City Council - Regular Meeting

This is a July 8th 2026 Shenandoah City Council meeting It's 6 o'clock p.m. I'm gonna call the roll Councilman some roll here Councilman Summerlin here Councilman Pollard here Pro tem bride here Councilman Robinson here We do have a quorum. Everybody is present. We're going to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance of both flags, followed by an invocation.

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

The invocation is going to be delivered by Council Member Summerall.

Father God, we come to you in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord, for this time together, this time with our fellow citizens and members of this city. Lord, I just would say one thing, paraphrasing 2 Timothy 2.23, where you have advised us not to participate in foolish arguments. That you be with us, Lord, that we be productive, and we care for our citizens and for ourselves. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Thank you. We're gonna move on to item number six, citizens forum. Citizens are invited to speak for three minutes on matters related to city government that relate to agenda or non-agenda items. Speakers are asked to approach the podium and give their name and address before sharing their comment. Has anyone signed up?

Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I just want to point out our YouTube is not functioning tonight. We're having some equipment malfunction, so I don't think the stream is going to go out, just FYI.

Okay. Is the video both video and audio?

Well, we have audio recording, so we'll have a recording of the video, but our stream is, our equipment is on the fritz for some reason.

All right, thank you. We're gonna move on to the Consent Agenda. Has everyone had the opportunity to review the Consent Agenda?

The Honor, I move the Consent Agenda.

Okay. We have a motion to approve the Consent Agenda by Councilman Robinson. Second. We have a second by Pro Tem Brat. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. I don't know the six introduction of new employee.

Well, Mary Castle, it's my pleasure to introduce you to Arnoldo Lopez. He's been here with us for almost a month. Um, he comes to them as a blessing because he comes in at the hottest time of the year. So that's not an issue for him because he loves to work outside. He loves to run outside. He runs every morning. He also likes to do a bike in the afternoon, so everything outside. He's a very organized person. Fun fact about him, he's been in 49 states in the United States, just dreaming through all of them, except Hawaii, so it's just one left. He loves coffee. He's just eager to start with us, and he's a great guy. I'm just really excited to work with him.

OK, welcome. Thank you. I move on to item number seven, discussion regarding the proposed fiscal year 2026, 2027 budget.

Mayor and Council, this is the first of several budget discussions we're going to be in. So there is one change that you'll see at the agenda. House Bill, I believe it's 1522, basically now requires, yeah, it was House Bill 1522, the 89th legislation, requires us to have a taxpayer impact statement in every agenda. Right now, you'll see there's two blocks towards the end, I mean on the top row. Those are not filled in because those will be filled in once the certified worksheets are sent to us from the tax office at the end of the month. There'll be some other small calculations that will be added to that impact notice as well that's required by law. So that's the only thing that kind of changed this year and I just wanted to put that on a highlight of why that's in that agenda. Then moving on to just regular the budget discussion. So in the past couple of years, more than a couple of years, for several years, we tried to approach some of the operating budget in regular council meetings to try to get more clarification, answer questions prior to the workshop. So for tonight, it's followed, as we've done in previous. We kind of put some of the smaller departments on the first discussion because those are smaller in nature. They're easier to get through. And then if there's any questions about those, we can take those. And if it requires any research, we'll come back to the next discussion and present those findings to all of you. I will tell you that there is one line item on the revenue side that I do want to highlight. It's going to be the property tax revenue line item. As you see in the proposed budget, it's the same value as last year because the idea is even if we go with the NNR, it's supposed to bring in the same revenue as the year prior, right? So that's kind of just a placeholder. We don't know what our values are going to be until the end of the month. So that number will change. I do put a note in there that's subject to change. The other thing is sales tax. I did get our sales tax drop for this month. We are significantly up. I don't want to put that as a There could be audit findings. There could be all kinds of stuff in there. We don't know because the comptroller just released the data today. So it will take them a little bit for us to get the actual itemized breakout so we can see what was going on. So those are the only two things on revenue I wanted to highlight. You will notice that revenue really didn't change a whole lot. We are pretty stagnant in everything else. I did reduce drink tax. We've seen a reduction in mixed beverage. That's nationwide. drink alcohol sales are just down nationwide. Um, so other than that, most revenue is the same. Um, is there any other, did anyone have any questions about revenue or, uh, nothing?

The sales tax you mentioned, is it still two months old or is it, yes, it's always two months in a rear.

Um, I'm thinking some of the driver of that is probably some new businesses that may have opened. Um, or if there was, um, that might have been a quarterly report in as well for some of our taxpayers were in quarterly reporting. So there might be some there as well. So but at the next meeting, I can give you a better rundown of what we're seeing. I did put I think it was a 5% increase into the budget. We are averaging around 11% right now, though. So I just want to make sure I did do some comparison to other areas. We are significantly higher up than most of our neighbors year over year. So that's good. That's good to hear. So the next department would be the administration department. I there was minimum changes on this one. Most of these departments, as you'll see in the budget, is usually tied to personnel costs increase because we are on a step scale pay pay model. So every year there will be increases to all those category 61 categories that are all related to personnel. Um, other than that, there were some small increases to just operating supplies. Um, and we did increase the joint election costs. We're not sure we have not gotten the final billing yet for the last election, but they have been increasing year over year. So we did put some increase into that budget. And then we just added, the biggest increase to admin is basically the travel and training because the 90th session is this year. So every other year we put 5,000 in there for day at the Capitol for council and staff to go to. And that was all I have for administration. Is there any questions? No? The next department's finance. um we did have to increase on finance um the appraisal share that we share with mcad so it's shared over all the jurisdictions that montgomery county appraisal district assessed for um that appraisal rate did go up their budget went up um so it's all based on a percentage of value so like the overall value we're responsible for whatever percentage we are of that So that did increase pretty significantly. It hasn't really increased that much year over year, but this year there was an $8,000 increase to that. And that's based on the proposed budget. So when the final budget gets adopted, it might decrease. I'm not sure yet, but we put it in there as their proposed budget. And then there was some increases to consultant professional services. We are gonna be trying to submit for more GFOA awards. And then we had to do an additional single, we might have to do additional single audit on the ARPA. So I put that as the placeholder. It may not come through, but it just, because of the dollar amount, we might be hitting that threshold. And then other than, and then we are at the last year of our banking contract, which is good for five years. there is money in there for the RFA process that we did five years ago. It's very similar to the same process we did. And that's the only increase that I have to finance, pretty much.

So that was the reason that, as far as that, I've written myself a note why the audit increase, and that's kind of a... We might have to do another single audit.

It just depends on what ARPA requires, because we're getting at the end of the project, so it might be a more in-depth single audit.

Will that, will that come out of the opera funds as well? Um, is that something we have?

We could look at that if there's funding available at the end. Um, I just put it in there just in case we were not sure, but I don't want to, um, be short. Um, the last year we had, we had gotten in with a single audit, so I just wanna make sure we have enough in there. Um, and that's all I have for finance. Was there any other questions about finance? Mm-hmm. Uh, the next department's gonna do be community outreach. There was no increase. Um, the only thing that changed on their budget was I convinced some of the line items just to make it more, there was to make it a little bit more easier to, um, for billing. Um, what's the patriotic, uh, parade that, um, so that GL title is it's the independence day event. It's just the GL was made when it was still a parade. So yeah.

Is that what we spent this year, $11,750? Sorry.

I was thinking it was $17,000.

So there was a small overage, and because

So they spent more money on food, but their public relations line item has additional line item for if there's extra food needed. So that's so basically their overall department was, uh, is under budget. So we just bill it to the one GL, but we can separate it. It was just as they're coming in and we're paying the credit card, we just apply it to the event and then we can look at it, but they do have some line items in their public relations budget for any overages typically.

It's basically zero across the board for increases.

They didn't have any increase. Well, nothing was proposed to me, but we can, as things come up, if anything comes up, we still have time before the adopted budget to change, you know, so.

Yeah, because there's so many veritables.

Yeah.

We don't know the revenue, property taxes, we don't know sales tax.

Yeah.

We do know that, personnel costs are going up at least 3% to 4% automatically.

Yeah, this billing side has a 3% step on each step.

Is that what you budgeted, 3% to 4%?

So I put it into a calculation, and it's based on anniversary date, and it pops out what the pay will be for the next coming year.

4% increases in pay to you?

It's based on the steps. So the steps are it's on the civilian side. PD is on their current pay parity scale, which we'll talk about them at the next meeting. They're on that list. How I have them in the budget is based on the current pay parity scale because we only commit funds annually. So I couldn't commit their pay parity more than one year. So at the workshop, that is one of the items that we'll be talking about is pay parity and where that might all fall in. But currently, in the budget, it's as if we don't do any pay parity, and it just progresses naturally based on the scale that you approved last year, if that makes sense. OK. The next department's non-department. You'll see there's a major decrease, but it's because the capital project contribution just gets taken out this year because they're one time. Other than that, we did add printer maintenance from technology's budget back to non-department, and that's just for like ink, stuff like that. It's not the actual lease agreement. And then there was increase to the trash fund based on the contract.

Those two items are in the non-department? The trash? The trash and?

The trash is because it's a transfer record to the 140 funds. So the 140 fund is what holds all the trash transactions, trash recycling. This is because general funds supplements the trash. So this is the transfer record into that fund.

Yeah, just non-department funds.

Yeah, non-department is kind of, it's shrunk a lot because now we put all the insurances into the individual departments after last year. Right. But there are still some small things like Amazon memberships and, you know, just that everyone uses, so we just kind of put them in there, you know, and for most of the transfer records because it's, there's no department that's really responsible for that. It's just the general fund, so. Is there any other questions on non-department? All right. The next department's fire services, so that is based on, that contract is based on our evaluation every year, so that is kind of a, I put a 5% increase onto that contract, I believe, because the preliminary values I have for increased evaluation is 5%. However, basically, That's before protests go through. So that number is probably going to go down to the trash. I mean, the fire service contract will probably match once we get those tax worksheets in. I have a better idea of what we're looking at. But I do put it in there just as a placeholder because I don't want to come back and say, hey, I have to increase this X amount. I'd rather have it in there, and then we can drill down once we have final numbers. We don't budget for emergency management. So I just put that as a transparency item. We don't budget for it. But if there is an emergency situation, we do put most of the expenses there for then FEMA reporting to try to recoup costs. But we just don't put a budget to it. Ms. LaCourte, that one hasn't changed. But that might change, as you saw in the budget document, that a special consideration that was requested a few months back was to do a court revenue study. So Jackie and Troy have been working on that. And that will be presented at the budget workshop to see if that is a viable option to bring back. So if that does come back, court's budget will change accordingly. But for right now, there was no changes to court because we don't have an active court.

Are you still working on that? Or have you completed it?

No, it is still in the process of being worked on. And then I believe it's on the agenda for the budget workshop. We'll have it carried out.

The good thing is we all made projects this year, so we have more time to talk about this up in workshop. And I don't want to try to cram it into a meeting. The next part is community development. Once again, not a lot of changes, mostly just related to personnel. And goodness, I thought I had these organized better.

Did you say public works? I'm sorry.

I know community development. I know it's it's Department 43 public works. OK, I try to group them all together with parks and everything. So that's why they go to the second meeting, because they are a large budget. The only major increases to this other than personnel was they had to add the fire system and standard extinguisher inspection inspections, which are done on an every three year basis, five year basis. So it's this is a temporary increase that will go back down next year. It's just we have to do a whole inspection. And then other than that, she had significant increases in her budget.

Unemployment seems to be up quite a bit, and so does professional services.

On what one?

Well, unemployment went up $1,300. Yeah.

So last year I had reduced the rate because the problem with the Texas Workforce Commission is that you really don't know your rate until you're already in budget sometimes for that because they're on a calendar cycle and we're on a fiscal cycle. So I did reduce it last year accordingly to what our rate was the year before. And then it played a trick on me and I have to now, you know, bump that back up. It doesn't mean we're going to use all that. It's just, unfortunately, that's one of those rates that it's on a calendar year. We're in a fiscal year, so it's hard to really gauge that dorm budget. Any other questions about community development? The next department is technology, which Um, you'll notice that there was, uh, an increase to operating services, but it's offset by the decrease in software. Um, I mean that software program, um, it's off of the, um, contracts. Um, we are going to the cloud with encode finally. So one of our last processes that's still on-prem. Um, so we changed it from a hardware software contract because we're not managing anymore. And it's now as a. software as a service, correct Chris? Software as a service, so it just gets categorized differently. So it just moved from the contracts GL line he has over to the consultant, I mean operating service GL he has. So you'll see that kind of washed, sorry. A lot of GLs there. And then there was a significant cost savings on our wireless communication and data. So you'll see those all kind of decreased. We did add back in MCCI professional services for Laser Fish. That was another. And then technology, unfortunately, is not the cheapest, so those contracts do increase year over year. Is there any questions about technology?

operating services went from 93,000 to 156,000. That's a 68% increase.

Well, it's also, it's a most as a shift in, it's a shift in what, how we were categorizing those expenses because they're actually becoming operational expenses as a, like software as a service, a cloud provided service. So a lot of that's moving around, um, more or less.

So it came out of his hardware and software contracts and moved to see there's like a negative 47 there. And there was a slight increase to the income going on to the cloud as well.

Yeah, that I believe that was a $20,000 increase, coupled with the real repositioning of those expenses. So that that accounts for that, the bulk of that.

But we were able to lock in that contract for three years. So that price will not increase for three years.

Another question. Yes, you and I had a discussion about these monitors up here on the base. Yes, sir. Where are we?

I apologize. I did have that in my to do list. That's something we can certainly still do. I can bring that at budget workshop. It's not a major deal, major expense. I was kind of trying to just deflect additional.

Let's talk about it.

OK, I can certainly do that.

Okay, moving on. The next two are trash and recycling and then the other non-major funds. So those kind of just recorded funds. So trash and recycling is basically that transfer record that we indicated in non-department. The revenue side is in this fund. So you'll see that on the last item of the revenue. And we just kind of match it up based on historical. So recycling is paid by the customer 100%. So that's pretty much an in and out. And then there is a street fee that we collect back from Republic. And then we put some money in there for some penalty, but it's really not that much. So that's just kind of pretty much an in and out account. And then the equipment replacement revenue, that's just the revenue side to the expenditure side that you'll see in each of the police, public works, water, sewer, and community development departments. And then the Metro Park PID fund that has no, relation to city financials but state law requires us to adopt a budget for it so that is kind of it has its own assessments and it pays its own debt so that doesn't affect any of the city financials Um, the last department I do have on the list for tonight is CBB, but we are gonna push that to the next meeting. Um, because the advisory board, I didn't realize doesn't meet until tomorrow. I thought it was last week. So they were gonna go over, um, the budget and if there's any recommendations that we can kind of just hit that all together at once next week, the next meeting. Um, so I'm just gonna pass on John's, uh, CBB department for right now. But other than that, that's pretty much all I have for this discussion. As always, please email me. Even the public, email me if there's any questions. Call me. I got your email. Yeah. I'm always there. So I just want to make this as easy as possible. We don't have a whole lot of impacts to the budget this year. Inflationary costs are still there, but they're not like we've seen years past. But we'll keep working on those revenue numbers, and I'll update those as I get more information from the comptroller on our sales tax.

Is that it? Yeah, I'm good if you guys are good. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you. and again we can just we can rehash any of this during our budget workshop anybody even at the next meeting i always have that part a that says general questions so we're not restricted just to the departments we're looking at okay we're going to move on to item number eight discussion regarding town hall meetings Discussion only. I saw, I watched the meeting, the last council meeting, and I noticed that the town hall issue came up. So let's discuss it. Councilman Summerall, you brought it up. It's your nickel.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. This is a direct response to some inquiries by citizens who are wanting to have more time and more levity whenever we were discussing things that were important to them. I thought it would be interesting to at least consider. I had some meetings with the city staff. They did a great job of looking into ways to keep it focused and productive and not just be a disorganized session where there really wasn't a lot done. For me, it's just something I'd like for us to consider, and relying on staff is the suggestions that they've made for keeping the meetings focused. The only thing I would like to suggest is that the meetings not be video broadcasts, only because I don't want them to, personally, it would be, to me, it would be preferable if they didn't become a show in nature but became a real place for citizens to get together and exchange ideas and to voice concerns that they had on it. It would be pretty hard because it's an open meeting. I understand. I understand. With the more focused agenda, which was suggested by staff, which is great, and with removing the possibility of turning it into a circus atmosphere, I think we can keep it more focused and more productive. At least that's my hope. I don't know. I've never seen them here before, but I think it's at least worth a discussion based on concerns voiced by our fellow citizens here in town. The only thing I'm not really sure of is how often this should happen. I don't even know if anyone will show up. A lot of people have expressed a desire to be there, but I don't know what that means when the meeting's out, which actually happens. So maybe we start twice a year. I was thinking quarterly, but that might be too much. And then just depending on the response from the citizens and our neighbors, how we move from there. If you guys even decide you want to do it.

Well, you bring up an interesting point because we have had town hall meetings in the past. And... Attendance hasn't been as good as we expected. Now, we did have one when it came up to the parks study. That was in... It was an issue that was a pretty... Not the redevelopment zone. Yeah. So what we have done in the past is when we collectively saw a need to bring this up to the public for input as a discussion, that we did announce something we did have. A good attendance and good input and a very... Good discussion. Scheduling it, I don't know about having a regularly scheduled town hall to discuss what. If there's an item that needs to be discussed, that needs to be brought up to the public, I feel that we announce it, we publicize it, and try to get as much attendance and participation from the residents as possible. Excuse me.

And so I guess the point of this is we don't always know what's on the minds of our neighbors. And one thing I would like to just say now is I thought it might be interesting, really, if among the six of us, only one person showed up at a time. Maybe we did over two years. We only had six town halls. And to avoid a quorum, to at least remove that particular thing from the discussion, we have one person here along with people to maintain security so that our neighbors could really talk in an area where they were heard, but we would avoid quorum issues. I don't know if that's even worthwhile. It's just something that popped in my head whenever we were discussing this with the staff.

I mean, the possibilities are always there. You know, how to structure it. Of course, we have to have some input from legal and also from... from the city administrator on how to conduct them and when to conduct them. I'm not sure that having a regularly scheduled one is a way to go, but I don't know. What do you all think?

I'm not against it. I'm not either. Maybe schedule two, see how they go, see what kind of input we get. I've always been sitting up here as... my theory is fix what you can see you don't see what you can fix yeah and i like that well it's the truth you know what i mean and uh i talk to residents one one on one on one and all of them um they want to talk you know what i mean i'm not against it but i'd like a little more structure as to what we're talking about. I don't want a free-for-all. I don't know if they want to be anonymous, if that's doing us any good either. I'm struggling with that. I don't do social media, so if I got something to say to you or any of you, I'm going to say it to you.

One would hope that that would be the way that things happen, but it isn't always. That's my opinion. That's just my opinion.

Yeah, I was considering that a subject focus with strict guidelines to that subject. Because when we're talking about doing all the traffic evaluations and things like that, providing information and such. So I know that people can be very vocal on something that is very important to them, as we've seen it in the past. And some that didn't care just You know, it was a trickle. But if we keep it focused, and it's not, like you were all saying, a free-for-all, but that's it, you know, to keep that guideline of this is what this particular meeting is about. I think that can be publicized in a very formal way and a very directed way so that people understand that Peter,

At the end, you could open it up for something that's not on the agenda and still get there.

Yeah, I totally support on that.

Yeah, and let's not forget that. The moderator is the key. Yeah. Exactly.

And let's not forget that any resident can take three minutes and bring up a subject that we may consider to be worthy of a time meeting. And I mean, we do have those options as well.

If there are specific ways that we can improve communication with any of our residents, I'm always willing to consider them and looking forward to it. I reach out to residents on a daily basis. I spend most of my life doing that and talking to people. And I think I know most of the concerns that are out there. I can't think of anything I don't know about yet that we haven't talked about or haven't considered. I know that there are a few people that have made this a major political issue, transparency being the thing that they're trying to push, and really talking about open meetings like this. I really think that it's, It ought to be very focused if we have them. I'm not saying I'm really for having them because we do have three minutes for anyone to come up here every single meeting that we have. So I would think it'd have to be, I would like to come up with what those, items are make it very specific just like what we did what uh west did for the idc that worked we need to be very specific and focused other than just an open town hall i don't i don't think it's necessary i think it's a a major waste of our time and the resources of of the city to do that as an ongoing basis you know mayor i concur with all the

comments. I believe that the opportunity to come and speak to the council happens every two weeks for one thing. It seems like since I've been involved with the council we've certainly reached out and have tried to invite people to come when we have a specific topic to discuss or if we're interested in getting feedback on just general opinion. Which brings to my mind that if council is is really interested in testing the satisfaction of our community, which is one reason for doing that, it might be worthwhile, and our city administrator, who I'm certain can pull it together, but if we would like to do a a citizen satisfaction survey. Communities all over the state of Texas do this. They get scores. They give the opportunity through social media, through mailing, through phone call. They do a scientific survey, a statistically valid survey. And with that, we get a report that tells us how is our public feeling right now. We all think we may know. We might be surprised. And in some cases where we may be very critical of ourselves, we might find out that people are really happy with what's going on. So it's just an idea that you might have thrown out there or something.

Frank, I think that's a great idea. Can we maybe just table the discussion for town hall in favor of a citizen satisfaction survey to see if it's even necessary or if it just was something that was brought up during the election time?

Well, in that case, we might want to ask staff as they're putting the budget together, consider putting some dollars in your line items for satisfaction. Perhaps.

Good idea.

Good discussion.

Yeah. All right. Thank you, Ernie. Any further discussion? If not, we're going to move on to item number nine, Discussion and possible action regarding a change order for the David Memorial Drive at Tamina Road intersection.

Mayor and council, this is change order number one for the David Memorial and Tamina Road intersection project. So this came up from the submittal review process with law engineering. North Star Traffic and Montgomery County Engineering decided to change their standards on their lighting specs. So the changes are on the back plate, all the traffic signal that is gonna be placed in there, and also some upsizing on the conduit from a two inch to a three inch conduit that we're gonna have. So that cost is $14,050, but also staff is requesting to include a $10,000 cash allowance in this project. If something small comes in during the project, we don't have to go to council and ask for a $200 change or a $5,000 change, which is very common on this type of project. Change order number that we're asking is for $24,050 for this project, change order number one.

All right. So we had $450,000 in this project, or $500,000. I think with engineering it was about $50,000, I think, John. I don't know if that's increased or not.

Let's get a motion first and then have a discussion.

I'll go ahead and move for discussion. For discussion? Yes.

Okay, we have a motion by Councilman Robinson. Second. Seconded by Councilman Sumlin. All right, discussion?

Well, that's all right. If it's a change order, I don't know. What does this conduit do? I mean, is it...

So the conduit is...

It's to tie the lights together with the one on I-45?

Yeah. The new traffic signal needs to have a bigger conduit to... I mean, a bigger conduit will give you more conductivity and more power to this, you know.

So, okay, I understand the feature. And now you've got a... whatever, John, you've got in your listing there. We've got to improve it. It seems like we have to do that.

Yeah, I mean, the project has not even started and we are already having a change order on the project.

Well, that's my point.

Exactly. And this, and we were not expecting this. I mean, Bollinger could not expect this. It was just standard changes that they decided to do. And while we're doing the submittal process, that's when, and they could not get a purchase for it because it was an old design. And with this new design, they're asking for these changes that we cannot control. Unfortunately.

So this started on July of 2022. You know what I mean? So yes, there's inflation and everything else.

Yeah. So is this a specification changed on them? On them. Go ahead. Yes.

Just one more. If I remember, this is MDD funded, so you're going to have to go to the board, right?

Yes.

No, that's all I was going to make a point. That's what drove this, and it just, the timeline of this being implemented, the specs changed on this?

Correct. Yep.

All right.

Any additional discussion? We have a motion by Councilman Robinson, seconded by Councilman Summerlin. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Item 10, discussion of possible action regarding updates to the policy manual.

Mayor, Council, this particular policy will allow for our staff to have alternative work schedules within the city. This does not change the city operation hours of Monday through Friday. Our city hall will still be open Monday through Friday, eight to five, but this allows staff to be able to have work alternative schedules, and it is an option, it's not mandatory. So at this point, employees will have the option to work either a 980 schedule where they're rotating every other Friday or every other Monday, or they can still work a Monday through Friday 8 to 5. So this allows a little bit more flexibility. The rules are you have to have coverage. So as long as we have coverage and we're adhering to the public and we are having business hours available to the public, we can make this happen. We need the policy change in order to make those changes on our end. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

Well, I've got one on hours worked that you struck out the office hours. But then again, in timeliness, you got it back in there. Is there a reason for that, Bill, that you would strike that? The office hours? We're striking the office hours by the city administrator.

Is that the 6.01?

6.01? 6.01.

Yes.

So it reads that same language. The hours are determined by the city administrator in each other's section. So it was just added in there to match what an existing section in the policy manual reads.

but it's a statement jackie it's it's basically just saying that that's the office hours and yet we moved it i'm not against it i just want to know why right looks like we're just removing some duplication that was in there

Or were you conforming to what it says in the documentation? Because there's another reference where it says it's determined by the city administrator.

That's correct. So we were making those match. So 601 was adjusted to match that other section that already reads determined by city administrator.

And these would involve holiday hours. Will we close up early, either for an emergency or things of that nature?

Correct.

If we needed to make adjustments and allow for those, we would definitely do that as well.

Will this allow us to always have a live person at the front desk for people to see when they come in around the clock?

Absolutely.

During the work hours? It's important.

All right. If I've got to say, I'd keep the first one and remove the second one, because the second one says it's generally 8 to 5.

It's just a play on words.

That's all I'll say. Other than that, I'm not against it.

Can I have a motion?

Make a motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Councilman Pollard. Second. I second it. Seconded by Pro Tem Bright. All right. Any additional discussion?

I think it's important for Sam to have the authority to do what he needs to do and run the city properly and trust him. And as long as everything's covered, I'm all for it. It's good for employee morale, too.

Language is important.

I can tell you I've worked those 980 schedules. You'll like them if you choose to do that.

If there's no further discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Item 11, discussion of possible action regarding the 2026 Texas Municipal League Intergovernmental Risk Pool Rerate. It's a mouthful.

Mayor and Council, this is the Senior Agenda Pack. This is an annual housekeeping item that just needs to be approved every year. In the charts that are on the agenda report are the current limits and current deductibles for the different buckets of insurance that we hold with the Texas Municipal League Insurance Intergovernment Risk Pool. Nothing has changed. There was a minor change to the cyber coverage, and that's just because they switched companies. It was a good thing. It increased our current limit. But other than that, everything has remained the same.

Can I get a motion?

Motion to approve. Second.

We have a motion to approve by Pro Tem Brock, seconded by Councilman Robinson. Any discussion? Again, this is a routine thing to do. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Item 12, discussion of possible action regarding adoption of the proposed city fee schedule.

Your mic is not... All right.

So as we onboard to our system for our water, staff is proposing an adjustment on our fee schedule that now would allow developers to pay the city to purchase the meters that would be put in the ground. That way we ensure the uniformity of our system and we would then turn around and supply those meters to the developer to install. Right now, our current process is we once a plan set is approved, the developers provided specs for a meter, and sometimes we are not lucky that those are compatible with our system. So this allows us to control that. These fees are provided by our vendor. We did add a slight administration fee on our end for staff coverage for cost. They will then be turned around, issued to the property, installed by the developer or the contractor. And again, just really to make sure that we keep our system uniform and productive. So you'll see there's an adjustment on the residential side and also an adjustment on the commercial side for those meters.

This is all for new. I'm sorry. All for new. This is for new service. Correct.

Yeah, this isn't going to cover if there's an issue with water. That's something water sewer handles. If the meters are already in the ground, this is for new commercial.

So in the past, we allowed developers to install meters on our lines.

We do that as well. So we don't have a like a utility contractor that does our taps, our our water The superintendent is on site, supervises their contractor, their utility contractor who's doing the site work to do the tap to our lines. They set the meters. We inspect it.

And they don't charge the lines?

I'm sorry.

When do we do that, then? When do you put the meter in there? At what point? Do they have a CO on the property? No, that's during the construction process. During the construction process.

Early in the construction process, yes. So they set those meters to specs that we had provided. We have issues with dial numbers and stuff that doesn't work with our current system. So we don't physically turn those meters on until they're inspected and controlled by the city. But this is just going to ensure that. Well, that's where I was headed. Right.

yeah so at this point we have water theft problems we would collect these fees up front we would then turn around purchase the meter retain it for that property until they were ready for the install just to provide clarification once the meters inspect it and it's in the building starts when some meters in the ground the building starts even if they have no usage um so that's how we prevent that water loss on that side

i would think if the meter's in there and it's live and then covered they get at least a minimum so just for clarification moving forward they will be provided the meters from us correct our vendor they'll no longer be out buying their own meters and That is correct. That's a requirement. Will that be a requirement?

They don't have the option to still, it will not be as part of the permitting process. When somebody submits a site application or a development application, this fee on the fee schedule will be collected up front. Uh, the meter will be purchased and if the project doesn't come to fruition, then they're not refunded those fees.

So this would obligate the developers of new construction to have equipment that coincides with our equipment that we're going to be installing? Correct, yes.

And I'll just add that it's also a benefit to the customer because when they get that, it's called an E-series. When they get that series that we provide to them, That allows them on their customer portal. When they're looking at their water usage, they get access to every data point. The problem is if you don't line that up and they get a different meter, it'll transmit maybe five data points of usage, you know, just the most common, but they're not going to get the leak alerts. They're not going to get the high consumption notification, the continual flow. So we want them to have that ability on their portal as well. Well, I'm really glad you're addressing this now.

Yes. I just think we should tighten that up and control it ourselves.

Yes, it allows us a lot more control.

Thank you. Anything else? Thank you. Thank you, Jackie. All right. We'll get a motion.

I move to adopt. Second.

A motion to adopt by Councilman Sumrall. Councilman Sumrall and seconded by Councilman Summerlin. Any additional discussion? If not all in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? She carries. Item 13. Discussion of possible action to adopt the following resolution. A resolution relating to Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District's proposed desired future conditions.

Mary council. Um, this is, uh, every five year program that the water development board requires of the Lone Star groundwater districts, all the groundwater districts in the state. Uh, so they're at the tail end of that process. Uh, I don't know if you've had time to read this or not, but, um, after talking to the board president, uh, Jim Spigner, and going over the resolution, they're seeking the municipality support for their updated desired future conditions. It's a projection into the future all the way out to 2080. It's a way to conserve the aquifers, but yet provide the demand that's going to be here in 2080. So I've read it and I've talked to Mr. Spigner, the other members of GMA 14, groundwater management area 14, there's five groundwater districts. They've all approved this for Lone Star. And so the next step is to submit the final product to the Texas Water Development Board for final approval. Lone Star is seeking everybody's support, all the large volume groundwater users in the county. I recommend that the council approves this, and I'm glad to try to answer questions if you have any.

I think this coincides with a meeting that Ruall and I attended in Conroe. Yes, I think so. That same meeting? Yes. It's very well needed.

This is also on the Conroe City Council agenda for tomorrow night as well.

And we've supported this type of effort before. Yes, sir.

You have. And, you know, I think Lone Star has done a really good job. I mean, every five years there's new technology, there's updated software that they use. They have a great database of all the wells in the county. Of course, your permits are renewed every year. So they I think they're doing a really good job of managing the aquifers. And so anyway, I think it's a Supporting Lone Star would be a good thing to do.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Thanks. Thank you.

We'll get a motion on this item. So moved. Approved. There's a motion to approve by Pro Tem Bright, seconded by Councilman Pollard. Any discussion? If not, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Item 14, city administrator updates.

Mayor, council, I have one update for you this evening. This is an update on the Tamina project. This week we have the plumber contract who is submitting permit applications so that they may start hooking up. water service to the residents out there. So hopefully this will be in place next week. They're in the process of getting those permits this week, so I wanted to update you on that front.

So during our walkthrough, that wasn't online, so that water plant's online and lift stations are completed as well?

The water tank is not online yet. They're still working on the elevator.

Not the tank, not the elevator storage tank, right?

Yeah. No, so we do need the elevator to have the whole water plant working, but that line was already installed previously before the Tamina project started through ARPA money that the city received previously. So that line was installed, although Tamina Road was already installed. So they're going to start working on that area first.

This is the section of Tamina that ends right before the tracks, correct? Yes. Just for clarification.

And that's all I have for you this evening.

How about the parade? Tell me about the parade.

Well, I didn't want to steal anybody's thunder right there on diets. We were able to participate in the South County 4th of July parade, myself, Councilman Brock, Councilman Robinson, and Councilman Summerall. Summerall. Summer Lynn, sorry, Summer's up there. Councilman Pollard as well. And it was a great event. There were many people present for the parade. I heard some comments that this is the biggest one they've seen to date. Of course, this was a special celebration for America's 250th birthday. But it was a great event to be a part of, and I was happy to participate in it as well.

And my observance was we were very well-recepted as we went through the whole group of people. And I've never seen that many people.

Right. And we rode in style as well.

They really pointed out that we were a sponsor, a major sponsor of this. We had such a huge turnout. This is really a good thing for our city. The image of our city and this community is really being elevated, thanks a lot to you, Sam, but also to all the council members here that participate in things like this. This is a great event. Really, really good for Shenandoah and good for the community.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I missed it. I missed those events. I really enjoy them. I also like to put to the council that that we either draft a resolution or an award or something to our vehicle supplier, because I'm sure you enjoyed riding in those nice shiny Corvettes. So let's work on that with the city administrator and see if we can do something in appreciation for their time as well.

Absolutely.

Good idea.

All right, we're going to move on to item 15, council inquiry.

Well, Summerlin. Just Summerlin. Yes, thank you. Just kind of jumping on to the back of that as far as the parade, just real quick. It was, someone said 30,000 in attendance. But the joy that I got was, honestly, it gave me hope for our nation. So many families, so many children, and it was great for our city to interact in that way. Just a tremendous event. And happy birthday to the U.S. 250. Thank you.

Going back a little bit to what, referring back to what Councilman Summerall brought up earlier about having town hall meetings, I think most of us keep our finger on the pulse of the community to try to respond to what the people want. I know we all work really hard to do that. One of the things that has come up over and over and over for the last three weeks, I think, throughout the community, not just one neighborhood, but all over the neighborhoods, is that we have a lot of solicitors infiltrating our communities, knocking on doors, and just harassing people. And whenever they're told to leave, They're arguing and they're coming back and it's primarily pest control. I think we even know the, I know the name of it, of the one that's most recent, uh, in the last week. Anyway, uh, I wanted to point out it's important that we can't expect our police department to be on every corner to, uh, stop anyone walking down the street and find out what they're doing and interrogate them. I think we have to rely on the citizens on the residents to contact the police department. the non-emergency number and ask to tell them so that the police department can follow through. I know I've been seeing reports and I've personally experienced in my neighborhood and neighborhoods around me that when someone calls the non-emergency number, which is 281-367-8952, that our police department responds almost immediately. If they're not on a major call or Incident they're going to be out there and talking to the people and what I understand is that the first time they get a warning and The second time if they if it's if there's if they were given a warning and they're still out there they get fines and it's going to be up to our citizens to really call this number and tell them they can't do anything if they don't see it so i just wanted to recommend that talk to your neighbors and please encourage them to follow through on that it's our responsibility as residents to let the police department know what's going on but they're very responsive sam could that means could that number be included in a more prominent way in the

email letters, the newsletter that's going out?

Absolutely. add some content for the constant contact, and we can also push that out to our other media outlets as well, social media, and put that information out there. Very good. We can get our communications person to put something together for that. And I echo Councilman Pollard's message. Contact the police department. If there's a problem, if there's an issue, contact the police department. They will respond.

I hope community impact puts that in the paper.

Mr. Mayor, just a follow-up on Councilman Pollard's comment about solicitors. I can tell you, the police, they like checking those folks out. So give them a call. I've had the pleasure of doing it a couple of times. And they're fast. They will seek them out. Chief, I just wanted to know, are we on track for that speed sign that is planned for Holly Hill?

Yes, last communications I have with them that it should be here this month. All right. And I'll let you all know at the deadline when it's supposed to be shipped. If it doesn't arrive, I'll make sure that I contact you.

Thank you very much. Finally, the parade. It was a great parade. I've been in a lot of those parades over the years, and this by far was, I think, the largest public turnout and parade, longest one I've ever been in. But I had some people holler out at me as I was riding by, And I recognized one of them, and I asked him, I said, what time did you get here? Because they had choice. They had their camping chairs out and everything. They arrived at 7 o'clock in the morning for that 9.30 parade. It was a great day, and I'm so glad we were prominently featured as supporting that and being a part of it. And that's all I have.

You'll have to hear it. And again, belated happy birthday to the best country on the whole planet.

All right.

We're going to recess a regular council meeting and go into executive session at 7.05. According to the Texas Open Meetings Act, Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code, furnish Texas code annotated in accordance with the authority contained in the Texas Government Code as follows. Texas Government Code 551.072, deliberation by real property, Methodist Hospital.

I think yours are nothing, though. My wife's always...

I am too.

Anemia and low iron. And low iron anemia. Huh?

I'm always, Corey laughs. I wear hoodies in the house all the time. He said you're like three fans and I wear like a hoodie. That's right.

the council meeting at 724 p.m. no final action decision or vote with regard to any matter considered in the closed meeting was made during the closed session Having no further business, we are going to adjourn this council meeting for July 8, 2026.