Okay. Good morning everyone and thank you for your patience. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Miss Wto, would you please call the role? Mayor Plet Wardo present. Council members Roland Bera here. Silia Campos here. Eric Anthu. Is absent. Giller Nandez here. Kayn Paxton here. Ever Roy here. Mark Scott here. Carolyn Vaughn here. City Manager Peter Zenoni present. City attorney Miles Rizley, Mayor and Council, a quorum of the council and the required chart officers are present to conduct the meeting. Thank you, Miss Wther. Okay. So, this morning we are um we've got what two items on the agenda and that would be uh the why we're here today which is the budget goal setting session that we are expecting to um discuss from 10:00 or 10:14 this morning to 12:30 p.m. Uh break for lunch for 30 minutes and then return and from 1 to 3 p.m. uh discuss animal care services assessment or have an animal care assessment uh services briefing. So with that uh Mr. Zenon I will or did you have some I think you covered it mayor just that that we have uh we're going to focus on the general fund this morning general fund and main major departments in the general fund. So, we're not going through the entire operation. Uh, but that does include police, fire, parks and recreation, code enforcement, solid waste, uh, library and streets, and then some of our enterprise funds, uh, storm water and corpus Christie water, so water wastewater. We do have a segment for, uh, debt, uh, general fund and and and revenue back debt. And we'll do an update on Hellsville 19 as part of that. And, um, and then that'll close out the workshop. So the goal of the budget input session here from the council is to is to generally get uh some feedback from the council now uh because over the next two months we'll be developing a proposed budget uh that will be balanced and I'll present that to city council at the end of July. So today's information from the council will help guide us. Uh we we're going to be listening closely for what we may hear um in terms of consensus priority uh for for things uh in our operations. We know that with a projected shortfall and with even less revenue coming in from things like the housing authorities recent decisions to take property off the tax roles and other entities doing similar uh we're going to have to reduce the budget and there's no doubt about that. So uh we have to know what is the priority of the council what is the priority of the community. Uh the the proposed budget that I'll present in Jan in July is not the budget. It's a first start. It's the proposed budget required by charter. Uh but what we get today will help us shape that first step and then we'll listen to the council even more over a five-week period and the community through maybe at least seven different workshops uh in the community like we did last year and then ultimately council will be responsible for adopting a balanced budget in early September as required by the charter. Adopting the budget is one of your one of the council's most significant responsibilities. Our job is to get you started with the proposed budget, get you information. And so today's the goal of today is to get some feedback from you so we can present a proposed budget that closely resembles what you are thinking as a body. And so to that end, mayor, we'll turn it back over to you. Uh Amy, I think is our first presenter, our budget director, is going to just shape a little bit uh of the budget and remind us of the schedule. Great. Great. Thank you. Amy, you're coming up first. Oh, Heather. Oh, Heather. Sorry. Heather's coming up. Okay. Yeah, he's um Okay. Wonderful. And I think um the way we're going to handle the questions and a or questions and and presentations is after each presentation um the council will have one opportunity um each up to three minutes to ask questions and and I just ask that everybody be as succinct as possible because we do have a very uh a very long day. Although it is I mean we're scheduled to 3 p.m. but if we don't keep on track then you know we're going to cut short the animal assessment uh briefing and and I know we don't want to do that. So, please write your questions down or again be succinct. You'll have three minutes after each uh presentation to ask questions and if staff would please be succinct as well in responding that would be much appreciated. Thank you Heather. Great. Good morning everybody. Heather Halbert, assistant city manager. So we are going to start out this morning with a little bit of a road map of where we are and where we are going. So today May 8th we are doing our goal setting with council as Peter said. So, we're soliciting your feedback as we move forward with preparing the proposed budget. Um, May through June, we will be working with all of our departments, meeting with the city manager, spending a lot of time understanding what they have within their budgets and what their needs are going forward. Um, July 29th will be the presentation of the proposed budget. As Peter said, that is the kind of our first starting point. It is what we propose gathering all the information we have and then we'll go through over the month of August and have those community input sessions have the city council budget workshops receive feedback on the proposed budget and then the first reading of the budget and the tax rate will be on September the 2nd and we'll have our public hearings um have that first reading and then September the 9th will be the second reading in the formal adoption of the budget. So we utilize our financial policies to to build our budget also. And so on June 4th, we do bring these forward for adopt for approval by the city council on an annual basis. And so June 4th or June 24th, we are planning on bringing those forward. And what those financial policies do is basically provide those minimums and maximums and guidelines for a lot of our funds. So that does include what our unassigned fund balances should be for our funds. So just as a for a refresher in the general fund we maintain between 17 to 20% of the reserve of up 17 to 20% of expenses reserved for major contingencies. We have our internal service funds which we reserve up to 5% of the expenses. Our group health plans we maintain a catastrophic reserve of a 10% of projected claims. general liability and worker's compensation. We we provide up to 25% for a catastrophic reserve and 25% of the cost of purchase of purchased insurance. Enterprise funds have a reserve of 25% of the annual appropriations. Our debt service fund maintains a 2% annual debt service appropriation reserve funding for street maintenance. So, um this actually now we're switching from um the reserves to what the funding is. And so um our street maintenance does not sit within the general fund. Um the street maintenance actually is maintained within separate funds. And so money is moved from the general fund per the financial policy to those street funds. And so for street maintenance, the fund receives the higher of 6% of the general fund revenue or 10.8 million um plus 5% of the industrial district revenue. So those amounts do not go in, they go from the general fund basically into the street funds. Then for our residential street reconstruction fund, it receives 5% of industrial district revenue plus 1% of general fund revenue. Um along with residential streets also receives the 2 plus two, so 4 cents of the tax rate goes into this the residential street reconstruction fund. Then within our operating contingencies, the general fund has a $500,000 operating contingency. That is an amount we include in the budget that is used for unexpected expenses. Um, and then there are operating contingencies within our enterprise, internal service, and special revenue funds of 2% of annual appropriations. And then we have our capital improvement plans and funding where we do a short-term, which is a five-year. Then we have our 10-year lookout for our long-term CIP. As a reminder, city council adopts the first year of the CIP program with the budget. the year two through 10 are more of a planning document to help us see what's coming forward. So that concludes my portion. I will turn it over to Amy. Good morning, mayor and city council. Thank you for your time today. I am Amy Cowie. I'm the director of management and budget. I wanted to go briefly over um a review of the information we discussed last Tuesday for the general fund forecast. I've summarized here what our current revenue assumptions are. We have assumed a 2 and a half% growth in property tax revenues in the general fund. That's based on 2% new value growth and half a percent of existing values. We're assuming no change to the tax rate for our forecast. Not included in the forecast is the Corpus Christi Housing Authority purchases that we've discussed and the two power plants. Um in the forecast we do have increased revenues for our industrial district inloo. This is primarily due to the renegotiation of those contracts last year. that change in revenue will take effect for the first time in FY26. Sales tax revenues uh is flat. It is fairly flat for FY25 and we are projecting that it will remain flat in FY26. As a reminder, this is our tax rate history for FY25. We could have increased the tax rate without voter approval. We did not. We kept the tax rate flat. And so I wanted to just point out that if we did add 1 cent to the tax rate, that would result in an estimated 1.5 million to the general fund. But as I stated, we are assuming no change to the tax rate for the forecast. A comparative analysis of the top seven cities tax rates is shown and it does show it by M or operating compared to INS or debt. There are two portions of the tax rate and that is uh pictured here and you can see as far as the total tax rate we are ranked five out of um the this comparison. In this next slide, we're comparing to the same cities. Um, but we're comparing not just the tax rate, but also the exemptions available to the residents there. If we look at the average taxable homestead value, um, we've also shown a calculation of what the property tax paid would be on that average homestead. And you can see from this comparison, Corpus Christi is the lowest. In FY25, our revenues were impacted for the first time by what we call the circuit breaker exemption. This was put in place by the state legislature, and it caps nonhomestead properties that are valued at 5 million or less. It caps their taxable value growth at 20%. In FY26, there's a growth factor applied or an escalation factor. And so that cap of 5 million will increase to 5,160,000. For FY25's revenues, it was um it impacted our revenues in the amount of about 1.2 million. And so we'll have that continuing in FY26. For our expense assumptions, um this is what is built in the forecast. Currently, we have assumed no additional transfers to the streets funds. We will continue to transfer obviously what is required by ordinance in our financial policy, but we won't be transferring additional funding from the general fund to streets. We do however have two other sources of revenue in FY26. Uh the 4.5 million a year is coming from the new type B sales tax. It's a half of 1/8 cent. And then we have the 35 million in the voter approved bonds. We also have our two collective bargaining agreements in the forecast for the police department. They are in year three of four for FY26 and it's about $900,000 impact to the budget. For fire, they are in year two of four and it's 1.5 million. We do have other potential mandated increases that are not included in the forecast and and we are continuing to work through those estimates. So these departments will show that to you during their presentation, but examples would be the two new police substations in the Harbor Bridge Parks and Aquatic Center. We have included in the forecast an average 3% merit increase, which is a $2 million impact to the general fund. This is not a mandated increase. It's optional. So, it is something that we could pause, but we have done this in the prior years to um increase employee pay based on performance. And so, that's included in the forecast currently. Then we have a $13 million increase to health contributions. That is not an increase to health cost necessarily. That's our current uh estimate for the amount we need to contribute compared to FY25. And if you recall in FY25, we lowered the contribution because of the fund balance and the health benefits funds. And then we have uh included 1.5 million to uh account for our estimated cost increases for commodities and equipment due to inflation. This graph shows that in the last five years we have intentionally drawn down our general fund fund balance above uh for the amounts that we had above the reserve requirement. So in 2021 we had just over $40 million in general fund fund balance above that requirement and we intentionally utilized those funds for one-time purchases. We invested those funds in the streets, in public safety equipment, and in quality of life amenities in our parks, but we've drawn that down. So, our budget for FY25 resulted in 1.4 million unreserved, and that that was an intentional draw down. So, our overall forecast, and this again shows our our revenues. We see a comparison to FY24 actuals, the FY25 estimate and then our forecast. You can see that the industrial district is increasing um which is the reason our overall revenue forecast is higher than FY25. And then for expenses, you can see some of those assumptions for increases that we discussed. They're listed here. and our overall expenses are a little bit lower than FY25 currently. So ultimately we have a $7 million gap in our revenues to expense comparison for FY26 with these current forecast assumptions. That concludes my portion of the presentation. Okay. Thank you, Chief Markle. Morning, Chief Markle Police Department. Good morning. So, a few slides here to cover the police department. Um, where'd it go? There we go. We'll start with our 2025 budget initiatives. Um, you can see we've had some increase for collective bargaining. We had you all um awarded a great contract to our police officers which included a onetime stipen of $2,000 3% increase in April. Of course, you um purchased 40 mark units to help us catch up. Those are in-house now. They're in in production. Hopefully, they'll be all out in the field by the end of this um by fall. That's the that's the hope. But, um lots going on there. I appreciate you all doing that. So the the F-150s again have not only been been ordered, but they're here in the city. So we're we're moving through those right now. Outfitting for radios and it that you'll be seeing soon. Quotes being brought to you for some council action on that. And as you know, ground has been broken on both the far south substation and the northwest substation. So that's a wonderful improvements in the police department. Thank you. our uh police staffing plan. You'll see that we have added 55 officers over the last several years. Beginning in 2020, 451 includes five officers. So, we went included five, five, 10, 25, and then 10, which is a total of 55 officers. One of those was a grant position, 54 through you all through grant uh general fund. Actual strength as of today is 478. We do start a an academy in July, hopefully up to 35. That will bring us to full staffing when they spill out in the spring. That accounts for attrition and a few retirements that may be on the books um by the end of the end of the year. So, police staffing plan. I understand we're in u dire straits for for revenues, but we Well, these are this is what you've already done. So, I just went through that. We do have a 10-year staffing plan. Remember the goal was to get us over 600. Um, we've worked wonderfully together on that. I appreciate that. I I understand that this is, you know, something that, um, is down the road, but this is still a need. It'll bring our staffing up to about 1.85 85 per thousand capita rate, which is much much closer to the mark of becoming a very proactive organization, which is the most impactful to our public safety. 26 mandated increases. Of course, you have $900,000 for collective bargaining. Year three of four, you have a 3% increase coming next April. Then our maintenance on the two new substations which should be finished by the summer of next year. So we'll be required to include three months of maintenance on those two buildings which includes lawn service cleaning such it's about $38,900 estimate and that's the end of my presentation. Thank you, Chief Markle. Chief Wade. Okay. Good morning, Brandon Wade, Fire Chief, Corpus Christie Fire Department. Thank you'all for allowing me the opportunity to come up again and and talk about the great work and the needs that our women and men of the fire department uh do every day. So, uh, with that, we did have a number of accomplishments from this last budget year that y'all approved and afforded us the opportunity to grow our department. Uh, we started a cadet class that started this, um, um, we have a cadet class from that one that's going on. We'll start another one that's coming in January. So, that those are great additions to keep up with the attrition that we have. We also accomplished the reorganization of the department in which we put shift commanders out in the field. So we have uh a leader and assistant chief on each shift and then we also put the field medical officers that have been highly utilized uh and taken advantage of by our medics and that was a just an amazing addition to our organization. So with that as we also look at our staffing this was a brief h history of where we have come from from back in FY 2021 where we were at 414 authorized staffing. Since then, we've added 41 positions as you see through the years. Uh this past year, while we didn't necessarily add an FTE to the field with the collective bargaining agreement, we put a provisional position for the association president in there, which theoretically, it's why we have an asterk bumped up the uh authorized staffing to 456, but one of those is the association uh president. when we have our graduation, which is coming up uh at the end of this month here that y'all all should have had the uh invite to on May 23rd. We will be fully staffed uh with zero sworn vacancies as of today once that cadet class graduates, which is a great thing and is not accomplished in many departments across the country. So, that is a a tribute to what y'all have done and and how you've worked with us. So, thank you for that. Here's a look at the staffing and the vacancies. So again, currently we sit at 454 today. That's 459 sworn and 15 civilian positions that are filled. We have the 17 vacancies uh out in the field for our sworn. Again, that'll be that'll be uh made up for once our cadet class graduates. And then we currently have two civilian positions that are vacant. And those one we've already started the interviews for. So, the emergency management specialists should be filled here shortly. And then we have a uh what was a grants administrator role that we converted to another position uh for more utilization. We should be uh we've got the applications open for that. So, we should be filling that here shortly as well. And then once we do that, the fire department would stand at zero vacancies, which is amazing both civilian and on the uniform side. This is one of the number one priorities I said when I first got here two years ago, which I think today is my two-year anniversary. So, hey, thank you all again. Yeah, what a day. Maybe I get a cupcake or something for two years. I'm not sure. Uh, but one of my number one initiatives when I came here was to continue the push for the four-person staffing. Again, for the fire service, uh we have consensus standards that are out there. The National Fire Protection Association, uh and actually in section five states fourperson staffing as a consensus standard for our nation's fire service. Uh that's for a number of reasons. Uh I mentioned last year that they're done doing studies on it. They finished that in the early 2000s. They've moved past it. Four-person staffing is the most efficient. It's 25% more effective than a threeperson company that is out in the field to do the 22 essential tasks that are on the fire ground. Uh and and we should all know that uh our fire ground has changed what our firefighters are facing. At one point the the legacy um construction and furnishings in your home would reach a flashover state in almost 30 minutes. That's how long it would take for a room to go fully involved back in the 80s, early 90s. 30 minutes. today that has changed to where it's about 3 minutes and 20 seconds till these fires are taken off. So, we are behind the curve already and then with us not having the four person staffing, it's just makes that more challenging for our firefighters that are going out there doing the great work. So, we will continue to push that as a priority. I know it's tough with the budget uh but is important for our folks. So, right now we have eight fire apparatus that have four person staffing. Those are on our five ladder trucks, our two special operations units, which is our uh heavy rescue company, and then our hazmat company as well. And then we have engine 13 that's out in the bluff that has a boat for response. They also have four person on that. That leaves us with 14 fire apparatus with three person staffing. Uh in order to achieve our full four-person staffing, uh it would require 86 firefighters to be able to get all of our companies over to four-person staffing. We also have set a 5-year plan for that. Again, we understand times are challenging. Got to have a plan still in place. So, with that, you'll see as we laid out in the fiscal year, uh it spread over 18 171 1717 across to get us to that 86 total. This is what it would look like as we do the increase in staffing. You would see if we can uh get the complement increase then our authorized sworn count goes up and then we would slowly increase the minimum daily staffing in which we would put on the fire trucks. Uh it is spread out a little bit where you see it go into fiscal year 31. That's just due to the timeline of training that occurs once you hire the folks. they go into the cadet class and it's roughly 17 months of training as they go through the full paramedic program and then also the fire certification program. So there is that delay till they actually get out to the field uh and are able to ride on the fire apparatus and go towards our minimum staffing count. Lastly, there's a couple things coming up for some mandated increases. one of those uh Amy mentioned earlier which is the collective bargaining agreement uh which will be in year two of the contract which sees a 4% increase uh at roughly $1.5 million. And then recently, just to make y'all aware, there's a current House bill uh up um at the legislature is House Bill 198. And what that does is that is looking to put a mandate on fire departments to provide an occupational physical to all firefighters. This is something that again across the country has already been implemented in many many departments. We're a little bit behind here, but for the past two years, we've been working on a plan just to get that into place. Uh, and recently we've been working with the city manager's office, with HR, with risk about how we go about and putting a firefighter wellness program, but it's already passed the House and we imagine that it's going to fly right through the Senate to get that passed. Uh what that does is that requires us to do cancer screenings for our firefighters, which cancer's now become one of the number one uh line of duty deaths just because of the occupational hazard. Everything from smoke chemicals to recently as they discovered in firefighting gear has forever chemicals, the PAS that's in it that's been all over the news. We've been trying to pull that stuff out of it. uh here locally, we've transitioned to turnouts that have the slightest in there, which is so much better than what it was years before. So, this uh physical would require a number of things that we need to do for our firefighters. Uh that would be done by state statute. So, we're ahead of the game uh looking forward to that and how we implement it, but we just wanted to put that in that it will probably become a state mandate after it passes the Senate. Great. And with that, I'll stand by for any questions. Councilman Hernandez. Uh, thank you. And Chief, when we went through this last year, we asked some asked some questions like standard operating procedures for electric vehicles. Have those been put in place? And is there any equipment or specific tools that you need to address that? We've already purchased it. So, when we saw that and and we've seen those issues come across, one, we've already put a standard operating procedure in place. We also purchased uh what is called the fire blankets and you can quickly put those over it and it kind of smothers the fire cuz you could dump 40,000 gallons of water and still not put these out. In fact, you could put an electric vehicle in, submerge it in water, and it wouldn't go uh it wouldn't even go out. They still burn under water. So we have purchased that and things for shut off and put procedures in place for our firefighters. Uh which is another one of those things when we talk about the cancer is uh the toxins from that is even worse than normal burning plastics. Yes sir. It's a metal fire, right? Yeah. Uh that being said, we're going to have a brand new very tall bridge and if you have uh the standard operating procedures or procedures in place to address fires that are on the bridge. Yes. Well, it would be the same. The only difference is is trying to as quickly move that off uh the bridge, but also with the water tender that we have, 3,000 gallons of water, we'd be sending that over to the bridge as well, cuz it would take a while to either extinguish it, but what we would try to do is cool the asphalt and the concrete below it. So, we could probably hook it up and just remove it off the bridge if it's still burning. Okay. Uh, I just want to make sure Lucas devices on all u EMS units is that? Yes, I believe they're on every single one of our EMS units. I don't know if we carry them on the fire trucks or on the medic units themselves. Yes, sir. And just for reference, Lucas device is an automatic compre chest compression device. Uh, just she she just make sure I I'm explaining what I'm asking here. Al also I know we had the count uh agreements with uh mutual aid agreements uh and there's some no man's land within the within the have we gotten all I I I know I talked to Chief Ebron over there. Uh how soon can we get those agreements in place so we're not taking advantage of? So we currently just uh signed the mutual aid agreements with the naval um air station and the the county departments as well. Now, that still doesn't cover um the no man's land that you're talking about. So, that's where we would use the outside county billing for fires that we have. And then, of course, uh we already have billing in place for EMS if we run it. So, what I wanted to avoid there is like an ESD taking over an area that they have no assets on and then just with a mutual aid agreement just expect us to cover it. Uh so, I want to make sure we're not taking advantage of that way. Yeah. Not that way. And then also with industrial, you know, if we provide assistance to any of the industrial services, do we have a mechanism to recover uh cost associated with that? Yes, we would be able to use like the outside city limits um fee that we would put in place for that. Well, I know we created that, but I don't know if we made any adjustments to make sure that we cover industrial areas. If if there's anything that needs to be done, just don't hesitate. We're We've got some updates in and I think you'll see that come through as the budget process is here to clean that language up. Okay. Thank you. Yes, Councilwoman GMP. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Chief, for that uh report. Um well, uh the number one death uh for our firefighters uh is something that does need to be addressed. And one of the things that really, you know, um, piqued my interest was on the PIFA when you mentioned that we've, uh, that's come up also in our water and and the industries were surrounded by a lot of heavy industry. Is there something that can be done by any of these um, industrial companies that that use that type of um, material? I mean, is there can we avoid any of this? I I I am not an expert in the field of their processes. Uh I I'm only can speak for what we do and like our main things is firefighting foam. Uh reducing that and uh using a different type of foam and then reducing it in the gear. I cannot speak to really. So yeah, evidently it's everywhere, you know, and and we're trying to tackle that, trying to figure out because again, you know, it's affecting our our um you know, our firefighters and our um uh police as well. Um, I also was uh thinking about, you know like you stated that, you know, I don't know how long ago it was, but our I guess our call uh was 30 minutes. It would take 30 minutes to go and and take care of that uh type of fire, which was for, you know, I guess furnitureures and things like that. And now we're down to three and a half minutes, which is, I mean, truly commendable. Yes. So I mean like I can see that as a uh a way to justify you know the the budget you know you could that this is is happening. Is there other things that we need to be looking at because you know from 30 minutes to three and a half like what would be that sounds I mean that is pretty impressive. Oh, that that is not our response. That is how fast that statement is how fast a room goes from if there was a fire in a waste basket. How fast it would catch other things, the couch, the the the furnishing the furnishings in where the whole room goes on fire, which is called flashover, which is is just pretty much says it's an uncontrollable fire. It used to take 30 minutes. Okay. Now it's 3 minutes and 20 seconds. Okay. So the importance of our firefighters, you know, and that's when we we're looking at where our stations are located. What's our response time? Okay. And then how long does it take? Okay. So I misunderstood. So So we've got to be quicker than ever to make a difference and go and save someone's life. Get there faster. Okay. Last year in 2024, we had four fire uh four fatalities with fires. This year we've already had two. Um and you know, it's just it's a matter of time. It it it's the time that it takes for us to get those tasks done to help our citizens and make that difference. Okay. Thank you, Chief. You're welcome. Uh Chief Wade, I I have great concern just following up on the same one of the same subjects with, you know, the cancer and the screening, and I know that's been something that has been talked about, but I think it would do us um quite justice if we could see some national stats absolutely on that the cancer diagnosis. Um it concerns me greatly that um I guess um our firefighters are are exposed to this and it's happening as we speak. It's happening across this September. We're going to put one of our firefighters, Mark Ciss, on the memorial wall in Colorado, right? It's it's happened here locally numerous times, right? And so I I think it'd be it'd be great for the council to see those numbers. And then I'd also like to see what how how do we keep track of of that POS contamination you know I know it goes in the the the uniforms or what you know the jackets and everything they put on. Give us a little bit of info on that. So with that that's the manufacturers the POS that they were using in the turnout gear was trying to keep it water um resistant so it just didn't get soaked with water. So I think that's when they were utilizing that type of chemicals to help with that. And then since the rise and the awareness of it causing cancers uh across the board, but specifically the very gear that was supposed to be protecting us is also exposing exposing us to this carcinogen. The manufacturers have been given some mandates to start pulling that stuff out. So for the past couple years, just through working with manufacturers and ordering our gear, we have gone to a very very reduced level of uh the POS inside the gear. I I can't say it's 100% zero, but it's a lot less than what it was 10 years ago. So, and now also as they have seen it in the foam, uh there's different um type of firefighting foam that they have out there that that's like green foam. It's usually less efficient. So, you got to have more of it to fight the fires. Um but we're trying to take all the steps that we can to reduce that exposure. So, it's the way the actual um gear is the gear is made. Yes. So, and again, currently manufacturers are changing all of their processes and many of them have done a lot of work to already reduce it. Now, is there anything at the legislative level? Uh, yeah, I think they've put some of that and I don't have the specific bills in front of me with it, but yeah, there there's been mandates already to be put on to start changing that because you can't wash those. I mean, right. Well, we wash it. We have to wash after every fire. We have a program in place. after every fire in which our firefighters are going in and this was done a number of years ago um that that gear is bagged, the gear is sent over to our warehouse and it is cleaned and then our firefighters get a brand new I say brand new, it's a loner set of gear right away. So it's clean gear that that so they're not just putting the stuff right back on like we used to do, right? Um, and then that gear gets washed and then once a year it gets an advanced cleaning uh to try to even get a deeper cleaning on it than just the the normal wash that happens. Yeah. Thank you. Yes, Councilwoman Vaughn. Well, good morning. Just to be clear, Gil's little thing right there wasn't he wasn't trying to dumb me down. That's not what he was doing. So, he's not arrogant. He didn't do that. Last week, he just had a a long word that really nobody understood and I called him out on it. Um, don't make y'all think I'm dumb. That's what I believe. So, um, just a couple questions. Um, chief medical officers, that's something new to me. The field medical officer, can you talk to me about that? Yeah. So, the field medical officer was a position that the department had for a number of years and and um I'm probably going to be off 10 years ago. Uh, the department did away with it because they had some other needs they needed to fill. So, one of the number one things when I first got here and visiting all the stations that kept coming back when I said, "What do you need?" Our paramedics riding it said, "We need the field medical officer position back." They needed somebody that was solely dedicated to the protocols. When our our medics see all sorts of things every day, and every once in a while, you're trying to think through something, they needed somebody to call with some more expertise. That field medical officer is uh our specialist in the protocols. They also coordinate when we have multiple patients. It could be a traffic accident, a multi- casualty incident that they're coordinating with the hospitals where these patients are going and to the hospital of what the the patient is and maybe some of their issues. Uh they also help us with training. They also help with new equipment. So we've had a couple of new equipment things that we've got. So they go out, they can make sure it's field tested, but they're a huge asset um to our field medics and the hospital as well. So, if we have long wait times uh with medic units stacked up in the emergency room, uh our field medical officers can go over there and help resolve that and try to get those medic units back in service. How many are there? There's uh one for each shift. One for each shift. Yes. And as as I'm told that we probably need two for each shift, but we were excited to get the one back, you know. Okay. Uh they they've been they they're extremely busy. You're saying you're fully staffed. You're fully staffed for 2025. Yes. Is that what you were saying? We're going to be fully staffed graduate. When this graduating class um and on May 23rd graduates, uniform will be fully staffed and then of course most of our uh attrition goes through some retirement, very few resonations with it, but then retirements are always occurring. So, okay. And that House Bill 198, is that specific to firefighters? That's specific to firefighters. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Yes, Councilman Paxton. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief Wade, for your presentation. I'm encouraged to see that the state is getting behind some of these long needed um initiatives for for these teams, our first responders, what they go through daily, most of us will never be able to fathom or step up to the plate and handle. So whether that's physical or you mentioned um some other care services, uh for me personally, that's something I'd be very interested to seeing more or or learning more about what your initiatives are and where shortfalls may be so that we could try to fill those. That for me would be a huge priority. Um I know uh statistically as as old as time this industry faces challenges because you it's difficult to separate what you see in the field and then assimilate back into normal functioning society and that that causes a big toll on families and and essentially the life of this first responder. So that's a huge priority to me. A couple of curiosities that I have here is um one, um I know you have the protocol typically if someone has finished a response to a a structure fire or something like that, there is a strict protocol where their equipment is clean, they go through, you know, where they're cleaning theirelves off, that kind of thing. Um is there any resource? I I did some research at one point where um something as simple as spending I think it was 90 minutes a week in like a sauna would help to kind of remove some of those toxins that were very very challenging to the first responders. Do we have anything comparable or or resource accessible to our to our troops like that? Not yet. So that's one of the funniest statements I've ever had visiting a fire station. I said, "What do you need?" And they said a sauna. But it was for good reason because it's the same research that that you're talking about. So after 9/11, a lot of the things when they were working with the firefighters in New York City that they found was when they put them in saunas, a lot of the toxins, they were sweating it out. Sometimes the towels would come back orange, black, purple. It it was quite wild with it. So I think since then they've done a lot more research of just trying to sweat out the carcinogens and the toxins that that they're exposed to. I think with this wellness program that if we can put this in and again the state and I think a lot of the legislators and and I a lot of credit to the associations really pushing this through for firefighter wellness I think we can start building those things in um but right now we just need to get at least the basics started where we're doing the blood work the lung work the cancer screenings and then build out that wellness center where we could offer that where say somebody gets off shift they can go over there uh and do that. So, I I agree. We just got to we're walk, crawl, and running to get to that. Thank you for that, Clar. Again, I would love to to learn more about what those ideas are so that I can help be an advocate, and I think I speak for the rest of the council as well. That's that's truly a priority. I think um for myself in District 4 and I and I know citywide and and actually countrywide, a lot of coastal areas, I think we're seeing such an increased amount of time being exposed to these fires. I mean, in district 4, there's brush fires are incredibly common and they're not typically a very short stint and and now that we're seeing having to um enter, you know, activate across county lines, across agencies where the time exposed to these fires, I think, are are really increasing. And so that's to me another testament why this wellness program is very important. A question I have though um with medical calls being such a huge portion I think and and maybe I'm wrong but I think our our calls trend towards medical resp which is a big a big number. Do we have something in place where um your quote unquote frequent flyers, those kind of minor medical responses that I know you guys get where you're not having to necessarily dispatch an ambulance or a truck or something? Yes. So, uh with that, there's a couple things that we do. One, the field medical officer can help with those as well. Single resource, one person doesn't put a a fire truck or a medic unit out of service. they can go help. But we also have a uh uh we don't want to call them frequent flyer, but um you know, it's kind of a a repeat caller with it and maybe for something minor. In our EMS division, we do have a protocol and I just talked to a company. They used them twice um one of our uh engine companies on a person and they submitted up to the our EMS division and they work with a couple different um organizations that help try to get that person whether it could be adult care, you know, services, it could be figuring out how we get them their medications because sometimes they want to call 911 and go to the hospital just to refill their their prescriptions. So yes, our EMS division has been doing that and from what I'm hearing back from the field. It's working because they may not be going back to that person repeatedly with it. So So it may not be a minor a lesser scaled operation from us internally, but we're working with another organization. Yes, we're working with it. And that's the same thing. A lot of places have put together community health paramedic programs. Uh and again, it's a single resource paramedic that can go out and they so you don't have to send um the medic unit for transport. Um we're not at that point where we have a paramedic uh um the um the word leaves me right now. Um the community health paramedic program, but they go out and they'll do that. So right now we're just using our EMS division. Our companies will send that address, the patients name, and they're working through it and helping those folks. Yes. Thank you, Chief Wade. Uh Councilman Roy, and then Councilman Scott, and thank you for your presentation. I just have a couple questions. Um, I want to go back and talk a little bit about I want to make sure I understand that. So, you're saying right now the average um, if you want to call it the point of no return is about 3 minutes. It takes about 3 minutes from the time the fire starts until it's out of control. And basically the house or the structure is a loss. Um, not necessarily a loss. It all depends on where it's at. So, if it's in a bedroom, you could essentially say that entire room is a loss. But then the products like combustion, the heat, the fire is going down the hallway. If it's in the kitchen, if it's in the living room, obviously that's a bigger area, you may have a a complete loss with it. But correct. So I would make assumption that part of your mission is that you're really just trying to not only contain that structure, making sure that if it's in a neighborhood or um a populated area that it doesn't spread to other structures. So that becomes your primary focus if it is out of control. Correct. Absolutely. And here in the coastal bin, it's even more of a challenge cuz we have wind and wind pushes fire as we know. So yeah, that that is a definitely high priority. And and with that, I was just thinking about something. Do we have the ability to fight fires from the air? Well, our aerial ladder trucks is is the primary way. But I mean like from like you know how you see on TV, and maybe I watch too much TV, but you see these uh helicopters that drop. So yeah, they drop one load and it's like it's over. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Not in the the residential area. We wouldn't be using the helicopters or the plane, but definitely when we get into, as Councilwoman Paxton said, like the brush fires and stuff, we rely on our uh state agencies and usually during red flag times, they're putting air assets. Some go over in Alice and then if they do bring the big one in, I think it's the DC10, they'll put it in Austin. And I was just thinking of response time. You know, if you had a Blackhawk that came up or a cobra and you're sitting there shooting water from it, we rely on the pretty high speed. Yeah, that is pretty high speed. Um, okay. So my other question is um fentanel, you know, I haven't heard a lot about it, but I I think um in terms of your medical response in that, I think a lot of that goes hand inand with the uh with our problem in dealing with fentanyl just because of the fact that there's a short period of time that you can actually get on top of the medical incident to be able to stabilize it. Um what do we are you seeing anything there? Is it are we is it tapering down? Yeah, I'll have to look. I just asked for those stats I think last week week before last on what are overdoses and our usage of uh what we would say Narcan, you know, to to combat the effects of that. So, I don't have those stats back, but that is something I've asked and we can get that back over to you. Yeah, because I I just think that's important. I think every now that you I believe everybody's crossrained from a medical standpoint, so that's that's good. We can deliver. Um, so you're doing more with less, right? Our our calls continue to increase. I we'll probably end at 67,000 calls for 18 stations, which is incredibly busy. Okay. Um yeah, I just wanted to see something like that because uh I'm trying to understand especially when we're dealing with this budget as as far as where we need to be able to cut, what we have to look at, what we need to, you know, there might be departments that we have to spend more money on in order to keep up with efficiencies. And so I just want to understand what is your true challenge? if you could sit there and tell me right now what is the top three challenges that you face that either limit and and then what are the top three things that you feel that you're doing good. Yeah, that would really help me try to understand that for sure. And again, number one is that four-person staffing. When we look at that, as we've talked about the workload, uh, and and what we have to face on these fire incidents from brush fires, like trying to get the staffing, as I talked to a engine captain the other day, has never worked on a crew with four people, and that's a travesty when you try to do work. That means the the the person that's supposed to be leading the crew, making the decisions for the crew, looking out for the protection of their firefighters, isn't doing it. they actually have their hand on a hose or hand on a tool and they're having to work. Um, so that's my number one which will increase efficiency for both the department and uh the folks in the field. Two is that wellness program. I need healthy firefighters to do the work that firefighters have to do. I think two years ago when you came you talked about the fourperson crew. I thought we were close. I thought we were going to get there. We didn't. Yeah. So, uh, again, um, I believe that part of your consistency is a good thing. So, thank you. Absolutely. What was the third one? I think you asked him for three. I'm curious what he doesn't have to answer me today. We're going to have more meetings. I know. I don't want to belabor. We have one more on the spot as we look at here. It's it's continuing to ensure that we have a good fleet. Um cuz our trucks, you know, and y'all again have been very um uh giving for for the medic units that we've been able to replace and put on order. If we can't get to the the call, we can't help. And uh again, I'll I'll say that uh it's one of the most important things. We're not a program driven department. Like we don't just have a bunch of programs that we're doing. We're really service delivery and and when we talk about cuts for the fire department, it's right we're cutting the response. We just we we're not uh filled full of fluff of of just extra programs, right? We're trying to meet the the needs of 911. I have 17 seconds. So, the last thing I can think about is the fact that we need to continue to do public service and as far as letting people know the importance of carbon monoxide um monitors and making sure that their fire alarms are batteries and up to date. You don't take them down because I know they're a pain because they beep at the wrong times. Yes. And we've done that. That's a great point is what we've started to do as well with some of these fires is we do a smoke detector drive where we hit the couple blocks around where that fire occurred to try to ensure that the homes there are protected with smoke detectors. So, uh we have done a number of those and that's doortodoor knocking and we will install a free smoke detector for them. Elderly, well, we we don't have to go into it now. Sorry, we're getting kind of into the weeds. Um, and if you'll include I'm sure you are, but if you'll include moving forward as we get into the actual budget season again, I'm sure you are, but the number of calls that's extremely important. I know you will. And and last uh comment, Councilman Scott. Oh, yeah. Yeah. When I heard him ask you the question, you know, what are your top challenges? Wouldn't it have been fun if you just said, well, city council, I thought that would have been a great Everybody in the audience would have clapped for you. I thought that would be good. Probably bad to say, but um um is it Narcan? Is that the Yeah, Narcan is Does that work for Is that drug overdose? Yeah. And it works for um opioids. Yeah. Fentanyl. Yeah. Okay, cool. Didn't know. Baby drop boxes. What What do you call those boxes at the fire? Different. We don't put baby in some boxes. Well, I don't Yeah, but we are a We are a safe site. So, let me know cuz I got a couple of them. We We are a safe site for, you know, a a baby drop off. And And recently, I I wish I could remember the exact date, we did have that here. uh in which it's a safe place for somebody to drop off a baby and that that's covered through state law. Yes. Awesome. The this is that question from the back of the room that he the kid hopes that his fellow classmates don't frown on him for asking. So be nice. So I I see these goals. Um but they're not You have Let's see. The police have 10 a month, right, Chief? And then you're talking about 18 a month and new. Are any of those in this year's budget, sir? Okay. No. So that's about $3 million, you know, if you Yeah. And that is that number somewhere in this packet? No, but it's about 100,000, you know, per position. So just take 28 times 100,000 is 2.8 million. So it's $100,000 per position. Yeah. Generally speaking, whether Yeah. Generally speaking, with salary, benefits, and some type of equipment, you know, generally about 100,000 is just a good rule of thumb. Got it. Thank you. So at 28 positions, it's about three million. We do we we should try to figure out how to do this because what happens when cities don't continue to add positions in in public safety, it's almost impossible to get caught up both from a recruiting standpoint and a training standpoint. It takes a year or more to train. And this is what's happening in Dallas and in Austin and maybe even in San Antonio is that when you don't havemies and you don't have enough positions to train people, then all of a sudden people recognize, oh my god, we need more police officers. And then it's almost too late. Then it takes a decade a decade to get caught up. So we're going to look at how can we add 28 positions. That's one of our priorities. So is there a staff recommendation along those lines? I mean just the number is 10 and 17, but that's a recommendation. 28 positions. So okay, let me ask a different way. So, if you if you don't have enough money for 28 positions this year, uh what would be the recommendation or is it is that coming that says, "Look, we need to get there. We know we're three and a half or are we three and a half or 7 million?" It's a 10 million if you include the what's 7 million plus three and a half if you include the housing authorities purchases. Well, I told the housing authority yesterday was $7 million shortfall. So, don't tell them anything different because makes me look stupid. Yeah, it's in excess of 10 million at this point. Okay. So, is is are you all going to come to us with any kind of conversation about additional staffing or you not I understand why you wouldn't because you're like, "Hey, we're already 10 short and this is going to be 100,000 position." Yeah. But are you going That's the conversations that we have to have with the chiefs that the chiefs are telling us and we know already that at the best recommendation is 10 and 18. And even with that, it's years. in the Chief Markle's case, a decade before we're where we should be. Yeah. So, our job is to figure out how can we get closest to the 28 number, right? And it's not like two or three, you know. So, we have to get close. The closest we get to 28 on both departments, the better the city becomes. Our job as professionals is to figure out how can we do that and present that in in in July. Is there any movement legislature for a crime control and prevention district for firefighters? So, there is in a statute it I think it's called like um and don't quote me perfect on it like a fire pre fire prevention district and I think it's one of those where you could do like a 1/8 cent of of that's only if you have space sales tax. Yeah. And it's in there and I have and I have seen we're capped and I have to pull it but it that's not used in a lot of places that I think probably the reason is because we're already capped out. We've already used it all for other things, right? But that's fine. Okay. Well, I I would submit, at least from my perspective, um we're going to have a lot of requests for additional funds. Oh, for sure. Um and I would think we should fund public safety first. Right. We agree. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, Chief Wade. And I'd like to call Chief Markle over. I think I overlooked a question for for uh CCPD. Uh Mrs. Vaughn. Yes, sir. Thank you, Chief Wade. Yes, ma'am. It's me. Oh, hey. Yes, ma'am. Um, just a couple of things. So, you say you need 10 10 over 10 years. 10 10 over 10. And you know, I don't want to go back on police officers because I remember the time when we didn't have them. We couldn't get them and we get two or three and we were just thrilled. So, the previous councils in the last few years and city manager has done a great job with that. With the 10, I know it's not just the officers. So, can you come up at some point how with the equipment, whatever it's going to cost actually overall for 10? Well, the including equipment, cars, and such. So, the city manager is exactly right. $100,000 is a great rough number for the personnel. Um the 1.5 is actually closer to when you include everything, you have to add cars. Yeah. You know, in synchrony as you grow, you know, so um the 1.4 actually, right, Pat? So, we've crunched those numbers. We can certainly come back if you want us to. I would just like to know so we know what we're looking at. Sure. Okay. Sure. Thank you. What one point for you're talking about for all 10 collective all 10 if you got 10 the cost of everything that you're going to have to have because we know it's just not bodies. Yeah, that's a good point. We've talked about that before. But isn't that too different? You know, the vehicle's one time. So maybe break it out where she can see the one time expenditure for that police officer is X. The the because you have or I don't know how you do it. You know how to do it. Sorry. Sorry, I'm trying to think. No, no, it's it's they're both good points. Just not using round not using uh you know round numbers. What? It's $1,400,000 when you add the police officers and the vehicles and guns, vehicles, guns, mag, you know, um bullets, things like that. If we decided to add 10, if we decided to add 10 positions to the 26 budget, we would budget $1.4 million. That's what I'm asking because it's still all in the pot somewhere, right? That there's going to be a cost. I just want to know what the entire cost is. Yeah, that great question. Certainly, we break that out all the time. Okay. Thank you. I think we have it right now, but um but but we can talk about it later. We can bring you back. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you. Okay. Next, we have parks and recreation and that would be Mr. Robert Dodd. Yes, ma'am. Good morning, council. I'm Robert Dodd. I'm the director of parks and recreation. Our first couple of slides will be some of the amenities that we have in our inventory. Uh we have 196 parks. We have 85 outdoor basketball courts. We have two golf courses, two gyms, four disc golf courses, three skate parks, 78 sports fields, two tennis and pickle ball centers which are Al Cruz and HB. uh three in park tennis pickle ball courts. Our uh aquatics uh division is busy serving our community. We have six area pools and we're adding Bill Wit with a ribbon cutting on May 23rd. Uh we currently have approximately 100,000 annual site visits at our pools. We also have five splash pads uh two fountains uh in our inventory which are the Bayon fountain as well as the uh water garden. Our department prioritizes serving our seniors and our youth. Uh we maintain and provide uh eight senior centers. uh we approximately have 200 2,000 annual registrations and approximately 150,000 annual visits. We also maintain and provide uh service at four indoor recreational centers uh for our youth. Uh there we have 6,000 annual registrations through various programs including our afterchool program, holiday programs. Um and at recreation centers we 30,000 visits a year. Next uh we maintain uh Gulf Beach, North Beach and McGee Beach which is combined approximately 10 miles. We also uh over the marina uh leases and maintains over 500 wet slips and that are available for pleasure and commercial vessels. Our marina staff provide round-the-clock security, maintenance, and other services. FY25 budget increase in mandates. Since our regular operations budget does not have the bandwidth to include maintenance for mandates such as these, we previously requested additional maintenance funding during the budgeting process. Um, a little over or approximately 55,000 for Bill Wit Aquatics Center maintenance. uh $297,000 for the water garden maintenance as well as 6,000 for the coal coal park splash pad. Our park operation division uh division will be adding um the Harbor Bridge, Hillrest Parks and Aquatic Center to our inventory. This will require additional funding for our operational budget. the north side aquat uh aquatics facility, we are estimating a request of approximately $200,000. Uh and for the other parks um for the parks which are Ben Garza Park, Dr. HD Williams Park, uh TCRs Park, and Washington Kohl's Park, we're estimating a request of 1.1 million for maintenance and personnel. [Music] And this slide uh will demonstrate our department is limited in funding to maintain current inventory which makes it challenging to address major upgrade request. Parks and recreation does not have the operating budget for equipment replacement or upgrades. For example, recently in fiscal year 2023, we requested $2 million transfer from general fund fund uh balance into the park CIP fund for citywide park upgrades. uh in the CIP package. Also, grants that require a city match are funded through our operations. Strategically, we use every penny we have. Um the list on here slide on this slide is example of uh parks strategizing to complete unbudgeted projects. As we acquire new parkland with amenities, we have to address deficiencies within our current maintenance budget. We perform minor maintenance, but major upgrades um could cost um upwards to hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we've been able to accomplish a lot that we achieved through one-time funds, bonds, park development fees, and excess fund balance through our operational funds, we cannot complete capital improvement projects. And I stand by for any questions. Councilwoman Compos. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Mr. Dodd, for that presentation. Uh, one of the things that I well that I I was looking for and I know I've seen it, but the percentage of the budget that actually goes to the park and recreation as a whole, like you know, we we see like the police and fire take up about 50% of our budget. How much of the budget is taken up by park and rec? How much? Well, I'm looking I saw that number this morning. Yeah, I was going to I was looking for it and I didn't see it, but that would be helpful so that we because I was also um looking as to you know where our residents sit you know on the park and wreck and and the younger generation feel that you know at least 80% um feel that we need to invest more in our park and wreck and I do realize that we are looking at budgets and and cuts but when we don't even have enough money to sustain or or fix what we have. That that's a dire need for me. Six% 23. Okay. And that's percentage 6% of the fund, but that that doesn't include shot funds or hot funds, I believe. Okay. And and I was trying to also find the percentage in comparison to other cities because you know I I see that I I used to see it like it used to be like I don't know uh 10% was done by El Paso just like we do for all the other uh comparisons with other cities. Do would you be able to provide that for us in the I will get that information and I think that yeah that would be helpful so that we can see where we're at you know citywide and um the size. Sure. Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you, Councilwoman Paxton. Thank you, Mayor. Um, thank you, Mr. Dodd. I'll make this real quick because of time. Quick question. Um, you said that, uh, we have, and I kind of wrote them out in summary. Seven pools, five splash pads, one to two fountains, and then essentially five beaches. What does that look like for staffing? You mean total staff? like your seasonal like your lifeguard type staffing. Seasonal staff. I mean we we're Say that again. We have 50 staff members at uh temporary lifeguard positions at the Gulf Beach 45. And does that include the new facilities that we have been breaking ground on recently? Yes, ma'am. that that will the additionals uh that we have with Bill Wit is is part of that. Yes, ma'am. So, it's about 100 total. Yes, ma'am. Okay. My next question. Thank you for that. Um you said we currently don't budget for equipment replacement and upgrades right now when you're talking like playground structures, those types of things. Even though we we have that shortfall as far as regular maintenance budget, are we still doing regular facilities? um assessments or inspections so we would know where Yes, ma'am. And and kind of what I was referring to, sometimes we get we get parks that are given back to from HOAs or whatever that case is. So, we go out and make assessments on the equipment. Now, uh we're able to do minor things. We're able to put in new mulch, maybe put in a swing set, you know, some benches, things like that. But when it comes to, you know, a 400 $500,000 new playground unit with pour and play and things like that, it is very tough. So you you do have a small contingency budget for minor repairs, regular mulch, those types of things. Exactly. Yes, ma'am. So, so we're going through and we're testing the structural integrity of all this stuff and those types of things, right? Yes, ma'am. And and that's in all our parks. We we do an assessment yearly. We, you know, we have preventative maintenance on those things. And so, yes, we we are keeping up with that. Okay. Perfect. And that's I'm assuming is the driver for where we put our attention according to those results. Most definitely. Yes. Thank you. You have a box here on page 41 um your summary of recent upgrades. There are certain items with asterisks. Are those going back to your footnote of the one-time funding transfer? Those are actually unbudgeted which means those are the unbudgeted. Yes, ma'am. So did you know during the year certain things pop up that that we have to take care of that are unbudgeted that goes into our that we have to go into our operations which you know a lot of these were necessary and we had to take care of those. Um but you know when you take money from one it sometimes it it it hurts others as well. So these were completed they just were where we had to find funding for from different sources. Very tough to do that. Yes ma'am. Okay. Thank you so much. Councilman Hernandez. Okay. Um, Mr. Dodd, I know that you did not you didn't kind of mention park development funds and budgeting for that. Is that you're going to you're going to include that in in future presentations? Yes, sir. We will do that. Okay. Well, I you know want to have specifics on how that's spent. Okay. Uh, also you didn't you didn't quite mention CIP projects that are also part of uh the parks and recreations. like for example the the um trail system that's that was part of the bond package right um can you kind of describe I mean eventually that's going to come to you how and there's some joint responsibility here right on some of those items some of it goes to public works uh some of it's part of you do you have some sort of written agreement to say how you're going to maintain that yes sir and we do that and and Sergio's done a a really good job with our trail system and working on that and and we work with our um uh you know our PC board quite a bit. They're interested in trails just like the city. So we do we will have a maintenance plan. We will work with uh um storm water storm water and and and uh Jason and his team. And so we'll get all that uh worked out and and u maintenance things like that. Who's going to control what because as you discussed in the past sometimes you talk about trails and everybody's pointing in different directions but we're going to take lead on that. Okay. And you also have uh can you provide also information maybe a financial analysis on the difference between in-house and contracted um park like um mowing and that kind of stuff. Yes sir. How much goes to which way? And then what do your crews do? How much do they cover? Uh what's more cost effective? Yes sir. And and I have that information. It's a whole lot of information but it's probably better that you don't have to answer it right here. You get it with me later. Yes sir. Also, you have budgeted for beach parking permits of revenues of $1.5 million. Is that holding for this year? Yes, sir. I think the last Yes, sir. It is. Okay. Can you get some refer some actual information? I mean, obviously, we're coming into the summer months where you you sell the majority of them. Just how it's tracking and are we pricing the the beach permits at the right price? Uh it's a revenue source. Right. Right. And that's that's one of the things and just I'm sure you're aware of that, but just to make sure it's it's a it's an agreement with the county, Portoanis, GLLO has to approve, but you know, all that, you know, once we work through that process, I think it's it's So, do we do that on an annual basis with all the with all the parties involved? We we've not in in a certain time. We're we're it's $12 a year for a parking permit on on our beaches. Okay. So if we don't do we have a formalized process to start looking at that? I mean because I mean I I don't want to try and catch up and then have like this huge increase. We want to make sure that we're you know in line and not Yes, sir. You know, not trying to catch up. We want to do it I guess the word be incrementally. You know ex Well, exactly. Plus, you have costs associated with producing the the permits and uh, you know, I think that's $70,000 a year that we that we plus you have parking enforcement that you have to, you know, that goes around checking, make sure you have the permits, so that kind of stuff. So, I want to make sure that you're doing the analysis so you can have numbers that you bring to the GLLO and to Porter Ranis and Nois County. Yes, sir. Um, also, if you can, I want to make sure uh can you run a maximal report on your uh aquatics? Most definitely. Okay. I'll have that to you uh by the end of the week. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Councilwoman Vaughn. I understand what maintenance, you know, maintenance has to be done or things ruined as we can see with the water garden. So, I'm looking here at the smaller pools, West Goose, uh CER about what do they cost? I would, you probably can't tell me now for maintenance for those pools. You don't have to give it to me right now. Okay. Well, I can get that to you. I think I have that number because I got a little sticker shock over here on Bill Wit and uh the water gardens. And how much was How big is this Bill Wit Park? I've not seen it yet. How big is it? How big is the pool? Huge. Huge. Disney World. How much did it cost to do it? So to do the the whole thing? It's a $12 million It's a $12 million project. You voted for that Gil. You don't vote for anything. It's his district. Good lord. Yeah. 12 million the taxpayers voted for it was wow not over budget is it came in on budget so it's 12 million design and construction the operating cost is a mil how much is it Sergio a year 435 isn't it now that's just a difference that we need because there was money in the base what's the annual maintenance and operating costs good for that one for wwit we're probably looking at for your question as far as the size goes surgeon's office assistant director of parts I'm look over aquatics So, uh, Bill Wit has two, of course, they have the recreational pool, which is really, really massive. We just took the a walk through on Tuesday. Then you have the the lap pool, which is there's two pools. There's two pools. So, you're looking at there's nine pumps. Uh there's that's it's a big maintenance uh budget to run it. Uh we're still, you know, we talked about just running it seasonally right now, but you have to keep the you know, the pumps going otherwise if you don't Yeah. Yeah, stuff sits up impellers, you know. Uh, so on the budget side, maintenance probably, I don't know, just ballpark. I haven't I have the whole maintenance for aquatics here, the budget for all the pools. Uh, but for Bill Wit, I want to say probably with professional services because we we use Progressive who uh who handles all the maintenance for our splash pads, all the UV systems, everything like that. That's I know we put 30,000 in that line item for them. Um I would probably say close to 150,000 a year. A year to maintain the pools, right? That's just the main and that's the real W. Now if you look at the show you Yeah. If we don't have the number, we we'll get it to them. But there we have to staff it. So there's numerous lifeguards that have to be and there has to be enough to where they can take a break. So it's not just one person is good for the whole day. Well, that's that's a big pool, right? So it's you guys don't have the total budget to operate the facility on generally. 435. What's that for? 435 is for chemicals. That's for your st uh chemicals. What do you have on here? That to operate to take that's the cost it takes to operate it. And we knew that going into it, but and we're doing one more on the north side as a kind of a mandate with the state and the bridge. Yeah. So, um the this is what these are what we call mandated increases. You know, uh we we walk the council and the community through the pool. Um there are none on that that side of town. There's zero pool zero zero outdoor pools. There is the aquatic center, but that's a shared use with CCISD. Uh so, we were familiar. It is it's expensive, but um and this pool's is a it was designed on purpose to be not just a square swimming pool, but an aquatic center. There's a beautiful slide. There's a family leisure pool. There's a a deep end in the pool and then there's a lap pool. Okay. Separate pool. Yeah. I'd be curious at the end of the summer to see how many people are using that pool. Oh, it's going to be packed. So, the grand opening is going to be the weekend of Memorial Day. Yeah. And uh there's been different ideas on when that should be, but right now it seems the consensus on the council is to have the ribbon cutting on the Friday of the Memorial Day weekend and the pool will be open later on that day. But the big day is Saturday and we expect there's a limitation on how many people can go in by fire code and safety code. So we expect this we're going to be at max capacity on that Saturday, Sunday, probably Monday. Yeah, this is a worldass facility. Oh yeah, I want to see this worldass facility. I'll drive you out. Councilwoman, can I ask what was the um what was the maximum capacity? 200 people. 200 people max. And one other question. Washington Cole Park. Is that over here? Where is that? That's right over here. Right across. Is it to the to the new harbor? It's where the bridge. Yes, ma'am. Does anyone live over there for the park anymore? I mean, we don't have a whole lot. There's only There used to be 500 homes in that Hillrest neighborhood. Because of the voluntary home buyout, there's around 80 that remain. And do we know if there are children over there? I'm asking because I'm thinking, why are we putting a park there if there's no one there? It was part of a settlement agreement, if you will, with the new bridge. Uh the residents have to do it. Yeah. The residents filed a title six complaint that was ultimately, you know, settled with four parties, the housing authority, the city, I think Texot, and um and one other authority. Remember there was a whole there was many years of working with a community advisory group and we didn't recommend the swimming pool. We recommended the splash pad in le of the swimming pool. Uh but the state and the federal government through this title six uh equal um um I forget the wordings but they mandated they said look we're not going to settle this unless you put a swimming pool in. The good news is for the construction side the state came up with $5 million in the land. They gave us the land and the five million. We had to come up with the other five million to build the pool, but the expensive part in any one of these things is the annual maintenance and operations. So, and I know you probably can't change that, but I'm just thinking to myself because I was here when the pool issue came up, right? And I remember I was a no vote on something they were trying to do to repair the old one. They went 750, which was ridiculous. And here we are again. And yeah, I just think it it ought to be revisited somehow if there's no one over there. Well, what so the plan is because we got the 5 million, so half of it was funded that we will use it uh through Councilman Hernandez and others on the council, we we're teaching children how to swim. So, we have swimming programs that will be a good pool to use if nobody's using it for swimming instruction. It doesn't have to be open year round. It may may have a very limited open open uh life to it because of funding and use. I'm not saying I don't want them to have a pool. I mean, a a park if they're over there. My point is just sometimes we do things. I mean, there's not a lot of population admittedly. We had our planning director do some demographic analysis and that 80 homes is probably less now. That was from a year ago. The port continues to buy out homes. So, Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Councilman Scott I was mostly listening. Okay. Um but I do think we ought to take another look at the parking fee and I don't Yes, sir. It takes it'll take six months to work it out, but if it costs a dollar more a year to maintain the beach, then you know, and I think that's pro and I think everybody would probably be support well all of our partners uh would be supportive of that and I think some of that process informally has we've shared some things and and I you know it's it's it's a it's a thing now just sitting around the table and working that process. Okay, be great. I'd love to see that if we could do that before the next season because I'm sure it takes a long time to get everybody's buy in. Okay. Uh hey, the golf course. Um when does that when this is Germaine? I think do you know when we're going to start the uh improvements to the buildings, the structures at the G or can you tell us later? We're in we're in design now. I believe we're at 90% design. So that's or or 90% is coming up soon. So I you know relatively pretty quick. we were going to be able to, and I say quick, you know, 6 months, get it to construction and start that process. Awesome. They do a great job. People love those places. And that is there's funding uh at least for the estimate at the time for the construction for that the for the OSO bay, right? Is that what we're talking about? Yeah, the clubhouse. It was funding for design and construction. Awesome. Yeah, I think that's great. Um Firefly, can you just send us some update on the Firefly? Talked to people, had a great experience there. I'm just curious how it's doing. That'd be some memo at some point. We were here a couple of months ago with one uh with an update, but I can get you the most recent. I I I'll call them today and get you something today. Yeah. And just for those that may not know, the Firefly is a is the um Lozano Golf Course that's has nighttime lighting. And so we're one of the only uh golf centers in the region, probably San Antonio is around and here that has that nighttime lighting. And so when we have a great working relationship with the operators that are working for the city foresight golf who are actually turning a profit back to us. That's a great model there. So that Firefly we'll we'll get an update on. Yes sir. Awesome. Thank you. Uh two last two things. I was with some folks Saturday that were all into cricket and had a camera on whatever the thing is and they were watching a game at lunch because I think the point is that's that's really cool. And there's a segment of our community that loves that game and uses it a lot. Councilman, we have a cricket field and it's at Greenwood, right? And Yeah. And so so he had he had somebody had a camera and they were watching the pitches with, you know, and so my point is it's that's been it's being used. I I visited with him one Saturday morning and and they forced me to go out and play and it was pretty tough sport. I'm not as athletic as they are, but it's it was a good time. There's a lot of people out there playing. Yes, sir. The last thing is um last two things. I hear what you said on the parks um at the base of the the uh new bridge. Can you just just some point tell us the timing in general kind of in the parks at the new bridge? Yeah. So they it is they're 100% design and the design is out for bid for contractors and that's for Kohl's and uh there's a total of four there's a total of four parks. So there's the Garza. Yep. Uh HD Williams Park, TCRs Park and Washington Cooh's Park. Okay. And I'm sorry I cut you off, Peter. So, no, that's fine. All four of those are all four out for a bid right now. And uh this there's 27 million in the budget for the construction. So, that includes a swimming pool. Is there one of those that's close to the base of the bridge? Yes, there is. So, the Washington Kohl's Park is just across city hall if you to look out on this side of city hall. Um and that is a $10 million trail head that has parking. Yeah, it has parking. It has a pavilion for because there's going to be a lot of competitions over the bridge. Yeah. It's really an economic development generator. I think we're going to see activities begin to happen in the Washington Kohl's neighborhood that's largely abandoned today. Uh because we know today over the current bridge there's heart walks as cycling challenges as walk challenges. So with the largest cable stay concrete bridge in the in North America, there's going to be a lot of people coming over here to try to challenge themselves. And so the city recognized this and the Washington Kohl's trail head is is the trail head on this side of the bridge. The other one is on North Beach and there's a somewhat of a comparable terminus trail head over there. Yeah. But the one on this side will have parking. We'll have a pavilion to have lunches and breakfastes. There'll be an amphitheater stage to award trophies, that type of thing. Beautiful park. Mayor, there's a number of cyclists that have volunteered to lead the cars over the bridge initially. Uh, and so if you need me to lead the cyclists, I'm could be the one the first guy over the bridge. Uh, last question. At some point, can you tell me the additional cost annually when we of the t of the um the new pool once it's open? What what is that pool? I get you said it was what 9 10 11 million to build. Awesome. Totally get it. Water under the bridge instantly whether I like it or not. Bill Wit you're referring to. Yeah. Bill Whit. What is the operational cost associated with that facility in this year's budget and I assume it in years going forward? So the operation the operational budget is that 435. That's four 435,000 for Bill Whit a year. You're talking about the other four, right? No, he's talking about we're going to open up Bill Wit and we're going to hire, you know, five more people and chemicals and more than five. So it's 435,000 a year to operate and maintain Bill Wit. Yes, sir. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. It's all have and that's purification chemicals, that's fuel, that's you know recreational supplies, building maintenance, things like that. So that covers a whole lot and that includes employee expense too. That's just operational. That wouldn't include person. That's what I want. I want we need the entire answer. You guys It does. That does include personnel. I'm sorry. Okay. It does. Okay. Thanks. Okay. So on on that, you know, moving forward, Peter, we need to have every pool, for example, because pools are being asked about the the operational cost for each one. Annie and and and you can put in parentheses PL, you know, the operations plus the I want the personnel separate. Yes, ma'am. Because I think that's very important in looking at a budget. I mean, we need and and maybe y'all were planning on doing that for the budget, but but I'm just going to throw that in there. Please make sure you you give us those numbers because those are very very important because you've got the older pools but operational costs go up and then we've got to look at these new pools that are very fancy and I'm assuming you know that 435,000 minus whatever the personnel is. We need to look at what that is going to go up to and what do you what do you see what is the five-year forecast of those maintenance costs? That's what I'd like to see too because we really need to be planning not just for 2627. We need to be planning for you know the $10 million pool um you know that that that has that beautiful slide. H how do you maintain that and what happens when you have to replace a piece maybe of that PVC? I don't know. So let's make sure we just include all of that when when we come back 12 million. Yeah. Shortselves. Yeah. North side one, the north side one is about 11 10 to 11 million, right? Yeah. Okay. And then uh pardon and staffing shortfalls if we're able to staff all of these. Well, yeah, staffing. Yeah, of course. Include Well, yeah, shortfalls. I mean, I would assume you would include any kind of staffing that the staffing you need, lifeguards, sworn, and then actual Yes, ma'am. Um I I wanted to ask you quickly because I know we we're a little bit behind here. our uh senior centers. Do we have any improvements? Do we need improvements to any of them? What are the needs for those? You don't necessarily have to answer now, honestly. But but I'm very concerned and I would like I'm not concerned because I know that they need improvements. I'm concerned because I don't want those left behind. Yes. I I want to make certain that if there are improvements needed, and I'm certain there are in in in by way of priority, can we please bring that back? So, if you know, Greenwood Senior Center, it needs some major, it needs whatever. I don't Greenwood just got a new roof. It got some new, you know, it's got some new walls and then fresh paint. That one's in pretty good shape, but there's others that do. There's others and and I'd like you to please bring that back in by way of priority so that we can see what the need is and and you know, make those decisions when they come. All righty. So, uh, Councilman Roy, thank you. Um, good presentation. You know, couple things I want to say. Uh it's interesting that as as we move things along how complex I mean when we talk about budget and um in the beginning when uh and I think I'm I'm addressing this you know we have a lot of new council members and I remember during whether it's election season or whatever the case is we had a lot of people that talk about the budget and how irresponsible the current council is on budget and what is. So you hear all that rhetoric, but the bottom line is is that now in terms of looking at the sausage, everybody has their opinion on the sausage, but now we have the opportunity to look at how the sausage is made. And we also have an understanding of things like the parks that we are bound to have to build because of the bridge agreement. We don't have a choice in this matter. It is fortunate that text dot gave us 5 million out of the 10 million to be able to build that pool that's out there and we didn't have a choice on the location either. So I want the public to understand that. So but but the interesting thing about this and here's the hard part. When you open up a new pool like at Bill Wit now you've got 200 people that can be in that pool, right? But you have people that use Bill Wit also for other reasons. Now you've got increased traffic. You've got increased wear on the roads. you've got increased wear on your grounds, your maintenance cost, even though you're trying to limit it in terms of looking at it to the structure itself are going to be exponential because of the increase in people. And that's going to happen over in Hillrest. It's going to happen over everywhere, even the water gardens. You got more people looking at the the place. There's going to be more trash. There's going to be all kinds of things that we have to take into consideration. and not including one of the things we haven't talked about is security because we got to keep all these structures secure to make sure they're maintained. So, this is an extreme challenge. This is an extreme challenge and it's extremely important and I know we're at the beginning of this process, but as much information that we can have that will allow us to understand that you've looked at all of these things, it's going to help us make a better decision. And so that's what I'm really looking at because we got to make some decisions here and we I I think Sylvia Compost uh council member said a she asked a great question and that was compare us with the other cities. I want to know okay the number of parks the the number of services that we have. How do we compare with the other seven or eight cities? Do we have more than the average? Do we have less? Are we spending more? Um where are we at? Because I know that quality of life is an important issue in the city. And it's it's what keeps it helps keep pe people here and it's what makes people happy. So I'm I'm not saying that I'm I'm anti parks at all, but I think we have to really understand how this sausage is made and what the real impact of it is because we've only got so much money and we can't be everything to everyone. Thank you. Yes, sir. Uh thank you, Councilman, and thank you, uh Mr. Dodd. We're going to move on to code enforcement. Good almost afternoon, council. Uh Mike Dyson, the director of development services. With me, I have uh uh Tracy and John from uh code as well to back me up, help me out. Um we're going to focus more on the metrics. So, I'm going to have three slides that are really graph based. So, hope not trigger anybody that took a statistics class. Um so what we're going to talk about is our code officers for the last three years. Those metrics that we uh base our service on the abatement funding which is real important to part of uh majority of what we do and that includes demolitions. All right. So code compliance has 32 officers that are in the field. You'll see on the left this gives a breakdown of where our officers are funded through. The blue is general fund. The orange is CDBG funding. That was reduced in fiscal year 24 where we moved five uh six officers out of CDBG and moved them to general fund because CDBG limits the areas that they can enforce and things that they can do. Uh so we move those over. Uh as you know uh the officers are now assigned by council districts. We have a senior and then we have subdists for other officers within that area. So it helps with the span of control and make sure that um you know district representatives, district neighborhood associations really get to know the people in that uh the code officers in that area. And again aside from the 32 um code officers, we have uh six admin positions, two supervisors, a manager and assistant director totaling 42 FTEES. And our vacancy rate uh our vacancies right now we have one code officer and one admin. We also have six new officers that just started, they'll be in the field in July after they go through those trainings. So, with that CDBG funding, if it is eliminated, you know, one of the things that we have brought up in past council meetings is um the square miles that each officer covers. Right now, it's about uh 5.9 square miles per officer. Best city's best practice is about three. So, we're a little over that. uh if we lose that CDBG funding or those officers uh that should increase to about seven miles per officer, seven square miles. Um so again we have uh the calls of service that we do we are proactive um um constantly we we do a turnaround in about six days for those calls. Uh so as we move into the metrics which is our customer service slide on the right. So, uh, this year we're on track for about 14,000 new calls, uh, which have, uh, 5,900, uh, notices of violation. Some of those turn into citations. Uh, and once that process begins, uh, it is handed over to municipal courts. So, we're right now at 73% voluntary compliance and a 42% proactive rate. So, we are patrolling those areas and making sure that it's not just reactive where we had kind of been prior to 23. Um, now you'll notice in those metrics, the 24 to 25, we dropped um we told our our officers to basically holster the citations. We wanted to increase compliance. We actually changed from code enforcement to code compliance. We wanted to be a more friendly enforcement action. Uh, but it did work. We got a lot of people, you know, we're engaging neighbors. We're engaging property owners consistently. Uh, and it it has worked. There were some I won't say bad actors, but there were some challenges. So, this year we've actually started writing more citations. We still are doing that increased um uh engagement with customer citizens. Uh, but we are writing more citations this year. Um and again the notices of violation reflect a call for service where a a violation was identified. Uh and again we mail out and post correction notices. Uh it's not up there. Got cool charts but you can't move along to them. Let's un Okay, here we go. Well, there we go. All right. So this uh slide is the demolition and abatement funds. You'll see moving left to right, the blue is is our standard budget. Uh the orange is what we got for any carryover or any additional funding. The green was that total budget for the year. And then you'll see the box at the end was our operating budget where we had the increase. We had an increase in fiscal 24 of 100,000. But we had an increased rollover due to some challenges that we had with some uh abatement contractors. So uh in that year we did have a larger budget but um you know our crew got out there and and got those contractors mobilized in fiscal 24. So we had an increase in service uh to 25. So again, when you receive a notice uh for violation, co- compliance takes action either uh de demolishing a substandard structure or doing abatements like mowing grass, weeds, things over 12 in uh hauling away debris stored on the property or illegal dumping uh and most important boarding up unsecured or vacant buildings. You'll you'll notice in uh demolition and abatement, a lot of what you saw in the fire uh presentation, those those homes that were on fire, well, after the fire goes out, it's usually us right behind it. So, uh BOD Del Soul was one of those. Again, uh the graph illustrates that in fiscal 24, we had that 600,000 for demo and abatements, which was reduced to 500,2. So again, with that budget, uh what you'll see on the left, uh so far we've had demolitions of 37. Uh this year, we're on track to do 45 demolitions. And again, these demolitions are emergency demolitions from fire or orders through the building standards board. Uh without the rollover funds that we previously mentioned, we would only had uh funding for about 20. So that's kind of what we're projecting for next year is 20 demolitions. Again, you'll see what we've done over the past 3 years in that slide on the left. So, on the right, the abatements, uh, as mentioned, were the trash, uh, weeds, uh, things like that, um, we're on track to complete, 1100 abatements this year. Uh, it's important to note that the demolitions without the rollover, uh, we would have only completed about 650. Um, thus, we're setting our goal for next year at that 650. Um, we do have a remaining balance of 72,000 uh, which will carry us through June based on our activity levels. Uh, so that's just kind of where we're at. I just want to give a shout out to our staff. They do a great thankless job. So, uh, with that, I am available for any questions. Councilman Hernandez, you know, on qu if you go back to the the page um where it showed the number of citations written. You 2024 looks a little odd, right? And uh where you had a a large number of calls, large number of notices, but very few citations and compared to the previous year. And then even within those citations, there's metrics associated with how many actually get through uh go to municipal court, how many get paid, how many get it, you know, what the adjudication is, whether they get dismissed. And this also goes to it's not just code enforcement, it's also parking enforcement, it's also, you know, things that come through ACS or animal control. Um, so you know, in terms of and this is also an evaluation of of municipal court, uh, the attorney's office with the prosecutor's office. So got to have to understand what those metrics are and make sure that we're being effective. Uh can you provide that and you know when we come back for the actual budget is to make sure that you know we understand because we're already working on it. Okay. All righty. Thank you. Did you have your line? No. Okay. Councilwoman Bond. Couple of questions. Y'all aren't my favorites. I've gotten a couple of citations that I don't think I should have gotten. So, and I'm sure I'm speaking for a bunch of people. Yeah. Yeah, I'm messing with you. Um, not really, but anyway, partly I understand. Um, I'm trying to figure out kinder, gentler code enforcement now. Code compliance. Yeah. How how's this work? So, you get calls all the time from citizens. They're telling on other citizens. Is that how it works? 311. It it could be again, we're trying to be more proactive than the responsive calls, but yes, there there is a way to make those complaints. trying to see how y'all got my call. Um, what I want to ask you, what are the hours y'all work? Uh, we work standard hours uh through the day. We also do uh help with CCW's water enforcement. So, we do have some teams on Saturdays uh and some Sundays as well. But what's the earliest that you go out? Our teams are out in the field between 7 and 8 to 5, but we have them they work they actually start from home. That was one efficiency that we did uh to allow uh them to be quicker in the field. Uh, so we do have that. It's the normal, you know, we say 8 to five, but I do have teams that ask. Okay. The reason I ask is my husband could have left the sprinkler on. I'm not going to say he didn't. He could have left the irrigation on. I don't He says he didn't. So, it was probably the pool guy. But anyway, the reason I'm asking is on the ticket that I got and after I did a little investigating on that street, it was like 4:30 in the morning that it was listed as a ticket all the way down that street. Yeah, that could be CCW as well. There there are there are multiple uh agencies out looking for uh those types of violations. Okay. And then on the recyclables, are y'all the ones going through the garbage? No, ma'am. That would be solid waste. That was solid waste, but we eliminated that program in this year's budget. I am so glad you did because it was like I hated to see go down the road and see them going through the garbage. I thought that was terrible. They were going through the recycling bins all Yeah. just to just to teach people what does and doesn't belong. But we couldn't afford it this year, so we eliminated them. I didn't get fined for that, by the way. Yeah. I'm just curious. Okay. Um, do y'all give any warnings at all or you just because I mean I didn't get any warnings. I got a ticket and it would have been easier. I could have came and talked to y'all, but it was easier for me just to go pay the ticket. A ticket for watering or Well, I got it for watering and then I think I talked to you. I got it for a window that we put in. So, exact same window because I didn't get a permit. didn't know I had to have a permit. So, what we do for those property maintenance violations, we give time to cure. Uh we post a notice. Uh one of the things that we've tried to do is change from that, you know, Gestapo, as you said, stated, code enforcement. Now, it's code compliance. We have teams that go out and and inform people on things that need to be done. Uh we talked about in a meeting uh making sure that you know a lot of people don't know hey do I need a permit for this or I didn't know I couldn't let my grass grow this tall. We did have rain today so we will get some abatements going but we're trying to be more proactive in informing and educating uh the public. We visit uh community centers. We've done some district outreach. Uh so it is a process of education and we feel that education is going to be beneficial in the end so we don't have to site and we only use citations as a last resort for someone who's not um engaging uh vacant properties. We have a lot of out of town ownership. We have corporate ownership and a lot of times that stuff gets lost in translation. So and compliance is a much prettier word. Thank you. So I just think it's good because I think a lot of people do not know there's certain things they can and can't do. Absolutely. So why do you need 20 more positions? Well, ultimately we we would want the span of control. We the areas that we proactively uh patrol now is about six square miles. So you don't actively have someone engaging in all areas of that six square miles as often as they should. Again, a best practice is to really cut that down to about three square miles. That way you can proactively patrol a smaller area and stay on top of things rather than as Councilwoman Paxton said, District 4 is kind of all over. So I've got you we've got heavier staffing there to make sure we can cover the larger area. It just helps with our our patrols and again our compliance. Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman Compos. I I just wanted to have just a quick shout out to my lead enforcement. I'm gonna say my Jose uh Gomez uh who is doing just a really tremendous job because he regularly calls me or emails me and as and I think some of you get the CC's but again talk about proactive. I just want to give a shout out to him because um I I think our district has never looked better, you know. Um he stays on top of new, you know, things that really bother me, which is like shopping carts, you know, just left out in the streets. I don't know if y'all have that issue, but in my district, and I don't know what he did or what he's doing, but it has diminished. So, I just want to say thank you. And and I I know I'm going to throw, you know, ACS is going to be in the next one, but I wish I had someone like that that I could call and they would just take care of it. You know, we have a um a lead officer that takes initiative. It's not just the money, but it is about who you hire. So again, just shout out to him. Thank you. Well, shout out to the training staff that Yes. that does that. I agree. Thank you. Yes, we appreciate them very very much and these are great great information and stat. So, thank you. Um, we're going to go ahead and move on to solid waste. Just in case anyone's wondering, the new pope is about to be announced. Yeah. Yeah. What happened? The pope they white smoke came out. So, yeah. For your information, I heard anybody they've selected one. He's just they're waiting for him to come out. So, nobody. Yeah. White smoke has Well, good morning. Uh, Philip Aldrich, our city council mayor, Philip Aldridge, interim director of solid waste. Um, I only have one slide today, so it's pretty quick and easy. Um, Solid Waste, uh, we're not proposing any type of fee increases for the upcoming year. Um, we have 172 FTEEs. We are adequately staffed and adequately funded for the service levels that we're committed to. Um, I did put up here on the if on the lefth hand side of your presentation there, um, the approved FY24 rate increases. Uh, the last one we did was for the residents. That was last year or FY24. Previously, it was in FY 2019. Uh, the table below it is your current rates that you're paying on your utility bills at the landfill, commercial customers, etc. Um, last year we did a reduction in force for the brush and bulky crew and a litter crew. So, we had some savings there. Um if you look over to your right, it's a little bit smaller, but on the top is a we did a cost of service um assessment back in 2021 and they had those recommended rate increases there. And that's that top table. So the middle table is the actual rate increases. So you can see we've pretty much been in lock step with that study. Uh previous councils, city leadership, everybody's been really supportive of the mission that we serve. Um you know, we have the 172, we don't have tomorrow. Everything's got to be out, picked up, put away every single day that we go out um to work. Um uh below there, the the third table is our actual revenues um for the past few years and our projected for this year. Um and if you go if you follow those columns down, you can see that we are a positive contributor to the to the general fund and our net general fund revenue there. It was trending down, but we got a shot in the arm from our landfill gas to energy project. Um so that's why we're we're in good shape. So there No uh no no no increases for requests for this year. So I'll stand by for any questions. Wonderful. Thank you. One quick question is the um where does our litter critter fall under the letter critter falls in this program department. Yeah. And we still have that. We're able to keep that. We'll see. I want to make sure that that stays. What's that? We want to make sure that stay that's Yeah, we were able to keep it. We'll we'll see for this year. But yeah, the lit critter that's in it rotates through all five districts times a year. I remember the days prior. Okay. Councilwoman uh GMO and just a quick again when y'all are doing great work. I love this report. One page. Oh, you're doing great. You don't need any more money from us. You're actually making money for the city. And I have to also shout out to your predecessor. Yes. David Lefield. And how again it is about leadership and and who is um directing the rest of the staff. So kudos to you and thank you for the investment uh that we've m that you all have made and uh thank you for just looking out for us and for the taxpayers and and making sure that you know we're taken care of. So you know kudos to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman uh Councilman Scott, what's the shot in the arm? I just didn't understand what you said. So we have a landfill gas to energy project. Yep. Got it. You're familiar with it? Well, yep. I was the second Got it. Second part is we know what we know from what you tell us and then occasionally we get to touch and feel city services and we had some brush activities at Scott household and it was so cool to come out and see how well you guys run the transfer station and at the brush area in particular and man how many people are in line to use that facility on a weekend is really impressive. So anyhow great work we serve yeah we serve about 17,000 people a month through that facility a month. Mhm. 17,000 a month. Yeah. I mean, it was and you guys had it was a machine. You had it going. So, we appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for um your department. It's critical. Councilwoman uh Vaughn, when you do something well, you should be told that you did. So, I appreciate what you're doing and the citizens are going to be thrilled there's no increase. Well, we appreciate that. Thank you. Uh, Councilman Hernandez, uh, there's there's a significant amount of debt under solid waste. Uh, do you project more coming up or I mean because we have I mean I went and looked at the the certificates of obligation that are under solid waste and there's you know I want to say you know well over $50 million uh in in debt associated with it. Right. So, uh, and we talked, uh, I know city managers mentioned we're kind of pulling back on certificates of obligation, uh, as a future debt instrument, but what what needs do you have on the horizon that would require something like that? We do. So, we have our approved CIP, so we'll look at the long term. So, we are um, we are always going to come and ask for more debt to build landfill cells. I mean, we want somewhere to put the trash. So, as we fill up the landfill, we do have to continue it to add to that facility. Um, it's all pretty, you know, lock step. We can plan for it really well. Um, I can tell you we are starting to realize some real savings from the gas to energy project because we turned over a lot of capex expenditures to that partner as long as as well as on&m. So, we are we are removing things from our CIP this year. uh we have left them in there the past couple years until we could see that this project was viable and would do well and we're comfortable with it now that we you're talking about the the the capital that goes into the into the ground into the gas collection the gas collection equipment so they're they're providing all that directly they all future capex expansions with the well field they they provide yeah councilman I have the capital budget here in front of me so for the next two years 26 and 27 there's about $38 million in uh in debt to continue to grow the to build the landfill. You know, we have to get the site ready as we expand cells. And then in the seven-year uh seven-year plan, which is unfunded and there's no there's not uh none of that's in the debt plan, another 17 million over the next seven years for future landfill development. So about right in total about 45 million to answer your question on future debt for the landfill development. Okay. So this is kind of unique. solid waste is resides in the general fund and not it's not a separate uh enterprise fund. So it it it does that's correct. Uh it does provide revenue in the general fund but also has debt capacity associated with with within the general fund that is covered by taxpayers. Right. So it it's a kind of a unique situation. I just want to make sure we're you know keeping that good to point out. All right. Thank you, Councilman Roy. Uh, I just want to say, um, you know, good job, uh, good presentation and, um, I also want to apologize. My, uh, in-laws moved out of their house and I think I took three loads of paint. I don't know why they collected paint over 50 years, but they did. So, if there was an influx of paint there, it was due to one individual. You're okay to handle it. Anyway, but good job. Keep up the work. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the great presentation. and we're going to go ahead and move on to library. Good afternoon, mayor, council members. Laura Garcia, library director. The mission of the library is to improve literacy, enhance knowledge, and create a sense of community by making information easily accessible to the public. Uh some of the pictures you see here are some of the activities that we provide for the families. And we accomplish our goal through having uh six library facilities. As you can see, we have um facilities in each district. In some cases, we have two. The only district that we do not have a library is in district three, but we always consider McDonald Library as uh providing services for that district because we're right on the border to district three, that location. So here you see some of the enhancements that have been done for the library system um from 2019 through 2025 and um we have done some staff enhancements. We have 59 positions in the library. 45 are full-time and 14 are part-time positions. The other enhancements that you also see of course are services there and then facilities. Um I'm sure the question will come up regarding the bond 22 project for Lauraama. We have received the bids. We received those late last month. We received eight bids. Um unfortunately the low bid has already dropped out. So the sir engineering is reviewing the other bids. We hope to bring the construction um contract to council hopefully next month so that we can start the exterior improvements for Lauraama. The the generator for Lauratama project that's underway already and we foresee completing that late next year 2026. So those projects are already on underway. Laura and council, this this slide uh the last several departments just showed what we did in the current year. This is a six-year summary and over the past six budgets, we've added something every year to the library department, whether it's increased hours, increased staff, increased uh facility development, maintenance, uh uh new construction. So every every one of the past six budgets, libraries has increased funding because we needed to to catch up and we're still a little bit behind, but to catch to catch up from reductions in prior years prior to 2019. Just want to recap that. Thank you, Laura. And so um one of the projects there under services is we implemented radio frequency identification. And the reason I'm bringing this out is because it allows us to provide self-service. Patrons can also check out at these self selfch checkout stations. But on this next slide, one of the things you see there at the bottom is that book vending machine which would be uh possibly made possible through having the RFID uh that we've implemented. And one of the possibilities is having maybe instead of a full facility providing services perhaps maybe on the island that people would be able to go check out books on the island and using um a vending kiosk. Um Harlingen is the only one in the region that has a sh a um a model and I to them yesterday just to get some pros and cons of how they've been working with that. They implemented that in 2021. So, that's a possibility of offering services without having a full scale um excuse me, a full-scale facility. I'm going to go back to this slide. I I because I failed to mention because I'm sure Councilman Ernnandez is interested in finding out where we're at with the Garcia project. And so um right now we are looking at or engineering services is looking at requests for qualifications for the architect for the design. And that facility is actually going to be a complex which will have a senior center, the parks and recreation um a aspect as well as a library. And so we're still looking at that project. So here are going back to this slide is these are our departmental needs. Uh we've listed some of the positions that that would help our department continue to go forward and I know the questions been coming about comparisons and last year council had asked us to look at comparing ourselves to other Texas cities and we looked at the fiscal year 2024 budgets last years for the top 15 cities in in Texas and Corpus Christi ranked 12th among those top 15 and some of the uh library systems above of above us that ranked higher were like Irving they ranked number nine their population is what we presented to council is 264,000 at that time and their budget was 7.7 million they have three library facilities and they have 106 positions and for Corpus Christie last year we had um as as I said we ranked 12th and our population that we used was 320 and our uh budget was 6.4 million and we have six locations. At that time we had 66 positions uh last year in when we prepared this for council but we can look at that again to see where the ranking and Laura would you be able to send that to the council please? Yes I I I'll resend it to you. Wonderful. And I stand by for any other questions. Thank you, Councilman Hernandez. Laura, thank you for bringing up that whole thing with Garcia Library and Peter. This is a conversation we've talked about. The original plan was uh we were going to have an exchange with uh CCISD. I believe we were looking at the Sanders Elementary location, but since their bond failed, they've decided to go in a different direction and not close down Sanders Elementary, which is right off of Karmat. Um, so I think we have to go back to the drawing board with them if we're planning to exchange that property back to them. Uh, for Yeah, we never obtained it. Councilman, I I know just that was Okay. Yeah. The previous assistant city manager had briefed me that that was the original plan, right? Yeah, but we said turn the property back to them. We never No. No. Okay. Uh, I'm talking about returning the property for the Garcia. I see. Okay. Yes, sir. Okay. Right. So, uh to give some some context here for uh for new council members, the Garcia Library sits on CCISD property right next to uh Cathy Middle School, right? And they have have backed away from utilizing it for safety concerns and having the general public interact with uh school ch school kids. And I I get it. I understand it. After UValdi, we all have, you know, done, you know, all school districts are are doing things a little bit differently. Yeah. Um, with that in mind, it it doesn't make sense. And plus, we close down the library now between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m. Or is it 4 and 6? 4 and 6. Uh, so because there the traffic associated with people with kid parents picking up their kids from Cathy. So ultimately, it's better to have a different location. You know, we've got the bond uh for the design of a library/cenior center because there are no senior centers south of SPID. Uh okay. But now we got to look for a good location. We need to go back to the drawing board with CCISD to make some sort of viable swap or you know and and they're financially strapped for the same reasons we you discussed earlier when you opened up. Yes, sir. So, uh, if we can kind of have a plan in place, uh, so we can, you know, I'd rather start looking at it now than trying to figure it out later. We agree that's where engineering staff needs to help us, you know, to help with that process. Uh, that's their job, the engineering department, is to help, you know, help determine site location, design, that type of thing. Yeah. And and if we can, I' I'd rather not take any property off of tax roles. If we look at property that's already owned by some government entity or property that we own, we don't want to take anything off tax rules. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman Compos. Thank you, Mayor. Uh and thank you, Laura, for the presentation. Um and I'm glad uh mayor that you're um asking for that information to be shared with the rest of us because I think uh it's um good to know where we stand as a city overall, Texas wide. So, yes. Uh I agree. Um I just want to also go back in history. Uh the re one one of the main reasons that I decided to run back in 1218 was because we had such a huge budget shortfall. And one of those things that really stuck out for me was the budget. We were about to lose accreditation. I don't know if y'all remember that, but I do. And I don't want to ever go back again. Just like, you know, Councilman Vaughn says about, you know, some other issues about not wanting to go back as far as, you know, having um sufficient funding for our police and fire. We need to appreciate, not just appreciate, but make sure that we do take care of our libraries and our our parks. Um, you know, th those are the kinds of programs that touch more lives than anything else and and we need to value that. Um, I see that you're, you know, um, you're sticking by it, that you are asking for additional funding. I don't know, you know, how we're going to get it. Maybe we would need to get together with the solid waste department because, uh, they seem to be uh, running a very tight chip. But then again, they also, you know, make money, right? Y'all are not in the business of making money. So, I I do get that. But there is something to be said for what taxpayers uh want in their city and how we're going to be able to retain um just people in general for quality of life. So um I'll be watching this closely and I'm glad again that you are uh going to be able to share those um you know uh figures with us as to as far as where we stand um with the other cities. So again, thank you Laura. I know you you've been doing this. I believe you are still or hold that longest employee for the city of Yes. Corpus Christi. Yes. There you go, Laura. So, congratulations and I I hope that uh we can, you know, do justice to you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Vaughn. My comments are not that I want to close libraries or I don't value libraries because I do. I think they have an important part in the city, but at some time you need to evaluate what you've got. Yes. Um all the libraries that we've got, do you have any clue how many people actually visit them because things have changed because of technology? Yes. And and we do have those statistics and we can provide those. We still have uh good attendance at our programs. We still have a lot of visits and our circulation in print is really still quite high compared possibly to other locations. Um, I think we have a lot of families that use our services and so they use a lot of our material for their children. So, um, especially right now as summer begins, this is when we will have some of our higher numbers. Do you have the mother's groups in the mornings where they read to the kids? Do the library still have that or no? I'm sorry. Can you say that? The mother's groups where they come, they read they come in, they come to story times. Uh, some of those are related to that and then afterwards there's times where we they have like a little social icing for the mothers and so forth. So, we still have that. What is your most used library? They vary. It will depend on what we're looking at. Um, I do have some statistics here that I can probably let you know. It really depends. Are we looking at the adult circulation? Are we looking at the usage of computers or the children's? So, I can send that to you. But I will say that um they they do vary depending again on what statistic we can provide you. Okay. And the La Ratama Library, it's the biggest one in the city. That is the main library. Yeah, it is the main library. It's actually not the oldest. Um we built that one in we opened it in ' 86. Um McNeel was opened in the 60s ' 66 followed by McDonald and then we had um Hopkins come in the 80s and um then after that we had Hart. The newest one is Garcia. Okay. because I would think the Laurama would take a lot of money to maintain it. It is the main library and uh we do provide a lot of our services that support the branches are provided at the Laoratama library such as the processing of the books. We have a local history department there and um so forth. Okay, thank you. Um let me just give you a real quick since you you were wondering. So in terms of adult circulation, I'm just going to rank these. The the first one would be Neland, Laura Tama, and Garcia. For juvenile uh circulation, it's Garcia, Hopkins, and Neland. For young adult circulation, it's Neland, Garcia, and then Laura. I'm just doing the top three in terms of how they rank in circulation. And so then we have the for PCUs, it would be um McDonald, Laura, I believe, are the ones for for use of search. So, like I said, it just depends on what service we're looking at in terms of what um how we would rank them. Okay. Thank you. Okay, Laura, thank you so much for the presentation. Uh where thank Yeah. Mayor Laura brought the new library cards and you may recall where we have new library cards for different age groups. So that was something we we're following through on. And Laura, can you just So these were to be to the two additional we will continue to have the use uh card for minors that we currently have. We are introducing June 2nd as part of the kickoff for the summer reading a juvenile uh card which juvenile material only and that would be for ages 12 uh and under. And then we're also introducing a teen card and that would be for individuals to be able to check out material uh in the teen section through the um children's section. But like I said, we are still keeping the other designs that we have. We're not getting rid of that. The the parents will have the option to continue with the current designs that we have. We have three designs and so um there'll just be some changes that and we're introducing that like I said June 2nd. Great. Thank you, Laura. We're going to go ahead and move on to financial overview street funds. Go ahead, Ernie. All right. Good morning, Mayor Councelor Ernie Delarza, director of public works. Uh, today I present you the streets fund. Uh for fiscal year 2025, the consolidated public works budget totaled $115.7 million uh supporting 306 approved full-time positions and this uh excludes the CIP project funds. Uh the total street funding here includes the CIP project funds in the middle. Um and uh you can see that the funding levels have stayed between about 120 $130 million per year. And in fiscal year 25 a total of 129.4 million was budgeted for streets. The majority of funding for streets comes from the general fund. It includes 10% of industrial districts uh industrial district in Lu uh 4 cents of the property tax rate and 7% of total general fund revenue. Uh in prior years we have transferred more than the required 7% in the general fund. The uh fiscal year uh 23 budget uh for the street user fee was $12 million and we anticipated receiving about 13 million in fiscal year 24 if the fee had been renewed at that same rate. Uh this fee uh ended in December as you all know but city council if they chose could reauthorize the fee. Uh the amount of the fee should be adjusted for inflation if it does get reauthorized. And uh with the conclusion of the street user fee and the draw down of general fund fund balance uh a total of 19 million is no longer available for streets. But these funds are more than made up uh with the two new sources of funds. The first source is arterials and collectors will be give will be receiving half of the 18 cent sales tax which is the $4.5 million annually. And secondly, the voters approved bond funding for $35 million which will be used for residential streets with an anticipated 17.5 17.5 million for fiscal year 26. Uh the 22 million is more than the 19 million previously utilized. And so this means that we have adequate funding for streets in fiscal year 26. However, to continue this level of funding in 27, we'll have to identify a different funding source and stand by for any questions. C. Uh, Councilman Hernandez, just real quick, because I know we're going to talk about debt here soon, um, and some of the challenges associated with House Bill 19. We're moving what we and I understand was a voter approved for the bond projects, but it's basically street maintenance that's being moved over to debt uh to the debt spending or INS. Now, this is kind of the it's not just us that have kind of did this. when you have the the limitation of three and a half% on your maintenance and operation, some funding went over to to debt to paid for through debt, which is exempt from that 3 and 12% cap. So, I want to make sure we're cautious with that going forward because I I I don't I don't think it House Bill 19 is going to pass this year, but it's probably going to come back in some form or fashion in the future. uh simply because you know you figure out a way to pay for stuff and this is that aspect and this is a great example of that for you're moving maintenance over to to the debt side of the of the ledger. So I won't just for future reference you got to be cautious of that. Okay. Thank you Councilman uh Scott. Okay I I really was listening. So uh the street user fee generates how much? 13 million sir. 13 million and thereabouts. You you figured out a way to make this year's numbers work, but you said that's it. Tell me the tell me the the hole in next year and the following year. What's what what is their hole? Right. So, we used to make the 13 million in the street user fee, right? That money went to the maintenance of arterials and collectors. Okay. And so to uh when what was done last fiscal year, this past fiscal year was to um um basically sell debt or certain certificates of obligation in our bubbles presentation for fiscal year 25. That's how we made that program whole plus general fund transfers as well. Yeah, that's it. So this the the hole is created by two ways. One, the street user fee is no longer around, right? Yep. So this year we fixed we plugged the hole with the bond program. We have 17 million in GEO bonds that will do residential neighborhood streets, but that's one time. And so once that's spent, there's no recurring money. Uh so it's really three things. The the street user fees gone. The bond program will be exhausted. And thirdly, in the past six budgets that I've presented to council, we transferred additional general fund monies that was available because of a high higher property tax and not a doubled of the homestead exemption. That doesn't exist anymore. where we have less property tax revenue in terms of doubling the homestead exemption and and the and reducing the tax rate. So there's no discretionary or remaining general fund monies to transfer to the streets and we did that I did that for six years in a row. And how much would we just based on today's conversation would be would we will we be short in the following year's budget? Probably like 17 $18 million. Yeah. So, um, for someone that bled for that brutal experience of creating the street user fee, I'm get I get I think I get why the council did it. Um, I wish we hadn't done it. I would be open to a conversation of bringing it back, mayor. Um, I mean, it's just hard for me, uh, as someone who has been blamed for kicking a can down the road, which I don't think I did because actually I was part of the group that created the fund. Uh, I don't want to be I don't want to be the guy involved with the council that kicks the can down the road. And I and I hear what uh Gil's saying about I don't you know I think pay as you go is not a bad idea especially for maintenance. And so mayor I would be open to a conversation on um on using creating or recreating a street user fee. And I heard what you said about the escalator. I I I don't remember the details back then. I think it was just an attempt to provide the community with a certainty, you know, that's $10 or what was 538. Um, so any mayor, I'd be open to a conversation uh or at least begin with a memo that said if you do this, it takes, you know, whatever 6 months to implement. I'm curious as to how if we decided in this budget and passed the budget September one uh and if it included a street user fee, which I don't know if the votes are there, but how long and when would you implement that? You could do it pretty quick. Okay. Pretty quickly. Probably just want to give especially businesses notice. So probably we would recommend either January one or April uh May one. One of those times either January one or May. Yeah. April one or or January one to either give businesses and and residents three months to plan or six months. Yeah. To plan. I I would submit they need time to to to prepare for that. Although I I don't you know Caroline I don't remember people I mean it was brutal putting it together and I don't remember a lot of people complaining once it was in place because they understood you know it was kind of a dollar for dollar. I mean it went straight to you know the streets and so people appreciate that. I I'll I'll save my preaching for another day, but mayor, I' I'd support if that is a conversation we can have. Yes, sir. Mrs. Vaughn Mark, do you remember what year that was? Was it 16, 17? I don't remember. 14. 14, 15 when I first got on. Back then, everybody was so aggravated about their streets because they had been neglected for so long that they they they really didn't I don't think they had a problem with it and they got used to it. It was like buying a cup of coffee if you go to Starbucks. which I don't. But um that I don't think they had a problem with it. And here we are now. You have enough money. It's not your fault. You have enough money to get through 26, but that was a steady stream of revenue. And I cannot believe the only thing I can think cuz I'm blunt. I'm just going to tell you. I think it was a political reason it was time to get voted in. And they took it away, which is a shame because we're going to be right back where we were before if we don't do something because we need a steady stream of funding for those residential streets. So, I'm with you, Mark. I think we need to bring it back for a conversation and I hope that we take it seriously because we have to look to the future every time when we make these decisions. Thank you. So, that probably couldn't be furthest from the truth. I think that I respect your opinion, Councilwoman. Um, this is a conversation I had with city manager and I'm sure he had with staff and the council voted that because it was about transparency to the taxpayer. We pay taxes and we pay enough taxes. So, so I can tell you that we've had an unprecedented amount of money over six I'll tell you exactly $686 million that we've invested into streets the last six months uh six years and I understand what you're saying. Peter has to tell you exactly what there's going to be a shortage in everything. Ask him about every park. Just wait till we get to budget. And and I understand our job is to balance that and to say, "Well, where do we take or add or take or or what have you, but we had charged the taxpayer and residential user a a tax for streets that is the responsibility in my opinion of the general fund. It's never going to be enough money ever. Ever. you and I, you've served, come back and you can serve another 10 years and it's not I'm being optimistic, but it's not going to be enough because it was left behind for so so many years. But that said, you know, we had a tax on a water bill that to me didn't make any sense and to the council didn't make sense. Um, I think it's it's uh fair to say that we have prioritized our streets for I don't know now a decade maybe. You know, I I I would say I would I would say that would be accurate for the most part increased it. Obviously, we've increased that funding. Um but I don't um I I I think that we have to find we have to find we can tax people on everything $10 million$12 million pools or what have you because that's what that that was a bond. That was a $12 million decision that this that the people said we put it on the bond and the people said we're going to vote on this. We want this. But when we're paying taxes already, that is an essential function and and we had conversations and there is money to replace, we we can let's double the tax the the street fee then and and really fix it, you know. Well, maybe good idea, mayor. Well, conversation because it should have been $9. Well, maybe so, but we know we can we can go back in time all day. Anyway, that's my two cents on it, and I respect everybody's uh opinion. Uh but but I think that we have made great strides, $686 million in the last six years alone. We can tax everybody all you want. It's it's a it's a problem that is going to go after this council and the next one and the next one after this city manager and the next one and the next one. Um I I just think that we are in a we're in a good place. We're making good uh progress and it takes people like you, Ernie, and it takes people like the city manager and all of your staff to say here's how we're going to do it. We never had RPP ever. What did that do? Someone, no one could have said, "Oh, we're going to expedite this our street uh fixing our streets by five years." No one knew that. You didn't know that, Peter. You knew that. Or five times faster. Sorry. Yeah. So, anyhow, my time's up. But thank you, Ernie. I'll move on. Councilwoman, thank you, Mayor. And, uh, just again to bring back to history as to how we ended up uh, eliminating that $5.38. It was about balancing at the time. We were also uh looking for the first time of we raising the water rates and that's where I ended up actually uh supporting this but in my heart I knew that at the end it was going to come to something like this 2026. We can only get away with it for so long. Um, we have neglected our infrastructure for decades and it is never like you say like just like with the police force, we're never going to get ourselves out of it with having, you know, I don't know, uh, a thousand, you know, police officers. It's just not ever going to be enough. So I guess my point being that yes, I would be open uh to hopefully dis having a further discussion to having a dedicated fund. I've always thought that that was smart and of course I'm going to have people on my left and on my right that will disagree. But again, back to that point uh Mark about, you know, the people they actually came back to me and said I was okay with that. I was okay with that fee because they knew where that money was going and they could see it. So again, I I think it's important that we also uh and I've had a couple of conversations uh with my other city council members regarding sidewalks because we went to the rapid pavement uh program. We're no longer addressing that. And so I think there is some room to hopefully we can discuss uh how we can maybe manage if we you know are going to you know get discuss a dedicated fund I think we should at least include sidewalks in that discussion. Thank you. Yes sir. Okay. Thank you Ernie. I think that's all the questions and comments. I got the next one. Oh that's right. You you move on. Go ahead. Okay. All right. Uh so now I'm going to present the storm water fund. That's right. Um so this slide outlines the five-year plan of the storm water uh fee rate structure. Um so these are the rates proposed for fiscal year 22 through fiscal year 2026. Uh and you see on the table there for 20 fiscal year 2025. The proposed rate of 1032 which is consistent with the projections from uh our last approved budget. Uh these are our service enhancements. Uh the enhancements proposed on this slide show the goals of each level of service that we provide at Storm. Uh so on the first row there uh with 19,000 plus inlets to service, our goal is to inspect and service each inlet uh close to once a year. Um, we will continue to hold our vegetation at 20 times a year cycles for 2400 acres, which is about two times a month for an 8-month wet season and about one time a month for uh four drier months. The street sweeping will continue its transition to a city forces only program with the proposed enhancements. Um and then we have uh come a long way in developing this non-existent program and plan to ultimately sweep residential streets at four times a year and collectors and arterials at 10 times a year. Um the minor channel maintenance program which currently is on an as requested basis in addition to our in-house working towards addressing all minor channels uh three times a year and that's about an inventory of about 200 miles of roadside ditches. And then the major channel maintenance will continue our service level go to uh two time a year cycle for maintenance. That's about 108 miles of uh major channels in the in the city. And our final enhancement uh was to begin inventorying close to 700 miles of underground system uh that um up to the last enhancement that was approved for that CCTV had done had not been done before. Uh ne here is the slide that shows the 5-year enhancement forecast that we had mentioned uh earlier for 2025. We had proposed two enhancements. One of them was the maintenance of lines crew and the second one was to purchase our five sweepers which uh we've already uh bought those. Um so this brings our current fleet uh to eight, but when we get the the other five, we'll have our our our total sweepers for our program. Um, and this concludes my presentation for the stormwater uh budget and I stand by for any questions. Uh, Councilwoman Bond. So, looking at this, you've raised it every year since 20122. Yeah, Councilwoman, another way of phrasing it is we we knew what the fee should be to provide all the services, but we knew to have that fee in year one would be too much for the rateayer, right, to to put into their budget. So, there was a gradual 5-year incremental adjustment and the services also have come in over a 5-year period. So, as Ernie said, next year we'll be sweeping all of our streets um at in the in the frequency that we suggested 5 years ago, but it's taken us 5 years to get there. So, year one, we did some contract work. Year two, as an example, we bought a few sweepers, hired a few staff, more sweepers, more staff, more sweepers, and then now we're at capacity. So, it was a deliberate we had a a citizen committee that was assembled to help us put this fee together and it's a standalone fee with we were the only major and even minor Texas city uh 5 years ago that did not have a standalone storm water program. And so things like our inlets weren't being cleaned ever. Um our our ditches, bar ditches and other ditches that that drain storm water into the creeks and the and the bays and such were never being maintained. We weren't sweeping our streets. Uh so this helped us have a dedicated fee as compos just talked about just for storm water that includes conveyance of rain water rainwater events but also water quality so when we sweep our streets not only is our community cleaner but all that debris doesn't go into the bay when it rains and I get that I get that but is this going to be a continuing thing that No. So after No. So after so now after this budget we'll have it stabilized and all the services that were wished for 5 years ago will be in place. So if there is a rate g rate increase in the future, it's just to uh account for inflation. So there'll be either no rate increase or minimal for things like the co the increasing cost for fuel or maintenance of vehicles, that type of thing. Okay. Thank you. Yes. So that's a good point though for the so for the new council members, the four new council members, this was a a well planned out with citizen input. I think the committee was over 20 persons uh plan to develop a storm water program for the city. And we we gradually had a rate adjustment each year. And that's why we had Ernie put these charts back up because this is not just a one year at a time. We had to show show you all five and they're in the book. And so if we don't do a rate increase in this last year, then that means we just won't sweep the streets and cleaning the ditches that was as the initial plan uh that was approved by the community and the council. Uh so as an example, neighborhood streets in this budget, we're just doing them three times a year right now today. And even four times a year, which is the goal is not enough, but it's better than zero. And so next year's budget with this final increment, we can sweep all of our neighborhood streets every quarter, four times a year. If you look back five, six years ago, that was zero. We never did it. Uh same thing with our collectors and arterials. And the big change for this year is cleaning the uh creek the uh the the the channels that get to the creekways, right? Vegetation clearance, right? And so we had I mean when North Beach was a big issue six years ago, there were things like all the storm drains are clogged and and so we looked at well what are we doing citywide to clean these inlets, you know, because the debris gets in there and it wasn't just North Beach. We discovered that they weren't being cleaned at all really anywhere across the city. So now we have dedicated crews, vacutor trucks that have a cycle and a system and protocol for cleaning inlets and and and ditches and bar ditches and that type of thing. And I get that. It's just that it goes up every year. And I I understand the explanation, but that's hard for citizens. It's just hard. Thank you. Right. Uh Councilman Hernandez. Um, is there a reason why you didn't include the 18 cent sales tax for for storm water in your budget or because I mean because this is more right this is more maintenance. Uh, so that one is going to be for capital improvement projects. You know the storm water those will be big storm water projects. Well, we still had the the funding in there for those. I mean, I understand it's capital budget, but it is revenue that comes in on an annual basis that you can you can probably bond off of, right? But, uh, it's still funding we put in so you wouldn't have to have these massive increases in your storm water budget. Um, no, I wouldn't say it that way, Councilman. So, the the 18 cent, the the portion of the 18 cent is for storm water conveyance projects, big capital projects. It was a list. Remember what it does? I understand that, but we wouldn't had to pay them out of that out of that storm water fund anyway. No, we wouldn't have done them. We just would have done the projects. But well, like for example, the Williams Ditch project where you want to do the the box culverts the whole way through that project, you would still had to have bonded that through a revenue bond that would have been paid for out of the out of your storm water fund, right? Possibly. So I mean this it's to help cover those costs so you wouldn't have to have those increases that you would have to pay for that through a capital project, right? So I mean it's still part of your budget. Yeah. And I I think you should have included that so you can see what that's going to be how that's going to be spent in 2026. We'll do a we'll bring to council a separate excuse me a separate briefing on both of those sales tax initiatives that we talked about. Yeah, that's a good point. Okay. Yes, sir. And then also I want to make very clear because Councilman Scott did this because it ties into how this is all funded. When you guys instituted that street user fee, there was no other funding associated with it. We added 4 cents to the to the the property taxes for it. We added 1% of the general fund to it. We added the 5% for to the uh of the industrial district to go to streets that has increased from 62.5 cents to 72 cents. So, I want to make sure that we understand that we didn't just not stop use the funding. And then we added the storm water fee to the utility bill that and then we had the EPA consent decree on the utility bill that is adding cost to wastewater where we we had the all the water boils that in that TCQ came down on us pretty hard that increased our water uh cost and and debt service. We have $500 million in debt right now in the water department that we're paying on. 30% of the of the water's uh budget goes to that debt service. So, it's, you know, there and there's no protections on the utility bill. If you don't pay your utility bill, you get caught off. If you're if you're a disabled veteran, if you're a over 65, you get capped on your on your property taxes. So, there's protections there that are not in the utility bill. So, I want to make sure that we're doing this. We're if you know, if we're going to do this, it should be out of the the property taxes and general fund. We had six cents that was that we had authorized initially for it, but we never took that last two cents because of the the legislation that caps us at 3 and a half%. If we want to do it, we should go on a referendum and say, do you want that additional two cents on top of whatever else we're doing to put into the streets? I would rather do that than put it on the utility bill where the the citizens don't have a right to vote on it. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Scott. Yes. So, first of all, we're the ones that put the six cent uh on the ballot for the citizens to vote. I'm not sure why we didn't do the last two over the last 10 years, but it didn't happen. My point is we're spending $10 a day this time, but next year we're going to spend $5 a day. And so if we don't do something unless we find magically find what you said $20 million then we're not going to be able to continue the street program that you have articulated today. If it's a twocent increase to the voters I'm open to that conversation. I just want to reiterate that based on what you've said today we're going to have a massive reduction in street maintenance programs. And I guess maybe that's some reconstruction in there. uh in and not this year's budget, but next year's budget. And um so and I I I always thought it was interesting this whole, you know, it should be taxes instead of a fee. Last time I checked, in all fairness, Carol writes the checks, but we're still writing the check, right? I mean, I don't know if I'm writing a tax check or if I'm writing a a user fee tech check. And then the other issue is no matter what age you are, you're you're you're paying the street user fee. I I don't know if that's the right answer, but let's not get lost in this conversation. A what was done in the past, I know we make a lot of comments about failure of past councils and I think the failure of past councils was not getting the last two cent increase that the voters voted on. But I my main comment is we're I see a gap coming and I just think we ought to have the conversation to either fill the gap or acknowledge we're not going to fill the gap and and that's okay but I think we need to do it you know uh we need to do it actively not you know not not sit and wait that's that's probably not even okay thank you Ernie do you have one more or no no I'm done yes ma'am thank you okay thank you Ernie so we're going to go ahead break for lunch for 30 minutes and then we will come back and start with page 64 or the financial overview for Corpus Christie water. Oh go Okay, we're going to go ahead and reconvene our workshop and we are going to skip over to um debt overview. So, if we can have that presentation and mayor, just you and I had talked, but the the the potential rest of the afternoon could include just two topics. We know there's a few more in the book and we can bring some of those back if we want like the CCW overview but just for the sake of time u I think we can get two things done overview and we have our financial advisor here and then from that that'll conclude the budget workshop and then we'll go directly into the animal care presentation and our facilitator is or not our consultant is here as well from California so we don't want to miss out so it's quite likely we could go to 4:00 if it's the will of the council u but we could probably begin the animal care two and then we can go to three or four. We want to make sure that we get the animal care obviously the briefing um included and so we we can circle back to Drew, right? We'll circle back at some in another council meeting on the on the CCW. Okay. So, two more presentations and we'll be done for today. So, there'll be the debt and then we'll do the animal care presentation. Okay. Thank you. And who's doing the uh debt? Yep. So, Victor Kyogre, our financial adviser, and um Dan Wegmire, his his assistant is his co-partner is here as well. But Victor is going to present. This is in our book. I'm beginning on what page here? 75. Okay. On page 75. Honorable mayor, members of the council, Mr. Zenon, thank you for having me here today. Uh for the record, my name is Victor Kogo with Specialized Public Finance and we have the honor of representing the city as your financial advisor. My partner Dan Whitmill, he must be in the car still eating his sandwich, but uh he's here as well and he helps me out and uh we're happy to be here today and present this information to you and provide you an overview of where you currently stand with debt um and answer any questions that you may have. So, I know we're already in overtime and with respect to your time. So, the good news is I talk very fast. Uh the bad news I I tend to talk a lot so we'll try maybe they'll even out a little bit. But uh we did prepare a very brief presentation for you here. Um and I know there's a few new council people and welcome. Congratulations on your election. And uh I haven't been here in a while. Obviously that's like 6 months later. So I'm a little late to the game. But um here is just some financing tools that cities typically use to fund their capital improvement projects. Uh here in the state of Texas, whenever you're going to borrow money, it's going to take you longer than a year to uh pay that back. you have to go through the through vigorous processes and so we help you with that as your financial advisor. We guide you through that along with the legal attorneys, but at the end of the day, our job as your financial adviser is try to get you the best interest rate possible whenever you do need to borrow money for your capital improvement needs or if you need to refinance some bonds. So, the uh all these four primary ones that that we're showing here in this chart, the city has used and uh likely will continue to use uh in the future. So, the first one is general obligation bonds. I'm not going to go one by one, but you do have that as a resource and the city knows how to get a hold of me if you have any additional questions. But general obligation bonds, in order to use that financing tool, the city would first have to have a successful bond election, identify the project, identify the cost, ask the voters for that, and then you could issue that tool. Um, that's going to get the best interest rate uh based off of these uh security mechanisms that we use for the here in the state of Texas. The second tool uh certificates obligation they actually get the same type of interest rate to the from the perspective of the bond investor and the rating agencies the um security or the revenue that you use to repay that is considered very stable and strong and so because of that those interest rates are about the same but there's some restrictions in here in the state that we have to work around if you want to use certific obligation past a couple legislative sessions those restrictions have been getting a little more ownorous for the city. Um, and so now there's limitations on what you could actually finance the certificates obligation and uh they've also extended the petition time frame that voters have in order to potentially stop that. Uh, so information there and then tax notes are another tool that gets very attractive interest rates. The main limitation there for cities is that uh typically those tax notes tend to be smaller in size and the reason why is because uh the maximum repayment term for a tax not so obviously you don't want to borrow too too much because then those annual payments are going to be maybe too ownorous and require too much of a tax rate increase. Uh those first three are are what we call property tax supported or property tax secured financing tools that are allowed under the state. There's another tool that we've used in the past particular CC water uh called revenue bonds and we term them combined fee I'm sorry utility system revenue bonds and so those revenue bonds do not have the pledge to the bond investor like property taxes like we do with geos cos and taxes those the bond investor when they go into that investment they're um analyzing the financial health of the utility system the rate structure the revenue history and then the potential additional revenue venue history. So, uh those tend to get a little bit higher interest rates because as bond investors, they view bonds that are secured by property taxes to be um safer for them and aren't subject to volatility based off of market. So, uh just a really high level uh overview there. So, where does the city of Corpus Christie stand? And so, these numbers are as of September 30th, 2025 since we're talking about the next fiscal year. Uh currently we have general obligation bonds, certificates obligation and also tax notes. And within that bucket uh we utilize and secure that debt using property taxes. And and in our world that's considered general obligation debt. And so but it's uh it stands for those other financings, not just the bond. So currently after this fiscal year, what we'll have outstanding is a little over $497 million in principal outstanding that are geo cos or tax notes um that are secured by the city's property taxes. And so when we look at this, one of the ratios that the credit agencies use is a what we call a per capita. They're basically looking on a debt per capita. They're trying to get a gauge as to how much debt is outstanding. Um, and so currently based off of that in our population about 317,000 that debt per capita number is 1,567. And assuming if you approve additional debt issuances this year, that's going to uh change too. On the utility system side, the outstanding debt after the end of this current fiscal year is going to be close to $1.3 billion. um that one the the rating agencies and M investors they don't really look at it on a per capita basis because um u these other ratios and you know how much revenue you're bringing in. So but I did want to include that for you Councilman Hernandis uh because I know we talked hardily about that last year. So if you look at that ratio it's 4,000 but that's just looking at the population within Corpus Christie about 317,000. As you know, CC Water is a regional provider of services and so the actual people that are actually paying into the system and paying rates extends beyond your city limits. And so that figure is a little bit higher. What's not included here, ladies and gentlemen, is the $250 million of authorized but unissued bonds that we have from the November 2022 and November 2024 bond elections. And we'll give you an update as to where we stand there now. So, this is debt that's currently on the books at the end of this fiscal year. Uh, this is u the the breakdown between all the debt issuances that we have, and I know it sounds uh numerous, but there's 33 bond issuances that are secured by the city's property taxes. Um, and and that's where we come up with the principal amount of $497.9 million. The final repayment term on all this is 2004. As you can see, over time, the annual debt service payment is going down because that's reflecting you paying off bonds and getting those off the books. Uh, currently this year, that annual payment was about 70 $72 million. Um, if if no debt is issued, again, the the payment for next year is going to be about $56 million. But that was structured there on purpose because we know that we have additional needs that were um authorized to us by your voters to address streets and public safety and everything. So when we're structuring this, we want to be mindful of that that we still have debt to issue. And so how are we going to plan that moving forward? Um and so here is the uh what we call a debt service schedule or amortization schedule. In our in the bond industry, we try to make everything mysterious and hard probably just to make us look smart, but this is just a repayment schedule that you have on a fiscal year basis. So you can see here starting in 2026, next year the annual principal and interest payment that the city uh needs to repay its bond investors is $55.2 million. And as you can see there over time it starts going down as you're paying off those bonds that you initially issued. The city has been pretty conservative whenever you do issue geo cos or tax notes especially geos and cos. The city has uh typically kept its repayment term to a 20 year 20-year repayment term. What we're starting to notice with our a lot of clients throughout the state, even cities, is that they're starting to extend that a little bit. They're trying to go out 25 years and 30 years because they their borrowing costs have increased, but at the same time, they may not want to incur such a big tax rate to support that. So, uh, right now, we're still using a pretty conservative repayment term of 20 years or less for your transactions. Here is the look of at your property values. So whenever we look at this as a bond investor, rating agencies, and you're issuing debt that's going to be secured by property taxes, the biggest criteria as to how much we could borrow is actually how much property taxes we have because we're using that as a revenue source to repay that debt. And so in the past few years, kind of reflective of everything else that's happened to Texas, the appraisals or the property values have been uh increasing except for this current year that we're in. uh we saw actually a a decrease for numerous reasons that we'll talk about here in a second, but we had a little decrease. Uh on average the last 5 years you were growing about 6% per year. Uh this current year we actually went down almost 2%. In our models moving forward uh we're using a 2% and a 1%. We're trying to be as conservative as possible because we don't want to overpromise uh you as to what you could afford and when you could afford it. And so again, we follow very conservative u planning methods. This is the breakdown of your property tax rate. It's a cons really it's two buckets that you're allowed to use. The first one is maintenance and operation. That's at 37.8 cents per $100 valuation. Uh that as you know is going to be for maintenance and operation and to uh continue providing those services that you do from the general fund. the interest in syncing fund your debt service rate that has been uh 22 cents uh for a long time and and it's been stable for a long time and that's been for a purpose. We know that we have capital improvement needs, but we also want to provide some stability to the taxpayers with that tax rate. And so that as you could see there in the last 5 years, the actual INS tax rate has ma been the same at 22 cents. The maintenance and operation tax, you can see there it's going down. Uh many times it's because your property values have been going up or any uh tax rate decisions that the council uh makes. The debt service fund, that's very specific. That's under federal and state law. uh once that money goes into the INS tax rate or the debt service tax rate, that money can only be used for the repayment of existing uh uh debt and existing principal and interest payments, we can't transfer that money out of the INS to uh support operations or to pay salaries or anything like that. So, it's very restrictive. So, uh one of the things that has changed here is particularly for the new council folks is that um you've u made some adjustments to your property tax exemptions. Uh, one of the reasons why the city um had a I guess a challenging budget year last year and again potentially this year. The biggest driver of that was the increase in the homestead exemption. Basically, when you if you live here in the city of Corpus Christie, I own a home. Uh before I could get uh 10% shaved off of my appraised value of that house and then I'm going to pay taxes on that 90% of that uh value. Basically, uh the city uh decided to increase that from 10% to 20%. And so that was one of the drivers as to the revenues were now more restricted and limited as you're budgeting and and looking at debt. Uh we also increased the over 65 homestead exemption, the disabled person exemption, but that was not as a big of a factor in terms of the reduction of the revenue that you were normally used to working with for your general fund and also the repayment of your debt. Uh but there's just a chart of the current and and um uh previous tax exemptions. So where do we stand with our current authorized but unissued bonds? In November 2022, the voters authorized the city to issue up to $125 million to take care of uh really four different types of categories or propositions. We have streets, park and recreation, public safety, and library. Uh as you can see there, the amounts for each proposition. Once you set that amount for each proposition, that's amount that should go and stay within that proposition for that purpose. Uh on the right side, you could see the uh turnout and the for and against for that election. This next slide is the November 2024 bond election. This past November, actually saw even a higher success rate, uh which was very unique here in Texas. That was a kind of tough cycle for many uh folks that were trying to have bond elections. And so you can see here um the voters allowed you to issue up to $175 million on the behalf to cover those different uh property or capital improvements that you identified under that program. To date, we've not issued any of this authorization. Uh and just to get back here, I'm sorry I missed this part, but in the 2022 authorization of that 125, uh last year we issued $50 million. So what's remaining is $75 million. And we're probably going to issue a portion of that uh as well during this fiscal year as was uh planned during the program. And so uh the estimated project needs I guess that was a good segue to this slide, but the e estimated project needs uh or financing needs under uh general obligation debt is about $30 million and that's going to be from your November 2022 bond authorization. Certification about $43.2 2 million and tax notes of about 11.12 million. Again, that tax note has to be within seven years and it's going to serve to help address some of the uh shortfalls that the general fund had in terms of its maintenance and operations and pay for some capital expenditures on that side. So, the final page here, ladies and gentlemen, if uh you've not had enough seeing me, I'm going to be back on Tuesday uh on May 13th. At that time, we're going to give you a little fuller presentation with respect to the financing plan for this fiscal year based off of the capital needs that the administration has identified that need to be funded uh through the issuance of general obligation bonds, certificates obligation, and taxes in addition to the utility system as well. So, we'll provide you a little bit more further extensive presentation at that time to give you a little bit more details about what the plans are for this uh fiscal year. But uh that was pretty fast and so I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Okay. I was waiting for that light. Councilman Hernandez. Okay. In terms of you know we we've said we have capacity in terms of general obligation debt uh where we wouldn't have to have a tax increase but we did have a tax increase because of that debt. So like um the cap on maintenance and operations is three and a half% but we had a 6% 6% uh tax increase on the no new tax revenue rate for this year. Could you explain how that works? Yes sir. And that is a matter of nomenclature and uh what you mean by tax increase. So the uh and this precedes us too. We've been here two years, but the practice that the city had whenever it's approached bond invest or bond voters to take care of your bond needs and pay for it using that interest and syncing fund or the debt service tax rate. Uh whenever if you weren't on council or you didn't work for the city, some of the messaging that you heard was uh this is a no tax rate increase bond program, right? So that's where the nomenclature comes in. uh what the city has control of and and and and and could set as city council is you could only control the tax rate that you set. And so when we developed these plans for you most recently and what was done before us with our predecessors is that uh we were given the task of saying our INS tax rate is currently 22 cents per $100 valuation based off of our existing debt and these future needs that we have. How can we fit in additional financing needs to cover our streets and public safety projects uh through the issuance of geo bonds while keeping the INS tax rate 22 cents that the city has maintained and kept its promise to the voters. But there's also a different discussion in that um I always advise my clients to always say tax rate because there's a difference between tax rate and tax levy. So the tax rate you could set and it's based off of a percentage of your property value, but the tax levy is the actual revenue coming in from that rate that you set, right? And so as a city council, you really don't have too much control as to a property owner, homeowner, business owner as to what that check they're going to write each year to repay uh or to pay property taxes. Um and you so you really don't have control on the tax level. You can't control whether they pay it on time or not, or if they pay it at all. you don't have control as to the property values that the appraisal sets on it. So the property levy likely in in because we live in Texas and property values have been increasing for us homeowners even though the tax rate has been steady at 22 cents as the city um uh informed the community. U the actual tax levy changes each year based off of the value of my home and also what type of exemptions I get. So the tax levy, you're exactly right, it has changed, but the city never indicated that it would not change when there was uh discussing these bond programs. Okay. So I'll translate that into English. Okay. Um that it's not the rate and words matter. So there's two different things. You have the rate which is the actual percentage of your property value and then there's the property value that ch that fluctuates that that rate could increase your taxes regardless of if the rate changes your property value will increase your taxes. Yes. So we have a cap on that on maintenance and operation of what's now referred to as the no new tax rate no new revenue tax rate which used to be called the effective tax rate which combines both of those. So even though we're saying that there's no tax rate associated with it or tax rate increase associated doesn't mean your taxes aren't going to go up with the bonds. That's exactly right. Yes. Thank you. But uh the communication was for just tax rate. Uh Councilman Vaughn, this is probably off the track, but what I'm concerned about is, you know, we have lots of things that we're going to need to do. We have the del plant coming up. We have other water sources that we're looking at. How are we looking for our borrowing capacity? In terms of your capacity, um you actually have a lot of capacity in terms of if you're just focusing on your interest in syncing fund side and that chart that we showed breaking down your uh debt. I'm sorry if you could uh pull it up. Um the on your on the on the INS tax side, we have currently general obligation debt of uh just about half a billion dollars. And so that's that one bucket. And um in terms of that, in order to support those annual payments for that debt that's existing and potential debt that we're going to issue, we have to keep our INS tax rate at 22 cents per $100 valuation. Under uh state law, you could go above that, but it's just been the count the decision of the council to keep that INS tax rate, try not to increase it, but still support these bond programs. And so, uh currently, uh we're still on track. It's just really dependent on when we're going to need the monies and we're going to need the financing to uh achieve that. On the water side, that's a separate bucket, separate category, and that one are different calculations. But on the property tax side, you actually have quite a bit of room, assuming you're comfortable with increasing the tax rate of 22 cents per $100 valuation. So, um that's where and it's also dependent on future property values as well. And I get that, but in the end, it's still all in this big pot. So that's what I'm concerned about because if we keep approving certain things at the council, like we just had to do an $8 million building that we needed, but that's going to eventually affect the whole thing. Isn't that correct? Uh yes, that's correct. Uh thank you. Councilman Scott, tell me again why we have uh decided and I probably was part of it. Why do we decided to keep this at INS at 22 cents? Is that what what's the what's the ideology? What's the philosophy behind that? Yeah. So the 22 cents helps us pay for uh prior issued bond programs. Yeah. Basically that rate has to be set high enough or enough to pay back the debt. I get that. Why? Why if we decide that it stays at 22 and doesn't go to 24, right? Yeah. So, the city, we have choices on that rate. We could do one of two things. One, you could move some of the M rate over to the INS and borrow more. You know, if you stay within the bottom line total, the 59 cents, you can move some of the maintenance and operations over to the debt side, issue bigger bond programs. That's an option. Another option is you can increase the INS, keep the the M the same and have a higher overall tax rate tax rate. Like you go to the voters and say, "Hey, we want you to vote yes for I'm making $100 million." And it's be a two cent rate increase, right? That would be two cents to the INS. You could say if you wanted to do uh in this last bond program, let's see, what do we do? The last bond program, we did uh almost 90 million in streets. So on the next bond program, if we said voters, we if you want to do 200 million just in streets and do some parks and public safety also, then uh that would that would necessitate this increase in the tax rate. That's possible and we can do that. And the reason the way we've been able to avoid that was because of the significant increases in valuations over the last, you know, whatever six, eight years. I wouldn't say significant, but because of the increases. Well, I mean, yeah, this year it's down, I guess. And overall, our growth is about 6%. Yeah. You know, on a on a 10-year, but because of growth in value, uh, base value and new value, uh, we've been able to, uh, essentially do what you're saying. Yeah, that's interesting. Side note, that 6% seems like a lot to me, but I guess in the in the Texas scheme of things, it's not right. In Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston growth is tremendous. That's educational. Thank you. Yeah. Yes, sir. Thank you, mayor. Okay, I think that's all the questions and comments. Victor, great. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Great to see everybody. Great. Thank you. And Victor is gonna, as he said, he'll be here next Tuesday and uh for an item on the agenda. All those items that are on the debt list are in the budget today. So, it's not a new it's not like a new program. It's issuing it's getting authority to go ahead and begin the issuance of the debt for things that were approved last summer, you know, with the budget late last summer. uh some of the things have already been approved by council in terms of contracts being awarded. So just as a sometimes council gets confused and is that a new program entirely. Uh so this is from the current year address HP19. Um do you have enough do you have enough capacity to mentally to do it the I'd like to hand it over to the specialist. Uh but yeah I'm I'm very much aware of it and know a lot about it but we do. Thank you councilman. We do have one slide. Maybe we'll do that and then we'll go to animal care. Was that Ryan or? No, I think Heather's gonna do it. Are you going to do it, Heather? Heather went up there to testify on HB19, so she knows about it. Yeah. Yeah. So, if we can go to slide 89. Oh, here it is. 89. Okay. So, HB19. Um, there's several different provisions within HB9, but these are the ones that would most directly affect us. So the first thing is is that it does call for a uniform election date of November, which we as a city already do our elections in November. So it's not as much effect, but if we ever wanted to do anything in May, if this were to pass, we would not be able to do that. It would have to be in November. Um the second item is that it caps the debt service payments for taxbacked debt. So our for geos and cos and tax note for up to 20 only 20% of the average property tax collections over the past three years. And so um what that and what that would do is basically limit the amount of debt that can be issued by limiting the amount of debt service. So if you look at our current um collections, so over the past three years, our current collections in property taxes have been $151 million. So 20% of that is $30.2 million. Our current debt payments right now are $61 million. So, we exceed that 20% cap. And if this were to pass today and this was implemented on not only our all of our past debt, we couldn't issue um any additional debt until approximately 2038. That would include the over $200 million that has already been approved by the voters. Um because this does not take into consideration whether or not that debt was approved by the voters or not. So when you I'm sorry I'm interrupt you just for clarity and for everybody's understanding and mine. So um when you say by the voters you're referring to bonds to geo bonds. Geo bonds specifically geo bonds. Yes. Because those are approved by the voters. So like I said if this was to go into um effect as of September 1 and included all of our debt that is currently outstanding that is taxbacked not and this actually also does not provide any type of provision for self-supported debt. So our solid waste even though we it is a it is within the general fund we choose to issue CO bonds instead of issuing revenue bonds for that because the usually the interest rates are better and then also revenue bonds require a separate reserve. We'd have to set several million dollars aside for that. So we choose CO bonds to issue that because that is an allowable use. In addition at the airport we issue CO bonds which is backed by um airport revenue. It's not backed by property taxes. The HB19 does not allow for any type of issue of CO bonds at all whether they're self-supporting or not. Um, so we would not be able to issue our current authorization. So none of the 2024 bond money would be able to be issued nor the remainder of the 2022 bond would be able to issue and then we would not be able to issue any additional tax back bonds until 2038. So those projects some of them on 2022 under the 2022 bonds and 24 would not be able to would not be able to be done. Plus we also work off of of reimbursement resolutions. So a lot of times we start spending the money and then we'll reimburse ourselves with bonds so we can better match our bond spend with you know the bond issuance with our spend down. So there actually could be a provision where we would not have uh we would not have that money be able to be issued to reimburse ourselves. Wow, that's unbelievable. And there is no threshold for cities under No, there's as as it's written. There is not. The only thing that I've seen so far is there is a potential committee substitute that would say we're going to grandfather your current issued debt that's issued not authorized and then debt that's issued. And then the 20% would only apply to anything going forward. So in that scenario, you know, we have $220 million outstanding in those authorizations. That would take up approximately um so if our if our 20% is $30 million. If we were to issue the 220 million that's already authorized, that would take up about about 17.5 million of that $30 million. um until basically you know until other things fell off and say 3038. So we would be very limited to what we would be able to issue um in the future. Okay. Councilman uh Compos. Okay. I barely got all that but uh it looks like we would be against this. Yes. Okay. So, uh, I just do we know where our our representatives stand on this bill? Well, as it was mentioned, I went and actually testified against it. Okay. Um, we have we have filed opposition to the bill. Okay. Um, our our we've been working with all of our, um, large cities, um, when I went and testified, the CFO from the city of San Antonio, Houston, Austin, um, were all there um, testifying against it. Um, this bill has not come out of committee yet. Um, so we'll see if it makes it out of committee. So, yeah, my question was like our, you know, uh, state representatives, you know, do we know where they stand now? Do we need to I'm not sure. We can ask Ryan. I'm not sure where our local representatives, but our That would be very, very important. But our delegation, do we have letters of support or what do we have from our legislation? We'll see with we'll see if Ryan can email the council this evening on where he he may not even know, but if he does know where the position of our legislative delegation members are. Okay. We'll have him email that to you so you know. Okay. Well, I I think it would be helpful. No, extremely. Yeah, we appreciate you bringing it up. Okay. Yeah. I hope it's against uh Councilman Hernandez. Um you're right. It's not out of committee, but the chair of the committee is actually the author of the bill. Yes. Uh, I don't think it, like I said, I don't think it's going to pass the way it's written and it'll probably be split up and but it's probably going to come back in some aspect. So, what I was saying earlier about having moving things that would normally be an M and then having them paid for by INS has been kind of the the the I think the the catalyst for that to happen because if you know, you just shift money, right? So, I think we're at what 37%. about 36% 36 36 36% somewhere in there. So it's uh you know we would be we wouldn't be able to issue any more debt at least not on the on the general obligation side exactly for about another 10 years. Um but half of that is being what taken up by solid waste under certificates of obligation. So that's why you know I wouldn't say half I don't think it's probably not half but it's important. I'd have to I'd have to do the math. Yeah. I think you mentioned that about 50 you said $50 million I think worth of of cos were out there for solid waste. We have almost 500 million in outstanding tax supported debt. So it' be less than that. Well, I only counted the cos. I didn't count the the general obligation uh debt that's under the the bond uh general obligation bond, not the not the cos. I understand it's all the same, but it I'm trying to separate it. Um there are some that I didn't include. uh probably about another 20 25 million associated with it. Um but it's probably going to come back in the next two years. So we probably think of strategies to maneuver this so we can get out of that. um or you know I don't know if that would limit us in the next bond cycle but anyway I think this is a significant thing uh and it will come back and it won't I'm wondering if we can have some aspect of this to not just consider property taxes obviously that's not the only funding source we get money from sales tax we get money from other sources yeah so the the challenge is is that because of the way the state statute is written I mean they are taxbacked and so you have to make sure you have sufficient tax a portion of your tax rate to be able to allocate to that. So, um I know that part of our legislative group has um done some lobbying to see if we could especially since we're in a unique situation with our industrial district agreement. So, that is money that normally would have been property taxes, but because of our agreements that we have is now a you know payment in lie of taxes. And so there has been some um information given to the legislators to consider that as something that we can use at least for the calculation. We can't pledge that revenue um because it is property taxes is all we can pledge but at least be able to utilize that within the calculation. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Um and then the third port part of this is then also it limits the issuance of certificates of obligations. So you would have to meet basically two a kind of a two-part test. One is that you would only be able to issue cos if you are doing something that complies to that is a forced compliance with a law. Um and at that point that law has to be officially notified that we were in violation of a law or it has to be a federal court order. Um in the event of public health emergencies and or disaster recovery. So before you could issue CO, you'd have to meet one of those three criteria. And then it could only be utilized for basically streets, landfill, utility system, flood control, drainage, and fire, police stations, and detention centers. So any type of administrative and any type of library, animal shelter, anything like that, that use has been removed from the you from the allowable uses. But even more, you have to meet one of these three criteria before you can even consider what type of things it can be issued for. Okay. Okay. Well, Heather, being that this is pending in committee right now, I'm sure that uh Ryan will send us something as soon as he has anything to report back because this is extremely impactful, right? We're asking him also to email the council on the disposition. Heather, thank you. Great. So, mayor, we're going to transition now to the city gate assessment. And we do have uh Jan Glickman, our lead consultant, who is here. And you do have a separate handout for this. It was passed out earlier. We do. And uh we do want to recognize uh several audience members who are here. We have a lot of our partner agencies here. Mayor, is this the one you're asking about? Yeah. Is there any way Let's see. Who can someone send this electronically the presentation? Yes, we can to email it to the council or Yeah. to be able to Okay, we uh it should Okay, we'll email it to you. It should be in Legar. It is in Legisar because it was I didn't see it. You didn't see it? We posted it last week in legis. Yeah, I'll go back. We're going to go back. We're going to check because it's the same one that we posted last week. We've made no change. Give him a minute. So, we can pull it up. This one right here and you emailed it. Okay. It's in there. Councilwoman Paxton has said it's in there. Yeah, it's the same one, Councilman. Yes, sir. Yeah. So, the presentation that uh Jan Glickman will go over is the same one we attached to the agenda that was posted last Friday. However, a paper copy has been provided to you if you want to uh go through it. And then Jan Glickman is here who's going to present and many of you had questions from her last week. So, she met I think all of you last week. And then, mayor, uh, we want to just recognize the animal care advocates that have joined us today in the audience. Whether they were volunteers or still may be or some of the leaders in some of our nonprofit animal welfare uh entities, we want to thank them for being here today. So, I'm going to turn it over to to uh That's right. And we do have a advisory board member here with us and I got a chance to speak to him uh earlier. Yeah. Okay. So thank the animal care advisory board members as well. We'll be doing a special presentation to them in their next board meeting which is coming up I think next week or so. So but they've been kept along they've been kept informed along the way as well. So Miss Glickman from California we're going to turn it over to you. Welcome to Texas. Thank you. Good afternoon madame mayor and members of council. City manager Zenoni. Um, it's my pleasure to give you a presentation this afternoon on the assessment uh that Citygate did of the animal care services department. There we go. So, um, the first slide is just uh the objectives of the presentation this afternoon. um going to give you an overview of Citygate, a little bit about who we are and the project scope, give you an overview of the animal care services department. Then we'll go into the key findings and recommendations, the implementation plan, and then an opportunity for questions. So, Citygate is a private company that's been in business for over 30 years and um we started off as an entity that mostly was reviewing public safety uh departments. Our model is our virtual city hall. So we uh do analysis of basically anything that goes on within a city or a county government and our consultants are um mostly retired executives from the governmental se sector. Um for about the last 20 years we've been doing uh animal care analysis and we serve local governments throughout uh northern uh throughout throughout the country. This is the team that did this particular project. So, our president uh at the top, Chad Jackson, and then I was the project manager, and then we had three other consultants, um two that were animal services specialists, and Andy Green, who was our financial specialist. Just a little bit about me, I started in animal welfare back in 1979. I have both a bachelor's and master's degree from UC Davis in animal services. I knew my whole life I was going to be uh working in animal care and I've worked in five different agencies over the years. My last gig was with Santa Barbara County for 19 years as their director, retired from there in 2018. I was already consulting with Citygate at that time and I've done uh multiple projects with citygate. I also do a little bit of work with the uh California state organization that is the animal shelter uh membership organization. The other primary consultant on this project was Susan Fineold. Um as Peter uh mentioned, I come out of California. Susan actually comes out of Georgia and she started in the nonprofit sector um but then also morphed over into governmental agencies and ran some big animal uh care programs within Georgia and she started off doing um consulting herself uh individually and then came over and joined citygate. So we've been working together for about 10 years. And then this is just an overview of the timeline for this particular project. It was approved by your council in September of 2023 and we actually uh initiated the contract in October and we launched the the project in October of 2023. We were on site for observations, staff interviews, um talking to uh various other uh uh constituents within the community in December of 2023 and then we came back again in May of 2024. Um we did the report development throughout that process um finalizing it in September of 2024. Your current director of animal care services was up uh officially appointed in May, but she did start in January of 2024. And we had a mid project check-in in April of 2024. Um which is a a process that citygate always does. We always have a mid- project review. We go through make sure our facts are accurate. we're on the right track uh before we finalize our reports. And then uh I was back in February to support implementation. Um and the contract extension goes currently goes through December of this current year. So this is just a visual of the timeline. And then in regard to the scope of the project, um we were looking at does the department align with national best practices. Um we evaluated the facility, the workflow, the animal flow with efficiency and effectiveness in mind. We looked at the departmental culture. We did quite a bit of analysis of staffing including job titles, compensation scheduling everything related to staffing. We reviewed the operational policies and procedures. We analyzed historical operation data. We looked at the marketing program and the community outreach. And then, of course, we made recommendations for improvements. Okay. So, now we'll just do a quick overview of animal care services and what they do. So, the facility hours of operations, facilities open six days a week, closed on Sundays and holidays. The office is open from 8 to 5:30 all the days that they're open. Adoptions and free microchipping occurs on the open days between the hours of 1 and 5:30. Field operations are 7 days a week. Um with regular operations, regular patrol 8 to 5:30 and on call 24/7. And then kennel operations of course caring for the animals also seven days a week from 7:30 to 5:30. The departmental timeline. So the department has not always been a standalone. It originated as a division of the health district probably going back to um possibly the initiation of the the program in the 1970s. It was transferred under the police police department in 2012, transferred into neighborhood services in 2021, and became a standalone department in June 23, not too long before the assessment was requested. And then this slide goes over the past six years adopted budget. um you'll see that it's been progressively going up. This is pretty normal and expected within animal care agencies. And if you look at the very bottom line, um it also directly relates to the number of employees. So a big part of the budget of operating and running an animal care facility is in the staffing the facility. Um I think everybody knows it's over there on Holly Road and there's you operate one facility currently which is an efficient model for a city of this size. The facility consists of three buildings of kennels, one maintenance building, one laundry building and the administrative building. And this visual just puts the uh designations of the buildings onto the slide. The kennels uh current capacity is 118 dog kennels. There are 39 cat kennels. And then there's the maintenance building, the laundry and storage area, and the admin building. So before I go into the different departmental um divisions, I thought I would just touch on um I'm understanding an issue had come up about the incinerator um and the fact that the incinerator is currently not functioning at the shelter. Um, and I know that concerns have been raised about the alternative disposal method which is currently um, uh, being utilized through the landfill. Uh, I just want you to know that uh, disposal in a landfill is a normal animal care operation disposal method. There are not uh, not every shelter has their own incinerator. Many do not have an incinerator. So alternatives um have to be uh discovered and the landfill is one. Um there's actually another one that sometimes in involves um basically decomposition of the uh or or re reuse of the um remains. So, um I think that's gone to a lesser utilization, but over the years I've seen that as well. Um so, it is it is a normal procedure for shelters to utilize the landfill. Um it's my so so as far as the incinerator, when we did the report, there were no issues. The incinerator was operational. There was no notation in the report about the incinerator because at that time there were no concerns about it. Um uh the department has identified an alternative source which will be an alternative um cremation service through a private vendor and it's my understanding that that's going to be going forward from here. So now I'm just going to go into the departmental divisions of animal care services. This is the current org chart and it includes 57 budgeted FTEES. Um at the time we did this presentation uh there were 10 vacancies. I think it actually might be a little bit higher than that right now. Um it is not uncommon to have a high vacancy rate in an animal shelter. It's very difficult work. Um people go into it with one concept of what it might be and then when they actually start working at the shelter, they find out it's not the glamour, it's not the the job they thought it was going to be and they they move on to something else. Um, so this is not an unusually high vacancy rate, but it does obviously challenge the operations because the organizational chart is based on what we think our needs are and then when we can't fill the vacancies that becomes an additional challenge to getting the work done. So the customer care division uh involves four FTEEs currently and they are obviously the front-facing staff uh at the front desk. They provide the customer service. They answer the phones. They process adoptions and redemptions of lost and found animals. They sell licenses. They process the public records requests. They do all the front end work at the shelter. Field operations includes 22 FTEEs. Um, these are the officers that go out into the field. It also includes five investigators who are more specialized in uh what they uh look at or um conducting the higher level investigations. Um the department uh investigates fights, cruelty cases, um dangerous animals, uh loose, abandoned, sick, um neglect, uh complaints, as well as overseeing the rabies control program. The kennel operations is currently comprised of 13 FTEEs and they are there seven days a week as we said providing the essential care for all the animals at the shelter. They also do the intake process when the animals come in. They provide the feeding, the cleaning and the enrichment of the animals at the shelter. They also assist with adoption during open hours for adoptions, lost and found services and the microchipping. The live res release team is currently made up of four FTEEs and one contractor and they facilitate the adoptions and managing the foster program. They collaborate with rescue partners and oversee transfers. They coordinate the volunteer program. They do behavior assessments and they also provide animal enrichment. The veterinary clinic is comprised of four FTEEs. It's one veterinarian, one lead in the veterinary clinic and two assistants. They provide the medical care for all the animals in the shelter, ensuring they have their current vaccinations, they're getting dewormed, their spayneuter surgeries, and then treatment of all the sick and injured animals. So now we'll go into the assessment. So in kind of the big picture um the assessment does offer insights for improvement and looks to align animal care services with best practices. So workplace culture was something we thought there needs to be a focus on. Um there are some recommendations in the report regarding that particular aspect. uh it was recommended to increase the focus on the education and community outreach aspects of the program. We know that change is difficult. People resist change. So, it's going to take time. It's going to take commitment. It takes resources and um it will be a multi-year approach. It's already been a multi-year approach since we've been working on this. Um all the improvements are inter interconnected. So everything is basically interwoven and um we believe and we know that uh implementation of the recommendations will increase the live release rate. So as far as key findings and again these are really high level but um additional staffing is needed and will require budget allocations. The facility is outdated and um has insufficiencies in both office and kennel space. Also um going to need budget allocations. And then the um policies and procedures really need to be completely revamped. Uh working on that now. Uh new policies uh are also in the pike and are currently being written. staff training needs to be um in complement with the updated policy manual so that everything as we said you know works together and then we wanted to ensure that statistical reporting is both accurate, credible and usable. So this slide just uh goes through the recommendations by category to show that so many of them are operational. Both the orange and the blue. So the blue is SOP standard operating procedures. The orange are operational um recommendations. And we go into a lot of detail in the recommendations. There's a lot of um very detailed information in the report which I'm sure you've noticed because I know you are all avidly reading it. Um staffing included 27 recommendations, uh six on facility, five on culture, four about statistical reporting, but a lot of the SOPs would also um reflect the way the statistics get reported. So this is the current status of where we stand on implementation. Um we have a total of 170 recommendations. Of those 12 are fully complete. 53 are actively in progress and 105 remain to be completed. And then these are just the areas of the report as we went through. This is the way the report was recommended and I will go through uh each of these with some highlights of recommendations from those program areas. So on general operations we did recommend that the open hours for public be increased that the call should go through a phone tree which is one of the recommendations that has already been implemented. Again, a big focus on the SOPs. Um, standardization to the industry standard of statistical reporting. Um, that every contact with a pet owner ensures that the rabies vaccination that's required by law has been verified and um that we look at all all of our operations and be sure that we're doing them efficiently. so we're not having steps included that will slow us down or make things take longer. And then um the website needing restructuring and updated and I'd say we're we're better than halfway through that. There's been a lot of update through the website. Uh more still to come, but the website project is progressing very well in uh shelter operations. um a recommendation that the intake process be streamlined and that is in process. Um pathway planning which means basically making a plan for the animal from the minute it comes into the shelter and figuring out what resources are going to be needed to get a live outcome for that animal um and how can we provide that the most quickly. So um pathway planning is an efficiency that needs to be brought in more strongly. Feeding procedures should follow best practices. This is another one that has very much already been brought into place and is currently um being followed. Cleaning SOPs needing to be updated and um ensuring compliance with those and a lot of those have also been implemented. um wanting to see enrichment provided for all animals at the shelter um years ago in the early years of animal sheltering. They basically only stayed in the shelter for 3 days. So enrichment was not really considered as important at that time. The animal was there for a very short time. In the current sheltering environment, we hold animals much longer. um can be weeks, can be months, sometimes close to a year, sometimes over a year. So, uh if you're holding an animal in a shelter for that long, enrichment is really key to that animal's mental well-being. and then um ensuring that training for staff is uh incorporated as part of this big plan of basically renovating this this whole operation. And so the five freedoms is something else we talk about in the animal shelter. It's a British concept uh that has uh got wide acceptance as being a best practice. And so there are five freedoms that have been identified and some of them are a little bit easier to be sure we ensure such as the first one, freedom from hunger and thirst. That's uh easy. We make sure we've got the proper diet and that we're providing it to the animals and that they have water provided to them uh at at all times. Um freedom dis from discomfort. uh make sure they have a bed, make sure they have a resting place, make sure they are um in the proper climate zone so that they do not suffer discomfort when they're in our care. Freedom from pain, injury, and disease. So that would be making sure that we have the proper things in place from a veterinary viewpoint to make sure that if animals are sick or injured when they come to the shelter, they get prompt and immediate care. um the freedom to express normal behavior. So, this is a a little bit harder one to ensure in an animal shelter because um normally they're going to need to be outside their enclosure uh at least some of the time uh in order to express normal behavior. Also, we've come forward with uh double-sided uh housing for cats so that the cat has one area that's a living area and a feeding area and another area that's the restroom. So, um that obviously involves a bigger enclosure. Um all these things always end up translating to budget. um some more than others, but um and then freedom from fear and distress also difficult and challenging to provide in an animal shelter very important um because an animal shelter is a very scary place for an animal. So teaching our staff what is the best way that the animal can be handled in such a way that we minimize the amount of fear and distress that they get at the shelter. How can we house them in the shelter in such a way that they're not encompassing uh or interacting with predators for example? So um we we separate the species things like that. So the five freedoms um while uh uh corpus has provided many of them, they're not all fully provided. Field operations, um highlights of the recommendations there. Um update the field procedures manual, make sure it's current, make sure it's accurate, and then use it as our guide for training. Make sure everybody has a copy. um have the dispatchers assign and track the field activities. So, making sure that the dispatcher is aware of the type of calls coming in, whether it's going to require additional resources, whether we need to send backup, uh how long has the officer been out on the call, why haven't we heard from them, checking back to make sure they're safe, things like that. um developing and utilizing uh better reports that will allow us to evaluate are we meeting our goals for response time? Are we meeting our goals for the number of calls each officer has uh performed and whether they are in the right priority. Um you you have a very good uh database. You're using the Chameleon database. It is an animal sheltering specific program and very valuable, but but we're kind of underutilizing it in regard to some of the reporting. So, we're going to work with um the staff and with Chameleon on making sure we've got good reports and that those reports are being utilized by the supervisory and leadership staff. Um making sure that the priority calls are handled timely. Um and and this is goes back a little bit to uh staffing because obviously if we don't have enough staff that complicates how how can we get to all the calls especially priority calls timely and so uh piggybacking on that filling all the vacancies training staff as efficiently as we can and then until until we have everybody trained um having the field staff on on 8our shift as opposed to like a 10-hour 410s. Um the the so-called 440 um work week is very popular, but it's it's not um if you're short on staff, you're going to lose one day of coverage by going to that kind of a schedule. So, we recommended the eight hour shifts currently. In the veterinary program, we saw a lot of areas where we were hoping to see some forward movement. Um, we need standard uh veterinary health care uh protocols so that staff is aware of what to do when certain uh animals present certain ways and they have a template to follow. Um, making sure that sick and injured animals are getting cared for and that sick animals are isolated. Uh one challenge with the facility is the isolation areas are minimal. There is not um actually adequate isolation for cats. So there is uh specific recommendation about that in the report. Um daily medical rounds, those should be done. um making sure that we're spaying and neutering as many animals as possible in the shelter prior to releasing them to adoption. That way we um are meeting both the legal mandates and making sure we're not adding to the pet overpopulation issue. And then developing an inventory system for medical supplies. That one is one that is implemented now. So that one is taken care of. it's off the list. Um, making sure we take full advantage of partner resources. We've had some of our nonprofit partners offer to provide free medical care. And so, as an example, uh, the shelter does not have an X-ray machine, but animals come in um, appear that they may need an X-ray. um if you have a partner that's offering that service for free, making sure we're taking care, we're taking advantage of it. And then um we recommend an additional veterinary position. Can be part-time, could be um contract, but to expand coverage to when the veterinarian isn't there for adoptions. Um, one of the key things making sure that our customer service is very friendly, that the public knows we want to get the animals adopted, that we've got somebody there, adoption counselors who are ready to assist with people interested in adoption, and that they basically work with them from start to finish. Um, expanding the adoption policies. We would love to see volunteers uh being trained as adoption counselors and assisting with that process. Um that there is a designated adoption area near the kennels and that um we actually have a designated adoption area and office for that up in the um admin building now. So that is one that has been implemented and that prepayment for stray adoption should be discontinued. And then on the foster program, um, Corpus has a fairly limited foster program. Uh, staff does, uh, some of it, but we would love to see this expanded more for community involvement. So, that would be facilitated by designating a foster coordinator. um making sure that there's a point person at the shelter who is reaching out to potential foster families. Um training fosters, supporting them uh going forward. Uh a designated place for all their uh supplies and um basically making sure we're supporting foster homes because that is one way to take pressure off the kennels. If the kennels are full, if we can't find a permanent um placement such as a rescue or adoption, a foster home will at least give us temporary way to reduce the pressure on the capacity at the shelter. And then for social media, the website and marketing, wanting to be sure that we've got marketing friendly uh language that goes into our website postings. um some uh specifics on how the links go so that it goes only to animals within the shelter as opposed to all the animals within this particular zip code. Um and we're working on getting that one uh finalized. uh that the person who's posting the animals has a a lot of f familiarity with the animals and is able to answer any questions about them and that the statistics are not going out on Facebook on a daily basis but that the accurate monthly uh summary of the statistics are posted on the website. And then in regard to euthanasia process um making sure that our policy is really clear that the decision-making matrix has been um delineated and it's clear to all people who are involved in that process. Um that we're not using length of stay as a reason but we're holding animals as long as space will allow the animals to be held. And then if they are euthanized due to lack of space, that space is uh the re the identified as the reason in the record. Um ensuring that animals receive their intake vaccines and um prompt veterinary care and that will basically help their overall health and therefore lead to less uh euthanasia. improving the cleaning and disinfection. Same uh issue. Uh that is for disease prevention within the shelter. That the controlled drug logs are reconciled as required by law and that a veterinarian is authorizing emergency medical youth in Asia. And then in regard to proactive programs, um the the main takeaway from this is uh with with all the operational things that we're working on, um Citygate would really recommend that we get our house in order first, that we work on all these operational areas prior to trying to launch into proactive programs or um current events. that are not meeting our our mandates really. Um so we don't have the current infrastructure to do the proactive programs as actively as we like. So, for example, we would recommend um the free microchipping be uh just a couple hours, probably the afternoon every day um during open public hours when the the morning uh obligation of cleaning, feeding, making sure all the animals are cared for, the daily rounds, all of that's already been done. And um we've got staff available to provide the microchipping as opposed to pulling somebody away from those vital duties uh during non-public hours for example to do a a free microchip for a member of the public. Um, also working with partners on uh free spayneuter programs for the public so that um overpopulation is is reduced from within your community but not through a program that the the count that the city provides. So then um as as we mentioned earlier there's 170 recommendations they are a lot of them are highly detailed um but at the end of the report we put in sort of these these are our recommendations for priority. So the top one hire an assistant director of operations who is experienced and um comes from the animal welfare field and that has been done. So that one is completed. Um review the mission and goals and renew the department's commitment to serving the animal welfare needs. So that's an ongoing thing. Um but that uh is at least uh in progress. Um, we recommended estab establishing performance measures for the vet division so that we can be sure that we're increasing the standard of care and decreasing the length of stay. And then the SOPs, which you've heard me mention ad nauseium at this point. Okay, we're just going to go into some of the um recommendations that will have budget implement implications implications. That's the word I was looking for. That's right. That was a test. Um so on this chart, these are additional positions. Um, these are not current positions that you have and the red lines show the number needed and the cost estimates related to those. Um, citygate put forward a five-year implementation plan and would not, you know, we're not recommending that all these be implemented next year. We understand the budget process. We understand the the uh competing needs that every city and county has in trying to um do their budgeting. So, this would be over uh a 5-year period uh implementation. And some of them are even um uh waiting until you get your staffing up to full staffing with the currently uh uh allocated positions. Uh we do recommend that the live release coordinator positions actually be designated as specific um jobs so that uh while it's great having a team and these the the same uh group will be on the same team but they'll have designated specific duties. So, one would be a volunteer coordinator, two would be adoption counselors, and a rescue and foster coordinator would be the fourth position. And so, that would just be increasing those because those um uh positions would take a a little bit uh higher salary when they were reclassified. Um, so everything is tied together as I mentioned earlier. So if we increase facility space, we not we need more staff to make sure that u there's enough staff to uh take care of the animals. Um so everything is interrelated. That's really what this slide means. And then on the facility, um the current facility was built, I believe, in 2004 and um really hasn't had a major update since then. Um we do believe you need uh with the current uh number of animals coming in, you do need an additional dog kennel building. um want to be sure that it includes climate control. Um the CAT facilities also need to be expanded. Uh from a economy viewpoint, you can start off with a trailer and later on uh add a a catery building. Um but as a temporary measure, you could uh most likely uh start with a trailer. And then making sure that there's ability to have cat isolation. One of the main reasons that cats get euthanized at the shelter currently is medical. And so if we have isolation, we could treat them. We can get them back healthy. Those animals that are being euthanized because of medical conditions maybe would be able to have a live release. And then um your current facility, as I mentioned, hasn't had uh many enhancements since it was built. And so the three main dog kennels do not have air conditioning within the facility. So, the interior of the kennels, if it were airond conditioned, would allow the dogs to go inside and escape the heat during the hot summer days um and and be in the proper com comfort zone. At the current time, they just have fans and the fans are not adequate for for cooling uh on on the hot days. um a dedicated adoption counseling area. As we said, that's completed. Expanding the meet and greet areas, so making sure we have good places to uh talk to potential adopters, making sure that those are um uh protected from the elements, that kind of thing. um a separate public animal turnin area. So that um is a little bit more challenging to build in the current with the current layout. Um but we have a few ideas to recommend on that. Um your dedicated dispatch area having that near the animal control officer uh workspace as opposed to right now it's right out in the middle of the front lobby. Uh so the normal uh place that's housed is someplace not in the public area and close to where the officers and the supervisor um are housed. Um a volunteer coordinator office which would give possibly even including you know lockers for volunteers and a place for volunteer supplies to be kept. Um and a place where the volunteers know they're important. Um they go they check in with the volunteer coordinator signing in and out that kind of thing. And then remodeling of the current feral cat room uh to to expand the space for cats as um discussed earlier. So this is just a slide to show the exterior and the interior of a kennel building with just fans for uh climate control. During hot weather, the heaters definitely work. I was here in February. I went through the kennels. The kennels were warm. It was 30° outside. Um the animals had bedding, they were warm, everything was good. So, I think we've we've got um as long as everything works, right? Um uh and same thing for the cats. you know they they are in uh climate conditioned areas at the current time. This is the adoption counseling office. It's uh currently in the admin uh area just behind the front desk. So this shows some agility equipment in uh a visitation area. So, a combination of the um opportunity for expanding the meet and greet areas and also providing enrichment for the dogs. Uh this is just a a photo of the current um front lobby. Uh a separate lobby for animal turnin would would be recommended. Okay, so this is the fun part for me anyway. Um, we're into implementation and being a person who loves operations, this is where I really like to to dig my teeth in. Um so uh the majority of the recommendations are internal operational plans which are uh really based around a lot of the policies and procedures and these are all things that the staff will be doing uh from an internal viewpoint. Um, we we did develop a five-year phase plan and as I mentioned earlier, that's just because we know you have a budget, you have challenges, and we can't implement all of everything that requires budget over a one-year period. Um, so this is the timeline and we're expecting at least 65 and I'm guessing probably more than that will be completed in the current fiscal year um in fiscal 2026. a minimum of 26 additional and the 79 remaining of the 170 recommendations over the following three-year period. So, of the aspects that will require um budgetary allocations, 28 of the recommendations will include um city council requirement for consideration and um whether you're going to prioritize those or not. Those would be 22 related to staffing, uh, some new staff, some reclassifications, and six facility upgrades. So, in closing, um, Citygate is really pleased to be working with ACS on the implementation. As we said, uh, our contract currently goes through this calendar year. We're seeing a lot of progress uh right now. We're working very well with leadership as well as the supervisory staff on the policies and procedures and um they're actually getting really excited about getting it uh implemented and um so we're we're meeting on regular basis. A lot of our meetings um from an efficiency viewpoint, we're doing them either through WebEx or through Teams. So, um not uh uh direct uh visits in person. Um we we commend the city for um making the decision to request the assessment. Um it was obvious to us, the city manager saw that this was a department that was struggling. uh the decision to make it its own department to um hire a director and to um go forward with an assessment are is a is a huge commitment and um was needed. So um we're happy to see that. I also want to be sure that we know this assessment was was was a moment in time and it it's history now at this point. So, um, we launched in in October of 2023. We were first here in December of 2023. That's quite a while ago. Uh, we came again in May of 2024. Um, and I've been back a few times since. Um, I was I was here um in in February, as I mentioned, and I was actually here last week, and I'm here now. Um uh so we've got a roadmap, we've got a plan, and um we're very pleased to be working with the city on this. Thank you. And happy to take questions. Thank you. Thank you so much. We're going to start with uh Councilwoman Vaughn. Well, I've got a lot to say, but I don't have time to say it. I um sat down and read the book last night. Got lots of tabs, but I'm just going to hit on some highlights. Uh, thank you for doing the assessment. It's really good. And I will tell you this that, you know, we started back in 2014 concerned about animal control when I was on here before and we had a lot of advocates that actually Linda Jabau sitting in the audience that suggested a bunch of these ideas that you've given us today. So, a lot of the procedures and stuff and and we didn't do them. And I think um councils have done things, current councils, and so they have tried to make some changes. One thing that and Mr. Cone, thank you for supporting it. Absolutely. And um we just had a budget workshop and some of my main things is streets, water safe, public safety, animal control. Just so you know, I'm hoping that we can get some money for that. Um I do disagree with you about one thing, and you're probably not going to like this, but I'm just going to say it anyway because I can't help myself. You know, you said that y'all had hired an assistant. That's fine. When Mr. Cone came here, when any city manager comes here, I owned a business. When you have a manager, they get to pick who they have. There's a reason for that. It's a support staff. And we have looked, if you read some of the assessments that you said is talking about morale, experience, and I think until you change that until you let a manager come in there and let them pick their own assistance, I don't think anything is going to change. And I think you have to do that. I'm not saying you have to get rid of the people that you have, but you've got to give them some kind of leeway. You have to. You do that, Mr. Cone. That's true. Yes. And so, um, one of the things that I I saw in here, the front desk to me is so important. That's the first impression that you get when you walk into animal control. So, I hope that person's experienced, trained, and your assessments are great because we definitely need training. No doubt. Um, we've got these existing kennels right now and they don't have AC's. Well, that's going to cost a lot of money if you go the normal way where we go and put um go to development services, whatever, and it costs us millions of dollars. You don't have to do that. There are units that you can actually put in there that would cost you, Eric, you and I were talking about it, $1,500, $2,000. I put them in buildings that we have built offsite and they cool it just fine. The new ones, and then later on when you come back, you can do that. But I'm saying for now, we're getting ready to go through a hot summer. We need to do whatever we can. um the incinerator that was um concerning for me the crematory. So I think there was an assessment done a couple years ago if that's isn't that true on the crematory. Someone texted me that there may have been there's been annual the the the company that built it is the only one that works on it. So there's an an that's how it is across the country, but there's there's an annual maintenance agreement. So they come in and inspect it every year. So, I think the last inspection was May of 2024 was the last time it was inspected. It's due for another annual inspection, but it's not working. But right now, it's out of operation. It's been out of operation since February. Do you know how old it is, Mr. Cone? Any idea? What was that? How old it is? Yes, it it it needs to be replaced. So, it's 10 years old. It's a 10-year-old unit. Needs to be replaced. Yeah. What I was told in one of my site visits at the at the operation was that it was not the right purchase to begin with. It's not the right type of equipment for a municipal shelter. It may work for um you know a different type of animal uh provider, animal care provider, but we're a bigger municipal shelter. Sure. So, it's not it was number one not the right unit to begin with. Number two, it's too old and we need to replace it. So, it's about 140,000. I've already asked the team to look at procuring a new one. Good. Uh pronto. Good. Because I know you can take them to the dump, but that seems so heartless to me. Can't comprehend that. Right. And until we change, one of the big issues for me is the public. Until we change how the public treats animals, it's not going to matter. No matter how much we do and how much money we spend, they've got to quit doing what they're doing. I think you know that. So, we've got to do that. I'm trying to hurry because I'm not used to using my time. Okay. Um Oh, the five freedoms really bothered me. I hated to think that they're not fully getting those. That's very sad for this as a city. So, I'm hoping that we change that as well. You did. You had some really good recommendations and I applaud you for that. X-ray machine. I hope down the road we definitely have to have a veterinarian. No doubt. There's lots we need to do. One of the things was grants. Do you know if we're doing any kind of grants trying to get any grants? Yes. The department's shaking their head. So, we've had some smaller grants that we've taken to council here um for what were some of the examples? Katie, if you can tell us real quick. This is Katie Chopper, our director right now. Hi, director of animal care. Um yes, councilwoman. So, we are working directly with the grants department. We have one person who works with us directly. We are trying to apply for every grant that we could possibly get. Um, we're looking for one right now for equipment. We were looking for one for transportation. We were looking for one for clinical supplies. Anything out there that we can qualify for, we're trying to get. So, one that we did get was the A aspa grant that we are almost done fulfilling. The air condition is being put in as we speak and the kennel partitions are completed. the the replacement of the te deteriorating ones that is also completed. Okay. Thank you. And one other thing, mayor, I'm challenging us as a council and the city manager. Everybody, when you're running for office, you can get money from all the people that just love you. Way more than I ever get. But you get it. I challenge us to do a fundraiser for the animal control. We need to do that because we need money. That's another source because the city can't put it all in, right? I mean, and I'm hoping we can put some in, but they can't put it all in. So, I'm just challenging just an idea. All right. I have other stuff, but I don't have any time. And mayor, can I a whole minute? I got a minute left. Yes. Okay. Well, hey, come on. Keep going. See if I can find it. Pause your time. We'll give you your few seconds back. Can you pause that, Rebecca? Yes, Peter. Can you pause that? Yeah, you were going to say something. I was just going to say since Councilwoman brought it up first, and I know several will. On the budget, uh, you have heard me before say that we're asking departments for for 10% reduction proposals that we can evaluate. We're not saying we're going to cut their budgets, right? But I've asked the I've asked the animal care not to give me those. I don't want any proposals because we got to keep this budget at least at what it is today. This is so I we I may have I told some council members this last week, but I've told them I don't need any reductions from this department. We're going to have we're not going to reduce animal care to try to balance the budget. Okay. So, this department at a minimum will have the same level of funding, but we know we need more. The consultant just recommended almost a million more just operational. Okay. So, this it would be foolish to say we're going to cut your budget and then we need to add more, right? So, I've asked them not to give us any reduction proposals. We're going to keep their budget whole. That's a commitment that I've made to them and I want to let you know today. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Um I have 30 seconds. You do about 40. Okay. Thank you. Euthanizing the dogs. I hope that we take that off there. As far as dogs should not be euthanized because they've stayed too long. We've got to figure out some way to get them out. We've got lots of support from and I hope we'll use the the advocates that we have because we've got some really good ones for adoption and I don't think maybe we've done enough of that because they do want to do it and they want to support us. So, we should all be concerned about the dog that was burned. This is the kind of mentality that we're seeing in this city and this has to stop and it stops if we all speak out and do stuff and and and also put a finger a thumb in the DA's back to start prosecuting animal cruelty. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Councilwoman. Um so I'm going to make some comments now and um I I I honestly don't even know where to start. I believe first of all I want to thank the advocates and the people and I'm gonna point out especially Linda Jerbo because since I've been I'm sorry I know but I'm I'm pointing you out because you've always been a very um a very good advocate and communicator with the council and I know that y'all are listening to this going we said all this and I'm extremely frustrated and I'm not gonna hold back Peter. I'm not holding back because for nine years plus because Councilman Vaughn started this or not started this but probably before then but I know in 14 but I know since I've been on council we have literally short of begging to make this a priority department. I don't know what you would call it. and and and today is not I'm going to say this because you all know in our communications the frustration and all it does is trickle through and here we are today finally doing what we should have done many years ago. I'm not going to play the blaming game and I pray to God that no one else up here does because it's too easy to do. Oh well, it was the council before. Oh, it was the mayor before. always the councils before that and the council. Everyone has an opportunity to make a stride. How big you want to do it, that's up to you. And I'm going to take a moment. I'm sorry. I'm going to scratch my five minutes because this is too important. In 2014, thank you Carolyn Vaughn. $78,000 is what was invested in CCAC. In actually, I'll thank you this next year because I know this was you. 2015 $265,130 2016 that is when I came on council and I'm not trying to give myself because one person does nothing. It is an entire council that does it. 2016 is when we came in nothing happened. 2017 no investment. 2018 85,156. I'll just round up. 85,000. 2019 zero investment. 2020 we added a live release coordinator. Thank you, Linda. A kennel technician. These were all your recommendations. I remember like it was yesterday. 2020 it was $197,000 investment. 2021 that was nothing. 2022 we added four kennel techs, two live release coordinators, one vet, two Ford Escape vehicles at $400,000 investment. 400,000. So when people say y'all are doing nothing, oh yes, we are. But I'll finish that sentence here in a second. 2023, we added another vet assistant, a kennel tech, three admin supports, an animal care pilot program, spayneuter, which by the way, we had never in the history of this city ever invested or allocated funding to spay and neuter. So when we say, why do we have such a horrible spay and neuter problem? because it wasn't being prioritized in 2022. I'm sorry. In 20 what? Three. When did I just say it was prioritized? 23. In 2023 is the first time we invested $250,000 into spay and neuter. It is going to take time to make an impact and an effect. that 250 I recommended 500,000 and it got knocked down to 250 which thank God we started with 500 right because the 250 you you ladies know it is difficult and you're talking a pro about a problem that's been neglected for decades not to mention a department and I'm not trying to be negative on a department but this is what it is in 2024 4, we went from uh no, I'm sorry. In 2023, the investment was $730,000 into animal care services. The prior year was $400,000. In 2024, we went from $730,000 to $884,000. So, what's wrong? This is an operational problem. Period. and an educational problem. This it's it's a it's a partnership. George, you know it. You've got people out there who are not spaying neutering their dogs. They're not they're let them roam around. And I'm not trying to put the blame on one side. It is multiaceted. And it is about time. I hate to say it. Y'all are not at fault. It's operational. This should have been fixed and heard because we have been we have been harping and and Linda knows Linda knows exactly amongst others who are I'm sure watching and blowing up my phone right now. But nonetheless, it it's just something that it's so overdue. And I'm very glad I'm not trying to be negative, but the reality is the reality. and and and for us to expect a result that will never be right unless we really bring it together. Um, Councilwoman, I think you made a comment and I know when you were saying it, I was thinking, well, it all has to do with having strong programs, a strong foster program, a strong um um what's the other one? Volunteer. Volunteer program. And then it trickles down because the volunteers are like we're out of here because of the way things are running internally. And so we can put in from 85 I'm sorry from $78,000 in 2014. 78,000 to $884,422 in 2024. And we still have the issues we have. Money is not the problem. We can throw in let's we can throw in triple this. We have to organize the foundation. We have to listen to the people. I'm not saying everybody's right, but you all bring different perspectives and we have to listen and the slate has to be it has to be clean, Peter. It has to be clean. We have to work in partnership because we cannot do it alone. We we don't we cannot do it alone. This proves it. It proves it. We can go put another million dollars in it and what we we've got to take care of this internally. Jan just said it is this is all operational for the most part. I mean I don't know what the percentage is but I I and here's the other thing I will say I have asked over and over this department must have and I think you did turn a a a position into a communications. We have to change the perception of this department and it is not going to happen unless one person is dedicated to making you know correcting people or informing people or working reaching out to people saying no you know what I just saw you you said this can I give you a call let's let's let's figure it out or or let's talk about the facts of this and many times it'll work both ways. Oh, that's a better way to do it or that we should do that or oh, I didn't know. I just read what was on Facebook. And so the communication specialist or PR person is critical especially under our circumstance even if we didn't have the circumstance. And the last thing is um we have uh very healthy funding that has acrewed from the interest of ARPA funds to the tune of a couple of million dollars. I would like for us to look at those those monies and they need to be prioritized to animal care services first and foremost and those are one-time you know obviously that's not something that we could hire staff with but they're one-time monies that I think this department is is well deserving of well deserving. And so I want to thank everyone on this council, but especially going back to 2014 because um these numbers increased because there were someone or multiple people who cared about animal care services. And I think today we have a an unprecedented council. I I've never I've been this is my fifth council and this is the first council where we have this many people and we do I I think we have multiple people that really care about making if not everyone making uh animal care services a priority. So those monies Peter I'd like for them to focus those monies on animal care I mean unless everybody anybody else has thoughts on that. Thank you. And we and mayor, we're the plan is to bring something before the budget, you know, because those monies are available right now. So the funds are available. We don't have to wait till October 1st. So we'll be bringing something over these next couple of weeks. We have 3.7 million in identified construction capital needs, not new buildings, just fixing what we have like plumbing, AC, roofing, uh parking lot improvements for, right? But I'm I'm talking about and and this council can make that decision, but I'm talking about more for the animals. You know, we Prioritize. I mean, the parking lot matters, but dump that one off. But air conditioning for the animals, plumbing for the animals, and we can talk about that later, but we we really need to put some thought into how to use those that funding for what is going to directly impact those animals, right? That's that's the list I have. Yeah. Okay. Great. Great. Councilwoman Paxton, thank you, Mayor. Oh, one last thing I forgot real quick. So, I have spoken to um Emily over at the Council of Governments and I've asked her to start looking for grants because that's what they do and that's what they can do um is look for grants for animal care services. So, that is in motion just to help. Yeah, thank you for that update. Yeah, absolutely. Councilwoman, thank you, mayor. I want to start by saying um I I certainly recognize the amount of thought and time and effort that went into this report and I'm thankful to everyone who had a hand and participated in providing this information and making this available to us today. I'm very grateful for that. So for my questions and comments, please understand for me the way that I think and translate is in strategy and operations and streamlining. So my first question would be um approximately how many animals do we service in at a single point in time on average? I understand it'll fluctuate. Um so we have about 118 dog kennels and we have about 39 cat kennels. So we have about 140 to maybe 160 at a time to uh yes thank you for that. So the way for me and I and I echo I want to echo with sincerity um what the mayor and councilwoman vaugh just said. We have to make our this connection to the public strong. We have to you know what I see is this breakdown. The city's providing services and the public is crying out for access to and improved and reach to these services but there's a breakdown. And so for me um the emphasis being placed on this communication person is paramount. Absolutely. And how that translates forward is truly important that we do that well. Um but animal services kind of break down into three categories for me and that's just I'm explaining where where I'm coming from on my questions and comments is first of course collection, second is rehoming and then third the care in the interim. So to me, that's it. Like that's that's the nuts and bolts of what this service provides. And what I think, you know, hearing this report and looking at the dynamics in the room, looking at um it appears to me that the four positions that were full-time identified as customer care or live release, I think those are I don't think it's four and four. I think it's four people that do both of those jobs. Yes. Thank you. Four total. And those are currently full. We don't have absences in that. have one vacancy that we're going for. You have one vacancy here. So, this that role to me, that category is that connection to the public. So, I'm curious, um, you know, Councilwoman Compost brought up a good idea earlier today when we were looking at the budget almost having like district reps because not because we need more people, but having that liaison in that dispatch zone so that we can help as facilitators to this entity where we are coming from. Another question to me is um, but that really that goes into that collection aspect. So collection rehoming and care in the interim collection that liaison kind of helps us because that's what people feel is when we see a lot of strays on the street. So um I'm curious how what does it look like currently as far as a liaison to uh the relationship with our animal care board, our local organizations that provide um really great services um that aren't in the city but they do foster care for animals. They do care like that. um and also colleges volunteers. What does that relationship look like right now? What's the connecting piece? So, our live release team, um the one that handles volunteer groups, they are connected with&m, with Delmare, with other businesses in Corpus Christie, we just had the Cheesecake Factory come out and do a bring a big group to volunteer. So, they are reaching out to different organizations. Um and then the ones that are working with partnerships, those are that's our rescue coordinator. And so, she's trying to get broader in that. I believe we're up to 116 rescue groups that we're working with and I believe we had one go to the facility today to partner with us. Um our community relations person is our liaison with our advisory committee. Um she is doing amazing work. She is now working with CCISD, Kalen ISD, Flower Bluff ISD. We're going to schools trying to get information out to the kids because you know if you have young children you are excited to hear about how their day is and if they come home with pamphlets and information you ask what it is and you look at it. Um so we are trying to expand and make that communication better and get out there to the community where they are because they're not coming to us yet. And we're working on that as well trying to get them to know where we are so they can come and see the animals and to adopt. So to me that thank you for that um that p that pio type connection to these groups that liaison my notes I have um with that rehoming is that connection piece um making sure that this public information person is connected to all the relevant platforms making sure that we have we're in a time where I'm sorry but I can probably get more comfort creature comforts for my dog my baby rescue than for myself sometimes like the whole we've transitioned our thought process for these living creatures. It was for so long that this was a nuts andbolt city service that collected strays, tried to hurry home them, and moved them on down the line. But now, you know, there's an inf there's there's an importance placed on this is a living creature. What is its quality of life? How do we rehome it? So, it's just right now connecting those two pieces. So that person getting them on those platforms, um getting them interns because that's a great way to to give them some support while they're making these connections and building these volunteer hours. You've got little social media interns from colleges and stuff who can who can really take the ball and run with it. And then um I'm trying to be conscious of my time here. Um thank you for telling us about getting some air conditioning and things. That's that time of care, what their what their quality of life is while they're with us. So you said that ACs are already being installed in the kennel rooms. That is in the cat building. The cat building, right? The kennel buildings is what we would like to install AC in. Gotcha. So that's where we could look at some immediate time. Right. We have three kennel built, three separate buildings that have 118 kennels. None of them have AC. So that's one of the immediate things. we know how hard it gets here that so so to say kind of in a nutshell it looks like you've been on site for implementation since January if I read your report right I recognize that this needs to be a long-term goal but I do think there's a lot specifically and you know put it down into three categories and what are the goals and the pillars to reach these objectives that we can do in the short term that don't take years because we need to see these connections these improvements and feel them strong right now and we are on the same page as you. So, thank you for that. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Councilwoman. Uh, Peter, are we able to do um what are they like the temp ones that Councilwoman Vaughn mentioned? Can we do those ASAP? We'll look at Yeah, we'll look into that. I mean, that would be obviously an interim, right, to Right. Well, let us let us look into that. It may long-term um you know we're going to need AC for the next 10 20 30 years but we'll look into it that you know the tempor ones temporary ones. Okay. And then and then just before we move on um a list of positions. So can you send us right a list of all the positions currently under CCAC? All the the the Yeah. The total 58 positions. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. We can do that. Thank you. Uh council who's up Councilman Hernandez. Thank you, Mayor. Um, M. Glick, they considering the size of your uh report, it looks like you had a very target-rich environment. Uh, but I want to read some of these things because there's areas that troubled me specifically. Um, one is your assessment on leadership, the veterinarian services, uh, and some of your recommendations. And I'll read this to you. Section 2.1. A recurring theme amongst staff Citygate spoke with was a lack of respect for leadership and management since they did not have an any in-depth animal welfare experience and knowledge. Should I read that again? What's the question? No. Well, I'm just I'm identifying concerns here and I wanted to understand what your recommendation here is on leadership because you have you know what seems to be, you know, uh on recommendation number seven, hire a seasoned and experienced animal welfare professional in the role of operations director and assistant director. Okay. So it it the the general theme I see with this report is it was a lack of leadership at this at this department. Is that your assessment? Yes. And I think that it goes back to all the transition of the different departments as it came through over the years. Um, uh, when you're under police, the emphasis is different. When you're under community services, the emphasis would be different. Now, it's a standalone department. Um, as I mentioned, the assistant director of operations who has been hired is a seasoned, experienced person. So, that was something we were very happy to see. Um, and the other aspects of that, it it's it's all interwoven, but it relates to the culture. So, is there a culture of accountability? Is there a culture of of um you know what what expectations and how does the team work together? Um so that that was another aspect of the leadership that we were hoping to see. Um I know one of our specific recommendations was that there was a workplace culture agreement established and that has occurred and all of the staff have signed off on it. Okay. The other area was veterinarian services. And how long were you on site in 2023 at at animal care services? Um when we were on site, I think it was probably 4 days in December for the first visit and with um three consultants. So each observing different areas. Um and then um and a lot of our work is done in advance by getting the um the just how how long were you on site at these services? Just 4 days in December and then a similar uh time frame when we came back in May. Okay. So, uh, it looked like there was no surgeries performed during the time frame that you were there, even though they were stated to be done during the week. I think that's a possibility. And then it you also mentioned that only um the spade and neuters that were done by in-house veterinarian services only accounted for 27% of the spay and neuters. That's correct. and that there was no uh vaccine rabies vaccines being given to or they would be missed or delayed for animals that that were being intake including deworming and flea iss uh addressing fleas. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Also, you have a recommendation that talks about um there should be uh specific uh accountability for narcotics or uh key med uh medications that were not or that was your recommendation. Did you see a lack of uh controls over the the narcotics at uh ACS? I think what was identified was um a concern as to whether the uh reconciliation of the control drugs was being done at the uh legally required time frames. Okay. But you're you don't have any concern that there was missing narcotics? No. Okay. Uh based on your recommendation, it kind of uh implied that. So maybe some quantifying language saying we don't anticipate we didn't visibly or thought there was missing narcotics but accountability should be better documented. Appreciate that feedback. Um I will tell you if we thought there were were missing drugs it would be in the report. Right. Okay. Um, you also you also had a section here about uh partner organizations like GF Coast Humane Society and a few others that you mentioned, but did you ever interview any of those organizations? Yes, we did. Um, I didn't see that those interviews discussed in the maybe I missed it, but what kind of feedback did you get from those organizations? we have uh an a confidentiality approach to those types of interviews. So, it's part of our information gathering, but we um we do not put specific uh references within our reports um in in the same way we wouldn't do that about a specific staff person. Okay. So that the reason why I asked that question is because we all get contacted by these organizations and they have lists of complaints and we hear them and a lot of things that they were complaining about are in your report even though you're not specified you know within this but you know it's a it's a consistent theme and was there any real um participation with these organizations because I mean they did a tremendous job you know you had mentioned that the average uh takeaway from uh these uh nonprofit organizations about 19% nationally. But you have them in 2023 27% 2022 30% of them taking animals 33% in in 2021 30 44% in 2018 they have done above and beyond uh work to help ACS that we were never aware of you know and I have to say thank you you know thank you for for helping in this situation because they they actually care and more so than in you know your nationwide statistics that you put here of 19%. Is that Yes. And um a partnership the partnerships is the way that we are able within our industry especially in public shelters where we have open admissions and we are not just picking or selecting the animals that coming in. We have to take the animals from within the community as they come to us. Those partnerships are what allow us to have a a good live release rate. So, it states here there's anou that stipulates the how they uh work together. Has that been updated? So, we're in the process of updating all of ourus actually. So, we're working with legal right now to do all of that. So considering how much they they help here and how much they've participated and how much they provide in terms of of spay and neuter services, you know, uh they only had the 2023 number of them doing the majority of spay and neuter. Um I I think you know we should be more welcoming of these outside organizations to partner with them and not treat them so poorly from what I you know from the calls that I get. So, uh, Peter, that's a challenge to you to make sure that these things occur. They are, Councilman. It goes both ways, too. We need reciprocal. Um, well, I'm They're They're doing it based on We need reciprocal. We They're doing it perceptually sometimes, but we need commitments that if we're going to work together, we need to work together. So, when an assistant director calls a a a partner agency, they need to get a call back if they don't answer the phone. You know, we got we need a it has to be a loop. It's not that one side decides to work with us one day and the next they don't. So, we're in agreement with that, but but we need reciprocal agreements from from both entities, the city and the partner agencies to work together. I'm committed to it. Okay. Well, uh you know, this this is obviously a quite a a challenge, right? It is. We would obvious failure and so I think we need to put attention. I don't think throwing money at something doesn't always fix it, but having good leadership does, right? Exactly. That's why we're building a team over there. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Councilman Scott. Mayor, um, uh, I'll try to talk fast. I will tell you that I do have a 4:15 appointment because I said that because I thought we were going to be at three, finish at three and I apologize to everybody, especially one here at Eric says because, you know, I'm enthralled by uh, so if I have to step out, I'm sorry. So, this reminds me of a a movie from the 70s, Cannonball Run, and the race car driver jumps in the race car, and first thing he does is he grabs that rearview mirror and he throws it out the back of the vehicle, and and the car owner says, "What are you doing?" And the race car driver says, "Hey, what is behind me is not important." And my point is I I I think that today's a new day, and I appreciate what everybody in this room is doing. I will tell you that uh if you're an animal advocate, you're going to heaven. Uh, and I will tell you what I told the CASA advocates recently. You're going to heaven. I'm not sure about me. So, when you get to the pearly gates, if you could just hold them open a little longer to give me a chance to get in. I I say that, you know, humorously, but I want to tell you the Scott family says thank you. Um, I am. Yeah. Yeah. She says you're going to pray for me. Well, just hold the door open, man. Uh, I will tell you that Kingsley and Addie are are somewhere up in heaven smiling. Those are our rescue animals. Actually, Add's asleep in the corner, but Kingsley, he's paying attention. Uh and uh and my my daughter's rescue dog, who she has, is my granddaughter because I have no grandchildren, came over last night. We had a conversation about what's going on today. And he's very excited about the presentation and he's very excited about his future, you know, rescue animals that he may spend time with. And so, um I wrote a word here, executions. Uh I I don't know, but I'm thinking it might be appropriate for anybody that abuses an animal. Uh, I'm not sure that ACLU would appreciate that, but I think the word ought to get out that we're considering executions for anyone that abuses an animal. I think that is is amazing to me. And I heard I guess maybe it was you're talking about the DA needs to get involved. But I I would hope that we're vigorous in our pursuit of punishments for anyone that abuses animals. Um, yeah, I know the conversation around uh the crematory, is that how you say it? Sorry, cremation. My sense is that u uh once a human and or an animal has passed, they're back in the ocean of souls. And so I will tell you that that's I want us to do what's right, but that I'm not passionate or or angry about what's going on. Uh um I appreciate the the conversation about raising money. Let let me know how I can help. I will tell you in all fairness, Sanento title is on the wall of heroes uh at one of the um one of the rescue facilities. The wall of fame. It's a wall of fame. So, we do feel like that we're we're giving back now. Um, that's really I appreciate you guys here. Let me know. I can help. Thank you for the tour. Uh, I like the idea of spending the the the what the money that it's interest. I'd like to request air conditioning from the title company. Yeah. On the record, let's start with plaque. Oh, we get a plaque. Yeah. Because Mr. Bottom loves plaques. Anyhow, time's up. Thank you so much. Appreciate. Thank you folks in the room. Please help us work together. I do think it goes both ways. As my wife likes to remind me, uh the communication is important. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Kentum. Thank you, mayor. First of all, I want to thank everybody who came to listen to this um uh deal with City Gate. I want to thank City Gate for coming out here and doing this. I got a lot of questions, but five minutes is not going to cover it. So, um, one of my questions is when as as of right now as we speak, do you believe in the leadership of that department? Ma'am, do you do you believe in them? The leadership itself? I believe the leadership is is trying to make positive changes. Okay. And when you did your um studies and stuff, how many days total did you go to the facility? Like to get all this information in this book, how many days did you go on the first visit? Four days. Jan, I'm sorry. Can you speak into the microphone? On the first visit, um uh four days. On the second visit, I believe it was probably three days. Um and then uh in February I was there for I think another four days. U by then we're into implementation. Okay. So about 10 days or so. Okay. So the numbers that you guys have for killing animals in 2023. was a total of 772 animals. The length of stay aka kill for space was 21. I have a really hard time believing that number is correct because there's people that work in that facility that says that majority of the animals are getting killed for space and y'all put 510 for medical. Who decides to categor categorize the animal? It was for space or it was for medical. That would be the designated staff that are reviewing those animals and moving forward with those decisions. Do you think maybe sometimes they might just say it's medical, so they'll have that much attention from the public that they're killing animals for for um space? I'll phrase it in the way that I look at it, which is we definitely felt that that area of operations needs to be looked at and that so when we talked about the euthanasia, a matrix needs to be clearly identified and clearly communicated so that everybody who's involved in that decision process is on board with it. Um and and we do not have firsthand knowledge to say as to whether it was so so in other words the medical for 510 is questionable right? We don't know for sure if it was put down because of medical. It's a it's a question right out there. That's correct. Okay. And when you were there were the the cremation machine down by chance? It was not. It was not. Okay, I understand corpus Christie can't be a no kill 100%. I understand we have aggressive dogs. I understand we have sick dogs that are in pain. I understand that. But to kill animals for space, we got to do better for Corpus Christi. I mean, it's sad. Think about it. You're walking to their kennel. Their tails moving crazy. They're getting some attention. They trust you. You get them out of the kennel. You take them for the last walk. You put them inside a cold room, a cold table, and you kill them for space. It's BS. I don't like that. That's That's terrible. And then we dump them in the dump. We take their body to the dump. I just I just don't understand it. And there's partners out there that would have helped with the cremation. I got a handful of phone calls and no one's reached out to them for help. It just it it bothers me, you know, and and it just it's it's sickening. And and that's my opinion. You know, people say animals are animals. I don't think they're just animals. They're part of of of of our life, our family. They make us happy. They love us unconditional. They just want to be safe. They want they they're there thinking they're safe. and you know, and then for them to to get killed and get thrown in the dump, it just uh it bothers me. Um, back to the AC deal. I'm with Carolyn Peter. We need to not spend so much money on these AC's right now. We need to get some type of um their their their um units uh splitters they call them. I think the AC splitters, mini splits, they work great. They're even colder than than the regular ACs. You know, we got to spend this money wisely. We need to spend this money on kennels. We need to spend this money on on on getting people to adopt. Stop stop buying dogs off the streets and and adopt. Like, we got to do that. I mean, we just had to, you know, I mean, these these animals are waiting for us, you know, and and we're we're their last hope, you know? So, I just this means a lot to me. And you know, Peter, you know, I think the vet, we have the vet um position up right now, right? Yes, and how much is that salary? Oh, do you guys We're going to put it that as the maximum we can 170, I believe. 170. 170 max. The max. Yeah, the max is 170. So, we're going to We have to We have to recognize we're going to have to pay the max probably for the We got to pay the max on that. We got to pay the max on the director. We got to make pay the max to get good service, right? I mean, we got to and and we and we need as a council, we need to to work on this and make this department better. The public relies on us to make this this department better, you know, and and and animals. I mean, I think every other family has an animal, you know, and their and their family. So, I just I just really want to um fix this issue and um you know, I hope and pray that we all can get along in this council and and get this done once and for all and and uh and you know, bring bring hope to these animals and and forever homes. That's all that's all I'm asking. Thank you. Good. Thank you, Councilman. And I want to remind everybody, you know, this is I mean, Jan, you're the messenger. you were hired to say figure out a road map and give it to us. So, Councilman, we and our staff is who implements. She came in to say, and I I think it's great. I we've heard it all of it, if not the m great majority, but now it's on us. And and and my I guess my great concern is when you have everything wrong that that is in this book. You start it's got to be a whole new foundation because programs don't matter. None of that matters if we don't have a strong foundation which starts with processes, procedures, strong leadership, accountability. I mean, all of these things that any other of your 28 departments, you expect that from them. And so, I nothing makes me happier than to have the support of a council that is saying we're making this a priority. Um, Councilwoman Vaughn and I met with Judge Chapa because we had concerns about what is happening when a citation is issued because it doesn't seem like a whole lot. And so we she came in and we sat with her and we had a very good meeting about how it works on that end. I'm going to bring her to counsel so that she can explain to everyone um you know how how how that works on their end of it. But I can tell you she is working. She knows we explained to her that we are serious about this and we can't just we can write all the citations we want. We don't have anything to do with them after it's given to you. Then it's on them and we let her know we're serious about this DA. That's a whole another conversation we need to have as well because certain percentage hopefully smaller percentage but the worst cases are going to go to the DA and then they decide what they do or don't do. So we probably need to have that conversation with him too. Um but I just want you all to know that we have spoken with the DA uh with with the judge and she is implementing more of a uh sense of urgency when these cases come forth which is great. That's what we wanted. You know that's the outcome we wanted. um illegal sale of dogs at Moore Plaza at the Cal Allen uh parking or I don't know it's a shopping center uh Southerntherlands um uh I can name you right now my mind's going blank I have also spoken with PD and said every week make the rounds there are police officers driving around everywhere make and they have and they they are giving citations I said warnings were over. It's over. Warnings are are those days are gone. We really need to implement what we're serious about. We cannot have people out there with some trailer selling dogs in someone's parking lot. The other thing I would like, Peter, and if you please could handle it, every um store or you know the the um shopping center who is probably not even aware needs to have a letter coming from the city saying we are giving violations to illegal um illegal uh activity on your property. They need to be caring about that too because a lot of them have security driving around that little car. Well, they need to get rid of those people who are sitting there selling those dogs illegally. So, send us a draft. Send us a draft of that letter that's going to go out to any establishment who is probably doesn't know, but they need to know and they the city needs to reach out to them and let them know here's what's happening on your property and here's how we know because we're issuing citations. So, um there's that. Um, and then the update, can you give us an update on the veterinarian and the director? How long has that been out posted? It's a nationwide search. What is the expectation of, you know, bringing somebody in and how long will it take? Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to address it and then Jan's going to talk about nationwide availability. So, uh, both the director and the veterinarian positions are posted. The director position is being, uh, posted and and there's a search firm that's helping us. Uh, they're helping us on a few positions. Uh we're looking here. We're looking in Texas and nationwide for a director of operations. Uh the posting's been out there for a little bit, but the recruiter has been uh signed on about two weeks ago. Uh the veterinarian position's been posted for a couple of weeks now. Couple of weeks now. And we're not you we're not using a recruiter, are we? No. no recruiter on the vet position, but we've made numerous calls to all the veterinarians that are here uh for contract work and and the veterinarian community is aware. So, uh both of those are being uh recruited in earnest for the director position. I don't know if it's in the posting, but uh I'm willing to pay the highest salary, probably one of the highest paid, if not the highest paid director. We're talking about a company or city vehicle for them to use while they're here in that job because there's going to be a lot of driving around uh working with partner agencies just surveilling the area. Uniform allowance um you know a lot of allowances cuz like salary alone is not going to do it. Uh already this is a tough position to fill nationally in the state of Texas. Um and then to to try to get somebody to come down here at the end of the road makes it more difficult, right? So we have to be willing. I am. But when stories come out in the paper that oh my god this director is making this much and they have a vehicle and they have a clothing allowance the answer is yes they do and you all know about it. So but Jan can you talk a little bit about you know the availability of both these positions nationally directors and and especially veterinarians. Yeah. Um so I think um uh finding a qualified um skilled director is always a challenge. Um, I have a lot of connections within the industry. Um, so on the back side, while I don't want to be on the selection committee or participating in interviews or anything like that, but I would certainly be happy to try to make sure that any uh prospective um candidates aren't coming in with some problems in their background. um which I would probably be able to find out through a lot of connections that I have within animal welfare. Um as far as veterinarians, there is a national shortage of veterinarians even for owned animals for pets. There is an access to care um challenge for pet owners and even a bigger uh problem with uh shelter veterinarians. So we do have a number of programs throughout the country that are and there has been some interest in veterinarians uh in shelter medicine but it doesn't have the glamour that some aspects of shelter medicine might or of veterinary medicine might have. So it's not always easy to hire and there's a shortage. So um that is going to be an ongoing challenge. Uh, and I know that your position uh, actually director closes on May 26th. I don't know the closing date for the veterinarian. Um, but I in my past life hired a veterinarian for shelter medicine right out of vet school and found that that person was fantastic. And the reason being they were young, they were inspired and they actually approached me. This was when I was in Boulder, Colorado, and said, "I'm going to graduate uh vet school this summer, and I'm interested in working in a shelter." So, it's it's not out of the realm of possibilities. Hopefully, we're advertising in all those sites where those programs are occurring for shelter veterinarians. And um I think the the salary um and uh living uh you know cost of living within your community it should be doable to hire somebody. So hopefully um that will happen quickly. Okay. Okay. Thank you Councilwoman Compos. Thank you Jen. And thank you mayor. Well, um, a lot has been said already. And, um, I I look at it as the big picture. Um, and as much as we don't want to go back in time or back in history as to how we arrived here, uh, we do at least need to touch on it. And I I will say thank you to uh our city manager for at least uh making animal care services or for uh an independent uh department. But after that something went off the rails because we have not had the leadership that we have needed and it's been acknowledged by Jan and by others and by our um our activists you know and the uh thank goodness that they stepped up you know they did more than their share and all they wanted was a seat at the table that's all they just wanted a seat at the table. Um, thank goodness again that we have uh people that care so much and and I you know I I feel you know um you know Eric Anthu's passion for you know um acknowledging the what animals do you know to our lives. Uh just recently I became, you know, a dog owner because uh my my brother passed away and he um he he needed someone to take care of him. This is cuz he was in hospice and and now you know I have him. So yes, you know, they they do become, you know, family to you. So I can understand that. But at the end of the day, they rely on us. They rely on our leadership. So, um, money is not always the issue. I'm looking at, um, the base on a limited survey of other animal services operations in other Texas cities, CCACs, at a 16.66 per cap per capita is about 7.6% above the average for um, fiscal year 23 24 per capita animal services operations cost of 15.02. So the bottom line is we're not that off. So why are we not doing a better job? So we do really need to reflect. We do really need to look and the only thing that I can that I personally can see is leadership. We have to be able to retain. And that's the other thing that's missing now. And I'm sure it was difficult for you, Jan, for you not to be able to go to that department and get history because there was hardly anyone there that could provide history for that department because it was almost non-existent, I would imagine, cuz the turnover has been horrendous. So again, you know, I know it was probably very difficult for you, you know, to to get to this, but you persevered and you did it, right? Uh, so I I we do we we thank you for that. Um, I I still have to also thank Dr. Draper. Okay. I I've never met her, but speaking to some of the activists and some of the people that have been calling, she was above and beyond more than what um we in our city valued. As a matter of fact, I went back and I looked at um she had received I think the uh employee of the year in 2020 or something like that and uh for her and it's not like she left Corpus Christie. She's still here. Um so um I think there's something to be said about that that maybe we need to, you know, keep those relationships open and see what we can do to maybe rectify that situation. I'm not sure if we would ever could, but I'm hoping that we can. Um, and I think that, like you said, it is a national shortage that we have with our veterinarians, and for us to have lost someone like her is is really devastating. Dr. Draper retired. No, she didn't. She's uh we have a retirement letter. No. Well, she she's working with Cheryl, so no, she's not retired. She retired from the city, right? But by the way, well uh she retired for the city for reasons and and what I had asked was was there an exit interview and to my knowledge there wasn't. What I was told was there was no exit interview. So maybe you might find out as to why she, you know, um decided to retire. She just to just so you know too, she's still working for us as in a contract way. Yeah. So she she's on she's on our payroll still as a contract employee. Well, good. Okay. Yeah. Just so you know. Okay. Great. Okay. She's at Okay. Well, good. Um the other is um and thank goodness that we also like you acknowledged Jan, we have an experienced um assistant um what is it? Um animal assistant director assistant director to the animal care. Um and it Oh, damn. Yeah, because it's that was quick. All right. Well, I guess that ends it for now. All right. Well, I just wanted to acknowledge again um for the hiring uh making sure that we do hire experienced uh personnel that can lead these departments and and I'm going to, you know, put it back at you, Peter, because you are our chief, right? I'm in charge of hiring. You're in charge. So, you know, when you hire someone, let them just do their job. That's all. Um I do. Well, not not what I hear from the community. So, thank you. Thank you, Councilman Kent. Thanks for the input. Oh, yes. No, that was it. Okay. Council, yeah, because we're at 401. Quick question. Um, I understand there's a disconnect between the shelter and the nonprofits and the rescue groups. somewhere somehow there's a disconnect and we need to fix that relationships with all of them because they're the backbone also for this community to help and save these animals. So something's going on with that. What I wanted to suggest is on the vet and the director, I would like to see a panel of community activists, people from these um other shelters um packs the the um um rescue groups because at at the end of the day, Peter, they're going to be working directly with them. They're not going to be working with us. They're going to be working directly with the director and the vet. And I really think that's some that's very important for for us to move forward. Um I think that that would be a great idea to before we hire anybody, let them do some interviews, let them ask them questions and see if you know if they will they will um all work together. And you know today is it's a great day. We're talking, discussing this, but I really would like to see this back on the agenda for the June 10th meeting because we need to give staff direction um with that 3 point I think $3.7 million that we might have to spend. Um I mean, we could talk all day long, but we need to have action and I think we need to move move staff to direction where we want as a council to for them to do. Yeah, that's definitely the plan. So, so I'm requesting it to be back on the agenda June the 10th. I'm giving the courtesy to you and the mayor. Um, but we need we need to figure out something quick because it's there's animals dying every day. So, I want to I want to fix this. So, um, that's all. Thank you. Good. Yeah, Mayor, as we've talked about it with the council with Councilman Ku, but we'll bring uh the the one-time monies that are available, a recommendation, and then we'll get input from the council on how that monies could be allocated. Well, I think you know and and make sure you have time. I would imagine you will, but what I want to see is not just a bunch of, you know, well, here's a whole bunch of things. This has to be done very strategically and and we're not we are not we on this dis are not animal professionals, right? We care about animals. We make policy for the animal right you know department or CCAC but we need whomever your team Jan to say out of 170 recommendations and based on the cost of those you're not going to put a you know let's put a million dollar one at the top and and you know what you're doing but unfortunately Peter there has been a a loss of trust so I understand this might be frustrating for you, but it's more frustrating. I was going to just explain the 170. So, of the 170, most many of them don't have any financial impact, right? And so, the impact that Jan showed, 24 have an impact of a million dollars, but those are all repeating. So, what we're going to bring back in the 10th is one time. It has to be one-time things, things like improvements to the air conditioning, right? Vehicles. Uh, so we have all that. It's in the 200 page. Well, then if it's that easy, all we have to do is I I have the list here. They already took it from the report to say if you had 3 million this is what we recommend in priority order. Okay. So it's done. We just have to bring that. But just as a reminder the 170 recommendations most of them are things like writing standard operating procedures that have never existed. Right. Well to that point right is how that is going to be implemented. And I know we're missing a huge piece of this puzzle which is the director. The director is who is going to set a completely new culture. So really and the council should know nothing is going to happen right away. You can write down all the things you want and and this is nothing personal but there is zero there's very little trust right now. There is that's the bottom line the trust but things are happening right now. We're Well, I mean, that's great, but Peter, if if again, yeah, there's nobody in communications yelling that out, saying, "Guess what? We we we are doing these things." I mean, is there There is Yeah. Really? Where where is she doing this? Then we're going to sit here a little longer. Where is she doing this? Where who who is who is talking about all the wonderful things we're doing? I I know we have the community leaison, but I'm talking about what's being implemented right now because no one knew about this assessment until today for the most part because it wasn't fully completed and we started. It's not about why though. It it's it's no one knew about it. So who who is the communications person all over Facebook talking about we're implementing these things and maybe all over I don't know wherever you know. So our community community community relations person is so she's on all of the social media sites. Um now she's working directly with communications to get more information out. So it is a step process and now that this is out we have started you guys are updated more will be coming out. Okay. So send us a list of all those Facebook pages that she's on. Okay. because I get them on the regular and there is nobody from the city responding, correcting, educating and that's what I want to see. That is what we're missing. And so then that leads to mistrust. So back to my point, all these things we're doing, the SOPs are wonderful, but I don't know that we should expect, you know, change. So, Councilman, I don't want you to be disappointed in two or three or four weeks and say, "Well, where's a good time? We spent $200,000." I know. But what I'm saying is is we don't have a director yet. So, the leader, right? We don't have a director. We need to get this done before the director comes before she's like, "What is this? It's a Well, no, that's that's what she's that's exactly who we're signing up to for her to do." So, so this new director is going to have a package that is going to be one that we've never put out because that's what it's going to take. It's very difficult. We just heard there's a shortage. It's very difficult to bring on a or to find a veterinarian. So, once we do find them, it is no different than what you did. You came in here, you had to change the entire culture of 4 thou well at the time it was 3,000 3,000 people. That is not easy to do. So that's the expectation is we're changing the culture. We agree. Okay. Yeah. All right. Um Oh, Councilwoman Paxton Vaughn and then we're closing it out. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Just a quick quick thing. Um Peter, I think this would make the most sense for me. I'm just bridging the thoughts in this effort. Mayor's correct. A lot of these cultures within the organization have to be set and is and and carried through by the new director. It starts from the top. It always starts from the top. However, I think what um council member Ku is saying is also valid in that there's a lot we can do in the immediate term before waiting. You know, when you're writing SOPs, a lot of those, yes, they're very specific to each facility, but they're also taking greatly into consideration best practices, basics. So I think making the skeleton of those and allowing there like he said we need to attract a professional that comes in there's something that they want to come into. Sure. But they are going to have the challenge of tailoring it. Yes. So if if I may I would love to see 30-day updates cuz like you said out of this 170 recommendation the majority don't have a dollar amount tied to them. And so I think if we were getting regular 30 days, have an update um to council, that also I think would help with what the mayor is saying to help us communicate publicly in a very um established platform that change are being made. Good and perhaps it sounds like the PIO is now working under with the city's PIO to kind of to craft those messages. That's great. Um I also think and I don't know how we would connect that but I think the culture has to go outside ACS as well. Absolutely. Schools. Yeah, we're going to schools now, right? We have to change that mentality. Whether it's keep our beaches clean, don't litter, we take care of our pets. The culture has to change like that. And then my last thought, not to belabor anything, when we have these free services available, um microchipping, spaying, neutering, anything like that. Do we have anything currently in place where we maybe partner with RTA to to help facilitate increased access to this? I'm not sure if we we don't use RTA today, but that's part of the work that we have to do is doing better outreach to let the community know how they can access free or other services for their pets. Yeah. Can we look into that perhaps? We are looking into it. Yeah. To add that on there just for access. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Access to the services. And then first, what are the services and how do I get there? We know some people don't have transportation. So, and there's free services for food, for spayne, neuter, for vaccines, surgeries, right? or well maybe not surgeries but yeah surgeries but it's a lot less counciloman vaugh in I I just think we need to make it clear to the public we don't think everybody at animal control doesn't care there are people that really care about their jobs and they care about the animals and I know they do and I think what you're so concerned about is the killing of the animals dumping at the dump because we can't do everything in a month and I think you know that but that is what you're concerned about it me too and I don't think that's going to happen I think they're going to stop that and they're not taking them to the dump And um we're just going to have to be patient. This did not get like this overnight. It's not going to get fixed. And I think the new director should have full reign. Yeah. Thank you, Councilwoman. Yes. So, we're going to wrap this up. Thank you all very much. Um at the end of the day, it is a new day because we have a road map and we've got we have a plan and we've identified some funding and that's the big thing. So, um thank you all. We've got what? Four standing. Four standing and you have to leave. So Jan, thank you very much everybody. Thank you for being here and presentation. Thank you. Uh ladies, thank you. Linda everybody. Yes. Oh god. Okay. So yes. So this meeting is now adjourned.