a problem with, the small businesses, but the large businesses are going to take in a huge amount of water. The Fort Worth gentleman contractor did state that they would have bicycle paths. Now, I was in a couple cities with those, and I almost hit them with my GMC truck. This is ridiculous. We do not need this for St. Angelo. We do not want to be Abilene. We do not want to be Fort Worth. We want to be St. Angelo, our nice West Texas center with the rodeo, which we're going to talk about today. And I think that we will grow. in a different way from some of those larger cities. Now, do we need the money? Absolutely. But how we get that money is another issue. I think you need to go to the people. I think the people know about this project. And if they don't, then they need to learn about it. Because if you don't stay informed, The planning committee I also had an issue with because they have a project for housing, for 40 houses and their duplexes. So that's 80 people coming out one gate onto Chadburn right in front of the base. And at 7.30 and 4.30, that's going to be a mess. And then if they want to turn left, they have to go through two lanes of traffic to turn left. So I asked them no, and they voted yes. But it was only two members of our city council have to vote no.

Thank you, Ms. Ginger. Next.

Allie Devereaux.

Allie, there you are.

Good morning, Allie Devereaux, 4224 City Farm Road. I recently saw Westwood Consulting's presentation to the Development Corporation regarding the $350 million master plan for the industrial park. This plan would involve rezoning about 6,000 acres from ranch and rural estate into industrial mega parcels that would accommodate, guess what? More data centers. It's mind-boggling to me that the city continues to barrel full steam ahead, moving this community in a direction that the public clearly does not support. And now the planning has escalated to approving plans for developing an industrial park with a total area almost a quarter of the size of the entire city. That land was acquired with public funds. The people are not just debt slaves to some municipal corporation. You work for us. You represent us, not the tech pros, and you need to start letting us take part in this conversation. Our natural resources are the foundation of the public good. We need to put stewardship of these resources, our land, our water, our air, before speculative development schemes. Fortunately, about a thousand of those acres of the city land was deemed by Westwood as slightly inaccessible and it was put on the back burner for future development. And I'm here today to implore you to begin creating a plan that would transition the Red Creek portion of the city farm, which is the section of the land closest to the Concho River, into a conservation easement that would restore the hydrology of that portion of land from its current decrepit state and transition it to becoming a watershed protection and ecological restoration project. We should be doing this no matter what comes, but it would be even more important if we cover 6,000 acres of land in massive impervious structures. Across the state of Texas, water quality protection programs by cities protect hundreds of thousands of acres for the sole purpose of supporting water quality and resiliency in the watersheds that their water supplies come from. They absorb rainfall, help alleviate flooding, and prolong inflows to area creeks, rivers, and lakes, and help preserve biodiversity and hydraulic functions which are compromised by large-scale development. This land the city owns has been mismanaged for so many years that there is catastrophic erosion up and down several miles of the Concho River. I'm more familiar with this property than anyone in this room, and I have a lot more to share about this, and I hope this can be the beginning of a productive conversation. I would ask you to please pause all of this, the 380 with Skybox, the Industrial Park Master Plan, until we find out where we stand after the next legislative session and the Texas Senate has a chance to examine the water and energy demands and the air quality concerns associated with these large load facilities. Thanks. Thank you, Alec.

Rachel Reeland.

Rachel. Rachel.

Good morning, my name is Rachel Roland, District 4. I grew up in San Angelo, Texas. I left in 2013 and I just moved back this summer after spending the last 13 years living around DFW. One of the reasons I originally left San Angelo was because I was looking for resources in a community that supported recovery, rebuilding your life, and at the time I really struggled to find that here in San Angelo. Living in DFW gave me a very different perspective. I saw communities that weren't necessarily wealthier or more economically developed than San Angelo, but that actually invested in resources for the people who live there. I got to see firsthand what happens when people are given opportunities, support, and places to belong. Communities thrive when we invest in the people who already call them home. I truly believe that if I hadn't left San Angelo, I wouldn't be standing here today with almost 15 years of sobriety. And more importantly, I wouldn't have almost 15 years of actual recovery. because there is a difference. I was able to build a life because I found communities that had the resources and support to help people do that. That's part of why I care so much about what is happening in San Angelo right now. When I moved back, I went to the city's website because I wanted to catch up on what had changed while I was gone and what was coming next. I thought that would give me a pretty good picture of what was happening in my hometown. Instead, the more I learned, the more questions I had. I started looking at meeting documents, permits, public records, and outside reporting, and suddenly the projects I thought I understood from the information being presented by the city looked a whole lot bigger and more complicated. That's what has been so disappointing to me. I shouldn't have had to dig this hard to understand what is happening in my own community. I don't expect every resident to agree about data centers, economic development, water use infrastructure, or what growth should look like, but I do think residents deserve enough information to make those decisions for themselves. Residents shouldn't have to become amateur investigators to understand that projects affect our water, infrastructure, environment, economy, and quality of life for decades. Transparency isn't just technically making information public somewhere. Transparency means giving people enough information in plain language early enough that they can actually understand what is being proposed and participate before the important decisions have already been made. I came back to San Angelo because this is home. I don't want San Angelo to stop growing, and I'm not against bringing opportunity here. I want us to grow intelligently. I want to see the same energy we put into attracting billion-dollar developments put into the people who already live here, our neighborhoods, parks, recovery resources, infrastructure, young people, families, and parts of the community that have needed this investment for years. Economic development should improve the community around it, not simply make the numbers on an economic development report look better. And if these projects truly are good for San Angelo, transparency shouldn't threaten them. It should strengthen the public's confidence in them. I'm asking this council to give residents the whole picture, not just the easiest parts to sell. Tell us what we want to know, tell us what we don't know yet, and tell us what changed. And when a project changes substantially, come back and explain that too.

Thank you.

China Young.

Good morning, Mayor and Council, China Young, a resident SMD4. I am here today to follow up on the moratorium ordinance that I presented to you all on May 19th. The request was for it to be placed on the agenda for or to be amended through a collaborative process with members of the community. We have yet to see any action on this proposal. Since May, the City Council of San Marcos chose to adopt a moratorium on data centers, leading the way for San Angelo to do the same. So the coalition has taken some additional time to make adjustments to the previous moratorium to ensure that it is not in conflict with current city or state laws or ordinances. The new version of the moratorium is what you currently have in front of you. You will also have received a digital version in your inboxes this morning, along with a digital copy of the moratorium petitions. Between both the online and in-person petitions, there are a total of 4,550 signatures, with 3,627 approximately of those identifying themselves as San Angelo residents or residents of the surrounding ETJ. So, I ask you again, not just on behalf of myself, not on behalf of the San Angelo Citizen Coalition, but on behalf of the 3,628 citizens of San Angelo who took the time to sign the petition to please review this updated moratorium and consider the following pathways forward. One is to add the moratorium to a future agenda, allowing the council to vote on its adoption, just like San Marcos, and pause data center development locally for 90 days with an option for a 90-day extension. This would allow time for the state legislature to address the concerns of Texans all over the state, while also alleviating this council of the immediate weight of this issue. Another option, and one I believe gives every citizen, regardless of whether they support or oppose data center development, the opportunity to have their voice heard, is to put this moratorium on the November third ballot for citizens to vote for or against. The council does have the authority to take either of these paths. If the council chooses not to take either by November, but instead chooses to once again set aside the moratorium and not allow citizens to actually vote on it, which they have all been calling for, then the coalition is prepared to file another petition and pursue a special election on the moratorium. I sincerely hope you will consider using your authority to act in good faith, for the citizens of this community and either adopt the moratorium or put it on the November 3rd ballot for the citizens to decide. I really appreciate your time and thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, China.

Liz Landers.

Good morning, I'm Liz Landers and I bet you all know where I live. 1111 Kenwood Drive, come look. I can't sit on my front porch anymore because of the dust. Anyway, I just, you haven't seen me lately, but it's because I'm in the process of losing my mother. So just because I'm not here does not mean that I am not representing the people who have asked me to speak to you repeatedly on this. And it's your friends and neighbors. It's people you know. It's your voters. I have to tell you, you guys really need to listen. None of us want to do what we're doing. I have other issues that I'd much rather be working on right now. So would my group. But we are not being given a choice because we feel like we are having to protect our neighborhood. Our city, our county, we pray for you guys. We have a team of chaplains that pray for you guys every day. And we are praying that you will do the right thing. Because I think you know what it is. You know what your people want. There is no question about how this county and this city feel about this. I hope that you will participate in what China has brought forward. And as you know, this is not an alliance that you will see very often. But we feel very strongly, and I do speak for a lot of people, particularly women, and we vote, and we will continue to vote. We are the ones that work hard to get you in office, and we expect you to do what's best for our community, and you know what that is. Thank you.

Thank you, Liv. Number six.

No more.

That completes public comment. Now we'll move into the consent agenda. And I'll start down here with you, Mr. Hebert, this time. Do you have anything you'd like to pull?

Nothing to pull. Joe?

Nothing.

Patrick? Nothing. Karen? Nothing. Mary? With nothing to pull, we'll look for a motion.

So moved.

Look for a motion to approve all there. I have a motion from Harry. Do I get a second?

Second. Second from Harry and a second from Joe Self.

Any public comment on anything? All right, no public comment on the consent agenda. We'll look for a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All the consent agenda passes 7-0. Now we'll flip over to the regular agenda. Comments regarding items on the regular agenda may be made by the public when each item is discussed as outlined above. To participate, please sign in with the city clerk prior to the beginning of the meeting. Speakers will be called in the order they signed in. Comments are limited to three minutes or less than three minutes. Applicants, proponents, and appellants are exempt from the time limit above. and instead must limit the remarks to less than five minutes. A, presentation and discussion of a feasibility study for an indoor sports complex. Presentation made by Chamber of Commerce President Steve Helanus and Synergy Sports CEO Jason Boudre.

Steve, you're on. Mr. Mayor, if I may, I'd like to open up this discussion. I want to remind the council that today we're not asking for direction, vote, anything of that nature as it relates to this study. My understanding is that this study was in motion for some time to look at the feasibility of a sports complex. One thing to keep in mind, and we do have another meeting following this, we have a budget discussion related to our general fund. The city has several needs specifically related to infrastructure, public safety needs, and so those will have to be weighed with any type of study that takes place. But I did also want to share that one of our sister cities, the city of Odessa, has started the construction of a sports complex similar to this nature. They've had to use several funding mechanisms from hotel-motel tax to certificates of obligation to be able to fund a venture like this. A lot of discussion would have to take place on a complex of this nature. And so, again, this is just an initial discussion. We're not seeking direction today. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Steve for the next steps.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Steve Elaine is President and CEO of the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce. This was a project that the board of directors identified as one of its top three initiatives that they wanted to see happen in the community. And so it's been something that we've been working on for the last 15 months or so. We use funding to pay for the study, which Jason is going to present this in just a minute. But I want you to recognize that you've got to make those type of investments to generate new revenue for a community. And just on a typical year, if this facility would be built, you would see over $14.5 million in direct spending. You'd see $143,000 in new sales tax for a year. You'd see $1 million in hotel occupancy tax. you'd see over 330,000 potential visitors coming to the community. And then what we've seen is because of all the conversations that have been happening in the community, we have three hotel investors that are currently looking at San Angelo as possible investments. So they're interested in seeing what happens and the type of decisions that we all make to bring this community forward. So with that, I'm going to have Jason Boudry come up and make his presentation. He'll be available to answer some questions as he goes through it. I told him to try to keep it to 15 minutes.

Thank you, Steve, Mayor, City Council. Glad to be here with you all today. My name is Jason Boudry. I own Synergy Sports. We work with municipalities all over the country. Like Steve said, we've been working on this for the better part of a year or more. And as the city manager stated, this is just information. Our goal is we are an advisor to the chamber, to the city, to provide you guys the best information possible to make the best decisions for your community. And so we'll go through this fairly quickly. You have all of this in your information packets. There is background, a larger report that I'm happy to discuss with any of y'all separately. And so, kind of executive summary, bottom line on top, our task as we were contracted by the Chamber was to assess the overall feasibility and viability of various sports assets, as we call them. Diamond fields, flat fields for soccer, indoor facilities. And so we came in with no preconceived notions. And so we looked at everything from socioeconomics, demographics, opportunities, other competitors in the region. Again, city manager mentioned this project in Odessa, which we also consulted on with their city. And so we have a lot of good working knowledge on that. And it did factor into some of our recommendations. And so that being said, what you're seeing on your screen now is kind of the high level opportunity that San Angelo has before it if it chooses to eventually move forward. Steve cited a lot of these numbers already. And so we'll kind of move through this fairly quickly just to get through this. And so like I mentioned, we looked at a lot of the data drivers We are very focused on data and analytics. We have dozens, if not hundreds of these facilities operating around the country through various partners. And so we're able to get real accurate data on operations, spending dollars, that sort of thing to inform our decisions. And so there is sufficient demographics in the region. We look at three circles, if you will. We look at the local population, right? Because at the end of the day, we strive to build or recommend facilities that are going to give local kids and local families better places to play. And so the bulk of the use during the week is going to be by the local population. And so they have certain characteristics. And there is sufficient population in the local region to support an indoor sports facility. We looked at what we call the sub-regional market, which is about two hours away. And that's where you're going to reliably pull from on a consistent basis. If you understand and recognize distances, two hours is about exactly what it takes to get to Odessa. They would be a major competitor. Their facility is very, very big. It is at about $130 million right now, and it sits on about 100 acres of land. Where the opportunity lies for San Angelo is to the east. You know, coming from DFW, you have to go through San Angelo to get to Midland. And so, as a halfway point, if you will, a facility in San Angelo would be able to capitalize on those regional demographics. The last circle we look at is the regional and super-regional, which is about five hours. And so the folks that are going to come from the five-hour radius are going to come the least frequently, but they're going to contribute the most to your economic impact, right? If you're at two hours away and your kid is playing basketball in a basketball tournament or a volleyball tournament, you might go home the same day, but if you're coming from five hours, four hours away, you're not, right? You're staying for a couple nights. The other thing that the local market has is there is a lot of things currently in San Angelo that enhances the visitor experience. You've got Smashers. I stayed right next to there when I stayed here. It was buzzing on a Monday night, right? It's great. And so things like that complement a sports tourism kind of asset. And so there's multiple of those kinds of things in San Angelo that are attractive to out of market visitors. Again, real quickly through this, any number that's over 100 on this scale means that there is increased demand or higher than average demand for that particular sport. And so when you look at some of your traditional indoor sports, gymnastics, basketball, volleyball, you're looking at a demand for those sports that is well supported by an indoor type of facility. And to be clear, we looked at flat field facility. We looked at diamond facilities. But when you look at the acreage that's required for those things to be truly tournament capable, It's a barrier that is pretty tough to overcome, right? There's not a good amount of land. There's not the real need for diamonds, especially in Texas. And so complimentary flat fields could be considered, but the indoor piece is really where the most opportunity lies. And so we looked at some of those other competitors in the region, and then what makes the difference between what we call an anchor facility and a tournament-friendly facility. Obviously, a size. Things that are considered anchor facilities are those facilities that are going to draw from beyond two hours. You could certainly develop something smaller, less cost. draws less people, has less economic impact, and it goes kind of down from there. And so the recommended concept is, again, at a high level, around 100,000 square feet, 8 to 10 basketball courts, which could convert to 16 volleyball courts. It could also be converted to wrestling mats and gymnastics floors and cheer floors and all sorts of indoor types of event space. Championship court, support spaces like batting cages and sports medicine and a cafe or a concession stand. And then some sort of adventure amenities. Again, with the proximity to Smashers, you've got that as an amenity. But things like indoor playgrounds and things for little brother, little sister to do while older brother, older sister is competing in something. And like I mentioned here at the bottom, diamond fields aren't recommended. There is existing local capacity. And there is some modest flat field opportunities, but not one that we would look at on the site. And so we did develop a conceptual site plan. I think most of y'all probably know this piece of land. It is city-owned land. Again, very high level indoor facility, a playground, sufficient parking, ingress, egress. Is this the final site plan if council decides to move forward? No. It shows that everything that is feasible can fit, but there is a lot of work to do between now and eventually moving this into construction. Again, hypothetical, conceptual floor plan, right, just to give a visual to council members, the public, of when we talk about 100,000 or 125,000 square feet, what does that actually look like? This is a 10-quart concept floor plan. It's got some of those amenities that we talked about, medical space or physical therapy space, fitness, a cafe, some family entertainment. Is this the final floor plan? No, it's not. We're not concerned with does the door swing left or right right now. We're just trying to put some visual context to a bunch of words. With these indoor facilities, there is the ability to design these to be inclusive, right, for youth and families in the community that have special needs, certain other types of needs that you're going to find interest from the regional community as well, right? And so things like sensory rooms and focusing on adaptive play and that sort of thing is generally absent from these types of facilities and even recreational facilities in the community. We created a full financial model and through the right size design and a national operator being able to program this facility, we do feel like there is the opportunity for this to be essentially break even year one and then beyond year one have the ability to support its own operating expenses and return dollars to the community. Economic impact, we touched on that some already. There is significant economic impact with these youth and amateur sports facilities. We found out during COVID that youth sports was one of the most resilient tourism drivers there is, and parents will spend money on their kids. So they spend money to travel, to stay, to eat, and to do things while they're there. So really then, the question that we get a lot from community partners is, that's fine, how do we pay for it? And so we've estimated the cost of this project to be around $40 million. And so there are a number of ways, both on the capital side and on the ongoing financial requirement side, that the city has at its disposal to bridge the gap between a great idea and a fully functioning project. complex. Right, and so there, on your screen, there are a number of options, right? Public-private partnerships is a tool that a lot of communities use to develop these types of projects. Essentially, it is a private entity would come in with the capital. They would essentially finance the development of the complex, transact it through a lease purchase agreement back to the community, and it would be absorbed into daily operating expenses. We'll be right back. There is a master lease model. There's a truly developer-funded model, which is not unlike you would see with other infrastructure types of projects, creating TIF districts or TERS districts. You could certainly go out to bond. Generally, it's not a very attractive proposition. And then there is internal funding. If you happen to have $40 million in the couch cushions, you could certainly do that as well. Generally, the public-private partnership is the recommended model to develop these. It reduces or eliminates the upfront capital requirement by the city. It shifts construction risk, finance risk, and delivery risk to the private-side developer. It is subject to annual appropriations, and so ongoing operation subsidies can be mitigated, risk can be mitigated by the city. And so that's on the capital side. There is a Texas statute that governs this process. This is kind of an overarching view of some of those. Again, if this were to move forward, legal counsel, bond counsel would be involved in structuring exactly how this would be set up. But there are those tools, and there is that statute in place that governs this. And so then we go into, okay, so what other tools do we have to provide for ongoing subsidies, ongoing capital, ongoing revenue? Hot revenue, again, which is a tool that Odessa used that Steve and I have talked about at length. The generation by this sports complex of hot revenue can be a significant revenue source that can be redirected back into the project. to overcome any early-year shortfalls in revenue. Type A, Type B, EDC, right, that's a voter approved measure. You've got the ability to create TERS or tax increment zones, public improvement districts, you've got Chapter 380 at your disposal, and you've got the ability to create venue tax. And so we're not necessarily saying you have to do all of those or none of those. Those are tools at your disposal. In options in lieu of a lease purchase agreement or a public-private partnership, again, you could look at GO bonds. You could look at certificates of obligation. Again, that's a tool that Odessa used. Revenue bonds, naming rights, sponsorships, which we've already factored in. There are some grants available. And then municipal management districts. And so when we look at these sorts of tools, especially when it comes to things like grants, one thing to keep in mind is those are fairly long in process. And so you run into the issue of things don't get cheaper with time. And so if you're trying to accumulate grants and philanthropy and private donors and that sort of thing, it starts to drag on months, years. And so now your $40 million project is $50 million. And now your $50 million project is $60 million. And so there is a pathway, again, through one of these other methods, a public-private partnership or a master lease agreement, where the funding can be provided up front, and then some of these other tools can be working in the background to offset and to pay down that debt as those grants come in, as those naming rights come in. And so you're able to take advantage of a lower-cost initial project and then be able to pay down that cost over time. with ways other than general revenue from the facility. Again, looking at subsidies, we can create reserve funds. We've got the ability to reallocate hot revenue. Municipal backstopping is an option, and you're able to limit the city's risk on that municipal backstop because you have these other tools available. I'm not going to read through all these. You can look at it. And this is just a table that shows which of these options would require voter approval, which would not. And so kind of closing this out, our recommendations and our next steps, again, we do recommend this public-private partnership for the reasons I already mentioned. with the ability to layer on some of these funding tools to reduce the municipal capital that's required, look at experienced operators, and then cap the city's exposure to ongoing funding requirements through these defined subsidy payments. In terms of next steps, like city manager and Steve both said, we're not looking for a vote on anything. This is informational only. you know, boots on the ground next steps. If there is consensus by council that, yes, we'd like to hear more, we'd like more information, we would continue working with the chamber to come back to council a month from now, two months from now, with a detailed construction cost estimate rather than a more ambiguous $40 million estimate. concept, detailed cost estimate, detailed finance proposal, guidance from legal counsel on next steps, and really kind of all of the pieces for city council to then make a decision on do we want to move forward with this process or not. And so with that I'll answer any questions. It is recommended again from a viability and feasibility perspective. Obviously there's a lot of other things going on in the city that has to be weighed, but from a straight data perspective, the data supports developing this type of facility. So thank you for that. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Jason, first thing, thank you very much. Steve, thank you for him. We delayed you several months before you actually got to come up and do the presentation because of timing, but we appreciate your patience in that, and that's why you're here this morning. We will start out with. Everybody loves to see these things in their hometown. I can't tell you how many of my friends that I watch pack their kids up every weekend and go to Midland, Odessa, Abilene. They leave town and go other places. I myself participated in a 4-H program with my kids. You get on a circuit, and you may not be home every weekend, but there's a circuit in which you go to, and what's important is your town, your chamber, your DMO works on making sure your city becomes part of that rotational circuit for all these different groups. We get that. There's some things here, and I'm glad you talked that you would come back in time, but the attendance on these, so these are all numbers that you generated yourself, correct, Jason? Yes. Like the attendance, hotel room. I remember looking at some of the sponsorships. You had some, I would say, pretty lofty goals for sponsorship revenue, and with a little institutional knowledge just from San Angelo, I thought some of those were very, very important. Strong goals, I'll just put it that way, to come in and pay for revenue. We have a very, very benevolent commercial group that has strongly supported our nonprofits throughout here. I think when we do San Angelo gives, we have over 700 nonprofits listed. So there's a lot of hands reaching out trying to pull on revenue. The private-public partnership is what interests us here, and I'm fixing to turn it over to council, but I will say this is something we're not saying no, but I will lead off with this and say it might be a not now. We've got to look at how you finance things, and what you just said was looking at optional ways to finance was something we'd be interested in. My concern is heading into, and if you were staying for two hours today and watching the rest of the budget, you would see a lot of the shortfalls we have. is how we get through this and we realize there's points in time that we have to make sacrifices so we will be better for our constituents and our children and our friends for the next 5, 10, 20, 30 years. So with that, there's some things there that I'll Talking about the name and rights, the number of hotel rooms you have listed that come in that are self-generated projections. I'd love for our DMO and our guys to come back in and validate some of those things, Jason, just so people understand we're taking at least two or three different opinions on that. I thank you for coming here today, but let's open it up to the dais and let's roll through some of the questions. At the end of it, I encourage you, if there's some questions we didn't ask that we should have, please bring those forward. I'll start down the area. Tommy? Sure.

To your point, Mayor, and Mr. Boudry talked about it in his presentation as well. For me, this is not the right time for San Angelo. Your point, Mayor, what we're facing with budget this year and likely next year, the timing on this for me is not right. If the rest of the council wants more information, that's their prerogative. But for me, I have all I need right now and am ready to move on. Joe?

I think it's something that San Angelo could utilize because I had a daughter that played soccer as well as volleyball. We went up and down the road quite a bit to different towns, and we all talked about how we could use one of these in San Angelo. So I think it would be a good thing for San Angelo, but at the time kind of agree with. the mayor and Mr. Hebert, that we just have to look and make sure it's the right decision at the right time. So further study would need to be done to make sure of that. But it is something we need and would be beneficial to the town.

Harry?

Always in favor of public-private partnerships. That's the only way this city is ever going to move forward because we don't have enough money. We don't have enough sales tax. We don't have enough money coming in from property tax. And next year, that's probably going to be less than it has been this year. So public-private partnerships, the only way this type of facility is ever going to be able to get built. I'm not sure that it's going to happen in my council lifetime, but I'm interested in seeing it go forward sometime. Probably not this fall, though.

Philip, welcome to the team.

Well, Mayor, I appreciate the opportunity to chime in on this. Again, I think as it's been said up here, this is definitely something that would be a benefit to the community, but I think we do have to weigh the budget impacts that are going to take place, and I'd like to have that conversation at the next meeting that we have. Now, if it is the council's wish, we can have further conversations with the chamber as well as the consultant here. to be able to vet some of the numbers that are out there as it relates to potential hotel visits, sales tax that are associated with this. And we can come back at a future meeting and present upon that. And again, that would be a meeting for more of information for council to make an ultimate determination of where we're going. I feel as staff, that's our obligation to make sure that the council has all the information they need to make the best decision they can. And so we can definitely work together and flush some more of this information out.

I think where I'm going with this, Phillip, is with your experience with Garland and Odessa, have you seen what these type of facilities do for your economic impact in those areas?

Sure. So I will tell you that the facility was being constructed as I departed. Odessa was part of the land that was being donated for that. Now, if you look at the Metroplex, you look at areas like the city of Frisco, Plano, they have large soccer complexes. They have indoor basketball, volleyball, anything that you can think of as it relates to sports. And they are economic drivers. You see the areas around them that do bring in new restaurants, new hotels. But the cities do also have a lot of funding in their back pocket that they're able to contribute towards this. So there's a lot of mechanisms that have to be utilized to make this happen.

I'm with you. All right. Thank you. Patrick?

Good morning. Thanks for making the trip down. Quick question on your data. Did you look at other cities that have had these for a few years and kind of extrapolate that?

Yeah. By definition, we're a consulting firm. So we don't operate these facilities. We don't build them. But we have relationships with a lot of operators who are operating a lot of facilities. And so we take those from a national scale and the regional scale using their numbers as far as number of tournaments, number of kids, number of spectators to come up with an appropriate metric for this region.

Do you have one or two? preferably in Texas, if not in our geographical region, that we can kind of look at on our own research and kind of see what they've done in the city.

Sure, I can provide that to you guys and provide you links and contact information.

That's what I'd kind of like to see. And then I know you talked about your funding resources and And Bonds was mentioned on one of them. And you said sometimes it's not very popular. But we've got one already on the agenda that did pass, the Citizens Pass. So I don't think that's out of the question. And it's for roughly the same amount. And being a sports guy, I think it would probably be as busy, if not busier, than the one we're putting it for. So I think this city would probably actually support it. Time will tell. But thank you.

Yep, absolutely. Thank you.

Karen? Thank you for being with us today. I can't really add much to the conversation that hasn't already been said. However, I will contribute that about two years ago, I think a very persistent and interested group of private citizens started asking us about the possibility of a project like this. And so I'm sure that that group will be gratified to see that there is now substantial information for them to review and consider. And they indeed express an interest in being part of a potential public-private partnership. Perfect.

Thank you, Jason, for being here. Hang with us, okay? It might not be this year, but don't go away. About how many employees would a center like this contain?

So your FTEs are probably in the 20s. depending on the final size of this. Contracted services or what we call occasional services is probably another 50 or 60. So and again, not getting too far down this rabbit hole, but how much is the private side going to do? How much is the city going to do? But things like parking, things like, you know, taking tickets, that's not a full-time employee. But, you know, changing the toilet paper and mopping the floors, that's a full-time employee. Typically the way that these facilities are run, by having an outside management group doing it, That group owns the employees, quote unquote. Most of the time, cities, communities, parks and rec, they don't necessarily want to staff up by 20 or 30 more people to manage the daily operations of these. So they prefer to just push that off to the private side. The private side is really good at operating these facilities. THEY WOULD HIRE LOCALLY FOR THE PERSON THAT OPENS THE DOOR AT 5 AM AND THINGS LIKE THAT. BUT THAT OUTSIDE GROUP ALSO WORKS WITH THE CHAMBER, THE DMO, TO BRING IN THOSE EVENTS. AGAIN, THAT'S WHERE THE PRIVATE SIDE REALLY EXCELS. AND PARKS AND REC AND THE CITY IS GOOD AT A LOT OF THINGS, BUT GOING TO NATIONAL CONFERENCES TO GET TOURNAMENT ORGANIZERS TO COME ISN'T USUALLY ONE OF THEM.

You mentioned smashers, and I think the word you used would be they're like an auxiliary, kind of a sister.

So, yeah, I mean, you know, and... Where I live, we have similar places. It's not Smashers, but, you know, so it's a family entertainment place. It's also a tournament place specifically for pickleball. There's certainly collaboration, right? At the end of the day, remember, Council, this is your facility, right? This isn't a private group looking to privatize indoor sports. And so the natural collaboration between a potential indoor and Smashers does amazing things for both of them, right?

Yeah, I just, you know, I don't want to bring something big and huge in that's going to hurt some of the existing businesses.

And that's where there can be collaboration to expand Smashers Reach into Pickleball, right? There could be spillover into the indoor facility if Smashers wants to host an event bigger than they can hold. Um, you know, and at the same time, if, you know, smashes is, is, you know, handling pickleball, then again, it can be the prerogative of, of council and the, and the operator that, um, the indoor facility is going to host gymnastics and it's not going to get into pickleball. Absolutely fine.

Um, I know there are many categories to this, but maybe just a ballpark. Nope. No pun intended. Uh, about how many kids or families do you think would be, once this is fully operational, that this would benefit? And I know that the outside, you know, people coming in from out of town, but is there a metric?

So just looking locally, right, you know, you've got, we typically reserve very broadly, Monday to Thursday is for the community. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is reserved for that tournament or events, but any unused time goes back to the community. That being said, Monday through Thursday, again, this is conceptual, but you've got 6 a.m. basketball leagues for folks that go to work. You've got a walking track so members of the community can come walk when it's 137 degrees outside. You've got after-school programs. You've got little indoor basketball programs for four-year-olds and their moms or dads at 10 in the morning when there's nothing else going on. You've got, you know, your local rec programs can be hosted there. You've got rentals where there may be travel basketball groups or travel volleyball teams that need a place to practice. And then you've got, you know, your... You know, we've seen midnight basketball leagues. We've seen, you know, adult volleyball. So you're able to expand the quality of life benefits that the city's able to provide its residents and then carve out this little bit of time on certain weekends of the year that those out-of-town people are going to come in, they're going to spend money, and they're going to visit your community.

I think that gets it. It's hard to put a number on quality. For sure. So like I said, don't go away. It's kind of an awkward time of the year with our budget and stuff. But I am totally thrilled that this could be an option, especially for our children here. I do appreciate that. Thank you, Jason.

Thank you so much. Jason, don't run away. How long have you been putting these in? How long have you been with Synergy?

I started Synergy in about 15 years ago. Okay.

Give me some towns that have had really good success. I mean, if some of the people that are watching want to go look at a town and look something up, where would you say the first three towns to Google and go look and maybe do some research?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great question and I think a good follow up would be is to put together a list of half a dozen of similar sized communities and similar radius circles as San Angelo and be able to come back or send it through to you guys. I could say Odessa, but they've got 100,000 people in their MSA. I could say Sacramento, but they've got a lot more people than San Angelo. I could say Daytona Beach, Florida, but completely different. You're on the beach and they've got 180 acres dedicated to sports. I'd like to be able to put together a bit more relevant list than just throwing out these big complexes that are doing awesome things. And it's not really apples to apples, but I can do that for you for sure.

Yeah, we'd love to see some. And there's people watching at home that are going to say, okay, where do we go? But, you know, Synergy Sports Global is, you know, we're looking at feasibility study. So if you've been doing this for 15 years, what have been the three hardest things as you develop? Let's take financing off the table. We know financing is number one. Give me two or three things that a community needs to be aware of that you need a lot of help and assistance from a community to manage that moving forward. Is that people? Is that permitting? I mean, tell me what have been your three busiest or hardest obstacles as you've moved forward.

So I would say community support, as with everything, is everything, right? I can present all the data in the world. And if the community really doesn't support it, then it's going to be a really difficult project to overcome. More from the planning side, where we run into a lot of issues is when communities go outside of the recommendation and build bigger or smaller because they think it's a better way to do it. If you build bigger than what we say, that's fine, but now you're going to lose a couple million dollars a year. If you build smaller, then those economic impact numbers aren't going to come to fruition. From a construction standpoint, that sort of thing, usually we work pretty well with our construction partners and planning and zoning. I WOULD SAY THE THIRD THING, IF ANYTHING, IS MORE ON THE OPERATIONAL SIDE AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SPORTS COMPLEX, THE ENTITY, AND THE VARIOUS STAKEHOLDERS IN THE COMMUNITY, THE SCHOOL DISTRICT, THE OUTSIDE TOURNAMENTS THAT WANT TO COME IN, THE LOCAL USERS, AND HOW ALL OF THOSE PIECES KIND OF FIT TOGETHER SO THAT EVERYBODY IS AS HAPPY AS POSSIBLE WHILE STILL UNDERSTANDING EVERYBODY ELSE'S BENEFIT.

So how long, you've watched these things about, how long until it all comes together? Is that one year, is that two years, three years? Tell me, you know what I'm talking about. Everybody here, you get it, the crowd gets it. When does it all come together?

So all of your comments are well noted. We have a tongue in cheek saying is we move at the speed of local government.

Whew, well. You've got about 16 years, all right.

Charlotte, where I live, it took seven years to get through local politics. Odessa took about two and a half years. We have a project down in Louisiana. From the very first time I met the mayor to the time a shovel went in the ground was six months. Because council was on board, they voted, they approved it, they moved down the line. We met with legal counsel. We kind of got everything ironed out. Like I said at the beginning or at the end of the presentation, if council wants more information and we come back with these details, right, and Mayor, to your point, one of the details is we have a relationship with a national sports marketing firm that handles the naming rights and sponsorships. And so we will get a proposal from them on we expect this dollar amount to come into a project in San Angelo based on their experience. They would be the ones going out and getting it. And you said there's a lot of local benefactors that support your nonprofits. One thing not to lose sight of is don't think small, right? When you talk about naming rights, you're talking about brands and corporations that are present five hours away, right? Not just in San Angelo. So if I'm an auto dealership or a home improvement store or a big national brand, If 300,000 eyeballs are going to be on my brand and they're coming as far away as the Metroplex or beyond, that's valuable to me as a brand. And so don't get caught up in just our local community sponsors. They have an important role to play. But beyond that, you've got the national and the sub-regional group of sponsors and vendors that would be willing to put their name on a basketball court. And that's the other thing is, and I don't want to take too much time, I apologize, but we're not talking about just the XYZ indoor sports complex, and that's the only naming right. That's one of them. But the waterfall of that is, The building has a sponsor or a naming rights partner. Each court has its own sponsor. The concession stand has its own sponsor. The bleachers have its own sponsor. The bathrooms, whatever. And so you get this hierarchy of sponsorable things that's beyond just the name of the building. So hopefully that answers your question.

No, that answers it fine. And I appreciate your honesty there. It kind of gives everybody a little sense of reality of what we actually have to look at as we move forward.

Yeah, and again, to kind of put a bow on that. So when we come back, if we were to come back, and I'll work with Steve on this, and give you a detailed budget and a financing options and whatever else, AT THAT POINT, THAT'S ABOUT AS MUCH DATA AND INFORMATION THAT WE CAN PROJECT OR THAT WE CAN ESTIMATE. IT'S AT THAT POINT THAT COUNCIL NEEDS TO DECIDE, DO WE WANT TO DO THIS NOW, DO WE WANT TO DO THIS LATER, OR DO WE NOT WANT TO DO THIS? AT THE POINT WHENEVER COUNCIL SAYS, IF THEY WERE TO SAY, YES, WE WANT TO MOVE FORWARD AND BUILD THIS THING, THAT INDOOR FACILITY IS ABOUT AN 18-MONTH PROCESS. just to give you guys kind of a gauge on, well, if we wait until next spring and then it's 18 months from there, then you're looking at kind of 2020, end of 28, early 29. And that kind of goes back to what I was saying about things don't get cheaper with time either.

We've learned that one. So I'll say of the three things out there, want, need, and a place, and the fit, the only thing we're short on, we have the want, we have the need. I think you would get lots of support. We just have to look at a way to finance, and we'll look for you all to come back with something like that. Steve, we'll look for you to close. Thank you.

Jason, thank you. Mayor, council members, again, I appreciate the time. At your direction, if you would like, we can work with Jason and come up and be able to do some with limited costs on our end. to give you some real hard numbers in terms of what construction would look like and some of the things that Jason mentioned. It is a quality of life, quality of place issue. And I think it's, you know, I don't think we ever go wrong when we invest in families and kids. And it puts us, and I hate to say this, but we are in an arms race in a sense as we compete against other communities, not only in West Texas, but across the state of Texas. And we want to make sure that we're not, that San Angelo is not falling behind. and that we continue to create those opportunities for this community. So with that, I'll be glad to add your directions.

So I think, is there any public comment on this, Heather? All right. So let's go ahead and go for some public comment. This is a non-action item, but they still get public comment.

Coco Simpson.

Hey, guys. Coco Simpson, SMD1. I find myself not agreeing with you three very often, but I agree with y'all this time, and I'm glad that you said that this is not the right time. A few questions I have. Where are these people going to stay? We've got three data centers coming to San Angelo. Every single hotel room in this place is going to be booked for the next however many years. So if we have travel ball coming, where are these people going to stay? Number one. Number two... $40 million is a lot of money. And I don't think it's a realistic number for 100,000 or 150,000 square foot facility. I think we're looking at closer to $60 million. Or we're going to end up in a situation like B and C here, where we are way under budget on the bond. I'm 1,000% on a public-private partnership. If you have other people coming in to pay for it, awesome. City's still on the hook. What he's saying, the city's on the hook for shortages, and I looked at their stuff online, and for the first handful of years, it's not going to make money. You're servicing debt. You're getting things up and running. There's not a whole lot of room there for if the air conditioner goes out or... I mean, a bleacher messes up. I don't know. There's all kinds of things that there needs to be a contingency for, and the city is, I mean, we're already borrowing money on Line H, $4.5 million to get through the end of the year. So what happens if something happens in that facility and the city's on the hook for it? Now we're taking out more debt to cover debt. So jobs, he said 20 full-time jobs. So we have 20 full-time minimum wage jobs cleaning toilets, again. So probably one or two managers, you know, that make 50, 60 a year, maybe. But the rest of those are... minimum wage jobs. The Y and city parks and services are scrounging every year for refs. So we start getting travel ball in here. Where are these refs coming from? How are they going to do all this stuff? And then the last one, and I know every parent in this room has dealt with travel sports. They are We all have our opinions about them. I hate them. Honestly, I hate it. I wish that kids would start playing at school again and at the rec league, and we could get people here locally. There are so many people that are gone every single weekend that you can't play things, you can't get play dates, you can't hang out with your friends because they're stuck spending all of their money traveling from town to town to town with their kids that are not going professional. I'm sorry. You can spend all the money that you want, but your kid is probably not going to play in a D1 school. You know, maybe one or two of them are, but that's what I've got. There's a lot of questions here, and I'm really glad that you all put a pin in it. I think it would be a fantastic facility if we had $60 million just laying around that we could just, there you go. But I think it's something that needs a lot more questions put in it. Thank you.

Thank you, Coco. Have another one?

That's all.

With no public comment, additional public comment, this is a non-action item, so we'll look for this to come back in maybe November, December with a financial projection. Are we good to move the next item? Okay, we'll move to item B, consider awarding RFP PW-01-26, San Angelo Coliseum Renovation to Hoar Construction Incorporated in the amount of $47,200,000 with $825,236,000 sourced from bond proceeds interest and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents. Presentation made by, let me get this straight, Chief Project Officer Rick Wise and Hoar Construction.

You have so much fun with that, don't you?

I do. I just...

That's a good one. I actually have two items, so you'll see the next one, of course, following, and this pertains to the Coliseum project, and so representatives from Hoare are here as well. If we have questions, as we go through, but basically this first one is we put the project out to receive bids, receive those back, and the team evaluated and scored those and unanimously is recommending that we utilize Hoare Construction for the construction manager at risk for this project. As you see, we, in that process, will do some redesign of the, we'll take the basic concept that has already been generated and is good and do some redesign on that. As you know, things have changed. As you mentioned, steel is through the roof and all those kind of things. So there are ways to make this project more economical, whether you're using more construction with concrete versus steel. All those kind of things come into play. So this takes into account for that. So in this first item, you'll be allowing us to execute an agreement to negotiate an agreement with Hoare to be the construction manager at risk. You'll see the dollar amount there. I may go into this next one as well a little bit to explain because they kind of overlap, if that's all right. So in the next item, you'll be seeing that.

Do you want to just go ahead and read that one in?

Yeah.

Let me go ahead and read and see. Consider authorizing city manager to negotiate, execute, and budget for an amendment to the Chapter 380 Economic Development Program Agreement with the San Angelo Stock Show and Rodeo Association for the Coliseum renovation to provide for project redesign and SASRA's capital investment into the project of $9 million. Presentation made by Chief Project Officer Rick Weiss.

So now we're talking both items. So we have an agreement, of course, with the stock show to partner on this project. And one of the components they were doing, of course, was paying for the design, those kind of things. It also said in the 380 that if there are any overages over what the bond is, then they are the ones who help or they cover that. So in this case, that's what we're doing. The stock show is bringing $9 million to the table to put into this project. So in total, you'll see the $41 million coming out of the bond. There's some interest funds that are added into this. You'll see that as 825. And then the stock shows $9 million. So then we allocate actually toward the project For the construction manager project, we allocate the funding that would actually be used for construction. We hold out other dollars that would be used toward a redesign, those kind of things, because that contract will be with the city. But the stock show is paying for it. It's not coming out of the bond money. The bond money is only going toward the construction of the project, plus additional dollars from the stock show. So that's kind of it in a nutshell. I'm here to answer any questions. And of course, as I said, we have reps from Hoare Construction here as well, who can answer questions you may have. Number one, and is Ginger still here?

I'll do this one for Ginger, but anyway. My question is, we've had a delay. Can you briefly answer this? I mean, the amount we're paying on the bond is still the same. We're still going to pay off the bond at the same rate and time. So regardless of the timeline of the project, the cost to the citizens has not been any different. But can you give like a 30,000-foot view of why we're sitting where we're at

a little bit of the delay and just things that people are aware of yeah basically the process you go through once uh... things were awarded while there were just some schematics of what was going to be designed uh... the stock show is working to get that uh... those drawings we have to develop construction drawings so that doesn't happen overnight clearly takes this size project it takes quite some time so then once you get that in place then you go through the next step The city doesn't just get to, you know, just pick and go. So we did look at other options, whether you wanted to do that through a buy board process, those kind of things, ruled all that out, went with this process, which we bid out the project. And then when we go toward the construction manager, it guarantees a price in for that project. So it safeguards us on that. But we need to make sure that the design meets the budget. And so, thus, when we went through the first process, then we looked at, okay, what are ways, which whore is... I want to say the reason we picked them is, one, they were the best value, but secondly, they are a large firm that can handle these size projects. They have a good reputation in San Angelo, and they have an office here. So they're a good team to work with, and they've been very proactive on now stepping forward with us, saying, okay, what are some changes we can make to this design to keep the intent and everything we want there yet lower the price. And I use that simple example of, okay, steel's through the roof. Should we not be framing the whole thing with steel? Should we use concrete on part of it? So those kind of things that are just good decisions to make. But as we go through that process, it doesn't happen overnight. So it takes a little time.

All right, cool. So with that, I'll open it up to the dice. Mary, I'll start with you. Karen? Patrick?

Good morning, Rick. My biggest question is this was pitched as a certain project, the bond was voted on, and now the project has to change because of prices. So how do we know the citizens are still going to get what they voted for?

Yeah, I would say from my perspective, the project's not changing. The project concept is still as it was. The thing that you'll see as the team evaluated with Hoare, there were some specifics that had to happen that we feel were the basics of what were promised to the citizens, such as the number of the seating, the number of seats in the thing, the number of you know, boxes where you have, what's the word I'm looking for?

Boxes, suites, capacity. What about bathrooms?

Yeah, yeah, no, bathrooms are there. Now, what I will say is the initial design was over-designed with bathrooms. So that actually, while there's still going to be a ton more bathrooms, That was an example of where things could be reduced. It had way more than you needed. Or in some cases, those may have been located in difficult places to accommodate where you could put them in somewhere else and it's just going to be cheaper to construct. So I would say the base of the intent of the whole thing is still there.

That's going to be my biggest eyes on is to make sure that everyone's still getting what they voted for. Because they voted in. They trust us to build what they looked at. And looking at all of Hor's projects, they've done well in their budgets. They've done well in their projects. So I'm hopeful that everyone can work together to make it as much as we can get and to be able to fulfill our promises. Yeah, we agree. So thank you.

Harry? I've been a proponent of this almost as long as I've been out in council. So I'm glad we're where we are. The only thing I have to say, get her done.

Mr. Self, send to your district.

I'm excited that we're moving forward. Just to reiterate to the citizens, the bond was passed for how much?

The exact number, 41174764.

So that's what we're responsible for. Anything over that, the stock show's picking up. Right. Okay. There's a lot of concerned people. Oh, my gosh, if it's going to go over, who pays for that? Well, it's the stock show that's going to foot that.

That was in the original 380 with the stock show.

Yeah. I'm also in agreement with Patrick. I want to see the bathrooms improved as well as more seating because that's why we're doing this. Yeah.

And to point, as you pointed out, Joe, I want to say that, once again, the stock show is living up to their side. You see $9 million come into the table from their side. So they're stepping forward. So give them a lot of credit. That's good.

Thank you. Hey, Rick. Call me. Sorry, one real quick. Go ahead. On that, so since we kind of read both of them in, the 380, that is just changing and putting the number that they're putting in, but it's still going to show that they will be responsible for anything over and above, correct?

Correct. And Brandon's going to answer that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, cost overruns are already addressed in the agreement, but $9 million is a big number, so we felt that needs to be put in there specifically.

The citizens are capped at theirs. It's no more on them. that number and is not a, that's not a, that 380 agreement was, is not a tax abatement. This is, they're saying they're going to pay that much towards it and any above that.

So even above the $9 million, if there's cost overruns, they're still going to be responsible for that.

The only additional funds that come into that is those interest dollars that you see there. So there may be some more of those. So those will, of course, credit toward it.

And that's because we've already passed the bond and have that money ready to go. Correct. Perfect. Thank you. Sorry, Tommy.

Tommy, back to you, sir. This has got to be okay, Rick. Did you see all the Aggies that Hoare has on their team? We should introduce them. Whoever's in the audience has got a ring from Texas A&M. There you go. The project's got to be okay. Everybody has covered – I'm glad Patrick was before me because that was going to be my exact question. Are the citizens getting what they voted for conceptually? And they are. It sounds as if they are. So that answers my question. So gigamaggies, go.

Mayor, I would like these three guys to at least stand up and introduce themselves so you'll know who the team is with who they're here with us today.

Why don't you all come up to the –

Mayor, while they're coming up, can I just make one correction? The amount of the bond that Rick quoted was net of the issue cost for the bond. So the actual amount of the bond was $41,660,000. Got it. That was that.

Aggie could miss, I guess, whatever. It was that Aggie accounting over there. We'll go back to finance. All right. Gary.

Awesome. Garrett Wheat. I'll be a project manager for the project. Lifelong St. Angeline. I think I know most of y'all. So been tracking this one for years. I think it's going to be awesome. Sold snow cones on the steps for years. So excited to give back to the community. And this is our awesome team.

Justin Brodnax. I'm the director of strategic partnerships for Hoar. I'm headquartered in Austin, but I've been working in Abilene and West Texas and San Angelo since I joined Hoar in 2008. So I've been with the company for 18 years. I'm what people will refer to as born Hoar. That's a fun joke. You can laugh on it.

Wait, and trust me, there's been lots of comments like, God, could I have picked a better name would I pick?

We're super excited about this project. We've done a lot of similar projects, you know, an hour and a half north of here, and I've worked with Grant for the last.

So let me interrupt. You did a similar, you ran into a similar situation in Abilene. Can you kind of shed some light on that, what happened in Abilene and how y'all went through and very similar in how you got through that? Because to me, that made a lot of sense in how we went through the designation and going to where we are without putting a fear in the cost overrun that we saw or the bid.

I'll introduce myself. My name is Grant Pallon. I'm a project executive with Hoare. Like Justin, I've been with the company now since 2014. And when I started, I was exclusively working with Abilene Christian on all their facility improvements that they had going on at that time and pretty much have not left campus ever since. So the most recent... project experience that we have that's kind of relevant to what the ambition is for this project is what we did at the Moody Coliseum, which that facility was built in 1966. They were taking advantage of the pandemic and the fact that the campus had been kind of abandoned to try to partake in REHABING THAT FACILITY. AND WHAT I WOULD DESCRIBE THERE IS IT WAS BUILDING A SHIP IN A BOTTLE. WE HAD TO CONSTRUCT EVERYTHING FROM THE INSIDE OUT, AND WHAT YOU SEE THERE TODAY IS NOT EVEN RECOGNIZABLE COMPARED TO WHAT IT WAS PREVIOUSLY. SO IT TOOK A GREAT DEAL OF INNOVATION, UTILIZATION OF MATERIALS THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN TRIED OR TESTED BEFORE IN THIS APPLICATION, AND SO WE BRING A LEVEL OF EXPERTISE, CREATIVITY, AND JUST I THINK KNOWLEDGE THAT REALLY HELPS BRING SOLUTIONS TO A TABLE LIKE WE'RE GOING TO NEED FOR A PROJECT LIKE THIS. YOU KNOW, THE BUDGET IS CHALLENGED. WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THAT. BUT IT'S NOT OUTSIDE OF THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY OF GETTING EVERYTHING THAT THE VOTERS HAVE ASKED FOR IN THIS FACILITY. WHEN WE PITCHED THE PROJECT, WE IDENTIFIED SEATS, SUITES, AND RESTROOMS. How we get there is, you know, you can take a million different pathways, but we can definitely make that happen. And so this is the opposite. And we're not building a ship in a bottle. We're building a bottle around a ship. So that's what we aim to build here.

Cool. Thank you so much. Justin, Jonas, do you want to come up? I mean, it's the third party here. That way we have everybody in the same mix and throw the darts at anyone. You're an Aggie too, right?

Of course I am. What a dancer. So, no, I want to thank you all for all of this, and I want to assure that the voters are going to get what they asked for. You know, the Stock Show and Rodeo has $9 million in their capital improvement funds. That's it. We've told Hoare that. They're coming back with the projection on this. Yes, everything is going to be in there. It might not aesthetically look on the outside like it was on the drawings, but everything is going to be inside, and we're going to continue to be the largest economic impact for the city of San Angelo.

All right. Thank you, Jess.

With that, Rick, I'm good. If you all have any other questions, we're here to answer them. Otherwise...

With that, Brandon, how do you want me to move? Heather, how do you want us to move forward on this?

I've got one question.

Yeah, I'd say two motions. Wait a minute.

Mary has a question for you.

I didn't wave high enough. I know with specialties and special techniques and different things, sometimes we can't all utilize our local gifts and stuff. But with Hoare being... local and i mean you're going to see us in the restaurants and all and so it's you're gonna the the truth will bear out one way or the other when when we look at you every day uh do we can you promise us that we will utilize as much talent as we possibly can from san angelo um

YES, MA'AM. THE GOAL, I MEAN, THE GOAL, I MEAN, THE GOAL, I MEAN, IS ALWAYS TO UTILIZE IS ALWAYS TO UTILIZE IS ALWAYS TO UTILIZE AS MUCH LOCAL AS POSSIBLE. AS MUCH LOCAL AS POSSIBLE. AS MUCH LOCAL AS POSSIBLE. I MEAN, SUFFICIENTLY, I MEAN, SUFFICIENTLY, I MEAN, SUFFICIENTLY, IT KEEPS MONEY IN OUR ECONOMIC IT KEEPS MONEY IN OUR ECONOMIC IT KEEPS MONEY IN OUR ECONOMIC AND ALL THAT MONEY ROLLS AROUND. AND ALL THAT MONEY ROLLS AROUND. AND ALL THAT MONEY ROLLS AROUND. LIKE YOU SAY, NOT ONLY, LIKE YOU SAY, NOT ONLY, LIKE YOU SAY, NOT ONLY, I AL ADVENTURES WITH LOCAL CONTRACTORS THAT CAN'T TAKE ON THE BONDING CAPACITY OF PROJECTS OF THIS SIZE. WE BREAK OUT PORTIONS OF IT TO ALLOW THEM USE. WE'RE DOING THAT DOWN THE STREET ON PROJECTS CURRENTLY. SO THE GOAL IS ALWAYS TO UTILIZE THE LOCAL MARKET, AND A BIG REASON FOR THAT IS BECAUSE THERE ARE GOING TO BE ONES ALSO MAINTAINING THE FACILITY. So we want to train them, teach them, and, again, keeping that money in the local market. Again, there's always a need to sometimes reach out to markets. That's where it's awesome to have a national presence and also to be able to fact-check cost on that within your local market. But, yes, I would say the goal, I mean, we always prefer to use local. I mean, I can drive right down the road to most of my contractors and go meet with them in their office. It's way easier than picking up the phone or sending a text, email.

Good deal. Well, the community holds us accountable, and it goes from there. So I appreciate you addressing that in particular.

Thank you. We studied on some pursuits recently, probably over the last 10 years of the projects we've done in West Texas, and 70% to 80% of the materials and trades are procured locally.

Okay. I hadn't heard that number before. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

LET ME JUST ADD ONE FINAL POINT. WHY THIS MAKES A LOT OF SENSE IS BECAUSE THE COMMUNITY IS INVESTED AT A DIFFERENT LEVEL. IT'S NOT JUST A PROJECT. IT'S NOT JUST A WAY TO PUNCH WORK FOR THE REVENUE FOR THE YEAR. THEY'RE INVESTED BECAUSE THEY LIVE HERE. SO THERE'S A DIFFERENT LEVEL OF INCENTIVE AND DRIVE TO SEE PROJECTS BE SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE IT'S THEIR BACKYARD. AND THEY VOTED ON THIS, TOO. SO WE WANT TO TRY TO UTILIZE THAT TALENT TO THE GREATEST DEGREE POSSIBLE.

GOOD ANSWER. THANK YOU.

Just in case. They're going to stay just in case.

Don't go down. So at this point, we'll go through. We'll look for a motion on item B. Second. I have a first from Joe Self and a second from Harry Thomas. Is there any public comment on B?

Jamal Schoenberg.

Jamal.

Jamal Schoenberg, SMD3. What I would like to speak about is this process and this system of how we're always coming back and making changes. Whether it's the school district or the city of San Angelo, we're using our contingency funds and we have so much money put into projects before the shovel ever hits the ground. Why do we always have to come back and make changes? In this situation, our council member said there will be $25 million worth of investment I'm not understanding why we're actually spending so much time. I'm sorry, I got lost. The $25 million was proposed as public-private partnership about a year or so ago when y'all was trying to push the bar. I don't know if y'all remember it, but one of you guys stated it. And y'all wanted it so bad. And now that we have it and we told everybody we was going to have these restrooms, that was the biggest issue. You're going to shrink the restrooms now to add more seats? Everything that you're changing is stuff that was key points for these citizens. I don't go up into the Coliseum often, but the complaints about the restroom are all on social media. I don't think you should limit the restrooms at all. If anything, take away some seats because I know you'd rather have people using the bathroom than in the seats. But I know y'all, y'all not that way. Y'all would rather get the money off the seats instead of having people have a decent bathroom to use instead of having them use 50, wait 10 minutes, 20 minutes to go to the bathroom. So, yeah, put the bathrooms back in there. That is $9 million. You should be able to afford the bathrooms. That was the main key driver, and that's kind of what kind of had me upset. And I want to pause for a second because this thing where we're giving projects all this attention and their feasibility studies, and we're not on track. I want to say some stuff to all of you guys, but it's not appropriate up here. And I think one of you guys at least know it. I would like an executive session between just me.

Jamal, we're talking about the item right here at the Coliseum.

Me and you guys and this item. because of those comments about public-private partnership and investment. I've heard it so many years. And for some reason, the public, us, comes through on ours. But the private partnerships almost don't ever come through. Thank you. Thank you, Jamal.

Mayor, do you want to clarify on some of those items?

So Rick, if you want to, but I think we go ahead and move to the vote and move to the next item. Is there any additional public comment? Right. We know that. Not on item B. All right. So I've got a first and a second on item B. We've had public comment. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item B passes 7-0. Do you need me to reread C? Okay. So I'll look for a first. I'll look for a motion on item C. I have a first from Tommy Hebert, a second from Harry Thomas. Any public comment on item C?

Jamal Schoenberg.

Jamal, you're back.

Jamal Schoenberg, SMD3. It's just reiterating what I said on the first one. You know, we come up here and blow smoke up our pipes all the time for these projects. Y'all are always coming back making these amendments to the budgets or city of St. Rod's, these case contingency funds, maximum guaranteed prices. Y'all are the experts. We shouldn't have to be coming back here to amend budgets as often as we are. You said you were going to get the experts in the room and y'all was going to make... Good decisions. I think it is a good decision to fix up the Coliseum, being that we're one of the last standing Coliseums. Not much into the rodeo. I do like animals and livestock, do a little bit of farming. I think it was a great project. My issue is how we present all these projects. And to get the vote. I don't think we should be, next time we pass a by, I don't think we should blow that much smoke. and give it that much, you know, glory, I guess. I don't know what the word to say, but we gave all these projects during this buying moment. And I know y'all worked with the city of San Angelo to pass these, but that, I think, kind of tricked us. And a woman just told me there'd be 100 bathrooms. This sounds about okay, but it's 10,000 seats. So, I mean, until you see it work out, REALLY WON'T KNOW. BUT IN MY OPINION, I THINK YOU STILL MIGHT HAVE A LITTLE LINE ON THAT BATHROOM WITH 10,000 SEATS. AND THEN, I WANTED, EVEN THOUGH THIS IS FOR NOW, DO Y'ALL HAVE PLANS TO EXPAND IT? BECAUSE WE PASSED THE SCHOOL BOND WITH $400 MILLION. And I think we should have put more money into this because the stuff they did was just build buildings. And this right here, it builds your culture and it keeps your culture, the San Angelo culture that was built here, you know, farming and herding. Something I'm very proud about this town. Thank you. Thank you, Jamal.

Any additional public comment? All right, with that, we'll look for a vote. All those in favor of item C, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item C passes, 7-0. 10.02, we'll move to item D. First reading and public hearing of an ordinance for Z26-09, a request for a zone change from General Heavy Commercial Zoning District to General Commercial Zoning District, located at 6 and 10 West 16th. Presentation made by Planning and Development Service Director, Aaron Benoit.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council, Mr. Uteria, our city manager. My name is Aaron Vannoy, Director of Planning Development Services. This morning we have this zoning case here at 6 and 10 West 16th Street. It's in the Reagan neighborhood. It's District 4, Mr. Patrick Keeley. The vision plan is commercial and it's just under a half an acre. And the request for the zone change is to go from a general commercial, heavy commercial designation to a general commercial designation. You can see the property here. It's actually a vacant property now. Those two houses or structures have been demolished at this time. So we did send out our 20 notices. We did not receive any in support or in opposition for this project. You can see here a little bit more expanded view. You have Chadburn here and then of course 19th Street is just to the north and 14th Street is just to the south where there's actually intersections with lights. There are some commercial properties in the area and they're looking to come in here and actually do a potentially a mobile food unit park for the area. You can see the current zoning does kind of carve out this area as general commercial, heavy commercial. You can see that this corridor has been designated as commercial in the past through our comprehensive plan. And we're simply changing this designation from general commercial, heavy commercial to a general commercial. One of the other reasons is they would like to apply for TERS funding. TERS has a policy that you cannot have the dual zoning of CGCH. In our 2003 comprehensive plan and even before, councils had given direction to remove that zoning designation from our inventory, and so this is an opportunity to do that. So we did look at the area through our rationale. The subject property is located by a major corridor and other existing businesses that are north and south. There is a demonstrated community need for more commercial development along that corridor for it to stay relevant and viable over the next coming years. And currently, since it is just kind of blank property, there's no adverse effects to the natural environment. As you guys recall, we did pass a few months ago a mobile food unit ordinance that they have to meet a specific site plan, and so that helps protect the properties around where a mobile food unit property would be. With that, staff does recommend approval for this zoning change from general commercial, heavy commercial, to the general commercial, and this was presented in front of Planning Commission back in July, on July 20th, and they did vote with, their recommendation is approval with a 6-0 vote. With that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

This one is a nice sliver of Patrick's district that's on Chadburn. Patrick, so we'll let you tee this one up, bud.

I've received no opposition. To me, it was already commercial, and it's just going to a lighter commercial, taking off the heavy. So I've got no issues with it. I think it'll help them get something on there instead of a vacant lot. So that's always good.

Any additional questions from the dais? All right. I move to approve. Wait a minute. Harry's got a comment.

I don't have any problem with it either. It's right across Chad from my district. So I appreciate Patrick saying hey.

Getting a little territorial Jack Russell Terrier fight over here. All right. I move to approve. I have a first from Patrick Keeley and a second from Joe Self. Any public comment, Heather? No public comment. We'll take a vote on item D. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item D passes 7-0. We'll move to E. First reading and public hearing of an ordinance for Z26-10, a request for a zone change from the single family residential zoning district to the three and four family residential zoning district located at 2000 Mark Street. Presentation made by Planning and Development Services Director Aaron Benoit. Thank you, Mayor.

This is 2000 Mark Street. This is in the Lakeview neighborhood just barely. It is District 2 Joe Self, and the vision plan is neighborhood, and it is .32 acres. You can see the property there outlined in red. It is a request for a zone change from RS1, which is single-family residential, to RS6, which is three- and four-family. So you see the property there. That structure there has actually been demoed. There is a small accessory structure back there that I believe still remains, but virtually this is two lots that actually have a property line down the middle. That way you can kind of see how all the other properties align through there. We did send out 19 notices. We did get one in support. We did not get any actual letters come back to us in opposition. But the gentleman here, I believe his name is Mr. Garcia. I could be wrong on that. He did come with his petition that he had gone around the neighborhood with 14 signatures. unknown how many of those fell within the 200-foot radius and how many were actually outside the radius. But I believe he's here today, and maybe if he signed up for public comment, I'm able to give his explanation of what he worked through on that. So here's the zoning. You can see that it is RS1. You can see to the south at 19th, there's a commercial corridor. You can see to the north on 21st, there's some other zoning. I've got a little bit bigger map, I believe, coming up here in just a moment. On the right, it is neighborhood. When we discussed all of our RS districts back in May of this year, it was determined that all of our RS districts did fall within the neighborhood vision plan, whether you're RS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. And so RS 6 would fit within a neighborhood comprehensive plan. Here's that larger map. You can see the red dot there. That's the actual subject property. Again, we have that major collector, 19th Street, that comes across from Chadburn and Bryant and comes over to Main Street. You can see all along the frontage there, we do have actually general commercial, heavy commercial. So one block back is this property, and then you see this is Mark Street, which is designated as a minor collector, so designed for heavier road traffic and things like that. And you can see that we have some neighborhood commercial up there, we have some neighborhood commercial there, and we have a mobile home subdivision there with that hatched marking. And so this is something that the staff do is they do that zoomed out look to see what's going on in the neighborhood and does this fit in. You can see over at another minor collector, you can see that there are some other zoning designations. This is actually Armstrong, which is a little bit larger road. This road here is projected to be a major road in the future. It is not today, but it is projected to be a major road in the future. So here's the property. Just looking from north to south, looking across it, it is a vacant property ready for redevelopment. So in our new housing designations, I want to give you an update of what these lot sizes are. And so it must have, for a triplex, a minimum of a 35-foot frontage, must have a minimum of a 6,000-square-foot lot, and they must provide six parking spaces with that type of structure. If they were to build a quadruplex, it must have a minimum of 50 feet and 7,000-square-foot lot and a minimum of eight parking spaces. Currently, the 2000 Mark Streets, it's actually two lots. It's currently zoned RS1, so it would allow two single-family homes today with no zone change at all. Each of those lots have a 50-foot frontage, and each lot is 77,000 square feet. And so they do meet the quadruplex standard if that was what the developer chose to do. They are looking at a triplex at this time on those lots. Again, here is that matrix that we have for our RS districts all the way into our multifamily and our manufactured homes. Again, we're looking at RS6, which allows a modified area based on that number one goes down to, all right, is it a triplex or a quadruplex, which we just discussed. Same thing with the lot dimensions. So the front yard would have to be 18 feet. side yards 5 feet, and then rear yard would have to be 15 feet. So that's very standard. As we look across our sister cities, that's how we came up with those. We simply did not have a option to build triplexes and quadruplexes in our city unless you went to a low rise multifamily. As we've all learned with low-rise multifamily, the RM districts, you're allowed short-term rentals by right. And so that can bring in additional conflicts to neighborhoods. And so we wanted to create a very unique special zoning district that fits in our neighborhood plans and goes into those areas. So is there a community need? We know that our residential housing study told us in 2019 and 2024 that we need this type of housing, this missing middle type of housing, this entry level type of housing. We've known that for more than a decade of how our community is growing, that we continue to need this. Last spring, we did the infill study, and this is an infill area. We were able to prove up that new homes reduce crimes and code compliance issues. It increases civic pride in our neighborhoods. It increases the overall property values. There's no evidence of lowering property values with mixed structure types, not just single-family houses, but is it duplexes? Is it triplexes? Is it low-rise multifamily? Mixed uses of various single family structure types are actually build resilient communities. And resilient communities means that they're able to help pay for the things that the city provides as services. And that's very important as we're having our budget discussion today is how are we going to do that in the future? So what I did over the weekend was put together some information. And this looks very, very busy. But this is the block. That's all the properties on that block of Mark's 21st up the other side, which I forgot, Blum Street. Those are all the properties. That's their current values of each one of those properties. and their current tax. So if you take that block valued at just $950,000 bringing in almost $4,700 in property taxes. You look to the right of our roughly more than just 38,000 acres of the city and what it cost us in 2025 for police and fire. You break that out per acre, that's $1,500 per acre. Currently seal coat. Right now, talking to Patrick Ferrick, who says he shoveled every one of these. I'm not sure that's true. But Patrick says he shoveled every one of these seal coat things.

I'll throw a flag on that one.

It cost him $3.18 per yard to do that. This block is four acres. That's all those properties combined, four acres, not just the single property that we're talking about today. So if you take that plus the right-of-way, actually the actual paving width, their incremental half of each one of those roads, that's 850 yards of seal code. So the cost for fire at four acres is $6,000. The total cost for Seal Coat is almost $11,000. So a total of $16,800 for what it costs, just for those two things. That's not the rest of the general fund. The property tax is as a revenue of $4,700. So that still leaves a shortfall of $12,000 just for that block. The remaining general funds are an additional $3,000. And so that block right now is sitting at a minus $15,000 as it sits today. And so that is why housing is so important because it is an economic development tool for our community to help that. We can't solve it with one property on one block. That's not feasible, but it's how we go about making decisions in the future to allow the missing middle, the infill to come back in because they're already getting those services whether nothing's built or something's built. They're getting the services today. That cost is not going away. We're not creating new costs so that we can only help attack that bottom line by allowing things to potentially develop. So if they were to go back with a single family home that's approximately $150,000 in value, there's two lots, so you could end up generating another $2,300 in property taxes, which is almost half of what that block is generating today. If you go back with maybe a duplex and say the valuation by the appraisal district is $210,000, then you get to that number. If you go with a triplex or a quadruplex, $265,000 valuation, you could come to that number. The real world example, this is at the corner of West 19th and Martin Luther King, duplexes that have been built today and occupied. $327,000 valuation, and so they're providing to their block, if we were to put that on that block, it would be $5,200 potentially if that's what the valuation was. We don't know the size necessarily because that comes later. This is the rezoning. Does the rezoning make sense for this neighborhood? It makes sense for us as a community to rezone properties that allow the missing middle to allow properties to redevelop in the infill. But that's really the question today. Is this the right neighborhood to allow that to happen? We can go through study after study that shows that these types of projects do not lower property value. They do not increase crime. They do not increase bad things. Fear does that, and we do know that people do fear things. We understand that. We're not discounting that. What we're saying is based on the numbers this is the right move for our community to move forward with projects like this in our infill areas specifically so that we can continue to address this bottom line maybe it's block by block maybe it's area by area but we've got to start addressing that in some major way for us to be a viable community in the future With that, the city staff does recommend approval of the zone change from RS1 to the RS6 zoning district. This did go to Planning Commission in July. And they voted two to four to not approve, thus denying the project. In that case, we must have, per our ordinance, a three-quarters of all city council members to overturn the Planning Commission's decision, and that's guided under Section 213 of our zoning ordinance, which essentially means that since we have a seven-member mayor and council, that takes six out of seven to move this forward as a viable project. With that, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Aaron, I'll start this off with the next couple items have what I would say created a lot of discussion the past few days, and everybody's done some drive-bys and looks at what is a fit, what is not. There's been concerns about what are the options to go here. So I'll start down the dice with Tommy, and I'll move from my left to right, bringing up questions on this, and we'll move down here.

Aaron, do you have any, I'll just say, predictors in areas? You had your list of single family, duplex, et cetera there. Do you have any predictors of how an area might develop and what might go there? How likely is single family? Is there anything that you have that informs that?

Currently, no, I don't have anything like that. I will say this number is probably a low number. There are not many home builders today that can build something less than $150,000 and have it valued with the land and the house together. That's very challenging. So that's actually a low number probably. You know, you go down to what the duplex is currently. Again, that goes with what size is the duplex, what size is the land, and how they value that from the appraisal district. I tried to stay very conservative in these items. I will say... i have great respect for our neighborhoods and our neighborhoods continue to need to evolve we know we have blank spaces within our neighborhoods similar to part of this property they had an old house that was turned torn down it needs to redevelop what is the right mechanism to get it to redevelop Is that single-family housing? That's not a bad option. I won't say that's a bad option, but we know we need to be slightly more aggressive in our neighborhoods that are ready for that aggression. That's one of our looks when we go back to where is this? You have a minor collector that fronts it. You have a major collector within a block. You have a local road. You have other zoning designations around. It is a corner lot. These types of developments all point to, it can sustain and help benefit that area with more density, if you will. Again, we don't know the size, we don't know if they're gonna be connected, we don't know if they're gonna be separated as three separate units, but they still have to meet that they have to have the parking, they have to have the setbacks, all of those things are still required within that zoning district.

Did you have any conversation by chance with the applicant as to would he consider other options than whatever he has in mind when he made the application?

He is very well aware that it is RS1, that he could build single-family houses, and he is a single-family house builder. He would like to try something new, particularly in neighborhoods that he lives and works in, and he's built a number of single-family houses. He thinks this is also a productive way for the city to move to allow more people and more housing in more areas.

Mayor, that's all I have right now.

This is an interesting process because zoning always comes before the rest of it, so we don't always know all the information of what they're planning to do, and a lot of that's dictated on what we decide. This is a challenging lot area because it's off of a minor collector. It's a block off of a major road, so in some ways I could see this would be a fit for something like this. But I also understand the neighborhood is not that way. And so I'm kind of torn with this. I think it would be a good deal to have an increased amount of housing in that area, duplexes, triplexes, or something. But again, the neighborhood's already set up for single families. So you also want to try to preserve that. I don't really have any questions. I just want to make that statement. I can see when you put that minor collector road there that that's kind of where you would put something like this. So I don't know. I'm kind of on the fence on this.

A couple questions. How long has this lot been vacant?

That's a good question. I think it's been at least this imaging that we have is from 2023, so at least probably 2024, so maybe a couple of years. I think the folks in the neighborhood may know that better than I actually know that.

And there is one structure still on that, one of those lots.

I believe there is an accessory structure towards the back. In fact, the gentleman even mentioned that occasionally there are transients that come into that structure once in a while and they have to have somebody come and remove them.

I'd like to see permanent structures on these lots because it allows for families to be in there and less likely that you're going to have a transient come and burn down a building. So from my perspective, I'd like to see this go forward.

Good morning, Aaron. Good morning. I loved your stats on kind of showing what a block costs the city. And I think that's something we all have to struggle with. We have to find out how to keep things economical, to keep taxes as low as we can. But we also have to worry about the quality of life for our citizens. That's why we're all representative of our districts. I want to thank Assistant Chief Scott and Analyst Jack Warren. They helped me with some crime statistics and some things like that when I was looking at my research on all of it. And so it kind of goes in line with yours. So that I'm not worried about, but we talked about families. And I think most people are, you know, a family environment is not going to be a triplex. It's going to be a single-family home. Now, some people, affordability limits that, and so they may only be able to get into a triplex with their family. So I don't think that's a good indicator, but... There's so much to look at. When you walk the neighborhood, when you look at that neighborhood, it is all single-family homes. I live down the street from it. I've had property on that street, so your numbers are definitely low and old on your single-family home there. So I think those would come up quite a bit. It is two lots, so he can build two nice structures. The builder has done that in other places. There are several. He has helped the north side a lot as far as building affordable homes. I think he can do those there. He's got two lots. There was a home there, so there's already the infrastructure there, I believe, correct?

Yes, there is.

So I know we've looked at that on other ones. It's like, well, it's going to take a lot of money to get infrastructure there, so they need more homes. This is not quite the case on there. The infrastructure is already there. I walked the property with several of the neighbors. We tried to see if there was maybe a common middle ground that they'd be okay with, and it was overwhelmingly no. So while I understand the economics of how more dense would help the city for this property, I don't know that I can go with that just because of all the factors combined. When you put them all in there... This one's mine. All the factors combined... you know, you kind of have to weigh that. So while I understand where staff was coming from 100%, I think y'all have done a good job of trying to figure out how to best help the infill areas. So I applaud all y'all on that and your data. So I'll let some others ask any questions, but I don't have any further questions right now. Thank you.

I find that frequently Patrick and I have a similar opinion about planning issues. But let me begin by saying that your substantive data offered to all of us present is really helpful. I hope you'll continue to do that because it informs all of us when we make a decision. And we don't normally think in those terms about the financial impact to the community at large when a neighborhood perhaps is under I didn't say that right, but I think you know what I mean. So questions that remain for me are more about clarification for the community. Current zoning and future zoning would permit a structure of a height of 35 feet. Is that correct? Two and a half stories. So regardless of what's built, that is the height limitation. And currently there is nothing in that neighborhood that comes close to 35 feet. So that becomes an issue. I happened to attend Planning Commission yesterday and noted a project that Ginger referenced in her public comment and that particular project was required to add a certain number of trees. I think Ginger remembers that. Are remediations like that permitted under this current zoning type? And could you also please address, confirm or deny for us whether or not STRs by right would go with the new zoning? You kind of slid past that.

Certainly. So we do not have a landscape ordinance. This process is a straight zoning that does not allow us or council or anyone to put conditions on that saying you must have a certain number of trees or amenities on site. When it comes to a conditional use, a special use, a planned development, we have the ability to add those conditions if they seem feasible and if they're going to help that property with separation, with light and air, and with health and safety. So in this case, we would not be able to go and do anything. And if we passed a landscape plan in the future, We would not be able to do anything through the zoning aspect of here, whether it stays RS1 or goes RS6. It would be, potentially it would be something at a site plan, and then you just have to see who has vested rights on that aspect. Short-term rentals. All of our RS districts, so one through six, do not allow short-term rentals by right. They must go through a conditional use process to the Planning Commission. So the zoning request for this would not allow an STR by right. I don't know what the STR availability in that area is. We know we have the 500 foot separation distance between each STR. I don't believe we have a school within the 500 foot distance, but that would be the distance requirements is a separation of 500 feet per STR per property.

So... Thank you for that. I think that the requirement of STRs having to be taken as a case-by-case issue regardless is hopefully reassuring to the neighborhood. I'm concerned that the person who circulated an independent petition be heard as well. I'm going to make a shameless plug for community participation in the upcoming comprehensive plan because a comprehensive plan would identify areas for development as well as perhaps inform us what is appropriate, whether it's commercial or residential. So we're a little bit ahead of ourselves, but the comprehensive plan is coming soon. So those who are listening, those who are in attendance, you'll be invited to be part of that conversation. Don't miss that opportunity. And hopefully it will speed us toward more efficient decision-making in the future and make these things less contentious. The more you participate, the better.

Karen, did those that voted against it in the Planning Commission, did they give a specific reason why? I believe it was two in favor, four against.

That is correct. What they vocalized was that they had too many in opposition, although only one citizen came forward verbally. There was a petition that had the 14 signatures, but it was unknown of exactly what was communicated to them, what was said. So We as staff can't utilize that as calculating our 20% of did we have 20% that opposed it or anything like that.

All right. So there's no general conversation about it at all? Just the opposition of the citizens? Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Yes, before we look for a motion, can we bring up and go ahead and do public comment first, please? Heather, let's go ahead and call the first public comment.

Rufino Garcia.

GOOD MORNING, MAYOR, STATE OF COUNCIL. THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPRESS MYSELF UP HERE. I AM RUFINO GARCIA, SINGLE MEMBER DISTRICT NUMBER FOUR. I LIVE AT 20, 22 MARKS. THIS PROPERTY HERE IS 2,000 MARKS. THAT IS THE ONLY THING SEPARATING ME FROM THEM IS THE ALLEY. Now, what they want to build is three to four family residential units. And they're going to go up. And they're going to see my backyard. Any time I want to have privacy, I can't, because they're going to be watching what we're doing. Now, we do not want duplexes out there. The contractor is going to build these units And all he's going to do is sell it, and his hands are clean. Now, the personnel that bought these units is going to rent them out. Now, the renter is going to want his money so they can move in. He's not going to do any background checks on anybody. Give me the money, you can move in. And keep it up, and you can keep paying me, you can still live there. Now, what kind of people is this going to bring? Think about it. These are not Christian people that it's going to bring in. It might bring one or two, you know, just for temporary until they find a home they can move to. But the ones that are going to be moving in there are going to be drug dealers, people that keep you up at night with loud music, more cycles. If they have them, they're going to be vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom all the time. You know, I served in the Marine Corps for 14 years, so we could have a peaceful life out here in the United States, especially at our homes. Now, this kind of business is going to bring across my alley. We're not for that. Build us two nice single-family homes there, and we'll embrace it, because people are going to move in there, and they're going to afford this house with their sweat. It's not going to be, I'm in there and I'm gone the next month, next two months. You know, man, I've got so much to say, I can't put it in words.

Your time limit's running short.

Yes, sir. I saw the light. Come on. Okay. I want to leave it with this, y'all. Would y'all like to have this kind of property built next to you? Think about that. Would you like this kind of property built next to you? I think the answer is no. Would you like a single-family house built next to you? I believe the answer is yes. I'll leave you with this. Think about this. Let's solve a problem before it becomes a problem. It will be a problem for us. We have to live there for the rest of our lives. I have the most expensive home. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Garcia. Thank you.

Jamal Schumpert.

Jamal.

Jamal Schumpert, SMD3. I also would like to thank the Planning Commission for those statistics, because I see now the maintenance is chosen by what your block can give back. But these people are right. THEY LIVED A CERTAIN WAY ALL THEIR LIFE. THEY LIKED THEIR PRIVACY, THEY LIKED THEIR DISTANCE. THIS COMES DOWN TO A DECISION ON WHETHER YOU RESPECT THEIR OPINION OR NOT. I'M CURIOUS TO SEE. I'M NOT AGAINST IT, NOT FOR IT, BUT I DO KNOW I WOULD BE AGAINST IT IF IT WAS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, AND THERE ARE A LOT OF OPEN SPOTS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, AND I GOT A FEELING THAT IT'S HEADED THAT WAY. SO I'M UP HERE SPEAKING TODAY BECAUSE I don't feel like y'all are going to respect y'all. And, I mean, even though the Planning Commission voted for it, only one of y'all has to vote to deny this. I understand there's some money gained with building these houses and getting so many young men as quick as you can, but you're going to change the people who voted for you, and then they won't be there to vote for you. So don't cut your own legs off. trying to put all these homes in here and make all these changes, because they did vote for you. So I would be careful in District 2, especially. Thank you.

Thank you, Jamal. Is there any more public comment?

That's all.

Erin, do you have the developer here?

Mr. Duran, are you here?

I do not see him. Okay. Patrick knows he was out. Yeah. All right. We'll flip this back to the diocese. Are there any more additional questions for Aaron?

Yes. Tommy? Do we know that there are Going to be multiple story structures? Is that a certainty?

Not a certainty. We do not know that. But I do remind you, just as Councilwoman Hesse-Smith mentioned, that all districts in the RS zoning allow 35 feet and two and a half story. And that's been that way since 2000. That's not with our comprehensive plan. That's with our zoning ordinance that hadn't been changed since 2000. Even when we adopted our new residential standards in May of this year, we kept that same design standard and requirement. OK. Thank you.

Any additional questions? Karen?

If this is defeated today, there is a moratorium for a year, is that correct, before the developer can bring it back?

To bring it back for a different type of zoning? Yes. I believe that is correct. He could go through with RS1. I may look at Brandon just to be sure. I think if he came back with a more restrictive, there may be the potential, or if council gave direction or planning commission to reconsider it.

Yeah, so there's three exceptions. I'll just read those. Where the planning commission is specifically directed by majority of vote of city council to hear a subsequent request, where the subsequent request is for more restrictive zoning or the zoning classification of other nearby properties in the immediate vicinity has changed are the three exceptions where they can be heard within a year.

Any additional questions? So at this point, I'll look for a motion.

And so let's, Mayor, just throwing this out here, another additional option. I think the zoning ordinance does allow you to defer the matter to get some more information. And I think maybe some of that information would be do alternative zoning options work for the applicant and maybe give them an opportunity to explore that and kick it back down to Planning Commission. At the same time, if those don't work for the applicant, they are entitled to a final decision before you guys. But with them not here to talk through that, that may be an option if you want to kick it back to the Planning Commission, defer it, get some more information, rather than take action today.

And so just to draw your attention to the screen to see, this is, again, our housing matrix. This is an infill area. And so RS5 is an infill. It only allows single-family house built on an individual lot but allows smaller lots. That would mean they'd have to go through a replat process. They'd have to add a couple of taps to water and sewer, but it's not adding sewer main, water main, things like that. So there's a potential for that, or there's a potential to come back to RS2, which also allows single-family house or a duplex. It just depends on the design at that time. Have not had those discussions with the developer, but at the same time, we know these properties could stay vacant for another year, and maybe they come back again with a proposal at that time, or they could choose to develop. It just depends on y'all's direction and where you think you want to go today. Being 14,000 square feet, you can get quite a few of the RS-5 lots. If they went with the minimum, I don't know that they would go with the minimum. They'd probably need to squeeze probably 3,000 to 3,500 square feet for a lot and then look at the design at that point.

So if we move, Aaron, if we move this back to planning, what's our timeline for them to make a decision, get information, and bring it back?

Well, our timeline would be that we would need to go back through our 30-day process to notice out in the newspaper, out into the community. We would ask for a concept plan, although we could not hold the applicant to that plan. Correct. We would ask the applicant to come forward and actually speak, if possible, at the meetings. And I also encourage them to go and talk to the community, go and visit with those neighbors. But it would be 30 days to planning commission, and then if we notice correctly, we could come back the very next city council meeting after that. So we would be looking at the September planning commission and maybe the first meeting in October for the first public reading and presentation.

So we're not going to handicap him by six months or a year, the potential to come back in 60 days or 75 days, correct?

Correct.

Yes, sir. All right. So I'm hearing a consensus from the board. I would like to table this.

Can I ask him a question?

Yeah, please.

Yes, sir. Aaron, if 20% oppose when you send out your notices, what does that do for you all?

What that means is that here at this group here, it would mean a supermajority or that three-quarters vote. So it would take six out of seven to vote in favor of that action.

But what about for your staff? So when staff approves or denies, does that change y'all's study? That's just information you give us.

We go on planning principles and what's best for our community.

I hear the tabling. The one thing I want to mention is... I think they will have overwhelming over 20%. And so if we go back out for notices, I think that's just more expense on us to get the same result.

If we deny him, how much is that handicap? If we deny the... Phillip, have you got something?

Just to your question, I believe it's one year that they would have to be able to come back. One of the things that I wanted to throw out there, what I've seen when there's development that is questioned by whether it's a commercial area, residential area, if you do defer this back, and Brandon, I need your help with this, if we do defer it back, it's not necessarily a tabling, it's more of a deferral back to the Planning and Zoning Commission. There can also be communication back to the developer or the applicant, where he would be able to do his due diligence and go and visit with the community, with the neighbors, and let them know what type of safeguards, if this were to be approved, and again, it's a big if, if this were to be approved, what type of safeguards there would be for the type of renters there, things of that nature. There may not be anything that he has in his plan to associate with that, but he at least would have the onus on him to go and have these conversations. So it not only gives the city the ability to go back and review this, but it also gives the applicant to go back to the community and try and foster developments there. But at the end of the day, as we've talked about, there is a right, and this is BEEN REPEATED SEVERAL TIMES FOR A SINGLE FAMILY TO BE BUILT THERE NOW. AND SO THAT, DEPENDING ON WHATEVER HAPPENS HERE OR NOT, CAN CONTINUE TO HAPPEN. BUT IF YOU DO DEFER BACK, BACK TO PLANNING AND ZONING, YOU DO ALLOW THE CITY TO GO BACK AND DO A LITTLE BIT MORE OF DUE DILIGENCE WITH THIS, AS WELL AS THE APPLICANT TO DO THAT AS WELL.

I would just add to that. The only thing, if the applicant has no interest in any other alternatives, again, they're entitled to a decision before this body. So I think you defer it back to planning commission subject to the applicant's cooperation. If that's not there, we bring it back to council for a decision on this zoning request.

I would hate to rephrase that, but anyway. My question, I hate to go ahead and go down a path where we handicap this guy for a year. If there was an alternative for them to do, I realize that's going to be a little bit more legwork, but we're going to be doing legwork there anyway. Patrick, your thought? Can he do a PD on this?

What was the question?

Can he do a PD on this lot?

No.

Isn't that the only way to get any safeguards?

Yes. In a residential zone like this that's currently, there wouldn't be any other way to do that. And I'm not sure what safeguards we would put on that that would be reasonable that we would do on any other residential lot like this.

Councilmember Keeley, I appreciate that question. I wasn't necessarily inferring that a PD go in on the zoning related. It would just be more of the developer going and talking to the community on what he could potentially offer. But you make a great point that there is nothing that, from a city standpoint, we would be able to hold them to other than what's currently in ordinance. I have seen that in the past where if they go into the community and they make an attempt to show what their business plan, their model is, that sometimes it provides a feeling of comfort to the community. Sometimes it doesn't. But it's, again, that onus on them to go and try and sell their development that they're looking for.

Agreed. And I tried. That's what I went to discuss with them last night. And it wasn't with the developer. He wasn't in town. But I kind of... We walked the property. You know, we looked at sizes, and I kind of discussed with them, hey, you know, what would y'all be comfortable with? You know, can we find a middle ground? And I got nowhere. So, again, I think it's for efficiency's sake, expense's sake, I don't know that there's any reason to just keep kicking the can down the road. From my voters in that area, the citizens that are going to be right around it.

Any additional comments?

One, I guess, clarification. Aaron, from something you said, even if this stayed RS1, that structure that would be built there could go up to 35 feet. That is correct. Regardless. So anything that's going to go there could go up to 35 feet.

That is correct.

Regardless. Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Any additional comment? I'll look for a motion here. I would like to, as we would say, defer this back to planning. I think it's not a majority consensus, but there's a lot of us that we don't want to handicap them, but we think there could be some due diligence done to find a middle ground here. So I want to defer this back to planning.

Is that a motion?

Yeah.

I'll second that.

So I made a first. Karen made a second. Any public comment on this?

Yeah, 6A, that'll be a no.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Nay.

Item gets deferred back to planning with a vote of 6-1. Good discussion. All right, we'll go to... which I don't know how long. We're on item F, first reading and public hearing of an ordinance for Z26-11, a request for a zone change from the single-family residential zoning district to a 3-4 family residential zoning district located at 622 East 44th. Presentation made by Planning and Development Services Director Aaron Vannoy.

I feel like we're just going to hit replay.

I was fixing to say. Groundhog Day.

But thank you, Mayor. Aaron Vannoy, Director of Planning and Development Services. This property is on 44th. You can see the red outline there. There's two vacant lots there. This structure has been demoed here recently, not a couple of years, but recently. It is in Lakeview. Mr. Joe Self, it is neighborhood. It is 0.34 acres. Request to rezone from RS1 to RS6 for a triplex home, one per lot. So our notifications did go out. We did have one in support and one in opposition. We did have this person came in opposition to planning commission. We did not have anybody else show up in planning commission, but anecdotally she mentioned that others were not for that. Just to draw your attention, this was a project that we had lots of discussion about over the last couple of months, and we know that there were some properties along here that were opposed to anything besides single-family residential. Again, our zoning is RS1. Our vision plan is neighborhood. As you can see, this map's a little bit different than the previous map. This property is squarely within the RS1. There's some major roads or some minor collector roads come across. The driving factor is right over here with the Lakeview High School, which means Lincoln is up there and the Coliseum Fairgrounds and Rodeo is over there. Lots of development has happened in this area. You can see the planned development down here that modified the residential zoning laws to allow the size of houses that are being built down there, which are still single family houses. Armstrong is over here on the east. And this area is starting to slowly redevelop, particularly some of these areas that are large lots in this area are trying to decide how can they utilize some of our new zoning districts to bring in more density. The challenge is we have this property here that's clearly in the RS1. We have the school district has a facility here that's going to have the tiny Texans. Then they have the high school and associated things there. Here's the property looking out, facing the property. The reason why we took some of the roadways is it's actually a very nice, improved roadway, particularly in the Lakeview area. Not all the roads are as improved as this, but it does have curb and gutter on both sides. It is 36 feet wide, and so it meets our standard for any new development coming to it. Again, just wanted to reiterate what those sizes are for triplex and quadruplex. You can see that we do have two lots at that address. Each of them have a 50-foot frontage and a 7,500 square foot lot size, so slightly larger than the previous case. Again, there's our matrix, so we're looking to fit in to there with our lot sizes and our setbacks. Obviously, with slightly larger lot size, you can fit just a little bit more there. I also did the cost analysis of what's going on here for this block. If you notice, the median value is a little bit higher. And so instead of being right at $950,000, it's at $1.2 million for that block. There's actually two extra properties on this block compared to the other block that we did in the previous case. And you also see that because of those values, property tax is slightly higher. And I say slightly higher by about $4,000, so a pretty good chunk there. Again, here's some of our costs, what it would cost. This also is a four-acre block, and so it's interesting that we have two more houses on this block for the same acreage, and the values are higher as well as the property tax. So again, you go through the numbers, you can see what the property tax brings. Didn't quite get that arrow there. So that cuts it down to only $8,000 on a negative and then the remaining cost of the general fund. So not as in bad shape as the previous block, but still running at a negative as far as it contributing to all the things that are going on to support that block. from parks and recreation to code to animal services, police and fire, all of the general fund items that we do, as well as maintaining the streets. And then you also have, of course, they pay for water and sewer through their utility fees, but we also know that some of these areas have to have those replaced in the upcoming years. So again, I use the same cost evaluations here. While looking at that number, I do agree with Councilman Keeley saying, well, that seems like a low number. The other thing that we have to be aware of is that it has to actually appraise out to that. The appraiser has to say that so that people can get a loan. And if you start looking back at the median There's a couple of them right in here that get pretty close. But for the majority of the block, they're about 110 and a little bit lower. So again, with the actual duplex that we see that's in town currently that was built within the last 24 months, if there were two of them, they'd be contributing that much to the general fund through the property tax to the city, which would almost cut that in half for that block. Again, staff goes through the rationale. We look at these two tracks. They're 7,500 square feet. They are close to schools and closer to major thoroughfares along Armstrong and Lakeview Heroes Drive. 44th is a local road with a right-of-way of 60 feet wide, which is very, very wide. And 36 minimum does have curb and gutter. The utilities are adequate for this type of development. They have a large capacity water main that's a 10-inch water main, and then they have sewer mains, one in the alleyway and one in the street as well. Again, we are able to demonstrate that there is a community need for this type of housing in this neighborhood and in our community. And so that's what is driving city staff to recommend approval for this zone change from the RS1 zoning district to the RS6 zoning district. and the Planning Commission did vote again two to four to deny. Therefore, it does take the super majority or three quarters vote here at City Council to overturn that. This one is slightly different. I will say the challenging things here, and maybe this is the right one to start with, is it's not a corner lot like that one that's large. It's two individual lots. While they do meet the standards that we set forth for our community to build a triplex or quadruplex, it is in the middle of the block. It's not on a corner. I would say the difference between this one and the previous one, you don't have a major thoroughfare necessarily going by, but you do have major amenities that people are looking for in the area, whether you're trying to get over to Armstrong and go to your job, whether you're going to school, whether you're going over to entertainment, or you're headed back downtown to do other things. So those are the differences between the two cases. With that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. I don't know if they'll be much different than the previous case.

Do you all know, is this the same developer?

Yes, it is.

All right, exact same developer, so... Joe, your district.

So quick question. The PD southeast that's southeast of this that's being developed. This one here? Yes, sir. Yes. Those are all single-family homes, correct?

They are. We had to modify all the setbacks and the floor area ratio for them to fit on those lots, so they have very little yard. But, yes, they are single-family houses so far right now.

And they're closer to Armstrong, which is a major road, even though they are off of – I mean, you have to come onto a road before you get there.

Yes, sir. That is true.

My feeling on this is this needs to stay single-family because it's in the middle of the block. Just like you said, it's not off of a – major road or even a minor collector road, even at that. So I'm pretty strong on it. It needs to say single family RS1, in my opinion. But I'll also take other suggestions.

Harry, you're up.

I would make a suggestion that we do the same thing with this one that we did with the last one, especially since it's the same developer and he's not in the room. Let's send it back to Planning Commission.

You're probably going to get that consensus, but let's let everybody have a word here.

Real quick, though, back to the PD, the Southeast. How much are those houses selling for? I'm just curious.

I want to say they're the low 200s, but I don't know that for sure.

That's what I was thinking because I remember somebody saying they were surprised that that's considered affordable housing now when we were talking about it in a different scenario. Yes, sir. Yeah.

I like the deferral just to get the end to see if the developer is open to any options. Let me roll down here.

Patrick. Just for information, 2 to 250 is what everything is selling for in that specific neighborhood. That's all I've got.

Ms. Karen? Ms. Mary? Any comments? So I drove this last night. So one thing, Patrick, could you go to your overhead picture? Excuse me, Aaron.

This one or a closer one?

So go back to the other one. Okay, right there. On the backside of that, in the alley, on the houses to the north, they've already put in many, like those little buildings, like one bedroom. So I get it, but somebody needs to actually go through there, and if we're going to hold this to a greater standard, we're going to have to hold everybody... to a greater standard on that. I'm all about the property rights and what they get here and they can go for the RS1. Joe and I spoke about that and me and Patrick spoke about one this morning. I'll go ahead and make the motion to defer this back as this is the identical same builder and I think they need to provide a little bit more, I would say, transparency or scope of what they're planning to build. This would certainly clean up... Is that house even still there?

No, sir, they've demoed the house.

Yeah, so I need everybody that's watching to understand that house is already gone, too, and this is too... very vacant lots that anything there would clean it up and make it look better. This was a challenging property.

They had squatters that moved in, and we had to get them off last year. So it is good that they're cleaning it up and going to do something with it.

Well, another thing that goes in your mind, the most vocal constituent in my district, but anyway, in the House, she pointed out that adjacency to the schools allows somebody with lower income to actually go in here and be able to not have to worry about transportation, getting their kid back to school. But what I will say, to be consistent and follow the consensus, I'll make a motion to defer this back to planning. I have a first and a second from Joe. Any public comment?

Jamal Schoenberg.

Jamal.

Jamal Shumpert, SMD3. I just wanted to know if y'all can include how far is the nearest fire hydrant? Because once you start sticking multiple structures on one property, multiple structures catch on fire, where it would have been just one for 5,000 square feet. So I was just wondering if y'all could also include that on some of these so that we can be in the know about where, you know, hydrants is, especially because my hydrant is pretty old. I'm not even sure if it, well, it works because I see them out there draining it, but I'm wary one day it might just shoot up off the ground. But anyway, thank you.

Thank you, Jamal.

I have a quick comment or question. Sorry. Is this an area with no deed restrictions?

To the best of our knowledge, they don't have deed restrictions, but we do not research that as city staff. That is for the developer to do on their part.

Was the financial data offered to the planning commission for these cases? It was not. Will it be offered when it goes back? Thank you.

Good question. Let me follow that up. Everybody get on board. Is your spreadsheet, you did that on a plug and play? where you could change values and numbers would change or no?

Yes. Will it pull the information straight from the Tom Green County Appraisal District? No. We have to enter all of this data there and all of this data for this. It will not spit that out for us.

Is that on an Excel spreadsheet with formulas?

It might be.

Awesome.

That would be interesting. And if you would, I think somebody's already said, if you'll do that on every case, go forward. For me, this was eye-opening for me personally. So thank you for doing that. If you could do that on cases going forward, that would be helpful.

All weekend. All right. I think I remember you saying the last one. I spent all weekend. Awesome.

No, I think it's very helpful for decision-making when you have these kind of things.

Now, that brings a set of reality back to what we're dealing with as a city.

This tells us that we have to make different decisions in the future somewhere. It doesn't mean that it has to be here, but somewhere we have to make different decisions to be a sustainable community.

Without data, it's just an opinion. I'm with you.

All right. Anybody else? No more. We've had a motion the first thing. We've had public comment. All in favor of the deferral back to planning, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Item gets deferred 6-1. Now we'll go to item G, first reading and public hearing of an ordinance for issue 26 that show on a request for special use to allow a funeral home and crematorium located at 3602 and 3618 to voting in dry. Presentation made by Planning and Development Services Director, Aaron Benoit.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council. This is a special use. We do not routinely hear these. Normally we hear a rezoning or conditional use or planned development. In this case, we chose to come forward with a special use permit to allow the two different types of things that they are wanting to do here. It is for a crematorium and a funeral home. And so in our zoning ordinance, those two things don't always match up. The crematorium fits the heavy commercial. The funeral home hits the general commercial, this area. And then there's some other caveats in our ordinance that made it challenging. So we thought the best path was to come forward with a special use. This is in the neighborhood of Rio Vista. It is in District 1, Mr. Tommy Hebert. The vision plan is commercial, and it's just under two acres of property. And so the underlying zoning will not change. This is just a special use permit to do these two land use functions on site. So we did send out our 18 notices. We did have one in opposed and they were concerned about the vehicular traffic and street parking and things like that. But we do have a two acre parcel here and talking with the folks that are wanting to bring this forward. It's primarily for the cremations and smaller services. They have another facility in town that they will do large services at. And so these streets are all built to local street standards. They're all 40 feet wide. Adobe's actually built to a little bit larger standard, and then further south is Petro, which is also built to a different standard. You can see the different types of uses, all the way from self-storage, some landscaping companies, some other... construction companies that are in the area. This is the back end of a hotel over here as you get up to Jackson Street. One of the folks that did come to Planning Commission, they verbally said this would prevent them, that it might prevent them from them unloading their vehicles in the street, which we kindly told them, well, you're not allowed to do that anyway.

So that's not what they're supposed to be doing anyway, right?

Yeah. But we understand that you have large loads, whether it's sod or things like that. And that's just one of the things that we work with with our community. So again, it's heavy commercial zone currently. You see some general commercial up here, lightened commercial and heavy commercial back to the west. The vision plan is commercial, which supports heavy commercial and general commercial. And these are just two vacant tracks that are looking to move forward. So we did look at the rationale. It is comparable in intensity or less intense than some of the surrounding uses. It is demonstrated community need for more crematoriums. We understand there's only one active for human cremations in town. This would give another option. um effect on the natural environment obviously a crematorium is concerning to to think about but we also know that they are heavily regulated by tceq and the epa and so they look at those things much more strongly than we do and actually are probably a less intense use than the fertilizer and other things that are probably stored within a good quarter mile of that area So with that, the staff does recommend approval with the special use permit to have the funeral home and crematorium within the heavy commercial district located at 3602 and 3618 Devonian Drive. The only condition that we have at this time is that they would pull any necessary building permits with the building permits and inspections department. Planning Commission did recommend approval with a 6-0 vote in July. With that, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

So as we move forward with this one, did you do a tax analysis on this too, Patrick?

No, I did not.

I mean, Aaron, I just keep wanting to call him Patrick. Aaron?

As long as he gets the blame too.

Right. Well, yeah. I keep taking roads, but anyway. So Aaron, do you see any problem with this one at all?

No, I think the thought about the traffic does raise an eyebrow, but we do have, these are fully functional streets. This is very close to major thoroughfares with Jackson being right here, Bryant being about this distance down. They all have accesses in and out. It's good circulation in that area. So I think this actually fits, particularly with the crematorium, maybe a little less so than the actual funeral home. But at the same time, we understand those two things can go together. We think it can go there. They actually have a good plan of how they're going to make the property look very nice and appealing. And so I think that's going to work for this area.

Right. As far as crematorium, there's one just down the road from our house. And you wouldn't know it there if it wasn't a sign on the fence. So this is in your district. I mean, if you want to keep score, if you had a way to keep score.

Somehow, I'm ready to make a motion, but somehow it comes out like deferral.

Well, at least I didn't call you Patrick. No, no.

I have had no contact from anybody on this. I watched the Planning Commission meeting on this and heard all the comments there. I move approval.

Any additional comments? So if I only had a way to keep score. So I have a first from Tommy Hebert and a second from Joe Self. Any public comment, Heather?

Mr. Gutierrez, as the applicant, he'll get five minutes.

Okay. I'll just say before you go, you're in a good spot.

My name is Arnoldo Gutierrez. I'm a funeral director here in town. Been in business 51 years under the same ownership. I'm very proud of that. Nobody comes close to me. The next one is 20 years. They've been selling out to other people. I appreciate your time. I want to clarify part of the concern of the parking. Number one, ours will be 1.9 acres, while the other funeral homes I looked at, the appraisal district, they have smaller. smaller acreage, so we don't have a problem there. We plan to abide by any restrictions and or guidances that the city is going to give us. Now, you all may think, you know, what we are doing, we are building a crematorium. State law says that we cannot have a crematorium unless we have a funeral home, an embalming service, or a cemetery on site. That's why we need both licenses. I can tell you that my plans right now, it could change. My plans right now is just to have the two licenses, but it won't be a functioning funeral home. We won't have any services there because it'll be a crematorium. So maybe that clarifies some of your, maybe questions that you may have. And I'm open for any other questions. Anybody have any questions?

With that, is there any additional public comment?

Over there, we'll look for a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Item passes 7-0. Thank you, sir. Now we'll get down to H. Consider an ordinance authorizing the issuance and the sale of the City of San Angelo, Texas tax note series 2026 in the approximate amount of $4,500,000 and leaving an annual ad valorem tax and providing for the payment of said note, providing an effective aid and enacting other provisions relating to the subject. Presentation made by Finance Director Jonathan Flores.

Good morning, Mayor, Council. We're bringing forward to you today an award for some of the bid results that we received for a bid result that we received for tax notes. These tax notes, if you remember, we talked about these in the July 24th Council meeting. These are the tax notes related to the equipment replacement program, our new rolling debt program. This will free up $1.9 million in the general fund annually to reprioritize and rolling that equipment replacement funding into a new debt service program. We did, and again, that equipment replacement does include $270,000 for an ambulance and $400,000 for a fire truck. You guys approved this in concept at the July 24th meeting. At that time, we expected an interest rate about 4.5%. The bids did come back a little better than that. The bid that we are awarding today came back at 3.85%, so the interest rates were better. And then again, we'll be awarding that bid today, and then we'll be getting those proceeds around September 17th. I'm open to any questions.

So sometimes we get a lot of criticism about doing this. Can you kind of, maybe between you and Tina, tell us the benefit of doing this versus what would happen if we did not?

So just to start off, it's going to free up funding in the general fund. Every single year we allocate that $1.9 million for this equipment replacement. This allows us to free up maintenance and operations funding and move it over to our debt rate funding. One of the big benefits of this program is this does not increase the tax rate. We're able to do this with our current tax rate as well. So it allows us to reprioritize some of that funding that we can only utilize on the maintenance operations side and then utilize what we can on the debt side for this equipment replacement.

Any additional questions from the DICE? Harry?

Comment. This is an opportunity... the citizens charge the city with to make sure that they're utilizing tax dollars in the best way that we can. This is an opportunity that it's kind of thinking out of the box, as it were, that allows us to get this equipment on a rolling debt program and still free up $1.9 million in the general fund to do other things. Is that correct?

Yes, sir.

Well, from my perspective, it's a great job, and I think that's what we need to do. Additional comments?

I'll look for a motion. So moved. I have a first from Herring. Second. I have a second from Tommy Hebert. Any public comment? Coco Simpson?

Hey, guys. Coco Simpson, SMD1. You can expect me to talk any time money's around. So I was here on that July meeting when we talked about that. So you're borrowing $4.5 million to free up $1.9 million and to buy $700,000 worth of equipment that was already budgeted for. It's a credit card that y'all are using instead of planning ahead for things that you know are going to break. We know we're going to need a fire truck every so many years. We know we're going to need an ambulance every so many years. Why are these things not being planned ahead for? I mean, it's not free money. We're paying 3.8% interest on money, and I don't know where the other, what is that, $2 million that is missing? So when you're borrowing $4.5 million... to free up 1.9, so there's $2.5 million, and then you're spending $700,000, so there's almost $2 million that's just gone. Where is the rest of that that you're borrowing? And then it might be no new tax, but it's not lessening our tax, or it's not leaving money for new fire staff or police staff or anything else. You're spending 3.8% in interest on $4.5 million, which is a lot of money. when it comes down to it. I will leave it at that.

Thank you.

Jonathan, do you have any public comment you want to add? I do want to clarify one thing. This is a $4 million issue. The bond proceeds that we will receive are $4 million, $51,000. $4 million, $51,000. This is a two-year program. So this funds equipment replacement for two years, and this will be a rolling note program. So at the end of those two years, we will have paid that full debt off, and then we'll have the opportunity to issue another set of tax notes for equipment replacement at the end of those two years as well.

And this is funding public safety too, correct?

Yes, sir.

All right, cool.

Yeah, and these are a part of our equipment replacement schedules. We do try to replace two ambulances a year, so we're working on continuing that pace of purchasing and replacing ambulances as well as fire trucks. Gotcha.

All right. With that, we've got a first and a second. We've had public comment. We'll take a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item passes 7-0. All right, with that, we'll move into closed session, executive session under the provision of Government Code Title V, Open Government Ethics, Subtitle A, Open Government, Chapter 551, Open Meetings, Subchapter D, Exceptions to Requirements that Meetings be Open under the following sections, A, Section 551.071, Consultation with the Attorney Regarding Texas Local Government Code Chapter 380 and Texas Code Chapter 312. We're now into closed session.