[Music] [Music] Mhm. [Music] >> Good morning everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Welcome to City Hall and to Council Chambers. Uh this morning our invocation will be led by Senior Officer Manuel Lewis with the Corpus Christi Police Department. God bless you all this afternoon. I pray that you would bow your heads as we go to our Lord in prayer. Dearly Father, we thank you for this day that you've given us. We invite you into this place today. Please Lord, bless our local government, our leaders, first responders, and all public servants who work tirelessly to serve and protect. Grant them wisdom, strength, and compassion as they guide our city towards safety and harmony. Lord, you have given us government to guard our citizens, so I pray that they would continue to serve you with boldness and conviction. As today is a special day of National Night Out, I want to say a special prayer over this event. Lord, may your spirit move throughout this city and even throughout our entire nation as we participate in our National Night Out. We are grateful for your love and for your gift of community, and we are reminded of your word in Psalm 133:1, "How good and pleasant it is when your people live together in unity." We lift up every community across our nation participating in this event. May these events foster connection, trust, and mutual care, breaking down barriers and building bridges of unity. Lord, let this evening be a beacon of hope where we come together as one, celebrating our shared humanity. Guide our words, actions, and hearts to reflect your loving grace. Jesus Christ, our name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Officer Lewis. Um in our pledge of allegiance to the United States flag and to the Texas State flag will be led by Diamond Watson. She is a 12th grader at Premier High School. She's also an ambassador in her City Council, and she's earned her state certification in phlebotomy and billing and coding to help begin her medical career. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance 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. Please join me in honoring the Texas flag. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Please >> Thank you, Diamond, and good luck in your studies. Ms. Huerta, would you please call roll? Mayor Paulette Guajardo Present. Council members Roland Barrera Here. Xavier Campos Eric Cantu Here. Gil Hernandez Here. Keylan Paxton Here. Okay. Can we see Ms. Paxton also? Okay. Ms. Paxton, your camera's not on right now. There you are. Okay, thank you so much. Okay. Everett Roy Here. Mark Scott Here. Carolyn Vaughn Here. City Manager Peter Zanoni Present. City Attorney Miles Risley Here. Mayor and Council, a quorum of the Council and the required charter officers are present to conduct the meeting. Thank you, Ms. Huerta. So before before we begin today's meetings meeting, I want to take a moment to address an important issue. The Council Chambers is a place of public business, a forum for civic discussion, decision-making, and service to the people of Corpus Christi. It is not a stage for personal attacks, disruptions, or vulgarity, and we will not tolerate violations of decorum. There have been repeated instances of individuals using profanity, shouting over others, and showing blatant disregard for the rules that govern our proceedings. I've allowed space for uh differing viewpoints, and I will continue to welcome respectful disagreement, but we will not allow this Council or the public we serve to be disrespected. So we are here to do the people's work, and let's proceed in that very spirit. If you would like to speak on a specific agenda item during this discussion its discussion, you don't need to sign up beforehand. I will ask for public comment when the Council considers the item. At that time, you may come up to the podium and speak. At this time, I'll ask City Attorney Miles Risley to please review the Council meeting rules of decorum. These rules will also be displayed on the television screens above for your viewing. All citizens must be courteous, polite, and respectful of one another, including the City Council and city staff. The mayor and council members shall be referred to by title and or title surname. All remarks must be addressed to the mayor and council city council, and not to the council members as individuals. Citizens are only permitted to speak on city-related subject matter. Speaking on any non-city-related matter is prohibited. Loud, boisterous, profane, or obscene language or behavior is not allowed. Citizens must refrain from any disturbing noise, demonstration, or other act disrupting to the City Council business. Thank you, Mr. Risley. So please state your name and the city in which you live in before beginning your comment. Citizen comments are limited to 3 minutes, while non-resident comments are limited to 1 minute. A visible timer positioned near the City Secretary's desk will help manage the allotted time. If you have a petition or relevant information, please present it to her, and she will distribute it to us before uh you speak. Thank you. So with that, we're going to move on. We do not have any boards or committee appointments today, so we will move on to section H, which is our consent agenda items 1 through 16. Uh does any council member want to pull any item for discussion? Items 1 through 16. Okay, there being no none, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda items 1 through 16. Make a motion. We have a motion and a second. Please submit your vote. Ms. Paxton Ms. Paxton, would you care to vote? Can we hear you again? I'm sorry, I didn't hear. I I Okay, thank you so much. Okay, the motion carries. Okay everyone. Now we're going to recess for lunch according to the agenda. We're not. We're going to move on. We have no public hearings today. That's section J. We'll move on to section K, which is individual consideration items numbers 17 and 18. Item number 17 is a motion authorizing a short-term non-refundable option for potable water reservation and diversion contract with the Nueces River Authority uh to uh reserve 56,007 acres acre-feet or 50 MGD from Harbor Island Seawater Desal Plant. Mayor, did you want to go into executive session prior to hearing the item? Why don't we go ahead and do that? >> Yeah, his presentation. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Nick Winkelmann, Interim Chief Operating Officer. We do have a presentation. I'll run through the presentation. That's me also being handed out to you as well. Again, this item is for a non-refundable reservation fee for the seawater desalination plant located on Harbor Island. As uh man the project is managed by the Nueces River Authority. The project itself that the plant will be located on Harbor Island, which is located near Port Aransas and Aransas Pass Texas. You can see the general location. The picture on the left, there is a um a yellow dot or marking in the top right-hand corner showing the location of the plant. The picture on the right is more specifically Harbor Island and where some of the um some of the building and the structures will be located. The project itself uh has the intake and the discharge of the seawater desalination plant will be in the Gulf of Mexico. You you can see the uh the general line on location of the line on the topographic map at the top. The line itself leads from Harbor Island. It goes under what's referred to as San Jose Island and out into the Gulf of Mexico. That discharge line will be a a tunnel will be constructed. It's about 80 ft deep. The tunnel itself will have a diameter of uh 12 12 to 14 ft in diameter. Similarly, the the discharge has the same extent, right? And this is uh again, the discharge also goes under San Jose Island. Phase one of the project is has a volume will have a treatment volume of 100 million gallons a day. The project itself will be a uh procurement public-private partnership P3. Then Nueces River Authority will uh have a request for proposals for that P3 and they will manage the entire project. The timeline for construction is estimated to start in March of 2027 and the NRA has estimated that they will be uh producing water by December of 2029. There are permits required for this project. They are the TCEQ intake permit, the TCEQ discharge permit. Uh we've been informed that uh both um that the per the NRA that those draft permits are expected uh by the end of October. Additionally, there's Army Corps of Engineering permits. The permit required for the construction on Harbor Island has been obtained and is in hand. The other permits have not yet been obtained. The reservation or option fee that we're discussing today um would be for 50 million gallons a day and would have a total one-time payment of 2,737 2,737,631 dollars and 62 cents. I want to remind everyone that the project is not yet been designed. Final uh cost for the water is not yet been determined. This is simply a reservation fee to reserve that capacity of that treatment plant. Big component of this project is the lease agreement between the Port of Corpus Christi and the Nueces River Authority. Port of Corpus Christi owns the land where the plant will be. It's approximately 30 acres of land. The lease agreement is a 50-year agreement with an extension. The lease provides the NRA with the right to build and operate a water treatment plant. Also includes water pipeline easements and other improvements uh associated on the island that will be required. This on the final cost of water, the city will receive a 10-cent discount per 1,000 gallons after we have uh identified what the final cost of water will be. A lot of work has is and has been completed on this project to date. Slide number eight, we see a projected timeline of uh of some of the major milestones. So, one thing that has happened is the NRA has advertised what's called a request for qualifications for a design engineer. Once those proposals are submitted, the NRA will review those and select a design engineer. And as you can see, we can see the the timeline of of the project itself and the major milestones. When you look at the overall lease agreement, you can see the the project scope. Again, we've I've already showed you where the intake structure would be. It's approximately 1.3 miles southeast of San Jose Island. And that the tunnel for the intake would be about 80 feet below the surface under the Aransas Channel. The the discharge where the effluent would go, again, that's that's the same type of tunnel. Right, the discharge is actually located 1.8 miles southeast of San Jose Island. So, the intake is closer to the mainland than the discharge. As part of this project, I don't want to jump ahead of myself, but I yeah, as part of this project, there will be a conveyance pipeline and I'll show that to you on the next slide. Other terms of this lease agreement, the NRA may terminate the lease agreement within the first 2 years. The Port of Corpus Christi may terminate if construction does not start within 4 years. Uh the NRA is expected to obtain private financing and issue bonds. The as you can expect uh the island is located within a uh flood plain and a pilot study will be uh a part of the overall project. You can see some of in this slide, you can see uh some of the initial slides of the conveyance line where some of this um water may be taken to from this plant. One thing that I do want to remind everyone and and I brought it up at Friday's workshop as well is the city will have to undergo a separate project to install a connecting conveyance line to lead from this line to the final location where we determine to best suit the city. Uh working with the NRA, they have said that uh if the reservation fee is in hand that the city would be part of the would be able to provide input into their conveyance line cuz there's there's some mutual uh benefits as to how that line their line is designed to help aid in the construction of our line to make it the most cost-effective. One thing that I do want to remind everyone is the TCEQ intake and discharge permits are not yet obtained. They are in process. The cost uh previously, the NRA has uh presented a typical cost of $10 to $15 per 1,000 gallons. However, we need to remember that the that the project is not yet fully designed, so that's yet to be determined. Uh the NRA is actively working on power. As with any desalination plant, power is an important component and the NRA is working to secure that power uh to to the located on Harbor Island. Uh financing is in the works and again, I I guess I jumped ahead, but the city conveyance line has not been designed. That'll be a separate project, but again, we'll have to coordinate with the Nueces River Authority on the most effective way, both cost-effective and and uh a hydraulic from a water hydraulic perspective line to lead that into the city where we'd like to take it. With that, I I'll stand by for questions. I I do want to point out that we do have representatives from the NRA here and we're we're thankful they're here. John Byrum, the executive director, is here as well. Um Who um how did the item get placed on this agenda? Was this you, Peter? Was it um It was I placed it on the agenda. Mhm. Yeah, we've been working with the So, uh some background includes John Byrum recently presented to the city council on this notion of a reservation fee, or not notion, but on the business prospect of a reservation fee. It's been something that has been discussed uh with with John Byrum, myself, and then Drew Molly uh back in late last year of 2020 4, the November-December time frame. >> So, it's been some time. Yeah, John Byrum right briefed us separately. Uh some time went by. I rein- I re-engaged Mr. Byrum on the notion of a reservation fee. He he had been keeping us informed about, you know, if we miss the opportunity to reserve uh water in this 100,000 uh 100,000 uh 100 million gallon operation. If we don't do a reservation fee and others do, then we'll we'll be we'll be out. So, we reintroduced talking with him um and then the city council, we we brought that briefing from John Byrum. So, we're here today to make the to see if council wants to make the decision on do we enter into a reservation fee contract. >> reason I ask is because there are a lot of unknowns. That's correct. >> There are more slides in this presentation that say that, that focus on unknowns and risks and things we don't know than there are slides of of what we do know. Right. >> concerning. Because this was brought forth basically saying, "Let's make a decision to spend taxpayer money, but we don't know." We have I don't know how many pages of we don't know this, we don't know that. So, so why is this coming forth now? What you just said was, "So, we don't miss out." Based on what? Do we know who Who are the people that are already on the list that have put in a reservation, I guess. My other concern, of course, is this these this payment of What is it? We're recommending the 50 million gallons of 2.7 >> 2.7 million for 50 million. I guess what how how did we go How did you come up with that of the 2.1 or the 1.6? Um this is non-refundable. This is >> not going towards, let's just say, you know, if the project does move forward at some point, what happens to that money? So, the the money is non-refundable and it would not go to uh the purchase price of water is yet to be determined. So, it would not be it would not go to that. So, where does it go? It's it's a reservation fee for the plant. So, the phase one of the plan is a 100 million gallons a day and Mayor, the the NRA has shared with us the other entities that have secured water and that was uh one of the items uh that that we would share in exec session. Okay, and we can certainly do that. >> Yes. Um I've just got these concerns about a lot of unknowns. Um And we've been clear on that, Mayor, with there are there's unknown elements of this business. Water rates especially. Sorry to interrupt you. Sorry to interrupt you, but water rates especially. Right. >> So, this is going to affect our water rates, which everyone up here is extremely and always has been very concerned about how does every uh or any project, any water project affect the the ratepayer? Right. >> So, so where we we don't When would we know this? How about >> We'll have to ask John Byrum that, but probably uh into the design phase. You know, I'm not for sure. Yeah, I I would >> Probably uh yeah, go ahead and Yeah, I don't want I don't want to speak for the NRA, but I I would assume once we're they're further into the design phase, they'll start to have uh estimates and and projections and then it would essentially be confirmed at the at the end of the design phase, but but >> the NRA has assured us is that we would be in the loop throughout the entire design prog progress so that we could share updates um to the council and to the city. Mhm. Okay, well, I I again I'm I know we've got someone else wanting to speak, but um my big concern is not having any kind of um oversight over over our water rates and I feel like that should there should be more information given to this council before we go spend you know, 2.7 million dollars. Right. Yeah, we would provide it, Mayor, if we had it or if even the NRA had it. They just don't have it at this point. >> Right, which is my point. >> plan hasn't been designed yet. >> I mean, you if if this is brought to council, it seems like we need a lot of this information and it doesn't seem like we should have this kind of information in order to make a a just uh decision. Yeah. Uh Councilman Barerra. Thank you, Mayor. Um so help me understand the conveyance system. So, are we designing it or are they designing it? I'm I'm confused. Uh I would what point and then what's Is there additional cost we have to pay for the conveyance system? Sh- Sure, sure, Councilman. So, the they the NRA will have a um they'll have one project for the design of the plant and the construction of the plant. That'll be with the the P3. They will the NRA will have another project on their books to design a conveyance system leading away from the plant on Harbor Island. Now, the other part of it is the city needs to connect to that line that that conveyance line that the NRA is constructing and get the water to where we want it to go. So, there will be a separate project, it'll be a capital project. It'll be a capital project for us. >> That's correct, yes, sir. Okay, and then have we determined what that would be? What that would cost? No, we don't. Uh we haven't determined that, right? So, there's a lot of engineering that still has to still has to take place and that's where uh the city would would be able to provide input and work with NRA on their line so that we could determine the most cost-efficient place for us to connect to. Um Okay. But but I yeah, I don't have those I don't have those It's not designed yet. >> Yeah, it's a big question in addition. Um and then where would the source of these funds go? Where would the money go? Where what the source Where what's the source of the 2.7 million? Oh, yes, sir, I can answer that. So, in in our budget in the CCW budget for the year, we set aside X amount of dollars for for cash funding or pay-go funding of capital projects. So, because this is a one-time payment, so we we're going to use 2.7 million dollars of those funds towards this and uh we are hopeful that the our capital plan that the bids we've seen a trend where the bids are coming in under budget, so that could help make up the difference. But because this is an option fee, it's not an asset, we we need to pay with it out of our out of our budget, right? And then um how did we come up with 50 MGD? Sure. So, um there's a couple of things at play. Uh I would definitely say this is a future water source, right? And we're trying to secure um water for the future and it it's one thing we we've talked quite a bit about the the NRA did present options for 30, 40, and 50 million gallons a day. Uh that's in the agenda memo, that's in the in the presentation. Um at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we're we're planning the best to have enough of future water for the city. Yeah, Councilman, just just to add to that. So, um what we do know is the La Quinta permit that the city uh submitted to the TCEQ about 6 years ago uh for a second desal plant the city would construct and own on the La Quinta channel. Uh that permit was for 40 million gallons of water and there was some uh there was some analysis put into that uh size that was determined then. That included a second um industrial customer coming in the area similar to Gulf Coast Growth Ventures. So, at the time I think their water needs were about 24 million gallons. So, the notion of 40 million would have been enough for another big industrial customer and then and then some more growth. So, that plant was sized as as sized for 40 million gallons. So, uh so one option for us to recommend to council could have been the 40 and that would have had some justification. That's the permit for the La Quinta channel. Uh but we said since we since water is is uh is a big issue and and having having adequate supply, we said let's recommend the 50. Okay, so I'm I'm glad you brought that up then. So, so if the next plan was La Quinta, so that's another 40. I mean, right now with with the other initiatives of of Evangeline, South Texas Water Authority, that's another probably 50 in addition to our water wells, which is another What was it? 28? 28, yeah. 28 plus the 70 that we get from Mary Rhodes, so that's 100 roughly 150 somewhere in that neighborhood. And then La Quinta is a 100 is another 40. Right. >> That's that's 190. Whereas in La Quinta, the cost I remember back in 2019 was $2 billion. You can nod your head yes and I'll say he's nodding yes or no. You or just you can come to the microphone or Nick, you can answer the question. I'm going to I'm going to let Ed Savana answer that cuz of the the history to it. $2 billion in for La Quinta in in I'm I'm just I'm I'm I was being facetious with you. I don't >> Don't worry, you don't You can you can credit me. A lot of people do. Yeah, I don't think we had an estimate. Did we have an estimate for a plant? We did, but but it was in the the $2 billion range. >> Okay, how much was it? It was a it was uh a little over um 400 uh 400 million dollars. And this is in the So, what is it today? I don't know exactly. Okay, okay, okay. >> Well, that's okay. That's okay. That's just what I'm trying to clarify. So, all I'm saying is that we have all these initiatives and we have all these initiatives and and and and I've always said, "You know what? I'm I'm open-minded, you know, as Mike as Mark says, it's an and question." Right. And and I know there's not another Exxon coming for a long, long time. Es- especially if they watch the council meetings. So, uh what is it? There's not a not not not anybody coming for a long, long time. And data centers now, which I've heard of three that have already walked away, that's only 3 MGD. So, you know, that's what I'm saying. How are we getting to for a project that still has no budget? H- Help me understand how you how you how you what what >> Yeah, so, you know, the So, as we talked in that last council meeting and I'm going to take from Hernandez's uh his uh statements, but we there's short-term, mid-term, and long-term water supplies. So, Evangeline and um and our own Nueces wells are short-term. That's what's going to help us uh avert a um a curtailment next November. Mid-term projects include projects like Seven C's, potentially CC Polymers, um uh those are mid-term projects. This is a longer-term project, probably the the four to five, maybe six years out. Uh we this council does need to have a discussion on the La Quinta permits. We uh and since I submitted the application about 5 years ago, there's been very little conversation and we haven't brought it to council. Uh we do have the intake permit but not the discharge permit. We do have the same constraints that the community expressed to this council which is the bay. It would intake and discharge into the bay. And so the same arguments that were made for the inner harbor most likely would be made for this Laquinta site. And then one more point to recognize is in a recent meeting that I had with the mayor of Portland they object to the site. They don't want the plant there. So we have to work with the city of Portland as well. So the council has to decide do we continue with the Laquinta permit or not or site. We know that Brian Williams the general manager for the San Pat water district has put sent a letter to me about two weeks ago requesting that we transfer everything over to him. He has interest in pursuing those permits so that's something the city council can consider. We'll have to have that conversation cuz I do owe him a response. So so there's various things in the works. It's not every one of these projects. I'm with you. I'm with you. That's one reason why I I see this is premature because we haven't answered a lot of those questions. I mean if if San Pat San Patricio water system or water authority decides to take on take that on and this council votes to offer them those permits which I I wouldn't support but I've already been on the losing end a lot lately. But you know even then it's it's it's still it's just 40 MGD in comparison off of the all the numbers that you you brought up CC Palmers. I didn't even include that. Yeah. >> And then the same thing with Barney Davis. Barney Davis is another 100 million gallons. >> Mhm. Which I think I think that's the thing before we start you know pulling out the checkbook because somebody has an idea. And I and I think it's it's viable. I'm not saying it's not. I just think that we're premature in moving forward. You know so that's >> Right. Yeah. Let me just add to that councilwoman so we're trying to and it seems like in every one of our water and really most of our business risk risk mitigation is is something. So one of the risks here one of the risks here is that we could not have an opportunity to do a reservation for any of the water. There could be a big user. There could be an existing customer. There could be another city another county up the up the up the road up the distribution system as as Nick showed you. And it could be that we don't have the choice anymore. And that's a real risk that John Byrum has talked to us about. So it's a it's really this if we were to do it sooner it alleviates the risk that we can't do it at all because other customers or other cities or other entities have bought the reservation fee and and when when no longer avail it's no longer available for us. >> You know what? I agree with you. The thing is is that there's still a lot of unanswered questions before we pull out 2.7 million dollars. And then I don't know what 5.4 million dollars is going to do as part of a reservation fee. It'll probably go to engineering fees. But there's going to be a lot more than that. There's and then and then really the the necessity in my opinion is in order to obtain financing you have to have customers. And we're a big customer. So I think as a big customer we're much more stronger stronger negotiating power to be able to engage in that. And so I think this action is premature. In any business in any in in any business transaction that we would move forward in something that's prudent. But >> Okay. That's all I have. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We have councilwoman uh Oh my gosh. Thank you. Paxton. I'm sorry Kaylin. She's on the telephone and she'd like to speak. Councilwoman? There. Okay. Thank you mayor. Um Thank you Nick for the presentation and thank you Peter for that recap. Um we know the thing that we have promised the public is that we will take earnest effort in securing a long-term feasible sustainable and viable water supply. We have sent numerous messages to our partners along the well sites that we that they are a priority to us as well that their needs are a priority to us. This is the long-term in my opinion solution because we cannot keep those wells at full capacity to perpetuity. We just can't. And so with the 24 from Evangeline 74 from Mary Roads and now the 50 that's proposed here that gets us to 148. And and that is just above what our summertime average is. That is just above what we currently use. So this is a pivotal project for the future. It's very important. And this site is happening. And we have watched this body. We have watched our organization come together rally our partners rally our stakeholders and get behind projects and find ways to mitigate risk overcome challenges and make something successful. And this is our opportunity to do that now. This is the future. We've said that a hundred times. Marine desal is the future for a long-term water supply. So this to me is is a crucial crucial project. And a 2.7 2.8 million what we're doing is we're we're claiming a part of that. We have all of this water around us all of this water. As the city of Corpus Christi as a leader in a regional water supplier not be included in a project that is going to be a huge piece of the puzzle of supplying water for not just our region but the state. So this is a very important piece. And Peter I know that we've talked about this a number of times many times. And I truly appreciate that it has gotten to this agenda today because you have put in a lot of work in this. Our CCW team has put a lot of work in this. There are some unknowns still but we have a whole lot more knowns now than we did a few months ago. And it continues to move forward. And so I think in fact I know that we can rally together is securing these projects and making sure they're successful. I said that last week in our water workshop the best way to make something succeed is to not let it fail. And so with that I make a motion to approve. Thank you councilwoman. Councilwoman Campos. Thank you mayor. I'm sorry. What was her motion? To move forward. Oh. Okay. Um Well I totally disagree. And I'm I'm actually going to go on record and say I agree with councilwoman Barrera on this one issue that there are I mean first of all we need to know what is what is our goal. We received some you know very um Um I think valid information from one of our constituents and as to that was that has been I guess my main question is how much water is enough. And from what I can tell it's between 120 and 130 MGD for the residents and for the population growth. I I'm also and dismayed that the water department is actually recommending this. This is a stack recommendation. With so many unknowns and I personally you know I think everyone knows how much I don't feel that industry is something that really contributes to the quality of life here in our area. And you know we've we've opened the doors to them and we're still in the same boat. So we you know our air quality is not as great our you know land uses usage is it's not you know it's just not sustainable. And so yes I do not agree with this. I think you know I I think like I said I think desalination should be the last resort. I also feel that we really do seriously need to have a conversation as to how much water we actually need for our population. That should be the the workshop that we need. Um also you know again we go we keep missing I don't know how we jumped to this without actually looking at conservation. Um I have one of my my colleagues in the for the greater good that went to Gills just a you know a few days ago and I don't know how many gallons that thing holds but it's I mean not like the rain barrels but if every business could adopt one of those I mean I don't know how many gallons. I wish I had the actual amount but um to start actually conserving some of this water I think we would go a long way. So no I do not support this. Thank you councilman. Councilwoman Vaughn. Well with all fairness I don't think that this is any different than the desal that we wanted for 1.2 billion dollars. The difference is it's a 1.2 billion was way more. So there are a lot of unanswered questions. There were for us on the desal. So we're not going to get them all answered. We weren't on the D-cell either, but yet some were here willing to go 1.2 billion without getting all the answers. So, I have some questions. I'm not willing just to go for 50 MGDs. My question, how much how many MGDs are you guys proposing right now before you even start design? Do you know that or does Mr. John need to answer it? Well, there yeah, that no, they're going to start design. Like like I said, there is there's an RFQ that has been published for firms to submit for design. So, that that's ongoing and then there then they will also do an RFP for the the P3 partnership, right? So, that's moving forward. >> What are they planning on doing? Or is their plan to begin with 50 MGDs, 100 MGDs? 100 MGDs? >> the plan is to start with 100 million gallons a day. >> Okay, and how much have they sold? I think 30 is what they told us. >> Yeah, 38. 38? >> They have reservation fees for 38 million gallons. So, I'm assuming this money for the reservation fee is going to be for design to get you guys started. Because there is no money I'm assuming to start it unless you have the reservation fees to get it going. Am I correct? Yes no. Come on. Yeah, come on up, John. Yeah. I mean, you have to have money, so >> I Yeah, I just don't want to speak for for John Byrum. That's all. Yeah. I'm Mayor Council John Byrum, executive director of Nueces River Authority. What the reservation fee actually does is reserve capacity in the treatment of the water, okay? So, it it really doesn't do a whole lot except reserve that capacity. It does contribute to the the cost of forming the the project and and developing the project and moving it forward. >> Okay, that's basically what I said. Okay, okay. I just want to clarify. It's it's it's a reservation fee in treatment capacity. >> Because you guys have to have money to start. >> correct. >> Okay, I'm going to ask some questions you may not answer, but I I last night I sat and I thought, now if this were my company, would I do this? That was a big if for me. You know, I don't have a problem taking chances, but this is a big chance if something happens, it doesn't go because we don't get the money back. But it's not 1.2 billion dollars either. So, have you got support from the state level that you think the state is going to come in here and help you? And you're talking about financing. Do you have an area, someone that you're going to get this financed with that you can share? Well, we have talked to the Texas Water Development Board. And the Texas Water Development Board is very interested in helping us with the project. In fact, that's one of the reasons I can't give you a price today because if we get a state development our state participation loan, which now they call a water a board participation loan in a swift fund is what it's called. If we get that, then that will offset some of the cost for 10 years. In other words, we are going to we're planning on installing an 84-in line, which is a lot more capacity than we need today for this 100 MGD. So, if we get that installed and the state agrees to participate, which they certainly were listening to us that day and they say, yes, we are agreeing, you know, that we will listen and we will look at the application when it comes in and they have to rate that with the other applications at the time. But if we get the state participation loan, then that offsets a lot of the cost for 10 years where the rate base can be built can be built up and it may be built up to you know, the revenues from this could go to 150 or 200 MGD at that point in time to help offset that cost. So, that's one of the reasons that we can't really say what the the final cost is today, you know? And we don't want to have to say a number today and then come back at a later date and say it's not true. But I will say this, we have built in many safeguard, many measures into our plan to control cost. One of those is when when the P3 partner is secured and they start designing the plant, when they get to 60%, then they have to go through a procurement process for the construction of that facility so that we will know exactly what that facility is going to cost at that point in time. There won't be any other haggling after that point. We will know and we will set a water price and agreement based on that cost at that point. Okay, and the 30 MGDs that you have sold, can you tell me this? Is it in this area that you sold it? Is it up further in Texas? It it's up further. It's up further in because we have agreed with the city manager not to go in and and poach customers. >> That's good. We don't want to do that. We haven't talked to anybody in this area. We don't want to talk to people in this area until the water provider in the area the region water in the area has made their decision, you know? And then sooner or later we're getting calls from people >> Mhm. all the time. Hey, we want to reserve water from you and they're in this area. If it's incremental water, then what we would do is we would probably talk to them about a reservation and then someone else would have to serve that. You know, we would have to transfer that at a later date because we don't want to be the water provider. We want to be a wholesale provider. So, the mere fact that you have some interest further up in Texas, that kind of gives me hope that the state is going to support that because of all that's going on around Texas as we have droughts in so many areas. So, that kind of tells me that the state's going to help you guys because it to me what I thought this project was that it wasn't going to be like a 50 MGD that you hoped in the future 3 400 MGD so that you could help the state of Texas. Am I right in that? >> That that this this project was modeled after SB7, which is now HJR7, yes. So, it fits that bill to right as they wrote it. Okay, okay. I think that's all for you. I have a couple for Nick. Thank you. Okay, the line that you said the conveyance line that you said you would have to build, do you have any idea how long it is? You know, a lot of that depends on the the conveyance line that the NRA is constructing from the plant. So, I I I can't comment on that, right? Right now. Okay, and as far as the financing goes, can you not use that money? What is the drought exemption fee for the industry? Can you not use that money? No, yeah, as someone saying no, so it has to be for construction you know, construction of a of a drought-proof water Well, it will be eventually. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I I did the problem is this is a option fee reservation fee, right? There's there's no asset. There's no asset to it. Okay. All right. I think you have to do something. I think that we have to have something for future and I understand that. But do I want to go all in? No. I don't want to go all in. I don't want to do 50 MGDs. I think we are taking a big risk here and you don't get anything with that risk sometimes either. So, but it's not 1.2 billion dollars because I believe this project's going to go. I really do. I mean, he's got lots of support and I believe he's going to have support from the state. But it is a big risk for the city to take. So, if we did 30 MGDs, what would we say that would cost, Nick? So, it's 1. Yeah, 1.6 million. It's and that's one time. It's that that's total. It's not two payments. It's one payment of 1.6 million. >> I thought we paid that this year and then we paid another next year. That's not correct? >> We We So, we've had multiple meetings with the NRA and the the the approach is it's uh one payment. >> It's just one payment. >> one payment for 2 years. Yeah. Just one time payment for 2 years and that's and that would reserve it for until the plant's built. >> Till the plant's built? >> Right. >> 4 years if it's not built, we don't get our money back. That's correct. >> scrapped. What's that? We It's just scrapped if we don't get our money back. We just don't get >> Yeah. Correct. So, it's yeah, it's not refundable. There's no It'll be used as part of Mr. Byrum mentioned it, but it's going to be part of the design or acquisition of part of the the technologies for the the cleaning of the water. Okay, that's all. Thank you. Thanks. Mr. Byrum, can I ask you to come up, please, sir? So, Mr. Byrum, you're you're you have faith in the city of Corpus Christi, right? I What was that? >> You have faith in the city of Corpus Christi as a potential partner, clearly. >> Um I I think that we all want um want this to work, this project to work. I I don't think there's any disagreement in looking having to look at the future. And and I believe personally that that that particular project of that magnitude is probably 7 years away from what I've been told in terms of building that and and and having an actual opera having it actually be operational. But here's the thing. I think wanting something and proving it are two different things. So, Peter, do you have the plan that Mr. Byrum referred to? I'm I would imagine. The plan? Yes. What plan? >> I I don't know. He mentioned a plan. So, I'm sure you have it. Are we talking about the design and construction or >> know. He said you have a plan and the >> Okay, what plan were you talking about, Mr. Byron? Well, I was talking about the P3 plan and the way we plan on structuring that, you know. Yeah, we have it. We Nick presented that, so it's on slide eight, Mayor. It lays out the timeline plan. And Mr. Byron talked about the P3 concept, but it would be designed and then at 60% Okay, I'm I'm so sorry to interrupt. I'm I'm talking about an actual not a one-page slide plan. I'm talking about an actual plan of how this entire project You have a 100 MGD There There has to be like a plan, an actual plan. I'm sure it's a I'm sure Mr. Byron has some more planning documents and we just summarized it on slide eight with his input. Well, I think it's important though that as a city manager who is recommending us to spend $2.7 million on something that we've not even seen a plan on that we should have. And And that is my point. I think that this is absolutely a project, Mr. Byron, that that needs to happen for the future. I like to categorize our water situation as immediate need, which would be the Mary Roads pipeline, which would be our water wells, which would be I guess that's probably uh reuse, um and then short-term, which is something within 1 and 3 years, and then long-term, you know, which is 4 to 5 to 8 to 10 and and beyond. Um And And I think this falls in the third category and I think it's extremely important that we plan for that. But I'm very uncomfortable with not knowing Peter, you as a city manager know what's in this slide. Right. You know, and we had meetings, you and I did with Mr. Byron, and I appreciate that. Um but I don't see that we have more information that we should in order to make a decision like this. And I understand the Well, we want a reservation. We want to make sure we're not left out, but you're talking about $2.7 million. And the biggest part of this and y'all wrote it here, water rates are unknown. Final cost, don't know. Design, don't have it. Power, don't have it. There's no financing. There's no permits. All of these things can absolutely be addressed, but why not address some of these, you know, we're a good partner, and come back and say, "Hey, I get it. You're the city of Corpus Christi. You have to respond to your ratepayer." Right now, we're going to look at our ratepayer and say, "We don't know." So, what if you you got some of this info and you said, "Let me come back to y'all city and I'll get you some hard numbers and and I'll get the city manager a real business plan that you can look at and then make a better recommendation based on way more data than what we have today?" Because I think we all want to do this and and some may. I can't do that in good faith because what am I making What am I making this decision on? It's a lot of unknowns that I think you will know, but I'd like to see those brought back to us. What What I don't want to do is bring an unknown back to you that the price goes way up. Okay? That's not good for anybody. We know that we can build this plant and we know that we can build it within the 10 to 15 bucks that worldwide desal water cost. Okay? We know that for a fact. We can do it in including the long conveyance line. If we get state funding, that price goes down. If we don't We will get state funding, ma'am. I mean, this the SB 7 was built for this. The problem The problem that I see with SB 7 is now they're talking 2029 before that money's actually available. So, what we would probably end up doing is phasing the conveyance portion of this so that we get the southern basin down here filled and move forward. We're hearing from your customers on a daily basis. They're calling us wanting water and we're telling no, we can't serve you with water. And the reason we do that is because I didn't make it a commitment to this man and I I plan on honoring that commitment to a certain point, but somebody's got to get these folks some water, ma'am. And that's what we are we are dealing with and we know for a fact that the number of people that are calling us wanting water now has increased three, fourfold just in the last 2 weeks. So, this plant is going to be made. The 100 million gallons is going to be reserved. We had talked with the city of Corpus Christi, which is the largest city in our basin, somebody we would want to partner with. It And I said it before and I'll say it again, it would be a shame to run an 84-in line and right through this and no one get any water from this basin, this part of the basin. It would be sad. I understand. Thank you. Councilman Roy. Mayor, can I just add one thing for the record? So, the We have been very clear that we don't have a lot of business details on this. This been clear since day one and and Byron in his presentation uh to the council a few weeks ago uh said the same thing. So, just I I just want the record to know that that we know that. I know there's not a lot of business detail. Uh but as Mr. Byron just said, um there are people calling him. One of the cities I visited with in San Pat County told me they're looking at They're one of our customers today indirectly. They're looking at buying a reservation fee. And so, we could have customers leave and go to some other water entity or directly to the the plant. So, the business deal here is that we spend ratepayer money. It's not taxpayer money. It's ratepayer money to potentially have a long-term water supply. There's a lot of risks. There's a lot of unknowns. But what we do know at 36 million gallons already reserved well north of here, and more calls coming in every day to NRA, we could miss that opportunity. And I would hate to be the city manager who helped in that, missed that opportunity when one day there's a huge pipe going past Corpus Christi up north selling water and people look out the window and say, "Why Why didn't the city get into this business with the NRA?" So, that's why we're recommending it. We know there's risk. We know there's not a lot of information. We professionally think it's it's a it's a good risk to take. And And And it buys us a partnership with the NRA that's been around since 1935. So, what I what I am saying though, Peter, is why not get a little more Not a little, a lot more information. I don't think that is I do not believe that that is too much to ask. I really do not. The answer is if somebody else calls John up tomorrow, Mr. Byron, and says we want 50 MGD, then we're then this is it. He's not calling us back. And that could happen. He just told us that. It could be that somebody else north of here or in this region says, "I'll I'll give you 2.7 million for 50 million in reservations." And then we're out. And we don't know that it's the he'll have to explain it, but that's the business model that he presented to us. We didn't make it up. The city didn't make it up. That's his business model, the NRA's business model. We respect that. And that's the that's the choice we make. Either we do it or we don't. But if if we don't, then we could miss out. Right. But then of course, this is a long-term solution. And as as the council member mentioned, we have permits for another long-term solution kind of sitting in the shadows. I know we need to talk about that, but that's also out there. Again, Peter, it it is this It is the people sitting on this dais that are going to answer to the people sitting out there. You're not going to have to. We are going to have to say What is Well, you're not. You're not. You're not. We are. And we're going to have to tell them, "Here's what your rate is. We don't know." It's uh because what you just said is going to be repeated. We We there's a lot of risk. We don't know, but we think you should do it anyway. And And if that's your stance, I respect it. But But I think I think that Mr. Byron absolutely can get us more information, bring it back. You know we're going to be a good partner, and then we can make a better decision based on that. Councilman Roy. You know, when you look at the the parallels that are here as far as the And I have to I mean, the you look at the inner harbor. The information that we had and collected with the inner harbor, the studies, the permits, all the things that was done to try to relieve the unknown and get as much information as we could so that we could have a conversation um with our ratepayers and the and the community. And so, we went along and as you know, the inner harbor hit a brick wall. And that brick wall was primarily over the fact that we couldn't really get a really good answer on the cost and the comfort and and and what where where the crux of the issue was, do you go to the 30 to the 60% and then hope that maybe the cost level is out or do you take in consideration that when Cue it and others talked about, "Well, really the cost is going to be 1.2, maybe 1.5." I've even heard as much as 1.8. And so, we had to make a decision. Now, we're looking at a situation where we don't have a lot of information. And I do think it's ironic that we have a lot more I mean, I think it's fair to say at this point in time that when you take a look at what we were doing in the in terms of information and the studies and everything that went into the inner harbor, we definitely had more information. And I think it's ironic that we have council members that are are are willing to go forward in this environment with less information and talk about our long-term needs cuz they're both long-term product projects. So, now we're at a point but I think the thing that probably rubs me the worst on this is that when you look at page number nine, the NRA basically says that they may terminate within the first 2 years. The port may terminate if construction does not happen within 4 years. But yet, they have the the gall and the nerve to sit there and put us under a contract that says you put the money up and we don't get our money back during it no anytime. Who enters an agreement like that? If I'm a business person, I'm not going to enter agreement like that. You can get your money back. The port can get their money back at a certain point in time but you won't give me my money back. That's a that's a that's a that's a no-go for me. At 30 million MGD, at 50 million MGD, or 100 MGD, if you want a level playing field, you put us all on a level playing field. I don't care what the explanation is. That's pretty simple. That's all I got. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Hernandez. Thank you, Mayor. Um you know, a lot of this has to do with conveyance right? And in the discussions uh that I remember having in Austin with in Senator Perry's office, the idea that he had was the state was going to participate in the conveyance of a lot of the water. But the presentation wasn't really specific on the timeline for that. Do you have any information on on the timeline on when that's built, how it's going to be constructed, who's going to be responsible for it? There was no timeline Yeah, including So, Councilman, are you talking about the conveyance line that the NRA will be constructing, right? So, that's that's the RFQ that that's out and advertised on the street. I can let John come up and answer specific questions but but I I do want to reiterate, you know, once that line is in design, then we will we will coordinate with them to better design our portion. >> 10 right up on the presentation? This one? >> Yes, so page 10, I yeah, here we go. So, that's the the pipeline conveyance corridor that the NRA has proposed and I I think you've got specific questions on their pipeline projects, I'll let John come up and answer that. Councilman Hernandez, we currently have a RFQ on the street so to speak. We've got it advertised uh with a receiving date later this month. I'm not sure the exact date as I stand here but it is for the design of the pipeline okay? What we hope to do is have that pipeline um in four different segments and then a pump station segment so that all the pump stations are the same and all the pipeline design are pretty much the same. So, we will take that we will receive those RFQs submittals on those RFQs sometime later this month. By the 1st of the year, we hope to have those under contract selected and under contract. Uh we'll take those uh uh and start designing the project the conveyance project at that point in time. And how is it how is the conveyance going to be paid for? Is that through state funds? Yes. Yes, we will we will apply for for funding to the extent that we can. If they want us to wait 2 years, then probably not because we got people that are signed up that can't wait 2 years two additional years for water for us to wait for funding. So, we would probably go to the private market with some of that funding. Using the same criteria that the state uses so that we could go back at a later date and get state funding for it. Okay. Um Look, Councilman, you have two different projects here, right? You have the desalination plant that's on Harbor Island and then you have the conveyance project. I would recommend you get with our folks with the deal with Mary Rhodes pipeline and look at some lessons learned associated with that. Uh if you ever if you get that to that point. Um with this contract, what does this obligate us to? For the for the reservation fee due, if we reserve 50 million gallons a day, are we obligated to take all 50 million gallons of that? There will be a contract presented to you at a future date that will require you to contract with us for the the purchase of that 50 gallons 50 million gallons on an annual basis. Yes, sir. Yeah, Councilman, it doesn't the reservation fee at 50 million or any of the millions presented doesn't doesn't make us have to buy that in the future? Okay, so the reservations are what we are willing to risk for the maximum amount of whatever water we want to get. Right, it's just saying they'll reserve that much for us. >> Okay, so Peter, to to Councilwoman Compuses and and concerns about how much water we need, have we had a projection of what kind of water we'll need during that time frame taken into consideration some of the projects that we're doing? Yeah, we do. It's part of our region end planning. You know, you go to those meetings. Part of our region end planning, part of our own modeling. Uh one thing that you and I have talked about and we talked about it at the day here is that 70 million gallons of water used to come from our two western reservoirs which are today at 12% and drying up every hour. So, if if we just without giving you a big presentation which we will be doing, we almost need 70 million gallons to replenish to replace, I should say, western reservoirs that are that aren't performing. That's just a simple takeaway but we're going to show them in the >> might be some an exercise that we need to go through in terms of communicating this to the public of how much water we need to avoid curtailment, Right. >> how much water we need to start watering the grass again, and how much water we need to start growing again. Correct. >> Okay, so you have some various points of how much water and then you line up the projects with those water need. Correct. >> Right? As to how much water from this particular project, that particular project, uh you know, and line it up. Um I can tell you from my perspective, I don't know what that is. Right? Lining all that up. I can probably go and do all of it pull all the the the information that we have and but in terms of having it lined out, Right. you know, and some of those projects may not work. Right? Right. >> not be able to buy the CC Polymers plant. We may not be able to you know, the the time frame for some of these projects may not hit. You know, we originally started talking about 30 million gallons a day with South Texas Water Authority but then it went down to 10 or 13, actually. Correct. Right? So, we want to have some, you know, aspect of what that is. Um If And I understand you have like 30 million gallons currently reserved right now. >> 38. 38 million gallons? >> Yeah. And you know, to the response of who would do that, you know, there are some folks that have already signed up for that. There's others that are ready to sign up for that. Some of which are either direct or direct indirect or direct direct customers of the CCW at this point in time. So, we we wanted to appear and and you know, we've been talking with Peter and and and Nick about a reservation. Uh we wanted to give the city time to look at this. We've been talking for a good while about this and you know, I don't I don't know what other information we've built a lot of things into our plan to keep costs under control. The developer of our project can be a contractor but if he's a contractor, he's not guaranteed to construct the plant because he may not be low bid on that plant. And you know, those kind of things we're building in. We learn as we go. Mary Rhodes, we participated in Mary Rhodes. It was a triangle. It was the Port of Corpus Christi, the city of Corpus Christi, and the NRA that put Mary Rhodes in you know, originally. So, we wanted to try to do that again, make the triangle work again. Um and offer you folks water. Okay, so you know, I have to say you know, I wish we were had more leadership in this but we we chose not to do that on our end um by vote of council. So, here we are. I do want to have I do ask Peter, have we had this conversation with our customers? Obviously, one of the issues that we had previously is that we weren't really including them in the discussions for the decision-making for for the cost of some of these projects. So, have we talked to San Patricio Municipal Water District? Have we talked to South Texas Water Authority? Have we talked to Mathis, Beeville about some of these projects that we're trying to get online and what the cost structure is going to be? So, yeah, Councilman, I can absolutely answer that. So, so we have I mean, we have meetings with those entities frequently. They're regularly scheduled meetings. And all of those entities have the same access to the updates that that CCW provides on a weekly basis. And and of course, any like the workshop on Friday. Okay. They're aware of all of that as well. So, have you So, have you taken a poll of our customers and see if they want us to participate in the Harbor Island project? No, we have not taken a poll of our customers. >> Have you asked them, "Do you want us to Do you want to obligate ourselves to this so that because they'll be on the hook as well?" They are aware of all of our efforts in terms of water supply, all of our efforts in all of those details that we went through in depth on Friday and that we do every week and in the planning memo. They are aware of that. And it's been made very clear that we are pursuing both short-term water, right, and also long-term water. Okay, you see where I'm getting with this. You know, I want What I'm looking for is participation and buy-in from our customers, our wholesale customers in terms of what we're doing. You know, I I you know, we're making unilateral decisions for you know, multiple organizations because we're the regional water supplier. Now, I want to make sure we have buy-in on some of these things. And maybe this vote is a little premature in terms of us moving forward with this. Um cuz I don't you know, I want to make sure that we they fully understand the risks and rewards associated with moving forward. Now, you know, I I don't want to have a vote and then it go up or down one way or the other and then we have to come back and revisit it. So, it maybe we postpone this for another week. Yeah, Councilman, we do have a meeting Thursday Esteban with a it's one of our regularly scheduled meetings with all our regional partners. There's about 30 plus entities. So, we can ask we can be more specific. One of the customers one of the this the second largest city in this region has said they're going to enter into a reservation fee cuz they lost confidence in us. But that's just that's just one statement that was made. So, we can get a poll. We're going to be meeting with a >> Well, if that's the case, then we can if there is other communities that are looking to reserve this water, then we can reserve it together as opposed to individual. >> Exactly. That's what I told the person that that we're planning on we're planning on putting the contract >> participate by providing us the funding and we put it together and move forward with it. That way we have buy-in. Okay, thank you. >> We could we could propose that. >> Councilman. Councilman Scott. Uh Councilman Hernandez, I was note I wrote premature. That's the word on one of my sheets of paper. Uh I um Uh I talked to a couple of our large volume users that continue to be bewildered that we're going to have a conversation about $15 water when we had a project at, you know, $9 water. And that's you could argue that the nine was going to go up. You could argue that the 15 NRA water's number is going to go up. But that What I get back from large volume users is like, "God doggit, you had the answer and you passed on it." Um I think that we're having people sign up because they do question our ability. But I think it's fascinating to me that our blended water rates are $6, right? Six-ish. Um and if the Harbor comes in at 15, it just would be fascinating to me that someone a customer of ours would move from $6 water to $15 water. So, I I I question the reality of eventually someone moving um you know, off of us into the NRA system. Now, you I guess if you thought it through, you would go, "Well, but if we're going to add other water supplies, our number's going to go up to eight." I don't know. But still, if it's 10 and then NRA is 15. So, I I I I hear that. I wrote a note left out versus new business. I mean, I It It It would seem to me as we have we have a number we have to meet, right? Because we want to keep the rate at $6, right? We don't want to lose 30 mgd off the system because then all of us in this room are going to pay more to to fund the to pay for the fixed fixed costs. Um But if somebody else wants to come along and pay, you know, $15 water and and build a to do whatever if they want to bring new jobs to Corpus Christi, who am I to argue? As it you know, there's a benefit to the region. If So, if NRA is successful and they build 100 mgd and they sell, I don't know, make this up, 25 to a a big project that hires 400 people, I think that's awesome, you know, and that is So, the new growth is not an issue to me, right? So, we don't want to miss out on the new growth. I guess I might be okay with that. I don't want to be left out and and lose 30 mgd and I get that. But I but I would counter that again going from $6 to $15 water. I'm guessing they don't actually leave us. I I'm Peter, I'm going to reiterate what I did last week that I'm really um disappointed that we haven't gotten the business plan. And I know you say there isn't one, but and I I just it is bewildering to me that one doesn't exist. I mean, we know we're hiring they're hiring Black & Veatch, John, and and you know what those costs are going to be and you know what these reservation fees are going to be. And it would just seem to me you would at least have a business plan that gets us uh to the construction cost estimates uh which is 32 months out. Or if nothing nothing more than at least the uh the design of the desal facility which is 30 months out. Um I think the NRA is fantastic and I've enjoyed and I hope I continue to enjoy working with you guys in regional water planning group. I'm thankful for your existence in getting the Mary Rhodes pipeline. Uh it is difficult for me to support uh giving $2.7 million uh with this non-refundable without a plan in front of me that shows that they're going to get to the end and get the project done. So, that's why in my best-case scenario, I say it's premature. I'm actually a little more agitated than that. Uh but I think my allergies are keeping me from expressing that. So, I'm just going to go with I think it's premature and this should be a conversation at a later date. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Vaughn. I'm a little agitated, too, because I sit here and I listen to this and I think, "What hypocrites?" I'm sorry. You were willing to put $50 million into a desal plant for $1.2 billion. You didn't have all the facts. You never It's never was going to be $9 water. Give me a break. We never had the exact amount because we didn't know what the plant was going to cost. And you sit up here now and I think you have a bad taste in your mouth because it's not the inner harbor. Well, either you want desal or you don't. You want water or you don't. So, we can sit here and we can tell the public we're not going to do anything. We're willing to spend 50 million and then 60 million was the other price we were going to spend. I don't like $1.6 million. I don't like doing that. But if it helps us to get a reservation fee in the hopes that we do have a desal plan out there where the water's going to the Gulf and we don't have to worry about it destroying our bay, I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to do it for 30 mgd, not 50, but 30. The other point is this, Mr. Sanoni, you are the city manager. I don't think you've been allowed to be the city manager for a while for several years back because I don't think the council allowed you to. I think you have a majority on here that want you to be the city manager. I'm going to listen to you today and I want you to tell us what you think we need to do. And I hope this council listens to you, but some may not. But I'm willing to do that because I know what my I know what I'm supposed to be doing as a council member. And I want us to get desal. The other project was too big. I didn't like the price. And I am worried about what this is going to be. But it's going to be for industry. It's not going to be for our citizens. So, if industry is wanting to to purchase the water, then they will. And regardless, we're going to charge more in for energy if we get more water to sell in future. But we're not going to get it unless we stick our necks out and try and find some. So, anyway, I'm going to leave it to you. And you know, Mark, I'm a little irritated too. Well, clearly. But I don't have any allergies. Thanks. All right, Councilman Benavides. Um Do Do we have any contracts? And I know the answer to this, but I just I just kind of want you to clarify. Uh Do any of our customers Do we have contracts with our customers that obligate us to take the the take on Harbor Island water? That obligate this this proposal? >> In other words, I mean, we've only got one take-or-pay contract. Right? We Right. I mean, we've got That's correct. Yeah. >> There's two, Councilman. There's one indirectly through for Steel Dynamics through SenPat Water District. We get they get the water from us. So, We have two take-or-pay contracts. However, we are in these next 3 months going going to be working with the large volume users to develop contracts with them. So, there's there's some guarantee they won't be take-or-pay potentially, but some guarantee they'll continue to buy our water for a period of time. And and and they've discussed that with me. But I'm just wondering um uh The other thing is um I mean, I I visit with industry often. In fact, I broke bread with one last night and two over the weekend simply because and I can tell you just from my ideal if whether you've done it formally, uh our customers wanted our our industrial customers. Let me qualify that. Our industrial customers and the city of Beeville and the city of Mathis. All right, from personal conversations I had, they wanted us to do the inner harbor. All right, so now we're going to take the time out. We're listening we were we didn't listen to them before as a councilman that's okay. Like I said, I was on the losing end. And I'm I'm okay. Actually not, but I got to live with it. Now so we we discussed it with them and they they're our customers and so much so that San Pat Water Authority wanted us to pursue this. They were very supportive of it of of the inner harbor. So now we've got this other option that doesn't have the level of certainty. And then what was explained to me by the plant managers is that the inner harbor and I'm not trying to litigate that. I'm just saying is that it provided certainty for them to get to the finish line. All right. With the program what with the point that we would get it gets us the certain gives them certainty that in 3 years that's they that's they just need to limp across for 3 years. And right now we're looking at we we we we we haven't been able to determine that. So I just want to do that to make clarification. I mean, as I said, I'm not I'm not I'm not discouraging these projects. I just think it's it's it's premature for us to invest in it. But so uh third-party financing is that going to require does that require customers? Or does it require a 100 does it require a reservation fee of um of a 100 million gallons? Well, Mr. Byrom will have to answer that. We're not we're not >> Right right, we need to remember that the all the financing the structure is going to be handled by the NRA, right? So we're going to let John answer that. Could you repeat that question? So >> Councilman Byrom, I'm sorry. In order for you to get private equity financing obviously there has to be some level some business plan as Mark speaks of. So typically that involves customers. So does the reservation right replace that? The reservation right replace >> If you have if you have a 100 if >> It represents the customers. It doesn't Yeah, it represents the customers. And and we've got 38 sold now. We could have doubled that amount already. You know, but we've been we've been holding off and not not impeding on the area down here that you guys serve. And um well, yeah, it just represents the customers is what that it reserves your right in that plant. It shows the private equity that hey, this plant's going to make it. And uh you know, in just 5 6 months of actually selling water reservation fees, we've got to this point. No, but so with the reservation fees that that that puts you in a position to be able to obtain third-party financing. Yes, sir. Okay, that's that was my question. >> Okay, I'm sorry. No, no, no, we're good. I won't go around it. All right, well then that means I spoke twice and man I got 2 minutes left. Jesus. You're going to kill me. Councilman Roy. My my question is for John. Cuz it again I want to bring back up the fact cuz I I still can't get over this and I'm reading it again and it says that basically can you tell me why you put a clause in there that says the NRA may terminate within the first 2 years. And before you answer that, one of the things that you've talked about a lot today is that how certain you are that this project's viable, that it's a good project, that it's going to succeed, that everything is great. And then you've got the port in there that says they can terminate if construction doesn't start within 4 years. You know I don't have a problem if you know, looking at maybe 30 MGD or something like that. But I do have a problem with and and and Peter, you've entered a lot of contracts in your life. Have you ever entered a contract where we can't get our money back if we do something but they can? Um I can't answer that Councilman because we've done 6 years with the contracts, but um this is one known element that's part of the >> So my question is why? Why do you why are you setting this up where you can get your money back, the port can get their money back, but if something happens God forbid and we can't get our money back, why? Why did you set it up like this? Well, you know, we are confident that this thing's going to make, okay? >> Okay, if you're that confident the port can pull out is is if for some reason there was some issue that came up along the way then they could pull the land back. They wouldn't we wouldn't be obligated to pay for it for 50 years. That's what our attorneys were looking to for. And they wouldn't be obligated to keep it open for 50 And what's your reason that in 2 years that you can pull out? Well, just what I'm saying, you know, if there's issues that come up we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. The same way that the inner harbor had issues, there could be issues that come up along the way that would would sideways make the project go sideways. So it's good enough for you, but not good enough for us. I I don't follow what you're you're talking about. >> It's good enough for you to have an out clause, but it's not good enough to put our money at risk and not have a means of this project. >> answer that by saying this Councilman Roy and all due respect >> You say that again? I'll answer that by saying this and all due respects, there are many people from a lot greater distance that are willing to sign that contract today and have signed that contract today and there are others in this area that want to sign that contract today that we haven't given the opportunity to Does that make it right? I yes, sir, it does. It does. We need water. When you look at region A and the region L plan, there is so much water in need and and the number of industry and the number of builders and the whole bit that have looked to come this way, they can't come because the water's not available. And we're thinking that this is going to help with the water availability not only in this area, but in South Texas. But if the project fails, if something happens in the project fails, why not have something where the people all those people that I don't know how desperate they were in terms of why they agreed to uh enter a contract with you. But and and maybe they've got a lot more money than we have. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question cuz I don't know your customers, but I do know in terms of my job sitting here as a council member and the money that we have to be responsible for and my question is if it's good enough for you, if it's good enough for the port then why can't you just extend that courtesy to us? You we talked earlier about we're good partners. You know, the issue there is that I can't do for one what I can't do for all. You should do it for all if you did the right thing. >> Well, you know, we've done the right thing here. We we've had people put this together. Our legal people worked on this and we feel comfortable with where we're at with it and and we don't propose them changing it. Yeah, all right, well thank you. That's all I have. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Hernandez. Mr. Mayor, there I'll go back to what I was saying earlier. I think there's a few questions we need to have answered with regards to this. So I'll make a motion to postpone to October 21st with some requests for information on the timeline for the conveyance as well as production uh communication with our wholesale customers as to who wants to participate in this. And then also what exactly our total need for water is for the next you know, 10 20 years or what our projections are with that information coming back to us. Second. Yeah. Yeah. Um there was a motion that opened Kaylin to Yeah, but it didn't have a didn't have a second. Yeah. There was no second. Um on hers there wasn't. And and Peter I would say also I'm not going to necessarily amend the motion, but I think that um it would be prudent for staff to truly look at what water how affordable water would be in just as um in just the same amount of time probably if we completed the La Quinta uh project. I know that's kind of been sitting out there. But I think it is worth looking into in comparison to running, you know, in this avenue. Plus you hear loud and clear everybody needs the majority needs more more information. Right, I don't think we'll have that by the 21st, Mayor, but something And and I don't mean right I don't necessarily mean by then, but I I do think that we need to have some sort of information on that. Sure. Yeah, that's fine. Okay, um Ms. Gumpel and then we'll take the vote. Oh. Public comment, Mayor. Also, don't forget. Right. Okay, I guess this question would be for uh Mr. Byrom. Uh as far as customers you keep referring to customers. Do can you say if there's any municipalities that have actually called you? I mean, I I hear you saying you know customers, but what kind of customers have are you able to divulge that? Can you say? >> water districts and municipalities both that have signed up for water reservation agreements. So some of our customers some of the seven counties that we provide. >> nobody from here has signed up to date. Okay, so cuz we are These are Pleasanton, Jourdanton and beyond. Okay. So um okay, that that was what I really wanted to find out is exactly who are these customers. Okay, thank you. We wanted We're we're about We're going to do public comment here. You have a quick question. >> have a quick comment. Thank you. Mr. Byrum, I just want you to know that we understand that your organization is a state agency. It's very well respected, so it should be trusted. I don't want you to walk away thinking that we don't. Thank you. And I think we have one last comment from Councilwoman Paxton on the phone. And then we'll go to public comment. Thank you, Mayor. Um I it's a little difficult to hear from the video, so I'm not sure if there was a motion and a second on the postponement. Um I wanted to echo Councilwoman Vaughn's sentiments uh to the NRA that um I hope John, that you recognize, you know, we want to be excellent partners. And we recognize the value in the project that you've brought to us today. We truly appreciate your efforts, you know, you um prioritizing Corpus as a partner, prioritizing our water needs in your um quota of how much you have to sell. That's incredibly valuable to us. Thank you for those efforts. Um and then and I have a quick question. I think that we had um there was a meeting we had um John, you were there, Peter, uh the mayor. One of the questions I have, there's a project supposed to be taking shape on Harbor Island. I think it's um it's it has the potential for energy access. One of the risks on slide 11 is um looking for electric power for this plant. And and I was curious, John, could you speak to any of that? Cuz to me, when I discovered that that was an option, um it looked like it was a pretty strong um opportunity. Could you speak to that at all? Well, there are opportunities for power outside uh you know, the immediate area here. You know, we can reserve power through a new power plant that's being proposed over towards the Bay City area and uh hopefully at a reduced price, a reduced cost for power generation. And then the uh transmission of power, there there's options there, too. So, there's options on both sides. We we haven't narrowed that down yet because we're enjoying the competition that we see forming to to serve this facility. Okay, thank you for clarifying. That makes perfect sense. So, the the opportunities are there. It's just determining which one. So, that's excellent. Um I just wanted to just speak to that risk point. And then through this discussion, a question was raised and I and I have an appreciation that when we that if this postpones and we bring this back and we have a good evaluation of our true need, we know right now we need about 135 million gallons a day. That's that's about our peak use. Those gallons represent the organizations, the community members, the neighboring municipalities and counties that already rely on us for this water. To me, that is a good quantification of what is our need point in time right now. And so, um Peter, you you said um a little bit earlier uh that we need about 70 million just to replace the dwindling um Western Lake. Correct. >> Yeah, that's what I was going to say. No, I was just going to say correct. Yeah. here, and I'm sorry, there's a little lag. Um this represents a tremendous opportunity to offset that. And and John uh Mr. John Byrum said it a bit ago that there is still a lot of opportunity for the role that the state is going to play in this project. That is to be determined yet. And I and I I really echo what you said, Peter. I would hate one day for Corpus to not be a participant in a project of this magnitude. And and John Byrum, I just I want to thank you again, but I wanted to make those notes clear. Thank you. Okay, we um are going to open public comment. Okay, uh council members, uh Jason Hill, Corpus Christi. Um today I'm going to give three reasons why the city should approach the Harbor Island option contract with extreme caution. So, the first reason is that it is expensive. The NRA refused to cap the price of water at $15 per 1,000 gallons, which means it could cost more. But even at that rate, the annual expense for water would be huge, over $250 million a year, which is two and a half times the annual cost for the inner harbor. So, what is the impact to our water bills? I think that's something we should know before spending ratepayer dollars. Um number two, it's pretty easy, it's because the environmental review has not been completed yet. Harbor Island's outfall is located near a major fish pass, and it could be harmful to wildlife. Without the review, we shouldn't be spending ratepayer dollars. Okay, and the third reason is because, in my opinion, it's too much water. Now, hear me out. Over the past 20 years, water use in the Coastal Bend has remained mostly flat, which is incredible because our population has grown by 40,000 people in Nueces County alone. However, over the next 20 years, the population is only projected to grow by about 21,000 people for Nueces County and San Patricio County combined. And that's according to state demographers with the Texas Water Development Board. Now, why that is important is because we can use it to determine how much more water we'll need over the next 20 years. And you can do you can do that by using something called GPCD or gallons per capita per day. It's basically how much water we use in the city for commercial businesses, institutions like churches, and at home, but divided by uh per resident. So, for example, the GPCD for Corpus in 2023 was 109 gallons per person per day for all municipal use except for industry. So, when you put that together, the increased water demands from residential growth is only 2 mgd by 2030 and 3 and 1/2 mgd by 2040, which is much less than 50 million gallons per day. So, it begs the question, who is this water for? Is it for industry in San Pat? Because if it is, then they should be signing the contract, not us. I believe the plans we have in place right now are more than enough to meet our needs for the next 20 years. And if it isn't, I would like to see a detailed explanation of what the anticipated needs are before signing on to a major project like this. Um I think one thing that's super critical, which I wish the city manager was here for, is to figure out how much water we can reliably get from the western reservoirs post drought, once we start getting rain again, you know, a return to historical precipitation patterns. And we can do that with Carollo Engineers. They can figure out the new firm yield using the WAM modeling that they have, the reservoir inflows, and the historical demands. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Hill. Hale sorry. Susanna Saldaña, Corpus Christi, Texas. My God, you guys don't want to spend $2 million to get learn long-term water, but you don't mind throwing them away at hotels. Give them $2 million here, $2 million there. You don't have a problem with that at all. But you have a problem with finding long-term solutions for our city for water. That to me is ridiculous. Um this desal is going to be necessary and it's in the harbor and we need it. Yes, I don't like the plan they have, but guess what? They got us over a barrel. We're going to need water. And they know it and they're taking advantage of it. It's called supply and demand. I hope each of you know that in business. So, are you going to do the right thing for the long term where we're not going to have any water because you guys didn't want to throw $2 million at the possibility of getting water, but hey, let's get another hotel and give them a couple of more million dollars. Two, three, four, five million, whatever comes along. Time for you to wake up and smell water. Thank you. Anyone else? Uh howdy Jake Hernandez uh City Council Corpus City Council District 2. Um thank y'all uh for asking so many uh very good pointed questions um about the potential inner uh Harbor Island plant. Uh I just want to echo a few things that have been said um by by Jason, but also uh asked here on the dais um about and just raise my concern about who this water is going to be for um and who it's going to go to. I think it's really important that we have a lot more of these details uh actually laid out uh where you know where the power is going to come from, um make sure that some of the permits are a little bit more um I don't know, real and active before we actually decide to uh you know uh financially invest in this in this project. Um and I also think it's worth, you know uh looking into the environmental impacts uh of this plant, and which I feel like we as residents haven't been really filled in um on a lot of this information. It's really great that, you know y'all have heard a lot of the information about this, but uh I think we as residents are still really worried um about the potential cost implications of this of this project uh as well as the environmental impacts. So, I just think that this is really good opportunity um to establish a little more partnership between the city uh and the residents here who are really concerned about the way our water is going to be managed. Um you know we we've shown up here several times packed the City Council Chambers, and y'all should know by now we do really care not just about you know, shutting down any certain plans. We're not just anti everything, but if we are really going to pursue, you know, new water sources as a city it really should be in service of the residents that live here. Um and that said, I think that us as the residents need to be the ones making the decisions on that uh in partnership with our city officials. So, um that's about all I have to say. Thank y'all seriously for taking our uh some of these concerns really seriously. I really do hope um that y'all consider uh some of these longer term implications, and uh and please vote the right way, but thank y'all very much. Have a good one. Thank you. Okay. Uh Chloe Torres, District 2. Um I am constantly stressed out when I have to come to council and watch. Um I know it seems like I'm having a blast back there, but it's sometimes just the absurdity of it all um the spectacle of it all um that makes me uh giggle not out of uh joy, uh but mostly out of frustration. Um and I think most of us can resonate with that, that we feel frustrated right now, um that this doesn't feel good. Um but beyond that, it is also our city is suffering. Um we have so many people suffering from lack of adequate quality of life services and programs. $2 million? We could open a low barrier shelter. I encounter people every day who are struggling to keep their water their water on, their light bills on, to stay sheltered. Um the city passed on $1.1 million in CARES Act money a couple of years ago. I mean like $2 million is such a life-changing amount of money. Um and so all of this is to say I think we're going to have keep having this conversation over and over again if we do treat water like a commodity rather than an essential part of our lives. Um and so again, reiterating the need for water democracy. I think Councilman Hernandez when he when he uh brought up um polling the the San Patricio uh counties um for whether or not they want the the city to move forward with this. Yes, that is an exercise in consensus building. And I'm not saying we we always make every decision via consensus. I think a lot of things would get obstructed. Um but just like the that perspective that like actually we need more buy-in. We want to have more good faith conversations. And so, if you could just extend that to the rest of the community I think you would see a profound transformation in how people actually engage when they come up here. Um it's because we're left in the dark. It's because you move things forward without our consent. You do not treat us as people with agency who have to live with the the the the most negative impacts of of your decisions. And so, that's really the the the plea that I'm making. I think Jake is right, you do have an an an amazing opportunity here and now. You can't change the past, but we know if you've been listening to us, what we want. And what we want is a more concerted effort from the city to actually have these conversations with us. Um in the decade that y'all were pursuing Inner Harbor one, a single town hall that the city had, and it was all virtual. Folks had 2 minutes to to speak to their concerns. Never again was there another town hall. Don't make the same mistakes. Please. Thank you so much. Thank you. Rachel Caballero, D1. I will address the white elephant in the room. We know that the four of you are going to oppose the Harbor Island plant because you're trying to push the Inner Harbor desal plant. That's a joke. Everybody understands that. Um the La Quinta chan- plant was kaboshed by the Port of Corpus Christi, who is way more experienced in determining because they actually did a far-field modeling, and the far-field modeling proved that the La Quinta Channel location would absolutely 100% destroy the Inner Harbor and the entire Corpus Christi Bay. Why you people can't remember that is beyond me. It's everything that it was presented today has been a guesstimate. Only in the government can you present a million-dollar project or a $1.2 billion project with guesstimates. When this became acceptable behavior is beyond me, but it it's been happening at least for the five years that I've been involved um in this deal. The 2.7 million for the 50 MGD, uh we know that water is not for the community. Lower it down to the least amount because the threats coming from the city manager, the threats coming from the NRA, absolutely 100% unacceptable. We, the community, are shareholders in this in in in in the community. And I consider I'd I'd say we're the majority shareholders based off of the numbers that we're seeing of what industry is not paying and not contributing back to this community. So, we are probably the most important shareholders in this community. And it's about time that at least four of you figure that out. Um none of this water, and this needs to be said out loud, none of this water will is going to take the community out of drought restrictions. So, until there's a better plan and for the love of all that is holy, it is time for our city attorney to do contracts that are in favor of this community in favor of the community not in favor of the vendor, not in favor of the IDAs or industry, but in favor of this community. So this plant, and I I need to see the ramifications of what it's going to do environmentally for Harbor Island and Port Aransas. We have to care about our neighbors. We have to care about their tourism. We don't have a choice in that matter. We need to look at far-field modeling in this plant just like we did with the La Quinta Channel, just like y'all refused to do for the Inner Harbor. If industry needs this water so bad, let Gulf Coast Growth Ventures, Exxon Sabic pay the 2. 7 million and reserve the 50 MGDs on their own, and we go about our business providing it to the customers that we currently have. Thank you. Go ahead. Alejandro Benavides, uh District 3. Uh I mean, it's all been said, it just needs to be listened to already. I mean, honestly with somebody out who has a master's in business like, how do you even come to something like this or ask investors or ask banks or anybody for $2 million with no business plan? It's unheard of, and the first time you would go to somebody with that, you get laughed at, and the second time, you probably lose your job. I mean, I don't I don't understand how a week later there's still no numbers. Oh, I don't understand. It's just it's got to be more than that. Second we got to stop getting we got to start stop thinking of these businesses as oh, they're the our residents cuz they're not giving back. I know so many small businesses out there that are giving back to the community every chance they can get. And it's sad that people who are our businesses that are making billions of dollars aren't aren't they're doing the bare minimum for us. They we need to demand better of our businesses. We need to demand better of the business managers. I mean, if you're a CEO of a city and you come without a business matter without a business plan, are are you just trying to get a wink wink deal or what? We can't be giving our own own companies contracts. We can't be writing up contracts that are going to help other companies take millions of dollars. And like they asked earlier, oh what have you ever um have you ever signed up contract where we didn't get our money back? Yeah, we just did. What was it? $50 million? That oh, it's too late to get that back. But now they want us to throw two more million. It's not the fact that it's two million, it's how much more? Like how much more do we have to give into a system and not get anything back and then we hear again, oh sorry, that that two million was lost. Just like the last time we put 50 million for designs and stuff. We got to They're they're like they're nickel and diming us because they can't get the big the big plan that they want. But if they can't get 1.2 billion, what are they going to get? Another 50 million out of us before they move on to a different city and cut the cut their losses and say that they got the wings that they wanted? I don't buy it. Thank you, sir. Melinda Del Santo's, District 2. I usually come prepared with everything, but I didn't even come prepared to come to this council meeting. Came from the library board meeting. I have to say that the listening to the discussion, first I want to thank uh Councilmember Campos for last week that she she's probably the only one that addressed the uh the fact that Inner Harbor was not a good solution because of all the studies that were done. That's a dead leg and everything. And about industry I and I I sent information about industries that industry yes, they're big and I love industry, but when they only provide and this is from the studies that I saw uh about 3.8% of the workforce here where we have teachers, we have firefighters, we have policemen, they provide so much more of the workforce. I don't understand the why we're pushing towards industry so much. I mean, because of the what they produce goes out of here. What the teachers do, what the police do, everything stays in here. Okay? The food industry the the uh tourism, all that stays here. Nobody comes over here to Corpus to come and smell the smoke from industry and and see all the plastics. They come here to fish, they come here to do all these other things. But what gets me I think the most is that the discussion that y'all been having, y'all are willing to do $50 million is I mean and it's like they didn't even have the information. They didn't know well, what does this actually go to? What does this 50 million but y'all were willing to spend that 50 million, but y'all can't do 2.7 and I'm and you know, I'm one of these people that I want I don't like the Inner Harbor. I do see desalination for the future and everything like that. I don't think we've done it a good job on conservation and I don't think we've done a good job on reuse. But when you're telling me to take a gamble of 2.7 million, you know, if I would have known about Bitcoin you know, if I would have known about Bitcoin in 2017, I would have been doing Bitcoin right now. 2.7 million as compared to what we've spent on the Inner Harbor already or what we were planning to spend on doing on the next for one more month, you know, I would say sure, take your business elsewhere and let us suffer because we need to do I mean, if we don't take a gamble now and we're willing to turn around and spend 50 million on what we didn't even know was going and it's dead right now. That project should be dead. I don't understand. I really think you need to speak to your community more and see what it is that they want just like Councilman Hernandez said. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, we're going to close public comment on item number 17. We do have a motion and a second on the table to postpone, so please submit your vote. It takes so long to open. Ms. Paxton. Ms. Paxton. I Did you care to vote? Okay. I. Okay, the motion carries. Um the council is now going to go into executive session, break for lunch on item 22 per Texas Government Code sections 551.071 and 551.072 and we will return. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Okay, we're going to go ahead and reconvene our meeting. And we're picking up where we left off, which was item is item number 18. And this is a discussion and possible action on a separate outside attorney for the internal investigation on the Homewood Suites fraud allegation. And this was requested by Council City Council members Eric Cantu, Gil Hernandez, and Sylvia Campos. Mr. Cantu. Gil is going to take over for me. I am. Well, I have a question. Okay. Councilman Paredes, sorry. Here Here Miles, it's my understanding that this motion violates the charter. How How can How can it be put on the agenda? [Applause] Because it's it's It says for the council to decide and the council doesn't decide. The the three-person memo process was established by City Council specifically to bypass staff. It doesn't It bypasses staff, especially when it's turned in at the last minute. Staff doesn't It hasn't been consulted or reviewed prior to some putting something like that on. Typically, when with that That is the point of the three-person memo process. Um so that that's So So then how would How would we carry this out? Because if this were to move forward, it violates the charter. I mean, I I don't know how I I don't know how I could participate because I can't participate or anybody can participate because the request violates the charter. And And whenever Whenever City Council when staff is always open and welcome to to try and work with council people who want to try and achieve something. If you all tell us your objectives, our goal is to try and provide with the City Council members that are that have Miles, is he Is he answering your question? Is it in violation of the charter? Let's just start with that. That's the >> If I make a motion to approve and and and Mark seconds it with two hands, you know. But what >> I'm joking, but it's it's to to approve something that violates the charter. I don't know how I can do that. But is it in violation? I He is telling you it is. I You tell us if it is. Well, the charter prohibits the hiring of an outside attorney unless the private council The way it's written, Miles, just is it in violation? Ask the Council to decide. >> in violation of the charter the way it is written. So >> probably because there's some permutations. It's kind of hard to There's a lot left to the interpretation with what is written on the on that has been provided. But as as written, it is pro- it is a probable violation of the charter. Okay, well, you go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm not sure. Okay, so if it's a probable violation of the charter a probable violation of the charter. Can I Can I I'm not an attorney, but I I've asked Miles the same We've had similar questions. >> Well, I I know I always say Here I always say, you know, what problem are we trying to solve? Right. I was just going to answer the question. >> me let me I'm going to I'm going to I'm I'm setting you up so you can answer the question. So my thing, if I were in your position, I I'd try to look at it cuz I want to make your life easier. I really do. Um so my my perspective a lot of times is that you know, I I say, "What's our mission? What's our vision? What are we trying to accomplish? What problem are we trying to solve?" And I joke around, "Is this a solution in search of a problem?" You know, so I'm asking you and I don't want you to speculate what somebody's trying to accomplish. I just want to know what problem are we trying to solve. Do you know what problem we're trying to solve? I can't answer that question cuz I didn't I didn't write the three-signature memo, but to the question of is it Does it violate the charter? If the council asked If the council asked or directs the city manager to work with Miles to hire an attorney, that is okay. At least that's what Miles told me last week. So if the council says, "Hey, city manager and city attorney, we want you to hire this firm, but you you vet them and you hire them. You execute the contract, Miles and myself as is prescribed in the charter." Then we can do that. If the So that's one answer. This is why Miles is not clear. If the council says, "What this means is we're going to hire them. Councilman Hernandez is going to They're going to sign the check. They're going to sign the contract." That would be a problem. Yeah. So that scenario, yes, it would violate the charter, but I think the authors of the memo don't want to use that option. They wanted to use the delegation, direct the manager, direct the city attorney to evaluate some some options and select one and hire an attorney. So if I want to recommend and I have five votes on the council that you hire Aaron Muñoz, where everybody knows how he's one of my closest friends, or I want to hire Victor Wulardo, then I have five votes, you consider it. Yeah. You You would if there's a if there's consensus on the council. We work at the I work at the council's direction. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So if five votes say we want to hire Victor Wulardo, then you'd consider it. >> I don't know if we could say yes yet, but we would look at We would consider it. >> you if you consider >> Yeah, we would consider it Miles would vet it and and see, you know, I don't know what his vetting process is, but he would vet it and tell and come to a conclusion. Wow, that's kind of scary. And recommend either I sign something or not. Or he signs it. Yeah, tell me Miles how we go through this process so that way we we we circumvent that. I mean, I'm obviously I'm obviously trying to convey that because I have to explain it to to the people that that that elected me as to why I'm I'm supporting or not supporting an initiative. So tell me how that that's supposed to work. The The There's a couple of provisions that this this that that are involved here. But And one of the first that we see is is is an issue is the article section 10 article section 10 of the city charter subsection H, which says, "No contract for the employment of private council shall be made by the city except upon on the request in writing of the city attorney stating the necessity therefore and with the consent of the city manager." So So when we're hiring an attorney, what you always see and is that these is that we see a necessity to hire that attorney. Now, if City Council conveys to us, "We think that in order to have confidence in XYZ, we believe an outside attorney needs to be hired to review this particular matter." Um and these are the attorneys that we believe would qualify. We want you to vet them. Then the city manager, if if there's a contract within that authority, we might be able to see that necessity, but that that particular intent has not yet been conveyed to us. So right now what all we have before us right now is in subsection 18 is separate outside attorney for internal investigation. Council will decide what outside attorney to enter into an agreement with. That as written does not comply with the city charter. However, the intent of the City Council probably is achievable with a slightly different motion. And when How How would I do that? If I wanted to amend the motion If I wanted to amend the motion, if it's a violation and I want to amend the motion to give you to follow the city charter, how would I go about that? If you wanted to do a motion that did not violate the city charter, you would probably want to tell me what your intent and goal was and then we work together so that I could provide you a motion motion language that complied with your intent, your desires as a council person, and still and was compliant with the city charter. Okay, there's a lot to unpack there. Um Okay, so repeat for me again the statement that you made about that in a in in in with approval by the city manager. You just read something from the charter just right now. Repeat it for me again. No contract for the employment of private council shall be made by the city except upon the request in writing of the city attorney stating the necessity therefore and with the consent of the city manager. Okay. So that's the charter. Right? That's the charter. No contract for the employment of private council. I I I had it up. So shall be made by the city except upon the request in writing of the city attorney stating the the necessity therefore and with the consent of the city manager. So this this motion doesn't allow for that. But if somebody tells you right now, you know, I want to hire Victor Wulardo, how do I do that? Are you going to tell me? If somebody says, "I want you to consider Victor Wulardo for this particular for this particular type of activity. I'm probably going to identify some some problems with with conflicts of interest in that, but if somebody says that, then I'm probably then I'm going to say, "Okay, we can evaluate or let's say not Victor Guardado, but some some other just random name to try We're going to evaluate that attorney, the the objective of the city council, the need, the necessity therefore for that attorney, and then [Applause] we would probably talk to that attorney to find out are they capable of performing that activity? Are they conflicted in performing that activity? Uh so we we want them to be able to do both, and we want to feel confident as an attorney and this is when an attorney recommends that an organization hire another attorney, that attorney has an obligation to vet those that other attorney to to have some indication of whether the attorney is competent to do that task. Okay so say that for me again. I'm going to write it down. Number one, if city council sees a sees a need to have an attorney perform a task, we're probably we're going to look at what the the objectives are and whether or not the city needs that type of task to be performed. >> Look at objectives. Okay. >> is the necessity therefore to comply with that? >> So you're going to review the necessity. Okay. Next? Going to review the proposed attorney. Is that attorney capable of doing that particular activity? Are they conflicted in performing that activity? Review the capability, review conflict, and what else? And then if they are not conflicted and fully capable of doing that activity, then we're going to determine can we negotiate a reasonable contract to perform that activity. So if if five of five of us come up with a an individual, then what do you do? You're going to go through this process. How long is it going to take you? Are you going to bring it back to us in another meeting? If the contract was if if the appropriate motion was made to authorize the hiring of that attorney for that particular activity, and it was within the contract authority of the city manager, then an attorney that attorney could be hired under the authority of the city manager. With with this type of memo stated that that would describe the necessity therefore and the consent of the city manager. Okay, and therefore the consent of the city manager therefore that's if it's under the 50,000 or January. >> and that's why and actually in all contracts where this the city hires attorneys, it gets the city manager's signature on the contracts with the attorneys. Okay, but that's the consent which I'm sure if five people came up with it, Peter's going to say, "Yes, I guess so." So um uh [Music] okay, so what would be the normal procurement process? Attorneys are not hired through the normal city >> Well, I mean the normal process to procure an attorney. I not not not not to you know, it's not designed and built. It's not uh uh what is it? Progressive design built. So um my thing is is that normally you would see I'm asking normally you would see the need to hire an attorney and you would act so. >> Attorney I I don't think I've ever other than when we we we've already you've determined a purpose. So help me out how the the process >> you an example. If very commonly we hire attorneys to represent the interests of police officers and when we've been sued for civil rights violations. And those outside cuz that's that's a conflict situation where we can't we can't be the the both the attorney for the city and the police officer at the same time because the police officer has potential personal liability. So we hire an outside attorney to represent the interests of that police officer. When that when that happens, we we actually have a list of attorneys that we have worked with who did satisfactory service in performing and and performing for those police officers and and being at the attorneys representing those police officers. And we we then provide a memo to the city manager that describes the necessity for hiring the attorney, i.e. the police officer was sued along with the city, and then the particular then the city executes a contract with the attorney typically on an hourly basis with a maximum um amount that's that's provided say 50,000, 30,000, 100,000, you know, whatever is within the authority of the city manager. Okay, now um so has there ever been a time when a council has come and requested a specific attorney for a specific deal without disclosing it to the to the to legal? Well, take that the last thing. Has there been a specific time when there's been a council request to hire an attorney for a specific reason? Not that I can recall. Not not not recently that I can recall. Have you ever seen it anywhere else? I have had city council person say, "Hey, you need to look at so-and-so as the possibility in hiring that that attorney." They they knew it know of that attorney and that that attorney's reached out to that city council person about their expertise in a particular area. Maybe we talked to that attorney and and uh but but not not not as a whole, not as a council saying we we like that attorney and we want you to hire that attorney specifically. I haven't had that that happen. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Councilman uh Hernandez. Okay um the this kind of came came about when uh Councilman Cantu brought this uh up to me and there's some thought about a conflict between somebody representing the city and then someone investigating ourselves. So it's hard for uh an attorney to be representing us and then investigating us at the same time. And if they and I know I had this conversation with you, Miles, if you can kind of put your what your thoughts are on that in terms of how you reconcile somebody that may find information that might be detrimental to us defending defending against this case. I I think any attorney that y'all hire is going to represent the city. Even if they're investigating activities that are performed by persons within the city. So every attorney is going to represent the city that you hire, and that's why actually based upon y'all's request earlier we had sought an outside an attorney outside the city that had no connections with the city or with any you know, city personnel or officials that no connection to any city council member. So yeah, it's uh we one of the duties in the and when we became we became conflicted clearly conflicted at the about a month ago when the council was discussing this issue and upon that determination of that conflict, we had to hire an outside attorney to represent the city anyway. So one of the duties of that attorney can be to report back and provide a report to the council on what he or she sees as potential violations by city officials that that they have noticed that they have noted or or outside parties. Okay, so the I guess the question is uh you know, because when the first motion was made, it was to hire an outside investigator. When you came to us at council, it became uh representing the city in the lawsuit. It wasn't it was different separate from the initial request. Well, part of that is we only have money to hire an outside attorney to represent the city. We we have a we have a risk fund. That risk fund can be used to hire an outside attorney to represent the interests of the city. That's the purpose of that risk fund. So we don't have funding for uh an attorney just to go investigate matters in I think quasi criminal type investigations or or criminal investigations. We don't have those that type of funding. That's not not a normal function of of an attorney. >> Okay, so do you see any conflict of interest between the same attorney representing the city and the and investigating uh the city? In an active lawsuit? Is Is he investigating the city or is he investigating personnel that may may be outside or inside the city? What's Okay, we're asking them to investigate a particular situation, right? That and then also asking that attorney to defend us in that particular situation. Is there a conflict of interest in your opinion? Is there probably it depends what they're looking at. I mean what like the I assume you're talking about the Homewood Suites allegation, right? Right. Well, that's well, that's what the the agenda memo says. I mean I I'm assuming we're talking about that. Yeah, I don't see an inherent conflict of interest in an attorney representing the city who would then report back if they see particular city officials that they believe may have may have committed acts. I mean, that that's Well, it's not it's not just city officials. It's the whole process. >> parties, yeah. Or the Or the Or the Or the process. Yeah, yeah. These Legal opinions on the process, not I mean I don't know if there's has been anything that's been done. It just, you know, there's there's been allegations. There's been about I don't I'm not going to prejudge it saying something wrong has had been done. That's why we're asking for it somebody with a legal uh opinion, right? To give us that you know, that doesn't have any influence within, side, or outside the city. Um Let me rephrase that. Inside the city limits of Corpus Christi that is connected to this whole uh to us to everybody politically. And this is a politically charged thing. And that's why there was recommendation with somebody from outside the city. So, there's no conflict. And you And you The reason we're asking this is on record is that your belief that this attorney can do can have can do both without having any conflict. If the attorney sees a conflict, then the attorney's job is to report back a conflict that he notices, and then he requests that he be recused from that conflict. He says, "Hey, here's a conflict in this particular activity." It is It is on incumbent on that attorney to who sees the potential conflict to explain the conflict to the client, and the client has the opportunity then to hire to potentially hire another attorney to deal with the conflict. >> Shh. Okay. So, with that within that particular agreement that we have with um Hyde um George Hyde, right? George Hyde. Uh I forgot the name of the the actual attorney's office. Hyde and Well >> Hyde Kelly. Hyde Kelly LLP. In that agreement, it shows two different things: defend the city and uh conduct an investigation of the particular issue. The The motion was to authorize the execution of the professional service agreement to represent the city in the case of Ajit David versus City of Corpus Christi and and and Mayor Paulette Guajardo. And there's also an an intervener, of course, as well now. Okay, so there's no requirement for for him to conduct an investigation. An attorney An investigation of the An investigation of all the activities that occurred is inherent within the um representation of the city. So, that attorney is he's an Okay, so words matter and contracts matter, right? So, is he obligated to provide us a report on the on the issue at hand? He is obligated to report back to the city. No, no, no. >> Not obligated to give a specific report, no. Okay, so that So, in in and in itself, what we had asked for didn't actually transpire. Well, we hired an attorney What What you What >> What we asked for was for an investigation by an outside outside of the city limits attorney to give it to do an investigation and provide us a report on it right? You requested an investigation by an outside agent. I believe the original motion was by an outside agency, but that was amended I think changed to be an outside attorney to and have to pull up the prior language. And we pointed out that that attorney could provide a It It did not preclude any kind of later investigation. However, what that attorney is that attorney can provide an investigative report after discovery is complete if the city so requests that information. However, if the city council wishes to hire another attorney to investigate questions that are specifically described by city council, that hiring does not preclude such an attorney from being hired. However, y'all That That's up to y'all to ask us for. Seems like we're asking for it. Well, um I'll I'll hold up. Um Miles, I I is the item as written a violation of the city charter? That's I mean, yes or no. I mean, that's I think that's that's where this this whole conversation the the first question was asked. Yes or no. Is it in Either it is or it's not. And if it's not, we move on, and we can do, you know, what the what the three council members continue to discuss, but I we need you to answer that. The way it's written, I'm not talking about interpretation. >> As written, it is a does not comply with that Article 10. No, no. Is it in violation of the city charter? Just yes or no. Yes. As written. Okay. So, now what? Because that is putting us, and I don't think anybody did that purposely, but that's putting us a council in jeopardy. Because we swear an oath to uphold the city charter, and you are telling us that this is in in breach. This would That would be in breach. So, you need to now tell us what we need to do. And I don't think anybody did that on Nobody in their right mind would put something illegal on a memo knowing it was illegal. So, I don't think that was um purposely done. I'm going to ask y'all to please So So, what's the question, Mayor? What I mean, you just told us it is in violation of the charter. So, you tell us now what do we do because you cannot vote on something that's in violation of the charter. I certainly don't You know, I don't think anybody wants to do that. Well, and I would like to say it's always It's always our goal as staff to try and comply with what city council wants. So, there is some some alternate language that could actually provide that might provide council with what it is really seeking. And that would be Let me pull it up here. That would be a move to request city staff execute a contract within the city manager's authority subject to available appropriated funding to contract with an attorney to investigate fraud allegations pursuant to the Homewood Suites transaction referenced in the lawsuit of Ajit David versus the city at all selected from the following list of attorneys. And I believe there was a desire to name a a list of attorneys to talk to. So, yeah, that that that could be achieved and but and Okay, so what What are we What What are we doing? What are you suggesting? >> the attorneys for that for that list that y'all are thinking about, and I haven't received any any list of attorneys. And Councilwoman, I need you put your light on cuz we got Mr. Cantu next. So, what are you saying, Miles? You want me to restate that? >> No, I want you to tell us simply I mean, simply if there's something in violation of the charter, just give us the path forward. Or Or Or so nobody gets in trouble. >> I'm sorry. The path forward would be that alternate language that I just described if city council wishes to has has a has a names of attorneys that they desire to hire, it would be I move to request the city staff execute a con- contract within the city manager's authority subject to available appropriated funding to contract with an attorney to investigate fraud allegations pursuant to the Homewood Suites transaction referenced in the lawsuit of Ajit David versus city at all selected from the following list of attorneys. And I have I have a blank there because I don't have those attorneys. Okay. Councilman Cantu. Okay, so I'm I'm a little lost. Um The reason why this item is on the agenda today is because 3 weeks ago we voted to get an outside attorney to investigate the claims. And the reason why we had to get an outside investigator to to see if the claims are correct or whatever the case is is because majority of this council said that George, our auditor, was conflict out. And no one believed anything he said. So, that's the reason why it's on the agenda to get an outside attorney. And then Miles scared everybody and said it's going to cost $400,000. Uh it's just it's ridiculous. $400,000 to investigate an application once it's been filed to the last vote. That's all we want to investigate and make sure there was no wrongdoing. My personal opinion is the attorney that is representing the city now who wants to represent on this investigation, I think there is a conflict because I don't think he's going to mess up his case. In other words, if he investigates that an assistant city manager did something wrong, he's not going to go tell the other side, "Hey, our assistant city manager screwed up." I mean, I don't think that's going to happen. Um so, that's the reason why I think we need to get a outside attorney to look at this. And, you know, we we we searched some names. We have a We have a couple names on the list. Um they've done city work. They They're They're still doing city work, county government work. They do fraud cases. They do corruption cases for cities and counties and school boards. Um I think both of them are good. I think one one is a regular attorney. The other one is a regular attorney, but she used to be a justice. Um I mean, um at so, I just um I I feel that this city needs to figure out if anyone did anything wrong. I don't see what's the big deal of this. I don't know why other council members are making big big deal about this to get it done. You know, it's not going to cost $400,000. It's going to cost less than $50,000. Um I I think we need to get it done. We need to um ease some people's minds and, you know, move forward from this. Um I just don't feel I don't understand why there's so much pushback to investigate this. I mean, what do we have to hide? You know, um it just It It makes no sense. Um So, Miles, 3 weeks ago when we voted for the outside attorney, whatever happened with that? We During that discussion, the statements were made that required us to hire an outside attorney to represent the the interests of the city because of a potential conflict of interest. That actually And And that was During During that discussion, the city One of the suggestions of the One of my suggestions at the time was, "Okay, we can hire an outside attorney to represent the city." And they can do an investigation as part of that. Yeah. And y'all said, "Oh, it's not going to cost $400,000." Well, during that discussion, statements were made by um by council and the mayor on the dais. And that And the those statements made it very clear that we had to have outside counsel to represent the city. And in fact, my litigation division told me they cannot represent the city now because I will almost certainly be a witness to the in the case. And therefore, we have to have outside counsel. So, what I thought What I was providing as an alternative, a fundable alternative with money behind it, um actually became a necessity. So, city council had to hire outside counsel to represent the city in that case. And outside, completely independent counsel. That is what council was wanting, somebody who did not have any connections to the city or any city council members. And that is what we obtained. So, George Hyde doesn't have these connections to city council members. Uh and that that person uh George Hyde is subject going to be subject to questioning by council in executive session. Um And uniquely Uniquely from the any investigator that is hired, George Hyde, being a representative of the city on the case, actually has the power to subpoena witnesses, subpoena and depose witnesses. Um an investigator that is hired in this case wouldn't have any kind of subpoena power or investigatory or that dep- deposition power that George Hyde will actually have. So, he'll have actually have the power to obtain the information that y'all are wanting, rather than simply the power to look through the information that's been provided by others. Okay. So um the attorney that we have today, you don't see any conflict with that? And if an attorney sees a conflict between him himself and the entity that that he's been hired to represent, that attorney has an obligation under the rules of professional responsibility to inform that client and say, "Well, look, I think I see a conflict here." And then it it's the client has the >> So, you're on this opinion that If If that attorney, his name is George, right? If If George sees Right? George is his name? If George discovers that one of assistant city managers did some something he sh- he or she shouldn't have done. Will he be honest with other side and say, "Hey, look what I found"? No. No, it's his it's his obligation to be open with the city council. It's his obligation to be up open with his own client and indicate to his own client how to deal with that information. Will an attorney be not honest An attorney all all all the time has an obligation to be honest and with the open with the other side. However, an attorney has an obligation to be open with his own client. Okay. When it comes to discovery >> wanted to make I want The other reason I I wanted to put this on the agenda also is because I want to make it very clear to the public that 3 weeks ago when we voted on hiring an outside attorney to investigate the claims, it wasn't going to cost us $400,000. Now it cost us $400,000 because you guys got conflict out because of the mayor's allegations correct? Actually, the estimate was 325,000. I I And I had stated somewhere between 300 and 400,000 to represent the city. >> But But that is the reason, correct? What's that? >> That was the reason why because you got conflict out because of the remarks the mayor the mayor said. >> The statements made during that meeting >> Okay. So, I just want to make I I just want the public to know that it wasn't because of our motion that we're paying 325,000. But all together, we're paying almost a half a million dollars to to for legal fees for the for the mayor's attorney's fees and then also the city attorney's fees correct? Correct. >> I just I just wanted to cl- clarify that. And my understanding is if we go forward forward with this attorney, it's going to cost less than $50,000 and it'll probably take 4 to 6 weeks to complete. That's all I have right now. Thank you. >> I I don't know if it'll cost I haven't talked to whatever attorney you've discussed this matter with. >> Miles, can you repeat to the councilman and the council what you told me about um the statements? He's clearly trying to say it's because I made statements that um that's the only reason that that that I have to have legal counsel. Now, would you recall and it's it was the way you you you responded to me about this very thing that we knew was going to come up um in regards to why those statements were made. Well, I think I think probably it's it it is important to Well, the conflict may have become apparent. And that I would become a Me and possibly other members of the legal department would become requested witnesses in this case to to to essential issues in the in the actual provision is essential issues in the case. While it became apparent that on that there was a conflict on that day, the deep divisions within the city council make it clear that there is a conflict There are various conflicts within the city council on positions to be taken on this particular case. Council has internally different positions on this case. And we as And that conflicts the city in terms of acting as advocates for the entire city when those conflicts are within the city council. All attorneys will have that y'all hire will have an obligation to the entire city to represent the city. So, it was multiple council members. I mean, that's what you just said. Think it's It is conflict with multiple There are conflict There is conflict concerning this particular litigation between different city council members. >> Right. That's what I just said. So, it was multiple council members. So, your answer is I'm sorry Councilman, your light is not on and we need We've got two other people, but you're you're welcome to put your light on. So, Miles, thank you. Councilwoman Gum- Gumpus. Okay. So, thank you, Mayor. So, first of all, I just want to make sure that we are not violating any charter rules right now as we're discussing this. Or do we need to make that change right now, the language, so that we can move forward? That's one of the things I want to know right now. Should we make that change now so that whatever we are discussing will be legal, I guess. Well, I'd like to emphasize both me and the city manager we're always trying to achieve y'all help achieve y'all's objectives as the city council. So, So, >> Yeah, you can make that change right now if you want If you want to make that change and put that on the as a motion to put that forth, it's up to y'all. It's up to the city. But But it's our job to provide alternatives to council that would be legal. Okay, but my question is uh now we're going to have to put it to a vote, right? Instead of it being just originally part of the discussion. Or because if we don't get the majority of the vote on the change of language, I just want us to be legal. So, what is the best way without actually taking a vote to to do this to move forward? Ms. Gumpus, um just so the the motion as it's written right now on the agenda, it's not in order because what Robert's Rules says is that no main motion is in order that conflicts with the charter, constitution, or bylaws. And to the extent that procedural rules applicable to the organization or assembly are prescribed by federal, state, or local law, no main motion is in order that conflicts with such rules. So, you can't that motion as it's written right now, you can't move the council cannot move forward with that motion. It's it's in conflict with our parliamentary procedure because as the city attorney stated, it it doesn't comply with our charter. Okay, so maybe then we need to postpone this or re- huh? A replacement motion. Yeah, you can so the city attorney provided a new different motion. So, yeah, but you can't you cannot act on that motion as written. This it's it wouldn't be allowed. So, hm. I wonder you're asking for a replacement Miles didn't really answer the question, but you're asking for a replacement motion motion. Right. And is that okay Rebecca to ask for that? As long as it is directly related to Okay, let's to what's on there. I mean, it can't be something that it has to be germane to the to that subject let's say to the subject. Well, all right, I think a replacement motion is germane to the subject. That's why we suggested it as a as an alternative. That's and and that let me say it again. It's a move to request city staff execute a contract within the city manager's authority subject to available appropriated funding to contract with an attorney to investigate fraud allegations pursuant to the Homewood Suites transaction referenced in the lawsuit of IG David versus the city at all selected from the following list of a and then I understand you're going to provide a list of available attorneys to talk to. Yes, so the main thing is that we are actually directing staff to do the hiring. We will provide some possible firms or or names, but we are directing staff. We're requesting requesting. That's very different thing. You're requesting staff to bring them back to to to bring you back an attorney to to actually hire an attorney if that attorney is to vet an attorney determine whether that attorney can do that work and is not conflicted from doing that work. But they would pursue pursue investigate the fraud allegations pursuant to the Homewood Suites transaction referenced in the lawsuit of IG David versus the city at all. So, if that's if that represents your intent and and that's our goal is to represent y'alls intent. Okay, so can we go ahead make that replacement what he just read? So that we can't so we can discuss it and Yes, so there's a motion a second that tabling is also an option as you mentioned, but that that's it's an option to to to adopt his motion his motion language the city attorney's motion language for discussion. Yes. You got to you got to fill in the blank though. Right, that's the one thing that's missing. Make a comment. I know you're thinking about that Councilwoman. You want to do that? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I didn't want to interrupt if she wasn't done. Were you Were you done Sylvia? Yeah, I just asked her. Okay. I didn't think I don't want to waste our time or get us into trouble by discussing this any further if we can't move forward. You know, that's what I was trying to get across. So, if you want to maybe you know, I think we add to that discussion. I think I guess I'm a little uncertain. It sounds like Miles was offering a replacement statement. And so were you making the motion to adopt that? Yes. So, what you needed was the second. Yes. And then we would need to fill in that list. Yeah, you need to amend it with the list of attorneys. Or at least I mean, maybe not. I mean, that's what I'm saying. At least we could it would be legal for us to discuss it here on the dais. Any any possible movement. In order to do that motion that you recommended, do we need that list at this point in time? Yes, yeah, to to you got to fill in the blank to be at with with the list of attorneys and we're and we're happy to then go talk to them to do this investigation. I agree. I don't I don't think I'm so sorry. I don't mean to cut you off. I don't think we need to have a long drawn out. I think you know, sitting in the discussion from the previous item, we were told there was two options even at that point. We could hire one attorney that would cover both or we could ask to have two separate attorneys. And so I think essentially this is taking a preference towards that second option. I think that's the like Peter was saying the nature of this item. And I didn't author I don't have the list. I I don't know who's being proposed, but for me sitting here, it feels like we're kind of getting lost in the weeds. So, I want to just make sure that we stay on track and be efficient with our time and and I think it's a very simple item. It's just asking to go basically have that another legal eyes set on it. So, it sounds like what you need Miles is your proposed language plus the list to be motioned and seconded if that's the prevailing interest. If that's y'alls objective, yeah, I would I would need that. But again, y'all have the y'all have a couple of attorney alternatives available to you. You can either wait and talk to the attorney who is currently who has been employed on this Hyde Kelly LLP or you can provide the list of of attorneys who would do an investigation alone. So, does everyone submit a list I guess? Can I Is that how that works? Well, I think I'm still in my 5 minutes. Who you are. Thank you. It's okay. It's okay. I'm just trying to make sure we stay in order and we move forward in the project in this item. That's all. So, I think if we have the word the verbage and the list, then Miles, I think I think Peter's correct. I think that maybe the translation got a little lost in how it was written, but the intent is kind of clear. It was more to go along those the option two that we had originally explored. And I I for me, my question when it was raised up was yes, I understand that if we hire an attorney, they need to be transparent with us where the client, but I can also sympathize with the feeling that we're hiring them to fight in our favor. So, how you know, we're also in the same hand asking them to do a full evaluation. So, I see that sentiment, but whoever has that list and that language, I think that's the next step we need. And you're not Well, I just wanted to make sure that that we could even legally discuss it. That's what my concern was and I I did not come prepared with a list of attorneys. I'll be honest. I didn't. I just wanted to see we if we were even, you know, would consider it. But we couldn't even it didn't seem like we could even discuss it now. That's what I was saying. I'm trying to get to first base. So, my I would like a you know, a a second cuz I mean, we may not have I've got some names here that he just provided but you know, no, that he just googled I guess or something, but I guess we just need more time. If we have to give you the names right now, then that would be an issue for me. I have a couple of names that have been provided by Councilman Cantu. Daniel I said Councilman. Councilman Cantu Daniel Ray Justice and Justice Patricia Alvarez. I could also if if anybody wants to obtain extra names, I could even obtain some names from the independent outside attorney that we have that we've employed and he's got some names. Okay, what are we doing? What what what are we doing? Can someone please There's no motion, so we're we're still having discussion without a motion. I I we have got to have some order here. If like the Councilwoman is asking, she's concerned which is was was my concern and you addressed it. Yes, it was legal. However, if you amend it, which it was, then it's not. So, her question was a concern of continuing to speak about this. Should she have that concern? Let's just go there. She can continue to talk about she Miles, just answer yes or no. Actually, if the probably to be precise under Robert's Rules of Order, somebody ought to put the alternative motion language up for kind of for discussion so that city council can discuss that alternative language. I think that's Miss Campos has said that like that's two or three times already. So, that's yeah. We just need to make the motion. The only thing is what what what the city attorney also said was we need the names. So, that I think that's kind of the hang-up right now. He's provided the language, but not the names. Let's stop >> So, the names, that's where we are. Councilman Councilman Cantu handed some names. How are we going to do this? Does everybody make a list? Do we take 5 minutes and go Google names? What what are we doing with this? How how do we go about this? You can't have one person hand in a list and that's it. And I realize this is a different circumstance, but someone needs to take lead. It needs to be legal. Right now, two names have been provided. Uh this could be handled today or at a at a future date, but right now two names have been provided. Does Council wish to complete the motion and fill out a list of names, or would Council prefer to do this a week or 2 weeks in the future? Councilman uh Hernandez. Okay, I think some um requirements on that were from what Miles said, and he added some list. Uh I had provided a name to uh Miles uh for uh uh some attorneys. Um this was a couple weeks ago. Um I'd recommended O'Hanlon, Demerth, and Castillo. I believe uh Councilman Cantu had had recommended uh Scott, Ray, Pemberton, and Goll PLLC. And the last one was uh Alvarez right? Justice Patricia Alvarez. Justice Patricia Alvarez. Um I know all these are outside uh outside of Corpus Christi. Of O'Hanlon, Demerth, and Castillo, do you have a specific attorney in that firm in in mind? No, these are attorneys that I know that do small cities. Uh I believe they're based out of San Antonio. Um And they do small cities in the Valley, in Dallas, and around San Antonio. And what was the other name? Uh this is from Councilman Cantu. It's Scott, Ray, Pemberton, and Goll, G O L L. PLLC. And the specific attorney is Daniel Ray. Okay. All right. Councilman, you're done? I'm done. Thank you. Councilwoman Vaughn. I feel like I'm in a loony bin right now. Miles, I totally got what you said. You explained it very well. You said the motion needed to be changed to the to the language that you said. It was that simple. Change it and add the attorneys. But before I go there, I'm just going to say this. It You're right. Attorneys are supposed to be honest. That's their obligation. It doesn't mean they always are. We hope they are. So, I understand the concern. I wasn't here last week, so I don't know what y'all did. Um but I don't understand what the pushback is right now. I don't. We represent the citizens. There has been a concern for the citizens about this for too long, and we've got to put this to rest. We have to. Truth is truth, and that's what we need. It It sets you free. We just need to know what the truth is. So, if it takes an investigation, do it. And I'm really frustrated that we sit here and said, "Hey, the auditor nobody believed him." That's not true. It wasn't that we didn't believe him. He didn't present his case well. There wasn't enough stuff there for me to say, "Hey, go do this." That's why I thought it was I abstained and said, "Let's go to the police and Texas Rangers, whatever." And I don't know where that's at, cuz we've not had an update on that. But I think this is going to keep going on and on and on, and this is bad news for our city to do this. So, we need to nip it in the bud. As far as I'm concerned, we nip it in the bud and find out what the truth is. And then I don't think there'll be any pushback. Truth's truth. Let's find out what it is. Thanks. Councilman Scott. So, we're deliberating still uh an item that's doesn't meet the charter. No, so sorry. We have a we've we are now deliberating the the motion to amend. Right? Well, now we can't amend it because it's not out there. So, >> So, there is no motion. There's uh some proposed language that the city attorney has provided, but we don't have the list uh we're we're developing a list right now of attorneys. But But I don't know if everybody's ready with a list. Um uh Yeah, so I'm but I'm speaking on that, right? I'm not speaking on that which we decided earlier on with violated the charter. Well, if the motion We're we're just talking right now. There's no motion out there. I thought >> and second. Was there Was it seconded? I thought that Sylvia had made a No. >> So, you're right. All right. Yeah, so So, we're just talking. I know. So, we need We do need a motion at the proper I mean, we I was We need a motion out there. >> a when there's a motion on the table that we believe meets the charter, let me let me know. I'd like to visit. I'd like to speak. Okay. All right. So, we have a motion, but we do not have a second. So, we have a motion an incomplete motion without the attorneys. We've got some of them. All right. >> Yeah, we've only got partial list. Thank you, Mayor. Couple thoughts, quick. I I don't I don't think we I think uh way I understood it is is this city auditor provided document that thought there was enough evidence that we needed to hire an outside uh investigator to to to to see if there's fraud. That was my recollection. Um and and and so we did. Uh and I specifically asked the question because I was I thought it was interesting that we were I thought it was an interesting experience, and I specifically asked the question if this attorney, what's his name George George Hyde, would also in be included in his work the investigation of the city auditor's uh concerns. Those are my words, and I was told, "Yes." So, when I left that, I don't know what and and I I full disclosure, I I still think that what we should do this is you turn to your your police chief, you go, "Hey, is there something there there?" And if he goes, "Man, I think there's something there. There's smoke or whatever." Then you move on to the next step. So, that was my issue. But I I thought that we had confirmation that George Hyde was going to include in his work uh uh investigation of uh our city attorney's concerns. And so, and I'm I'm pretty really confident that that was the case because I asked it. Um and so, I If that's what we want to do, I again, I I still think we go to city uh police chief, ask him to reach out to the um the other entities, whether it's Texas Rangers or FBI, give us a report back, and that's the next step. So, that's where I was a couple weeks ago. My I guess what I'm trying to say is that I thought we confirmed that the city attorney that attorney Hyde was going to do the work requested to fulfill the desire of the council to investigate the city attorney's uh recommendations. Yeah. So, I thought we were I thought he was doing it. So, I I just want to get that out there. I thought I When I left that meeting, I thought he was going to fulfill the the concerns or the obligations of the council regarding the city attorney's concerns. And he will be reporting back on what that is within his general scope. He will be reporting back on what he sees. Is there a viola- Is there Is there a illegal act that has been committed by any um city officers or agent or third party? Councilman Bonnen. Okay. Um there's a couple things. Um I'm sorry, ma'am. Would you please Ma'am, I'm sorry. You know, you're breaking decorum. We're going to move on. Go ahead. There's a you know, there's a there's this culture, and that's a perfect example of this inflammatory rhetoric. It's it's cynical. It's destructive. And you know, it's it's done to create division and confusion. And you know, it it's it's you know, we should be here trying to solve problems. And that's where I go back to. What what problem are trying to solve? Um this obviously has been very one-sided because the plaintiff in the lawsuit is providing all the information, and they also cherry-pick the information they provide to the public and to the press. Um example is my deposition has not been provided. Right. >> And I think it's because it doesn't it doesn't fulfill the narrative. It doesn't fulfill the narrative. You know, uh it doesn't fulfill the And I might say, during my deposition, questions were asked to me if I had any interest in a uh affordable housing projects. And if I had business with any of large industry. You know, what that had to do with uh the Homewood Suites, I don't know. But once again, it's this inflammatory rhetoric that has been the effort of this council not I mean, of this this lawsuit. And you know, we have a police chief or a police department with very high integrity. And and and and and I said regardless whatever the situation. I mean the inflammatory rhetoric, I mean just Friday, you know, there was accusations made about Key West being involved in a bribery scheme. And without proof, if somebody believes that there a crime has been committed and they don't report it, then you're complicit in the crime. That happened I know cuz I saw that in your deposition, but they played it for me. They played it for me Heather's deposition and they put it in my deposition. On Key West or on No no no no no, I'm talking about in the deposition that we had. They said, "If you're aware a crime has been committed and you don't report it, then you're complicit in the crime." That's what they said. That's what that's what their opposing counsel said, the plaintiff's counsel said. So, if anyone is aware of any crime has been committed and they don't report it, then they're complicit in a crime. And right now, to placate the individuals who are part of this inflamma- inflammatory rhetoric, which is driven by a competing hotelier who has a financial stake in the success or failure of this project that we provided an incentive for, all right? Then, you know, if they feel a crime has been committed, then they should report it to the authorities. We've gone to the police chief. We've asked him he's in he I I understand that they are investigating at this time. But yet, and it's it's it it it's it's way outside of transparency. We were not being transparent at all to um all of a sudden on an item that was a that was that violated the charter and now you've offered up an amend- a replacement uh a replacement motion to be able to try and get the council. And then now all of a sudden, the individuals who who the individuals who put this item on the agenda just happen to have a list of attorneys to be able to provide. You know, I think that you know, that's that's it that that's it I think it reeks a violation of OMA. You know, so here we are trying to earn the public's trust, but yet, and even then say we do hire this attorney, then all of a sudden now we've got all these other depositions that still have yet of individuals that still have yet to be deposed. I mean, the the we're not we're not at a point, so I don't know how somebody can tell you it's less than $50,000 if all they're going to do is review the information when only one one the plaintiff's lawyer who has a financial stake in the success or failure of that hotel, the plaintiff's lawyer, they've only reviewed those depositions. And, you know, I I don't think anyone from Type A uh from Type A was was interviewed during that process. And they were the ones that made that decision. I know that the the the auditor didn't do that. So, I think right now, and obviously there's votes to proceed with this, I just think it it reeks of it reeks of once again of the purpose of inflamma- inflammatory rhetoric to move forward with a political agenda and that's wrong. And because if somebody wants to go on the radio and and and yell and and it's not just it's or or be on social media and yell corruption, well, where's your proof? And then the thing is is that we have a process that we must follow. So, I mean, if this is the majority of this council wants to go ahead and see with that, but this has been a perfect example of what we've encountered all year is this inflammatory rhetoric. And I know the public is tired of it because a poll just came out that less than 10% of the individuals in this community of those that were polled have confidence. We're polled less lower than than than Congress right now. Thank you. Councilwoman Vaughn. Miles, I want to ask you something and city secretary, y'all should know this off the top of your head. Because four of us abstained the last time I went back there Everett Speck that I didn't realize he'd recused himself. We abstained in that vote to where I abstained and said no, didn't want to hire attorney. Should we be abstaining should we even be talking about it? I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing. So, should we even be allowed to talk about it when we abstain? Cuz I know some out there are thinking that so The decision on whether or not to abstain on a particular item is is is y'all's own and you do that in each particular item. It's item specific, it's not subject specific. So, this is a um this is a different this is a different subject a different a different item. This is a different item and even a different subject, but most importantly a different item than was considered previously. Well, it's a different item, but it's the same subject. It's talking about hiring an investigator, so it's the same subject. I just want to make sure I'm not violating or doing something I'm not supposed to. The preamble which was being used as a as a argument this uses the word item. Okay. So, the the preamble by according to the exact wording of what it says is not is not violated. However, the preamble is is not really um binding because a preamble in general, and this is Black's Law Dictionary, we looked that up. A preamble is intended as an aid in interpreting when there's an ambiguity in the operative part of the document. So, it's basically up to us, the individual, to decide if they need to abstain because of what they voted for before. When it comes to a decision whether to recuse yourself, when you decide that you should be mandatory recused, you look to the standards of the rules of ethics, the standards that are in the in the city charter and the standards that are in state law, especially those standards that apply to to actual financial conflicts that might relate to a particular item. >> a financial conflict, it's a different kind of conflict. So, I just want to make sure because I don't want to sit here and talk about something when I shouldn't be doing it. Thank you. Well, Councilwoman Paxton. I mean, she's she's before you and she'll we'll get to you. Go ahead. I I was I'll come back after hers. So, it's okay. Okay, thank you. Okay, so that that is a good question a good issue that you that uh Councilwoman Vaughn brings up because um I don't know if if the council members that that uh abstained did file a conflict of issue document as I believe they are required to do. Ar- aren't they? If there is a conflict uh and you are abstaining, there's you should state why you're not able to vote. Like Councilwoman just said, I didn't have there was no reason I I don't know what I didn't have it. It there was no They didn't give me enough evidence to say Okay. So, there wasn't enough information for her, but I'm asking or was it on record that uh whenever usually someone abstains, they usually state why they're abstaining. Was that information provided cuz that would help us to to um conclude, you know, whether, you know, some of the fellow my fellow council members should be part of this discussion because if they have a conflict from the beginning, then it continues on this discussion. So, I'm asking was there a conflict? um >> Well, as the city attorney explained, it's it's on an it's it depends on the item. So, I think he also sent you some like an email about that as well explaining the the the issues with conflict of interest. My role in this I I take the forms that are provided by the council members and I file them. I mean, that's so I file them for transparency. So, if the public does want the forms, then then I have those available. But I don't provide legal advice to to the council. Okay, so because typically when someone abstains, I mean, if they have a conflict, they'll fill out, right? Like you say, there's a form that is filled out. And I'm asking was there a form that was filled out for conflict? Cuz I remember Councilman Everett just automatically abstained from the discussion and I thought that was the right thing to do, but when we kept discussing it, some of the other members that have already been um um film I mean, what do you call it? Did the um can't think of the word the the deposement um didn't uh recuse themselves, so that's why I'm, you know, I'm kind of still confused about that. They don't have to then. They don't have to fill out that form. That's what you're saying. Well, that's I think it's he explained that it's depends on it's a individual council member's decision based on the circumstances surrounding that item. I don't know say anything else about it, but I mean, I'm just reiterating what the city attorney has said. A person can abstain for a legally prescribed reason or a different reason or no reason at all. Okay, but when those individuals were deposed and they continued to be part of the discussion, wasn't that a conflict? Because they ended up voting at the end uh to hire that the attorney that you suggested. So, I guess that was the main question is should should they have been part of that discussion? Just like now. You're You're asking a should question. And And that's not the same as a shall question. Um are you required by law to abstain is a is a different issue cuz Texas law provides specific instances upon which you're obligated to abstain and recuse yourself and follow recusal affidavit. If one of those provisions does not apply, then you're not required legally to uh to recuse yourself. Hm. Okay. Um Miles, if council members received money from these hoteliers, would that be a conflict? If If you're receiving money that's dependent upon your particular vote, or received money that that makes gives you a financial specified financial interest, you might have a you might have a reason to recuse yourself from >> Okay. Or hosted fundraisers or met with them. Well, that met or hosted fundraisers may or may not depending >> my point is is to to councilwoman's point is there's a lot of conflict up here. There's a whole lot of conflict, but I think it it it's based on what you feel is conflicted and and and what the What is it? The There are standards provided in the ethics ordinance that are very that are prescriptive and in the absence of a conflict of interest pursuant to the code of ethics and or some other legally mandated obligation to to abstain, then you would not have an obligation to to abstain. All right. Councilwoman Paxton. Thank you. Um law. There's a lot of ins and outs. We have a lot of documents that try to guide us to represent the community best and it can be challenging to understand those and we all have to do our due diligence to study those and figure out where they apply to us as best we can and as we know better, we do better every single day, every single one of us. My question right now. I think um I think we have a motion and a second. Miles, I wanted to to see if you had everything that you needed on your side for that to be validated so that we can proceed. Uh we have what I believe is three names so far that have been listed um to to put in the blank, but that would need to be added by the person making the motion or one of the other council members. Scott Ray Pemberton and Gall, uh and I believe that's Daniel Ray that works for that firm, Justice Patricia Alvarez or O'Hanlon Murph and Castillo. And I think there's already the motion. So, that would need added. Is that what I'm understanding? No, the motion wasn't made yet. So, we're just needing to add the the language add the attorneys that that you mentioned. I heard I believe Councilwoman Campos had made the motion and then Councilman Cantu had seconded. Yeah, I haven't heard but I didn't without those attorneys listed. So, we do need those placed into the motion for it to be complete. So, they need to amend what they understood was the appropriate motion to include the attorneys. So, okay. I guess I'm going to ask Does anyone else I don't know how many people uh submitted attorneys' names and this is all on a whim. I don't know who knew to do this or not. Um but but there has to be an opportunity, you know, whether people take it or not to submit a name or names. I have a name. You have a name? Carlos Valdez. Okay. Councilman Cantu. I mean Councilman Scott. >> He's not that good. I mean I I'm just saying every there's certain you know. All right, we'll get you your turn here. Councilwoman Paxton, you're still on. Well, she's still on. I'm I just wanted to realest back to our steps that were in front of us because it's it's it's complicated. I want to make sure that this diet is fully understands the decisions that they're making and I also don't want to belabor a point that that we may be ready to move forward with. So, we just need the names, an amendment potentially, and then we can vote and be moving on. Yeah. Yeah, that's the plan. Councilman Scott. Right. Mayor, I would I have no idea. I think the good news is I have no idea who to talk to about investigative stuff like this. Uh but I I would assume that Texas Municipal League has some sort of role or there's a I would ask that we consider asking the Texas Municipal League what people are out there have done this work before and they're not uh well I I Let me put this way, to bring names at this meeting, I think lacks transparency and I think we want to give it a chance to kind of percolate and and I appreciate that Gil. I think you act you did reach out TML, but I'd like I'd like staff to do that, right? Cuz it This is really I just think I'm leaving it at that. I would like staff to have the ability to reach out to TML and say, "Hey, there's five names." and and then at least looks like it's it's a third party at work for us, not yeah, not the not a first party. And Councilman Cantu. So, what do we need to do? You got the motion, you got the names, right? Miles, is that What are we doing? The list I have so far is Scott Ray Pemberton and Gall, Daniel Ray, O'Hanlon Murph and Castillo, and Justice Patricia Alvarez, and were you Did you Carlos Valdez? >> Need more? So, the How about we just solve this problem? Just We all just take a lie detector test. That'd be much cheaper. I'm just I'm just saying. That'd be I think it'd be much better. Um Maybe we could ask some questions about the inner harbor and everything's honest as we bring him back. Um Yeah, I'm ready to move forward with that. Um We got names. So, um I'm ready I'm ready to move Does Carlos Valdez live in Corpus Christi or does he live out of town now? What What is he doing? Is he even Does he Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um I think that shall be it. Okay, so I'm I'll move forward with the motion. We have a motion and a second. All right. Um and and and for the record, I'm going to go back to this to to put it on record, Miles, because um this was already said um in writing, but back to the point of why you and other staff members are witnesses because you and other staff members that you are part of the vetting process of every single agenda that comes forward. So, you know, regardless of statements or not, you are all part of that vetting process and therefore any item on the agenda, you would have, you know, some sort of conflict with. I just want to make that statement. It's really not a question, but here is the question for you. So, according to the charter, when do you bring back the request that you're going to give us, I guess, to hire in writing uh that states the necessity for this action? Because I'm unclear according to the charter whether you do that first or you take direction first. First off, it's not direction, it's a request. It's It's It's a request that the city staff execute a contract within the city manager's authority subject to available appropriated funding to contract with an attorney to investigate fraud allegations pursuant to the Homewood Suites transaction referenced in the lawsuit of Ajit David versus City of Corpus Christi et al. Selected from the following list of attorneys: Scott Ray Pemberton and Gall, Daniel Ray, O'Hanlon Murph and Castillo, Justice Patricia Alvarez, and Carlos Valdez. That's the That's the proposed motion. When it doesn't doesn't state a time on which we would bring that back. However, we have I I think that when we have a majority of city council that wants to do something, we as staff, we tend to try to comply with y'all's request. That's the next expectation of the city manager. That's what I try to do to meet his expectations and to meet y'all's expectate expectations. >> at all. I am I'm My concern is the city charter. And the city charter states that you will request it in writing the necessity of hiring legal counsel. So, I'm just making certain that what we're doing is not illegal because And when are you going to give us that notice in writing, more importantly, and the necessity All that's included there. If a majority of city council feels that that's what's needed in order to have the credibility as city council to feel that they can move ahead on on matters, that would probably be go into the necessity determination that I would put in such a memo. Again, our job is to in general comply with the city council and and if city council has made that conclusion and desire, we're going >> Mayor, probably be about 2 weeks. Okay, 1 to 2 weeks. Miles does these We do them frequently in in running the business whether it's a water issue, a real estate issue. I would say 1 to 2 weeks. He should have the attorneys vetted the statement No, I'm just talking right the statement. I'm not I'll have the state right within 1 to 2 weeks he should have the statement written the attorney analysis and a selected attorney. 1 to 2 weeks. Okay. Again, my concern is what the charter says versus what we're doing. Right, that's why this motion kind of over supersedes the written memo. Yeah, to make it legit to talk about. Okay. And since the motion was made and this is normal kind of a little outside our normal process, be sure to provide request public comment before we before having the vote. We're not just reiterating. So, now we're going to have because we we have Councilman we have we have decorum to some of Okay, can we please Councilman let's you and I talk offline. Let's talk offline about it. I'm going to open public comment on item number 18. If you would like to speak on this item, please come forward. We have to Rachel Caballero D1. There's so many bureaucrats that need to be removed from this entire building. This is this is exactly why people hate dealing with the government. Hiring outside counsel in this case became necessary for a few reasons. The most important reason is that state law bar rules prohibits attorneys from being witnesses to essential facts and advocates in the same case. The city attorney's office became a possible witness to an essential fact in this case when on September 9th, 2025 Mayor Woahardo stated the ordinance was vetted by staff, was vetted by legal, was vetted by city managers, was vetted by the legal department, and then it was on this dais. So, if anyone is saying this was forged legal document, there's a lot of people. So, what happened here and the reason why we're going to have to come out of pocket $500,000 is because people threw other people under the bus. That's the truth and it's costing taxpayers half a million dollars. Why we as taxpayers have to pay to represent liars is why there is no confidence in this local government. That is why. The state bar rules prohibits attorneys for the city from being advocates for a client testifying as a witness as a fact witness on an essential element in the same proceeding. So, people's comments conflicted our own city staff, our own legal department to keep us to keep our legal department from defending the city. And and the big picture here here is councilman that's all of a sudden has a conscience and morals. The problem we're trying to solve here is corruption. We're trying to solve the problem of taxpayer dollars being stolen from this community and being given to campaign contributors. The problem we are trying to solve here is politicians career ones at that that refuse to represent this community. And we're going to make an example out of one of the three that are involved in these proceedings because this community I'm telling you right now is done with the theft of our tax dollars. We're done with the back door deals. We're done with the corruption. So, the issue here is that people knowingly accepted a project that they knew federal documents had been forged. That is the issue here. Now as taxpayers we have to represent we have to pay outside lawyers to figure this out because of the incompetency and the bureaucracy of what's happening in this local government. Everyone here should be ashamed of what's happening in this town. I'm ashamed, but we will set an example now. We will make an example out of someone cuz this will not go on any further. Susan Lena Saldana, Corpus Christi, Texas. Let me tell you I've been hearing you back and forth. Yeah, I feel kind of feel sorry for you. I don't know why because you're taking money to spend when you could use one lawyer to take care of everything. You now have two lawyers to take care of things which is going to cost more money. And I tell you I want you to do it. However, you know what? I want you to do it completely. Right now you have only heard one side of the argument. You haven't even heard the second side. And you cannot make a judgment call based on one side of the argument. You have to have both sides. So, when you do your internal investigation you should honestly wait till the side of the other person is heard. Because otherwise you're not getting to the truth. You know, some of the people that are on that side I don't even like. And I'm honest about it. However, the truth is the truth. And you should go after the truth, but it should be as a whole. Look at both sides and then have your investigation. And then when the legal system comes out and says they're guilty, they're not guilty, then make your transparency charges. Don't supersede the whole thing because you're only listening to one side of the table. You're spending $500,000 for this. Money that we don't have. You have a budget that needs to be taken care of. You have housing, you have things that need to be taken care of. And what are we doing? Fighting about transparency, who's right, who's wrong, who takes political contributions, who doesn't. All of you take political contributions. All of you have people that you you come from. All of you have people that you want to help. All of you hopefully are sitting there because of honesty. But if you tell me that I'm not going to favor this one because he just gave me $100,000. That's all. Little nick nack. Or he gave me $25. There is no difference. You need to come to your senses and stop making us a laughing stock in the city. I'm tired of people criticizing Corpus Christi. I'm tired of hearing about city council. And I sit here throughout your whole arguments. But I have to be able to defend it. And that's why ladies and gentlemen take a look at tea time tomorrow. Thank you. Molly Lena Garza, District 1. Man, y'all need a better city attorney. The performance that I have seen from Miles Risley has just been poor and I think it's just a very inaccurate depiction of what our city legal department has to offer us. Not everybody is cut out for that job and he is just not leading you in the right direction. He's covering his butt because you got to remember he's involved in this lawsuit, too. So, he's going to try to make sure that he's not saying anything today or anything going forward that is going to incriminate him further into this criminal case. Okay? The lack of transparency is just sad. If you're not guilty of anything, shouldn't worry. Let the wheels of justice run, show up, answer truthfully under the oath and represent our city. You are the elected guardians of us. And I believe in due process because it can look like one thing and then you go into court and that person was lying to you and now the real thing is coming out because they're under oath. Okay? So, you got to do the research on your own and represent your constituents because right now we're representing certain special interests. If you have committed no crime, should be no problem. As a child that has several lawyers in their family, you know, something that I learned is that if you're not guilty, be quiet. And if you are guilty, really be quiet. There's people up here that have abstained, so be quiet. Let the others talk. It's called poisoning the well, it's a fallacy. Look it up. Okay? So, you either are going to participate or you're not. There's not this half in half out kind of BS. Okay? Get a better city attorney before it gets you into legal trouble. Hi, I'm Robin Cox, District 3. And I'm totally changed what I wanted to say after hearing all of y'all cuz it was like watching ping pong with all of y'all going back and forth. And I feel a little differently. I feel sorry for my for the city attorney attorney. This has gotten to be so confusing. I think what should be done is y'all should have this trial have a publicly hearing so everyone can see what it's going to be. I don't care if you get the team of OJ's attorneys get the best ones are you bringing my cousin Vinnie? If you're guilty, you're guilty. And first of all, if you're so afraid to be investigated, you know, it's like the guy who's cheating on his wife who says I didn't know you were following me around. Well, if I leave my phone out all the time cuz you know why? I'm never worried about who's calling me cuz I'm not doing anything wrong. But if you're so terrified to be investigated, that sends a message. And I know we're all friends here. I mean, all of you are my friends. So, on that note, I want to say this is embarrassing. I have friends calling me from other cities saying we're watching what's going on. Doing the right thing isn't very hard and I commend one of you who is standing by and being a total ally. I mean, you're going to stand by that person till the very end. I commend Everett Roy for stepping out of this. But when you stand by someone you may think this person will give me the shirt off their back. But be careful, that person when backed into a corner will take that shirt off their back and choke you with it. So, you better be careful who your friends are cuz if that ship is sinking, you're going to go down with them. Part of me thinks about this like in the Titanic. I'm sure you've all seen that movie. You're going to be loyal to that person. But remember when that pretty girl that you thought jumped in the water, she didn't let you on the door with her. She let you sink. So, be very careful who you're sticking by cuz they could turn on you. So, let's hope we all get to see this and it's televised. Like I said, I'm sitting here just I can't believe that our city is going through this. Maybe the best thing to do is just admit it. Admit if you've done something wrong. Sometimes the cover-up is worse than the crime. So, maybe we should just admit it like I said, I feel sorry cuz some of you have just thrown your friends under the bus. So, wink wink. I Sandra Meyer Flower Bluff area. Basically, to me $50,000, $400,000, whatever is a lot of money that we cannot afford for attorneys. I discovered this weekend that all over social media there is stuff out there that shows every single agency that has been provided our allegations of wrongdoing plus a little bit. On October 7th, 2024, coincidentally 1 year ago, the first sheet or actually page number two list a whole bunch of different people from the FBI, the AG's office, the Texas Rangers office to include Chief Markle, the person is so passionate about sharing the concerns that he felt like he was being ignored and was doing certified while certified mail copies. And from what I saw, he's so concerned that nobody's paying attention to his allegations of wrongdoing that there's even pictures of the certified mail stamps. I'm not going to read through, but basically he kind of summarized the lawsuit from Dr. or Mr. David if I got that name correctly. Um So, all those people have already been asked to look at this. Then after the September 9th meeting a couple of weeks ago, he sent out another blast cuz he got some more ideas of places of people that could potentially investigate the fraud. On the very last page if you go to it included the specialized public finance groups. Um just the Texas State Securities Board. If anybody here thinks that our allegations that have come up in Mr. David's lawsuit has not been shared with law enforcement, I think we're very wrong and that's why so many people are aware of our issues. I implore you, please wait at least a couple of weeks, verify that this is true information because I did pull it off Facebook and I have not read even all of Mr. David's stuff. Please verify that this is actually sent out. And please save the citizens money. Even the 50,000 is that lady back there has got some nonprofit stuff that she would love to be able to use $50,000 for. I think Marilyn Garza. It's a lot of money. So, please. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good morning or good afternoon, I should say. My name is Aaron Ayala. Mayor Gorda, you're fantastic lady. I just want to make sure I give you your flowers right off the bat. >> And what city are you with, sir? Um Aaron Ayala, District 3. Thank you. I get my timer to start over? Oh okay. I'm a hard-working taxpayer and let me tell you the three signature memo on today's agenda is a total disaster. A witch hunt, the biggest abuse of power you've ever seen. And those council members who signed it, shame on you. Your names are all over this fake news fraud and the people are watching, believe me. Look, it's simple. This memo was sneaky and I want I want to hire They want to hire another outside attorney for this so-called Homewood Suites fraud discussion. Action to cite the lawyer boom, another 400,000 of our money gone. Proof, why? Why now? City Attorney Miles Risley, a sharp guy, his September 19th emails tell the whole story. April 16th, 2024 executive session, the entire council including our great mayor gets the full briefing. A PowerPoint screenshot from FEMA appeared altered. Sure, to show 022 maps, not fraud, not a federal document. Risley attaches the proof side by side crystal clear. No one has said that any documents was fraud. Paulette says and she's 100% right, total hoax. But they won't stop. Why? Because of the loser like Doug Allison, that disgrace export lawyer is a total failure. He's repping Ajit David, the rival hotel guy who hates competition. David's empire is crumbling, the lawsuit is fake. Allison's depositions are games and nonsense. He harasses Anani. Did you tell the mayor? Because he's weak. Peter Anani, your $460,000 year manager job and text messages to Ajit David. Ajit David, it's not looking good, sir. You're dodging, you're fumbling your job while Paulette continues to to deliver jobs downtown with the economic boom. Council signers, this is your official oppression, misuse of info conspiracy, you're wasting money on grudges. Again, grudges. No one this all planned, the water crisis is raging to stop Paulette's port appointment power vote. She's not pushing agendas, she's building winners. Again, I stress building winners. She sustained her vote like a pro, y'all are signing smears and that's pathetic. I demand you all to end this witch hunt. I stand with Paulette 110%. She's making us great. Corpus Christi, we're going to win big. No more losers. No more hoax. Make our city great again. Thank you and God bless. Thank you. I thought Hang on. The comment we were not going to let anyone call names out. You had Mr. Sinani attacked, you have been attacked, and Miles has been attacked. I thought we were not going to do that anymore that names were not going to be used. Didn't he say? I don't care. Before it happened. And if we're going to do it, we've got to be fair. Yeah. But it happened earlier with Mr. Risley. And now it happened Sinani and I don't know if it happened to you earlier. You were kind of complimented on that one. But I'm just saying that it has to be fair. >> Rebecca We've got to Yeah, it it it it went by me. So, you're right. Yeah. And Rebecca and Miles. Nobody caught it. Is there Not even to ourselves. Well, All right. Anyone else? All right, we're closing public comment. We've got one more. Hi, Alejandro Benavides. I'm from District 3. Um So, I guess that was amazing, right? That was awesome. Thank you works for Chronica. Um He could have just let me know. I would have shouted him out like I just did Chronica. You know, they have some really good articles. But, um I know we have some Navy people here, too. Some military. And what we're really looking at today is gun decking. We're looking at people that didn't do the do the the due process of of what needed to be done to ensure that the right processes were upheld. And a couple other Navy terms, honor, courage, and commitment. We shouldn't have to spend $50,000 or $400,000. But, it's because that people who refuse to recuse themselves or take themselves out because it's not the law doesn't say you have to even though it's a conflict of interest. Even though the Corpus Christi people know it's a conflict of interest, you still refuse to say I'll step this one out to so that our city can maintain confidence in the leadership of Corpus Christi City Council. A few members here they just will not do that. And because of that, we have to spend that 50,000. We have to spend the 40 4 400,000. If it's if not, then this snake is going to run wild. It's already lost us $50 million. It's about to lose us two more million dollars. We have to get rid of the corruption before it takes over the whole city council like a cancer. All of Corpus is already losing their their confidence in you. I I know that that's another term that Navy Navy veterans would understand. Because when we lose our confidence in you, it's time to put you aside. Because the mission at hand is bigger. Corpus Christi is bigger. And whether you you think there was right or wrong done, Corpus Christi is bigger than that. And the right thing to do would to be recuse yourself and even resign. And say, "You know what? If if there's no confidence in Corpus Christi because of me, I will save I'll probably be the first time you saved us money." So, do us a favor, save us the money. There's a couple other people that just don't mind seeing this snake go. But, I agree with Eric Cantu when I say it's like so easy to see. It's so easy to see because just like the water when there's no evidence, there's there's no there's no good things no benefits you can hold on to, you're still pushing it down our throats. And so, it makes it easy to see that there are council members lining their pockets past and present. There are other organizations that are trying to get involved just to make that little bit money. And because of that, we have to deal with threats. We got what? From the NRA, we're getting threats. From from the from the Key West other people, we're getting more threats. They're going to pull our jobs. They're going to pull our funding. It's time to do the right thing and resign so we don't have to waste another $400,000. Thank you. >> Anyone else? Okay, we're closing public comment on item 18. And we have a motion on I'm sorry, a motion and a second on the floor. Please submit your vote. Oh, hang on. Yeah. And Mr. Roy abstained. Okay. Okay, the motion the motion carries. Thank you. Our next item is item number 19 and that is a briefing or quarterly update from the Corpus Christi Economic Development Corporation. Mr. Culbertson. All right, gained one and I lost one. All right, great. How you doing? Mike Culbertson from your Corpus Christi Regional EDC. How you doing? Uh I am going to talk to this, but this is probably going to be my last one. So, I will tell you that we're doing fine. Our missions stuff like that. Everything's going well. But, nothing happens if we don't get water. So, uh been doing this 16 years. And as that one guy one gentleman talked about, masters in business, Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations. What he was trying to talk about, I'm sure he read it. What he's trying to talk about is um is what industry means to us. And I'll tell you what industry means to us. Um Port of Corpus Christi employs 300 people. Um about 57 less than you have police officers. And port industries employs uh not that many more. I mean, they they employ somewhere around what? 7,000 people almost 10,000 depending on them where you fit. But, they have for indirect and induced almost 90,000 jobs of our 205 200,500 jobs. Now, you start watching those jobs go away and this is what's going to happen. Uh in 1988, I remember this date because I was taking my wife to MD Anderson in Houston. Texaco, and you might not know him or not Texaco. Uh and he might not know him, but you remember Texaco, the man who wears the star, the big bright Texaco star, laid off 8,000 people, 4,000 in Houston. When that happened in Corpus Christi, uh everybody left. Everybody went and downtown, which had housed a lot of the refinery uh admin people and things like that, uh they moved out. They moved to Houston. They moved to San Antonio. Uh all of the controllers, their uh their uh admin people, their uh counting, all left and they did remote accounting. They moved out to the uh out to the refineries and downtown just became a ghost town. We're in uh One Shoreline, which is getting auctioned today, uh just so you know. And if you wondered how how much a uh a floor is, it's 3 3,978 square feet. And it was really built for uh for wildcatters and those kind of oil explorations. Six floors had never been opened on that floor in that building. And it was built in 1986. So, that is what industry means to us and that's what water means to us. And so, when you talk about how much water, if you when we talk about any of the above, we mean all of the above because you have to have water for us to grow. And because from 1988 to 2009 when we started bringing businesses here, we had nothing. And so, what did we do? We tried to keep the What did city leaders do? Uh we tried to keep the tax rate down. And we did it by not not fixing roads. And you all, and I know you all have done this, you have been have suffered the brunt of that by having to raise taxes to as as you've gotten more taxes to fix those roads. And you've done a great job. And I and I want to stop right now and thank you for your service. I could not do I would not do I will not do what you do. I want to thank you for this. I know it's a thankless job. I sit out there. I sat out there till 11:00 at night. And yes, I'm conflicted out. So, I don't can't do it either. So, it is a thankless thankless job. And even if I don't agree with you, it's a thankless thankless job. And I so appreciate it because if you didn't do it, no one do. And I know it takes a special love of your city, a special love of your county, a special love of your state. I think once you get to federal, it's a little bit more ego driven, but you know, whatever. We'll we'll worry about that later. I want to thank you for that. And I know that staff works really hard because I know that you're know you're looking at things. You're looking at at short-term things. I know you're looking at long-term things. Um But, this is what's going to have to happen. I mean, think about it. When they were trying to uh cut corners, it got so bad that the EPA came in and said, "Okay, you're not spending enough. So, guess what we're going to do? We're going to have an agreed upon order to where you're going to have to spend this amount of money every year on your wastewater system. Okay? This is how bad it got. They even came down here and told you how much you're going to have to spend. All right? So, these are the things that we're going to Now, this is the gift that keeps giving because once we once those industrial districts in San Pat start blowing up, you are going to get tens of millions of dollars more a year and you can do it for anything you want. And and if you want to do it for all for water, that's fine. You can do that. Okay? We came here. We're the Boomerangs, right? You know, you hear people who live here and never leave. You hear people who come here and stay. We were the ones I graduated here in high school. My dad was in the Navy. You know, it's one of many schools I'd gone to. I left here thinking I'd never see it again. Uh, unfortunately, I married a girl who's from here. And so, you know, I dragged her all over, you know, hell's half acre. And you know, we were up in Houston and she said came back and said, "You know, I'd really like to like to go back." We It was our 30-year reunion. You know, we had missed 10, I think 10 were in Whidbey Island. Uh, 30 uh 20 were in All right. God, we must have been in Bob Beach or something. >> so sorry to interrupt you, but just in the spirit of time because we do have public comment coming up. Okay, sorry. Yeah maybe. >> No, I understand. I understand. >> Thank you. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but And um And so, we moved back here. So, we're boomerangs. And you know, we we have a place here and actually paid it off. I I've said that I've owned eight houses, but I really only own this house. I've actually paid it off. Hello? It's alive. Okay. But these are I I want you to think about those things and just how important because we're hitting the cliff. I don't know if you know we're hitting the cliff. If you go to ISDs, who's been on Is anybody been on long-range planning for ISDs? Guess what's happening. Colleges, their enrollment Some of them are are doing what Del Mar's doing well, but Del Mar is doing well in the certificates. But you will see colleges going down. Their senior class is going to be bigger than their junior class is going to be bigger than their sophomore class is going to be bigger than their freshman class. And the same is true in in high schools. The the um They are going to get smaller. And you are going to see you're going to see elementary schools closing. You're going to see middle schools closing. This is what's happening. And so, we need to be ready for that. But we still need jobs. One in four people that you meet in Corpus Christi, only one has a bachelor's. And so, we need kids that can work in these refineries, in these um jobs that have a future that where they can buy a house, where they can retire, where they can get married, where they can do things in there. And these are the kind of things that we can do for them. Even Austin. Austin, you think, well, you know, go to Austin. They have a lot of bachelor's. Two. 50%. What are you going to do with the other two kids? You know, so these are important jobs and they spread throughout the economy. So, I want to tell you thank you very much for your service. We need all of the water. If you're wondering what how much water, 150 million. 150. 150. Go there. And then get ready for more. Okay. All right. Councilwoman Paxton. Thank you, Mayor. Um I appreciate that you emphasized that we need lots of water. Yes. We certainly have it. >> Not now. You don't need all of it now. But we need >> take time. I I think I think that we can all, no matter what we favor as a project, agree that they take time. And so, you have to plan today for a bright tomorrow. And I think that your presentation here would agree with that. Yes. Um on uh I did I did have a question on uh slide Oh, they're not numbered. You have a pie chart. Yes, that one? Yes. >> BRE? Are you looking at it or Okay. So, BRE, business retention and expansion. One of the things we do is we go out and we talk to people. And we are agnostic whether they are investors with us or not. We just want to know what their challenges are. You know, and uh some of their challenges that we're finding is just business intel. And one of the problems that we're having is I think we all understand what the administration's trying to do with, for example, tariffs or immigration. But if you just throw a bunch of tariffs on, but we haven't had the time to build out uh plants, doesn't There's friction. >> question was actually um one of the challenges was in recruiting resources and making connections. Right. I know I know that we serve in this capacity as a regional economic development center. And I know that you know, all of our neighboring communities are very economic development minded right now. The Coastal Bend is growing. The Coastal Bend is surging. There's a lot of new businesses. There's a lot of um large enterprises that are looking at us. Um and that's that's really catalytic. This is a great time to be in the Coastal Bend. Yeah, but I think what happens is especially when you're talking those in these parts. Um These are companies that are um that tend to be smaller. And as they're growing, um the the heads of them, you know, it's one or two people. And he or she are just working really hard and you know, just getting product out. And they don't have that luxury of going out and doing the for marketing that they were doing right when they were when they didn't have a lot of customers and you know, doing that marketing that they did. And they're almost so busy that they don't have enough time to either, you know, don't have enough space in the budget to uh to get a salesperson or to train a salesperson. You know, so those are the things that we're trying to find them. And one of the things we found out especially at SBDCs is you can't bring them in for an afternoon. You almost have to do it over a lunch, a lunch and learn. You know, or even, you know, COVID taught us, you know, hey, just online. Just online lunch and learn. You know, you you know, you sit at your desk at your office and we can give you pointers. And you know, that's one of the things that that the type B and the city council has has seen you know, fit to to fund. Well, I I am also skipping down to one of the pages that is the area projects net taxable value. Oh yeah. >> Substantial growth here. Yes. I I think you made the comment that this was your last presentation with us. And so, I appreciate that what you've brought for us is a great strong outlook and a diverse portfolio of businesses that are interested in the Coastal Bend, coming to the Coastal Bend. It's a testament to the team's efforts. And I'm going to earmark this page. So, thank you for your presentation. >> Oh, and there were a lot of us. There were only six of us, but but I mean, there was a lot went through the what A lot went through the office. >> Well, thank you very much for your presentation. Well, thank you. Councilwoman Vaughn. So, say that again about Texaco. About what? >> Texaco in '89. What did you say? In '88, they laid off 8,000 people, 4,000 in Houston. Okay, did you contribute that to something that happened here? No, that this was just an oil downturn at the time. >> Okay, I was just making sure because from '85 to '89, there there were 4,000 rigs, they dropped to 650. It was an oil decline over the entire nation. >> Oh, yeah. It was just Just making clear that it didn't have anything to do with our city because it was a boom down there. You're right. Those buildings were filled. Yeah. We were there. I know. >> Yeah, and then it just Yeah. Yeah, just plunk. Yeah. Um let me ask you something. Well, good luck with whatever you're going to do. And thank you for your service to the city. Have y'all got any new pro- projects coming up that you can tell us about other than something that doesn't need water? Well, one of the So, just so you know, the mayor knows this and uh and Councilwoman Barrera, um we went out with a targeted industry survey. One of the things we said was we want um projects that don't require a lot of water. So, you know, we're looking at uh at drones. And one of the things that we're finding is we're on a list. And this list is uh DOD drones uh and shipbuilding. And when we're talking about shipbuilding, we're there is a big push by this administration especially uh to bring back shipbuilding into the United States. And we're not necessarily talking about putting a shipyard here, but doing but taking components, uh moving them up the Intracoastal, you know, and the Intracoastal goes all the way to Texas, all the way up to um even past Bob Beach, you know, and up into Maryland. And and providing those places uh those shipyards with components because they don't have enough room to to grow themselves cuz you know, they're hemmed in. So, those are the things we're looking at. Um they'll need hotel services. When we talk about Well, Gil will explain hotel services to you. Uh when a ship pulls in, you know, we just hook up and we call it hotel service. But it's not a lot of water. It's not a lot of power. But it's a lot of jobs. So, you know, you can make components and then throw them on a barge and you can get them up there pretty quickly. So, you're telling me that's a possibility? Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Councilman Hernandez. Thank you, Mayor. You know, some of the challenges we have are with the um Corpus Christi Army Depot. Has there been I mean, So, one of the things that that the Army uh secretary said was buried in there was he wants to see all depot level uh engage in manufacturing. And so, we're kind of taking that as a as a call to arms. Uh and you know, they can make thousands of components at aviation specs over and over and over and over and over. And uh and as the Black Hawk trims down and your pastry trims down, you know, we we look at them as, you know, possible, you know, putting companies out on base and and using part of C-CAD, hopefully, as as a as a resource. Okay, as I'm sure the EDC has some involvement. I mean, even though it's a government entity, how do you how does the EDC fall into that? We use them we can help market help them market. They cannot, you know, obviously market themselves, but we can help, you know, understand their abilities and help market that. Of course, they have the final say and of course, you know, it's government, so you know, we have to step back at some point, but we can do that for them. So, you mentioned some I guess you I guess you call it CTE. Back Back when I was young, it was called vocational training, but >> Yeah, yeah. Career training education. Okay, is there any involvement on with the EDC in that part or Well, we So, we had manufacturing day on October 3rd, which is nationwide. We had 270 kids at the FEMA dome in Del Mar talking to local manufacturers, you know, Teslas of the world, Steel Dynamics, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures. We had quite a few there talking about, you know, what you have to do and you know, kids are actually pretty inquisitive, you know, so "What's your day like, you know? Do I get to do? How much do you get paid, you know? How much autonomy do I have? Do I work with machines?" You know, things like that. It's It's pretty impressive. So, that was our fourth annual and uh I was surprised. I was talking to one to one to one possible project and he was saying, "You know, Mike Del Mar and A&M is, you know, Workforce Solutions is great, but I want I want you know, just a stream of workers. So, I really want to see it down to the ninth grade level." And I'm thinking, you know, I knew what I wanted to do in ninth grade, but I don't I don't think any of my classmates knew what they wanted to do. I was actually surprised. And then we the mayor was there when CCISD came in and talked about their CTE to the to our board. In fact, it was so important, we put CCISD on our board. They're on our board of directors because of CTE. Okay, thank you and and you you're saying that water's important. Yes, we have a lot of support, but you know, they they obviously are the experts, you know, we we just try to match people together with industry. >> I was being facetious. >> Ah. No, not you. He's an amphib. Mike, thank you so much. We appreciate the update. >> Yeah, thank you. Thank you. All righty. Peter, do you want to do the >> Yeah, we do have a quick city manager's report and I'm going to have Richard come up to the podium. Richard McCurley is our new airport director. He's going to deliver it. Um Richard is our new airport director. He started yesterday after we did a national, statewide, and local search. So, he has over 35 years of experience in the aviation industry and we're glad he's going to be here to lead our airport to the next level. And as a seasoned professional, he brings Corpus Christi a strong background and experience of airport operations, air service development, which is important, business and commercial development, and airport facilities. Richard most recently was at the city of Albuquerque and New Mexico overseeing Albuquerque's International Sunport and Double Eagle II Airport. His experience includes 22 years in various capacities and leadership roles at the Hobby Airport in Houston. So, that's where he started his career, 22 years there, right down the street here in in Texas. So, Richard, thank you for being here and sitting through the meeting and with that, you're just going to do a quick introduction of yourself to the council. They'll see more of you in these coming months and years and then a quick reminder that this this Thursday is the first Frontier direct flight to Denver. So, he'll explain that to real quick. So, good evening, mayor and councilors and everything. Such a pleasure being here in Corpus Christi. I want to thank the city manager, Mr. Zanoni, for this opportunity to be here in Corpus Christi and and work with that team out here and everything. So, thank you so much. Um as you mentioned, you know, I've been doing this for 35 years in airport management. It's been a joy for me. You know, when you do the job that you love, it's it's it's not a job. And I truly love being an airport manager, work with the team that I I work with, serving council, serving the city manager, but most importantly, civil service, serving the citizens. I've always enjoyed that. What I could bring at the airport, build those opportunities at the airport, whether it's air service, it's new infrastructure it's working with the community to always have first impression at the airport. I look at those three areas and what I can do to achieve to just make everything look better at the airport and and serving the public is what I'm always looking to make those opportunities. So, I'm open to any questions. If you have any questions. Well, first of all, welcome and thank you for being here. We're so happy to meet you and we're excited about you you you came in at a perfect time, you know, with these new flights. So, that's going to be very exciting on Thursday. Uh Councilwoman Botello. I just wanted to say welcome. We're glad you're here. And I think you're going to enjoy the city. It's a good city. This is good news, people out there. This needs to be reported and we're excited about Frontier as well. So, we're happy you're here. Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Councilwoman Gumpel. I just wanted to say the same thing. I'm so glad that you decided to come to Corpus Christi and it's nice to know that you have a taste of Texas, you know, that you know, that you know, from Hobby, you know, to Corpus Christi. All I know is that when I do travel and I come to the airport, it just you get that feeling of You know, it's just it's what a vast different from all the other airports that I have experienced. Not that I've experienced that many, but I congratulate you. I'm I'm hopeful for for our city and what what is yet to come. So, congratulations. Thank you. I know for the night and everything, I'll move forward on it. So, as Mr. Zanoni was mentioning, we have the inaugural flight to Denver with Frontier Airlines. The first flight will be on Thursday. It'll be arrival. It's 5:30. We'll have a press event about 5:45 in between the arrival and departure. And departure leaves out at 6:45 p.m. and arrives there about 9:30 in Denver. So, first flights and they're going to be on Thursday and Sundays. So, good opportunity for people getting off work, catching that flight, spending some days up there and also for them to come down to Corpus to enjoy the beaches and and the Lexington and also the aquariums for the also businesses. You know, we want to get those opportunities. Big thing on air services is trying to push for new businesses and also to come in here. And also looking at the vacation travel and everything. And then also economic development. So, I look forward to working with everybody, serving the city and all that. So, I thank you so much. Anything I could answer for you? Any questions? Well, likewise. I think that's all, but again, thank you so much. Welcome to our city and we'll I'm sure have more opportunity to visit with you and get to know you better in the future. Definitely, look forward to meeting you. Thank you. >> Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Richard. So, the mayor and council did we did send you an invitation to the event Thursday at the airport. So, we'll see you all there. That concludes the city manager's report. >> Okay, thank you, Peter. Okay, it's 5:33, so we will move on to um public comment. Since we handle significant matters concerning taxpayer dollars, making it imperative that we uphold the highest standards of decorum and adherence to our policies, our core principles of openness transparency and inclusiveness guide our actions and we aim to achieve them while respecting our city council policy, which has been in place for 30 years. Public comment serves as one avenue for communication, but it's certainly not the sole method. We may or you may also reach out to members of this council by way of phone, email, or even scheduling an in-person appointment. I also want to take a moment to address an important matter. The chambers is a place of public business, a forum for civic discussion, decision-making, and service to the people of Corpus Christi. It is not a stage for personal attacks, disruptions, or vulgarity and violations of decorum will not be tolerated. There have been repeated instances of individuals using profanity, shouting over others, and shouting blatant disregard um for the rules that govern our proceedings. I've allowed space for differing viewpoints and I'll continue to welcome respectful disagreement, but I will not allow this council or the public we serve to be disrespected. Additionally, I want to reassure everyone that from time to time, council members may step away from the dais for brief periods. Please know that televisions and audio are available in the back, ensuring that members remain fully engaged and attentive to the discussion even if they're not physically seated at the dais. So, at this time, I will ask city attorney Miles Risley to review the council meeting rules of decorum, which will appear on the screens above us. All citizens must be courteous, polite, and respectful of one another, including the city council and city staff. The mayor and council members shall be referred to by title and or title surname. All remarks must be addressed to the mayor and city council and not to the council members as individuals. Citizens are only permitted to speak on city-related subject matter. Speaking on any non-city-related matter is prohibited. Loud, boisterous, profane, or obscene language or behavior is not allowed. Citizens must refrain from any disturbing noise, demonstration, or other act disrupting to the city council business. Thank you, Mr. Risley. So, please state your name and the city in which you live before beginning your comments. Citizen are limited to 3 minutes while non-resident comments are limited to 1 minute. A visible timer positioned near the city secretary's desk will help manage the allotted time. Residents of Corpus Christi will be given priority in speaking over non-residents. And if you have a petition or relevant information, please present it to the city secretary before speaking. Um our first speaker will be Keenan Laymon. Uh Keenan Laymon, Corpus Christi, Texas. How's it going, guys? Um so, I was here 2 weeks ago. I came with a petition. Um the petition is from all the business owners on Everhart Road that are suffering from the construction project that's been going on for over 2 years. Um I'm going to read the petition. I again didn't have time to print them off for everybody, so I'm just going to read it so everyone can hear it. Uh it says, "We, the businesses of Everhart between Alameda and SPID, are demanding economic relief from the city of Corpus Christi due to the construction project that began in 2023 and is subject to end in 2026. This project has forced businesses to lose unseen profits and set them back years of progress, even forcing many to close or pay moving costs and find another location, which actually just happened this last week. Uh we are unhappy with the current state of the road construction and demand that the city pay the lost revenue to ensure that local businesses do not go under but remain a part of Everhart Road. The city has neglected these local businesses without care or consideration, and we are now demanding that the city pay out economic relief immediately to these businesses and all who have been affected. Um so, it's been 2 weeks since I was here. Uh I want to let you guys know uh since then, uh the construction on Everhart has not gotten any better. Um the road has moved. I've seen about 20 yd of concrete poured. Um McArdle is still closed. Uh it's just an absolute total train wreck of a mess. Nothing seems to be getting done. Today, I was driving out of Ever- out of my trailer. I own Adelpho's Coffee Roasters. It's a trailer on the road. Um I was driving away from there towards the highway just to see how long it took me to get to the highway. Uh the light had to turn green four times for me before I could go. It took me 20 minutes to get through that light. It's a stretch of like I don't know, 100 yd. It's absolutely ridiculous. While I was there, I was able to snap this picture of the construction workers. Five guys standing around at staring at an excavator digging a hole in the ground. This is what you're paying for. This is what I'm paying for. It's my money. And it's been 2 years. It's just It's just really long. And like I've said last time, what we're asking for, the economic relief program for businesses under that are losing money from construction, is not like an uh a uh an alien idea. It's It's normal in cities to have some sort of uh relief program. You just I mean uh I I messaged one of the council members. She was asking me, "Can you give me an example?" I just Googled real quick economic relief for construction in San Antonio. Boom, popped up right away. It's first thing on the list. And you could do it for every city. We should have it here. Um you know, you guys did bailouts for the people during the the drought. I had a friend who had a water business. He had like a little side business where he did um pressure washing. You got You guys gave him $20,000. He didn't need the money. He just started the business. You guys gave him $20,000. He bought a new truck. And you And that was like an act of God. Mhm. You know, and this is an act from the city. And I'm suffering. All the businesses are suffering. This This petition has $4 million worth of lost revenue on it. Like that people have said that's what we're losing. I'm sorry. I know I'm going long. >> went off. But But we we appreciate your your testimony today and we have your information that you Yeah. Well, I'm I'm I'm not asking I just want to make I just want to make it clear. I'm sorry. I know I'm going over my time. Um I'm not asking that the construction company gets whipped into place. I'm not asking for that. It's been too long already. I'm asking that y'all do something. It's too late. Like businesses are closing. It's not okay. Thank you, Mr. Laymon. It's not okay. Okay. I'm asking that you guys put it on the agenda that three of you say, "I want to put this on the agenda." And y'all actually talk about it and do something. >> You have 3 minutes and we've gone over. >> Okay. Thank you. We appreciate it. Yeah. William Almager. Almager. Okay. Uh William Almager. Hello. My name is William Almager. I'm with uh District District 1 in here in Corpus Christi. Uh I won't take too much time. I just have a little thing I want something I want to say. I said uh I'm a student here at the AGC Plumbing Year 4 uh trade course program. Uh for the last 3 years, we've had uh Bill Bill Whitliff, the master code professional and inspector, uh as our teacher. He has shown us everything he has learned in his many years in the plumbing field and has helped us advance our understanding of plumbing. Uh we learned things that would normally take us years to learn in the plumbing field. Uh I am also excited to be one of the first I lost my I lost my place. I'm sorry. Be one of the first students to come out of the AGC Plumbing Course. Um I recently found out that Bill would no longer be able to be our teacher. Um I will not go into why he is no longer able to be our teacher as I do not know the full extent of the situation. I just think that it's unfortunate that a person who wants to dedicate his time to better the future of our city's plumbing community and is not able to teach us and it's clear that he has a passion and love for teaching and to have that taken away from him from him is unfortunate. Uh I'm here today to simply ask for the reinstatement of Bill Whitliff to his position as our teacher. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Uh Justin Bernal. Hello. My name is Justin Bernal. I'm from Corpus Christi. I'm here to talk about Mr. Bill Whitliff as well, the building official from teaching me through the NCCR as well as the International Code Council. As a licensed plumber, we are required by state law to do a continuing education class each year. And Bill Whitliff was the only instructor in Corpus Christi that was able to do that. So, now I will be having to travel towards San Antonio or New Braunfels, paying $100 for the class, room and board, a place to eat, and other costs. The financial strains are getting even worse because the water bills have recently gone up due to the city's lack of ability to implement a proper solution to the drought we are in. As a young man in the plumbing industry working towards my journeyman license, I am beginning to feel that the city of Corpus Christi does not have the best interest for workers like me and Mr. Whitliff has always been an excellent teacher and an even better inspector on the job site. He evaluated my work fairly and without bias. That's all I have to say today. Thank you, sir. Thanks for being here. Matthew Morales Pinion. Meldy, I'm Matthew Morales Pinion. I'm 26 years old. And I'm also here to speak on the behalf of Bill Whitliff. Are you in Corpus Christi? >> Corpus Christi, Texas. I'm sorry. Yes. Sure. Um I've known Bill for uh for a little bit. I've known his son longer. But every time I've seen Bill, he's always to the book and straight to the plumbing code. When I was working on Hamlin on the rough-in, he didn't pass it because there was a certain thing that he noticed that wasn't up to code. So, if I were to say much, well, he's a really good teacher. He teaches from experience. If you take the time to stare at his hands or any time at his face, you see a lot of scars. So, he has a lot of how do you say? experience. So, he's a really good teacher and he teaches us everything from the book. And I would hope you guys reinstate him. It'd be nice. And that's all I have to say. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Bradley uh Bartleson. >> In the continuing series I have a presentation. I'll get started then. I'm Brad Bartleson, Corpus Christi. I previously presented this list of actions for a healthier water future including working to a strategic plan and stopping the bleeding by not selling water we don't have and ending the misguided dead leg inner harbor project. Reactive management was evident by shortages. By 2017 we had the signal for dwindling input to our reservoirs. Yet CCW continued to sell more water to industry even 5 and 1/2 million gallons in January this year. When residents are forced to go without, why has the council had no interest in stopping the fraudulent use of 600 homes worth of water to this Bitcoin operation? You've left myself, John, and Mark to pursue this alone. Good strategy must be a comp- accompanied by disciplined control of the demand side of this equation. Masking the shortage with fear-mongering on drought while selling more to industry and misplacing the burden on residents isn't indicative of good strategy of a sound plan forward. A strategic water plan is not a simplistic allocation of current resources, but it is temporal having yearly capacity and goals and limits. It allows our joint partners and our customers to plan. By having strict limit on sales total, it guides the decision-making process. The lack of an answer to how much water do we need indicated the lack of a strategic plan. The capacity and use plan detail shown here has us moving from 100% use of our resources to 85% in 3 years getting to surplus and restoring our reserves. The third sheet of the strategic I'm sorry, water plan is the water projects evaluation. Projects are evaluated on cost metrics and capacity, delivery time and risks on and of water quality, subsidence, source contamination, environmental and business partner risks, and fit to the schedule. Such analysis would have saved us from the misguided inner harbor project. Members of our team Water for Life have continually presented directions for a healthier water future identifying surface and ground water options as having the best cost to benefit ratio, the prescribed method for city government policy. I've presented storm water and peak flow capture opportunities and evaporation control that can be had with no investment by the city, a win for everyone. We've given heavily into this investigation of fraud and waste in the bit- coin mining mining debacle. We have and continue to ask for your support. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bartleson. Susie Saldana. Susie Saldana, Corpus Christi, Texas. You know, uh throughout this whole meetings and the meetings you've had before you've gone through some very rough times. But you know what worries me the most is that there has been such an attack on our city manager from a lot of you. And that scares me because we've done such good progress with him. And he's done such good things for the city and he's caught in between your battles and your things that are going on. So I'm asking you that you have a workshop on decorum but decorum for you guys on how you should speak on how you shouldn't be attacking each other, on how you should be putting the city first. That's what I'm requesting that you have a workshop, that you get trained on decorum for yourselves. Cuz the people out here follow your example very strongly. So if you want to have respect, give it and give it to each other. Cuz we sure aren't seeing it. Thank you. Rachel Caballero. Rachel Caballero, D1. I just want to say a quick Thank you already spoke on the things during the agenda item, but thank you to the Fab Five and the people that are actually representing our community and we can see the difference. The community can see the difference and we want to thank you guys for that cuz it's extremely important especially during these trying times. Also, uh good job to whoever did the direct flight to Denver. I'm lived there for 13 years, so I'm glad that uh my friends can come down and see the craziness that is Corpus Christi. Um and I'm glad none of y'all knew that that's something that I wanted cuz it probably wouldn't have happened. Um uh and that's it. Wow, have the evening you deserve. Honor, you take it the way it's meant to be received, so if you do good, you're going to have a good night. Um Adam Rios. Good evening, Adam Rios, District 5. Uh I just wanted to share a little bit about myself cuz uh sometimes you hear the great Brian. Uh people seem like they have these assumptions about me that I'm just this guy that comes up here and talks about skateboarding and surfing and BMXing. I do love to do those things. Uh and then I'll relate it to what I what my main topic is going to be. Um so I'm I'm a consultant. I've been consultant for about 10 years now and my experience has been uh on on a minimal level uh for each company that I've started. Uh I've been responsible for staffing and training over 120 employees at each designated uh site which includes uh North Carolina, Indiana New Mexico, various parts of Texas, and Hawaii. Uh my role was uh creating systems and guidelines for all work-related duties. I created training programs that provided tools that increased service and sales. I maintained all forms of social media as well as community outreach to increase sales. I created and maintained all documents designed to control purchasing, understanding theoreticals, controlling employee labor which is incredibly important for startups, and of course consulting with all market partners by providing reports and P&Ls. Uh this guy before you that comes up here and talks about skateboarding has actually since 2015 started uh companies that have probably netted, not grossed, netted roughly about $400 million. So when I come up here with numbers and I talk about trying to promote things here, it comes with vast experience. I do more than just skateboarding and I love this city and I want to see things happen here. Uh so that's uh what I wanted to lead into. Uh I've come up here and I've talked about X Games and I apologize I apparently made a post that some people took as negative where I said, "Hey, guess who's what's not coming to Corpus Christi? X Games for the next 2 years." And so I decided to By the way, all that experience that I've spoken about uh when I moved here uh got me denied a low-level position with the city and it's gotten two of my resumes denied with uh other city-related entities. Even with all that uh I wanted to talk about um Visit Corpus Christi and bringing them to the table. I'm hoping they somebody from there will hear this and eventually want to sit down and speak with me about uh you know, for those of you who don't know, a lot of people when I've talked with them, I I explained to them that they operate on the hotel occupancy tax. And if you look at, you know, what the collection has been annually in the millions of dollars uh to promote events here in Corpus Christi. I and I want to see and if I'm wrong, they can reach out to me. I think about 35 to 40% of its budget goes towards marketing, promotions, and advertising campaigns. Uh that's gone into the millions of dollars. There's a bunch of things that we could focus on with them. My time is running out. Uh I'm hoping that they can reach out to me because I'm not kidding when I say that the direct spending that has happened in cities that it's uh occurred in has been 40 to 60 million dollars over a weekend with visitor impact of about 100,000. Uh anyway, Visit Corpus Christi, give me a call. Thank you, Mr. Rios. Gabriel Hernandez. Gabriel Hernandez. Uh Fatima Gueda Rashidi Fatima Shidi, District 1 When I heard about the vote against desal, I was overjoyed. It made me think that finally you have been listening to the many voices who have been fighting for years against the detri- this detrimental impact on us and our environment. But what was the point of voting against desal if you're considering bringing it back into place again? Our solution isn't building new pools, water parks, or car washes. It's about doing what's right for what's best for our city, not big industry. If the drought is as bad as you say it is, let's act like it is. Minimize water usage for everyone, including big industry. Support the residents of Corpus Christi than outsiders who profit off of our land, water, and other precious resources, while we are the ones who have to face the consequences. In honor of Jane Goodall, I'm going to end with her words. Here we are, the most clever species ever to have lived. So how is it we can destroy the only planet we have? Thank you for your time and God bless you and your families. And let's fight together to protect at least a small part of our planet. Thank you. Thank you, Fatima. Isabel Araiza People like her give me hope. Right. Isabel Araiza, District 2, co-founder of For the Greater Good Earlier today, via the consent agenda on items 15 and 16, you voted to reimburse Brazelton Development Company $483,058.38 for what is basically more city sprawl. We really need to get rid of the trust fund system that the local developers in the city created in 1982. Practically speaking, it doesn't make sense to have our city grow physically when we're incapable of maintaining the infrastructure we already have. While it doesn't make sense practically, it does make sense politically. Real estate and development interests have been buying elected officials and policies for a really long time. For the Greater Good analyzed 2024 campaign donations for all elected council members, and what we found was that Brazeltons donated a total of $3,750 to Everett Roy, Roland Barrera, Mark Scott, and Keylan Paxton. For every dollar they spent in 2024, they got back $128.81 on on today's vote. The trust fund kickbacks are crumbs compared to what is happening with heavy industry. In December of 2023, Pape-Dawson gave council presentation where they anticipated we were going to need another 162 million gallons of water a day for future industry by 2036. Then, thank goodness, we're developing alliances and connections across the coastal bend because through those we learned that San Pat County has an industrial growth plan where their executive summary reported that more than 100,000 acres of land are well positioned for industrial expansion. And I cannot begin to imagine how much water and electricity such expansion would need. I also learned the San Pat Economic Development Corporation, the port, Corpus Christi's regional economic development corporation, and AEP were part of the formulation of this plan that was published in 2025. Now your scrum- scrambling for water makes sense. I haven't had time to do the math for all the costs of all the new water resources, but I'm sure you haven't um asked your constituents if you if we want all this investment in heavy industry. I bet they don't. And here's another thing that I noticed in the report. It showed that in 2017, when the city passed the drought exemption for industry, the value of goods moving through the port was about $10 billion. In 2023, the last full year for the report, the value of goods was now $65 billion. Our water and tax abatements and industrial agreements have been making heavy industry mega rich, and what do we have to show for it? We have a region whose population has declined over the past 5 years as industry's use of our water and profits have exploded. We have tens of thousands of people in Corpus alone who are waiting for affordable housing. We have community organizations popping up all over the coastal bend trying to stop these terrible plans and trying to get you to stop your short-sighted panic pursuit of water. We don't want to live like this. Our young people are leaving, and the ones that are staying and fighting for a better tomorrow than this are being ignored, disrespected, and arrested. And finally, I only have 6 seconds. I'll come back about economic development, but we need to do away with that cuz they're not developing anything. They're just exploiting our resources. Thank you, Ms. Araiza. Selena Obregon Benavides Selena Obregon Benavides, District 3 Sorry, Corpus Christi air. I thought we had agreed that or y'all did not to pursue this desal thing. By understand, industry needs water and industry is so important and all the cancer they give us, all the pollution they give us, all the destruction to our environment and our community, that's super important because they bring jobs. And with those jobs comes environmental exposure. Because when they leave their jobs in their cute little blue onesies, there's toxins on those. I would have I would have graduated from Carol around 2002. The year the grades behind me, several kids had cancer. Now if you go to those neighborhoods around the old Carol, you'll see a lot of pro-desal signs. Probably because their parents worked in those industries. Those same industries that brought their children cancer. Cancer. And it's great, the jobs pay great, but when you think about the costs of paying for your children's medical bills, and that's where my knowledge of the is medical. Not that I'm a nurse or anything, but insurance, it's costly. And the money you make from that does not even put a dent in it. But I'm thinking not only the people that work and get the big bucks from working in industry, but the people that sat in the room with those cute little blue onesies breathing in those toxins. And our insurance, if we have insurance, isn't going to cover those things. So you do to you, but think about your community who's being affected by your votes, your decisions, and your actions. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Donald Harris Good evening, mayor and and council members. My name is Donald Harris. I'm a Corpus Christi resident and taxpayer. Thank you for the opportunity to speak regarding tax increment reinvestment zone number three, the downtown TIRZ. Downtown TIRZ plays an important role in revitalizing our city's core. I support responsible investment in public infrastructure and historic restoration, but I believe transparency and accountability are essential in maintaining public trust. Specifically, I'm asking the council to consider safeguards before approving or reimbursing private projects through the TIRZ program. These safeguards could include disclosure of vendors and contractors for reimbursement projects along with simple local spend goals or a brief memo when no local vendor is available. Verification that public reimbursement funds are spent within Texas consistent with the intent of state and local grant programs. Publication of public financial summaries after reimbursement so taxpayers can see how much was invested, what was achieved, and who benefited. These are straightforward measures that increase transparency without slowing progress. They also protect both city and private partners from any perception of favoritism or misuse of funds. My comments are particularly relevant to TIRZ 3, but the same principles could strengthen oversight across all TIRZ districts citywide. Consistency promotes fairness and public confidence in how the how development funds are used. For transparency, I will note that I am currently involved in separate federal litigation concerning fiduciary compliance issues within the Diocese of Corpus Christi. However, my purpose here is not to discuss the case. It's simply to ensure that city administered public funds under Terrace 3 are handled with full transparency and accountability. Thank you for your service to the city and for considering these constructive recommendations. I appreciate your time and your commitment to responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Harris. Robin Cox. Hi, I'm Robin Cox, District 3. And once again, I've changed what I was going to say after hearing listening to the guy that was talking about the BMX and bringing different things. I love this city. I've lived here most of my life, moved away for a short time. It's a very expensive city to live in, though. The property taxes are higher than most cities. It's expensive to run a business. I know I'm a small landlord, and there's very few landlords that do this just for a business. By the time we pay property taxes, insurance, there's just not a lot of left on the table. But I'm fighting to stay here. But the other thing I wanted to say about being here, when I grew up here in the '80s and the '70s, going back to the '70s, we had Bayfest. We had something to do every weekend. Surf contests, boxing matches, the bowling. Somehow this has gone away, and there's less and less things to do. Sure, there's the coronation where a bunch of women get to dress up and pretend like they're Cinderella for the day and tell each other, "You look so pretty. No, you're prettier. No, you're prettier." and post their pictures on Facebook. But the majority of us can't afford that. We can't afford to go to the coronation or take part in it. Sure, we can watch the parade. But let's do something that all people the average wage is what? $50,000 here? If we did more stuff at the beach. When I have friends that come in and pull up, Corpus is beautiful. This is a beautiful city. Let's have things that all of us can enjoy. I suggest you get with that guy and find some things. Let's bring back the surf contest. Who surfs? Kids 14 to 17. They have parents that spend money on clothes, on surfboards, on food vendors. Let's bring back what we have and utilize it. Let's make those permits cheaper. Let's have stuff that people can do. Make this city interesting. When I go back to Kerrville, there's things to do every weekend. And that's another thing. A lot of you here, this city is a stepping stone for most of y'all. Y'all aren't permanent residents. I am a permanent resident. Y'all have your houses in the Hill Country, where I'm from. I know it's very expensive to live there. What you plan on escaping to later. The ones of us that want to stay here and make this our city, let's make it good for all of us. For the middle class people that can afford to enjoy it. I even see the fundraisers y'all do, and I laugh sometimes. When it's in the bend and you've spent $7,000 on a dress, why don't you just write a check and spend that money to the people? You'd make more money You'd make do more for the fundraisers then. So, if we can bring back boxing, concerts, have something every weekend. Lester Bedford is a fight promoter. He's willing to come back. I've talked to him. Bring boxing back. That makes money. The bowling, swim team matches. Gil can help y'all with the swim team matches, rodeos. But let's make this city great for everyone. Not just the same five families. My sister-in-law joked about that. She said, "Are the same five families making money?" My dad used to say the wealth in Corpus Christi looks like a Louisiana family reunion. It doesn't veer. Y'all just the same people. >> Molly Lena Garza. Okay. Molly Lena Garza, District 1. If you didn't know you had a library advisory board meeting today, um and we had a wonderful presentation by Dr. Idaliao, who is the executive director for the Corpus Christi Literacy Council. So, so many people ask me, "Why do you care about literacy, right?" Um did you know, as she was doing this report, she gave us so many great points of information. But basically, let me sum it up for you. Higher illiteracy rates equal higher poverty rates. Did you know, cuz I learned this today, that 51,000 adults in Nueces County cannot read well enough to function in our society. So, what does that mean? They don't have the literacy skills to even read what is on their prescription bottles. And they're taking the wrong medication cuz they don't even have the literacy components to tell if that is the right medication that they are taking. That's sad. Do you know that we have a graduation rate of 89 to 90% here at CCISD? That's below the 93% success rate graduation rate that the state of Texas has for us. We're not even reaching that mark. And why does this Why does Why Why should we care, right? So, the biggest thing that when we're serving people who have low literacy, low socioeconomics, is that they don't have the accessibility to the resources that we have here available to us. And the response from our city is that we do not have a long-term goal for our Hart and our Garcia libraries. We are going to lose those libraries, and you can point point of information, whatever you want. You have no plan. Zero. You don't even have a master plan. You know that Temple, Texas has a master plan for their libraries. They got a plan of this is where we're at, these are our issues, this is where we're going, and this is how we're going to get there. And we don't have that here. You're going to lose two libraries. And what it appears to me is that you're buying time for Flour Bluff ISD to steal Hart from us. We have no timeline. We asked for a timeline update on what are we doing with Hart? And the library staff said, "We're working on it. We're working on it. We're working on it." You've been working on it for months. What it looks like is that you're trying to subsidize a corrupt school district out there. They need it so damn bad? Get a bond and offer us a reasonable price for Hart. We know you need that library if Flour Bluff ISD. Make a reasonable offer to the city so that we can go and build a library somewhere else so that our students are safe, our public is able to use our library uninterrupted. You're doing such a disservice to the taxpayer. Thank you. Uh Lonnie Laningham. Hello, Mayor City Manager. Uh City Council, City Manager. My name is Lonnie Laningham. I live in District 1. I was born in Corpus Christi, graduated Ray High School in 1971. In 1976, I attended my first City Council meeting. Mayor Jason Luby was presiding. I subsequently attended 20 to 30 City Council meetings in the '70s, '80s, '90s, and 2000s. I came to the I came to these chambers today. Uh excuse me. I came to these chambers to get an education in city government. I consider myself an analytical type of guy who would analyze and reanalyze every topic. The cause and effect of each each situation. Between now October 2025 and sent sometime in 2027, open contact will occur between a human and an extraterrestrial on planet Earth. Why are extraterrestrials coming at this time? Three reasons. Number one, there are many civilizations in the universe cosmos. The aliens aliens have nurtured this planet Earth for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years. Their DNA is in our DNA. You can laugh, but when it all comes out, you'll understand. Their DNA is in our DNA. Number two, the advancement of artificial intelligence, AI, is what destroyed some of their civilizations in the cosmos universe. And number three, and I think this is the most important one. A statement was made by a source, and I quote, "If Kamala Harris is elected president, there will be dialogue between Kamala, China, and Russia with no war. If Donald Trump is elected president in 1920 2024, it will lead to World War III." Let that sink in. It will lead to World War III. Our alien ancestors will not let this this happen. If North Korea, China, Russia, Pakistan, USA fire off nuclear missiles, the missiles will be destroyed. I would like to meet in executive session with the mayor, city council, city manager, and the Nueces County Commissioners, whoever the city believes should be at the meeting. The aliens can can see our future. They can they can go back in time. The aliens come in peace. They are not here to destroy us, they are here to protect us. Comets Comet Lemon comes to approaches Earth on October 20th, 2025 at a at a distance of 56 million miles. It comes from the constellation Ursa Major. Thank you, Mr. Landingham. Um Mr. Landingham, thank you very much. We allow 3 minutes per speaker. You're welcome to come back next week though, sir. Are y'all having a meeting next week? >> We are, yes, sir. Okay. All right, so next up is Mr. Jason Hale. What May I ask a question about uh You can ask, we can't answer. You can't answer? I I'll take I'll tell you what, one of these folks off to the side will answer any question you have. We're about done, so if you can just wait around another 10 minutes to be people. >> All righty. I would like to meet with exact There's a lot of information you're not aware of. Got it, Mr. Mr. Hale. Council members, Jason Hale, Corpus Christi. Um so I just wanted to highlight some ordinances and some information that's in the city's water conservation plan that got approved in 2020. Um I don't think they're going to solve any of our water problems, but I do think it would be a great benefit to And I feel like um it'd be like planting a seed that grows over time and reduces the the burden on our water system and the need for new supplies. So I'm just going to go over a few of these ordinances. One is for car washes. Uh this would require them to reuse a minimum of 50% of water for automatic washes. Another one is water saving plumbing fixtures. That would require plumbing fixtures to meet or exceed standards from the EPA and other agencies. Uh same thing for laundry facilities. This would be for new installation of coin operated machines to meet standards. Cooling tower recycling. Rainwater harvesting. This one's pretty interesting. This would be for any new building construction with a minimum roof surface of 10,000 square feet to install a rainwater collection system. I think that's reasonable. Uh condensate collection. This is something I do at home. I I get about 10 gallons a day during the summer from just getting the water from my AC. It's kind of crazy. But this would require any new commercial building with an air conditioning system to divert and collect the condensate water. Um it can be used for cooling tower or landscape irrigation. That's what I use my AC water for. And I also wanted to highlight something towards the end of the conservation plan. It's called model industrial water conservation plan. Something people have been asking for is industrial water conservation, right? It's the goal is to reduce water cons consumption from a level that would prevail without conservation efforts. To reduce the loss and waste of water and to improve the efficiency in the use of water. And to basically just kind of document everything, right? This is kind of just asking industrial partners to conduct water audits and identify ways that they could reduce water loss or identify areas where they could reuse or recycle water. Um it's not obligating anyone to do anything. It's just kind of formalizing a process of analysis, really. And honestly, based on the language in the the plan, I'm not sure if this is being done right now or if this was something to be done later. It kind of sounds like it's being done right now. So I was wondering if this is happening um how has been how has the participation been with industrial customers and if these reports could be made publicly available. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Hale. Uh next up we're moving to WebEx and we have Christopher Feelin on WebEx. We have two people online by phone that we don't have their names for, so they I'm not sure if he's one of them. So if he doesn't answer, we might want to go to the next one. All right. No, ma'am, I don't think I skipped anyone. Uh Well, the mayor had Alejandro Benavides scratched out. Is Alejandro here? Did I miss you, sir? Are you speaking on something different than what you spoke on previously, sir? Yeah, sure. Cool. I want to speak kind of like for I want kind of Alex Benavides, District 3. I kind of want to speak on what everybody else has spoken on. So for like skate parks, I got a friend who wants a skate park. Um also um water conservation, it's huge. Um if we can definitely get more into that as a city and also kind of like make more policies and requirements for industry to kind of come down, so at least maybe we can believe that there's a scarcity that's going to happen, but while they're using the same amount regardless, then it just kind of seems like maybe it's not so. But so the water thing, the skate park >> water conservation, it's huge. My apologies, sir. Go ahead. Yeah, as a city I think I think that's me, too. Yeah, it's not. All right, keep going. >> I am God. Okay, so yeah, um sidewalks, streets, Everhart, these are all great ideas and these are all ideas from our people, right? But we can't do those ideas if we're just you know, just only voting for industry to get the resources that are for us to have and for the city residents to enjoy. We need to you know, we talk about getting parks and we're actually doing you know, getting a couple new parks. Um but we aren't addressing the sidewalks for disabled Americans to be able to reach those those the new pool or or other areas. Um there's a huge there's been like a double um uh increase double increase in displacement and hunger and insecurities. Uh so I I think that as a city we really really needed to start kind of thinking about that. Plus you know, I believe we're still up for the layoffs and on the base and that's still up in the air. And really to be honest, we're all really like 3 months away from that same scenario of being good and then being on the other side of the table and needing food. So maybe as a prevent preemptive thing we should kind of like consider what's going to happen and how are we going to support those people who are not drug addicts and they're not you know, crazy wild people, but they're people who had jobs and not you know, now because of the government's um insecurity or like because the government's uh being unable to secure that for them uh we're we're I think we're going to have another additional increase within the next 2 years as well. And I think that's one thing we definitely need to look into because there's a lot of people out there that need a lot of help. And even all the help that the city can give them, we still need more. So if we can kind of start thinking about our our residents I know that we also mentioned reading for example literacy. We're not going to have We need plans for our libraries. I mean if if we want our poverty levels to decline and we want everybody to have the same chance to get on the chair like you and speak for their for their city, then they need to know how to read and how to speak. So that's my time. Thanks. Sorry, thank you, sir, and I apologize for going past you. All right, so so Rebecca, you said we have I've got I've got what, four people on WebEx? Correct, and we've confirmed Mr. Peña and Mr. Munster online right now. So do we want to go to Mr. Peña? Um yes. All right. Mr. Peña, Daniel Peña. Hello? Hello? Sorry. Hello? Hello sir. Yes, I'm sorry about that. It's all good. It's all good. Go ahead, sir. Okay, so my name is Daniel Daniel Peña I'm from District 1. Uh it's kind of like Hillcrest. Uh I I've been coming every week and unfortunately I'm on I'm out of town at the time, so um I was able to acquire uh I was able to acquire the uh the memos that the city manager Peters already said that we received from um Parks and Rec and the fire fire marshal or fire chief there and I'm going to speak on the Parks and Rec cuz I don't have time to speak on both, so yes, what they provided is or our the actual rules that are posted in on the website which have changed which have also changed. You also have uh uh the response to public comment. These are the actual things that they do, but their actions compared to what's being in writing say two different things. When I spoke on them grandfathering people in, this was spoken to me by Breland Sanchez, which is through email, which I did provide to y'all by the very beginning when I had a when I gave y'all this through emails with these highlighted. If y'all took the time to read through some of those, there were all the interactions of certain days that uh that Mr. Dodd uh responds to in uh in this memo of deadlines, uh me asking uh regarding the deadlines of applications, me asking for extra time because I was waiting for the city attorney to respond to certain questions in the application um that I didn't understand. Um they didn't respond to me till um after the deadline, so they never responded to accepting my application, so I assumed um it was a yes, and I did turn in my application late. So, when they received it, I got a response from them that following Monday cuz I did it over the weekend. Um you know, they said they weren't going to accept it because it was late, and I told them, you know, hey, this is what's going on. Those are the emails. I have a track record. So, you know, they can't sit there and deny that they're uh that they're hard to get a hold of. They're never in the office. I have email after email. It's all I I I think thousands uh between you know, I I would say in the in the hundreds of emails of correspondence with them for the past 3 years. Uh we're we're constantly messaging, and all you get is, I'm out of the office cuz it's this day. Uh get a hold of this person. You email them. I'm out of the office till this day. If you need to get a hold of me, back and forth on this whole time. Um in the applications, uh they also mentioned were a number that I mentioned with 347 trucks for 2024. I misspoke that number, and I I did that intentionally because I wanted to find out when this what numbers they were going to use. That's That's how you pretty much uh catch someone lying. There was 363 trucks Thank you, Mr. Pena. and then I uh I Mr. Pena, this I'm sorry. Uh your 3 minutes are up, sir. Uh thank you thank you for your time, sir. Our next speaker is Is Mark Munster next? Mr. Munster, you're next. All right. Can y'all hear me? Hello? Yes, we can hear you now. Okay, cool. Mark Munster, corporate Christie. Um the community spoke strongly over the past years, and especially in the past couple months, on the Inner Harbor Desalination Project on a wide range of topics and reasons of why the city should not move forward. And so, please respect the the residents that showed up, and the council already voted 6 to 3 to not move forward with this project. I remember that night of the meeting, it was discussed the option of moving on to other contractors, and the council decided they weren't going to do that because of the cost and the amount of time already spent on this project. So, please consider that, and I would also wish there would be some sort of response from the city or the water department regarding the crypto companies using millions of gallons of water a month and not following the IDA agreements. And these IDA agreements, I wish we would have more transparency because I feel this is how these industrial companies that use so much water, they don't pay their fair share, and I feel that that it's not worth the economic development of bringing these companies that use a lot of water to our city because they don't contribute um enough in their pilot property And with the reports that there could be potential job losses, I'm just so shocked to hear that that industry would rather I'm not shocked, actually, that they would rather fire people than curtail their water usage. And the city is also responsible for overselling our water that put us in the situation of them having to potentially lay off workers, and that just shows like how these how these entities work, and maybe the city should reconsider driving our whole economy towards there towards those industries. And after watching like a lot of council meetings, and especially the one today, like it's honestly embarrassing, and it's just we need change in the way our city makes decisions, and who is making these decisions. Are you're elected to represent the interests of just regular people working working regular jobs trying to live lives, and just the discussions that go on, it's just such a waste of time because of mismanagement and people representing the interests of entities that are making millions of dollars over the average working-class resident. So, um yeah, that's all I have to say. Shout out to the YouTube chat. Thank you, Mr. Munster. And then we had uh we have three other names on our list. Do you have any Christina English is also confirmed. >> My apologies. Miss Christina English, you're next. Christina English, District 1. First, thank you to the members of this council who were able to see through the manipulation of this mayor and city staff who represented you with the same old Inner Harbor Project under a new name. I'd like to remind some of you that it's not just about money, it's also about environmental racism and the health of our bay. On Friday, City Manager Peter Zanoni included the addition of new high-volume customers when answering Councilperson Campos's question concerning how much water we actually need. Clearly, the water is not for the people, it's for industry to use and for the city to sell. Please do not allow any desalination in the Inner Harbor, and look to other more ethical options available to you. Concerning the city's public comment policy, and quoting the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, in Cohen v. California, 1971, Justice John Marshall Harlan II reasoned that while the particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful than most others of its genre, it is nevertheless often true that one man's vulgarity is another's lyric. Harlan warned that governments might soon seize upon the censorship of particular words as a convenient guise for banning the expression of unpopular views. Cohen stands for the principle that profane words in themselves cannot be banned under the First Amendment. Ruling instead that an individual could not be convicted under a local disturbing the peace law when he wore a jacket bearing the words "Fuck the Draft" into a California courthouse. Profanity can be regulated, however, under certain circumstances consistent with the First Amendment. Profane rants that cross the line into direct face-to-face personal insults or fighting words are not protected by the First Amendment. Similarly, Watts v. United States, 1969, established that profanity spoken as part of a true threat does not receive constitutional protection. Likewise, under under Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 1986, public school officials can punish students for profane speech. None of these exceptions apply to the conditions under which this mayor has violated the rights of her constituents. I guess I can't know how many lawsuits this mayor would like to see her name on, or how much the city would like to spend defending her. Public comment should be held at 5:30 on Monday, noon on Tuesday, and at every item. Virtual contributors should have equal access to speak on each of those at each of those times. All right. Thank you thank you, ma'am. Anybody else, Rebecca? No, sir, not to my knowledge. No. >> All right. Seeing no further business, this meeting's adjourned.