City Council - Regular Meeting

Prayer and pledges. Chaplain Moore, will you please come up and start us off?

Please join me in our pledges.

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

I pledge allegiance to thee.

Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible.

Please join me in prayer. Gracious Lord, your word tells us that if we lack wisdom, we should ask you. And because you give generously to all, So today we ask for wisdom. Please give wisdom to our mayor, our city council and all who serve our community as they consider the matters before them today. We ask for clarity, discernment, encourage to make the decisions that serve the good of the whole city. Your word also tells us if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Help us to remember that peace does not require us to always agree. Give us the grace to listen to one another, to speak with respect, to seek understanding even when we see things differently. May the work done in this room today be marked by wisdom, humility, and genuine desire for the peace and flourishing of St. Angelo. Please bless those who serve our city, those who protect it, those who work quietly behind the scenes, and every neighbor who calls St. Angelo home. We ask these things in your name, Jesus. Amen.

One proclamation to read this morning, and if I could get everybody with the Conto Valley Regional Food Bank to come on up to the front. Started right there, Brent. Awesome group. Brent, you're taking my camera view right there. I could care less. I could really care less. You could stay right there all day long, all right? In fact, I might do the meme behind you. If you'll just move your lips, it'll go good. And I'll just start this off. I was with y'all this week, and y'all did some outstanding things. And this is really awesome. I'm glad y'all are here this morning. The Concho Valley Regional Food Bank has dedicated 43 years of compassionate service to fighting hunger and strengthening communities throughout West Texas by providing nutritionist food and essential resources to individuals and families in need. Since its founding, the organization has served 13 county region within the Concho Valley. The Concho Valley Regional Food Bank provides a vital lifeline to thousands of individuals, children, seniors, and families by working alongside food pantries, nonprofit organizations, churches, volunteers, donors, and many community partners to help ensure that all food needs are met. Through a network of community partners, hot meal feeding sites, and dedicated volunteers, the Concho Valley Regional Food Bank distributes more than a million pounds of nutritional food annually to ensure no neighbor goes hungry. Through compassion, commitment, and tireless service, the Concho Valley Regional Food Bank has made a meaningful difference in the lives of thousands of individuals and families, particularly during the times of hardship and uncertainty. September is recognized as National Hunger Action Month, a time when communities across the nation come together and raise awareness about hunger, encourage action, support efforts to ensure that everyone has reliable access to nutritious food therefore i tom thompson mayor of the city of san angelo texas on behalf of the city council do hereby proclaim september 1st 2026 as concho valley regional food bank day and encourage all citizens to join in expressing our sincere appreciation for the organization's long-standing commitment to serving our neighbors and strengthening our community brent you should have some words

Briefly, I just want to say thank you so much to the community that we've been part of now going almost in October 44 years. We partner with 13 counties, the small food pantries that need our help in order to meet the need of food insecurity. With my staff here today, board members as well, and this is just a small sample of the number of people and volunteers that make that happen every day. Thank you for your continued support for all of these years. Our partnership in feeding hunger never ends, and your support is always needed. Thank you.

At 836, we'll go ahead and roll 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 order they signed in. When speaking, citizens must speak from the podium, address all comments to the dais, begin by stating your name and address or single member district number, and limit your remarks to three minutes or less. Heather, first public comment.

Jeff Fisher.

all right uh good morning mayor thompson uh welcome uh mr radia congratulations and uh council i've got three minutes so i'm just going to cover this uh quickly i wanted to talk about the northeast master plan and i had looked at the reviewed the coast of dc agenda and so i just wanted to bring up some talking points here it's not to say this is good or bad but just to move forward. For those of you who don't know, I'm an urban planner. I've worked for the city before, worked in other jurisdictions, so I'm trying to share my professional knowledge of this and that I'm only representing myself with SMD number four and not anyone else. I supported the data centers in principle. I thought in terms of a land use, I think you guys, we do have one of the most progressive data center ordinances now, and I'm pleased that you worked with us across the floor and we came up with something together. But I had some concerns about the Northeast Master Plan. So let me just start with the elements, and I'll try to go through this as quickly as possible. So I guess the first thing is this is 7,700 acres. That's a lot of land. Most of it's designated industrial. I think the concern on the concept plan, it shows two more data centers or data center pockets. 800 to 1000 acre properties. So the first property where skybox is is about this is two and a half times that so that could be up to five more data centers potentially. So I think the concern is it's lots of land. I'm recommending that we have either a public workshop Not necessarily a design charrette, although because the consultant had brought that up at COSA DC about a design charrette, that raised some concerns because usually when planners think of or city officials think of design charrette, it means engaging the public. And when we did the Lake Nasworthy plan and just before I got here in 2013, we had some public input into that. i understand this is kosaland but it does affect us i think the concerns i have on this that i had written down you've got water bills electricity bills maintenance costs one of the members of kosa dc had talked about reimbursements or cost share which i Not sure if that's happening or not, or that was just that one person's opinion, but that's a concern as well. So even if we allow it on a case-by-case and let businesses take care of that, that's still concerning to me. I look at the infrastructure costs, and it says over $287 million. That's a lot of money. So some questions is how do we get that? Where's that money going to come from? Where's it going to go? So I think my main concern as a resident is the, I'll just finish up here, there's a lot of industrial. And so having some more commercial, I think having the commercial along 67 was good. I think we should have some more of that as well because that's just a lot of land. And also that the public has at least one more additional opportunity before planning commission to engage. Thank you.

Thank you, Jim. Very well said. Okay. Second?

shana hill shana hill city of san angelo keep st angelo beautiful good morning mayor council members and city manager i'm excited to share an upcoming opportunity for our community through keep st angelo beautiful following the success of our household hazardous waste event in june we're excited to continue providing residents with convenient opportunities to properly dispose of items that can be difficult to manage through traditional waste services. Our next event is Tires to Go, taking place on Saturday, September 12th at the Coliseum. will starting at 8 a.m we will be accepting tires from san angelo residents until we reach capacity we will accept passenger vehicle and pickup tires only there are a few important restrictions rims will not be accepted and neither will tractor or industrial tires we want to make sure residents are aware of those limitations before they arrive one of the things i'm particularly excited about with this event is what happens to the tires after they leave the coliseum those tires aren't simply being collected and hauled off to a landfill every tire collected will be transported to our recycling partners facility where the tires will be shredded into approximately one inch chips those chips will then be transported to one of several locations where they are used as tire derivative fuel the recycling doesn't end there the steel recovered from the tires is sent to a steel foundry where it is recycled and ultimately used to manufacture products such as rebar and angle iron so from the tire itself to the steel inside it no part of these tires will end up in the landfill Events like these are a great example of how we can make responsible disposable easier for residents while also keeping waste out of our landfill and finding beneficial uses for materials that would otherwise become a problem. We're very excited to partner with our community on this effort, and I encourage residents who have eligible tires sitting around their property to take advantage of this opportunity on September 12th. Thank you to our partners, volunteers, and everyone who has helped make this event possible. And thank you, Mayor, Council, and City Manager, for your continued support of Keep St. Angelo Beautiful and our efforts to make St. Angelo a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable community.

Thank you, Shannon.

That's all.

That concludes public comment. Now we'll move straight into the consent agenda. At the start of this, I want to say I'm going to remove item I, and item I is the ratifying the COSA DC's authorization for the board president for the chamber contract. We're going to pull that off with changes at the chamber. We're going to kick that back to COSA DC. They will rediscuss that and bring that back at a later time. Now I'll start with you, Ms. Mary. Have you got anything you'd like to pull?

Item B, noise.

Mary will pull item B. Karen? No. Patrick? H. Patrick is going to pull item H. I have nothing to pull. Harry? Nothing. Harry's good. Joe? Nothing. Tommy? All right, so with all that, I'll look for a motion on all items except B and H. And I. So I have a first from Harry Thomas. Can I get a second? Did you say it at the same time? Joe Self? I have a first and a second. Do we have any public comment on items excluding B, H, and I?

Yes. Coco Simpson for 5A. 5H? Okay. She miswrote.

Okay. No public comment on that? Correct. All right. So we'll look for a vote on all those items as specified. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Consent agenda passes for all items except B, H, and I.

Mayor, before we get into Bean, after you read that, I'm a member of the American Legion, so I'll need to recuse myself for that particular item.

Absolutely. You want to do that now or you want to wait until I read it?

That's fine. Awesome.

Thank you, Harry. With that, we'll move straight to item B. Consider a lease agreement between the City of San Angelo and American Legion Post 572 for the building property located at 616 North Washington Street and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents. Carl White, you're on.

This is a lease renewal. The American Legion is currently leasing this building, and that lease expires at the end of November. When I contacted them about their interest in renewing the lease, they said, oh, by the way, we want to do some improvements to the building. We went to the building, checked it out with them, and yes, it does need some improvements. They've made a commitment in their letter proposal to do those improvements and ask for a long-term lease because of that investment for those improvements. We took that to our board. They'd asked for a 50-year lease. We took that to the board, had a lot of discussion, and the ending recommendation was to renew the lease at a 25-year term. And so that's what we're requesting.

Mary, did you have questions?

No, I didn't have a question.

It was just to pull it to give Harry an option to pull it out. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for Carl? With that, could I get a motion? I have a first from Karen. Second. I have a second from I'll call that Tommy Hebert. Y'all are getting a little technical. Is there any public comment on item B?

Justin Rogers. Sure.

Awesome. With that, we'll take a vote. All in favor of passing item B, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item pass is 6-0.

Mary, will you get?

Somebody was listening at the door. All right. Somebody had their ear to the door. Now we'll go to item H, consider ratifying a COSA DC resolution authorizing board president to negotiate and execute a memorandum of understanding with the city of San Angelo in amount not to exceed $50,450 for funding of the Santa Fe Park Kids Kingdom Landscape Design Services, a project authorized under section 505152 of the Texas Development Corporation Act. Ryan, you're on.

Good morning, Mayor, City Council, Mr. Ureda. Yeah, what kind of questions can I answer on this particular item? And I may have to have Carl come up and help me, too, because he's kind of the lead on this project.

So my question is, $50,000 is a lot to design a playscape. So kind of walk me through why you think that's needed and what it entails and why we think that would be a smart, efficient, long-term decision for us.

Okay. Carl?

In retrospect, I should have sent out some more council memos, Friday packet memos during this process. We've been working on this for the last three or four years. Kids Kingdom Playground is nearing the end of its life. It was built in 2003, a community build sponsored by the San Angel Health Foundation and organized by the Junior League. And so when we knew that this playground was reaching the end of its life, we did it just that we reached out to i think about three maybe four different commercial playground companies that we typically work with as you know we've we've done several playgrounds throughout the city and that's typically what we do we reach out to a commercial playground company and get them to kind of come up with a concept of what could go in a particular space. And with some of these projects, we work directly with the neighborhood and work, get that community input to kind of develop what that playground looks like. In some cases, we come up with our own and then show the neighborhood and this this is a different case. We got different options on different commercial playground layouts. And honestly, nothing seemed to fit. It just didn't feel right. And so we took a step back. About the same time after we'd gone through that process of looking at different commercial playground layouts, we had hired swa to do the the river parks master plan and so we thought well let's get a proposal from them to see what it would take if they kind of led the process to design the playground and the adjacent amenities and get us a kind of custom-built playground for that site with that fit san angelo We got that proposal, it was $150,000. And it kind of led towards a playground that was probably going to cost about $2 to $4 million. I thought that was a little too much to ask for and try to raise for a playground. It's a unique location and we need a unique playground, but it just seemed too much. And so after a lot of discussion, we went back to Leathers Associates. Leathers Associates was hired back in 2002 by the Health Foundation to do the design work. And that's how Leathers works. They work directly with the community to do a direct community input basically designed the playground. It's custom made for that site and for the community. And that's why you see different elements at Kids Kingdom that kind of reflects San Angelo. That was a design by the kids. I remember laying down on the carpet with the kids and sketching things out. It was a fun process. And so I was looking forward to doing that again this time before I leave. um so that's kind of how what leathers works you make a commitment to do the design and once you do the design then you have a really good idea what that's going to cost we think it's going to be about 1.2 million dollars we think this location is probably a prime location to consider putting another splash pad or maybe it's not quite like what we have now maybe it's a spray element doesn't necessarily have playground features but That's not including that, about $1.2 million for the playground. We're not suggesting we do a community build. This would be a contractor build. And during their process, they use their design sole source. They've already provided all the affidavits for that. And they hire their contractor to do it. So the design will give us a good idea of what it's going to cost so we can raise that money.

Why don't you want to do a community build? It was a community build the first time, right?

Yes.

I think Kids Kingdom was a great park. So why wouldn't we want to do that again?

I think times have changed, and we might be able to get some help to do a community build, but not to the extent we did before. And we don't have the Junior League kind of organizing it. It would take some entity that would organize that effort. That's put back on the community, not on Leathers. Leathers works with the community to do that, but the community's got to lead that effort in the community building. I think the city's changed enough that it would be difficult to do.

then the next step would be, once we have the plans, would be to try to fund it, right? Do we have any inclination of where we're going to get that from?

Of course, we haven't been promised anything, but we have talked to the Health Foundation. They're very interested because they were involved in the first one. We'd go back to the Development Corporation and seek their interest as well. And I'm sure we could get some other private donations. I mean, we've been very successful at private public partnerships, like with the World War II Memorial. That was all privately funded. The splash pads, that was all privately funded. Barracks 3 and 4 reconstruction, privately funded. So I think we would have some success in getting some private funds.

Okay. Carl, let me ask a question. Do you think the expanse, and I'm Following up on a little bit of Patrick's, it's worth the investment of this ask to have something professionally organized and designed that we might see contemporary and pick up some things we haven't seen through a community build? 100%. Okay, cool.

I think we're going to end up with something that St. Angelo is going to like. Right. And kind of expect to see another kid's kingdom.

Right. Well, you know, I'll be the first one. And the preceding mayor, I mean, we hate paying for studies. I mean, for things that we think we could do ourselves. All right. But if you think it's worth the outreach here to bring in a professional design team to do something, I think you're going to see support on this. Any further questions? Ms. Mary?

Carl, before we grant a $50,000 plan, Can you cycle down some funding sources? I mean, I hear a lot of, I think we can, and this should work or could work, but before we shell out 50 grand to see, you know, obviously you can't secure that funding, but have more than just, well, the elephant gave a, seems supportive, you know, or they like the idea. Let's figure out where we're going to get the funds and have a better handle on that before we 50 grand for not even a well thought out plan.

Councilmember Coffey, if I may take that question there. With this plan, I think in the order of the process to get the construction done, I think this is step one that we need to take. It'll help us flush out the actual cost of a project. It'll also be able to give us the opportunity to go to these entities that Carl has mentioned, whether it's the development corporation, other private entities to actually show them what's possible and what we can get with the study that's there. And so in recommending what Carl has, I think this study has to come first before we actually know a definite cost that we're working with, and then we can be able to partner with groups outside. So we may not know that cost at this point until we actually get that study done.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

On the plan, the design, have you all talked to them about how they're going to come up with their plan? Are they going to do, like we talked about, design charrettes? Like you talked about sitting down with kids, figuring out what they want? Yes.

That's how others works. They come, they stay, and they work directly with the community. As long as people show up to those efforts, then yes.

Perfect. Thanks. Before we move off.

Nope. Let's get one more.

Harry? It's just a comment. I'd like to make sure that when we do this, it's done professionally because it's going to be part of the master river parks. And we're spending a lot of money and a lot of time to make sure that this master plan for the river parks is top notch and stays out there for 30 or 40 years. So this needs to blend in with that. And I'm sure that this $50,000 is probably going to help The professional is going to come back with something that will do that. So just a comment.

Words well put. Any additional comments from the dice? With that, I'll look for a motion. I have a first from Harry. I have a second. That was Tommy Hebert. Any public comment, Heather?

Coco Simpson.

Coco Simpson.

Coco Simpson, SMD1. As a parent, Kids Kingdom is my absolute favorite playground to go to. As it sits right now, it is my number one over every other park in this city for a handful of reasons. Number one, as a parent, you can see the entrance and exit from from Kids Kingdom from the corner. I can sit there with my friends and we can talk and my kids can just run. I have I have eyesight on them at all times. Number two, it is fun. Every time you go there, you find another little nook or cranny that you didn't know was there. You find little hidey holes and little hidden things. The kids play hide and seek in there. There's also a little section for the babies off to the side that is within eyesight of your big kids. You don't have to pick one kid to hang out with. My suggestion is to not spend a single penny on revamping Kids Kingdom, but use all of that money to just rebuild it exactly like it is. Maybe do a few updates to the swings or something. I'm sure that, I'm sure that, swizzles have gotten better over over the last 30 years or something but this is a waste of fifty thousand dollars for a park that everybody loves just like it is i understand it is old and it is time to be revamped but you don't need to reinvent the wheel just use the mdf boards that will last forever instead of wood where nobody's getting splinters You know, there is no need to reinvent anything. There is a whole little side park that if we wanted to go on and do a splash pad or do something in addition to what's already there, you've got what, almost an acre sitting over there that you can that you can direct those funds. And I think he's selling our community short. I think there is plenty of effort and motivation to have a community build and get the community back involved with things. It does take the initiative. It takes some group getting in front of it. but there are plenty of us that would much rather give a Saturday afternoon than another $1,000 on our taxes. Please help us on this one. Thank you.

Any more public comment, Heather?

No.

With that, I have a first from Harry Thomas, a second from Tommy Hebert. We'll take a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? With none opposed, item H passes 7-0. Item I has been pulled. We don't need to do any action on that, do we? With that, we'll go ahead and move 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 less than three minutes. Applicants, proponents, and appellants are exempt from the time limit above and instead must limit their remarks to no less than five minutes. We'll move into item A at 9 a.m. Submission of recall petition filed on August 3rd, 2026 pertaining to council member Joe Self, single member district two and city clerk certification that the petition is insufficient pursuant to section 48 of the city charter. Presentation made by city clerk, Heather Stastny.

Good morning. So this is just to bring to you all the certified results of that petition for Council Member Self. A little bit of background on this particular petition. The affidavit was filed with the city clerk's office on June 4th. They did have 60 days to return that, which they did on August 3rd, 2026 for review. Based on the May 2025 regular municipal election results, they were required to have 30% of the number of votes cast for the single member district two seats, which was for a total of 365 was the required amount. Once those signatures were brought back to our office, we started the process to verify each of those signatures through various means. One was to make sure that each signature line held the required information. and then to go through and check for other validity sorts. So before you are the official numbers, 401 signatures were submitted. Six turned out to be duplicates where the signer signed more than one page with different circulators. and 18 of those were not actual SMD2 residents. So, at this point in time, they had 377 signatures, which did not fulfill the required amount. However, we did go through all signatures, so there were 34 additional that were invalid. This was a combination of missing information, the date of birth or was two or three things of that nature. And then not registered to vote, there were 53 signatures, bringing it to 290. And then lastly, we had 18 that were, not registered to vote in Single Member District 2, which made them ineligible. They did show an address that they resided in Single Member District 2 on the petition. However, when we checked their voter registration, they were still registered to vote in another district, which would make them ineligible to vote on this particular measure if it were to go to ballot. With the total then being 272, which is why the petition was So those are the results for that.

All right. Heather, very good itemization. Do we have any questions from the dais? Is this a non-action item? Correct. We just accept this and go forward?

All right, cool.

Heather, thank you for your presentation. We'll move to item B. An appeal to the Planning Commission's action on July 20th, 2026 to revoke conditional use 23-36 for a short-term rental at 2458 Fisherman's Road. City Council may take the following actions. One, by order upholding the Planning Commission's decision to revoke the conditional use. Or number two, by overturning the Planning Commission's decision and reinstating the conditional use with possible modifications to the conditions. Presentation by Planning and Development Services Coordinator, Aaron Benoit.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council, Mr. Ureda. Aaron Benoit, Director of Planning and Development Services. This is an appeal of a decision by the Planning Commission which revoked a conditional use for short-term rental. And we'll get into those details of how that process works. But the conditional use is 23-36. Address is 2458 Fisherman's Road. It is in an RS-1 single-family district, and it's in District Number 1, Mr. Tommy Hebert, in the Nasworthy neighborhood. And this property has been a short-term rental since 2018 and has a new owner since September 2025. So every year, the short-term rental ordinance says you must register each year. And staff does an evaluation through code enforcement, police department, and our hotel occupancy tax folks over in our finance department. within our ordinance there's different levels of violations this one happened to show that it had not paid hotel occupancy tax for longer than two reporting periods in the past year and so that that rose to the level of a violation to bring that forward to the planning commission So, again, this short-term rental started in 2018. It did renew through these years, and it did renew in 2025. They did come in April of 2026 and applied for renewal. We did notify, staff did notify them that we were taking this forward to the Planning Commission in July for revocation, and we noticed that on July the 13th. Now, the day of the Planning Commission was, again, the 20th of July. So that's a very short time period. And I'm pointing that out just as we are learning as staff that we've got to act maybe quicker so that people know information faster. So we readily admit that we need to work on that a little bit better. What our records have found is that there had not been a hotel occupancy tax filed since June of 2025. The previous owner had missed their last payments. And since September 2025, The new owner took over, but there had not been any hotel occupancy tax payments at that time. And as you've had the opportunity to read their letter of appeal, they were unaware that that was a requirement to do the local hotel occupancy tax, not just the state hotel occupancy tax. So again, we did this analysis. The STR operator, as soon as they knew of the issues, they actually went and resolved those issues on July 23rd. And so again, that's just 10 days after we had sent them an email. They actually were noticed that, hey, this is an issue, so they moved forward. And the current operator and owner, Mr. Simpson, has actually implemented procedures to remain compliant so that they don't have any issues moving forward. So those are things that are going in their favor. So the process, obviously, is that we go through planning commission, meeting date. At that time, we did not have any other information that would lead staff to make a different recommendation. The applicant was not able to come to planning commission and state their case at that time. And so planning commission heard the case and did make the decision to revoke on July the 20th. So they had a 6-0 vote to revoke on the 20th.

So, Aaron, let me stop you right there.

Yes, sir.

Let me ask a question. Do you think at this point in time, because they were not at the planning commission, led the planning commission to the 6-0 revocation?

I don't think that was the sole reason, but at the same time, I think any time an applicant can come forward and give evidence of whatever the situation is, that helps their case. I don't think that was the sole reason. I mean, we had the violation, and that would have taken care of it, but they may have made some conditions at that time, had the applicant come forward at that time.

Good enough. Good enough. Proceed.

So now we come to today, and what is the staff's recommendation today? Now that we have new evidence that has come forward, we do believe that the applicant does want to comply and has complied with any outstanding violations, they have put in procedures in place to continue to stay in compliance moving forward and understand what the ordinances are. What city staff has learned is that when a property changes hand, when it's a short-term rental, there's no real interaction with the city because that's just a private interaction. And so until they come to renew, they may not know that they need to do certain things. One, the city is not going to know when a property sells. Two, the applicant may not know that there are local rules and requirements. So city staff is starting to brainstorm, well, maybe we need to send a six-month notice to all of our STR operators and make sure they still understand what's going on and what they need to come into compliance with. What I do like is that this shows that the city is working through those cases and they are looking at short-term rentals that are in compliance, out of compliance, and taking action. So I do appreciate our city staff doing that, all the way from our finance department, our code enforcement, our police department, that they're working those cases. What we are finding is what we already know is that it is a very low incidence of violations, particularly with nuisance of noise, criminal activity, high weeds, those things. What we find the most violation is is hotel occupancy tax, and we're working on a process to resolve those much quicker. So back to our staff's recommendation is with the new information that we have, staff would recommend approving the appeal of the revocation of the conditional use with the following condition that the staff review on or after February 12, 2027. for the period of August 1st through January. And what that does is that gives them a six-month time window, which is within our ordinance. So you've got to pay within six months of your hotel occupancy tax. We can go and check them for hotel occupancy tax. We can check PD. We can check code enforcement to see if there's anything else. Then if there's an issue, then we go back through the process to go in planning commission and let them decide on the conditional use at that point. everything's good they get to come back renew in that may time frame and start the cycle again with that i'll be happy to answer any questions from the dice all right awesome aaron i'll tell you what we'll start with the home district mr hebert some these are pretty nitpicky questions i want is the first time they received notice

on the 13th that y'all mailed that out or had you made previous attempts to that to notify them that they were in delinquent status on the tax?

I would say for the last part of that question, the documentation I have is July the 13th. Okay. I don't have documentation of phone calls or anything else. Staff is still looking into that. But that is the documentation I have currently. Okay.

Well, then you answered another one. I was going to ask how many phone calls were placed because I think our system would, our voiceover system would know if it originated from within the office. that it was made to a certain number that would be the number of the owner-applicant. We don't have that today, you're saying?

That is correct.

Okay. When we mail those notices of delinquency, is it just regular U.S. mail? Is it certified? Is it certified return receipt requested?

Its standard is regular US mail. This one, we also sent an email just because we have the owner and the operator's information from their application in April. And so we did both methods at that time. So it's unclear necessarily if they got the email and they responded to that or to the letter, but based on the timing, it's probably the letter that came to their actual residence, not the STR, and they responded from that.

Have we dealt with cases that might be similar to this in the past?

We did have one other one at the same planning commission. The applicant was there and did actually come into compliance before that planning commission and were able to make their case at that time. This was the first year that we brought forward any short-term rentals for revocation, and both of them happened to be with hotel occupancy tax, not with other violations.

So it sounds to me like we have some work to do on our side to better communicate these type issues much sooner than what we did this time.

That's correct. We can always improve with our communication. And that's one of our standpoints is continuous improvement. And we recognize that through these cases. And so that's something that our staff is actively engaging in.

Good. OK. Thank you. Mayor, right now, that's all I have right now. Any additional questions down here? Harry?

So we've been working with short-term rentals 10, 11 years, maybe about the time I came on council. This is the... This item... with nonpayment of hotel occupancy tax is the biggest thing I think we've had with STRs. Early years, we had a little noise. But we worked through some of those issues. Right now, I think what you're going to find is there are more violations of nonpayment of hot tax from STRs. These two are exceptions. And I hope there's a way we can find out and continue to audit these SDRs so they can come compliance. I mean, if somebody's operating one of these things and not collecting tax and paying it, then I think we're missing. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Sill?

Aaron, we have a program that now tracks a lot of that, correct?

That is correct. We do have a software that we utilize now that helps track those items that, say, if it's a short-term rental that has not registered with us, they're monitoring those advertisements out on the web. And then they also confirm back with the state comptroller to see if hotel occupancy tax. And, of course, we work with our finance department very closely with them to do that, as well as we have an inspector in-house now that is going monthly and checking those lists and will be sending out letters and more communications to folks that are potentially out of compliance.

When did we get that program?

It's been in implementation for a while, but we've had it this calendar year, basically.

So, I mean, it's still in its infancy. We're finding these things now.

And we will soon be able to publish to the community a public number for people that need to call about complaints and things like that. Perfect. That will be very soon.

We got this program to help keep up with this because it was a big problem even when I was on planning because there was a lot of Wild West out there.

Yes, sir.

Okay, thank you.

So Erin, as we're moving across the dais, I'll start. Where I have seen and overheard people make comments is if somebody is an owner and they lease it, say I lease it to Patrick, then Patrick either subleases it to somebody else or goes out and then he does the STR. I question who the accountability belongs to. Is it the property owner or the leasee as far as the leasee manages out the STR? Because the owner of the property might not have done it totally unknowing, has leased to somebody else, and then they have gone out and maliciously tried to avoid paying hot tax. Correct. Is that part of the correction we're looking at?

Well, we look at who is the property owner and who is the operator of a short-term rental if they're registered with us. If they're not registered with us, we go with property owner, and that's who we start with because they're ultimately responsible for their private property and how they're managed.

You've told me everything I need to know. Any further questions? Patrick?

On their report, it shows that they caught up all the past balance. Was that from the previous owner as well?

No, it was just their portion. Okay. Their portion of since the September timeframe.

And then we think y'all, the staff has kind of put in some procedures now going forward to be able to get ahold of people and catch them ahead of time? Yes, we believe we have.

Yes.

Okay. That's my only question. Thank you. Thank you.

Karen, you good? Ms. Mary, do you have a question?

Aaron, how much money are we talking about? Just curiosity.

Well, for this one, I think it was around $2,900, I believe is what they had to catch up. And so I don't remember exactly how many stays that was, but that was probably more than a dozen, maybe a dozen to 15 stays. And so it does add up. And as you'll see through our agenda later today, hotel occupancy tax is a big driver for different programs in our community because That brings people and overnight stays into our community. And so it's very important that we are helping manage these, not only from the neighborhood standpoint of making sure they're being good neighbors, but also the hotel occupancy tax to make sure that they're being good community partners.

How do you catch them if they don't, I mean, this is self-reporting, right? And so if, let's say I decided to keep one of my houses and I'm just going to do short-term rental.

Right.

A lot of it has to do with some of our technology that we have that helps monitor those that are advertising as short-term rentals. Now, you could be very crafty and not advertise as a short-term rental, but you probably won't have very many stays. And so there's probably those things happening out there, but we're doing the best we can with our resources that we have to monitor those short-term rentals. And then it really comes down to our neighborhoods and our communities saying, it looks like we might have a short-term rental in our neighborhood. Let's talk to the city to see if there's something we can do about that.

Are there any fines if you find out? In this case, it claims that there was a previous owner and they didn't know, which I can understand that. Are there fines for knowingly not reporting that as a short-term rental? Do we have that in place?

I'm going to actually let Mr. Dyson talk about that because that's the tax stuff.

Yeah, so there's two levels to this. There's the state tax code, and then there's our code of ordinances. Our code of ordinances mirrors the state pretty much, but there is a penalty and interest amount for delinquent taxes. I'm trying to... find exactly what those are. I mean, one of them, the penalty, I believe, is just a flat amount percentage. And then the interest, of course, keeps occurring as it stays delinquent. So those are associated with that. And I'll come up with a percentage eventually, but I may have to take a minute to remember. I think it's around 7%.

That gets me. I have a couple ideas I may share with you later. But thank you, Erin. Thank you, Brenda.

If I may, Mary.

Assistant City Manager. Yes. Please go ahead.

Tina Diersky. We have in the past periodically gone through audits of short-term rentals as well as hotels. We're currently under a hotel audit that we kind of run continuously. There's a statute of limitations, I believe, of four years. So when, you know, we usually try to rotate our hotels every four years. And so we're not currently conducting a short-term rental audit, but that is something that we could look into. And from my experience in the past, those audits have always paid for themselves from what the findings are.

I really appreciate having that many sets of eyes on it from the community all the way to staff. And also I do appreciate that. But thanks for answering my questions, Aaron. Yes, ma'am.

All right. With all of that done, I'll look to find a motion on item B.

Is the applicant owner here, Aaron, do you know?

I do not know. Okay. And I don't know that anybody signed up for public comment.

Okay. Given the circumstance, it's my... thought that we grant the six-month review process to take place to see how things go and then would that just be a one six are you recommending just that one six month period and then go back on the annual are you recommending more than the six one six month review period

I'm recommending the one six-month review because they'll be re-reviewed in May of 2027, so that's very quickly after that. Yeah, okay.

All right. I tend to agree with staff's recommendation here, so I'll make a motion that we approve the staff recommendation in this case.

Approve as presented. I have a first from Tommy Hebert. Second. I have a second from Joe Self. Is there any public comment, Heather? No. With no public comment, we'll take a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? With no nay, excuse me. With one day from Harry Thomas, item is approved, 6-1. I got my notes here. All right, we'll move to item C. Consider resolution supporting the private fundraising efforts to create and place art by art in uncommon places for two separate proposed art installations. One, not as small as they seem, in the Red Arroyo Trail area near the intersection of College Hills and Millbrook Drive. And number two, stack stories of West Texas along the Chadburn Street streetscape from the intersection of Beauregard Avenue to 4th Street. Presentation made by Parks and Recreation Director Carl White. Arts in Uncommon Places.

Sure. These are two separate art proposals by Art and Uncommon Places. They have a map out in the atrium, the lobby, that shows the layout of the sculptures, and there's a sample of one of the pieces of one of the totems out there, if you could take a look at it later. So we may want to take action on these separately. I don't know. But I'll read this first description of the first proposal. This is for not as small as they seem. This series of eight large-scale mosaic insects transforms familiar, often overlooked creatures into vibrant, monumental forms. Each piece is handcrafted and richly patterned, drawing inspiration from both the natural world and decorative folk art traditions. By enlarging these small beings into an unexpected scale, the work invites viewers to slow down and reconsider their relationship with the environment beneath their feet. So the applicants and the artists are both art and commonplaces and their studio artist. It's all original art. It's valued at about $60,000. These are large pieces. They're about eight feet long, four feet wide, and about two feet off the ground. They're made out of reinforced cement. There's rebar and piping. THEY'RE MOSAICED ON THE TOP IN COLORFUL PATTERNS. THEY'RE SUPPORTED BY PIPES UNDERNEATH. And the proposed location is the rhetoric trail near the intersection of College Hills and Mill Book. That intersection we did take this to the Public Art Commission. I think it back in May they had discussion and they recommended approval. So we're here to seek Council's approval. These are these do look like insects, but they're not representative of specific insects. There are colorful. This is the proposed location. They're not to scale. They'd be about a third of that size. They would be put on slabs. I think we should probably try to color in an earth color so that kind of blends in with the ground. We don't want them placed straight on the ground because the grass would grow up underneath and be difficult to maintain. And the artists are here. If there's any questions about the art.

Let's go ahead and can we move into item two? and that way we can bring up the artist at the end and ask on both items.

There's a ground level view of that location. The second one is the stacked stories of West Texas. Again, art in uncommon places. This is that architectural styrofoam that we saw. There are other pieces down on Chabern, the cowboys. Let's see, they're also grouted. Metal reinforcement. These are tall pieces. Think about 12 feet tall. Valued about $55,000 and this would be a long Chapman St going back north. From the intersection of Beauregard. Again, this went to the Art Commission and now City Council. Shows a little bit of the fabrication process. And then these better show the totems. So they have icons representative of Texas things. There's guitars, there's hearts, there's steers. This is a steer. This is an armadillo. Cowboy boots, cactus. Different colors. And I show this because this is their last project on Chappin Street. This is one of the cowboys. And they're holding up well. I've seen people take pictures by them, gets to post on social media. Again, if this resolution passes, we would have to have an agreement for the placement of this art. And in that agreement, they have to work with the city to make sure that the items are placed correctly so they don't block accessibility or create any visual kind of hazard. So that is part of the requirement. And of course, they have to carry insurance too when they install these.

So who carries the insurance? Part and uncommon places?

Yes. OK. During the installation. They would do the installation in coordination with us. This is the area from Beauregard to 4th Street. And we walked this with Patrick Ferrick too, obviously during construction, so we don't know exactly where they would go and it's difficult to show it during construction.

I don't think we even know where the street goes right now, Charles. Carl, so proceed.

But this is representative of the location.

Sorry, that's a bug.

That's the last one.

So is there any city funding used for this?

No, just city staff time.

All provided in staff. So in case of vandalism, who's responsible for cleaning it up?

And that had to be detailed in the agreement.

Okay.

Typically with our guidelines, if you're expecting the city to maintain it, we have to have some funding to do that. In this case, it's going to be art and uncommon places.

Okay. Any questions for Carl from the board? Patrick? I mean, Tommy, you've got the line on. I like the insects.

Those are really cool. They're great.

And that adds to all the art that's on the Red River Trail already. The bird cages, and there's already some ants out there.

Very colorful, yeah. I might even start. Oh, boy.

Harry? Well, this particular area happens to be in District 3, so I'm always interested. I've had a conversation with Julie Raymond on these pieces. Just interested to think we're about two or three weeks out on finishing these two blocks that we're working on. Are we going to install some of these things now, or are we going to wait until the project's complete?

I guess the artist can answer that. I think they wanted to get this through the process so it could get set up, I think, before I left is what they told me. So that's why we're bringing it now before it's all finished. And so, yes, my understanding is the project needs to be complete and text signed off on it before this is installed.

So a couple years.

I believe so.

Maybe. We'll see. Patrick, questions?

Mine's mainly about the first set of sculptures. So it seems like the black-tie cowboy, if the other ones are similar to that, they're going to hold up fairly well. The other ones were a lot of metal.

we worried about just rust staining things like that are they going to be covered so that the metal is not exposed you're talking about the the insects they will be covered um let me talk to that process they will be coated powder coated um to hold up carl you've got reinforcements coming yeah um

We have a similar construction.

Julie, state your name.

Oh, sorry. Julie Raymond, president of Art and Uncommon Places. We have similar things out there because the Red Aurora is a dry riverbed. The only thing you can build with is metal, rock, and cement. Anything you see constructed out there, in my estimation, when I did this study and figured out what was going to hold up there, we spend eons of time on seeing what the greatest and lightest material is for public art. Right now, they should do as well. When they dug up the ashes of Pompeii, the mosaics were still there. And so these have mosaic on so that should give strength but color. These also are going to be raised up where they could be benches so you'll be able to sit on every one of them. Visibility is going to be great from the street. I'm excited about that because a lot of the things that we've done in Red Aurora, if you're not capable of walking, you can't see. So this is going to be lovely for some people that are elderly or are handicapped in some way, you know. But anyway, everything we do has been a gift to the city. We have over 600 pieces in the city. We have some that date back over 20 years. And so far, everything we have is still standing, except for the stools and the red aurora that the mowers have run over. And so I'm having to redesign and build those. But y'all have any other questions?

You answered my next question. So they're going to be sturdy enough for a kid to climb on them, because that's probably what's going to happen.

Yes, they weigh 800 pounds, they're eight foot long, they're cement, and the positioning of everything is, these are helped with community. We'll have two days of mosaicing by the community, and then we'll have our professionals mosaic, I mean grout, with an epoxy grout. So those ensure something else that we've researched. When the community is a part in it, I get phone calls like that if somebody touches it. And so that helps us a lot. And really, anyway, that's anything else?

Thank you, Julie.

You're welcome. You're welcome.

Karen? Ms. Merrick? So they will not only withhold the small child, but even a 180-pound Goodfellow Airman? Yes. OK. I just said that because of Chad's here. All right. So with that, can we take both these items at once, Brandon? Yes. All right. So I'll look for a motion. So moved. I have a first from Harry Thomas. Yes. Second from Karen Hesse-Smith. Any public comment, Heather? No. With no public comment, we'll take a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item passes 7-0. Now, it is my understanding, Carl, there are some examples of these out in the lobby, correct? It's back at 940. Let's go eight minutes. At 940, we're going to call this meeting back to order. Let's all take a look out into the lobby and take a quick peek at these. Allow Tommy Hebert to go to the restroom. So is the camera on? We're going to have a pop test. So we're not back to the meeting yet, right? Okay. Well, then we're not going to do that. We're just going to have a pop test. Who can pronounce Phil's name wrong?

Everybody has.

Everybody has. Will you say the proper pronunciation of your last name, please? To the mic. To the mic.

Uritia.

Uritia. Uritia. Uritia. Uritia. I just call him Phil.

Phil works.

All right, we'll come back to order two minutes late at 942. Item D, considering authorizing city staff to accept a grand award from FY26 Defense Community Infrastructure Program in relation to the Cristobal Road Reconstruction Project and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents. Presentation made by Operations Director Patrick Frerich. Patrick, you're on, bud.

All right, good morning, Mayor and Council. I'm actually going to shake it up a little this morning. Typically, this is an item that I would present, but I wanted to give an opportunity for some of our staff to be highlighted this morning. Jen not only knows this project inside and out, but she is also our grants administrator who did the heavy lifting and really got this grant application put together and got it to the state it's in today. So I wanted to give you all an opportunity to kind of see who just does the heavy lifting for our department and kind of get to know them and the grants administrator. If you remember a couple years ago, you all granted us that position as a new position for us. And I just kind of wanted to show you all the fruits of y'all's authorization. So without further ado, I'll introduce Jen Bellmere. She is our Public Works Grants Administrator, and she'll walk you through this project.

All right, yeah, no pressure. uh so good morning i am jen bellmayer thank you for letting me be here today um as we get started i wanted to tell you a little bit about my role this position is i think unique to the city so what i do for the city i oversee and manage the grants that public works is currently has been awarded you know i'm trying to make sure that we're remaining in compliance with any of our grant programs so that we get our funding back at the end of each cycle. And then on the second half of what I do is I evaluate and identify potential grant opportunities which could fund future public works projects. as you might imagine these programs or these projects are getting more and more expensive and you know we're trying to find ways to still be able to access and and make these projects come to life um so i wanted to talk about it a little bit because um you know grants writing even when we've applied for a grant many times before, I approach it with a fresh slate each time. If I'm going to reach out to the federal government and say, hey, please provide me $20 million for our city, I want to be able to say that I've done the due diligence. And so I've gone through this process already twice on this particular grant proposal. We've also done it in previous occasions, previous fiscal years. And we're excited to be able to potentially get this grant. So talking about, there we go. Okay, sorry, it looks a little different on the screen. So talking about the Defense Community Infrastructure Program, it came in from the OLDCC, which is the Department of Defense or Department of War Division. It started in 2020. So they've done about, I think this is the sixth or seventh cycle of it. It funds projects that will support military infrastructure. So it has to be in communities where there is a base, a military installation. and it has to particularly replace or construct new infrastructure to benefit the base, and it can benefit the citizens too, but it has to also be reasonably expected to support our installation. Each year is a different funding amount. This year they've offered $230 million. Of that, we can request up to $20 million in grant funding. Let's see, so go on to the next one. Okay, so because this program, the funding varies. Last year and the prior years, it was always 100 million or less. They only awarded between 10 and 20 projects in a given fiscal year. There are 355 military installations domestically, so the potential for projects coming in is kind of great. It makes it a very competitive grant process. So we've been applying for funding for the Cristobal Road project, and that will take up a bulk of that money. This year we're thinking it'll probably be 20 to 30 projects awarded and we're excited to hopefully be part of that, be included in that. So we're going to go ahead and talk about just some of these previous projects which were awarded were roadway projects, flood control projects, public safety facilities, water utilities and sewer utilities. All of these are recent awards just from the last three years of the program. From year to year, the funding criteria changes. Last year we had a category known as military value enhancement. Whatever we were talking about in the grant had to support that specific element. You had to be able to say, my project is going to provide military value enhancement. This year they've actually changed the funding to enable funding going to military family quality of life enhancement. And really that's the bread and butter of where our project lies. So we were really excited to come back and do it this year, thinking that we had our best chances compared to prior years. So in June, we submitted our proposal. From there, it gets rated, ranked, and then it was put on a list that went to the Assistant Secretary of War's desk for approval. And when I say approval, they don't approve it right there and then. What he does is he says, now these folks have a chance to submit the formal application. So that came back to us early in August. And we've been working closely with the OLDCC to put our application in place and then get it to where it can now be technically reviewed. So the technical review team is looking at it, I believe it's tomorrow. Once they have come back to us and told us, hey, these are the tweaks that you need to make or possibly provide additional documentation, then it will go to the director of the OLDCC. and at which time we're hopeful that he's going to be able to award the project to us. Now, I just want to stop here because just getting out of the proposal phase is the hardest part of this grant process. It's the competitive process. So all of our peer projects were rated against each other. And so since we have gotten out of that already, this is sort of a we're so excited. This is the fifth, I think, time trying for this project. So it's amazing to get even picked for this moment. But it isn't a done deal yet. There are still a couple of additional steps. So while I can't tell you today we're definitely getting the grants, we have a lot of optimism that we will. So September 24th, the contracts for any grants will be going out and required to be signed, excuse me. So they need to be executed by the 24th. But the OLDCC director won't be providing the authorization or the contracts until middle of September, so about two weeks from now. That gives us a little time to act, which is why we're here today instead of in the future after award. If everything goes to plan, we intend to begin construction in the autumn of 2027, and then the project would have to fully wrap up, including all grant closeout, by June of 2031, which we anticipate the construction would be done much sooner than that. we like to give ourselves some wiggle room so that is our last um you know final date we have to close out So here's our project. When we talk about Cristobal Road, the program, obviously we want to show how these particular elements are going to support our military here at Goodfellow Air Force Base. We received a letter of support from Colonel Norton. He graciously was willing to provide that support letter. without which we would not have gotten to this stage the project itself is going to provide all the elements that will support family quality of life particularly for military family members including new water lines and sewer lines drainage in the area, new roadway, new signals at Paint Rock Road. Let's see. I think I may have covered everything. Sidewalks. That's the other one. Sidewalks. So all of these elements, though, you can make a direct argument that these are improving quality of life for the families of service members. Each of these is a health or safety, mental health help, things of those nature, physical fitness, all of these types of things. run into that military family quality of life category. So we really felt like we could come in and have shovel-ready project for construction that actually fulfills all the elements. Whereas in previous years, it was a harder sell, talking about our sidewalks, critical for military assurance. That's a harder one to sell. So we really think that this one fit the category much better. And they gave additional points. When you're writing for grant projects, you're always trying to get that every last point you can, because they give you the rubric and they say, here's your 90 points that you can get. But this year, they threw in a little twist and they prioritized projects which had previously gone through their process and been rejected. but that were deemed to potentially be military family quality of life projects so by submitting this project one more time we were able to reach for those 55 additional points and that makes a huge difference i mean when you when you start with a max of 90 and you can get 145 you really get so much closer so this was the best opportunity for us to proceed with this project Now, I went over a little bit about what this is going to do, but it will improve area drainage and road runoff. It's going to increase the capacity of the sewer utilities, the water utilities, which will help the base be able to implement their own infrastructure improvements, which could lead to them expanding housing on base if they so need to. It's going to bring in better traffic control, better traffic flow, with a new reconfigured layout. It's also going to improve pedestrian safety, which when I was researching this for this program, between March and June, I believe we had five accidents in town where a car struck a pedestrian. So improving pedestrian safety is very important for the community as a whole. Now, in addition to talking about the impacts of the project on the area, we've got to talk about the financial impacts. So it is about a $28.6 million estimated cost at this time. We have asked for the maximum award amount from the DCIP program of $20 million. That means that this project, if awarded, is going to be, to the best of my knowledge, the largest grant in San Angelo's history. Again, I can't guarantee. I don't want to say it's a done deal. I really am hopeful about it. But that would mean that as far as the local match goes, typically it's going to be a 30% match, but we are fortunate in that our community is still fairly small, so we qualify for a rural exemption. So with all that, right now we're looking at an estimated cost of $8.63 million to the city. This is not a final number. Next summer we would probably take this to bid. That's the goal. And we'd be able to come back right after that to tell you, hey, here's our final number. Will you allow us to award this amount? And we would finalize the budget details at that time. So we have an idea that we could pay from one of several different budgets, but we're not trying to lock that in today. We're just trying to get approval to move forward with the grant. So next steps, in the middle of the month, sometime probably before the 18th, we should either have a contract in our hand from the OLDCC or we'll be told that we were not actually awarded. We feel pretty good about it, but it's not a done deal yet. The turnaround time, however, if it's the 18th, we have about six days to then negotiate and execute any contracts and required documents. So what we're here asking today is that you consider authorizing the preemptive acceptance of this award for the Christoval Road project and also authorize the city manager or his designee, just in case he's out, to be able to negotiate and execute the contract documents. Are there any questions?

So, Tia, number one, I'll start this. these are the things that we look for um as a community i mean it's a federal partnership we should it benefits goodfellow it also benefits the community i mean it's when you look at partnership it takes us right down that road um you know funding is maybe you go back and talk a little bit more about rural being rural what that excludes us from it gives us a little bit more of an advantage is that i know we're looking at we're going to have to come up with what about eight million here if we have to do it If we weren't rural, what would we have to pay?

That would be an additional $6 million. And I understand, I mean, one thing I've learned as I've been doing these grant programs is that there's this much need for funding within communities for projects. And there's about this much availability in these grant programs. So anytime you have you get the real numbers, you hear the real numbers of how much money was requested from a program, you know, water supply and infrastructure grant. They told us that they had $7 billion of asks And they only have a billion dollars of funding. So it just demonstrates there's real need. And this isn't even, this is just Texas. This particular grant, the DCEP, is nationwide, as long as it involves a military installation. So when we can ask for and potentially get $20 million to fund this project, this project that It has been in our minds to do since 2015 when the food growth study evaluated all the roadways in town and told us, hey, this road is in poor condition. That was 11 years ago. So this project has always been has been needed for a really long time. And we're just finally trying to isolate that funding. get us to where we can finally execute it.

There would be no way to quantify, I guess you could, the amount of money grants have saved us as a city. We would be so far behind. I mean, we're behind now, but we would be even further positioned had we not taken advantage of grants, kept fund balances that Tina Dearest, million day fund balance to try to be able to accept these grants when they come due but with that i'll open up to the dice i'll start with uh any questions around here tommy comment just more comments than anything jen thanks for accepting the job it is something that we had talked about for a while and so thank you for accepting the job i'm excited about this because

Part of this is in my district. Part of it's in Harry's district. But just to see what has been done on the more southern portion of Old Cristobal Road that I guess TxDOT is doing, or are we doing that, Patrick? Okay. How wonderful that is. And this section of road is in bad need of attention. So thank you for spending the time. Thank you for being as passionate about it and as excited about it as you appear to be. So thank you.

I am. This is a really critical moment for me. I'm excited to get it over the finish line.

Joe? No, just another thank you. This helps us achieve something that needs to be done without taxing our fund as much.

Harry?

But as Tommy said, part of this is in District 3. And actually, before Mr. Hebert was on council, we talked about what we were going to do on that section of road from Paint Rock all the way back to South Chadburn. And his predecessor, Mr. Richardson, and at that time, city manager Shane Kelton, Patrick Ferrick, myself, we all stood in the corner of Glenmore Shopping Center and just looked down and visualized what could be done. So thank you, Jane. Getting to this particular spot, I'll come and celebrate when we're finished, even though I won't be there. Thank you.

I'm sure his reverence before Tommy was on council was the first time. It wasn't the second time. It was the first time. Patrick, you got some comments, sir?

What happens if we only get 10 million of the 20? Do we still go forward with the entire project?

This program doesn't allow that. So during the initial proposal, the narrative-based proposal that we submitted, they, like I said, they rated and ranked all of the projects. And as they went through, if the funding wasn't available for a particular project, you know, because they had three buckets of money that they could have pulled from. And since we were going after this one $75 million bucket, um you know if there wasn't money in there they wouldn't have moved us into the next stage they will not fund a partial request so if we yeah if we get it we will get the 20 million which we requested and then uh any overages would be our responsibility which like i said we we don't know firmly yet but we'll know next year and we'll be able to get that definitive budget to you to present again

As far as the overages go, could this be tweaked? Since there is no match, could this be tweaked to value engineer some of that $8 million off and give that to other projects?

I don't have a good answer on that. You got me.

So on this particular project, we've been designing this one for about two years now, and we've looked at the water infrastructure, especially in cooperation with the base and what the base needs to enhance and grow their services. So there's not a whole lot of value engineering that can happen. And not only that, But as part of the grant application process, we actually had to turn in our plans and specifications that are at 100%. And so those are part of the application, and they'll hold us to that standard as well. So there's not going to be a whole lot of opportunity there. Obviously, with every construction project, there's some tweaks and some adjustments that we can make through the project. But substantial changes are going to need to be as they are planned and designed today. But we've done our due diligence and made sure we've got it down to the bare bones of what we need to make sure that we can grow the base in that area and sustain that area as well.

Thank you. Thank you, Jen.

Karen? Just adding my own praise and gratitude and hope for the outcome we all wish for. Appreciate your efforts, and you too, Patrick. Thank you.

Ms. Mary?

And again, thank you very much. It's sometimes kind of hard to get excited about grants, but it really turns me on. So I'm glad you're enthused. Just to clarify, and Patrick got some of it, you asked for the $20 million. Could they grade it down, or is it all or nothing?

No, my understanding of the way the program works is if they have selected your proposal and invited you to apply, which they did in this case for our project, finally, they've already set aside that amount of money for your grant. Now, that doesn't mean we sail through and get funding. There are still potential stumbling blocks. I couldn't tell you what they are because they haven't told me. But if they're going to fund us, they're going to fund us for the requested amount, or they wouldn't have moved us into the application process. Got you. Okay.

I just didn't want to get hung with $8 million and then have to beef it up on that. Thank you so much.

Jan, so who do you work with at Goodfellow?

So we actually have some of the folks here today. Chad, the executive director. So I reached out to him shortly after we decided we were going to go ahead and apply again. And I think he had the engineer, one of the engineers here. He's still here.

Yeah, could you go ahead and bring them up? Let's introduce them because on a DCIP grant, people need to understand what we're doing. So I see how happy they are to be called to the front. You know how we all feel there, buddy. And as Chad, as y'all can work, go ahead and state your name, your SMD. But anyway, talk about the importance of a DCIP and how you interact with the city on things like this.

Yes, sir. Chad Dowell, Executive Director with 70 Training Wings, Senior Member of District 1. As Jen said, this is probably the most competitive grant in the DOD, DOW. Get this far along and how she's tied it into military. quality of life and families is exceptional. We have 33 acres on the west side of the base that could be developed for residential. Our southwest corner of the base is where our entire child development complex is from zero to 18 years old. So the water and the safety measures from the road as well and then just our magnitude of families that live in that neighborhood just west of the base is He's taking the feedback exceptionally over the last couple of years, as she stated, to get to this point. And this is a huge, huge step. So exceptionally great partnership. We did have our engineer, Troy Martinson, some other folks.

This is Shane Schmidt.

He's the MSG Mission Support Group deputy who oversees the civil engineer. A great partnership all the way around to get to this stage and this level of national competition.

Thank y'all. I wanted to at least introduce y'all. I'll let y'all know y'all do have a lot of input in how we move forward with this, not only on this product, but future projects that we're doing, and especially housing, because we're in extreme need for housing for the base. Gentlemen, thank you so much. If there's no further questions from Jen, I'll look for a motion. So moved. Second. I have a first from Harry Thomas, repeat offender. Actually, I had a second from Tommy Hebert. I'll list Mary as a third, just so we're all good. Any public comment, Heather? Aye. With that, we'll take a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item passes 7-0. Jen, nice job.

Thank you so much for letting me be here.

We'll move on to item E. Consider awarding AP-01-26, convert runway 927 to taxiway H at the San Angelo Regional Airport to Hort Construction in the amount of $9,928,889. FAAIP number 3-48-0191052-2026. Utilizing airport and airport PFC fund balances and authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents.

Justin Fletcher, you're on. Good morning, Mayor, Council. Justin Fletcher, Airport Director. I do have two projects to present to you this morning. The first one is the runway 927 conversion project. This project has its origins going back to 2017, and this project will decommission runway 927 and it will convert it to taxiway hotel. This is a big impact to our airfield configuration and will have impact to some of our general aviation tenants. So I'll lay some background here for you, and we'll have a conversation. So as I mentioned, the project started in 2017. A pavement management plan was issued by the airport, and it discussed how we maintain our airside pavements, runways, taxiways. 927, we gave 927 a good look, and we conducted a wind analysis. That wind analysis states that 97% of our operations can be conducted on runway 1836 and runway 321. That 97% exceeds the FAs threshold of 95%, which means it's kind of hard to defend the third runway. So additionally, the PCN, the pavement condition number, at the time when we conducted the PCN value, it was computed to be a 55, which is major rehabilitation. So at the time, the pavement had failed. And we just continue to operate with that failed pavement. It produces FOD, it produces what we call FOD, foreign object debris, gravel. And that gravel is at risk of striking a propeller or getting ingested into an aircraft engine. So we want to which are things that we look for every day when we're out on the airport. So We presented this to airport board, presented it to city council, and city council at the time made the decision that when funding becomes available, we would decommission runway 927 and convert it to taxiway hotel. So moving a little quickly here, 2021, we kicked off design. We started designing this taxiway hotel, decommissioning the runway. My predecessor in 2023, he received a bid of $29 million for this project. And FAA, city council, that was... an excessive quote, an excessive bid. And the FAA said, Hey, we're not going to fund that. Continue operating as you are and just continue monitoring the status of the pavement. That's been our marching orders moving forward. We've just been monitoring the pavement as we as we operate the airport day to day. So fast forward to January, the FAA reached out to us and they said, hey, go get bids and see what the current construction costs are for this project. We think we have discretionary funding that we can allocate to this project. So we solicited bids. Hoare Construction was the sole bidder with a bid of $9.9 million for the conversion project. So this slide is an overview of the project. The blue area is the portion of the existing runway that will be reconstructed, converted to a taxiway. All the intersections of runway 1836, Taxiway Alpha, Taxiway Bravo, they have to be completely reconstructed. So we're going to have closures on the airport. It's going to affect our aircraft taxi. It's going to have big impacts to the airport while we carry this project out. It's a 150-day project. That portion there in yellow has been closed since 2021. There's a material called grip flex that was paved on top of the asphalt, and that grip flex has started to delaminate. And so we had to close that yellow portion in 2021. So in this project, we'll reconstruct and we'll be able to reopen that taxiway hotel that's been closed for so long. And then those portions that are in red, those portions are going to get demoed, and they will get turned into green space. ready, just completely demolished and done away with. So this project details our funding allocation. You can see under the construction subtotal, Hoare Construction had three schedules that they bid on for a total of 9,928,000 with a total project cost of 11,156,000. So Wolpert does have a construction management fee in here of $1.2 million. That is work that they've done from the bid process all the way through construction for construction management, materials testing, projects that are due to the FAA throughout the construction project. The grant, AIP 52, this grant is 95% funded through the FAA, 5% funded by the airport, by the city. And the airport will utilize PFC funding, our passenger facility charges, for the match dollars of $557,000 to make up our 5%. For recommendations, airport staff, including the airport advisory board, the airport advisory board reviewed this. Airport staff, we recommend awarding AP0126 to Hoare Construction in the amount of $9,928,889 funded through FA grant 52 and the airport PFC funds. Can I answer any questions?

It's an airport project, so naturally I'm not allowed to comment, everybody. With that, it's great. It's 95% federal funds. I mean, the airport almost achieves the perfect balance of funding itself, but we appreciate your time and effort on that. I'll start with you, Hebert. Got any questions?

Talk to us just a little bit, Justin, about how this might help impact economic development at the airport.

So on the west side of the airport, where that stub is there on the west side of the airport, that green space is going to be completely open. So now we don't have to protect the airspace as if there's a runway there. This will be converted to a taxiway. So now that entire green space opens up on the approach end of runway 9. The north side of 92.

Use your finger to draw a circle, and the marker should work. There you go.

So on the approach end of runway 9, that completely opens up. That green space will be available for development. On the north side of 927, these parcels open up. We won't have to protect this airspace as an airport, as a runway moving forward. And now these become properties that we can market, that we can develop. So this definitely improves some of the green space we have available in the airport for future improvements.

Perfect.

Thanks.

Any other comments down here? Patrick?

Why do you think we only got one bid?

One of the hardest things we have at the airport is bidders in West Texas period. We run into that. Material. Reese Albert has access to a lot of the pits that are here in the area. And a lot of companies would have to truck their materials in for the asphalt mix. The FAA has a very strict asphalt mix. We even had to petition the FAA to use the TxDOT mix on our south taxi lane. So the asphalt mix, the FA specs on our project is so stringent, a lot of contractors don't even want to pour it. They don't want to shut their batch plants down to mix it because it's so stringent. And then they have to sanitize and clean their plants after they mix it. So that's just some of the issues that we run into that limits the number of bidders that we usually get on a project.

My understanding is Hoare has been able to work somehow with Reese Albert to be able to get it locally, basically.

Correct. Hoare and Reese Albert, they're going to partner to accomplish this project. All right. Thank you.

Karen or Mary? I'm good, but thanks for coming for asking the question. Cool.

With that, we'll look for a motion. Mayor, if I may. Brandon. On the second item, is that part of this, that item F? for the Wolpert amendment?

Yeah, so I figured we could accept the grant and then fund the amendment to Wolpert's agreement with a second.

It was in the present. So you want to take them both at once? No, keep them separate.

OK. Well, I just didn't know if you wanted to present that before we. No, let's just keep them separate.

We'll just keep them separate. All right, I'll look for a motion on item F. Move approval is presented. It's item E. E. I have a first from Tommy Hebert, second from Karen Hessek-Smith. Any public comment? Is there any public comment, Heather? No public comment. We'll take a vote on item E. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item E passes 7-0. We'll move to item F. Consider approving Amendment 1, Convert Runway 927 and Taxiway H with Wolpert Company under the Master Airport Agreement in the amount of $1,217,814, utilizing airport and airport PFC fund balances and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents. Presentation made by my airport director, Justin Fletcher.

So as I mentioned, this $1.2 million, it does cover some of the work that Wolpert's already done on part of this project is the bid process. And then the $1.2 million covers their construction management services throughout the project. So we will have a resident RPR project manager on site daily to provide oversight of construction. He completes the daily reports, the weekly reports that are owed to the FAA, materials testing. I will admit the $1.2 million, that's a lot of money. That's almost 10% of the project. Some of the reassurance that I can provide to the council is that all of our FAAIP projects are required to undergo an IFE, an independent fee estimate. So this IFE is created by a third party consultant that is completely separate from Wolpert. And they work off of the same spreadsheet, but the IFE consultant, he builds the fee along with Wolpert, and then the FAA says that if it's within 10%, that's acceptable. If the IFE, if Wolpert exceeds the IFE by 10%, they have to come down to the IFE price. So there is some reassurance that this has been reviewed, it's been reviewed by the FAA, it's been reviewed by a third-party consultant, that it is fair and reasonable and not excessive.

Is it still 95% covered by the FAA grant?

Yes, sir, it is. You can see it there in the funding column, 95% FA and the 5%. So the local match on Wolpert is $60,891. Gotcha.

Justin, give us a little back history on if you don't have somebody inspecting these projects. We have some stuff out there in front of Customs and Border Patrol where the engineering we're still having arguments about because we didn't have, I think at that point in time, some arguments and discussion about the engineering concept and who was in charge.

Construction management is a huge talking point of these projects. Having somebody that's focused on construction, not only focused on construction, but they're focused on airport construction. So they understand the airport environment, operating on an active airfield, and then accomplishing these construction projects. to the mayor's point, the US Customs. That was a local project. It wasn't funded by FAA money. We did not have project management. And that concrete up there is just not in good shape. It's spalling. It's creating debris. We just spent city money just last year correcting some of that problem. that we shouldn't have had to fund because it's pavement that was done within the past three to four years. That should be 30-year concrete up there. So it benefits the airport to have construction management on site that understands the industry, and they can help us get a product that we'll be happy with for years to come.

Thank you, Justin. Any questions?

Many of the people out there know that I worked for Goodyear for a number of years. And we used a third-party engineering firm on all of our pavement to make sure that it was being laid correctly, that compaction was correct, that we had the right asphalt mix. So I understand exactly what Justin's talking about. And I certainly think that we... need to continue projects like this at the airport to improve that area so we can grow it. That's it.

DAVID BURRAGE. Additional questions for the DICE? With that, I'll look for a motion.

Move approval. Second.

DAVID BURRAGE. I have repeat offenders. I have a first from Tommy Hebert, a second from Harry Thomas.

Any public comment, Heather?

No public comment on item F. We'll take for a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item passed is 7-0. We'll move to G. Consider accepting FAAIP grant number 3-480191053-2026 in the amount of $1 million for the siting, study, environmental clearance, and preliminary design of new air traffic control tower at the San Angelo Regional Airport and authorizing city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents.

Justin, you're on again. Earlier this year, I came and made a presentation to the council on the status of our air traffic control tower, the age of the facility. And I presented that we were going to pursue this funding. And we were awarded the 2026 FCT IIJA award in the amount of $1 million. So this is a planning grant. This initiates the admin side of a new air traffic control tower. This will look at the siting study, environmental, and initiate the 30% design of a new facility. This grant is 100% FAA. There's no match dollars required on behalf of the city or the airport. And this is a 12 to 14 month process. So Wolpert, our consultants, they will look at three locations on the airport. We'll start with five. We'll narrow it down to three. And then we'll have the FAA make the final decision on the location on the airport that best suits a new air traffic control tower. Wolpert will look at things such as approach and departure runway ends, line of sight, looking at look-down angles from the tower cab down to the ramp below, the angle the sun hits the cab. I mean, this is very technical, high-level work that's done by an engineering consultant to initiate a new air traffic control tower. Looking at the next steps for the project, the siting study, if we get approved here today, we would kick off the siting study in October. In March of next year, spring, we're going to approach the FAA for additional funding. We've had conversations with our ADO. They know the ask is coming because now we're going to start looking at construction dollars. We want to make sure we have enough money to construct. This is a $13 million ask. for a new air traffic control tower. Congressman Pflueger has been a fantastic ally in this project. He secured us $6 million in congressional earmark fundings. I'm sorry, $5 million in congressional earmark fundings. Along with this million dollars, there's $6 million total towards this initiative. to pursue a new air traffic control tower. So we're going to continue that relationship with Congressman Pflueger. He went so far as coordinating the visit with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to come out to the airport to tour the facility. That was a great day for the airport to have somebody from the president's cabinet to come tour the airport, tour the facility, and just see the needs that we do have with our aging air traffic control tower. Airport board reviewed this as well. So our staff recommendation is recommend accepting AIP 53 in the amount of $1 million for the siting study, environmental clearance and design of a new air traffic control tower.

I will make one comment when Secretary Duffy was here, and I want to say thanks to Congressman Pflueger. We were not on the original list. There are so many airport towers across the United States that need construction, and even Duffy complained about how much Congressional Representative Pflueger has been trying to earmark for San Angelo, but this one tower improvement benefits so many different entities that we think we are now back into a very eligible spot to get an award to further continue because replacing these is i think a brand new control tower is probably what nearly 30 million we're looking at 22 million for our project 22 total for our so with that i'll open up to the dice any questions any further comments with that i'll look for a motion approval i have a first from tommy hebert i'm going to take joe self as a second any public comment heather With no public comment, we'll take a vote. All those in favor of item G, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item G passes 7-0. We'll move to H. Consider approving amendment number two. Actually, we actually just did H. Sorry about that, y'all. Actually, we'll move to item I. We are H. I am on 270s. Let me draw a line here. All right. So H, consider approving amendment number two, air traffic control tower siting study with Wilpert Company under the master airport agreement in the amount of $1 million funded via FAAIP grant 3480191532026 and authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents.

As I mentioned, this will be a task order allowing Wolpert to initiate the siting study, creating all those technical level tasks that have to be done, interacting with the FAA, coordinating all the meetings, doing the heavy lifting on the admin side of getting into air traffic, getting the siting study initiated. So this will be 100% funded by FAA, funded through AIPGRAD 53.

Any questions from the dais? Look for a motion.

Move approval. Second.

First from Tommy Hebert, second from Harry Thomas. Any public comment? No. No public comment. We'll take a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Item H passes 7-0. Now we can move to item I. Thank you, Justin. Thank you. Item I, discussion direction for allocation of fiscal year 2027 hotel occupancy tax funds for arts and historic preservation programs. Presentation made by Finance Director Jonathan Flores. Jonathan, you're on.

Good morning, Mayor, Council, Mr. Uriza. Yeah, I was working on it. Jonathan Flores. Yeah. Jonathan Flores, finance director. Today, we're bringing a discussion and direction item to you guys about hot fund allocations. The city currently has a arts program where we use money to help support organizations, specifically local nonprofit organizations that promote arts, historical preservation activities, and this is funded by the hot funds that we received through the 7% hotel motel tax. These funds must be used to help promote the convention industry and the hotel industry, as well as specifically promote arts and historical restoration and preservation projects. During the enterprise workshop, we brought to you guys the initial budget for the hot funds in that budget we went ahead and allocated a portion of the revenue for next year to the arts program specifically that number has been updated to now be three hundred and fifty two thousand dollars three hundred fifty two eight hundred three hundred fifty two thousand eight hundred dollars and that accounts for twelve percent of the hot fund revenues for next year and By state statute, we are limited for arts programs. We can only spend up to 15% of hot funds towards these arts, events that promote arts, as well as historical restoration. We provided applications from applicants. Those applications wrapped up Friday the 21st. We gathered those applications, reviewed them, took out any sensitive information that was in those applications and provided those to you guys this past Friday. And I think at this point, we just kinda wanna hear what your thoughts and opinions are on the total funding allocation and how we should move forward with allocating specific allocations in next year's budget. Once those specific allocations are set, by the end of October, we will work with the organizations to get a contract in place and make sure that those funds are dispersed in a timely manner. With that, I'll,

Well, Jonathan, let me start here. So first place, we are just doing a place marker here for total funds held for the budget. We're not deciding who gets how much, correct? All right. With that, we are funding at 352,800. Yes, sir. And that's 13% or 12?

12%.

So we have the opportunity to go up to add a couple more percent.

Yes, sir. Yeah, we could go.

What's our fund balance on our hot tax fund?

The fund balance itself right now is 3.1 million unencumbered in the fund balance. Now these are on annual receipts. This 12% is on the annual receipts. And so right now we currently have that budgeted at $2.8 million. If we wanted to move up to the 15% on HOT allocations for next year, that would increase the total amount to $440,000 for ARCH programs.

Don't have to use it, but we could at least put it in the budget, correct?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. We can put it in the budget at that 440 specifically allocated to ARCH programs. If we come back at a later date and we don't allocate specifically up to that amount, the rest of that would fall to fund balance by the end of the year.

All right. So as we discussed this today, I think going the full amount, would you say it was what, 420? 440. 440. is quite a big step and we we try to be conservative here so as we discuss this my colleagues up here on the dice i would like to see an increase here i don't think we need to go all the way but i wouldn't mind putting a few more percent in it but with that i'll start over we start on the other side so mary i'll start with you on the um

Total here, 352,800. This 584, does that just recommend it or was that calculated?

No, ma'am. So through the application process that we received on the 21st, each individual organization had a request inside of their funding application for what they wanted, and that's what the total amount is of all the requests that we received.

And could you explain to me again why the Concho Christmas and the Christmas event, which I think is a new one with downtown San Angelo. Is that correct?

Yes, ma'am. Yeah. So one is the Contra Christmas event, that Contra Christmas celebration that we're used to seeing down on the river. And then we did have a separate request for a separate Christmas event that is organized by downtown San Angelo. So those two applications were included in your packets on Friday.

Do you have a rundown on what this new This new event and new purpose for downtown San Angelo, that $154,000 is what I'm getting at.

Yes, ma'am. Yeah, I believe a lot of that, a portion of that's for advertising, a portion of that is for equipment. I don't have those specific numbers right in front of me today. Of course, we can always come back on a separate day when we talk about those specific allocations and have the organization speak to it as well.

Now that's fine really just there's a lot been going on downtown and so it's kind of got our attention. So this today if we approve that as a the bucket of years and then it sometimes soon I'm hoping that we'll get to allocate that.

Yes ma'am I think the the earliest time just looking at the council agenda and council calendars we'd be bringing back an item on the October for the first meeting in October for specific allocations of the hot funds program money.

On this list it's got SAPAC downtown San Angelo that's not in I guess that's not in funding order is what I'm trying to say.

Yes, ma'am, that's correct. They are organized by the dollar amount of the request. There is some movement. They don't quite fall in that order, but they were supposed to be organized in the... total dollar amount they requested in descending order. SAPAC is up there at the top because their agreement is a little bit different. They help us run the city auditorium, which we've classified as an ARCH program, but it's $50,000 that's set aside for them to help us run and maintain the city auditorium, which is located in City Hall.

Is your staff going to do, like, you present what your allocation would be or what the staff recommends, or is that going to be done by, like, a separate committee?

Yes, ma'am. So we don't currently have a committee assigned to allocate these. I think our desire was to set these requests in front of the council and ask the council to make these allocations. One of the things is we did use last year's funding level as a basis. So last year's funding level was $352,000 and $352,800. And that was the basis of the funding requests that were made last year. And so we attached that as a frame of reference of what we've done historically. I know that's an item that's been factored in the past. But I don't think we'll be specifically bringing you guys any specific recommendations on how we should fund these programs.

So we're going to look at this in the first part of October to get the voting on that, right? Yes, ma'am. OK. Thank you very much.

Yes, ma'am.

Karen? I am interested in the mayor's proposal that we consider adding to the funding as a whole, but could we hear some opinions from you, from Tina, from Tom about what that might look like because he specified some but not all. What does that mean to you?

So just to add context of what's available in the fund right now, we currently budget revenue over expenditures, which means we're bringing on more revenue than we're planning to expend in the fund by $87,923, which if we allocated every single piece of that additional revenue to HOT funds, that would get us to that 15%. So right now that's what we have available in the budget to add to the hot funds. That amount would be in compliance with state law. One of the things that we discuss with these funds every single year is that the hotel occupancy tax itself is a little volatile. And so if we come into a situation where hotel tax isn't performing like we would expect it to, we would have to kind of look at cutting back on some of these programs mid-year by not going up to the 15%. This gives us a little bit of that cushion so we don't hit that state statute. Now, again, for context, we haven't seen a dip and we haven't seen an increase in hotel tax. It's come in pretty steady over the last couple years. Hopefully some of the initiatives that we have around short-term rentals and we currently are in a hotel tax audit will kind of give us some additional confidence in some of those numbers, but we're working through that right now as well.

So what is the moderate recommendation for some but not all in numbers?

My recommendation would be at the $352,000. I believe that really does give us that cushion between the 12% and the 15%. It gives us that 3% margin of error. But again, that's just... Patrick, you're up.

Good morning, Jonathan. What is the other 78% being used for right now?

Right now it really goes to two different things, two categories of things. It goes to city support contracts. So those are things like the Destination Marketing Organization and Downtown San Angelo. Downtown San Angelo itself has $100,000 that's allocated to city support. They do some additional marketing and advertising specifically for downtown. And then the other items consist of supporting city facilities like Fort Concho, the civic events facilities, and Texas Bank Sports Complex.

Are any of those mandated where they cannot get more than a certain percentage?

I think there's a certain percentage that we have to spend on marketing. It's not a limit that we have to spend on marketing. We have to spend a certain amount. And with the combination of the Destination Marketing Organization as well as Downtown San Angelo, we satisfy that.

And then do we think on, because it's part of Downtown San Angelo, There's a big ask on here that would be tough to fund everyone if we did it. So just in general, I know we're not talking about those specific fundings this time, but would that event be something that could be outside of this 12% to 15% that we're talking about here? Could that be a separate item outside of that?

there are some portions of that that go to marketing that i think could be um we'd have to look to see if that would qualify outside of the arts programs um really we included inside of this funding uh kind of just again as a safety net we want to make sure we stay under that 15 percent And events like the Contra Christmas celebration, events like this downtown San Angelo, we've lumped them into this funding because of that conservative value where we want to make sure that we stay underneath that 15%.

I guess that would be something to look at is if that's even considered an arts deal. To me, I don't know where that designation comes from or how they decide on what is, what is not for this part of it.

And there are limits to what we can spend this money on. Really, the easiest buckets for us has been city facilities, advertising and marketing, and then these two categories that we're bringing to you today, which is the application of the arts and historical restoration. But we can go back and look at the downtown St. Angela's application to see if there is a better category for them to fit under, to fit in. Again, if it's outside of this funding, currently we only have $87,000. So we would, in order to fund that full project, even outside of this arts funding, we would need to either cut down this program in total or cut down some other area of advertising or city facility support to fund the full proposal.

That's all I've got for now. Thank you.

I would recommend that we don't go to the full 15%. There was a period of time when I was on the DML board as an advisor from the city because they get city funds. And I know that there are times of the year where we don't put as many heads in beds as we do. So the hot tax is not consistent. And I also say, do we have any idea how many heads and beds, each of these organizations, what do they contribute to the high tax?

Yes, sir. So that was part of the applications for this year. They were required to give some kind of metrics, either through the Chamber's data file or through their own records themselves of how many visitors they brought to San Angelo and how many estimated nights they would have stayed in the city.

Very good. One other point. There's a lot of new people up here that may not know what the state law is for hot tax spending. I would ask Jeremy Bartz to come up and give us a brief outline on what we can spend things on and what we can't.

Jeremy Bartz, Vice President of Destination Marketing. With regard to hotel occupancy tax, it has a basic two-step process. It has to meet certain criteria in terms to be spent in terms of, as we've mentioned here, advertising, marketing, sales, promotion. of course, infrastructure with regard to those tourism facilities, as well as preservation arts, as we've discussed here today. But again, it's about a nine-step process that it has to follow under the first step, which is to draw visitors and tourists to the city. If we don't meet number one, number two doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you put new water piping to the McNeese if it doesn't draw people into the city of San Angelo. So that is ultimately how it works. I can give you the full breakdown of exactly what projects it can be used for, but again, in this discussion, Arts and preservation, historic preservation is a big key as part of that overall expenditure. But again, as Jonathan said, advertising, marketing and promotion is obviously one of the big areas that we have to meet because otherwise you don't get here by accident. We've said that for a long time. You come here on purpose and our job at the DMO is to make sure that we're bringing those people. To the point of hotel occupancy tax revenue, we are seeing a minor growth year over year. It's very, very small. So it does come in fairly flat. Our goal is obviously to increase that. We want to do everything that we possibly can to increase the occupancy of our 2,800 total hotel rooms in town throughout the year. Obviously, the average daily rate has climbed, which is huge. That is a demand-driven number. I want everybody to understand that has nothing to do with inflation. that is demand driven. We're seeing a spike in that, a small spike, but it's a spike. I'll take a win. And so ultimately the revenue per available is also climbing as well. So all of those factors combined as well as Jonathan asking the individual applicants to submit to us requests for information through DataFi, we're able to show at least how many people have touched those particular points of interest. We can't guarantee that they stayed at a particular hotel or ate at a particular restaurant. What we can tell them is that they stayed approximately 1.3, 1.4, or 1.8 days. Again, you factor in all the metrics and you can determine that most people from outside 75 miles in that situation stayed at least a night in the hotel. So that's essentially what we were doing with all these applicants.

Thank you, Jeremy.

Thank you.

That's it, Brandon. Joe.

Mr. Hebert. Yes, sir. So, Jonathan, a question here. We talk about auto pool heads and beds, and this might go to Brandon. How do you launch a new program that has no history?

I think there's an element of a strategy, marketing strategy specifically saying, hey, we're gonna spend some of these dollars out of town on specific targeted areas that we think we can pull into the city. I think there's validity to that, especially once the, of course, once the event or organization is up and running, we should have hard data at that point to really make decisions, but if we're, Authorizing a new organization or a new project, we really need to be analyzing the market strategy. What are they going to target specifically? It has to be outside of San Angelo. It can't be San Angelo-based marketing.

Well, and that's what, there's a new, and to me, that's a big question. I mean, we want to stay legal. We have to stay within our bounds here. I get that. But we need to at least set aside something to look at how that goes forward. My question or my proposal here is I don't want to use all the funds, but I would like to add an additional $47,200 to it to bring it straight to $400,000. All right? That still leaves a very good balance. We have quite a bit of unused funds there. My point is if you don't put this out there for these people to try to bring somebody in, We're probably cutting ourselves short. So I mean, I'm throwing that up to council. I don't want to use all of it, but I'd like to take it all the way up to 400,000, which would be 47,200 bucks. And that may help. We don't have to use it all. And I'm glad we're going to make these people proof it up with visits on data file numbers. To me, that's there's people boast a lot of things. But to be honest, the data will show what we have and we'll try to make them accountable for that.

Absolutely. So I'm going to open that back up to the dice.

Does anybody oppose Adding the 47,200, not going all the way, but this adds a little more percent to it. Comments, anyone?

Comment? Sure. Or maybe a question and then a comment. Jonathan, based on the data given by Datify, is that a comfortable place for the analysis for you folks to then be able to say, yes, this organization, in fact, does bring folks to San Angelo that do spend a night, two nights, whatever. Is that data that reliable in y'all's opinion?

In my opinion, yes, sir. There's the methodology to it. The data's there, and then it's really just making sure that the reasonable assumption of how many visitors are coming in, based on the fact that we know how many visitors are coming in, What are the amount of hotel stays, making sure those assumptions are reasonable? And as well as the amount of people that are coming in, how many people are actually staying? Is that assumption reasonable as well? And I believe with Jeremy's information and Jeremy's input, we do have good, decent assumptions, reasonable assumptions that we can rely on.

Is everybody submitting that data so that we have a verifiable

number for each organization requesting funds so we did leave opportunity for organizations to give us maybe some additional data i believe some organizations submitted credit card zip codes from outside of the city limits That's also been a way that we could reliably assume if someone's purchasing tickets from a zip code that's in the Abilene area, we can make an assumption that out of those five tickets, a portion of those people may have stayed. So there is some of that data in the applications. But I don't think it would be a bad idea to ask Jeremy and the DMO to kind of help us with some of that data to kind of normalize those events.

Agreed. And again, Tommy, to your point, is it reliable? It is a representative sample. As we've spoken in the past, with regard to location services on cell phones, that's essentially where that data is compiled. The one thing that we do that is maybe a little bit different than what other people may do with this, we set the barrier at 75 miles, no matter what. We're not assuming that everybody from Abilene comes in and stays, but what we are understanding in that situation is if I'm here for a two-day event from Abilene, I'm probably going to stay. I'm not likely to drive back the same night as, you know, say, for instance, you have a concert or something that goes on. You're not likely to drive back to Abilene to turn right around and come right back, especially with the cost of gas and diesel right now. I would stay. It's cheaper to stay than it is to drive. But that's all correlated data based on those location services. Now, at times, people will turn their location services off. They don't have those turned on. So for Facebook or Instagram or things like that, a lot of people do turn those location services off. But if you've got any type of tracker for insurance purposes, if you've got any type of tracker on your family, which We do. I've got 21-year-old daughters. I'm tracking every move. I'm teasing. I'm teasing. This is public. I understand. I'm really not, girls. But at the end of the day, those types of location services are what ping Datify. And it is representative. Again, You know, I could give you all the numbers in the world, but at the end of the day, if I can't back those numbers up with at least some data, I think that it's null and void. And that's a frustration that a lot of people have across the country is not really knowing whether or not what you put out there is actually bringing people in. And our job is to do that. So I would say it's a very good representative sample.

Okay, good. Thanks. I just hope, you know, that we... People are giving us the data we need to make base decisions on. So, again, not 100% accurate, but as you say, a representative sample.

Yes, sir, agreed.

Thank you both. Thank you. Thank you, Bart. Any additional comments from the dice?

With that, I'll make a motion to approve the hot tax allocation for the income in fiscal year 26-27 at $400,000.

THIS IS JUST A DIRECTIVE ITEM FOR FINANCE. ALL RIGHT, COOL.

LET'S GO WITH THE DIRECTIVE OF 400. EVEN BETTER.

THANKS SO MUCH. COOL. THANK YOU.

GOOD JOB, JONATHAN. All right, final item, first reading and public hearing of an ordinance fixing and levying ad valorem taxes for the current tax year for the use and support of the municipal government of the city of San Angelo, Texas for the 2026 to 2027 budget year, providing for the assessment and collection thereof, providing for when the tax shall become due, providing when the tax shall become delinquent, providing for exemptions, providing for severability, providing for publication on the city-operated website, and providing for an effective date. Presentation made by Finance Director Jonathan Flores. Jonathan, you're on.

Good morning. So if you remember back to our general fund workshop, we brought a proposal to you for leaving the proposed tax rate at a flat rate from fiscal year 26. So that is a tax rate of 0.7947 per $100 valuation. Based off that proposed budget, the citizens would not see an increase in their property taxes due to a tax rate increase. This is the broken out portions of the property tax rate with the maintenance operations rates set aside for general fund expenditures, the street infrastructure rate, which is a portion of the M&O rate that is dedicated to street infrastructure, and then the debt rate, which helps us fund our debt service payments for the next fiscal year. Again, that would be flat. And once we get ready for a motion, I do need the motion read exactly like this, as well as I do need a record vote. So I do need an individual vote.

Awesome. That was your presentation?

Yes, sir. I like that. One slide.

Well, I think there's been some confusion. People have brought up the word no new revenue. That is not this. We're just maintaining the same tax rate that we have had, plus includes the two bonds that were implemented this current year. Yes, sir. So with that, I'll open up the dais to any questions of Jonathan. Any questions? Mary, Patrick, we're all good. All right. So for me to make a motion, I need to read this. How do you want that done, Heather? Perfect. And that's it? And then I vote individually at that? Okay. Do they have to reread that? Perfect. I like it. I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of .7947 per hundred valuation, which is effectively a 3.29% increase in the tax rate.

I'll second that, Mayor.

So I have a first by Tom and a second by Tommy Hebert. We'll go to record the vote. We'll start down here with SMD1. Aye. Patrick's right. I'll skip that. Is there any public comment on this? All right. No public comment. Thank you, Patrick. No public comment. Usually there's not. So anyway, you got an aye?

Aye.

Aye. All right, with the voting concluded, item passes 7-0. Thank you. You bet. Thank you, Jonathan. 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 Meeting, Subchapter D, exceptions to requirements that meetings be open under the following sections. Section 551-072, deliberations about real property regarding 331 presser. Section 551-072, deliberations about real property regarding 1921 Avenue J. Section 552-072, deliberations about real property regarding Lot 14. Section 3, Block 2, Subdivision Legacy Park, SD. SE, 5,710 square feet. Section D, 551-071, consultation with attorney to discuss budget implementation concerning proposed fees and the meet-and-confer contract. And finally, Section 551-071, Consultation with Attorney Regarding Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 380 in Texas Tax Code, Chapter 312. We'll now move into closed session at 1053.

Stop that discussion.

1231, we'll come back from executive session. We'll discuss any items that need to be discussed after executive session. Do we have any announcements that need to be read? Today? Anytime? Oh, any announcements?

Are y'all waiting on me?

Motions?

Discussions?

Discussions?

Yes, I would like to make a motion to authorize the city manager to execute a claim deed to property being approximately 10 feet by 90 feet segment of right-of-way for North Emmerich Street, adjoining the easternmost property line of Lot 8 in Block 5 of Frary's Addition, known commonly as 331 Prizer. to the Concho Valley Home for Girls, Inc., and a budding property owner pursuant to Texas Local Government Code Section 272.001B1 and 2. I'll second that motion.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? With no opposition, motion passes.

Also, I'd like to make a motion to authorize city manager to execute a quit claim deed to property being the east 25 feet of lots 13 and 14, block 17, South Heights addition, known commonly as 1921 West Avenue J. to Betzing Reynolds, LLC, and a budding property owner pursuant to Texas Local Government Code 272, Section 272.001B1 and 2.

I have a first and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item passes 7-0. Any additional items at a closed session? Okay, with that, we'll go to any follow-up and administrative things to be brought on future agendas. Anybody have anything to add or request? With none, I'll take a motion to close. Move we adjourn.

Do we want to just say on record the changes or the holiday schedule? Absolutely.

I think we need to hear the holiday schedule, Heather. I can't believe I let that slip.

As requested by Councilmember Hebert at the last meeting, staff looked at the schedule, the holidays for December and January. It is our recommendation that you... have one meeting in December, on December 15th, and one meeting in December, I'm sorry, in January 2027, being on January 12th. That would be a four-week gap between the last meeting in November and then the gap between the December and January meeting, which has been kind of standard practice for the last couple years, especially with the new publication schedule.

And those are typically very slow in line agendas for us, correct? Correct. So with that said, would we also like to have our once a quarter evening meeting in November? The first or second, let's say the second meeting in November. Is everybody game for doing an evening meeting?

It's the week before Thanksgiving.

I think it's the week before Thanksgiving, isn't it?

Yes.

Yeah, so let's tentatively put that one on the schedule. I think permits and planning needs that one just to make sure they have all their announcements done. So with that, we've got a couple tentative dates for a single meeting in December, January. We're going to do an evening meeting the second, excuse me, the second meeting. It's the 17th. It's the 17th. So 17th of November, let's look into doing an evening meeting at 530 or 6. 530. 530. Voted by Heather. Anyway, with all that, any additional items to add? With that, let's bring this meeting to a close. I move we adjourn again. I have a first by Tommy, second by...