There's going to be one of these. >> You were hard to follow on camera. >> I do. Watching you like a hawk as always. You know, [Laughter] >> I thought I need to be watch right now going on. >> We are not going to take our eyes off of you. >> Certainly appreciate. >> Yeah. Enjoy. Absolutely. Okay. How long does it take to >> everything stationary? Hey Janette, how are you? What's going on? Yeah, they actually might not let support Can you pull that iPad down? >> No, she's never mind. Can you pull that iPad down? >> Okay. Okay. Fantastic. We can clean it up. We can We can face >> I don't know. [Music] >> You can do one. I can do one right here, Chief. Yes, sir. Right. Here we go. Good. One more. One more. One more. One more. Thank you so much. Appreciate Good evening and welcome to the city council meeting. Before Mayor Parker calls the meeting to order, we ask that you please be seated and silence all electronic devices. For those of you who have requested to speak, when your name is called, please come forward to the center podium. Countdown clock is displayed on the chamber monitor and will indicate how much time is remaining. A bell will sound when you have 30 seconds left. Thank you. Good evening and welcome to your Fort City Council special called meeting. I will call us to order. Council, our first item will be 25-5439, a public hearing on the fiscal year 2026 proposed budget. Staff is available if there are questions. Any questions for staff? If not, we'll move to the first speaker. Our first speaker is Adrienne Smith, followed by Bob Willoughby. Is Mr. Smith present? Bob Willoughby. Mr. Willoughby will followed by Kimberly Agoro. Yeah, this budget thing here, it's kind of hard to put any stock into it because I did go to one of the budget meetings and like usually what you'll do is you put a little sign out front just says event. You don't really advertise this out there. The the uh the the information coming is inconclusive the same way it was when they added two more council members here. that was inclusive documents because you don't let people know what's going on. But the main problem I have with the budget meeting and I can't put any stock into it is because you don't answer questions. That kills the whole thing there. Uh you know there's a there's 11 million thing I want to know why out it was 11 million overall but one part of it $5.5 million you gave the police spits chit stitch girl. He was fired from the city and then you gave him $5.5 million. Did that come out of the budget money? No one answers that question. You know, this thing I'm talking about a piece of $11 million. That's a lot of money just to give away. Maybe not to y'all because y'all didn't work for it. It's not your money. It's our money. And you know, if you budget this money, right? Well, I'll talk about on the next thing there about the pro about the taxes, but but it's not being managed right. And that's not right. You should answer questions, but until you do answer questions, I don't trust you. I have no confidence in you and I wouldn't trust anything you put on paper until you can come out and answer a legitimate question and I'll ask it again in front of everybody. Why did you give police chief chief visual $5.5 million after he was fired? Could you explain that to me? That doesn't make sense whatsoever. So if you explain that, I'll start having more faith into your budget thing. And if you put signs up that say it's budget meeting a week ahead of each place, you know, that's why the community centers don't have marquees. You don't want people to know because if you get the general people involved, your outcome won't be the same. But if you keep it down to a small amount that you have control over, you'll get everything you want. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Kimberly Agoro, followed by Randy Williams. Hello, I am Dr. Kimberly Agoro and I am here to ask some questions about how the budget might be able to make room for a degreed engineer to help review co- enforcement violations. I've been dealing with code enforcement officers for years and when faced with me hiring an engineer, we have found that the property was incorrectly assessed. It is a privilege that I was able to hire the engineers to defend my properties, but the average citizen cannot afford to do so. It is therefore incumbent upon the city to make sure that when its citizens are faced with citations, accusations, and daunting court visits that could make them lose their hard one properties, we the city are doing our best to help them and not place the burden of proof on them. supposed proof, often based on information provided by an unqualified field agent. Yes, harsh words, I know. But at the cost of thousands of dollars to me and my husband, I don't have time to soften the blow, just as they did not make the time to soften the blow when their assessments were actually incorrect. Moreover, when they have all the power to just write a ticket, take a poor citizen to court whose non-elected judge will back whatever the code officers say, it is a no-win situation for our citizens. Now, let's look at the data where they almost always find the citizens guilty. And I won't touch on what that revenue looks like, at least not today. Our mayor, Maddie, has told me back on a conference call a while a while while ago that um she was meeting with concerned citizens and her goals for managing the prosperity and health of her citizens did not include code enforced gentrification. I or we are going to hold her to that statement of not wanting her folks to lose their homes and properties due to code enforcement. Please, please, let's just take a look in the budget and find $100,000 somewhere. Somewhere among the hundreds of millions being spent, we can find just $100,000 to cover the cost for a qualified assessor to protect our citizens and keep our neighborhoods strong to continue to honor people like one of my mentors, Dr. Shirley Knox Benton here and to continue to make our city strong, to continue to build our neighborhoods and not tear them or their citizens down by the use of code enforcement. Thank you so much and you guys be blessed. Our next speaker is Randy Williams followed by David Martinez. >> Good evening. Uh Randy Williams, um 3229 Baylor, Masonic Home Area. Um I have two questions. Um, how will the city's new centralized approach to homelessness under the city manager's office ensure seamless coordination with on the ground enforcement teams in the environmental services and police departments to not only clean up encampments but also effectively connect individuals with housing and support services. Number two, the budget shifts homeless uh homeless camp enforcement to the environmental services department. What metrics will be used to measure the the the success this change and how will this city track outcome for the individuals who are displaced by these cleanups? And I'm very concerned about the homeless population. Um, especially in the area where I live. I've been living there now some 50 years. And I've seen people come and now they're walking up and down Witchah Mitchell. Uh, you see them with baskets sleeping on the side of the uh on the sidewalk. Uh, you see people camping out in front of Walmart. who is responsible in the budget to go and make sure that Walmart is held accountable to make sure that they're have a safe environment that people are not running up to them selling food in the parking lots or being robbed in the parking lot. You can't go to the store without somebody camped out in front asking for money. What are we going to do? because it's getting worse and it's getting worse and it's getting worse and it's not getting better. I know the budget every year. We put money into the budget for homelessness, but it's getting worse every year. I take the public transit system from here to Capel. I work in Compel in Capel. I'm an engineer in Capel. And even on the trains going down the railroads, you can see that the population of those living on the side of the tracks, it's increasing. You see where the cars have stopped, tents are being built, the numbers are increasing. What are we going to do? Because these uh the uh tsunami is coming. artificial intelligence is going to be a gamecher within the community and not only are low-income people are going to be uh affected but white collar workers also. So what are we going to do to give back and help the people when the tsunami comes? Thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Williams. I'm actually going to make sure that Bethany Warner connects with you after your comments. Thank you. Our next speaker is David Martinez. Mr. Martinez, is he here? No. Council, that is the conclusion of our speakers this evening on this item. At this time, I can entertain a motion to close the public hearing. Got a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Please vote. Motion passes. Next, we'll move to 255440 to conduct the public hearing on the proposed 2025 tax rate. There are no questions from council. Then I'll move to our first speaker who is Adrienne Smith followed by Bob Willoughby. Mr. Smith. Adrien Smith. I am one with the people. So, as it relates to this current tax rate, thank thank we are thankful to the county for setting a standard for the direction we need to go as a city because the stand the standard was set by the the county. You all can't go uh beyond the county what the county does. So, thank uh county uh Taran County Judge Tim O'Hare and the commissioners for setting the tax rate for the county which you all have to follow. Now, as it relates to this budget, which I missed out on speaking on that particular item, the budget uh physical year budget that you all are proposing. My question to you, Mary, is we have staff here. Why not give a presentation allow staff to go through the budget? This is a special call meeting meeting which we have time to do. Why not have staff go through the budget for next month, for next year, for the next fiscal year? Doesn't have to be uh full top down, but to go through it so the people who are not aware what's what's the what's going on is what's going to happen can be aware of it. Mayor Parker, everyone doesn't watch uh work sessions. You know, people do work. You do know that, right, Mayor Parker? So why not allow staff since they they had done they have done the work already to get a people a presentation as to what's going on for next year and I agree with Bob can't trust you with the budget you all have been spending recklessly with the taxpayer money for everyone who is sitting at the sound of my voice this this building right here I was told just just as I approached the doors that I had to wait outside because there was no room no cap there was it was it was at capacity But apparently a lot of these seats are reserved for people who don't show up for meetings. But I want people to know that this this particular building cost us 333 plus million. Mayor Parker $333 plus million. So when it comes to the taxpayer money, what are we really doing? Mayor Parker, what are we really doing? And for everyone that's sitting that's sitting here now, you all should be concerned. Stop letting these people just throw our money to the wind. Mayor Parker, you're going to tell us also that we know there's a bond coming up, a bond initiative coming up. And you know, I'm the first person who made an open declaration against it. And I'm hoping everyone here at the sound of my voice again will be against the upcoming uh bond proposal that you all are going to present. do right by the money that that's entrusted to you by the taxpayers that comes into the city coffers on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. That's all you have to do and we won't need bond uh bond initiatives. Thank you. Our next speaker is Bob Willoughby. I got Hello there. I got involved about 15 years ago and started learning and finally, you know, the last few years I've learned to to see the picture as it really is. This dog and pony show is what it is. Uh when I started off way back then, I was going on the fact that you could be property tax-free. You're 65 or older, when you sign up for homesteading, you could actually be property tax-free. That is true. That could be done. I don't doubt that one moment. And about six years later, I started seeing candidates coming out talking about zero property tax, which that's too much. You can't do it all at once. But you could start with the seniors 65 and older because when you get that age, you ought to be able to own your home for a little while. You may not be able to pay your electric bill, your water, but no one's going to take your house from you. And you can have that. But you know how you get that? By not wasting our money. And I'll tell you how you fix this. First thing you got to do is you got to put in a mayor. She doesn't pay attention to anybody. I'm speaking. She does have no respect for us. And that's the first thing you got to have is a mayor. And that's ups vote. And we don't vote. Only three less than 3% of the city voted for Maddie. She dropped in the last election. That means 97% of people aren't voting. If you vote and put in the right people, you can stop wasting the money. You know how much money we wasted on post chiefist jail? 11 million dollars. You know much money is being wasted overpaid employees out here. You know how many departments we got going on like uh all community engagement with overpaid hundreds of thousands of dollars. The police monitor thing. Well, Chris was a part of getting that going but wasn't what we want. It's just a waste of money. It's not doing any good. There's departments that could be shut down. That money could be funneled to this tax and make seniors. It just got to have people that care. She does not care about anything but herself. I've been down here for 10 years and when she got in office, this place got changed more than I ever seen in my life. We used to have four council meetings a month. We used to have free speech. We used to have a lot of things and she took a lot you can't even call in remote now. She took that off the agenda. Of course, y'all people don't know that because you don't go to these meetings. >> Is there anything else related to tax rate we want to talk about? No. Okay. Thank you very much. That's the conclusion of our speakers on this item. Council, I can entertain a motion to close the public hearing. >> Got a motion and a second. Thank you. Any other discussion? Not. Please vote. And motion carries. Thank you, mayor. That concludes the public hearings on the special called meeting. >> Thank you, Janette. This time I will close the special call meeting and we'll just reshuffle things for a minute and start again for our next meeting. Thank you.