[Music] [Music] [Music] Oh good morning. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Welcome to city hall and to our council chambers. Um this morning our invocation will be given by uh pastor Rick Baretta with Believe Church. Pastor good morning everybody. I pray everybody is doing well today. I always get a kick of hanging out with you guys and so uh thank you so much for this honor. Let's pray. Dear heavenly and most gracious father, you're so good in all of your ways and for so first and foremost we want to give you thanks. Thanks for your goodness. Thanks for your mercies. Thanks for your faithfulness that is brand new every single morning, Lord. In the middle of all of the besetting problems and issues that this council will be hearing and deliberating here today, Lord, we put our trust in you and in you alone, Father. We thank you, Lord, um for uh for giving us a boldness today, Father God. We trust you uh over all of our fears. We trust you over over all of our wounds. and we trust you even over all of our own accomplishments. Father God, we put our complete trust in you and present ourselves to your arms. Father God, unite us in love today, Lord. May everything that is decided here today be in your timing and be in your perfect will. Father God, may the speech and the actions in this chamber this day, Father, reflect the the love of your son and the guidance of your spirit. We thank you Lord for um for the good things that are about to happen in this place Lord because we know that good things come from you. And all this we ask in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much pastor. And our pledge of allegiance to the United States flag and to the Texas state flag will be uh led by Brandon Chapman. He is a senior at Flower Bluff High School, a Sitco Distinguished Scholar, and he is off to Rice University. All right. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And now for the Texas pledge. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Brandon, thank you and good luck in your studies. Thank you. Miss, would you please call the role? Mayor Plet Wardo, present. Council members Roland Beretta here. Sylvia Compos here. Eric Anu here. Gilnandez here. Kaylin Paxton here. Everett Roy here. Mark Scott. Carolyn Bond here. City Manager Peter Zenoni present. City attorney Miles Rley here. Mayor and Council, a quorum of the council and the required charter officers are present to conduct the meeting. Thank you, Miss Wesler. Uh that'll take us to section E and that is our city manager's comments and update on city operations. We have one item today, Mr. Zenone. Great. Thank you, mayor. Good morning, mayor, members of the council, and the community. Uh we do have one item on our city manager's report and it is a presentation on the city's annual financial report. And so annually, uh, the city is required to do a comprehensive annual financial report and we have an outside auditing firm that does that for us. Not it's not the internal auditor. Um, it's an outside one that we've used for the past couple of years, Weaver and Associates from Houston. And so today we're going to we're going to go over this with the city council. Uh, recently it was presented to the city's audit committee chaired by Councilman Barrera. And so this will be a similar version presented there. I think Heather is going to come up and introduce the presenter from the firm and I believe we have and Heather's probably going to introduce him, but we have a lot of our finance staff members in the front row. Yes, we do. So, turn over to you, Heather. Thank you. So, good morning Heather Hbert, assistant city manager. So, as Peter said, we are presenting our annual comprehensive financial report. Um, this is for the financial period ending September 30th, 2024. Um, we do have um a representative Matt Rogers from Weaver who will be doing the presentation. He is our audit director on our audit. So, he works very closely with our staff and his team um to go through all of the financials um and all the information for the period for the end of our fiscal year. Um this audit would not be possible without the cooperation of all the city departments and the wonderful work done by our accounting and finance staff. So, we do have them here. um they put in countless hours reconciling um tying and ticking and adding and all those kind of things that you have to do before the auditors arrive and then working with the auditors as we go through that process. So um if you'd like to I'd love to give them a little hand a round of applause for all the work that they do um in getting this to together. So thank you. Thank you. Anyway, I will turn it over to Matt to give you the report. Hi, good morning. My name is Matt Rogers. I am, as Heather mentioned, a director with Weaver based out of our Woodlands office, but we are a Houston based firm, uh, Texas based firm, and we've been performing the audit for the city for the past couple of years. Uh, so the document that we are auditing is the annual comprehensive financial report, which I have a copy here. And so, it's a large document. A lot of work goes into uh, preparing this information. Um, and I have a short presentation here to kind of just go over some of the audit process, audit results, and some of the required audit communications, and then leaving room for any questions that you may have. So, I just want to introduce the the audit team. Uh, myself, it's the engagement director. Uh, not with me today is uh our engagement manager, Randy Vaughn. We also have uh Katie Miller and Nick Lycap who were senior associates on the engagement that led a lot of the day-to-day tasks and then also we have some audit staff that may be on-site or remote at various points during the audit. Uh and also our separate IT advisory services team that works on uh looking at some of the financial software systems that help support the numbers that go into the audited financial statements. So our audit schedule uh we do some initial planning before what we call our interim field work. Uh our interim field work is usually performed over the summer or towards the uh end of summer. This year we uh came out in September. We do some testing such as internal control analysis uh evaluation. We do some walkthroughs. We do some internal control uh testing of of design and effectiveness. And then we also kind of gauge uh kind of what has changed at the city. What has changed that might redirect our audit plan or our audit procedures? Are there any new risks? Are there any changes in departments and how the city is structured? Any new operations? Things like that. Then we come out for our final field work. Uh that time period is January to March. Um and then once we complete our uh fieldwork, final fieldwork and we have sufficient appropriate audit evidence, we then complete our audit report and present it to audit committee which we did last month and then uh we start discussing the next cycle. So our audit is uh performed under uh multiple sets of audit standards. Uh the first set of audit standards generally accepted auditing standards that applies to all audits. uh under uh under gas. Um and then we also perform the audit under generally accepted government auditing standards. We also call that GAGS or yellowbook uh which is specific to state and local governments. We also perform what's called a single audit. That is a audit of the federal and state programs of the city because the city expends more than $750,000 in federal and state programs. We also do some compliance testing. Uh that's associated with the GAGS or yellowbook audit standards. And so we do look at some compliance areas that affect financial reporting. A lot of that includes things like looking at public funds investment act and how it's applied to this uh city's investments. We look at uh various procurement requirements making sure that state, federal, and local procurement uh procedures are being followed. So this is a executive summary of our uh audit opinion and reporting over the acter the annual comprehensive financial reports. Uh the type of auditor's report we issue this year is an unmodified opinion. That's also known as a clean opinion and that is the highest level of assurance you can receive in a financial statement audits. We also report on internal control over financial reporting. If we had identified any material weaknesses, significant deficiencies or material non-compliance, we would report that here. Uh we did not we did not identify any material weaknesses in internal control. We did identify one significant deficiency well which a little more in detail on on another slide. And we did not identify any material non-compliance. This slide is showing the results of the federal awards or the federal single audits. We also issued an unmodified opinion on the uh what's called the SIFA schedule of expenditures of federal awards. Uh we did not identify any material weaknesses. We did not identify any significant deficiencies or any material non-compliance. The two major programs this year under the federal single audit were the immunization grants and then the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds also known as ARPA under the state award. So that's a state single audit. Um this is essentially the same slide. We issued an unmodified opinion. No material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies, no material non-compliance. And the program uh that was considered the major program this year was the hospital preparedness program. So as I mentioned, there was one significant deficiency. You'll notice here it says recurring. So this is actually reported in the fiscal year 23 financial statements. What this really boils down to is that uh when we come in for our year- end audit procedures, there's a certain number of audit deliverables and and financial statement close procedures that should have already occurred um in fiscal year 23. There was a there was a list of things that had not yet been prepared. And so the untimeliness of that led to delayed issuance. We saw some of that this year, but not as much. So I I did I do see an improvement in the processes in terms of getting uh the financial statement close more timely. uh but we did encounter some some uh some issues with some of the schedules uh just getting the information in form that would uh go into this report. So again um we are just issuing that as a recurring finding but the expectation is that those improvements should be uh should be uh essentially resolved by fiscal year 25. So we also uh as part of our audit contract we are issuing a uh a report over the passenger facility charge uh charges that are associated with the airport. And so this is just uh an executive summary of those results. We issued an unmodified opinion um over the passenger facility charge audit. uh we do not identify any material weaknesses uh or significant deficiencies and that is audited under uh an audit guide the passenger facility charge audit guide which is issued by the FAA. So what is our responsibility in terms of the audit? We are forming and expressing opinions about whether the financial statements have been prepared by management with your oversight fairly in all material respects in accordance with GAAP. So uh accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. And so uh we perform the audit to obtain reasonable rather than absolute assurance. What that essentially means is that we do not test 100% of transactions or or or uh every single uh balance. But we do apply materiality. We do apply uh our risk assessment and make auditor judgments to determine what we're going to test, how we're going to test it, to what extent we're going to test it. uh there is a component auditor associated with the Corpus Christie firefighters uh retirement system and so our report reflects that those balances are uh derived from that auditor's report and do not uh and we do not appine on that uh the supplementary information which is included in this report we provide an in relation to opinion we issued an unmodified opinion uh in relation to uh that information. Uh there is also required supplementary information and what we call other information which is introductory and statistical sections in this report which we do not appine on but uh does provide a uh very detailed and in the statistical section trend analysis of a lot of the financial data of the city over a period of uh upwards of 10 years. Uncorrected misstatement. So we are required to uh inform the governing body of any uncorrected misstatements that are above what we call trivial but not material to the financial statements. We did have one this year uh it pertains to uh capital assets that were uh classified as uh repairs and maintenance in fiscal year 23 but should have been capitalized. Essentially this is a beginning balance uh adjustment that was corrected in current year activity. So if you have any questions on that, I'd be glad to answer. Correcting misstatements. So if we had any material misstatements uh that we identified during the course of our audit uh that were corrected by management, we would also be required to inform you of that. Uh but we did not identify any misstatements that were considered material individually or in the aggregate during the course of the audit. So with that, I would gladly answer any questions that you may have. I I appreciate the finance department being here today and you know Sergio and Julie have done a great job at kind of uh rallying the team together and getting everyone to uh work together to get all the information because it's it's a lot of work to get this get this done and uh they they really delivered this year. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think we have a question or comment. Councilwoman Comples, thank you. Thank you so much for for the report. Um okay so back to page 13 on the cause uh actually I guess it's a summary schedule of audit findings I was also high I highlight that in in uh page 12 cause the city has experienced high turnover creating difficulties with staff having the knowledge and experience to perform the annual closing procedures and prepare supporting documents for annual finance. financial reporting. Uh, so I I see the staff here. Um, do we how how long have the staff members been in in this position? I mean, how do you determine what um is have they been there, you know, one year to say that they're too new or five years? What is what criteria do you use? Sure. Council member to answer Senator Gioan, director of finance and procurement. uh to answer the question as far as the high turnover experienced there was turnover in in senior staff. Okay. And so that senior staff the way uh the officer was managed prior to my arrival arrival and prior to the assistant director's arrival there's a a very silos of information and so when that information when those folks retire or or leave the city that was not passed out to the to the team and so therefore we've changed that approach. Good. Um a lot of staff here are some have some tenure. Yeah. So, we are very more much more hands-on with the operations. Okay. And that's what I've noticed on some of the the departments that are not I guess working as efficiently as they could is that you know I guess it's kind of like the lieutenants you know under the the leader of that department um will reflect I mean if those uh for example the you know wastewater uh I think it's storm water um there it seemed to be that they had a good person coming underneath that was able to take on those leadership positions. And I'm hoping that we're doing everything that we can to supplement and to I mean if they need to be taking um you know extra courses or whatever it is because this is a vital I mean I you know you're like you don't hear or you don't know but we all want to watch our dollars and we all want to make sure that all the departments are functioning correctly. And so we really rely on on you all to be those ears and and u you know to make sure that we're we're doing we're spending our dollars correctly. So you know when I saw that I did flag it for myself and I just want to make sure that we're doing everything possible. And for me that's uh what's happened to some of these departments is that um that has not happened. you know that we have not had a good training or I don't know what you would call that but to make sure that we we value our our employees and that we're bringing them up to par so that they can be able to take on those positions when they become available. Yes, ma'am. We do have a strong training program internally where we're meeting with staff. Uh they do have weekly meetings. So we've had some opportunities to continue to train and develop bringing folks in to teach accounting. Uh so we we do uh acknowledge that that is needed and that's something we are focused on. And how often do you review your your policies to make sure that that these um that all these positions are are what do they call it? SOP the standard operating procedures. How often do how often is it done for for this department or for any department really the standard operating procedure for this department? So, uh, being new to the city, we are actually reviewing a lot of our standard operating procedures. Our current focus is on our payroll department, uh, reviewing those processes. We've brought in contract services from, uh, TML to help us analyze, uh, some opportunities for improvement, as well as the, uh, the work that's been done by our internal audit department to highlight areas we can improve in. And so, that when those things happen, we do um, assess and review SOPs. And so I would say annually we we're definitely have a few policies in line that we are updating and are waiting to roll out here soon. Okay. So I I would like to know because I when we uh received the uh report back from the ACS it seemed like it' been years like they they had not been updated but again I'm only you know comparing. So I just want to make sure that we are following the standard operating procedures for every department. Yeah, Councilwoman, uh, that is an issue with the city that I inherited six years ago. So, uh, many departments don't have don't have one, they don't have standard operating procedures written down, or two, they're very dated. And so, it's something we're working across the organization on. Uh, some departments are in better shape. I would say finance is probably in better shape, but with a new director like Sergio, he's going to look at them and bring his perspective in. But admittedly, and I'll tell you right now that many departments don't have current ones. They don't have they don't have they may not even have any and if they do, they may be dated. So, yeah, we actually had a staff position that we had to let go in the in the budget last year. We eliminated the position. We didn't let anybody go, but their job was to work with all the departments to see what do we have to write. And so, we made good progress uh for that one year. We wrote a lot of standard operating procedures. And uh it's an important part. It's the it's kind of the backbone of running the business. That's what I would imagine, right? So, you want them. So, but a department like we talked about last week that didn't really have a standalone department, it's it's work in progress, but the critical it seems um you know, kind of ner a little bit nerdy maybe to focus on that, but if you don't have that, then it's tough to run your business, right? Yeah. It's kind of like the plumbing and you know, the electricity. Make sure that you have that intact. So, anyway, okay. Okay. Well, I'm glad we're um have a program, have a process, but you just mentioned that we eliminated that position. So, how are we going? Yeah, we had to was a it was it was in our innovation group and um so um you know, we had a three me three team uh process review group that was uh that was part of the city manager's office for the for about three years, three four years and as part of the $9 million budget reduction last year, we I recommended that reduction. So now that responsibility falls to the directors. You know there still there's still some there's still attention to it. It's just not an independent standalone position. So all the directors, assistant directors, leadership team have to pick up that work. I don't know. I don't know about eliminating that position. But all right. Thank you. Well, we had to we you know we had to say we we need a balanced budget and we had to produce 9 million. Yeah. Well, the thing is that we have eliminated like the auditor, you know, position or not eliminated, but we did not have it filled for the longest time and um I know for a fact that, you know, for years we did not have an independent auditor. So, it's for me it's vital that we make sure that we have that those positions filled. Thanks. We agree. Thank you. And and Peter, you know, this in our upcoming budget, I think some of the things that um for example, this position that has been cut should probably come back. So that the council does know, you know, you you do see the importance of what seems as just okay, standard operating procedures is, you know, something in a book, but it's extremely critical to a department. But I think that's okay. We can review some of those other reductions that we did last year. I think we talked about that before. Sure. Yeah, good idea. Thank you, Councilman Hernandez. Okay. I just want to kind of review some of the things that uh with regards to this uh type of audit. it only you're looking at only what if the money that has been spent and received has been accounted for. You don't look at the appropriateness of those of those expenditures, right? Uh well, I guess to be more specific, we're looking to make sure that the information presented uh conforms to uh generally accepted accounting standards. So, that regard, we're making sure that the balance balances presented here are accurate and reliable to the users of the financial statements. If during that process we see something that would indicate something uh that seems like it would be uh unethical or something like that then we would you know we have we have certain standards that we have to report some of those things at the okay certain level of management. What I'm saying is that you don't necessarily verify that there's a contract associated with the payment. Uh not always. Sometimes we do but it depends on if we're looking specifically at the procurement side of the transaction or if we're just looking at the payment or just the invoice. And so it depends on which uh area of the financial it's just a sample kind of you're looking at particular you know high uh danger areas or but you're not looking at you know whether or not every expenditure is account is contracted correctly. Correct. we we do have to apply materiality and so we and with that we do sample um and you know a a lot of times sampling involves looking at the higher dollar transactions or the larger amounts. Okay. Uh also want to make a correction on page 10 are we had changed our effective rates for utilities from from two years to one year. Page 10 of your report I'm sorry your report not of your uh okay not of your presentation. Okay. Thank you. And and one last question. So the recommendations given when do they get implemented or you know put into polic um deficiency has is one of staffing and it's been corrected and that the director and assistant director have been on board for about a year now. And as uh Matt said, as the as the cycle kind of plays out, uh the deficiency should should go away by the next audit because the staff is in place. This originated from not having a director or an assistant director for some time, right? And so there was slippage and and transfer of knowledge. And now that the director and assistant director have been there for over a year, the that knowledge transfer and and general business business understanding exists. So it's it's just some catchup. Is that the correct way of saying it, Matt? You think actually? Well, actually, I was referring to um it was something simple. Uh let's see. Modify the financial statement closing procedures. Yeah, that's the one quarterly. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's a I thought that was more of a well procedural thing. You're saying it's a if if you don't have like Councilwoman Compo said, if you don't have strong leadership at the at the head of the department, which we didn't have about a year ago or so, uh making sure the work's getting done on schedule is the issue. And that was the issue. Okay. And so that's been corrected. We we we recruited uh both the director and assistant director. Um and Heather is the ACM overseeing it. And so that uh deficiency is is a kind of been fixed. There's still a little catch up from a few months of not having that in place in the prior year. Okay. I agree with that. And mayor, if I can just Matt and Matt, we Mr. Matt, I should call you Mr. Rogers, but we do appreciate the presentation. And this isn't important, just to put it in context, an important part of running the business. And so we all know we're working on the budget now. That's the front end of the business is the budget. And then when the year is concluded, we have a independent auditor come in and look at our financials. Uh what Matt just told you is that we have a strong financially managed city. Um what I like to hear in the years I've been doing this is what Matt said, which is that this is a clean audit. And if it wasn't clean, he wouldn't have said that. He would have he would have named off numerous deficiencies that existed and how we manage our money and he didn't say that this is a clean audit and it is of the highest rating is what he said. So we have a good independent assessment of our finances which leads to the position that we continually talk about which is that we're a well financially managed city of uh of 4,000 employees $1.8 billion budget. Matt looked at the operating, he looked at the capital budget, looked at some grants and found no material weaknesses and says that this is of the highest uh quality in terms of financial stability and financial management and we have a clean opinion. And so those are some simple takeaways for the the council and the community to understand. Uh that's we're required to do an audit annually and we're required to use a kind of a third party evaluator for independence. And so that's the report he gave. Yeah. And with that, I'll turn it back over to you, mayor. That's wonderful. Thank you for pointing that out. Uh, Councilwoman Vaughn, how long has this audit been out? Uh, we just issued last last month. Well, let me ask you. Look how big this is. There is no way that we can get it right this minute. Not your fault. I don't know whose fault it is. Audit committee may have gotten it. I don't know. But I'm sure I would have had some more questions, some questions in here, but there's no time to go through this huge book when we just got it. So, Mr. Cone, we need to do something about that. Yeah, the uh let me see if we did we deliver it to the council. I know we gave it to the audit committee. Okay. So, we can uh we'll Sergio can meet uh individually at council. We can schedule another briefing. Councilman, we understand it's a it's a complicated book and we'll uh you need sometimes you need assistance of the professionals to help you understand what's in here. So, uh we can easily set up a meeting with you if you'd like to go through it. Well, yeah, we might be smarter than you think. I mean, but I get what you're saying. I didn't mean to say that. I know that. I know that. But just for the I get that from Gil. Yeah. But just for the public to hear some of the questions that we had. I wish we I'm just saying that in the future we we need to get it. The audit committee got it. We should have gotten it right. So the city's practice has prior to six years ago, the council didn't even get this briefing. Can we change? So prior to six year Yeah, I fixed it. That's why we're doing it today. Well, we got it, but let's change it to where we get it sooner before our meeting. Right. So the city's policy is we present the in-depth briefing and and the to the audit committee of the council. That's kind of the business practice. We can do we can have that meeting here if the council desires. But the audit committee uh one of their main functions is to annually hear the financial audit in depth and they got it in advance and and so this is more of a high level briefing. But if the council wishes to have that in-depth briefing, we can certainly do that. Six years ago, nothing even came to the council. Right. It just more time. Yeah. So, we can look at fine. No problem. That's all I'm asking. Yeah. We can schedule another briefing if you like. Matt would come back. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman. Uh, Councilwoman Compass. Yeah. On that same note, same thing with ACS. This is what we received uh last week and then the next day we were supposed to be uh prepared for it. So, again, uh the same thing. We just need more time to absorb some of this information that we're supposed to be prepared for. I had to actually uh call out to some of the like animal activists to help me, you know, kind of sort through this and and see what we needed to, you know, uh ask. So again, um we would like some more time and preparation on on these briefings. So Sure, Councilwoman, just for the record, we did present that a week a week in advance of the council meeting, but only we only had one day from the next to actually um read it. So, we we've gave it to the council that we that's fine. Okay. Counciloman, we're not that's not, you know, on the agenda that No. Okay. Thank you, Councilman. Uh Scott, man, I was going to try to behave myself, but but I I would ask uh my my fellow council members that if we're given an opportunity to get be briefed on this before, that's okay if you don't, but then don't you know, like I was asked to come out to ACS to do a get a briefing. and I spent an hour and a half out there with them going over the same presentation. So maybe I just got special treatment. I don't know. But but and maybe they did realize that Mark needs to hear it twice before it sinks in. I I totally get that part. But uh if we're given an opportunity, I I think we should take advantage of it. Okay. So then you went out there and heard it for an hour and a half before you had heard it from the council because it was the exact same presentation. Miss Gumbles, we Okay, we're going to move on. Councilwoman Paxton. Thank you, mayor. Um, Mr. Zenone, I know uh something that we've done in other um committees or such where the information may pertain more specifically to that group. Um, and so they get that first presentation. What comes to my mind, the most recent is uh the island mobility plan where I met with staff. We had a thorough briefing. it was presented um to the island strategic action committee which would be the first committee um that would touch that report but then simultaneously it was kind of made available to everybody. So perhaps something like that where you know as someone who sits on the audit committee having that time to sit before the report and go through those questions is helpful. Um, but to to what council member Vaughn was saying, as a committee member on that, I I it passed my mind entirely to think, did the rest of the the council receive the information because we got it there. So perhaps that kind of sequencing, but that's all. Yeah. No, good input. We I appreciate that. We'll we'll make sure we do that in the future. Yeah. Thank you, Councilwoman. Thank you, Matt. We appreciate that. Um it's 12:06. So we're going to go ahead and proceed to item F, which is public comment. And bless you. And I'd like to take a moment to emphasize the importance, as we do every week. Uh we of this meeting, we handle significant matters concerning taxpayer dollars, making it imperative that we uphold the highest standards of decorum and adherence to our policies. Oh, ladies, thank you all for being here. And gentlemen, yeah, thank you so much. And thank you for all you've done. Our core princ uh principles of openness, transparency, and inclusiveness. Thank you. Um guide our actions and we aim to achieve them while respecting our city council policy which has been in place for 30 years. Public comment serves as one of the uh one avenue for communication but certainly not the only method. You can also reach out to your members of council by way of phone call, emails, or even an inerson um appointment. So with that said, uh let's proceed to public comment keeping in mind the importance of decorum and adherence to this policy. Before we begin, I'd like to ask our city MA uh attorney, Miles Risley, to please review the council meeting rules of decorum, which will appear on the screens above us. All citizens must be courteous, polite, and respectful of one another, including the city council and city staff. The mayor and council members shall be referred to by title and/or title surname. All remarks must be addressed to the mayor and city council and not to the council members as individuals. Citizens are only permitted to speak on city related subject matter. Speaking on any non-ity related matter is prohibited. Loud, boisterous, profane, or obscene language or behavior is not allowed. Citizens must refrain from any disturbing noise, demonstration, or other act disrupting to the city council business. Thank you, Mr. Wristley. So, individuals will be called upon in the order they signed up electronically. We'll first hear in person comments followed by virtual public comment. Residents of Corpus Christie will begin priority over non-residents. And if you'll please state your name and the city in which you live before beginning your comments, that's much appreciated. Uh you have two opportunities to make public comment on an agenda item or related business. First is at this time and second when the actual item is heard. So please select one option. Citizen comments are limited to three minutes while non-resident comments are limited to one minute. A visible timer positioned near the city secretar's desk will assist in managing that aotted time. And if you have a petition or any pertinent information that you'd like us to have, if you'll please hand it to Miss Wa first and she will distribute it to us. So with that, today we have 11 people signed up for public comment and we're going to start with Mr. Cleer. [Applause] Morning council, mayor and councel. Steve Ker, 30 plus year resident of Corpus Christie. We just heard the mayor talk about the importance of public comment and um how people should be courteous and respectful and city attorney read the same material that indicate everyone should be respectful and courteous to each other including city staff. Last week I was here for public Oh, I did want to say the mayor I have to commend every time you are very respectful. you thank everybody specifically even though I know you didn't always agree with what they said. So, thank you to you and you're a good model for everyone else to follow. Thank you. Last week, you'll see in the middle part of that slide what I used during my public comment and I was posing some rhetorical questions and I have a picture there of a fellow asking with a question mark with his head rhetorically thinking all these questions. They weren't questions for the council to ask to answer. They were questions I was suggesting the council consider. And this was regards to the body to the city budget. All of my questions were rhetorical. As I was speaking to the slide, the city attorney interrupted me. Next slide, please. Questions of city council or staff are not permitted. Well, it was clear those were no questions presented to the city council. They're rhetorical and that's why I had that little cartoon. Those are the questions that I asked rhetorically. How do you measure efficiency? How do you measure effectiveness? Are you going to continue what I think has made a and then I was interrupted and couldn't finish my thought. And what came to mind was the 007 clock. The younger people won't know what that is. Time was running out and it was like I was confused. What do I say next? When Next slide, please. What are rhetorical questions? Just to review, there's a list of them. Just write that just right from the internet. It just so my conclusion everyone underlined everyone should be courteous including the city attorney. Needless interruption is not courteous. It is not polite or respectful. It is disruptive. And I do want to give a shout out to the communications department, Stephen Gonzalez, all the staff for helping with these slides. So the public should know it is very easy to have slides like this. The city's staff is very, very good and easy to work with. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Clever. I appreciate your kind words. Next we have Susie Salana, Eli Oliver after that, Kent Oliver after that. And then Rob Bailey after that. Just a little heads up. Susil Luna Salana, uh, Corpus Christie, Texas. I come before you today because I'm pretty upset about the money grab that's going on in the housing authority. I mean it is an absolute shame what is happening and I expect every one of you to take notice of it. How can you allow a committee because the housing authority is a housing authority is appointed by our mayor if I understand correctly and they decided they were going to sell land lease it and there's a money grab there. Somebody's making money out of it. Somebody has to be making money out of it. Who is it and what are you going to do about it? I know that there are two people that are resigning. You got a new appointment coming to the housing authority. But that housing authority has always been good for people. Now you've got people selling out the land. You losing taxes. The city losing taxes. Delmare losing taxes. The medical hospital board losing taxes. Everybody's losing taxes. Who's making money? Those people should be in jail. you should file charges and they should be in jail. To me, I look at it and I associate it with the times that I have come over here and complained to you about people that sue the city and then they find ways to ask to save money for the city. That to me is an equation. That to me is something that has to be stopped. If there are people that grabbing money from the taxpayers that are using it to do it, stop them. put those people in jail. The ones that did the arrangements, the one that did it, it may look legal, but it isn't. When they take money that we may lose $6 million, you may lose the ability to have your uh swimming pools open, the ability to have your libraries open. Why? Because somebody got greedy and they're stealing money. That's in my opinion what they're doing. They're stealing money. And they're stealing money out of your pocket, my pocket. the citizens of Corpus Christi and it is time that this council took a firm step and cleaned that house. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Alana. Eli Oliver, have some handouts. Sure. Absolutely. [Music] Okay. Can I go ahead and start or should I wait for the handouts? Yeah. Okay. Hi, I'm Eli Oliver. I'm a Corpus Christie resident and I'm a junior at Annapolis Christian Academy. I am a life scout working on my eco scout project right now. And briefly, my eco scout project, it involves memorializing the NASA tracking station that was located at Bilwit Park in the 1960s and 70s. Um, most Corpus Christians have no knowledge of the important role that Corpus Christie played in the space race, assisting NASA in getting a man on the moon. The tracking station was a vital part of all the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skyab missions. In fact, the first live video from space was transmitted through the facility during the Apollo 7 mission. I plan to install four interpretive panels. Each panel will recognize the role of the tracking station played in each of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skyab missions. The panels will have a key component of the missions with high resolution color times, photos, and articles, and a timeline listing listing the astronauts for each mission. The last remaining buildings of the tracking station were demolished in 2019. There's only a remnant of the former antenna foundation footings that remain. It's my hope that this important piece of Corpus Christie history can be preserved. I've received beneficiary approval from our parks and recreation department and project approval from Boy Scout leadership. I've also presented this information to the Corpus Christie Landmark Commission. They are excited about this project and are in full support. I'm using Iconic Sign Group here in town for graphic design and fabrication of the panels which will be 2 foot by 3 foot in size. And this is the same company that fabricated the panels near the coal near the new Coal Park Pier. I'm using private funding for this project and I'm getting close to reaching my goal of $15,000. I'm hoping to complete this project early this summer to achieve my Eagle Scout ranking and include that accomplishment on my college applications this summer. Thank you. Thank you, Eli. Thank you for um informing us about No, no, you're fine. Thank you for informing us about all this. Did you mention on the back of this you've got the uh where you can um support and mail a check? Yes, ma'am. Got to make sure you got to throw that in there. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Question. Oh, yes. Yes. Councilman uh Hernandez. Yeah, Peter. I know Parks is aware of this uh um project, right? And let's see if we can help him out and and put something together. Yeah, I know we have a grand opening for uh Bill Whit pool, right? Uh coming up on the 23rd. 23rd. So I probably won't be ready for that, but uh at least we can do something. Uh it's a it's it is a used to be a military site, so it should be something we can do. This is a commendable project, Eli. And uh maybe Eli can join us at the grand opening, you know, and be there and talk a little bit about it. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. We'll follow up with you. Yes, sir. Yeah. Thank you. And good work. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. Counciloman, and thanks for the the hard work on this. Yes, sir. My pleasure, Councilwoman Paxton. Thank you, Mayor. Um I want to basically echo that sentiment and see if you know what do we have to do to help this endeavor. This is something really remarkable and in all of these areas where we really showcase how influential the city of Corpus Christi has been. This is this is a really great project and and perhaps we can include some of this in that ribbon cutting if if we can line up like you said line up those schedules because I think that would certainly add to the the overall piece that this park brings. So, thank you for your efforts. Thank you, Eli. Ride a check. I'm I'm back to your $50,000. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Councilwoman. Okay, next we have Kent Oliver. Assuming this is Eli's dad, correct? So, you've answered a lot of my script already, but I'm going to stay on script anyway. So, Kent Oliver, resident of Corpus Christie, uh gosh, over 35 years now. I worked as electrical engineer in oil and gas industry here in Corpus Christie. So, I understand there's an Eagle Scout project that's going to memorialize a NASA tracking station at Bill Whit Park. Uh I've received a copy of the first draft of the graphics for one of the interpreted panels that's detailing the uh the the missions of of the Gemini uh group and this is it. So this is approximately what size the uh panels are going to be. There's going to be four of them but this is an example of what it's going to be shared for the Gemini mission. So it includes uh some bullet points. Also a lot of the original um um color times articles have been scanned in high resolution. It's also going to be listing all the astronauts and the the name of each uh mission on on each of the panels. So, it's this is kind of a visual. This be this times four out there. Uh the location of the original facilities in the far south part of the park. Understand the park's master plan includes placing another soccer field in that area and that's great for growth. Uh the panels need to be located somewhere in the park that allows maximum amount of viewing to allow citizens of Corpus Christi to to learn of this history of Corpus Christi. uh one of the panels will be uh including a uh what you call an aerial view with a you are here mark. So we need to determine where that location is going to be soon so that can be included with the graphic design which is happening uh currently. Um what else here with the opening of the new bill aquatic center soon a location near the entrance of the center seems like a reasonable location uh to consider. Family members of all ages will be visiting the center in the coming years. field trips might even be uh planned for the center to include uh the the historical significance of this for educational purposes. So, I'm re requesting that the parks recreation department and city council consider allowing these interpreted panels to be located near the new aquatic center near an area with hight traffic foot traffic to uh allow others to to enjoy this. Uh final graphics of the uh design are being um uh proposed hopefully this this week. will get the the the first draft of the next panels and then the uh city officials obviously will have to approve that. I don't know if it's the park department or city council but a combination but it be city officials will um agree on on final language and that design before we go to printing and fabrication and the steel portion of these panels could also match the uh the color scheme that's out there at the uh the aquatic center because those haven't been fabricated or painted yet. We'd like to encourage if they are near that that we match the the color scheme. Okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Oliver. And I think some of most of your questions uh Mr. Zenon can be addressed by maybe our parks director or somebody. Is that what Heather, you're waiting? Okay. She's already waiting for you. There you go. Okay. Yeah. So, they'll be fabricated and available in early June. So, it won't match with the open. That's okay. We'll uh Yeah, we're going to accommodate them there. So, we appreciate you being there. Heather, our assistant city manager, she can talk more in detail with you, Mr. Oliver. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Uh Mr. Rob Bailey. Hello, Rob Bailey, resident of Corpus Christi. U I wanted to give a little bit more historical information about the tracking station you've been hearing about. As NASA was developing plans to go to the moon, they realized that two places that the spacecraft would fly over in Earth in Earth in Earth orbit were Corpus Christi and the Cape. So they put very strategic tracking stations in Corpus Christi and the Cape which would provide 15 minutes of continual coverage for the spacecraft flying overhead. And so therefore when they developed innovations for the tracking stations they often implemented them here and in uh at the Cape. So a couple of examples um when it became apparent that there were going to be more than one spacecraft involved with lunar landings they knew they had to rendevous and dock. Well Mercury spacecraft couldn't maneuver in space. So they developed Project Gemini to do that. And so they had to develop a spacecraft that could maneuver, change orbits in order to find other spacecraft, which is a very complicated deal. But they also had to have tracking stations that could actually command the spacecraft from the ground. Until then, all they could do was uh receive telemetry from the ground from the spacecraft and also provide uh radio contract contact from Houston to the spacecraft. But they had to have tracking stations that could actually bring a spacecraft down in case something went wrong. And so when the first manned Gemini flight in March of of 1965, guess where the first orbital maneuver happened? It happened over Corpus Christi because Corpus Christie and the Cape were the two tracking stations around the whole world who were able to bring a spacecraft down in case there was a problem with it. Likewise, uh when live television became more and more of an issue, uh a priority, they wanted to develop a way to give live telecasts from space. Until then, they were only able to film things and then develop the film later and to show it on the news. But two tracking stations had the capability of receiving live signals from space, converting them into television standards. They were Corpus Christi and the Cape. So on the first manned Apollo flight, Apollo 7 uh October 14th, 1967, the first live television broadcast from space occurred over Corpus Christi. And they had several broadcast in that mission. They were so successful that the astronauts received an Emmy award for the most entertaining broadcast of the year. So, Corpus Christi in many ways has a rich heritage and I'm proud of Eli for commemorating that and I appreciate your encouragement and support of that. Thank you. Oh, by the way, um the city secretary has a couple of books she's been passing out. Y'all can fight over them depending on uh who is the biggest moon nerd of the group. The mayor already has a copy of them. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Bailey. Isabelle Risa. Thank you, Mr. Oliver. Yeah. Okay, Isabelle, I saw district 2. Um, I just came because I was rereading a book about social problems in preparation for my fall course and I came across a quote that really resonated with me reflecting what I think is happening here in the city and it says um it was about urban versus rural problems. Um, it says, "Local elites treat cities as settings for growth of their wealth and their power rather than as settings where real people live, go to school, work at a job, and have friends and acquaintances. And I think that's exactly what's been happening here. Um, I'm thinking about that water summit that the city is going to be hosting, about the one that um, Mayor Pette posted about. Um, I looked at the sponsors. Um, there's gold sponsors and for $3,000 you can have six seats at a table at the summit. For 1,000 you can get four seats. For uh $1,000 you can get two seats. Uh platinum sponsors, I don't know how much they have to donate, but Freeze and Nickels is one of the platinum sponsors as well as Vector Garver and Ardura. Who knows what they have to pay, but if we pay them, does that mean we're paying for that sponsorship? And also I know that C uh the water department is actually hosting the event along with some other organizations that I've got to learn more about. Now on Wednesday there's going to be an exclusive sponsor network event where at Noasis Brewery Company from 4 to 6. Then there going to be networking breaks throughout the day on Thursday at 10:00 in the morning and at 2:30. And I just stop and I think about like that sounds like a lot of money for some tickets, but when you have starting $757 million for a project and we're looking at the the pilot project starting at 5 million now at $18 million. Like that's chump change, those thousands of dollars to be able to like make tons of money. Um then meanwhile, you know, we have people who don't feel comfortable drinking their water. We have dogs getting dumped in the landfill. We have parks closed. We have library budgets cut. We have Hillcrest residents having to come over here to ask for their neighborhood not to be zoned a heavy industry. You know, we have senior centers whose budgets are being cut. And I hadn't heard too much talk about that. And then I was thinking about the housing authorities scandal um where apartments like Stonelay Apartments, South Lake Ranch, the icon, the villas of Ocean Drive and Azour Apartments, you know, have um potential property taxes that could be paid to the community so that we could actually have our services instead of having to fight for them to be cut. Um, but it's looking to expand that and we could be losing millions of dollars while we have 30,000 residents waiting for section 8 housing. Um, you guys are proving the conflict theorists correct. Um, we just have the wrong people in positions of power. And I really do think that we need to fire Mayor Zenoni. I mean, sorry, City Manager Zenoni. Um, I would never say that like three years ago, but now I'm pretty convinced of it. This isn't a business. Thank you, Missa. Next, we have um Marilena Garza. Marilena Garza, District 1. It's getting pretty hot outside, right? Can you imagine the people out in Petronilia, Jim Wells? They still don't have water. Some of them Some of them have electricity maybe for a little bit and then it cuts back out. Shelter got closed. It's hot, you know. Um I hope all of y'all uh have a good HVAC person because man, let me tell you, uh beginning of this year, my HVAC system at my office went out. And luckily, I have the means to call an HVAC person. I have a great property owner who came out, got it fixed. But I also own three weenie dogs. And um we had to just camp out for about 6 7 hours while they were working on my HVAC system because there's nowhere for me to go. You know, it's hot. So, uh imagine if I didn't have a car or the means to fix my HVAC that quick. You know, I can't go to the library. Um I can't get an Airbnb. You know, you say three dogs and they're like, "Nope, no hotel will let me in." And they're they're great weenie dogs. They're amazing. They're they're my kids. I will sit out on a curb in the heat and withgo food and shelter and safety for my animals. Those are my kids. I don't have kids. Those are my kids. I'm not the only one that makes those decisions. And I'm very concerned when the first thing before you have a full idea of the budget that we're going to cut from the library. It's not allocated in the library's budget. And it's hard to allocate a budget for cooling and heating centers because we don't know how many days we are going to need those heating and cooling centers. But even if we have them adequately funded, there are some barriers there. I couldn't go. The the closest that I could get into the library would be the breezeway. And you know what? I was actually able to pull my car up into the library and work because I still had to work. I was able to flip up my laptop, but I wasn't able to come into the library. So, I'm very concerned. Um, you know, the San Antonio News Express just mentioned that in San Antonio this upcoming week, it's going to be hotter than the Sahara Desert. We're not that far from San Antonio. And um, this is a serious uh, issue that affects not just people like me, our seniors, our disabled, our most weakest, most vulnerable community. You don't realize how amazing it is to be inside an AC place until you're told you can't come inside. You can't come inside. You have a cart. You can't come inside. you smell, you have an animal, we can't allow you to come in with food even though you have a health condition that requires you to have food nearby in case you go glycemic. You can't bring food into the libraries. So, we're again using and abusing our libraries. We use them for heating and cooling centers. They're doing a lot. They do a lot and they get pennies and they're always the first people to be said, "We're taking your money." And then we wonder why we're seeing a shortfall in our budget with property taxes and sale taxes. Nobody wants to come here, so quit cutting the quality of life programs. Thank you. Thank you, Miss uh Garza. Councilwoman Paxton. Thank you, Mayor. Um Mr. Zenone, I think I'm trying to find it really quickly, but I'm not right now seeing it. Did you did we receive something on cooling centers because of this heat wave that's coming through? Yes, Councilwoman. So last night we um I sent to you the press release that we issued. Um so because of the extreme temperatures, the feels like temperature in our area will be around 100. Our protocol is anything above 101, we open our cooling centers. And so we have all of our libraries today and all of our senior centers serve as cooling centers. They also serve as warming centers in the winter. Uh so they're all open. There's a variety. There's um five libraries and eight senior centers, I believe. All open. Um it was a media release. I texted to you all last night. Uh, one other thing is that RTA is providing free transportation uh, to and from the nearest depot or bus stop uh, to any one of those facilities at no at no charge. Anybody entering the bus just needs to say, "I'm going to the cooling center at this location and they'll take us take them to the nearest bus stop there." And same thing on the on the return home. And and much like in the freezing um the freeze, are they allowing for transport of animal care or Well, uh they probably are. However, our facil like our library facilities, you can't bring unless it's a service dog, you can't bring pets into the library facility. Uh so that's what I was I if I I was trying to kind of encapsulate uh the key points of that last um presentation. And it sounded like that was being listed as a barrier to um to finding shelter and care, which I think a good point was brought up. We do utilize our library um facilities a lot for these emergency management type um needs. I wonder are we in any way um able to utilize emergency management grant type funding to assist and offset some of the services provided? You know, I wrote I'm going to check in that I wrote that note down to seeing uh in the winter time when we have these extreme winter win uh weather events in the winter. We do work with uh animal care agencies um to shelter the pets. Initially, there was uh the pets were taken from the owner and brought to um a a location. However, in recent times, they stay with the owner. So, we I'll look at that. I'm going to look into that for the cooling centers to see is there some way to do that. Yeah. Is it possible for staff to to to perhaps talk with um this constituent here and see where we could mitigate some of those challenges in the near future, long future so we can look at good solutions. Right. Absolutely. I made a note and we'll look into that. Thank you. Okay, next we have uh Rachel Camayto. Good afternoon. Rachel Cavayto 522 Corpus Christie District 1. Good afternoon all. I am here to exercise my constitutional first amendment right that supersedes any unconstitutional city ordinance. Traveling and experiencing other cities in our country sheds a lot of light on how communities can thrive and succeed with true authentic leadership. We are currently not thriving. It is performance review time for some of the highest salary earners on our city payroll. I would like for you all to consider the following during the performance review of the current city manager. A resignation should have been in order long ago, but the money train is moving and it is moving fast amongst our uninformed community. We do not elect city managers. A city manager is tasked with implementing the council's decisions, managing the operating and capital budget, and overseeing city employees. This is not happening. Instead, we have a primadana that is constantly parading himself in the media, giving interviews to defend their bad decision-making, inserting themselves in situations that they do not belong, and constantly ridiculing the community that pays him and that he does not agree with. He has proven to be incapable of fulfilling his job requirements and responsibilities. Some examples include overseeing and managing department heads and staying informed of deficiencies within those departments like knowing that this CCAC cremation unit has been broken for two months. Incapable of keeping long-term local employees and having an extremely high employee turnover rate at all employment levels and incapable of hiring qualified, experienced candidates for key positions. Inability to maintain community assets like the water gardens which resulted in $9 million in repairs. Incapable of maintaining a balanced budget and inability to cut back spending by putting the city in astronomical debt via certificates of obligation that have increased by approximately $100 million in his tenure alone. incapable of transparent by refusing to fulfill public information requests in the time allotted at reasonable cost to the requesters resulting in a change of legislation that is being presented in Austin today. Epic failure of population growth in six years. No one is moving here. inability to find alternative water resources until the 11th hour when forced and passing a one-sided drought contingency plan well into stage three drought restrictions. Inability to keep an open dialogue with community partners like homeless, animal care, and environmental advocates. Direct or indirect involvement of degrading an elected official during an a medical emergency. This is just to name a few. It is time for us to move on as a city. Talk to your constituents. They agree. Have the day you deserve. Thank you, Miss Cabo. Eli Mccay. Mayor and Council, my name is Eli McKay and I live in beautiful Uptown Corpus Christi District 1. So, as I've said before, and most of you already know, I have the luxury of watching every meeting that you have in its entirety, and I haven't missed one for over three years. I'm often in disagreement with the decisions that you make when it comes to defunding quality of life programs like libraries parks homeless services, or when y'all recklessly fund the urban sprawl that is quite placing every department on a rack, stretching some of them to their breaking point. But last week in the budget workshop, I was not only embarrassed for our city, I was enraged. I was saddened. I was enraged by the misinformation and lack of empathy shown by our city manager. I was enraged and saddened by the lack of self-awareness, cluelessness, and what I could only perceive as racism from an atlarge council member. It seems to me that they both need a history lesson, a geography lesson, and maybe a math tutor. The fact that Hillrest and Washington Kohl's are not vibrant neighborhoods that they once were now is a product of decades of decisions made by the city, the state, and big industry. First to box them in and then to force them out. These decisions were undeniably based on racial and environmental injustice. And to now regard those neighborhoods as something less than neighborhoods adds horrible insult to decades of relentless injury. The new parks in the north side will not only serve hundreds of residences in the Hillrest and Washington Kohl's neighborhoods, but they will serve thousands of residents in the west side and uptown areas that have also been grossly grossly neglected. So many parks in the west side and uptown have been intentionally stripped of their amenities as a tactic to detour unhoused folks from using the public space which makes those parks unusable for everyone. I personally can't sit by and watch my neighbors be disrespected. And I have, you know, in these times I've made a personal commitment to call out racism xenophobia and homophobia anytime that I see it. Whether I am at the library board meeting, here in council chambers, or just out walking my dog, we all have the chance to be better than our parents were. Please remember that you represent all of the people who live here, not just those who share your worldview or income bracket. And please think before you speak. If you can't do that, at least close your mouth and work on your listening skills instead. Thank you. Thank you, Miss McCay. Adam Rios. See, Adam Rios, Corpus Christie, Texas. Want to take a quick moment to share some solidarity with that young man and to financially support the project that you heard earlier concerning Bill Park. Uh checks can be addressed to troop 3 care of tracking station project PO Box 661 Corpus Christie, Texas 78401. He didn't get to say that earlier, so I wanted to I care about parks apparently as much as he does. So I wanted to share that with everybody. Um I also wanted to share something that is happening uh tomorrow, if you were unaware, uh Wednesday, May 14th at the Bay Jewel Center. Uh my wife as the executive director of the Ritz uh is hosting the Maong tournament. Uh I'm proud to say that all the tables have been sold out, but there's plenty of opportunity uh to still buy raffle tickets that you can get online or via social media. Uh this should be a big event. It's going to raise more money than it did last year and get us one day closer uh to the ultimate goal, which is to have the Ritz um opened. Uh I have two minutes left. I wanted to just share something uh personal uh which is my approach to things. Uh I had a great conversation uh this past Saturday and it just reminded me of something. This past Sunday was Mother's Day. Uh 16 years ago I had to wake up in a world uh for the first time and without my mother in it. And so I had to adjust to live in a world without the person who although my father gave me a bloodline and culture she gave me uh hope and faith. and she was a real advocate for the community. And I'd wrote I'd written something down and it was based off one of my favorite artists, Nick Caves. And I just wanted to take a moment to share this with you uh in honor of my mother and anybody who's lost a mother and why this community means as much as it does to me. Uh it took the loss of my mother to teach me the preciousness of life and the essential goodness of people. It took this loss to reveal the pre the precariousness of the world of its very soul. To understand that some amongst me need help to understand the importance of community. But unlike sis uh cynicism, she taught me hope and faith. And hope and faith are hard-earned. They make demands of us. They are not a neutral position. They are adversarial. They are warrior emotions that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive and compassionate. A simple act as small as you like, such as teaching my son to read, singing him a song, tying his shoes, or promoting my wife's advocating the arts, sharing a sunset or a dance to our favorite song. These are the things that keep the devil down in the hole. my son. There are emotions that say that the community and it and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. They are worth believing in. And in time, I've come to find that this is so uh I hope everybody has a great day and uh happy Mother's Day belated to my mom. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rios. Uh, John Hendricks. All right. District 2, Corpus Christi. John Hendris, Corpus Christie, native, VFW post 2397, Quartermaster. two items. Item one, new baby cemetery. A couple weeks back, Miss Relle from the from Madame Mayor's office informed me the city has set funds aside for a new Babu's restoration. An old Russian phrase comes to mind to this uh 25 year olds 25 year non-25year-old certified United States Army Russian linguist. That phrase is Niski Ploone. I make a low bow to you. A low bow and many thanks. I give to all who made this happen to include our city manager, Mr. Zenoni, Madame Mayor, Councilman Roy, a couple of our new council ladies, Vaughn and Paxin, and my apologies to those deserving who I've not I failed to mention. Item two, Feast of Corpus Christi, which is celebrated with rose petals, marching bands, and much fanfare in many cities of the world. The feast is an official holiday in many of those cities, just not in Corpus Christi. For some people, it is a commandment not to take God's name in vain. I think taking it lightly might be almost as bad. No other city has this blessed name. a name honoring an old Christian holiday and honoring our Lord and Savior. Maybe it would be better just to change our name rather than be taking it lightly. Maybe Valerville or Exonopoulos. That's out of order. Each of you has a copy of my proposed resolution to help prevent us from taking our Lord and Savior's name lightly. Let's start by making Feast of Corpus Christi a big deal. Let's make it an official city holiday, a holy day, if you will. This year, it so happens the Feast of Corpus Christi falls on Junth, which is already a city holiday, as it should be everywhere in Texas. Madame Mayor, distinguished council members, this gives you more time to contemplate. Many thanks for bearing with me and I yield. Thank you, Mr. Hendrix. So, this concludes our public comment for today and we will move on to uh our briefings items two, three, and four. Our first briefing is uh an update on Inner Harbor Water Treatment Campus Project. Great. Mayor and members of the council, Brett is gonna there's going to be three presenters for this item and three. Three presenters. Yes. Brett is going to present um an update on the inner harbor desalinization plant. Uh then he will be followed by Drew Molly and uh this weekend, Councilwoman Paxton and I uh I got clarification and better understand that at each of our council meetings, we will have a briefing on the alternative water projects uh in addition to diesel. Uh so things like the Eevee Ranch, Evangeline Wells project. Uh so Drew is going to provide that briefing today in the context of Brett's presentation and then going forward we'll have a separate uh presentation a separate item on the agenda unless the briefing is is minor. If there's not much update, I'll do it as part of my city manager report. Uh but I just want to provide that context for the council that um based on Councilwoman Pax and other council members as well, uh there is a desire to have weekly briefings on alternative water projects that we're working on. Uh so that'll come after Brett's presentation from uh Drew. And then another presenter today will be Alisa Olsen, who's going to present the draft communications plan for the Inn Harbor desation plant. The mayor has been asking for that as as many council members. And so Alisa will go over some graphics and and show you the kind of the baseline uh approach uh for this communication plan. Uh so with that, we're going to turn it over to Brett who will provide a second update and we'll be doing these twice monthly going forward. Uh just keeping the council up to date on critical path items related to the in harbor desization plan. Brett, thank you. So again, Brett Ben Hazel. I'm the director of the program management office. My team is charged with the management of the DESL project. So, as Peter mentioned, we have a number of topics today. So, uh I'll be going through a brief project update along with the timeline. I will touch on the near and farfield modeling that's going to be done as part of this project. I'll go through a demonstration plan update and then touch on some future topics. Um, I'll hand it off to Drew who again will talk about the alternative water supply project update and then Alisa Olsen will finish us off with the um, a quick overview of the uh, project website and then also some of the communication campaigns specifically for the Inner Harbor Water Treatment Campus. Oh, I did want to u sorry I did did want to quickly just point out this uh image you see is a model that Kwit has put together to show the the current proposed layout of the treatment plant. It's still in draft and we're still working through it, but um it's just a highle overview of what the plant may look like when we're uh complete. Excuse me Brett. So this presentation is not the one that's loaded in the system. That was a a version from last Friday. So, we're making copies and we'll hand them out to the council. So, what Brett's showing on the slide I don't have in total in front of you, but we'll get those momentarily. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead, sir. Yes, sir. Okay. So, just a a quick update on the project. The uh again the project is three phases with phase one being broken down into two uh two parts. One is phase 1 A which we started last December and it uh it's uh near completion. June 1 is actually the completion of phase 1 A and we're working through the planning uh the pilot protocol which is complete and submitted uh to TCQ for review and then we're working on the basis of design which is a basically like a programming document for the design of the project. Uh phase 1B started in April and we started with uh just some a minor contract amendment to uh move that particular phase along. There's some additional amendments we're going to work through and I'll touch on that on the next slide. Uh and then the last two phases uh we have construction which is uh planned to begin at the be uh beginning of 2026 and we'll continue on through the summer fall time of 2028 and then we'll work into phase three which is the operation and maintenance of the plant which will be uh managed by Kwit for one year and then it will transition to the city. Um so again we're in phase 1 A and 1B right now. So phase 1 A again is coming to completion June 1. Out of that we will have two major deliverables. One will be the basis of design report which again is in uh draft review right now by both Frieza Nickel who is the city's owner's agent and the city staff. And then we have a cost model which will be uh submitted at the end of phase 1A. And that cost model will be submitted to uh the city as well as freeze and nickels to do a review. In addition, we do have an independent cost estimator that will be brought on to review it. So the month of June, we'll be going through the review of that and then we would anticipate uh bringing the results of that to city council in July part of one of my presentations. And uh that cost model will give us a very high level budgetary range for the project in the early phases because as you know we we're approximately 10% design. So it's a very early estimate. So it'll be a range that we're going to work with. Again in phase 1B we started in midappril and that amendment that contract amendment that was issued touched on a couple things. One, we brought on the technology supplier Aquitech uh to help with some of the submitt development which is part of the basis of design development as well as just early submittals. Uh we put our place in line for two high voltage transformers for the project. Uh we're going to do that um often throughout phase 1B to try to lock in some of the long lead elements of the project to make sure that we can secure it uh as we work through uh the project. We don't want anything to uh come in late and obviously push our project to the right. So, we're trying to get ahead of that. And then lastly, we um covered a little bit of GHD's design effort both for modeling and then just general design for the um diffusers. We do have some uh upcoming contract amendments. One will be for the demonstration plant. We've already executed a work directive for the Kiwit team directing them to proceed with it while we work through the final details of the contract amendment. So they are working on that. We also have an upcoming amendment for the design and guaranteed maximum price development. That'll be the design that takes us to 60%. And then they'll put together the guarantee maximum price. That'll be at the end of this year. And then lastly, we'll as I mentioned, we'll do some early work packages mostly for some of those long lead items. This is a highle overview of the project schedule. Um, as you can see on the bottom graph, we are in that uh design and GMP development phase, which is phase 1A. At the beginning of next year, we'll transition to construction, which will take us through uh summer fall time frame of 2028. And then what's not shown is the phase three, which will be the operation and maintenance of the plant, which will be handled by Kwit. So last week and and even prior we uh we have had a lot of discussion on modeling for this project specifically what Kwit's responsibilities are. So hopefully um we can answer all the questions that have come up uh recently. So first off I want to point out that the modeling being done as part of this project is only for the inner harbor ship channel. Only for the inner harbor ship channel. So the extents will take us as west as uh Flint Hills Resources, you know, past CC polymers, and then on the east side, it'll take us about the mouth of the Harbor Bridge or the channel near the Harbor Bridge. And I have a graphic um after this slide that I can show you that will um detail that a little bit further. So GHD is a subcontractor for Kwit. They will be performing all the modeling and the modeling is in support of the diffuser design for our discharge. So they're going to be looking at the near and farfield effects of the discharge with the intent of meeting the TCQ requirements um set forth in our permit that was approved in March. That is the purpose of the design. Um it will not be looking at the impact that we're having on the bays and estuaries beyond the chip channel. um the only considerations that those will have on the model is as an input into the inner harbor ship channel. So we're we're using that as a consideration for the model. Now some of the characteristics that are going to be evaluated are listed. The two that are uh in particular that I want to focus on are the dissolved oxygen and stratification. Those two are the some of the key elements when we talk about hypoxia. So the modeling will look at the uh potential for hypoxia within the inner harbor ship channel and those will be findings from the model. So if if for some reason the model shows areas where there's concerns with hypoxia, that'll be something that'll be presented. Um the uh you know in March of this year, we talked about submitting the results of the model within two months. We will be submitting the model in May. GHD will be submitting it but then we will go into a review period. So we expect to have our review complete and uh ready by the end of June and then in July we'll come back and present those findings. Here is a um an overall view of the uh total model domain. So if you look at the gritted area in white, that is everything west of the discharge. And then the blue gritted area is everything east of the discharge. So we're we're modeling approximately 7.2 miles west of the discharge and about 1.5 miles east of the discharge. all of those uh yellow circles and the names, you know, like Corpus Christie polymers, Flint Hills resources, those are all inputs and outputs of the the channel. So those are all going to be input into the model and used as part of the um results. Next, I want to touch on the demonstration plan. So the demonstration plan is something that is uh part of the TCQ requirement for permitting and it will help uh uh it it allows us to demonstrate that the final plant will be able to provide high quality drinking water. It also affords us the opportunity to test out some of the membranes and the treatment process. Um we're looking uh to start this the actual construction which will include the installation of the equipment for the plant as well as the discharge line from the plant site which if you look at the image on the left the area that is circled that is where we're going to put the demonstration plant. and we're going to take every the the product of that plant to the Broadway wastewater treatment plant which is um a little bit east of this uh site. So, we're going to start construction in June. Uh we will start the actual operation in July, August time frame. And that's really going to be um getting the plant running optimized and to a steady state. And once we get it to that steady state and we're ready to operate it for a continuous 30 days, um, which is the TCQ requirement, we're we're anticip anticipating that to start in September, October time frame. So we'll run it for 30 days continuous. And then when that's complete, we'll de decommission the plant. We'll produce a a feasibility report and submit that to TCQ. It's one of the requirements of the permit. Um, I'm going to I'm going to show a little video here. And this video is a um the Kiwi team has put together a little model of what the final plant will approximately look like. And I'll kind of talk through the different process that we have. And I think I got to do it one more time. Maybe the uh technical team can assist. Okay. So, we we have multiple processes. So, this is an overview of the plant. It's located on the port property. So, the step one is we're going to take seawater out of the inner harbor ship channel. We're going to send it over to the dissolved air flotation system. That's actually going to take out the majority of the solids and it's also going to inject oxygen into the system. After it leaves that uh process, it's going to go over to the ultra filtration which will remove more of the impurities and then it's going to push that clean water over to our reverse osmosis. And that is where we're actually going to be taking out all the salt and then we'll have two discharges from that. We'll have one that is pure water free of salt and then we'll have what we call brine which is going to be the higher concentrated water uh with higher concentrations of salt. Uh both of those streams will then be mixed back together and sent to the Broadway wastewater treatment plant. Uh the other elements you see there uh one is the testing lab. They're going to have um continuous testing throughout the process. The Kwit team and and their uh subcontractors etc will be doing tests throughout the process. And then we also uh we don't have a permanent power solution on site that could be done uh in a timely manner. So, we're bringing out generators and electrical support systems to power all of the equipment for the duration of the uh the plants on site. Um, so that's a highle overview of the plant. Um, at the end if we need to come back and walk through it we can. Oh, apologize. Lastly, just want to go through some of our future topics. Um, as Peter mentioned before, we're going to continue doing the briefings twice a month. Our next plan briefing is June 10th. Uh, we'll we'll have the topics ahead of that. I don't have them set for you right now, but um, we again, we're open to suggestions if you guys have things that you'd like us to focus on. We can absolutely modify the presentations. Uh, we do have a, uh, design workshop planned for city staff, Kiwit, and Frieza Nichols this week in Lanexa Kansas. uh we're actually going to be there uh starting Wednesday through Friday to look at the basis of design report. We're going to go into great detail on on that report. And then uh June 17th, we're actually bringing um a gentleman named Leftwin Clark. He works for the water collaborative association. He's an expert in uh the progressive design build CMR type deliveries for projects of this scale. He's going to come do a presentation focusing on progressive design build and the uh guarantee maximum price development. So we'll have him here June 17th and then again we just have a couple upcoming deliverables that we're going to work through. Uh next we're going to bring Drew up and he's going to talk through the alternative water supply. Okay. I think we have one question or comment. Councilman Kentu. Yeah. Quick question. Um how much are we paying for advertising right now? how for advertising. Yeah. So Lisa when she goes through her presentation, she can talk through that. Sir, it just kind of concerns me because we don't have a guaranteed price yet, right? So like we don't even know if other council members are going to vote for this or not and we're just spitting money that you know something that we don't know the guaranteed price is. You know, I'm just my opinion. You know, if the guarantee price is $ 1.5 billion, I mean, that's a lot of money that we're going to we have to vote for. And you know, I think we had that discussion already. So, I just um just a little concerned about the the price absolutely of the advertising of course. Yes. Any money right now? Thanks. Okay. Thank you, Drew. You're up. Okay. Good afternoon. Drew Molly, chief operating officer. Um so, uh there there are a lot of projects that we're considering right now in a very compressed amount of time. Um so given this extremely large effort uh we have engaged with an outside consultant firm uh to help us with these evaluations. Uh the consultant team that we um selected is Garver um and we gave them a notice to proceed on May 5th uh two weeks ago. We've met with this team several times in the last week providing them with project specific uh data for each of the water supply projects that I'm going to outline here in a second. Um so the first one on the list uh is the Noasis River groundwater well project and a total of four wells um have been installed with one totally completed today and then three others that are in some um uh form of of development. So the first well um the permanent so the first well the Oasis well groundwater well number one um we've actually had the permanent uh natural gas generator delivered to uh to that well. It's been installed and that well has been successfully running. In fact, we started it up yesterday. Uh we produced about one um 1,100 gallons per minute, which is equivalent to about a million and a half gallons a day. Um well number two, uh the permanent pump is going to be set in that well in about 2 weeks. It's been pump tested at 2 million gallons a day. Uh well number three is uh the pump is actually being designed. Um it has the permanent pump. The the the well has been test pumped at 2 million gallons a day. Uh well number four, the well has been drill drilled uh and test pumping is supposed to start next week. Uh well number five is in the it's actually being drilled now. So we actually have a drill rig out there continuing to work and drill. Uh and then well number six, we're actually going to be um starting drilling activity on that well next week. So, lots of progress on these wells. Um, another thing I wanted to update the council on is the fact that uh the temporary bed and banks permit application was uh submitted yesterday to the TCQ alongside with an administrative check that was handd delivered to them. Um, a letter to the governor's office was sent yesterday. A copy of that has been provided to you. The letter to the governor's office was just reminding the governor that we have met with them with the TCQ, our state legislative delegation. Everybody is in lock step with the fact that this is a short-term water supply that makes a lot of sense for us. Um and so that letter was sent to the governor's office yesterday. Um because the Noasis River groundwater project uh helps other cities like cities that have dependency even more so on Lake Corpus Christi than we do. cities like Matthysse, Alice, Beville, especially Matthysse and Beville. Um they have expressed a great interest in this project. They recognized that some of the water that we're putting in the rivers downstream of uh Wesley Seal Dam helps them. So we actually received a letter from the city of Matthysse supporting this project um that was sent to the governor's office. So those types of um efforts to work with our partners uh is certainly something that is important to not just us but to the region in terms of that solidarity. Um, as I mentioned last week during my presentation, um, part of this project that we believe has a lot of viability is is is phase one putting the water into the river on a temporary basis and then phase two exploring opportunities to utilize this water long-term as water that would be a source of water for a future brackish RORO uh, plant. Um, this project is being included in the region N uh, water plan. uh that allows us to have some flexibility in the future if we were to allow ourselves to get some funding from the uh state water implementation fund for Texas which is otherwise known as swift through the Texas water development board. Um so that so those are all the the updates uh in terms of the Noasis River groundwater project. Uh I'm going to add lib just a little bit uh because there's a couple other things I want to uh brief the council on in the community which is the Evangeline project. So, the Evangeline project is one that we are all familiar with. We've heard uh some of the folks from the Evangeline present at a water workshop not too long ago. We continue to evaluate this project, especially now that we have uh some help on an outside consultant team to look at this project as well as the other ones that we're looking at. Um we have a meeting tomorrow. Uh we're going to be talking to the Evangeline folks with our legal team, our technical team, talking about things like transport permits, surface rights, um and then just kind of more specific questions about the ownership of the groundwater itself. Um I will say that this project has already been included in the region end plan. It's been in the plan for quite some time. So it is eligible uh for swift funding through the Texas Water Development Board. Um, the next project I want to just mention quickly is the Eevee Ranch project. So, in fact, we we met with the Eevee Ranch folks today. Um, we had a we had a a a good discussion with them. In fact, uh, the C consultant team has just just texted me a second ago and they've already engaged with uh with the project lead for the EV ranch project. So, um, one other thing I want to mention with regards to the Eevee Ranch is that we believe in its viability. We believe it it it it could be a potential regional source of of of groundwater. In fact, we've added this project into the region end plan. So, we've committed uh funding from our own sorts to advance this project into the region N uh plan so that it could potentially be eligible for uh lowinterest financing uh in the future from the Texas Water Development Board. As far as the South Texas Water Authority project's concerned, um I think last week we heard general manager John Mes. He was here at the dis uh talking about his commitment to being a partner and looking at ways to explore uh for for the benefit of both the city and the South Texas Water Authority. We've shared um his contact information with one of his engineers with our team. So they're engaged uh uh talking about that potential project there. Uh and that project being the project that um uh uh 7C's so 7 C's is is actually developing uh a test well as we speak and so there's there's some activities going on there um that we're going to reach out to and get more information on as far as the uh reclaimed water project. Um you know that's another project that you've heard about. Uh we talked about it at the water workshop. Uh city council approved that on April 8th. We're continuing to advance that project. Uh it's also a project that we are putting into the region N plan. So there should be a funding opportunity. If there so chooses to be a project that that has viability, we'll have that identified. And we've committed funds to have that project evaluated just like we've committed funds to have the Eevee Ranch and the Noasis River groundwater project committed to the region end plan. Um so so with that said um I know that uh the city manager has mentioned we are committed to providing weekly updates uh at least in the form of a of a memo uh so that council is aware of the updates and the uh project schedule that we're implementing here. And um and so with that said I think I'm going to uh Can I just add a couple things to Drew's presentation? So, regarding the um the South Texas Water Authority, Councilman Hernandez and uh 7C's, we I saw Judge Madrid last week and following up from a prior request to his, I am scheduling meeting as he requested with him, the mayor, myself, Drew, and Commissioner or GM general manager Mes to hear about their project and and hear some of the u uh some of the ideas that Judge Madrid, the the county judge of uh Clayart County. So that's coming up regarding the wells project that would produce about 10 to 12 million ultimately at full buildout. So that's about onetenth of our water supply today just to give you some context on it. And when Drew talks about we're running them it's it's allowed right now without the permit. We run them just for a little bit of time to test equipment and then we have to turn it off because we don't have the permit. However, the application as Drew said was sent yesterday, submitted yesterday and we think about two weeks or so. Two to three weeks. Okay. It may be a little We're thinking it's Yeah. two weeks. Two weeks to for review for review and then hopefully um an answer, right? Correct. Yeah. So about two to three weeks on an answer on that, which would be great. It's well, it's called a temporary permit. It does have a three-year uh span. So we can use this temporary permit, so to speak, for three years if granted. Those additional letters, we want to thank the city of Matthysse and Beville and Alice who are sending endorsement letters to the one we sent the governor to say we want this project as well. And so they they know that regionally we're cooperating and um and then Evangeline and we're working with Garver both on Evangeline and the EV ranch project. We met this morning with Dr. Mintz. The key thing on this is we're working on a June 2nd kind of timeline to have some initial uh business feasibility so that on the 10th of June we can present that to the city council. So, it's an aggressive schedule, but uh Garver's uh is geared up with stab augmentation, and that's the importance on that is that there is we're working under a timeline. So, June 2nd, uh we hope to have some business case uh uh material developed that we can present to the council on June 10th. Thank you, Peter. Okay. Yes, sir. Okay. With that said, I think I'm turning this over to Alisa Olsen. Councilman Bon. Oh, I have a couple questions. So on that contract, the permit for three years, after that permit goes out, you could go back and get it reissued. Yes, we we we could reissue it. Okay. I'm going to ask you another question. I've already talked to you about this. And the reason I ask you is because people are asking. We're in stage three. They know we're getting more water. They see that we're getting more from Mary Roads. So I ask you this, how you're counting and how much were we using? Why can we not count the 10 MGDs from Formosa and what we've gotten? Can you explain that to the public? You you bet. So the the formosa water is you really can't add that on top of what we already have. The formosa water is to make sure that we don't run out and we don't overpump the eastern supplies throughout the rest of the year. And so frankly there are some vulnerabilities on both the Colorado River and there vulnerabilities even on Lake Texana. What I mean by that is is that um because the the drought has impacted not just our region but the Colorado re basin and the Lvaka Navad the Lava Lvaka Navad basin which is where we get Lake Texana water they they have not provided us with the interruptible water they typically do that every year and so as an insurance policy we've contracted that additional formosa water which is basically a guaranteed 10,000 acre feet of water to make up for the the water that we're likely not going to get from Lake Texana. It's also formosa is also an insurance policy in the event that the Colorado River uh curtails us and the Colorado River is one that's also under a lot of stress. uh LCR uh has indicated that they're in not indicated they are in stage two water restrictions uh drought restrictions and so essentially that formosa water is to help us ensure that we can get through the entire year and take our full schedule 4 pumping throughout the year. Okay. So what has to happen to get out of stage three because you said I think we're using 120 MGD before. So what has to happen to get out of stage three? Well, the short answer is is that to get out of stage three, we we have to uh exceed 30% in our combined reservoir. So, Choke Canyon, Lake Corpus Christi added together needs to be above the 30% threshold. If we get out of that, we're out. That's about double the amount of water that's in there today. Correct. It's about 14, you know, 14% today. So, you'd have to double that. We would have to double the uh height of both the combined Lake Corpus Christie and Choke Canyon. Okay. So, it's going to be a while. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, Councilman Hernandez. Yeah. Uh, thank you, Peter, for uh answering some of the questions I was going to ask about, uh, the South Texas uh, Water Authority. I think there's some real opportunity there considering what they're planning. Um, like to know specific details as to how much volume uh, could we could uh, get from that u opportunity. It's very similar to how Alice is doing their did their opportunity. You know, I I talked to their city manager recently and you know, their their cost on their water from their diesel facility is 395 per thousand gallons. So it, you know, I don't think it'll be that low considering the the construction cross elevation, but uh considering they do already have a a transmission line that goes between us and and Clayberg County, there there might be a lot less infrastructure needed uh in order to uh gain that water and also specific timelines on what kind of uh timeline they could get that water to us. Um it might be advantageous uh in the sense that kind of like how Evangelene can pump right into the Mary roads pipeline. They can they can uh provide that water that way. Well, and it's since it's another entity that's doing this. I think it's uh it would fit within what you're looking at. All right. Thank you. We'll keep you posted on that meeting. Councilman, we asked I asked it be scheduled yesterday. I'm not sure if it is yet, but it should be within the next two weeks. I think it's next week. What's that? Next week. I I believe at the end of next week, but I think we're still working on it. Okay. We'll keep Councilman Hernandez informed. Uh, Councilman Ku. Drew. Um, how long does it take to get a permit back for the um water wells? So, we submitted the permit application yesterday. Okay. We have been told by TCQ that we should expect about a two-e review assuming that there's no RFI request for information from them. Then they would advertise the permit. Uh I believe it's for 30 days. Um but they have to advertise it publicly and then at that point the permit would be secured. So we're we're estimating permit time frame would be end of the month of June. Okay. So it'll be pretty quick. I hope so. Yeah. Hopefully they're not listening to us. So what happens if we just pump water inside the lake right now? Only at night and then we just just asking we need water. So what's what could happen? Well, I I will tell you this. I I you know, we want to be good stewards and and work closely with TCQ because they are a regulator and they do a lot good. So, I I would like to think that's why we've engaged the governor's office because the governor has helped us immensely with the declaration of an emergency situation with the drought. And I will say that um there's been a lot of really good synergy uh not just with our council of course, but with the electeds uh at the state level, right? So they have been big supporters of this and the the even the TCQ all the way up to their executive director who I I was in touch with yesterday just you know letting them know that this application was coming the letter to the governor was coming so there were no surprises. Uh I think there's been a really good communication line in in in all aspects of this project. So I I think that the TCQ is very committed to making sure that we get this permit. uh they understand that, you know, we are absolutely going to protect the wershed that we're putting this water into and and that this is a good the permit for all of them, right? Yes, sir. It's an aggregated permit. Yes, sir. I was thinking it would take like 6 months to a year or something crazy, but a month is not too bad. Under maybe normal circumstances, it might take longer, but I given the the situation we're in, I think they're very committed to us. I said we wait for the permit then. Thank you. Good call. Yeah, TCQ is giving us kind of preferential treatment. TCQ is. So sir, uh, also on the brief in the memo that we sent this past Friday for to councilwoman Vaughn asked the price spent to per date for the the wells. So that was included. I forget the number. Was it 6 million something? 6 mill. So to date for the dollars spent to date for the five or six wells and and the generator and and some of the pumps is about 6 million. The nice thing about this project though is once the infrastructure is in, the only cost we have is for the generators run on natural gas and minor maintenance from the team. So we don't have to pay any water royalties or water rights. Uh this it's water that we can pump and that infrastructure will be wellmaintained and and have a you know 10 to 30 year lifespan and some of it. So uh the price is initial but after that it's it's basically free water. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Councilman Scott, uh, I thought Caroline brought a great point and it made me think about firm yield and the the the slides that I'm sure clearly communicated the new firm yield, which I've since forgotten. Uh, I think that's the backdrop for all of this is uh what did what have we always thought our firm yield was? Uh, what does our firm yield look like for the last five years? And then I don't know if there's somebody out there that can help us extrapolate what we think the next 20 years are going to be because if our firm yield was 190 190 189,000 round up to 190,000 acre feet is is what the firm yield and it was adjusted um back after the record drought. So it used to be higher than that and then there was um basically a rescending of some water that we had uh on Lake Texana um because there was I think it was Formosa actually um had some water that was rescended from us and so the firm yield was adjusted um and I know Estabbon Ramos would know more about this but the the the the details are that that it was lowered. Remember that. So so that 190 is all combined. I'm most curious about the lakes. What I'm curious about is the two lakes firm yield and and what did it used to be kind of what it I don't know if I asked this right but what's it been over the last five years four years uh and does that mean we're going to change that number going forward because certainly if the next five years look at the last five years then that number is profoundly less you know which which goes into the ability to get to 30% right so on a normal year we can kind of guess, you know, if it rain rains like it did in I don't remember, I don't know, 2016, then we should be there fairly quickly. But if it rains like it did last year, it's just never going to move. And so could could that can maybe the next time we visit, can you just as a backdrop here the lakes firm yield, here's our overall firm yield. I realize that we lost some formosa. I remember that. But I don't really feel like I understand what we think our current firm yield is because I I do think that taints all of these conversations and it provides backdrop saying we you know it's it's the three-legged stool, right? We need it all. Um so that was number one. Number two, I'd be curious as to what the Alice permitting timeline is. I don't know if that's public data when they first made their per or when they hired their first whatever that is if that's possible. Uh, and do if you if you make water for yourself, uh, like Alice is doing for Alice, is that a different permitting process as opposed to, you know, making water and shipping it to another county? Does that change? Well, yes. If they were going to transport water um across a a groundwater conservation district boundary, they would have to get a transport permit, but they're keeping that water in Okay. in in the district. So, they have a couple permits. They have a discharge permit that they have to attain because, you know, they're taking they're desulting. That's what they're doing. They're they're desaltting groundwater. And when they desalt, they have to put it somewhere. And so, they put it in a creek that has to be permitted by TCQ. Um, and so they had to get that permit. They also have to get a permit from TCQ just to uh put the water into their distribution system. And so right now, uh, as I understand and talking to the city manager of of Alice, they're getting closer to getting that permit from TCQ to actually put the water in their distribution system at the city of Alice. I think they're expecting that. Last I heard, I think it was like in the June time frame. So, so the the difference would be you'd have to get a permit to to move the water outside the groundwater conservation district. That that has nothing really to do with the uh TCEQ. That's just can we can we move water out of our our district and so we would need to get that from on the uh what the evangelene yes we need and E ranch as well and Eevee country we would need to do it for the the seven C's as we'll call it we would need to get one or somebody would if Alice participated but I don't I don't see that uh okay so how long does it take to permit say I'm sorry how long would it take seven C's to permit their project. I I wonder I'm curious as to how soon we could get that water. Whe let's just say they double their their supply. What does that you know what how long does it take to get that water corpus? You don't have to answer today, but I think that's a a relevant question is if they do increase their capacity and we are able to change the direction of the pipe, how soon can we get that water? Now, I guess if you change the direction of the pipe, you couldn't put our two It's two million gallons a day that's going south, correct? Which is interesting, I guess. So, if if South Texas Water Authority gave up their 2 million gallons a day, that would add to our right supply also, right? Because you couldn't, right? You move it south. And this is it's a bit complicated because I think South Texas Water Authority is wanting to make sure that they have multiple sources of water. So I I I believe in conversations with them. They they there's a contract that we are, you know, working on because their contract expires at the end of the year and they they clearly want to stay connected to the city um for our water because it's a it's another source of water for them. It's not then councilman just to put just to uh I don't have the number of months or years, but it's not a quick turnaround because they have to build a reverse osmosis reverse osmosis type treatment plant. So you have to bring power in, build the construct the plant, get the permits to discharge the the brine if you will. So it's pro it's not months, it's probably a year, years. Yes. Yeah. It's a longer lead type project just so everybody knows. But it's good it's one look worth looking into. They we know 7C's is serious about it and Judge Madrid is as well. So we're going to look at that next week. Okay. Thank you, Councilman. Uh Councilwoman Compos. Thank you, Mayor. I I just wanted the Did you already mention the timeline? What is the timeline for the um reclaim water infrastructure project with Garver? I mean, it just says uh approved by city council on April the 8th. What is the timeline for that? That's the project that I'm I mean, I'm glad that the groundwater I mean, my gosh, we're able to get all this water with what under $8 million, something like that. Six, is it? Under six. Yeah. Well, I think he was at six. So anyway, um, so I'm trying to see if we can where we're at on the reclaimed water if you could give us a timeline. Did you already share that or you don't know that? I I don't I don't have a specific timeline. We we we literally just got them notice to proceed it up to to start. So I can I can bring back uh some information that would suggest or show kind of, you know, the schedule and what we've anticipated coming forward. But, you know, it's a it's about a 12-month project to to move this forward. We have to do source water characterization studying. That takes takes time to do that. In other words, we're going to all the wastewater plants or at least five out of the six and we're basically excuse me testing the water uh as part of that uh characterization and that is a regulatory requirement. So TCQ is going to ask for that information. Okay. Okay. would that would I mean I know that the you know not just me but I hope hopefully I think some of the other um you know water customers are anxious to see how fast we could get this project here. So um anyway I'm hopeful. Thank you. Thank you councilwoman. I think that's all the questions and comments Drew. Okay. What do we have a third this third part? Okay. So, what what we're going to do is we're going to hear this third part and then we're going to break for lunch and I'll pass the consent agenda before we break for lunch. We'll come back and then uh finish off with grant activity update and the briefing on the 89th Texas legislation or legislative session. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. My name is Alisa Olsen and I'm the director of communications. Um today I'm going to talk to you about three separate but very much related education campaigns that we're currently running at this time. And councilman, I'm happy to address your question about cost as soon as I go through them so that it'll make sense. Um, so the first thing I wanted to share with you today is that we have an inner harbor water treatment campus website. Many of you may have seen it, but if you haven't, um, there it is. Um, for those in the audience or watching on the live stream, the website address is cct.info/interh harbor. But I do believe each of you was handed a little card with uh the website address and a QR code on it so that you can take a look at it in your own time. It's a great website. Um it has a whole lot of informative content um about the project um about why the coastal bend needs seawater desalination about frequently asked questions which we frequently update as new questions arise. Project timelines are in included project details. There's information about the procurement process there. We offer also have a couple of videos on the homepage of that website. One of them is a real high level um how del works kind of kind of video um kind of a desalination 101 for people who may be new to the technology concept. And we have a deeper dive video which was our recently published inside city hall segment where we interviewed some experts who were talking about um the various environmental aspects of the project. Um, and of course the project presentations that Brett is sharing with you every other week are also um added to this website. So today I'm going to talk to you about three distinct but very much related education campaigns that we are working on. The first is a local education campaign um all about the Inner Harbor Water Treatment Campus. The second is a statewide education campaign with the Texas Tribune. And the third is a local education campaign focused on the city's four tiered approach to water security. And so what are what are our goals with all of this advertising and and all of these campaigns? Um well, they're to educate and inform all of the various audiences about what the city of Corpus Christi is doing to secure water. um to educate and inform residents and the community about the Inner Harbor Water Treatment Campus to ensure that people can find the details if they want to dive deep into those details and clarify facts that they may have heard. Um and also through the websites that each campaign has associated with them. Um we want to make sure that people have the ability a mechanism to ask questions and get their questions answered. So I'll dive right into the first campaign. The first um as I mentioned is a local um education campaign promoting the Inner Harbor Water Treatment Campus. The audience for this one is residents and the local community. The campaign includes paid Facebook and Instagram advertising. Now why paid you might think? So let me just go ahead and answer that question because paid reaches a whole lot more people. So when we do a post on our city Facebook or Instagram account, um the people that see it are the the smaller number of people that follow us. Whereas with paid, we can extend a geographic digital boundary around all of the area that we provide water to and we can show those ads to all those people that might be looking whether they follow our individual page or not. So that's why we do paid. It reaches more people. We also um through this campaign are doing two things with Google. We're doing uh paid Google search ads as well as Google display ads. Now all of you have probably seen search ads. What that means is is when someone is typing something in and they're looking for something, you see a sponsored result at the very top of the page. That's what we're doing. We're making sure if there there are people that are interested in our project that when they type something into Google that we come up right at the top and they go to that Inner Harbor Water Treatment Campus website and they get all the information that they need. Um Google Display is a little different. What that is is banner ads. Google has a network of hundreds of websites um where they'll let you put your banner ads. And so for example, you might see them on Yahoo News or CNN or Fox News or some completely different unnews website, right? There are hundreds of websites and so people in the region again geo fenced around the area where we serve water uh where we serve people with water. Uh they'll be seeing our ads virtue of looking at the sites that they do for news and entertainment and information every day. and we'll have a radio campaign that's a part of this contract. So, our Google search ads actually already started. They began on April 1st. Um, the remaining digital content will begin in the next two weeks and the radio ads will begin on June 2nd. So, this is what it looks like. So, the campaign tagline is what fills your cup. And through our what's fills your cup campaign, we show how having access to clean available water keeps all of our cups full. both literally and figuratively. So, what fills your cup? Clean, safe drinking water. What fills your cup? Solving a regional water crisis. What fills your cup? A droughtproof solution proven worldwide. What fills your cup? Flowing taps and a healthy bays. So, that's the gist of it. You get people's attention, they click on the ad, they go to the Inner Harbor Water Treatment Campus website, and they're able to read all the details. That's the first one. The second one I think you may have heard of a little bit about last week. Um, this is a statewide education campaign through the Texas Tribune. If you've never heard of the Texas Tribune or you're not familiar with it, it is a very well- read online publication with an audience of elected officials and business and community leaders across the state. Now, this campaign was a strategic decision. We launched it in January, and it is exactly the length of the Texas legislative session. And what we wanted to do with this campaign was complement and amplify all of the good work that our mayor and council members and business leaders and city staff are doing when they go to Austin by making sure that people who are reading this publication are seeing the message that we're delivering in person over and over and over. This campaign um featured webs uh website ads on the Texas Tribune website. It featured a sponsored uh what they call a sponsored post, which is the paid uh article that you saw last week that was on the Texas Tribune website. And it included um a lot of ads in their email newsletters blasts, which they have lots of them and tens of thousand pe of tens of thousands of people read them, excuse me. So far, this campaign is still running. It runs till the end of this month. So far, we've had over a 100,000 impressions on the website. Now, what an impression is is it's it's one set of eyeballs on an ad, right? So, an ad comes up, we count that as an impression if it's displayed to a person. So, we've had over 100,000 website impressions, more than 80,000 impressions on the email campaigns that go out to their subscribers and over 900 clicks on those ads. That means 900 people who may not have ever visited the Inner Harbor Water Treatment Campus website clicked on it and visited that website. So, we're super excited about this campaign. And the third campaign that I wanted to talk to you about today hasn't quite begun yet, although we have designed the collateral and purchased the advertising space and we're about to start rolling it out. And this is all focused on it's local here in the Corpus Christie region and it is all focused on the city's four tiered approach to water security. So the audience again here is residents and local community. It in the campaign includes a campaign web page which is not live yet but what you're seeing on the screens is a a mockup of what that web page is going to look like. It includes another inside city hall video where we interview some city staff and experts on all the different about all the different things that we're doing to ensure water security in the Corpus Christie region. It in of course includes a media relations strategy um where we put out press releases and we schedule interviews for leaders and we make sure that people um are are out there in the media being interviewed and talking about the project. Um, again, this will include uh paid Facebook and Instagram ads for the same reason. You can just reach so many more people by doing it that way. Um, and some television commercials and radio commercials. And my apologies, but I left one off. We also have two billboards that'll be launching. This campaign, like I said, is is all in development. We're almost ready to go, and it will launch on June 2nd in a couple of weeks. This is what the creative looks like for that particular campaign. um you know the shape of a billboard and the shape of a postcard and the shape of a digital ad. They're all different but this is generally it. So securing water sustaining tomorrow, the city's four tiered approach to water security. And we're listing the four tiers as seawater desalination, pipeline and expansion, lakes and reservoirs and groundwater wells. Now we're intentionally not using any water jargon, right? We're trying to keep the language simple so that the most number of people possible can understand what we're talking about. Again, when you click on these ads or you see a commercial on TV, there will be context included with it. Um or if they click on it, it will go to a website. So, I'm just going to go ahead and proactively answer the councilman's question um about cost. There are three uh three separate campaigns that were launched at three separate times. So, the Texas Tribune campaign was $30,000 for that entire duration of the Texas legislative session. Um, the what fills your cup campaign is $49,995. Um, and that will take us all the way through the end of this fiscal year. So, all that advertising is included in that as well as the creative that you saw. And the four tiered water approach is approximately $43,000. And the reason I'm giving you an approximate on that last one as opposed to a hard number is because we actually already have purchased the billboards and the radio and the TV and we're using them for our stage three um education campaign to let the community know about the drought in stage three. And what we're going to do for the remainder of the fiscal year, the remainder of the contracts is just drop in some additional advertising into that same campaign. So we had to do a little math, right? we had to take take what we had what had already run figure out the rest and divide it in half and that's why it's an approximation and I absolutely and I'm happy to take any additional questions that you have thank thank you Councilwoman Compos um thank you Elise and and thank you Councilwoman Ku for asking that question I think I quickly total it to 123,000 um yes ma'am roughly roughly on what? Propaganda. Propaganda. That's the way I see it. There's no reason for us to be a to go out there and, you know, uh sell this uh project that may not even come to fruition. Uh cuz we don't know yet. Uh we don't know what the final cost is is going to be and that is going to be the final determination for this council. So to me, it's inappropriate and I, you know, I hope that the rest of the council feels this way that we need to quit this. This is horrible. I I don't approve of it. I don't accept it. And uh again, just terrible waste of money. Thank you for your feedback. Yeah, Councilwoman C Paxton. Thank you, Mayor. Um I have a couple of questions over the whole presentation. I'll try to keep it short and I'll start with the communication side since you are graciously still here. Um, just going over the slides and what you've articulated, it it looks like to me, campaigns one and two are are exclusively pretty much about the Inner Harbor Delaw plant. Yes, ma'am. That's correct. which is the 50 and 30,000. So that's 80,000. And then um it's not until we get to three and four that we look at all of the water solutions that the the third campaign is is about all of the water solutions. So, I I say the same thing to any of the department heads that I work on on any of the items that we that we deal with, regardless of the department, regardless of the industry, regardless of what what the item is. to me, similar to what um council member um Compost just said, we just spent $80,000 to advertise something that we haven't deliberated final approval for. I realize that you are executing on what you've been asked to do. So, I apologize that you're kind of wearing the target board right here. And I recognize that puts the staff in positions where they're having to follow mandates, but unfortunately with the way the system is set up, this is my platform to explain my philosophy and whether or not I have questions, comments, or concerns with anything we're presented. So, please understand that's that's just the dynamic. So, I I have a little bit of a a problem and and maybe Peter, I'll redirect that at you since of course I recognize our PIO director isn't the one necessarily leading these charges. When we make the statement on campaign one, solving a regional water crisis with 30 million gallons a day, 30 million gallons a day doesn't solve a a regional water crisis. It certainly helps our quota of water, but 30 million gallons a day doesn't solve anything. which kind of puts me back to it's not until we get to that third campaign that we're actually looking at a comprehensive solution for our water problem. So I feel like I've said this at nauseium since I've gotten elected is 30 million gallons doesn't solve a regional problem. That's why we do things like every week can we get an update on all of all of our water sources? It takes a collection. Our daily consumption is 100 million gallons a day. 30 million doesn't doesn't fit the bill. So, I have some frustration. I'll say that. I have some frustration being a part of a body that's saying we're solving a regional water crisis. Ma'am, we can we can ditch that particular ad. No, no, let's go ahead and finish. Go ahead and finish. Thank you. when we're not looking at the comprehensive statement and and from what we just presented here or what what we received is this stuff has been running since April 1 even if we fixed it at this point in time this is the philosophy you know it's it's hard for us sitting up here to say you know yes yes yes when it's when it's very pigeon pigeon holed and I hope that you're understanding my sentiment here we have to we have to make sure that The city of Corpus Christi recognizes the inner harbor treatment plant is one piece of the puzzle. It happens to be right now our most expensive piece and arguably perhaps the most furthest along, but it is one piece of a full picture. I do not want to be a part of the city leadership that says this is our only solution and we are capping oursel and our future potential into one. And I am afraid that in trying to say everybody support Inner Harbor, it's a great solution that we're we're capping ourselves at a small potential. And I don't I don't like that messaging. Yeah. Um Councilwoman, so in this uh in the how we're set up as an entity, we uh with the elections every two years, a massive project like this uh has been going on for 10 years. So that it there's an overlap in the council philosophy, right? We were told last council we're way behind on a campaign. Get a campaign going. Help the community understand what this project is. That's what this is. So, it comes from the prior council. Then it's just part of the dynamic of this government, which is this change every two years. You know, because of the two-year nature of the council, we're working under the direction that we very clearly told to us. Just as adamant as you're talking right now, the prior council talked was almost more adamant saying, "You guys need a campaign. where's your campaign? So, we've been working on the campaign and we're delivering it. And I I can't it's the nature of the government. You know, it's the nature of the two-year cycle and there's elections and there's term limits and uh I understand that. I appreciate that and I sympathize with that. But having all of us in this seat since January and these ads going out in April, I feel like especially with these alternative water solution updates weekly being a huge priority to us, I feel like this council since January has made it very I think clear that we need a lot of water sources. We do. And so that's the second point you raised and I I would say that the the campaign and Lisa can talk about the strategy. There's certain segments that we're trying to educate and there's nothing wrong with educating the community. They've asked for it. Um but it's not just one egg in one basket. You know, we're not putting all of our eggs in one basket. We know Drew just gave you an update, gave the council and the community an update. We have numerous sources. Nobody on this team has ever said we're going to just do one source and that's it. Uh the campaign, Alisa can talk to the strategy on the campaign. We know and we've been saying it as Councilman Scott has said it, it's not an or, it's an and. We need ants. We need numerous water projects. That's why we're working on the wells. We're looking at EB Ranch Evangeline. We're looking at South Texas Water Authority with seven C's. We're looking at Delies. We're looking at reuse. Uh and we're trying to get some rain. Forget our So when I look at this communications campaign number three, yeah, securing water, sustaining tomorrow. That's the phrase there. That to me is what the people need to see here. Austin needs to see future development, future investors, securing water for tomorrow. And it lists these four pillars down here that to me more comprehensively comp shows the picture of all of our efforts. I mean, we bug you guys constantly. Where are we at on the wells? Where are we at on all of this? Right. This campaign is local. This is a local campaign. This is not Texas Tribune. This is local. That's where I'm having a problem because it's if I need to invest in a city and I'm and I and I'm thinking far long term 30 million gallons. Yes, it's an achievement and it's historic, but we need to this needs to be Oh, wow. Corpus Christie is doing not one but multiple. Good point. We can add that to the Texas Tribune. Thank you, Councilwoman. So, so a few things. Um the this campaign is is critical as he said many council of multiple councils ago the decision was made by the majority to move desalination forward. To date we have invested over $200 million. So you know my comment is today why is this so late? That's my comment is all of this is happening in June, right? And and I'm being a little silly, but what I'm saying is the decision has been made. Yes, there's going to be a vote to to to vote on, you know, a final the G, excuse me, the guaranteed maximum price, but the decision has been made. We have spent over $200 million. Well, what you know, an investment of over 200. So, so is this in line with what we are doing? Absolutely. And I have harped about it to no end. Because when I get people asking, well, I don't know what y'all are doing. To your point, I believe my other comment was going to be, you know, great statewide, but you know, that's cheerleading. That's great. And I don't have a problem with it. And I think everyone on this council needs to respect each other's stance. I don't care what side of the line you you you sit on. It's it's there are people up here who a thousand% believe in desalination and others that don't. And I think we need to respect that. That that's what this council is about is is all sides of issues, many many issues. So that said, this in my opinion I wish was out you know 6 months ago. Honestly, I I have been harsh on that because when people ask me, "What are you doing?" And I go, I get into my I could recite it right here because I've said I've done it a thousand times or more. Well, we're drilling wells along Noises Bay and that's going to garner blah blah blah blah blah blah. And when we're doing the um you know, the the we the pipeline, you know, we we improved it at a very high cost and that yielded us an extra 20 MGD and that is priceless across the state of Texas. The governor is telling us way to go. Please keep going. Please keep what going? Being innovative. There is no other city in this state who is saying I can do this or that outside of whatever their their means is to get water. So, so I think and and I know it's as you mentioned, Peter, you you said it well. Every two years we have a new council and and and we have to all work together to move us forward in a hundred different directions, you know, with different topics, but but this is a this is a decade old uh action. I I this has been in motion and and there has I mean I know you don't necessarily I'm not missing the point. Yes or no? I I know that right. But but what you're not yes or no. I didn't say it was yes or no. Councilwoman, what I'm saying is you're asking like why are we why are we doing this? Why are we doing the campaign? Why are we one not four? Well, it's all of it. Because it's all of it. Remember, there are nine people on a council and when when nine people make a decision to say maybe we want it here, there we want it across the board, then then that's what's done. But that's something that is easily ma'am hang on please. you had your you had your time. So, we have a communication strategy which can obviously be changed if if people have different views. Um, but here's the other thing I have to correct and I need you to come up. 30 MGD was not pulled out of the sky. 30 MGD was this team here didn't get together and say, you know what, 30 sounds good. 30 MGD is based on a water plan that says this is what we need to the year 2040. So it's exactly what we need. Exactly. So I always use the analogy a builder is not going to build 5,000 homes on his property when he knows he can only sell based on the population and the need 2500 of them. Right? He's going to build 2500. is going to sell every single one of those as quick as he can to get his money back. We cannot build more than 30 MGD because there is not a need for it to 2040. There is a plan. We didn't make up that plan. That's a statewide plan. Now, the next plan goes to 2070. Now, when you're looking at 2070, now we're talking another what was it? 40. It we're we're short. We need more water for the 2070 plan. No, I know that. But I'm saying what is it from 2040 to 2070? The additional MGD. Well, it doesn't matter. Okay. Today we're talking about 2030 and and that's why I just wanted to make sure that was said and you can you can um expand on that because I remember thinking the same thing and saying but 2030 is not I mean 30 is not going to it's not going to take us to the end of you know eternity. But that's not what it's meant to do. we can't afford who's going to pay for more. But let you expand on that, please. Well, and I'll just say this. Look, 30 million gallons a day of water is a lot of water. I mean, if you if you were to think um that 30 million gallons a day satisfies the need for the city of Laredo, the the city of Leach, I mean, 30 million gallons a day, if you just kind of run what the normal math would be for a per capita per day, uh it it it would satisfy the needs of a population of 200,000 people. So, it absolutely is a lot of water. Um, but I think the the the the the point is is that, you know, it's 30 and we're going to continue to look for other supplies because we know that 30 is a lot, but we want to make sure that we have other supplies that are being looked at, leveraged, and developed. Okay. And and I and I think the education part of it is is critical no matter what because you know should this continue to move forward and let's say we you know June of 28 or July of 28 we're actually building that that plan which is you know hopefully the plan then we have to be able to say we educated the public that we we made an effort in this the historic you know uh decision to let them know what we're doing and how were doing it. Now, I agree with Councilwoman. I don't know. I'm not crazy about Not too crazy. I think it was just a one-time thing through the legislative session, you know, but spending that money more on the local and the here's what we're doing here in our own backyard and and drilling that in. But I think that's something that can be changed because, you know, you can reallocate that to to do something local. Let me move on um so we can get the rest of the council members. Councilwoman Vaugh, I thought Gil was before me. He's not. Oh, okay. That's good. No, that's fine. Sorry, Bill. He hit his button first. Propaganda is a ugly word. I hate that word. It's It's when a person is biased and intentionally mislead somebody, it's misleading information. So, I don't look at it like that. Um because what you're doing is you're talking about the inner harbor. That's what you're talking about. Can we talk about other things? Yes, we can talk about all our other water sources and that's what I think they're saying we want to do and I understand that. But I don't think that this is propaganda what y'all did. I really like what fills your cup. Thank you. I like the way it sounds. One thing that I think y'all missed that I wished you would do because this was a big issue for me is the whole communication and education was to let the public know we are in a water crisis and a lot of people still to this day unbelievable do not know that. So I think there needs to be a focus on that and I think there also needs to be a focus on conserving water because even when we get out of this let's just say you build the del let's just say we do all these other water sources which I think a lot of council members want to do. We still need to start conserving water because we will the day will come just like it did again we will be in a drought. So I wish we would focus more Mr. on conserving water and letting them know there is a water crisis, but I'm not offended by this. We have been calling for communication and education since I got on this council and I know things were done before we got here. Will those decisions stand? I don't know. But there is a reason that you did. So, I'm not going to criticize you for that. I think I love what fills your cup. Thank you. Yeah, Councilwoman Von, thank you. I did I provided that same input to Alisa. So she's working with the consultant on con because conservation is one of our pillars, you know, if you will. So it needs it's going to be added to the campaign. I asked for it last week when she briefed me on this. Carolyn employees questions on conserving. They have lots of great crazy ideas, but they work. So involve your community because they're part of it. Just an idea. Great idea. Thank you. To include things like the rain barrel, you know that when I ask Drew is going to give us an update on that some soon. People are asking about can we buy rain barrels. We usually have an annual campaign, right? So, yeah, we'll be sharing that soon with the council. So, I think that's a great great point, Councilwoman. Um, and honestly, Peter, I it was the last two councils who have brought up just the the cons uh conservation Yes. campaign and and really and and you're very familiar with it. Yeah, San Antonio has a strong one and and I know it takes a lot of money to do that, but I think that to your point, people don't realize it and there's there are little ways, but it's all about, you know, educating them. So, I I think that's a great idea, Councilwoman. Uh, Councilman, well, why is your like Gil wants to be last? He's not. Oh, he's been strategically banana. Mayor, thank you. Um, first off, um, I, you know, everybody, everybody asked me, "Is anything wrong?" Because I've been so quiet lately. Well, but anyway, um, but I just wanted to number one, thank you for the job you're doing. Thank you. I think I think the campaign is beautiful. I know we've been asking for it for a long time. I know, you know, for six years I've been advocating for this. So, I'm one of the ones that, you know, you could go back to and and I'm proud of the work that you're doing. I think it was an amazing idea to put it in the Texas Tribune. during the to to Texas legislature. So that way, you know, es particularly because we're getting so much um support from the governor of Texas, uh from the lieutenant governor, from um you know, Senator Perry, um you know, he went and spoke specifically uh at a Texas Tribune uh question and answer session and he spoke specifically about Corpus Christi. And he even asked him, "What's the number one project right now that you guys are looking at?" and he said Corpus Christi. And so, uh, I think that fits in line very well. I joke around though that, uh, you know, I I I'm a I'm a big fan of the Texas Tribune fan and, uh, and I used to be an even bigger fan until I read my name in it when they said Corpus Christie oversold its water was the headline, which I disagreed with, but I think that was propaganda. That was just more prop that was propaganda in my opinion. So, uh, what is it? So, I think great job. I think one of the things is that the the resonance is that we is that all the low cost lowcost alternatives have been exhausted. the lowcost alternatives have been exhausted and I just pleased that you know maybe perhaps in your presentation at some time or another and I think I talked to you about this Drew over the weekend is that we look at all these resources of which we're saying and that we have Garver perhaps give us a cost associated with each one and just we just need to confirm that so that way we have it documented and that's something that the council can have and that can be available um as I indicated the I put that here and then you know collectively Oh man. And I just had an email here that I was re that I went back to. You know, it is a regional program. It is a regional program. I mean, it's seven counties that we provide water for. 500,000 residents. Um what is it? Uh and then the people that we meet with regularly are the Violet Water Supply, City of Val, City of Beville, City of Matthysse, South Texas Water Authority, Noasis County, uh uh Water Wicked number three, Patricia Municipal Water District. It it is a regional plan. Everybody's looking at it. The entire world is looking at us. You know, um Corpus Christi has geopolitical consequences. We reduce the dependency on foreign oil and Chener is the largest producer of liqufied natural gas in the entire in the entire country and they reduce the dependency on Russian coal. So I think it's very important we get that message out. I know people are shocked uh what is it uh um you know when when we make statements like that as to where uh and so it's you know we provide fuel for DFW you know for Austin Burkstrom so we have an impact and I've said you've heard me say it before I'm not going to talk about my kids but you know but we've heard me say it before that we have uh what happens in Corpus Christi has global consequences and has uh consequence quences to global travel. So it's very important and then national travel, international travel. So Corpus Christie is very important and so I think this is this is just looking at it at from a standpoint of you know the words. I mean I I I just I just in my opinion it's a little myopic but I I I understand the the meaning behind it but I think I think great job. I just want to commend you great job. I you know I heard a couple of people bounce on you but I wanted to tell you great job. Great job Peter. Thank you. and and your team. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Hernandez. Thank you, Mayor. You know, before I was elected to council for the first time, I had a lot of distrust for government. Since I've been on council for more than six years now, I have even less trust of government. Now, whether you intended this to be propaganda or not, it's probably going to be perceived that way because I don't think we've ever done any kind of campaign to this extent for anything. And so, anytime the government puts a lot of effort in a campaign, you almost get the opposite effect, especially since, you know, we've had, you know, the co shot is safe advertising. you know that there there's a lot of distrust in government and when you do something like this it it echoes of Pravda. For those of you who don't know Pravda is it was the official newspaper of the communist government. So I think you need to be very careful on how much you put how much you do this because it's going to be perceived that way. I perceived it that way when she said it. I had had that same sentiment. I'm not saying it is. I'm not saying that was your intent. I'm not saying that's your intent. I'm not saying that's the mayor's intent. I'm just saying that's what it's it could be perceived at if you go at it at this kind of level because we have never done this like this ever. I can't think of any other campaign on anything that we've done as a city. Heck, we don't even promote the bonds like this, you know. So, I want to make sure you understand. Yeah. You know that the there's a general distrust of government. Heck, it goes back as far as the 80s. I think Ronald Reagan made the joke, I'm here from the government to help you. You know, it was a joke. So, I I want to be very cautious about this. You know, you had a react you had some visceral reactions from some council members here on this particular campaign. And there's no no offense to you. If this was a product, uh I probably wouldn't have had any issues with it. But because this is a government entity promoting a specific issue with only positives, no negatives, uh no pros and cons, this is this can be this is very much well perceived as propaganda whether you intended that to be or not. So I I I commend Councilwoman um Paxton for suggesting that we do more than this. And let me just say that, you know, we have dragged our feet with other options for four years. We had opportunities to do other things. Groundwater, wastewater reuse, uh, you know, communicate with CC Polymers. We we we put all our eggs in this basket and now we're in this situation. Uh, it, you know, it doesn't go for a lot of trust in in what our city government is doing. And, you know, I'm here. I'm part of it. You know, so it's, you know, I can tell you what my perception is and that's what it is. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I would have to say that, you know, this is the single largest investment that the city of Corpus Christie is making. And that's why that's why we're doing that's why there's a there must be a campaign uh communications campaign for desalination. Um it's an issue that it isn't just a I I don't know how to explain it. Anything across the board. I mean, this is water. So, so we can look back, councilman, all day and talk about 2014, I don't know, 20 what? What mark? What year were you on? Uh 18. Okay, let's go to what? Oh, stop. 74. My point is Oh, okay. Okay. But we can go back and talk about any year you choose that. It's just not constructive. It's not constructive. This is the team now. This is the team and and we move forward and we move as a majority. That's the way it works. That's the way it works. So So um I respect I just talked about respecting. I respect and I thank you for saying the same about me, Councilman. I respect your um your opinions. I do. Um but but to answer your question simply, this is the single largest and most important decision that any council since 18 is that 52, right? 32 I can't see it. It's 1852. Um since then. And and it deals with water. And so uh do we need a campaign? Yeah, let's go and do one because uh we're talking about educating the very people who are paying for this. So, Councilwoman Compuls, is this your second time? Yes. Go ahead. Okay. Um that being uh Okay. The largest investment and I think there would have been a buy in had it been um a voter approved project. So, you know, I've harped over that as well. I also wanted clarification on the statement that our mayor made about us have spenting uh 200 million. Brett, I think I asked you that just last week. How much had we actually spent? And I thought I I wrote it down in my notes, but it's way less like what$ 18 million or something like that. It wasn't nowhere near where uh 200 million because that's that was important. But the other thing at least while he's looking for that is I do want to apologize to you specifically because I know you're just doing your job. It is the the decision of of some of our other of our council members and and specifically I guess our mayor um cuz she has been the number one I mean laser focus is I believe you have said on this uh and as being a team member uh a team member that I don't agree with this decision and I will continue to be vocal on that decision and um the other thing is you know us about planning ahead we did plan ahead mayor We planned ahead on the mayor roads pipeline and it was supposed to have last I believe to 2050 but you know what happened? Hello, we oversold the water. So no, it was not propaganda. It was a fact. So I'm sorry Brett, what was it? So our our total commitments today paid to just Keywood and Frieza nickels is at 20 million. 20 and we have additional commitments we paid to consultants over the last couple years which is between two and three million. Okay. So about 23 million, right? Okay. Thank you. Way off 200 million. Thank you. So, so we've not sold any bond. We've not done anything prior to Yes, we have. Yeah. I think Excuse me. I think what the mayor said is that there's a commitment of 200 million. She if you look at the tape, Excuse me. I'm speaking I'm speaking council woman. Okay. She doesn't want to hear the answer. She doesn't want to hear it. The the mayor said a second statement which is that we have a commitment for 200 million. That's what we issued bonds for. We have bonds that we're paying back and they're in trust right now for phase one of this project. That total 200 million, right? Yeah. We've issued the debt. It's in the It's in a trust account, right? We've issued pay, right? So, it it is. So, let's repeat that. Councilwoman's back. Okay. Uh what the mayor said is that there's a commitment of 200 million that the city has pledged in the forms of issuing debt that we're obligated to pay back. The money is in the bank. It's in a trust fund right now. Uh Brett's statement is accurate as well. You said 22 million that has been spent, but we have 200 million that we have a commitment on, that we've issued, that we've sold bonds for, right, with the Texas Water Development Board being a partner, and that money is in the bank. So, thank you, Peter. Yeah. Thank you, Councilman Scott. Take your time. Quick. Hey, look. Hey, I think cautiousness is good. I think criticism, uh, and tough questions are good. U, I think campaigns and education are good. If if council members get a chance, go to the San Diego website and look at their Pure Water San Diego. It's it's a fantastic education. This is what we're doing. We we have a game plan. We're on it. They spend a gazillion dollars. You're talking about spending money. So, I I I thank you for doing this. Um I think it needs to be done. I think education's good again, but I I don't I think we should listen to criticism, and if it makes the product better, I'm good with that. Um, I I do understand we sold $222 million. I think the bond language says you can only spend it on Inner Harbor Diesel and at some point I think we probably ought to kind of talk that through. Um, but I like it. My point is, thank you for what you're doing. I support it. I also think people, you know, throwing darts at it does nothing but make it a better campaign. Uh, but I do think there's a lot of people asking kind of what's going on. I think this answers it. So, thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Von. real quick. I think we can all agree up here. We can disagree on a lot of things, but I think our focus and our commitment to the citizens of this city are that we are committed to finding water. No matter what the water sources are, we're committed to finding water. So, I hope the campaign will continue and I hope that we show that we are looking at other water sources as well as del. But then we need to tell them what del's about because so many people do not know. They need to know what the price tag is on all the projects that we're looking at. So, I think we can say we're committed to finding water and I think we have that consensus. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Roy. Yeah. Um, thank you for your presentation. I think um I think it's definitely a lot of thought put into it and I think that anytime you're trying to educate any group, it's important and when you're trying to educate them uh to the best of your ability and and in terms of making sure that you provide facts and um yeah, again, I think it's I applaud that. You know, one of the things I can't help but thinking about is the fact that we have the ability to talk about propaganda. And when you take a look at what this council, other councils, any councils that have been involved in this journey in terms of trying to bring a sustainable uh water source to our city, um what we've went through, you know, we've had propaganda that showed raw sewage being dumped into the river, which is it's it's it couldn't be further from the truth. You know, we've had all this propaganda that when we consistently show that our intent, our desire is not to harm the bays and estuaries, we've had people turn a blind eye and look the other way and give us garbage related to that and saying, "Oh, no, this is what's really happening." Without being able to to go forward and have any proven anything, but it's propaganda, but it's okay if it's on the other shoe. So when I take a look at my job as an as an elected official, I'm here to serve my constituents conser to serve the people in my community. I've said this time and time again. It doesn't really matter what I think. I'm here because I need to understand and listen to what my constituents want. And I've heard repeatedly that they want a sustainable water source. We've heard that. And that's why this council and as I've been on this council since 2017 when I first came on, that was the message that was there. But we do need to educate. But to sit there and try to use something where we're saying, "Okay, this is a propaganda. This is something that we got to be careful." Because you know what's funny about this? when there were some of us that wanted and and I'll admit this of looking at the convention hotel and trying to figure out a way to go through and and hopefully get this hotel passed and some other things like funds for the airport. Then we were criticized. The city manager was criticized and others were criticized that we didn't do enough. We didn't go forward and put enough information out there and we didn't look um we just did a terrible job in relationship to our opponents who did a great job in terms of putting out their propaganda. So we were criticized for that and we were saying you guys hired an outside company and they didn't do it and we could have done a better job. So, it's just interesting to see how this target keeps moving from left to right or whatever as it sees fit when somebody tries to get their message apart. But at the end of the day, I I really want the people of this city to hold us elected officials accountable so that they're listening because this is the future of our city. This is the future of our children. This is the future of their children's children. And we got one we got really one chance to get this right. And if we don't get it right, shame on us. and we deserve to be kicked off this council. So again, thank you for your job. I appreciate it. I appreciate what you guys are doing. But the day is going to come when the people are going to sit there and hold us accountable. And it's not that far off. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Alisa, that's all the questions and um comments. So, thank you very much. Yeah. So, I think at this point um that wraps up the Inner Harbor, correct? The presentation, all three parts. Thank you. All right. Yes, sir. Uh I'm going to see if we can go ahead and pass the consent agenda and then we're going to break for lunch and come back and do uh numbers three and four. So, would any council member like to pull any item from um the consent agenda? Items 5 through 11. I make a motion to approve. Okay, we have a motion. We have a second. All in or are you putting that up, Rebecca? Yes. Okay. Yes. Would anyone in the public uh like to pull any item on the agenda 5 through 11? Okay, there being no one, we have a motion in a second. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. Uh the council is going to go into executive session on items 14 and 15 per Texas government code 551.071 and um 551.072. When we return, we will pick up on uh briefings, grant activity update, and then after that, we'll go to the briefing on the 89th Texas Legislative Session update. Mayor, um Mr. I was, did you not vote? No, ma'am. Okay. Can record his vote? Yes, we will. Yes. Okay. Sure. We will return. Okay, I'd like to call this meeting back to order and reconvene. Um, I'm going to move things around here. Uh well, first of all, I think we do have an item uh to um address here after our our um executive session. And Peter, did you have a comment on this? Right. Yeah. So, one of our executive session items dealt with the housing authorities recent uh transactions that have taken u hundreds of millions of property taxable property off the tax roles. And so for the city of Corpus Christie, based on what we know today, it could have an impact on our budget of 3.5 million in lost revenue initially and it could go up to 7 million if all the transactions take place. 7 million in lost property tax revenue. We just want to make sure the community is clear and I know the council is, but just to say it here in the public record that um the the transactions that have taken place recently from the housing authority were just that they were from the Corpus Christie Housing Authority, not from the city council. So, nobody in the city authorized those transactions. The city council didn't vote on them. Unaware of We were unaware of it. We were unaware of it. Right. And it wasn't until we began to look at our taxable value that one of our assistant city managers, Heather Hullberg, actually discovered working with the appraisal that millions, hundreds of millions potentially is taken off our tax roles. And that's a lot of money. 3.5 million up to 7 million out of the general fund is is a tremendous financial impact. It's not a rounding error. It's big money and real money. But the point here for me speaking is that this was not a city council action. It was not a city staff action. It was the action of the Corpus Christie Housing Authority. And so, Mayor, with that, I'm going to turn it back over to you. Thank you. Thank you. So, we have a resolution to uh present. Councilwoman Paxton would like, would you like to read it? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'd like to make a motion adopting a resolution authorizing active opposition to improper andor illegal use of property tax exemptions by the Corpus Christi Housing Authority, affiliates, and entities connected there too. Okay. Uh, Councilman uh Hernandez. Uh, mayor, thank you. I just want to say I wasn't sure if this was an illegal action done by the housing authority. I know our city attorney has stated that he believes it's illegal. Um, is that correct, Miles, that you believe that the action was illegal? It's improper andor illegal. So, it it may be illegal. We're looking into that, but it's definitely improper. Okay. So, because I wasn't I'm not comfortable with saying something's illegal if I don't know it's illegal. We I have to correct you because you're implying that the rest of the council, however they vote, is voting on something of what you just said. What is written in this resolution? Councilwoman, would you read that part? Authorizing active opposition to improper and or illegal use. Okay. And or illegal use. Right. Okay. So yeah. Okay. So I mean prior to getting cut off ap you know I'll give you a time back the um like I said if I can I I agree that it's improper maybe uh unsavory. Like I said I don't know if it's andor illegal. Uh but if you're comfortable with you know calling something that's illegal uh for not doing that or I've got to correct you. It's okay. I understand. I understand that we are saying that it is, you know, we're not saying that it is an illegal function, but you're implying it by the way this is written. It says and or. It says and or but Councilman, you just vote against it if you're not. I want to vote for it. I just want to point out I point out that the language is a little uh leading in the sense that, you know, we're calling something that's illegal that we're not sure of. We're we're not calling anything illegal. I have to correct it. Well, I like I said, I just I'm going to be Jimny Cricut here and and give my opinion and, you know, conscience about it, but Okay. All right. Thank you, Councilman. Uh, Roland Brata, seconded the motion, and we are Let's see. Yeah. Submit your vote, please. Oh, a change of heart. It's not a change of heart. Change of hearts. I understand. I understand. The motion carries unanimously. Thank you. So, I'm going to go to We have another resol. Thank you, Councilwoman. We have another resolution. Item number 13 is a resolution of the Corpus Christie City Council supporting Senate Bill 22 and House Bill 4568, which creates the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program. I make a motion to approve. Yes, we have a motion and a second. Uh this is a it's a resolution that is supporting the film industry. Councilman and we don't have to it's the film industry. Yeah. So this is several um Councilman Hernandez it's several million several hundred million dollars. It's it already exists, but it's several hundred million dollars that is um going to be hopefully funded by the state uh for the for the state of Texas incentivized film in um well the film industry here in in Texas. Councilman Scott and this was your council. No, actually it doesn't. Yeah, there's a lot of that wish. Did you catch that? I I I hope that I cannot believe that. No, I'm not going to repeat that for the public. Or should I? No. So, let's get back on track. Just so you know, mayor, I think this is a it's a great This was your This is your So, it's 5 billion, 250 million per uh per year. Uh it puts Texas in the ball game incentivizing of the film industry. Um, Chairman Hunter's uh carrying the House version or through the House. I think it's the Senate bill. Uh, and he's working hard and I think it's an opportunity for us to uh support his efforts. I will tell you, I think it's a two-step. I think we should be participating in upping our game locally because now people are looking at Texas, right? They're going, "Oh man, there's five." They're all chasing the money. I kind I get it. It's kind of like diesel. Everybody's chasing the money, but but I think they're going to look at Texas. And so what we need to be in a position to do, especially with Chairman Hunter there, is to say, "Hey, hey, hey, when you're looking at Texas, look at Corpus." And, uh, there's some information hopefully we can all share soon that that we could we could up up up our game like San Antonio, Houston, Galveastston, Fort Worth, uh, and some, and frankly other cities in Louisiana and Georgia that can get us in the game and get the film industry looking at Corpus. Agree. Agree. Thank you. And thank you for bringing it forth, Councilman. I'm going to ask for public comment. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make public comment on item number 13? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Um, we'll close public comment. Councilman Betta here. And I just want to say and Gil, if you'll bear with me because I talk about my children's uh what is this is this is very personal to me. I actually I remember talking to Brett about it um when he was with Visit Corpus Christi. Um, the reason my daughter left the state of Texas, she was living in Austin, uh, working a lot with Robert Rodriguez uh because uh Troublemaker Studios over there and working on other projects and, uh, the incentives dried up in Texas. And so with the incentives drive up in Texas, obviously, she went where the opportunity was. So, and that was in New York City. So, uh, this is something that I I just want to let everybody know on a personal I really appreciate you guys supporting this. and Mark, thanks for coming up with the idea for the resolution. Thank you, Councilman. Okay, I'm going to Let's see. We have a motion in a second, don't we? Okay, please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries. Item Pardon. One more. You didn't. Did you vote in favor? Okay. He for the record, he voted in favor. Okay. Item number 12 is a presentation of the plan of finance for fiscal year 2025 and resolution by the city council authorizing and approving publication of notice of intention to issue not more than $43 million,000 of certificates of obligation as included and approved by city council in the fiscal year 2025 capital budget. I'll just begin then. Thank you for having me here. For the record, my name is Victor Kogo with Specialized Public Finance and it's good to see uh the mayor, the council, Mr. Zenoni. Thank you again for having me here. So, um as a follow-up to last week's conversation where we provided you a overview of the city's, uh debt position, now the financing plan is regarding the financing needs that the city is looking to fund through the issuance of various types of financing tools that are allowed by the state. And so this uh presentation will go over some of that uh some of those plans and also the timeline and then walk you through future action that the council would take if it wants to consider these financing tools to cover uh projects. And so before I begin, just wanted to let you know uh the bond market has been somewhat volatile and uh when the tariff war started, it actually was not even moving at all. There's been investors just kind of on the sidelines. Now that there's um hopefully some resolution with various countries uh talking to the US and agreeing to certain terms, we're starting to see a little bit of uh settling down with bond investors and the market to start normalizing a little bit where we could find investors and find you attractive interest rates. So overall, we like this graph because it shows you that uh you know, when we listen to the news, you always hear very der because that's the way they sell news and but uh you know interest rates are going up. They are kind of volatile, but when you put in perspective, we're still in a pretty attractive interest rate environment whenever you're trying to issue and borrow for your long-term needs. And so this year's financing plan contemplates of five different transactions for a total amount of $379,825,000. Of that amount, uh $259,320,000 is for what we call project funding. And then the remaining amount of a little bit over $120 million is to pursue a refinancing opportunity for the city's utility system to generate some interest cost savings for your rate payers. And so you can see there in the bottom half of this slide the various transactions that the city is contemplating $30 million in general obligation bonds. This is from the November 2022 bond program that the voters authorized you to move forward with. Uh certificates obligation INS tax supported about $ 38.72 million. Uh there's also certific obligation. These are uh taxable. They're going to have a little bit higher interest rate, but they're going to support the solid waste department. Then we also have 11,120,000 through tax notes, and that is to for to fill the budget gap that was required during this current budget cycle that we're in. And then the largest component is going to be the utility system revenue and refunding bonds where we're going to uh generate $175 million in bond proceeds to uh cover projects and also $120 million as I indicated earlier for a refinancing opportunity. Just like the past the bonds that we're contemplating here and and the staff is asking for it's not to fund new capital improvements that the council whether this council or previous council has yet to approve. many of these bond projects has either been uh designed and contracted for or even uh the city started incurring some expenses and now it's looking to issue debt to recoup those expenses that it initially paid using its own cash and so uh Mr. has a little bit more detail here when we get to that section of the presentation. But just to break down the uh various needs for the property tax supported the geo cos and the tax notes, you can see the breakdown as to the capital improvements that each of those financing tools uh will cover and how we came up with the various borrowing amounts that we're showing here. Same thing for the utility system. It's $175 million. You can see the breakdown between water, wastewater, storm water, and gas to come up with a $175 million bond program. And again, we're also going to add $120 million in principal amount for existing debt to take high interest rate debt and convert it into a lower interest rate debt. Whenever we pursue these refinancings, ladies and gentlemen, we never extend the repayment term. We're always going to keep the original repayment term from that original bond. All we're going to do is switch a high interest rate for a low interest rate based off of preliminary interest figures. We're that'll generate uh for your rate payers about $5.7 million in interest cost savings uh by conducting this refunding. So uh this uh final slide here is just the city's current bond ratings. The city is actually in a very strong uh position in terms of its credit rating. It carries two different ratings. And so, uh, like we talked about last week, uh, whenever you issue tax supported bonds or property tax supported bonds, bond investors view that as a safer investment and so do rating agencies. And so, your, uh, bonds that are secured by property taxes, those have the highest rating of the double A category. And right now, all three rating agencies view the view, view you the same, and grade you the same at that double A category. So, what that means is that the higher the credit rating, the lower the interest rate you're able to get and go into the market on your own, which the city uh cont does uh in the past. So, the utility system, that's a a little a credit rating that is still strong for the city of Corpus Christi. You're still in the double A category, but you're just one notch below your general obligation uh credit rating, which is pretty common for most Texas cities that have those two separate systems and secured debt by those two systems. So, one thing to point out that um these rating agencies and bond investors, they not only look at how much debt you have, because I know when you talk these big figures, it's it's even for me, I do this every day for 25 years, it's it's a, you know, big number that we have to wrap our mind around. And uh but they don't really just look at the debt position because they know that most municipalities here in the state of Texas, when you're borrowing money, it's going to be for capital improvements or capital infrastructure. So, you're getting an asset back for that for that debt. It's not like we're funding payroll expenses or anything like that, but it's still debt nevertheless. They also look at things like management. They've indicated, you know, they appreciate the strong management here at the city, the uh finan financial prudence that you've shown as a council. Uh but they also look at things that you can control like the economy, who's moving in, who's moving out, what industries are coming in. So, it's just a comprehensive view. But overall your uh rating is very strong and we anticipate that being a benefit for us when we enter the market if you allow us to do so for these transactions. So just some of the action items today we're just uh laying out the financing plan. Uh you also have an opportunity to start moving forward on the certificates obligation financing. There's certain steps and laws rules that we have to follow under state law and so that that's contemplated today as well. Um, currently we're going to hopefully bring back to you the utility system revenue refunding bond first. Uh, that'll come with the first reading in June 10th and then June 17th. All your bond ordinances under city charter require two readings and then we'll follow up with the geo supported debt later on in uh July. Uh, and what we're trying to do is the certified values don't come out till July 25th. We want to get a handle to see uh what those values are, if any legislative changes uh impacted us negatively before we issue the property tax supported debt so that we're in line with the 22 cent INS tax rate that has been communicated to the voters in the past. So, uh, lastly, ladies and gentlemen, as I indicated earlier, you know, you're dealing with big numbers and everything and we debt is not a good word and taxes aren't a good word, but, uh, do you just want to highlight that, you know, when municipalities schools cities you know, we're not always asking for new bonds or new debt for new projects or more taxes. Uh, the city, and this precedes me too, the city has been very prudent with its debt management. It's pursued refinancing opportunities whenever it can. And in the past 10 years, you've um pursued refinancings and saved your taxpayers and rateayers uh about $272 million over that time by taking those prudent actions. So, we're not always just borrowing you money. We're also being diligent and prudent with taxpayer funds and trying to refinance just like we're doing this year with the utility system. Um I'll just hand it over to Sergio here real quick. Thank you. Okay. Uh so today we're asking for a resolution authorizing approving the publication of the notice of intention to issue certificates of obligations. Uh this slide gives you a nice snapshot of the process for for where we're at today. And so we start off with the capital improvement projects planning and funding during the budget season. Uh so that's roughly around summertime and toward as we move forward in the calendar year towards the winter time around December this past where we did reimbursement resolutions. so that we can go ahead and start uh starting these projects up and then deferring the issuance of debt. Uh during that same time, capital staff is looking at what what our cash needs are so we can uh minimize the amount of debt we do need to issue. And so today, we're actually um all those steps have been done and today we're asking for the city council to consider authorizing to publish the notice of intention uh to issue the approved certificates of obligation. Uh so the next steps here today of course I mentioned we're authorizing uh and the dates are similar to what are exactly the same as Victor just presented plan to issue the certificates or authorized to issue certificates in July on July 15th July 22nd with an anticipation to close on August 20th and uh the fund the the programs are going to be funded with certificates of obligation includes about 4.4 4 million to solid waste, 4.1 million to public health and safety, uh 14 million for streets, 6 million for storm water, uh 11.9 million for parks and recreation, and about 2.5 million for public facilities. Uh that concludes my presentation. I'll take any questions. Okay. Thank you, Councilman Hernandez. Peter, remind me again how we got the storm water project all uh paid for with certificates of obligation. I thought this was going to be covered through a different fund. Yeah, just a second. Councilman, let me look at the North North uh North Beach Danch improvements. I'm not sure what the So, yeah, there's probably some additions probably in one of our budgets. I don't know what budget without having it here in front of me, Sergio, but we um recommended u cos for some of that. I mean, some of this was supposed to be paid for through ARPA funds and then you we voted on a storm water 18 cent sales tax to cover some of these things. Why are we doing this through cos? Yeah. Uh because we we tried to piece together a series of funds to address what's a 20 20 some odd million dollar project. So we use ARPA monies, we use um budget general fund dollars, we use cos um it was a combination of dollars that we we put together for the project. So, Council Hernandez, um, on I think we have talked about this several times during budget is that the storm water fee is primarily funding maintenance and so any of the large projects with the storm water are is not being funded through the storm the primary being storm funded through storm water. We are adding said the exact opposite last week. He said it was for major projects, not for maintenance. The storm water fee. Uhhuh. No, not the storm water fee. 18 cent sales tax. Yeah. the 18 cent sales tax. That's what I'm talking about. So the 18 cent sales tax funding should have gone for something like this. So the 18 cents isn't isn't ready yet. So that doesn't kick in. That authorization does not revert to convert over to the new authorization until April. And so so are we going to use that funding to pay off these cos? Uh I mean what I it just it I understand you know trying to find money to pay for things right and then we've committed to doing drainage improvements on North Beach. Like I said I just don't recall using COS for it. Yeah that was what was in the adopted CIP was actually there were three different tanches I believe of COS. Um so there was about four almost $5 million worth of ARPA funding. Um, as Peter said, there was some cash funding and then I want to say there was close to $18 million in um, COS over three different tanches. So, that is something we can definitely look at. We needed this is to get the project started. We don't have the, you know, we will need to look at bonding capacity within the 18 cent sales tax as we move forward. Um, and we can definitely look at that for the other tanches that we were looking at to be able to continue funding the project. But, um, as of right now, we're not able to issue anything. um against that 18 cent sales tax since it does not convert until April 1 of 2026. Right. And when we talked about it, councilman with the community, we said it would be for phase two. So right now phase one that was in the CIP that's council's approved over the years. It takes us from the north peninsula to about midway and that's all that's that's the funding that's existing to do that first phase. There's nothing there's nothing identified for phase two. However, when we were talking about the sales tax election, uh that was a good candidate project was finishing off the canal with this type of money, the sales tax for the for the storm water. Okay. Also, I want to kind of ask questions about uh Elizabeth Street and the industrial streets. Why are we doing CO off this? I thought we were using type B funding to pay for those. So, we did get type B funding for them. These, I believe, are the overruns basically. Um the projects cost more than what was funded through the type B. And so, um, the what was, I believe, brought forward during the budget was to utilize CEOs to do kind of that last that last little bit of funding to make those projects hold. It seems like this funding was put in, you know, was not discussed when we voted on the on the actual project, at least not to my recollection. I have to go back and look at it. So, the projects, both of those projects were were um approved multiple fiscal years ago because Elizabeth Street was done what, two years ago? Um I think it was approved in maybe 23, right? Two years ago, right? Yeah. It was just completed the streets just now. They just reopened it. We So, are you reimbursing what you paid on this with this one? Well, it's it's for the overage basically. It's for it's in addition to the type B funding. Yeah. is about 1. Yeah. If there's if there's still bills to be paid uh and they get paid before this debt's issued, this would reimburse us. That's So, this is information that, you know, I shouldn't be seeing on the overages, right, when we're selling bonds. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Councilman, we can get the budget presentation from the summer. I'm sure we went over it. Uh, the, you know, the the capital budget. I voted against using COS for this kind of stuff. You did to begin with. Yeah. Well, let's let's get the I'll get the budget presentation from last summer. And it is in the capital budget. This is it's was approved. It's not this is not new information. None of this information is new. It was all part of the budget presentation last summer. It was it was probably presented in the PowerPoint from Jeff Edmonds. It was included in the final budget that was approved by council last summer or September to be Okay, I'll take a look at it. Yeah, I've got it too. Sure. Thank you, Council Councilman Vaughn. So all of these projects that are on here, they were approved by the previous council. That is correct. And I guess my question was that too, did they know they were going to use CO? Obviously not. Or maybe they did on No, it's Yeah, the capital budget has a project for has a page for every project and all the revenue sources are clearly How you get it? The clearly lined. Yeah, the clearly outlined. There's nothing hidden. There's no That's what I'm asking. Bait and switch. It says cos to be issued or not. Yeah. Okay. Just making sure. No problem. They actually approved an animal control facility. It was the design um actually I believe it was for the original um design of the new kennels and stuff like that. That project got put on hold as we went through the um analysis that was done. Um and so yeah, there's I think about 1.1 million that was there. And so with that 1 million 1 million when you go a little over a million to a design, is that like 10% of what you think the project's going to cost? So y'all saying that project is 10 million? you know they were talking 20 million 20 25 million for the kennels. So it's probably not however when we come back in our next council meeting on the 10th uh we may make a recommendation to use that for the existing facilities and not use it for design of new kennels. We have u I think it was I I think it's 25 it's millions it's tens of millions of deferred maintenance like leaking roofs no AC and the 2 million or so in the opera money won't be enough to cover these immediate things. So yesterday we began working on this budget that we're going to bring on the 10th using these onetime monies and I'm pretty sure we're going to recommend using the cos that were for the new kennels to fix the current ones before we build anything else. Well, I'm glad to hear you say that because we know the city can't afford, right? We're not Right. And we know that's not the big problem. Yeah. We know it's management, right? You can't kennel, right? That like I told Sony yesterday, we can't kennel our way out of this issue. It's called live release and adoption and fostering and managing it that way. So, I have a real difficult time with certificates of obligations because I can remember the day when they were just for emergencies. Has that changed? Yes, the legislation has changed on that and it's not just under emergencies. Um, there are multiple other uses for those. They have limited the type of facilities that they can be used on. Um, so administrative facilities, things like that, you can't use it board. Everything that we have up here is allowable under the state statute because it really kind of puts us in a pickle right now because these have been approved. A lot of them have been done. They're in the process. So if you don't approve it, you can't pay it. That's correct. Like take Elizabeth Street. I live in that area. The street was just completely redone. It's reopened. If if we haven't paid them that final invoice, it's due soon. The contractor's nowhere to be found because the work's done. We really don't have any choices. Yeah. It goes back to what we were talking to councilwoman Paxton about earlier that these two-year cycles, some of these projects are long lead. They they cross over year after year and one council may approve something, the next may not endorse it necessarily, but but you're responsible for them the money, right? Yeah. In this case, many of these projects, bills are due. We have a reimbursement resolution where we use city monies in our in our bank accounts to pay while we before ahead of issuing the debt. So people are getting paid but this money in some cases it's uh it will will be getting paid as the project moves forward. Okay. Yeah. And just to add just a little bit, you know, one of the things we have moved towards over the last several years is more prudent issuance of the debt and the fact that we're more closely matching the debt with when the expenses are being um being incurred. So, as Sergio said, we look forward on a 12 to 18month basis to look forward to see what we're going to use. We utilize those reimbursement resolutions so that we're not issuing debt ahead of time, but more as I would call it just in time debt issuance. So, we're getting those issuances as we need the money and it's not just sitting in the bank. Yeah. Can I add one more thing, Mayor? I'm sorry, but for the new council members, so we have we had a lot of citizens last summer and uh especially, but maybe even the summer before uh speak against the use of COS and Councilman Hernandez and others on council didn't really like the application of CO. So, I didn't I I did not recommend any of them in this current budget. no new ones in the budget that council went through the summer last summer and approved in September with the exception of tax notes which is a shorter term issuance just for some street work so we could stay level funded but I didn't recommend any cos and I'm not doing it anymore uh just because it's just too much negative backlash so what it means for the community is a slight uh maybe a little bit of delay we'll put everything in a bond program and so if we could do something right now say with cos we'll wait till the 2026 bond program let the voters decide do they want to put it in or not. So in the current budget that the council approved the city manager didn't recommend any new cos only the rollover of the ones that we already went through the whole process and had in just so you know. Yeah. Okay. And Peter back to um the cos for the um design uh for the Yes. So can we give you that direction to bring that back just for that particular for CCAC? Yes ma'am. So when we bring the well the AC the roofs um the catery there's several things but the the 2 million or so Heather's still getting us the balances but it won't be enough to make a dent in that list. Uh we're also going to recommend uh funding some of the staff positions that were requested because just fixing the facilities won't get us too far. So we need some immediate staff positions. Right? I've done this before in my prior place where I work. So, what we'll do though, because you don't want to use one-time monies for recurring, right, is we'll set up a two-year reserve. We'll set up a second year reserve. So, we'll have two years of funding for the position for one year. So, that'll give us time to get the budget. Maybe our revenues get right right sided. So, we're going to reclass all the live release coordinators, add a dispatcher, and add a communications person. We'll have the money for the one year and then we'll set aside out of this million out of these monies we have from ARPA and the kennels a secondyear reserve to pay for them in year two in case our budget continues to have a challenge. I just want to make sure it's clear that we we'd like that money the co money to go. It's going to be the cos and the opera will be our total revenue stream which hopefully will be around 3.2 3.3 million or so. We got to see the final balances in the opera. But and I don't mean to I'm getting that's coming on the 10th of June. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, Councilman Ku, I was going to say just to clarify, we would be using the bond funding for the facility, the ARPA funding for the personnel. Yeah, I'm still a freshman, so forgive me, please. Um, on the animal care facility design, I heard Councilman Bond saying it's 10% from the total cost. Is that is that what I heard? So that's usually what we when we're when we're looking at the project um cost that usually is we estimate about 10% of the design of the project for design but um what we said is that that project even though it says it would be for design that was originally was included in the CIP. We're not necessarily going to move forward with design. We would be utilizing those bond funds still for the animal care facility but not for design of a new one. We would take those funds and invest it into those capital improvements that are needed to be done at the facility to for those improvements. So the 2 million that Peter was talking about would be 3 million. Exactly. So we'd have probably you know probably about $2 million. We're still getting what that balance is. That would be from our interest earnings from ARPA um or the American Rescue Plan Act which can be used for this purpose in addition to the $1.1 million in the bond funding. Did you say how much it was going to cost for kennels? Did you? No, I I'm not sure. I think the original project was about 20 million. I think Peter mentioned it was about $20 million. Can me and Karen go find the contractor? I mean million. I'll watch. That is crazy. I don't think it was I think it was for other improvements too. I don't think it was just for the kennels. It was for the whole improvement at the facility. Um but like I said, we're not proposing to move forward with that specific project. Um but rather move it in, you know, invest it into the um existing facility. I said we go buy some homes in Corpus Christie and put them in there. I mean, it's cheaper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We could buy a house for 150 and put 50 animals in there. That's right. I mean, that's crazy. Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman Compos. Thank you, Mayor. Um, and thank you so much, uh, Heather for explaining about how we're how we ended up here with using the certificates of obligation because I, again, you know, I was one of those persons that, uh, it was, I think, my first year that that Councilman Hernandez um, you know, kind of influenced me uh, about this certificates of obligation. At the time there was this uh um concept or vision that not vision but that we should not be looking to those certificates of obligations. We should be um making sure that it is part of the bonds. It is part of something. But tell me tell us again about why it is uh that we're looking at this 43 million because I think what I remember you telling me was that you started looking at doing using the certificates of obligation just like three or four when you when you started when you started with us. Sure. No, the the conversation that you and I had was about the issuing the debt kind of just in time not necessarily the use of certificates obligations. The city has historically used certificates of obligation for certain projects. Yes. Um we have had to use more of them over the last several years just because a lot of our projects with the cost escalations we by the time we plan the project by the time we take it to the voters and issue it and then get it approved and then we go move forward to that project the cost has grown and so over the past several years we have used more certificates of obligations to fill those gaps. Um so and it looks like I mean here that we have actually saved some money uh according uh to our uh finance. I'm sorry. Yes, Mr. Mr. Kyoga. Yeah, that we've uh actually saved money doing it that way, but we're not going to be using certificates of obligation to this extent in the future. Is that correct? Correct. That is the plan per um Yeah, Peter taking that out. Or right. or at all. If there's an emergency or something, we may come forward. But in the in the uh time that we have to develop the budget in the summer, I'm not going to recommend cos for any type of uh fulfilling a complete project budget or, you know, doing something uh that the community might want. That'll have to be on a bond program. Okay. I think that's the best way to go. So, yeah. All right. Thank you. Councilwoman Paxton. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I don't want to belabor the point and I appreciate uh, Mr. Zenoni making the um, letting us know that you are withholding that recommendation for the next budget. I myself have a really really really I just categorically I'm I'm really opposed to certificates of obligation. reading the list that's in our packet. Um the items under public safety and streets are things that I personally would prioritize. I recognize that we are in the latter stages of these um it all really does tie in for me, you know, um change orders, all those types of things. It all just adds up. I I don't like certificates of obligation. I appreciate you moving away from those. Um, so this this item is it's difficult difficult for me to say yes to with the exception of those two portions, the public safety and the streets. Um, that's where that's where I am on this piece. But thank you for clarifying for budget 26. Yeah, we did it for 25. We did that. I had that recom I had that philosophy for the 25 budget that we're currently in and we'll carry it into the 26 as well. Yes, ma'am. Um, Councilman Scott, five minutes talk fast. So, uh, Peter, um, you're telling me that in the future if we vote on a bond, uh, Leopard, uh, Alama Street, $10 million, and it it takes two years, blah, blah, blah, and when it's done, it's 11 million, you have to go back to the voters to get the extra million. So, what happens if it's I guess if it's voted down? It just seems to me that's bad public policy. I've always supported cos Yeah. to to to bridge the shortcomings. I ask you guys to drive down Alamita Staples to Alama. It's five lanes for miles and for one half mile it's three lanes because rather than do cos we ratcheted down the project and I guess that's what you would do in the end and it just made no sense to me. So I just so you know I'm okay with cos to to bridge those gaps. It's not the rateayers fault that to me they voted to to do Alama Street between two street. You know, we think it's 10 million. If it's not, shame on us. But they really want that road. So that's number two. Is it do we does it cost us more money if we don't use C cos? Is there like you're saying we're not going to use cos anymore? At the end of the day when you finish all those projects, has that cost the rate payer more money? It could. If we say that say uh it's it's 2024 and the next bond program is out to 2026 and we need $2 million. We're going to wait two years to put it on a bond program by then construction inflation could you know increase the cost of the project. It just seems odd to me that we're going to go hey cart launch not happening no cos and then it ends up costing uh the voters more money. I I don't I don't like that. And I think that's kind of the conversation we had yesterday. I don't I don't like cos except to bridge, you know, that gap. But on the other hand, I don't want to go to my to go to our voters and say, "Hey, look, because of my position, I need to give you a heads up. Uh, you could pay more, right?" Yeah. Okay. That's what you're doing. I understand you're doing a couple things that we are doing is um and we've been in the cycle now of doing design only in one bond program. That's how you get you avoid it. And we have so we have the goal is to have better cost estimates. What may have happened in the past is there were the cost estimates weren't as good as uh the reality you would vote. So you they would say okay I think the street's going to cost 2 million. They put it in the bond program when they did all the constru uh design and then okay put it out to bid it actually cost three million. And so what we do today is try to have a better precise estimate and that comes if you have design. So if in one pro one bond program design only we're doing that in district five. We have a whole list of Congressman Hernandez knows he and I worked together on this. So if you design it idea Yeah. If you design it then you have then you know what the how'd you pay for the design and the bond program. Yeah. We and so so far none of those have come in over budget. And so the goal is just be that's why we that's why we brought those positions to this uh board here that were denied. But if we have a strong u if we have a strong engineering department then they can have precision on estimates. really comes down to that sometimes things are out of our control like a pandemic can cause or tariffs can cause extreme shock and pricing. So I should probably I should probably just preface that the goal is not to come here and ask for cos but there could be something that is extraordinary and we still going to come forward better with that but I'm not Last summer I told the departments we're not doing anything in cos anymore so if you want something I'm running out of time got to talk fast. So, uh, so there's you don't use cos, uh, then reimburse yourself later. Do you So, sometimes we use cos to get it going, right? And then we we go to the voters for a vote and pay ourselves back with the So, only if it's planned in the CIP. So, all of these were planned in the CIP for that. Um, I don't think No, we have not necessar issued for COS. We haven't just issued COS to get it started and then then gone to the voters on it. What we have planned recently is we go to the voters for the design and then go to the voters for disc for the the construction and that that that gets it all done at the same speed. Yeah. I mean it will take um you know four to six years basically if you do um if you do one bond issuance for design two years for that two years later you go you do another bond issue. I thought that I thought that's what we used to do and now everybody was mad at us because it was taken. I I couldn't speak to that. I'm not sure. Okay. All right. I'm good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Councilman. Uh, Councilman Hernandez. Okay. So, I want to specify this that when he says not using COS as a primary funding source for the project, that's where we had some issues. Now, what you're talking about is a bridge. What we did to change that is we separated the design from the construction. So you get the design first and then you go to then you go to the bond uh you go to the bond election for construction and then you can you can start construction within 6 months. The the the problem was is that we were short because we would do it all in one one thing and the estimate the estimate that was done for the original project was four years by the four years old by the time you got to construction. By separating them out, design and construction, you you actually have a more a better cost estimate because you have a design and then when you go to the bond election, they approve it, you can start construction within 6 months of having that election. So, you're you're not waiting four years before you actually build. you can make your We have not we have not come across that because the because we have a better estimate because we have an actual design that that can be bid on and we haven't we haven't had that issue. We even even with the the swimming pool was done that way. We had to design in 2020 2020 and then we did the the construction the for the bond for construction 2022 and here we are. That was under budget. It was within budget. Yeah, it was within budget. We've been and also just for the record when we're well managed here in the city and the council's working well uh we get we get good bid prices. So in our on our all of our road projects we've been getting five six seven bids that's pretty tremendous for we're a big city but for a smaller big city and so competition helps bring down price and so all of our road projects that we've let here at council recently have been well below the budget. So I went back and looked at the CIP for the drainage uh on North Beach and it is currently planned for COS for the for the next two two years 26 27. So that really shouldn't be used as the primary funding source for those kind of projects, right? Like storm water should be from your storm water fund. That's why we created that 18 cent sales tax. Yeah. Uh component for it, right? So but you don't want it to be the primary uh funding source. The gap thing was because we were, you know, we were doing the bond and then we weren't doing construction till 3 four years later and and by that time the estimate was four years old. All I ask is what do we do if it's short? Yeah, we would have we haven't we've tried to mitigate that. Yeah. The choices councilman include we could issue cos we could use cash. We could delay the whole project. We could put it on a bond. We could cancel the project. We could scope it down like your alamator example. I don't recommend that but yeah. Okay. We'll work through it, you know. We're going to work through it. We have options. There's no We're not Right. Yeah. Okay. Uh, Councilman Roy, you know, uh, Gil, I'm so glad that you stepped up and gave further explanation because, um, you know, one of the benefits of being on council for a while is that you remember conversations, you remember situations, and, um, I I think in this particular case, we got to make sure that we use common sense. I think common sense really is what prevails. I remember I was at a function at the Silverado steakhouse and a lady was sitting there challenging um certificates of obligation and Gil was there with me and she asked a banker and a finance major, do you understand what a certificate of obligation is? I was being nice so I ignored her. But my point is this is that um we ha we have to use common sense. And what was interesting is is that after that conversation, I think the next week, we had a council member that had to use certificate of obligations for their district to get a project done, but it made sense to do that project at that particular time for that district and be able to fill that gap. And I just I just want to remind people when we make these blanket statements about, oh, I'm against certificate of obligations and it will never happen and I'm adamant against it. There is a time and a place for everything as long as we're smart. And that's where we have to rely on city staff to make sure and yourself and our council to to utilize those things effectively. And I just want to remind people that because there's several districts here that wouldn't be where they're at today in terms of getting improvements done if we didn't use that tool. But we have to use it smart and effectively. So just just to remind everybody that. Good. Well said. I'm not going to embarrass anybody cuz I can sit there and cite every project that was used for a certificate of obligation. Um, and I don't want to do that. Thanks, Councilman Betta. Here, um, obviously I support this and you know, and and Peter, here's the thing. You know, you had indicated that, you know, Councilman Hernandez and a whole bunch of others came in here and that's part of that. Well, I would argue, you know, one of the things when I was running for reelection, I stood behind the budget and the decisions that we've made. And I think um every two years uh uh the the voting public gets to decide uh what is it uh those of us that are up here. And I can tell you that um I during that time I I I stood exactly on where what what I believed in and the things that we've done with regard to our budget. and 24,450 people agreed with me. Those are the amount of people that voted for me. So I I think that uh what is it? We need to be conscientious of that because I right now we are getting I say we I know I am and I know several others are getting so many compliments about all the capital improvement that we're doing. People are getting their streets fixed. You know, it's never enough. But you know, I I mean I'm on upper Broadway. I don't know how many people had said, you know, they were high-fiving me, you know, and they appreciated that so much. I mean, some of the things that we're doing, I think the things obviously we've heard loud and clear from the people in animal control uh or for the people that are for that are animal care advocates that this needs to be expended. So, I I don't I don't know that we have to go to the to the voting population every time, especially when we need to expedite a project as quickly as possible because we hire you as professionals uh to be able to bring that to us so that way we can make the decision to expend that and then we can come back and say, "No, I think you're going too far." So, I I don't think that we're going too far by deciding that we're going to continue to use cos because it's a tool that we have available to us. And since you've been here, our our financial rating has improved three times. I said that on the campaign trail several times. That's true. You know, and right now, how much are we going to save with this new refinance? Approximately $5 million. $5 million. So that brings us up to not counting the favorable financing from the Texas Water Development Board, but I guess we can attribute to this city management staff probably about $25 million in savings as a result of that professional uh that that professional individuals that we we've selected to lead us in this charge. So, I I I wouldn't my opinion and I I may be of I may be in the minority, but I think that with the the the the public wants to see the work done. They want to they want their streets fixed. They want investment in public safety. Used to be they wanted jobs. Now, they just want to water their grass. And so, to water their grass, it's a there's additional expenses that we're going to have to incur or additional debt we're going to have to incur. And it makes sense for us to reinvest in our community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Vaughn, I think what we're saying, Mr. Cenon, is it's not that you can't use cos. It's that don't we don't want to abuse it. Don't want to abuse that process that we can use that funding revenue. We don't want to do that. And because I like to see the citizens vote for what they want. So, I think we have to be proactive in what we plan on the bond and what we need to do because you can't do everything in one year every time. So, I just think we need to really think through what we're wanting on the bond when it comes back and let the citizens vote for it. But I don't think anyone's telling you do not use cos. They're saying do not abuse it to where we use it for. And I'm not saying you're abusing it. I'm saying councils abuse it. Yeah. And that's all we're saying is because there will become an emergency when we're going to have to use it. And we're going to have to use common sense on whether we do or don't. But I think we just need to be proactive in what we're doing and what we want to put on and fix. Okay. Good. I agree with that. Yeah. Thank you for the clarification. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So, I think that um I move for approval. Second. Okay, we have a motion. We have a second. Uh is there any public comment uh from the public? Josh, no public comment. Okay, we'll close public comment. We have a motion in a second. Please submit your vote. Okay, the motion carries and um I think that was our last item. Yeah. Yep, that was our last item. We went back and forth. Did you want to do the briefings? Yeah, we have two briefings still. I'm sorry. That was not our Yeah, let's get the grant activity update. Yeah. Item number three. Who's doing grant activity update? I don't think that one's very long. This is a good news item here. Have a few slides on grant. We Councilwoman Compost, we're going to do the um grant update, the grant briefing. You know, this is important to you. So, thank you. And then after that, Ryan's on hold. We're going to do a quick 89th legislative briefing if you want. It's on the agenda. What's that? Send it to us. He can send it to us. Okay. So, we'll just do the grant update and then we'll we'll have Ryan's Thank you, Mayor. Let's have him do an expedited one. He could do it real quick. Okay, if he can. Okay, we're going to see if we can get Ryan to speed his up. But in the meantime, this one's pretty brief, but it's very important. And they have a good couple of charts that shows the millions of dollars we've applied for via grants. So, everybody, all the councils asked for this, so we're going to present it now. And Sergio, our finance director, is going to Thank you. Yes, sir. Uh jumping right into the presentation, a little bit background on the on the grant uh grant department, I guess the grant activity for the city of Corpus Christi. Uh prior to 2022, grants were handled at the department level and so they were responsible for their own application uh and managing the award themselves, doing the their own reporting. Um fiscal year 2022, the city did add a grant writer position to the finance department to take over most of those functions. Um that position has seen a you know a few folks pass through there. Our recent folk person was hired in May 2024. Uh myself and some of the senior staff came in in July of 2024. Uh 2025 budget. Uh second grant writer was added. Uh there are some departments that do still continue to produce some of their own grants are very successful like our fire department and our police department, our health department. Uh so just a quick overview on the grant process. So it is a a a long process or can be if if you're not efficient or don't have the tools to to manage these. Uh so the grant process starts with a lot of research and development with our grant writer meeting with departments, sending emails, doing a lot of assessing what their needs are. We last year between July 2024 and August 2024, our grant writer reached out to several departments asking for their needs so that we can start looking in the new fiscal year of 2025 um reaching out trying to find funding sources for those. Um as the grant writer finds those, she sends those out to the departments. Um and then once we identify those, we do have a a meeting uh fill out the application, bring that resolution to the city council for approval of the application to submit to the grant agency agency. Uh so all of that is considered our pre-awward phase. Uh then you have your postawward phase here is we get notification that the grant has been awarded. Uh the finance department will bring that to council uh through an ordinance for approval and then we do kick off uh do a kickoff meeting with departments um share what guidelines are out there. Do have some meetings and um set up their account structure and get the project going. Um after you know the the finance department does help with quarterly reports for those departments, the draw down of money and then we do have the close out of the project. Uh so just uh some some grand totals here. So going back to last fiscal year uh total grants awarded amounted to about 17.7 million. Uh collectively the city had grant program expenditures of about 53.2 million and about half of that about 22 million is related to ARPA ARPA funds where we had a lot of infrastructure projects. Uh this current fiscal year we're in we're as of March um sorry as of yes as of March 31st we had 35.6 6 million of grants that we've applied for and are in prog progress. Uh we've been awarded about 38.8 million. And so a lot of the here's a just some of the departments that have been active in grants. So we have our fire department, police department. We've received a grant for IT, animal care services, CCW. Um you know, our gas department did have a nice $4.2 million grant. Uh so our grants do range from uh this year we had about a thousand to about 16 million. We did have some uh hazard mitigation grants that I think we had those was about 15.2 million. Um and that's kind of just a brief overview of our grant activity for this for this fiscal year where we're at and I'll take any questions. Okay. So these grants are all just since 20 22. No, 2025. So we have um in the current Let me go back. So, in this fiscal year, we've applied for $35 million for grants, and we've been awarded about 38 million. And where do we know where all all of these are? More? Uh, yes. Yeah. Uh, so this year, $ 35 million in applied for grants. Yes. For fiscal year 25, we've applied for at least 35 million. And roughly where? What department? Oh, sure. Yes. I'm sorry. That's good. Awards. So, right off the bat to the larger ones, uh about 12.2 million is for the aviation department. We had about 15 point about 15 million for CCW. Um about 2.4 million for the Navy Air Station and uh some of the larger ones uh 333,000 was for victims of of crime. Um and so it varies from the police department, uh intergovernment relations, um CCW and fire. So CCW, airport, and who was the other one? Oh, fire, police. Well, no, no, but CCW and airport and NAS, let's say, those were those all applied for by the grant writer? Correct. Correct. So, how many were applied? Here's here's why I'm asking because I know you know Pat, y'all do y'all's own CCPD your own grant writing. Libraries does their own grant writing. So, how much of that is the grant writer herself or himself? Uh, I I'd have to strip those out. Um, and you can you can get back with us. But here's my point is we have one two grant writers. One grant writer. We have two positions. We have one grant writer. So, Peter, we have one grant writer and I we've been and I'm going to say harping for years about grant writing. You can't have a 1.8 billion organization with one grant writer or or even two to be honest with you. Um but but here's the thing. Where's the analysis of how many how many um departments write their own grants very efficiently? And some maybe they don't. Maybe they're not as efficient. I know CCPD has it down. I don't know about fire. I know library fire does. Yeah, the fire the fire department, CCPD, health department, they have routine grants and they So those three departments, I'm not talking about routine grants. That's excuse me. I'm talking about they have routine and they apply for new ones pretty efficiently. Both those three. Okay. So my point is this. Someone needs to go look at this. The these numbers look great, but I don't know what's in I know because I know some of these departments, not all. What what comes from in-house, what comes from the actual grant writer and what really makes sense when you have 29 departments. And before you figure out what makes sense, you have to ask yourself which departments really need these grants and prioritize those, right? So you're not going to say 29 absolutely need grants out there. You're going to say I have no idea. Let's just say 15 15 departments out of the 29 really really need these grants. And so can this one person or two what is it really going to take? And and and I know you don't have to necessarily hire a grant writer. You can contract grant writing. You can just pay someone to grant writing. I think we've done that before. I don't know if that's the best use of of funds or if that's good policy. That's whatever you decide. But I just I feel like this is great. I'd like a little bit more detailed information, but but I think we need a real analysis because any council is sitting up here saying, "Oh, well, you know, grant writer, great. Well, how does how is this going to impact is it really even impacting us as much as it can?" And you have to take into consideration writing a grant is not just well let me write this submit it great we got money then you have to make sure you have the staff to actually administer that grant and that takes money that that costs right for personnel. So I think we need to really look at this Peter to see I would love for you to come back and Sergio for you to stand there and say here's the reality council this organization needs five grant writers but those five grant writers are going to require x amount of personnel and and we may not be able to afford that but that's where this aa council would make a very very educated decision on you know utilizing funding because what would all those grants bring in you know who knows the what what I can add mayor is that the biggest challenge some of the departments have is coming up with cost sharing and so there are these grants that are out there some call for 20% cost sharing right and so as we roll out this program um those cost shares aren't budgeted right and so then this scrambling you know public works is a perfect example there's a lot of grants out there uh but they just don't have the funding for that cost match right well that's that's another big part of this analysis is really when you prioritize those I think a lot of the police ones u Pat don't they a lot of them require that cost share it could be 20,000 or what have you so all of that would have to be included in this because then you have the priority you public safety you know that that requires 20 grand here and there and 50 somewhere else um that might take a bigger chunk of of the capacity right that's what I'd like to see but this is a great report. I think I mean we've never seen this. It's it's better than what we've ever seen. So, I appreciate it very much and I think we're ahead of the game by having a grant writer, but I'd like to see an analysis with with more detailed information. We'll do. Yeah. Councilwoman Paxton. Thank you, Mayor. I think um this is a lot of um additional resources that are needed. And I know that we often say, "Oh, there's grants for that. Why aren't we looking for grants for this?" And we say that arbitrarily, but to me it has to start with I think the governing entity setting priorities. We have you know what is it 39 departments. We have to set what are our priorities. I think that just the lowhanging fruit in the city of Corpus Christie right now. Public safety um infrastructure such as street and drainage, sidewalks, those types of things. Um public spaces and quality of life. I think those are kind of three right now that are lowhanging fruit. Just to hypothetically stick those to the wall. And then what we would have to to look at to me to kind of answer what the mayor is saying is once we know what our budgetary priority categories are, then we have to evaluate grants that are annually rotating that are available for us and then plan accordingly for those to say we know there's a grant out there that's going to require this percentage of a match. So if we budget that accordingly then you know going back to that big picture of the city budget proactively is I think what she was saying proactively looking for the new grants that's how we would be able to quantify or justify quantifying new and a robust grant writing force and then the the departments having their annual static grants that they look for finding those additional sources those types of things but I agree with the mayor where this is something that we could we could definitely get behind and support. One thing we are trying to work on, council member, is uh we do have a grant module within our ERP that was not rolled out or implemented uh with the implementation of our ERP. Uh we're trying to utilize that to help us with reporting and tracking. Uh so we we are trying to build that program. Um but there's other things within our ERP that we need to address first before we add on to it. But so uh to your point, we are that's something we're definitely considering. Thank you for your presentation and your hard work today. I appreciate it. Thank you, Councilman GMPOS. Thank you, Mayor. Um, and thank you so much, Serio. Thank you for um my questions that I had asked yesterday. And and one of those uh questions that the mayor, you know, actually stated was, you know, do we uh need or should we get more grant writers? And you actually said we have not asked for additional grant writers. um in the future we'll be asking for grants compliance officer to help the city departments maintain compliance with grant award requirements. So I just wanted to read that statement because that's what you you know had responded but I also want to acknowledge um Councilman Paxton's point about you know how we can structure our grant writers and how we would be applying. I think that's a great idea with the priority of you know of the city council is it what are our priorities and you know do we have the this is where we want to see you know let's say I I just heard earlier uh from Arlene that um she h knows someone of a grant writer I think that works in Alice or something like that um but that uh his expertise has more to do with um the Texas highway way, you know, but again, it goes back to we have to come up with 20% of whatever the grant is. So again, you know, it is about our priorities and if we I think that's a good suggestion. And so I am grateful. I am I mean, you know, I'm just glad that we're here at this point that we can actually have something to report. And I love the idea too about what uh our mayor said is that we I'd like to see the exclusion of the regular like the police and the fire that already have their grant writing down. But some of the other departments like I know the um what is it called the the the the railway the trail uh over in Yeah. the trails the trails to ra uh rails to trail. Yes. Yes. And that that was a result of a of a grant, wasn't it? Yeah. Dan Mcinn applied for that grant with the help of the uh you know the volunteers in in Flower Bluff. Okay. Yeah. They identified the grant and then Dan filled it out with the help of uh a consultant and uh it's $13 million. I mean obviously a coup for us. Um but I also asked you Serio if we uh and so I guess you just answered that question. He did too. is uh we as as city council members can suggest grants you know to some of the projects that sure that uh you know we want to move forward. So anyway, so thank you. Good report. Yeah, you can send them to me, Council. That's what he advised. And just be mindful. We got to be careful because we if we get nine different directions to apply for nine different grants, now you're talking 81 grants. You know, is that nine times nine is? But so we'll we're going to listen to you, but we we'll probably give you some advice to say, well, we're backlogged, you know, or this one doesn't fit the priority. But if you all have suggestions, send them to me. And especially because sometimes you hear things we don't hear, you know, from the community or from your your profession. So, uh, feel free to send those to us and, uh, we're supportive of grants. We know the grants are a benefit to this community and I'm so glad that we were able to get that one because I know the community out there is really excited about it. So, yeah. So, one thing I would want to add is, you know, and the trestle grant is a very good example of we were able to get $13 million, but it's also a good example of the fact that a lot of times you have to have money to get money. And so, that trestle grant, we had to hire an engineering firm. It cost us a couple hundred thousand dollars to put the application together because we had to have plans. We had to have, you know, we had to develop that project out. Um, it took us, I want to say 3, four, five, six months to put that all together. We got it together. We submitted it. We were successful in getting that $13 million. But just like Sergio said, you know, if we want to be more proactive in doing these, we are going to have to look at what is the cost for application, having those funds set aside, having those people that are experts because there are people who like you mentioned the um somebody who's who is is a specialist in applying for grants for Tex DOT for Texas Parks and Wildlife. And so while we can have grant writers inhouse, um a lot of times they are more generalist, but if we're going to do specialized grants, a lot of times you do have to contract with a grant writing firm that specializes in those type of applications. And so it is one of those things where, you know, it it it sometimes it does take money to get money. Okay. Mayor, may I just respond? Sure. Just exactly what the mayor said about maybe contracting out, you know, some of these grant writers. Maybe that might be the opportunity to experiment with that. Yeah. Which takes money. So depending on what the departments have in their budget, but we've used we've used them from time to time. Like we did a I think it was the raise grant and we that was sourced out completely. Remember it was for extensive road work. We didn't ultimately get it, but we had a consultant do it for us. I think it was like 40,000 or something. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Councilwoman, real quick. Um you know it's an it takes expertise to write these grants. I remember being at the county, we had a really good grant writer and we lost her to the port. But it is very time consuming. It's a lot of work. So kudos to the police and fire department, but I noticed all the departments that got the grants were the bigger ones like NAS, the airport, police and fire. So I think we need to focus on the ones the smaller ones such as park and wreck, um the libraries, animal control. So my suggestion is kind of what she Heather said if we could set some funds aside because it's all in their budget. they don't have it in their budget, so they can't and they don't go for the grants. And a lot of these are smaller grants that they get in these departments, some bigger ones, but it's just just an idea to think about maybe we need to put a fund that says, okay, if you want to apply for grant, these are in here and look at and see if there's anything left for the grant matching, right? You're talking. Yeah, for the matching because you usually have to match something. Yeah. Okay, good point. We'll we can look at that in the budget coming up this summer. Lots in the budget. I know. Thank you. You got to cut something to get it, but yeah, we'll look at it. Great. Thank you, Councilwoman. Okay, I think I think that's all. Thank you so much for the presentation, Pat. Thanks for being here. Yeah, thank you. All righty. Um Oh, okay. So, I think I spoke with Councilwoman Vaughn. So, I think we're just gonna have Ryan send you all the presentation. That's the will of the council. And then we'll be That's the will of the council. Councilwoman Vaughn. Yeah, we'll just have Ryan send it. Yeah. Thank you, Ryan. Give him a chance to eat lunch. I I texted him. He didn't reply. Yeah, he's he's eating dinner at Caroline's. Yeah, he's fine. Okay, he'll email it to us. We appreciate it in advance. Brian, if you're listening. So, with that, this meeting is adjourned.