[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:04] All right. I'd like to welcome everybody to the July 21st, 2025 town council regular meeting.
[0:13] I'd like to go ahead and call this meeting to order at 531. I will go ahead and do the invocation.
[0:22] Give me one second. I'd written it down.
[0:42] All right. If you'd mind your heads.
[0:43] Heavenly Father, we gather today mindful of the weighty, excuse me, responsibilities placed
[0:49] upon us as Cargill Town Council. We ask for your wisdom and guidance as we
[0:54] deliberate on matters that impact the lives of our citizens, grant us clarity of thought,
[1:00] discernment in our decisions, and a spirit of unity as we work together for the betterment
[1:04] of our community. Help us hear and listen to all voices to consider the needs of every resident
[1:10] and to act with integrity and compassion. May our decisions reflect your divine purpose
[1:16] this and lead to a more just and prosperous town for all.
[1:19] Amen.
[1:21] OK, if you would mind joining me for the pledges.
[1:27] Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
[1:31] and to the republic for which it stands,
[1:34] one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty
[1:38] and justice for all.
[1:41] Honor to the Texas flag, our pledge allegiance
[1:44] to thee, Texas, one state, under God,
[1:47] one and indivisible.
[1:53] All right, that brings us to the open forum.
[1:56] Ms. McComis, do we have any?
[2:13] Nope.
[2:15] One.
[2:20] I have Ms. Dela Shaw.
[2:31] The $1 show.
[2:32] About two months ago, I came to you and asked for a sign to be put on Harriet Lane because
[2:38] of people running through my fence.
[2:40] And I just wanted to thank you because I left home this morning when I came home.
[2:45] There was a sign on Harriet Lane now showing a double curve.
[2:51] I still wish we had that sign up that's the unenforceable speed limit of 20 miles per hour.
[2:58] But maybe this sign will take care of that problem.
[3:02] I just wanted to thank you for getting that done.
[3:09] Even if you didn't sign up, is there anybody else in the audience that would like to speak?
[3:14] Going once, twice.
[3:16] All right.
[3:16] We'll close the open forum, which brings us to the consent agenda.
[3:21] I would like to go ahead and remove item number 3 and 7 for the councils.
[3:28] Any other ones that you would like to have separate consideration for?
[3:37] I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exceptions of item 3 and item 7.
[3:46] I'll second.
[3:48] All right.
[3:49] A motion and a second.
[3:50] All those in favor?
[3:51] Aye.
[3:52] Anyone opposed?
[3:53] All right.
[3:53] Motion carries.
[3:54] Number three, consider approval of ordinance 2025-26, authorizing a funding request for
[4:02] the Argonne Crime Control Prevention District to purchase five speed monitoring devices
[4:05] for all traffic solutions and five decorative poles for centerline supply, from centerline
[4:11] supply for the use of Argonne Police Department.
[4:13] The only clarification, I guess maybe it would have to be you, Chief, because I don't
[4:17] see a town manager.
[4:19] Are those for Argao or areas outside of Argao, like the ETJ?
[4:26] Argao.
[4:26] Argao.
[4:27] That's all I need to know.
[4:29] So having said that, that was the only clarification and look for a motion to approve item number
[4:36] three.
[4:37] Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve item number three on the consent agenda as
[4:41] presented.
[4:42] I'll second that.
[4:44] All right.
[4:44] Got a motion and a second.
[4:45] All those in favor?
[4:46] Aye.
[4:47] All right, anybody oppose?
[4:48] All right, motion carries.
[4:51] The item number seven, it was really intended
[4:55] to give our town manager a little bit of credit.
[5:01] I don't see him here, so I'm gonna go ahead
[5:02] and pinch hit for him.
[5:05] But essentially what item seven comes down to
[5:08] is we, he had a bid, I'm going by memory,
[5:11] maybe Bobby, you might remember.
[5:14] You wanna step up, please?
[5:17] I think the original bid was $46,000, $47,000 for the amount of work, and then just...
[5:25] I don't want to speak for you, but anytime you get into doing redo work and things like that,
[5:31] things creep up and you all found other things that really needed to be tend to, right?
[5:36] Yes, sir. As we started removing panels that were busted, we realized other areas
[5:42] that we're taking on rainwater and anything like that to get underneath the panels that
[5:47] we were originally hoping could be left.
[5:51] What was discovered out of it is an entire point A to point B that really needs to be
[5:57] done for it to be a lasting repair.
[6:01] That's what this is asking.
[6:07] Consistencies from what I think you would like to see normally.
[6:11] help me out. Compaction, the thickness of the concrete that's existing, we found it
[6:17] ranging anywhere from three inches to six and a half inches. But quite a few areas
[6:23] are only around three inches thick.
[6:27] And was the rebar thick enough or was it
[6:30] subpar? I actually found two different sizes of rebar and some of the stuff
[6:35] removed. Some of it is what is ideal and some of it is smaller. The concrete that's
[6:41] there was actually breaking extremely talky and brittle. It was breaking
[6:47] very easy, but we found records of the concrete that was poured previously and
[6:52] it's a very low PSI, low strength concrete. So what we're planning on
[6:57] going back with in this entire repair is a much stronger concrete that they
[7:02] can hold up to the type of traffic that travels.
[7:05] Would six inches be the standard thickness, minimum?
[7:09] Six inches is a standard minimum.
[7:12] And the PSI was subpar, too, right?
[7:15] Yes.
[7:16] Right now, what the current As-Built plan
[7:18] say was 3,000 PSI concrete that was put down,
[7:22] both sidewalks, 3,000 PSI.
[7:26] What the contractor is putting back right now is 5,000.
[7:30] And 4,000 is good for a roadway, many places that's what your standard roadways are, but
[7:37] 3,000, especially not for the aperture.
[7:42] And what Bobby is pointing to there in that picture on your right, that's essentially
[7:46] the seam between the north and the south, which there wasn't any connection, any rebar
[7:53] connecting the two, that's why they were opening it up.
[7:55] And actually, Mike had taken, I don't know what it is, some kind of rubbery filler thing
[8:01] that he was going to actually show us, but anyway.
[8:04] It's basically the stuff that you use to fill cracks in the ground.
[8:09] There's probably close to 200 feet long out there that's almost three inches wide.
[8:15] So some of it's gone.
[8:17] Some of it, as you can see in that picture, was filled in with grout.
[8:20] other areas where it was actually filled in with crack-sealed material. It's
[8:25] basically a rubber consistency that's heated up to fill a crack but it was
[8:29] three inches wide, five inches deep of crack-sealed. So all that would be
[8:37] removed along with these panels and new concrete would be going down,
[8:41] butted up against the existing eastbound lane and it will be dalled in.
[8:46] and they'll drill holes in the existing endow it together
[8:49] to where it's joined the way it's supposed to
[8:51] and then seal the top once the concrete.
[8:53] You know, just that thought.
[8:55] I drive that quite frequently.
[8:57] There are several drill sites along the French town
[9:02] being kind of a collector.
[9:03] And they haul water, water tanks from disposal.
[9:08] That's a lot of weight on that concrete.
[9:11] Yes, sir.
[9:12] Is six inches adequate for the heavy traffic?
[9:15] Six inches should be fine. I mean the road that's there it's it's held up for at least 13 years
[9:22] Down so that's actually surprising
[9:24] With what's there that it held up that long
[9:28] But six inch thick with the proper psi and it should be fine, but if we went
[9:34] If we went thicker it would increase things we'd have to remove some of the soil because you still want the top of it
[9:40] to be at the top of the other lane.
[9:42] So that would increase trying to remove more dirt from this lane.
[9:47] They can up.
[9:48] Bobby, you want to reflect on, and you
[9:51] can see it in actually both pictures in the distance
[9:54] on the right-hand side in the left corner.
[9:57] That's a light system that controls the traffic
[10:00] and your feelings were?
[10:02] You'll notice we did do temporary traffic signals
[10:06] on this project instead of detours,
[10:09] while detours are maybe a little bit cheaper to do. They would have had to
[10:16] detour traffic all the way back to Gibbons. Gibbons back to 407, 407 down to
[10:22] 377, get back to Frenchtown. This temporary traffic signal seems to be
[10:27] working pretty well. Now it was a little bit for everybody to get used to it the
[10:32] first couple days but it's actually it actually seems to be going really smooth.
[10:36] There's actually an intersection, a T intersection in the middle of the closure of Indian Trail.
[10:41] There's also a temporary traffic signal on that road.
[10:44] Fall works off of sensors and timeframe of the speed limit and the length space between
[10:50] them.
[10:51] So it has so many seconds of green light, so many seconds of red light to clear traffic
[10:55] out for other turns green.
[10:58] When a car pulls up trying to leave Indian Trail from that residential cul-de-sac, it
[11:03] Clicks a sensor that tells the other lights they need to turn red to give traffic from our residential area time to get out
[11:10] It must be going pretty smoothly
[11:13] So that worked really well because last time
[11:17] We had all kinds of issues. We had to call for police backup so to speak to
[11:23] Kind of monitor some other ones that didn't want to listen to the signage
[11:27] So anyway, the whole point was to give you an opportunity to shine here. He's done an awesome job one
[11:33] And two, anytime that we start doing projects like this,
[11:37] I think we have to be aware it's like opening up a wall.
[11:41] You just don't know what you're gonna find, right?
[11:43] And so the fact that we're adding to this original budget,
[11:48] I still think it's very, very cost effective.
[11:51] We're gonna fix French Town.
[11:53] It's hopefully gonna last another 20 years.
[11:56] And Gustave, I know you've been wanting to
[11:59] show more actual projects out there.
[12:01] So this is the very first.
[12:02] I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but I know Mike has, I think, a million six for road construction for the next FY, so
[12:09] Anyway, any last words or sir all right doing awesome job. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right
[12:15] If there's no question look for a motion for item number seven
[12:21] Mr.. Mayor make a motion that we
[12:24] That we approve item number seven on the con consent agenda as written
[12:30] Second.
[12:30] Okay, got a motion and a second. All those in favor?
[12:33] Aye.
[12:34] Anyone opposed? All right. That brings us to the public hearing number eight.
[12:39] Public hearing concern to take and take action on ordinance 2025-22 amending TDS 25-004 to article three
[12:48] zoning of the town, Argo Town Development Standard regarding amendments to section 14.3.34
[12:54] single-family residential estate, one zoning district, and other related
[12:59] provisions in the town development standards. Mr. Harrison. All right, thank
[13:05] you, Mayor. So this item is a public hearing that was brought before you. It
[13:12] came before you as open forum item. This was something that a resident spoke
[13:17] about. And one of the takeaways from that was to bring it to P&Z to
[13:23] discuss the amendment and then to Town Council so that's what we're that's what
[13:28] this item is for tonight is to discuss a potential amendment to the section 14
[13:33] 334 single-family residential estate one zoning district so this is a
[13:39] residential zoning district that requires a minimum of one acre and so
[13:43] the amendment has already been discussed by the Planning and Zoning
[13:47] Commission, they recommended approval with the condition that it be allowed only by issuance
[13:55] of an SUP, so a specific use permit.
[13:58] This ordinance language that you see here is the language that's currently proposed with
[14:03] the condition from the PNZ Commission added in there, so you can see on the first line
[14:08] a property zone to SF1 may be allowed only by issuance of an SUP to have the usual
[14:13] farm animals as defined under the Farm General's Livestock Branch Use.
[14:18] And then further down in that paragraph, to clarify, I used the same language that was
[14:24] a part of the SF2.5 and the Ag Zoning Districts.
[14:27] So those zoning districts are larger.
[14:30] They already require or they already allow livestock and ranch animals.
[14:34] So I just used that same language.
[14:36] And then further down in the paragraph it says, so long as the property has a
[14:40] minimum one and a half acres of land available for grazing, excluding property
[14:45] use for structures and other non-ag uses, and follows section 2.01.014, the code
[14:52] of ordinances for the one animal unit per acre. So that language, the difference is
[14:59] www.youtube.com
[15:00] It's one and a half acres of land available for grazing as opposed to two and a half.
[15:04] So that was the big difference for SF1. It's that if we're going to allow livestock
[15:10] animals on SF1's own property, you have to have a bigger threshold of one and a half
[15:15] acres as opposed to just one acre. But the matrix is still the same. So if you
[15:20] have a horse and you want one, you want to bring your horse to your SF1's
[15:24] own property, it would still be one acre per horse. You would still, even
[15:29] Even though if you have one horse, the minimum is one acre in the matrix, but you would still
[15:33] be required to have one and a half acres of grazing land.
[15:36] So it makes the threshold a little harder for SF1 properties.
[15:41] I think that's a good thing just because we want to make sure that those properties
[15:46] have enough land and that the goal is not to put animals on small properties.
[15:54] You know, so I think one and a half acres is a reasonable ask.
[15:59] And then the second paragraph, it talks about private animal lots or stables may be allowed
[16:04] only by issuance of an SQP and subject to the following standards.
[16:09] Those standards are the same standards that we have for the SF2.5 and the Ag Zoning
[16:13] District so nothing changes with that with the exception of one and a half acres as
[16:18] referenced as opposed to two and a half acres.
[16:20] So those are the big changes, and then in the staff report you'll see, I believe it's page 159.
[16:30] That is a section that was previously in SF1 that talks about standards of commercial,
[16:37] for commercial animal lots and stables that we're proposing to delete, to remove,
[16:43] because oddly enough you had these standards for commercial stables in SF1,
[16:48] and we didn't even allow livestock and ranch animals in SF1, so it was kind of funny that
[16:53] it was there, so we just decided to remove that one.
[17:00] As far as SF1, to give you a sense of where it is in the town and how big they are, there
[17:08] aren't that many.
[17:10] Of the areas that are zoned SF1, I've highlighted here, so you can see how it shifts.
[17:14] I've put little red lines around the properties that are zoned SF1 so you
[17:22] can see some notable neighborhoods if you've lived here long like Rolling
[17:27] Acres, Shadowwood Estates, Bin Boyd Road, you have the Shenandoah Court area, the
[17:35] north side of old Justin Road, Surrey Lane. So these are areas that are zoned
[17:40] Only a small fraction of the number of those lots actually have enough land to allow for livestock and ranch animals.
[17:50] So even though looking at the map it doesn't look like much so you would take even less than that.
[17:57] So maybe about 10% of these lots are even eligible to have the size requirement for grazing land to have a horse or livestock or ranch animals.
[18:06] So it's pretty limited.
[18:07] I think the overall goal is to allow those lots that have the space to have ranch and livestock animals, but also
[18:18] Making sure that
[18:20] Areas that are next to them are not going to be impacted. They still have to have the space
[18:24] They still have to have the setbacks as far as ag structures. Those don't change at all from the zoning districts
[18:30] I said 2.5 an ag it's still
[18:32] 50 feet from the property line for ag structures
[18:36] and then 100 feet from nearby residents
[18:39] for any ag related use, like piles of manure or feed
[18:43] or any of that stuff.
[18:45] It still has to be 100 feet away.
[18:47] And so are there any questions about this map
[18:51] before I go on?
[18:55] So again, the recommendation from the PNZ
[18:58] from their meeting on July 9th
[19:00] was a recommendation of approval
[19:03] with the condition may be allowed only by issuance of an SUP.
[19:08] So this was done, I think the Planning and Zoning Commission
[19:11] wanted to ensure that they had control
[19:15] over the types of animals, the lot that was requesting
[19:19] the use, so that was the reason for adding that condition
[19:23] to make it a specific use permit.
[19:25] It does add an extra level of bureaucracy,
[19:29] so to speak, it's still a public hearing,
[19:31] it'll still require the applicant to pay the application fee for that so it
[19:38] overall the amount of enforcement that we're doing on other properties that are
[19:42] SF 2.5 and ag we're doing that today you know we get complaints not regularly but
[19:49] occasionally where someone will say we have too many animals on a property so
[19:53] we'll go and investigate and if we find out that there are too many animals
[19:56] will tell that property owner that they have to get rid of some of them so
[20:01] Typically, it's larger animals like cattle, horses.
[20:05] I don't think I've ever received a complaint
[20:07] for the number of chickens, because I
[20:10] think they'll have to have like 1,000 for them
[20:12] to be in violation.
[20:16] But overall, this is a public hearing.
[20:18] It's an ordinance amendment.
[20:19] So I believe we have a couple of people here
[20:23] to speak on that if they wish to.
[20:25] But otherwise, I'm here to answer questions.
[20:28] Harrison, you pointed out last time, I think.
[20:30] and how many actual lots there were.
[20:32] Do you remember the number of SF1?
[20:36] Well, of properties that are zoned SF1,
[20:37] I said it was approximately 100.
[20:39] 100.
[20:40] So, you know, and I think, I don't know,
[20:43] I thought we talked about it once,
[20:44] but I think it's a great idea from an SUP
[20:47] because we have one code enforcement guy.
[20:50] And for him to, I mean, he knows the area pretty well,
[20:52] but it's unfair to him to run around and see that,
[20:55] oh, they have enough room and it's grazeable
[20:57] and they have setbacks.
[20:58] So I think it gives the opportunity for folks to enjoy that land to its fullest, but at
[21:05] the same time, we do monitor what's going on.
[21:09] But having said that, if there's no other questions, are there, Dr. Herman?
[21:13] I'm sorry, go ahead.
[21:15] I was just going to ask, did we get any responses from the neighboring, or did we
[21:20] have to do?
[21:21] No, because it's not a specific.
[21:22] It's to the standards.
[21:24] Okay.
[21:24] Sorry about that.
[21:25] Thank you.
[21:26] That's coming.
[21:28] Harrison, when it said one and a half acres, excluding other structures, I suppose excluding
[21:33] would be a residence and things of that sort.
[21:37] That's right.
[21:38] Okay.
[21:38] So anything on the land that would be the main house, accessory structures, a pool,
[21:45] all of that would have to be in excess.
[21:48] You would have to have a barn as well.
[21:50] A barn.
[21:50] Okay.
[21:51] You would have to have one and a half acres of grazeable land.
[21:54] so it has to be land that animals can munch on.
[21:57] So I wouldn't classify a single family home
[22:01] with accessory structures in a pool
[22:02] and the grass around there to count
[22:05] as far as the grazeable land.
[22:14] All right, well, if there's no one for the question,
[22:18] we'll go ahead and open the public hearing at 553.
[22:30] Right, hello, everyone.
[22:34] While I understand the primary reason
[22:35] for PNZ's proposal of requiring,
[22:38] Oh, I'm sorry, I always forget that.
[22:40] Amelia Thompson, 180 Hartpole, Rd West.
[22:44] So while I understand the primary reason
[22:46] for PNZ's proposal for requiring an SUP
[22:50] by way of enabling them the opportunity
[22:52] to understand what animals and what land would be used,
[22:56] my position is to not proceed with requiring an SUP
[23:00] at least initially.
[23:01] Instead, I'm in support of keeping the original proposed,
[23:05] a proposal of incorporating the language for SF1 zoned properties that have one-and-a-half
[23:11] acre minimum that would allow animals to be on that set property as defined by the farm's
[23:17] general use chart matrix.
[23:19] In discussion with Harrison and as he's highlighted, the reach of this for us in
[23:26] changing this SF1 zoning regulation is predominantly housing additions, which would be sanctioned
[23:31] by HOAs and is likely more limited
[23:36] than even how we're defining it today.
[23:39] I would be remiss if I also didn't highlight
[23:40] that another fellow Argyle resident stood up
[23:42] during the PNZ, the July 9th PNZ meeting
[23:45] who was also in favor of just proceeding forward
[23:48] with the SF1 zoning revisions,
[23:51] stating similar reasoning.
[23:55] Another piece that I highlighted
[23:57] during the PNZ committee meeting on July 9th
[24:00] was that the one and a half acre requirement
[24:03] actually goes above and beyond the one acre
[24:05] to one large animal requirement
[24:08] that the SF2 and a half land is privy to
[24:14] which leads to my next point
[24:16] and that SF2 and a half zone properties
[24:18] are not required to go through the process of an SUP
[24:22] where they have to prove that they have one acre
[24:25] for every large animal
[24:27] that those same properties have to get approval for that SUP.
[24:36] Personally, we've already done the rezoning process.
[24:39] I'm challenged by, yet again, this SUP requirement being included as part of the SF1 revisions,
[24:49] which is another process with associated risks, additional costs of its own
[24:54] versus just allowing it based on the property size
[24:56] as it's been defined.
[24:58] That being said, I am in favor of pushing forward
[25:01] the SFZO Anyone Regulations as initially proposed
[25:04] and this would in turn support families like my own
[25:06] to be able to have animals on their property
[25:08] as defined by the Farm's General Use Chart Matrix
[25:11] that deepens work ethic
[25:13] and furthers sharing agriculture
[25:15] and equestrian passions in our day to day ways of life.
[25:19] And so I'll just leave it as perhaps consider
[25:23] proceeding forward with not requiring the SUP and then if it does become an
[25:28] issue then implementing an SUP as part of the process. Thank you.
[25:36] Is there anybody
[25:37] else?
[25:41] Okay then we'll close the public hearing at 5.56 and look for
[25:49] deliberation from the council.
[25:54] Anybody have any thoughts?
[25:56] Just one, Amelia? I just wanted to make sure I got that right. We should name this ordinance
[26:02] after you don't have to get up. This is all just compliments. You guys are shepherding
[26:06] this all the way through. We understand the incredible amount of patients it takes
[26:10] and so I think this is the right direction to go for y'all's property and the three
[26:17] or four SF1s that are big enough to support this.
[26:20] So it's the right thing to do, and it's a pain.
[26:23] And we appreciate your guys' patience pushing it forward.
[26:28] Yeah, I would concur with Council Member Stewart's.
[26:32] I wish there was a cheaper version of doing it,
[26:37] if there was such a way of doing it,
[26:39] take the cost factor away.
[26:41] But I still think, and Amelia, if I may call you that,
[26:47] We have seen some things firsthand.
[26:49] Unfortunately, I'm sure you're not,
[26:50] you're going to take care of the animals just great,
[26:52] but unfortunately that hasn't always been the case.
[26:55] I think the logic about the two and a half
[26:58] is just the fact that two and a half is, there's a lot.
[27:01] I mean, a house is going to be,
[27:03] it's not even going to take a fraction of that,
[27:05] nor the pool, the hardscape, all of that.
[27:07] And so there, the probability that you're going to have
[27:10] at least one acre per animal is much,
[27:14] much greater in that sense.
[27:15] But there is no perfect scenario. You have to come up with some rules, right?
[27:20] So anyway, if I look for other...
[27:23] Just real quick, let me jump back on this.
[27:26] You know, theirs is the most scrutinized property that will ever be scrutinized under this little amendment
[27:31] because we've been studying it for six months now.
[27:35] If there was a way to grandfather theirs in to approve it without an S.U.P.
[27:41] and then make anything going forward require an S.U.P.
[27:43] because, like I say, they've been scrutinized as much as anybody will ever be scrutinized
[27:50] for this, because they've been, like I say, they've had it up in front of P&Z two or three
[27:54] times.
[27:55] They've changed the zoning.
[27:56] It's been well, like I say, I can't imagine studying it anymore for them.
[28:02] I would love, personally, I would love to accommodate them without the SHP.
[28:07] My only concern would be in terms of legalities would be if you do it without the SHP,
[28:13] right now, and then you're trying to change the tone somewhere down the road, how do you
[28:18] accommodate and resolve that conflict at that point in time?
[28:24] So Harrison, when you look at this SUP requirement, I mean it's pretty quick. There's not a whole
[28:31] lot of math that has to be done, right?
[28:34] No, not really. I think overall it's time because it takes 60 days from turning in the
[28:40] application, going through the public hearing process, and then it's cost, you
[28:43] know, an SUP costs a thousand dollars. So if anyone wants to put their horse on
[28:48] their property, you got to say, hey, you need to pay a thousand dollars before you
[28:51] can even know if you can do it. And for some people that's going to be cost
[28:55] prohibitive. So Brenda, is there a way to have like an ag SUP? So the only way
[29:05] to allow the, I'll call her the applicant because really this is her request, is to
[29:15] approve the text change without the SUP requirement.
[29:21] There's been no notice and a hearing that would allow us to grant an SUP to her tonight.
[29:29] So if you have the SUP requirement, she would have to go through that process.
[29:34] But as far as a cost factor, is there a way to have a tiered, like an ag SUP fee?
[29:44] I suppose there is. You set a fee schedule every year with the budget and you can create new categories of fees.
[29:51] So the point I'm getting at.
[29:52] The logic, though, would be that the staff time required to process it is less than a regular SUP.
[30:01] And so what I'm getting at councilmember steward is the fact likelihood that PNZ is going to
[30:09] prove it is almost certain. I can't speak for the council here, but I have a feeling it's
[30:15] going to get, you know, passed. And so it's just a cost factor and a time factor. And
[30:21] if we can figure out the cost factor, then, you know, I think to your part, we're going
[30:28] going to keep parity with all the other properties, but we still can defend that we're treating
[30:34] everybody equally.
[30:45] So the Texas Constitution prohibits the expenditure of public funds for a private purpose. You'd
[30:54] have to find a public purpose behind waiving the fee in order to waive the fee for one.
[31:00] I don't recommend that as a general rule because fees suck for everybody, and I don't want to
[31:11] caution you against waiting for one and then getting another dozen requests.
[31:17] But we could, if this is going to take 60 days, we could by the next meeting essentially adjust
[31:22] a fee schedule for an ag fee application.
[31:26] Yes, you can.
[31:26] And I don't want to speak for you, Mr. Wicks, but if this is a two-hour deal, a three-hour
[31:33] deal to look at it, you know, is adjusted accordingly to $150, for example.
[31:40] So an S.U.P. permit is $1,000, whether it's an S.U.P. for this or whether it's for sport
[31:48] court lighting or whether it's for, like, a school or a church or anything like that.
[31:53] It's $1,000 for everybody.
[31:54] That's right.
[31:55] And so I do think that that makes sense that there's some type of fee schedule, right, because taking a look at something as massive as, let's just say, you know, whatever a 40,000 square foot building has a lot more particulars to it to look at than this.
[32:10] I do understand PNZ's logic behind making it an SUP, and while I, you know, don't want to put undue burden on anybody, I do think it makes sense.
[32:23] And especially since we're changing something and we're doing something new, I would hate
[32:27] for somebody to come in and they're like, oh, well, I'm SF-1 and that's all they see
[32:31] and then they go get their horse and then it's a matter of like, oh, well, no, it's
[32:34] SF-1 but with one and a half acres and this and that.
[32:38] And then it kind of goes, you know, kind of gets off the rails really quickly.
[32:42] And in the meantime, there's a horse already there or whatever.
[32:45] And so then, you know, I mean, it just, it kind of snowballs into creating more
[32:49] trouble down the line.
[32:50] Whereas if someone had kind of this specific thing where it had to be looked at we have to say yes
[32:54] This does meet the requirements. You do have the right land space and whatnot
[32:58] I think that that would prevent problems in the future when this would come up. I
[33:04] don't want to overstate the
[33:08] How often this happens I people already do that
[33:12] You know the zoning in SF one has language in those in the zoning district standards that
[33:18] talks about a commercial stable and private stables when we haven't allowed
[33:23] livestock and ranch animals in that zoning district and so people just go
[33:27] down and read oh I see private stable okay I can do it and so there it's
[33:32] already happened and it's it's not that common but when it does happen we tell
[33:36] them I know you saw that that was inaccurate and that we don't allow it
[33:42] in SF1 so you have to remove it and they do. So how many how many actual
[33:48] properties in reality, how many properties would have adequate acreage to be subject
[33:54] to this change, you know, that they would have access, one and a half acres in addition
[33:59] to the structures and all of that.
[34:01] From what I heard you say, there are minimal number of these tracks in Argao.
[34:06] Could we create, why don't we call it SF1, if we really, it's SF1 and a half, why
[34:10] don't we call create a separate, can we create a separate zoning just for the
[34:15] properties that have more than one acre?
[34:19] Well, we do have SF 2.5.
[34:21] So SF 1 is just a minimum one acre.
[34:24] And then so anything between one acre and 2.49 acres is SF 1.
[34:29] So you do have 2.3 acre lots that are SF 1.
[34:34] And then once you hit 2.5, then you're zoned SF 2.5.
[34:38] What I'm looking for, I guess,
[34:39] I'm looking for a way to accommodate
[34:42] these handful of properties that would actually
[34:45] qualify for animals and so on without going through the burden of SUP and everything else.
[34:52] Is there a way?
[34:53] Well, I think the potential for complaints of people violating this, I think the cost
[34:58] of managing that is less than the cost of doing SUPs.
[35:05] The overhead that it takes to process a public hearing, depending on the lot, if we have
[35:10] to send out 100, 150 letters, we have to use postage, we have to take the time to draft
[35:16] up the staff reports, you know, all of that staff time, if you combine that, I think it
[35:20] would be less than the overhead of having a code enforcement officer doing the enforcement.
[35:25] Gustav, if you, there's 100-ish SF-1s out there, and we have one code enforcement person,
[35:33] and he knows the area pretty well, but all of a sudden, it's not a matter, I guess
[35:39] the question is, people that have the SF1, are they going to be honest, well I'm going
[35:46] to say honest, are they going to recognize that you have to have one acre of usable?
[35:50] Quite honestly, I wasn't even aware of that, even though I have SF2.5 until Larry told
[35:57] me about it.
[35:57] He said it was grazeable land, I'm like, oh that's interesting, I never thought
[36:01] about that.
[36:02] So I think there's a lot of folks out there that just don't know.
[36:06] And the fact that you're getting so close to the minimum, right, per our schedule, I throw out again.
[36:14] Is there a possibility that we can amend our fee schedule to make it a little bit easier on the pocketbook?
[36:21] Absolutely.
[36:22] And, you know, in this case, they can proceed with their application,
[36:27] and hopefully by the next meeting we have this amended, so at least it takes that off the table for them.
[36:32] And in quite honesty for what it's worth, I think if you're the SF1 that has an SUP,
[36:38] it's going to be more special than somebody else's that doesn't have an SUP.
[36:42] Because yours will be, you know, usable for, you know, a horse or whatever you're trying to get.
[36:53] I think the fee schedule amendment would be my recommendation if that's the way you're leaning.
[36:59] It doesn't require public hearing. We can put it on the next agenda. It would not slow her down.
[37:05] when do you have to pay the like the whatever the fee is do you have to do
[37:11] that when like you apply for the scp yeah when you submit the application you'll
[37:14] have to pay the fee mm-hmm well the application isn't complete until you
[37:21] submit the fee mm-hmm are you pay the fee however staff could start working on
[37:27] it when it's submitted a lot of times people are late paying but you know
[37:31] what's coming so you can do some of the legwork.
[37:35] I just think we need to try to do something
[37:37] to provide some type of accommodation.
[37:38] I don't want it to be another, like, okay,
[37:40] so it's a month before we get the fee schedule changed
[37:43] and back to us, and then you're able to fill it out
[37:46] and fill the permit fee, and then it's another 60 days
[37:48] after, I mean, it's dragging on forever,
[37:50] so I'd like to try to find some way
[37:52] to be accommodating of something like that.
[37:55] As soon as staff knows the direction y'all want to go,
[37:58] we can certainly do that.
[37:59] that we will be very accommodating
[38:01] to help this applicant.
[38:02] We understand the position that you guys are looking for here.
[38:08] So we just need a motion.
[38:12] I'll make a motion to approve item eight as presented.
[38:16] I second.
[38:18] Okay, we have a motion to approve and a second.
[38:21] All those in favor?
[38:22] Aye.
[38:23] And just understand we'll work diligently
[38:25] to get that done, okay?
[38:27] All right, thank you.
[38:28] By the way, will you guys
[38:35] All right, that brings us to the next public hearing.
[38:38] Consider and take action ordinance 2025-23 amending TDS 25-005 to article 3, Zoning of
[38:46] the Town of Argo, Town Development Standards, regarding amendments to section 14.3.23, amendments
[38:52] to zoning ordinances in districts, administrative procedure enforcement, and other related provisions
[38:57] and the town development standards, Mr. Wicks.
[39:01] All right, thank you, Mayor.
[39:03] So this item is another one that was requested by town council.
[39:08] This is for the standards that talk about a public hearing
[39:12] and planning and zoning consideration.
[39:16] So whenever planning and zoning commission has to take action
[39:20] on a zoning, rezoning, or text amendment request,
[39:25] the section that we're talking about 14-3-23 had some language that said the
[39:31] Planning and Zoning Commission may on its own motion or at the applicant's
[39:34] request defer its decision recommendation for not more than 90
[39:38] calendar days from the time the public hearing was first opened. So this was
[39:44] brought to our attention by Council Member Brating. This was during the
[39:49] heritage plan development district PD public hearing we had to table that
[39:55] item a couple of times because we were waiting on information from the
[39:58] applicant and so that we had already had the public hearing and so we were
[40:02] thinking are we going to hit that 90-day calendar limitation and so we
[40:05] would have to make a decision and so the understanding would be to remove
[40:13] that language so that anytime the Planning and Zoning Commission needs to
[40:17] defer its decision to get more information from the applicant or you know
[40:24] maybe the applicant wants to request a deferral as well it eliminates that 90
[40:29] calendar day requirement so it just says defer its decision recommendation until
[40:33] it has had an opportunity to consider other information or propose
[40:36] modifications. So it's just eliminating that 90 calendar day
[40:42] So during the P&Z meeting on July 9th, they did recommend approval of that change as presented.
[40:51] So there was no condition or change to the revision.
[40:56] So right now this is the recommended for approval revision.
[41:01] And I'm available to answer any questions.
[41:04] Is this the so-called shock clock?
[41:07] Right.
[41:08] The planning and zoning shock clock.
[41:10] And we imposed that on ourselves?
[41:14] I think that could have been when we adopted this standard back in 2010.
[41:22] I did learn that the framework of the 2010 ordinance that we used is from the city of Keller.
[41:28] So I think this might have been something that came from Keller.
[41:32] But it was something to speed up the process if you think 90 days is fast.
[41:38] But that was the idea, I think.
[41:41] To be clear, it is not required by state statute.
[41:46] So we're looking to expedite it even further and do it within 90 days in full?
[41:50] Well, we would like to, but if there's more information that comes up that we need to consider, it eliminates any requirements.
[41:57] So it could be longer than 90 days if we wanted to be longer.
[42:00] There have been incidents in the past where there was pressure to make a decision when not all the information was there.
[42:06] I'm
[42:14] forward omitting it then.
[42:17] I think we need all the information.
[42:21] Well, we can do that in the form of a motion.
[42:24] Oh, it's probably my bad, getting ahead of myself here.
[42:28] All right, so we'll open the public hearing at 6.13.
[42:32] Do we have anybody that wants to speak on that topic?
[42:39] Go on once, twice.
[42:41] All right, we'll close the public hearing at 6.13
[42:46] in probably 30 seconds, so make a difference.
[42:50] I'll make a motion to approve planning and zoning's recommendation and that's ordinance 2025 2023 as it's written for public hearing item number nine.
[43:01] I'll second that motion is second. All those in favor. I anybody oppose motion carries brings us to the last public hearing item number 10 public hearing concern to take action ordinance 2025-24.
[43:16] For allowing a zoning change request, Z-25-002 from Agriculture to Old Town One Zoning District
[43:25] for the Mission Investor slash Outdoor LP Property on a 3.4 acre tract of unplanted land
[43:33] in the Jay-Gazaway Survey Abstract 481, I don't have to read all of that, do I?
[43:40] No.
[43:40] Okay.
[43:41] All right.
[43:41] It's on Front Street.
[43:43] Just to orient you.
[43:45] All right.
[43:46] Thank you, Mayor. So this item is a public hearing for zoning change request. The
[43:53] property itself, like you stated, it's on Front Street just to the north of Old
[43:58] Justin Road, south of Eagle Drive, and west of the railroad. So it's this long
[44:05] sliver of land that used to be owned by the Union Pacific Railroad. And since
[44:11] Since 2007, it's been owned by the same owner, Mission Investors, and currently it's unplatted.
[44:22] It's part of three different abstracts, if you can believe it.
[44:26] But the ultimate goal of this zoning change is to fix an error that was done when the
[44:33] zoning change, the zoning map was approved back in 2017.
[44:36] The map in 2017 had identified this parcel as right-away, which before 2006 it was right.
[44:44] It was owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, but now that it's privately owned it had been
[44:51] zoned ag and then in between zoning maps so it was ag and then the next zoning map said
[44:57] it was right away and so now we're going back to
[45:00] We're going to make it zoned again. So initially, the zoning change, we just said it was ag, and
[45:07] so the proposed new zoning district is OT1. OT1 stands for Old Town. That's the area of
[45:17] Argyle that is the oldest. But on the east side of 377, you have OT1, and that's the
[45:24] residential slash retail portion of Old Town. And then as you get further back to the
[45:29] older houses. You have OT2, which is just the residential standard for that area.
[45:35] But since this area is the historical part of Argyle, so I thought, speaking
[45:43] with the property owner, the best use of this property would be OT1 to make it
[45:49] consistent with this area as opposed to Ag. So current conditions of the site
[45:54] you can see here. This is looking north. You can see Front Street here on the
[45:59] left and then you can kind of make out the railroad tracks on the right side of
[46:02] the image and then across 377 you can see the red bank building and the blue
[46:06] Meadows building. So this is looking north and then this is looking south from
[46:14] the top of the property. You can kind of make out the railroad tracks on the
[46:17] left side of the image and the real estate station building and the former
[46:23] post office building, Turner Massey Realty Building. So you can see that it's
[46:28] long and skinny. It used to be operated or the property owner had a contract
[46:35] agreement with the town to use it to stage aggregate, gravel, dirt that we
[46:43] would store here in exchange for the town maintaining that property to keep
[46:47] it landscaped in mode. So for a period of time the town did use it to house some public
[46:54] work items. But here are the zoning maps showing the current zoning on the left. You can see
[47:01] that the parcel is shown as right away, unzoned, and then the proposed zoning on the right
[47:08] would show it as OT1. So you can see the blue area just on the east side of 377.
[47:15] and that's OT1 that allows retail and residential.
[47:19] On the north side of this parcel,
[47:21] there's a child daycare center, the Fine Art Preschool.
[47:26] That's zoned OT1.
[47:28] And then this parcel, the proposed OT1
[47:30] on the east side of Front Street.
[47:32] So that's the proposal right now.
[47:35] The OT1 land uses, this is the description
[47:41] that comes with the zoning district
[47:43] whenever we look at it in our standards
[47:45] and so it says old town one is intended to create a mixed use focal point for the town.
[47:50] This district is appropriate within that portion of the original dedication of the town of Argyle
[47:54] that is located east and west of the centerline of US Highway 377 and west of the centerline
[48:00] of the right away of Cypress Street. The mixture of retail office governmental
[48:05] residential uses is appropriate within the OT1 district. Public pedestrian walkways,
[48:11] open areas in order to promote interaction among the various land uses and to create
[48:15] a pedestrian friendly environment are encouraged. So the idea of anything
[48:21] developing on this site would help to meet those standards, create a more
[48:25] pedestrian friendly environment, a focal point for the town, create more
[48:29] compatibility of uses,
[48:33] and here are some potential OT1 land uses that are
[48:37] available in the zoning district. So a couple of items like a barber, beauty
[48:42] shop, a church place of worship. I know we need more of those. I'm sorry. Museum. I said
[48:53] it before you said it. Medical office uses, general office uses, pharmacy, specific use
[49:01] permits. So this would still require a public hearing for a specific use permit, a bed
[49:05] and breakfast, general retail, low intensity, which it just means any use that's not
[49:10] not formally identified in the use matrix that's under 5,000 square feet, and then a
[49:19] public garage parking structure, sports court, private, not lighted.
[49:24] So these are some of the potential uses.
[49:26] Right now the property owner doesn't have anything planned for the site.
[49:29] This would just be to establish the base zoning.
[49:32] So we don't know yet exactly what could possibly go there, but these are the potential.
[49:46] of residential and retail. So presumably retail on the bottom, living on the top, yes, that
[49:55] is a possibility. But that also exists currently in OT1 now. So it would be allowed under that
[50:04] circumstance so not apartment just for apartment sake you'd have to be retail
[50:08] with something on top. What are the dimensions do you know? I know it's
[50:14] small just curious if you had I think at its top it's about 130 feet wide.
[50:25] Sir
[50:25] I would hate to have can you approach please.
[50:38] The property is roughly 1,300
[50:40] feet long probably pushing 200 feet at the north end and south end
[50:46] gets pinched down as you can see, the state of Texas, the very southern end, old Justin
[50:54] Frontage, corners down the state, widening, reliant, and that's it, this was
[51:04] the old depot
[51:04] location.
[51:08] It would be really cool if it was returned to that, right, put a restaurant in there
[51:13] or something.
[51:14] You know, we have had thoughts like that, we've owned the property for 15 less years.
[51:20] We are developers for our own account.
[51:26] I just want my partner's 90 years old process.
[51:36] And a lot of people get tired.
[51:38] Nothing happened.
[51:40] I'll tell you, worries.
[51:44] One of the local dentists located.
[51:47] Building.
[51:49] Supercharging stations.
[51:50] Yes.
[51:53] Everything.
[51:55] Nothing close.
[52:05] No, this doesn't have the dimensions.
[52:06] I don't think this is part of what we're going to need in the Pacific Highlight Sale Default
[52:13] Profession.
[52:13] All right.
[52:14] Well, thank you.
[52:16] I mean, I'll say I'm for taking the handcuffs off.
[52:20] Well, you've got a public hearing, you're right.
[52:24] Yeah, that's a public hearing, so anyway, before you make a motion, well, I appreciate
[52:31] the information, sir, just that was a question, and I guess to your point, nothing has
[52:37] happened there and nothing will happen until something changes and this is the
[52:41] change. So having said that Harrison is there anything else you want to add
[52:46] before we open the public hearing? Just as far as public input so we did send out
[52:52] letters to property owners within 200 and a thousand feet. We haven't received
[52:57] any letters back to our office. Some people called asking questions to
[53:01] clarify what the item was for and then at the meeting on July 9th for
[53:06] of the PNZ Commission.
[53:07] We did have four residents speak.
[53:09] Two were seeking to clarify information
[53:12] and two were against the proposed zoning change.
[53:18] Could you outline what councillors
[53:21] Udavik and Snell dissented on?
[53:24] I think I'd guess, but.
[53:27] Yeah, I think the overall stance was,
[53:33] there was discussion about what was allowed
[53:36] on the property and that comes from the attachment that we had here, the deed
[53:44] without warranty that was shown in that meeting. So it showed some restrictions
[53:49] that came with the property that gives Union Pacific ability to say no to any
[53:56] above ground structures. I think it said it was for human habitation or
[54:02] human occupancy so that was something that was a concern for some of the
[54:07] commissioners but town attorney McDonald clarified that any sort of restriction
[54:13] from a deed without warranties between the property owner and that entity so
[54:18] it's a private it's a private case between those two the town doesn't get
[54:24] involved. So ultimately I think Udavik and Snell didn't see that property as having a
[54:33] lot of commercial value. The fact that it was too close to the railroad that might have
[54:38] some impact on the danger of a pretty active railroad going right next to some commercial
[54:47] buildings. So I think they were hesitant based on that concern and then whether
[54:52] there or not, that's how I would get developed at all.
[54:54] I'm sure all the neighbors would appreciate it.
[54:58] Sound buffer.
[54:59] Mm-hmm, yeah.
[55:00] Sound buffer, that's right.
[55:02] It seems to me that if the railroad
[55:05] is the final arbiter of what can go on the property,
[55:08] that just kind of makes that property almost not
[55:11] valuable, if you propose something
[55:13] and they can kill every deal.
[55:16] What's really the, where's the value that I would find
[55:20] really challenging myself. But that'll be up to the owner to take up. So anyway,
[55:26] having said it, let's go ahead and open the public hearing at 626. Is there anybody
[55:31] that wants to speak on this? Yes, sir.
[55:42] The negotiations obviously purchased property,
[55:44] but the intent of the deed restrictions were the railroad did not want residential
[55:48] hotel type uses of property. It wasn't meant to restrict the commercial type
[55:55] retail, barbershop, dental uses added. It was meant to reflect hotels and apartments.
[56:02] Was that?
[56:03] I'm sorry, was that reduced to riding?
[56:08] It's in part of the deed.
[56:10] It's part of the property too.
[56:17] Unless you want to say anything else, it's public hearing.
[56:20] Alright, so anybody else want to speak on this item?
[56:26] Is that what you're talking about?
[56:28] I haven't said that 627 would close the public hearing.
[56:32] One thing I want to point out is, Harrison and I asked Kelly earlier, she didn't have
[56:36] the answer and it was an unfair question to her.
[56:39] But if you look at Charlene, for example, there's houses that back up right to the
[56:44] railroad tracks.
[56:45] So it may seem not as a desirable piece of property, but that's going to become a
[56:51] quiet crossing one of these days.
[56:53] I think actually the fact that a textile took some of that skinny part. It's not a bad thing. Hopefully that paid you fairly
[57:01] But I still think there's something that can be done with it
[57:04] And it could be some kind of a commercial use, you know restaurant or something like that. I
[57:09] Have a quick question for Harrison. So on our packet it says that this is town initiated with property owner approval
[57:15] So is this something that you guys that you were just looking through like hey
[57:19] What do I need to go through and fix and whatever can I can you tell me a little bit about how the request came about?
[57:25] Yeah, so
[57:26] the property owner had reached out to us and
[57:29] When we were looking at the property we saw that it was shown as right away and not zoned and so
[57:36] When he asked about things he could do on the property we were I guess it could be a road
[57:41] You know it wasn't it wasn't zoned for anything
[57:44] And so whenever developers would call and ask questions about what they could do on the site, we just didn't have an answer for him.
[57:50] So that's why it was town initiated with his approval.
[57:55] And based on our conversations with him, we thought OT1 was the best solution for that parcel.
[58:02] And I do agree. I think it makes sense to match it up with what it is across the street there.
[58:06] And there could be something really cool that could potentially go in there.
[58:11] So, okay, thank you for that.
[58:13] I appreciate it.
[58:19] I'd like to make a motion to approve item 10 as presented.
[58:23] I'll second that.
[58:24] You got a motion to approve and second.
[58:26] All those in favor?
[58:27] Aye.
[58:28] Anybody oppose?
[58:29] All right, motion carries.
[58:31] All right, brings us to action items.
[58:33] Pick up speed now.
[58:34] So consider and take actions on ordinance 2025-21.
[58:38] Calling a special election be held on November 4th,
[58:41] 2025 for the purpose of increasing the sales tax
[58:44] tax and use tax levy to 2% and authorize the mayor to execute an agreement with Denton
[58:49] County elections administration for election services. Mr. Sims, is that your item?
[58:56] Yes, sir. It's relatively straightforward. This is the same election that happened in
[59:01] your May cycle that almost passed but didn't. We thought that based on the mayor's request,
[59:07] we should bring it forward, let you guys consider whether or not you'd like to have
[59:10] on the November ballot. Your option is if you put on the November ballot, then it would
[59:16] be the only item you have, right? And you would be needing to pay Denton County elections
[59:21] somewhere in the $8,000 to $12,000 amount to have the election. If you wait till May,
[59:26] you'll have city council members up for election, and so you would not have an
[59:30] added cost for having the election at that time. Given the amount of money it is,
[59:35] it's probably prudent to move forward, but we need council's decision on that.
[59:38] And so just to clarify for everybody, this mainly applies to Harvest or to the Belmont
[59:45] II only, okay?
[59:48] And we have, help me out, an agreement with Belmont II that essentially we split the
[59:54] sales tax 50-50, okay?
[59:57] So we're not
[1:00:00] I mean, we already have 2% in the rest of the town. I know it's written in a certain way,
[1:00:04] but we already have 2% in the rest of the town, and that's between all the entities.
[1:00:09] I know the town is only 1%, but as far as what you pay at the retail store, it's going to be 2%.
[1:00:16] So it really helps us raise more taxes. It does help Belmont, too, raise more taxes.
[1:00:22] My only question on that is, what they participate in the cost, since it benefits them as well,
[1:00:28] How can we ask them to do that?
[1:00:30] We can certainly reach out and talk to them about it.
[1:00:33] I don't want to guarantee that right now, but we can talk to them.
[1:00:36] And so there is a little bit of clarification.
[1:00:40] When I was campaigning, a lot of folks just didn't understand what we were talking about.
[1:00:44] And I know there are limitations to what a town can do as far as putting out information.
[1:00:50] There is.
[1:00:51] I guess my comment to you would be we had very little public information from what
[1:00:56] I could tell, it predates me, but I saw not a lot of anything, right?
[1:01:02] So I think that given the amount of time between now and November, if you want to do it, staff
[1:01:09] can gear up and provide nothing that says vote yes, but we can provide a lot of information
[1:01:16] about this because it is, after all, let's face it, it's confusing.
[1:01:20] The average resident is not going to be able to read it and say, oh, well, that's
[1:01:24] just intuitive.
[1:01:24] It's an odd case because special purpose annexation to collect a limited portion of sales tax is not particularly common and people need to understand what's happening.
[1:01:35] So just getting the clarity out there is extremely important.
[1:01:40] And it only lost by eight votes. It didn't pass by something. It was eight, nine, something like that, right?
[1:01:47] and do only the people in Belmont to get to vote on that so like do I vote on
[1:01:53] that as an Argyle resident? Go ahead Claire. I don't remember so only Argyle
[1:01:59] residents vote okay okay in Argyle elections you know we go ahead sir we
[1:02:07] caught in the weeds of how we're split with Belmont but we always forget to say
[1:02:11] that all it does is raise it to tax parity because everybody else is already
[1:02:16] charging the two percent and that there's just a little sliver of the
[1:02:19] Belmont district that's not paying the same tax rate as the rest of the town.
[1:02:23] That thinks that they are I'm sure right when I go buy a Chick-fil-A meal I'm
[1:02:26] not like oh well I only got charged seven percent or what I'm confident in.
[1:02:30] So we're not even though it has to be specified this way on the ballot because
[1:02:34] we are raising that tax rate but we're just raising it up to match
[1:02:37] everybody else's tax rate and the rest of our job. Okay say what you're gonna
[1:02:41] say it is a tax. It's a tax haven over there. If you go eat at Chick-fil-A, you're safe
[1:02:47] in pennies. I had to give him that lead. The way it's written right now, it's really
[1:02:56] confusing because if I was a citizen, I look at that, I said, oh my gosh, they're raising
[1:03:02] the tax again. And that's where it's just sort of not only confusing, but it's kind
[1:03:07] irritating. I wish that was written in a way that it's limited or that there is the word parity
[1:03:13] written into it. Just people understand it's just specific to a certain area. I don't know if you
[1:03:19] can do that but... Well I think that that's where the communication piece right? Like we can't change
[1:03:24] how it's worded on the ballot but if everybody knows going in and they've seen enough information
[1:03:28] there is zero that went out about it. Not one single thing that I ever saw anywhere that
[1:03:32] the town put out, or that anybody could put out to talk about it.
[1:03:35] And for it to fail by eight votes with zero information, if we did a good enough job of
[1:03:40] letting folks know what it is and what it means, then when they go in there, I think
[1:03:44] that it's going to give people the knowledge and the power that they need to feel more
[1:03:47] comfortable voting yes.
[1:03:49] I agree.
[1:03:50] Any information that we put out is better than...
[1:03:54] I think because Council has already given us a good partnership with the Argyle Business
[1:03:59] Association and some of the other groups in town it really is just doing the
[1:04:03] live work of getting out and talking to those groups ahead of time and showing
[1:04:07] them appropriate not leading but appropriate public information and we
[1:04:11] can do that very effectively between now and then. And this way everyone's
[1:04:15] benefited. I did the math one time just an estimate it's it's well over a
[1:04:18] hundred something thousand dollars and that what we would gain in doing so. That
[1:04:23] we shouldn't wait until May right to start getting that like why would we
[1:04:28] You know what's unfair here is they're collect well they're collecting sales tax
[1:04:33] They mean the state they're not necessarily remitting it to the town
[1:04:37] I don't know if that's already gone into effect has it
[1:04:40] Anyway, no
[1:04:45] The sales tax for that area started July 1st, and so we won't see it until
[1:04:51] September yeah, so state is collecting it. We're not getting our shares. So anyway, I don't know how that works out
[1:04:57] We will where it's just two months behind, but just started for our portion of it.
[1:05:01] We want that two months.
[1:05:03] I know.
[1:05:04] But anyway, but you know also in all fairness to Belmont too, it helps them pay down their
[1:05:11] mud district sooner, so it's a win-win deal for everyone.
[1:05:16] I have no issue with that.
[1:05:19] I see that somebody is raising my taxes again, two percent, and that's where I stop reading.
[1:05:24] You know who to talk to?
[1:05:26] Mayors, the town manager.
[1:05:27] No, not the town manager, the person sitting next to the town manager.
[1:05:31] I mean, there's a certain legal structure, and I think Brenda even ran it.
[1:05:38] In the public information that we create, we can state it in English, and we can explain it in English.
[1:05:44] What it is in the ballot is going to be a state law topic, and I'm going to support your attorney in that.
[1:05:50] Just leave that alone. Let that be what state law says it has to be.
[1:05:53] But when I'm out talking, when the mayor is out talking, we can have public information
[1:05:57] that clarifies here's the reality behind that confusing battle language.
[1:06:03] And if it behooves the financial perspective, like we were saying, versus going in November
[1:06:07] versus May, I'm for it as well.
[1:06:11] All right.
[1:06:12] Any other discussions?
[1:06:14] Looking for a motion?
[1:06:17] Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we approve item 11 of the action items
[1:06:24] as it's proposed, as it is written.
[1:06:27] I'll second that.
[1:06:30] Who was the second?
[1:06:35] Okay.
[1:06:35] I'll second that.
[1:06:36] I, Council Member Boyd got the second.
[1:06:40] So I have a motion and a second.
[1:06:42] All those in favor?
[1:06:43] I.
[1:06:44] Anyone oppose?
[1:06:45] All right, motion carries.
[1:06:47] So off we are.
[1:06:49] Number 12, consider take action on resolution 2025-33
[1:06:53] authorizing the mayor to execute a professional service agreement with Dunaway Associates for
[1:06:58] civil design services related to the town center project in an amount not to exceed $47,838
[1:07:05] located on the six acres tract of land along FM-47.
[1:07:14] Mayor and Council, I'm going to come over here just to ease this presentation up a
[1:07:19] little bit.
[1:07:20] I'm going to ask Ramon with Ramel to come on up and he'll help me introduce a couple
[1:07:24] of people as well.
[1:07:25] So several months ago, y'all took action to hire Ramel
[1:07:31] to give you the preliminary steps related to your police headquarters town center location on 407.
[1:07:38] What was the discussion at that time?
[1:07:40] The discussion at the time back in early this calendar year
[1:07:44] was to use Ramel to go out and try to find an architect and an engineer
[1:07:50] to take your next steps on the police building at the town center.
[1:07:54] The engineering firm is going to do all of the tasks that you would instantly think of, right,
[1:07:59] exactly where's the drainage going to be, where's the water going to be, where's the sewer going to be,
[1:08:03] what are we going to do on 407 because we're going to need a traffic light on 407
[1:08:07] or we're going to need a left turn lane, all of the engineering associated with that project.
[1:08:11] That's the Dunaway part of it.
[1:08:13] We did an RFQ process.
[1:08:16] Ramon helped us walk through that process.
[1:08:19] We had quite a few firms that we interviewed and worked with.
[1:08:22] We did select Dunaway as the lead firm that we're recommending to you tonight.
[1:08:27] Then in the next agenda item, you'll see the discussion of the architecture firm.
[1:08:31] I'll talk a little bit about that.
[1:08:33] So with that, let me ask Ramon, is there any other feedback?
[1:08:38] No, sir. I mean, we went through the competitive process under, you know, our process.
[1:08:43] I got good competitive responses, I think, of the civil work.
[1:08:47] We had 12 responses, I believe it was.
[1:08:50] very competitive, and then Dunaway proved themselves to be the best value for this.
[1:09:01] Explain to me one more time what exactly you guys are doing.
[1:09:04] Is it you're choosing, you're choosing an engineering company?
[1:09:07] Exactly, so under state law we want to make sure that we don't just pick the buddy, right?
[1:09:12] We're not picking a buddy.
[1:09:13] We've had an open competitive process to pick a firm that we think can do the best to deliver the product.
[1:09:21] Frankly, Dunaway was one of the few firms that had the combination of being able to do
[1:09:25] your structural work when we get to the structural phase, be able to do the site work associated
[1:09:29] with the water sewer drainage, and also have a professional transportation operations engineer
[1:09:35] available that can really do the work to figure out, okay, if I'm going to manage
[1:09:39] traffic on 407, which is its own beast, and convince techs.we need a traffic light
[1:09:45] and make sure our emergency vehicles get in and out in an efficient manner.
[1:09:49] That takes some real expertise and we were attracted by that the down the way
[1:09:54] Is that familiar to like an EPC company?
[1:09:58] Engineering procurement construction where you're you're they don't do construction. They're strictly just engineering
[1:10:03] But if you're afraid you sub that would you sub it out though?
[1:10:05] Yes, whatever we got to the point of construction. Yes, that would go to all under umbrella. No, not under our brother
[1:10:11] No, we're just facilitator of the process. So we're just thinking that you're on the right you're going the right direction
[1:10:17] Eventually what you'll see, but this isn't going to happen until you adopt a master plan.
[1:10:22] After you adopt a master plan, what you'll see is a recommendation that we have what's called a construction manager agent.
[1:10:28] We would pick a construction manager agent firm to be that umbrella, look over all of the work that goes from the detail of the architecture,
[1:10:36] the detail of the engineering, did it, and then oversee it during the construction process.
[1:10:41] That's the umbrella in the public sector as a CMA.
[1:10:43] Okay, we'll get there.
[1:10:50] Is this for just specifically to the police building or is
[1:10:56] this the I guess the Dunaway piece or whatever for action? The Dunaway piece
[1:11:00] would cover what we would sort of nicknamed the six acres. The plot that we
[1:11:04] talked about. Exactly, the full six acres and frankly one of the things that
[1:11:08] at least just going to have to get worked on is saving money by combining
[1:11:13] drainage the six acres and the 12 acres making sure the roadway that goes
[1:11:17] through the six acres is properly serving the 12 acres, so there'll be some coordination
[1:11:22] just on the six but also the 12.
[1:11:24] Dr. Herman, if you remember, the MDD actually sponsored a study for the 12 acres, which
[1:11:31] was pretty close to this number here.
[1:11:34] I don't think you can essentially, you know, there's no correlation necessarily between
[1:11:38] the cost and acreage, but it's more like the cost and the task.
[1:11:44] And so we have the study from the 12 acres, which is good.
[1:11:49] I would think, I don't want to speak for you,
[1:11:51] you're going to be able to dovetail that into this study.
[1:11:54] They took it from let's look at the 12
[1:11:56] and make the right decision for the 12.
[1:11:58] We're going to take it and look at it from an 18-acre point of view
[1:12:01] and try to make sure that the right distance
[1:12:03] is made from our 18 acres
[1:12:05] and really go in a greater depth than they were going.
[1:12:09] You'll see an opportunity.
[1:12:11] and I want to make sure I'm combining the two items that are separate to vote on,
[1:12:15] but I want to make sure y'all are thinking about it like this.
[1:12:19] You hire an engineer, you hire an architect. You don't say go to bid immediately, right?
[1:12:25] There's a lot of discussion and decision-making that the council will need to be looking at here.
[1:12:31] We'll see some preliminary information from Dunaway. We'll see some preliminary information from your architect.
[1:12:36] We'll ask you, do you want to go this direction? Do you want to go that direction?
[1:12:39] Here's a decision point. I'll be identifying various decision-making moments in that series
[1:12:45] and get you to a master plan that answers some of the questions about exactly how big
[1:12:51] is that road, exactly how wide is that road, what's exactly going on there, meet the private
[1:12:55] sector need in exactly the right way. All of the inherent questions that everybody
[1:13:00] is wondering right now have your engineer in place and you have your architect
[1:13:03] in place. You can ask those detailed questions, and my goal is to get you to December when
[1:13:09] you have answered the questions, not because somebody went and studied it in a black box
[1:13:14] somewhere, but because there was an open process in open forums with council to really
[1:13:19] get into those questions in great detail. So this kicks off what I would call an iterative
[1:13:24] procedure of trying to get feedback, the different ideas and make sure that we're
[1:13:29] following. So to sum it up, we get one shot at this staple piece of property,
[1:13:36] correct? I mean, we want to make sure we're doing it right and
[1:13:39] attractive and that everyone's proud of on the council. Absolutely. Yes, sir.
[1:13:45] Well, and I think it makes sense to you though, Chad, because like, you know, we
[1:13:48] talked about the town center piece, we talked about the town hall piece,
[1:13:52] we talked about the police department piece or whatever, but it's one track
[1:13:55] land that the town owns that needs to, you know, kind of come together and look cohesive and then in
[1:14:00] addition to that we have the extra challenge of the piece behind there that's the additional
[1:14:05] whatever 12 acres or whatnot that even though it's owned by somebody else we want it to,
[1:14:09] you know, to flow together and to be cohesive and stuff like that. So I think that does make
[1:14:15] sense. So, and correct me if I'm wrong here, so if we all are in unison here and agree,
[1:14:21] like this is the model or the vibe our guy wants to follow, maybe that can kind of even
[1:14:27] transcend to some further developments where now all of a sudden we have some conformity
[1:14:31] and everybody's in unison.
[1:14:33] I think that's a terrific point and I'm going to talk more about that in the next agenda
[1:14:36] item because that's a little bit more the architect but the engineer's going to feed
[1:14:41] into that as well so it's both.
[1:14:42] Okay.
[1:14:43] I did have one question.
[1:14:45] I'm just looking at the, I guess the proposal for professional services on page 195 of our agenda packet where it talked about some of the preliminary things and the cost behind that.
[1:14:56] So boundary survey was $6,500, typographic survey was $9,500.
[1:15:00] And my only question has, has none of that already been done? I mean, to some extent, I feel like,
[1:15:07] I feel like we probably did a tree survey at some time before we bought the land or not
[1:15:11] or, I don't know, help me out.
[1:15:13] So when we got involved, no, none of that had been done. I think you purchased the property,
[1:15:16] which is kind of unusual without a boundary survey. So that hasn't been done. The topo
[1:15:21] has been done. I don't think there's been a detailed tree survey, survey either. We
[1:15:25] We don't have one of the records, so no, ma'am, none of that had been done.
[1:15:30] And my only question was like, you know, if we just did something six months ago, I don't
[1:15:33] want to pay to redo it again, right?
[1:15:36] You'll recall when we purchased the property, the Six Acres had not been fully defined,
[1:15:40] and the contract allowed for the definition of the Six Acres at a later point.
[1:15:46] The other thing from a legal standpoint that an engineer will do is help with
[1:15:51] the proportionality analysis of who pays how much for what. Because we have to, all of
[1:15:58] the drainage for the entire site has to work together and the parties will share proportionately
[1:16:03] the costs for how much they're producing and that's one of the things that an engineer
[1:16:08] will do is determine what the proportionality is.
[1:16:13] If you recall, I know you do, the Waterbrook experience where there wasn't the right amount
[1:16:21] of work done and the impact that it had to one of the neighbors to the south.
[1:16:27] So the property across the street is higher than this, so it's, you got to take a lot.
[1:16:33] I'm not an engineer, we got one engineer here on staff, so to speak, and maybe
[1:16:36] he wants to talk, but I would think all that has to be taken into consideration
[1:16:40] because what if the
[1:16:55] 407 plans that exist in detail are from gateway going to the
[1:17:02] West all right in this area there are no detailed 407 plans and frankly this is a
[1:17:08] very important opportunity so thank you for bringing it up we will want done a
[1:17:12] way to say you know what if you're going to make this a district if you're
[1:17:16] going to make this work within the zone right which is what we're all
[1:17:19] want it, right? We want not just six acres of really nice development, we want to turn
[1:17:25] it into a sector, a zone where you can feel like, okay, I like this overall. Ben and Wade
[1:17:29] will give us advice on that and give us, we hope, the best shot of getting tech stock
[1:17:34] to say, oh, okay, we like Argyle's plan. We're going to adopt what Argyle did there.
[1:17:38] Now that's easy said and hard to do, but having a professional engineering firm will
[1:17:43] get us the best shot at that.
[1:17:48] Yeah, there's no identified, something like they need the
[1:17:53] first ten feet for something that they're doing.
[1:17:56] So we need to hurry up and build.
[1:17:58] There you go.
[1:18:01] That actually is true. You do want to get ahead of TextDog because, yeah, they don't
[1:18:06] really consider what we want.
[1:18:09] For
[1:18:13] resolution, so what you'll see is there's a resolution authorizing a professional services agreement,
[1:18:19] professional services agreement is for the mayor to sign and it has the
[1:18:23] attachment which is the done away agreement.
[1:18:28] Well I'll take a stab at it. I
[1:18:30] mean I know we want to do this right the first time so I'll make a motion to
[1:18:33] approve action item number 12 as it's written.
[1:18:39] I will second that. All right we
[1:18:40] got a motion and a second. There's no further discussion. All those in favor?
[1:18:46] Aye. Anybody oppose? Okay so the motion carries. So that brings us to item
[1:18:52] item number 13, consider and take action on resolution 2025-34, authorizing the mayor
[1:18:57] to execute a professional service agreement with GFF architects for civil design services
[1:19:03] related to the Town Center project in an amount of $69,060 located on the six-acre tract of
[1:19:10] along 407, FM-407.
[1:19:13] So similar idea here, we've used Ramel to come up with a well-procured architect,
[1:19:20] right?
[1:19:21] We've looked at various architecture firms.
[1:19:23] We've had presentations from architecture firms.
[1:19:25] We've gone, we've asked them questions,
[1:19:27] tried to figure out, okay, who's the best firm that can really meet the needs of the town and the district?
[1:19:33] DFF is the firm that bubbled up to pop in that process.
[1:19:36] We've got confidence in them in order to bring you the life cycle of this.
[1:19:41] On agenda item page 208, we made sure we wanted to really highlight here.
[1:19:46] There's three things that we're going to be asking this firm to do.
[1:19:50] and we've got a master plan, visioning for the site and building.
[1:19:54] That's the step you're going to embark on. That's the $69,000
[1:19:57] associated with this particular part of the project.
[1:20:01] Whenever you say move forward on there, they're going to look at what you call the programming
[1:20:05] of the building. So if you have ever been through the construction process, you talk
[1:20:09] about an architect programming a building. How many square feet are for
[1:20:14] the men's locker room? How many square feet are for the ladies' locker room?
[1:20:17] How many square feet's the lobby?
[1:20:19] How many people are we building this building for?
[1:20:22] Are we building an emergency operations center
[1:20:24] that can do X, Y, Z, or are we gonna forego that expense?
[1:20:28] We need a property room, but we don't need a dispatch, right?
[1:20:31] So all of that thinking goes into it,
[1:20:33] and they'll come up with a number.
[1:20:34] So we've kicked around, well, gee,
[1:20:36] what if it's 8,000 square feet?
[1:20:38] Had another study done several years ago
[1:20:40] that looked at putting the police building
[1:20:41] on this piece of land.
[1:20:42] That was more around 6,000 square feet.
[1:20:44] What's the exact right number of square feet?
[1:20:46] We would not want to offer to you an exact right number of square feet right now, right?
[1:20:51] We want to make sure that you go through the programming process and get to the end game there, give you all of that.
[1:20:58] I think very important questions that you guys should ask as part of that would be things like,
[1:21:02] are we going to move our town hall immediately?
[1:21:05] Are we going to build this first or are we going to build that first?
[1:21:08] If we move only police building, will we be able to have city council meetings in the Emergency Operations Center?
[1:21:15] All of those questions are ones that are natural at this stage,
[1:21:19] but we don't want to answer right now.
[1:21:20] We want to make sure that we put some real math to the cost of the building
[1:21:23] and you're not in the position of saying,
[1:21:26] well, I want it, but I don't know how expensive it is.
[1:21:28] You want your architect to be able to go through a programming process,
[1:21:32] be able to answer to you definitively.
[1:21:34] If you put it as a 10,000 square foot building that includes everything in the world,
[1:21:39] then here's how expensive it's going to be.
[1:21:42] If you want to minimize your expenses and move phase one, phase two, here's the cost
[1:21:47] of phase one and the size of phase one, here's the cost of phase two and the size of phase
[1:21:51] two.
[1:21:51] And you're doing it with numbers from an architecture firm that's really embedded through that process.
[1:21:57] So that's what they would be doing under the heading of master plan.
[1:22:01] And again, it's a series of presentations to you and discussions with you about what
[1:22:05] your options are, where they don't go to the next step until you say, yep,
[1:22:09] we like that option.
[1:22:10] Number two, a small area plan and zoning overlay for the core zone.
[1:22:15] So, Councilman Boyd, you just brought this exact issue up, right?
[1:22:19] You're basically putting your signature on this building and saying,
[1:22:22] this stands for Argyle, this is our major investment, major new public building.
[1:22:26] Why would you not use that architectural theme, those building standards,
[1:22:32] those things that you're doing on that site to help define the area around it?
[1:22:36] We know enough to put our arms around that right now.
[1:22:39] Not really, but if you have the same architectural firm
[1:22:41] doing what you would call a small area plan
[1:22:44] and doing a zoning overlay within that area,
[1:22:47] we'll roughly start just thinking about that 377407 intersection.
[1:22:51] Okay, what if I had a battle plan for that area overall
[1:22:55] and I knew what I wanted to do within that overall district.
[1:22:58] We feel that they can be working currently on master plan
[1:23:00] and on small area plan.
[1:23:02] You feel like we can bring to you at a future agenda, maybe August, maybe September, an
[1:23:07] opportunity to vote on the small area plans.
[1:23:09] That's not this money.
[1:23:10] That would be another step.
[1:23:12] And so that's items one and two.
[1:23:15] And then item three is after a approval by the council of a master plan.
[1:23:20] We think that's December.
[1:23:22] Then you would use this same firm to take you all the way to the end zone of final
[1:23:27] architectural services.
[1:23:28] is get your bid documents ready and oversee the process
[1:23:31] all the way through the introduction.
[1:23:33] That's our recommendation for the three steps with GFF.
[1:23:36] The only thing to vote on tonight is step one,
[1:23:39] which is creating that master plan for GFF.
[1:23:44] It is only staff vetted GFF.
[1:23:47] We work with the amount which Carl hired
[1:23:50] to help us work through the process,
[1:23:52] but that's been the work with GFF.
[1:23:54] It makes calls and get referenced with GFF.
[1:23:57] What if you could distribute some portfolio
[1:23:58] of cement.
[1:23:59] Oh, absolutely.
[1:24:00] They did a very good job in their presentation to us, showing us their capabilities of all
[1:24:06] the firms they absolutely did of and beyond showing us prep work into it, that they were
[1:24:14] there to really earn the project.
[1:24:16] They've got a better planning of service for the other firms, which means that that
[1:24:21] small area plan and element will be professional for sideways.
[1:24:26] So several meetings back, we were given presentation that kind of combined the concept
[1:24:35] for the six acres along with the concept for the 12 acres.
[1:24:40] Would this design in any way coordinate with, obviously, the property owner of the
[1:24:46] 12 acres?
[1:24:47] It should be kind of in a uniform would be my feeling, right?
[1:24:51] Right. So the point that we're making is that that is an input to their work, right?
[1:24:58] So they've got that. The MDD helped coordinate and made that happen.
[1:25:02] And that is a direction the owner of the 12 acres would like to go.
[1:25:06] So that's input. You need to be considered that input as part of your overall decision-making process.
[1:25:11] So we'll get that all coordinated.
[1:25:13] Yeah, I was having a conversation with the mayor the other day.
[1:25:15] one thing we do lack and we're in such the infancy stages of developing is having boundaries
[1:25:21] or a box of how we are constructing or an architectural design. Even my daughter and
[1:25:27] I were in New Orleans last week and over the weekend and even the French Quarter, even
[1:25:32] though it's old and worn down as is, you can only use these paint colors and you can't
[1:25:37] do any modifications unless it looks like this. If you go up a notch, you go to
[1:25:40] Westlake and you can only use this stone. I think we do need a defining stance
[1:25:46] So I spoke to Mike about this, go my memory, I think we have five different projects in
[1:25:57] that area.
[1:25:58] And if you look at the area in question, it's south of Cook, north of French town, east
[1:26:06] of 377, and just a little bit west, I'm sorry, a little bit east of Myrtle.
[1:26:12] If you take those two quadrants, there's at least five different projects.
[1:26:18] Two of them under contract, one is already closed.
[1:26:22] And so to the point what you're saying, Council Member Boyd, it's very important that we have
[1:26:26] some kind of unified look and I think that's what Mr. Sims is trying to essentially achieve
[1:26:31] here.
[1:26:32] And I think he understands the importance of that.
[1:26:34] Yeah.
[1:26:34] The master plan tells you how big a thing you're building, what's in it.
[1:26:39] And that's what this contract is.
[1:26:40] The next contract that we would propose to bring forward to you for your consideration
[1:26:44] either August or September, same firm, will be that number two item which is to create
[1:26:49] your small area plan and your zoning overlay.
[1:26:52] And that's where you get, I've had this conversation with one of the other elected
[1:26:56] officials here, that's where you turn the page from, well, we're reactive and we
[1:27:00] just try to make it up whenever somebody says, here's what I'm building.
[1:27:05] That's not a good position, right?
[1:27:07] You want to be proactive.
[1:27:08] If you want to have your own vision for what you want to do,
[1:27:11] otherwise you're just playing.
[1:27:12] That's not helpful to the developer or yourself.
[1:27:19] So I wouldn't say that we're far ahead of it,
[1:27:22] but I think there's still room to catch up
[1:27:25] and get in front of the, before they come for proposals.
[1:27:28] So our staff has the standards
[1:27:30] that we want those folks to live up to.
[1:27:32] The thing that we're missing really
[1:27:34] is we don't have a distinct downtown,
[1:27:36] like some smaller communities and old downtown.
[1:27:39] So we're essentially creating a new old town or downtown if you will and have that kind of a look
[1:27:45] And I think there'll be plenty of time for input, but I've encouraged Mike to really really, you know turn up
[1:27:51] The the emphasis on this because we can't wait much longer and start having projects come to us
[1:27:56] You know, there are some buildings now that my opinion don't reflect what I think our guy wants to look like and
[1:28:03] You're gonna have a hodgepodge before you know it
[1:28:31] into those tracks, too, again, so.
[1:28:34] And that is the goal, Mike, is to extend that, you know,
[1:28:37] whatever design we need.
[1:28:38] I'm only taking a step-by-step approach here.
[1:28:40] Step one is doing this, I think Councilman Branding's 100%
[1:28:45] correct.
[1:28:46] You also very much need to be proactive on your I-35
[1:28:49] corridor, and if Council wishes,
[1:28:52] we can make sure that it's included.
[1:28:54] I can talk to the Mayor about finding a place for that
[1:28:56] in the next year's budget.
[1:28:58] I think it's important to be proactive.
[1:28:59] of that.
[1:28:59] I don't understand the detail of the box.
[1:29:00] We're going to get back to you.
[1:29:01] Yeah, I mean, there are projects happening on the heath and heritage.
[1:29:06] We know it's coming, and it's just a matter, and I've shared that with a couple of you
[1:29:10] all, is start thinking what is important to you, and it's in fairness to the developers
[1:29:15] because they get very frustrated when all of a sudden we put the brakes on, but
[1:29:19] we sit there and we don't know what we want, you know?
[1:29:21] So the fair question, what do we want?
[1:29:24] Let's identify it, let's define it, and that way I think we're going to move
[1:29:28] move along much quicker and get a better product.
[1:29:30] In terms of just this item tonight, again, same format we put into resolution.
[1:29:36] Resolution authorizes the Mayor to sign a professional services agreement
[1:29:41] on an outline of the proposal that was provided to you.
[1:29:45] I think this one incorrectly lists me as the signer of that.
[1:29:49] But if you'll prove the resolution, then we'll fix that clarifier.
[1:29:54] Clarke.
[1:29:56] Brenda would not let me have the executive session to show you.
[1:30:00] I have to convey it in a different way, but the point I'm getting at, you should be very,
[1:30:04] very excited what's coming down the pipeline. There are people very interested in Argonne,
[1:30:11] and so there's an opportunity here.
[1:30:20] Well, I'll make a motion to approve agenda item 13 as presented.
[1:30:23] I'll second.
[1:30:25] Okay. We have a motion to approve in a second. Any other discussion? No other discussion?
[1:30:29] All those in favor?
[1:30:30] Aye.
[1:30:31] Anybody opposed? Okay. It carries. So it brings us to item number 14, consider
[1:30:35] that are approved at Ordinance 2025
[1:30:37] amending the fiscal year 2024-2025 budget
[1:30:41] to allocate equipment replacement funds
[1:30:43] for the purchase of an interstate trailer,
[1:30:48] G20DT flatbed equipment trailer.
[1:30:50] So, Mayor and Council, I'm gonna immediately be
[1:30:52] out of my element, but one of the things
[1:30:55] that you do when you're in my position
[1:30:57] is you asked your fleet manager,
[1:31:00] hey, are we up to snuff
[1:31:01] and are we obeying all the rules?
[1:31:03] Are we dragging around any equipment on something that's actually breaking the law?
[1:31:08] And Bobby actually brought to me a proactive piece of information from himself as director
[1:31:14] and said, look, we got a problem here because sometime fairly recently,
[1:31:19] I can't say exactly when, but sometime fairly recently there was a purchase of a trailer
[1:31:23] to haul our heaviest equipment and it doesn't meet the weight requirements
[1:31:28] associated with our heaviest equipment.
[1:31:30] So what we'd like to do is to make that fairly new, fairly recently purchased trailer something
[1:31:36] that's our number two trailer instead of our number one trailer and go ahead and buy the
[1:31:40] trailer shown to you here because it does meet the weight requirements.
[1:31:44] It's a little frustrating because I think you probably would wish that you'd bought
[1:31:47] the larger trailer to begin with, but nevertheless if we do make this purchase it is a one
[1:31:53] that fits all of our heaviest equipment and it will make us more efficient in response,
[1:31:58] give us a safer response because it does meet freight loads.
[1:32:03] I could not do it under my budget authority because it exceeds
[1:32:06] the maximum that you guys had set in your FY25 budget.
[1:32:11] We needed that just a little bit of additional funds available
[1:32:14] in order to forward on this.
[1:32:16] We're hauling backhoes and skid steers?
[1:32:19] Yeah, Bob, you want to?
[1:32:27] Our skid steer does fit on the current trailer.
[1:32:30] We have a mini-escavator that within 150 pounds of our trailer can hold.
[1:32:37] And our backhoe is overweight.
[1:32:40] What are the axles on the current trailer?
[1:32:42] I don't remember the specs on the current trailer. It was purchased before my appointment.
[1:32:48] Because that would be an important determination and seeing if the weight load was adequate.
[1:32:52] And the current trailer we have is a is a tandem axle, but it's single single wheel on both sides this particular trailer
[1:33:00] Dual wheels on both axles actually eight wheel
[1:33:06] This one's I think the skid steer probably weighs more than the Mini X
[1:33:11] And I'm actually the skid steer play weighs more than the backhoe to our current skid steer is a small one
[1:33:16] And is it on wheels or tracks? It's on wheels. Okay. It's probably only around seven thousand pounds
[1:33:22] pounds. Our mini-esque here is closer to 11,000 pounds. This particular trailer here holds
[1:33:30] 20,000 pounds. Our backhoe is closer to 15,000 to 16,000 pounds. Obviously, we don't have
[1:33:41] right now. Plus, our current trailer has the flatbed spaces between the tire. This
[1:33:48] This is on top of what we have on the platform.
[1:33:49] Something to consider, because I'm guessing it's a 20 foot in length.
[1:33:53] Is that right?
[1:33:53] No, this one holds 20,000 pounds.
[1:33:56] So it's 10,000 pound axles?
[1:33:57] Yes.
[1:33:58] Okay, so keep in mind the weight of the trailer subtracts from the axles too.
[1:34:04] Well, this trailer is rated to carry the weight we need for our backup.
[1:34:10] I'll just give you some advice.
[1:34:11] Just heads up.
[1:34:13] What do you use when you pull this weight?
[1:34:16] This can be pulled with what we call our crew truck. We have a one ton that already has a gooseneck.
[1:34:21] And they have DOT license?
[1:34:23] What's that?
[1:34:23] They have a DOT driver's license?
[1:34:25] Three of us do.
[1:34:30] How many trailers do we have now? Just the one that isn't as good as we need it to be?
[1:34:40] Some of the older trailers were on our surplus list.
[1:34:44] Together, we probably have five trailers right now that are flatbed trailers, but we want
[1:34:52] to get a couple of them that are older trailers that don't necessarily need, and if we were
[1:34:58] able to add something like this on and as I was saying, be able to step the other one
[1:35:04] to do a little bit more flexible things and use this for the heavier equipment.
[1:35:09] What I think that you know we should recognize that there was a cost savings in
[1:35:13] the purchase of the vehicle or whatever like it was budgeted for X amount and you
[1:35:17] guys were able to get something cheaper than that so that's really good and then
[1:35:20] also if we're able to get some money back for the trailers that we don't
[1:35:25] need that we can sell that is you know another way to help kind of offset the
[1:35:28] cost of the new one here that you need. I wouldn't put your hopes on that
[1:35:32] because there's a lot of government auctions out there I've been
[1:35:34] looking at them and they sell for some ridiculously low prices.
[1:35:39] Ron is interested in some of the lesser priced trailers.
[1:35:43] Unfortunately, I can't stand in that line.
[1:35:46] That is what I'm hearing. He has some things that he wants to haul around, so...
[1:35:49] How many jeeps can you put in for the price?
[1:35:59] Twenty grand.
[1:36:04] We're talking about roughly twenty grand.
[1:36:06] We had around 15 left in the budget.
[1:36:10] We just needed this additional $4,700 of budget.
[1:36:18] A motion to approve.
[1:36:19] Item 14 is written.
[1:36:21] Second.
[1:36:22] Next.
[1:36:25] All right.
[1:36:28] So we have a motion to approve and a second.
[1:36:30] All those in favor?
[1:36:31] Aye.
[1:36:32] Anybody opposed?
[1:36:34] Okay.
[1:36:34] Well, the motion carries.
[1:36:35] brings us to item number 15, Discuss and Consider Actual and Ordnance Authorizing Issuance
[1:36:39] of Town of Argon, Texas Tax Notes Series 2025, specifying the terms and features of said
[1:36:46] notes, levy in a continuing direct annual ad valorem tax for the payment of said notes
[1:36:51] and resolving other matters, incident and related to the issuance sale payment, delivery
[1:36:55] of said notes, including approval and execution of paying age and registrar agreement,
[1:37:00] and a purchase letter and providing an effective date.
[1:37:03] Before you say something, Mr. Sims,
[1:37:05] I just want to clarify something from the last meeting
[1:37:07] that I think could have been misconstrued.
[1:37:13] Ms. McDonald made a comment that if it was interpreted,
[1:37:18] could seem like we were trying,
[1:37:19] that we wanted to rush through some bonds
[1:37:22] before the legislature changed,
[1:37:24] and that's not the case at all.
[1:37:26] If we were to float a bond,
[1:37:28] which is not a certificate of occupancy,
[1:37:29] if we would want full input from the community.
[1:37:33] You had made this, I just remember that.
[1:37:35] I got a call on it.
[1:37:37] So, Mayor, I would say that this is the small thing
[1:37:41] and this is not the big thing, right?
[1:37:45] In preparation for the big thing,
[1:37:47] borrowing the money for the construction costs,
[1:37:50] that's where that conversation goes to.
[1:37:53] This part of the conversation is,
[1:37:55] okay, we've got pre-construction expenses
[1:37:57] as one will when one is building a public building
[1:38:00] and the grounds around it and all that good stuff.
[1:38:03] So what is our method of paying for that?
[1:38:06] Our suggestion at the staff level was to go ahead
[1:38:09] and take $750,000, borrow that,
[1:38:12] pay it off over a two year period
[1:38:14] and make sure that we're keeping our INS tax rate
[1:38:17] in the state where if we do wanna make
[1:38:19] a larger borrow in the future,
[1:38:21] you've preserved your INS capacity to do so
[1:38:24] and moving forward at this time now
[1:38:26] with that 750 allows you to do something I think is very important in the financial strategy
[1:38:31] of this town. You've got $2 million at the end of FY25 that you will have put aside
[1:38:38] the police headquarter town center. So you've got FY23, you put about a half million aside.
[1:38:45] FY24 I think it was a million. And then this year you're putting another half million
[1:38:50] a side. That gives you $2 million in a savings account identified strictly for police building.
[1:38:58] Okay. Now the intent was to use that for construction money. We don't want to burn that $2 million on the
[1:39:03] pre-construction expenses. We want to do this little short-term borrowing paid off over a two-year
[1:39:08] period. So that's pretty quick, right? You pay it off over a two-year period and help you deliver
[1:39:14] for your pre-construction expenses
[1:39:16] with this small scale tax note
[1:39:18] and at the same time preserve your equity position
[1:39:22] that you're gonna be able to put in your building.
[1:39:24] So trying to keep the financial strategy moving forward.
[1:39:29] I've got Hilltop here.
[1:39:30] I've got Norton Rose Fulbright here.
[1:39:32] That's your financial advisor and you are on council.
[1:39:37] They can answer more detailed questions about it
[1:39:39] but we're happy to come forward and recommend it
[1:39:40] gotten good pricing on this orchard.
[1:39:45] And so did you audit, you sure it's $2 million at the end of this fiscal year?
[1:39:48] We did go through those details. Yes. Okay.
[1:39:53] I was going to ask about borrowing the money a little cheaper.
[1:39:57] So do we have $20 million saved up somewhere?
[1:40:01] Is that right? We have $23 million total in all funds. I mean, it's not
[1:40:04] in the general fund that's less, but in total we do. And so some of them
[1:40:09] can't be used for this purpose.
[1:40:10] We can borrow it against that, though?
[1:40:12] No, I don't know about that.
[1:40:13] So the idea in this instant wasn't to loan from fund to fund.
[1:40:18] There are local governments that loan from fund to fund.
[1:40:20] And I would say that I don't know
[1:40:22] that you've got a purse enough structure here
[1:40:26] to be loaning from fund to fund.
[1:40:28] I think here the aim was making sure you managed
[1:40:31] two things at the same time.
[1:40:33] One is preserving your $2 million
[1:40:36] and not buying it down by spending a lot of pre-construction.
[1:40:39] On the other hand, you want to make sure that your INS tax rate has some stability to it.
[1:40:44] Your INS tax rate can fluctuate up and down,
[1:40:47] given valuations and all that good stuff, and the amount of debt that you have.
[1:40:51] By taking the 750 and putting into your debt structure at this time
[1:40:55] on your INS tax rate right now, that gives you a level way of moving forward.
[1:41:00] Tax payer is unaffected. You're not changing your tax rate.
[1:41:03] but you're also not letting that INS tax rate
[1:41:06] fall off a cliff, which would impact your flexibility
[1:41:08] in future years.
[1:41:10] So you understand that there's INS,
[1:41:13] interest in sinking, and MNO, maintenance and operations.
[1:41:17] That's essentially what makes up the 0.34 cents, right?
[1:41:22] And there's other factors coming to play about,
[1:41:24] you know, legislature that caps how much we can increase
[1:41:29] on an annual basis, but that can be offset
[1:41:33] if that's a good way of saying that, with an increase in INS funds.
[1:41:38] Am I?
[1:41:39] Absolutely.
[1:41:39] Yes, sir.
[1:41:40] Okay.
[1:41:40] And so, there is some strategy that comes along with this.
[1:41:46] I don't know where we're going to be on interest, five and a half percent, is that?
[1:41:50] I believe we ended up at even 4.125, what am I trying to say?
[1:41:56] Yeah.
[1:41:57] 4.195.
[1:41:58] And so, you know, you're a little bit less than 40,000 for the first year.
[1:42:01] The only thing I think everyone has to understand is, excuse me, every year we've been tucking
[1:42:10] away half a million dollars that's essentially from a surplus towards this, whatever we're
[1:42:15] doing at the municipal complex.
[1:42:17] Well, you're going to have debt service of half plus the interest every year, so that's
[1:42:24] going to make that squeeze a little bit harder, right?
[1:42:27] We have to either generate more of a surplus, and I know Mike is working on that.
[1:42:31] his directive, and we're not there yet, we're not, what, Brenda left so I can get away with
[1:42:35] it, but we're not talking about, we're not talking about budget right now, so, but he's
[1:42:40] working hard to maintain our expenses where they are, but just keep that in mind, so it's
[1:42:46] half a million that we're trying to tuck away every year, plus whatever, 400,000 probably
[1:42:51] the first year, so 900,000 that we're going to have to have as surplus.
[1:42:57] I'm very, usually very critical of our finance reports, but the last one you gave that explained
[1:43:03] the bonds falling off and our INS capacity needing to be increased, I really appreciated
[1:43:07] that and I'm very clearly done and like I say, I'm just so glad you noticed that.
[1:43:13] So take advantage of this opportunity.
[1:43:16] And I did put an updated version of that in the Council packet.
[1:43:20] I didn't want to read it to you tonight, but it is a little dry, but that analysis
[1:43:24] was updated and provided again.
[1:43:25] And so, Council Member Brady, one of the things I do want to, we had conversation, do want
[1:43:30] to clarify, but let Mr. Sims clarify that, that this money is not earmarked for one building
[1:43:37] or the other necessarily, it is earmarked for the towns, for the municipal complex.
[1:43:43] Yes, sir.
[1:43:43] Yeah.
[1:43:44] So it, yeah.
[1:43:46] Like the things that we just approved, 11 and 12, 12 and 13.
[1:43:49] So where will we pay for your other two agenda items?
[1:43:52] We'll be paying for it out of this to make sure that we're doing a good job with that
[1:43:56] police building overall.
[1:43:57] When you get to December, you won't be looking at me saying, well, where's the money for
[1:44:02] the next step?
[1:44:03] We will have arranged all of that.
[1:44:05] The overall strategy is, and I'm estimating now.
[1:44:09] You got to do estimating sometimes.
[1:44:11] If reconstruction is 1.5 million overall, then half of it is 750.
[1:44:18] through that through an INS tax note, take the other half of it and spend it cooperatively
[1:44:25] through a partnership with MDD and with CCPD.
[1:44:29] I was at your MDD meeting and at your CCD meeting talking about the next step of that.
[1:44:35] They're still working on their parts of that.
[1:44:37] And whenever you see your FY26 budget, we'll hope it all comes together.
[1:44:41] This is just a part of the puzzle right now.
[1:44:43] And there's another part of the equation that we had briefly touched on.
[1:44:46] I think it was last week because we do see, hopefully, a huge influx on sales tax revenues.
[1:44:54] And that sales tax revenue is going to be distributed not only to the general fund but
[1:44:58] also MDD.
[1:45:00] D.C.P.D. and road maintenance. So, you know, the amount that they're going to be collecting
[1:45:05] goes way up. And so the idea, we don't want to get into it here now, but the idea of financing
[1:45:10] or capitalizing, say, the police department could actually come from a different source
[1:45:15] than the town necessarily. So lots of conversation have been had. Probably the one thing, Mr.
[1:45:21] Sims, I want you to point out, in the event that you don't need all the monies that
[1:45:26] that there is excess of this barring, what is your plan for those?
[1:45:30] So this allows you to, so the 750, you would continue to draw that down.
[1:45:36] And part of the reason I didn't put one and a half million in is that your other sources
[1:45:41] of funds, the 375 from ECPD, the 375 from MDD provides you that flexibility of not
[1:45:49] having to have, you know, your ordinance language tying that down.
[1:45:52] But in this particular case, if I say, hey, I'm going to go forward and build a police
[1:45:58] building that's a little bit smaller, then I guarantee you're going to spend that much
[1:46:02] money on architecture.
[1:46:04] This isn't designed to be the full thing.
[1:46:07] The 1.5 is the full, and savings would accrue to those other sources.
[1:46:20] Can you turn it off?
[1:46:21] If you follow the news, there's a lot of pressure on the Fed to reduce the interest
[1:46:26] grade.
[1:46:28] I think it's going to happen sooner than later, but that's only assumption on my part.
[1:46:32] How will that affect the financing?
[1:46:35] Would it reduce our burden in terms of financing?
[1:46:38] But of course, it will also reduce the interest that we generate in our money.
[1:46:43] I think you're on a good point here.
[1:46:45] So let's take it step-by-step.
[1:46:47] Let's say tonight it's Council's choice to move forward and say, yes, we want to
[1:46:52] move forward. We want to make sure that our FY26 tax rate is the correct tax rate. The
[1:46:59] 750 borrow helps you do that. What will be the next big question? The next big question
[1:47:05] is how much money is overall building going to cost? When you build the building in
[1:47:11] the grounds for the property on 407, what's that dollar amount? I hate going around quoting
[1:47:16] But it will be fairly large.
[1:47:19] You will have bought a lot of it down with equity
[1:47:22] because you're saving your money,
[1:47:24] and then you're going to borrow a big chunk of money.
[1:47:26] So that large dollar amount, right,
[1:47:29] it's going to be somewhere between 5 and 10 million
[1:47:32] that you're going to end up borrowing within that range.
[1:47:35] If you decide to borrow that money today,
[1:47:38] I would say, yeah, not a good decision, right,
[1:47:40] because that $7 million is probably going to finance a paper
[1:47:43] if you're financing FY26.
[1:47:46] So you'll have an opportunity to consider that question of borrowing the construction costs.
[1:47:51] You'll look at a window of time in the spring and you'll look at a window of time in fall of 2026.
[1:47:57] Those would be your two windows of time.
[1:47:59] We look at it and say, okay, is it appropriate and are we ready to go out for the construction cost borrowing of it?
[1:48:05] So exactly the right question to be asked.
[1:48:08] We're just several months away from being at that moment.
[1:48:11] And
[1:48:15] we can also consider, so our money is also gaining interest at 3, 4, 5 percent.
[1:48:21] Yeah, I mean actually right now the 2 million is invested around 4.49.
[1:48:25] So you're more of money than really the delta zero-ish.
[1:48:30] In the spirit of Councilman Brady, I make a motion to approve 15.
[1:48:39] Are you seconding that?
[1:48:41] Yes.
[1:48:41] Okay.
[1:48:42] All right. So we have a motion to approve motion in a second. Is there any other discussion?
[1:48:49] I guess I'm new to council. I just see professional fees flying out the door. Every conceivable one of these things, I can't really put my head around it.
[1:48:59] And I was just thinking, you know, if I'm an average person watching in the town council looking at, you know, the money is that they're paying to our guy when there's a professional fees everywhere.
[1:49:10] I mean, I totally understand the INS tax rate issue and how we need to do it for that.
[1:49:17] But I'm hearing one and a half million dollars for eight or nine thousand square foot buildings
[1:49:23] and professional fees and seventy thousand dollars for a piece of cement on four acres
[1:49:28] of land.
[1:49:29] I'm just struggling with it, but I'll certainly go with it for the INS tax rate issue.
[1:49:34] I mean, I agree with you.
[1:49:36] I spoke to someone that's going to build twenty three thousand square foot commercial
[1:49:39] building. I understand it's not a police department for example and it was nine million dollars for
[1:49:44] 23,000 square feet as opposed to I think we're talking 8,000 or something like that.
[1:49:50] So these are very valid questions and I encourage you to we're just starting out though to have
[1:49:57] those conversations with with Mike. Keep him honest and you know make sure that you're
[1:50:03] comfortable with it because you're right someone's going to corner you one of the
[1:50:06] constituency you know we're spending a lot of money where is that you know case
[1:50:10] in point chief we actually had a concept drawn I thought it was one time about a
[1:50:15] police station I don't know how much he was kind enough to show to me there's a
[1:50:19] concept for in the parking lot back here yeah so I don't know if it still has
[1:50:25] if that's a starting point if it had all the you know all the things that he
[1:50:31] was looking for we will definitely be passing that on to GFF the architect
[1:50:35] that we approved earlier in the meeting
[1:50:38] and we'll be doing our best to try to streamline
[1:50:40] the professional services.
[1:50:42] I hear the comment and it's one that's
[1:50:45] always near and dear to my heart.
[1:50:47] Am I spending money on a professional service
[1:50:50] that I don't really need?
[1:50:51] I think that we all just need the
[1:50:54] religion on it to work on that.
[1:50:56] Yes, sir.
[1:50:59] Okay, there's no other comment.
[1:51:02] All those in favor?
[1:51:04] Aye.
[1:51:05] Anyone opposed?
[1:51:06] Okay, that brings us to the discussion items. Thank you, Mrs.
[1:51:13] Could I request maybe a five to ten minute recess?
[1:51:17] Five?
[1:51:18] I second. Motion carries.
[1:51:21] I will take a five minute break, 7.22.
[1:51:31] We'll go ahead and resume the meeting at 7.36,
[1:51:36] and we're going to go ahead and roll into the discussion items number 16.
[1:51:41] Discuss schedule and process of upcoming fiscal year 2025-26 budget for the town of Argo, Mr. Sims.
[1:51:48] I
[1:52:04] want to see a about a 70 page line item report that's got a lot more refinements
[1:52:10] and a lot more detail that you've been able to provide in the past.
[1:52:13] I think that Council be well satisfied with that product.
[1:52:16] All of the big picture concepts that we mentioned to you last time would be in the budget.
[1:52:21] should remain there, keep the tax rate the same, be very conservative about spending,
[1:52:26] make sure we build our capital balances, make sure that we're able to deliver some important
[1:52:31] projects out in the field. I think there's a path there to do a very, very substantial
[1:52:35] amount of asphalt work on our streets, very important patching on concrete locations on
[1:52:41] our streets. We did put money in there for our ground nature trail, a number of
[1:52:45] other things. We are a project delivery heavy budget and a operationally lean budget. So
[1:52:54] that's what's in process. If you take a look at the PowerPoint slide here, we've got ongoing
[1:53:00] council input opportunities. Everybody's going to get an email from me tomorrow saying,
[1:53:05] hey, if you want to chat budget in any level of detail before the next meeting,
[1:53:09] come on down, let me know. We can go to have lunch and talk about it. We can sit
[1:53:15] and chat about it in the morning. Not a requirement, but I like input, so that'll
[1:53:19] be an opportunity there. And then some of the rest of the dates here are state
[1:53:23] requirements. You've got a date where you're going to publish your tax rate.
[1:53:27] You've got a date when you publish the notice of your budget. That's August
[1:53:31] the 8th. You've got a filing the proposed budget of the town secretary and
[1:53:35] put it on the website. That's August 15th. And then August the 18th is your day where
[1:53:42] you have a public hearing on the budget and the tax rate. And so that will be your details.
[1:53:47] And then you do not get asked to adopt that budget until September the 15th. So there's
[1:53:52] your process remaining. Again, thus far, I feel like the budget is shaping up to
[1:53:58] be what we want it to be, but I don't want to over-promise. I think that it will be a
[1:54:06] linear, I think that's important when you're trying to build the biggest building you've
[1:54:11] ever built. That's what we're going to be committed to.
[1:54:14] So keep in mind,
[1:54:17] one of the things I can say about the learning process for me this
[1:54:21] time around is the fact that it really is simple. It is so simple. And the reason
[1:54:28] reason I say that, because you can break this down into components. You have revenues,
[1:54:33] you have expenses, okay? Of course. But the revenues, it's not like a business in which
[1:54:39] you have much impact and changing those revenues in the short run, right? Because some of this
[1:54:45] is driven by the county, for example. Some of the things are just driven by the economy,
[1:54:50] there's little sales tax. Yeah, we could affect that somehow by making some efforts,
[1:54:54] but not much. So we're takers of revenues. And so you have the general fund revenues and then you
[1:55:01] have departments, if you will, or funds, I'm sorry, not departments, but funds that are derivative
[1:55:07] of that revenue. Like MDD, for example, gets a certain percentage of the sales tax. That's it.
[1:55:15] So it should be correlated to what you see in the general fund. And then it comes down to
[1:55:20] expenses and we've talked about that and since we're breaking which in the past we
[1:55:25] had administration which included town secretary and accounting and such and
[1:55:31] we're breaking that separately. So then it just kind of narrows down what
[1:55:36] everybody has to focus on and I think with the amount of detail that that
[1:55:41] Mike is willing to provide it's going to make it a lot easier to compare. The
[1:55:46] key thing that we have to make sure of and that's not always been the case
[1:55:49] not intentionally, is when you have a comparison that it truly is a comparison, that people
[1:55:55] weren't moved around and all of a sudden something looks way off.
[1:55:59] And so I think instead of having iteration after iteration after iteration, which wears
[1:56:04] people down and sometimes leave them feeling less like they had input or whatever, I think
[1:56:12] it's more of a final product that we're shooting for.
[1:56:15] And so based on that schedule, I think we'll definitely make that.
[1:56:21] But any thoughts?
[1:56:23] I know some of you guys have gone through the budgeting process.
[1:56:25] Last year it was a squeaker.
[1:56:29] We have to get it done statutorily.
[1:56:31] We have to get some things done.
[1:56:33] So I think there's plenty of room, which I don't foresee to happen,
[1:56:39] but plenty of opportunity for discussion and follow-up.
[1:56:43] Okay.
[1:56:48] All right. That brings us to item number 17, discussion review of monthly budget report for May of 25.
[1:56:54] So, Mayor and Council, it's been a team effort to improve your monthly reports.
[1:57:03] And so I appreciate all the different staff members have been working on it.
[1:57:06] The first couple of pages starting in page 273 is a little bit of just the summary of it.
[1:57:11] And it is, again, showing that half a million dollar
[1:57:15] they'd get transferred to the cap improvement fund
[1:57:20] for the building, so that's an important part of it.
[1:57:23] I go over to the actual numbers, page 275.
[1:57:27] You can see where we stand.
[1:57:30] Most of the agglorm taxes have come in,
[1:57:32] so you can see a rather small number there.
[1:57:34] You can see we're running over budget on sales tax.
[1:57:37] That's great.
[1:57:37] We like running over budget on sales tax,
[1:57:39] So, more of that is a good thing.
[1:57:42] I would say that this time around, you can see some fairly large numbers in there for
[1:57:47] construction permits.
[1:57:49] We amended the budget, expected 403, we've got 513 in thus far, part of that's ARGAL-ISD.
[1:57:56] If you look down through the rest of there, you can see we've cleaned up what we were
[1:58:00] doing with the ARPA funds and some of the other transfers in the budget as well.
[1:58:05] If you look at the expenditure survey, you can see only a few items were running a little
[1:58:10] bit on the high side.
[1:58:11] Some of those are the overall transfers that are formula-based, so they're finished for
[1:58:17] the year, so that's an okay thing.
[1:58:20] You can see that some of the other line items are a little bit on the low side.
[1:58:24] I'll mention police, since it's such a large portion of our budget.
[1:58:27] They are running a little bit below on their budget.
[1:58:30] Why would that be?
[1:58:31] right? For a lot of the year they had three vacancies. They've worked through the process
[1:58:36] getting those vacancies hired and they anticipate going into FY26 fully staffed.
[1:58:42] The next page is your MDD budget. That gets a lot of scrutiny from your MDD board. But
[1:58:50] again, that budget is running just fine. They did pay out one of their economic development
[1:58:55] incentives so you can see that in their budget.
[1:58:58] What's in contracted services for MDD?
[1:59:01] Contracted services is a combination of things.
[1:59:04] One of those is going to be the contract
[1:59:06] with the retail strategies group.
[1:59:08] There's a lot of conversation about that
[1:59:09] at the most recent meeting.
[1:59:11] I think it was probably there.
[1:59:15] The next page over here is our crime control
[1:59:19] and prevention district.
[1:59:21] Again, I think that the sales tax was under budgeted.
[1:59:26] That really should have been more around $500,000, so you can see it shows they're running rather
[1:59:31] high on that.
[1:59:34] But they've made many of the purchases they anticipated making through the course of FY25.
[1:59:40] We did get a big thank you, by the way, from the CCDB budget, because they see these reports
[1:59:45] as well, and they were very enthusiastic that they finally get to see the amount
[1:59:50] they have in the bank.
[1:59:51] They like the fund balance, and I think that's a good addition that we've been
[1:59:55] able to add to our reports. So before you go on... Yes sir.
[2:00:00] Just keep in mind that I'd mentioned earlier some potential retailers coming our way and
[2:00:08] a big box retailer, for example, could generate an excess of $200,000 in sales tax for MDD so
[2:00:14] they can see their revenues grow by 50% literally within a year. It's a good problem to have,
[2:00:22] but it's a question also to how do they apply that additional money.
[2:00:28] You still have to
[2:00:29] focus on what your mission is and the same thing applies to CCPD too who has
[2:00:34] been funding help me out step and vehicles certification some of the
[2:00:40] equipment the ballistic yeah and so if there's not in a large amount of
[2:00:46] increases and and staff there will be a surplus which again could be used for
[2:00:52] other purposes like police building for example so it can close the gap that
[2:00:56] that we can bring the municipal complex together.
[2:01:00] If you move to street maintenance, you see the fund balance that they're carrying right there.
[2:01:06] When I say that we've got resources available to do some very substantial street work in FY26,
[2:01:13] this is what I'm talking about. This is the funding source that's available for that.
[2:01:18] Again, I think that the original budget was estimated low.
[2:01:21] So that really should be roughly half of the sales tax
[2:01:26] associated with your general fund.
[2:01:28] And so you can see they've already collected 95%
[2:01:33] of their projection.
[2:01:34] And they're running a lot on that.
[2:01:37] And very little spending happening there, almost none,
[2:01:41] actually.
[2:01:42] And you'll see that we did the French Town project
[2:01:46] out of that fund.
[2:01:47] We'll have plenty of money available in FY26
[2:01:50] and move forward on that.
[2:01:52] Apple Improvement Fund gets split up next year,
[2:01:55] but here's what it looks like right now.
[2:01:57] We will be transferring out of that the police funds
[2:02:02] and creating a new fund for just the police building
[2:02:04] in our FY26 budget.
[2:02:06] And you can see, again, very little spending
[2:02:08] in this item this year.
[2:02:11] The next page is Waste Border Operating.
[2:02:14] That's got your harvest rebates in there
[2:02:18] there as we've been tracking through that process. I'm going to also mention something
[2:02:22] here that's, I think, I guess I'll call my glass half full. This is a positive here.
[2:02:29] Look at your unrestricted balance there, $2.7, almost $2.8 million in the projected end
[2:02:38] of this year. When you think about how large that program actually is, that program
[2:02:43] is only spending around $2 million a year.
[2:02:48] So you've got a very, very healthy fund balance
[2:02:51] that particular area and they're doing just fine
[2:02:54] through the course of this year.
[2:02:56] Their revenues are on pace
[2:02:57] and their expenditures are a little bit on the low side.
[2:03:01] After that, we show your cash balances
[2:03:03] and this is what Mayor was referring to
[2:03:06] just barely over $24 million in either cash balances
[2:03:13] at our local bank or in investment balances.
[2:03:16] So that's a quick overview.
[2:03:17] I'd be happy to answer any questions about the report.
[2:03:20] Go back to the first page if you wouldn't mind,
[2:03:22] which had the general fund.
[2:03:24] I just want to point something out.
[2:03:26] So this is applicable to May, which is the eighth month.
[2:03:31] So we should be 66% complete
[2:03:34] if there are some categories that are linear.
[2:03:39] And so if you look at the bottom,
[2:03:40] I mean has 100%, 76% and 100%.
[2:03:43] Those are one time, so don't be surprised
[2:03:47] that once that's done,
[2:03:49] that there's nothing else gonna happen the rest of the year.
[2:03:51] So those are very explainable.
[2:03:53] If you go above that, you have the court,
[2:03:57] which appears to be a little bit over.
[2:03:59] I mean, if you assume 66 is your eighth month,
[2:04:04] but then you also have to look at the revenues too,
[2:04:06] because some of it is driven by revenues.
[2:04:08] Same thing with development, for example.
[2:04:09] If your development is up, you're going to collect more fees, but you're also going to
[2:04:14] have more expenditures.
[2:04:15] So these percentages are really relative to the budget.
[2:04:19] So the thing to maybe look at, and I wouldn't necessarily jump up and down, is 68%, it's
[2:04:26] only two points over.
[2:04:27] There's probably a reason behind that, and communication and marketing slightly over.
[2:04:32] But then again, the total budget is fairly small in the scheme of things.
[2:04:39] But some things are linear, and some things are not.
[2:04:42] And if you look at those, I think you can get a good idea of where you are.
[2:04:48] And again, municipalities are heavy with labor, so that's why in the case of the police department,
[2:04:55] if they're shy police officers, that's why they're trailing as far as their budget.
[2:05:01] Anyway, thank you.
[2:05:06] You're good. Thank you.
[2:05:08] Thank you, Mr. Mike.
[2:05:09] All right. That brings us to the last item, which is discussion on considering going out,
[2:05:16] discussion on considering going out for bid for sanitary sewer line and proof plans to be designed
[2:05:23] for freeze and nickels with an estimated cost of 544,987.
[2:05:28] So the reason we put this on the agenda, you wouldn't normally say,
[2:05:31] let's have a discussion item about something that's out to bid.
[2:05:34] But as I looked at this project and tried to gather up the history of this project,
[2:05:39] it seemed like the number that we are estimating this is going to cost, around $550,000, seems
[2:05:46] really out of whack with what's been reported in the past to council.
[2:05:50] I thought it was useful to say, okay, we're gathering bids right now.
[2:05:54] Let's sit down, let's talk to the engineering firm a little bit and figure out where
[2:05:58] do we feel like this project is in the big picture.
[2:06:01] So, big picture before I ask Frieze and Nichols to come up and talk about it a little bit.
[2:06:06] Big picture, what you're doing here is you're abiding by an annexation agreement.
[2:06:12] You've got the sonic location and an annexation agreement that says,
[2:06:16] hey, we're going to provide sewer service to this property.
[2:06:19] You looked about, hey, should I run my sewer line south?
[2:06:23] And is that going to be the most cost-effective thing?
[2:06:25] Am I going to run my sewer line north?
[2:06:27] Will that be the most cost-effective thing?
[2:06:29] Taking your sewer line to the south would be over $900,000 at this time.
[2:06:34] Taking your sewer line to the north, meaning crossing French town, is going to be that $550,000 number.
[2:06:41] I don't think anybody's satisfied with where those numbers stand right now,
[2:06:45] but we won't have an accurate number to report until we are back in front of you next month
[2:06:50] and we're showing you the actual bid numbers.
[2:06:53] We are out to bid now and maybe we get lucky.
[2:06:56] Maybe we get somebody coming forward with a lower bid
[2:06:59] than what's anticipated here on the page,
[2:07:02] but that's wishful thinking, right?
[2:07:04] We're gonna have to wait until the bids be what the bids are.
[2:07:08] So with that just a little bit of introduction,
[2:07:10] let me introduce Ashley from Freeze and Nichols
[2:07:13] and Travis if you'd like to as well, but take it away.
[2:07:17] Good evening, Mayor and Council Members.
[2:07:20] So I remember when we were kind of going back and forth
[2:07:23] on different alignments for the sanitary sewer to serve the fell station. Conceptually, we were
[2:07:30] about $380,000 if I'm not mistaken. There were some assumptions in there that have changed since
[2:07:38] I came up with that conceptual. Previous direction that I received from former town staff was we
[2:07:45] could open-cut French Town Road, which was not included in that conceptual cost estimate that I
[2:07:50] provided, and then as well when I provide that conceptual cost estimate, Argyle Water
[2:07:56] Supply Company was not relocating their water line, so they had an existing 8-inch water
[2:08:01] line kind of hugging the right-of-way line, and then they now installed a 12-inch water
[2:08:06] line that's now kind of in the middle of the available right-of-way space, so that
[2:08:11] is going to kind of tighten and congest the allowable construction area for the contractor.
[2:08:17] We also, when we got the survey information, the sewer line is going to be a little bit
[2:08:21] deeper than anticipated.
[2:08:23] So once we bore under French Town Road and go from French Town Road all the way to Waters
[2:08:29] Edge Drive, we're going to be going from 7 feet deep, and it's going to end at about
[2:08:34] 15 feet deep.
[2:08:36] I have a question.
[2:08:38] Yes.
[2:08:38] Is it accurate when bidding municipality work that you can only have a certain
[2:08:45] margin of profit from the contractor.
[2:08:49] Yes.
[2:08:50] So you're able, the bids are very open, transparent, because some of these numbers are kind of
[2:08:57] shocking.
[2:08:57] This bore, typically when you do a bore, if it's 16 inches you can say it's times three
[2:09:03] and that's a fair price.
[2:09:05] If you look 16 inches it's actually $800 a foot, if I'm reading that accurately.
[2:09:10] That seems like a pretty high bore.
[2:09:11] And just due to the, you know, tight areas when you look at where the bore pits are going
[2:09:16] to be and just the, you know, small amount of linear footage.
[2:09:19] So for the material, for the contractor to get only 55 linear feet of 16-inch steel casing
[2:09:25] versus if they were doing like the 2000, yeah, exactly.
[2:09:29] Because you've got to pay for the MOB to get them.
[2:09:30] Correct.
[2:09:31] But again, these numbers are really high, so I didn't know how transparent some
[2:09:35] of these bids were.
[2:09:36] Like, if you're able to really break them down, they're really showing you the
[2:09:39] the price they're getting,
[2:09:40] because the contract is using a sub, too.
[2:09:42] Correct.
[2:09:43] Assuming that they are using a subcontractor
[2:09:46] and not self-performing.
[2:09:47] And then another thing with Argel Water Supply Waterline
[2:09:51] kind of being in the middle of the right of way.
[2:09:54] And we're still staying within the right of way.
[2:09:57] In order to meet TCEQ,
[2:09:58] I have to now install this line with pressure rated pipe
[2:10:01] to meet TCEQ requirements.
[2:10:04] San Terry sewer and water lines
[2:10:06] are supposed to be nine feet apart.
[2:10:08] and that we just can't achieve that with where Argyle Water Supply put their 12-inch water line.
[2:10:14] When did that water line go in, the Argyle Water Supply water line?
[2:10:17] I believe they're wrapping up construction now.
[2:10:19] I've been in communications with them to get their plans on where everything is located.
[2:10:24] So my last conversation with them was they were going to wrap up construction here in the next couple of weeks.
[2:10:29] So they just put it in. I know where you're going.
[2:10:33] Okay. Thank you.
[2:10:35] So, again, I'm sorry to turn it over to you.
[2:10:38] Go ahead.
[2:10:39] You don't know if it's a subcontractor or not.
[2:10:42] Are you familiar with this bid?
[2:10:44] With the bore, for example.
[2:10:48] We haven't received the bid yet.
[2:10:50] This is the engineer's opinion.
[2:10:53] I got you.
[2:10:54] And when you're at your August meeting,
[2:10:56] you're going to see what the bids came out to be.
[2:10:58] Okay.
[2:10:58] Yeah.
[2:10:59] This is just your heads up.
[2:11:02] So, question, was freezing nickels our engineering firm in 23?
[2:11:08] Okay, and I seriously doubt, Erica, that you pulled that number out of the sky that you presented to us.
[2:11:14] You probably got a number from freezing nickels.
[2:11:18] Sorry, yes, and that's what Ashley was just alluding to is the difference between that number then and then what you have now.
[2:11:26] It's a lot higher though.
[2:11:28] And, you know, when we, so the idea behind this whole concept goes back to 23 when I
[2:11:36] think, is that one, Brian Livingston was still the mayor, I think was towards the end, 23.
[2:11:42] And it was essentially, I thought it was sort of an economic decision in the sense that
[2:11:47] we provide, you know, sewer services and then in return would have them annex and
[2:11:54] I remember presenting to the council an analysis based on the cost that I was given, based on
[2:12:00] and then also the revenues that they were collecting.
[2:12:03] And it was about a three-year payback.
[2:12:05] And even then it had grown from before.
[2:12:09] So I'm just,
[2:12:12] I mean, where's the end of this?
[2:12:14] It's what I'm saying.
[2:12:15] And this is not the only instance where I've seen cost overruns higher.
[2:12:21] It's the same thing with 407 barbecue, much, much higher.
[2:12:26] And I mean, personally, I'm tired of it.
[2:12:29] I just can't continue to make a decision
[2:12:31] that all of a sudden then grows.
[2:12:35] I understand.
[2:12:37] We have updated the plans based on input
[2:12:41] from Public Works Director to ensure
[2:12:44] the sewer line can serve Shell Station.
[2:12:47] And this is the updated cost estimate,
[2:12:50] Just based on now the available information with some of the changes that were made.
[2:12:56] And there's no value engineering this to save money?
[2:13:00] I can take a look at the plans and see if there's anything that could provide some value engineering.
[2:13:07] But I would want to run that by the Public Works Director to ensure that it's still serving the purpose.
[2:13:15] just real quick aren't we annexing the building further to the south also do we
[2:13:21] have a soft agreement with them which the hell shape the new one yeah that's part
[2:13:26] of it so this is going to service this health station and that's correct it'll
[2:13:30] serve all of that development but when you did your three-year payout have
[2:13:34] both you had both buildings yeah I have both okay yeah I think the good thing
[2:13:38] is from what I understand some of the tenants are going to be to our better they're going
[2:13:44] to have more retailers than I had initially planned but you know well it's just it sounds
[2:13:49] to me this changes it from a three-year payout to a five-year payout this still makes good
[2:13:53] economic sense.
[2:13:55] There is one more sort of difference and that is originally it was a special purpose
[2:14:00] annexation it has turned into a full annexation where you'll be receiving some property
[2:14:06] property tax, ad valorem property tax, as well as sales tax.
[2:14:10] Yeah, but that last analysis that I gave out did have that in there.
[2:14:16] Okay.
[2:14:16] Yeah.
[2:14:17] But actually, this is an 800-foot light, the pipeline.
[2:14:20] About 950 linear feet and 8-inch sanitary sewer, about 950 linear feet.
[2:14:27] Okay.
[2:14:28] And so the property...
[2:14:29] How do you get that on this?
[2:14:31] Yeah, I might stop, is this it?
[2:14:34] It's spied.
[2:14:35] And so the property that's mainly to the south of that is not included in this right and they don't need to be included because they have
[2:14:42] Access to sewer already. I'm just trying to see how we can maximize our expenditure here
[2:14:49] If you're referring to the go started the two-story building, right?
[2:14:54] If I go to the two-story building and then I go south from there, they'll have opportunity
[2:15:00] To get into the same TRA line, and if I can say it accurately, it's not quite at the Starbucks.
[2:15:09] It's at the business just to the north of the Starbucks. There's another sewer line opportunity for them to pour into a manhole that's just north of there.
[2:15:17] So not too far from the, you know, if you imagine south going down the hill, right, that line of businesses can get in.
[2:15:24] and I'm not remembered in the name of the street off the top of my head but
[2:15:29] there's the street that goes into the residential neighborhood just in the
[2:15:32] north of Starbucks. Tucker Street. There you go. Say again. Tucker Street. Yeah
[2:15:37] there's a manhole at Tucker Street that they'll be able to get into and you
[2:15:41] know I I don't view that as punitive for them to do that in the future so.
[2:15:48] Can I just check is the car wash actually part of there? Yeah. Oh it is.
[2:15:52] Okay, so that's just a typo.
[2:16:03] I mean, we got to go out to bed, right?
[2:16:05] Yeah, it's out right now.
[2:16:06] It's out to bed now.
[2:16:07] And so when you see it in August, you'll have real numbers
[2:16:10] and you can make your decision at that time.
[2:16:11] Good, Jack, give her a card.
[2:16:15] What was the opposite of annex?
[2:16:21] I don't have that number off the top of my head.
[2:16:23] Do we know how many contractors we send it out to?
[2:16:25] There's a state board.
[2:16:26] So we have it advertised through Sivcast.
[2:16:29] And so I will be reaching out to contractors
[2:16:31] to let them be aware that the project is advertising
[2:16:34] to get some competitiveness and hopefully get
[2:16:38] a wide variety of bids to review.
[2:16:42] You don't think it would be beneficial
[2:16:43] because unfortunately, you know,
[2:16:46] the faces up here change from time to time
[2:16:47] is to have that as a base number
[2:16:49] so people can see what we came from.
[2:16:51] I just happen to remember what it is.
[2:16:53] I think Dr. Herman might remember what it was.
[2:16:55] I don't think Casey was even on council at the time
[2:16:58] that we're looking at this
[2:16:58] because it was Mr. Livingston that was the mayor.
[2:17:01] She was here.
[2:17:02] Oh, Christy was here, yeah?
[2:17:04] She remembers.
[2:17:05] But there has to be an end to this.
[2:17:09] Government doesn't have endless money.
[2:17:11] We're spending the citizen's money.
[2:17:13] And I'm really disappointed that each and every time
[2:17:18] the estimates are higher than what we based our initial
[2:17:22] decision on.
[2:17:23] So I'm good.
[2:17:24] Well, how many times have you guys
[2:17:27] I had to rework this based on whatever the changes was from the first time that you've
[2:17:32] done it to this iteration that we're seeing here before us.
[2:17:34] Is it two, three, four times?
[2:17:36] I feel like this is at least the fourth number that I've seen.
[2:17:39] We have done several different cost estimates and granted it is all conceptual before we
[2:17:44] get topographic survey, get detailed information and start getting into the design.
[2:17:50] Like I said, there was a lot of things that weren't considered in that conceptual
[2:17:53] just based on direction from previous town staff on,
[2:17:58] hey, we could open cut French Town Road.
[2:18:00] And obviously that's a big cost adder
[2:18:01] because we're going to have to go under
[2:18:03] with a 16-inch steel casing pipe
[2:18:05] just for an 8-inch sanitary sewer line.
[2:18:07] But I didn't, who told, never,
[2:18:12] it's a never-ending question, I'm sorry.
[2:18:13] I mean, Robert was the, was the,
[2:18:16] it was Robert when he was public works director.
[2:18:22] So not only does the cost of the project go up every single time, I mean we're paying
[2:18:29] you guys to read.
[2:18:30] We have been on hold for design until we've gotten direction from town staff.
[2:18:38] So we haven't done like five iterations of plans, so we have been aware of town's money
[2:18:47] making sure we're using it fruitfully. And so this is going north, right? Yes.
[2:18:54] Okay. And so Shell and everybody knows that all we're doing is bringing sewer to
[2:18:59] them. They have to connect to it, right? So they're gonna have to saw cut their
[2:19:03] driveways or whatever. This goes to the manhole that's roughly at the drive
[2:19:11] through. Okay, yeah. This line actually goes almost to right where their current
[2:19:18] grinder pump is. Okay. Where their two lines come together from from the
[2:19:24] Osbury building and shell station. That's going to be the beginning of our our
[2:19:29] line will be a manhole there that they dump it. I believe there's four or five
[2:19:34] total manholes throughout the system.
[2:19:42] Any other comments?
[2:19:47] All I can say is
[2:19:48] better hurry before the price goes up even more so anyway well thank you for
[2:19:52] your presentation we do not have on the agenda call for a future agenda items so
[2:20:00] I would just recommend to send those to Erica and Mike and we'll get that on the
[2:20:07] next agenda so if there's nothing else we will adjourn at 804 did you what