City Council - Regular Meeting

Two, one.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our regular council meeting for Tuesday, May the 19th. Ms. West, will you please call roll?

Councilman De La Garza.

I am present.

Councilman Kidder.

Here.

Councilwoman Butler. Present. Councilwoman Scott.

Here.

Pro Tem Mayor Young.

Here.

Councilman Lofgren.

Here.

Mayor Crocker.

Here. If you would please rise, join me for the pledges, followed by a moment of silence.

Thank you.

Please be seated. One quick housekeeping announcement before we jump into, thank you, before we jump into our agenda. We will be pulling item D5 off of the agenda this evening, and that will come back to us at another meeting. So with that, welcome everyone. Great to see you here. And we will jump straight into announcements and reminders. Mr. Garza, good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I have a few announcements for you this evening. All non-emergency City of Victoria offices and the Victoria Public Library will be closed on Monday, May 25th in observance of Memorial Day. All garbage, recycling, and yard waste will be collected as normal and offices will reopen at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, May 26th. On behalf of the library, the Victoria Public Library Summer Fun Fest is back on Saturday, May 30th from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. This event kicks off our annual summer reading program with help from our friends at Chick-fil-A, Victoria Fire Department, Victoria Police Department, the Children's Discovery Museum, and more. So please mark your calendars and get ready for the best summer ever at the Victoria Public Library. On behalf of Public Works and really everybody at the city, we want to invite our residents to a town hall meeting about our proposed stormwater drainage utility fee that would fund maintenance and improvements to the city's drainage system. The meeting will take place on Thursday, May 28th from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Gary Moses Community Center Annex. Residents can learn about the proposed fee, drainage projects, and the city's stormwater system with a staff presentation and Q&A beginning at 7 p.m. More information, FAQs, and question submissions are available at victoriatx.gov forward slash drainage. In addition, residents can also listen to the city's latest Town Talk podcast featuring myself and Assistant City Manager Darrell Lesak as we discuss Victoria's stormwater drainage system, key needs identified in the recent drainage master plan, and how this proposed stormwater utility fee and operation could help fund and improve our drainage system. And to that end, staff has been working very diligently in preparation of this educational campaign and outreach effort as we educate the public on this stormwater utility. Obviously, you know it's something we've been discussing for literally years, but as we embark on its implementation, we wanna make sure that we undertake whatever, initiatives and ideas that we have to inform our public as best as possible. And so to that end, our communications department has put together a PSA that I'd like to share with you because it's actually pretty awesome. So kudos, Ashley and Sam and Talitha and everybody involved with that.

When it rains in Victoria, where does all that water go? Most of it doesn't soak into the ground. It flows across hard surfaces like rooftops, parking lots, and streets into our drainage system. From neighborhood storm drains to concrete-lined channels, that runoff travels through miles of infrastructure before reaching our waterways, like the Guadalupe River. Maintaining and improving our drainage system is essential. From everyday upkeep to major flood prevention projects, the need is growing. The recent Storm Drainage Master Plan identified over $129 million of needed drainage improvements, including cleaning and repairs, capital projects, and emergency response. To help fund this work, the Victoria City Council is considering a stormwater utility fee this fall, similar to fees that have been established in other Texas cities. For most residents, that would be a flat $5 a month. Businesses, apartment complexes, and other non-residential properties would pay based on the amount of runoff they generate. It's all about protecting our homes, our roads, and our future. Rain or shine. Learn more at victoriatx.gov slash drainage.

And so kudos to our communication team. I'd be remiss if I didn't also give kudos to Kevin, um, who put that together, AKA new AJ. Um, but maybe not so new anymore. And so Kevin, thank you for putting that together. Uh, and so those are all the announcements I have for this evening.

All right. Thank you. Uh, we'll jump into public and employee recognitions and we'll begin with a proclamation for EMS week. Miss West.

Whereas emergency medical services are an essential public service dedicated to protecting the health, safety, and well-being of our community, and whereas emergency medical services personnel stand ready to provide life-saving care 24 hours a day, even seven days a week, whereas access to high-quality emergency medical care significantly improves the survival and recovery of individuals experiencing sudden illness or injury, and whereas emergency medical services professionals help bridge critical healthcare gaps by delivering vital out-of-hospital care, including preventative services, follow-up care, and access to telemedicine, and whereas the emergency medical services system is comprised of first responders, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, emergency medical dispatchers, firefighters, law enforcement officers, educators, administrators, pre-hospital nurses, emergency nurses, emergency physicians, trained members of the public, and other out-of-hospital healthcare providers. And whereas emergency medical services personnel, whether career or volunteer, dedicate thousands of hours to specialized training and continuing to educate to maintain and advance the lifesaving skills. Now, therefore, I, Dwayne Crocker, Mayor of the City of Victoria, proclaim May 17th through the 23rd as Emergency Medical Services Week in Victoria, Texas, and encourage all residents to honor the EMS profession and recognize the essential services its members provide to our community.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. EMS Week is a special week where we recognize special individuals that run towards danger and are willing to step in and use life-saving skills to intervene and have an impact on someone's life. I'm truly proud of the department. I'm truly proud of the men and women of this department. They are really great from the accolades, from winning the Mission Life Award 10 years in a row to being on the cutting edge with the whole blood program that other departments are trying to emulate. So we are truly a great organization that's on the cutting edge, on the forefront, leading other departments that are trying to emulate us as well. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chief.

Mr. Garza, do you have any other public and employee recognitions this evening? I do have a couple.

Both stem from our utility side of the house. And I want to congratulate Doug Elliott, who is our SCADA network engineer. I know he's excited to stand in front of everybody for passing his certification for a Class A water license. A Class A water license refers to the highest level of certification for a water system operator Typically signifying a high level of expertise and experience required to manage complex public water systems This license requires several years of hands-on experience in water treatment operations in Texas and with Doug specifically We are blessed that he has the knowledge to also serve the SCADA IT side of it while also Understanding firsthand what it means to be an operator that is very rare And so we're very blessed to have Doug and have him part of the team Especially as we embark on the implementation of a new SCADA system and so Doug congratulations and thank Thank you. In addition, congratulations to our operation and maintenance manager, Austin Anderson, for receiving his Certified Water Professional Certificate from the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service. The TEEX Certified Water Professional Recognition Program recognizes individual achievement and training expertise within the water and wastewater industry. The program awards the CWP designation to senior industry professionals who complete over 250 hours of specialized training through TEEX, and we're also equally blessed to have Austin be part of our team. Since taking over the utility operation maintenance after Greg's promotion to assistant director, we have certainly continued to see improvements on the utility side of the house. And so we're very blessed to have Austin's institutional knowledge and his commitment to professional development and best practices as well. So Austin, congratulations. And that's all I have for this evening, Mayor.

All right, thank you. I'll jump into items from council. I have two quick items this evening. One is a congrats to the St. Joseph High School girls softball team on their state championship today. So if you see those athletes and parents out and about, please tell them congratulations. And then secondly, there's cookies. So the Shalimar Elementary School third, fourth, and fifth grade bear ambassadors were here this morning. I met with them for a bit. great group of kids and they just came by to say thanks to the city and staff for all that we do for the community and they brought cookies and donuts so you guys dive in help yourself I promised them I would save you also so any other items from council all right then we will move on to citizens communication I have two cards this evening I will start with I believe it's John Swanson Good evening, sir. Welcome.

Thank you. I live here in Victoria, but I wanted to come down and let you all know my appreciation for what you're doing. But I think we've got a challenge here, people, that the electorate, and I'm to blame, okay, is not given adequate guidance. These elections are not real and representative. I mean, we had a... two hundred forty million dollar bond approved by what three percent three and a half percent of the population we had a student union building uh... approved because it doesn't cost us anything we're getting the money from somewhere uh... and y'all got scammed a little bit too with the uh... election on the fire department and How did so little get to vote and make a difference? But more important, I have my trust in y'all that y'all are pretty smart people. And how are you getting your guidance on what it is that we want when so little? I would like to say that I find it, I try to be informed too, but I can't spend all my time on y'all. I can't spend all my time on, I got a lot of things to do. But it's important that I get the essence of what it is that you want, or we need, and that we do the right thing. The school bond may have been a great thing, but for only 3% to approve it, the fire, maybe unionizing the fire department may be a great thing, but to get... What was it? Less than 9% of the people voted thought that it was significant. We're missing something. We, I'm talking about me. So I want you guys to continue doing a good job. I appreciate it. But I want you to, somehow you gotta get the important things to me. So in the time I have left, to save 25% of this budget coming up in August, y'all are going to be fighting some tough issues. It's going to be eliminate fire. I don't know how you do it. You guys are smart, but that's a big chunk that can be saved. That's where my input is. But the big issue is we're not getting communicated how bad it is. So in the interest of time, I do yield back the balance of my time.

Thank you for your comments. Appreciate it.

All right.

All right. Thank you, sir. And then the second card I have is Mr. Vonderaar.

Good evening. Welcome. Good evening, Mayor, Council. I'm Michael Vondro. I live at 2107 North Bend, Jordan. Just recently, someone shot and killed a dog at a trailer park at 2501 Lone Tree Road. I don't want to talk about the case because, you know, sometimes when people put on the Internet, it isn't the truth, you know. But I do wish the people that did that, you know, get prosecuted and including the accomplice, you know, because there was two of them. And, you know, we have lax laws on animal abuse. It's just a misdemeanor just to kill a dog with a gun. And you can wait a couple more months and kill him again. It's just another misdemeanor. You have to do it on the third shot, you know before it's considered a felony and I wish there was stricter laws, but that's just the way it is and Also, there's been a problem with homeless encampments by the Victoria Independent School District on the railroad and the last two days the railroad police been cleaning it up and enforcing security including today and They had like 20 different cars and 20 different people take care of it. I would like the superintendent of the Victoria Independent School District to take care of the security and check it out because I don't think it's right. Homeless people live in that close to the Victoria Independent School District. You know, even if it is the railroad's responsibility, I do think the superintendent should take responsibility for it. It's a safety issue. closing shields, you know, school down and stuff like that. And I would like to, um, The substitute teachers to make more right now, they're just making $75 a day. The janitors are making $11 an hour, while the superintendent's making $250,000 a year. Congratulations on her $12,000 bonus. She's up to $262,000. The last one was reported at making... $565,000 a year. That was the highest ranked superintendent in the state of Texas. And I hope that information I read was wrong because that's a lot of money. They don't even have a law degree or not even a CPA. They're making more than lawyers and doctors and stuff like that. As their wages are getting out of control, they're not sharing anything with the lower-paying people like the janitors and the substitute teachers. But there's a bunch of tires all over there, and it still ain't completely cleaned up. I wish someone could finish it up because those tires attract mosquitoes. Thanks, and have a good evening.

Thank you for your comments. All right. We will move on down the agenda. Then we have no items of public hearings and we will jump to the consent agenda with again, item D five pulled. So Ms. West, if you please read the consent agenda.

Yes, sir. D1, adoption of minutes of the regular meeting held on May 5th, 2026. D2, resolution approving the first amendment to the interlocal agreement with Texas State University for a groundwater exchange bio aquatic study at no additional cost through November 2027. D3, resolution awarding the 2026 sanitary sewer cleaning project to Sweeping Corporation of America, LLC, in the amount of $137,151. D4, a resolution approving the First Amendment to the Professional Services Agreement with Texas Land and Right-of-Way Companies, LLC, for the easement of acquisition services for paving, drainage, utility, and sidewalk improvements on North Street from Ben Jordan Street to Ben Wilson Street in the amount of $30,200 for a total contract amount of $302,000.

Thank you, Ms. West. I will entertain any motions on the consent agenda.

Motion to approve a consent agenda as read. I second.

I've got a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And consent agenda passes as read. So we'll jump into our action items for the evening. We have one tonight, and we'll begin with item E1. E1.

E1, a resolution authorizing the city of Victoria to apply for the safe streets and roads of all SS4A planning and demonstration grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation in an estimated amount of 150,000 that includes a 20% cost share commitment from the city of 30,000 for the development of comprehensive roadside safety action plan.

Good evening, Ms. Connelly.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight I want to talk to you about, first of all, what is the USDOT Safe Streets and All Safety Action Plan, what the program is, and then also what we're applying for. The funding is directly from the US Department of Transportation. As the name suggests, it's focused on safety. For fiscal year 26, they have about $305 million to distribute for planning projects. This plan would support our current active transportation master plan. And I want to talk about that just for a second because they are very different, but they are complementary. One is focused on active transportation and does not address at all motorized transportation. And while safety is obviously part of the Active Transportation Master Plan, for this plan, safety would be the main focus. But the really important part about applying for and conducting a Safety Action Plan is that in order to access implementation funds from this program in the future, we have to have a Safety Action Plan. The active transportation master plan is not a substitute for it. So we would have to have it. But they will work together. There are some crossover, and I'll talk about that in terms of what the focus is. But so we have, obviously we know, most of us know. I mean, we have some high risk factors. We've got some major corridors. Obviously we're called the crossroads. Our school areas need some safety improvement. Um, we're getting more and more, you know, as as the city grows, we're getting more and more pedestrian activity. Um, because of the active transportation master plan. Of course we know we have kind of limited bicycle connectivity. Um, and just some growth related traffic increases. So I wanted to talk too about some of our challenges and just a little bit of data, not too terribly much. In the last five years, we've had 27 fatal crashes and 139 serious injury crashes. We have a lot of intersections. That's a point of conflict for transportation, particularly motorized, obviously motorized transportation, although pedestrians are implicated in the safety of the intersections as well. We know we could get some improvement there. Sidewalk apps have been identified in the Active Transportation Master Plan as being a safety concern raised by residents, not just that we don't have enough and that they're not connected, Unfortunately, a lot of our sidewalks that are existing are pretty old, so they're not ADA compliant, which means they're not safe for everyone. We have a lot of underserved communities where the high injury network is concentrated that we can improve. And then, of course, we also have, because we don't have some of these safety measures in place, our pedestrian and bicyclists are vulnerable. So some potential focus areas for us as a result of this plan are comprehensive safety analysis and an updated high injury network. We do have one now that's mentioned in the active transportation master plan. This would update it. One of the big things we would get is an ADA transition plan for sidewalk gap inventory and what this could potentially allow us to access is funding to improve sidewalks in areas like downtown where there's not a lot of ADA compliance. We would be assessing local policies and design standards. We would be getting a prioritized strategy list. One of the requirements of the action plan is a formal leadership commitment to improving safety in Victoria for transportation in general. And then the the completed action plan will help us position well for accessing funding in the future for an implementation grant and that could be anywhere between two and a half to twenty five million dollars for capital project and Our total request will be $150,000. 20% of that, which is the city's commitment, is $30,000. The application is due next Tuesday. The award should be announced in late December, and then if we get an award, we would have about two years. The range is actually a few months to five years, but that's for anything, including implementation. So I think two years is plenty to do an action plan. And I wanted to just mention briefly that in the interest of increasing capacity and making sure that we were able to get this done in time, we did hire a consultant to help me develop the proposal for it and that's been really instrumental in making a good competitive application for us. There's another one coming up at the end of July that I'm also getting help with that's gonna be an even bigger project than this. And then I wanted to ask if you have any questions.

Any questions for Ms. Connelly? Go ahead.

Just for clarification, I'm certain that I heard this right, but I think it behooves me to have you repeat it, that if I heard correctly, there's some facets of this that open funding sources in the future.

Oh yes, absolutely. Well, any planning does. One of the big components of it is the citizen participation, the community input with it. And all funders like to see that because it wasn't just a city decision or it wasn't just, you know, it was the whole community put into it. And so when you get that feedback from the planning process, the whole process, then you can access funding from a lot of different sources. This one is specifically required for the Safe Streets for All implementation, but there are a lot of other grants that we could potentially access by having this, yes.

I think that was the important takeaway was without this, uh, we don't qualify for these other potential funding mechanisms. And so it makes a lot of sense. And obviously there will be some overlap in some of the master plans that we've had.

I mean, it's all transportation. One is all transportation. One is active, but safety is a major theme through both of them, of course.

Right, right. Okay. Any other questions? All right, thank you very much for the presentation. And with that then, I will entertain any motions with respect to item E1.

Motion to approve item E1.

Second. All right, I've got a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And E1 passes. All right, we have city manager reports. I think we have a couple of items. Mr. Garza, what do you have for us this evening?

Good evening, Mayor and Council. We have two updates for you this evening. One is an overview of our fiscal year 27, please, of our fiscal year 27 through fiscal year 29 draft capital improvements program, and then Joel will provide an update on the upcoming Hot Funds Awards program. I'm gonna kick off the conversation around the CIP, and then I will turn it over to David to complete the presentation. I'm going to spend time talking a little bit about a new streets goal and then turn it over to David to hit on the actual projects over the next few years. Before I share a little bit about, I guess, a new goal, just very briefly, I'll verbalize a recap. You may recall that going into fiscal year 22, we developed a goal to increase the number of miles of streets from fiscal year 22 through fiscal year 26 to 50% greater than the number of miles that were addressed between fiscal years 2017 and 21. It was a very intentional objective that we laid out to try and encourage us and push us to be able to do more streets, right? And so now that we are basically wrapping up the timeframe of that goal, I think it behooves us to establish a new goal. But with that comes an opportunity to potentially utilize a different metric. One of the things that we've learned around how it was measured before was that it was based off of centerline miles. And while that was a good metric to utilize, it doesn't truly capture the magnitude of our investment. because as this slide points out, there's a difference between center line miles and lane miles, because some roads are two lanes, some roads are three lanes, some roads are four lanes, et cetera. And so the way that we were qualifying previously, the amount of work that we were doing was just based off of center lane miles. And so it didn't matter whether that road had two lanes or five. And so we want to actually introduce a new metric, which is lane miles, so that we can establish a new goal focused on lane miles. And basically a lane mile takes into account the width of the road. And it utilizes a metric of 12 feet since that's the average width of a lane and so on and so forth. And so when we utilize that math, we estimate we have roughly 932 lane miles within our city. Previously utilizing the center line mile metric was 326, just to give you a sense of that. And below shows how we would qualify that previously stated timeframe if we were to have had converted with the work that was done into lane miles. And so there were 170, close to 173 lane miles done between 17 and 21, and then 220 lane miles done between 22 and 26, just to give you a sense of that. Now that math doesn't math exactly the way that we would have mathed it had we used the centerline mile approach, but the point is, let's look at lane miles. As mentioned, we have 932 lane miles across our city. On the left-hand side, you can see in that table how many lane miles we've done going back to 2020. This points out a couple of things. It points out the significant increase in investment that started to occur in fiscal year 22. As you can see, prior to fiscal year 22, the number of lane miles were 30, 18, and there was even less in every year before then. And so again, you see the drastic increase beginning in 22 all the way through 26. And then right next to that, you see what David will present, which shows the lane miles dropping down to 26. roughly 30 and then roughly 32. And as we've mentioned in previous CIP or budget capacity presentations, that's heavily driven by the fact that we just have less money going towards streets in the CIP over the next few years. And we were just blessed during fiscal years 20 through to 26 to be able to invest a historic level of funds into street maintenance. Once you add up all of those streets, you basically get to roughly 355 lane miles, which is equivalent to 38% of the total lane miles. And so the new aspirational goal that I want to present to you and that I want us to utilize is to target addressing 50% of lane miles in a 10-year period. That equates to roughly 466 lane miles. Now, this isn't a plan that's intended to be a concrete plan, no pun intended, but is intended to be an aspirational goal. And so after David presents you the CIP for 27 through 29 that is inclusive of that 88 additional lane miles over the next three years, we would still be 111 lane miles short of reaching that goal. And so how I would like to utilize this new aspirational goal is to basically force all of us to think as creatively as possible on how we may be able to enhance or supplement the CIP over the next four to five years. We have some creative ideas that we've discussed internally that we will present to you at a different meeting. But again, just know that this new aspirational goal of tackling 50% of our lane miles within a 10 year period is this new metric and this new challenge that we want to embark on. And based off of recent conversations that we've had with you, we know that there's a desire from you for us to do more residential streets, whether that be Blue Ridge, whether that be Fox Creek, whether that be streets in the historic district, right? We recognize that there are streets in our community that necessitate addressing. And so I look forward to the challenge and I look forward to presenting to you what those creative ideas are, but today's not the day for that. And I'll pause there before I turn it to David to see if you have any questions or thoughts on this new aspirational goal. Yes, ma'am.

I do have a thought that I like what you're saying, but when push comes to shove, we used to consider or I guess on commercial streets, we consider traffic counts. I'm not necessarily suggesting that we consider traffic counts with residential, but that when we've got sort of a balance, we might look at the number of residents or the number of houses impacted so that we might be able to get a little bit more bang for the buck if there were more houses on this particular street that was one lane mile versus this particular street that was one lane mile. I'm not saying that should be the final decision, but sometimes that may be worth considering. how many people are going to be impacted by making this one over that one.

I think that's a separate conversation to have on how we decide which streets we want to add into the CIP. For now, the message is focusing an objective on center miles, excuse me, on lane miles.

I agree with that, but I feel like in the past, I think we got one time hung up on, well, we can get more miles this way, and the reality is we may have impacted more people with less miles. It's just something to think about as well.

Okay. Instead of, you know, well we can't do that one because you know, that's just a small, I, I'm not sure that I agree that we have intentionally, um, gotten away from addressing streets that may not impact a lot of homeowners, maybe unintentionally, but there certainly has been an intentional effort to try and capture dead end streets as an example that don't have a lot of residents because otherwise they wouldn't be captured. I don't think the motivation there was simply let's add miles. I think the motivation there was to try and get away from this approach of focusing on holistic neighborhoods and try and actually take into account the fact that we have streets that aren't part of complete neighborhoods that also need addressing. I understand that maybe there was an unintended consequence historically of avoiding streets that had few residents on it, but I think we've done a better job of balancing that in recent years. to tackle streets that are part of a neighborhood, but also part of dead-end streets or other small segments of streets that otherwise would have never been funded under a neighborhood-only approach, which I think was a historic viewpoint of it. Does that make sense?

It does, and thank you for addressing that. I think it points out that it's a complicated issue, but I just wanted to point out to not lose sight of that but I do agree with you of what's been done historically has been correct.

Certainly, you know, condition and um, preventative maintenance has been the goal and part of the decision making, you know, it's gone in when we do the CIP and I know that will continue. So one question I do have and I want to clarify, I know that, um, Guy Grant and North Street are two projects that we've talked about quite a bit that council has said, Hey, we need to address these. I'm assuming that, um, those are included kind of in these projection of yes, yes, these, these lane miles include both residential and thoroughfare streets.

And they're inclusive of the physical construction of those streets that happened to fall within these fiscal years.

Right.

Right. It wouldn't be the entirety of North Street. Right. Which does include the totality of Guy Grant, but it doesn't include the totality of North Street. Because as you know, North Street's going to be a multi-year project.

Right.

Yes.

Okay.

No, I like the goal. I, you know, I think, um, you know, we've talked about that goal in previous years and we're redefining a little bit in terms of, I think it's a better metric, uh, lane miles in terms of just, you know, centerline miles. And so I think we, you always want an aspirational goal to work toward and if we hit it, great. So yeah, that's, that's the plan. I like the idea. Very good.

Excellent. And as, and like I said, at a separate, Meeting will present some of those creative ideas that that we've come up with to help Push us towards this aspirational goal one more clarification.

Yes, ma'am It may be my misunderstanding, but I think just now you said I agree with you that it doesn't include all of North Street Just part of it, but you said it does include all of Guy Grant Is that the case or is it Guy Grant from Mockingbird to Stock Bauer? Is it not from Stock Bauer and not Salem? I'm sorry from Mockingbird to Salem, but does it also include the concrete street from Salem to Navarro?

No, it does not include that part.

It was all of the Guy Grant project.

Right, yeah. The section that you're referring to, to Navarro, is not even in the CIP.

But it's still considered Guy Grant Street, and I wanted to make sure people watching understood.

Yes, we're solely referring to the part of Guy Grant that is... I understand, I apologize, we're not including beginning and end points. We're just keeping you straight. Yes, thank you. Okay, if there are no other questions, I'll turn it over to David to begin talking about the projects.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Tonight, I'm going to give you a preview of our capital improvements. program for the next three years. I'm looking to solicitate any comments from you regarding it. Over the next three years, we're looking to spend approximately 69.2 million in fiscal year 2027, a little over 33 million in fiscal year 28, and almost 31 million in fiscal year 29. And you can see at the bottom of this graph how those funds are separated out to the various types of projects. For now, I'll go into a little more detail as far as the projects we are anticipating for fiscal year 27. Our street and residential street program, we are looking to three different subdivisions just go in and do a maintenance coating a seal coat and onyx And then we've got up in the spring wood subdivision We're looking to do some reconstruction of some of the streets there that are in pretty poor condition These streets listed on this slide were all included into the street improvements project that was bid just last month but due to budget reasons we weren't able to include those in that street. We're going to try and include these into our residential street project in 27 as alternates and hopefully our bid prices will come in such that we'll be able to include these streets also since they were already looked at as far as including in a previous project. Our thoroughfare projects for 27 are Briggs Boulevard and from Millette Drive to Zachlands Parkway, and Millette Drive from Zachlands Parkway to Briggs Boulevard. These streets were originally proposed to be overlaid a couple years ago, but with the bridge reconstruction at Spring Creek, we decided we would wait until after all the construction traffic was through and we could determine if there was any damage to those two streets and if we needed to upgrade our proposed work on those. Also, we're looking to reclaim Mill and Overlay, I'm sorry, not reclaim, Mill and Overlay Main Street, starting at Rio Grande all the way down to Forest Street. That street has been in need of that for a good while.

And that is a new addition to the CIP. And I'm sorry if you were planning on mentioning this, but we do plan to bring a change order to you that basically removes a section of Edinburgh that is on the north side of town that after further review is in decent shape and we believe the main street needs the mill and overlay more so than that section of Edinburgh Street.

Utility projects for fiscal year 27. We'll be ready to advertise for bids for the Guy Grant utility improvements beginning shortly after October 1. Hopefully we'll begin construction on those utilities, if not by the end of the year, shortly after January 1 of 27. North Street Phase 3, that is currently under design and we look to to begin construction on those sometime in spring of 27. Reason that one's pushed back a little bit was we got a little later start on getting the engineering design started on that project by the time we went out for proposals, contracted, and all that thing. Constitution Street Water Line Replacement. That is a project that we've been designing in-house. It is almost completed. and we will be ready to advertise for bids early on in the upcoming fiscal year. Airline road sanitary sewer line abandonment. Currently in the area indicated on the map, the sewer lines are in the backyard easements. Difficult to access, difficult to address if there's any kind of problems, any blockages. What we're proposing to do is redirect the services from the backside of the house direct them around to the front, and tie into some sewer mains that are out in the streets. That way the, it'll be easier for Public Works to access the sewer mains if there is a blockage on the city side.

And those are existing sewer mains?

Yes.

Okay.

Several years ago when Airline Road was redone, at that time they were anticipating this project and they extended services out behind the curb so we don't have to get out into the pavement to make those connections. Regional wastewater treatment plant structure, grit removal structure. We will be performing the design for that. Regional wastewater treatment plant influence screen improvements. This one is funded by the CDBG MITMOD. Design is a little over 60% complete at this time. We are looking at, is Katie still here? Next year, getting approval for the expenditure of the funds? Yeah, about nine months from now that we should be getting our approval to use grant funds on that. Same way with the water and wastewater skid improvements. That's not shown, but it is a city-wide project And then our final project will be for our I&I reduction project, manhole rehabilitation. That will be manholes throughout the city. It would have been too numerous to indicate on this map, so we'll be providing more detailed maps on that when we get the plans ready. Here's some utility projects that were identified as part of our water feasibility study that we're ongoing right now. OCR interconnect project. As you can see down in lower left-hand corner, those are our OCR ponds of channel reservoirs. We are, it's in design to connect these right now, especially the ones south of FM 1665, 1685, sorry. The water has to be pumped from there into pond eight, which has the permanent pumping station, which pumps it to the surface water plant. To do that, the public works has to manually move pumps and hoses between the different ponds. What we're looking to do is interconnect those ponds so that we won't have to do that anymore. Well 19, that has been an ongoing project of the ASI. We're proposing to finally finish the testing for that so that we can begin to put that into service. And then our groundwater wells that are currently existing, we proposed, they haven't been used in a while other than maybe some groundwater interchange into the river for but even what we want to do is Examine them do an assessment do production testing on them to see what? Capacity they have and then we can add that in and have a hard number As far as what our capacity is currently. We're just working on what? They haven't produced in the past Another utility project we're looking for is water tower rehabilitation of towers one, three, and four. As you can see in these photos, there's a lot of deterioration of the coating. Those ladders that are on the left side, those are in the interior of tank number three. If somebody needed to get inside that tank to do something, they would be taking their life in their hands given the corrosion of those mounting brackets. And then on the right hand side, that photo indicates, that's showing how the paint has failed, moisture's gotten into it, and the metal is starting to delaminate and separate. This is part of a overall program where then after next year there'll be a complete rehabilitation, sandblast and painting of Towers 1, 3 and 4. And then in upcoming years, minor maintenance work will be done on Towers 5 and 6, which have been rehabbed most recently. Other projects in 27, Riverside Park, the splash pad, Children's Park splash pad's been talked about for a while. We should be beginning construction on that. We will begin design of the multi-use trail in Riverside Park. We will finish the installation of an ERP software and we will begin the community center upgrades, the rodeo arena and phase two, the renovation of the existing facilities. Here's a recap of our expenditures. We're looking to in residential street projects to improve 21.64 lane miles of streets for a total cost of 4.78 million. Looking to improve 5.37 lane miles of thoroughfare streets at a cost of 6.77 million. the GLO projects at 21.44, the utility projects at 12.1, and the community center projects at 23.57, along with the other projects, the ERP and splash pad and such. For a total expenditure in 26 and 27, 69.17 million.

Let's pause there for a moment, David. This particular fiscal year that David just went through is the most critical for us to reach consensus or alignment on, because this would be the one that we would incorporate into the upcoming preliminary budget that I'd be looking to present to you at the end of June, and then ultimately officially as part of the proposed budget the first week of August. And so we certainly ask that you go through it, and if you have any questions, feedback, et cetera, that you obviously provide that to us, whether tonight or just over the course of the next couple of weeks, because finalizing fiscal year 27 is certainly priority. Another observation or thought to help clarify is that the community center improvements were actually spread out over three fiscal years. And so don't let that figure there of community center improvements throw you off. The project is still, nearing $40 million. We simply just incorporated into the current fiscal year 26 budget some funds for the design work and to kick it off, and then that'll continue in 27. And then there will actually be another allotment in fiscal year 28 to wrap that up and he's going to go through fiscal year 28 in a bit and so you'll see a lower amount in fiscal year 28 associated with the community center project but that's still roughly 40 million dollars as we as we have discussed in previous meetings so i just want to clarify that any i have some questions yes sir yes um

On D4, we allocated 30,000 more for easement acquisition on North Street. Do we anticipate any more? Is that gonna be all the easement acquisitions for North Street? Will that?

Well, that was for the contract for the easement acquisition, from the acquisition firm with them. We do believe, though, that with the funds that we had allocated for the actual acquisition,

Payment of the easements so that that is just for the contracts with the company The actual dollars that we would use for the actual acquisition is in the project budget, correct?

Yes Yes, so that amount that you're referring to is just the amount for the consultant the purpose of that amendment was because they determined there were going to be more tracks that required easements and The initial contract price was based on a certain number of easements that were anticipated.

Do we need to do any easement acquisitions for Guy Grant?

That is underway now. Yes. We already have a contract for that.

And that's part of the utility thing or it will be in the next fiscal year?

No, that will start now.

And that I think is coming as a separate action item. Sorry.

Okay. Yep. It already came to council. So we've already awarded that easement acquisition or right away acquisition.

I just didn't know where it was in here. Um, my other question was about the SCADA project and the Lone Tree Acres. We had, it's not general fund money, but is that already gone through the process and had been okayed for the CBTG MIT money? Is that been okayed?

It's been okayed.

Okay.

Yes.

Now the Lone Tree Acres, do we have, we need some acquisitions of land too?

That is, and Katie, you can, if she's still here. There needed to be a reevaluation of the projects because the costs associated with SCADA and with some of the improvements at the Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant are different than what originally was placed in that application years ago. And so the scope of the Lone Tree Acres project is going to be slightly different still within the same breadth of what we applied for, but just not as comprehensive as originally intended because we're prioritizing the money that we're receiving from the GLO to fully fund the SCADA system and then also the improvements at the regional wastewater treatment plant. For that particular project, with the reduced or adapted scope, we would not necessitate any easement or right-of-way acquisition for Lone Tree.

Now there's a timeframe on this money, right? Is it 27, 28 or whatever?

Uh, Katie would have to 29 by 29. Okay. That's it. Okay. And just to go back to your previous question, just for clarity's sake, so the contracts that come before council for the easement or right-of-way acquisition are strictly amounts associated with the professional services agreements with the firm. The money we actually use to acquire the right-of-way or the easement is already allocated in the project budgets that have been already approved in their respective fiscal year.

Thank you for the clarification.

We'll begin discussing the fiscal year 28 CFP projects. The proposed streets for the residential street program are Lake Forest subdivision, Creek Ridge Drive and Springwood Drive to finish out the streets in the Springwood subdivision, Commercial Street, Blue Ridge Phase 1, and Bell Tower Phase 1. We're trying to incorporate and begin work in a couple of different subdivisions, Blue Ridge and Bell Tower, because these projects would be pretty large, fairly large to do as a whole. We're going to be dividing those up into phases, do them multi-year, and make them more, call it palatable. The thoroughfare projects for 28. In fiscal year 28 is when we anticipate the actual street improvement construction on Guy Grant will begin, as well as North Street. Phase 3A, which is from Laurent to Avenue C, right across Patty Welder, wanna get that done, complete, and then we'll move on to the next year in 29 to do the construction of 3B Avenue C to Ben Jordan Now been Jordan to Ben Wilson is in front of the community center what we're proposing to do there Will be to just mill and overlay that area to make to smooth that out. We'll do point repairs as necessary and then that'll be It'll be a lot better looking than what it is now in conjunction with the improved looks of the community center

And to be clear, that part of North Street would not be inclusive of the utilities under the street? But it would help obviously improve the right of the right quality in front of the community center to obviously align with the improvement of the community center and Then just buy us some time before we eventually get to replacing all the utilities in that section in the interim Our focus would be after we're after we're done with phase three Which is the piece in front of Paddy welder and all the way to Ben Jordan The plan is to then try and tackle the segments of North Street that then go towards downtown and

Okay, we were also looking mill and overlay Ben Wilson Street beginning at the Port Lavaca Highway and continuing on to Linda Lane, which goes along the east side of the community center. This street also has been in dire need of some work. Airline Road between Navarro and Main Street will also get a mill and overlay. Our utility projects for 28. We're proposing to begin designing a replacement of a 20 inch cast iron line in Airline Road from Lowrent to Ben Jordan. That line has been in the ground for a long time. There have been issues with leaks on that 20 inch quarter line. When it breaks, a lot of water can come out. So we're looking to replace that. Then once that water line can be replaced, that street also needs to have some pavement work done. but don't want to do that now until we get the water line replaced. Sycamore Street and Willow Street water line replacements, that's a subdivision in the southern part of town. Currently, a lot of those water lines are two-inch, probably galvanized. We're going to upgrade the mains to the eight-inch minimum that the city uses now. Improve the fire protection by adding some more fire hydrants. And at the regional wastewater treatment plant, the grit removal structure will be constructed. And also, then we will begin the construction work on the OCR interconnects. As you can see, the phase one will be connecting pond four to ponds five, six, and seven. Just as illustrative, means I'm just showing those interconnects as the blue lines. Now we are looking to, we'd have to auger in, unless we can convince TxDOT to allow us to open cut, a 36 inch pipe underneath Lower Mission Valley Road there. And that way it would connect into an existing channel that goes into Pond 8. That will allow us to eliminate having to manually move pumps, hoses to transfer water from the south side of the road to pond eight.

And this is in keeping with the study we just did?

Yes, it is.

They're completing, yeah, okay.

Yes, they recommend improvements to the ponds. They didn't necessarily give us a plan or phasing of it. This is our idea of the best way to get Bust Bank for the buck at the earliest stages.

Got it. Mayor, and that study is technically complete. We are simply awaiting the final physical report, and we plan on being intentional with putting information out through press release and online and websites and all the fun stuff once we receive that final document. But for all practical sense, it's complete.

Got it. We're waiting for him to put the wrapping paper and the bow on it. Yeah, exactly. Got it.

Then Kevin will make a nice video and everything will be all right.

I have a question on the dollars. It just jumped out at me and maybe missing something. On the slide, you've got the OCR interconnected 8.68. And on the handout, it's 7.92. Is there a second part?

No. Some of the funds were moved from fiscal year 28 into 29, and I did not update the handout, did not update this slide. All my graphs, though, reflect the.

Okay, so the handout is correct, which is a lower number, so thank you. Yes, ma'am. Okay.

Other projects for fiscal year 28? As A. Cecil was saying, this will be finishing out the community center improvements. approximately $2.5 million to do that. And once again, a recap of the expenditures. We're anticipating improving 11.14 lane miles of residential streets for a total, for a cost of 4.03 million. 9.83 lane miles of thoroughfare streets for a cost of 13.88 million. Our utility projects are anticipated to cost $12.6 million, and the final community center improvements at $2.54 million for a total of $33.05 million. Any questions on fiscal year 28?

I imagine with the mill and overlay for north, will that be done after all the work that's done on the community center?

We'll try to time it that way, Red, so we don't have to have a lot of construction traffic coming across that new.

Which leads me to my next question, which was actually the real question. And I know we don't control VISD, but what's the plan with Stroman? And from there, if they demo it, I don't really want their heavy trucks on our brand new road.

Yeah, we can certainly just simply communicate and coordinate.

We'll be needing to do that anyway regarding Patty Welder and some of the entrances, their parking lots and such.

I'm more worried about the demo. We'll bring that topic into it also. Thank you.

Now, we do know that for the community center specifically, the construction entrance to the project would actually be the entrance that is on Ben Wilson.

Thank you.

So even if there was any kind of overlap, there wouldn't be any expected heavy equipment on North Street. Thank you.

And finally, our projects for fiscal year 29. We have a pretty substantial residential street program proposed for fiscal year 29. Looking to do a seal coat and onyx on Tangerine subdivision. Fox Creek, section one. Second phase of Blue Ridge subdivision. Highland Village, section two. Stevenson Subdivision, Carstner Citizen Subdivision, Second Phase of Bell Tower Subdivision, West South Street and Walden Street, and we'll begin work on Tanglewood Subdivision Phase 2A. Thoroughfare Streets for fiscal year 29. We're proposing John Stock Bower between Mockingbird and Ben Jordan, Northeast Water Street, between Cameron and Wan Lin, Ben Wilson Street from Linda Lane to Rio Grande Street. When that one is done, that will complete the entire run of Ben Wilson from the Port Lavaca Highway to Sam Houston Drive. The Sam Houston Drive to Houston Highway was performed as part of the Ben Wilson Corridor Project of UHV. This past year, our thoroughfare project, we milled and overlaid from Rio Grande Street to Houston Highway on Ben Wilson. So it had to be nice streets there. North Street Phase 3B construction. Again, that's from Avenue C to Ben Jordan. And we will begin design on North Street Phase 1, which starting at Moody Street and goes to Navarro. It's phase one. And then there's some $3.5 million that was still available. We have yet to determine an actual project on that. And that's on purpose. Yes.

And that's on purpose just to give us some flexibility over the course of the next couple of years. We do intend going into fiscal year 28, going back to a five-year CIP. And so this gives us a little bit of flexibility. We also still don't know when we're gonna be able to phase in, not phase in, but start to incorporate other facility improvements that we know are needed, whether that be the building that we're in now, whether that be a relocated or refurbished fire station, or whatever else may arise. So we wanted to not commit a few million dollars on purpose just to give us some flexibility as we take a deeper dive into planning out all the CIP projects and needs that we have over the next few years.

I have a question. The John Stockbauer here, the mill and overlay, was there a picture of John Stockbauer on the fiscal year 28 also? Could you go back to the slide for the map for 28?

No, ma'am. OK, that was Guy Grant that I saw.

All right, thank you.

Any other questions on 29?

I have one. Sure. I saw that Fox Creek was on there, and I think we all agree that there are roads within Fox Creek that do need to be addressed, but how is prioritization determined? Because that is a relatively new subdivision. I think it was 2014. So there's certainly older subdivisions within the city that general public may be watching and thinking, well, what about my subdivision comparatively?

I'll take it, David. So I think the best way I can answer your question is to kind of go back a little bit in history for context sake. So and we kind of had a little bit of the conversation earlier during my intro, right? That historically there was an approach to neighborhoods, to adapting streets. There was an approach that took into account feedback from council, right? And kind of just trying to find the balance between neighborhood streets, some data that was being gathered internally, and then feedback from council. We then in 2020 had a very scientific study done on the condition of streets with the idea that we would transition to a very data driven approach to addressing and selecting streets. However, in that timeframe, we've learned that we probably shouldn't always focus on just the data and that we could probably have had found better balance between data, common sense and feedback from council because it was important that you have a sense of ownership and a sense of involvement in the development of the CIP. And so over the course of the last, year or so, we've been more intentional with asking you which streets are of interest to you. I've sent emails over the last two years asking you specifically for streets that you're interested in, because we want to combine your priorities with the data, with some common sense. And recently we've brought some common sense changes to you. Changes to the residential street program that shifted a CO code away from Terra Vista and over to the neighborhood across the street because it needed it more. Or common sense change that we discussed earlier, such as delaying Edinburgh because it's in good shape and doing Main Street. And so the incorporation of the Fox Creek Street was an attempt to incorporate some of council feedback, which, quite frankly, isn't just inclusive of Fox Creek. You know, the Blue Ridge subdivision that Council Member de la Garza included in his response is very much in there we have not forgotten of dr young's request to look at some of the streets in the historic district you know when you yourself councilman butler you know brought up tonto drive as an example you know we work to incorporate that and so this just falls in line with that approach that we've tried to incorporate your feedback

And I appreciate that. My ask was in no way contrary to that, because I agree very much, especially when Councilmember Scott brought this to our attention about Box Creek. So I certainly see that. My bringing it and asking the question was simply for somebody that may be in the community who needs that clarification of why not. That's the only reason that I brought it up.

I appreciate the opportunity to clarify how we're trying to piece everything together.

I'm glad that you brought up the Blue Ridge addition because you have it split up into four phases.

The whole neighborhood is eventually into four phases. You only saw two phases today because all we're talking about is fiscal years 28 and 29. But the entire neighborhood would actually be over four phases.

over. So phase four would be in 2031.

Correct.

Well, with the installation of that, of the median, the traffic has picked up tremendously on Fillmore, Windsor, Taylor. You only, we're only doing, you know, two fourths of the addition. Um, You know, people, the residents are reporting a lot of vehicle damage because of the roads. It's not going to last until 2031. And that wasn't the initial conversation that we had a couple of years ago that most likely would be done by 2028, that whole area, not just one-third of it or one-fourth of it or two-fourths of it. So eventually, I'd like to discuss why it's being split up into four phases when it should be done. I mean, it's all right there in that one square area.

Can you go back to one of those slides that shows it? We can have that conversation now. And it boils down to funding. And so as we've discussed, between fiscal years 27 and 29, we only have roughly $10 million that are allocated from COs to go towards residential streets. During fiscal years 22 through 26, we were blessed to be able to pump over $20 million into residential streets every year. And so by us having that limited CO debt capacity, it forces us to have to lower the amount of streets that we fix. In a previous presentation, we shared that addressing all of Blue Ridge was roughly $5 million, if I'm not mistaken, which would take up 50% of one year's budget if that's all we wanted to focus on. And so what we've tried to do is to try to incorporate these requests that council has brought forward in a manner that stays within this confined budget. And that's why it's split. Certainly council can change that, right? I mean, if council decides, hey, we want to tackle Blue Ridge all in one year, you're certainly welcome to have a discussion about how we adjust streets, which ones get delayed, which ones change. That is your prerogative to do that. And so when we bring forward this recommendation or these plans, it is your opportunity to suggest changes that better align with your priority as a group.

that whole addition was supposed to be done in two phases, initially, the initial conversation with you. And I could go three phases, but four phases till 2031, that's just not acceptable. Those residents, I mean, I challenge every council member to drive those roads as soon as possible. Taylor, Lawndale, Fillmore, Windsor, Those are some of the worst streets ever. Even the residents are reporting vehicle damage because of those roads. I just can't see extending it to 2031. That's not acceptable to those residents.

Well, that is up to y'all to discuss any changes that you may want to make or propose to better align with your objectives.

This is the frustrating thing about having so many streets in not good condition because my Tanglewood subdivision was supposed to have enough money in 2024 to finish it. And we're now looking at the second phase in 2029, if it holds. So, I mean, I'm not unsympathetic, but the phasing has really helped address the streets that need the work the most. And the ones...

I'm going to challenge you to drive those streets, and I think it is unsympathetic for you to bring that up and to compare it. That's just not right, and you shouldn't have done that.

Well, I think the reality is that there are streets throughout town and different parts of town that all need work. I mean, we all know that, right? Your district, your district, your district, your district yells it. They exist. They exist. I think the reason we've been successful over the past is that we haven't said, I have to have this. We haven't said, I have to have this because this is in my district. What we said was, what is the best thing for the community? If we lose that approach, then we've lost what's made us successful to meet this 112 miles over the course of the last five years. And if we lose that approach, we will not get to the new goal. And so my challenge to each of you is not to go drive a street, but to look at what's the best thing for the overall community, not what's the best thing for what I want to happen right now. If we do that and we can stay consistent in our approach to say, we need to address each of these, we have to have priorities, we have to say, how do we spread this out in a manner that we can get to each of these projects and hit everyone's priority, maybe not on the timing they want, Maybe not as soon as we have to have it. Situations arise over the years where you have to change that plan for something that was unforeseen. We've seen that. We've had to do that. I would urge all of you, I know we all have certain streets we want this done and we want that done, but we have to look at this from a totality of the situation because if we get siloed, if we start saying, I got to have this and I got to have that, then we're losing what's made us successful thus far, in my opinion.

It was just extended from 2028 to 2031, and I just don't understand.

And maybe that's a conversation that you can have and find out why it got extended. I can't answer that question.

Well, and I've answered the question, right? There's a financial... limitation there. I personally don't recall a conversation committing to tackling that over a two year period. That conversation on Blue Ridge just began just a few months ago with email exchanges when I put out the request in preparation for the December workshop. Um, and so that's why it landed where it landed, you know, But again, I just want to be very clear because I think it's important that council understand that it is your prerogative as a group, if you chose to, to make adjustments to the CIP as you wish.

Are there any other questions at this time? No?

Okay. Utility projects for fiscal year 29.

Can you speak a little better into the mic?

Oh, sorry. All right, the utility projects proposed for fiscal year 29. Well, actually, the construction for the water line replacement on Airline Road. Country Club Sanitary Sewer Replacement. That, again, is an area where the sanitary sewer lines are in backyard easements. We're looking to design to replace those lines, put them out in the streets, redirect the services to the streets, similar to what we did on the Airline Road one. But the Airline Road was different because it has existing mains that we're able to utilize. After we replace the, or while we are doing the construction on replacing the 20-inch waterline on Airline, we're going to be designing for a 20-inch waterline replacement on Ben Jordan from Airline going north to Crestwood. And our final OCR interconnect project will be to connect pond two to ponds three and four, and lower the connection of ponds three and four. Right now there is an actual connection, but because it's not deep enough, we cannot get all the water that's available out of pond three into pond four. We're gonna deepen that connection. We're also gonna deepen the channel from pond four to, I forget that road name right there, but we're also gonna lower the connection across the road with a 48 inch pipe deeper that will allow us to utilize more of the available capacity of those ponds. Currently we are limited a little bit from elevation of the existing structures and ditches.

So this work again, and I'm going back to the study and trying to remember this work was certainly connecting them was part of it. Was there additional work that would allow us to get more depth in those ponds beyond this? Or is this that work that will not only connect them, but will also allow us to take more water out of them?

It will allow us to take more water out of it. I don't recall if there was a, to deepen them or not.

No. So, um, it's the connecting them that allows the pump to grab more water. Gotcha. I know that we've used the analogy of a straw. Yes.

My simple brain.

Right. We need a deeper straw. Right. But the way that we capture more water isn't to have a deeper straw, literally have a deeper straw. It's to connect the different ponds and lead the water to the straw.

Got it. So this, this project, just connecting them will allow us to take more water than we could before. Correct. Got it. Okay. 100%. It's not just a function of, well, it's a pain to move hoses. It's a function of we can actually get more water out of these after we complete this project.

That is correct.

Correct.

Recap of expenditures for 29, fiscal year 29. Looking to improve 16.2 lane miles of residential streets at a total cost of 9.97 million, 7.46 lane miles of thoroughfare streets at a cost of 11.9 million, and our utility projects will come in at 8.63 for a total proposed expenditure of 30.5 million. Now we'll go back and talk about the overall expenditures. This is a repeat of the graph that was at the beginning of the presentation. I'm hoping that these numbers, these lines will have a little more meaning for you now than what you did when you first saw them after seeing the projects that have been proposed.

I was just gonna comment that while we all get the calls about streets Looking at that graph. It is nice to see that there's a lot of work that's going to go into utilities that nobody sees but until there's a problem so that I Mean that it's a compliment to all of you to have really balanced that I

The table presented in this slide indicates our funding sources for the various projects. As you can see in 27, we're looking at using 3.46 million of general funds. GO and CO bonds, 28.02. CO bonds. What did I say?

It's okay.

Utility funds and bonds, 7.38 million. That's how you have it. And VSTDC funds, 8.95 million. The grants and other, that's reflective of the CDBG GLO MIT funds. In 28, general funds of 3.77 million, 10 million of GO bonds. Utility funds and bonds, 13.69. VSTDs, 5.58 million. 29. 5.29 million of general funds, another 10 million of geo bonds, 10.41 million of utility funds and bonds, and five million of VSTDC. For total expenditure of 132 million, 132.99 million, right at $133 million over the three year period.

I just want to clarify that we do not pursue GO bonds. We utilize CO bonds. I get that that's how it's categorized, but I just want to be clear, and I think it's an important technical distinction that we pursue CO bonds to fund our CIP projects. And we'll make sure that we properly identify that column moving forward.

Not all bonds are created equal. Exactly.

And there are technical differences that are important, right? I'll wrap up the topic to simply just remind you of where we started and what I suggested earlier at the beginning of the presentation, because clearly the passionate conversation that just took place is, quite frankly, what is driving myself and staff to try and think outside the box, to be creative, to tackle more streets, because we recognize that that it's a very important topic, right? And as I mentioned, currently there's just limited funds, right? And so some of the creative ideas that we will present to you at a future meeting could potentially have some implications that might lead to Blue Ridge being done in lesser phases, as an example, that might lead to tackling streets in the historic district, as an example. And so let's give us an opportunity as staff to present those options to you before we consider drastic changes to the CIP that might delay projects unnecessarily so that we don't compound the sentiment of delayed projects. I recognize that historically there has been unintentional delays and I wouldn't want us to, for the sake of quote unquote catching up, continue adding new delayed projects, right? And so give us an opportunity to present those creative ideas to you, and then if that doesn't achieve an objective that everybody can get behind, then we can discuss drastic changes to the CAP at that time. But for now, I hear you, we hear you, and give us an opportunity to address that.

Very good, thank you for the information.

Any questions?

Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shiblick. And then we have one more city manager report, Mr. Garza.

Yes, sir. Joel will provide an update on his funding process coming up, which I forgot. he was going to do until just now.

Mr. No, sir. Welcome. We didn't forget you.

Oh, it's all right. I have a very short presentation. Uh, good evening mayor and council. Um, I'm coming to y'all ahead of our annual hot funds awards process that opens every July. So it'll be open from July 1st to 31st. We'll be accepting applications. Um, and, In last year's awards cycle, if you recall, we awarded an extra organization, the Victoria County 4-H, because they were one room night less than the number 10 spot. That prompted our tourism advisor, the subcommittee of the tourism advisory board at that time to say, hey, maybe we need to look at some revisions to the program. So we did meet a few weeks ago on April 29th at a workshop, lasted about two hours. We had about half of the subcommittee in attendance. We had James Wearden, Brian Keith, Rosanna Frisch, and Jennifer Jordan in attendance. It was a publicly posted meeting. And so they discussed different ideas and came to a consensus on some slight changes to the program that they would like to see. So what I'll do first is go over the current details of how we calculate everything, how we split up applicants. So we split all of our applicants into two separate groups. We have group one. These are events. This is 65% of the available funding goes to them. It's been $135,000, the entire pot, the last couple of years. So 65%, that's $87,750 is divided among this group, among the applicants in this group. They can be a non-profit or a for-profit. They must be able to approve room nights for the most recent event prior to the application period. And then within that group, 70% of that $87,750 is evenly divided. between the eligible applicants and then 30% is distributed based on the percentage share of the total hotel room nights generated within that group. And then only the top 10 room night generators are eligible for awards. In group two, 35% of the available funding is for this group. So that comes out to $47,250. There's a little bit more stringent requirements as to the makeup of the applicant. They must be a registered nonprofit. They must be an organization whose primary goal is to advance the arts or historic preservation. They must have a minimum of two events, exhibits, or operate continually. They must be able to prove room nights for the most recent event season prior to the application period. And much like group one, funds within that group, the 47,250 is 70% of it's evenly divided and then 30% of it's based on room night share. So these are the changes that were suggested by the subcommittee. Group one would get a slightly larger share of the available funding, 70%, which would come out to $94,500. All the other requirements are the same with the exception also of the applicant must produce a minimum 25 hotel room nights to qualify. Right now we don't have a minimum threshold. It's just whoever's in that top 10. And again only the top 10 room night generators are eligible for award and it was a subcommittees consensus that you know if number 10 has 30 room nights this next year and the number 11 has 29 That's the way it is. And just take the top 10. Now, if fewer than 10 applicants reach the minimum 25 hotel room night threshold, say only eight of them do, then we have eight awardees. We don't have 10. We have the top eight, if you will. And then in Group 2, 30% of the available funding of the $135,000 would go to this group. That's $40,500 total. All the other requirements are the same. And then in this group, 90% of it's evenly distributed, and 10% is based upon hotel room night share. The reason this was done was for the last few years the number one awardee in that group has typically always been the Museum of the Coastal Bend. They are collecting room nights on a continual basis from their sign-in sheet and they've had almost double of what the next person has. This closes that gap a little bit because the intention for this Group two was never, let's see how many hotel room nights they're generating. An arts group is always gonna have fewer room nights than a huge golf tournament, it's just a case. However, the arts groups are here on a continual basis, day in and day out, providing programming for the community where a golf tournament is here for a couple of days and then it's gone, right? So this, The intention of this group, too, is to still provide some funding for those arts groups that are contributing to the cultural health of our community. And then finally, establishing a maximum award amount of $15,000. Right now, we don't have a maximum award amount. We just tell them to apply for what they like. So you get all over the places. You have some people asking for $7,000 and some people ask for $65,000. We never have anybody in the last in the years that I've been running the program since 2021 We haven't had anybody get that much 15,000 It also gives them something to strive for when they're filling out their application because I get that question Well, how how much can I apply for and I tell them you can apply for whatever you want So this can give them something to work towards and I can probably imagine almost everybody would probably just apply for the 15,000 right and also Brian Keith and our group had a great point that if there's a maximum award amount and they're getting $10,000 they feel really good about that because they got a huge share of what they asked for rather than applying for $40,000 or something. Because the reality is we can never give anybody that kind of amount of money in the program. And that is it. Those were the changes that were suggested and by the subcommittee of the Tourism Advisory Board, and I can take any questions you have.

Questions on those changes? Bill?

Appreciate the work of the subcommittee.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that strikes a nice balance of what that program's trying to achieve. So, yeah, very good.

Well, thank you all very much.

All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. I believe that is the end of our city manager's reports. We will have a short executive session, correct? Yes, sir. All right. So let's take a 10-minute break, and we will be back in executive session at 645.

The City Council will recess in the executive session on the 19th day of May 2026 at 635. The subject matter of the executive session deliberation is as followed. Texas Government Code 551087, Texas Code 551072, and 551071.