City Council - Regular Meeting

order at 6 o'clock. Call a roll of order. And I see that everyone's here but our illustrious mayor, and he is excused. So therefore, I will be conducting the meeting tonight, and I will reserve my right to vote. We're going to stand. We're going to say the Pledge of Allegiance to both the flags, and then Derek Winn is going to give us the invocation. of liberty and justice for all. On the great Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible.

Would you please pray with me? Father in heaven, we do praise you. We praise your name. We acknowledge your word as truth in the We thank you that you're here with us today. We just pray just for forgiveness for when we do wrong. We also just pray in thanksgiving for this country that you've given us. We thank you for our forefathers. May you please protect what they started 250 years ago. I just also pray for this council, pray that you give them Wisdom and guidance and courage to always do what's right in every chance they have. Just protect us as we go home. And just thank you so much for Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us. In his name we pray. Amen.

We will move into item number five, citizen forum. Citizens are invited to speak for three minutes on matters relating to city government that relate to agenda or non-agenda items. Speakers are asked to approach the podium, give their name and address before sharing their comments. I don't have anything. Anything for Courtney? There's none. We will move on to item six, discussion and possible action to adopt the following ordinance, an ordinance of the city of Shenandoah, Texas, approving an annual service plan update to the service and assessment plan and assessment role for public improvements for the Metro Park Public Improvement District. and enacting other provisions related thereto. Lisa?

Mayor Pro Tem and Council, this is a yearly item that we have to approve by ordinance. It's to set the assessment tax roll for the public improvement district over there at Metro Park. Just a little history. The public improvements were funded with a special assessment bond, which are secured with special assessment revenue from those parcels over there. No taxpayer money goes towards the repayment of those bonds. It's strictly from the property owners over at the Metro Park Pit Square pit. So what you're approving tonight is the annual service assessment plan, which will then send over to Tammy Ray's office for the upcoming tax year to collect on those assessments.

Do I have a motion? So moved. Motion by Frank Robinson. Second? Second. Jim, is that you? Yes. Okay. Second by Jim Pollard. Any discussion?

No.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carried and so ordered. Item number seven.

Discussion that possible action regarding a recommendation for an assistant city administrator Sam Thank You mayor pro tem and council Tonight I'm going to do a couple of recommendations for appointments the first is for the assistant city administrator position that you approved last council meeting and And before I go into the appointments, I want to explain a little bit about how we came across this and how we plan to utilize this. Both of these positions are important to the city, and this is an investment in our staff. And we have qualified individuals that I'm going to recommend that I feel are crucial to our organization and the way that we conduct business here. And so with these positions, we will be eliminating another position, but really moving it over so we can help fund the assistant city administrator position and also the promotions of the public works director so that we can be able to operate efficiently with that. So without further ado. I will make my first recommendation for the assistant city administrator position, which is Joseph Peart. So Joseph has been a very long-time employee here of the city, and he has shown his leadership qualities and his skills to be able to handle this position, and I feel very confident in my recommendation to you for Joseph.

He's an asset for the city, and I concur. Absolutely.

Joseph represents steady leadership, institutional knowledge, and operational excellence. Promoting him strengthens our city beyond you can imagine. I'm proud to have him on our team.

I am so glad to hear this. I'm really, really excited about this recommendation and wholeheartedly support it.

Thank you for your solid work for the city. We look forward to a lot of amazing things for you and the rest of you guys.

I'm just glad all this investment into you and you into the city is going to be sticking around. Yes.

And Council, because this is a director's level, we will need a motion and a second to pass this.

I make a motion to approve. And I'll second that.

Ernest, was that you? Second. That was Joe.

I second. Jim made the motion. Who made the motion? All right. I have trouble with their voices. So I've got a motion by Jim Pollard and a second by Joe Summerlin to approve. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carried and so ordered. All right. Brings us to item number eight, discussion and possible action regarding a recommendation for a public works director.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. This is my second recommendation to you as a council, and this is for the public works director. Again, my recommendation is based on years of service, the skill set, and also continuity of our city operations. And so I am very confident to recommend to you Rual Perez as the Public Works Director.

Any discussion?

Motion.

I'll make a motion that we approve that recommendation.

I'll second that. Thank you, Ernest. So we've got a motion by Frank Robertson, a second by Ernest... Sumrall. Sumrall. I wanted to put an er in there. Any further discussion?

I'd just like to say that Public Works is vital to our city, and having someone of Rural's uh caliber to take over this leadership uh is in good hands rual has been working here and has learned all the things about public works there's so many things that go on in this city behind the scenes that make this city run who all makes that happen and this he's totally reserved deserve this rec this promotion absolutely joseph i'm still going to call you grasshopper

Okay, that brings us up to motion.

You called for a vote. I did, didn't I? No.

No, I didn't.

See, I told you I'd mess this up. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Don't run off, we've got your city administrator. Civic Club update.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and Council and everybody else here tonight. We do have a small crowd, but hopefully we've got people watching and they tuned in to know that our first item that we're gonna discuss is our upcoming event on this Saturday from 10 in the morning until noon at the Main City Park. It's our independent celebration. tons of water-type events like water slides, water obstacle courses, as well as the typical type of faith painting. Those kind of things are all going to be at the event. We're going to have hot dogs, snacks. We'll have pulled pork sandwiches that day. So it should be quite a good time. Make sure you come especially council, bring your swimsuits, Speedos, I don't care what you wear. Just be respectful. And also towels too would probably be handy for all that. And then our other event that's the only thing within visible distance is our back to school party, which will be on August 1st. We're going to do something a little different this year. And instead of doing it in the morning, we are going to do it from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. It's kind of a lead up to some stuff that Allison's got going on at the pool that evening. And so this will be just kind of a Kickstarter pre-party for all that stuff that's going to happen in the evening. Hopefully get to see all you guys on Saturday. If not, I wish all of you a happy 4th of July. Any questions? What time was that again, Charlie? For Saturday is from 10 until noon. Then, of course, everybody's welcome to go over to the pool outdoors. Thanks, everybody. In your bathing suit?

In your bathing suit, yes. 1930s style.

Brings us to item number 10, the city administrator updates.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I have a few items. First of all, just want to remind everyone that City Hall will be closed next Friday, July the 3rd, in observance of the Fourth of July holiday. I also wanted to mention that in the latest edition of the Community Impact, you will receive the new and approved shenandoah newsletter insert and so this is a partnership we have done with community impact and we do have some overruns and some inserts at the table up front this turned out to be a very nice quality product that we put out and with our partnership with community impact we will be able to do more of these throughout the years so there was some cost savings about partnering up with community impact so we appreciate their partnership and what they do for the community. I know we have them here in the audience today, so I just want to express our thanks for that continued partnership. Also wanted to mention in your packet this evening, city administrator updates is in a new refreshed format as you have seen and so i really want to give thanks to our staff that have collaborated together and for kirby for putting that together and working with all the staff to do a new refresh for the way that looks we have a really nice product out there that looks great and that is also some of the things that we will be sharing on the constant contact application that we have so again I hate to sound like a broken record, but I encourage everyone to sign up for that. There's some great information on there. We send it out on a weekly basis, and we love to share all the information and the great things that we're doing across the city. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. Awesome. Thank you.

I like the look. It's really nice. Well, there being no further business before the council, I will adjourn the meeting at 6.13.

Wait, council inquiry.

Oh, man, I'm all... He's really... He's in a hurry.

Ernest, you're... Mayor, I do have one item I'd like to bring forward for future agenda. The idea of the city hosting a recurring resident town hall... just quarterly, and we'll see how it turns out if it's something you guys want to do. An informal, open meeting where residents can come and talk with us directly about whatever's on their mind. My thought is to start quarterly, and if attendance and interest support it, maybe consider other options. I recognize this is just an inquiry tonight, so I'm not asking for discussion or action. I'm requesting that the staff place this on the future agenda so that we can consider the format, cadence, and any open meetings act considerations properly.

Do I have a second for that? He's got to have two. Absolutely, I'll second that discussion. So Courtney, Ernest wants that on the future agenda. Thank you.

Actually, I just want to echo what the city administrator, as far as the information that the residents can get right in their email. Just sign up for it. That's all you've got to do. This documentation that you guys have put together is very easy to understand and very pertinent information for the residents of the city.

So sign up. Jim? Also, I wanted to take it a little bit further. I know that may be a third or fourth time to bring it up. Community impact comes out every single month, and it goes to everybody that lives here. Every resident gets it every single month. So the information that's in here is vital. It's looked forward to. And now, this month, when you get it in the mail, be sure and look on the front. There's a sticky note. Very few people have sticky notes. This is really quite a thing that Community Impact has done for our little city. And also, besides the information that's in here, This is the flyer that we usually have two flyers a year, a newsletter that goes out. Kirby is put together along with Community Impact, not just one, not just two pages, but four pages. of information on our city that our residents are going to eat up. And I happen to know that the cost of this is Usually extremely extremely expensive to mail to every home here is cost a fortune What community impact is doing for us is put together a package that allows us to not only have more district more coverage more better distribution But also much much lower cost like maybe half or less than what we were paying before so I'm hoping that that maybe we could take this instead of twice a year to four times a year, and we're saving so much money, who knows, they may even be able to do something quarterly, monthly, hopefully. But it's just beautiful work by Kirby, beautiful work by Sam and his communications team. This is just another example of the kind of communications that we are doing for our residents. Sam has brought so much to this job since he's been here, what, three months. We're much further along than we've ever been. Adding these new people, the new positions, not a new position that we're paying for because we eliminated a position and just moved people up. uh but by doing that it's going to significantly improve the operation of this city uh and make us even stronger we as sam says we're really like a large city we're run there's so many many things that need to be done here it's like a large city and sam has taken us up to the next level to where we're not only perceived in the community as large and dynamic But now we've got the horsepower behind him to make sure that it grows even more. Congratulations, Sam, Kirby, your entire team. We're so proud to have this team, everybody, the entire team. Great, great job.

Jim, I hope the residents take note of what you just said and everything, that they get used to it and start looking for it. And I think that will help. So you've got to keep it up. Yep. That's what I'm saying. Other than that, I've got nothing.

Just a thank you to you, Sam, and to the staff. There's been such a noticeable change in the last couple of months, particularly in the area of communication, as Councilman Pollard has pointed out. Love this piece. And I look forward to seeing more of these, and I agree. I hope we can get a monthly insert. I think that's just great. But thank you. you really are raising the bar. Much appreciated.

Thank you. All the thanks and appraises go to the staff.

With that being done, it's now 6-19 and we have no further business, so I'll adjourn the meeting at 6-19.