City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our meeting for Tuesday, June the 16th. Ms. West, will you please call roll?

Yes, sir. Councilman De La Garza.

I am present.

Councilman Kitter.

Here.

Councilwoman Butler. Present. Councilwoman Scott. 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.

All right, again, welcome everyone. A couple of housekeeping matters before we get started. Items on the consent agenda D2 and D4, we will pull off of the consent agenda and move to action items for council discussion. So with that taken care of then, we will jump to announcements and reminders. And I see we have a pinch hitter coming to the plate. Mr. Lisak, how are you?

Good evening. I hope I don't strike out. You got this. All right. So as a reminder, all non-city, or I'm sorry, all non-emergency city offices will be closed Friday, June 19th in observation of June 10th holiday, Juneteenth holiday. Offices will reopen at 8 a.m. on Monday, January 22nd. The Victoria Public Library will close early at 5 p.m. on Juneteenth and reopen Saturday, June 20th at 10 a.m. All trash recycling and yard waste pickup will go as normal. Municipal court will have limited services available. on Thursday, June 18th, due to a planned server migration to the cloud-based system, with online payments, records, and detailed case information temporarily unavailable. Staff will still be available by phone and email for general questions. This upgrade is expected to reduce IT strain and improve service access. The City of Victoria is also co-hosting a car seat educational class with SJRC Belong on Monday, July 6th at 10 a.m. in Municipal Court courtroom. located at the Public Safety Headquarters at 2525 North Main Street. For more information about either of these items, you may contact the court at 361-485, really, I'm not loud enough? That's amazing. At 361-485-3050, or email courtclerk at victoriatx.gov. From parks join the Parks and Recreation Department on Saturday July 4th at 10 a.m. In downtown Victoria for the American to 250 parade Celebrating our nation's 250th anniversary rock on Registration is now closed but a few spots remain open for last minute participants wanting to be part of this historic occasion. Programming will include national anthem and the color guard, flag detail, and a brief plaque dedication ceremony at De Leon Plaza Bandstand. where a commemorative plaque marking the nation's 250th anniversary will be unveiled in partnership with the Daughters of the American Resolution. If you're interested in participating in the parade, please reach out to Elijah Ramos with Parks and Recreation by phone at 361-485-3200 or by email at eramos at victoriatx.gov. CVB, in conjunction with that, invites the community to celebrate America 250 with an annual 4th of July Blast Stop, presented by Del Papa Distributing at the Gary Moses Community Center on Saturday, July 4th. The fun kicks off at five with food trucks, inflatables, live music by Logan Geisler and the Well Diggers and the Crowbars Band, and a high energy performance by our headliner, LC Rocks. This free event culminates in a fantastic fireworks show by Adventure Fireworks starting at 9.30 p.m. That's it for announcements. All right.

Thank you. We will jump then to public and employee recognitions. Do we have anything this evening?

Yes, sir, we do. I'm going to ask Ms. Ruby Boone to stand up. I promised I wouldn't make her get up front. Um Ruby Boone is our deputy city attorney received the Texas Young Lawyers Association's President's Award of Merit at the State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting. This prestigious award recognizes her outstanding contributions to the legal profession, both within her local community and across the state. Among her many contributions, Ruby coordinated a team of public service attorneys to speak with the ISD high school students about the Texas court system, served on a committee responsible for reviewing and approving funding for local affiliate programming through Texas, and participating in podcasts highlighting careers in public service. Through these efforts and many others, she has helped advance TYLA's mission as a public service arm of the State Board of Texas. So I'd ask you to all give her a hand.

Congratulations, Ruby.

The city of Victoria has also earned three statewide awards from the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers. I was told to read this with a lot of joy. And you're doing a great job of that, too. Communication and Public Affairs earned an award of Excellence in Podcast Category. for Town Talk. The entry focused on the team's use of podcasts to share information about emergency preparedness and critical services. That's not all. The communications team and environmental services earned an award of honor in the video campaign category for the Waste Wizard PSAs, a video series promoting new Waste Wizard tool that helps residents look up proper disposal methods for common items. And one more, finally, The Victoria Fire Department and Communications are an award of honor in the Civic Engagement category for the 2025 Fire Prevention Show, which featured SpongeBob, one of my favorites, and his friends, portrayed by fire department employees teaching kids about lithium ion battery safety. So congratulations to the PIO office. And then it is also with great pride that I take pardon, welcoming Mallory Crabb just because I was a little part of, you know, her interview process and she did a great job. She's been hired as our community center supervisor for the Parks and Recreation Department. In this role, she will oversee overall operations of the Gary Moses Community Center, including managing the facility rentals, customer service, maintenance, program coordination, marketing, and promotions. Ms. Crabb previously worked at Spring Creek Place Event Center in Victoria for over six years working as a venue operations manager and event coordinator. She holds an Associate of Arts degree from the Victoria College, and with her experience, I think she's going to do a great job. So welcome, Mallory. And last, but definitely not least, the Victoria Police Department swore in a record nine new hires last week. That's impressive. So we wanna welcome the new officers. I hope I don't mess these up, but Officer Bontino, Officer Buen Rostral, Officer Casillas, Officer Escobar, Officer Garcia, Officer Staton, Officer Turner, Officer Watson, and Officer Ganser, welcome to the City of Victoria Police Department. And with that, Mayor, I am done with the announcements.

All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. We'll move on then to items from council. Ms. Butler, I understand you have an item this evening.

I do. I recently attended the police officer's memorial in De Leon Plaza. And after speaking with others who have gathered there for events, it was highlighted to me just how unforgiving the Texas sun is. can be when groups are gathered there. And so what I'd like to ask is that we consider options that would mitigate heat and provide shade at De Leon Plaza for events. When we do that research, I'd like for it to include costs. I'd like for it to consider the historical the fact that De Leon Plaza is a historical site, and what other options we have to kind of provide some shade, people that gather there, especially over the summer months.

Yes, ma'am, I understand. Very good, thank you. Any other items from council?

Ms. Scott. Just an observation. I noticed we have some scouts in the audience today, and I'd just like to welcome them. I suspect they're working on a merit badge, and I commend them for that. Yes, welcome.

Any other items this evening? Dr. Young, welcome. I know you were delayed at the hospital. I'm glad you're here. Patience. All right. We'll move on to citizens communication then. I have three cards this evening. And just a reminder, if you could, please keep your comments at three minutes. We'll start with Ms. Wilma Edwards. Ms. Edwards, welcome back. Always good to see you.

Thank you. I think I have the help of him in the back of the room. I'll call him up in a little bit. I'm glad to be back and you haven't put me back on the payroll so I don't have too much to report. And I'd like to talk about something that happened in 2021. And I know the mayor and everybody had this passion book. victoria city park and recreation master plan okay master plan didn't get over to silver city ml kel park they gave us only one where's my ball they only gave us two balls and two small nets for the basketball for that neighborhood and i'm coming to you every time they want to discuss something they tell me but i'd like to know why we haven't had people that follow up on what they promise everybody now they promise this is 2021 and only way they remember me because we have a holiday coming up the 19th of june and they think okay where's the stuff that's supposed to be over here at Martin Luther King Park. I don't know, but I will go ahead and ask them, why is it taking you so long to take things at Silver City? Lots of you don't even know where Silver City is. But we put that together. And when we ask for things, why won't you do what you promise? I know you can't answer any of the questions, but I just bring you to silver city is over there. So outside, I think by the park and we have people going over there, see the same little thing, the same little swing seat to sit down on half a basketball. And this is, this is what was on the left. It gave us two basketball, two, basketball nets for the little children. And I don't know what's going on, but I'd like to know when are y'all going to do this? And I hope y'all can do it during the summertime. The children's out of school. They don't have too much to play with over there. I just don't know what to tell you, because when they come and tell me that I have to come down here and talk to you, and I don't get no results. So maybe by July I'll have some items placed in that Martin Luther King Park. I know y'all can't ask me no questions, but I'd like to tell you I'm getting to the point where I don't feel like moving around since I'm 85 years old and I'm still going, but I want y'all to pray for me and help me in the Silver City area. Please do this before July, something before July afford. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Edwards. The next card I have is from Michael Vondera.

Since you're already up front. Yeah. Good afternoon, City Council, Mayor. Jesus, he'll be 40 years old on Friday. And 40 is a real important... age to be, because that's when they can't legally discriminate against you because of your age. Between 40 and 70, the feds can't. So if you want to discriminate against him because of his age, you've got two more days. And anyway, I'm Michael Vondra. I live at 2107 North Bend, Jordan, apartment 1202. I have problems with the management. They're making us pay $8 a month to spray for bugs, but they never show up. Or the last two weeks, they never showed up. And then if they do, they go... And that's it, you know. And it'd be like if you go to McDonald's and you get eight chicken nuggets and they just put two in there. You know, you're going to complain. You know, it's just normal. And I normally wouldn't bring this up, but there's cockroaches, mice, rats. And there's people that want to borrow my cat to chase the rats out of the apartment, you know. And my cat's scared of those big rats like that, you know. He'll chase a small one, you know. And I would like management to take care of it. And there's mattresses, there's furniture everywhere. And the only reason they started cleaning it up today is because three people from code enforcement came, you know. And they're trying to get the government off their back. But I don't think that's right where they're charging $8 a month. to spray for bugs, but they don't spray. I have to buy my own ortho and my own bug spray, and that's just not right. They shouldn't charge anything. That's very dishonest when someone charges $8 a month and then don't do anything about it. There's a lot of mattresses. There's a fire hazard. Because of that, maybe not today because it rained, but there's furniture all over the place and trash, and the management needs to take care of it. There's people, their stoves don't work, their air conditions don't work, there's water all over. Why ain't they complaining? Because they don't want to get evicted. I could care less if they evict me because I was in the Navy. I had 18 inches clearance to sleep, so my SUV would be much comfortable. you know, compared to when I was in the Navy. Thanks and have a good afternoon. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr Rondo. And then the last card I have is Carolina Perez. Good evening. Welcome.

Hello. I want to apologize in advance. I'm very nervous. I'm shaking, and I had a whole script that I wrote. So if I stutter. Hello, my name is Carolina Perez. I am 23 years old. I'm currently attending Southern Utah University to pursue a master's in art administration. For one of my assignments in art art advocacy and cultural policy class, I would like to speak about an important issue I have noticed in my community. I have observed that the city does not currently offer grants specifically for art organizations. Because arts nonprofits do not receive consistent government funding, they rely heavily on individual donations and sponsorships to operate. While there are opportunities for 501 nonprofits to receive funding, many art organizations aren't able to qualify due to specific requirements. I'm here today to ask the city to consider creating a grant specifically for the art organizations in Victoria. In larger cities such as San Antonio, Austin, and Houston, grant opportunities for the arts are more widely available. Although Victoria is small in comparison, it is still a growing city, and I have personally seen an increase in attendance and participation within local art organizations. For example, local performances and event, excuse me, events continue to draw more community members, bringing people downtown and supporting nearby businesses. These demonstrates that the arts are not only culturally valuable, but also contribute to the local economy. These organizations play a vital role in our community. Their missions are to educate, preserve culture, and provide entertainment to the people of Victoria and the surrounding areas. In many ways, the arts actively support and enrich the city. It would be meaningful to see the city support the arts in return. The grant does not have to be in a large amount. Even modest funding would make a significant difference. Another option would be to expand eligibility so that all 501 nonprofits, including art organizations, have equal access to funding opportunities. After all, Our shared goal is to support and strengthen the Victoria community. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Perez. Appreciate your comments. All right. We'll close out communications. We have no items of public hearings. We'll jump to the consent agenda. And again, we have pulled item D2 and D4. So Ms. West, will you please read the remaining items on the consent agenda?

Yes, sir. D1, adoption of the minutes from the regular meeting held on June 2nd, 2026. D3, a resolution approving a contract amendment to Tyler Technologies Incorporated, enterprise ERP agreement for human resources management phase two, schedule update and professional services adjustment. D5, a resolution approving professional services agreement with DCCM Infrastructure Incorporated for the development of Victoria Metropolitan Planning Organization, MPO, regional freight mobility plan in the amount and not to exceed 150,000. D6, a resolution approving the annual software maintenance agreement for one solution with Central Square Technologies, LLC, renewal for the police department's records management system, RMS, and computer-aided dispatch CAD system in the amount not to exceed $230,503.61. Thank you, Ms. West.

Do I have a motion on these consent items? Motion to approve consent agenda as read by Ms. Sandra West. Got a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the consent agenda as read passes. So then we will move to item D2 and take that up as an action item. Ms. West.

E2, award a construction contract for the Riverside Park Soccer Field parking lot paving project to Clark's Construction of Texas in the amount of $364,590. Mr. Shiblick, good evening.

Good evening. I think there were just a couple of quick questions on this item in terms of the repaving and what was going to be added and that sort of thing. So, uh, we just wanted to clarify those real quick. I think Ms. Scott had a couple of questions.

Okay. Yes, ma'am.

That, that's pretty much it. I was having some difficulty deciphering the, uh, the chart. Couldn't quite tell what color went with what. And, uh, and I also, I guess had some concern just with that area in the back where people are parking currently. Um, and, trying to think about it. We're adding enough spaces, I guess is our assumption that we're adding enough spaces that they won't continue to park back there or why we're not striping that.

Well, that area we would didn't have that in the project as far as repaving that. Currently there is some old asphalt in that area. Um, We were just going to use the existing drive access that's to Red River and pave an access road to the new parking lot that we're going to be constructing. People may still park there. We won't necessarily be able to stop them. But I'm hoping that they will park in the new parking lot that's striped and that is closer to the actual soccer fields.

OK. That makes sense. And then, so you are adding to the existing parking lot and just making it bigger, but it'll be a continuation? Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. I've got a question. So the concrete block that's there, where the old building existed, the foundation, that's going to be tore up?

That has been removed already. It has been removed already? Yes.

OK.

you can take a look at this map that I have here what I have hatched there in blue that is the existing parking lot what we have in red is what we're looking to expand and add and then of course it's not John very smoothly but you can see that access road going up to the left to toward Red River I forget 240 some odd parking spaces are what we're adding overall. That's wonderful Especially with some of that comes about because the restriping of the existing parking lot because right now it has some areas that are marked off for walking there was some thought early on in past years of utilizing that concrete foundation as striping and it for parking, but that was deemed to be not very efficient use of the area. Plus the fact that it was elevated, you had a potential for accidents. Somebody walk off the edge of it, even if we'd had some kind of barrier there.

Any other questions for Mr. Shipley?

Yes. The drive to the back parking lot, is that going to be bordered with a curb?

No, sir. It wasn't planned on there. It's just going to be the new asphalt.

Because that back parking lot, that concrete asphalt area that exists now, it's pretty tore up. And there's a lot of glass, a lot of debris on it.

OK. I wasn't aware of the glass and the debris, but I'm sure we can do something about getting that swept up.

It doesn't show the, there are potholes from right now if you go from Red River into that red part. So are you going to do it all the way? I'm sure you're going to fix it all the way, but right now there's a bunch of potholes there.

Well, we wouldn't put those on the diagram. They'll be part of the fix. Of course. We're not going to leave them.

It's just that the diagram doesn't go far. That's all I'm saying. It needs to go actually into the rear.

Yeah. It needs to go...

Any other questions on this?

Yeah Yeah, there was a second drawing that I think was was sent out also that shows all of this a little clearer And that may be helpful to answer some of these questions, I don't know if everybody was able to decipher that There is yes, this was the actual layout drawing that went out with the construction bid documents and

And you can see, let's see, yeah, let's see, 248 regular spaces, 268, oh, sorry.

Obviously, the first diagram won't be the construction drawings.

That is correct.

Perfect. All right, any other questions?

No, I just have a comment. This is much needed. Much needed, absolutely. The parking lot that was put there at first, soccer has become increasingly popular. It's a great facility. People are parking on the street because of the overflow, so this is much needed.

All right, very good. Thank you, Mr. Shevick. Appreciate it. Do I have a motion with respect to this item?

Second.

We've got a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And D2 is approved. All right. Ms. West, we'll jump to D4. E4. I'm sorry, D4.

D4.

Yes.

Approving a professional service agreement with Gary Middleton for the representation of consultation services related to municipal water supply in the amount of $27,500.

Do you want me to take this one?

I can explain.

Okay, you got it. Ms. Lacey.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Just a quick explanation. So when we posted the agenda for this particular item, we had an understanding with Mr. Middleton that the contract amount was going to be $27,500. After we posted it, there was a couple more conversations, and that actual contract amount dropped down to $27,000 even. Um, and so we unfortunately had already posted, couldn't go back and change it at that point. I want to make sure that as voted on, it's the rightest way that it can be. So in front of you, each is a updated resolution with the correct amount on it. And so we'll just need an amendment to the original dollar amount as posted. And then if you can vote on the resolution that's in front of you, we would take care of that problem.

Okay. Any questions on that?

So do we need to move to adopt first and then do the amendment? Yes, ma'am.

I believe so, yes. So do I have a motion to adopt item D4? I make that motion. Do I have a second? Second. All right. So I've got a motion and a second. With that, do I have any motions to amend item D4 to reflect 27,000 versus 27,500? Yes, sir. I move that we amend D4 to reflect 27,000. Second. Got a motion and a second on the amendment. Is there any discussion on the amendment? Seeing none, all in favor of the amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And I believe then we will vote on the amended motion, which is to approve this contract in the amount of $27,000. We have a motion and a second on that already. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

And it's approved after the hoops are jumped. We got it covered.

All right, very good. Thank you With that then we will jump down to our action items that were posted and we'll start with item e1 Miss West

E1, a resolution approving a purchase with Thurkettle Corporation DBA Aquametric Sales Company for the 2026 water meter replacement project in the amount not to exceed $761,404. Good evening.

Welcome.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Today, I want to go ahead and propose a 2026 water meter replacement project. Please, if you have any questions in between, please let me know. Before we start, I want to go and give a little bit of background about the meter replacement project. In 2012, the city partnered with Chevron Corporation to replace approximately 20,000 manually read meters. And since then, they went ahead and went to advanced metering infrastructure meters. What that means is that, of course, if we wanna go ahead and check the meters, then we can go ahead and communicate with the base stations and they'll go ahead and pick that up. The city started the meter placement in phase one in fiscal year 2024. for meter reliability and reduce no-reads across the city's 23,731 meters. Of course, no-reads are any water meter that cannot communicate to UBO, our utility billing office, through the AMI system. So just for context, in 2024, phase one had 1,700 meters that were replaced and 1,700 MXUs or radios for a total cost of $653,401. And in 2025, phase two, we replaced 650 meters and 3,000 radios for $808,000. What we're proposing this year is, at phase three, is to go ahead and replace 1,000 three-quarters residential meters, the IPRO-2 model, and replace 4,200 radios for a total of $761,404. Now this will take less than a year to go ahead and in-house, to do in-house. Public work staff will go ahead and complete this installation and work will prioritize, continue reliability improvements and reduce no read occurrences. This project will support more accurate and efficient water meeting operations. The procurement method that we went ahead and used is the HGAC Cooperative Purchasing Program. Some of the benefits of doing this phase three project this way will go ahead and save us roughly 40 to 45% of installation costs by doing this in-house. By replacing these meters, we're gonna have better accuracy, newer equipment, longer warranty, improve reliability, and reduce no reads. This is going to make us a lot more efficient throughout the process. Some of our future plans moving forward is to go ahead and work with the Utility Building Office and Crosstrain. transition the AMR technician role towards the meter technician position within utilities. For the job description of AMR technician, which is at our utility billing office, they have some similarities. Some of these are with the AMR technician is gonna be setting and pulling meters, minor repairs, turn ons and ons due to people not paying their bills on Thursdays. and meter reading, the no reads. Our meter technician responsibilities are the same ones above and the ability to obtain the state licenses set for by TCQ, the Class B CDL, curb stop replacements, meter calibration testing, large meter and valve replacements, and meter relocations. The city is gonna go ahead and start a proactive maintenance program. We're gonna have a designated crew that's gonna go ahead and continually replace these meters every year by doing this in-house. The recommended next steps is these two full-time positions from utilities department are being reassigned as meter technicians to help reduce the number of non-reading meters. So we're not gonna add positions, we just pretty much restructured a little bit of how we're doing things now. This has increased the meter accuracy by using the American Water Works Association M6 testing standards that are set forth by the state. And we're going to complete more meter replacements in-house to improve efficiency while also streamlining meter services by combining the public works and utility billing office staff. And with that, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer anything.

Any questions on this project?

a meter can last anywhere from 10 years or 1 million gallons, whichever comes first until it starts losing some of its accuracy.

Any other questions? All right.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

All right. I will entertain any motions with respect to item E1.

Motion to approve item E1.

All right. I got a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? No, I would just add that this is an ongoing project that will have multiple phases. As you saw, this was phase three. And I think this is a... a good step forward for the city that it's undertaking and moving forward. And I think the fact we're doing it in-house is great, because that will save us money in each phase of that. So thank you guys for putting that together. So with that then, all in favor of item E1, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? And E1 passes. All right. We will then jump into our city manager reports, or in this case, our assistant city manager reports. Mr. Lestak, what do you have for us this evening?

Good evening again. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about our contracts for disaster management. Mr. Lofgren asked for these, asked for a little bit of an update. Just kind of one, because we're pulling into hurricane season two. We just approved those contracts at the last council meeting. And just to make sure everybody kind of understands how this whole process works. So back in 2017, we worked with the county, with Rick and his folks, to establish a debris management plan. This is a very, very intensive plan from start to finish. And we took that to the state, had it approved by the state. What this allowed us to do at that time was to also have FEMA approval so that if we had an incident such as Harvey, we could receive extra Extra money over the normal 90% reimbursement or 85% reimbursement it allowed us to seek an extra Believe it was 3% reimbursement when you're talking about 8 or 10 million dollars 3% is quite a bit So we have two contracts the first is the debris management contract so We have that contract with Ashbret, and what Ashbret does for us is we're in contact with them pretty much throughout the year, whether it's hurricane season, whether it's not, because this is not just for hurricanes. We could use this in case of tornadoes, we could use this in case of a lot of things. We actually worked with the county to look at whether or not the county needed to bring in Ashbret after we had the little tornado that hit south of town. And so what they provide is a temporary debris management site. We pick up stuff or they pick up stuff inside the city limits. They take it to a site because in order for us to meet FEMA regulations, we have to reduce that before it goes to the landfill. So it gets crushed, compacted, grinded, and then it gets hauled at a later date. They do all the debris removal. So they have the big trucks that run through town that pick up everything. The solid waste guys helped a little bit with the knuckle booms, but our goal is that our garbage guys go back to picking up regular garbage as soon as possible. to get people back to normal, as normal as we can get them to be. And then there's a long list of things that supply from water to generators to cutting down trees that are leaning or hanging, cleaning out our storm drains, a lot of different things. The second part of that is in order to receive reimbursement from the feds, we have to have a monitoring company monitor the contractor. And so what the monitoring service does is they follow the contractor. They take pictures of before and after of every single load. They keep track of all of the tickets for disposal. So they weigh in, they weigh out. We have to know exactly how many yards or exactly how many tons. And then we get the bill from Ashbert. Tetra Tech approves the bill based off of what they monitored, and then we pay the bill. Without that, we would not be able to seek reimbursement. The biggest part of this is that, and some of you may have been here when we were going through Harvey, is they provided me with... a online system where I could see where all the trucks were inside the sealants of Victoria, and all the trucks were inside of our county. And so what that allowed me to do is, if we had areas that needed a little more help than other areas because, say, there's more trees. I could move trucks as I thought I needed to, but it also helps with that we don't have individual council members thinking that they're not getting serviced in their area because I can show you exactly where every truck was and every single pickup's a green dot. And I can correlate that to a picture and a time. And so that's very important when it comes to dealing with the public, because I can show them actually where we were, when we were there and how long we were there and what we picked up. And then a big part that we didn't find out to about till a couple of years ago, but I believe it was 21 or 22. Um, we actually had an audit come through from, uh, FEMA. Um, Finance contacted me, I contacted Tetra Tech, 24 hours, they provided the pictures, all done. Cost us literally no staff time other than the time for them to call me and me to call them. So they keep track of all that that's being done. This is why we have this contract. After Harvey, in less than three months, We were done before Thanksgiving. We made three complete trips through town. Those of you that were here will remember this. We picked up 401,000 cubic yards, 8,813 loads, We cut down 452 leaners. We had 5,932 hangers. Leaners and hangers are in trees. They have to be checked by an arborist and approved by the monitoring company before we can cut them down, otherwise we don't get reimbursed. And then we removed 42 stumps. I will say that in that number is also Riverside Golf Course, Riverside Park. We had a lot of damage there from the flood.

Can you give an estimate on what, without Hurricane Harvey, what a normal cubic yard pickup would be?

On an annual basis? Sure. No, I can't, but I would tell you that... Yeah, I really can't, but it would be only a couple of hundred tons.

That's what I was getting at, like how big is this big number?

So I would say this is well over, I mean, you can't even fathom what this is compared to what we pick up, but it's a lot more than what we pick up. And I don't know that number offhand, and I don't know that. You'll see that next week in our council workshop. Okay, thank you. With Christy's numbers on her budget. And so we can kind of compare then, but it's substantially less. Thank you. So just a little bit about the contracts. We contracted June 3rd, 2020. That contract with Ashbert, that contract runs out May 31st, 2025. There's two additional one-year renewals. We did the first one in 25. Y'all just approved the last one next week. We'll be putting that out to bid next spring or actually this winter. Tetra Tech, the reason these contracts don't line up is I don't, want to have a new contractor and a new monitoring company at the same time. We did that on purpose. So when we have a new contractor, we'll have the same monitoring company if something were to happen in 27. And so the contractor Tetra Tech runs a year later than what the Ashford contract runs. There's two additional, we just did the first additional two weeks ago, and so theirs will run out in June of 27. At that point, we may have an old contractor, but a new monitoring company, depending on how that goes. I think it's important too that our citizens know we don't pay a dime for this. unless we activate that contract. And only council can activate that contract. It's not something, a decision that the city manager or myself can make. It has to be approved by city council, a disaster declaration, then I can activate that contract. But I will tell you, these people are in contact with us all year. Anytime there's something in the Gulf, we hear from them, they're ready to go to work at all times. And with that, I'll answer any questions.

Joe, I had a question. And this goes back to FEMA reimbursement and tracking. If my recollection is correct, we can not only be reimbursed for personnel time, but also machine hours. Is that correct?

Yes.

Is that tracked through Tetra Tech?

That's all tracked. So there's a certification process that has to happen as part of us using our own trucks. And so our trucks go to Tetra Tech. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

No, I just sat in your chair.

Boy, how quick that went. So we go in and they weigh our trucks, they check our trucks. We have to keep track of our own time, but they keep track of the mileage, the yardage, and all that. Okay, got it. I want to just briefly add, hi, good evening.

You are here. I am here, yes. It's my birthday on Friday. So finance tracks a lot of that information for us in-house. And so our finance team puts together all the documents and all the forms that each department fill out throughout any emergency. And so to Daryl's point, it's incumbent upon us to track our time, track our equipment hours. All of that is maintained. by finance. And that's what allows us the opportunity to determine, you know, what is the total cost of that? Because as you know, in order to qualify for reimbursement, our county needs to meet certain threshold of damage. Our state needs to meet a certain threshold of damage. And so how that damage expenses is calculated in part is due to what the expense for us has been throughout that particular emergency. And so anytime the EOC is activated, we have the representatives from Tiedem there that are constantly asking for, you know, daily updates on, you know, our burn rates and really kind of trying to ascertain, uh, what that looks like. So as it relates to this specific scenario where it's debris management centric, absolutely. That company helps us track that. But as it relates to everything else that we do or that our own employees do, we track that ourselves. Um, and ultimately decide whether we seek that reimbursement or not. I just think it's important to distinguish that. Good, thank you. Thank you.

This question's for Daryl. Daryl. Yes. During the Harvey cleanup, we had several companies help us with debris, correct? And we had one company that came in and because the price wasn't right, they left to Florida because they had a hurricane in the same timeframe.

They had two hit a week after ours.

Yes, sir. So that company that left, are they related to any shape, form, or fashion? Because they kind of left us in a bind.

Yes and no. I know that's not the answer you want. So the way that Ashford works is they're like a broker. So they have... probably hundreds of companies that work for them all throughout the country. There were even companies from Victoria because while they're here, they're finding companies that they can bring in to help with that. They do have companies that follow them all around the country with those big trucks as well. And so one of the major contractors that was working with Ashbred at that time did because at that time the governor said we would just reimburse 100%. Whatever the cost is and so while we were paying like $13 a ton For them to pick up stuff Houston started advertising $70 a ton and started bringing in people from all over the state So we had to come back we were we came back to council. We did raise our rate. I think we went to 1450 and We were able to get some of those back. I don't know for sure that that company ever came back. I know they wanted to come back at one point, but Ashford was kind of done with them at that point, and mainly because once they got there, we own our own landfill. I was able to give all of our trucks priority over everything else. Houston does not. So when they got over there and started waiting hours, because they make their money by how many yards they haul. You can't make money hauling yards if you're sitting in line. And so that was why we were able to do it for a much smaller late rate than the $70 that Houston was offering Okay, so the the answer is I don't know if they are now but at that time they did not come back I

I guess my other question would be, do those companies still have an option to come back into our area?

That would be totally up to AshBrit because they would be listed as one of their preferred vendors or not. Okay.

Any other questions? Okay. Clarification?

Yeah, clarification. So just... For 2025, we're estimating about 25,000 tons. Thank you.

Compared to, I think you had 401,000.

Right. Those were cubic yards. That was cubic yards. Cubic yards. Yeah. You can figure about with brush, well, it's a mixture of brush and debris, so it's about a four to one. Still substantially higher than what we pick up.

Thank you.

Any other questions? All right. Mr. Lusak, thank you for the information. I think that concludes our city manager reports. I believe we do have a short executive session, and so we will take a 10-minute break. It's 5.52. We'll be back in 10 for executive session.

The city council recess into executive session on the 16th day of June, 2026 at 5.52. Executive session deliberation as followed. Texas government code 551087, 551072.