All to order. City Council Chambers special meeting October 24, 2024, 12 p.m. I'll rise for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Moment of silence, please. >> May I ask that we keep in our prayers the family of the late Consuelo Chel Montalgo, the first council woman to serve in Orito's history. Um, our prayers go out to to her family uh during her loss and also for the family of Dr. Pablo Adrenos, the uh former Texas&M National University president who also passed away recently. >> Well, noted. I'd also ask for the family of Chief Her as well. >> Oh, no. >> Thank you. May be seated. Mr. Secretary, roll call, please. >> Yes, Mayor. >> Honorable mayor, Dr. Victor D. Travinho, >> present. >> Council member, district 1, Gilbert Gonzalez, >> Council Member, District 2, Ricardo Ranel Jr. >> present. >> Council member, District 3, Melissa Cigaroa. Council member district 4 Albert Torres Jr. >> here. >> Mayor Romp Ruben Gutierrez Jr. >> present. >> Council member District 6 Dr. Tyler King >> here. >> Council member District 7, Vanessa Perez. Council member District 8, Alisa Cigaroa. >> Mayor, you have a quorum. >> Thank you. Now before we go into citizens comments, I would like to give an update to the public showing negative findings, negative results on all the water testing. And I stand here today to announce that the city of Laredo will be lifting the boil water notice [applause] for the TCAQ. They concur with our decision for communication from TCAQ which uh they gave us a communication based on the submitted documentation and TCQ's knowledge of sufficient pressures, chlorine residuals and negative bacterological samples for the Jefferson plant. TCU concurs with the city lifting the remaining bowlwater notice for the Jefferson service area. DCQ strongly encourages the city to continue efforts to identify and address the root cause of the equal and maximum contaminant violation and to communicate with TCAQ concerning the status of the remaining findings. TCQ will continue to provide the city with technical assistance as needed and this is uh by deputy director water supply division Texas Commission on Environmental Quality TCQ. Now knowing that with that being said, this is a step in the right direction, but this is the beginning for a city to start to meet the challenges of their water structure head on. And I'm more than confident that we stand behind this effort and I'm sure the city council will support what needs to be done. I do want to thank the White House who continued to work with us on the disaster relief and conversations with small business administration at the federal level SBA. I do want to thank Congress, Congressman McUa, Congresswoman Garcia, Governor Abbott, Senator Safarini, Representatives Richard Raymond and and K Tracy King and TCQ TM and especially all our EOC management and city staff that worked endless hours on this emergency. This was truly an all hands on deck operation and it shows that we can pull together as Laorons even t in times of adversity anything possible is possible and anything is possible to to solve. So will that we'll go into citizens comments and I see that we have several citizens comments and just in the essence of time and for the agenda items so we can hear from any or everyone. I would like to motion to limit the comments to three minutes without extensions from the council. That would be my motion. Second. All in favor? >> I >> oppose. One oppose. Motion pass. >> Two oppos. Motion pass. >> Yes. Acknowledge, please. >> Mayor, before you start with citizen comments, may I make a brief comment about citizen comments? >> Yeah, go ahead. So, several people signed up for specific items. I don't know if the intention was to speak on that item once their item the item is called up or if they're all going to be called up at the same time. I guess you can ask them as the names are called out. >> All right. We have >> So, for example, this one sign up for number seven. So, we'd have to ask if she wants to speak now or wait till the item comes up. >> All right. Kayla Sanchez, >> you want to speak as in a group or >> No, now or in the item? Now we're in the >> agenda. Valentine Reese >> agenda item. >> Agenda item. >> All right then. >> Da Vides right now. >> Right now. Go ahead, please. Hi. Uh, good afternoon. For the record, my name is Tanya Benavides and I'm here as a concerned citizen. Um, really just asking that you meet the moment to not just clean up our water, but clean up this house. You are calling a special meeting to replace the regularly scheduled council business that you cancelled at another special meeting on October 1st, a Tuesday at noon under the farce of campaign season and getting out the vote when we cannot in good faith get out the vote if there is no public trust. You have called another emergency ordinance last night, no less than 12,4 hours ago, and now we are supposed to sit here and believe that our water is good and drinkable. I have spoken to an informant from the state task force and I know because of the information that they provided and confidentiality that E. coli has been popping up in our water. Maybe not consistently, but there's been a pattern since 2022. We know that state regulations state that you do not have to take action if E.coli only pops up in one sample one time. And if the next time that sample was tested that the EC coli is gone, you don't have to take action. But someone at the city should have gone, why is E.coli popping up in our water to begin with? And how are we going to say we're going to provide this free chlorine, this conversion? We're going to erase all evidence of E.coli that has been popping out just so that we can get back to business as usual when you stood here no less than a month ago and cancelled business as usual. Now, we are all here because of this first agenda item where you're about to award a $200,000 contract for six months to replace our interim utilities director. When that was something that came that was clearly drafted based on what's a chapter on the agenda September 19th, 2024, 3 days after you sat here and you voted for yourself for a raise, you did not have in mind making this swift action to hire an interim utilities director. And now we're supposed to believe that this is your top priority and we're supposed to trust you. We're supposed to go out and vote for you. Again, some of you, we need to name the culture that is being created by this council and that is being upheld by city management because it is not one that is going to build on public trust. You cannot take us on this roller coaster. It's our basic human right to have clean and safe drinking water. And anything below that is simply unconscionable and unacceptable. You need to do better and you need to be more consistent. You yourselves are fostering the misinformation, >> calling an emergency order, going and drinking water from the drink from the water faucet at the count library. And now again another emergency order. Now our water is clean. Which one is it? >> Thank you very much. >> Figure it out. >> Thank you for your comments. >> [applause] >> Olivia Martinez. >> She's ready. >> She's going to wait for that. Susan M. Sorry, what's your I couldn't pronounce your last name. >> Yeah, I'm I'm more Uh Susan Moody >> Moody. >> Um I'd like to agree with the idea of refunding >> center right there. >> Okay. Um I'd like to um agree with refunding some money to the businesses for the water bill. Um the um the price of gold uh the price of gold has almost doubled and that means actually that the value of the dollar has dropped by 50% during the Biden administration. Today is the first day that the government has spent more on interest on the federal debt than they spend on the um Department of Defense. Um, we're in a a desperate desperate situation economically in this country. I'm sure some of you know about the petro dollar. No, nobody knows what the petro dollar is. Well, tomorrow is a meeting for the bricks, which is Brazil, Russia, India, and China creating an alternative system to do business. They've established an alternative to the system to do international transactions. So, this is going to affect the rate because so many international transactions go through here and when they release that in the next couple days, you're going to see the value of the dollar plummet. So, anything you can do to save money to to to help businesses to create jobs is going to be to the benefit of everyone here. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> [applause] >> Rodriguez the item she says. >> Okay. >> Jesse, >> you want to speak up right now or Okay. >> He's gonna speak right now. Okay. Go ahead. Some call me a poet. Some call me the dude. But I've always been Jesse Gera. Anything you might have heard about me is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty. I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. Martin Luther King. Even though I live in district 6, I would like to be heard as a voice of the people of the Laredoans who agree with me. The word transparency is flown around these days as a campaign promise. Once a candidate or elected official gets into office, their transparency goes opaque. Where is their promise? Transparency. And in relation to the current water borrow, where is the transparency? Yes, the taxpayers have been receive receiving the daily pending lipstick and a tuquatch press conferences, but when you got everyone and everything from ABC to CTEQ to XYZ, how many mayors and city councils does it take to screw in a light bulb? Where is the transparency of the catastrophe? What is the timeline of how events deteriorated to where out of the blue? A citywide water bore was issued at approximately at approximately 7 p.m. Thursday, October 10th, 2024. Why didn't any bells or whistles go off prior? While we didn't get hit by a hurricane or act of God, we did get hit by pilot error asleep at the wheel to air's human at the whole shebang citywide water borrow. Also, it blows my mind this so-called pay raise certain city of Larel city council persons have unilaterally chosen to bestow upon themselves. Might as well pin a medal of honor or what the heck, pin a purple heart on yourselves. Have you no shame? Have you no code of ethics you live by? Have you no standards? Have you no God? Have you no conscience? with such lowhanded tactics. It's like saying, "We don't need no stinking elections. No wonder people don't vote." They are disheartened. They are let down again and again and again by the promises, by the men and women who promise the people they would do better than their predecessors. Where is the leadership? Where is the example? Most of all, where is the integrity? that quality of in of character to do the right thing even when no one is looking over your shoulder even if the people would never know or never knew do the right thing these shenanigans being carried out in open giving the air legitimacy when in fact it's nothing more than none neutered dogs in heat doing the birds and bees on Houston street what's with all the gaslighting of America from Trump and Vance's preposterous accusation of man biting dog to Laredo's gravy train gang. Their pockets so stuck with cash. Their pockets are bulging like a bloated roadkill. I smell a tuach on the highway or triple digit heat. There's no need to look for >> I miss up please. Thank you. >> All right. >> Thank you, [applause] [applause] >> Raphael Flores. >> Want to speak now? Okay. We we we the people deserve the time to talk and we should [applause] >> Good afternoon. My name is Rafael Flores and um I was coming here to make a simple suggestion. I'm sure you all heard of reverse 911. That's a system that could have been used to notify us of the boil water notice. And I just found out today that there's something supposedly similar or better called I pause P a ws like you know the paws on a cat or a dog. and that it's been used in the past and like I told Chief Herd that handles this, it's been used in the past yet I've never gotten a notification about heat related incidents this past summer or the summer before. So, it appears like there's another system besides the the water mess that needs to be fixed. uh social media for communicating these type of emergencies is uh too much like 18th century 19th century. So that's my two cents worth and uh hopefully whatever emergency comes up next uh can be done a little bit better than this. Thank you. Thank you [applause] L. Maria Valdez. I don't Monica Martinez. Good afternoon, mayor. Good afternoon, council. My name is Monica Martinez. I am the executive director of the Laredo Chamber of Commerce. Joining me is our chairwoman of the board, Sandra Mandola Alanise. The Laro Chamber of Commerce recognizes the challenges that our local small businesses are facing due to the ongoing water boil notice. We are committed to standing by our business community and offering every possible support during this difficult time. Access to clean water is essential for businesses to be able to operate. They cannot operate without clean water. Particularly for those in the food and beverage industry and the hospitality industry, which we have noticed have been the most impacted. We understand the additional burden that this places on them. As a result, we are currently collecting data in conjunction with the Texas Center for Border Economic Enterprise and Development at TAMU. We encourage encourage all businesses to participate in this study so that we may collect accurate and meaningful data on the economic impact of the boil water notice. Our members are dedicating valuable time to participating in this survey. We just sent the survey on Friday and in three days we have some preliminary numbers that show that the impact could already be into the millions. We encourage all businesses to follow the city's safety guidelines including the boil notice to ensure the well-being of their customers and staff. To alleviate the pressure on small businesses, the chamber is committed to coordinating with local authorities, service providers, and community providers and partners to provide resources and up-to-date information on safety measures, alternative water sources, and operational best practice during this period. We do thank the efforts and the collaboration of the city of Laredo Economic Development Department that worked together with us to develop that survey that we hope to continue to collect data that will help aid in the relief that we expect. We also exhort our city and elected officials to commit themselves to focusing on infrastructure in the course of the next few years. We want to urge our council to work with us to develop a relief package for our businesses who have been tirelessly working to still continue to operate during this last week. Again, as I mentioned, our preliminary numbers already show that the losses in our community could be well into the millions. This is an opportunity for improvement, and in this adverse situation, we can learn, pivot, and change. We encourage customers in the city of Laredo to continue to support their favorite local businesses and please be patient with our business owners as they adapt to these circumstances. By working together as a community, we can overcome these challenges and ensure the continued success and vitality of Laredo small businesses. And again, we just want to emphasize that we are here to work with you, but we do want to find a solution to help our small businesses continue to operate. Thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] Alicia Mas, >> Michelle Segoia, Gabriella Tolentino. >> Hi. Amanda Martinez. >> Amanda Martinez. >> Agenda item. >> Okay. Joseand >> Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Kosovo and I want to speak about the uh the issue that we're currently having. You left us 12 days without water and I have some suggestions. I'd like to talk about at least four of them if time permits because I know that not you're suppressing our right to speak here before you and to grieve our government. Um I think that we need more transparency coming from you. We need a lot of transparency coming from the city because we heard one thing then we heard another that it was a truck that connected to the uh to the city line. Then we heard that it was a uh water soft near it. I don't know how many lines illegal lines were tapping into the city water. Tappings of illegal water happen in all cities, but they don't have the problem that we're having. They're not in an emergency situation as we are right now. And I wish we had more information that you were more forthcoming and we would give you give us information as to [clears throat] excuse me as to who knew what and when. And when they had that information, what did they do with that information? Up until today, we don't know. And that takes me to the second issue, and that is accountability. You have been reactive rather than proactive. And we knew the situation was coming. I mean, we've already know, we've had notices for many years. We know the infrastructure is failing. We knew this situation was coming. How did we mismanage this emergency so badly? because it was very badly managed. You left us 12 days without water. Think about that. And that takes me to the third issue and that is that we need a permanent solution to a permanent problem. I personally feel that you're just going to put a band-aid and get over the hump of the elections and then we're going to go back to business as usual. We can't afford business as usual. We can't afford business as usual. And if I were in if I were in city council, I would be advocating that we have a task force or a committee formed by people that know what they're doing, that have experience in this area, civil engineers, water management specialists, or even input from the community if need be. And that takes me to this fourth issue, and that's to the community. I invite everyone to come to these notices and and speak out even if they're violated on right not to be able to speak to our our government and they're suppressing our right to speak. It's important that we come and put public pressure because public pressure makes change and we need change. We can't afford the business as usual anymore. And I just want to leave with uh my last words are going to be that you left us without water for 12 days. Thank you. Jose Serio Durantes. Not receive. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. forchech. for homeless. attention. [applause] Thank you. All right, Mr. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve um Roman numeral number five, appointments 1 through six as um described in the agenda. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> I >> oppose. Motion passes. >> Item one is on the consent item, but I did notice that there's also an item under your sponsorship. So yes, I'd like to make a motion to take both items from consent agenda number one and from 3A3 um and 3A4 together. >> Second. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion pass. >> So we're at item one under consent which is this one. >> Okay. >> But Mr. N is going to proceed. >> All right. Go ahead. >> Number five. Yeah. Four, five, and what was a motion? >> All right. Go ahead. >> Good afternoon, mayor and council members. Uh, my name is Linda, the human resources director. Um, so what we have here is a is the presentation on the SGR for executive utilities director. Just a little bit of background for you. The strategic government resources otherwise known as SGR has been incorporated in Texas since 2002 with a mission to facilitate innovative leadership and local government. SGR exists to hold local governments to be more successful by recruiting, assessing and developing innovative collaborative authentic leaders. It is a full service for firm specialized in executive recruitment, interim placements, online training, on-site training, leadership development, psychometric assessments, strategic visioning, retreats, one-on-one employee coaching, and other consulting services. The city of Laredo has been engaged in professional executive consulting services with SGR with the elected officials training 2002, city manager, financial services, police chief recruitments. the city of Laredo when we started to meet with SGR there was also some metrics and some goals that were established in there there is uh the day-to-day operations also to continue the operational management metrics strategic improvement metrics infrastructure and system improvement metrics leadership and communication metrics contract and vendor control metrics and risk management and plant and staff metrics. These were items that were discussed with SGR in locating a um consultant to come in and come in and work with the city. So the timeline of the engagement. So we started this engagement with SGR since September 4th or 20 24th. The city of Laredo contacted SG to begin the executive utilities director search. On September the 9th, SG provided a candidate's name to the city of Laredo. On September the 17th, Walter Piser met with city manager, assistant city managers, and the human resources director. He also met with utility staff and towards several of the utilities uh administration and water plants. By September the 15th, Mr. Walter expressed an interest in and an agreement to engage and provide a tenative arrival date for the city of Laredo. Uh we have an October 22nd as a tenative date for Mr. Walter. He's also known as Buzz. uh he's scheduled to begin his assignment on the day-to-day operations and also to provide consulting services for the city. So, a little bit of background on Walter, what we found out, he has over 33 years experience. Uh he's a highly accomplished visionary and a proven track record of success in optimizing and streamlining organizations while providing improved services and financial results. He is an experienced leader. He's a communicator, mentor, team builder, and a negotiator. His education as such, he has a 1990 uh 90, excuse me, 1992 executive MBA from the University of Illinois. Uh he also has earned a in 1986's BS, NBA kumladi in operations and production management from the Ohio State University. He holds professional titles as senior executive, corporate officer, and management expert. his most recent assignment. The reason that he's coming in until uh the 20 uh October 22nd, he was finalizing a consulting service for the city of Arm Amarillo and also working with um uh his enterprise company and also he holds a public water solutions as a chairman as his background. Um this is what we have uh as far as information on uh Mr. Pisker Pisker. I can't pronounce it. Mayor, >> may I ask a question? >> Yes, go ahead. >> Um, so there's a question for Gwen. Um, so I'm assuming we're only approving the actual um consultant agreement because it exceeds the $50,000. Right. As it pertains to the individual, I just want to make sure council does not vote on anything that would be contrary to what charter allows us to do. and the utilities director position is not a position that must be conformed by this council. So, I just want to caution the council that we vote on whether or not we're going to allow the city manager to enter into this consultant agreement, right, and not get into the details of appointing the interim director, right, or even make a vote on that, I would assume, because it would be a potential overreach >> on the charter, right? >> Right. Is that accurate? That's exactly right. There's no need to vote for council to vote on the interim. Uh >> so we would only vote to approve item one and take no action on items four and five from the mayor's request. Correct. >> Well, it it is a a package deal as far as his uh uh duties here. That's what the city manager is bringing forth to you. These are the duties and this is the justification for the amount of the contract. So, for purposes of discussion, I'm going to make a motion that we approve item one under the human resources director to authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with SGR for professional executive consulting services uh not exceeding $200,000 for a duration of >> I'll second for discussion. >> Second for discussion. >> Yes. Go ahead. >> A couple of questions, Mr. Neb specifically to this. when this gentleman comes into the city of Laredo, will he have full reign as far as staff is concerned primarily because of what's happening now. So [clears throat] once the results come back and we find somebody was culpable for this, will he have free reign as far as terminating staff if we should need to? And once this finger is pointed and we find out what the culprit was and if it was human error, as I mentioned earlier, we've been going to this for 12 days and it's something that we simply can't stand for and we simply can't be dealing with over and over again. Will this gentleman have free reign as far as staff is concerned or does it need to come through your office? What is his capability when he comes into >> Certainly. Uh and mayor and city council and mayor pro Tim. Uh thank you for that question because I wanna I want to lay a little bit more uh information on top of of what what's already been presented by HR. Um so we started looking at the utility department over almost a year ago within this thing. We we we've all talked here in in our meetings about the things that we think the utility department can do better and all of that. So we've been working on this a long time. what we where we're at now today and this actually started long before the boil water notice uh even materialized and so we've been working on this. Uh the best way I can explain this so that everybody kind of understands what we're asking to do is is very similar to when Detroit went through its um u its financial issues where the state comes in and sets a receiverhip over the top of of the city and they says make it work make it work the way it is. So we we have established this process. So uh Mr. Pisker uh his job will be as an interim what I would call the executive director not necessarily a director. He has two responsibilities on there. One is to operate the day-to-day operations underneath the uh the opaces of the city management side right now. So we're operating without a d a charter driven director in that method. We believe that that oversight needs to happen in order to make those adjustments. So the quick response to your question is that yes, day-to-day operations, if we find anything associated with the culpability of of the spoiled water notice, we will be able to take those actions through our processes within the employment structure. The second part of what this gentleman is going to bring to us is the consultant side and M. Teniente covered uh those metric systems within there. When we review the utility, we want to make sure that those are those conditions that are met or exceeded and bring the bring the utility level performance up to those those metrics. So he he will be providing a consultant report. It'll be on a monthly basis, but essentially the full report will come out in six months. If we have to if we have to adjust the department very very drastically or if we have to just nudge the department in a different way and make sure we have all the right people in the right places and everything that's what the metric system that's what the consultant portion of this. So we we are looking at essentially hiring a director an interim director for now to help us walk through the the the system itself and then also the consultant side of that. We with this within the system because we we we liken it to the uh the the receiverhip kind of mentality. He will be able to take every action necessary in order to move forward. It's just city management wanted to keep their hands on it to make sure that they are uh it is all indicative to the rules and the procedures that the council has set up saying this is how we treat our employment [snorts] and uh and I will tell you just really briefly really quickly been very happy with our staff. Uh we have a lot of great people out there. You saw them come come out of the woodwork to in order to help us through this emergency. I think it's is just the direction of how to help get them to help. And so through your vision and everything else that's this is why we've came come with this model and trying to bring it forward is to uh not wait any longer and to reset our operational structure along with the conversations we'll have today about the the capital and and and all the other work. So really quickly he they have full autonomy in order to do the job of a director underneath the opices of the city management office. >> Just to follow up mayor go ahead. >> Um the other question that keeps coming up is of course transparency. The public wants transparency. Believe me I do too because I don't have answers. I wish we had the answers because then we could put them out there to the public. They need to understand that. I don't know and I won't say we because I don't know some may but I don't know what the answers are. what happened to our system? Do we have an idea where and why this kept coming up over and over again as far as ecoli coming up and high bacteria? Yeah, mayor and city council. And there will be a bigger uh a broader report coming forth to you. We're hoping to give uh the first uh report next Monday on the October 28th council meeting. Um our focus has been directly on the emergency of at hand. And so as we've evolved throughout the last 10day period, we have we've adjusted our strategy. I I think the broad level of this thing, the planning is is that and I think Mr. Landine had said it at one of our press conferences as well too, it was going to be in the uh the the disinfectant within our system and all of that. What we are seeing is and I I have to say a little bit more here. So four years ago, we had a boil water notice four years ago and it was based upon the condition of our plants. The council at that point in time started to make a make corrections within our system. Just so you know, and we've said it more than once, the water coming out of our plants is excellent quality. That water is is in great shape. It when it gets into our system, what what happens is is that our system is 900 miles of blinds. We have two two water treatment plants. We have the wastewater treatment side as well too. It's a very big operation. And so over the course of time, we've lost lost little legs of this. And I think it I think the council started addressing that four years ago with the plant improvements of what was done. We are now into this distribution side. And and I wish I could say that boil water order notices can be eliminated and never happen again, but that's not the way the system works. And uh what we were able to discover during this one was is that it was the uh it was external impact to our system and that's where we found the illegal connections that where where we find the cross connection. It could have been something very very basic but this is something that progresses over over the years. And I I think that's where uh well the l for the easy way to kind of answer this is that it's a detective system. For the last 10 days, it's been detective work. We start with the broadest level and we say, "This is how we're going to respond to it." And then we go to the next thing and then we go to the next thing. And I I can't tell you how much I thank the mayor and the city council for all of your help as well too and staff the everybody helped. And I it's there's too many people to name nowadays. Uh but we've we focused on that. So the the whole intent of this thing is that it is the external things that happened. It could have been a main break. It could have been a cross connection. It could have been an an illegal tap. All of those things can contribute to what this issue is. We now that we're out of the boil water notice, now that it's been released by the mayor, we I I'd say our work now begins completely. Our work now goes how can we make it better? And I think that's what you're hearing from our public as well too is that what are we doing? What are the steps are we doing in order to say can we eliminate this? I don't know if we can ever eliminate. That'd be an absolute that I can't can't commit to, but I can tell you that everybody everybody that has worked us through this thing are committed to making sure that we move forward better than we did in the past. So, thank you. Thank you. >> Go ahead. >> Thank you. Um, so at the end of the day, this is we're talking some of these pipes 50, 70 years old. Um, and obviously, you know, it'd be very easy for a council where eight of us are in our first term, eight out of nine of us in our first term, uh, five out of nine of us in the first two years, it'd be very easy just to point the finger at the past. And for a city manager to in his first year and a half, uh, to to point the finger at the past, but at the end of the day, the buck is going to stop with all of us up here. We're in the role now. Um, and we have to take action. And over the last five years, to be fair, this council what of previous councils and this one have put $250 million uh towards water and sewer [clears throat] through various bonded projects. But I'll take us back to budget this year in August. We spent three to four hours discussing third party funding and that $300,000 that we gave towards third party funding and non and nonprofits. We spent about five minutes on the CIP of the utility bond, the $94 million that we just sold this year for fiscal year 2425. We brushed right over it. We asked a few questions and we just we just went right on. So, I think the point is, you know, this is not a wakeup call. We've known, all of us that ran in 2022, we knew this is the eighth water bowl notice since 2019. Anybody who ran in 2020 knew as well. So we all and I I'll put myself here. We all have to refocus. We all have to make sure that we are putting not letting us go back to business as usual. I said because for a while there because this was the first there was tech there was a technically small one in July of 23 uh last year but first significant water a major citywide water bill notice of of those of us who were elected in 2022. Um, and so for a while there, I think there was a sense of complacency that things were getting better and okay, but we all knew right below our feet all these pipes were still old. And you know, we've put $60 million uh towards water pipe, but 30 million of that 60 million went to just one pipe, just the and that's the 36 inch pipe from two years ago. So in February 2022, the pipe that broke, we just had the groundbreaking for in May of 2024. So, and that's not just an indictment on the city of Laredo because government works slow in every city, state, federal, government is excruciatingly and annoyingly slow getting things done. Um, but we have to do better and we have to do a better job of showing the people what we are doing. We have to stop thinking our people can't handle facts and details and information. Our people are smart. Our people can handle it. Let's give it to them. I think we're actually doing some good things, but they don't know about it. We're not telling them well enough. And so, we just have to get we have this is not a wakeup call. We've all known about this. We just have to refocus. Everybody get on the same page. And I'm getting my point to you, uh, Mr. Mr. Ne. I you started in February, March of 23, March roughly February. >> Okay. Um you know what and I went back to articles from 22 when our previous utility director who I respect and thank him for his service, but there were concerns even back then that maybe he dropped the ball in in not training uh our utility staff that TCQ recommended. And you know, so I'm surprised he actually survived that, you know, under the previous administration. You came in, it it took you a year and a half to to set this in forward. I know some things happen, but since there were these concerns and Mr. Chavez, our our our interim utility director, has already found a bunch of things that should have been done that weren't done. M, you know, perhaps Mr. Chavez should have been utility director for the last year and a half. I'd like to know what took you so long to realize a change need to be made because I do want to give you credit. You did make this change in place with before this water bowl notice. I want the public to be aware of that. All this with this interim utility director has nothing to do with the water bill notice. This was set in place. Ironically, we got the email from you five days before the water bill notice. We got it on October 5th. Water bill knows October 10th. And I applauded you for being proactive. Although I you know think it could have been sooner. What? Take us into before we vote on this, tell us why, you know, what what was this? Why did you finally decide, you know, and I say the word finally understanding it's a year and a half. Why why why September uh early October for you to pull the trigger, mayor, and and city council, council member. Um to you it feels like it just happened, but I I and I I've been very open about this in my year and a half. My job when I came in here is to evaluate all of our people, all of our processes, and salvage every one of them because I believe that eight city managers in eight years, the stability of this office has an impact on how our people respond to anything that is happening out there. And I I and I'm and I'm so I'm rather than to say you're not able to do your job, I'm going to find out whether or not they have all the tools to do the job. And so this takes a little bit of time as through that. And and I'm not going to go into it because there's a lot of different personnel conversations that that this can allude to. I can tell you that the city manager's office has been working with utilities from day one since we came in in order to make these adjustments. Every one of the concerns, every one of the complaints from the city council have been addressed and tried to find out exactly which way to go with any of these items that are out there. We we come we come and but it's a it's a progression. It's it's a systemic kind of process that we walk through this. If we if we can't get the resolution in this way, we have to now go to the next thing. This again, it's like just like the work going through the boil water notice. It is a detective work. We try this. All right, it didn't work. We go to the next thing. But I have I have I've committed to our our employees. We have over 3,000 employees. We have 3,000 positions. We have I have all of you. I have all you the number of you that are new into the into the city council as well, too. But my commitment was we're going to salvage everybody that can provide a benefit to our community, our our organization, and we're going to they what'll happen is that the ones that we can't make it work, a decision system makes makes the decision, and we move forward with that. We've we've not none of this stuff is ever done without the respect of the employee because generally I believe that it was more of an inherent management issue where we were not we didn't have the stability. So our employees did not know what to do and the and and some of the stuff that I I I'm learning as as we go that stability is very very important to the Laredo organization and I think that's where we're trying to bring that and I think that's where this whole balance even within the boil order notice and all this process is to maintain that stability. We'll never be able to get out enough information but we are trying to put as much information out there as we can and that's where we're at with this thing as well too. I we since day one we've been working on this one and it it becomes a prioritization as to which ones can we take care of and which ones can we can we keep nudging through that and uh this conversation happens a lot on the city manager's office is is what how do we how do we salvage this individual? Is it training? Can we send them away? Is it or are they just not in the right jobs? You know, and where they need to be. And so that's been that's been my stance and that's been my position is of that we're a we're a community of 300,000 people. We have we're a organization of 3,000 employees. We all live here. We all this is our home. And so in my mind that strength of that commitment and that spirit is what we're trying to salvage. And we'll train the individuals if if they have if they need to be built up. And uh and I I guess so that's that's my response to that. We've been working on this since day one. I won't get into the nitty-gritty of of all of that because I want you I want to keep you all focused as well too to help me establish the procedures and the rules and the laws in order to help me move our people the right way. Thank you, >> Mayor. Yeah. >> Um I' I'd like to associate myself with uh Council Member King's remarks on on us being more transparent about the work that's being done at the utilities department. We have known for a long time that there were issues. There has been investment in new infrastructure and new planning for it and we need to be more transparent with the public about our aging infrastructure and what that means. But this emergency has been qualitatively different because it is ecoli. We had had indications since 2022 that perhaps there was something in the system and yet our system failed us because we didn't do the investigations necessary then to try to prevent what occurred just recently. Missentha, would you be able to um bring up again the performance metrics that you put up for this new consultant that we're looking to hire? While you're doing that, I also want to um just comment on on the fact of why we're here now at a special called meeting also at a time when most people are working and not a regularly scheduled meeting like we've had in the past. This day was supposed to be regular city business and we would have had a 5:30 meeting which is more available to the public. And I do not agree with our decision to cancel the October meetings in favor of one at the end of the month for electioneering purposes, no matter what kind of electioneering and ignoring important city business. We could have had this utilities director discussion at the earlier part of this month, maybe set in place some different standards. I don't believe it would have prevented this um boil water notice but it would have set the stage in a different way for what we have subsequently gone through. When I look at the city of Laredo performance metrics and operational I think it's guidelines um these look like metrics that should be in place for any utilities director and the current operation of the department. So, the fact that we're putting it on a consultant now to come in and give us a review, in my mind, we're going to spend a chunk of money on a performance consultant when this is something that a utilities director should be doing all along. And I I don't understand the focus of getting a consultant when we need a director. I don't understand why, if these were the issues that we saw, why we weren't addressing them. all along and this goes back to what council member King was saying is that issues have come up in the past and we've been looking for these metrics and it takes a boilwater notice for us to get serious about them and that's just not fair to the public. this needs to be ingrained in the in the procedures of that department from for as as part and parcel of how that government how that department operates. Um, so I I don't know if I'm comfortable spending that kind of money on a consultant when what we need is a qualified utilities director who's going to implement all these metrics and start working on that job. If this gentleman is only here for six months, then is it a bandaid on the problem and we're going to have to start all over again with the new guy who we eventually hire? I hope transparent as we're going through this process because we do need somebody now. But let's not pretend that this is going to solve all the problems. We must ensure that these metrics are followed seamlessly from this consultant who comes in is going to run like a interim uh operations manager to when we get the director who's going to implement something that should have been happening all along. >> All right. >> And then I will finally excuse me. >> No, council. I think we need to focus on what we have. >> I apologize. I haven't finished my remarks. >> I will let you know about one of I will let you follow. We need to focus on what we have at hand and the solutions that we have at hand. This meeting was placed to offer some solutions. We can be here all day discussing this and back and forth. we have a regular council meeting when we can bring up all the statistics, all the information, everything that you have so we can analyze it because this is uh not what we're focusing right now. >> Go ahead. >> Thank you. And then I'll also take uh issue with the emergency declaration that was declared last night. And I will say, mayor, my issue with the emergency declaration last night is that we did not have data. We knew that test results from that the city uh utility staff to their credit have been running continuously during this process. It's a 24-hour cycle to find those E.coli samples and also to clear water that's being tested to see if E.coli is present. It takes some time. A decision was made Saturday that was announced at the press conference that we would be switching to instead of nightly review of those test results, we would be going to a daily review. And it was told to us at Saturday's meeting that there would be no test results released on Sunday because of the change in the cycle. And yet late in the evening there was emergency declaration issued by the mayor's office and I just felt like there wasn't a good evidence-based reason for it. And what that does to our public is that it worries them and it provokes sometimes panic, sometimes fear. You can see that in the social media responses that we have seen. >> I just feel like >> Excuse me. Was that recommended by TCQ? >> Excuse me, mayor. I'll finish and then I'll be happy. >> I'll take the chair now. Okay. I'll take the chair. Was that recommended by TCQ? >> That recommendation may point of order. Mr. Win, I think all the discussion happening is irrelevant to the item that's being discussed with a potential to violation if you ask me. If I may finish my comments, >> I know this issue is of high importance to all of us. Uh but the agenda item is about the employment contract uh with uh with this gentleman. So if you can restrict it to that point, that that would allow us to stay on point and stay within our our published notice. >> Sure. I'll just wrap by saying I hope we learn lessons and we move forward with more responsibility to our public. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, [applause] >> Mayor. So, um I'm assuming, Mr. Manager, that the consultant that's coming in would at one point work hand in hand and whoever is going to be hired to be the utilities director. Is that accurate? or are we looking at hiring the utilities director after the six-month period is has come? >> So, yeah, mayor and city council, thank you for that question because I I think that'll that'll kind of close out the rest of what we're doing. Please note that we were looking at bringing in this interim executive director while we still had a director. So, the idea was to overlay over the top of where our director was at at this point in time. The intent is to open up for the inter the the SGR contract will also seek a national search for a utility director for our facility as well too. And so the goal is to begin those processes in together and have them roll together because the the whole when the interim director is completed with all of this work there is a baton passing that there's not this lag from between waiting six months and then going and looking because the our utility department has is supposed to have six engineers. We're at one and a half right now. That's part of the issue that we have. And so our utility director was serving as a engineer as well. So the whole intent is to lay this on top of it and not wait not wait any longer than we have to get the process started to fill the slot in a permanent basis but to also use this expertise out here in order to make sure that we are moving forward in the right direction. So >> may I redirect? >> Yes. Go ahead. So could you provide us then with a timeline as to what exactly the consultant will be reviewing and within that timeline indicate when you plan on hiring a director that would be working handinhand with this consultant to ensure that we have continuity of the metrics that will be put in place. So the so the intent right now is that we get the interim in there and we really wanted uh rather than to get a lot of other noise around his his look at the facility. We're we're going to run at least the first 30 days without putting out for a utility director. I we actually believe and and so just so you know this this gentleman that we are looking at actually went into the city of Amarillo and did something very similar for them. So this this individual has done this before in the state of Texas and so so the intent is to spend about the first 30 days assessing that. We believe that we will have a very good u indication within the first 90 days as to what we need to be doing. The extra the extra three three months on the back end of the 90 days is in order to give us the time to go out and to find and to interview and to analyze who would be that permanent replacement within that. So 30 days you can expect that we won't be going out there to do that. We will start in the 60-day window and we will run out as long as it takes. Uh depending on depending on how the conversation goes, it could go up all the way to the six month, but I think we'll be able to do uh this in at least three to four months. >> Mayor, one more thing. We all, I'm sure everyone on this council, including the mayor, maybe even the city manager and the assistants, I'm sure, received information and um possible inquiries, right, from different people, from our constituents, from engineers, from even people from out of town that heard about our situation and understand what's happening. And one of them that really caught my eye which I think is important to have this consultant should this item pass look into was requesting utilities to provide documents and a presentation on the backflow testing program. All commercial accounts and immigration irrigation accounts are required to have backflow prevention. Right? Who manages the testing process? How many backflow preventtors are installed? What are the ages of each one of them? How often are they tested? who monitors the process to ensure compliance. Why would we want to see this? And I'm being told that because a broken backflow preventor could be the source of water contamination. And this was sent to me by someone that apparently knows water systems, has worked on them um in the engineering side and they saw this in other cities and that was one of the causes. We're being told that that's probably one of the also reasons why we had that bacteria in some of the areas pop up not once but twice and at 1.11 times. So if they could take note of that if this item passes, it would be helpful to have that report come back. >> Mayor and city council. Yeah. And that is part of our metric system within the operational and the infrastructure is to make sure that we are focused on the right things and and within the right system. So >> all right. Okay. We needed to go to general counsel discussions and presentations. Do we have anything? >> Well, we have a motion and a second to move on. >> Oh, let's vote on that first. >> Council member. >> Okay, go ahead. >> You mentioned Amarillo. Did they have a boil water notice with a um was contaminated by eoline? Mayor, city council member, I am not sure if it was directed strictly to a boil water notice, but generally when they bring in these types of interims and everything, there are challenges within the system and uh and so they you bring in somebody that can kind of help with that. It it's the same thing of bringing in an expert of this caliber as hiring an outside firm to do this review as well too. So those were the choices that we looked at. How is one person able to execute all these requirements that you are asking of them? I mean, we this is going to take a team of experts, a team of professionals, engineers that have the tools to be able to to trust but verify, which is something that I've been asking you for over the past year is to trust but verify within our own department. And here we are again. >> Mayor, if I could really quickly, so there is a difference within this process. we were actually hiring essentially a contract employee to do the work. If we go out and hire a firm, we could do that, but you now get into the RFP process. You now get into uh the full analysis as to whether or not it is. You will be tied into the um a low bid process, a lowest responsive bidder. And so the intent was to put an individual in there that could help make the decisions on a day-to-day basis rather than utilize a structure of that. I I agree with you that the more more minds that come into this and and our our current contractors will remain, you know, involved because they're involved in a lot of those, we can incorporate more contracted help as well too through the engineering firms. But if we don't have that dayto-day operational thing, we're we I think we're missing a part of that. So I think that's the difference between the strategies of of what you're what you're describing right there. >> It just it just feels like there's we're all taking a backseat to this crisis and not this agenda doesn't even address the the equal crisis itself. Um which is disappointing. [clears throat] I will say that we are going to be leaning on our 600 employees that we have out there as well too. I mean I I truly believe that we have some excellent operators out of there that for one reason or another have not been able to uh have an impact on the operation of our department and we will be working on building rebuilding that that all that from the the ground up. Sure. >> But just as as mentioned by my colleagues, this this isn't this shouldn't be a we've been in the wakeup call for over four years and we have there has been a lack of of assessing the department and who's trained, who actually understands the work that they're doing. I can guarantee you that we don't have an updated GIS system with the maps that have been provided that are the the the employees out in the field trained in in this are they sinking the information? No, this shouldn't have taken this long to for to to understand what is even happening. And I feel like I I've myself feel that as if that this is hasn't been addressed and there is a extreme confusion across the the community and within our own city. >> Mayor >> I think somebody else >> I just had two two followup questions is how quickly uh >> are we going to be working getting the six engineers that we need in that department. Will will they'll be able to hire are we going to be able to hire more engineers during this time and will you come to us, you know, with budget amendments to fill those if needed? >> Well, and and mayor and counsel, we have all those positions are there. The engineering industry is a very difficult industry in order to find people that can that are one qualified and two want to come to Laredo to work for us. I think that's been the challenge that we've had. The conversation we've had within the utility is is that bring in more consultants until we get back to our standard because having them on hand are they're a lot more in tune to what the systems are. Uh we had the same same concern over on the city engineering side. We were not able to bring in them until Mr. Chavez made some adjustments within the system and found a way to for lack of a better way grow our own as well too. So we have engineering techs that we are training up of our own and and we're we're investing in those employees as well too. We will have to do something similar to the utility side. But as far as action from the council on any of that, we will we will come to you if we need budget, if we need any of that help, >> we believe it's already there. We just have to we just have to we have to go find the people. And as the the metaphor is is that if we can get them to drink the water, they'll stay, right? Well, the salaries though, that's the issue. I know Mr. Chavez made sure to raise the salaries in the engineering department. That's how we're able to hire more in the engineering department, but not yet in utilities department. And if you need help from us to pay engineers the the the salary they need to be paid to be competitive with the private sector, because we're never going to pay as much as the private sector, but for any engineers watching, you get public service loan forgiveness if you work for the city for 10 years. So, just so you know. Um, you know, that's a thing that the private sector can't offer. So, you know, we have to just be doing, you know, more, you know, creative ways of recruiting and being competitive with the salaries. And the the last thing, I don't, you may not have the answer off the top of your head, but out of the 3,000 water bowl notices that Texas had last year, I'd like to know how many were related to E.coli uh versus other and have a try to find a somewhat of a breakdown of how common this type of issue is. And um that's something I'd like in the future to have that. >> Sure. And mayor and city council, that is the intent of our report is to provide that information. I will tell you that every one of the tests are taken seriously by our our people and each one of them have been cleared by the laws of Texas by the EPA and the Clean Water Act. Uh as far as them being wakeup calls, I think they are indicative. But if but if it is an illegal connection and we fix that illegal connection, we another illegal connection can contribute to that. So it there is there's there's a lot of work and a lot of science that goes into that, but that would be our intent is to provide that information. Mayor may >> go ahead. >> Um, I hope Mr. Neb you can assure this council that this will be an item put on the agenda by management for a thorough discussion next week so that we won't be bringing our own agenda items so that we can discuss this because this as was previously said this meeting is not set up to deal with the emergency that's going on. My second question is about the contractors that we have and you said that this consultant coming in will be working with the existing contractor group that we have on on I don't know contracted uh how do you that's working now with our utilities department. >> Can we ask why these performance measures weren't being overseen by that group and why we need a consultant to come in and layer over them? >> Yeah. And may mayor and council Yeah. Yes. the the intent and if you look at what the metric titles are, right? And and I think I think everybody has a copy of what what's underneath that as well too. Of course, we are evaluating all of our contractors as well too. We want to make sure that the contractors are focused on what their jobs are when we hire them and everything as well too. So that is all part of this whole system within that. So yes, we will that is all part of the strategy of how how to walk through this thing. But uh in my mind in my mind I think this this will be a good thing for the city. It is my recommendation that you allow us to move forward in this way. All right we'll call for the question. >> All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion pass. Thank you. Mayor. >> Mayor, >> may I I I would I would like to um move that we do have another we have an emergency meeting um this week after this talk to to discuss just that. I don't think that this should be tied into to our regular meeting on Monday. >> Point of order. >> Did you make a motion? >> Why? Yes, >> it's been seconded. >> Motion point of order. I think it's an equal motion. There's no item that would allow us to do that, but they can petition you to call a special meeting. >> The special meeting, I'm sorry if I may. The special meeting will be have to be called by the mayor and need 72 hours notice for the agenda item. >> And there's a number of council members that could call a meeting >> or three council members could petition the mayor to call. >> Yes. >> Or that has to be done through the mayor's office. >> All right. >> Mr. I'd like to make a motion to take together um consent item number two and item number one from 3A. >> Motion second. >> All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion pass. >> Mr. Mayor, for item two and combined with 3A1, I'd like to thank the council for allowing me to serve on the web county appraisal board. Um although um it's been um very it's been a learning experience and a very interesting journey especially with the change that that administrative board has seen with now having actual elected um people represent the constituency on that board and contrary to what the people might think that when we serve on the appraisal district board of directors that we have a say so as to the valuations of the properties or what the tax rates are. Um it's it's not that it's contrary to that it focuses on the operations of the appraisal district. Um and the appraisal review board is actually the board that reviews any property valuations. Um but with that being said, Mr. I'd like to make a motion that the city of Laredo nominate council member Gilbert Gonzalez as the council person to represent the city of Laredo and that we cast all 1,039 votes um for the election of him to represent the city. >> Second >> motion second. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. Congratulations. Thank you. Item two. >> Item two, Roman number seven, discussion with possible action on providing a goodwill rebate to the public for the water bill and any matters related to there too. Mr. Ned, >> Mr. Sir, uh, Mayor, City Council, um, as you had heard uh, through a couple of the public notices and and hearings and everything, the impact to our community has been significant. and uh the mayor mayor expressed to the the the crew, the staff and everybody and myself uh in order to try to find a way to help all of those negatively impacted by this what we what I'm presenting to you and and within the information and we have had handouts that have have an updated format of of what it is. Please keep in mind it's a broad level of that. Yes, sir. >> Mayor, did we miss over some public comments during specific uh items? They did not specify which one. So, I'm assuming that >> I know there's several people that like opted >> they were opted to speak. Yeah, >> I don't know if we skipped over them. >> Some say number seven, but there's no number seven on the agenda and I assume it was for the next two items, the rebate. >> Yeah, there are some people that want to speak. >> Yeah, it's for this one. >> Should we hear from them first, Mayor? Uh, you want to let go? >> Yeah, I'm happy to step out of the way so you can hear from the public first. Yes. >> All right. >> Amanda Martinez. >> Amanda Martinez. >> Good afternoon. Is this fine? >> Well, good afternoon everybody. Fellow councilman, your honorable mayor. This will be short and simple statement. Well, I am definitely for the motion. A lot of businesses were very much affected by this inconvenience of a water boil. Hence, us the people, citizens of Laredo, taking time to boil the water to make coffee, brush our teeth, rinse our vegetables, our fruits, etc. Uh I understand that you in inherited this problem from previous councils but hopefully this issue is resolved and [clears throat] resolved quickly. Give us the quality of life that we are paying for. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Excuse me. [applause] >> Alicia Mas. >> Yeah. Alicia Maria, not here. Gabriella Torrentino, >> not here. L Maria Valdez, not here. Rodriguez, not here. Olivia Martinez, >> she doesn't want to speak. No. Okay. Valentine Ruiz, >> could you please put this picture up in the slideshow, please? >> Before I start working on >> Okay. Valentine Ruiz, veteran, taxpayer, and advocate. First of all, I would like to give thanks and praise to Tyler King, Alisa Sigaro, and Melissa Sigaroa for keeping us informed about the water crisis and adding that we need to take this crisis seriously, to take all precautions seriously, and also for standing against the 40% raise for council members. I am extremely upset this city has known that they have detected E.coli in our tap water since 2022. We only know this from a recent whistleblower. We all know our former president made stupid decisions that caused loss of life and place people in danger. Mayor, you pulled a Trump on us when you drank water from a water fountain. Clearly putting people that trust you and follow you at risk at contracting E.coli or other bacterias like the braineing amoeba that can also grow on contaminated tap water by using the netty pots to flush her nose. My Dia Santos has a weak immune system. My buddy Joey Luis Dia DeLeon's wife, a World War II veteran, is no longer with us. And she has been battling E.coli for eight months already. Eight months. And it's hard to keep smiling here when this clearly pisses me off. Mayor, this goodwill rebate, in my humble opinion, is a joke. What the city should do is refund the water bills from September and October for lack of safe drinking water for the people of Larredo. The proposed fund to assist businesses that were financially impacted. They qualify is a joke as well. In my humble opinion, they should all qualify. Their service contract for Mr. Walter Buzz is only part-time solution. We need somebody full-time working to take care of our ongoing water crisis. I'm extremely upset with you, mayor, by putting up for a vote to cut our time in agenda item seven, second by Vanessa Perez. Both of you broke your oath to us, the people. Thank you, Melissa, Alyssa, and I believe Tyler as well for voting against it. To the rest of you voted to cut our time or did not vote. When you don't vote, it means yes. And I want the people to know that. Shame on you for limiting our time of free speech. Let me remind you that you swore an all to uphold and defend the Constitution to us, the people. You broke that oath by limiting our time to speak. What is it? You don't have time to listen to we the people. So then why the hell do you run for reelection? All of you that voted for cutting our time should step down now. We need leaders that are willing to listen to our needs, suggestions, and criticism as well. I want the people to remember that they stopped city business for a month for campaigning purposes after they gave themselves a 40% raise. It's time we the people voted them out. Thank you. >> Thank you, [applause] Kayla Sanchez. Not here. >> No, she's coming. >> Kayla Sanchez, veteran taxpayer for the record, Mr. Tyler King. Trump. Mr. Mayor Mama. October. Vanessa Piso. Gracias. Okay. >> [applause] >> All right. >> All right. >> Okay. The purpose of this agenda was to address several of the comments and requests I have been receiving for community about the water distribution sites regarding a discount on their water bill. I do believe this is a justified request. I also want the public to know that this is a gesture of goodwill and the beginning of what the city will be doing to regain trust. besides the most important task which is dealing with the challenges with our water infrastructure. We have this do we have a motion yet? >> Then we'll hear the presentation. >> Go ahead. Presentation. >> Yes, sir. Mayor, um yeah, and and I'll run through the program really quickly. Um I will uh I I think based upon some of the conversation based upon your statements as well too do understand that we utilize water for drinking, we utilize water for laundry, we utilize water for irrigation, we utilize water for a lot of different things. And so uh so the nature of where what we're working on this is a boil water notice that that identifies that it's the drinking water portion of this. So as we establish this, this is just a place to start. it now becomes your responsibility as elected officials in order to how to move this thing forward. And I I believe that that's where we're at with this. And I we've put this together. I would call it a very broad level uh structure. We've tried to keep it as simple as possible, keep all the strings off of it that we can to identify what's out there. This recognizes the uh the goodwill of what how our people were impacted during this 10day boil water notice as well as their help that they did helped us with yesterday and the rest of the city will help us with today with flushing of our system that that work that they've done privately on their property. They flush their system. They're going to get a bill for the water that they flush for water and wastewater side. So that this is more than just just on one side of the issue of for the goodwill. I want to make sure everybody understands that because we asked our our our people to help when we do our testing. Our testing does happen in some of the houses that are out there. So they if that if it's not a high user, there can be contamination within the system and we want to make sure that all of our all of our all the way out through the water is it's all good quality. So really quickly as we put this together, uh this is to recognize and acknowledge the increased water usage for the drinking and flushing during the advisory period. Uh the funding for this will be coming from water availability fee funds, non-restricted utility funds and we will look at the ARPA money uh as to whether or not we can utilize those funds as well too. Those were the federal funds that we received for COVID, but we believe that we're we're still within that window that we might be able to work it that way. I do want to stress with everybody because as we're coming out of this thing, I will be requesting from all of you more assistance to get more work done. We did $94 million in this year's budget. We need we need to get into our distribution farther. So, I wanted to make sure that everybody understands the utility operating funds will not be used to ensure the resources remain for those ongoing infrastructure projects. We cannot utilize that money or at least I would not recommend the use of that money because we need to stay focused on the long-term abilities of our of our facility. The rebate structure at this point in time uh the residential customers the rebate is 5% of the base water and sewer rate on the on their on the essentially the drinking water meter. So, if you have two meters, like at my home, I have I have a a drinking water meter, I have a used meter, and then I have an irrigation meter. The irrigation meter is is a separate separate entity. So, this is a 5% on the base water, and we are recognizing the sewer because our sewer rates are built off the water rate or the water usage. So, we've we've identified both. We're looking at a 5% for our residential customers. We have approximately 74,000 customers of residential. On the commercial side, we are looking at a 4% base water and sewer rate. Uh and our industrial customers are 3% base water and sewer rate. And those differences are of course the impact of the ability for businesses to make do other other abilities for drinking water. Our utility customers don't have as much drinking water as more pro manufacturing in the process. So that's why the the percentages are different. That's why we're focused on our residential uh more than the other ones. Uh the total program cost based upon what we think our our use is out there as a starting point is $820,000 and the rebate will be funded I I I mentioned the water availability the non-restricted utility funds and the ARPA funds. Um and that's just to make sure that our utility funds remain for the critical system u improvements. So with this uh with the pro total program cost of 820,000, we'll use those different funds and the program reflects the city's commitment to helping support our residents. Uh this I don't think I have another slide in here. So this is in the in the thing I the only other thing with the the program I want to make sure I cover is is that this is an automatic adjustment within there. It'll equate to either the percentage basis or we I think our system right now has to use a number but I want to utilize the percentages in order to talk about it and then we'll make the adjustments behind the scenes in order to make it all work >> but this is automatic. >> So if we go back to your to slide three Mr. >> Yes sir. Um, you're proposing a 5% rebate for residential customers. And if we were to use $50 as an average, right, for a water bill, we're looking at giving a $2.50 rebate, >> the 5%. >> So, I think that that is um, might as well not give anything at that point is my opinion, right? And I know that it's it's I'm sure you all use the formula depending on the days and whatnot, but if we're looking at how many days were we underwater boil? >> 10 days. 10 days. >> 10 days. So that's at least onethird of the month, right? And I'm sure you all are utilizing and trying to remove well if water was still used to flush toilets, you didn't have to boil that water. It was an inconvenience or whatever the case may be. But I think the bigger picture is the inconvenience period, right? That I think we need to look at. So, I'd hope that we either get another recommendation or go through an exercise to what we think that should be. My bigger concern though is how does giving any sort of rebate whether it's a 5% a 1% a 30% 50% whatever the case may be the 800 I'm sorry what was the 800,000 let's just say $1 million financial impact does that affect our bond ratings for utility bonds in any way shape or form >> mayor and city council thank you for that question that that was part of our concern and that is part of the reason why we want to remain as far away from our utility money at to that level. If we're using non-restricted funds, it won't have the same impact. If we're using the water availability uh funds, it won't have the same impact. But as we look at our bond rating and everything else, uh if if we're trying to balance through that that whole question of saying we'll utilize these monies and that's why the ARPA money makes some sense with it because it is not directly correlated to the utility. And so uh as we as we go out there and we we've heard we had that conversation with our financial advisor as well too that is a caution for this. I I think the uh the challenge we have and uh there's a lot of different ways out there. I believe that we have some good examples within San Antonio within uh Austin within Houston that have had similar boil water notices and have done something of of this nature as well too. The challenge is always what is that value within that structure and I I think that's where that's where the number uh again I believe there's room for adjustments but I would recommend that whatever we provide it stay stay focused on the 10day period over the over a 30-day bill system and it was only on a portion of that bill and so that the water could still be utilized I I mean and in the home and everything so within that process you know that and So answering that question on the bond level, yes, there was a concern about that, but we believe that by utilizing other funds that are not directly related to the utility operations, that makes the the significant difference when we talk to our our bond people about what we're doing. >> So is it I guess understood that we're going to use another fund to pay for whatever rebate we're giving that way the utility fund is not impacted or we are going to make a draw from the utility fund. Well, and and and and all the way through this, mayor and and city council, all the way through this thing, all of the emergency response will be charged back to the utility as well, too. And so, this is just kind of that end result of what we've just went through in the last 10 days. So, it will utilize it will utilize essenti utility money uh outside of the ARPA money. But now that ARPA money has been dedicated to the utility, too. You can call it the same kind of money. It's coming out of the utility one way or another. It's just we're separating what the purpose was because this is money that was non-restricted or for water availability. That in my mind and and in the conversation we've had with finance and everybody is that that's the separation of what those funds are. >> Um as it pertains to multifamily complexes and those landlords that pay their water bill for their tenants. Are those considered residential customers or commercial? >> I I would say in most of those cases, those will be commercial accounts because they have to register that as a business expense. So, it really depends on how they set it up >> because at the end of the day, the flushing of the lines is still going to be the 15 minutes times six apartments, eight apartments, a forplex or a duplex. So, the flushing is still considered. >> Yeah. And and and I would just add on top of that, please understand that this is one of the last two items on the agenda. The next one is to talk about business assistance. So all of these if if you are identified as a uh a commercial type business and everything, this is the work that we've been doing with the chamber of commerce. This is the work we've been doing with the LEDC is to establish that impact to those businesses. So I I think I I think we've got it all covered based upon where you're I I understand where you're at and everything, but I think we've got it all covered between the two programs if they're both agreed uh with you as to how to do them. So, Mayor, um, in doing my math here, if we were to go based on the 10 days, we're looking at a 33% discount. Um, on average, we're probably looking at a financial impact of anywhere between 5.28 million to about $7 million. if we were to do a 33% discount across the board because your 800,000 is on a 345 tier um structure. But if we were to do a 33% across the board, then we're probably looking at and I don't know if our budget person's here, but I'm thinking about 7 million 5.28 to about seven and a half. And is if we were to go that route, what would be the implication? >> Uh it it would have a larger imp back on on the on the funding. We in my mind I think this is where we were at with the conversation for all of you is to determine exactly how to help. Uh I do believe that our our commercial customers based upon all the all the other information. Yeah, I think we're just talking really about the residential customers right now and that impact on that as well too. So um based upon what you decide today is how we will build the program and uh I I believe that we can make we can make the adjustment. I I I guess my my only other part is that it's not really just 30% of the budget because of of what that fund is. But I I think it we have to cover enough of that cost. So I I appreciate where you're at with saying maybe that's not enough. Um, but I think we could find we can find a way to balance out th those numbers uh just depending on what you believe is appropriate in order to cover that. Please note that I said at the at the beginning as well too, this is just a start. If we step into this thing and we find that we need to do additional help and everything you you all it takes is another conversation with all of you in order to determine that as well too. Uh the the whole goal is to kind of build through this thing and try to find that resolution. So, u I guess I I don't know if I answered that question that you asked specifically, but we can I there is room if you wish to advance uh additional percentages, we can we can we can make it work. >> Yes. Go ahead. So since we're still a little unclear on exactly the impact where the money is exactly coming from what the impact that would be for example if we took ARPA funding understanding what that would mean to um you know various departments you know just should we who should we I'm kind of posing the question of deciding on this for next Monday's meeting to have a little more I know it's going to be a packed meeting but to have a little more information before we or is there you want us to give you some guidance or >> if if if you wish to think about this a little bit because you know the again during an emergency this stuff materializes fairly quickly and we and we put it together as best we can. Uh if you want to have additional questions posed to us we can do additional analysis. So, I think as we're walking out of this together and with and within the program, I want to make sure that that we understand as well too, those that were on the Jefferson water plant were on the boil notice at least two additional days, right? Because we were able to remove the Elpico. So, the intent of this program was to start essentially on the the southern end of our city and work our way up through through that and that process as to go through that. uh if you want time to think about it, it's not going to hurt anything uh other than the billing cycle. What we will do is again again we will look at a three-month average within their bill and we'll take that average as the number. It's not going to be just this month. It's not going to be last month. It's going to be a three-month average within the cycle because we want to hit it as close as we can to what that that individual's uses. Uh but if you would like a little bit more time, um I've laid it on your table. I've laid it in your lap. Now, uh, if you wanted to look at this, we we have time, I would say, with our utility department and everything because we'll keep we'll keep tightening those things up. As I meant, we're going to have to convert from a percentage to a a a fee amount in some level in some way. It's just that we have to make sure that we recognize the difference between somebody that uses 3,000 gallons a month to somebody uses 7,000 or 10,000 gallons. So, that's the one that's the only process that we want. So, uh, I'm happy to take this any any direction. If you want to think about it a little bit farther, we can bring put it back on for Monday. >> Mayor, could we have a flat fee option versus percentage option? >> No, I I stayed with the percentages intentionally because it's it's easier to figure out uh based upon the use exactly what council member Torres did is that well, it's a 10day out of a 30-day window and so these percentages work that way. So, I stayed with the percentages. What will happen is based upon the action of the council, we'll essentially do a conversion and and we'll and we'll determine exactly where that's at or we're hoping that we can get the software to actually pick up on a percentage because that'll do the math for us as well too. May I >> have a question? >> Yes, go ahead. >> Um, thank you Mr. Ne for that and I think um one of the concerns here and the alarming thing for the public is that a lot of the the problem is stemming from illegal connections, right? So, we want to hold people accountable for for contributing to this problem. And of course, we need to, you know, fix our systems and make sure that we add preventive measures and uh not allow people to hook up illegally or and things like that. But what are we doing to hold those people accountable? Because if we're talking about a rebate [clears throat] for everybody else that had to deal with the inconvenience, it makes sense that the people that were doing these having these illegal connections should be contributing and we should be fining them or penalizing them because we have to let the public understand that this is a serious issue. You know, with with uh take the situation in in Mines Road where you had the the water softener, you know, illegally. We need to figure out is was that a vendor a vendor that sells these systems that's going around the city selling these systems and hooking them up illegally because they don't have the proper permits? Are they uh um overstepping our our permit process because they don't want to pay for the permits and now everybody else has to pay because they didn't want to pay. You know, this is a serious issue that that these people need to be held accountable for. And another thing too is like um you know when you talk about seven eight million dollars like the thing that comes to mind right now is you know take for example like the Mercy Hospital the old Mercy Hospital. They owe us over $12 million in fines for the nuisance that they've created by not dealing with with that building that has contributed to a lot of public um concern. So, is there any way that we can, you know, maybe look at some of these outstanding debts that are owed to us and increase enforcement so that we can take that money and give it back to the people that had to suffer because of this notice? >> Yeah. Council member and and mayor and council, I I'll only go into the bits and pieces of this because that's a great conversation as we're going forward, but I I do want to address because the mayor and I have had this conversation as it relates to the olio connections. So, our In in our minds, the property owners should receive, for lack of a better way of word, is amnesty of of this system. if they will at least let us know if the work has been done on their property and everything. We believe that exactly how you're saying, council member, is that if if a contractor has come in and they've not pulled the right permits, if the contractors come in and not allowed us to do an inspection of that process, I don't have a lot of sympathy for those those individuals for jeopardizing our entire system for that. And but I don't want to hold Mrs. Smith responsible because she trusted that professional to do the work to the letter of the law. And so the mayor mayor and I had been having these conversations throughout this emergency as to how do we put the how do we put that responsibility out there but still protect our people our our citizens. So we are working on that and I that is part of that the conversation about the interlocking of of different u debt that we have out there with different different properties and everything that'll be more of a legal question that we'll have to walk through whether or not we can marry those across or not and that process but we're happy to look at that. Yeah. Go ahead. and and and I don't want to overstep what's on the agenda, but the reason I'm bringing it up is that there's opportunities for us to find some money so [clears throat] that we can provide more than just what's proposed as a relief. >> Yeah. And and I and mayor and council, [clears throat] I would just leave it at it's whether or not we believe that a good will rebate should be provided. They did. Everybody was given the opportunity and I don't want to go and look and see who flushed and who didn't. I mean, and if anybody still wishes to flush their system, please do so because that's okay. Um, but I I also want to make sure that um we take care of the issue. We take care of the issue now, we'll work it out in in at the other end. And I I believe that I believe that what we what we did learn out of this entire thing is that there are a lot of ways to do our jobs even better. And that that's where we're going to be focusing and and making sure that all of our our inspections and our standards and and all of that are met to that that nth degree. >> Mayor May. >> All right. Go ahead. >> Um well, I think um [clears throat] although I think uh what council member Bettis brings up kind of delves into something that's off this agenda about trying to identify the sources that you know we can talk about do we have enough inspectors at our plant? There are a lot of different issues to try to drill down as to why this happened. And I do believe that we need an emergency meeting to deal specifically with this crisis because this is not that emergency meeting for our questions to be answered and the public to who has been sharing their deep concerns with us this entire time for for us to get good information to be able to share with them. So, mayor, I don't know if we can do this, but I would like to have this emergency meeting called. I think we need 722 hours. It can be done on Thursday and that way we have a forum and make it sometime when you know we can reach the public so we can discuss these issues. We all have similar questions. Illegal connections, why were the E.coli notices ignored? What were the the steps that perhaps were taken? what impact will be to the utilities department. When you're talking about the money, when you talk about taking diverting money from our utilities department, it's a huge issue because we already know the that ARPA funding is the excess that we have now that hasn't been spent yet is dedicated to buying the chemicals that are needed to ensure that the water quality at our water treatment plants continues to be maintained to that high TCEQ standard. So messing with the money impacts the operations of utilities. And if this is not the forum, then please give us a forum to be able to do that. >> Mayor and council, and I I do want to and I apologize, but I do want to address one thing. There has been no test ignored by the city. Every test has been resolved to the letter of the law. Please, I I just want to make sure I say that that that portion of it. Also note within the budget, the city council approved within the budget, I think 14 additional code enforcement inspectors. This is a conversation that we've been having all the way through there. We've been moving the needle. We've been changing the structure on that. Now, the note the request for emergency meeting, I'll leave it up to all of you. We'll be there. We'll be there to help and all of that. But I just wanted to make sure I I shared with that. But I I truly believe my recommendation is that we provide at least the goodwill rebate to to whatever level that that that you choose to do that especially because our public helped us through this as well too by flushing within their own system. Mayor, I would like to call for that emergency meeting through motion and have it included in this in that meeting. Not only more information about the sources and what happened, but also to include the conversation about the rebate. >> I'll take it under adisement and discuss it with managers. >> Oh, go ahead. >> Just so you know, there's no mechanism to call for emergency meeting through a motion. just through the mayor or uh through petition from four council members to secretary. >> Could you clarify Mr. Win what that petition would look like? Just just a request for like you're asking but just it can't be done through a motion unfortunately just for four council members may petition for >> and we do that through approaching the city secretary >> the city secretary or the mayor can do it and we still need to provide the 72 hours notice under >> we we can we can get the letter of that but generally we've done that through an email or to the mayor and say we want to call this and and if the if it all meets all the conditions then we move forward with the Secretary for council member. >> Thank you for that clarification. And I I did not mean Mr. Neb to imply that the ignoring of the E.coli samples was intentional. It seems like something is broken down in our processes. >> Yes, ma'am. And Yeah. And Yeah. And I just wanted to make sure I said that because uh I I do know as we've went through every one of those conversations, we've not found anything that says that the city ignored it. It's whether or not it was interpreted to the level of what we wanted to. >> Mr. Mayor, may I redirect? >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to have uh the city manager and management come back with um three options. A 10% rebate for all residential customers, a 25% rebate, and a 33% rebate to see what those numbers look like and have a presentation put together um for us to make a decision on Monday. >> Second. >> All right. Motion second. All in favor? I >> opposed. Motion pass. Now the next number, Mr. Nemp, discussion with possible action with approval. No, no, it's discussion with possible action and the creation of a fund to assist businesses that were financially impacted by the boldwater notice and any matters related there too. I have spoken to uh SBA, White House and uh our petition will qualify according to what uh what situation we have here uh with the disaster relief uh director and now we need to work with the business and address their economic losses. So they will qualify. >> Yes, sir. Mayor and that was excellent news to know and that's how we've kind of built the program. We were hoping for some of that good news as well too. So, thank you for your work on that. Um, again, this is the other piece of this thing. And as uh as the Chamber of Commerce had had alluded to earlier and and Miss Castillo with our economic development department, uh we have over 78% of the our businesses that have respond been responding to the survey have been impacted. Uh we we the the estimates are somewhere around 500 to $1,000 for the period of time. So, there is something that we can do. So this is uh and this kind of piggybacks on exactly what's happening. Um we we want to put this together. Most of most of the ones that are responding are the smaller businesses of it. They have 15 employees or less. The larger ones usually have the resources in place for to to manage a lot of this. And so so it is our mom and pops. It is our smaller businesses that are involved in that. So the objective of course of the business assistance fund is to provide financial relief. um the structure with this and and and it matches up to um all the different types of grant funds that we've done in the past as well too, but it'll be for small and medium businesses impacted by this, particularly those that are relying on continuous water reer. Our restaurants are the ones that are hardest hit because of their their products. Uh and we can get into all the different other ones that are that need really clean water. So they are it is open to all of the businesses within the affected areas which is our city and we just need some uh information from them for that. What we are proposing at this time is a $500,000 to be allocated from the city's remaining ARPA funds or the water uh adjustment funds. I I didn't update this record this this one based upon the other one, but the water uh fees and the uh the non non allocated money plus the ARPA money. We believe that this the grant program actually fits the ARPA funds very well. Uh we are also uh we will be pursuing an additional kind of a match of the 500,000 through state and federal funding whether it be the Texas micro business disaster recovery program the community development financial institutes and we want to bring that amount up to at least a million dollars for that impact um within that structure if you I guess if you took a really uh if all the commercial businesses we have about 9,000 uh commercial businesses in the city uh you're you're looking at right at that million dollar mark. And so we'll be able to clear that up a little bit further. Uh so the uh utility funds allocation again we want to keep on on the utility work. I won't go into that again. Uh but the program administration it'll be done through our economic development department and they'll work closely with utility department so that we can ensure that all the recovery efforts all the impact uh are aligned with our improvements. And just a note, and you're all well aware of this, that the ARPA guidelines say we have to obligate the funds by December 31 of 2024 and we have to have all the expenditures done by 2026. Uh we will do uh within this program, we'll do quarterly progress reports from the economic development department and they'll submit be submitted to the city council to make sure that we have the transparency of this program. Uh at that point in time, it is our recommendation that we allocate at least the $500,000 and then we're going to pursue up to a million dollars in order to provide that support. Again, just like I stated in the other program, this is the start. If we find that the the impact is greater, if we if we find something that we did not think was going to happen, we will be coming back to you in order to seek additional assistance. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve the $500,000 allocation and instructing management to come back um on a maybe um between now and December um every meeting giving us a report as to how much has been expended and how much is potentially needed so that we can look into allocating that. Um that's my motion, but I have a follow-up. >> Second. >> Motion second. My followup uh to this is I'm assuming that this isn't going to be >> [clears throat] >> um like the water rebate where it'd be a blanket check to businesses, right? I would hope that there'd be criteria. Um obviously your coffee shops and your places that had to completely shut down, >> right, were more impacted than maybe a business that was able to um provide canned drinks or uh to their clients, right? So Obviously, some had a much more severe impact than others, but at the same time, those that found alternatives to continue paying for their employees and keeping business going should have some sort of compensation maybe between averaging the losses of a soft drink versus a canned drink and the investment and the profit margin that was potentially lost, right? Multiply times whatever it is you all would require. I'm assuming some sort of receipts or invoices or whatever the case may be. um on average based on since you made um a point to 9,000 businesses is what you mentioned were potentially impacted. What would be the average that you would think these businesses would receive? >> One of the really one of the really rough estimates that that we were just talking about before this meeting started because the information is still flowing in. We're estimating because most of these are are the smaller type businesses anywhere between $500 impact over the 10 to$1,000 impact and that's just based upon the rough estimates. But I council member I think uh exactly where you're going is where we're trying to head as well too. The challenge we have with any kind of a grant program they have to provide some evidence in order to help have us help them. And so that'll be part of that process. Um, I think as you get into those midsize businesses, I I expect that the impact exactly what you're saying is that we kept the employees on. We didn't want to negatively impact impact them. That $500,000 grows very quickly. But that was just our rough information. Please note that we've been working on this thing for the last three days and uh the information is going to keep getting better, but we believe this is a great start. >> All right. >> Um, >> go ahead. You know, I don't I I I'm not trying to raise alarm, but because of the way the uh boil water notice has been lifted and the mitigation efforts, the point source, if I understand correctly, was never identified. And so, it could happen again. and you're setting up a program that's going to take funding and it looks like it's going to drain funding from the utility department at a time when we need to increase funding to the utility department so we can make sure that it doesn't happen again. I mean, it's kind of a chicken and an egg thing. And I am no way suggesting that businesses do not deserve some type of mitigation, but we you need to look at a sustainability mechanism or some fund that we can start building in case it does happen again in the future because until we find that point source, it's it's going to be out there, right? And um and we just need to be planning not just for how we help people through this difficult time now, but planning for a fund for the future. >> Thank you. >> All right. [clears throat] >> Any motions? >> We have a motion. >> Second. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion pass. Thank you. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. Meeting adjourned.