Call the meeting to order. It is 5:49 p.m. March 17, 2025. All right. pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Moment of silence please. Thank you. We also want to give condolences to the family of Juan Ramirez, previous council person. Condolences to the family. Thank you. May be seated. Thank you. Mr. Secretary, roll call, please. >> Yes, Mayor. >> Honorable mayor, Dr. Victor D. Trevinho, >> present. >> Honorable Council Member, District 1, Giver Gonzalez, >> Honorable Council Member, District 2, Ricardo Ranel, Jr. President, >> honorable council member, district 3, Melissa Sigoa, >> honorable council member, district 4, Ricardo Rick Garca, >> present. >> Honorable council member, district 5, Ruben Gutierrez, Jr. >> present. >> Honorable council member, district 6, Dr. Tyler King, >> here. >> Honorable mayor for temp, Vanessa Perez. Honorable council member district 8, Alisa. [clears throat] >> Mayor, you have a quorum. >> Thank you. We'll proceed with number five, approval of the minutes, March 3rd, 2025. So moved. >> Motion second. >> Second. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion passes. >> Mayor motion to uh approve appointments to commissions, boards, and committees. One, two, and three. >> Motion second. >> All in favor? >> I post. Motion passes. Motion to open communications number one. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion passes. Communications presentation by mayor providing general comments on city manner upcoming upcoming initiatives and other relevant updates for the council and the public. Wanted to thank everyone that participated in the legislative trip to Washington DC. It is important to keep the public informed that these trips are essential to making sure that Laredo has a seat at the table. For far too long, Laredo has been a conduit for a large part on the commerce coming into the United States. Yet, we are limited on the resources that we get in terms of infrastructure, public safety based on population size. This is part of the reason why we need to advocate and make our case known in places like Washington and Austin. I'll speak further about this during my agenda item. Some upcoming events and announcements. We have a B national marathon the loto is happening on March the 30th that begins at 6:00 a.m. This is a unique race that begins at Jarvis Plaza and it ends at Palasio Federal in Olaro. So begins in one country and ends in another. It is also one of the few Boston qualifying races in Mexico and the only certified race in the Mexican border. as a belief that I share with Alcalesa Gurosa to Nola. We are two communities that are intertwined in commerce, family, sport and invite the public to share that uh share that everybody could come to this event. The Mexican council Mendoza and I will be there bright and early with the parks and recreation to start at 6 in the morning. There's also going to be a Cessa Chavez march on on March the 29th at 10:00 a.m. starting at Brun Plaza, Brun Library Plaza and ending at Sanin Plaza. This is to celebrate a great American labor leader and civil rights activist and we welcome everyone to join us. >> That is my communication. We have public comments, citizen comments. Fernando Baldas. >> Thank you, Mayor Fernando Valdaso, for the record, representing myself and the cycling community. Um I understand there's an item on the agenda and uh due to a health issue, you know, I just came here to express my opinion and go back. But I appreciate, you know, the the opportunity to speak and um I understand according to what I read that uh there's going to be a set in motion to start working on the trails and uh Shiloh trails, bike trails or bike trails. and uh I'll be watching it at home and hopefully you just wanted to say if there's going to be a timeline on it, you know, if we can discuss the timeline and what would phase one be? You can talk about that. That's what mostly been asked, you know, by some of the cyclists. So, thank you and thank you. >> Thank you very much, >> Rocky Hinas. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you all very much. Uh, one of the items I want to talk about, I talked to Rick GarcA and he's going to discuss it with you guys in private. Don't talk and the rest uh, for the safety of Larredo. See his little angels behind you. We had to worry about our safety and our speed zones all over the radio to take care all the kids and that's one of the main things that I want to talk about safety for the radio make it better for the future all of us as far as the build the the bike trail notice they're working on the north side but if you go down to Clark under the bridge alo is parked there you can walk it all the way without any traffic under Clark, under the railroad tracks, under 359, under 83, under middle, and hit the river without any streets. Beautify that better and it will help everybody out to go walking, stretching, and enjoying the sites, including the bass that we have here in Laro under under the metal bridge. And uh let's work together, make Laro safer and more beautiful for everybody. Thank you all. Take care. God bless you all. >> Thank you very much. >> Ria, good afternoon. My name is Ria. Council members, I'm here uh to for the last time to let you know I already talked to Councilwoman Melissa Sigeroa about what I intend to do with the space at the library. [clears throat] I want to develop that into a tourist attraction to where um I had a um video of the what's been doing what they've been doing in Montter for the last 30 years which is a dance for the senior citizens and the tourists uh that come to to uh Montter. Uh I used to go there myself and uh it's an enjoyment. It's a place to uh if we get the people involved. I I intend to train the the the students to uh receive the um tourists u and and show them uh and talk about Laro. I have a lot lots of pictures from the old days that I would present there. Picture picture pictures of all the mayors um that previously uh were in in in Nedo. In other words, it's like a history that I want to show. It's not for me because I'm already retired or semi-retired from my business. I want to do this for Laredo because the tourists don't have any place to go and that's a perfect place because it has parking across the street at the metro uh restaurants all around and so uh the tourists will have a place to go and I would train the people because I I' I've done this. I I have the u the backing of the mayor. I have the backing of the council from Mexico. I have I will have the the backing of the mayor from Mobile Laredo and also from the governor's office to promote uh Laredo and that's all I want to do. There's no nothing behind it. I don't need it. I've already uh reached my international market. So I I want to leave something that [clears throat] people can go to and enjoy on on on every day. but mostly on weekends. And uh the I hope I I get the the the I already spoke to the mayor about it. He liked it and uh the people that I've talked to uh they say it's a good idea. It's it's centralized and it's plenty plenty of parking across and and so I hope I uh get the uh approval from the the city council to do this for the city of Laro. Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Mayor, if I may, do we have any comments left? >> Yes, it's on an item. >> On item. >> Yes. >> Okay. If we can bring up item 40 B1, um, United Day School. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> I vote. Motion pass. Go ahead. >> Okay. Mayor, this is an item recognizing United Day School eighth grade volleyball team for their outstanding achievement as city champions, showcasing their hard work, dedication, and teamwork throughout the throughout this uh past season. And I just want to congratulate the girls. It's uh uh Pamela Gilar, Suri Bonugli, Kendra Garcia, Olivia Gonzalez, Evan Noa, KK Lopez, Dele Martinez, Zo Medina, Alexandra Ramos, Alexandra Romero, Sophia Solis, and Mia Talamas, and of course the coach, Selena Lopez, Denoro. Congratulations, GIRLS. [applause] >> [applause] >> And if I can have council member Tyler Ruben uh down to present the plaque as well please. Ladies, you might want to go back there. >> [snorts] >> Who's the barrel? Well, give it to her for the picture and then we'll fix. Girls, can we have you all line up back, please? >> Let's do two rows. >> Some in the back, some in the front. Right there. >> Just a little. >> You want to You want to move to the front? >> Just right there. Perfect. >> Okay. Right here with me first. Ready? One two three. >> Perfect. No, go ahead. >> Thank you. girls. Just want to tell you all of our young girls to the great work of the United Congratulations. [applause] [applause] Well, it makes you >> I'm going to proceed with 40 A123 40 A12. >> Thank you. Thank you. Yes, >> mayor. I want to recognize that Miss Vanessa Pettis is here. >> Recognize council woman is here. >> All right. Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you. >> I'd like to move to uh agenda items 40A, 1, two, and three. >> Second. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. 40A number one. discussion with possible action on the city of Laredo legis legislative trip and possible additions and or improvements and any matters related there too sponsors mayor promises Perez again I want to thank everyone that made this legislative trip possible I am a big supporter of collaboration working together with the county and private sector however in an effort to always maximize our efforts I would like to motion that management get feedback from all the council on areas of improvement and request that we prepare a report for the public on what was achieved in terms of deliverables to the community. This is my motion. >> Second that motion. >> Motion. Second. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion pass. Number two, discussion with possible action on the removal of restrictions for recognizing for recognition by city council and in any matter related thereto. I wanted to remove this restriction that was passed initially by council to restrict recognitions as agenda items to the second meetings of every month. Now, I understand this was done in order to get through the agenda faster, but however, we're managing our time a little bit better. If it becomes a problem, we could put it back, but I do ask council to please self police ourselves and our use of time when possible. This would be my motion. >> Second, all in favor discussions. Um I just want to bring up the mayor [clears throat] as you recall this item came up because of when we had a particular heavy agenda um recognitions were while they're they're wonderful and I feel like the community um really appreciates when they get recognized by their legislative body and I do feel as one of my um colleagues was saying that they become an inspiration for uh the community that's watching at home. In this case, we had the Brownie troop coming to to visit our legislative body and take a tour and then they got to see um older the older generation just right above them in school receive recognition for their accomplishments as a volleyball team. That synergy, it's very important for those little girls and I know it meant a lot for them to be here to see that. But we did have a discussion and decided to put recognitions at the beginning of every month at 4:30 so that we have that extra cushion of time. And while I do believe that this agenda seems a lot more manageable, it is it isn't always the case. And um it does seem as if recently recognitions have uh just gotten a little we haven't been following our own our own advice. So um I hope we do um self police. I hope we um are aware of time constraints and I don't know if just deterring us from having that one hour every month at the beginning of the meeting even if we're not restricting our commissions to that place if it makes sense to take that down. Do we allow us that extra hour at the beginning of every month in case we do have we're coming up to the end of the year we know that in May these recognitions it just naturally it seems to be that there are more of them. Perhaps we would continue to allow recognitions to occur at 4:30 the first Monday of um first meeting of every month even if we're not restricting ourselves to either or. >> All right. Thank you. >> I could offer that as an amendment if anyone would pick that up. >> Go ahead. >> Uh I think it's I I understand where you're coming from, mayor, because um not all of us we don't they don't get a full council at 4:30. They don't get a full um I don't know how many of us are here at that time, but I'm pretty sure it's probably just you, mayor, and a couple other council members here and there. So, if we're going to keep with the spirit of giving them a full recognition, I think it does make sense to have it in front of a full council. For the most part, we are pretty good about attending the council meetings. So, um it does make sense, I think, in terms of policing ourselves. I think if we stick to Robert's rules and, you know, not make council meetings, um, unnecessarily lengthy, uh, we could accomplish both. So, I'm in favor, mayor. >> All right. Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> All right. >> Call for the question. We have a motion. We have a second. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion pass. Thank you. Number 40. Number three, discussion with possible action on appointment of liaison to update city council on public inquiries and projects and any matter related there too. Now the reason I brought this item up is I have spoken to management on having points of contacts and follow up on projects and inquiries that we may have from the community. It's more about customer service and making sure that we know as a council where our inquiries are so we can update our constituents. I think that mandate has a structure in place and can give us a synopsis on how it currently works. So this is my motion. >> Second. >> Second. Motion second. >> Sir, mayor council, I was going to walk through this. I I think I shared some of this with you in my evaluation and all, but I want to make sure that you know exactly how our team is working from the city manager's office and through the structure. Um, so see if I can My slides are not moving. >> Yeah, >> we're going to go with we're going to go a little bit small frame because the slideshow is not working correctly. So really quickly within the charter it talks about the council manager form um and that the city manager oversees all the departments and to ensure that the city operations align with the policy direction set by the elected officials. Our current organizational framework uh our department directors report to the city manager or to the assistant city managers. The assistant city managers oversee groups of departments and provide operational support to the assigned districts. We have council assistants that report to the ACMS and assist the council members with constituent services. We've got the [clears throat] executive assistant public information and the legislative affairs staff supporting legislation and communication. And we also have the existing quarterly district meetings that can provide a very good effective charter compliant forum for the council members to receive updates and address constituent concerns. So we have a we have this all set in place uh as to how to do that and I believe that I want to make sure I lay out this format so that I can understand a little bit more about what your needs are and how to reach those. But um we have established quarterly meetings with all of the districts. Uh one month will be spent getting updates on all of your projects. So we bring in the department heads for that meeting and you can get an update on everything that is happening within your within your district. uh one month I I wanted to have city administration the legal to speak with each one of you in order to discover what pending legislative and legal matters that you would like to uh amend adjust uh change within our structure and then one month to meet with the city manager directly and discuss broad level matters just so that you can ensure the coordination between the legislative and administrative bodies. We started that this last month in February based upon what we talked about in the communication of the in my evaluation. And so we want to continue those. I believe that they're very valuable for a highlevel conversation about where we're trying to move the city's uh structure into. Really quickly, I just wanted to show you the uh the support structure right now. Legislative support comes through the city manager or the executive assistant to collaborate with legal and ordinances, resolutions, legal compliance, public inquiries and district support. We have two ACMs, assistant city managers overseeing the districts and managing the council assistance to handle constituent services and inquiries. And then of course uh our newly uh hired uh assistant city manager Raone Chavez uh is also responsible for coordinating all of our city projects and providing status updates to the council. So our structure is now built in order to keep this information moving. Really quickly just uh again talking a little bit about those two assistant city managers uh Mr. Landine and Mr. Valdez. Uh they oversee the district operations, the day-to-day stuff. if you want a quick response with where our departments are at, that's a very quick way to do that. Um, and then of course, uh, Mr. Chavez, he's responsible for tracking and coordinating all of the city projects. He had been doing it for the city engineers and we've increased what he's doing for the entire city. So, no matter what the project, what the activity is, Mr. Chavez will be uh, consolidating that information and bringing it forward for everybody. when it when I looked at this structure and trying to figure out exactly how to help uh keep that because I believe it's just more of a communication thing. It's more of a network and that's why I wanted to explain my structure to you again so that we can we can find out if there is any uh discrepancies within that system. San Antonio and Corpus Christie both follow a very similar format as to how this is handled uh within that structure. Um depending on the size of the community, they may do it just a little bit with additional resources, but there there are uh it maintains compliance. It provides uh preserves clear lines of authority underneath the city manager and it promotes effective communication, collaboration. regarding a proposed liaison position. Um I believe we if we need that additional support I would like to understand it more about what it would what it would entail because that's why I'm trying to show you what the structure is that we have currently because I think we're meeting all the pieces. It just may not be meeting the uh the sense of urgency that maybe some of you might have with the information. We can work on that in a lot of different ways uh within that structure. So our recommendation of course is rather than establishing a new liaison um if you will let me know how I can help I can restructure within my current uh administration to make sure that we have better communication protocols strengthen those coordination efforts between the executive assistant council assistants. we can utilize the city manager's office to provide structured regular updates on public inquiries and projects and that way we can kind of preserve the integrity of our council manager model, [snorts] avoid redundancies and improve our responsiveness. But mayor, that's that's the the short readers digest version of our structure. I think everybody understands the city manager's office rather than how it has been operated in the past where we've been kind of independent silos doing different legs. We work cohesively now. So if you reach one of us, you've reached all of us is the way I try to describe that. Anything that you need, we're going to take care of it. And I think everybody has utilize that system very well already. Whether it be texting to me and you don't get an immediate response, you can text one of the assistant city managers or vice versa. We will get you taken care of to make sure that you're able to respond to your constituents in a in a quick fashion, making sure that you have all the information in your hands to answer those questions that your constituents are asking for. >> I'll stand I'll stand available for any questions or comments. >> Mr. Deb, just a comment more than anything else. Yeah, I certainly don't want to see another position created for this. I think we have enough staff as it is, especially up on top. Uh, with four ACMs, I think that's more than enough. Um, a little issue that I have is that when I call in because constituents call me about a problem or an issue out there and I call my ACM or the one that's in charge of District 5, he takes care of the problem right away, sir. We'll be right on it. And it does get take care of it. I don't know about it. >> I get the comment, you know, a week, two weeks later, thank you so much. We got this done or the permit got approved or the permit got done or we got the inspector there, whatever it may be, right? and he's very good about it. It's fantastic. As a matter of fact, thank you, Mr. Zundi. U but just the followup, you know, did it get done? What I usually get is we'll take care of it and it does, mind you, it gets done very quickly, but but uh just the followup is what we're kind of asking for as far as I'm concerned. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. One one other thing I might want to add. Can we put one of the ACMS as a sl >> as the >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and I think what I'm trying to say is that depending on what the need is, we have them out there for that. And that's why we have the council assistance reporting underneath each one of the ACMs to that level. Let me let me address that really quickly because uh that was identified as an issue because the constituents call each of you and they they say, "Hey, I have this problem." And so you pass it on into the city saying, "Let me let me get it taken care of. Let me let me get it into the hands of the people that can do this for you." We do. I think I think we respond to those concerns very quickly, but if we don't provide you the information at the end as to how we resolved it because you can do a followup to your constituent as well too and say, "Hey, did they get this taken care of? Did they were they able to respond to that?" And I think that's something I I appreciate what you're saying and I think that's something that we're all trying to make sure that gets done. I I should expect it out of the directors because if you reach out to the directors independently on their specific uh service that they're providing, I want to make sure that they are responding back to you. I think the constituent is always our priority and our our primary concern, but if we don't let you have that information, uh then you can't check up and say, "Look, we got it taken care of. We're we're one team." Just follow Just to follow up real quick. Um, as far as you mentioned it to us several days ago about projects not being done from 21 and 22. So, and believe me, I have some that are pending also. >> Yes, sir. >> But just to if somebody would keep in contact with us about the process or where they're at in place as far as the project is concerned. Is it moving? It started. It would break ground already. Is is it is it completed? Because sometimes we just simply don't know. and to to keep up with everything that we ask for because we ask for a lot and I'm very aware of that but just to give us a heads up of what's going on you know where are our projects at now >> and to assign a person forward >> and and mayor and city council and that's that was the idea about having one meeting every quarter for an update of all the projects that you have in the area and I would expect uh if you've never seen what Mr. Chavez has put together for the engineering department. We have a very good dashboard that he presents. Um, I've seen the hard copy format which is really difficult to keep up on, but I think if we keep it up electronically, we can make sure that you have the information in a timely fashion. And um, and I think that's where we struggle because uh, we are working on council directives uh, all the way back to 23 and three and then all it takes is a couple conversations in these meetings and I find some that are back even 2122 that have not been moved forward or moved at all right now. And I I stated this in in uh in part of the evaluation conversation. Any of those outstanding ones that I do know that are out in 23 2023, I expected a response from every one of our department heads that were responsible for those pieces within 60 days. We're 30 days into that 60-day window. And so we are working on all of those pieces um to try to get those up. I think the ones that are that are out farther, it's going to I'm going to rely upon you to tell me that we're still missing those and we will take care of those immediately. That's anything before that. 2024 will be the next group that we try to get done probably before the uh the third quarter of this year because we're supposed to be working on 2025 directives now. And uh so I I I just uh I appreciate exactly what you're saying because it it gets it lost in uh for lack of a better way to say it, our bureaucratic red tape. It gets lost out there and we want to make sure that these things are taken taken care of. If there's an issue with that and I think I found a couple of those where we're saying, "I don't know how to even get this one done." We should have brought those back to you and said, "Hey, we need a better explanation as to what we're trying to accomplish with this because we haven't been able to direct the staff accordingly." >> Thank you, Mr. Appreciate it. Go ahead. Yeah, let me piggy back on on um Amuteras's point. The I think we we discussed it last week. I think the point of action that I or the the point I was trying to make last week was that that we don't have I think an established chain of command when we come with concerns. Um I've talked to Mr. Landine and and I think the method that works for me personally was that I would submit everything to our our staff secretary that's there and then it goes up to Mr. Line and it gets kind of trickle down to where the departments are at. It eliminates u uh it keeps you doing or working for other matters that you haven't planned and Mr. Lundine moves over to the area that is of concern. Now the the process by which it gets done is I think where uh I think the wording was going to be it falls through the cracks sometimes. There are some issues right now that I have with some the problems that I have that uh have not been resolved and we don't know the exact step by step of how things get resolved along the way. And I think a lot of the things that that that you were talking about just require a a methodology of what we're how we're going to do it, the chain of command, how we're going to do it. And then I realize that once we implement it, there's going to be some tweaking that we have to do here and there so we can get it done. But I think it'll it'll eliminate a lot of the back and forth with uh phone calls from constituents to you all. That way everybody can be tracking where their projects are at along the way. And uh it it u there's a lot of back and forth and a lot of uh downtime that that that gets eliminated from that process. >> And I I appreciate that, Mayor Council, you know, and and piggybacking on that just a little bit. What I hope out of my staff and out of our crew is that we're actually responding before you ask the question. In my mind, that's the perfect scenario for that. We're providing you that. I believe that when we first created the Friday reports where we put out information from the departments, the idea was to to provide that the updates on everything within the Friday reports. It gets lost in all of that information if we're not careful for that. And I so I think it has to be a more cohesive direction to each one of you individually for those pieces that are that are important within that structure. Um, and I think we can get there. I think we've made uh strides within that whole whole model. But I I think having that >> I just wanted I just wanted Sorry. And I wanted to follow up on that because I think the the supporting information I think is is uh been inconsistent on on agenda items. There's no support information on Fridays that that I'm aware of. I mean, we've gotten some in some cases. Uh but the supporting information, I think, is it'll eliminate a lot of the questioning that is going on here and as to why this agenda item came up. what's the the re the the rationale behind it and what is the remedy for it and so we move forward back and forth and and uh I think that private packet was it's very important uh I you know I don't know how anybody feels but the hard copy of it is what uh gets you to sit down and and look at every each one of them and eliminates a lot of the questions and back and forth during the meeting process [snorts] >> go ahead >> so just wondering how many projects do we have from 21 22 or 23 do Do you have do we have like an amount? >> So what we are tracking I'm not sure about the projects themselves as projects. What the uh the worksheet that I provided out for everybody is what's considered council directives or council inquiries. So the difference between a council directive is that it's a decision a decision that this body has made at one of these meetings. And when you do that directive and it's generally those items that you've added in at the end that were just like this item that we've covered. We call that a council directive. Once that is passed by the council, then it goes into this worksheet. Monday monday.com is our our database that we are utilizing for that. What city management does with that item there is that we will then interpret what the decision of this body was and we will assign it to a department if it's necessary to go to a department to complete that work. An inquiry comes from each one of you individually as well too. And if you if you if you remember in charter charter states that in inquiry should be kept at a any inquiry that's a nominal uh use of time and everything will be considered an inquiry. if it's a report that you need in order to get to something, but if it's going to take a lot of staff time or a lot of uh funding or something, >> we are going to bring it back to you and make it into a directive because uh I think the intent of the charter was to not uh is to try to balance that work out of each one of you individually. So, uh as far as projects, you know, depending on whether or not they're uh just the uh the normal everyday district work that Mr. or FILA does in public works or if it's the engineered projects that that come out of engineering or the utilities those are the different types of projects we have a lot of them >> so how many other directives are we've done >> in in 23 and 24 the I I talk about it as remaining directives because we have I think in that report we had 72 directives from 23 and 24 left there were 24 I believe in 2023 3 and the rest were all 24 items. And some of them some of them have um I I would say some of those directives need to just come back because once the council takes an action on it in my mind and in my opinion is that council needs to remove it as well too. No matter >> those are those directors already in within the 60 days that you gave to the directors or >> Well, none of them are within the 60 days. What what I established was that we did a lot of clean up on on these directives in the last six months. We were cleaning them up trying to find out what still pertained. So this list of 72 items uh is what I would say is the is the the primary list. Now as as council member Gutierrez is talking about I did not go back into 22 and 21 because those are more difficult to find. We we have to go through the minutes and all of that to find those. So, I started with 2324 because those are the most current ones and I I want to get everything caught up and and try to go backwards as far as we can. Uh, but out of those items, the 2023 ones, the directive in January and we got 30 days left, I think, in order to get the 23 done. As I was looking at my my request of the directors, uh, all the ACMS with their respective departments are working with them directly saying, "Here's what the status of this one is. Here's what the status of this one is." And we're trying to work through all of that so that I can provide you that update and that information. And then we're going to work on the 24 ones that are not already being completed as we're going. So, they are they are working on the entire list, but I'm what I'm trying to do is eat the elephant bite by bite. And I've said this date here is a drop deadad date to get these 23 items done. >> So may I may I ask why is it that we you know fell behind on on on this on the decisions and the items and the directives that we have for 23 2024. What's the reason that we had those uh setbacks? >> I I would say the the I guess the the the best way I can say that is life got in the way. Everybody gets into their day-to-day thing. Um, and I would I would also state that with uh with the possibility of three directives out of out of nine of you every every two weeks essentially uh that will create that log. Now I would love to go back through and tell you how many we actually completed because these are just the outlier outliers. >> We completed a lot of that work. I mean but a lot of the directives that you provide are let's assist this group or let's assist that group. And so those times have come and went within that structure. So these are the ones that uh I know that there's three traffic studies out there right now. >> Um I believe we have some um uh speed hump ones that are still still pending out there as well too. And so those are the ones that take a little bit of time in order to pull them back in. But I I know we were working on them. I think there's one out there uh about developing out a business plan u for to match up our service model to the smart cities initiative and that's a lot longer conversation that would occur. There's a lot of research that goes into those kind of directives. So they would take longer. I what I've tried to establish and I I provided that in one of my protocol uh sheets that I I provided I think in November or December to you is that I've created a a time response as far as when an item gets placed on the agenda as to how quickly you get your response back. And I I will say that unless you should have a response back within 90 days or shorter depending on what the request if it's a report that we're already making it's very quickly to get it done. if it is going to take some research. It could be taken 30 to 60 to 90 days. Um, but I would say that in 90 days, if it is something that we haven't got completed, it's coming back to the city council to say, "Hey, we want to put this onto next year's budget or we want to do something with it." That way, you again, you've got the information. So, uh, it I I would argue that a it all falls behind in a lot of different reasons. Uh I I I um I think our staff does a fantastic job of taking care of the immediate needs that we have and then they try to take the space in there. I have found uh at certain occasions that we haven't had enough of the people to do the type of job. We're short on engineers right now. So we we have to contract out a lot of that work. Um, the conversation I've had with our crew is is that what we've had a tendency to do, and Laredo is no different than than a lot of other communities out there, we lower our standards to the amount of resources we provide to an activity or or a thing. We can't lower our standards. We have to stay at a high standard. And so that means we have to bring in the right resources at the right time to meet that that goal. >> So, mayor, so one more thing, just go ahead. So what is it that as us as council is what is it that we can do to help to alleviate all those problems or alleviate or is there a directive an ordinance or something that we should do a directive that we should do so we can alleviate and catch up to 23 24 or is something that you have in mind like that you think we should do a tool or something that you know that can help us. I I I'll tell you the the one thing that I I really believe that the council can do is that when we put these items on there because our charter our charter states that when you put the those items on there, we may not even know what the item is until you put it on there, which means that it's either posted Wednesday of last week or Thursday, I think if we can get the heads up even earlier, we can prepare information. And uh >> you think if we move the the time frame instead of a Wednesday the week before and we move it until Monday the week before our council meeting that'll give you enough time to do research and you will come back where with a with a solid more information you know uh investigation and all the reports that you need >> that the well if if if I can get the heads up I mean say say we at the at the uh at one of our monthly meetings you provide the list going these are the things that I really need done or you or you make the phone call and say, "I need to know this." We started as an inquiry. We started as this individual council member needs this information. We do it already. I've just I'm trying to put a system to it is what I'm trying to do. You call in, you tell us we need that information. We will provide you with this is how long we can it'll take to get there. if you're not comfortable with that time frame or we say, you know, this would be better if we brought it to the full council and made it a directive because of the the the amount of resources we put to that. Those are the things I think that we can work together on in order to get make it work a little better. I don't know if there's a um an ordinance or a resolution at this time. It was just it took so long to consolidate this information so that I could even give you a list and said, "Here's what I think the list is. Tell me what I'm missing." And that took a while. It was about I think it was November, October, November when when I first got the first list out. And then there was some tweaking and adjustments on that list as well too. So I think we know what works out there other than the anything goes back before the 20 22 21. U so I don't think there's any action to do other than uh I will provide you again with the timeline as to how quickly we can respond to these things. But if you give us a heads up and say this is the item that we're we're looking for the information in because some of the items on the agenda and I I think I've tal I've spoken to some of you individually as well too. It doesn't really take council action in this meeting to get them done. All you have to do is let me know that you need the information. We'll get you the information. The information that should be coming to the council even from your level are the things that need this body needs to work on. >> Mr. Ne. >> Yes sir. In your opinion, do you think that the use of workshops uh instead of directives could be more efficient? >> Mr. Mayor and city council, I believe that and and I think this is what we talked about. We do have a workshop next week. I'm hoping to have on on Monday. Uh but I believe that if we can put in some strategic workshops throughout the year, I think it would go a long way to um further vet things and further prepare things that are coming forward. uh what I'm what I'm working with with our departments is is actually building out when they need to have things hit the hit the uh the agenda so that it doesn't feel rushed. Uh some of you have stated at time or two that it's like well this is the first time I've seen this thing coming. I would like I would like to think about this before we take action on it and ordinances at least give you two shots at it. A resolution gives you one. >> Perfect. >> All right. Go ahead, K. >> Mr. Neb, really quick for for for this summer or be before the budget cycle starts or the conversations, may you check what the population was when we started uh working with a half of assistant. Uh I know there's four assistants for for the entire city and at least in my district, I still have a lot of elderly that they don't [snorts] use 311. So, and they call me and that's fine. So my work order work orders will start stacking up stacking up and when I call my assistant and and then another one missed from another district for council member Miss Pettis or whatever. So she fills in she starts helping aside from from sharing her with district two. So then our workers will just stack up. So if you can please for our next budget cycle check our what the population was when we considered to have a 0.5 assistant under one district. >> Yeah. and and mayor and council member. Uh you know, I I think it was about it may have been almost a year and a half ago. I I proposed uh changing that process and going to and an individual one for each one of you for that. If we expanded their duties out just like we're talking about here about getting information flowing back and forth, that may be a function to do that. the the model that we had was actually um kind of tying a essentially a a contracted laborer that works directly for each of you so that when you're turned out that contracted laborer goes with you and then the new council member can actually bring in one of their own contracted labor. And so that model that model seems to work a little bit for uh for these kind of structures uh within that u you know every every one of you when you take office you're replacing all your appointments on the boards or you have to reratify the appointments on the boards. So there is a way to get there and I would agree with you exactly what you're saying is I think that we've the speed that we wish to work in and I it's not even about the size of the community we have other than we we act a lot bigger with all the work that we're doing. The sense of urgencies are different. We want high standards that attention to each one of you individually would work and and would help me out a lot for that. Um, and so I I think that we can bring that forward and have that conversation at the budget time. There there's going to be a few other things talked about at the budget time in order to reset the pieces of of what we don't what we're not covering right now. >> May. >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Um, Mr. since we're talking about directives uh and and trying to I don't know if this is an inquiry or just looking at this process if there is a way to develop some type of um annotation to them or something that connects them to our strategic planning goals so that we when we're discussing what we're doing and the directives that we're proposing that the public can understand how it moves some goal of ours forward as a city, even if it's district specific, it's feeding into the bigger goal, whether that's improving quality of life, better access to services, uh helping encourage economic development, whatever that might be, but making that a little bit clearer because they can get very um there's a lot of red tape, but we want people to understand how it moves the city forward. >> Yeah. and mayor and council. I I know prior to me being here uh some of the previous agendas actually had those items or had a had a disclaimer, not a disclaimer, but a claimer. >> Yeah. It it added on there saying this is a quality of life thing or this was whatever that issue is. Uh the conversation that we I've had with directors as well too is that everything that we do should match back to our comprehensive plan to some level. Uh and I would I would argue and and debate that I think almost everything that we do. Is there any way it's just quantifying it or qualifying it? >> Go ahead. >> Oh, uh, thank you. Um, mayor, I think the the I guess the topic of this agenda item is is valid in that um although we do have uh like you mentioned, Mr. Council management form of government and we do have the charter that we have to work by. Um the intention of the charter is to facilitate right govern government government like for us to work better for the people and um we're seeing that there's still some disconnects there. There's still a lot of constituents that are unhappy with the service that they're getting in some way some form and we're all getting the phone calls and um you know we're trying to be respectful of the structure but at the same time there is a need for some additional support for us. I don't know if having uh I think maybe having a full council assistant would would help, but there's I think a need for us to have a little bit more help in the our office, the the council and um mayor's office. Um right now it's just all of us and half an assistant each. So um we appreciate that we're trying to help you and your org chart, but at the same time the constituents call us, right? and whatever happens at the city, we still have to provide that oversight over over you and over over everything that's happening. And it's very difficult for us to do that when we ourselves don't have the resources. And so we're putting a lot of our additional time and that's where the whole um you know us having to kind of work and make sure that that all of these things are in place. But um if we're talking if the mayor's bringing up a liaison, maybe a liaison isn't the answer, but maybe something else will work better that we could come up a zone, maybe we can come up with a way to um you know, right now we have the auditor that reports directly to council. Maybe there's a way to expand under that office or create some kind of um additional branch within our office that we could use to um have somebody on our side to help coordinate better um as a liaison because the word here does say liaison. Um, so I think that we're trying to get creative and work within the bounds that we have, but at the same time, the ultimate goal is just to make sure that projects are getting done, that the citizens are being serviced. And I can appreciate the fact that you're talking about a backlog and projects, but I do see that certain things are going on the agenda that are new directives, and there's still old directives that aren't taken care of. So, I'm not sure who's making that decision on what's going to make this agenda or what's going to become like you're trying to tackle new new new requests and tackle old ones. But, I mean, this is my second term and and I can tell you there's directives and things from my first term that are still not done and um you know, you haven't been here this whole time, so I can understand that as well. Yeah, I think this council is trying to make efforts to create stability and to create consistency and and and up the level of service that we're providing and make sure that all of these things are getting accomplished. But um there is some need to kind of um revamp some of the way things are are structured on on our end is what I think this >> agenda item is is kind of alluding to. >> And mayor and council and I appreciate that as well too. I I'm happy to bring back some ideas and options for for all of this as well too. I talked about just some of the ones that that that I thought about over the last year and a half. Um I I think that the the frustrations that sometimes that you feel staff feels as well too within our structure that there is so much work that we're trying to do for our constituents and everything. We wanted to we want to do the good job. I I would I would I would state that we are not missing any of the constituents that I know of that have reached out to any of you. We do respond to all of them. It may take a little bit of a time. Uh we have new ones coming in at all times based upon you all know which ones that we're working on right now as well too. And so I think those are the things that we are always trying to discover a better way to get this work done because um a lot of it and we research when a constituent calls we will research the issue to make sure they get the right response as well too. We don't want them to get a bad response and so that takes a little bit of time as well too. But mayor council I'm I'm happy to keep working on this. Uh, I hopefully you can understand um that we intend to do better and uh continually try to do better with everything we're doing. I I think that's the model that we're trying to do. I cautioned you all that I'm going to try to move a lot faster this year. It's my third year. I've listened. I've I've planned. This is the year that uh everybody just needs to keep up, right? And hopefully I can catch you. >> Yes. Hey, >> I just have the mic. Sorry. Um, thank you, Mr. Chair, please. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, thank you, Mr. Neb, and thank you, Mayor, for this item. I don't fully understand what this item is about. Um, I do think that there like I can share some of the the concerns of of my colleagues and and Mr. Nev. I I do, as I've said this before, I think it comes it falls back on us to be more um perhaps aligned with the Valad plan. We have we every meeting. I think that we think in two week intervals rather than where do we want to be in five years and where do we want to be in 10 years? We have we're able to add three items to every agenda along with supplemental items. I think that's part of the chaos of where we find ourselves as a city. Um and until we can take a good look at what we're how how we're operating and see if there's room for improvement to just find some alignment. Um and that might help as well. But maybe something just to consider and >> mayor and city council, I'll take the opportunity with the comment about the strategic plan as well too. We are hoping to have a workshop with the council for a strategic planning session either toward the end of April or probably the early part of May. Uh we are looking for a uh a facilitator in order to assist with that conversation. We're going to kind of change it up from the last ones that we have done. We want to um I know that uh planning and zoning is going through a comp the comprehensive plan. It's almost time to re-update that. Uh so we want to re make sure that we've evaluated that information, but it has to be based upon your vision. And then my I my goal or my job and my the team's job is to enact that vision of the council. And so that'll be where we're headed for that. Just want to be aware going back to the idea of that the workshops. I think uh that was one of the things that you talked about. We need to have these conversations more in order to get them done. So, I'm happy to do that. I just wanted to make sure you understood where we're at. I'll try to provide some more additional clarification based upon our conversation tonight. Uh in order to make sure that everybody, you should never have to worry about how to contact our office in order to get a response from what your needs are. >> Mayor, if I may. So sir, what I want to do, I want to make a motion to move the the the day of turning in our item agendas for every Wednesday before the week. Let's do it Monday. Start off until Monday. And so you can have Wednesday will be the deadline or maybe Friday if we got amended. But they'll give you the time to do all the reports and and we can start off like that just uh for Monday, the Monday before the that that um that meeting and give you that time that whole week uh to do research, reports, whatever, but you know, making sure that by that Monday and give you a whole full week, work week, not doing it just Wednesday and having two or three days, you know, uh just to to do reports and check on on statuses. At least you got since one month a whole week uh we'll close the day on Wednesday and if we got to add anything on Friday I know the mayor we got to go do it through the mayor but if anything on Friday we can amend the agenda we have to add any other uh uh item that that comes into amended agenda. So that will be my motion. >> I'll second if it's under the scope. >> It's under the scope. >> Okay. >> Is that a motion? >> I got a second already. made a motion. Second, >> second for discussion. >> I know we have a lighter agenda, so we're filling it with um this um discussion. We want to make sure we don't leave before 11 o'clock tonight. Right. >> Um right, everybody. Okay. No, >> kidding. But mayor, I the reason why I would be against that is because I think it would actually encourage exactly what Mr. has asked us to consider not doing, you know, in the sense of so sure we would give staff a week to do it, but then that entire week might be spent hunting down the the new item. And the whole point I think you were trying to make also is that we're having these kind of ongoing discussions with staff to give you notice and it's not kind of a random curveball. So, I could actually see this making things a little bit worse because it would then absorb the entire week of someone leading up to the next meeting because hustling down an an agenda item from Monday to Friday instead of just Monday afternoon to uh Friday. So, that's why that's the reason I would not support that. I think the system is the way it is. I think it's more just about us doing a better job communicating with you all in advance and not throwing as many curve balls as possible and because we have a lot of freedom in the items we can throw on there. We don't need a co-sponsor like some governing bodies require at least one co-sponsor or two per agenda item. There there's ways that we could make our agenda items more thoughtful. Um, so I think this will be something to discuss, but mayor, if I may, uh, it's it's understandable. I understand what Mr. King is trying to say. Councilman King is trying to say that if we don't, you know, we're going to add more to the agenda and we're going to have more things, you know, but at the same time, we got to start thinking about staff and who do the who who does the li the heavy lifting, which is the staff. The staff is looking out for reports, looking for updates. Uh so we'll give them time from Monday to Wednesday and like I said it's from Monday to Wednesday closing off Wednesday and you'll have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday up to Friday to do your reports and you have a whole work week in case you do have information and may you know some of the items that we put on the agenda might already be resolved and you we can eliminate it and we you know say when it comes to the agenda you know it's it's going to be a lighter agenda. So that's that's the reason I'm trying to >> mayor city council I think that that is one option that would happen is is that if we can resolve the issue before the Wednesday printing of of the items based upon our protocol manual you would not place that item on the agenda. So there is the possibility that the outreach would actually dictate a faster response on an inquiry level rather than u needing a needing a directive off the full city council. Mayor, point of order. >> You had an a motion before this motion, mayor. So, you had a motion and a second before this motion even came off. So, we need to take care of yours before. >> We need to take care of your >> discussion. Are you open discussion? >> That that was the only one open for discussion. >> So, let's read the motion that's pending. >> The mayor's motion. >> The mayor's motion was basically what's what's on the agenda. um possible action on the appointments of Alisonance to update the city council on public inquiries and projects. That that was your motion there. >> Motion and second >> and it was you mo you motion and second by council member uh >> All right. Correct. That's the motion we need to vote on before this even comes >> second. >> Do we have a second on that? >> I have not. I hear that it was second by council member >> the mayor's motion >> second mayor >> second you have a second >> yes mayor >> second >> all right >> I before we take the vote for that mayor may I ask a question >> go ahead >> so this motion um Mr. Maldonado is for a leaison position. >> It's what the mayor read. Yes, correct. >> Okay. Because um I guess my understanding was that we had decided that we would refine the existing structure to not add another layer and um allow the existing structure to kind of absorb all of these recommendations and work through that. >> That that's one we need to vote on. >> Mayor point real quick. Go ahead. >> The the agenda item doesn't say creating a position. It just says appoint a liaison. That's what it says. >> Exactly. So, we need to vote on that. >> All right. So, >> Oh, we haven't chosen. >> So, is you have a second on it, right? >> We have a second. >> All right. Let's vote. Take a vote. >> All in favor? Mr. De has a question. >> Point of point of order as well, too. is that I I believe you have the ability to amend it based upon the conversation we had to let us bring back exactly what you would what we can recommend within that structure is what I I would I actually state that uh I think council member Rangel is actually an amendment within that that nature of that because it matches up to the conversation that we have here as well too. >> Would you accept that one of order? >> Would you accept my amendment? motion. >> I just want to add something amend. >> Go ahead. >> Um I think Councilman, the only um downside I see to that amendment is that I think it's going to in inadvertently create more supplemental agenda items. Uh you know, we saw Friday uh supplemental. uh there's nothing stopping council members from putting supplementals which will actually reduce the amount of time that staff has from Wednesday to Friday. Um but they could potentially end up with you know 20ome items to do between Friday and Monday. So I'm not necessarily sure that's the solution. I think if we want if we have a research intensive uh labor intensive deliverable or ask of management, we could provide it to them on Monday for consideration for finalization on Wednesday. But we used to have agenda items due Fridays and we moved it back to Wednesdays to give two additional days. If we move it back to Monday, um I don't know how many of us on council will have ourselves together to have it submitted by Wednesday. I mean by Monday and then we're going to end up with a bunch of Friday supplementals. That's how I see this playing out if we go that route. >> Mayor, mayor and city council, may I ask for a tableabling of this item and let me bring back at the next regular meeting some options as to how to manage all of what I've learned tonight in this conversation. >> That sounds motion table. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Oppos? Motion passes. Thank you. Mayor motion motion to open the public hearing and interrupt the ordinances one, two, three, and four. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> Post. Motion passes. >> Number one, public interview ordinance a design map by authorizing special use permit of a tobacco shop on lot 789 and 10 block 1372 Eastern division located at 2419 East Street, sweet 107 1,379.04 feet. The plan zoning commission recommended approval of the proposal special use permanent staff not support the application. Number two, public industry ordinance of main zoning city rad by authorizing a special use permit for a communication tower on lot 3A1 block 1 ponder roa commercial subdivision unit one located at 2320 public group zoning commission recommended approval of the proposed special use permit and staff did not support the application. Number three, public hearing interfo zoning map by authorizing special use for a communication tower on approximately 3.7 acres as further described by meets and attached exhibit A located north of US Highway 59 and west of Escondido Drive. The plan commission recommended approval of the proposed special use permit and staff did not support the application. Number four, publicity ordinance. Ordinance number public introduction or the city council of the city of Laro, Texas authorized city manager to accept an enter to a contract with the Meadows Foundation for the Community Mental Health Program Recharge Center at Antarita amending the fiscal year 2024 budget by appropriating revenues and expenditures in the amount of 18,600 with no match for the city public health department for the term period from October 1st, 2024 to September 30, 2025 fund will be accepted into the Larredo Health Department fund, the Meadows Foundation grant. And that's it. All right. >> All right. Number one. >> Four or against. Four or against. Four or against. >> Okay. Motion. >> Motion to open and introduce. >> Close and introduce. >> Second. >> I have a question. >> Go ahead. >> Um, so hello. Thank you. So I just want to make sure that that we're understanding this because there is some some questions. This is another tobacco shop. We just had one last meeting that got voted down because it was 100 feet from a residential area. My understanding is that we went from 300 foot clearance for any tobacco shop to be located next to a residential area to 800 ft because council was concerned about the impact it could have to miners that live in that area. Now, this is a completely different area and a completely a different setup, right? because um uh East Saunders is a a busier street. There's more uh retail activity and commercial activity, but in the end, it's still falling at 560 ft, which does not meet that new minimum that council very recently voted to increase to 800 feet. It seems to me that we kept being put in this position that we have to special use our way out of regulations that really should just be applicable for all types of cases. So, um I can see why the commission thought that this particular case could get out of this 800 foot uh restriction that we put in place. But if we don't begin to enforce our restrictions, then they become meaningless. Is there a process by which we can take a a view of the city and and make some recommendations that will hold where the restrictions will meet this this idea that we want to protect our miners from gaining access to a vice or from promoting a vice that we know in the long run is not healthy for them. Right? I I think that was the intention of the original extension of that distance. um look at the areas in our city just so that we don't keep having to put a what is it a square peg and a round hole >> counciloman for the record honorable mayor go ahead >> for the record with the plane department so under the policies and procedures that we have in place uh just like this and many others that require a special use permit uh we under our policies that we cannot prohibit someone from applying so they have to run through the gauntlet and that's how this item is here before you today. So again, a special use permit is an item that is uh process no one can be denied from filling an application and going through and that's where we make our recommendations and the recommendation for PSA. >> Can I go ahead? >> I I think I mean I agree 100% uh with um Councilwoman. the the problem that I have with with when we when we get these type of agenda items. Uh again, the the supporting information that doesn't come with it only puts us in a bind because we have to make a decision on this. Um I am all for um anybody who wants to open up a business. I'm 100% behind it. But I think this city is growing at a at a level where where we're we're at the crossroads of trying to do what's best so that we can bring in more investment to my district and the NC or the the the zoning uh ordinances get in the way. Uh you know, yes, I am not for for promoting people to to get into a vice that that it's going to be unhealthy, but that's neither here nor there. It's a business that wants to open up, but we're at a crossroads on this. And we're left in here to say yay or nay on whether it can open up based on the ordinance itself. >> And I think that we're going to continue to see this, especially in the older parts of town where I'm at. Um because I mean 59 is a highly traveled area and it deserves to have whatever it wants in there, you know, but it just um it's very difficult for me to to make a decision on something like this that goes against the ordinance because I'm in agreement with Miss Roa that's saying that it either the the ordinance is there to protect everybody from from doing this or it isn't. and and u it just puts us in a complete bind to try and say that panel and zone recommended this this item staff did not recommend this item. >> Correct. >> And and so I am here to tell you that you know I ordinarily I follow what the recommendations are from your department but I have no other choice but then but to want to move forward with this because we're going to continue to restrict people from from this in our area. I don't know what the clear answer is, but we have to be a little bit more malleable in a sense to whatever is going on in the old areas. I know we have better rules and restrictions going to the north side, but in our in our part of the world, you know, we there's there's limited amount of things that you can do. I'm not sure if that same position is the same people that were there for this other one. >> Separate and apart. Totally. >> Separate and apart. Good. Thank God. Uh but I am I I am I'm conflicted right now because I I'm not sure exactly what to do in in this particular matter and and uh I'm hoping that something can be worked out. Uh I'm not sure we can table this particular item and and and move it forward. So I'm moving right now that we table it and and figure out what it is that we have to do with these people because I really think that people that want to open up a business do so. and second. I just want to move forward motion and second. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. >> Number two. For or against. Four or against. Four or against. >> Mayor, we have a public comment. >> Go ahead. No. Move to close and and open. Close. Introduce. I move to close and introduce. Second for discussion. >> Second for discussion. >> Good evening. I'm Bev Francis. I'm the attorney for SBA Towers LLC. We're respectfully requesting approval of the specific use permit to resolve a significant gap in Verizon Wireless's service to this important part of your city. But it's a collaboration of three major corporations that make this happen. SBA which has 39,000 towers, Verizon Wireless, which has 6,700 collocations on SBA's towers, and Walmart, which has an agreement with SBA to market his properties. The first thing that occurs on this situation where we have a need that Verizon's expressed is to identify a location that's least intrusive. that we have found the location to the northwest portion of the Walmart track and designed it so that there are four carriers available on 150 ft monopole with Verizon at the top of the portion. I've given you a a what's called an s a saber engineers engineering letter confirming that as most people think that if there's a failure of a tower it falls flat like a pancake but they're designed actually to bend like a soda straw so that there is basically a no fall zone represing the time that I understand only have three minutes for the presentation a little bit of latitude if I may um The staff has opposed this because in 1997 is when your wireless ordinance was created 20 what eight years ago. A lot's changed. Look at the demand. The the parents taking photos online and so forth. But the ordinance as it currently exists, it requires a 450 foot setback from this tower to an R1 district immediately north. The portion of the R1 district is you can see on this photograph of Google Earth Shot, you have the SBA tower and the portion of the 400 foot uh district separation includes a a portion of the R1 that is being used and has been used since it was annexed in and probably before for stables and corral. And these are existing as um legally con conforming non-conforming uses. The additionally though the question comes up can this property ever be developed so that it would be impacted by that 450 foot. I researched it and the FEMA maps indicate that a significant portion of that directly south of the Shakone Creek is in a special hazard flood zone. And as uh presented to the PNZ by the chief of the waterworks department, it's practically impossible for this to be developed. Number one, it's in the flood zone, but there's only one access across the cone creek. And if you're going to build homes more than 35 in number, you need two access points and they don't exist. The step four is Verizon prepares propagation maps. They prepared maps to show that with this site you can see the significant coverage that will be imp uh improved for this portion of your community. I provided to you different uh signal strength maps so you can get assurances of the significance of this tower. This is just signal strength on the right hand margin. You excuse me you'll see that 85% of the calls are fair or poor. 85% currently if 182 joins on the tower gets basically you know 90% or poor excuse me poor or fair or non-existent. Final point is on what we call capacity. That's when you're in traffic or at home at a peak hour you go to make a call and it just buffers. That means that the system is overloaded as it currently exists in this area. There is a significant buffering with gosh almost 90 something% of poor and uh fair calls being just buffered or disconnected. And on AT&T it's you can see the on the right hand side it's uh non-existent, poor or fair. As has you may be aware that this is under the federal telecom act. We have worked closely with the staff which we really appreciate over the last year. We've shown that there's a significant gap in Verizon service for this important area of your city. There's no available alternative site. The site that was selected Walmart to be the least intrusive from the public fair rideways also from the residential areas. and as a denial of the special permit will essentially materially inhibit Verizon's ability to provide your constituents this service. So, I've included in the binder some backup information that you may look at in the future because your city is so well ahead with app apps with uh advising the community that over 85% of E911 calls are made by wireless. In the reverse, E911 calls are so critical. There is a grade school killing only 7.75 3/4 a mile away from this area. So, this service is a significant deed and we're respectfully requesting your approval. >> Yes. Uh, Mr. Francis, for the record, right? >> I'm sorry. >> Are you Mr. William Francis? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. Thank you. >> William Francis, the attorney for as I thought I was on three minutes, so I was talking like Roger Rabbit up here, but All right, I'm attorney for SBA towers. Do you have a question? >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Um, thank you so much for being here and and thank you for that comprehensive explanation. I think the area that you like you identified it's next to um historic or not historic an old designation for residential area but we know with Walmart with that the QT um gas station all of that the the infill between uh Loop 20 Clark and Highway 59 seems to be developing at a commercial pace. >> Yes. that and especially now that you've presented the flood maps, it seems very highly unlikely that any residential could actually go into that footprint. Um, I did want to ask a question. I don't know if it's for you or or for planning and zoning. Is there a reason why we keep these towers away from residential areas that we have that kind of buffer zone? >> I think it's a product, if I may answer, it's a product that it's just a very old wireless app. You'll see in the um information we provided you the growth of the number of phones that we all use especially in residential averages show in Laredo the average household has a minimum of five to seven devices >> and that's where you need the the coverage for emergency situations. Parents need to be notified if children have situations. Um, unfortunately back, you know, 28 years ago, it really was just a brick that we had in our car and we picked up and listened to. Now, it is a major part of our life and safety. >> Well, I'm I'm encouraged to hear that Verizon is expanding its footprint and and providing this additional service. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> A motion introduced. >> Okay. >> All right. Motion post introduced and second. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. >> Thank you all. >> Thank you. >> There's a second for that. >> Number three. For or against. For or against. For or against. >> Motion to close and introduce. >> Motion. >> Second. >> Go ahead. >> Name for the record, please. >> This one. >> Yeah. Okay. Hello. Um, I'm Cara with Craft and Communications. Um, I'm here on behalf of American Tower Corporation. Another cell tower. >> Okay. Sorry, we didn't get the name. What was I'm sorry. >> I am with the tower. >> I'm hope the um cell tower owner is American Tower Corporation. >> Um, and also the the land owner of the subject property. Um, American Tower is proposing to build a 22 foot monopole tower inside of a 75 foot by 75 ft secured compound. Um the proposed location is on the northeast side of the intersection of Highway 59 and Bob Bulock Loop. Uh the parcel is in an industrial piece of property with other industrial property surrounding it. There is a residential neighborhood to the north but it's approximately 600 ft away. Um, American Tower currently operates a tower that is approximately 750 ft to the northwest, but the lease on this tower is expiring and the existing tower needs to be removed. So, um, the initial staff report recommended denial based on the distance to that existing tower, but it will be coming down. Um and so planning and zoning recommended approval with the condition that uh the existing tower be removed within 180 days of the new tower uh being built and on air. Um yeah, I'd be happy to answer any questions. >> Great. Thank you. Any questions? Go ahead. >> Um again, so this is the same type of tower that we were just discussing. Yeah, I didn't catch what kind of tower that was if it was another monopole, but yes, >> I my question for planning and zoning again that there is no um adverse effects from having this tower closer to the residential area. It's just a policy that an old policy that we had to make sure that that distance >> well in this for the record in this particular case we were looking at it uh based on the adjacent zoning district. So the uh zoning districts around it are commercial. So that was the issue. So she did mention uh the the tower that's 750 ft away. So in this particular case, the recommendation from staff had to do with that tower because uh the separation decision should be 1500 feet between towers. >> Okay. So So >> on the zoning side, it's good it separate from the other one. So it's distance between towers. >> So it's in accordance with the recommendation that if it the current tower comes down, then there should be no restriction on this. >> That is correct. >> Okay. Thank you for the clarification. >> Yes. Thank you. And as >> uh yes. And and I kind of wanted to ask you a question also with regards to the last gentleman that was there. Um did I understand it correctly? The towers are now being uh designed and engineered so that they can collapse and not fall as as as ordinarily one would think that 100 foot 150 foot tower would fall. Uh I guess uh >> right. Yeah. They'll be designed with a a fail point so they'll fall on themselves. >> Okay. Very good. I I think I mean in in light of all that that that type of information um but I just recommend to staff to consider these type of things when we're um when they're being introduced to PNZ so that um it can I guess rise to the standard of of either making changes or having a um for lack of a better word a state fall when when I'm being introduced to PNZ so that we don't have to have a uh um a discussion whether or not it's far enough from a residential area or not. >> Correct. >> All right. Motion second. >> We have a motion. >> Yes, sir. Motion and a second. >> Okay. There's a motion and second. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? >> Motion passes. Thank you. >> Number four. Four or against. Four or against. Four or against. >> Motion to close and reduce. >> Second. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion pass. >> Motion to approve final readings ordinances 5, six, and seven. >> Second. Motion second. All in favor? >> I I >> opposed. Motion passes. >> Motion to approve the consent agenda number eight. Tableing number nine. >> Order number nine if only table >> number nine. Approving number 10, 11, 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29. >> Which one? >> 27. >> Okay, we'll pull out number 27. to approve to 27. >> Oh, up to 27. Up to >> motion to approve to number 27. Motion >> second. >> Second. All in favor? I >> oppose. Motion pass. >> Yes. Go ahead. >> A resolution um consent item 28. Resolution of the city council of the city of Laredo, Texas, authorizing the city manager to submit a grant application in the estimated amount of $30,700 to the officer of the governor and public safety office criminal justice division for the FY2026 violence against women justice and training program grant for the period of October 1st, 2025 through September 30th, 2026. This grant will provide funding for crimes against women training intended for the Laredo Police Department personnel. The 30% required match for the city of Laredo is approximately $9,200. Grant funding will be accounted for in the special police fund. I first wanted to commend the police department for taking this on. I think it it it couldn't be more timely. I know they have already had efforts on the ground to increase awareness um of of domestic violence issues in our community and um they are looking for ways to outreach to the public to encourage this education and other venues. Um we've seen the tragic consequences now of of deaths in our community that have come from domestic violence situations. I continue to believe that we as a society owe some of of the the risk that we put these police in when they're responding to these calls because our society refuses to restrict access to guns in any meaningful way in my opinion. However, the efforts by the Laredo Police Department to shine a light on on the needs in our community and look for additional resources to continue to educate women and and our community about the importance of not falling into these situations that encourages domestic violence against women. How can women protect themselves? How can we as a society look for those factors before it turns into tragic consequences. And in this latest case, not only was it the family that suffered immediately um in in a very tragic way, but the fact that the surrounding um homes that surrounding neighborhood had great risk because the perpetrator let off let fly hundreds of bullets. And so, um, any efforts that you do to to make our community safer and raise attention to this important and and very sad and significant issue. I I hope you look to council to support you in that. Um, I am hopeful that you can come back and see if there's training that other entities other than the Laredo Police Department can join in on if there are grant opportunities to bring in once of course once the police department has finished their training if you can then offer it perhaps to a wider array of entities and again I I would believe that myself and my colleagues would be very willing to support you as well. >> Go ahead. >> Yes, ma'am. I say on behalf of Chief Rodriguez and mayor and councel um Vanel Vado and thank you for those words and for your support. And yes, it was a tragedy. Uh like I said, our our initial officers did fire. Uh he he fired over 100 shots just to get into the house. So, uh it is a tragedy and yes, we're continue looking for more grants and more training and yes, we're going to offer it also not only to our uh department, but to the community as well. And uh I don't know if Chief Rodri contacted you, but we're going to uh go out to that neighborhood, try to restore peace. Uh we're going to walk there the neighborhood and see what what areas we we can make lighting anything talk to them and see and just bring back peace to their communities there. >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Yes. At the same time I just want to commend the the police department for doing all everything they did this weekend. And you know, I'm just piggybacking uh piggy backing after Councilwoman UA everything that she's saying that, you know, bringing those programs to the to the community, it's going to help be more very beneficial. Uh you know, we today I had a call that something we could there was something that any pro uh programs that the city could do or you know, but now that I saw this in the item agenda, I was like, that's a great uh that's a great idea. Um you know, we appreciate everything you guys do. Um, you know, we respect the man in blue. Everything you do and you put your lives into it. You just show you showed that you showed your your heart and your uh being a hero in front of of in front of all the the people that were were being were very scared and and the in the Chans division uh having answers to them, you know, uh attending to those people as at the the the at the visi you guys did it was something that u it's admirable and it's you know I appreciate it. We appreciate it as a council. Thank you so much and for keeping us advised and you know informed of everything you guys did that day uh and keeping the public safe. So thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Mayor if I may motion to approve number 28. >> Second. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> Opposed? >> Motion pass. >> Motion to approve number 29 30 31 32 33 34 and 35. >> Second. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. Mayor motion to recess as the Laredo City Council and convene as Laro Mass Transit Board. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. >> Motion to approve number 36, 37, 38, and 39. >> Second. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion passes. >> Council items. >> Next item. >> 4C1. >> Point of order. We have to recess as >> motion to adjourn as the Larita Mes transit board and convene reconvene as the Larita city council. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion pass. >> Thank you. >> All right. C1 >> 40 B1 40C1. Mayor. >> Oh yes, Mayor. >> Yes. Go ahead. discussion on possible action on the autism coalition work within the BRC status of the all kinds of minds master plans and any other matters incident there too. Um thank you Dr. Chamberlain uh for all your work on the this on this initiative. Um we haven't heard from it in a while and I just wanted to see where we're at. Um last time we spoke there was a focus on um autism. I don't know if that's still the focus. Um I don't know if the coalition is still active. The members are still meeting. Um but I would like to continue pushing forward for grants and moving towards um those other steps that we spoke about before we um moved it under the blue ribbon committee. >> Absolutely. Um good evening mayor and members of the council. Thank you so much, Mayor Prom, for your continued advocacy in this realm. Um March is um devel developmental and uh developmental disabilities awareness month and of course um April is autism awareness month. So I appreciate the timing of you bringing this um to council floor and if you would allow me I'll take you through a little walk of the all kinds of minds master plan. I wanted just to make a quick disclosure of the presidential executive order and the governor's executive order issued regarding the DEI initiatives and we just want you to know as council that this um initiative is ensuring access for all. >> Good. >> Thank you. >> Um and so just a little bit of an update regarding data. up there on the top right hand corner it says um web county persons with disabilities population um is 34,793. This um has been updated. This data is still from 2022, but this is the most recent data that our state of Texas um just published um in the last couple of months and that is up from 28,000 and change and that was the 2020 data point. And so just um a reminder for um anybody who might be new to the all kinds of minds master plan, it is a comprehensive guide to improve health and wellness of people living with disabilities in our community. Um replicating a national blueprint for change framework. And so during years um phase phase one which was years one and two which was already two years ago we are in phase um two which is year three which we're working on our family centered care comprehensive services effective transition quality healthc care quality data and so this was um an initiative born out of conversations of with the autism coalition the blue ribbon committee and of course with mayor promp um seeking to elevate the level of awareness of the community and specifically the businesses here in Laredo. And so we are very um proud to say that we do have um several organizations that have taken the all kinds of minds pledge and um ensuring that their level of awareness for persons with disabilities in our community is elevated. [snorts] And as you can see here, um, we do actually have a website. Let's see if it'll go through. And where it is, um, where it identifies the different, um, organizations in the city of Laredo that do have the gold, silver, and bronze pledge. I'll go back to this presentation. I wanted to share some um, success snapshots. We um because of the work within the all kinds of minds master plan, the autism coalition and the blue ribbon committee, there has been the implementation of adoptive aquatics programs, first responder assistance registry, multi-ensory room projects at the library and recreation centers, our autism exercise programs, autism exercise specialists, um vaccination administration training for this population, our provider and stake our providers and stakeholder pledge which we just showed um the gold, silver, and bronze statuses. Um, our embrace project, our ID or um, intellectual and developmental disabilities recognition and response for the police department, inclusive child care project, developmental screenings and beyond project, the road to recovery supporting children with ID who have experienced trauma, disability friendly provider workshop, the mayor's blue ribbon committee autism advisory portion, which is how we transition the um, autism coalition into the blue ribbon pediatric and family health bridge coalition. autism and developmental disabilities monitoring project which is our largest um award that we've received to date and the the NIH the National Association of City County Health Officials Emergency Preparedness for Persons with Disabilities Grant. >> Mayor, if I can. >> Yes. >> How much is the total of all that funding that we've received? >> So, the total funding for the ADOM project was $4 million. Oh, >> sorry, $2.5 million, excuse me. >> At 2.5 >> over the course of five years >> each year. um 2.5 broken up into those years. Okay. 500,000 >> that was to fund that special position, right? >> That was to fund the the um the the autism surveillance network, >> right? >> Which was four four positions. >> Four positions. I thought we received more. >> So, we did receive an additional grant for our family of with family with children and special healthcare needs. Um and that was a case worker which is an additional individual who supports that program. >> Okay. And all that funding is um anticipated to um continue as of right now. >> We are very hopeful that it does that it will continue. >> U mayor if I may. >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Um autism [clears throat] coalition autism awareness month is coming up. Right. So um I'd like to actually make a motion for before you're done with the >> Yes, ma'am. >> presentation as right now. make a motion that we collaborate any efforts that we have for autism awareness that we include the blue ribbon committee and the autism coalition members to be invited to and make sure they're part of so we have visibility for that. make sure that we have um pamphlets and brochures that are highlighting this program that it still exists >> and work with the LED and the chamber to get it as many businesses as we can on board and at least double the numbers that we have right now by the end of April. >> That's my motion. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion pass. >> And then I don't know if you >> Yeah, I'll just keep on going. Um, here's some more an additional updates for the blue ribbon committee and as you can see the logo for the blue ribbon committee also was updated and it does include the human with the brain of course specifically highlighting our ID population. Here's some um great work that's been done over the last couple of um months which were we had our national uh disability employment awareness symposium. Um this was great work and we did a survey there where we noted um the additional need for awareness and training um and participants requested efforts to debunk myths about employing people with disabilities. Um some more great work which was the white cane event, the night to shine event. Um I definitely encourage um everybody here in chambers to join um the white cane event and the night to shine for the following year and we helped to broadcast those um at Laredo Public Health. This was a a recent event which was absolutely lovely. Um which we we did have our family support program for children and young adults with special healthcare needs um have a um an art day and it was absolutely wonderful. Um and we got nothing but positive feedback that it shouldn't just be once. So we are not going to just be doing it as a one-time event which is the way it was funded but we're going to figure out how we can find that funding and make sure that it's something done on a rolling basis as well. >> Mayor, I have another question. >> Yes. Go ahead. >> So is this going to is this the focus now of the of the all kinds of minds master? Are we in chapter 2 now? Is that what >> and I was going to transition to the next slide and this is actually something very special that was brought to me and I've already disseminated this to the team. So now we're in this project search area. So project search is bridging the gaps and providing a clear path forward together. This program focuses on serving young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who can benefit from personalized support and intensive academic year of career development and internship experience. So, we've been in discussion and this is a part of the transition right from um basically the the young adult with ID to get them into the workforce. And we're very hopeful that this is launched in August of 26, of course, with the support of our our fellow city departments as there'll be a classroom of anywhere between 8 to 12 individuals that'll get this intense training to be able to assimilate them into the workforce starting with us at public health. So, this is the part of the additional chapters that we absolutely need to work on, but we're very excited about that. But the additional chapters that we are that we are working on is housing and independent living, assisted technology and digital inclusion, transportation and mobility solutions, inclusive recreation, expanding more on that. And then of course overall just disability policy and legislative um advocacy. And so we are updating right now the data driven decision- making of the atom project with the data that they're collecting the work the work development and employment initiatives as we just shared right now about this the project search um emergency preparedness and community engagement and cultural awareness. >> Do you have this on your website still this this >> the yes? >> Yes. But we're going to update it since it hasn't been updated since the since October 2023 and we're updating it with all this that we just shared right now. I think it would be helpful for April the push to have all this updated, right? And that way we can support this initiative and and and grow it. I'd like to see that logo in more places and for more businesses and especially since we've had such a good relationship with the chamber recently with our DC um collaboration and you know the LEC of course support that we provide. I think that they could um really help in and us push this with the business community. >> Yes, ma'am. I agree. They have been nothing but welcoming and helpful, especially with other initiatives from public health. So, I know that they would get behind this as well. >> Is that it? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Well, thank you. Appreciate that. My colleagues have >> any other questions? No. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I'm sorry. Let me just ask. Do we have to adjourn for the regular meeting then go to the supplemental? We could just go straight to the supplemental. >> All right. We'll continue with supplemental agenda. >> We'll go with uh item 81A request by council member Dr. David King. >> Yes. Thank you, mayor. And um and thank you all. So I just want to explain to my colleagues that this shouldn't have been a supplemental agenda item. I had my items in actually on Monday. Um don't know what happened still. Still a little confusing the new system we have. Uh so all three of my items just didn't show up on the agenda on Wednesday when it got emailed out. So um I appreciate Chief Lending for addressing it and with the mayors. Um blessing for getting it on the supplemental agenda. Um so just want to explain why that happened or how that happened. Um so um so first item and appreciate your time on this. Um, so this is regarding the So I'll just read it as it is. Uh, discussion with possible action to move forward with a design build bidding process for a trail enhancement to the Shiloh Hike and Bike Trails based on the concept plan and cost estimates delivered by RockSolid Trails LLC in December 2024. uh funding uh would be made available by District 6 priority funds not to exceed $500,000 and uh District 8 priority funds uh not to exceed $270,000 and any other matters instant there too, including the possibility of re-evaluating the use of the 2023 Texas Parks and Wildlife Department grant for the Shiloh Hike and Bike Trails pending Texas Parks and Wildlife Department approval. somewhat complicated. Um I have I have Arnold Lano from economic development, JJ from parks and um of course Mr. Chavez from city engineering just to kind of help explain this. But the previous council um before I came on, you know, approved application for Texas Parks and Wildlife Grant um ended up the city ended up getting the grant awarded as $330,000, but 60,000 of that was a match by the city. It would be in usually in the form of inind donation with our staff. So that left $260,000 remaining uh for the use of the grant uh cash and that's reimbured by the state. Um so when I first came in that was a we had gotten the award. So the idea was what are we going to you know how are we going to move forward with that? Um my understanding is that the cycling community originally thought that the grant was going to be 7 $800,000. So the 260, you know, ended up being quite little compared to what the the hope was. Nonetheless, uh staff made the recommendation. Um I guess this is where I'll let Mr. Lozano take over and kind of explaining the timeline from when we got the grant to when kind of all the decisions were made over the last couple years. Yeah, >> sure. Thank you, Mayor Council. Honor Lozano for the record economic development. And just let the record show that it actually the item reads 2023 Texas Parks and Wildlife Grant. It's actually 2022. Just want to make sure that we're referencing the correct [clears throat] one. Thank you for that. >> But yes, I I do have a presentation prepared with the timeline for the grant in particular all the way from when we submitted the resolution um in January of 2022 to uh request permission to apply for this grant. The application was submitted on January the 28th, 2022. Texas Parks and Wildlife actually awarded uh through an announcement for this project May 20 May 26, 2022. Uh as soon as that came through, we began the initial process to initiate the environmental review and clearance by text and text parks and wildlife. That actually needed to start so uh they could clear the project before they actually entered into the agreement with us. Once everything cleared through, the grant agreement was signed July 31st, 2023. We brought the grant to council for public hearing to accept it August 7th, 2023. We actually went to council uh with a proposed construction idea of this asphalt project that the project now is today, which is that linear uh asphalt trail that goes through the northern part of the Shiloh trails that actually was presented to council uh on October the 16th, 2023. Since the text did complete their archaeological study uh October 2023, the city's final construction plans that after we went to council in October to present the item with that feedback, we went back and drafted those plans for the asphalt trail, came up with a design in house, submitted that to Texas Parks and Wildlife, and they actually approved that plan. Uh they approved it on July the 29th, 2024, the final draft. So, we hired a consultant to go out and do the archaeological testing, the historical uh cultural resources testing um that actually we got the final draft back from them at uh on December of last year. And with that, we're um still waiting to have that final. So, text and text parks and wildlife are still reviewing, providing their comments to that draft final report. Once they're comfortable with what's in it, then they'll publish the final report on the archaeological. But it's um been been a process. >> Thank you. And so just so the council like that's that's kind of been the confusion. There's two processes happening at the same time. One is the grant process that was just explained and then there is we also hired Rock Solid Trails separately from this. We paid them $19,000 last year uh to come down and do the site visit. They came here. We took a picture with Mr. Blum. He was here for four days. He gave us a report that was you know everyone's seen. I know uh it's a master concept plan for trails and provided cost estimates for various um uh projects. One of them being one of the four projects they recommended were enhancing the Shiloh trails with a cost of approximately $770,000 uh for all the for the design plus the construction. Okay. Um, so the staff had already come up with this walking trail that would connect Springfield to McFersonson on the northern part of of the Shiloh trails and that was moving forward. This council approved it like you said in October of 23 to move forward. Cycling community was made aware of that. They were here when it happened all you know moving forward. So all that being said um clearly the $770,000 project is more than the $260,000 grant. Uh, I did attempt to get this included in the bond referendum election. That was not the council chose not to go that route. I understand. So, plan plan B in my mind was district priority funds. I don't have enough to get it done uh on my own. Um, I appreciate council member Alisa Sear for um the consideration of adding some of the district 8 party funds with the hope that this might spawn future collaborations. um from council members in the future for bigger projects so that we can do bigger things together when we're all pitching in um to them. Of course, that's what our budget time is for as well. That's what the barn referendum election was for, too. But nonetheless, um it was brought up and I don't know if council member Alisa uh would like to mention anything, but um we did break it. You know, she wanted to get looped in on it because this is a big chunk um coming in. If if this we move forward um on this project. So, we reached out to Rocksolid Trails and the Texas Parks and Wildlife because there's a timeline. We have to actually construct or use all of this money for the grant. What's our deadline, Mr. Lan? >> The deadline for the grant closeout is June the 30th, 2026. So, uh from the grant agreement date, July 31st, 2023, we have until June 30th, 2026, uh to to finish it out. Yes. To spend the money >> to request the reimbursement. um because it's a reimburseable grant. So >> it it sure is. And by that date, we would have already had to request up to 95% of the reimbursement back. They will not issue the 100% back until they come down do their final inspection that the project is complete that the site's open and it's being uh it's it's available to to all users. >> So it has to be constructed and then and requested the reimbursement by that date. So you know, so that's and as you can see by the timeline working with this part of the state. These things take a very long time. Just from getting the award announced to accepting the award was over in a year. May of 2022 to August of 2023, it's you know 15 months from getting the award to actually accepting the award because of the um the red tape of of government that comes into play. And then from uh from then our in-house engineers did uh the design for this for the walking trails. So, um, so that's where that's where the tricky part comes in. If the the request was made that if we could reroute the and I don't know if if there's a picture of the current of the trail by any chance any of these. Um, >> we do we have the presentation that we presented. >> Okay. >> Um, in 2023. >> Yeah. >> So, this is I'll I'll if you don't mind, I'll guide you through this or just kind of to save time. Um, so this was the proposed scope of work um that this council approved in October of 2023. >> Actually, this one right here. >> My apologies. >> That's helpful. Um, so as you can see the yellow the yellow dotted line there um being the walking trail getting you getting people into the trail but not currently the cyclists don't um actually um go north of that yellow line. They they they could they they could add trails there. The way Rock Solid recommended it is that basically the trails were just going to go over the yellow line and and add some trails in that little northern section there. Um one one thing that got brought up was maybe moving that yellow dotted line kind of up uh along the most northern part and bringing it out. So that's another thought. Um, but my point is, um, that would require us to go all the way back to the state to the very beginning potentially delaying. Can you can you explain what the state of Texas Parks and Wildlife said if we were going to make any changes to to that walking trail? >> Sure, of course. So, we did put the request out to kind of feel out the agency and they did uh agree that this is something that can happen. uh we can realign it, but just to be mindful with the caveat that this will incur additional review time because the archaeological work and the cultural resources surveys that were submitted were for this this uh alignment. Moving it, we'd have to add an additional uh scope of work to our consultant to do additional digs. And I mean, this one hasn't even finished yet. It's been over a year and we're still wrapping it up. So, they just want us to be mindful of that. >> Okay? Okay, because we're in we're in the month of March 2025. We have until June of 26 to get this done and reimburse, >> right? >> So, >> 90 days for for what? >> What do you mean? 90 days for what? >> We have until next year. 2026. >> Yeah, sorry. Until a year, we have a year and three months to get it constructed and request the money. The worst for me the worst case is in all this is that we lose the money. That that's that's the the thing I'm really trying to avoid while also honoring everyone's um inquiries and requests about it. Um you know um but also putting our money where our mouth is and trying to put do this big project. Now it can either be done where we go all all in um this way and do the grant the separate thing or we try to loop it in together. So, um I guess you know does anyone first does anyone have any questions about this? Um this this topic gets a little heated sometimes. Um >> okay. >> Does anyone have any questions or thoughts on this? Yeah. >> Go ahead or talking about this. This is this recommended project by Texas Parks and Wildlife is going to move forward and in addition to Dr. King Dr. King's proposal for the Rock Creek trails or will there be a a meet between those two proposals? >> I understand that the Rockolid master plan was incorporated with our grant was there already. The alignment was there and I I I think that what RockSolid master plan did was kind of work with that. >> Perfect. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. That's all. Um, basically what what I would like to get out of this tonight is um to move forward uh to direct staff. My motion is to direct staff to move forward with the attempt of rerouting um uh rerouting this yellow uh guideline that represents the walking trail um further north on Springfield uh to um preserve more of the I mean the trail itself for the traditional cyclists uh in a in a more uh way that might make more sense but calls more time. However, um only pursuing that if uh staff in Texas Park wildlife believes that it it does not compromise the timeline of getting it >> um done. um motion and second. >> And thank you. And and um and to move forward on a with on a parallel track of of going out for um design build uh bidding process to complete an entire enhancement uh of the trails with the max. >> We have a motion already in second. >> Well, he kind of seconded in the middle of my um which I appreciate. I can do two separate motions if you like. Yeah. >> Go ahead. >> It's a long one. >> I have a separate question. The question is if we move that line, >> is that going to delay or is that can you answer that question right now or do you have do we have to go out and answer that ask that question later to Texas Wildlife or >> the state's already answered that for us. They they said that we just to be wary that it it will incur additional review time because we're moving the alignment for one that's going to move the area where they're going to need to go and do additional digs to make sure we're not disturbing uh anything because it isn't a floodway that area. So they said you can do it just mindful could take longer. >> How much longer? Did they give you a time frame? >> Their environmental review they they've responded to us before. We've had that question a lot and they said we're well within our year review period. So they've uh they usually take their time on this. But I mean, we can go back and we can meet with them and we can take this as as you know. >> No, I I'll just I'll just have their question. I'll go along whatever the the councilman uh for that district, you know, >> honorable mayor, members of city council. Uh it will also require that a couple of weeks for us to redesign. Uh we did apply for a flood plane development permit. So, we'll have to amend that permit as well. And then once we have all that information, we'll have to resubmit to Texas. >> My question is, are we expediting that permit? I mean, we'll expedite everything on our end as much as we can, but it's still going to take us a couple of weeks before we can put that information together and resubmit. >> All right. The council member for that district is good. I'm good. >> Okay. >> Do you want to if I may resend the motion just to clean it up a little bit? Okay. Thank you. Um, and I I don't want to muddy the waters more, but there is another [clears throat] option where we, you know, go full um design build uh and and basically have who we're saying rock solid. There's they're they'll we don't know who actually would get the the the project. In this case, they did our master plan concept plan. They are we don't know if they will bid on it on this bigger project. So, just want to make sure everyone's speaking about it that way. Um so there is another option to go out for the um design build in a way that includes this part. For example, Rockella Trails is currently working with Texas Parks and Wildlife uh for a grant they're doing in Bernie outside of Bernie, Texas in the Hill Country. Um so they do deal with Texas Parks and Wildlife. So that is another option. But I want you staff to come back to me and us as the council uh if if it's looking like the timing is just going to be too complicated and we should keep it as is because rock solid when they came here they basically gave us the master plan under the assumption that this walking trail was already going to exist. So they designed their trail with that in mind. And basically when whenever the cyclists are coming up to the walking trail, there will be signage um to allow them to cross just like in district 5 with the one nearby Lynenwood. >> Um so there's you know they even call us actual street. This is just a walk >> Mike Mag. >> Yeah. So I just want you to come back and what I Mr. Mr. Chavez, I don't know if this is a question for you, but basically I want to move forward today with giving you guys the full green light to go out to begin the design build process. >> Second motion motion in a parallel path with Texas model. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Second motion. Second. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time. Okay. Ne next one. Uh, and I appreciate Council Member Alyssa's uh, co-sponsoring and um, support. Uh, next one co-sponsored uh, by Council Member Rick Garza. Uh this is related to I'm sure other my other colleagues have been getting these uh concerns from residents about the TCQ backflow uh prevention assembly testing uh that we put forward essentially in in the in the aftermath of our um our water bowl notice back in October. Um, and I think, you know, we all agreed that it was important to to have this testing, but I think our residents have kind of, you know, started receiving uh these these letters and these statements and to get their uh backflow meter tested. It's is it's somewhat costly. Um, and they I I saw that, you know, they was sent out a list of um uh plumbers that could be used. Um, and this is, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Mr. Prer this is only for uh residents who have a separate irrigation meter with the backflow device connected if uh this would not be for the the majority of our residents but I a significant number of our residents do have additional meter for irrigation and um obviously it's important that we get these backflows checked but this is a significant annual cost for our residents that I don't think when we were all talking about this back in October I don't think um we we even realized the financial impact it was going to have on residents. Maybe we did, but uh I don't think we gave them enough notice and some of these notices I think caught residents by surprise. So I don't know if council member Garza wanted to say anything before Mr. >> No, I'll go ahead council. >> No, thank you mayor. No, I'll allow Mr. Pisker response. Um, mayor, council, city management. Um, Buzz Pisker, director of utilities. Um, I think I alluded to you probably passed in the night about as we get to becoming what everybody expects us to be as a utility, there's going to be some some of these kind of things happen. This is part of that. I think I actually said to you in one of my presentations, we actually got a complaint through the TCQ from a company that didn't have a backflow pretor and we were trying to put in place a proper backflow prevention program cross connection program really which is results in backflows. Um so [clears throat] uh let me clear the record though anybody who has an irrigation system needs a backflow pre whether it's metered or not. Okay. So if you have an irrigation system that is tied into the public water system you have to protect the public water system. That's what the backflow prevent device does. Um, let me just clarify some terms too. Uh, BPAT is backflow prevention assembly tester. That's a licensed person. And council members King is correct. If you have a backflow preventor, it has to be tested on an annual basis. So, so to [clears throat] clarify who's getting noticed and remember when we had the water quality event in October, there were people here and there was a list of accounts and things that need to be addressed. As you know, we've addressed those and actually we're doing our after event [snorts] report back to the TCQ because there's going to be some citations that go with our event. But [clears throat] the good news is we're able to address all the things that they've questioned us on. We'll be responsive. But um so to be clear, everyone who has an irrigation system, who has a backflow preventer must have it tested. If you have a back if you have an irrigation system, in theory, you're supposed to have some kind of device to protect our water system from a backflow. >> [clears throat] >> If you have a backflow pre, you have to test it on an annual basis and it is expensive. It costs money. It's over $100. Um, but that is the state requirement. And by the way, that's what our ordinance requires. And [clears throat] so, um, we will we have and by the way, we've sent letters out to many people and everybody's not in complete compliance yet. Uh, but we're moving there and getting there because we need to bring people along the process and I certainly understand that. That's why I kind of alluded that to you way back when. We'll have some uncomfort getting there just like we will bring our water system into compliance. I'm sorry. Uh, but that will happen and we'll do it the best way we can and we'll do it as respectfully as we can and we'll work with people. But so that's our intention. I've seen the letters. In fact, I I can provide you copies of it if you haven't seen them. I think they're fairly well written, quite frankly. And if I didn't think they were [snorts] fairly well written, I would correct them. Okay? Uh but you know, that's the situation as we see it right now. And anything we can do to help people and communicate that to them, we will do that. >> All right. [snorts] >> First, go ahead. >> I can just clarify. So you're saying so anyone so for example most new new homes that are being built they're all almost all of them are being built with traditional like just regular irrigation systems. Um, so everyone, you know, in in any any home whatsoever with the irrigation system, whether they have whether it's a separate meter or not, >> they're going to need to >> Yeah. meter. And let me clarify the meter thing >> because we had a little problem with T connections and some other things that we've fixed immediately. But you only put a meter on the irrigation system because you don't want to be charged for sewer, >> right? on that usage. >> Right >> now, there are other places in this state that adjust their rates to eliminate the need for additional metering. I can tell you in the Dallas Metroplex, I won't mention specific places, but it's it's pretty across the board. they do their sewer billing that they'll take the december, January, and February water usage when typically people aren't irrigating and then they bill you sewer on that amount the rest of the year. So, it eliminates the need for installing another device which is costly to the residents, but that's the way to avoid paying sewage on what you're not putting in the sanitary sewer. That's the logic. That's why there's a meter issue here. If there wasn't that, there would just be irrigation systems and domestic water systems. And the goal would be to protect the domestic water system from a cross connection with the irrigation system. >> Yes. Go ahead, >> Mr. Fisher. The only difference here is that uh well, November December is we're still in 90 to 100 deg degrees weather. So people here are still uh irrigating. Uh I by the way I wasn't advocating for that. I'm just telling you that's the reality of where we are. And if somebody says I heard about this or that I want you to be aware there are other places that handle it a little bit differently that that what I I'm not advocating for that change or I'd have come to you and said let's do that. Okay. >> Didn't mean to interrupt you but but I I want to be clear. >> We can always I thank you Mr. Fishkar. I think you mentioned that one of the reasons that there are separate systems is so that residents can save some money and not pay for sewer in their irrigation bill. >> Separate metering. Yes, >> separate metering. And so I think um just explaining it so that people understand that part of that system needs to include not only the backflow connection but the yearly inspection. So it doesn't diminish the fact that you will still pay less because you will not be will pay less for the water because you do not have to incur that sewer charge but it's just part of the irrigation metering system to include these additional protections for our water supply. >> Yeah. But I want to be clear whether you have a meter or not you still must protect domestic system with a backflow device. >> Nothing. That's why I wanted to that's why I I I said that I want to be clear whether you have a meter or not does not change whether you're connected to a nonpotable >> that's that's the message >> so allation systems >> yes yes that's what I want to be clear about the the meter makes somewhat confuses it the meter is there to to reduce payment of sewage fees >> for that water that's going through the meter Right. The backflow device is there to protect the public water system from a nonpotable source. >> Mayor, go ahead. >> So, I mean, I think at this point though, correct me if I'm wrong, the only people that have reached out and there's been like five to 10 in the last couple weeks. The only people that have reached out or that received notices were people with those extra meters. So, I guess does that mean utilities is focused first on those individuals or No. Is that a coincidence or everybody should be expecting a notice uh who has an irrigation system? Everyone should be expecting a notice. Um >> here's the people that are getting notices. >> You have an irrigation system. It's not protected. [snorts] You have a protection device that has not been tested for the past year and or you don't have a device. >> Those are the people that are getting noticed. >> M. Mr. Chavez, if I may ask Mr. Chavez a question. Um, yes, go ahead. >> So, with our the new let's just let's just say all the new homes being built, is there >> and this might be I'm just asking engineer background, but perhaps you know too, Mr. first like is there not a way we can set a standard with um new homes to where there's already kind of a a sealed tight um you know type back floor that doesn't necessarily have to I mean this this could because I'm seeing 200 to 250 even $300 some some plumbers charging on an annual basis that's that's pretty um maybe some can be as low as 150 but um I'm also worried about, you know, the the prices being jacked up as well. I I you know, some gouging issues as well. That's what I'm trying to understand because I don't want people spending more than they're supposed to on this. >> Go ahead, Mitch. Ch. >> Thank you, mayor. Um I mean if I can answer this. Uh so um anybody any any citizen uh has the ability to uh to have their own irrigation system or not. But I guess the only way I could answer this if you decide as a citizen to have an irrigation system then you must have a backflow preender in order to protect the water supply system. That that's the best way that I can answer that. If I as a citizen decide not to have an irrigation, uh, then perhaps I don't have that number. >> But if you're buying a new home, you don't really have a choice, right? I mean, these the new all these new homes being built are being built the way they are. So, I mean, I mean, you have a choice not to buy a house, but you're not really choosing whether or not to have an irrigation system that comes installed right? >> Yeah. >> And I don't know. I mean, I haven't bought a new home, but uh uh if uh if they come with an irrigation system, uh then they're going to have to have a backflow preenter to protect the the >> And we were not enforcing this before October, which I mean, theoretically, you know, was a concern, right? So, we weren't enforcing our own ordinance as far as this goes or before that. So that was part of the the um the area that we had to look into uh when we were looking at the B water notice uh having this system in place this inspection. >> Yes. Go ahead. >> I I think one one thing that um is is probably coming to mind here for all of us is um are we keeping up with the times in our other departments? Like are we keeping up with the building requirements? Are we keeping up with the the CO process where these new homes that are being built have this backflow pre installed and set up for the new homeowners already so that they can just do the annual maintenance instead of buying a home now being told that they have to get this new thing installed that you know hadn't been part of the building standard. I mean, I understand that this is a a directive or or or a um recommendation coming out of utilities department, but is this has this spread out to our other because right now we're putting the burden on our citizens, right? And we're telling them, hey, you need to do this to to to do your part in the system, but have we implemented this in our other departments to say when you're out there doing inspections, make sure they have their backflow pretor installed. Have we spoken to the irrigation companies? Is there somebody else that can do this besides a plumber? Because, you know, we know that there's kind of a shortage on on plumbers and that kind of makes it a little more expensive. Is there a special more economical way for our citizens, a recommendation that we can give or is there something that we can do to make this easier for the public to digest? especially somebody who's had a home for x number of years and this is the first time they're hearing of this from from them all the way down to the person who just bought buying their home today and now they're going to get a notice that they have to do all this stuff that they didn't plan for. >> Thank you for that for that question and that's uh important if I can relate that and go back to what council member King mentioned earlier. Uh in my experience as a previous building director, uh as part of the certificate of occupancy process for new homes, there is a customer service inspection. It's a plumbing final and CSI inspection that we call as part of the SEO process. So, those are things that I'm looking into at the building department to make sure that they uh are being uh enforced so that that resident when they buy that that new home, they can rest assure that that uh customer service inspection or CSI inspection is already included on their may. >> Yes, go ahead. >> So, what you're saying is it's not it. So, the answer to my question right now is no. like somebody could buy a house today or tomorrow and then not have any of this installed and then be given a notice that they have to go and dig up their you know I don't know if it's something you have to dig in to the the ground to put in or what but is this something that they're going to have to go and contract out you know or is this something that when are the cos going to have this requirement and when are the builders and everybody who this is a change in the process for everybody And I'm not saying it's not needed. I mean, we want to fix our problems and we want to make sure that we have our our water quality integrity there for years to come, but it's some growing pains and it's some adjustment pains and a couple hundred per household is is is a lot, right? So, I guess we're looking for ways to make this easier and not be um slapping new home buyers with this um cost or you know cuz we're sending letters out. >> But have we coordinated within the departments cuz we didn't even know about it. So, we're like I'm finding out about this now that everybody who has an irrigation system needs to do this through this agenda item myself. Go ahead. >> Thank I I just um maybe I could put a and I agree with everything uh council member Pettis is saying and and and I think the problem is I think you laid it out perfectly the last time when we were going to get the uh the new billing system and how to uh appeal uh when you have a water leak at your house and everything. I think you gave it time. more importantly, you gave it time so that the citizens can adjust to this new system. I still don't have a clue as to how many people are going to go through this process. Uh and and and to mediate some of these problems, it it takes time. So, obviously, we can't just throw it out at the general population and say we're going to start charging you this amount or we're going to require you to be testing these uh backlo prevters and have the system implemented. But I think with time and more a little bit more education and maybe a little bit more of those letters going through, I think we can we can kind of navigate this thing so so it can everybody can understand it perfectly and and without having the the uh shock effect of getting a bill and and and and the notice saying that we're going to have to do uh we're going to have from this point on we're going to have to do it. Uh I think it's something that uh I don't know how long it's it's been in the works from within uh and that we haven't implemented it or we haven't we haven't done it but it's something I think we look I think it needs it merits a little bit further study so that we don't have to give that shock treatment to to the general population. >> Mayor I pulled up some history on this as well too. The landscape irrigation rules from TCQ in chapter 344 was adopted in 1999. They were updated in 2009 and 2016 to increase this thing. Um the the testing the annual testing has to be done by a licensed backflow prevention assembly tester, >> not a plumber backflow prevention. >> Yeah, it's got to be somebody that's licensed to do this. And that's that's those are the challenges. I would say that this is this this is another one of those things that we we walked through with that boil water notice was this was work that should have been done by the city in tracking that system. It was not tracked since 2009 is is what the information tells me is that 2009 was the last big change to this. So, uh, I would say that the building department, the plumbing inspector should be inspecting if there's an irrigation system going in that backflow prevention is in there. That starts it off. Um, and even even ones that are not uh able to be tested still have to be tested annually. Just there that's the pro that's the law for TCQ. All we're doing is implementing the law that we're required to do. We cannot go we cannot go longer. Annually is the minimum that we can go. Some cities have went to six months and said they require a six months inspections. Uh I would just recommend staying at the annual, but I I think uh the what I'm hearing from the city council is better outreach with making sure that everybody understands because we have not enforced this the way we should have. >> Right. >> Correct. >> Mayor May. >> Go ahead. >> Um Mr. Fisher, thank you for explaining this. I I um I will admit to not quite understanding all the process, the steps, but you know, when you did gain control of the department, you did say that you were going to fix it operationally so that the utilities department would meet all of the requirements necessary to protect our public water supply. And I think the boilwater notice, a citywide boilwater notice that went on for days, showed us how important that protection is. And if we weren't doing things that we should have done in the past, I'm grateful that you are now aligning the procedures and processes that we need to ensure that we protect our system going forward. So I hope that the public will understand while perhaps this is um a bit of a surprise as was being mentioned or not quite understanding the importance and significance of it that as a body we must protect our public water supply. We do not want to go through what we went through before. Thank you. >> Let me let me make a suggestion. Let me let me get the data on how pervasive the issue is. >> Okay. My sense is we don't have 40,000 irrigation systems. We have 78,000 customers, metered customers. Let me put the put the put the issue in perspective for you. And and the other thing I would say to everybody, and this has become fairly evident to me, we need to be working together from the start of a construction project to the end of the construction project. >> It's not we don't deal with it here and then we're going to catch it over here. You know, we've been doing that in general. We haven't been, in my mind, running our business the way we should run it. And now we're dealing with all these problems out here. If we do our homework and do our fundamentals, we won't have to deal with those would be my hope. So, I think we can all work together and make that process better from start to finish. Uh, and and we can be part of that solute. We should be part of that solution and and and quite frankly, you're tackling something and dealing with something that every council I've ever been associated with has to grapple with because compliance is a it's not a fun thing sometimes and it's different. If you haven't been compliant, being compliant, it's like it's like me. I can't get back exercising the way I'm supposed to, but I know the right answer. >> I used to do it, but you know, it's always tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. And so, you know, the these things work the same way and it is a financial issue >> and it is new and we're respective of that. So, let me frame the frame the the whole system the whole issue for you and then maybe we can put it in in a better perspective. Can I just mention one one more thing? I'm sorry about that. U I'm just very curious to see uh as part of your presentation what processes were were in place then what processes you might want to recommend. Uh because it really you hit it right the head about um there's a there's a company here in town that that uh their their slogan is from the foundation to the decoration. Right. And I think we need to start thinking about our our building department in that manner that we need to we need to be we need to be cooperating with each other any dispersions on any other city department. Let's all get there. >> Yeah. So once we come together that that that affects the foundation to the declaration that everybody comes together and and we can have that process aligned with everybody along the way so [snorts] it's seamless. >> All right. Great. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Mr. Christopher, sorry. I'm sorry. >> Just one last question there. >> The notice that got sent out to people. It had a list. It had eight. It had eight. Um, you said not necessarily plumbers. You have You have to be certified. Um, you have to be a certified BPAT tester, right? Not necessarily a plumber. >> Correct. >> Okay. Well, for our 18-year-old boys and men and girls at home looking for a job, how do they become a BPAT certified inspector? state will give you training >> and we'll and we'll and we'll host it on site. >> Okay. Well, for the graduating seniors, you know, high school, maybe you should do that. It' be a great >> It' be a great >> business to go into because right now there's only eight. So, >> it' be public service. >> The list you gave is the eight the eight on this list are the only eight certified or that's just a >> that we know of that we've provided. >> And so, in the motion I'll make in a or directive is just you already mentioned it. bringing back a report with roughly the scale of how many um you know homes are affected and how many certified BPAT testers we have and and a and a plan to have some public outreach on this because the problem is not with with the compliance and the enforcement. The problem is the surprise and the lack of um you know kind of public awareness about it in advance. So that's >> all right motion second. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. >> Thank you, Mr. Price. So much. >> Thank you. >> Okay, >> one more item. La >> last item, Mayor. Thank you. Um it's um this is a council co-sponsored by council member Gutierrez. This is a about the ongoing uh contractors uh who work for the fiber laying companies uh in the city of Laredo uh and what we can do to ensure that they're respecting private property outside of the uh of the public right of way. We've seen the understandably aggressive uh uptick uh in in in fiber lane in our city. We it's a good thing in the sense of fiber and how much faster it is of internet we broadband and that's from the federal that's from the top down that that they have that right and incentives but I just feel that some of these contractors come in here um and you know obviously you know a lot of them aren't from here and they're just coming in doing their job and get out and they're they leave our neighborhoods worse than they found them. um what this is kind of a question for legal. What can we do to um to regulate their activity to make sure that they don't leave neighborhoods and yards uh in in shambles? I I don't appreciate the way um that they've uh been conducting business. Not I don't want to say all of them, but there's a good chunk of them and we're getting a lot of complaints about that. >> Well, we do have ordinances in place. uh if you're talking about uh like them severing lines and such, you know, we do notate them and report that. And then if it's something outside of that uh right away, then you know these contractors are generally insured. So there there is a a redress there. But uh as far as the city's concerned, we we do not take ownership of of of uh those instances u perhaps you're asking us to to monitor more. >> Well, I guess I'm asking what's what's what if there's more we can do from an ordinance standpoint or from a communication with them or an enforcement or reg else we can do. >> I have a question. Go ahead, >> Mayor. the the issue that we have specifically in my district, I'm speaking from my district in Lakeside, they're ripping up yards, people's yards. They've spent thousands of dollars with those yards and these companies are coming in, they're ripping up their water lines, ripping up gas lines, ripping up other fiber optic lines from other companies that have been there and by the time they go through their insurance company, it's been a month, that water system doesn't work anymore. That irrigation system doesn't work anymore. And these companies, and they're subcontractors, so they're not the companies that they're actually laying lines for, but it's the subcontractors. Extremely rude. They could care less. They don't call back. They don't answer to them. And mind you, it is not one or two calls. It's 15, 20 calls. Every single time they're in a neighborhood in my district, I get the calls. Hillside, JSJ, uh, Lakeside, Alexander, it's just an ongoing issue with them. They leave for two, three weeks or so and then they come back in, god knows for what reason, but they come back in and they're just they're ripping up people's yards and these people are spending thousands of dollars in their yards and they don't have an answer for them and that's just it's absolutely ridiculous. Is there some type of repercussion that we can put on them? Because obviously there there are places there are there are ordinances in in in place, >> but they're not being followed or we don't have staff to follow them and see if they're following the guidelines or what they should be doing or replacing what they've destructed or what they've destroyed. And and we want answers, guys. This has been going on. I I've brought this item up several times already. This is the third or fourth time, I think. Now, Dr. brings it up now, but I brought it up over and over again and nothing has been done. These companies just don't seem to give. They They don't care about it. They don't care about it. >> Yes. Uh thank you. Let me take you back from the other side of it because uh I know it h it doesn't happen from uh district 5 forward, but district 4 under 321, it is all overhead. There are some underground. There's boring going on, and I think that's what's causing the problem. There's boring going on. So, some of the sidewalks and some of the carports are getting uh either they they they buckle, you know, once they do that. And uh there's no there's no guidance. There's no guidelines for them. They're uh for instance, in in District 4, uh there's so much weight on some of the the the electrical poles. They're made out of wood, so they're they're kind of buckling because of the added weight that they're putting on it. And this has been going on, I'd say, like like Mr. said it for a long time. They used to be here and I'm not sure if it was part of the solution back then. Uh the the the cable uh commission that used to have that uh back in the day back when there was cable rather than fiber optics or or or Wi-Fi or anything like that. We used to have that at the city. There's no commission right now that that that uh that guides these companies through or or has an auditing process as to what they're doing and that can bring it forward for our citizens. But I it just beca it's becoming worrisome more and more on a daily basis that some of these polls are are buckling under a lot of stress because of the weight that's overhead on the underground side of it. I've seen it uh where there are boring companies that are going in there doing the work. Obviously, we need it. Uh but uh there's no there's no u policing going on. Uh as far as the city's concerned, I'm not sure if that's our even our job because I'm not sure who regulates them or how who who does all that work. I know we're covered by our ordinances, but unless we keep an eye on them, you know, there's no way of them coming voluntarily coming up to us and telling us, hey, you know, we're doing this or that or the other. And some some of these neighborhoods are drastically getting affected. Councilman, >> if I may, uh, you know, um, I'll p pick back off of Mr. L's comment. It's just wondering who where does it fall under? Who does it fall under those constru that that uh that third party construction or the bing and all that? >> Does it fall under engineering? Does it fall? Mayor, uh, if I, if I may, so the building department is responsible, uh, to enforce the rightway management ordinance for any utility work done on the public right away. >> Okay. So, do we have a person that's in charge of that, just one certain person or is there and do they rotate? Does the same inspector go back to the safe or does it just distribute to whoever is available to go out and inspect that that uh that job site? So, there's an inspector that's that is assigned uh to these uh uh utility uh fiber optic companies uh that do work uh throughout the city. The other thing that I do want to mention is that on March 3rd or the last meeting uh this council approved uh uh an amendment to the ordinance uh which mandates hydro excavation uh to expose all existing utility lines. So, that's something that uh came into place. uh hydro excavation is uh just for general purposes and knowledge is is is done with water. Imagine uh those pressure washers that use at the car washes and then a vacuum uh that gets out all the mud. Uh and so that's how that is performed in order to identify the water lines before they start performing any work. >> Pretty much I was you know I used to do that kind of work. Okay. Uh, I was lying to other kind of work, but what I'm trying to figure out, do we have do we have somebody that's there? I I don't know how long it's it takes to do those fiberactive uh fiberactive process or the birding that the the bro the the drilling they do, but do we have somebody that's there like often that goes in there every other day to see where they at, how far they at, you know, just to make sure I'm not trying not trying to micromanage, but just to be the safe side because we are taking over our the customer's assets, which is their their their homes, their their front yards and stuff and we got to deal with that. Do we have some can we do something like have somebody you know there just an inspector every other day every three days until they finish the job. I guess just as like a safety is a safety inspector. I guess risk having the risk there to make sure that everything's you know doing according going accordingly and we're not having those problems and having those records of everything they do when they start you know safety protocols in which you know saving like JSA is job safety analysis knowing that okay we have we have a gas line here we got a telephone line here but identifying any uh pinch points whatever projects uh any gas lines anything that we have do we have that that uh that system in play or >> go ahead. >> I just want to jump in real quick. Go ahead. >> The hydro excavation requirement now was a result of council member Gutierrez's items from before. That wasn't in place. It was an option. A lot of them don't do it because it's more expensive, but that's something that we felt needed to be done to protect some of these lines. Now, our utilities department does go out there and try to identify the lines that are in there. U we don't always get them because some of them are the plastic, so it's harder to identify, but with the hydra uh excavation, that should really help a lot with damaging these other lines, right? And so, we're trying to do that as part of uh trying to be proactive to try to make sure that they're protecting the citizens property. One of the other things that we did have a meeting with several departments uh that were involved in this and with legal also and unfortunately we found out through legal that there were certain things that we wanted to implement that legally they didn't have to comply because of state statutes or etc. Right? So these were some of the things that we were trying to do. We're also trying to make sure that one of the other items was that there required I think $2 million in bonding or shy bond for the construction. It's actually 5 million. And so now they're required to have that type of bonding also for these type of damages because we do have uh I think we have one uh inspector that is the right of way well it's the rightway manager but then he has one gentleman that's underneath him that is inspecting the uh installation of these type of u services that they're trying to provide in the community and he has two or three other gentlemen that are also working with him. The problem is that in the past they go and have a pre uh meeting out at the job site and this is what we're doing. This is where we're going. He has to go to another job site and so while he's gone he they might have an accident, right? And that's what was happening. So it's hard to have one person just standing there, you know, just making sure they don't cause anything. But I think with the hydro uh excavation that will help a lot with preventing a lot of these u yeah these damages that are occurring. So we're hoping that that's going to help also. And we're just making sure that they do the hydro excavation because now it's required. >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Just to go just to go back to this and and also piggyback on on what my colleagues have have questioned and asked is that um do we have a a list of these contractors that we could resend their request for to operate in our rightway? Because, you know, it's happened before in my district where a gas line gets hit. Then we call the contractor of record and the contractor's like, "I'm not doing any work on the site." Because the person filed paperwork that this company who has all the requirements is doing it. But then they actually went and behind our back went and hired somebody else, which I assume would be for a cheaper price. And we don't find out about it until there's an accident. So, is there a consequence for that kind of behavior where it's like we don't trust you anymore and we're not going to let you dig up into our rideway? >> So, mayor, if I may. >> Yes, go ahead. >> So, my understanding that that h that has happened before and there have been companies that were told they can't work here. And so, my understanding from the gentleman that oversees this department or not not the department but this process, right? um he's told us or told me that they have he has this contact with these companies says this subcontractor he's careless reckless we don't want him here and so they they remove them >> but who decides like is there a way that council can take some kind of action where we set some kind of criteria that or is that I mean we're just trying to be proactive and help right there list that is published so that everybody knows who's who's allowed and who's not allowed or >> most of the companies coming in to install the fiber optic. It's a major company, right, that comes in. They have their contractor who hires their subs to go in there and do all the work. So, they go and check with the city to make sure, hey, we're hiring this guy and then the city says no because and that's happened because this person is has been reckless and so we don't want him working on our rightway. We have that right. And so, they through experience knowing who the better contractors or subcontractors are um will let uh the companies know. And now we've also made the companies responsible like if they were pulling the permit themselves. And so now damages are going to be with the major companies also. >> So is there a way that we can not allow subleting where that that company has to come directly and fill out the paperwork with us instead of you know subleting it out? And then the last question is, are we updating the list to include some of these other ones that have caused all these problems for these other districts that there are >> I want to say that we are, but we'll verify that. Now, the person that pulls the permit has to whatever the requirements are with the building department, they have to qualify and so they're allowed to pull a permit. Now, if they hire somebody else that doesn't have the permit, that's sometimes has been the case. And so now that we're making the company that pulled the permit be responsible for those people also. And that's where we're telling them that they're not allowed to have these subcontractors working for them at all. And so and most of these guys are coming in, they're from out of town. And so they know and they won't bring them in anymore. That's what we have. But we'll keep on tap on top of this because I think with the hydro again, the hydro excavation should help a lot with preventing a lot of these damages from here on out. >> Mayor. >> All right. We're hoping. >> Mayor, may Go ahead. >> Um, I wanted to ask is there you said that there's a $5 million shity bond so that the damages are covered if covered if these companies exceed the rightway and they go into the public property and do damage. Is there a way and um perhaps Mr. W you this question is better addressed to you. Is there a way to make that process clear to every single property owner that is experiencing um the their uh land being accessed, this easement being accessed, some type of form that we could say if you were to incur damages, this is the process that you would follow because I I would assume that the actual homeowner has no idea how to enter into that process. It's private property. they're gonna they have to go through I understand that you have to go through a process >> to to um make a claim but if it is clear as mud you're not you really don't have a way for these families to redress these damages. So if we could provide just information that says this is how you access that process if you need to avail yourselves of them or make it incumbent upon the company and you know reviewed by the city that you must provide every single homeowner where you're operating with the every single property owner that you're operating under >> this notice and it's just information that says this is how you access that process to recover damages. >> Mr. Zone, go ahead. more as a public service uh information that that's something that we provide as because we require notice that we would need to require that of of all uh similar uh contractors and such. So maybe the best course would be just for us to provide this notice on our website or or some something accessible. Wouldn't are well when you talk about website is it something that can be incumbent to deliver it to that homeowner either through the mail or if they if we know where these contractors are going to be operating that we can get that information directly to the property owner. Mayor, mayor and councel, um, >> you want to yield? >> I'll if I could jump in for a second as well. >> If that we we issue rightway permits to anybody working within the rideway, if they were working outside of the rideway on somebody's private property, that is a violation of the rideway permit. So, we can take action on that. We can pull the permit away from them for that action. We can also utilize our code enforcement personnel to help enforce this as well as our inspectors. So, I think the the big thing is and I I would say that we we should require the right of way permit holder to issue these letters to every one of those properties as they go down the street saying just so you know if we're on your property. I I'd love to help help have that happen as well too. >> Yeah, go ahead. We can do it otherwise, but >> we I know uh but you know doing it like the planning and zoning sending out letters that we're we're going to send out we're going to be doing these burrows around your property just be advised and if any information come back >> but I would you know I don't know if we can do look into this in the next uh budget cycle to see if we can have some project leads. I don't know how many projects or how many permits are are pulled every every month or every quarter. uh have that department just to just to have those uh project leads uh employees uh just to oversee those kind of projects like when they're changing a valve changing the third party changing uh a valve changing lines you know this optic fiber you know making sure that one we'll we'll do the safe will be the safe part which they're they're going to be in charge making sure that they're they're doing the the safety the safety role making sure everything's uh that handled it the right way. Uh making sure that we they they advised everybody, but we have, you know, a person in every project. I don't know how many projects we we do uh a month. I don't know if we do them a month or if we can have five people, four people, but have the certification of not just being the safety lead, but also having, you know, making sure that the project is getting done, making sure the it's uh have proper PPE, all the all the all the um the the employees that are there. So, we can, you know, we eliminate safety wise, we'll eliminate all that uh you know, the heat in the rad. uh we eliminate all those process and making sure that we don't hit any any uh fiber optic uh lines or water lines or gas lines which we have around the areas you know we have them we have them everywhere so that would help at the same time you know having in case of an emergency they go there's somewhere that they can muster up to >> Mayor and council we'll make sure we'll make sure that everybody has the ability to contact the city and we can help them with all of this and we'll we'll try to implement all these uh these these ideas with this within this process. Um, if we if we if we put more inspectors out there, then we may have to raise our our fee structure for the permits and everything. Just so you're aware in order to cover those. Uh, but we're happy to we're happy to look in all that. I think the first and immediate need is to make sure that our people have someplace to contact so they know that we'll take care of it. >> This you have question. >> No, I was just going to follow with Mr. Neb. um if it's a if it's we'll see I guess legally if if we can make them force them to do a notice right and so then we'll have a template that we'll prepare that they fill out and this is a notice to the resident this is the you know if they have an issue this is how they file something right um and it might take an ordinance amendment to include it to force them to it right but we'll we'll discuss it internally and then we'll we'll work that out because I think it's something that's good >> sorry can I understand that uh gentlemen that we we uh we have to incorporate like I said above ground and underground on on that and and I think that's imperative because there's there's a uh spectrum and other companies that I see out there are are the same amount of damage is being done above ground and underground but I think we need to identify what the before we move any further I don't think it'll take an action from the council but it might take a directive to move forward from within to identify what the if a problem exists and what that problem is and how do you identify uh all the players that are involved in that and then before you bring it back over here. So I think that'll that'll benefit us. >> All right, >> we'll look at that. >> Thank you. >> All right, any other questions? Moving on before we go >> like to go back to communications. I've got a question for staff. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> I >> oppose. Motion passes. My question is to find out where we are in the bond referend referendum marketing to see what the status is. Have we heard any progress on what we're doing on the bond referendum information to the public? >> And I'm pretty sure the whole council wants to know where we are at this point. >> Can we bring it back? Well, it's not on the agenda. I don't see >> if you'll allow us to give your progress, we'll send you out something of the email. No was out and so she's >> mayor and council. I I can't at least those of you that attended in DC, you got to see some of the early uh printed material as well too. So, that is coming. Uh my understanding is that we have our first video ready to go this week. >> But I I don't I I don't have my uh I don't have my handler for for all that information to make sure that it was there. But I I was brought up to date. We do have a video ready to go. Uh the first video for that. Next week we have a town hall meeting on Tuesday and a town hall meeting on Thursday. So we'll get those schedules out. Uh there's two I think the preceding week after that. So the information that's coming forth. >> You have the dates for the town hall meetings. >> The it's next Tuesday and Thursday. I I will I will put out I'll put out kind of an update with exactly where they're at. I do know we have a meeting with our contracted uh marketing firm as well too uh who is in DC with us as well too with with those uh the documents that we've been putting together but I'll get you a full update on that very quickly. >> All right, go ahead. >> Um just uh just Mr. Deb, we had said that we wanted to discuss it at the council meeting. So it would have been um should have been on the agenda for today's meeting um possibly even the last council meeting. Um, so we we're not really getting a chance to evaluate and see what what the messaging is there, if it's going to be going out this week without us getting a chance to see it. So, that's unfortunate. Um and then uh we had asked for a finance workshops to discuss um to go in in conjunction with the bond workshop to explain to the public about like our finances and everything so they can understand the financial justification for this because a lot of the feedback from the public is that they expect us to just manage um the money that we have right now better and um they're not seeing the need for the bond. So uh we had requested that there be uh a workshop in the south and a workshop in central for the financial aspect of it. Do you have dates for those meetings? >> Um and mayor and council u we do have a workshop scheduled for Monday. I I I believe I either either I missed the one in the south, one in the central uh but we have we have a a council workshop on Monday. That's the intent of that that is to cover the budget conversation. We're going to cover our budget. I'm going to get some information from you for this next year's upcoming budget as well and we will have that information at that meeting. Uh then the town hall meeting that was tenatively scheduled for Thursday. I believe that was in the south, but that was a town hall meeting in order to discuss what we discussed on Monday. >> Mayor, if I may, just as a followup. >> U Mr. I think that the mark was missed on that financial workshop because the financial workshop language was specifically for the public, not for council. It was it was workshops for to educate the public, not not for us to have at a council workshop. This was a supposed to be a a meeting for the for the public. And it was written like that on the agenda. And I believe Councilman Ranel was concerned about getting that information uh down to to his constituents in the south without them having to drive all the way up to the public library or or the main branch or something. So um I remember specifically the item was for the public to not for us. >> All right. >> Okay. [snorts] >> I just add your communication. The election is, I believe, May 2nd, correct? The bond election. May second. >> May third. >> May the third Saturday. So it's 47 days away, just over six weeks. So just to >> keep everyone's urgency. >> Okay. Mayor, mayor, also we we do have on our website the u a sample of the ballot already that was already uh printed by the elections office and we do have uh notices that were provided by bond council to provide for the public uh explaining the uh propositions that is already on our website. >> Right. Very good. >> Okay. Before we leave, we have a flyer here from the Wake County Domestic Violence Coalition about a uh awareness event that's going to be held on u March the 19th, 2025, 11:30 to 100 p.m. at Laredo Medical Center, Community Room, Tower B. FYI. >> All right, everybody has a fire. >> Thank you. >> Motion to adjurnn, mayor. >> Motion second. All in favor? opposed. Motion carries. Meeting adjourns.