I did. There we go. Thanks, Courtney. I now open the regular city council meeting of the LEC city council for October the 28th, 2025. The city council will now receive recess that is into executive session in accordance with Texas Government Code 551071 to consult with and seek the advice of the C city's legal council including agenda item 6 551.072 072 to discuss the purchase, exchange, or value of real property and 551.074 to discuss personnel matters. The city council is recessing at 10:06 p.m. Okay. The city council will reconvene and now take up our ceremonial items. I call on Minister Doug Paige with the Monterey Church of Christ to lead us in our invocation, followed by Councilman Tim Collins, who will lead us in the US and Texas Pledge of Allegiance. Will you please stand? >> Let's pray together. Gracious and loving God, we pause in gratitude for the gift of this day and for the privilege of serving this community. We thank you for Lach, for its people, its neighborhoods, its schools, its businesses, and the many ways that we're connected as neighbors. I pray, God, for this gathering today. As conversations take place and decisions are made that shape our shared life together, I pray that you grant wisdom to this group of leaders. May their discussions be guided by integrity, humility, and a spirit of cooperation. Give them eyes to see what is just, hearts to consider the needs of every resident, and courage to pursue what promotes peace and the flourishing for all people. We ask your blessing on those who work in this community daily, often quietly, to keep our city safe and clean and welcoming. We pray that Lach will continue to be a place where people come to find life and opportunity. We pray you bless every citizen from the youngest to the oldest, from every background and walk of life. May this meeting today and this city be marked by fairness, compassion, and hope. Bless us all, Father, as we work together for the common good. In these things we pray in Jesus name. Amen. >> Amen. >> Amen. >> To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I aliance to the Texas one state one and indivisible. >> Thank you to everyone for being here today. We're now going to call the meeting to order and take up citizen comments. According to Leach City Council rules, any citizen wishing to appear in person before a regular meeting of the city council regarding any matter posted on the city council agenda, shall complete the sign up form provided at the meeting no later than 2 p.m. today, October the 28th. Now, please remember to give us your name and address and that you will have three minutes to make your comments. a warning bell will sound when you have then you'll have 30 seconds left to make additional comments. So with that we have two and the first one is Clint Overlin. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I'm ashamed of you. If you've run on Republican ticket means smaller government, but yet you want to tax us one more time, you can call it a permit for our alarm systems, the ones that we pay for, the ones we install, the ones that we upkeep, the one we pay for monitoring, but you want to tax us another $50 every year. What's going to stop you from taxing it $100 next year or $150 after that? It's wrong and you know it in your heart. You know it. We have people that are going hungry, especially in this economy. SNAP benefits being cut. Well, $50 could mean the difference between a family of four eating for two weeks. But y'all don't care about that. Not at all. I'm ashamed of you. Especially, as I said, if you ran on a Republican small government ticket, y'all know better than this. each and every one of you just because it's a tax grab. At least say it's a money grab, but you're reaching out. Will you please do that? And not just call it a permit. It's not a permit. You're not giving me permission for anything. You're taxing me because I want to keep my property safe. I already have I already paid taxes for the police department, for the sheriff's department, for the fire department to do that. Yet you want to charge me again. Do you think that is right? Can any of you look me in the eye instead of looking down at your com computers or your your cell phones and tell me that is correct? That is right thing to do. You know that you can't. We're supposed to be a a nation of laws, not a a nation of conniving. Slide behind the the sheets or we'll just call it a permit. We'll just call it a another fee, another another fine. You already have things in place to find people whose alarms go off repeatedly. That's already in place. Implement it. Use it. But no, I've worked for 10 years in a jail. Trust me when I tell you that there's very few false alarms. So, a lot of times there's got these guys out there trying to get the cops to come out there over and over again so the alarms get shut down. Did y'all ever think about that? I work for a public defender office right now. Trust me, my clients are that smart. Do the right thing, ladies and gentlemen. Stop this taxation. It's ridiculous. Have a nice day. >> Thank you, Mr. Overland. As a reminder, the city of Lok is a nonpartisan, non sectarian organization. And with that, I'd like to now ask Tanya, I believe it's >> Jerber. >> Jernburgg. Thank you, Tanya. I live at 7431 31st Street here in Levik, Texas. Mr. Mayor, city council members, thank you for allowing me to speak today. In 2024, Lick ranked as the 10th most dangerous city in Texas with 3,981 crimes committed per 100,000 residents. And that's according to the FBI uniform crime reporting statistics. The odds of being a victim in Levik is one out of 117 and one in 31 um specifically for property crime. Despite recent improvement, Lach remains a city with the highest crime rate in Texas. Um, for the most part as a result of methane crimes, meth meth yeah, meth related crimes and property thefts which have continued to run rampant in the city. Love residences um residents have installed security systems as a way to protect themselves from this uptick in in crime. According to reports, 75% of the 18,000 alarm related calls reported to by the police department annually have been deemed as being false alarms. However, this does equate to about 10% of all 911 calls to the P Leach Police Department. While false alarms are dramatically d they divert and drain public safety resources, it's it's an issue. I will contest to that. But it's and this these rates of 75% are un are unsustainable. The city of love false alarm ordinance however to combat this problem really needs to be investigated thoroughly from all angles. For starters, scheduling city council meetings in the evening to allow other concerned public citizens who work during the day to be here like us to voice their concerns. In the interest of time, I'd like to just focus my attention just to two unintended consequences resulting from this ordinance. Um, first and foremost, um, number one is that it will discourage system use and reporting. Fear of hefty fines will discourage residents from using their alarm systems altogether in some instances. For example, a retiree living on a fixed income might disable her system completely because she can barely afford the senior discount permit rate. A penalty fee on top of that places an even larger financial burden on her as well as other financially struggling residents. By disarming her system, her home now is vulnerable, meaning it's more susceptible to break-ins. Did you know that studies show that neighborhoods with higher penetration of alarm systems have lower residential burglary rates overall? Unattended consequence too is that it's going to foster disputes and bureaucracy. Billing residents for suspected false alarms will create additional administrative work for the city departments which must then process and handle appeals and manage payment plans. In closing, I just like to underscore one one thing is that um when we try sometimes when we mean well, we can have un unfortunate consequences. Please think this through because the the unended consequences could be detrimental to residences of Levik. Thank you. >> Thank you, ma'am. >> At this time, we'll now take up agenda item 4.1, the minutes for the September 23rd, 2025 regular city council meeting. Is there a motion to approve item 4.1? >> Motion by Councilman Rose. Can I get a second? Second by Councilwoman Dr. Wilson. All those in favor say I. >> All oppose, same sign. The motion carries. We are going to make a little adjustment on the agenda item and we're going to take up agenda item 6.4 4 to consider an ordinance amending chapter 8 business and amusements by amending article 811 burglar and robbery alarms. And I'm going to call on Neil Baron, our assistant police chief, to provide the briefing on this matter. And um so thank you Neil. >> Good afternoon Mayor Pro Tim Council. Thank you for having us here. This afternoon, we've prepared some slides for you with some information in regard to the alarm ordinance and also our calls for service uh dealing with alarms in the city of Leuk. Excuse me. >> Which one was this? What's the number? So, it should be that one. Okay. Okay. Now, we're ready. So, the purpose of the alarm ordinance and uh let me start off by clarifying that the alarm ordinance as >> Mayor Pro Tim, we're we're still not on our screens. I can run it from up here if that would be helpful. >> Sure. I'm not sure how to make it go to the screen. >> Okay, >> there you apologies. Um let me start off with uh our ordinance. The purpose of it is to uh free up first responders to answer higher priority calls for service in the city of Leok. And this ordinance applies only to third-party monitored alarm systems. So, I want to be very clear on that right up front that this is ordinance isn't talking about your Ring doorbell cameras or Arlo systems that are monitored from your phone and not designed to notify public safety about an alarm that's occurring at your business or your home. So, uh just so we all start off on the same page in that regard. Um, so the the alarm ordinance, like I said before, is designed to help free up public safety resources to respond to more serious calls for service and by maintaining a formal structure for alarm registration, response tracking, and graduated penalties for repeat false alarms. The ordinance promotes accountability among alarm system users. It also encourages proper maintenance, responsible use while enabling the city to identify chronic false alarm locations and take corrective action when necessary. The purpose of the fee, first of all, it promotes accountability and fairness. The the fee allows people that choose to get alarms to pay for that extra level of service. Um, some of the things that I've read in regard to this say that 10% of your population have alarm systems. So that that small portion of the population is their alarm monitoring is basically for the police to respond is being uh paid for by other elements of the population. And accountability also it it helps us keep up with who has the alarm and who we need to contact if if the alarm happens at a business or a home. Like I've said before, it supports public safety resources. 11.16 of all the calls for service in 2024 were alarm calls. And of that, 1.11% were false alarms. So these false alarms that that doesn't include cancel canceled alarms where someone accidentally set off their alarm system and then called us and and stopped our response. doesn't count those and it doesn't count uh alarms that were set off because of the weather. High winds like today or hail storms or lightning or thunder. Those are just the alarms that were legitimate. Meaning that we'll see in just a few minutes a police report was written. It also improves emergency response efficiency. Our officers dedicated over 5,000 hours to responding to false alarms in 2024. With a permitted system, we can reduce that time because we have directly on file who to contact in regard to that alarm. So when the officer arrives at a location, officer doesn't have to sit around and wait for dispatch to find out who owns or who's responsible for that alarm system to send someone out to open the door for the officer to help the officer get through the gate or whatnot. So it will help speed up the officer's time on the call. The last bullet on that slide is that funds derived from this fee help cover the cost of administering the fee or administering the alarm reduction program, managing appeals and uh issuing reminders or processing payments and whatnot. The total alarm counts by year. It's easier, I think, to explain this slide looking at it from right to left. Starting with the the total number of alarms in 2019, for instance, we had a total alarm count of over 16,000. Of those 16,000, 13,000 were faults. 749 were exempt, meaning that they were caused by the weather or they occurred at a school or a government property. 1763 were cancelled, meaning that the alarm uh prov or owner called and said, "Hey, everything's okay. You don't have to come out here anymore." And our officers stopped their response before they arrived on the scene. And in the last column on the left, 217, those were legitimate alarms where when officers arrived, they found some kind of criminal activity had occurred necessitating a crime report to be made. And all those definitions are on the right hand side of that slide. As you know with thought the calls for service that come into the police department, we have to prioritize how we respond, which calls we respond to first. Alarms are prioritized as priority twos. So a priority two call of course falls under a priority one call. Priority one call is where someone's life is being threatened. that's happening right now and we try to dispatch those or we do dispatch those in less than a minute. A priority call, priority two call is a crime that's in progress and we dispatch those in 3 minutes. Alarm calls when it's busy or when we are have a a big influx of alarm calls like today there's probably a lot of alarm calls because of the wind. We have to reduce the priority level of those calls simply because there's so many of them that we don't have enough people to be able to respond to all those and the priority one calls that are ahead of them. So for 2024 the commercial and residential alarms breakdown. This gives you a good idea of where the alarms are occurring, where the legitimate alarms are occurring, where the cancel and exempt and false alarms are occurring. You can see 90.40% of legitimate alarms were commercial. 9.61 of legitimate alarms occurred at residences. For the totals, 84.36 of percent of commercial alarms were false and 87.05% of residential alarms were faults. On the next slide, we'll look at our top 10 alarm locations across the city. Most of these were commercial. You can see the on the right hand column are the totals. So if you look at the very top row, 114 total alarm calls that one address in a year, 37 of which were fault faults, 15 were exempt due to some type of weather condition. uh 62 were cancelled and that particular row had zero legitimate alarms. Fines and fees collected for a year under the all these years listed on this slide were under the prior ordinance. So you had to have three we'll see in just a minute. You had to have three false alarms before you had to get a permit under the previous ordinance. So that's uh the fees were generated from obtaining the permit. The fines were generated from the continued alarms after the permit, which we were I think is it's either four or five you had after you got your permit. You get four or five free alarms before you were charged for another false alarm. We'll see that in just a minute. Of those years, 2019 to 2024, we had $38,825 that was outstanding that went unpaid, be it for uh permits or fines in regard to false alarms after a permit was obtained. of the 15th largest cities in Texas. Um, some sources you look at have luck listed as 11. Some of them have uh luck listed at 10, but uh I feel like we're a pretty solid 10 for this. And of the city's top 15 cities, that's the the fee that they are charging for their permit and for each subsequent false alarm after obtaining a permit. This is all based on state law. We'll go over the the local government code in just a minute that outlines the structure for the fees and the permits. So in the local government code, excuse me, a permit is required to operate an alarm. It's required to be renewed annually. This and the local government code gives the city gives cities, municipalities the ability to enact ordinances along the lines of this local government code. Just so you're aware of that. The um gives us the ability to renew annually. Uh the cost outlined in the government code is $50 up to $50 for residential locations and up to $250 for all other locations. The fees for that start at $50 for anything above four, 75 above six, and $100 for above eight false alarms. Now, we'll talk about our prior ordinance. That ordinance was enacted in 2001. It was amended in 2003 and again in 2007. I'm not sure exactly what those uh amendments were, but I know it had changed a little bit. So, it like I said before, the prior ordinance did not require a permit until after the your third uh false burglary alarm or the first false robbery alarm in a calendar year. You weren't required to renew unless you had one false alarm during that calendar year. And the annual permit fee was just like it is under the current ordinance. $50 or $25 for 65 and over. There's no fee for the first five burglary and the first two false robbery alarms during a permit year. $50 for um six or more and $100 per false robbery alarm. We issued 1687 permits in 2024, meaning that those locations had at least three false alarms before we had to issue a permit to them. The current ordinance went into effect on October 1st and uh we paused that on October 16th, but it requires it follows state law. It uh requires a permit before activation of alarm system. Annual renewal. The renewal fee, like I said, $50 or $25 for 65 or over. The fees, as we talked about before, $50, $75, $100, with the a fine not to exceed $500 for any violation of the ordinance. Um between the dates that this ordinance was effective, we received 292 permit applications um that some of them were in the mail. You know, when we stopped uh working on this and so they were still coming in as of the 27th and um from October 1st to October 16th, a total of 332 false alarms calls were received by our dispatch. So 51 locations experienced four or more false alarms that resulted in us sending out 73 different bills to those locations. >> Chief Baron. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Can you go back to that slide? I know we're going to have a discussion, but can you repeat that last part that you just >> Sure. So from in the the two weeks the alarm or the current alarm ordinance was in effect, we had a total of 332 false alarm calls that we received. Okay. Um those stemmed from 51 locations and of those they received four or more false alarms. So that's that's what's required to hit that threshold to get your first fine. And so we sent out 73 uh alarms were were billable out of those. Does that clarify? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> And that that's in the that short time that that ordinance was in effect. >> So this is why this is important when you break down the time that's spent on false alarm call response. It's it's a big deal for us. Um, we send two officers to each alarm call because you don't know what's going to what you're going to have in store for you when you arrive on the location. Um, if it is a good alarm, you someone's broken into someone else's home or someone's place of business. And, uh, often that leads to some type of confrontation with the police. So, we always send two officers on these calls. Um, so when you take the number of false alarms and multiply that by the number of required officers, you get uh 19,178 officers went to different alarm calls across the city in 2024. We spent just under 16 minutes at each one of these calls. That's the officer arriving, checking, maybe having to wait for uh a reporting party or some uh representative of the business or home to arrive and let the officer in so they don't have to force entry or anything and make sure everything's okay inside the residence or business before they leave. So when you total all that up, we spent 5,27 hours on false alarm calls. And when you multiply that by the base salary of a step a police officer, that's the amount that we spent in 2024 on false alarm calls. As we worked through this ordinance and and looked at the feedback uh that we received on uh on social media and whatnot, we saw some areas where we thought as a staff we could make improvements to the ordinance as it's written and you'll see those outlined before you on this slide. Um the first one we'd like to clarify or we have in the ordinance that uh we're presenting today uh clarify a definition of an alarm system to make sure that it's understood that it only applies to monitored alarm systems. If you have an alarm system and it's not set up to call the police or you request the the alarm company not to call the police, then you're you don't have to have this. Okay. Um you don't have to pay the fee. um clarifying that there is no permit requirement for non-mon monitored alarms, confirming that a false alarm notification does not include alarms caused by vandalism, weather events, or mechanical or electrical problems. We felt like that wasn't as clear as it was in the first ordinance about weather related alarms, especially and then clarifying that there is no permit required for police to respond to a burglar alarm. So, we'll we'll come out. We want to make sure everyone knows that we're coming. Uh we just don't want to come if it's false. Uh providing for an exclusion of the permit fee. Uh there's a opt out clause in this uh newer version of the ordinance that allows an alarm user to opt out of paying the fee and uh still fill out a permit but opt out of paying the fee. And uh that just the charge would come on the back end if a false alarm occurs at that property. It's, like I said before, it's important for us to have that contact information. That's why it's important to have a permit so we know who to call and they can get out there quickly and get our officers back in service if there is an alarm at a business. Any questions or would you like me to go back to any other slides? >> Do we have any questions? >> Yes, sir. Um this may be an obvious question. No permit required for police to respond to a burglar burglar alarm. Can you explain difference in the burglar alarm and on the next to last um bullet? Yes sir. So the uh a burglar alarm that's basically any burglar alarm that we would receive. we would come in. Some of the cities that I listed in the 15 top cities, they require you to have a permit before police will respond to a burglar alarm at that residence or business. >> Okay. >> So, we wanted to clarify in our ordinance that we are not requiring someone to have a permit for us to respond. >> Oh, gotcha. Thank you, >> Councilman Collins, >> Neil. Thank you for being here today. Um, tell me what is a a monitored alarm versus one that's unmonitored. What What exactly does that mean? >> When I'm talking about a monitored alarm system, I'm talking about a system that is monitored by a third party vendor. Um, I'm not sure the I can't pull a name uh off the top of my head of a vendor, but um if I purchase an alarm system for my home and I work through a vendor that monitors the cameras or the window breaks or the the door breaks in my home and is responsible for notifying public safety agencies when my alarm is triggered, that is a monitored alarm system. If if I have a system at my house that only alerts me if the glass breaks or if the door opens or if there a camera alert goes off, then that is not considered a monitored alarm by this ordinance. And so if I have a monitored system and I'm using company X, and I don't know any companies either, but I'm using company X for this monitoring, um, do they not know who I am? And they're going to call me first, right? Company X, if your alarm went off, Mr. Collins, uh, do I get the first phone call or do you get the first phone call? >> I'm I'm not sure on how those companies operate. I I would assume you could probably set it up either way. I'm not sure >> is it and I'm I'm just asking would it not seem more reasonable to require consistency within the companies and how they report to you versus um allowing them to just, you know, call me, call you, call the neighbor. Who do they call first? Is is there not some regulation as to how those companies operate in our community versus a different method of controlling when you get a phone call, when the PD gets a phone call. >> Yes. I think I mean that would be a a best case scenario for the alarm company to call the homeowner or business owner first and let them know that alarm has gone off and maybe they go check it or they, you know, check their cameras themselves or whatnot. >> Well, and I guess I'm I'm asking the inconsistency among the companies if they handle themselves differently. Some would call PD first. Some would call the homeowner first. Some would that just seems like a, you know, a method of getting something that says we've got a reasonable reason for PD to respond. >> Yes, sir. I see what you're saying. >> Versus um I couldn't get a hold of the homeowner or we just sent somebody out immediately. But there's no regulation. Is there any statutory regulation that says we can tell how a monitored alarm system is going to respond in our community? >> Yeah, the statute does allow for us to put in our ordinance if we adopt an ordinance regulating burglar alarms. It does allow for us to put in there a regulation that a monitored alarm system, the third party attempt to contact the occupant at least twice um before they would contact law enforcement. It does allow for that in the statute. >> Okay. Um, next question. Um, define burglary versus robbery. You you gave out two different kind of statistics there. What's the difference in those two activities? >> So, a a robbery is when someone is being threatened to take their possessions away. Um, if a burglary would occur, if there's no one at home or no one in the business and they break in and take possessions out of either one of those. So, in a robbery, we're we're face to face. >> Yes. >> More or less. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> All right. Um, >> and it seems that you you pointed out very clearly that the commercial uh properties are seeing a much higher uh number of alarms and false alarms and are a bigger issue than our residential properties. >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. I'll come up with some more in a minute, but Okay, that's great. Thank you, >> Chief Baron. I know I still feel like there's still some confusion from folks. And when we talk about thirdparty, that means that you are paying for a service, an extended service. So, if I have a ring at home and I don't have it connected to the third party, I don't have to pay that fee. Right. >> Correct. If I have a you like you said a phone monitor, I've bought a camera a off of Amazon and I'm monitoring my own home. I don't have to pay a fee. Right. >> Correct. >> If you I think you said this. If my car alarm goes off, I don't have to pay a fee. Correct. >> Correct. Car alarms are not included. >> I mean, that's only if you actually have a monitored service, then you would pay it. And you I think you mentioned a statistic or a number of 10% of households businesses actually have that third party service. >> Yes. That's not specific to luck. That's a more of a nationwide figure. Mhm. And I heard one of the citizen comments um that mentioned that a senior citizen might not get the service if you know the fee, which I think what you what was mentioned to us is that you have a $50 fee, you have a $25 fee for a senior discount, which would come out to about $2 a month. And that's if only they had a thirdparty service. Yes, ma'am. That is correct. >> Okay. Um, I know Dr. Wilson >> has a question. >> Thank you, Neil, for being here. Couple of questions. >> Is there any guesstimate of how many monitored alarms are in the city of Le >> that would be hard for us to put a finger on right now? U we had like the slide that showed how many permits that we issued in 2024. That's like I said, that's just the number that had three or more false alarms in 2024. So, it's really hard for me to estimate how many monitored alarm systems there are in the city of Lok. Um, roughly 10% would be a industry um guess. >> Okay. Um, so overall the the spirit of the ordinance is to try to benefit LPD and not having to go to false alarms, you know, and the argument that we hear from citizens is, well, I've never had a false alarm. Why should I have to pay a permit fee, which is a a a good and, you know, reasonable question to ask? So I think and this is going to be a very tough question and not directed only at you so don't take it as such but how is the new ordinance going to be more beneficial to LPD versus the prior ordinance where we were essentially just penalizing people who were having repeat false alarms. How would a new permit fee from the beginning of just saying yes you have to be monitored you have to pay a fee. How is that going to actually be beneficial to LBD to not have to go to false alarms? Because as you've said, nothing in these ordinances prevents you guys from having to go if there's an alarm. Whether they're permitted, whether they're not, whether they've had false alarms, whether they have a great monitored system. I'm trying to figure out how is it actually going to be beneficial to you guys just to have the permit fee. >> I think looking at looking at this holistically, I I think that it will benefit us and the citizens in that it frees officers up in the long run to respond to priority one calls for service. That's our main goal in in all of this is to provide a a better response to citizens for the high priority calls where life is in danger. Um, but to enable that, the permit fees help us to keep track of who has an alarm and who to contact about that alarm. And it refreshes the alarm owner's memory as to how to operate the alarm. It lets them know that they need to be they and their employees if it's a business need to be uh good at operating the alarm and not setting off, you know, don't put a a basket of balloons in a room that's going to set the alarm off multiple times over the weekend. Things like that. It's a good refresher for everyone uh to let them know that this does cause problems for first responders and it's important to keep uh your alarm in good working order and all all that leads to a reduction in false alarms which leads to a better response for us on priority one calls for service and lets our officers get there faster. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. And following what you said about better response, you also um I think what it also does not only a better response but you're able to focus on real crimes happening and when you're taking I think the number of officers two officers per call about a 16minute average that's also very striking and you know we're a city that is very pro law enforcement and so you know we want to make sure that our officer time is being well utilized but not only that I think for the benefit of the citizens in general it's important that you're responding to calls emergency calls that you know could be life or death so you know I think that's something else um I know Mr. Sheen has a question. >> Questions? I'm just ready to speak on the subject. >> Well, you know, I have a a concern um today that as everyone can see, we're missing two of our council members, our mayor and uh Councilman Harris. And I know that um our police chief, Seth, has also been out of commission. And so I um I have some concerns that we're taking that we're acting on this today. And I feel like we need to postpone this when we have all of our council here on November the 11th for the November 11th meeting. Is that something that I can make a motion on? >> Yes, Mayor Pro Tim. You can make You have the ability to make your own motion if you'd like. >> That being said, I'd like to move to postpone further consideration of item 6.4 for until the November 11th, 2025 meeting of the city council. >> Yeah, you you'd need a second for that. >> I call for a second. All those in favor? >> Nope. >> Did Did you get a second? >> Do I have a second? >> Then the motion dies for lack of a second. >> Okay. In that case, we'll go ahead and go on. And I know that um Mr. Glashine would like to also make some additions. >> Thank you. >> Along with the other members of the council, I placed this ordinance on the agenda today because council made a mistake in passing this ordinance. We need to today acknowledge it, apologize to the community, and fix our mistake. So, I want to start by saying that I I take personal responsibility for this and I'm sure that the other members of the council will because as the legislative body of this city, ultimately it is our responsibility to understand and analyze the ordinances that we pass or choose not to pass. But I describe it as a mistake because speaking for myself, I can say that I did not accurately understand the way that this ordinance was uh the language of this ordinance or the way that staff intended to implement it and I take responsibility for that. So, that's the most important thing to start with, but I also want to share some comments about how we got into this position because I think we owe it to the public to explain a little bit of the background of how we got here and how we're going to prevent problems like this from happening again. Now, I generally believe in the philosophy that you should praise in public and and criticize in private, but because of our city's obligation to open meetings and open open discussion to the public, we have to have the the critical discussions in public as well. And so I want to start by saying that uh I was out of town for work the first reading of this ordinance and I went back and watched the staff briefing on this ordinance for the first time it was read and passed and and I have to say that the briefing was inadequate and in fact it was to the point that the briefing was misleading about the content and scope and intentions of the ordinance. I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but the the briefing of the ordinance described it as an implementation of escalating penalties for multiple false alarms. The briefing did not include anything about a permit being implied about fees for ordinary users or or these out of out of pocket costs for for homeowners. And um on the second reading, the the briefing was very similar too. So, the council relies on staff to accurately describe not just the content of the ordinances, but also the policy implications because we are not subject matter experts in every issue that's brought before the council. And so, you Mr. Atkinson, Mr. Wade, we rely on both of y'all to kind of help make sure that we have the right combination of briefers to accurately describe the items that are being brought to the council's attention. So I'll ask for your help to make sure that we have a more holistic presentation of the scope, the contents and the implement the strategy for implementing policies going forward. The other problem that I see with the way that this ordinance was implemented is that the legislative process flowed backwards. And what I mean by that is I I learned today that this ordinance has been in the works for I think over 18 months. Mr. Wade, how long have you been with the city? >> I've been here since June of 2024. >> And so, and before your time, this was an ordinance that was in the works >> there. Yeah, there was there was at least a some talking about it and maybe perhaps an early draft. >> As a member of the council, I didn't see this ordinance in any form until it was on the agenda for its first passage. the and and I always respect people who can identify a problem and simultaneously present a solution for it. I think that's great. That's really one of the best ways to try to find problems and fix it is is you come and say here's one possible solution. But the council needs to be involved in form in formulating a any sort of legislation like an ordinance especially a policy change like this in the early stages rather than being presented with something that is uh you know comprehensive complete and um and insufficiently briefed. And so you know for example I think in areas we've done better at this is having a work session on the item that allows presentation of the sort of data that we saw today for the first time. uh allow for council comments, public discussion, and then it allows that that discussion to percolate out into the community and council members to have time to get feedback from their constituents and come back with revisions. And so I'd really encourage that model of work session, presentation, deliberation into final drafting. You know, this ordinance, I think, was done with the work of outside consultants, which I'm I'm very skeptical of. the role of outside consultants was not ever discussed or disclosed in any any part of the briefing. And it's not even clear from the ordinance uh information that was in the packet that the plan was for these permits fees to be paid to a third party company that is going to profit from the share of the fees and expenses and use that as part of their profit for for servicing false alarm calls. That's a very important bit of information that's not disclosed in in the black letter of the ordinance, but we as a council need to know about that intention for staff implementation. So, I've given that critique, but I want to come back again and say this is ultimately the council's responsibility. And so, you know, all human beings are are going to make mistakes, myself included. The only way to respond is to acknowledge it, apologize, and fix the mistake. And so today, my solution that I'd like to propose is that we simply repeal the ordinance that was passed on September 9th. We take us back to the ordinance as it was before and then this will give us time to carefully study the issues and give them the appropriate consideration and public feedback that that's necessary. I don't want to get too far into it right now, but I I think it's worth mentioning that I think false alarms is is a bit of a bad term. Gentleman mentioned, for example, it's it is a common criminal tactic to repeatedly trigger an alarm in order to desensitize the respondents and create an opportunity to commit a crime. What what we do have a public interest in deterring is repeated, negligent, or unintentional triggering triggering of an alarm. And so I think we need to carefully study that to identify how prevalent that issue really is and what's the best fix for that particular subcategory. But I think it's wrong to permit and fee every user because citizens pay for public safety service. That is the number one thing that we count on the government to provide with our tax dollars. And the city should encourage alarms because I think that they provide an important public safety function for for residential and for commercial properties. We can go into more detail on that when we have the full council here. Uh and we have more time to get input from all of the department leadership. But today, in the meantime, let's acknowledge our mistake and fix it. Go back to the way that it was before and carefully study this issue going forward. So, uh, with that, I'll make a motion to repeal ordinance number 2025- 0111 as adopted on September 9th, 2025. >> Second. >> We have a motion by Councilman Glashine, second by um, Councilwoman Wilson. All those in favor say I. >> Sorry about that. I'm getting ahead. I think we have some discussion and I think also um did you want to speak? Go ahead. So I just uh thank you Mayor Pro Tim. I just want to echo what council member Goshin has said and that, you know, I think good qualities of good leaders is that we can stand up here and have some accountability and some humility and own it when we we let something come through that we shouldn't have. So, I personally want to thank uh Mr. Overland and Miss Jernburg for being here and with good passion and your voice calling us out on that mistake and to the countless citizens that reached out on not only social media but email phone calls um we didn't get it right and we are here today even with only part of our council to make sure that we do get it right and so I definitely support the repeal that council member Glenn has brought forward. Um I do think it's a a problem for LPD for negligent uh monitored alarm systems that are calling our officers out. Um we have we have an increasing amount of in crime as love continues to grow and that's a problem that we do need to address but putting a penalty and a fee on people that have not caused or been a part of that problem um I also have a problem with and so I do think we need to take another look at this and I don't want to do that today and try to offer up amendments or solutions because I think it's going to take a lot of investigation to figure out a right way to do it without taxing people who are doing what they're supposed to. So, um, that is why I'm in support of repealing this. We'll go back to what we were doing, which is finding people, which is what state law tells us that we can do while we take a second look at this and so we can find a better way to help um, our police department do the right thing, but also do the right thing for our citizens. So, thank you guys for being here and speaking for that today. >> Councilman Rose, >> thank you, Mayor Proim. and um just wanted to um speak on uh some of what uh Councilman um council member Wilson and Council Member Clasheen um have said on this. Uh so to break it down, 26 false alarms per day is I mean that's you know that's a huge problem. That's a massive burden on the police department. Uh, and then you, you know, multiply that by two. Two officers, you're you're looking at 52 officers per day. So, we've we've we've got a problem. And, um, I just don't think that the way we were led might be the solution because obviously um, as a city, we want to encourage the use of alarm systems. um we just don't want to encourage the use of alarm systems, you know, with false alarms and not keeping up with them and things like that. So, it doesn't think it doesn't seem that um putting a fee on on citizens to have an alarm system monitored is going to deter um these false alarms because we've already got you were going over the the numbers, chief, and it seems like um you're we're collecting quite a bit of money as it is with the false alarms and they're still going off. I mean, we're talking, you know, you know, 10 plus times false alarms for these repeat repeat offenders. So, I think it's uh definitely something that needs to be I mean, and the spirit of this was to help the police department and when you guys come to us with something um you know, we trust that um it's it's in your best interest and the citizens best best interest, but I just don't think that the fee to every citizen is going to is going to get this fixed. Um, so I I I also agree um that we should uh repeal this and then we can come back with something, get all the brains together and let's see if we can see if we can get this figured out to get this burden off you guys. >> Councilman Collins. >> Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim. Um, as as echoed to the rest of the council members here, I too apologize for a mistake, a a lack of attention to the detail possibly. Uh, also want to say thank you to the citizens that reached out to uh, us. Um, I appreciate getting the notes. I appreciate the tone of some of those notes more than others, but nonetheless uh, I appreciate getting all of them. But what the other thing that I want to make sure of as we as we put this issue to rest for at least for a moment is uh Chief Baron please understand and I think I can speak for all of us when I say when you walk out this door you need to know that we still support uh the efforts and we want to find a solution for you. We want to make sure that the responses and the efforts that our love police department make are are understood, appreciated, and and going to be effective. Uh and and I think we as a council have maybe in our zeal to um support that effort, have have made this mistake, but you know, we have an opportunity to change and and come back. But I just want to make sure that all of our police department understands that we're 100% behind your efforts and we are 100% committed to ensuring that you guys can do the very best job for the citizens that you can do. And so whatever else comes of this, I hope that you and and your team take that with you. So thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim. And I echo to what Councilman Collins said it to our officers that are here when we want you to know that we are in full support, but several of our council members did make very good points and that is you know we sometimes we don't get our agenda till the Friday or now I think it's the Wednesday before a council meeting. So we don't have a lot of time to digest and really learn about everything. But we do our very best and you know in also keeping I think you know this ordinance the language of the ordinance does need a little bit more clarification and I think we also have to do a little bit more public education. I think that's very important because obviously it is a problem. Um something that Councilman um Glashine said is that he wasn't here for the first reading and and that to that point I think I appreciate you saying that but you know the mayor isn't here. One of our councilmen isn't here and I think that we do need to review this a little bit more and I really appreciate that the citizens have embarked on this and really talked it up. It's good when our citizens are engaged and involved and we want to make sure that we're listening and we hear you. If you don't believe that we didn't listen, I think it's evident. Um, with that, I guess we can go ahead and call for the question. And so, we have a motion by Councilman Glashin, second by Councilwoman Wilson. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose, same sign. Motion carries. And now we will move on to our consent agenda. And we'll now take item five of the consent agenda. There's been a request to remove items 5.5, 5.17, 5.18, 5.23, 5.24, and 5.31 from the consent agenda. Agenda that is. I will entertain a motion to appro approve the consent agenda with the exceptions of 5.5, 5.17, 5.18, 5.23, 5.24, and 5.31. Is there a motion? >> Second. >> Motion by Councilman Collins, second by Councilman Rose. All those in favor say I. >> All oppose. Same sign. >> Motion carries. Zoom. We'll now take up item 5.5. and I'm going to call on city manager Jared Atkinson to provide the briefing on this matter. >> Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim and council members. Miss Brock is going to walk us through a very short presentation. We'll stop on the last slide. I'll add some comments and of course take any questions you may have. >> Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Tim and Council Howard. I hope y'all are doing well today. um this resolution basically one of the things it's not common knowledge about reimbursement resolutions and so what we wanted to do was give you a little bit more information about it and basically it's a reimbursement resolution is a formal declaration of the city stating that they're going to reimburse themselves from bonds once we've issued or b from future debt or bond proceeds. The reasoning for that is we do this in in advance of issuing the debt. Uh this allows the cap capital projects to begin so we can go ahead and start construction on projects and we can hold issuing the debt until the optimal time in the market for us to do so. So this allows us to go ahead and not delay our projects from that point. This is just a more uh legally version of what I just told you. Uh basically section one just says we're going to reasonably expect to reimburse ourselves. Section two talks about the maximum principal amount. Uh which for this reimbursement resolution is 173 million. Uh all the projects that are list are listed in exhibit A and they were approved in the adopted budget. Mickey, go ahead. >> Click one more, please. Thank you. Okay, council, I'll uh run through this slide just real quick and then either Miss Brock or I can try to answer any questions you may have. So, exhibit A, this does come out of your most recently approved budget. I'll quickly go over the projects under the general fund section, Upland 82nd to 98th Street. that is that next segment we're trying to get to as we tie into projects on the north and the south. Um would note that the 12.5 million that is not the total of the project. There are some small MO funds that are on top of that. Um we had moved them around to get the bigger piece done. What's left goes on here and then the CO carries you through the remainder of that segment which ties to a bond project on the other end of it. The remaining list there where it says 22B, those are your voter approved road bond projects scheduled for this new fiscal year out of the 2022 bond. Same with the ones that say 24B, also voter approved 2024 road bond scheduled to come out in this year. So what you'll see is out of that segment right there, 42.3 million. That is your next set of both road bonds that will be done in this new fiscal year. Coming down to where it says internal transfer, one of our favorite budget words. This is where the dollars come from and then go to. So vehicle replacements fiscal year 2526 tax note in the amount of 8.8. Council reminder, this is how we finance our large fire trucks and some of the heavy construction equipment. Tax notes by law are limited to a seven-year maturity, and we do not use this on any machinery that does not have greater than that seven-year life. So, in other words, they are paid off. We are still using it before everything comes to an end. Um, the public safety radio system upgrades, um, this is what we looked at this summer. We did the first piece of that. This carries you through the next. So between the two tax notes, just under 15 million water and wastewater. That's your second phase of the West Lok expansion. We spent ARPA dollars up front. We've had one year of a revenue bond and now you're doing the second to get that project. Uh the remaining list of the love power and light projects, those of course are in their budget. I do think Mr. Hall is here. if we have any questions. In total, 157.6. Note on Cheryl's prior slide, it was 173. That's how you have all of your cost of issuance and so forth in there. And it'll come in under the 173 generally, but the hard cost is that 157 and a half. So, with that, Cheryl and I will take any questions. Councilman Glashing, >> what are the types of expenses that the city intends to reimburse itself for from the bond issuance? So on the bond issuances from the from the two road bonds >> or uh you can give us an overview on each of those different categories >> for for any of the capital construction projects your upfront expenses we try to get um our professional services our engineering hired as quickly as we can. So we're we're making time on that end of it. We have also learned in trying to keep these two road bond projects on each of their respective five-year schedules to pull down um dollars to allow us to keep the rideway acquisition going. So even though a project um you can just pick one, the Upland project 19th to 34th, those dollars won't fund construction, they will fund the engineering, the professional services, and the rideway. Even though the construction's a year out from that, we're we're just trying to compress every timeline we can and we start on October 1st. >> Thank you. >> Is there a motion to approve item 5.5? >> Motion by Councilman Glashine, second by Councilwoman Wilson. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Okay. Motion carries. We're now going to take up item 5.17. Again, I'll call on um our city manager, Jared Atkinson. >> Thank you. Mayor Pro Tim, if it's all right, maybe could we do 517 518 together and then take questions. Council. >> Yes, please. Let's do that. >> Thank you. U Mr. Turpin, John Turpin, your city engineer is going to come up and start that and then we'll take questions. Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Tim Council. So, agenda item 5.17 and 5.18. I do want to point this out. These are our last two consulting contracts we have for engineering services for design. Uh, agenda item 5.17 is a professional engineering contract with Park Hill for 983,017 and 420 days for the design of 34th Street from uh Upland Avenue to Alco Avenue on the 2024 bond. This will be for three lanes at an ultimate profile and ultimate pavement section. Agenda item 5.18 is a professional engineering contract with Consor Engineers for $945,548 with 15 months for the design of 146 from Quaker Avenue to Slide Road for three lanes at the ultimate profile and the ultimate pavement section. And with that, I'll take any questions and I've got exhibits of both. Councilman Glashing. >> Thank you. These are both uh close to $1 million contracts. What sort of competitive bidding, if any, is there in the selection process. So, when it comes to engineering, we cannot do uh it is illegal to do it by state law. We have to do it by qualifications based. Um, we did this RFQ this we we put a new RFQ out for the 2024 bond where we was we uh tried to seek out more engineers um to diversify our selection. Um, and we selected the best that we had from the 2022 bond again and reutilized them because we believe they were giving us great customer service which in turn gives great customer service to our citizens as well as uh they tried to keep down our costs. Um, so really, uh, Park Hill did the original 146 and we had a a great turnout from that and they've done they provided really good service to us on that project. And then Consor is a new engineer that we chose to proceed forward with. And I can tell you that with our new engineer, we did a lot of negotiation. It took us some time. There was a little bit of a moving target because we had a change order that occurred on 146 where we built a portion of that phase. And so we uh actually started at close to 1.5 million with consor and brought them down to where where you're seeing uh the 9 uh 45,000 today. >> And so you're not you're not saying that state law prohibits the consideration of the price of the contract as one of the items. So the way it works is we can't consider it upfront but we can definitely negotiate and if they will not reach a price that is amanable to us then we will move on to the next engineer which we have done in the past >> and tell me about why in in your opinion these are competitive costs for these engagements. Um, I would say if you look at the overall, uh, so Park Hill, uh, there's some definite in intricacy to this project. It has a railroad that runs right through the middle of it. And so there's a lot of time that it takes there. And then with the, uh, consour uh, part, there's texts involved on it and they are active actively working on the slide rope portion. So there's going to be quite a bit of engagement from them. Um and if you look at our overall just uh costs um we have actually brought down those contracts from I would say prior years even. >> So Mayor Mayor Pro Tim if I may um and John a big part of how you're able to benchmark that is a percentage of total estimated construction cost. >> Yes sir. >> For your engineering services. And you can compare these then to prior projects that we've had. And >> absolutely that's that is a guidance. Um some guidance uh says 10% of total cost. I I try not to look at that. I try to look at it at a per evaluation of the project. I mean how easy is this project to perform? Are we going to have a lot of utilities to move? So it's I mean it's intricate from a standpoint of we have to kind of know what we're looking at and dealing with. And so when we get into this we we know about where we should be and that's why we did work so hard with consour to get their price down because we did not believe what they initially started with was a fair cost to our citizens. >> Thank you. >> Yes sir. >> With that is there a motion to approve items 5.17 and 5.18? >> Okay. Motion by Dr. Wilson and second by Councilman Rose. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose, same sign. Okay. Motion carries. And we'll now take up item 5.23. And again, I'll call on our city manager to provide the briefing on this matter. >> Thank you, ma'am. And uh I'll make the same request. Maybe we do 23 and 24 together or at least the presentation is set up that way. And uh we will ask Dr. Wells to come forward and provide that. Is it going to the There it goes. Uh, good afternoon, Mayor Prom and Council. Um, I'm here to present on item 5.23 and 5.24. um two separate items for Leach Public Health. Um item 5.23 is uh procedures of collaboration um for the Texas Infertility Prevention Project. Um this is a project the health department's been doing for the last 25 years um with the Department of State Health Services. And another um signer of the contract is CARDIA, which is a contractor of the Department of State Health Services that operates the program. Um the goal of the program is to reduce the burden of both chlamydia and gorrhea in our community. Um the program allocates tests, a number of tests to the health department per year. Um that allocation ranges from about 1,500 to 3,000 tests annually. Um last year for state fiscal year 2025, we were able to serve um 1,355 people. Um through that program, um we were able to um diagnose a significant amount of gyran chlamydia. Um 11% of all females tested, 14% of males um tested positive through this program with gorrhea 5% and 8%. Um there is no direct cost to the city. This is an inind um inkind contract I guess orou. Um and what's provided to us is all of the supplies. Um so the um test tubes, pipets, um the lab processing costs, the shipping of those laboratory um specimens to a treatment or to a lab, and then also the treatment medications so we can give the medications um to our community. um if we were have to go out for retail um to provide this service or if people had to go out, it would cost the Levit community between 150 to $350,000 annually. I'm sorry, there's an extra zero on that slide. Um and that cost doesn't include um the preventative um savings to the health care system um from the complications of gerarin chlamydia which includes infertility um still birth or birth complications including newborn blindness and I'll go to the second one. >> Okay. Um the second contract is um 5.24 and this is our innovative healing centered project. Um this is a project that the health department started about four years ago um with the University of Texas in Austin. It's a subcontract under the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. Um originally there were 14 contractors and because of our success with the initial project, we were one of four entities that was selected to continue this work. Um so it is called an expansion. Um but it's really a continuation of some of the work we were doing previously. Um the target population um for this contract is youth and families involved in the justice system. Um the program focus is to deliver evidence-based prevention curriculum in schools and in community settings. Um the goal is to build resist resilience, promote healthy decision making and strengthen positive coping skills. Um the program also supplies support services um screening for participants for additional needs and doing linkage into other community services. Um and providing ongoing case management and service linkage. um the contract or the grant will cover the cost of two full-time FTEES and we anticipate to reach at least 600 um students um through this >> and I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you, Dr. Wells and Councilman Glashing. >> Thank you. Dr. Wells, when you say youth and family involved in the justice system, is that people who are being subject to criminal prosecution? No, we're looking at children. Well, it could be, but we're looking at um kids that might have an offense at school um for vaping or marijuana use. Um something that they want them to go into some kind of intervention program. Um so, the idea is to offer this curriculum through some of our alternative schools um within Leach County and then also have some community- based or classes outside of the community. And that wasn't clear to me from the agenda materials or or the information on UT's website about the program is where are the different locations that you're getting access to the uh to these children. >> We're still working on that. Um I didn't want to make any promises to our independent school districts until um we actually had the grant signed. Um we were look talking to all of the love independent school districts some of our alternative schools and then we also have space at the health department to offer classes in the evening. >> When you've done this program in previous years was that in coordination with LISD >> the previous there was a pivot in this program. So the previous one was much more focused on young adults. So we were offering anger management. um we were offering um some family counseling um programs and those were all done at the health department. Um this is the first time that the true focus has been on youth or the 100% of the focus of the grants been on youth. >> So outside of LISD's alternative schools and the public health department itself, where where else do you anticipate that you're going to have access to u the children who are going to participate in this program? will be reaching out to Cooper, um, Friendship, Roosevelt, um, all of the different independent school districts in the county. >> What is the substance of of the programming, um, uh, for substance use prevention? >> Um, the exact curriculum that's being used is still being negotiated with the state. Um, the state wants to use the same curriculum at all four partner um, cities. Thank you, ma'am. >> With that, is there a motion or are there any other questions for Dr. Wells? >> If not, is there a motion to approve items 5.23 and 5.24? >> Motion by Councilman Collins. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Second by Dr. Wilson. All those in favor say I. >> Mayor Partam, I'd like to have some discussion on this item, please. >> Okay. Councilman Glashine would like to have some discussion. >> Thank you. And Dr. Wells, you may be seated. I I think that was a question. >> Thank you, Dr. Wells. >> On 5.23, I feel strongly that it's inappropriate for the city to be involved in any form of healthcare. and whether or not it uses pass through funding. It's inappropriate for the city to be involved in in the business of uh diagnosing, treating, and and giving free medication to people with sexually transmitted diseases, sexually transmitted infections. This is not a policy or program that that the city should be involved in or that we want uh to be involved with in our community. And on 5.24, um I'm similarly skeptical of this. I know it doesn't cost the city a dollar directly, but we I think we have very few details about the substance of the program, how the money is going to be used, where the money is going to be implemented, and um deep reservations about giving um access to children in the or giving government employees access to children in the community for a program that we don't even know specifically what it's it's going to include at this point. So, I'd encourage you to vote against 5.23 in table 5.24 until there's more detail about the programming presented. With that, I think we had a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose, same sign. >> Okay. Motion carries 4 to one. We'll now take up item 5.31 and again I'll call our city manager to provide the briefing on this matter. >> Thank you. And we are going to have Miss Elizabeth Laurara come up and talk to you about item 531, the employee assistance program that is offered through the city. >> Can you see? >> There it is. Yeah. There it is. >> Thanks. >> Good afternoon, Mayor Protemp Council. I am here to present on agenda item 5.31, which is a contract between the city of Leach and TTUSC counseling center for our employee assistance program. Excuse me. In April of this year, we went through an RFP for all of our health services, including our employee assistance program. Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center ranked highest out of the six listed on this screen. Some additional factors that attributed our decision in electing the health sciences center for our employee assistance program was they are our current provider. We currently do have approximately 689 employees and dependents who use those services. Um there was also a reduction in costs to the city of 8.6%. And over the past four fiscal years, we have seen an increase in usage of 33%. And the best and final offer rate was a guarantee um $2.7 per employee per month for two years. So that was incorrect in the agenda information that was presented. I'll go ahead and take questions. >> Councilman Glashine, >> what is the estimated monthly cost of this program? Um, Councilman Glusheen, I believe that is close to $5,800. >> Do you want 585800? >> That's correct. It's $2.7 per employee per month and we currently have 24. Let me give you the exact number. I actually have that for you. So, the exact cost per month is actually $5,125.32 and that's $2.7 for 2476 employees. >> What What was the amount quoted in the the agenda backup? I don't have that that page with me. >> One one moment and I'll pull that. >> Thank you. >> 615. Okay. What what is the difference between the number quoted in the agenda materials and the number that you're presenting today? >> There is no difference. So that's a monthly versus annually. So the 61,53 is the annual amount. Initially when the health sciences center presented their documents, they came back to us with $212. So, we were able to get them to go down to $2.7, which is a slight reduction, but still a reduction. >> And what types of services are provided under this contract? >> The majority are mental health services. So, counseling for employees and their dependents and also substance abuse. >> Thank you. Those are my questions I have. >> Okay. >> Are there any other questions? >> Actually, I'm sorry. I do have another question. >> Sure. Um, when did the city start providing this uh program on top of the health insurance coverage that it provides? >> The data that I have, >> we we've had an employee assistance program available since at least when I came back, which was 2016. Is there anything about the employee health coverage that does not include u mental health counseling or substance abuse services? >> The our employee assistance provider is the carveout from the health plan to provide those services. In the past, it's been rolled in with your general like Blue Cross Blue Shield. We don't pay a component to them to Bluec Cross Blue Shield for that. rather we have an independent contractor. >> All right. Thank you. That answers my question. >> Yes, sir. >> I appreciate that and no doubt we want to provide to our most significant asset, our employees, and I appreciate that you were able to provide that information. >> Yes, ma'am. >> With that, let's go ahead and take up item 5.31. I'm sorry. Is there a motion to approve item 5.31? >> So, move. >> Motion by Councilman Glashing. Can I get a second? Second by Councilman Rose. All those in favor say I. >> All oppose, same sign. Motion carries. We will now go to our regular agenda. And the council will now take up its regular agenda. Item 6.1. We already did. So, I'm sorry. 6.1 to consider appointments to the electric utility board. And I'm going to call on our city secretary, Miss Courtourtney Paws, to provide the briefing on this matter and the recommendations of the electric utility utility board. That is that's a mouthful. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim. Uh the electric utility board met last week and are recommending Thomas Parker to replace Dan Wilson um whose term would begin on November 1st if appointed today. And I'll be pleased to take any questions. >> Are there any questions? If not, I is there a motion to approve? >> Motion by Dr. Wilson. Can I get a second? >> Second by Councilman Collins. All those in favor say I. >> All oppose, same sign. The now the council will now take up an agenda item 6.2, a consolidated public hearing for zone case 2993-B. The city council has already received in their packet the staff report from the planning department and the recommendation from the planning and zoning commission. As a reminder, the purpose of the public hearing is to hear from the applicant and members of the public. The council may ask questions of the applicant or staff during the public hearing, but no discussion on the merits will be conducted by the council during the public hearing. And I now call in the director of planning, which is not gonna be Kristen Sager. And if you'll go ahead and introduce yourself to our the public and also provide a brief summary of this zoning subject to the public hearing. >> Hello, Mayor Pro Temp and council. I'm Greg Hernandez, the planning and zoning manager. Um, this is zone case 2993-B. The applicant is Mountaintop Engineering for the Worship Center. uh requesting a zone change from neighborhood commercial to auto urban commercial district. 26 letters were sent out. We received two back in opposition. Reasons uh some of the reasons listed were the noise um additional traffic and then additional pedestrian crossing of 82nd Street. Um the property is located south of 82nd and west I'm sorry and east of Upland Avenue. Here is a notification map showing the two in opposition. Here's an aerial view of the property. To the north, you have a church. To the east and west are commercial properties. And then to the south is is single uh single family residential housing. Here is the current zoning map. To the west is auto urban commercial. To the north and south are low density single family. And then to the west is or I'm sorry and then to the east is office district. The future land use plan designates this area for commercial uses. Here's a picture of the subject's property as well as views to the east, north, and west. This slide was provided by the applicant um showing parking in the area that they're using. Also, it's showing a site plan of the proposed parking that they intend to do with this property and a proposed crosswalk along 82nd Street. The future land use map designates this area for commercial land use. The request to conforms with to this designation and would be appropriate considering the existing adjacent zoning districts and land uses. Therefore, this request is in complete conformance with the comprehensive plan principles. The proposed zone change is in conformance with the zoning ordinance. The proposed zone change is compatible with the surrounding area and will not change the character of the existing development. The location is along 82nd Street which is a principal arterial and 83rd Street which is designated as a local street by the master thoroughare plan 2018. Staff has no objection to this request. The planning and zoning commission recommends approval of this request by a vote of 70 and I can take any questions at this time. >> Okay. Do we have any questions? Thank you, Mr. Hernandez. If not, I'll now open the public hearing for agenda item 6.2. 2. Is there anyone wishing to speak in favor of this zoning case? That's not a former employee. Just kidding. >> Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Temp and city council. I'm Tommy Harms with Mountaintop Engineering here on behalf of the worship center. And what we are proposing here is to change a property that is ready partially AC to fully AC. The property was acquired and is intended to be used as a parking lot. And as shown, there is a crosswalk, but we're I've also been coordinating with our traffic engineering department, and we're going to be putting up a a full street signal. It's not just going to be a crosswalk where we're going to try to shuffle people across. It's going to be it's going to be full city of love standards and the city of Lok will actually take over maintenance of the the beacon. So, that's one thing I wanted to clarify. And I guess do you have any other questions? Is there are there any other questions? Councilman Glashine, >> you mentioned, sir, that the intentions for the city to take over long-term maintenance of this beacon. Um, and so this may be directed more to staff as well. That's not part of the zone change that we're approving at this point. Correct. What is the mechanism that would that would approve uh this light being put into place and then maintained by the city indefinitely? Yeah. So, so first you know like like you mentioned council this is just a zoning change right that's all it does you approving the zoning change here to the particular change of zoning doesn't actually approve the crosswalk the traffic signal or anything like that. Um, if they were to sit there and go through our process of getting a crosswalk approved for that street, going through our traffic engineering department, then if it's going to be turned over to the city, they would have to dedicate it to the city and we would have to actually accept it. >> And that's one that's the governing body would actually have to accept it. I I want to have this conversation now because this would be a crosswalk that really only benefits that particular church to access its parking lot and have a convenient crossing to get to its property on the north side of 82nd. And um you know, I can't speak for others, but I I have some real reservations about accepting equipment under those terms. And if that needs to be part of the consideration in in the zone change request, that's fine. I mean, I think that the zone change as as presented is appropriate. I don't have a problem with that. But in looking at the long-term use of it, I I would I would caution you against relying on on the city accepting the the cost of maintaining something for the exclusive benefit of the church. >> Do you have anything? I would I would just add that at probably the appropriate time for whenever you want to make that determination as to whether or not they'd have to remove it if it's no longer being used by the church um at their expense or something would be at the time that we actually accept or don't accept the actual traffic signal. But this zone change, it does not have to be a part of this actual zone change. >> Um let's Oh, go ahead. So what permission is necessary for someone to build a structure like that in the city's rightway? >> You know, normally in rightway they're going to have to get some type of encroachment agreement or some type of license agreement. And so it be would be in that type of agreement where they and and all the our standard forms for when you have an agreement where you're in our rideway standard language is that if we grant it then you have to remove that particular structure, whether it's a fence, whether it's whatever it is. if it's no longer being used or if we need to use our rightway then we can require you to remove it. So that's when that's when it would be put in there >> and that will come to council action for approval of the ride ofway encryption. >> That's correct. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Councilman Collins. >> Thank you. I I don't guess there is the possibility and I think we've encountered this before. The zone case is not contingent upon the building of the crosswalk and it can't not be that's right put in the language. >> No. No. No. It's not it's not the appropriate place for that. It is you need you. While it's okay to ask for that type of information, the zone change is really just changing whether that particular piece of property because it will run with the property regardless of whether it still uses a church, a parking lot, whatever the case may be. Is that the appropriate zoning for that particular piece of property? >> Yeah. And I I think one of the one of the letter writers had mentioned something about egress uh and ingress off of 83rd Street, and I'd guess that again is something we can't regulate through the zone change. Is that correct? Yeah, I think that would more likely come through the through the uh some type of platting process or some type of building permit process when they want to want to sit there and do that. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Councilman Rose. >> Uh yeah, I think we're getting a little ahead of ourselves because we're talking about a zone. We're talking about the zoning case and I think it's um appropriate for the church to provide adequate parking for itself if they wanted to shuttle, you know, without without uh the crosswalk itself. I mean, they could you could shuttle people across in a car. So, um I I think it's I think we need to focus on um the zone case itself and then when when or if the crosswalk and the light comes up, then we can we can go over that. Then >> all I was going to add did very good point, Councilman Rose, and uh that's an adequate point. And remember, we're still in the public hearing part of this. So, >> yes, Dr. Wilson, isn't there a a perimeter fence that's on that back side of that property between the property and 83rd Street already? >> Yes, ma'am. That is correct. Councilwoman, there is a sixoot brick fence that is intended to stay in place. >> Right. I was going to say it's a solid masonary fence, not even just the wood fence. Yep. Thank you. which I believe also addresses the uh noise concern from one of the the letter writers. So, >> and also to add uh at the planning zone commission, we did have a police officer that was retired. He actually took his dysometer and went out there and did readings during services and there was nothing and that was being picked up when this parking lot was being detected. So, kind of took away from the relevance of the the complaint in our eyes. Thank you. Are there any other questions? If not, is there anyone wishing to speak in opposition? Oh, wait. Sorry. I apologize for that. You wanted to speak on behalf. >> Thank you. >> Good afternoon, council. My name is John Campbell. I live at 9105 Juno Avenue. I serve on the board of the the worship center. And so, I'm here to ask you guys to help us with the situation that we've got. If you guys have been in the area, I know I've talked to a couple of you guys individually and we've got a major um situation that's out there that's just a liability waiting to happen and there's no way you can deny it. We're we have a great problem. We have a lot of people coming to church. We also have a problem, but we have a safety as a board member. We've got to protect just like it's your job to protect as well. So, what we're trying to propose is we have to have the traffic stop. We have to have Can someone put up the plan before that shows the parking lot layout because it's important for you guys to understand what we're doing here. So, right now, our best estimation is we have about 140 parking spaces that we have access to by written permission and everything involved, right? Great neighbors that are helping us out at this time. But the reason we purchased this was because we want to be a good neighbor. have a problem with the the pedestrians being spread out along a whole, you know, 300 yard area there. And I've watched and you can do the exact same thing. You can watch people walk across the street here and no one goes to that crosswalk. Everyone's going to take the path of shortest resistance. It's just what happens. When we did the zoning, I brought that up and I said, I watched 27 people across. 26 went straight across the street. They didn't go to the parking lot. That's what we've got going here. So, what we're trying to do is for safety reasons is funnel everyone down to this parking lot which has 20, I believe 17 spots which are oversized parking spots. So, we've even accommodated for more than what we have. Um, and again, we have 140 available. I don't think we're using 100 yet, but the point of it is is that we building more than what we need, but we're also wanting to put some kind of the the recommendation was to put shrubs up front. And we said, can we put some kind of like a two-layer fence there, see-through fence with maybe pipe railing, just a suggestion, because we're trying to get everybody to funnel to a point where we can cross. We have police officers that are there, but it doesn't stop people. We have families that are literally grabbing their kids and running across the street. We're playing Frogger. It's not if it's going to happen, it's when it's going to happen. And so, I'm asking you guys to partner with us. We need both of these things taken care of. We need the approval of the crosswalk. If we have to maintain it, then that's just what it is. but at the expense of someone getting run over. And it's going to happen, guys. It really that's every every officer that we've had out there has said this is going to happen. That's not an if. We have close We have accidents out there all the time. And the problem is is that we have two officers that stand there in marked vehicles being paid. I get, but they're waving their hands and telling people to stop. There's nothing at a distance that people can see from a height that gives you any warning that this traffic is slowing down. And so it literally is people are going going and then they're just coming to a screech and halt. Meanwhile, you got parents that are froggering kids through like the fairground. I mean, you see the madness when you're out at their fairground. It's just what it is. And and and it's a great problem for us to have, but it's also a great problem that we as a community need to solve. And we have the access. We're paying for the the crosswalk that it's no expense to you guys. We're putting in everything that the corner lot, if you see how we did the corner lot, it looks great. It's always well taken care of. We I mean we are here to be good neighbors and we are here to stay. It's not going anywhere and it and Lord willing it's only going to keep getting more. So we don't think it's a problem. We we just see it as a problem is we have a safety concern. We're asking you guys to partner with us and solve this because um you know the the customer or the neighborhood that has a complaint. We did send an offer out there and we even said hey we took a noise thing. We walked not more than 50 to 70 feet and there was no noise even registering just traffic that was driving by. But that's again, I'm not saying that the the other person that filed it doesn't hear what he hears. But what I'm saying is the officer said that that doesn't qualify as a noise complaint. And if it does, he has the right to call in to the city and and call a noise complaint and then that officer can make the judgment. But we're here to be a good neighbor. We're trying to take care of our citizens and in our congregation. And so I'm hoping that you guys will pull back on, you know, the the idea that we don't get both of these things because it's very necessary right now. Just so you know, Mr. machine. We We have shuttles running from both places. We have probably 20 volunteers trying to hustle everybody to the officers, but there's nothing that stops that. We do run shuttles right now, but people are still going across. So, the way we see it is if we can condense this down, fence the area off with something that makes it less available for people to cross. Then we can shuttle them to a point where we can literally walk them across. And our recommendation in the zoning was that the officers that we do have, we would maintain them and we would actually issue crosswalking citations because we need that to be a important. I mean, it's got to be behind us. We've got to have some punishment for people not following what we've set in place. We're going to great expense to protect people and we're asking you guys to help us with that. But we do need both. And I know this may not be the time or the place, but I'm asking to have that resolution where if we get one, we get both because we really it needs to be if there's any way possible. And I'll leave any questions. >> Thank you. >> We do have a containment area. We'll ask we we are building a containment area. You see the parking spots like where the yellow line is. We're actually trying to build like a containment area if you will so that while people are waiting on the three or five minute it is delay. We don't have people standing up on the crosswalk, we have an area that's set back off the street. So we don't have pedestrians just waiting at the curb line. So we're putting extra measures in place to build a bullpin, if you will, on both sides to hold that kind of congregation while we wait on the 3minut traffic stop to take place. So >> thank you. >> Yep. >> Are there any other folks that would like to speak on behalf of this? If not, is there anyone wishing to speak in opposition? We will now close the public hearing at um I'm not sure what time it is. My clock 3:40. Is there a motion to approve agenda item 6.2? >> So move. >> Motion by councilwoman Wilson, second by Councilman Collins. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose, same sign. Motion carries. And we will now take up agenda item 6.3 to consider an ordinance accepting and approving a service and assessment plan and an assessment role for the Highland Oaks PID. I will call on Brianna Brown, director of business development to provide the briefing on this matter. Thank you for your patience. >> Of course. Good afternoon, Mayor Prom Council. Um this is the final step in the um approval of the assessment ordinance for the Highland Oaks Public Improvement District. Um this will set and levy the assessment rate for those homeowners and also finalize the service and assessment plan for their future water project. And we will be bringing you some additional documentation over the next several months um as we help facilitate collection of those assessments and then um the beginning of the design and construction work for their water project. Um, but your action today finalizes that assessment ordinance and levies the final assessment. Happy to answer any questions. >> If if not, is there a motion to approve item 6.3? >> Motion motion by Dr. Wilson. May I get a second? >> Second. >> Second by Councilman Collins. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose, same sign. and we've already done our item 6.4. So, having exhausted all items on this agenda, this meeting is adjourned. I ask council members to please turn off your microphones.