[Music] [Music] [Music] Okay. Okay. Good morning everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Thank you for being here today in council chambers and here at city hall. So today our invocation will be given by Bishop CE Richardson senior with Calvary First Baptist Church. Shall we pray the Lord as we gather together? I pray for this city council meeting. I pray for this council meeting that it would be productive and everything will go according to your plan. I want to thank you for the remarkable leadership of the honorable Pette. She has made sure with your help that the city of Corpus Christi is one of the most desirable cities to live in, raise a family, have great employment, and retire with dignity. Thank you for our city council men and city council women who are team players that they help to promote the growth and the development of our city. I pray for our city manager and his staff that you will continue to lead them as they seek to make Corpus Christi a better place for us all. I thank you for the leadership of our city manager Peter who have helped to manage the affairs of our city with in with integrity and honesty. I pray for our chief of police Marco and the police department who serves and protect all of the citizens of this city. I pray for the fire department and all the first responders who have dedicated their lives to help save the lives of others while sometime putting their lives on the line. Today, as we embark upon the many issues that will affect our city and our livelihood, I pray that you will guide our city council with wisdom in their decision making. Give them the strength and the courage to do those things that are right and that be a blessing to all of the citizens. Help us to be good neighbors, live in love and respect one for another. Guide our city council as they deliberate on the issues that will impact the citizens of this city. Lord, I pray for unity, fairness, justice, and peace. help our city to continue to be a productive and a positive place to live, work, and play. I pray your blessings now upon Corpus Christi that where your name the body of Christ that you will keep us safe and you will help us to show love and respect to each other and that this city will always be the envy of all other cities because this city will stand out as a place that everybody will want to live. This I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you Bishop Richardson. And today, our pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the Texas state flag will be led by Kaitlyn Keel. She is a senior at um Veterans High School. She's a Texas Lonear Scholar, an academic allstar for wrestling, and a Sitco scholarship award recipient. Welcome, Kaylee. 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 pledge. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Thank you, Caitlyn, and good luck. Miss Wto, would you please call the role? Mayor Pette Wardo, present. Council members Roland Barera here. Sylvia Campos here. Eric Anu here. Gilnandez here. Kayn Paxton here. Ever Roy here. Mark Scott here. Carolyn Vaughn here. City manager Peter Zenoni present. City attorney Maz Resley here. Mayor and Council, a quorum of the council and the required charter officers are present to conduct the meeting. Great. Thank you, Miss Watna. Uh section E is our city manager comments and update on city. Mr. Zenone. Great. Uh good morning, mayor, and members of the council and our community. We do have one item, a very important item on this morning's city manager report and it is to uh highlight this program uh known as women of inspiration awards and then also present to you uh the the award winners uh for this year for for this calendar year uh that the team here in the city uh selected amongst all the women uh to be recognized. And so, um, I would like to take a moment to recognize this important city initiative, uh, that continues to highlight the strength and talent within our organization and through this program, uh, the women of inspirations award. This year marks the third year of this program and um, it was it was developed internally by our communications department a few years ago uh, during the the uh, women u history month which was last month. And so Alisa Olsen, our current communications department director, and Cecilia Arasco, the assistant director of communications, uh, continued that trend with this third year uh, with this program. They're going to talk to you now a little bit about it, and then we're going to I'm going to come down there and we're going to give out some awards, uh, after they speak. Lisa, good morning, mayor, council members, city manager. Thank you so much for having me today. It's uh means a lot to be able to come up and talk about this important program. My name is Alisa Olsen and I'm the director of communications. The Women of Inspiration Awards was started three years ago by the communications department to celebrate Women's History Month. It started as a way for us to connect and highlight women in leadership at the city who work tirelessly and oftentimes they're behind the scenes. As a communication department, we recognize that we have a responsibility not just to communicate with the public, although we do take that very seriously, that responsibility, but also to build connection and trust within our organization. And that means celebrating wins, sharing stories of service, and creating opportunities for employees to see the value of their work and a value of each other. Um, so when this program was first started, it was very important to the team um to give employees a voice in recognizing the women that they admire um not just for what they do, but for how they do it. And so these outstanding uh women leaders uh that you will meet in a few minutes were actually nominated by city employees. the um uh all city employees were given an opportunity to um submit nominations for people that they thought deserved this important award. So the criteria for selection is not about rank rank or title. It is about character and it is about those who lead by example and who lift up others and who make their department better. Um, and so with that, I'd like to invite our assistant director, Cecilia Arosco, up to speak a little bit about how this initiative is executed each year. Thank you, Lisa. And good afternoon, mayor, council members, and city manager. So, as Alisa mentioned, this initiative is really more than just a recognition. It's about creating our culture where leadership, character, and service are valued and of course visible throughout our entire organization. So every year we open nominations in February, giving employees about a week to submit nominations. And this is again ahead of Women's History Month in March. So it's a quick turnaround, but every year the level of participation does continue to grow. And this year, I'm very proud to receive the highest number of submissions to date, which is 115 nominations. So after nominations close, a new panel of judges are selected each year. This year's judges were the amazing Heather Herbert, of course, our assistant city manager, Laura Garcia, director of libraries, and Alisa Silva, our city agenda coordinator. So, these judges evaluate each submission and score them from 1 through 10 based on how well the nominees were demonstrating four characteristics. So of the four characteristics those are respect for others, empowerment of team members, integrity and empathy and going above and beyond as a team player. So then based on those the content that is in each submission and the number of each submissions each nominee received, there's a weighted score that is taken to determine those top five recipients. So, it's a thoughtful, peer-driven process that does give employees the opportunity to recognize those who make a real difference in how we serve, how we lead, and how we work together. And I'm going to say personally, one of my favorite things to read through was the nominations. You get to see the heart of the organization, the admiration, and the respect and the support of employees and that what they have for each each other. And it's really incredible to see. So to everyone who took the time to nominate a peer, to our judges who thoughtfully reviewed each of those 115 submissions, thank you. And to our honores, congratulations. Your leadership does reflect the very best of public service. So now I'd like to invite city manager to present the awards to them. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa and Cecilia. And so now we have the privilege and honor to to introduce to you uh four of the five. Our fifth candidate is actually out uh doing city business at a at a at an event to improve her skills there. So we're going to begin by our first uh woman of inspiration, Lauren Belco. I'm sure many of you have seen her. She's been with the city uh for some time. Uh there's a a little narrative under each of the women of inspiration. And I'm going just read it off here for the public in case they can't see this, but Lauren was was nominated and then selected by the judges because she promotes accountability and collaboration while creating a supportive work environment. She has successfully taken on new responsibilities. We know with her recent promotion and helps her team grow through transparency and trust. And that was kind of the summary of all the uh all the persons that recommended her to be recognized as a woman of inspiration. So, Miss Lauren, we're going to have you come up and going to give you this award. [Applause] Our next uh woman of inspiration is not downtown here most most of the time. She's up at the airport and many of you may have seen her, Kimberly Miller. She is an assistant director at aviation and Kimberly leads with respect. This is what her teammates are saying, uh, just so we know. So, Kimberly leads with respect, integrity, and empathy. She supports professional development and builds strong relationships and contributes to a positive and productive workplace. Those are all great characteristics. Miss Kimbley, we're going to have you come up and present you this award. [Applause] And then our third woman of inspiration is Miss Jennifer White. She is a housing program coordinator. And this goes to what Alisa said that rank and title really does, you know, doesn't matter for this award. It's who you are and how you set yourself above other workers uh that work here in the city. So Jennifer White uh fosters a positive team culture through open communication and continuous learning. She has improved program efficiency and supports her staff with guidance and accountability. Those are great words. Miss Jennifer, we're going to present you with your winner. And then our fourth uh award recipient that's here, and I I will go over that fifth fifth person as well, even though she's not here, but uh many people know Miss Lisa Oliver. She has been with the city for 35 years, right, Miss Lisa? So, Lisa is a community relations and engagement superintendent in our parks and reccks department. Uh she has over 35 years of service. She is known for her reliability, professionalism, and commitment to not only the city, but the community. And she supports cross departmental efforts and she helps others succeed through mentorship and teamwork. So, those are great attributes as well. Miss Lisa, I'm going to give you [Applause] the Okay. And then our fifth uh woman of inspiration award is is at training. So she's not here at the city today, but Julie Sandival, you can see her picture here. Uh she is the assistant director of finance. and she has strengthened her team uh by promoting communication, providing support to her teammates, many who are new uh entering the work for force for the first time. Uh providing support and encouraging growth. Her focus on employee well-being is important. She that's one of her focus areas and and improvements that have made a noticeable noticeable difference in the finance department. So, uh, she'll be here, uh, again and and we'll make sure we say hi to her when she's in the city council chambers. But, uh, Julie, congratulations on yours as well. So, those are the five women of inspiration, uh, award persons here. Ladies, want to thank you, uh, for helping lead such a great organization. Thank you for going above and beyond what's normally expected of you, and you're inspiring a lot of people uh, in this organization, and we thank you for that. Mayor and Council, that concludes this presentation. [Applause] Congratulations, ladies and thank you all for being here. Peter, thank you for recognizing them. This is a this is a big It speaks volumes of who we are as an organization. all those um you know their their um descriptive little the context was it's it's inspiring to know that we don't get to see you um all the time or hardly. So thank you. We're really very proud um that you represent our city the way you do. Thank you all. Uh okay. So that's all you had. That concludes the city manager report. Okay. All righty. Well, we will um move on to public comment. I think we can go ahead and start that. Uh let's see here as we proceed to item F. public comment. I'd like to take a moment just to emphasize a couple of things here about the meeting. We handle significant matters concerning taxpayer dollars, making it imperative that we uphold the highest standards of decorum and adherence to our policies. Our uh put you in timeout, Mark. 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 over 30 years. Public comment serves as one avenue for communication, but it certainly is not the sole method. You can reach out to your council members uh by way of phone call, emails, or even scheduling an in-person appointment. With that said, let's proceed to public comment, keeping in mind the importance of decorum and adherence to the policy. Before I begin, I'd like to ask Mr. Rley, our city attorney, uh to please go over the rules of decorum. 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 of 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 refra refrain from any other any disturbing noise, demonstration or other act disrupting to the city council business. Thank you, Mr. Rristley. So, individuals will be called upon in order they sign up electronically. We will first hear inerson comments followed by virtual public comments. Uh residents of Corpus Christi will be given priority over non-residents. If you'll please state your name and city in which you live before beginning your comments, we'd appreciate that. If you have uh you have two opportunities to make public comment on an agenda item or city related business. First is at this time and secondly would be when we actually hear the item. So please select one option. Uh citizen comments are limited to three minutes while non-resident comments are limited to one and there will be a visible timer positioned near the city secretar's desk that will assist in managing that allotted time. If you have a petition or relevant information for the council, if you'll please hand it to her first. she will distribute it to us. Um so that we will start um here we go. We will start with Mr. Rolanda Garza Rolando Garza Highway Corpus Christie Texas District 1. Um, honorable mayor and council members, I'm here before you today because you have a project for funding Prospera, the Lamar project. Just wanted to give some of the council members some of the backdrop on it. Uh, on the project, they started out with a group of uh folks, residents, taxpayers, witas, grandmas, grandpas, veterans that live in that area, very diverse minority neighborhood. Um, this isn't my first project that we've kicked off and supported uh throughout our years of advocacy. Uh I heard the pastor talk about community development progress all the uh the the women here and how they excel as staff. I want to thank Peter Sony and his staff of course for and this project's been long coming. Uh we came before the council many years ago over 1,700 petitions from the grandmas and grandpas of the Lamar uh the Lamar area on 19th Street and for it to come from from from thought on what we do with the property to design to funding to breaking ground and to fill that void that need and it's nice to see you honorable count um and to fill that need for this community that's so been blighted impoverished area. Um, I hope that all of you all can agree to continue the funding. Uh, the these uh these these grandmas and grandpas out there that need to be removed from their home. This is a great opportunity. Uh, I know that Prosper is the developer on it. I call him La Promesa, which is the promise in Spanish. We made a promise from this council, Councilman District, uh, Councilman Everett Roy, which is representative of that area. He was had the courage and the boldness to come out there and see what he what what uh something he witnessed. And I stand testament to you today. U what he witnessed in the blighted area. He saw um a lot of bad things out there. I'll just leave it like that. A lot of bad things, a lot of need a big void. And we've seen that when we did projects in ABC streets when we supported uh the Bluchcher Park area apartments that they have palms at Blucher Palms at Leopard North Side um when that was removed and now this project here and um we made a promise to those folks to those elderly veterans elderly families out there and thanks to his leadership and the leadership of uh of staff the hard work and work of staff the dedication commitment that they had is belaboring and and And I look at my friend here, uh, honorable, uh, Scott here. We used to have many battles, uh, here at this podium here, and he stands testament as well. And, uh, honorable Hernandez, your your story. Uh, we know of struggles for these families. And it's so imperative. It's just so important. The 90 vote would be great to show the people of this community that uh, the promise was kept, the promise was said, the promise was done. We break ground for these for those people in need. And I want to thank the council and the members and and all of you for all your hard work and dedication just before I leave and to our police chief and our fire chief for the men and women that you command in dangerous streets. We thank you so much and you're always in our hearts and prayers. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. God bless you. God bless you all. Thank you, Mr. Garza. Uh Robin Sanders It's nice to see all the law enforcement here. Uh, Robin Sanders, Corpus Christi, Texas. I want to address an issue that I've addressed before. Back again concerning utilities and charges on your utility bill. We're going to start with one quick question. This question is on an IQ test that's given orally by a psychologist. 7* 8 equals time up. Now, next question. This is a utility bill. It is funny, isn't it? because not one person sitting here either reads or understands what's on this utility bill. I do. By the way, the answer is 56. Uh there are two ways that wastewater is charged and you people don't know about it. You think that you see the water and the wastewater and they are connected. They are not. There are charges for commercial accounts and then there is a way that residential accounts are figured. Commercial accounts are based the way you think that your usage and waste water are connected. Not so with residential accounts. It is on the most convoluted insane system that anybody has ever seen. It is connected what is called winter quarter averaging. City goes back a year to the water that was used on your account a year ago, averages it out and charges wastewater against that. The problem is we were not in drought restrictions a year ago. And what we are doing by that system is overcharging every person that's a resident for wastewater. I've got a bill for $31 of water and $56 for wastewater. What's wrong with that? Everything is wrong with that. The system of metering is failing. The meter that is sends the signal is underground. Now what could go wrong? Right now there are 350 accounts that the meter is not working. And when it rains it's more. The transmitter is like a radio and they're old and they get wet. They fail. Thank you, Miss Sanders. I hope that you researched this and do some I researched what Mr. Zenon should have already given you. Thank you, Miss Sanders. Shirley Thornton. Good afternoon, honorable mayor, council members. I come before you today on behalf of the flower of citizens council and asking for your support of item 24, which is the Holly Road train trestle to tourism trail project. Ma'am, can you please state your name and city? I'm so sorry to interrupt. I haven't been here in a while, have I? Uh Shirley Thornton, Flower Bluff, which is in Corpus Christie. Uh and we are I'm asking that you take a look at it. I sent each one of you an email just in the interest of time so I wouldn't have to go through all of that. gave the history of what we've done over the last many years. And I want to commend Mayor Guardo and Peter Zenoni for helping us get that off the ground in the first place because it really was kind of a a task since it was started in ' 92 and never got a look really. And so now we're there. This last step has to happen. And I hope that you will vote for that match that has to to go into effect before we can actually get the rest of the grant which will come to over $13 million. I also want you to know that uh I appreciate your service. I know that this job is difficult. I know that it is stressful and I know it's not for the faint of heart. And I will tell you that you are on my daily prayer list and that I I I ask for God to show you wisdom and I ask him to give you courage to do what you need to do. So I know I'm not the only one praying for you. So hang in there. Thank you much. Thank you, Miss Thornton. Uh Susie Sonia. Susil Luna Salana, District 2, and I come before you to clarify some things that happened last week. You had a lot of people coming up here and talking to you, all demanding that you fire people, that you fire the city manager, that you fire employees, etc., etc., etc. Well, I'm here to tell you that you all are going to have to make some decisions. And let me tell you that firing some of the best people that we have in the city would certainly be atrocious. I'm also insulted that some of the people that came up to you are people that represent unions and that are belong to unions and they stand up for the grievance process and those things and they came up here demanding that you take that away from people. You are going to have to make a decision whether you like it or not. I've already expressed my opinion that any one of you that sues the city while you sit in those chairs are doing wrong. That's my opinion and I stand by it because you represent the people. I also want to let you know that it is important that you get the facts before you make any decisions. And the facts are you take a look at the whole picture of the work that people do. And I told, "Hey, you're friends with the city manager." The city manager and I have never sat down and had coffee together. We have never been together in a situation where he and I are speaking to each other as friends. I see him as an arm of the city that has done a good job whether you like it or not, whether people appreciate it or not. If there if he's against some of the things because he wants to bring us water and you have a particular uh entity that wants to stop him, then take that into account. Take that into account that you're there to represent all of us. And take that into account that when you sit on those chairs, you're no longer a citizen. You're a council person. Keep that in mind when you sit on those chairs because that's important. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Sana. Adam. Yes ma'am. Hang on. Excuse me. Can I ask uh Miles Reley about uh the decorum about the hat? Uh I think we received an email that the persons that wear hats uh you know possibly blocking view. And the other issue that I have was um uh this particular person just pointing at me uh when she was making those comments and I'm I'm rather surprised that you did not raise up that issue. So I just wanted to just make state those comments. Yeah. And I would always would like to point out that any member of the city council has an has the right to raise an issue of decorum. So, I'm I'm only raising this these issues because I was asked by one of the members of council, but but anybody can raise a matter of decorum at any point and make the same objections that I raise. Uh the the and the person who rules upon a decorum issue is is the mayor. So, I all I do is raise the issue and the mayor has the right to determine whether or not that the headgear is prohibited. And the hats, caps or headgear has a condition upon it. it is that potentially impair the view of audience members. So that's the that there is a judgment call to make on that one. Okay. Thank you, Adam Rios. Good afternoon, council. Adam Rios, Corpus Christie, Texas. Uh, owner and founder of Pony Boyce Cake Company. Uh, just wanted to start by thanking law enforcement. It's pretty cool. I felt like I had the best seat in the house. I'm surrounded by police officers in a really good way. 15-year-old me, that would have been a different scenario. Now, I'm high-fiving them all and they're saying, "Hey, we appreciate what you do." So, thank you. Uh I'm here to uh bring attention to something that was postponed and is officially on again. The West Guth uh skate games competition. This is an event that is free to the public. It will be on uh Sunday, May the 4th from 1 to 4. Yes, it's May the 4th be with you Star Wars Day. So, it's like a bonus on top of that. Uh there's no pre-registration that's required. You can sign up at the event. Uh there'll be categories for different age groups, 12 and under, 13 to 17, and 18 and up. Uh prizes are going to be awarded to the top two in each category. And some of the prizes will be coming from Benjamin uh Serpentgate. Uh as a former employee then when when I was a kid, I love that they're always actively involved in the community. And if you get there early enough, um Lonear Hawaii Ice is going to give free snow cones uh to everyone involved. Uh I also wanted to bring up uh something that I think is going to come before all of your attention at some point. I believe the island strategic action committee Isac uh had voted on budget priorities and it looked like making the skate park at Bish Park was going to be a pretty top priority for the budget of 2026. Uh I'll be speaking more on on that behalf as time goes on. And I also wanted to talk about, you know, I sometimes talk about my mission statement, which is the Pointy Boy Skate Company strives to create a brand with unifying principles and properties in a way that can take roots within a community. Um, I'm proud to say that uh I have reached out to Ray High School or rather they actually reached out to me and I hope this be this blossoms into all the high schools, but uh they officially their first school sponsored skate club. Uh, I grew up, you know, varsity baseball, varsity soccer, but not everybody throws and hits a ball. Not everybody catches a football, not everybody bounces a basketball. Some of these kids skate. And so Ray High School, uh, decided to start a skate club. And they're actually building a halfpipe on their campus. Uh I want other schools to get involved with this because this could open up competition just the way the other sports have competition especially given the amount of parks that we have right now would be accessible to so many campuses uh across Corpus. Uh outside of that uh just want to say thank you for uh this continued support and remind sometimes people ask me how do you get your how how do you make things happen the way you do or or push these projects through. I have to remind people that it takes a lot of community building. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of patience. This does not happen overnight. The fact that we have a city sponsored skate event, probably for the first time in the city's history, should tell you sometimes these things take time. And I'm not crazy about bringing X games uh to Corpus. And I'll talk more about that next time. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rios. Uh, Jenny Krasco. Hello, my name is Jamie Carrasco. I live in Corpus Christie, Texas, and I also resign at the H. Miss Katosco, could you pull the microphone down a little bit? There you go. Okay. Thank you. And I also resigned at the Hassianda senior apartment which is prospered at property. I have lived there for 10 years and I love my home. I participate in the food bank health and nutritionist classes with the services. I love Prosperative. I ask you to support Prosperative Project for more affordable housing. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Gosco. Uh Ramona Reyes. Good morning. My name is Ramuna Reyes and I live in the Hassienda apartment. and which is Prospera property too and I live I've been living there for over 19 years already and I like all the things that are there in the food I participate in food banks I participate in national classes I participate in literacy I participate in the senior trip that they give us every year I like it I like everything about the uh about uh the Hassenda senior apartments and I just want to ask you if if you can support the prosper you know to for have more affordable housing. Yeah. Thank you very much. That's all I can say. Thank you Miss Reyes. Thank you Joshua Dejon. It's a little sneaky up here. I'm sorry. Um Joshua Dejon, Corbus Christie, Texas. Um, I just wanted to come and report back on Project Hope's third annual community cleanup event that we had this past Saturday. I came last Tuesday to talk to you'all about it. In front of y'all, y'all will have a depiction of the past three years. Um, all the data we collected from cigarette butts to vaping devices to the cigars we collected in the wraps. Um, our main goal was to continue to make an impact on the Coastal Ben community by rating public parks of litter, specifically ATOD related litter. Um, with this mission in mind, we partnered with seven local organizations and seven youth groups. So, 14 really big organizations coming together to clean seven community parks in the Coastal Ben. And with our collective passion, we were able to clean up 4,637 cigarette butts. Um, four vape pods, three vaping devices, one ejuice bottle, five packaging and wrappers, and 20 cigars/cigorellas. I know I shouldn't be happy that we collected more data, but it it feels really good that we are doing this um environmental project because we really are trying to gather data to present to y'all to push for no smoking in parks. Right now, it's illegal to smoke in one park, which is Bler Park. Um and what we're experiencing out in the community is that kids are experiencing peer pressure at parks. Um it's also just a huge environmental hazard for us. Uh so by continuing to gather this data, we really hope to amend our current city um city smoking prohibition ordinance to include all city operated parks. Um, it is. And then also, while I have time, I spoke to Camila Ao A Royo who works for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. And, and I wanted to echo what she said by um, stating that there is a need for establishing a proper site for ecigarette/vape disposals. They're currently not accepted at the JC Elliot transfer station. So, um, they're really big hazardous thing for our environment. There's not a proper way to dispose of them. they just uh release carcinogens into the air into our environment. So, if y'all are interested in supporting me on this, I will be reaching out to y'all individually um to try to get this on the agenda because it's a really big thing. Thank you'all. Thank you, Mr. Deleon. Joshua uh Frederick. Yeah, sorry. Joshua Joshua Frederick, City of Corpse Christie. Um, let's see here. I didn't write this down because I was actually a little surprised I was going to be up here today. Thank you guys for your time. Um, on March 20th, I reached out to most of you on council and um pointed out that according to the public comment uh procedure online posted by the city. It actually reads that questions to council or staff will not receive a response. And that was it. And that was March 20th, just a couple of weeks ago. Now, if you go to the exact same link that I sent to you, it reads that uh citizens are authorized and encouraged to present their views to the council on city related matters. However, such should be done in a factual, precise presentation, and questions of council and staff are inappropriate. Now, that's that's a thing we've heard multiple times over the last few months that questions are inappropriate. I would like to know what changed from March 20th to now that it is now posted. I would like to know let me how about I got to make sure I don't put it as a question. Right. So tell me who has the authority to make that change. Tell me who on council supports that change. Objection questions of of council or staff are appropriate. So So you're saying right you you want explanation. So I would like um for someone to please you know because we can absolutely provide that. I really really appreciate. Absolutely. Thank you very much and I don't need the rest of my time then. Okay. Thank you, sir. Robert Rocha or no? Okay, we're going to move on. Uh, Councilman Kent, can we answer his question? Yeah, please. We're going to get a We're going to get a staff member to go talk to Mr. Feder. Yeah. So, it was I think it's as benign as the secretary updated what was on the website, right? That's the answer. is that the the material that was and I'm not sure if that's for certain Rebecca, so you'd have to chime in, but Yes. So, the we the we updated the website to use the exact wording that's in the council policy, right? The council policy. Yeah. So, it's council policy, but they'll go into detail. I want them to explain it at all. I mean, explain it wholly for you. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Okay. Uh I think that do we have two people in WebEx? Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. They're both online. Okay, so the first person is Shireen Delus. Uh, hi. Um, sorry. Uh, can you see me? No, ma'am. Not yet, but we can hear you. Hold on just one minute. Okay, we can see you now. Hi Sharine Delus at district five and I'm really happy to support the trestle bridge the one that connects from Holly Road the OSO wetlands preserve to flower bluff that'd be a great opportunity for people to experience nature and if we can have mixed use uh residents uh can enjoy businesses and walk around and really increase the walkability and bikeability in those kinds of neighborhoods so people can really enjoy the beautiful outdoors that Corpus Christie has. the birdest city is something that uh people really need to experience. So my uh this video I'm going to be presenting really shows how uh a bikable walkable communities really improve community health. The city spends $2 million on uh fighting obesity. So something like this uh would be a great way to fight that. So please play video. I like to advocate for urban planning that is oriented towards community health because it is a really important factor when you consider these statistics. I understand that the city of Corpus Christi has $2.8 million budget for the health district and their main focus is combating obesity which affects 40% of residents and that leads to other serious problems like heart disease, cancer and so on. And I understand that they have a weekly fitness program and some leaflets and maybe that's effective for some people but that may not be a solution for 300,000 people. That's how many people live in Corpus Christi. So, let's take a look at the least obese cities in America, which includes Seattle, Denver, and Boston. They have bike friendly infrastructure, uh, thoughtful urban planning, compact and walkable neighborhoods. In fact, you know, I saw a statistic from NATO. Protected bike lanes dramatically boost ridership up to 171%. Seattle has over 150 miles of bike lanes, Denver has 196 miles, and Boston has over 120 miles of bike lane. I'm not saying that's the only way people can lose weight, but when you make your environment oriented towards health, it is a factor. Is it any coincidence also that you know Corpus Christi being uh sprawl and being ranked one of the worst cities in America for bike lanes uh is it a coincidence that they have one of the highest rates in obese city? So that is something to consider. Um there are a lot of funding and grants right now for bike infrastructure. The city could really benefit by taking advantage of these programs. Please check out ibikeikc.com or find me on Instagram at ibikecc for more information on our advocacy for better bike infrastructure in Corpus Christie. Uh thank you for your time and have a good day. Thank you, Miss Delus. Next is Elena Martinez. All right, guys. Let's Let's go home so we can have our lunch and then we can build Hello. Okay, we can't see you. Hold on. When Yes. Um I my video is not working, but can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yeah, if you're ready to proceed, please go ahead. Okay. Elena Martinez, Corpus Christie, Texas. Um please excuse me for not using video and for not being there in person. and I'm a little under the weather today. Um, but I did want to go ahead and make public comment. Um, I know some of y'all are very familiar with me and normally I'm out here complaining. Um, but that's not the case today. Um, I am here to advocate for myself because I have applied to be on the ethics commission. Um, and I know that that is on the agenda today. Um, I know that you've probably already made up your minds on who you're going to nominate and who you're going to vote for. Uh, but I would really appreciate you considering my application. Ethics is something I'm very passionate about. Doing things the right way, doing things correctly, making sure everything is clear, and I just I really think that I would be a huge asset to the ethics commission, and I appreciate your time, your consideration, and um have a wonderful day. Thank you, Miss Martinez. Mayor, that concludes the public comment period. Great. Thank you. And we'll move on to section G, which is our board and committee appointments. All right, mayor and council. The first board for your consideration is the airport board. There are three vacancies. Travis Patterson is seeking reappoint and his attendance rate is in your packets. Second. Okay. Uh, Councilman Scott, did you have a No. Oh, okay. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose? Saying no. The motion carries. Okay. Then we That leaves us with two vacancies to fill. Nominate Jesse Nola, Sarah. Nominate. Oh, hold on. She's writing them down. So we have uh Jesse Nyola, Sarah Aali, and then Councilwoman, did you have somebody else? Mark Mark Al. Okay. Councilman Buris McCree. Buris McCree. Johnarcia and John Garcia. Alex Garcia. No, Alex Garcia. No, we didn't. There quite a few. Okay. So we got this, right? So we have two, correct? Two two Garcia, John and Alex. Sorry, two vacancies. Yes, ma'am. Two. Okay, great. So I will go ahead and everybody just pick two names each. I'll start with Councilman Kua and Alexa and Aali and John Garcia. Nyola and Aali. Nyola and Aali. Oh, you're ready for me. Oh, yeah. The coun. Okay. Is the council woman did you get the counciloman's okay? Go ahead. Nola and Aali, Councilman Hernandez, Alex Garcia. Okay. Okay. So, Mr. Nyola and Mrs. Ali are appointed. Okay. Okay. And um C manager Zeni, you would we're going to uh we do have the we had on the agenda the Civil Service Commission and the Civil Service Board, but we're going to I'm requesting to delay that one more week. We still have to conduct a few interviews. So, we'll postpone it for this week, remove it from this agenda, and we'll put it on for either next week or the week after. Okay. Very good, sir. Thank you. All right. Right. So that takes us to the ethics commission. There's one vacancy and members of this board are appointed by a twothirds vote of the full council which is six votes. Who is Steven Mccclure? Mccclure. Any other nominations? Martinez. Alena Martinez. Yes. Okay. So we have Martinez and Mccclure. Any other nominations? Okay. Okay, we're going to close nominations and we'll start to my right Mr. Betta Mccclure Martinez Mccclure Mccclure Martinez Martinez Okay, Mr. Mr. Mccclure is appointed, right? Yes. Six. There you go. Okay. So, next we have the landmark commission. There are two vacancies representing the preferred but not required categories of at large. Are there any nominations? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm opening nominations. Uh, how many do we have? Two, ma'am. Two. Okay. Any nominations? Right. I nominate Underwood and uh Bequette. Did I say that right? Underwood and Beet. Beet. Yes. Okay. Any other nominations? Okay. I'm going to close nominations. We have the two. And we have two uh vacancies. Okay. So, is there a motion to appoint? Move to appoint. Okay. We have a second. Second. Okay. All in favor say I. Any oppose? Say no. The motion carries. Okay. And then last we have the water shore and beach advisory committee. There are two vacancies representing the preferred but not required category of at large. Okay, I'll go ahead and open nominations. We do have three uh applicants. Garcia Holland and can't read that. Who's that third one? Okay, we've got two nominations for Garcia and Holland. Any other nominations? Okay, so we have all three. So, I'll go ahead and start with Councilman Vaughn. You got two. Garcia. Okay. And I guess Okay. Okay. Councilman Bada. Garcia and Holland. Okay. I'm going to go with Gar Garcia and Holland. Garcia and Ralph. Garcia Holland. Okay. Okay. Garcia Holland. Thank you so much, mayor and council. Okay, thank you. We're going to move on to consent agenda items 3 through 15. Um, let's see. Are there any requests from council members to pull any item 3 through 15? from council members. I'm sorry. Number seven. Okay, we have item number seven. Anything else? 12. Number 12. Okay. Which one? Uh 12. So, we have seven and 12. This is Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Seven and 12. Okay. Is there uh let's see any requests or Councilman Betta, do you have anything? No ma'am. Okay. Any requests from the public to pull any items from 3 through 15? Okay. I will entertain a motion to make a motion uh approve consent agenda with the exception of items number seven and 12. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say no. The motion carries. Item number seven is a motion authorizing execution of amendment number five to the service agreement with newen strategies and solutions. Uh who pulled item number seven? Muted. Councilwoman Patson, your question or comment. Thank you, mayor. Um I was just curious. It seemed like there was a a number of amendments to these contracts with quite quite substantial dollar amounts in totality. Is that something that's industry standard on this practice? Because for me it's it's my interest is if we enter in a contract, there's a there's a price point we've both agreed upon. I did see that there's some additional scope of work that we've added. But I I can't help but wonder, are we still staying in that industry stand, you know, price point? because we went out to contract or went out to bid and and this was the bidder that we selected, but now we're five iterations down the line. So, if that makes sense. Sure. Councilwoman uh Nick Wkelman, director of water systems and support services. So, one one key note about this contract is when it was first initiated, we were determining rates on a two-year cycle. Now, we're at a one-year cycle. Uh so, that decision was made by council. So, a number of those amendments are associated with that. Additionally, what we've seen over the last couple of years is we we've scheduled a lot more face-to-face time with council members to make sure that all the questions are answered and that especially new council members so that they can be given enough time with our rate modeler as well. Okay. Thank you. That was Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Hernandez. Thank you. Um, you know, New Jen has, you know, provided a lot of information, but I still think with the rate modeling, you need to have them actually meet with uh new council members to talk about how important that is. It's a um, you know, especially the long-term projections for rates. Uh, because I mean, we only do rates on a year-to-year basis. So, I I recommend that you have new gen once this contract is at least have contact with the new council members. I agree with you. Thank you, Councilman Scott. Look, I just think it's important that you meet with me and your guys meet with No, that was my question. My was a chance to get educated on this. This is all that's all the process is new. Um, it's it is fascinating to me that we have to pay somebody so much money to set a rate model, but I'm guessing there's when we spend our time together, it'll be it'll it'll it'll reveal itself on how that money is well spent. But I wanted to start with that is it just like Ali at some point I would like to say it's not rocket scientist and rocket science. So I look forward to the opportunity to meet with the group. Yeah, I can add to that Councilman. So when we started this contract with new gen, we we com started over on the rate model, right? So we had the initial model from HDR. So this was a at the initial start of this contract, it was a retooling of that entire model. So now now we're moving forward every year and and we're progressing both with new gen and also with the the internal team at CCW. Okay. Thank you. I will go ahead and entertain a motion to approve item number seven. Okay, we Okay, we have a motion in a second. All in favor say I. Oh, are we using the machine? I'm sorry. We've got to submit your vote, please. And we also need to see Mr. Betta on the screen when he votes, please. Okay, I'm voting I. Thank you. Voted I. Miss, did you want to vote? Did you? Okay. Okay. The motion carries. Item number 12. And I'd also like to say that uh Councilman Betta will be recusing himself on item 12. Yeah. Did we miss some? Oh, because of Council Betta, right? Yeah, that's why it's going to show as eight, but it was unanimous. Um item number 12. Like I said, council Betta is recusing himself. Uh this is a motion to approve the And so is council member Scott. Mayor. Oh, they're both recusing. Okay. Okay. As well as council member Scott. Thank you. This is a motion to approve the affordable housing program project between Corps Christie B Corporation and TG 110 Palms at Morris. And I think Councilman Hernandez, uh, your question or comment, sir. Go ahead. Okay. So, Karen, thank you for being up here on this one. Um, you know, I've I've had issues with this particular organization in the past, um, simply because I don't like the practices that they they perform and and looking at their history and putting up their information with regards to how much they have in loans from the city. And when I say loans, I mean cash flow loans. The cash flow loans are not paid unless they have some sort of revenue. Um, and I know that we we had gone back and forth on some of these. Sorry. Let me pull it up. And currently they have, I believe, $6.4 million in outstanding loans through the city's home loan uh program. Is that correct? I'll defer to my first of all Karen Castanso planning community development for the record and then I'll defer to my colleague Jennifer Buckston who runs the helps us run the home program. Thank you. Uh Jennifer Buckton planning and community development. Yes, that is their outstanding balance. Okay. And the reason I have concerns with this because I'll go through their um what they have in terms of uh the items that they're utilizing for him. So we pro we gave them this land or we sold this land for them which included the old the old elementary school, the yard, part of Mary Street and then the property across from from Mary Street from the school for $10. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. So, not only did we provide them that, then they also got from this tax credit um which they they were awarded from it and they received they're receiving over a 15-year period $15 million, $152,85. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. And then we're also providing them a home loan, not counting the 1.16 million that we're talking about here, but a home loan of $587,531. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Okay. And then we're waving all the developer uh developer fees, right? No, they are waving they are waving three or and I shouldn't say waving, they are deferring developer fees of 379,2. Okay. What's their total developer fees? Let's ask them, but I believe their sources are in the presentation as well. Their total developer fees, we're gonna Let's ask them. They're here. Hello, my name is Brad McMurray and I'm the vice president of property development for Prospera. Uh we're in in San Antonio. The total developer fee on this project is 2.26 million. Uh the unique uh characteristic of tax credit program is that the developer fee also provides for eligible basis which increases the tax credits that you get. I'm sorry. Could you repeat the developer fee? The total developer fee 2.26 million. Okay. According to TD um what is it? TH TDHCA. TDHCA. Thank you. you can defer up to 50% of your um developer fees and still be economically viable. Is it the reason why you're not deferring the the entire 50%. You're exactly right as far as the underwriting criteria. They don't like you to typically defer more than 50% but there's an over a more stringent guideline which is basically to be deemed a loan. It has to be feasible that it's paid off within the the 15year range. Right. And so based on the Palms at Morris, because it's a one-bedroom and a two-bedroom community, primarily one-bedrooms with 10% at 30% AMI and 20% at 50, there's such a small amount of cash flow that the maximum that could be actually paid in that 15 years is what we're giving, which is the 379. If we did more than that, it would be considered a grant because it's not reasonable to consider that that could be paid off. It may be, but based on current economic assumptions, it's not anticipated that it would be. And you need a tax tax opinion to be able to commit to the IRS that it is reasonable and feasible. And so based on the customary assumptions, 379 is the most that we can defer. Okay. So, you know, the the issue I have with this is that you this is kind of continuing us supp uh supplementing Prosper's uh projects for many projects and from the list that you provided, we are supplementing Glenn Oak Apartments, Hosienda Senior Housing, Lexington Manor, Samuel Place Apartments, Palms at Leopard, Woodland Creek Apartments, Palms at Bler, Village uh Village at Mardle, Casa Demanana, and Village at Hendry. Um we we don't do this for for other for to this extent for other um companies that get these tax loans. I mean we do in some cases we we do when the subsidy is requested but I but I would also like to point out if it's okay that the um uh this developer um has been the most prolific winner of tax credits in our area. As you know, we only receive one tax credit award per year. Um there is another organization that um comes in behind them, but this organization does have the most the greatest number. And then um I did put together there's some slides here at the end that I I would like to kind of show what other communities do in terms of their loans to put it into context. Um can you go to let's try slide 13, please? There we go. And I'm sorry that this is reads the way it does, but I did not want to parse it down. So when a when a project is awarded tax credit, it goes through the state's underwriting criteria. One of the things that they look at are the soft sources for this. You can see that Real Gardens in Austin is getting funds from Travis County in the amount of $4.4 million, 0% 40-year deferred payable. They're getting general obligation bonds, $3.4 million, 0% 40-year cash flow. And as you go through these, you can see the different communities. The majority of these, I'd say I haven't done the math, over 90% over 95% are from cash flow loans. You'll also notice there are a couple of grants. And whereas our loans have become 3% loans, there is only one 5% on that list and I think there's one or two 3%s. We are not outside common practice. These are the most recent underwriting reports published on TDHCA's website. These are home funds and type B funds. They are meant to be soft subsidies for affordable rental properties. um this property. Yes, we did arrange for 400 or excuse me, $580 some thousand dollars of home funds, but our local underwriting criteria for people who are borrowing money in the coastal bend that increased the required operating per unit um per unit perom price in order to get a loan which has increased their cost. They've maximized their tax credits at 87 cents. There isn't anybody going to get 87 cents in this area for a while now. Um, can I will you please go to the next slide? This is from the Dallas Housing Resource Catalog. I just wanted to show you where some of this came from. Um, this is directly from their resource catalog. You can see in that first paragraph, it talks about their interest rates. their CHOTOS, which is a community housing development organization, which Prospera is, they get charged 0% interest on their loans. Other borrowers can get 1% or 3%, but then based on whether when and how they plan on paying back those those loans, that interest rate can come down. You'll notice those are also cash flow loans, and they've listed there what the cash flow um what that waterfall can look like. It includes credit adjustments, asset management fees, operating reserves, um partnership loans, deferred developer fees, and replacement reserves deposit. Can you go to the next slide, please? Here's another example. This is directly out of the city of San Antonio's program policies. There are two different paragraphs here that also talk about discounted loans. Um but my point being is yes, they are cash flow loans. Yes, they do not necessarily pay annual terms of repayment. However, this is allowed. It is what the funds are for. It is common. It is common across Texas and it is common across the country. Our interest rate of three 3% is higher than most other organizations in Texas, especially for a CHTO project. Thank you. Okay. So if that was consistent that would that would be you know if we had a consistent policy with regards to how we'd provide loans uh for these um organizations you know like for example you said 3% but they have two of those loans that are 0%. Uh you have one two three four five loans that are at 1%. Yes. But if you look at the most recent loans, and this would be I'm going to say since 2000, um, all of those have been at 3%. Starting with palms at Bluchure at least. That was the first year I was here and you and I had this conversation that we have been standard at 3%. That was what we did Alma at Greenwood, their type A, type B, HFC, and home funds. Um, it's what we did palms at Morris. It's what we're proposing for um the Palao Verde. They've indicated they're going to come in for home funds. 3% has been our standard for several years now. Okay. So, but you don't have a standard for how much? It's just whatever they request. No, it depends on their underwriting for their permanent financing and their tax credits. If we you don't take into consideration how much they defer their developer fee. We use um the tax credit underwriting for that which requires that they can defer up to 50% but they're not allowed to defer more than they can pay back in 15 years because then it's not considered a loan and that money comes out of eligible basis and it reduces the amount of tax credits that they can get. So, no, we don't we don't put any additional underwriting criteria on other than what the home program requires or what type B would require because again, it's not as if we have a pool to choose from. We're we don't want to put anything on our program that would make our act or our projects less competitive than what may be going on in Victoria. And we only get one or two a year. If we had 20 projects to choose from, we could start getting pretty particular. We only I mean considering the amount of the 9% housing tax award you can only do one project. We can only do one project. Okay. So you know and looking at this I want to make sure I understand that you know this doesn't even count the land that we provided them for $10. What's the value of that land? $510,000. Okay. So on top of that uh you're I'm sorry. Going back to the this here, it looks like they only have $2 million invested in a $20 million project. That's still 2 million of 20,000 as compared to the same. We would be doing about the same. Correct. Actually, more we would uh well, if you count in the the the amount of land that we provided here and we waved the the fees for giving up the easement on Mary Street as well and we provided that easement as well. Uh, I don't know if we I don't know. Did we forgive those fees for the easement on Mary? Oh, yeah. I we did. Did Okay. I We did. I don't I trust me I remember it very clearly. I cannot answer affirmatively to that. I do not know. Well, I can. Okay. Um, so I mean that what I what I want to avoid here and this is what has always been my my concern here is it appears and from the numbers that Prosper has an unfair advantage with the city of Corpus Christi versus other organizations. As a matter of fact, when this item was brought up, you know, they u one of the other companies pulled out from that competition and it was just their projects. Um there was a time where we had a council member reach out to a state representative to give them the advantage as well. Well, and I and I'm sorry, but I can't I can't speak to that. I well I'm I'm telling you I and I and I I don't have any reason not to believe you but I want to be very clear that I cannot speak to that because I don't have any knowledge of that. But I will say when it comes to the tax credit allocations or the tax credit applications the same thing happened this year. Palm or excuse me Prosper had one or two applications. They had turned in pre-applications but when they saw the way the scoring was going to fall out they bailed. They did not turn in full application. It it happens based on your math, your tiebreaker score. That does happen. People come and people go. But this Okay. So, that goes back to the the question we we had talked about on this that they started off with 173 points and then when when the other company dropped out, they dropped it to 155. Yep. Is that correct? And some of that 150 I want to say um some of that comes down to where you fall in the tiebreaker. Otherwise, you put together your pre-application based on certain assumptions and then everybody looks to see where people are falling because until the pre-applications are in, you don't know what census tracks other people are in. You don't know how they're going to score. There's a lot of things you learn when people turn in their pre-applications. At that point, you figure out who's going to turn in a full application. And then there are things that you can adjust in your application that will allow you to get more tax credits. the more tax credits you get, the less you need in other sources. Obviously, you want to maximize your tax credits. So, and and Brad can explain this better, but the changes that they made to the Palms and Morris application allowed them to receive more in tax credits and it was after people dropped out of the process. But again, even this year, Prospera dropped out and others stayed in. It just depends on to me for a lot of it depends on where the where the ground is as to where they fall because that helps determine how the tie breakers work out. Um it also depends on where things have to be and how many um how big the units have to be as to how their costs are because you have to remember when they turn in their pre-applications they don't have they don't have full designs and they don't have construction c costs. Of course things are going to change through that process and I can see Brad wants to come up and talk about his points obviously. Um, one last thing. Have we have we provided any other company that does this prop property for $10? No, this was the first time, but this was also the first time that we've done an RFI this way. Dan's nodding his head yes. It is, however, hopefully not the last time that we do an RFI like this. I think they're working on one or two with with other community partners because we have considered this to be to be successful. The west side was this area was desperate for some revitalization. The Westside um area business association was on board. The neighbors were on board. Well, initially different originally thought about this. We originally thought about this for all single family single member single single family homes which a majority of them went. So we we did provide property for that but you know this was a surprise to us when it came up this way. I don't want to sir I don't think so. I think the RFI went out for Karen can speak to that but it went out not just for the multif family. Go ahead. No, we we did a very open RFI request for letters of interest and received five responses and are working with all five developers, four of which are nonprofits and one forprofit. Um, now when the RFI went out, there was no direction to do all single family and certainly the RFI itself, that request was open for innovation uh in responses in order to meet our housing needs. Of course, the Westside Area Development Plan calls for a variety of housing, including affordable housing within the community. Um, so there was a strong match between all of the respondents and the desires of the community expressed within the Westside area development plan that staff was aligning with um in that finding. Okay. So, I'll leave it with this, right? the the perception and I've reached out to other organizations that do this is that there is an unfair bias towards uh Prospera because of this the funding that we provide them the the property we provide them for $10 the uh a lot of these other things that are you know you have board you know council members that work with them right it's it's important that we if we don't have a perception of fairness which we don't right now uh then we won't get other companies to participate and then we'll have limited choices cuz this year was only Prospera that provided their um um so if I could there was only there was only two and they're both Prosper if I could just speak to the typeAB uh for a second which is this is the item in front of council um it was modeled not just after the home loan but also the previously approved Alma at Greenwood typeAB deal that was approved act in 2022. So that was a total of $3 million in city grants. So a little bit less than what we're talking here, but um on a per unit basis, uh it kind of evens out. That project did not actually end up happening, but I do want to point out that type A and B put together uh funds that were then it was again a deferred loan 40-year um along with the um Corpus Christie Housing Finance Corporation uh product. So, uh, it wasn't unprecedented with what we went type A B. Uh, staff wasn't working on rewriting what has worked in the past. So, we weren't trying to pursue a new uh, route. Uh, we were just following previously approved projects. Well, thank you, mayor. And if I can just make one clarification, this year there are two, and by this year I mean 2025 low-inccome housing tax credit projects. There are two projects still in the running and neither one of them are Prosper projects. One is from a group called Danco that this would be their first project in Corpus Christi and the other one is from Madhouse Development and they have multiple pro properties here in Corpus Christie. are both um going quality options um and we would entertain a home fund or a type B request from either property if that's what it took to make it cash flow and get the units on the ground and get our um low-income folks housed. Um now the year before 2024 it ended up being two Prosper properties. You are correct. But in 2025 this year, Prosper is not in the running. They dropped. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Councilman Roy, uh, thank you for your presentation and and I also want to thank, uh, the city staff and, uh, Prosper for being here today and, um, making sure, you know, you did a wonderful job in terms of answering Council Member Hernandez's questions. You know, when I look at this project, um, I think about the journey that it's been on. I also think about that we're in a fortunate position to be able to um to release that land for the $10 and I that's a first um but again I hope that it's not the last. Uh we took an area there that when you look at the community they had some reservation about what we were going to do originally. I mean this journey when you take a look at it it's come quite a ways. Originally, they were going to have a facility that the neighborhood really didn't welcome, and then the city was going to look at purchasing or renovating uh that spot and having city offices there. But when they got into the mix of that project, they found out that because of asbestous, I think, and some other things that it was cost prohibitive. So now when you look at this neighborhood and and this neighborhood has actually been under revitalization where they had some single family homes in that neighborhood that they've sold and it's been successful. You know, Council Member Cantou and myself, we kind of share the west side. He has the bulk of the west side, but this particular area is in my district. And so you look at a project like and I welcome again the single family residents that are underway right now in that area. But when you take a look at what this project does, this multifamily project, you heard the two uh ladies that came up and spoke about their current experience with Prosper. I think one said she lived there 19 years, right? and what it means to the people, what it means to this area that when I first went out there with Rolando when I was under my first term and we walked that area, it was pretty it was pretty scary. I say that and I've been in a lot of places, including Iraq, but I knew I was smart enough to know I needed to watch my back over there. I got with Chief Markle. Chief Markle and and staff did a wonderful job in terms of cleaning that area up and making it so that we didn't see some of the things that we saw when we would walk down that street in 11:00 in the afternoon. Uh I've gotten with the business um owners in that area and talked a lot about where this this area has come from and where it's at now. And now we have this flagship I consider a flagship uh project that is going to continue to change that area forever. And I'm very grateful. I mean those are the type of things that we've got a lot going on. But this is a project that I believe is a gamecher for the west side and uh I look forward to and I hope that my council members will support me on this on this project. Um because I think this is a first of many. there's more projects on the west side that need to be done when it comes to Prospera. Um there was an insinuation in terms of saying that they're council members or whatever that have an interest or some kind of I don't have any interest. I actually when I was off of council as a citizen, I was on their board. I chaired their board for a while. I got zero money for that. I don't mind going on record saying that. But I was there volunteering my time and it didn't really matter to me whether it was Prosper or another organization. What I cared about was the mission. That's to me was what's so important is the mission and what it's doing for our neighborhood. You know, you can sit there and you can make accusations, but really at the end of the day, I want to thank staff because that dog doesn't hunt. And I think it's important for the people to know that when you get awarded something, a lot of times you get awarded it because you do hard work and you're deserving of it. You know, I used to get upset when I was in grad school that I got a B and my wife that sat across the the aisle from me got all A's. But guess what? She worked harder at it. And that was the bottom line. So, I'm happy about this project and I I hope that my I get the support from this the council members here. This is a great project. So, thank you for your time. Thank you, Councilman Councilman Kenu. Couple questions. Um the 1 $1.16 million is a 3% interest rate. Correct. Correct. And then it's a 40-year term. Correct. If I'm correct, you said sometimes they won't make their payment. So those those are true terms what you said, but it is what's called a cash flow loan. And we are part of a waterfall. What that means is there's a list of people that include reserves, the developer fee, second loans, partnership loans, and we are all in line. And so if they get $10 a year in available cash flow, it starts to work its way through that cash flow. And the guy at the top gets paid first, the guy at the bottom gets paid last. And it depends on how that flows, that waterfall flows, and how deep it goes. We are not by tax credit standards and underwriter standards very high on the waterfall. We as policy makers and as underwriters have recognized we would rather buy the affordability that is the purpose of these funds rather than get paid back and make sure that we get a loan back because again there's not a lot of projects for us to put this money in. We get one a year, right? Um hopefully we can figure out a way around that but that's not today's problem. So yes, they are loans. It is 3%. It is 40 years. However, we are not due money every year unless it's out of a cash flow. There's a couple of things how we know what we're supposed to get. Once a project is built, there's an independent audit and a cost certification. These projects are not oversourced. The tax credits don't allow that. The lenders don't allow that. But at the end of the day, we can tell you where what money went where. Um, by the way, Prospera fundraised for a previous project and turned money back to type B or type A, whichever. I don't want to forget that. Um, so not only is there a cost certification when the project is built saying these are our numbers, every year there's an independent financial audit and it says this is the money that we made, these were um these were our liabilities, this is who got paid, these are the balances still owed. We're not just taking their word for it. Yeah. My second question is one day from now in 40 years we will get the money back. Correct. So chances are we'll get it back before 40 years. The tax but but we will get it back. Yes. Okay. How? Yes. That's I want to make sure of that. Um we need more affordable housing in Corpus Christie. That's for sure. I'm with you. Yeah. And more in district three specific. Um I'm for affordable housing, you know. Um, probably half of my campaign team, my volunteers and pay staff live in those apartment complexes. So, they say nothing but good things about Prosper. Um, you know, so um I just want to make sure that we get our money back and the all the loans that we that we gave them once again, we will get that money back one day. Correct. Yes. It's not just giving money away. It it probably won't be tomorrow. It will be down the road. Yes. Okay. and it it is limited in what we can turn it will still be affordable housing money at that point. Got it. Second um fourth question. I've been seeing this not just on this item but other items. What does soft cost mean? I'm still brand new so Okay. Um so a lawyer is a soft cost. Okay. Um got it. A hard cost is a nail, a 2x4. Got it. Roofing. Okay, cool. Soft costs are they might be interest appraisal fees. What's that? Nothing in between. Soft and hard. Yeah, that's that's it. All right. Right. That there's no medium costs. Got it. And then um I think that is all my questions. Um thank you guys for everything you guys do. Thank you, Councilman. And I might We might We have a couple more, but I might add and and I'm very supportive of this project. I I think it's something that's extremely needed and and no one's really brought this up, but let's not forget this is specifically or maybe they have and I missed it. Senior housing. Yes, ma'am. So, this is for our senior citizens who desperately we need affordable housing period, but our senior citizens and we heard a couple of ladies that came forward and I'm really glad they they took the time to come here to do this because it's a reminder. I mean, we we it's these are the kind of projects that we are supposed to facilitate. And so, I'm I'm very happy and proud about PRSPA. They they're um not a brand new organization here. According to the memo, they operate 16 multifamily communities with over,200 affordable units in Corpus Christi and that speaks volumes. So, anyhow, move on. We've got three more three more comments. Yes, ma'am. Were you gonna say something, Jennifer? No, I said thank you. Okay. Uh, Councilwoman Compos, thank you, Mayor. Uh, and thank you to the team. I know that it's uh took a lot of hard work and um I'm grateful that you know that you've come to this point, but I I do still want clarification because when I spoke to Jenny, right? Um Karen, Karen, oh, I'm sorry, Karen. No, Jenny. Jackie, Jackie, sorry, Jackie. Um, one of the things that I wanted to make sure because what's happening now nationally with the tariffs with all this and I wanted to make sure that this uh project was going to come through uh and and be able to be completed, right? And she said, Jackie, you said because of Bubba, right? He said Baba uh build America um America by America first or by America build America. Uh because of the language that had just been clarified that you were going to assure our uh us that this project would be built in time and within budget with with so I just want clarification and to make sure that the community will be assured of this. Sure. Uh Sam Bay, vice president construction for Prospera. Uh the Build American Buy American Act is in play here. So, uh tariffs don't really affect this. We've worked really hard with our contractor um to make sure that we've fleshed out all the pricing. They've already they've already bought materials. They've already committed to things for those items because demand is up for stuff that is Americanmade to try and, you know, get around the tariffs. So, they've already they've already bought materials. They've already made obligations. Um they're not looking for any more money. They're just looking for a go. Okay. But then I also need clarification because you you're saying that the project costs and funding sources a request for the 1.160 is because um it says uh covers a funding gap representing 6% of the total project and approximately 19.4 million. This funding gap is due to the escalation of construction costs, higher windstorm, building costs, rising insurance costs, and Build America Buy America cost increases. So what you're saying, cuz I thought you said that it was locked in. So if it was locked in, it wasn't locked in until you get this 1 million. Is that what you're saying? No. Well, we again, Brad McMurray, um if you look at the as part of your presentation, um the contract is set and so u that's locked in and you as as Sam just said, the contractor is moving forward on their own valition to buy properties because they're I mean buy materials. But if you look at this, what the real difference is is we had a project, we did have increased construction cost, but we were able to cover those with Prosper's own investment of capital magnet funds, which we're not going to get back. Those are funds that the federal government is very very competitive. Very few organizations can get those. Okay? And we've got them. And if you spend them and then get them back, you can use them for anything. We're sinking them in this project because we're committed to this project. Now, what you see if you look at the home application where we had $2.1 million loan and then all of a sudden there's a variance. It drops and this shows this shows 900, but the actual final is 1.1. and we were able to push it forward and get as much money as we could. Okay, that's a million-doll drop that we didn't expect. Now, where did that come from? That came from operating cost, which is one of the things that are mentioned when it talks about wind and hail, those storm those cost. So, that could have been elaborated, I guess, in the memo saying really operating costs because when we applied, they were at about $5,900 a unit, which is is typical for TDHCA. Our bank is requiring us to do 67.50 50 per unit because they've had too many deals where they look bad after they get committee approval and at the last minute the insurance rate comes in and it's higher because costs have gone up so much. So they basically kind of came in at a plug figure. Now we can't just go shop around because that loan is through a special program that allows a 40-year amortization just like a HUD loan. But they don't charge the $400,000 that HUD charges for that loan. So, we get the benefit of the 40-year amortization, but we don't have the cost. So, we can't just shop it and get a better deal. Those things is coming in and because they've we have to take what they've decided. And they're not wrong because insurance costs continue to go up, especially in Corpus Christi. So, what's happened is is we had a great project. We ran into some construction cost. We filled that gap with our own money that we're not going to get out. We're going to get it out way back at the end. And from that standpoint, then we got a hit on our operating expenses that reduced our loan that we should have qualified for. We also had an interest rate expecting about 6.5%. We were able to lock it, which we'll lose in in May, at 7.33. That's high, but it's better than what it would be today. So, really what happened is we had some problems. We took care of them with our own money and then we got hit with these operating expenses and that's where the million dollars that we're coming to you for is. Okay. Okay. Well, again, I mean, because I really do want to support this project. I I came from, you know, grew up in the Wagans, which is right down the street. Uh our church of course is St. Joseph, so I know exactly what area that is. Um, again, just like uh Councilman Gantu says, you know, we do need more uh affordable housing in district 3. Of course, we need it here too in district two. Uh we don't have the luxury maybe uh as district three cuz I look at Carol High School, the old Carol High School, and you know, I'm like, "Oh man, I wish I had that area, you know, to uh rebuild there." But anyway, um All right. Well, thank you. I think you've satis satisfied my uh some of my concerns and I appreciate you again um really bringing this to to our area and it was competitive. I mean uh we had other uh organizations that uh are also building different type of housing. So, it it'll be uh an interesting really I I think it's going to be something that maybe other areas uh we can look to as saying, "Okay, this is how you do it." Uh so, anyway, thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Vaughn, I get really concerned when I hear someone say, "I'm not concerned about getting my money back." It's really easy to spend someone else's money. The taxpayers will be concerned. Prosper would not be in this unless it was profitable. And I don't blame you for that. That being said, it is a good project and that area has needed it for a long time. But I am concerned when I see two council members up here recuse themselves. We are not on here to make money. And it does not good look good. It's not a look good a good look for you guys when we have two council members recuse themselves. It's not. So I have concerns about what councilman Hernandez said. There may be a reason others are not bidding. If we have two council members recuse themselves, that's not good. That does not look good. And I'm sorry I keep saying that, but it angers me because you get on here to serve. You don't get on here to make money. Thank you. Thank you, Council Hernandez. Okay, so TG 110 is kind of like a sub organization under Prospera, right? And it's a nonprofit 501c3 company. So, their tax returns are on the IRS website, the 9 the the 990s90s. So, I took the opportunity to pull the 990s. Now, they only go up to 2022. 2023 is not posted and obviously 2024 is not complete yet. Um but looking at at the 2022 uh which also includes the prior year in 2021 there was um net revenues that's revenues minus expenses of $4,398,000. In 2022 there was net revenues of $2,139,000. And then you have a total assets of $21 million at the end of 2022 with liabilities. Say that number again, please. 21.7 million with liabilities of $4 million while having a net asset or fund balances of 17,736,273. And that was Prosper, not TG10, right? No, that's TG 110. Okay. Okay. This doesn't include TG 109, TG 101, 103, TG 105, just TG10. And these are the the net assets or fund balances of 17,736,273,000. So without looking at it, can I ask does it say which ones of those fund balances are restricted fund balances in terms of operating reserves or replacement reserves? Does it say? This is the the the main page. you would have to go through all the individual ones on on how they they broke it down. Uh but that's the total amount. Um yes, sir. Brad McMurray. Again, I'm not an accountant, so I'm not an expert on these things, but one thing that is is clear. The reason we have TG 110 is because it provides as a qualified nonprofit. Prosper is a nonprofit. We would do it ourselves, but your board members need to live within 90 miles of the project. Also, we like to have local community members of which like you ser Roy, you served on it. People that represent the local community. So, it's not somebody from outside of town. Now, what you said, and again, I'm not an expert in this. You said net revenue. Well, that's that's loss of vacancy. That's not net operating income. That's not revenue minus expenses. Net operating income. Well, it's net it's net revenue is the revenue minus minus expenses. Okay. We don't get $17 million or $4 million in profit off our projects here. We have a very tight and just as you said, we've got a $6 million uh different all our different projects that are owned by TG10. You're saying that $6.4 million is still owed. If we had $2 million that came in because of the recorded leans, it has nothing to do with us deciding what we should or shouldn't do. It's it's it's part of the public record. That money would go to that. Again, I'm not an expert, so I can't argue intelligently about it. We can get our our our uh CFO that could speak to it, but the value is all those properties that TG10 owns. That's not additional money. You asked about the developer fee earlier. The developer fee is how we fund our operations. Unlike a a for-profit affordable housing developer that puts money in their pocket and gives money to the people that participate in the deals that put these things together, we're a nonprofit. We put our money into resident services. We put our money into putting y'all these things together. When you look at this this this uh project, Palms at Morris, it's an exciting project. Just what you said. I mean, the the city opened an RFI that said, "Hey, we got a piece of property. Housing is the only thing that was the criteria." And so, we applied. Why didn't anybody else? Well, you've represented it because they were afraid. I would say it has more to do with the fact that it was in an area that didn't meet threshold because the crime was above the maximum amount that TDHCA would allow. But we weren't afraid of that. We're about the the housing. We're about serving the people. And I applaud your project. The fact that you all are doing single family with multif family, that is huge, but the multif family needs to come first. You need to have a huge, beautiful project put in the middle of it that's going to sell those homes that's going to further that revitalization. We worked with the police department. The numbers that TDHCA uses said no. They gave us their own true records and it showed that we were just under it. The other part of the city has been so committed to this project and we appreciate that, but it could be mis misunderstood if you look at it. We were we responded to an RFI. Did a great job. Then we said, "Hey, we want to be different. We want to make this project gold certified, fortified, gold certification. So, it's got this this sealed envelope. We won't have water penetration." That costs money. It doesn't yet, but in other states it reduces your insurance cost. So, we asked for home dollars and you paid for that. Then we had the unfortunate circumstance that we just talked about as far as reducing our loan. So, we've come back. But if you think about it, you gave us the the uh excuse me, um Morris Street section. Well, why did you do that? Well, one of the complaints that we learned at the Garcia Art Center when we held a public meeting was that it's a thorough affair. Bad characters, nefarious characters run back in through there if they could just close off that street. We were able to incorporate it. You had to give it to us because it had infrastructure in the middle of it that we couldn't afford to move. And so, if you look at it from one perspective, I could see you go, why are you giving them so much? But it's actually just step by step and what it takes to put these deals together. It's the developer fee that enables us to pay everybody because we train people and raise them up and to keep them we have to pay them. We don't make any money off our properties. The reason we haven't paid you $6 million back is because they create these programs and say you got to have a 115 or 15% more than your debt and cash flow. And if you have more than that, well, you don't need our tax credits. So they set you up and then they they increase uh the expenses go up but our income it doesn't go up. The the rents are set based on your income. And Corpus is a wonderful city but its median income is 75,000. San Antonio's 88. Houston's 94. Uh Fort Worth's 101. Dallas is 110. Austin's 126. Same construction cost but they have twothirds more in rent. That's why and they still subsidize the projects. So we definitely take a developer fee. That's where the money comes in. But we use it for these programs. We use it to pursue projects like this one that are really going to make a difference and hopefully revitalize part of your your city. Okay. Thank you. Um and just for reference, the 9% housing tax rate program for last year is in district five. So Okay. Didn't go to district three. Sorry. Mhm. or district two. Okay. Um but as a matter of fact, both of those projects were in district five. Yep. District five was very competitive this year. Right. Has been for a couple years. Okay. So this is work on staff in terms of making sure that the perception that it currently exists that there's a thumb on the scale for prospera obviously uh also on the council uh but it's you know with the recusals here uh there's there's an issue and I think one of the things that we can do about that is we can um take everything that we've done um all the conversations that that you have led since at least since 2020 when I got here um and put pen to paper and compare ourselves to other communities and bring back a policy, excuse me, that council can agree to that we move forward under for all of these projects. And that needs to include um type B and um and the home funds and um all the resources that can go into affordable housing and post it on our website and be as transparent for all developers as possible when they come. We have treated them all the same at least since I've been here. Um I don't I can't speak to before, right? I wasn't here, but I I I think that's one of the things that we can do and I think that that I I would hope that that would make you personally more more comfortable with how we move forward. We would have to look at the policy. Peter, how how fast could you do something like that to putting the information on our website? No, no, no. to create a a format to where you have a perception of fairness because you're following a procedure, not necessarily, you know, kind of winging it. We have already started it for type B. We think we'll have it in a couple of months. There's a couple of groups that we need to make sure that we talk to. I don't think we will have it done in time for this property, this project, because they have to start by May or June in order to get their COO by December of 2026 or they're going to lose their tax credits. But but staff have already started that and and we're having some conversations around type B and rental rehab and new construction and and kind of putting together uh what it would look like for different programs, not just multifamily new construction, but we've already started that. So, give us give us a couple months, please. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Roy, you have something? Okay. Just one quick comment. Um, I just wanted the public to note and and note to my fellow council members is that, you know, we when you look at when we started this project, um, Council Member Mark Scott and I think even Council Member Betta were not uh, on council at that time. I think I've been working on this. I came on when I replaced council member Vaughn in 2017 and we started working on this this concept of what was going on in that area around 2018 and you know um so when I think about that and I think about where we're at and it is coincidental you have two council members that abstain but you got to look at their business and and I think it also speaks um in terms of if you think that there's going to be a conflict then I think the right thing to do is abstain if you're in the title business like council member Scott is and you have some affiliation. I'm a banker. You know, I get all kinds of people that come in and do checking and savings accounts and they open up money markets and they do and they invest in our bank and I have to be able to walk that line to say, "Okay, if they walk in here one day and they're part of a board or something, do I need to abstain from that?" So, that's a that's a big responsibility, but I think I'd rather heir on the right side than not. So, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, Jennifer, thank you. And I want to thank everyone who's here from Prosper. I think this is a wonderful project. It is desperately needed. Thank you for your explanation, sir. That was very, very educational. This is very complex, a very complex um topic. It really is. I'll never forget asking about it the very first time. And it's still, you know, somewhat confusing because this is not what we do every day. And there are some great points that were brought up today, some things that will be addressed, but at the end of the day, um, this is critical to this community and we appreciate the work that you do. So, thank you. Yeah, mayor, can I just add one more thing? Sorry. We just, uh, we want to make sure we thank the Ed Relle Foundation and Paul Alide. Uh, as Councilman Royce said, really the if it wasn't for their gifting gifting this property to us with hopes that we could revitalize affordable housing in that neighborhood. I think Paul Alai grew up in that neighborhood. that he took us for a tour once. So, uh, we need to thank them. Just for the record, the Relle Foundation is extremely beneficial to this city and Paul Alide in particular. So, I just want to add that for we want to thank them. Absolutely. Um, I will entertain a motion. I'd like to make a motion to Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second? We have a second. Uh, please submit your vote. Sorry, mayor. Public comment. Oh, we already asked for it because it was on. Yeah. Yeah, I thought so. I mean, if Yeah, that's what I thought. That's okay. Please submit your vote. Yeah. Okay, the motion carries. Uh, it is 126. The council is going to go into executive session on item number 27 for Texas government code 551.071 and 551.072. We will return Can you hear me? Can you hear me? I'm in. We're going to go ahead and call the meeting back to order. Uh we left off at section K. That's our public hearings. Uh items 16 through 20. Item 16 is uh annexation and zoning case ZN8575 Hut Enterprises. Motion to approve. Oh, we have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? Second. Second. We have a second. I'm going to go ahead and open public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make comment on item number 16? Okay. There being Yes, ma'am. Come on. You're the Okay. Oh, you're the applicant. Thank you for being here. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and close. Oh, is there someone online? No. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and close public comment. Uh, we have a motion in a second. Is there any discussion? Any further discussion or any discussion? Okay, please submit your vote. Mr. Bedetta. Okay. Did you vote? I I voted I Okay, great. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. The mo uh Yeah, the motion carries. Okay. Thank you. Item number 17 is zoning case number ZN8332, Golden Point. Make a motion to approve. Second. Okay, we have a motion in a second. And this is basically um single family and town homes. Correct. Perfect. It's right behind the Starbucks in the island. Right behind the Starbucks. Okay. Uh I'm going to open public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make public comment on item number 17? Yes, sir. Come on up. Good afternoon, council. Uh John Harper. Um we uh are in uh opposition to the development that's being planned there. It's solely because it's on an estuarial wetland. There's a lot of uh uh it's right when you come over the causeway. Uh it's going to be the first thing you see. The plan right now is to build 40 homes on less than 17 acres. So less than a half acre lots. It's going to be the first thing you see coming over there. um one thing it's not really going to be appealing to see that. Um but also the proper studies for that whole wetland area, they've already stated that there's going to be over an acre that's going to be permanently impacted. Uh and then I think it's 610 of an acre or yeah that are going to be temporarily impacted. So there's a lot of surveys that need to be done as well as an actual impact survey which has not yet been done on that property. Uh, and until such has been done, uh, we would ask that the council withhold from approving. Okay. And what? I'm sorry, what was your name? John Harper. H A R P E R. And you're a city resident, right? Uh, no. I'm actually an Austin resident. We are um we do business here in in Corpus. My brother-in-law lives here, so we're here frequently. Okay. But so you're just I mean, you're concerned you don't live here? No, we well we we uh we operate business here in town. I I don't live here myself. No. Okay. All right. Mr. Harper, thank you for your for your comments. Is there anyone else that would like to make comment on item number 17? Okay. Uh I'm going to close public hearing. I did receive who was presenting Mr. Dice. We or we all I think received public comment on this and and it was similar to Mr. Harper's um comments which was basically the um let's see uh proper studies including impact surveys have not been done no such reasonzoning should be approved so can you comment a little on this so yes uh again Mike Dice director of development services at the time zoning is basically setting the table development doesn't actually occur so those requirements from the city for building permits platting that's when we would ask the Army Corps of Engineers whether or not that they have engaged with them if they've mitigated wetlands, things of that nature. This is simply just setting the table. Okay. So, after Oh, all right. After this step is when those concerns are addressed during the platting and then building permit stages. Correct. So, if there was an issue or um these concerns were valid, not to say they're not, but at this point in or this stage in the game, then we would not move forward probably. Again, we we ask that the uh property owner developer work with the core of engineers for any wetlands mitigation. There are some challenges on the site for how low it is. Uh they're going to have to make sure that they maintain the city council authorized 1 foot BFE and things of that nature. Right. Okay. Very good. Councilwoman, thank you, mayor. That's kind of my question also. And in our packet, um it's reszoning a very similar according to how I'm reading it. It's an ordinance reszoning a property from Correct. The only thing we're changing is the PUD the PUD. Yeah. And so basically the the property is already you know it's a minor change here in zoning. Yeah. And so then they they need to move forward with determining for permits and stuff. Is this a protected wetland? Is this what do we need to do to mitigate for wetlands? They that that would be on them. If it needs protected, then they'd have to stop basically. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Okay, great. Um, did we have a mo we had a motion in a second? Okay, please submit your votes. Mr. Betta. Yeah. Vote I. I. Okay. The motion carries. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Dice. Well, you're up. Uh, item number 18, an ordinance authorizing a water arterial transmission and grid main construction and reimbursement agreement with MPM Development. Yes, ma'am. Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any public comment on item number 18 from the our audience? Okay. Okay, there being none, I'll close public hearing. Please submit your vote. Okay, Mr. Betta. Hi. I'm sorry. The motion carries. Item number item number 19 is an ordinance authorizing a wastewater trunk line construction and reimbursement agreement with NPM Development. Motion to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second. I'll open open public Oh, mayor. Sorry. Uhhuh. Go ahead. If you can open public comment. Yeah, I I'd like to open public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make comment on item number 19? Okay, I will close a public hearing and Mr. Zenoni. Yeah, I just wanted to point out to the council, it was in the material uh that the trust fund at this point is um with deficit spending, I think is easy way of saying it. So, we know that the work we did last year on impact fees versus trust fund that has to resume again here soon. Uh so, this these we support this development and we support reimbursing them. I just need to point out for the record, we don't have we're deficit spending. This trust fund is now going back into the red at 2.6 million. Uh we saw we're not actually paying, right? Yeah. So there's a slide here. I don't know if Michael, if you want to say anything, Mike D, if you could give us an update maybe on where are we with the uh the the SEAK. So the SEAK is still obviously the band is still together. Uh we are having a subcommittee meeting on Friday the 18th to continue the trust fund discussions that we've already had. Uh so far the subcommittee meetings have looked at the actual language of the current trust fund. Uh we looked at how those fees compare to um the proposed impact fees that were done last year. Uh so we're finalizing that language uh Friday hopefully and then from there we'll bring that back to the full CAC. Okay. Thank you. Uh Councilman Hernandez. Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure that we are still taking in fees for the trust fund, right? Absolutely. Okay. So, we eventually it'll replenish as it goes along and they get paid as soon as the money is available. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Excuse me though, but how much do we bring in a year? We bring about 1.4. So, 1.4 and we're 2.6 in the red with the these items with these. So, it take us three years to just get out of the red and more more more per more requests will come forward. I'm sure they will. Right. Okay. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Zen. Councilman uh Roy, just on the same line, we we talked about this. We knew that this would happen and we talked about raising the fee until we get this whole thing resolved um in in terms of the trust uh fund contribution. Did we do that? So, we had raised the fees in the last four years of budget uh 10% each year uh with the SEAK uh subcommittee meeting. That's a prime concern. So, we should hopefully have that back rather soon. So, that is you're saying that's something that you're going to discuss. It's already started the discussion. So, yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Um All right. Moving on. Did we vote on that? Okay. Please submit your vote. How about I? The motion carries. Item number 20 is an ordinance abandoning and vacating a 100 foot long centerline portion of an unused wastewater utility easement totaling approximately 14,000 square feet at or near 622 Northwater Street. Second. Okay. Item number 20. We have a motion in a second. I'm going to open public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make comment on item number 20? Okay. There being no one, we'll close public hearing. Please submit your vote. I. The motion carries. Okay. That moves us on to section L, our individual consideration items 21 through 24. Item number 21. Excuse me, mayor. Yeah, sorry to interrupt, but we're going to request that we pull 24. Staff's recommending that uh that's the trestle bridge. Oh, okay. Number 24 under this section. We just need more time to work with some of the council members who expressed some issues uh late in our work. So, the plan is to put it on for next week's council meeting. We just have to help some of the council members better understand this. We we didn't get a chance to meet with them till late. Okay. All righty. Okay. Thank you. Item number 21 is a resolution to authorize city manager or design to execute a temporary untreated raw water sales contract with Formosa Plastics Corporation. Good afternoon, Mayor Council. I'm just going to run through a couple slides on this one. Um so, uh let's see here. Drew Molly, chief operating officer for Corpus Christie Water. So, as we all know, last week we had a good discussion and we met some of the folks from Lvaka Navad River Authority. And so, Lake Texana is a pretty important water source for us. One of the things that we do have with Lvaka Navad is we have a a taker pay contract uh at 31,440 acre feet. What's important to say here is is that um basically for the last 10 years every year we've had the ability to get some interruptible water from Lvaka Navad River because um those that supply is pretty plentiful and and so if you look there you see on the slide you see interruptible A and interruptible B. So that's 4500 acre feet and 7500 acre feet. So in totality that's uh 12,000 acre feet that we get made available and that's at the discretion of LNR and and that discretion is based on whether or not they have the water in the reservoir because of the drought that we're in not just here in our region but even up towards Houston. Uh they have had less rainfall and as a result they have not had this interruptible water uh available for us. um they typically make the first aotment, the 4,500 acres. They usually make that available to us sometime by now and they have not. And so we've talked to LNR and we've asked them, you know, what is the likelihood that you're going to let us uh have access to some of this water? Uh and they've told us, they've said, "Well, when it gets to 43 ft elevation, um and and we have enough water going to the bays and estuaries, we would make that interruptible water available to you." Right now they're even with after the rain that we had two weeks ago, they got anywhere between an inch and a half and 5 inches of rain. The reservoirs came back up. It it wasn't at 43 feet. I think they're at like 41.8 ft. So, we don't see this happening anytime soon unless we get some rain in that wershed. And what I mean by that is we don't see this interruptible water being made available to us anytime soon. Um, so as we all know, last week we went to schedule 4. We're pumping about 70 million gallons a day. We're trying to get even more out of that every day as we're working. Um and so the good news story is is that we're going to be able to bring a lot more water down that pipeline corridor. However, if you look at the two water supplies that we're pulling from, we've got Colorado, which is 35,000 acre feet. You see that on the right. And we've got the 31,000 acre feet of contract water from Lvaka Navidad. uh B if you add those two numbers together, it's generally about 65 million gallons a day or thereabouts. If we're pumping 70 to 75 million gallons a day, at some point we're we're going to not have enough water to pump. And so if we continue to not have rainfall fall in uh in that basin, then we we we may have a shortfall where we might have to actually pump a little bit less on the Merry Roads pipeline. We may actually have to go down a schedule just to make sure we have enough water throughout the course of the year. Um, so what we did was was we we had a conversation a couple weeks ago, maybe it was a month ago, we reached out to LNR. We know Formosa. Formosa owns and operates a plastic facility. They're the one of the largest customers that Lvaka Navad has, including us. Um, and so we reached out to Formosa, our team did, and we asked them if they might not have some water that they'd be willing to sell us. Uh, last year they left about 10,000 acre feet on the table. So, uh, interestingly, they they do have some water that they're willing to, uh, provide to us. So, we sat down with them and we talked about what that water might look like. Um, and so, um, we essentially were able to negotiate a a contract with them um, to allow us to get and secure 10,000 acre feet of water from Formosa through this year. And then they're going to allow us to have a one-year option, assuming that they have the water available in December of this year to extend that for another year. Um, let's see here. Um, so currently, as I mentioned, we're pumping at the MRP at schedule 4, which is about 70 million gallons a day. And again, we're we're trying to maximize that every day. Uh, we're taking about 40 million gallons a day from the Colorado River. Uh just to remind our community, the Colorado River is water that we're not paying for. We own the water rights on that. So there's there's no cost in buying that water because it's owned by the city. Uh Texana, we do pay for that contract water. That's water that we've negotiated and we've been contracting with LNR for a number of years. Um and so that 10,000 acre feet is does have a cost and I'll I'll I'll talk to talk about that in a second. But one of the things that our team has done is is that without securing this Formosa water supply, kind of looking at how the numbers will uh project out in the future, if we continue to pump at uh schedule 4 or about 70 to 75 mgd uh without the formosa contract, our contractal water available from Lake Texana would be fully utilized by about November 5th, resulting in full dependence then on Colorado River water. Um so in summary, um what this contract does is it authorizes the city manager to execute a temporary untreated raw water sales from Formosa. Um again, it would be 10,000 acre feet. The price that we've got for this contract water would be $900 an acref foot or approximately $2.76 a,000 gallons. Um what they've done the the forosa folks is they've said it's a take or pay contract for the first 2,500 acre feet. So if we don't take it, we're going to pay for it. But then over the 2500 acre feet, it would be you pay for it if you take it. You pay for it if you take it. So if you don't take it, you don't pay for it. Uh and this this uh this contract would allow us to take that water all the way till the end of this year, this calendar year, uh December 31st, 2025. And then, as I mentioned, if they have the water and we have the need, we could sit down and and extend the contract for another year. Um the fiscal impact is is is 4500 or 4.5 million for the year. We would use um some of the uh uh some of the um some we would utilize half of the FY25 budgeted operating transfer to the CIP to fund this this this purchase. This was not what we did not budget this in this fiscal year, but we do have uh about $8 million that we dedicated to our budget for payo. So we would use some of those funds to to pay for this. Um, and with that said, uh, I'm here for any questions you may have. Thank you, Drew. Uh, Councilman Scott, I think it's interesting to me that of all the conversation we're having today there, I don't think there's anything more important than this item. You know, you you guys went out and you found 10,000 acre feet. I mean, didn't exist yesterday. I mean, it's always existed, but in our world, it didn't exist. Now, it exists, and we have an opportunity to get it. Uh, I think it's also uh significant that that we're working with industry Um this is Formosa, a very large chemical plant up there that's willing to have a conversation with us. And Mayor in Carol and I's uh previous tenure here, we actually sold Formosa water when they were in trouble and needed water. So this is kind of a good conversation that you know I'm there for you when you need it and you're you're there for me when I need it. And I don't think there's anybody from Formosa in the room, is there? But I do think u I think we owe them a debt of gratitude. We owe them a thanks. something. They're making money. I get it. They they bought the water and they'd sure like some money back. I The last little item which is fascinating to me that I could have I could have seen for most absolutely you can have the 10. It's a take or pay for 10, you know. And so the fact that they were willing to work with us and say we'll sell you up to 10. You're going to have to take the first two and a half, but the rest is just as needed. Um I I think this is a big deal and I just want to thank you guys for moving quickly. I want to thank Formosa the conversation. If if we do get the interruptibles, can we can we ultimately get take all the water from NRA like LNR and Colorado and the Formosa water and a 365 day period. I don't know how that math works. There there we we'd run the math on that, Councilman. I think I think we'd be pretty close to to being right there at the even mark. I think there may be some water left on the table, but again, but we wouldn't be paying for it. Well, we wouldn't be paying for it. And I think I think the I think what's important is is that first 2500 acre feet. We're going to use that. I'm certain we're going to use that. And so if we do get a bunch of plentiful rain over the summer and we do get that interruptible offering, um then we'll take that interruptible offering and then we don't necessarily have to take uh you know, thanks to Formosa, we don't necessarily have to take the remainder of what uh we don't need from that. All things being equal, everything's working well, there's a chance we could actually get an total in total through the year an extra 10,000 acre feet. You know, again, everything works and the pipeline works, blah, blah, blah. I just wanted uh city manager Drew, thank you guys for doing this. It's a big deal. I think what's significant is we're all talking about water that we knew of and you guys were out able to go out and find a conversation with someone that adds water we didn't think about. That puts us just another day in better shape. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Councilman Hernandez Drew. Thank you very much. Um, how much does this water cost in a per thousand gallon basis? So, the the the contract water that we would take from Formosa uh is it works out to be $2.76 a,000 gallons. And okay, we're currently paying, in case you're curious, I'm sure you probably are. It's 95 cents a thousand gallons is what we're paying currently for, okay, the water. So, just bear with me here doing the math. Um, last year we did a we did the whole thing with new gen and to get the rate model going and our raw water cost projected from last year was 95 cents and the previous year was like a $112 for raw water cost. However, the dynamics of our water sources have changed. We've gone from getting 70% of our or 63% of our water from our reservoirs, Lake Corpus Christie and Cho Canyon, which is our lowest cost water to now only 38%. So, um, we're paying more for the raw water coming from the north. Our north sources, Texana, Colorado, and now for Moza being the the most expensive one at 276. I think our raw water costs have changed considerably. I ask that uh what I would like to ask Peter is that we bring back uh to council an maybe a mid-year adjustment for raw water in terms of what that is because you know I don't think we forsaw the amount of water shifting from our lowest cost water to our more expensive water when we developed that that original rate model. I want to make sure we're capturing that and we're not trying to make some financial jiu-jitsu in the background to try and figure it out the the pay to pay for it uh within there. So if we need to increase our wall water cost and that that's not just for the citizens of Corpus Christie that's for all the entire service network that we provide San Patricio you know everybody that buys raw water from us. So we need to spread that cost out amongst everybody. I don't think we should absorb that ourselves. That's correct. Councilman, you and I talked about this in our one-on-one meeting. So, that's another reason why that uh new gen contract amendment was on today is to buy additional services like this. So, so just on my napkin math, you know, I see that that the raw water cost jumped up to about $130, a little over a $130. And so, I want to make sure that we, you know, we don't try to absorb that. We've got a lot of cost in our system for our water system already. I want to make sure that we're recovering and because, you know, I don't want to have these significant jumps and increases in in rates. We need to have some we need to spread this out. And since we're getting this more expensive water, we can make that argue. We can make that argument for uh everyone. If this is what it looks like, it could be a dollar more for every for every resident, average resident. Is that roughly? Well, there there there's some things that we can't necessarily totally predict because what what we are committing ourselves to is to two and a half uh two two and a half million acre feet of water. That's that's we're going to pay for that whether we take it or not. So, there's a chance, you know, and hopefully it happens. We get a lot of rain over the summer and we don't need any of that additional water and so the the impact to our rateayer is going to be less. But we don't know that until we get a little bit further into the into the fiscal year. Okay. Yes, sir. But for right now, I mean, for right now, there's there's a there's a commitment of $2.5 million at a minimum to to our raw water costs. And as you just pointed out, well, is that everybody pays the raw water costs, our residents, our commercial businesses, our customers. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you, Councilman Roy. Thank you for your presentation. I just kind of want to go back to the uh workshop that we had and there's several council members. We had requested uh kind of what I call the report card, you know, the tracking mechanism because we've been adding water since we've been in this crisis and um this is another potential um addition. You know, you've increased the Mary Roads pipeline. You know, we're doing wells, all those great things that we're doing right now. I know you guys are extremely busy, but if we could see that, it would just helps us because that's again right now I see people and that's the number one thing. And I don't want to sit there and say, "Okay, yeah, since the our call to action on this, we've increased 53 MGD." I I want to make sure I'm accurate. I don't want to tell them something and then, you know, read it and some other article later and I'm off. But it would really be great if we could continue to work on that. So, Councilman, I know that that that's a big deal and I get it and uh there's a lot of interest in in in more uh understanding of of that sort of dashboard sort of metric that describes um you know, when we add these new water supplies into our overall supply portfolio that we have an understanding of how much more that extends uh our water supplies out into the future. Right. Plus, I think Councilman Roy, sorry to interrupt. So, this is a top priority for Drew right now. uh this dashboard we I think just about every council member in the last two meetings talked about we need this so by tomorrow he and I are meeting for an hour and a half two hours to look at the prototype of the dashboard a consultants helping us with it corollo and then it'll be online this week so it's going to show us how much water's coming in each day from what source how much are we using when do we meet this what could be a stage four six month out mark uh because people want to know just like what you're saying right yeah so I think I just heard you say You're going to put it online? Yeah, it's going to be online. It's going to be right now the only metric we use is an outdated one. How much water's in the western reservoirs? That worked a year ago. That metric is it's useless today. What we need to know is all water we're bringing in and when did the two western reservoirs dry up and when do we then get in trouble, you know, with water demand uh to supply. So, this is going to be a dashboard on and it's for everybody all all 500,000 customers or residents that we have, users that we have. So they can see because we we hear it. I hear it loud and clear. We're saying, "Hey, we're bringing in all this water, but then we're saying we're going to run out. So what's the story? We don't have one on a dashboard." So that's what Drewsman, this is number one task right now. We have 12 things he's working on. This is number one right now. Okay. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Uh Councilwoman Compos, that's exactly what I wanted to know. And I know uh because like we're all saying, it's one thing about bringing in the water, but then we're looking at oh my god, it's still we're still underwater, right? We're still uh So, uh do we have a timeline as to when that dashboard because we've been talking about that for a while, Drew? No, he just he did he just say it's going to be this week. Yes, this week. So, tomorrow we're going to look at the prototype on I'm going to look at it with Drew and team. Okay. And then we're going to release something. It may not be the best it's going to ever be, but it's the beginning of a dashboard this week. It goes out to the public on our website, so anybody can access it anywhere, anytime. Okay. But I just want to be assured that we are going to have all the the water type. Absolutely. Okay. Type all sources of water, right? We're going to show 70 million coming in. We're going to show uh we're going to show the western reservoirs. Then we'll plug in the newis wells. Okay. But we're going to have like usage of commercial residential. That's what I'm asking about. We have that today. That's on there today. Okay. So, yeah, just just just to clarify. So, we we today are putting uh data build usage data on our website by customer class. Okay. And so every month, every month as the month closes out, we have a team that QAs the data and once the data has gone through the QA process, we uh upload it onto the website and anybody can look at how the water is being used by different customer classes. I I guess I haven't gone into the website to look at it lately, so I I'm looking at I can send you, you know, I'll tell you I I had a little hard time finding it at first, but if you have an issue finding it, I'll I'll I'll I'll show you how to find it. It it and we may need to maybe pull it out a little bit to get it a little bit more available. But it's there. It is there. It's on the website. But that sounds like we need to fix it, Drew. I'll send the council the link. If you can send me the link, Drew. Yes, I can send the link. Yeah, y'all should make it to where and y'all can figure it out, but make it to where it's very simple. Someone can just click on a button when you get on the website, not have to go through three pages. Agree. Right. That's what I was going to do. Thank you. Thank you, Counciloman. Thank you. Um, okay, Drew. Thank you. This is being innovative and and we appreciate it very much. Move to approve. Okay, we have a motion. We have a second. I'm going to ask for uh public comment. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make comment on item number 21? Okay, there being no one, we will close public comment. Please submit your vote. How about I? Thank you, Councilman. The motion carries. Item number 22 is a motion authorizing a professional services contract with Garver LLC, Corpus Christie, Texas, to provide preliminary design services for the reclaimed water infrastructure project. Good afternoon, council. Nick Wkelman, um director of water systems and support services. This is a professional uh services contract uh with Garver. Uh they have an office in Corpus Christie, Texas. I have two representatives from Garver here today with me, Dan Olsen and Taylor Hec. One thing that I wanted to point out about this this project itself is that it has been on our uh capital improvement plan for a number of years. last fiscal year we did move it up in the order so that uh the professional services would start this year. So we are we're executing that plan. Uh the the crux of the project is to start with an alternative and feasibility uh study of of all of our six wastewater plants within the city to determine the best and most feasible way to utilize our existing wastewater effluent. The in addition the the contract will work with closely with TCEQ. As you can understand um reuse of effluent is highly regulated and it requires quite a bit of ongoing work uh with the state regulatory agencies. Additionally, uh once we have our feasibility and and um plan set, we will do what's called a source water characterization. More than likely, it'll be at the Greenwood and OSO wastewater treatment plants. Those are our larger uh effluent producers. And that will be needed again to get the approval of TCQ. all all of this work, all of this pre-work will also position ourselves very well to to go after any uh potential grants that we may have uh for the project. That's just a a brief overview. I I stand by as does Garver for any questions. Great. Thank you, uh Councilwoman Paxton. Thank you, Mayor. Um thank you for including the the bid tabs on here. My main interest or my main question on this is the time. It looks like everything in the packets just pointing to a 12 month study phase. That's a long time to look at, you know, what can we do with this water? Is there what options do we have to expedite the process so that we can be utilizing that water a little faster? Also, um it looks like this is mostly, if I'm not mistaken, we're looking at getting it treated, moving it up to treated, and maybe that is the longer side of the process. I kind of thought from our workshop, we would evaluate almost two thoughts. An expedited one where it may not be as treated and then the more long-term. We're certainly interested in reclaiming as much as possible. Time. That's my thing. Sure. and and and part of that the initial part of that study is the feasibility analysis and we want to look for any quick triggers that we can pull right to to benefit from that early on. But one thing that I that I'm not going to uh sugarcoat is that source water characterization and working with TCQ is not a a quick turnaround. uh if we do go to um potentially direct portable reuse. Uh but but the project will be focused on quick triggers that we can pull early in the project while we while we continue that source water characterization. Yeah. Can would it be helpful if Dan spoke a little bit about the source characterization because we know we know what it is but I don't think the council knows. So talk about the complexities that go into this and the seasonality. Dan, introduce yourself if you can. Dan Olson Garver. So um TC so the the evaluation of different alternatives for reuse would be less than 12 months. So the actual study part of what are the best options for the city? What's the best value alternative would be less than 12 months. The reason it says 12 month source water characterization is anytime effluent is being reused for drinking water purposes, TCQ requires a 12-mon sampling period where you're sampling monthly for a lot of different parameters over that 12-month period. It's a minimum of 12 months because they want to capture seasonality. So there is some change in the water quality that happens over the course of a year and so they have a minimum 12-month period and so there's not really a way around that. So the study part can be done faster than 12 months but the sampling period is going to be 12 months no matter how quickly we do the study part. So if the study part's faster, understanding that we need to to sample the water for the 12 months, could we be finishing everything else in that meantime and then, you know, what does that look like for a timeline of being able are we just not able to move forward at all until that 12-month characteristics done or so there's certain things that can be moved forward? In fact, um, in talking about portable reuse, reusing the effluent for drinking purposes, our plan all along was to also be working on the pilot study protocol so that we could get that into TCQ's hands sooner, starting the clock. There's there's all sorts of regulatory milestones where there's a TCQ review of it. And so, we want to get into their courts sooner, start that clock that they have where they have to return that review. Um I also wanted to address what you said about at the workshop between non-potable reuse of effluent like for instance for industry versus portable reuse of the effluent for drinking water probably you know treating it through Owen Stevens or aquafer storage and recovery different options like that so there is as part of that evaluation of reuse alternatives some of those options can include some lowhanging fruit with non-potable reuse for industry which can proceed faster doesn't require require uh potentially that 12 month. In fact, um if it's for industry, it does not require that 12-mon source water characterization. And so, there's a potential here to have some portable water offsets while we're working on steps that would be required for ultimate uh portable reuse of effluent sometime in the future. So, if I was to kind of bullet point that while we're working on the 12-month study that's going to give us a comprehensive picture of the options, right, based on permitting, we could hypo hypothetically make the decision to be claiming some of this less treated water for industry if there was buyers, that kind of thing. That's right. um before the 12-month timeline while solidifying our long long-term plan for post12month analysis that could reclaim more and potentially even turn that potable type water. Um so if we were, you know, for myself thinking about this item saying yes to the study cost, we want to use it. We absolutely do. Is there any kind of estimation that says once you say yes to this price tag now you're going to say yes to this one and this one or you basically did all that for no good any estimation in that realm yeah if I if I understand the question I mean there's multiple offramps along the way and so in fact this first task order we're bringing is really that that initial step of doing going through that permitting process with TCQ going through the sampling process looking at the different alternatives it does not commit you to any of those alternatives right Now, it does not authorize design of any of those alternatives right now. That would be something that would, you know, come back to the council in the future if if one of those alternatives wants to be pursued by the city. Thank you so much. Councilman Kentu. Thank you, Mayor. So, my understanding is this is just design. It would take about a year to design it, right? Yeah. Councilman. So, this is uh preliminary analysis and feasibility. So, it's not design of a water treatment plant or uh treatment infrastructure like Dan just said, that would be a follow-up engineering contract. So, it's going to take how how long do you think something like this would take to like get it built and everything? You know, um Dan, I'd like you to answer that. So, similar to my answer to Councilwoman Paxton, it's it really depends on the alternative. So, there are some I keep referring to it as lowhanging fruit. If we're talking about selling effluent that's not for drinking purposes to industry, it's how close they are and how quickly you can build that pipeline. I mean, we could be talking months to to a year depending on how quickly they would agree to that and and that we could make that available to them and start selling them that water. And that's really important because um the permitting process is faster, the regulatory process is faster. And in the game we're playing here with with trying to get as much water as possible, a portable water offset is just as good as building new treatment or bringing a new supply somewhere else. So if we can take flow, 3 four million gallons per day of flow from one of the wastewater treatment plants is currently going out to the bay, sell that effluent to an industrial customer and offset three or four million gallons per day that they're currently taking from the portable system. It's just as good. But again, so it really depends on on those alternatives that come out of that task where we're evaluating those. And so it can be months to years depending on what that alternative is. Yeah, Drew, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a company who came to Corpus to say that we could get this done within 12 to 18 months built and everything? Was there a I'm sorry. Was there a company that Corpus say? I heard something like that. I was just wondering if you heard from a company that's claiming that they could get this done within 12 to 18 months. You know, Councilman, I I I can't I can't recollect somebody saying that, but you know, there what what gets interesting is is there there's there's often times folks that will come out and say things and then when you kind of press them on it, it it's not always what they say. Um but you know, I think I think part of what I'll I'll kind of maybe even re-emphasize a little bit of what we just heard today is that um you know, the regulatory process does take time, unfortunately. I mean, we we see it the regulatory process has to play out and certainly something along the lines of direct portable or even indirect portable reuse where you would be potentially taking wastewater effluent and putting it somewhere where then you would be pulling it into a facility like Owen Stevens. um with the exception with the exception I if it was you know used for industry and and the TCQ doesn't play the same role in regulatory oversight with industry as they do with with a drinking water supply but you know there may I you know I can't think of somebody that said that but may maybe there is I I I'm just concerned because we're about to run out of water sure you know and Del is three years from now you know how many how many more eggs we have left for water. So, you know, it it kind of depends and I'm going to go back to what the city manager said, which which is what you're asking for, which is what we're going to get you is that is that dashboard. And, you know, I think what's what's really important, and you'll see this in the next day or two, is that, you know, these wells that we have on the Noasis River, those are going pretty good. Um, we got to go through TCQ to to get that to to to be into fruition. But, you know, every million gallons of water that we're bringing on either through Noasis River or some of the other things that we've talked about, it it it it adds a lot of time, which is what we need. Um, and so I I hear what you're saying, which is look, we we need to get that other water supply online. the the industry the potential use of of this water for industry I think has some real some real merit if it goes through the the traditional process of direct portable where you have to go through that water characterization study we we plan on doing that anyways because it's something that if at some point we we we want to really capitalize on it we're going to have to do that study and and so we're planning on doing that but I think what you'll what you'll see here is is that uh if we can have Garver do some of this work that they've outlined There are some analyses that they've been they want they want to look at and they want to come back after they do some of these analyses and present to the council on on what may be the the next best step for this very valuable uh effluent water supply that we have. Understand? Thank you. Yes, sir. Councilman Hernandez. Okay, Drew. I know we had this conversation and and Dan, thank you for uh sitting in on that conversation and I want to take a step back here on some definitions. Direct potable water reuse or direct reuse is when you take it directly from the a wastewater treatment plant, treat it, and then put it right back into our water system. Correct. That that is correct. All right. And then indirect is where you take it out of our wastewater, treat it, send it to another location and then at some time in the future then it through one of our treatment plants like let's say you uh discharge it then in the Nois River and then we collect it along with the raw water from the Nois River into the Owen Stevens treatment plant. Okay. So, just, you know, for the sake of a of a term that uh Councilman Scott had mentioned about toilet to tap, I think the indirect one is probably the the easier one to sell to the general public, right? Because there's a lot of there's some natural processes that take place in there when you mix it with raw water. Obviously, that also would include um aquifer storage, right? would be a process that is indirect uh from being treated potable water but you have a means of storage. I think you can kill two birds with one stone here in that conversation. If you can uh pipe it in the from that same spot, right? If we're looking at the aquifer storage being around our airport and you run your pipeline through there when we don't need the water, you can pump it into the ground into the aquaer storage and then um and then when we do, we divert it to the Nois River. I think that should be the priority uh in terms of being able to uh you know try to do accomplish two things with in one aspect. As far as um industrial use, obviously we have uh two wastewater treatment plants that are on the ship channel. I think the most viable one would be Allison, which is which discharges about three and a half million gallons a day. you're going to have to have a conversation with with some some of our industry partners as to see if that will work, you know, and I'd rather have I'd rather have those conversations sooner rather than later. The one that comes to mind is that is Flint Hills that takes raw water from the Nois River. If they take the raw water, seems like, you know, you could blend it in with some of the waste water from Allison to be able to manage that. I'm just saying that there's there's options. You're going to have to have those discussions. you know, if we can do it, we can do it, you know, and you know, if they need some something from us at the Allison to make that water a little bit more, you know, feasible, that should be part of your study. So, those are kind of a combination of things I can see that we can do that I think could be less than 12 months if we and then considering our situations. Let's leverage the fact that we're in stage three about to be on in water emergency with TCQ to see if we can move that sooner. Also, I'm sure we're taking samples from our from our wastewater treatment plants. Can we use past samples as characteristics, water characteristics, so we can cut down that timeline? You know, it's a good question. I mean, I know we're collecting samples uh from those wastewater treatment plants because we have their own respective permits that we have. That's correct. Right. So, so there's samples that are collected to the degree that we can uh utilize some of that data as part of the source water characterization study. We'll absolutely take advantage of that. Dan, I I don't know if you want to step in on that. You The answer is yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, I I time is of the essence and I I'm going to support this because I think we need to we need to move forward with it. I think it's a little pricey maybe, but you know, beggars can't be choosers at this point. Uh, so I want to make sure that we do the we do the right thing and we focus on what's needed. Like I said, it's for us it's a lot politically easier to sell indirect uh as opposed to direct. I agree. Okay. Thank you. This is and Councilman uh Hernandez, this is an up to amount and you heard Dan talk about task orders. So it's it if we don't this is the maximum we could allocate to this it could come in much less and we hoping that it could you know so yeah it's not a guaranteed payment of 1.2 to us based on the tasks. It's a task order. Okay. Thank you, Councilman Scott. So, so do you need are you going to use past data and try to use it or you need direction from us to use this this current and past data that we've been collecting? Yeah. No, it it's it's a no-brainer that the regular sampling that they're already doing will count for those parameters that they do regularly. And then there's just other parameters that the the plant is not sampling for regularly. Certain pathogens and chemical constituents that TCQ will require as part of the source order characterization. That would be in addition to what they're regularly analyzing. Awesome. So if I were a dreamer, I I I could see um um yeah, I'm not I'm not a fan of toilet tap, you know, just if I want to do it, I'd be astronaut. And I can't be an astronaut at my age. I guess maybe I could if I had enough money. But um but I'm also I also get what our Colorado water is. I just get it. But uh non-potable reuse I think is an absolutely great idea. And and then what what's we put it ASR I think is a fantastic example. It would be so cool to wake up, you know, a year from now and we're selling non-potable to industry and then x number of years from now we're putting water in ASR and so we have water from the pipeline, diesel, the lakes, ASR. I think we're going to be the envy of the state when we finish when we come out the other end of this. I think people are going to be be looking to to what we're doing here. Um, but am I did my are we meeting with industry? Is that part of that? That that's the plan. We were we were already talking about exchanging contact information with some of the key industry partners that I think I think they need to be in involved in this. At least have an opportunity to hear what uh opportunities are available to them and and if if the the price point is right for them, they're going to make it they're going to make it something that's going to be a part part of their water supply. And I get the sense we're talking about a variety of projects around them trying to give them alternatives to taking water out of the river, right? Um uh so I guess part of the we'll get updates regular updates on this process. Absolutely. To the extent you want to have updates, we're here to update every day heard every day. Please have Yeah, give us updates. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, uh Miss Gumpos. I just wanted to remind everyone that basically all our water is toilet to tap because it's coming down river somehow someway. So just a reminder. Yeah, thank you for the reminder. It's true. We are running out of water. We need every every innovative idea. So, so thank you. I know this has been a long time coming. This is a great item. It's a good news item. And as was mentioned, I mean, your team, thank you for all the dedication everybody's putting forth. M. Oh, yeah. Well, no. Well, before we make a motion, is there anyone in the public that or in the audience that would like to make comment on item number 22? Okay. There being no one, we'll close public comment. Motion. Second. We have a motion. We have a second. Please submit your vote. Lord yes. Thank you, Councilman. Okay, the motion carries. Item number 23 is a resolution of the city of Corpus Christi, uh, Texas consenting to the creation of a municipal management district. Motion to approve. Second. Okay, we have a motion and we have a second. Um, is there anyone in the public that would like to make comment on item number 23? Uh, this is approving a development agreement with Paul Hayden Developments LLC, uh, Annuasis County Improvement District number one for the development of the reserve at Oso Creek. Okay, so there's no one. I will go ahead and close public comment. Um Heather would like to say anything about Sure. Um we do have the developer here. Um Paul Garza with Paul Paul Hayden Development is here. Um if council had any questions for him. Um but yeah, this is just the resolution support for the creation of the municipal management district along with approval of the development agreement that was negotiated with the developer. Um if at a future date that the city does want to annex this property in um the buildings will be done to city standards um and city codes. And um we do have through a strategic partnership agreement. The city does have the right once certain milestones are moved or hit to be able to annex in if we are able at that point. And staff recommends. Yes. Staff I I'd like to call them up who who'd like to come up just some basics for and for the record. Wait, what was for the Yeah. Well, for the record, you did you know we've been briefed on it and not that we don't have questions because we don't care. We've certainly been briefed on it. I know you all have been working on this for quite a while and you've been here all day. So, thank you, Mr. Spence. Thank you. Good morning or afternoon. Oh, you want to let us know who's here? Yes. So, I've got Paul Herrell with ABHR, our bond attorney. Uh Ricardo Gomez with uh P Dawson Engineering. Okay. Paul Hayden or Paul Garza with Hayden Development. Okay. Steven Sauls with New Southern Commercial who I'm also representing. And we are represented the owner in consulting uh with the developer. Okay. Okay. Great. Tell us a little bit about the development. How many homes is it? Uh 930 homes. Um we this is our 24th month 24th since we started this process. Um we uh began as uh as a a relationship with our our property owner. uh Steven Sauls established that relationship and through that process we partnered with him um in order to begin this development in order to lower our carrying cost and then uh through the work with Paul Hayden or Paul Garza we uh we understood what the city's challenges were and we came with a selfunded development project in an effort to understand that um uh without our hands being out looking for money that wasn't there that we'd have a better chance. Understand there's a lot of challenges that were um in kind of inherent in this project. working with Heather and uh Peter, uh we've found our way to navigate u the majority of these things and it's what has brought us here today and allowed us to bring a self-funded development in district 3 that um is supported by West Oso School District um uh Commissioner Gonzalez and uh was allowed us to also put together a bond financing package that will allow us to deliver market rate housing in an area that without This project has very minimal amount of opportunities to the tune that we feel that when this is fully developed, we'll add $3.5 million to the the schools. Wow. Um well, and I was going to say that this is definitely going to spur and I think that's the whole, you know, not the whole point, but I think this is going to do a whole lot for the area. So, we we real appreciate your investment here and your belief in Corpus Christie and we have a lot of talent here. if you have some challenging questions. Uh Paul and Paul are are are absolute superstars and that's the kind of team we've been uh fortunate enough to work with and to bring to the community to to to bring this development to to fruition. Wonderful. Wonderful. Councilman uh Roy. No, I just wanted to say um thank you number one. I think this has been today's a great day for district 3, District 1, some of the other districts also. But, you know, this is this is cutting edge stuff, I think, for our city and it's going to continue to reshape um the look and um it's just awesome. So, I I was I was looking I love looking at the pictures, you know. Yeah, my wife said that even she says a lot. You only look at the pictures you don't read. But, um anyway, what an awesome design. What an awesome concept. So, thank you. And our our goal was to set a new standard in the community for master plan community development and and that was what we challenged ourselves with from day one. Wonderful. Councilman Hernandez. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. U as I understand under this plan that you plan to revitalize that wastewater treatment plant that used to be there from the old uh Navy airfield. Correct. And you're planning to discharge into Oso Creek. Correct. That's correct. Okay. So, I mean, obviously there's some concerns on our part uh on, you know, the and you're going to have to meet all TCQ requirements. So, as long as that's okay. Yeah. Good luck on revitalizing that. That's a that's a we're going to re It's going to be a brand new You're going to redo the entire thing. I mean, it's a Wow. It has the cap it has the potential to to basically service that entire area which will prevent any to build some density out there without having to to pull pipe across and get um easements. And are you looking to add capacity to that beyond your project? Potentially. Potentially. Okay. All right. Thank you. And what what was the timeline for the 900 homes? Excuse me. The timeline overall. So that the whole project could be seven to eight years. Four phase development um um just slow roll into to basically um absorptions that we've we've done market studies on as well. Right. Okay. Well, yeah, it's beautiful. And I know again y'all been working on this for quite some time. So I'm glad that we're real happy to see this move forward and happy to support it. Okay. All right. Is there anyone I'm going to go and open public comment. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make did already do that? Yes, ma'am. Sorry, it's 3:50. Uh, okay. So, we already did that. And, um, do we have a motion? We do. Great. I'm going to need to start taking vitamins. All right. Please submit your vote. I vote. I Thank you, Councilman. Thank you. Okay. Did Oh, Everett, did you want to vote? I did. You did vote. Can he vote? Okay. So, that way it's unanimous. Just got my verbal. Okay. Yes, sir. Yeah. For the record, thank you all so much. Okay. Just need to wash my hands. I know. Okay. Okay. And and that uh takes us to our briefings item uh number 25 and 26. The men in blue. Is that blue or that's dark blue, isn't it? Yeah. Not the men in black. It's little dust on it. Number 25 is our crime stats briefing. This was a u a uh a request to give us a briefing on on some crime stats and some really good info that we should probably get regularly. Chief Markle. Hey, that's up to you. We're always welcome. We're always happy, I should say, to talk about crime. It's our business. It's uh how we interact. There's there's never a day that goes by in our building where we don't discuss better initiatives, crime trends, how to how to respond to those and how to try to predict the future. We we know what cities to look at to anticipate what's coming to Corpus Christi. Believe it or not, there are cities like Houston and San Antonio that things happen and we can calculate nine months to a year that this going to be happening here. So yeah, we we we're really good at that. You and I today I look forward to it because I have an opportunity to showcase some of my superstars. You don't you don't get to see them too often. Um all of you have been to the station. I think um Miss Miss Paxton, you will soon, I think. Is that is that correct? But you get some time to sit with us and and banner and ask questions and understand who's um serving you as as um police executives. And I have an outstanding team. as as Peter said, I have a strong bench. Um they have many many decades of experience and today Billy will be doing the primary presentation and all these good folks here, deputy chiefs and assistant chiefs will be standing by for any questions that they might be able to answer. So we by design we just posted numbers because we want you to feel free to ask questions on any dimension or anything that you feel you would like to know about. Right? So we look forward to your questions and we look forward to this conversation. Thank you. Thank you, Chief Markle. Thank you, Chief. Billy Reed Love, deputy chief for the police department. Uh, good afternoon, Mayor and Council. It's my privilege here to speak to you today about crime statistics. Uh, as the chief mentioned, this is a result of council member Vaughn requesting some data. She wanted to go back prior to CO to look at some of the things, how might have changed during that and after COVID. Uh, as well as a focus on family related crime and gunrelated crime. So um if we take a look at this or one thing when you see uh these years you'll see changes and those are important numbers uh but we're looking at this daily you know we don't wait till the end of the year and say well we had a 24 increase percent increase in autotheft we better do something about it. No as soon as we see an increase uh in any crime uh we begin to address it. So when we address crime you always have to look at three things. There's a victim involved in it there's a suspect involved in it and there's a location. So all of our strategies uh include that as well as the most important part is the community partnership uh to help us with these because uh no no crime uh can be solved with just arresting people. We we're never going to arrest our way out of of the of crime. Uh so I'm going to give you a couple examples, but I want to um uh encourage questions. Uh so one of the things was I spoke about was 24% increase in autotheft between 23 and 24. Um what occurred during that time was in the beginning of uh blush. Oh. Oh, thank you. Okay. Uh in the beginning of that of the year, uh there was a tick tock challenge that went out with juveniles to steal Kia and Hyundai vehicles. And uh it was so simple that all you needed was a thumb drive like you put in your USB computer to get in certain models of cars about 2016 to 2021 Kon Hondas. Hyundai, not Honda. Honda and you could literally turn the car on and drive off. And uh and then these kids would be stealing from five to six cars a night. Uh the youngest offender we had was 12 years old, could barely reach the pedals. Um and they used them to create do other crimes such as auto burglaries and just other steal other Hyundai. So it was uh a little challenging. So uh we put together a task force uh to identify them, arrest them. But again, like that's that's not enough. Uh the other things our autotheft task force got a hold of uh from the Nois County uh tax collector can tell us uh when you register your vehicle who who all has registered a Hyundai or a Kia in Corbus Christie. And we mailed out uh public awareness literature to them to tell them, hey, your your car could be suspect to uh to being involved in crime as well as contacting Kia. And like the chief mentioned, this this trend had started a little earlier uh in 2023 in some of the other bigger cities, didn't hit us till January of 2024. So, our autotheft task force was already talking to our Kila Kia dealerships and Hyundai dealerships about a recall that was getting ready to come out. And when it came out, we notified all those people. Get into Hyundai, get into your Kia dealer for free. They got the the new uh ignition systems. And that was one of the other big things that brought that down besides identifying those kids. So then once we had him in custody, we made sure we got with our juvenile justice probation department. They uh Judge McCoy there was very interested in this. Uh he he saw it happen. He was seeing these these young adults uh in in his courtroom all over this kind of silliness of stealing these cars. And they brought in some victims. They made these kids come in uh several times a week to report to their probation officer. brought them in front of some victims that, you know, a single mom when they were having fun when when she woke up in the morning, she couldn't go to work. Her car seats were in the car and so they got a a little more human uh element relating to what they had done. Uh and it really by the time we hit about April, we were back to a regular numbers, but and had a decrease throughout the rest of the year, but that first few months really gave us a um an uptick there. So, that's a good example of, you know, where we looked at it, we saw a problem. And then when you look at aggravated assaults for that same year, 23 to 240 6% increase. And we think we we could live with that, right, as a community. But no, you got to look within those numbers. At the same time, uh in the latter part of 2024, we were having a a significant increase in juvenile crime, specifically violent crime. uh they went juveniles went from having an 8% uh normal average of being involved in homicides and non-violent shootings to 20%. And also 20% uh increase in juvenile arrest for felonies. So we adopted some of those same strategies with our partners at Nois County Juvenile Justice System and they actually added a new probation officer to go out and do night checks. But internally in the department, uh the uh operations bureau created a violent crime task force. And that couldn't have been done without the council and mayor and the city manager providing us extra police officers a couple years ago with the forethought of like, hey, there's some issues that we need to address. We're able to take a whole shift of officers, add them to the the evening shift to focus on uh the the traffic related incidents that involve with these people. uh the racing that's all all involved the the racing congregating in parking lots, nightclubs. This is where these violent crimes are happening and they've been able to interdict that. Uh since we created that, we've had 64 guns taken off the street by by that unit alone. And that's not with all the other officers doing the work. 64 guns by the by the crime unit. We also created a NIMAN task force. Uh we sent two officers over to the ATF. And NIB is a national integrated ballistic information network where every time there's a crime involving involving a firearm and we're able to see some evidence whether it's projectiles from the weapon, the weapon itself or casings from automatic weapons, it goes in a a national uh database and we see that some of our guns have been used up in San Antonio, uh, Houston, and then locally they're used in several different, you know, driveby shootings. And each one of those uh crimes, if they're not connected, you wouldn't know that you have a little bit information on this one, but not enough to make a case. But when you start, you're able to put those together good and these investigators concentrate on that, uh they're able to build cases and uh get people in custody and and get the one of the primary goals is get those illegal uh guns off the street. Um we also started a weekly shooting team uh specifically for this this uh the problem with these young adults and and firearms. uh the ATF, the Novice County District Attorney's Office, the juvenile prosecutors, as well as juvenile probation, adult probation, attend those meetings every week, and we go over every shooting or gun- rellated crime that happened the week before, come up with strategies, get everybody. Sometimes it's just a matter of we don't have a good case on this person, but guess what? They're on probation, and the probation officer can get that person in, get them revoked. Um and uh and then we just look at the when we look at when we started that task force in uh the latter part of um uh October of that year of 2024 and we look at that same timeline. We've had a 13% decrease in non-fatal shootings. We've had 21% decrease in aggravated assaults and 13% decrease in in u kind of those part one major crimes if you look at it the homicide, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault uh combined. So those are a couple examples and again if you ever if you see something while I'm talking you just want just let me know. I can stop and and address it with our team here. Uh there we've got all our different uh bureaus represented here to be able to talk about crime. This is something we talk weekly about daily about. Um, so one thing I wanted to also bring up was you mentioned uh, council member vaugh was concerned about co and how that impacted crime. So one of the things when we studied this is burglary. Um, prior to co if you see it's very high 22 22 200 a year 2100 a year. Um, and at that time it was residential burglaries. two resident residential burglaries to every one business burglary. During COVID, during 2020, that flipped. Uh we went to having two business burglaries and one to every one residential burglary. And we all know what the reasons that is because businesses were closed and everyone was staying home during that time period. Um but for some reason it it has never gone back for the rest. So from 2021, 22, 23, and 24 and the trend is continuing. We now have two business burglaries for every one home burglary. But where where are you here? Uh right there on on uh burglar burglar uh I'm sorry. Yeah, burglary. So you see we had 2200 or so in in 178 19 started come down a little bit but 2020 uh it fell really the the amount didn't fell as much as it flipped from burglaries uh of residents to burglaries of businesses. Now, the trend we are seeing right now that we're concerned about is these business burglaries that involve the theft of copper. Uh they're occurring at uh businesses under construction, homes under construction, and um businesses that are abandoned or vacant. These uh crooks go in and steal the air conditioning system, steal the the copper. And uh we're we're considering uh we've been working on with legal a uh updating our uh ordinance involving uh metal recyclers that they have to report in certain things to make it harder for these criminals to to uh to sell this copper. But actually the state right now is looking at some some stiffer laws. So we're going to kind of wait to see how that plays out in Austin because again most trends that we see in Corpus Christie have started in in other uh locations. Okay. Any questions about kind of this? Can we go on to we're going to talk about the uh incidents involving firearms? Okay. So, uh when you look at that, obviously a homicide, it's always going to make up the largest portion of any homicides. Other homicides involve stabbing, strangulation, or motor vehicles. Um sexual assault, that's a very low number. All right, that question people come up. we've had in the last uh four years no sexual assaults involved with um firearm and that's actually not uncommon. Uh what we'll see when we get into the family assaults 80 to 85% of our sexual assaults involve a family member or intimate partner. Uh it's very rare that we have uh stranger related uh homicides. When we do have that, we take it very serious cuz uh as soon as we have one stranger related hom I'm sorry, sexual assaults, we make sure we're on top of that immediately cuz that's a concern. You could have a serial rapist which um right now we don't have any that we're we're working. We have one in Caspian apartments you may have seen that has been breaking into to some apartments and there's been some attempts um and we are still continuing to work work that and take it very seriously. Um, obviously robberies, you need a a weapon to threaten someone. U, that's why handguns are used in that. And then aggravated assaults, you'll see u, obviously you need a handgun to or handgun or rifle or firearm to to cause serious bodily injury. One of the trends we're seeing with uh, aggravated assaults is not only just um situations where people are being shot at, but when guns are being displayed and pointed at people, um, that's that's aggravated assault. Also, that's one of the trends that seems to be on on the Yes. You want to turn on your There you go. Thanks. Is there a specific age that's doing all of these, right? So, if we look at from about 15 to 25 males, uh, but females cannot be excluded. We have taken some guns off females and actually they've been victim. But is it it's a a more females are trending up but historically males from the age of 15 to 25. So is it because there's more accessibility to guns? That that would be my opinion and I think my colleagues would share that there's more guns on the street from when we started. I started in 1990. It was rare to find a young man with with a gun. Uh there was the gangs and when we did find them there were 380s and 25s very low quality. These uh young men and women have high caliber, very nice handguns, some with laser sights, some with uh the same optics that we have on ours. Um and of course we also know that 224 handguns were stolen out of unlocked vehicles last year in our city. But it's really scary that they've got those powerful guns. It is. And but we don't we don't know where they're coming from. Well, we believe most of them are stolen from stolen. autoies, right? And we've recovered many of them during this Wow. Scary. And it's scary that they're that young, right? And so we do do a lot of public awareness through our autotheft task force to the gun owners. We want gun owners to be responsible not to leave them in their cars unlocked when they get home, take and most of them are occurring at home while they're parked in their driveway unlocked overnight. So we're asking them bring them inside or lock them up in the in the car. And do we have gangs here? We do. We do. And we have a a a gang unit that works very closely with our violent crime unit, uh, as well as our detectives, uh, the NYAN unit. There's a gang member that we're dealing with or or targeting every week that's in involved in on that shooting report. Okay. Thank you. All right, Councilman Hernandez. Okay. I noticed on the statistics you provided to us there's nothing that is drugreated or gang related and so I was curious as to why that was left off. Uh it was basically we received the information from uh council member uh vaugh and and it was pretty broad and that's what we we Yeah. So we were glad to to speak to to that um u gang or or uh drug related drug related. Right. Yeah. I mean, we could spend we could each one of these we could break out and and really speak for a long time and we'd be glad to do that. So, if we want to come back and talk specifically about drug uh crimes or gangs, that would be a Well, I mean, you know, gangs could be a whole day topic. I mean, you prison gangs, foreign gangs, local gangs. The newest thing we have now is what's called hybrid gangs. hybrid gangs where they don't follow traditional gangs that we had seen like when like we said when we came up where they they're in this gang one day and the next day they're in a different gang which doesn't make sense but that's how they do it. They'll they'll shoot at one another one day and they'll be riding around the car together the next day and it's free agency right and there's uh yeah and they are involved in in drug trafficking uh and and gun violence. Okay. So the second part of this is obviously uh in terms of metrics you have arrests and and reports and then you also have uh the actual adjudication of it and you know convictions where do we fall and then that's not in here either. I mean how successful are you at either get getting p or getting convictions or getting you know violent criminals off the street? I mean there's, you know, there's it's one one thing to have it reported. The second thing to actually have it are you getting cooperation from the district attorney's office. I mean there's a lot going there because ultimately if that doesn't happen, you still get blamed. Correct. Yes. And there is some frustration uh occasionally with the the district attorney's office. We do meet with them monthly. We're talking to them weekly. They're attending this shooting meeting weekly. Um we we are we are focusing on getting guns off the street and then we don't want them going back into the hands of these individuals. So we've asked them to to do that and they have been doing that so far. Uh we've been asking for uh in these racing events to to not just give slaps on the hands uh all these different things and but it's really up to them. We we've been successful in some and some we've made some phone calls because we didn't like they got a plea plea deal we didn't agree with. But that's the uh the unique thing unique thing about the criminal justice system. We're just one cog in that. You have the prosecutors and they have a role that they have to play and and we're sometimes at odds with them and we do voice our concern. Well, can can you provide us at some point in the future some statistics as to you know arrests at what what they do? Do they do they and when I say clearance I mean you could that could mean a lot of things. It could mean dismissals. It could mean, you know, prosecutions. We need to kind of understand that, you know, I can't talk to to the DA Granberry, uh, if I don't have that information. Right. So, when we look at our clearance rates, it's when we've, you know, cleared the case by identifying the suspect, we've arrested them, uh, or we've filed the case with the DA's office, or we have, um, or the often the the victim doesn't want to prosecute. It's still a clearance as long as we have identified the suspect. that information is useful. So, yes. Yes, sir. Can't hold accountable if you don't have the data. Yes, sir. Thank you. Yeah, I think um I agree. I think it'd be great to see what's gang related. Um what Councilman just brought up, the dismissals, prosecutions, clearance rates, arrests, prevention, you know, what what So, so these numbers are going up. For example, the 60 you you I think collected you said 64 64 uh firearms that we've confiscated this year. Illegal firearms. We don't confiscate people's legal firearms. So what does that number look like a year ago? A year before that. A year before that. I I don't have those off the top of No, but I'm saying those are the kind of numbers I think we would like to see. Sure. Because as we're adding police officers, right, you're doing a whole lot of different things. But we have to see what So, so how are how are more officers affecting certain crime, right? Right. And then and then what are we doing? There's there's a list of crimes, but when you're looking at children committing these crimes, what are we doing about that, right? And I don't know that that's necessarily your role, but I'm sure as police officer, one of our our great programs we have is our pal our police athletic league, you know, where we're we're in a challenged neighborhood off of Brownley Street. or getting kids in there that but how do we know that is preventing how do we know that is affecting that number right and and you may not and that might not be in your role that might be like you know a partnership with someone I mean I don't know I don't know but it it takes a lot of different facets the one of the unique things about the criminal justice the science of criminal justice there's no way you can actually do a science experiment because there's so many things that impact crime. We can't have a control group and just take one small thing out of them like hey we're going to put them in pal when they also it could have to do with their family it could have do economics could do with their right uh other challenges that so so maybe also when you come back you can also tell us these are all the organizations we work with that do those things that focus on I I don't know if there are any there might be very few I have no idea but I would imagine that you are very much I guess uh or we're I guess we we we rely on we would have to kind of like we the city we don't do a whole lot of things but we partner with a lot of people as part of that us partnering with the community to make sure that we address these these issues. So through what organizations, right? That would be great to say we work with the XYZ whatever juveniles, you know, and and they that's what they do. That's all they do, but it affects the work you do, right? Oh, yeah. Like that example I gave about working with Newasis County Juvenile Justice Probation, right? Uh and Homer Flores, he's the chief uh probation officer over over there. When we said, "Hey, this is our issue. These kids, they're not they're the autotheft. It's a nonviolent crime. So, he's got other kids in there in the the lockup sort of for murder and real serious crimes. So, how can we still have an impact on the these young men and women? They created this program to, you know, bring these kids in checking themselves in on the weekend and they might have to spend the weekend so they know they're not out there doing something bad on the weekend. They got ankle monitors, that extra probation officer, but without us teaming with them, he he didn't know what the challenges we had with with these young people. So, it's important that we always partnering with the different different places of the right. Judge McCoy has been great too to to let us know like which which ones. Uh, Councilman Ketu, thank you, Mayor. Um, I got a couple questions. Well, first of all, I want to thank you guys for arresting everybody for reckless driving. I mean, I feel way safer in Corpus right now. Um, I don't know this is only me, but I always see speeders on SP and going home and it's it's kind of scary, you know. Um, but so thank you guys for that. One of my questions is how many guns do you estimate that's illegal in Corpus Christie that they have on them? Like how many weapons do you think? So that that would be hard to say. Um so if you uh obviously a 15-year-old can't legally possess a handgun, correct? And and be out in the street with it. So uh we know there's 224 stolen last year. We're averaging about 20 a month stolen right now. Um and so we know those are in the hands of of young people, people that there shouldn't be in in the hands of. We have a really big problem with guns in Corpus Christie with children, kids, right? I I would I would agree with that. Yeah. Is there any possible way I don't know how the law works, but is there any possible way how you guys do DWI checkpoints at times? I don't know I still do that or not, but is there any possible way we could do checkpoints for guns on on minors and children, anything like that, kids? So, um, we do do DWI checkpoints or driver I'm sorry, not DWI, we can we only do driver's license checkpoints. Okay. And, um, we those are that's one of the big things the gang unit has historically done and the violent crime unit done. And then what we do is we look uh for intelligenceled policing is one of the things we're doing or we're seeing these hot spots and we if we've seen some crime or a lot of uh what's occurring now is a lot of people calling in. There's been shots fired in my area. We're tracking those and we'll go out and do a a driver's license checkpoint at that time. One of the challenges uh I'll say we'd all agree with is not being able to have a juvenile curfew anymore. That was the the state legislature did away with city's ability to to do that. And so when we do a driver's license checkpoint, we can check that they have a driver's license. It used to be if you had a car load of 16-year-olds, you had the curfew right then and then we could take them into custody, get them home to their parents, search the car, was there drugs, was there firearms that we could, you know, uh, seize? We don't have that anymore. Uh but we still can do a driver's license checkpoint and then a lot of times at those locations we're able to de develop probable cause to uh to search the vehicle or to make an arrest. But if we can't uh they've got their driver's license and there's other 15y old there's nothing we can do you know legally. What I what I noticed in Corpus Christi is majority of the shootings is coming from ages between 18 and 23 more or less. And a lot of these accidents, crimes is coming from bars and coming from after hours um locations where they hold a TBC license, which they're supposed to close at 2:00 a.m., but they stay open till 4:00 a.m. I also noticed that there are some other establishments are opening till 4:00 a.m. without the TBC license and doing a BYOB type of deal. come afterwards, you know, after 2 am when the bar closes and um come party over here or whatever the case is. And that's where a lot of these shootings are happening and robberies and stuff. I understand with the chief, we discussed it some time ago that you guys are working on something to regulate if you have a TBC license, you must close at 2 am. Is that correct? That is one of the things we are working on right now. If you wanna Do you want to speak about that, Chief? Yeah. I'm I'm I'm asking for a lifeline here. Todd Green. I'm the uh assistant chief with the uh over the investigations bureau, which includes our narcotics and vice uh investigations division. And yes, that that is uh something that we're exploring right now is uh drafting an ordinance or or changing language in the ordinance that would proh prohibit any uh any premises that has taverns bars from staying open after hours. Okay. After 2 a.m. Cuz we we got we we did that away with um not the smoke shops, but what's it what's it called? The lounges. The hook. Yeah. Okay. I was just wondering because I feel like most majority of the crime happens in those parking lots, you know, and and it's it's it's kind of scary, you know. We we did we certainly did we noticed that and that's something that we did and and in and the majority of what we're talking about here is um what we call um u intelligenceled policing, hotspot policing. That's what something that it goes by different terms, but that's what we're doing is we're um gathering intelligence on trying to figure out where our biggest problems are and when they are, what time of the day they're occurring, what time of the night. Yeah. Uh and by the fact that we were able to add additional officers to create this violent crime unit. Um at 2 o'clock in the morning, prior to having this unit in place, we were we were often short-handed. We didn't have enough officers to really uh go out and proactively target areas that we knew were probably problematic. We were responding to calls. Now, we're actually uh proactively identifying those locations ahead of time. We're going out there, not just the violent crime unit. Um my uh narcotics and vice uh unit is supporting that. We are doing operations, undercover operations in many of these uh locations. Uh we're assisting the violent crime unit. So, we're being much more uh instead of being reactive, we're being more proactive. Great. And and we're using that intelligence and then we're sharing it uh with with our partners, with the district attorney's office, working with them, uh working together as a team, working with our detectives. Awesome. When you guys bring it to council, I will support that because I think that's that's a must. I think it'll be great for Corpus Christie and hopefully it reduce some crime. Thank you. Uh, Councilman or Councilwoman GMO. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Um, that's a lot of information, so thank you, Councilman Vaughn, for asking for this to be brought to us. Um, as far as crime prevention, um, I I have, uh, my appointee, Dr. Isa and um Mariah that were on the crimerevention board and I believe that there was um studies that have been done and that have not uh actually been present presented to the crimerevention board. Is there something that we because apparently there's a lot of you know we just need more policing instead of actually looking at programs. Is there something that we can do to go around this that maybe if I could bring something uh to you directly if it's if it can't be presented to the the whole prevention board? I'm just wondering about about that. Yeah. No, no, very good question. David Blackman, I'm assistant chief over the operations section. And so I guess to start with is is the literature that was brought to us at the crime prevention board to start with is it was actually 10 or 15 years old. Okay. Data not it was it was an outdated study to start with but okay uh and then as everybody knows right now in our the crime prevention is funding our officers and that's and we're actually operation operating at a at a deficit. So bringing programs forth right now would would be detrimental to our our goal of putting officers out there. But when we talk about crimerevention programs, uh, you know, traditionally what we don't want is to create a program because we've seen it, we've seen the DARE program, we've seen these other ones and they have a shelf life and then they're ineffective, right? I think we we've all seen that and and agree with that. So what we decided to do many years ago, whether it was the POW program, which is over 30 years old, whether it was the the current bike patrol program, which is I started with some other officers, whether it's the direct to patrol program, which I was proud to be involved in from from the onset. These programs are over 30 years old. They're proven programs. They're these officers are doing crime prevention. They're mentoring in the schools. They're doing things like our our back to school uh Operation Safe Return where we're getting kids in. And it's more than giving shots and giving haircuts and uh bicycles and stuff. It's it's it's mentoring these youth and and these officers are the ones that are going to these houses. They're the ones that are going to these houses repeatedly because we talked about how do we change a child's life not knowing what what they're going through, right? We can we can put them into a special program, but it they go back home. It's the same thing. And there is there is no person better on than that officer. So, we've created these programs which which are proving where we're getting these officers out there and they're and they're they're doing crime prevention. Uh, for example, you know, the just say no to drugs. Is that working? Was No, it didn't work. We didn't work. It doesn't work. So, no, it was it was a program. It was a program that was a failure. Okay. Sorry. Which one? Councilwoman just to drugs. Yeah. Okay. Uh the other thing that I wanted to do was uh bring up like you say I mean you don't know what is actually working or not working. I do know that parent involvement is a big you know huge part of this right. Um I I was just wondering too about like my grandson uh he's been asking before I even got into council uh about a basketball uh half a court half court basketball because he has to cross he's 12 now uh but he would have to cross Staples to go to Hamlin which is very trafficicky or cross Weber again very trafficicky and I think that these type of like I don't think it's that much but could it come from the uh police budget instead of just our general I mean well it can come it can come from community partners miss compost I mean we and that's the PAL program is funded 100% by by private partners industry whether it's Valero and donations and that kind of stuff our community partners repeatedly step up this shouldn't be something that is these program shouldn't be something that that are solely funded by the city, right? Yeah. It should be something that the community itself has buyin in. Right. So, and I think that should be the goal if we if we need to put up a basketball court. Officers love to play basketball and we will show up there. So, tell me what we need to do and we'll do it like he um his name is Andrew and Andrew said, "Grandma, I'll go with you." And I said, "I know. I s I know that you want this really badly. Uh but again, I don't know if he'll see it in his young life and you know, while he's still there because again, he's 12. He's been telling me since he was like nine. So anyway, that let me know what we need to do to get together. Send me the location and and and we'll see what we can do. Something Sherwood Park. Yeah, I think that's how things get done, right? Okay. So that that is uh but the other is I wanted to see also the numbers of by district you know to see where are these crimes happening because you know it just seems like there's a killing somewhere everywhere you know and I'm like well it's not happening here you know in my area but we may not know that I don't know but and and we can and we have the ability to break down but okay but I will say that that that crime is transit right whether it's these individ iduals and these that may be in cars chasing each other across town and unfortunately ends up happening over around the mall. That doesn't mean that the mall is not a safe place. It just means that's where this crime happened to occur. Just like that's true. You know, it's just like over in my old area around Lamar we talked about earlier that that you know really that is I worked there for 20 years. It it is a fairly safe place but unfortunately you may have people come in from an outside area for for one reason or another. So it's it's about removing the criminal element, broken windows, all that kind of stuff. So and it's so there's a lot more than just hey crime is here and this is a number and it's not a safe place I think. So okay uh the other thing I wanted to mention or I notice about the aggravated um assaults. No, wait. Let's see. Uh, no, I guess it's uh Yeah, I guess the high numbers are still um aggravated assaults. Uh, and the, you know, you've got like 1595 from 2017 and 2037 now and and 2024. Again, I know um you know, it's an ongoing issue. I mean, for all these crimes, but again, tell me what is it that we're doing to try to minimize aggravated assault? So, so one of the things we're doing and and Deputy Chief Breed talked on that a few minutes, is that, you know, we're looking at these hotspots, the reasoning where where these issues are happening, just like you're talking about, hey, where can we have these crimes even though we they may be transit? Are they happening around closed bars as council member Canu said? Are they happening with our racing people? They're coming down. So that that was kind of the impetus of our violent crime unit. And when Deputy Chief Breedlove talked on saying that we took we've taken 64 guns off the streets. Well, we've arrested almost 400 people also. And that is since November of 24. Okay. So it has not been that many months. So these officers are out there. They're aggressively attacking this problem. and and our hope is that that we know that we have a young group of people out there that are disregarding the safety of other people that through these operations we're going to bring down those numbers. Well, the other thing is I was just thinking too is it because um it's easier to like order guns or get guns or what I mean I don't is it's not necessarily easier to order guns. I mean, we have some some parents that are that are reckless with the storage of their guns, and we have some things like straw purchases where we have people that can buy guns. They go buy guns for people that aren't allowed to have guns, right? But like we talked about a minute ago, that a large number of these guns are coming out of vehicles where people aren't responsible enough to take the guns out of their cars, especially when they're going in for the night. And even on top of that, even locking their doors, you know, it's just these kids are walking through neighborhoods and they're checking doors, okay? you know, and they're they're getting a very large number of guns out of these cars. Um, one other thing is in my district, District 2, um, is the Ocean Drive, you know, car racing. U, I still, they haven't called me directly, but I know it's still happening. I don't know if y'all are still meeting with some of the neighbors or we're out there every night. We're running heavy operations on the weekends and we're we're arresting probably six to eight people a weekend between Ocean Drive and and 358 and some of these ones on 358 are speeds of 115 120 mph and and so we're we're putting these people in jail. I will say that that I met with the DA last week uh and we are I mean we're we're very hard-headed on this issue and I believe to really stop this is we're going to have to start seizing these vehicles. The state law allows us to. We just we're having to get that that first one through the DA's office. So, our hope is once we get once we start taking these vehicles, this this problem is going to start declining. I agree. I think if you remove that vehicle, it's going to be like, okay, that's it, you know. Okay. Um I think that was basically it. So, again, thank you for for bringing this uh you know, report and again, I would love to see it even maybe quarterly or something like that. Um, but thank you. Yeah. And just to kind of set expectations, Mayor, we talked about the the process and I know Council Member Hernandez said he would like to see from, you know, from what we're doing to the end result. You know, we we have a good plan and we're going to keep putting people in jail. We can we can give you the the information that the DA is willing to provide to us. We're not necessarily entitled to know everything, their convictions and stuff. So, we'll work on trying to get that, but it's Yeah, I I think I think more information is better here. And I'm happy to talk to you guys offline because there's a lot we we need. I want to know racing violations. So, how many violations are you write are you writing right every weekend since this has been a long time. I mean, we met at someone's house on Ocean Drive twice. Probably I don't even know how many years ago was that a couple Oh, I thought it was 18. Yeah, there been Yeah, at least a couple two or three years ago. So, it's an ongoing I get it. But but there was a little uptick, you know, and we hear about it and and we've got our guests that come from out of town that, you know, it's it's a big news and so you guys know, but at the end of the day, you know, it's it's the action. You you know, hit them with a vine, seize the car. I mean, you just do you've got to go all out kind of with a little illegal animal sales. Same thing in those parking lots. You know, you you've just got to teach them by saying, "We're not going to put up with it." and and go somewhere else and do those things, not in the city out of the city. Um, but but anyhow, I I think that also what's very important and and I'm interested in knowing and again and I'm going to ask y'all to come back next month with a more detailed a lot more detailed information so that we can see a clearer picture of where we are in different categories because we're very interested in that. Very interested especially when numbers go up that involve children. Um my my question was how do our family related and and gun rellated crimes, right? Because that's what this is really about. How do they compare to similar cities our size? So that's very interesting to know where do we sit on on on on a scale, right? We have no idea. So that's I would I would like to um know that. Um and then um what else did I have? Uh yeah what what what's the percentage of these family related crimes that are repeat you know that are that are individuals that are recommitting crimes. So that's very important I think for us to know to see what is it is it a a growing we do do every um morning at uh 5:00 a.m. a report is run that identifies any repeat victim of a family violence. So we look for that and we make sure that that case is being assigned uh we take it very seriously because we know that there is usually escalation uh in family violence. So we make sure that case is getting assigned to a detective. We have a vi a grant for violence against women program where we have advocates that we can get in touch with them and and get them the resources they need. Uh we make sure we work with the district attorney's office and getting these folks prosecuted. We get arrest warrants if the person wasn't arrested, the offender wasn't. So, we we do take that very seriously uh when we see a repeat a victim of family violence. Okay. And the other thing I think it was brought up um you know, are there geographic hotspots throughout the city where certain crimes are being committed? I'm sure the answer is yes to that. But that in line with what does every district look like? So every council member knows I remember some years back I'm in five and five had the highest breakin or burglary I don't know something um those numbers they were the highest and I thought that was interesting you know and and and and there were some I guess it was kind of a trend right that was going on there were breakins across neighborhoods um but I think that's important that everyone from district one to five knows this is what my my district's crime stats look like. That's super important. We should probably get that on a quarterly basis from you all. That way everybody knows what they're dealing with, right? And then we can actually help. We can try to do, you know, some part in how do we, you know, we can't just expect you all to go be everything to everyone. You can't be the missing dad that that that family unit doesn't have and maybe that's why the child is, you know, getting in trouble or what have you. But but maybe we can do something on this end in in each respective uh district to say how do we how do we come together as a community and a city to fix this or to to improve it. Anyway, so anyhow, let me move on. Um Councilman Roy, um thank you for your presentation. Um one of the things I we haven't talked about is um where we're at with child trafficking and human trafficking as a whole. you know, I I didn't see any particular numbers on on that. Um, you know, it's something anytime I see a a missing child or missing anybody person, um, you know, it's always tough and I know it's critical in the first hours to 24 hours in terms of trying to help locate that individual. But can you tell me a little bit about the trend? Is there a trend? Is it going up? Is it going down? Is there What are you doing? Um how is Corpus Christi in relationship to the rest of South Texas or Texas in general? Um but you know, I think that uh that's definitely something that I know as a parent that that I'm concerned about. Right. So, it is a it is a serious subject that we do take very seriously. Um, we have our organized crime unit that is uh responsible with that and our our narcotics and vice uh division that works on that and um uh I can't say it's like a pressing issue here. We don't have a lot of it but when we do it's very tragic and we we react very quickly on it. Um, we have had some very successful prosecutions and arrests and recoveries of of victims here, but uh, it's not something you might I think it's a overall often seen as well. I'll let Chief Green talk about that. Um, we have we have um, our organized crime internet uh, crimes against children uh, unit that works out of the organized crime unit. Uh we actual child trafficking is not something we see often, but we work closely with uh Homeland Security Investigations, HSI. We actually have one of our detectives, it's uh a task force officer with uh with HSI, and they deal with it more than we do. uh primarily what we're dealing with, what we see a lot of and and probably an increase, unfortunately, an increase is the child porn, internet crimes against children. That's primarily what we see with uh child porn sharing. It's it's an internet-based crime. Most of the time, the images, the videos that we see are not locally produced. They're they're produced elsewhere and shared. But we uh very regularly are uh work in those cases. our people work them. We work alongside H uh Homeland Security investigations. Um we um you know on a almost a weekly basis we're making arrests for those types of crimes. Um so so and running search warrants. So, you think that um the incidents of child or or um human trafficking here as opposed to some other areas that were in it that doesn't it's not as prevalent. Is that what you're saying? Correct. Okay. That's good to know. I I I I I remember I attended a nonprofit organization and they were talking about and and I I don't remember the statistic, but it made it seem like every five minutes somebody was disappearing off the streets, you know. Mhm. And um whether that being that was a state um statistic, they didn't specifically say it was related to South Texas, but I kind of wanted to know that and I appreciate you giving us insight on that. So, and uh you used your second lifeline. So, yeah, I did. You got one left. One of the one of the things that we also see in in and a lot of time they they it's termed human trafficking is prostitution. Adult women that are being prostituted uh that are being u managed by somebody else or or forced into it or or whatever. So, we we also deal with that. our nar our narcotics and vice, our vice investigators, they uh target prostitution uh and we uh work with our local partners again on that. We do operations sometimes in certain um establishments around town. We where we have uh we get tips on prostitution. We make cases in those areas, those locations. Massage parlors, unfortunately, are one of the one of the locations that we get those complaints. And anytime we conduct an investigation or make a case or make an arrest, we always uh have that uh individual. We we may be arresting them for prostitution, but we always offer them the opportunity to outcry. And if if they claim they're being trafficked, then we, you know, we follow up on that. We, you know, we move forward with that. So, we've done several of those operations here recently. Um, I think in most cases the women deny being trafficked, but there's certainly signs that they are, but if they if they don't outcry, it makes it very difficult for us. Yeah. Thank you. And we work with a a local uh a local um program, a local outreach group. the it's called the Red Cord Initiative and it's uh the Coastal Bend Wellness Center is the one that actually uh um runs the program. It was something that actually the police department uh initiated back in 2012 I believe. And what that does when we do an operation uh targeting prostitution, the same thing we um uh when we make an arrest, we offer that individual the opportunity to um go through a program that will enable them to get out of the life of prostitution. So we work with the district attorney's office, Coastal Ben Wellness Foundation. There's different uh uh private groups that provide resources for these individuals, these women, and uh it gives them an opportunity if they enter into the program, and I believe it lasts about it's about a one-year program. If they follow the program and and and they're able to complete it, then the drug charitation charges dismissed. And the whole idea is to get these women out of that uh that horrible lifestyle, that life cycle that they're trapped in. And it's uh it's been successful. We've had uh quite a few women that have gone through that program and been able to uh escape that. Thank you, Councilman Scott. Mary, I was brought maybe you're mad at me. I've been hot miked for the last three council members and I thought, well, I know Eric and I making a lot of noise over here, but golly. Really, it is hard to be a good council member when Mike saw it all the time. I'll go I'll race through this quickly. Chief, I think we actually were working on a meeting. I think maybe I messed I missed it. So, I suspect a lot of this is what you guys were going to tell me. This is fascinating. Uh, I think the reason you're getting so many questions, we're really interested, right? That's good stuff. And I think we want to share data. I knew that one of the TV stations was used was doing a story yesterday on speeding and um and then I think we had the water issue and they threw them off. So, they're going to circle back around. So, they're going to be asking all the questions that I think we're asking today. I want to thank you. Uh I want to thank everything you do. Uh had a unique opportunity to go to your graduation uh a couple weeks ago. Oh my, the future's bright. You guys, you do a great job yourselves, but your young men and women that are coming up through the ranks are just amazing people. So, that I'm proud to be associated with that. Um yeah, you were talking about um uh crime data. Even if you just did it by zip code, I think that would be kind of interesting. Um, so my my issues are my question, which you don't have to answer, Dave, if you don't want to. Uh, yeah, I too am interested about gangs and gang related um because I just don't know, you know, I just um the Scott family gang of four, we're we're just our own thing. But so if you can educate us on uh that uh homelessness, panhandling uh especially around downtown, I don't know if it's an issue or not, but I knew it used to be. And so it' be great to hear that we feel like, you know, our downtown tourists and our downtown businessmen and women uh uh for all them to hear that it's better today than it was. And if it's not better today, then what are we doing about it? Um uh drug issues, drugrelated issues, that that's all new to me, so I'd love to get caught up. I'm just curious if fentanol is still an issue and if that's something we're dealing with down here. Uh I mentioned downtown focus. That'd be awesome. Can you talk about the the drones? Is that something y'all talked about publicly before and I just wasn't around or that top secret? That is his in his initiative and like like that drone that's following Roland Betta around. He wants to know when you're gonna stop. The drones are my favorite sub. You're not in a hurry to get out of here. No, I want it. No. I love got five minutes. All right. So you got two minutes. So yeah. So a lot of people don't know that that not only do we have drones, we have 32 drones. I did not I said you had five and No. So So it is it is something that has really taken off over the the years and no pun intended. Okay. Pun intended. Uh so we use them in a couple different ways, Councilman. So we uh when we started using our drones, we used them for our SWAT team and some other stuff. And then we thought, hey, this is uh this is a great uh deescalation tool, right? Because deescalation is time and distance. So we thought, well, if we can if we have people in crisis and we can get these these drones up there in the air, not only can we we see them, but they have external speakers, so we can talk to them. So, and it has it has been phenomenal. We a few years back we had a a situation out in in Flower Bluff where a guy had shot at one of the deputies and then ran out into the the OSO on that island out there. And in the past we would launch the SWAT team and they would go out there and hopefully everything ended well. Right. So now we were able to put the drone up, see if he had any weapons, tell him, "Hey, you need to let us see your hands and we were able to to go out there and and take him into custody safely." Couple weeks ago, we had uh an individual out in the wetlands that was was injured. We were able to p put that drone up there, go out there, and those the drones have fleer, so we could see see not not only him, but the the blood and stuff, and and we're able to direct the officers into where he was and save his life. So, they're they're phenomenal. Uh technology changes every year. So, we're continually updating our drones. Our last drone that we have purchased, we had an incident with some gang members and there was probably eight of them. We put the new drone up and it was actually able to pin every one of them and follow them around so the officers could take them into custody. So, the technology is just amazing. I could talk about forever. So, our latest thing that we're doing that y'all don't know is that we actually have a drone as a first responder program. So, we had went out to uh Trulivist out in California. They have one, one of the nation nation's leading drone as a first responder program. what that is, it means that these drones will actually go to calls. So, we thought, man, this is a great idea. So, we went out there, looked at it. So, now we actually have a larger drone that we launch off of the police department that covers the whole downtown area. So, we use it in our racing operations. It will go to calls it it, you know, we fly it out about about three miles, but we can go if we have a jumper on the harbor bridge or if we have a jumper on the new bridge, then we can fly that thing there and they'll get there probably before the officer does, right? Look at everything, see where they're at. Is there anybody up there? We have officers racing to get to the scene. So, there's always the potential they could get in an accident, right? So, hey, there's nobody there. We y'all can cut code. Uh, and not only that, the camera has a mile and a half enhancement on it. So, wherever that drone sitting, it can see a mile and a half and read license plates. So, the technology, the technology in these drones, they're just amazing. So, uh, we're continuing to increase that program and and the best thing for that we're we're using most of these we're getting are through pro private donations. So, it is such a great program. We had we had James Avery, which is based out of Kurville, come down and say, "Hey, we heard about your program. We want to have lunch with you and tell us about it." And they bought us, too. That's awesome. So, the How long have you had the big drone? Uh, we're going on about two years now, I guess. Okay. I was on a rooftop, you know, just Friday evening relaxing and saw it come downtown and stop on a dime. That's when you start thinking about alternative ways to get home. You're like, I these guys are uh No, it was amazing. And I assumed it was because of speeding down uh shoreline and then ultimately Yeah. So we do that but but also we so we have smaller indoor drones. So in the old days uh so knuckle draggers when we go clear houses and stuff you'd clear the house and the worst place that you have to clear is the attic because your head's going up in there to look around before anything else is up there, right? And so you're you're just a target at that point if there's somebody up there with the weapons. So now we can send these drones in. They can fly the whole house, go up in the attic, look around so we know what we have up there before we go up there. Awesome. So, a lot of new technology out there. Fun stuff. Look forward to hear more about it, more about it. I think that's awesome. I think that's kind of fun to get out to the public like, "Hey, when you're racing, we're probably watching." Oh, yeah. You know, and not only we watching, we've got your license plate. Yeah. And we let them know. We'll routinely fly that when they come downtown and we'll land it real low and kind of sweep around. Oh, will you really? When they're all gathering, that way they know. Just let them know. Uh my last thought, Mayor, is that uh again, thank you. and that I think we have a conversation next about uh legislation and this concern about uh some of the international politics going on to affect things like drones. I think what 80% of the drones are made in China and the parts are made in China and we kind of like to still get our parts for our drones. So anyhow yeah and we're and we're trying to get ahead of that. So I mean you know I I get the the concern. And I think everything's made in China at this point. But but you know when the American hopefully when the American drones get a little bit better right now, they're just not there. But if that legislation does pass, we we do have some a comfort space for over the next few years that we won't have to worry about that. Thank you. Great. Yes, sir. Car uh Councilwoman Vaughn Chief, I don't think I've ever seen him get up out of a chair that fast. All you had to do was say drones. Drones. A boy toy. You better not be flying over my house. Yeah. Um, I just wanted to thank you, Chief, and all of y'all for presenting this. The reason I asked for it was not because I don't have trust in you, because I totally do. I think we've got probably the best department of police in the state. I do. I really do mean that. It's because I had so many people ask me, "Haven't there been a lot of shootings and stabbings?" And I've noticed it, too, that it's been on the news. And so I think it's important that y'all hi it's nice to see y'all highlighted so people understand especially about the Tik Tok. No one would have known that and these people racing with the cars down the road that's been going on since I was on council before and um y'all really gotten a hold of that and I appreciate it so much. I I think y'all are just doing a great job. That's all the kissing up I'm going to do, but I do appreciate it. Um the only thing I would two things um homeless Mark brought that up. I'd like to know if they're involved in any of the um assaults or any of that. But the other thing don't need to know right now. Other thing I noticed that on the homicides in 2022 they were 30. If there's any good news on a homicide, but uh 2023 they went down to 18 and then they went to 21. I actually thought we had more than that in the city. So, right. So, that's the uh involving a firearm with the Oh, with the firearm. Let's look at the overall. So, there is more. Right. So, in 2022, we did have an incre and we attributed a lot of that to the bars reopening and people getting back out and people settling scores uh with one another. Uh that year was uh there was several um spousal homicides, family related ones also um uh involving vehicles. I think we two different spouses ran over one another. Yeah. In their vehicle. So, and one thing that with uh between a homicide and a aggravated assault of often is how quick that person gets to the hospital and what ER doctor uh is there. Uh we are fortunate now to have two uh trauma trauma centers here at Bay Area and then at at Spawn Shoreline and and uh with the advancements in uh emergency medicine, you know, we see the homicide rates coming down. But we are down. Yes, they are. Right. We are down. So, that's good news, right? Thank you all very much. And Councilman uh Kinchu, thank you. One last question because I think u one of the news stations is live streaming right now. So you have like a thousand people watching. How fast can you go to jail for reckless driving? Like what's the speed limit? If the speed limit's 55, right? So it's all about the condition of what's going on. It's I think that the statute says a wanting disregard for public safety, how you're driving. So um usually primmaaccia what we call is like usually 25 miles an hour over can be okay in certain circumstances uh but obviously when you get up over 100 miles an hour that's definitely you know on the that's that's reckless driving but it could be as much as 20 miles an hour but the way you're driving you're going in and out. You're not signaling you're cutting people off. Uh we have with the the the advances in technology of our of our camera systems, we have countless hours of video of officers trying to catch up to these people and and the way they're driving. Uh but usually that the um and it's the condition of the roadway too has something to do if you're on Ocean Drive and you're only 20 miles an hour, but you're coming into that S-curve and you're you're cutting people off. That can be re reckless driving compared to 25 miles an hour over on the freeway at night when no one's around and you're not cutting anybody off. That may just be a speeding ticket. So, it's really what the officers officer's observation is and whether they consider that to be a public safety issue. And one last question um on hotspots, um bars, clubs. If you guys get so many calls at one location or so much crime at one location, can the city require the owner to have offduty police officers there on peak times and on the weekends when it's the when the crimes is up? So, I don't know of any ordinance that we have in place right now to require that. Okay. But uh talking about a boss. Yeah. A bar. A bar. Yeah. Or or any business where they're congreating. The question is like a hot spot like we require them to hire officers. All right. Okay. I was just wondering once again, thank you guys for giving us this up update and I look forward to seeing it another what 30 days. She said, Mayor, I would like it in 30 days, but I'm going to follow up on what you just said. So, what are the you said uh actions or what what did you say that they're not required? They're not required right now, but if it's You said there are Oh, they're they're we can't require somebody to hire off duty officers. We are working currently right now with some some of our um local vendors and and shops that they want to hire officers. So, we're we're looking at that in that direction right now. But, if they don't, then there's other things we can bring to bear. We can bring TABC. If there's if they're crimeridden, if they're a bar, we can work to take their liquor license away. There's there's things that we can do outside of direct law enforcement, okay, to to impact them to change their behavior, right? So, you know, we can there's parking lot ordinances. We can not allow people to gather after a certain time in parking lots. There there's things that we work with right now that are impacting th those dilemmas that you speak of. Understand? Yes, sir. Good to know. Thank But and we will come back hopefully after we have some conversation about um shutting down the bars that carry liquor licenses at 2:00 because that is the problem. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Mayor, just for the just so we can kind of know the chief heard many things here, but we're going to come back and and we'll check the schedule for for April or May. April probably. Um, but we're going to bring things like more demographics, uh, more crime across what city council districts, um, unsolved cases, uh, things like, uh, prosecution, prosecution rates, community engagement, uh, gang activity, drug related activity, whole list right here. So if if I if I might, I just want to I'd like to try to manage some expectations. If so, one, we are completely dependent on the DA's office to provide prosecution rates, what they how they adjudicate, what they plead out, those types of things. I we can't promise you that we're going to give a presentation with those numbers. I just want to say that ahead of time. The other is I think it would be important. Well, I know that you requested that, Councilman. Sure. And he he can Yeah. Me too. Um, the other thing is we might be better served to have separate presentations. Gang, we can talk about gangs in itself. Well, we could tie up several hours with with counsel, but I think gang would be an interesting pres uh presentation. Um, narcotics would be an interesting separate conversation. There's some nuances in there if you want to get into that. Well, let's let's let's talk offline because I think there's there's a there's a broad um you know overview and and then there's there's the detailed where it would be just one maybe just one um topic if you will of course. Yeah. But and we break and we do break out our crime by district. We've done that for years. So that's as a matter of fact your crime control district has asked us to bring that back that board. So we can that's an easy presentation for us. I'll compare my my notes with Peter's just so we can get something for for next time. It's nothing you don't already have. It's just a little No, absolutely. We we track a lot of data. It's at our fingertips and we um so you you let us know what you want to talk about and we're happy to talk about it. Okay, we'll do that. And thank you. Thank you for for being here and thank you for everything that y'all do. We know that a lot of what you do we don't necessarily see. Well, you do. you we actually came here the underlying premise of some of our best initiatives and most impactful initiatives have been the officers that you have added to our roles that absolutely it it just was serendipity that when racing became an issue we graduated that extra class right the large class and then another one right after that. So then we automatically had officers to apply to the racing initiative and then we graduated another class that was over attrition and we had enough officers to redirect and build a VCU a violent crime unit and move move folks to the right time the hot hours 5A to 3 5p to 3:00 a.m. on the days of most impactful to violent crime. So, it's just the stars have lined up with the extra personnel. And I I understand you like programs, but I'll I'll say it till I fall over dead. There's no better crime deterrent than an officer in uniform in a marked car in your neighborhood. That's right. And enough officers to have time to be proactive, right? We were we run around reactive call to call to call. That's why you never get ahead of initiatives. Now, we're turning the page there. We're we're we're gaining our officer numbers with enough vehicles that you've purchased, 40 more vehicles, $4 million infusion that you gave us this budget. So with that, you'll see more officers in uniform in marked cars in the field impacting crime preemptively, right? That is the goal and that's what's happening. Yeah. Not to mention our police substations also. Substations. That's exactly right. Better working conditions, better training conditions. We'll be many of us are at the uh the uh West Guth groundbreaking and just as a reminder this coming Monday we'll be at the Southside at the Southside Police substation groundbreaking right there at the Delmare. So come on we'll see council there. I think it's at 10:00 uh over there by u right across the street from the Bill Whitet pool. So that's exciting times. Yeah it is. But again you all you all should be proud of yourselves because the investment is paying off. We are making progress. 64 guns off the street in just a few months is no joke. Dozens of arrests, dozens of cars taken, right? Yeah, we we have some work to do with the DA's office and we're working on that. Yeah. Through our partners, we you know, I'm not going to throw them under the bus. They have their own their own issues that they have to work through. So, we'll get there. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Oh, yes, council. Thank you, mayor. Okay. One last thing. Yes, ma'am. Like you said, yes. Uh we I I'm appreciative and you're appreciative of all the extra police uh that we've been able to put on on the streets, but like you've said before, we will never have enough officers to police ourselves out of this. So again, I just would like to reiterate that it still comes back to our responsibilities, you know, how we, you know, um, conduct ourselves and and how we raise our children and what, you know, uh, what's, you know, we're we're going to be, I mean, I right now we're, uh, coming into unprecedented times. uh stress levels, all kinds of things are going to be happening and that's going to affect, you know, what's happening in the family. So, I just want to be just somewhat proactive. Like you said, we can't police ourselves out of it, but just have an open mind. I have a very open mind that but I think two things can be true at the same time. You can need to grow a department for more proactive work and you can work in in your community for better social programs, right? one does not have to take from the other. Right. I think I think that's what Chief Blackman was trying to spell out earlier. Right. And so the narrative that well, can we just take that from the police department and give it to the community program? I think you alluded to that is not not something that I respectfully buy into. I think we do need to grow our police department. We do need proactive time. We need presence. You need to see a police officer in your neighborhood in a car driving around, not just running from car to car. I agree. And we need pro and we need a way for our schools to get into our children's heads, right, to to guide them and maybe some programs on a social context that they're they fall outside the realm of policing. Right. Right. Right. But they're your but there's no disagreement. Right. Okay. No, sounds good. Sounds good. Okay. Marco, thank thank you all for being here. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Um Okay. So, is Ryan do we have Ryan on? Thanks. Yeah. Ryan, you on? He was earlier. Rebecca, you see him? You hear him? Okay. Is he on? Yes, he was um earlier. He's on. He's on. Great. Here he is. All right, Ryan. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Uh, mayor, uh, council members Ryan Scbaric, uh, interdomminal relations. Now, we have a presentation. If you can let me know that you can see that, uh, we'll get started. Can y'all hear me? Uh, yes. Yes, we've got Yeah, go right on ahead. Do you Okay, you can see I just It's not visible on my screen. Okay, thank you. So, slide number one, um, we're going to be looking at the dates ahead. Um the it's it's kind of an odd feeling to say, but the legislative session uh is over the halfway mark and is actually, you know, headed up against some critical deadlines for uh moving both the budget and legislation forward. So this week, the House will take up Senate Bill one, which is the budget for the state of Texas. Uh the unlike the Senate, there will be a tremendous amount of House floor amendments that will be considered on Thursday. Uh there's over 403 pre-filed amendments that have been uh posted online that were available made available last night. So that will be a long day in the Texas House as they consider um amendments to both that and the supplemental budget. And uh once that passes, they'll go to conference where a lot frankly of the real work that is done on the finer points of what makes it into the version uh that ultimately goes into law will be done between the House and Senate. conference committees. So, Thursday is not totally performative, but there's a lot of um crucial votes that will take place on hot topic items, and it'll take up the majority of the time of uh the House on Thursday. And then as we uh go through the calendar um and the the the kind of the days of winding down of session into June, we're looking at um benchmarks that allow the Senate to move faster, like placing more bills on Senate intent. Um which will just increase the the uh pace by which the Senate can pass bills. And uh in the at at the same time, the House will run up on a series of deadlines where House bills can no longer pass out of the House. Um local bills can no longer pass out of the House and um and then, you know, we'll we'll get to the final days of session where uh they're adopting conference committee reports and eventually that will stop uh right before signing die. So you can go to the next slide and I'm going to update on a few of the uh on page three of the pieces of legislation that I spoke on last week as it is related to land use and mandates and preeemption. These bills um are companions of each other uh between the Senate bill and the House bill. And we were successful in working with the House author um to amend the legislation to protect clear zones and accidental potential zones which are crucial to preventing encroachment on the uh Navy installation and the auxiliary airfields. And so that um that uh amendment was obviously uh crucial for that. The house author hasn't published his committee substitute which will include those amendments but uh you know it was very very good thing to get that in his bill and obviously we'll hope that the Senate will accept those amendments. Um, on the bill related to tiny lots, there was a clarifying amendment that was made to ensure that it is only restricted to green field sites. And so, it only would apply to a five acres or more greenfield site un unplatted that uh would qualify and wouldn't apply to any other um smaller uh single family residential lots. On page four, there's a number of uh bills that have been heard in committee and that uh we've taken action on. There's uh House Bill 2494 would create a new petition for disanexation for properties failing to receive full municipal services. Full municipal services defined under statute is police, fire, EMS, solid waste, water, wastewater, roads, parks, and um um let's see uh and so those those services have to be applied in order for an area not to disanex. and that disanexation or the opportunity to file a petition for disanexation could apply to any area of the city or um apply to any period of time. So, it's concerning from a from a local government standpoint, effectively creating a Swiss cheese effect where you could have individual pieces of land taken out of uh out of the city's jurisdiction where you have maybe bonded and debt that um was taken out and obviously services that were built to serve those areas. So, we we oppose that bill as it was introduced for the negative effects that it would have on the city. Um there is a work in progress on an amendment. Um the the author's office pretty plainly stated that this generated from the city of Austin and a particular neighborhood there that they have that they claim has never received any kind of uh service from emergency services to utility services. And so um we'll see if that uh amendment goes through. Obviously we would ideally be bracketed out of that legislation. um House Bill 3275 um would eliminate all cities uh minimum parking spaces. And so that has been a trend, I'm told by our planners and developers uh and um and development services professionals of other cities and and jurisdictions. And um I know while we'll look at our unified development code in the future, this bill would essentially take that authority away from cities to require parking minimums. And so because of the loss of local control to even have a say in that process. Um we we raised those concerns with the committee. I don't know how far that bill will pass. There was u frankly testimony on both sides of individuals who wanted to see established uh pieces of property that um not have to abide or maintain their parking minimums where the legislation is introduced only applies to new construction. And so um that bill hasn't obviously made it out of committee yet. Uh and uh and so it's it's got a long way to go in order to be uh viable. The last bill on this page is House Bill 20 2149. And because primarily um it deals with non-conforming use and it would lengthen the amount of time that we would have to track the se the um uh property owner ceasing that non-conforming use um out to 5 years and it would also allow an owner to expand a non-conforming use. You know, we raised those concerns to the committee. that bill was uh voted out of committee. Um and uh we'll we'll have to see if there's the possibility of amendments. I think reality is we adopt a lot of non-conforming use but um allowing any land owner or property owner in a particular zone that was granted a non-conforming use to be able to expand it without any kind of standard whether that's health and safety um which is included in that bill but not required uh would would potentially be a problem and so we just want to see some helpful brackets put on that on page Five, we've talked about House Bill 23, which is third party review. Um, that is uh that had seen a a significant number of amendments since I last presented to council. Um, it it is going to require insurance and it is going to shift all liability for from the city to the third party reviewer, be that a certified inspector or a licensed engineer. Um, we have spoken to the author and have I I don't know if I'd call it a firm commitment, but a quasi commitment to look at protections for floodplane management, which I brought to council's attention last week. And um they're they're looking at uh providing either some level of document sharing, ensuring that the inspectors are certified in that, or keeping that fully within the realm of the city in order to maintain that so we don't lose access to the National Flood Insurance Program. Um and then on House Bill 24 also voted out of committee presented on that last week and it raises the threshold for protest for adjacent land owners. On page five um or excuse me on the next page which is page six we're looking at compensatory damages. Um, Corpus Christi includes a no damages uh for delay caused in our construction contracts and it pro it protects a public entity funded by taxpayer dollars from uh having to pay those damages where the remedy that we allow for is additional time. And so, um, the the bill in particular did not talk about or it actually expressly included that we would be liable for other thirdparty actors like other professional services in the construction process and additionally didn't uh um exclude concurrent delays between ourselves and the contractor. And so be and that expanded liability in and of itself is a concern. Creating a venue for new lawsuits against the city as an owner of that construction process uh project would be a concern. And so we raised those. I'm not sure um if there was any appetite in the Senate to amend that accordingly. Um but we are going to try to target those two particular issues at least on its face and then see what happens in the House as it relates to an appetite to move that bill forward. on page seven, um, property tax revenue. The, uh, House Bill 3093 was actually by Representative Denise Vobos, uh, an issue worked and led by, uh, Kevin Hishnik and Delmare and Newasis County who were impacted by the property tax appraisal protests from some of the large industry in town. And so the bill is filed in response to that to kind of put the local jurisdictions on an even keel when you have such um valuable property come under protest and may be subject to litigation that can dramatically swing not only the appraised value on the rolls but also impact your um your calculation for your tax rate. It uh we did support it. Obviously it benefits the entities our sister entities in Noasis County. um but you know would have the ability to provide us notice for the top 20 owners of taxable property if they intend to um protest and you know cause any impact through our own budgeting process. And so it has that shared benefit. The bill right now currently applies to any coastal county um with uh population under half a million. And so there was a there's a separate bill that would apply statewide, but I think for now it's going to be focused on where you see a lot of that highly technical heavy industry that may be particularly difficult to appraise. Um on page eight, uh we're we're looking at some of the preeemption legislation that has started to get hearings in the House in particular. Um there was a bill on homebased businesses and uh primarily it wouldn't impact it was it was out of concern for a lot of the smaller maybe online based businesses that people um have in their homes if cities have banned those forever whatever reason. So it didn't have a tremendous impact on Corpus Christi because you're not allowed to generate parking traffic. You can't exceed occupancy limits and no part of the business can be made visible from the street. Um, we did get uh confirmation that uh there will be an amendment so that it doesn't apply to short-term rentals, which there was some concern that this bill was kind of a an inround on local STR ordinances. And so that was taken out of the bill. And so with that, I don't think we have too much concern left with what's left in the legislation. House Bill 41, and I know there was just some um conversation about the the value of our drone fleet, um has been heard in committee. Um we have uh we didn't file a position on the bill in committee as we met with the author's office who's the chairman of that committee prior and um have commitment to work with him on the deadlines that are placed in that bill. There's obviously a homeland security and and public safety value to making sure that we can um spend our dollars on domestically produced technology. You know the unfortunate reality is right now some of the foreign companies like DJI control somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% of the market on that technology and they have proprietary technology um according to our own police department in particular on thermals and object avoidance which make them critical to the infield and so the solution there will be if we can um ex lengthen out or extend the length of time on the procurement deadline line in that legislation. So that way we're not impacted as as uh the state is going to look to create a grant program allowing um uh municipal um emergency service providers as well as you know state entities like the Department of Public Safety to purchase domestic drones. Um we're hoping that that technology and and I think with some good faith assumptions that that technology of domestic drones will increase over time. And so we just want to make sure that we're not negatively impacting our capabilities in the present. Um I actually met with the author's office today and they have several um amendments to do just that that they're that they're considering uh right now. And then 2156 um which would limit uh or require rather that uh public health districts mirror the state uh laws and regulations on permits for food establishments. Um there was concern originally that that was going to eliminate our fees for food establishment permits every other year. the state only um has a has a permit that's good for 2 years and so that would have really uh created a negative financial impact on our public health district as we inspect not only for ourselves but the entire uh newasis county. Um we worked with uh or I actually wor talked with the Texas Restaurant Association today. They're going to clarify that the the fees can be charged every year. So, we may see some impact as our fees will have to abide by the state fee schedule, but um it won't be uh wholly exempting or removing that fee revenue every other year, which is important. On page nine was some of the Texas windstorm legislation that was heard in committee this last week. the uh we did support the new grant program proposed by Representative Olson that would allow for a state grant in order to fortify individual residential uh single family residences and bring them up to that standard. And then uh as we mentioned last week, Todd Hunter uh carried a piece of legislation that would allow the uh TWIA to borrow up to a billion dollars post catastrophe from the state's rainy day rainy day fund uh as opposed to private securities um and in order to cover excess losses. So that way we don't see those premiums skyrocket due to the cost of the private securities compared to that public financing. On page 10, um an overview of the water supply funding bills. These are kind of the bills that have generally been set upon. Senate Bill 7 will be the enabling legislation um out of the Senate. It's already passed the Senate and is headed to the House. Um the House will pass House Bill 16 tomorrow, but out of committee, but they're going to wait on Senate Bill 7 to catch up. And so that'll be the enabling statute. the money or where the money's at is going to be an HDR7 where um that joint resolution will go to the floor and pass over to the Senate and then it will likely um change the Senate because remember that Senator Perry and uh Chairman Harris don't have the same formula breakdown of that $1 billion a year. And so there'll be a discussion likely in conference committee about what the final breakdown of the money that will be provided for water supply funding will be. Um on page 11 uh a couple of interesting bills. Um the uh uh Representative Vobos filed 3274 which was given a hearing this last week. We supported it obviously just because of its ability to create jobs here in the coastal bin. Um we know the importance of oyster cultivation and so it allows cultivated oyster bills uh cultivated oyster beds to be placed where authorized by parks and wildlife um expanding the opportunities for that particular industry. And then um interestingly enough, there was a bill heard in uh um culture, wreck, and tourism in the house that would allow parks and wildlife to enjoin construction um as as as uh close as 90 days to construction of any structure over 500 ft tall. And I looked up one shoreline, it's actually under 500 ft tall. So, I'm not sure the the real target, but we are currently included in the bracket on that piece of legislation because we're adjacent to a county that has a national uh wildlife refuge in it. And so, it would impact our county. Um, we'll be working with the author's office to see if that was intentional. And if it was intentional, obviously try to ascertain what exactly is being targeted there. I think there's some belief that it's wind turbines, but um you know, a lot of the onland wind turbines are not quite 500 ft either. So, um we're looking at that. As far as this coming week, um or this week rather, uh we did did file support for a local pilot project, uh bill that would allow and develop landlord incentives for um affordable housing, particularly by the uh helping the homeless community. This is going to be um state grant dollars that would be available for a community that could apply for it in order to leverage those. and it'll be it'll start out just as a pilot project. So, it won't be every community in the state, but could be advantageous to us. Um there was a bill today for bing fees or municipal fees for environmental projects. Um met with that author's office um chairman Cecil Bell to discuss kind of the intention of that. And while I think it's narrowly tailored or targeted rather towards cities that create a special fee to fund environmental projects, the um the possibility that that fee revenue that goes into the general fund could impact city's ability to do things like trash interceptors on flood management projects or LED light conversions or even participate in the Coastal Bin Air Quality Partnership um could be a concern. And so working with their office to clarify that to make sure that the things that we do as part of standard resilient infrastructure um wouldn't be subjected to that prohibition. Um there were two bills that we have filed um some comments on and registered on this this afternoon that relate to homeless services. um originally as filed, it would prevent any homeless services from being provided 1.5 miles from any uh public school facility. So you can imagine the map of uh the state of Texas or excuse me the map of Corpus Christi and how that might be problematic because homeless services included everything from um occupational uh employment services, mental health services in addition to food, medical care, and housing. And so that that uh legislation, there's been a coalition of um social services groups as well as cities that have been working with the author's office. They have scaled that back to 1,500 ft um from any public school facility. So not not including private or charter. And so, you know, it's there's a question about whether the bill would still apply to religious organizations or established facilities that may provide some aspect. um if you provide mental health services, how do you know if you're serving um an individual who uh may be homeless? And so that uh that's still a concern and we've requested that those initial or additional um exemptions be granted. Uh there is a bill up for hearing tomorrow that would allow the governor to suspend any uh local elected official from their position that uh does not follow or execute state law. Um it's by a freshman out of Waco who's filed that. And that's really the only standard is the governor would have to determine that the individual didn't follow or execute state law and then they could be suspended. the only way that you get back into office is you'd have to go through a court case. And so, um, maybe some concerning precedent there and and probably, uh, a bill that's well intended, but probably needs a legal standard, um, before we start removing elected officials from office. Um, there's also a bill up tomorrow that states and cities can't appeal a court ruling um, in certain circumstances. And so, that's of concern. And if we just as a local political subdivision had to take the first initial district court ruling, um you know, there there may be a lot of potential implications there and we obviously would want to be afforded the same rights as an entity to pursue that through the legal process and get a ratification or appeal of that initial decision. Chairman Hunter has a resolution up tomorrow to study the development of the cruise line industry. Um, actually, I'm sorry, that's actually on Thursday. And so, we'll register um in in favor of that and talk about the potential economic benefit to the coastal bin if that um were to come to fruition as that's been a longunning issue we've continued to look at. And um then there was a bill that'll be heard tomorrow that would require uh any local political subdivision to um request permission and approval to set up an emergency shelter. um which we know, you know, at at times can happen uh on a on a moment's notice with impending weather and um having to go to the governor's office to request it and which then they would have to do an assessment and give approval for. Um we met with I met with their office's staff today that their intention is not really the true emergency shelters, but apparently there are communities that have run emergency shelters in excess of four years. And so, um, there there's discussion about making an amendment to the legislation that would allow for emergency shelters that are run out to 90 days, um, before having to contact TEDM through and through the governor's office to get that assessment done. Um, know there was a lot of information, so uh, mayor, council, um, happy to answer any questions. Councilman um Scott I'm kidding. No. Uh Ryan, thank you. We we don't have any questions. Thank you for the the hard copy, though. I think everybody went through it. And if we have any questions, we'll certainly let you know. And please keep us um keep us posted. We appreciate the Friday your Friday um uh what is it called? The report, the hearings. Yeah. The Well, it's not an update. It's it tells us when the hearings are going. Committee postings. Committee what? The committee postings. There you go. Legislation. Thank you for the committee postings. So, okay, I think we're good. Brian, thank you very much. Thank you. Doing a great job. Thanks. Okay, for everyone who's still in council chambers, this meeting is now adjourned. [Applause]