City Council - Regular Meeting

Here.

Councilman Summerlin. Here. Councilman Pollard is not here. He is excused for tonight's meeting. Pro Tem Brott. Here. Councilman Robinson.

Here.

All right. Everyone is here, so we do have a quorum. We're going to stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag and the Texas flag, followed by a short invocation.

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. On honor of the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible.

Please join me in a word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we humble ourselves before you this evening. We thank you for your loving grace and forgiveness. May your wisdom and power come upon this city council to whom you've entrusted leadership. May the responsibility of our service to the citizens of this great city lie heavily and weigh heavily on our hearts. Father, we ask for a special blessing for our residents and staff, state of Texas and the United States of America. And we ask this in the name of your precious son, our savior. Jesus Christ. Amen.

I'm going to move on to 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 comments. We have one person signed up, Michael McLeod.

Council greetings. My name is Michael McLeod, 135 Bella Luna. Tonight I want to approach you all and let you all know I'm speaking as a member of the Shenandoah Tourism Advisory Board. I wanted to give a brief report. First of all, I want to thank the council for setting up this board. I think this is a fantastic idea. It lets some of our community our hotels and restaurants and our other business partners identify ways that we can help increase visitors to come to Shenandoah. So again, I appreciate you for that and the leadership that Frank has shown and Sam and of course, John Maynard has shown in this Mayfield. I wanna talk to you about last week, several of us on the board attended the Destination Texas meetings last week in Plano. Destination Texas is a CVB, basically, for the whole state of Texas. They used to be called that. They have a recent rebranding. And so many different cities got together and shared ideas. And so we talked about a couple of ideas we talked about was how to come up with and implement a strategic plan. And that's one of the talks that I went to myself. That's one of the things that our tourism advisory board has been tasked with. is developing a strategic plan, and I think that's fantastic. We went to some talks about AI, shared some of that with Councilman Summerall, about how AI affects how we develop the tourism industry. And we've gone to talks about, we went to and enjoyed a talk about developing a visitor center what kind of things are visitors looking for and what things are are we going to be best served how can we best serve the people who are visiting our city so i appreciate council being willing to have our board go to meetings like this But I wanted to get up and talk to you about, and all those were great, and I think everyone who went will tell you that we learned a lot. We learned a lot from the talks that were given. We learned a lot from interacting with other people there. But here's one thing I want to share with you and what I was excited about. I had my little name badge on, Mike McLeod, Shenandoah, and everybody that I talked to said, oh, Shenandoah, that's John Maynard. Y'all are killing it. Y'all are knocking it out of the park. Y'all are doing it. Everybody I talked to said, oh, Shenandoah. They know Shenandoah. And why do they know Shenandoah? Because of John. Or they would talk to me and go, you know Billy? I said, yeah. Turns out Billy's been working with training our AI agents. You may not know this. We actually have AI agents running on our Visit Shenandoah website helping people who are visiting find solutions. And they spend a lot of time and energy, a better part of a year, And they worked with another agency. I'm not gonna name them, but they worked with another agency in the state who's also doing that. And so together they're learning how to train. So I wanted you guys as council to know, uh, that John and Billy are doing a great job and that people in the state of Texas know us big cities, small cities. They, they all know Shenandoah. And I just wanted to pass that on to you because I've it's rare that I get. We get constantly, yes, I know where Shenandoah is. Yes, I know about Shenandoah. I can go to these big meetings. I can go to TML, and, you know, you guys have been there. And they're like, where is that? But I wanted to share that with you guys. And, again, I appreciate you setting up the Tourism Advisory Board. So I wanted to share that your employees are doing a great job getting Shenandoah out there. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Mike.

Thank you. As we have no other speakers for Citizens Forum, we're going to move on to item number six. This is a presentation regarding the process of becoming a home ruled city, municipality. And it's going to be given by Dr. James Thurman of University of Houston. Dr. Thurman? Welcome to Shenandoah, sir.

Well, thank you. I had to go through Savannah to get here. At first, I thought my GPS is wrong. I was going like this. I didn't even know Savannah existed, but it's a nice little place. Now, I've been here, of course, I've been on 45 countless times, and I've been here one time before for TCMA, a regional meeting here. I knew that. Okay, so I have... As far as my academic credentials, I have my PhD in public administration. I've taught 18 years at the University of Houston. And I'm retired. I'm considered what they call a professor of practice. It's something so that I have a title and I have a card from the University of Houston. But as far as my practical experience, I was city manager in three cities. In fact, 50 years ago, I was city manager in Cleveland, Texas, when it was general law. And then I was in U Valley, Texas, I was in North Texas, Denison, Texas, and Missouri. My last tenure was in ten years in Missouri City. That's my experience. So I put my experience in my academic world, and I try to make the theory, the practice meet the theory, and it'll help you. So that's how I do it. So as far as tonight, I was gonna focus on the process. I figure y'all, I'm gonna cover some benefits, but focus on the process and make sure that I don't assume something that, Everybody's on the same page. I don't know where y'all are, but I do know that you're, from I looked at the numbers and just looking at the numbers without getting a lot of, well, just looking at the numbers and seeing it, I would say you're 5,000 right now, but you need to get more of the evidence and build it up. And as far as the state of Texas, when you're 5,000 or more, you can become a home real city. And the question is, if you're interested in doing it, the benefits are you actually have control, more control over your local government than if you're a general law city. Right now you're a general law, and so you're limited by what you can do by the laws of the state of Texas for cities. In fact, they have a list. You can do one, two, three, four, five. You can do these things. and uh but it's more constraining and that's why I don't know if uh for a long time I knew that the city of Stafford may have been the only city I knew right right here in Missouri City with 15,000 it's still general law and it is home rule now but I don't know that any other cities would select the state general law if they could be home rule because it it just gives you more flexibility You're not constrained. You can be innovative. You can set up your form of government as you see fit. And it's basically the Home Rule Charter is basically your constitution for your government. So it gives you more leeway. So there's a lot of benefits to it. So in Cleveland, I was there. When I left, that's when we had the election for the adopted Home Rule. and because Cleveland was 7,000 and they had adopted it so finally we got it through and then you once you get home really you need to have the professional management have the staff support and have the city council on the same page as far here's what we need to do let's do it let me just show you a few slides here so I I assume you all understand your general law you understand the general law parts I don't I don't even talk about that Let me see if I get this thing working. Do you point at the screen or here?

No, just click it. Button to the right.

Huh? Ah, yeah. Okay, some of this we don't need, but Corey talked about that. And as far, that's what I was just mentioning, this particular slide right here. And the only thing I would emphasize now, you can in your charter have an initiative referendum and recall. Most cities do that. The home of those cities has that. And in my career, only the referendum used one time, and that was in Uvalley, Texas, to remove an ordinance for putting fluoridation in the water, the fluoride in the water. And the referendum, the people didn't want it, they took it out. But the initiative referendum and recalls really vary the roots of democracy almost. Okay, as far as the benefits, this list of benefits is kind of redundant somewhat, but just to give you an idea, very quickly, let me get my page out here if I can find it. But as far as, I mentioned the greater local self-government, so you could have more control over your administrative organization, your local elections, how you might want your districts, And your boards and commissions, you can have more, maybe ethics regulations, municipal procedures. It's really what you decide on the local level more than what the state decides at the state level. And then as far as the, like number three, greater flexibility in organization. How many council members do you want? Do you want your council members elected by district or at large? staggered terms, what's the powers of the mayor, do you want a strong mayor, a weak mayor, council manager, farm or government. So you have all these choices that your charter commission, when they're looking at it, what they could be deciding what to do. Then as far as what's more important is like number four, broader regulatory authority. And this is where cities are unique. Cities can regulate when there's a weedy lot or there's problems, nuisances. They can regulate them. Counties can't do that, but cities can. But the Home Rule Authority would actually give you more local business regulations, noise ordinances, environmental regulations, historical preservation. your standards for your neighborhood. So I know like in Missouri City or Sugar Land in those places, we're very tough. I know you all are just like the woodlands on on maintenance, maintenance of your home, your property, keeping the values up. You don't want something distracted from it. So we're extra tough on that. And by being a home rural city, you may be you may not believe this. I can be tougher, perhaps. And you but of course, you can never preempt the state. You never. So sometimes I think just recently maybe some cities had had ordinances on historical trees or something something and the state said no you can't the state removed that by fire to do that but a lot you can do with the your regulatory authority as far as uh the stronger development powers this used to be a used to be a big plus because at one time cities had absolute annexation powers they could just annex arbitrarily. And now they can't do that, so they have to negotiate and reason with property owners, have a plan and everything, work it out. It's a collaborative effort to annex. But what's important for Home Rule Cities as far as development authority, is you can put together all these, everything the state allows you to do, plus you can come up with some more, but to put these together, how the development properties, you have a, and a general law city can only use this, the state allows them to do a lot, but they can't ever put, they can't put it together and make something unique and creative. I know you all have some ETJ. I was surprised. I checked that out. You have ETJ that needs to be developed. This really could help you develop that as you see fit. Let me just see what I think is important. Well, number eight, the ability to then handle complex problems. In the metropolitan area, there's a lot of complex problems because you don't stand alone. You have neighbors. You have all kinds of issues. And by being a home rural city, it gives you more tools to use, how to put something together to solve these kind of problems. You're not constrained by the state. I like to compare. I teach public management also. But funny, I don't want to get into a lecture. But public management is almost the same as private management, except politics are involved. But we teach in public management, you want as much, and the council wants as much discretion as they can have to properly run the city. You want that discretion. You don't want it constrained. So right now, you're constrained in what you can do as a city council. And then with the home rule, you'd be less constrained. And that means you can handle complex problems better. And then finally, the last one was local control of elections. And I think I've already that's when I said this is redone. I kind of touched on that earlier. But you could you could decide on your district how you set up your district boundaries. You want to be at large or or or have district council members. I mean, did you have any you can always ask me questions on the benefits, but I just wanted to give you some ideas. OK, but OK, well, I do it. Let's see what I got here. The benefits, OK. I went the wrong way. So I want to point out, so in 2023, the state has actually, over the last 20 or 30 years, become more constraining on all cities and school districts and everything. So in 2023, there is a Texas Regulatory Consistency Act to make sure that cities don't get out of line with home rule or anything. So you always have to consider that in anything you do. But you can look at the list of what they regulate. I can see you can understand firearms regulations, labor and employment policies. They really don't want 500 or 600 cities having all kinds of different rules for economic development and everything. And in a lot of ways, this makes sense. But you would have to be aware of this. And your attorney would know this for sure. Now here's a, I do want to point out as far as the, there's a lot of advantage, but the advantages also bring potential disadvantages just because it gives, just because the, Home rule provides you much more discretion to do things. It gives you more where you can come up with more creative planning and everything. So it actually could make it where you, I hate to say this, but you adopt an ordinance that a general law city wouldn't adopt, but you can adopt it based on your charter and everything. And it may be challenged and it may be litigated. And that's what this points out, that you have greater autonomy, but at the same time, when you do stuff, you can be sued on it. It's not really a good example when you valley with the referendum on the on the fluoride in the water, but at the same time, it points out if you do something and people don't like it, they could hold you accountable one way or the other. And then the charter, if you have a charter, usually in the charter now, every two to five years, you review your charter, see if it needs to be updated. And if it needs to be updated, you'd have a charter review commission to do this. You'd put that on the ballot to amend the charter. So that would be something you'd have to do. When I was in U Valley, the charter was adopted like in 1945. It never was amended. So 40 years, but it needed to be amended. And it was after I left, I should have done more, but my point is it really was, it was good for the 1940s, but it wasn't very good for the 1980s and 1990s. It needed to be revised. Okay, the flexibility I've already mentioned, but if you have flexibility and it's gonna require, when you have flexibility or discretion, you also can add, you can create complexity And it takes professional management, professional staff, and a good city council to work through that, to work with that. When I was in Cleveland, the mayor told me, James, I left to go to your valley. But he said, James, we got our home rule charter, but without you, we don't know we know what to do with it. Because I had all kinds of plans on annexation strips and everything. I have to get the airport to get some land for the Friendswood Corporation forest and everything to get in the ETJ. But at the same time, that's why you need to have a staff and people that know how to take advantage of what you have. It's a heck of a tool. But it takes a lot of judgment and discretion and professional knowledge to put it to work. But at the same time, it makes it more complicated. It also creates more work in a way for the city. The city attorney has to be on his or her toes to make sure you're in compliance with the charter and state laws.

I have a quick question about the...

amending the charter there's no state requirement as to the time frame when you need to take another second you know most of them have two to five and i think it does require then i need to really look i just was looking at that chapter in the local government code but it may require you you put in your charter that you you have a commission a review commission you look at it every every few years that was going to be my next question could that be included in the chart oh yes so future councils that's right Actually, that's one of the provisions you'd want in there, probably, to make it work. I mean, I wish Uvalde had had that. It'd have been a lot better. So as far as... And of course, with the local innovation, if you're very innovative, sometimes the state doesn't like that, it can slap your hand. So if you think about it, I think it's a city in the DFW Fort Worth area, They prohibited plastic bags, use of plastic bags. And the state said, no, you can't do this. So the state specifically said cities cannot prohibit plastic bags. But that's one example of, you might be innovative what you're thinking in your city, but it might not be at the state level. They don't want that. But I mean, So I've experienced home rule cities out of 30 years. It was 20, say I've experienced 25 years of city management with home rule cities. And I actually don't remember any litigation resulting from what we did on the home rule. But it's a potential there. But you need to make sure you dot your I's and do what's required. Okay, as far as the process, There's six steps, and I'll go over the six steps. It's not that complicated, this is in the state law, it's outlined what to do. But the first one, you gotta establish your eligibility, a 5,000 population, get your count, get your evidence, get your numbers, and then you pass a resolution stating our population is 5,560, whatever it may be. And then once you do that, once you do that, you can, You can call an election. If you want to have a charter, call the election. And the question is, shall a commission be chosen to frame a new charter? That's the question. And the state law allows you to either, you can have the, at the same election, you elect 12 commissioners on the review, members of the review panel, or you can appoint 12, you appoint them. And my experience has been the appointment route for the initial setup. You appoint, and there's reasons to do this, but people don't think there's any politics involved or anything. And then you also can make the board more representative of the community by making appointments. You make it more representative of the board. This is the appointment if you wanted to choose that route. And then as far as that membership of the appointment, you want it to have broad representation. And the little table here kind of shows you the different areas you might have. It's a pretty good size. 12 is a pretty good number. So that should probably represent the community pretty well, 12. Any time you have a question or something, just let me know. Then as far as drafting the charter, once the commission's appointed and set up, then this could take two to three, four months. It depends. But you would want them to compare the other cities, the relative city, Conroe maybe. I don't know Oak Ridge North is a home rule city or not, but there's plenty of cities to compare charters with. Also get some professionals to come in and speak to them and talk to them about the pros and cons of this farm or that farm or something like that. So and then you see the little list there, what they would be considering. And they would have something that worked. They'd have it to work from what other cities have done. The comparison is pretty good. And there's probably some best practices out there, best practices, what's good for a homeowner charter. And then you have the charter election. And in the election, the city cannot take, you cannot take a position, you cannot spend money to be for or against it. But you can spend money to inform the citizens. So you send information with all the, with the charter, the proposed charter, you send it to all the registered voters in the city. And just for information, you don't say vote for it or vote against it, but you can do that. And then if it's adopted, it's relatively easy. I guess it would be an ordinance. You accept the election results and everything. But it has to be submitted to the Secretary of State. And there's some steps you have to do at the state to get it formalized and finalized. And I think. And then as far as what happens after the election, uh excuse me this is when you uh this I mean I put on this this is not very good but you'd be home rule so you you can do uh you start implementing your ordinance but uh I'm in your charter and it would take a while but it's not something that's to be done overnight or you could have a little plan for implementing it So the typical timeline is six to 12 months. So the ones I was actually experiencing, the dentist in Texas, they helped to rewrite the charter. But every one of them took at least five or six months. I don't know about the 12 months. It could, I guess. But if you get a charter commission together and they spend two or three months putting it together, it's possible. I think six months is a good time. The end. There you are. Any questions? You answered all of mine.

You weren't it. Sir, I'm sorry. Is that a CIB on your lapel? Yeah. Thank you very much, sir.

You're welcome. I wear this all the time, and very few people ask me about that.

Well, thank you for that.

It used to be, 30 years ago, a lot of people asked. World War II veterans, they ask. Yeah, yeah.

I was an infantryman myself.

Yeah, I was. 11 Bravo, I'm proud of it. 11 Bravo, yes sir. I was in the 717th Air Cavalry of Vietnam. Wow. I still go to my Army reunions, and they're getting smaller and smaller.

Yes, they are.

Yeah, we're talking about, I know this is off the topic, but we're talking about consolidating our unit with the helicopter, Army Helicopter Violence Association. They're so big, just put our unit with them. Because they're not getting any bigger either. But thank you for that. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Any questions?

I'd just like to thank you for coming out here tonight and sharing this information and explaining these processes for us.

Actually, I've done this a lot of times before. It's kind of a hobby. I do things to help people out, help cities out and stuff. So I believe in that.

That's some great information.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Just for the audience, when he asked about the CIB, the CIB is a combat infantry badge. That's a combat infantryman there who was actually engaged with the enemy at some point to earn that little...

This is what everybody would like to have, and it's only awarded to infantrymen. Yes. And then not all infantrymen.

Special forces also. Thank you. Thank you very much All right, we're gonna move on to item number seven Presentation of a proclamation recognizing September 11, 2026 as Patriot Day and National Day of Service and Remembrance in the City of Shenandoah. This is near and dear to me as my daughter survived 9-11. She was in the South Tower. when the North Tower collapsed, but she made it out in time. And so she survived, so this is close to my heart. I'm going to read the proclamation. Whereas on September 11, 2001, our nation endured a series of terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of 2,977 innocent people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and aboard United Flight 93. And whereas firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency medical personnel, military members, and ordinary citizens responded with extraordinary courage and selflessness, placing the lives of others before their own, and whereas we continue to honor the survivors, the families, and the lost loved ones, and the rescue and recovery workers who suffered lasting injuries and illnesses as a result of their service. And whereas the 25th anniversary of September 11 provides an important opportunity to preserve the memory of those who were lost and to teach future generations about the courage, compassion, unity, and service demonstrated in the days that followed. And whereas September 11 is recognized nationally as Patriot Day and a national day of service and remembrance, encouraging Americans to honor the victims and heroes of September 11 through reflection, service, and acts of kindness. And whereas the city of Shenandoah is proud to recognize the dedication of our local law enforcement officers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, military members, veterans, public servants, and all those who work each day to protect and serve our community. Therefore, I, John Escotto, mayor of the city of Shenandoah, Texas, do hereby proclaim September 11th, 2026 as Patriot Day. and remembrance in the city of Shenandoah. I encourage all residents to remember the lives lost, honor the courage and sacrifice of first responders and service members, observe a moment of silence, and carry forward the spirit of unity and service that brought our nation together. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Shenandoah, Texas to be affixed this ninth day of September, 2026. We're gonna move on to item number eight.

Discussion and possible action regarding funding for the 120 day general fund reserves and counsel the lesson Jen I mean at the last council meeting you approved the policy change to the general fund reserve policy to reduce them the amount of committed reserves from 180 days of operational to 120 days This item is to just approve that funding into those separate funds just for the sake so I don't confuse everyone and say general fund 1,000 times. The general fund reserve fund is Fund 111, and then the general fund operating fund is 100. So the Fund 111 is the committed reserve. The Fund 100 is the unassigned reserve. So with that new 120-day reserve committed fund for the Fund 111, there will be funds that will be released back into the Fund 100. so the unassigned fund balance. So that amount would be $1,428,134.60. So this item is just to approve that transfer to go back into the Fund 100 unassigned fund balance and then have the 120-day committed reserve balance Fund 111 at $4,552,005.60. I hope that makes sense. A lot of general funds.

All right, thank you, Lisa.

I'm calling for a motion on this item. Mayor, I'd like to move this item. Motion that we approve.

We have a motion to approve by Councilman Robinson. Second. Seconded by Councilman Summerlin. Any discussion? All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Item number nine. Discussion on possible action to cast votes for places one through four on the Texas Municipal League Intergovernmental Risk Pool Board of Trustees ballot. Now we have a ballot and we have done some research and we have some suggested Members for you to for you to vote is everyone Had a chance to look at the at these names in the packet Everyone has And we're an agreement that place number one the JW Fulham Is a choice for the city the city, okay, I And place number two is Emily Crawford. Is that correct? Yes. And place number three is Corby Alexander. Is that correct?

Correct.

And place number four, Austin Bleas. Yes. Is that correct? Yes. All right. Do I get a motion? Approve the selected items for this for the risk pool board of trustees ballot so moved The motion to to approve a consummate some role Second seconded by councilman Robinson any discussion If not all in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries aye Discussion impossible action to adopt the minutes of the July 4 2026 in July 22 2026 regular meeting Motion may be approved as read With a motion to approve by pro tem brought No second second second did by councilman summary Any discussion if not all in favor say aye aye aye aye Opposed? Motion carries. City Administrator updates.

Thank you, Mayor. The only updates I have tonight is The HVAC project for City Hall is underway. So right now they're currently working on phase one, which is really the community room and the back area past the conference room. And as we move forward, more sections will be taking place. So I just want to let you know that we're underway with that. Also, the Amoresco water meter project, the AMI conversion is underway as well. And I think I got word that they were starting to move into the valley area. And so we're happy to get those projects underway and also making progress on the Tamina project as well. So that's all the updates I have for you this evening.

Okay, great. Thank you. Number one to our council inquiry. Councilman Sumrall. Councilman Sumrall.

Not this time.

Pro Tem Brock. I'm good, Mr. Mayor.

Yes, sir, I want to thank Mr. McCloud for coming here tonight and sharing with you the experience of the tourism advisory board the Plano not all of our board members were able to go but the ones who were I think really thoroughly enjoyed their time there learning and definitely want to thank John Maynor and Billy both for helping us navigate our way through that process. That conference was excellent. And we're looking forward to more to come and more to share. And that's all I have.

All right. I just want to reiterate how important it is not to forget what occurred 25 years ago on Friday. I know that as time goes by, we tend to... To lose those memories and to lose interest, it's important to remember how we were so viciously attacked and how many people we lost on that day. So let's not forget on Friday morning at 8.35 what happened. That's all I have to say. We have no executive session scheduled for today. And having no additional business on the agenda, we're going to adjourn this session at 6.40 p.m.